56
11:35 p.m.
Claude Tavernier’s mother had always said that he was a natural leader.
It wasn’t something he quoted, he wasn’t stupid, he knew how it sounded when a man in his thirties referred to his mother’s opinions. But for Tavernier, those words had taken on lifelong meaning. His mother had given him the self-confidence, which had given him the conviction, which had given him the courage. He wasn’t much of a scholar and he definitely wasn’t an athlete; he had studied economics at college in Lyon, but he still had his dissertation to write. He had moved to Sweden and learned the language because of a love that had turned out to be more fragile than he had imagined, but since he had already organized both a job and a place to live, he remained in Stockholm when it all fell apart. He still wasn’t sure whether that was just a temporary detour, or whether it was the path he would take in life.
Deep down, he knew he was the kind of person other people followed. He was a leader. That was what his mother had predicted, and that was how he had always thought of himself. Despite the setbacks and limitations.
He usually ate out when he worked nights. Then he would hang around in a bar somewhere until it was time to go. The alternative was spending the evening at home, checking his watch every five minutes. Night shifts started at midnight and ended at eight the next morning. They worked to a rolling schedule, two nights in a row, one day off, and then three day shifts from nine till five.
Just over four years after he was first hired, he had been called to the top boss and asked whether he was ready to take the next step in his career. It hadn’t come as a surprise. On the contrary. Tavernier had calmly asked about the pension terms, taken the weekend to make it seem like he was thinking about it and then signed the contract.
He was in his third year in a leadership role now, and felt like it would soon be time to move on. Remaining an anonymous middle manager among hundreds of others wasn’t what his mother had meant when she saw the leader in him.
All the same, he was in no hurry to leave. The work itself might have been monotonous, and it was a struggle to convince himself he was doing something meaningful. But whenever he scrolled through the job listings in either Stockholm or Paris, he felt certain that things would be no different anywhere else. Neither in terms of working conditions nor career prospects, neither in Lyon nor in Malmö.
When it came to colleagues, Tavernier assumed that in any group, there would always be those that people liked, and those that people liked less.
In his current workplace, there was an older woman, Ann-Marie Olausson, who drove him mad. She was sixty-one, had worked for the company her entire life, and acted as though she owned it. She was the type of person who, without an ounce of irony, would say, “But that’s how we’ve always done it.” Tavernier assumed that his youth must antagonize her, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.
On Tuesdays, Claude Tavernier liked to go to the middle bar at Sturehof, waiting for midnight and the start of his shift. The middle bar was small and intimate, at once both a passageway and a cozy corner. He liked to exchange a few comradely words with the hardworking barman and then just stand around with his cold beer, watching all the beautiful people come and go in the mirror. In the taxi on the way to work, he would then chew some menthol gum so that no one would notice that he stunk of alcohol and decide that he had a drinking problem.
There was no real need for him to take a taxi out to the suburbs. Tavernier had bought a used Nissan a year earlier, a car he liked more than he cared to admit. But since the number of parking spots the company had out in Västberga was limited, Tavernier would have to wait for someone else to quit or die before he managed to get ahold of one.
He sighs, pays the bill and heads out onto Stureplan. He finds an empty TaxiKurir, the company he feels loyal to for some unclear reason, and then jumps in the backseat.
“Västberga Allé,” he says.
The driver nods and steps on the gas.
When Claude Tavernier climbs out of the taxi outside the G4S cash depot on the night of September 22, it’s ten to twelve. And there, just as he is making his way into the building, he loses all confidence for a very brief moment.
It’s something that happens a few times a week.
It’s like when you’re on a plane and the weather is good, and then it suddenly, unexpectedly, drops a few feet due to turbulence. Or like when you’re sprawled over the toilet and have been throwing up and up and up, so much that it feels like there’s nothing left to throw up, but still you know that the next stomach cramp is on the way.
I’m no one, he has time to think. I can’t be in charge of a load of people. I can’t make decisions for others.
Claude Tavernier takes a deep breath. He fills his lungs with the cool night air, raises his face to the sky and then the moment passes.
He’s the night manager for Counting on the sixth floor of G4S once again.
A young career man.
He finds his ID card in his pocket and holds it up to Valter Jansson, the security guard in Reception that night. Tavernier and Jansson have worked plenty of nights together in Västberga; they feel comfortable with one another.
57
11:52 p.m.
On the top floor of one of Stockholm’s few skyscrapers, a building where the newsrooms of Sweden’s biggest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, and the country’s second-biggest evening paper, Expressen, were once based, is an internal dining room available only to the businesses in the building. Turning the room into a commercial restaurant has been discussed on a number of occasions; the views are spectacular and it’s not like there has been a lack of interested restaurateurs. But one of Dagens Nyheter’s historic boardrooms is on the other side of the wall to the kitchen, and though it’s been decades since the paper moved downstairs, the top floor is still thought of as its executive floor. And, naturally, it doesn’t want any outsiders up there.
It’s approaching twelve when the kitchen staff leave the restaurant kitchen on the twenty-third floor that evening. Food has been cooked and served to a working group from Expressen. Top-level management must have been present, because less alcohol has been consumed than usual, and the evening was quickly wound up. The kitchen and service staff are glad for the early finish, and they laugh on their way down to street level on Rålambsvägen.
No one notices that someone who has been working on the cold buffet all night is missing from the cramped elevator. If they had, they might just assume that he had already left or that he was sorting out one last thing in the kitchen before heading home.
Both assumptions would have been wrong.
The missing man waits on the twenty-third floor until he sees on the display that the elevator carrying his colleagues has reached ground level. He holds back until he’s sure that none of the elevators are coming back up again. Then he takes out his electronic pass and opens the door to the stairwell. He climbs the stairs to the roof and opens the door, which is locked from the inside. Before he steps out into the night, he pushes a cork into the doorway so that the door won’t lock behind him.
During a shift a few days earlier, he had gone up to the roof to take a leak and hidden a pair of night-vision goggles behind one of the chimney stacks. This time, he’s carrying a black gym bag from SATS, inside it a warm sweater, a thermos full of coffee, four bananas and a bar of Marabou chocolate. It’s going to be a long night, and he’ll need the extra energy.