73
5:18 a.m.
“Do you think you could turn down the radio a bit?” Claude Tavernier asks as diplomatically as he can, though he already knows the answer will be a long, difficult telling off.
Ann-Marie always has the radio on when she’s working. She manages to find channels on frequencies no one else even knew existed. Right now, she’s enjoying Swedish hits from the sixties, nonstop without any ads. Of the fourteen people working this shift, five have brought their own headphones to avoid Ann-Marie’s canned tunes, but the others have been forced to endure vintage Swedish hits for hours now.
They’ve made it through the night without any conflict so far, but, as usual, patience starts to wear thin as dawn approaches. Tavernier has a theory that it’s linked to the bad air, and he has raised the problem with management. Every night shift is the same. Tonight, on top of the usual workload, they’ve also had to handle two additional secure transports from Panaxia. The smaller company hasn’t had the capacity since its move the week before.
It means the tempo is higher than usual.
After being received and registered down in the vault, the cash is sent up to Counting through the internal tube system. On the sixth floor, the staff don’t just have to count and package up the money, they also have to weed out any notes that are too old or damaged to return to general circulation. Once that’s done, they register the deposits and send everything back down to the vault.
The room is big and gently U-shaped, which means that the people working at one end can’t see those working at the other. Also meaning, in theory, that it is possible to keep your distance from Ann-Marie and her radio, but Tavernier still has to ask her to turn down the volume. Like always. And, as usual, Ann-Marie, who has both been on the local union board and has held the position of shop steward, explains precisely which rights she has.
One of these rights is to listen to music.
Tonight, Claude Tavernier has much less patience than usual. He doesn’t quite know why. But it’s the reason he raises his voice and interrupts Ann-Marie before she even has time to start protesting.
“Just turn it down, Ann-Marie,” he barks. “Or I’ll do it.”
Ann-Marie is so taken aback by his change in attitude that she reaches out and turns down the volume on the old radio. It’s not her device, it belongs to the company.
As the languorous strings grow quiet, they all hear it.
The sound coming from outside.
Colleagues elbow workmates wearing headphones so that they can hear it for themselves.
“What the hell’s that?” someone asks loudly.
Counting, on the sixth floor, has no windows. But it’s obvious that the clear thudding sound none of them can identify is coming from outside.
“That’s not the air-conditioning, is it?”
“We’ll have to ask the big boss what we should do,” Ann-Marie says, dripping with irony, as though to point out how dumbstruck Claude Tavernier looks, standing in the middle of the room with all eyes on him.
Like many who have driven a secure transport vehicle or worked for a company dealing in them, Tavernier has personal experience of being robbed. That’s why his first thought is that it must be a robbery. It’s an automatic assumption. But six floors up, in one of Stockholm’s most secure depots, with a police station just a stone’s throw from the entrance, Tavernier brushes off the thought. It seems so unlikely.
“Keep working,” he says. “I’ll go and check.”
“What a hero,” Ann-Marie mumbles.
A low giggle can be heard as Tavernier leaves the room.
He comes out into a corridor, the elevators and stairs to his right. He turns the other way, to the left, and passes a couple of locked doors that he opens with his key card. He’s heading for the break room, where there is a window out onto the atrium. His plan is to take a quick look at the lower floors, to see whether anyone down there has noticed the noise.
But as he steps into the break room, the first thing he sees is two black-clad men climbing down a ladder from the roof with bags on their backs.
It takes a few seconds for Tavernier to process what he is seeing.
He runs back to his department, but not so fast that he doesn’t have time to make sure that every door he opens is locked properly behind him.
His leadership qualities are about to be put to the test. It’s time for him to prove that he’s capable, that he’s strong.
When he reaches his department, everyone falls silent and turns toward him. The man that has just stepped through the door isn’t the same one who left a few minutes earlier. Tavernier’s pale face and wide eyes reveal that something serious has happened, he doesn’t need to ask for their attention. From Ann-Marie’s radio, a deep male voice is singing quietly.
“Secure the cash,” Claude Tavernier says.
No one protests or asks any questions, not even Ann-Marie. Time after time over the years, they’ve practiced this very drill. It’s a case of moving the bundles of notes to the lockable, bar-covered cages in the middle of the room as quickly as possible. There’s probably over 100 million kronor in Counting that morning. Most of it in 500-kroner notes, but also in lower denominations.
Tavernier makes a point of moving as slowly as he can. Adrenaline is pumping through his veins, and he would rather be running between stations, making sure that everyone is doing his or her job quickly and effectively. But he knows that if he shows any sign of panic, it will spread through the room like an echo.
He moves over to his desk and tries to find the number for Skövde. His instructions are crystal clear. There are procedures, a well-thought-out plan that he is expected to follow. Every fourth month, Palle Lindahl, the G4S security chief, stages a run-through with all the company’s middle managers.
The first thing to do in situations like this is to call the alarm center in Skövde.
But Skövde changed its number a few weeks earlier, and Tavernier can’t find the piece of paper with the new details. He knows it’s on his desk somewhere, and while his staff assiduously and silently continues to secure the money, Claude Tavernier feels the panic rising. He has only one job to do, one call to make, but he doesn’t seem to be able to manage even that.
He resists the urge to tear the drawers from his desk and throw them to the floor. Eventually, he is forced to accept that the number for Skövde isn’t where it’s meant to be. He picks up the phone and calls down to Valter, on the ground floor.
“Valter?” he says. “Claude up in Cash. There are people in the building.”
He doesn’t want to say too much, because all around him, the others have their ears pricked. He strains to speak without any hint of his French accent.
“Reported,” Valter replies. “I’ve already called Skövde.”
Tavernier nods. He breathes out. That’s better. Skövde has already been informed. No one can blame him for not having done it.
74
5:19 a.m.
It’s just turned twenty past five in the morning when County Police Commissioner Caisa Ekblad is woken by the angry sound of the phone. She is no stranger to being woken in the middle of the night, and when she picks up, her voice is clear and steady, as though she had been sitting by the phone waiting for the call. Only last spring, Caisa Ekblad was Dag Månsson’s colleague; he was one of the district chiefs behind her nomination.
“We’ve got an unusual alert,” Månsson says.
He’s panting into the phone. He is just leaving home, on the way down the stairs in his building.