He hesitated.
‘I had to go round to the vicar’s and ring at his door. And hand over an envelope.’
‘Do you know what was in it?’
Tony Svensson shook his head. He looked despondent now.
‘No, but it was important that it was handed over on that particular day.’
‘And Jakob took it from you?’
‘Yes. He looked surprised to see it was me, but then he realised it wasn’t about Ronny Berg.’
Joar drummed his fingers lightly on the table.
‘Did he read the letter while you waited?’
Tony sneered.
‘Yeah, he did as it happens. He was fucking furious, and told me to tell the people who’d sent me that they ought to think twice before threatening him. He said he was going to burn the letter when I’d gone.’
‘What did you get for doing those things?’ asked Peder.
Tony Svensson looked him squarely in the eye.
‘I got to carry on living,’ he answered. ‘And if I’m lucky, and if I play my cards right, my daughter will as well.’
‘So they threatened to harm her if you didn’t do it?’ Peder said gently.
Tony Svensson nodded, his eyes strangely watery. Joar seemed to be thinking hard; then he sat up straight and threw back his shoulders.
‘They’ve got her,’ he said, sounding almost fascinated. ‘They took her as a guarantee that you’d carry out your part of the operation.’
Peder stared from Joar to Tony Svensson.
‘Is that right?’ he asked.
‘That’s right,’ he said darkly. ‘And I’ve no idea how they’re fucking well going to react to me coming in here again.’
When they had finished the interview with Tony Svensson, Peder and Joar requested a few minutes to confer before they let him go home again.
‘I don’t think he’s bluffing,’ said Peder as soon as the two of them were alone.
The intensity of the hatred he felt for his colleague was affecting his judgement. The only thing softening his feelings a touch was the events of the weekend, when his son was ill and he had spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday with Ylva.
‘It’s important for us to stick together when we need to,’ he told her when she got back from the hospital to find him in the kitchen, preparing dinner for them all.
As if they were a family. As if they actually belonged together.
Ylva agreed with him and for the first time in ages, they spent a peaceful evening together. He asked how things were going at work, and she said she was feeling much better now. He was glad to hear it, but could not bring himself to talk about his own situation. He had never been able to bear feeling inferior to her in any way, and this was no exception.
Joar’s voice brought him back to the present with a bump.
‘I don’t think he’s bluffing either, and I definitely think we need to take the threat scenario seriously, but…’
‘But what?’ demanded Peder.
‘I’m just not sure they’ve got his daughter as he claims.’
‘I am,’ Peder asserted, without much thought about what he was saying.
Which gave Joar the upper hand again.
‘Really? Think it through carefully, Peder. Why would they take such a risk – because it is, a huge one – as to grab his daughter at the start? They could scarcely let her go again afterwards, she’d be able to identify every single one of them. Which would mean they’d have to kill her, and then they’d be child murderers. There are plenty of hard men and ruffians who’d go a bloody long way to avoid that.’
‘But damn it, this lot don’t seem to be your normal ruffians.’
‘True. Which makes it all the more implausible. They’re too intelligent to take it out on a small child. I don’t doubt for a moment that they threatened to, though. But that’s another matter.’
‘So you mean Tony Svensson’s lying about his daughter being abducted so we’ll back off a bit?’
‘Exactly. And keep our distance from him in future.’
Peder thought about this.
‘Doesn’t really feel like an option. Keeping our distance, I mean.’
‘You’re right there,’ said Joar grimly. ‘So I suggest you go in and wind up the interview and get the paperwork out of the way while I go up to the department and get a snap decision out of them to have this guy followed when he walks out of here. I reckon he’ll go straight home to his daughter to check she’s okay. And then it wouldn’t surprise me if he rings some contact on the other side to let him know everything’s fine and he hasn’t given us any crucial information.’
Just for the moment, Peder felt quite serene. They already had Tony Svensson’s phone tapped. Perhaps by the end of the day they would have the names of some of the men who had been threatening him.
It happened more and more rarely these days, but just occasionally Spencer Lagergren and his wife Eva would both be at home in the middle of the day and would make lunch together. Spencer had no idea what had prompted Eva to suggest one of these lunches on this particular day, but he knew better than to go against her wishes.
He got back from work to be greeted by appetising aromas the minute he opened the front door.
‘You’ve already made a start,’ he remarked when he came out into the kitchen a few minutes later.
‘Of course,’ said Eva. ‘Couldn’t just hang around waiting for you.’
Spencer knew very well that the relationship he had with his wife was a mystery to his lover Fredrika Bergman, and sometimes he felt the same himself. The element of total absurdity that the relationship had acquired now he was expecting a baby with another woman was getting harder and harder to handle. But it had been impossible, of course, not to tell Eva about the undertaking he had made and the changes this was going to make to his life. At quite an early stage they had both taken to having other relationships outside their marriage, but it was ultimately only Spencer who had decided to keep seeing the same person for years. He knew it disturbed his wife, who had never been able to make any of her adventures on the side last long. But then it disturbed him that her lovers had been so many in number. And sometimes so young. As if there were any legitimate reason for him to have objections to her choice of male acquaintances.
‘We scarcely saw each other at the weekend,’ Eva said almost cheerfully, ‘so I thought it would be a good idea to have a bit of time to ourselves now, over lunch.’
Oven-baked lamb and potato was sizzling away and there was a big bowl of salad on the kitchen table. A thought flashed through his mind. Dare he eat any of this? Wasn’t she behaving rather strangely?
‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble, I see,’ he said, going to the fridge to get some drinks.
‘Oh one has to sometimes, my dear,’ Eva said sternly. ‘Otherwise one might as well just bloody give up.’
Spencer tensed. In thirty years of marriage he had only ever heard his wife swear five times. But he made no comment.
‘Wouldn’t you say?’ she demanded.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, not sounding as though he believed – or even understood – what he was saying.
Her long fingers clasped the bottle of balsamic vinegar. Salad dressing was a must.
‘How was your weekend?’ she asked, thumping the vinegar bottle down onto the table.
It was enough of a statement for him to grasp that something was wrong. He slowly shut the fridge door and turned round. And saw her on the other side of the table.
She had always been beautiful. Slim and elegant. There was still nothing wrong with her appearance. Her thick hair was swept back from her face and up into a simple but classic arrangement. As usual, a stray lock of hair had escaped and fallen across her face. Her eyes were big and green, oceans in which the pupils were like desert islands. High cheekbones and full lips. In other words, she was a very attractive jailer.
Spencer suppressed a sigh. Because that was unfortunately exactly what she was, and had been these past thirty years. His jailer, the cross he had to bear.