‘I should’ve realised that it was absurd… Anyway, I kept on trying to identify this “brambo”. It paid off eventually. It’s a drug dealer called Rajko Nedic.’
Gunnar Nyberg was motionless. Threads were worming around inside him, searching for one another. They were very close to forming a weave.
‘I understand,’ he eventually lied.
‘OK. Ragnar put me to work at home. It felt like he was trying to hide something. And suddenly, it seemed clear. He was letting me work unofficially so he could keep anything I might find away from the public eye. And that thing, it was that he was pressing Nedic for money. It couldn’t have been anything else.’
‘The little beard,’ said Gunnar Nyberg, thinking of the Kvarnen bar on Tjärhovsgatan, at 21.42 on 23 June.
She looked at him sceptically, continuing. ‘That was it. I had to confront him. We met on Saturday. Unofficially. And he came out with a story that I’ve been fighting with for almost two days now. I haven’t had a wink of sleep. He was insisting that he’d found out his name had been used on reports he hadn’t written. That someone else had used Ragnar Hellberg’s name – to frame him. This other person was one of two people. I’ve gone through it myself now. He’s right so far. There are only two people in the group who could’ve done it. One of them was me. That’s partly why he set me to work at home – to check whether it was me or not. If it had been me, I would hardly have contacted him about “brambo’s” existence. So it was the other candidate, instead.’
Gunnar Nyberg could already feel himself weeping inside.
‘Ludvig,’ was all he said.
‘It’s been a long weekend,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘Should I trust the idiotic party policeman or my own mentor, the colleague who was closest to me in the entire world? I’ve been turning myself inside out.’
‘And come to what…?’
‘That I trust Party-Ragge. For the simple reason that he wouldn’t have ever come up with the idea, much less pull it off. There’s no doubt any more. Ludvig Johnsson has been blackmailing Rajko Nedic for money, and cast the shadow of blame onto the man who stole the paedophile group from him almost in passing. Its figurehead.’
‘Have you spoken to Ludvig?’
‘He’s on holiday. When he’s on holiday, he makes himself uncontactable. No one knows where he is.’
‘What do you want to do? What does Hellberg want to do?’
‘Say what you want about Hellberg, but he’s no bureaucrat. He’s ready to wait and see what happens. He knows I’m talking to you. So, what do you want to do?’
Gunnar Nyberg looked into her eyes.
‘Leave Ludvig to me,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I suspected you’d say that. I’ll see whether I can confront Nedic somehow.’
‘Be careful, in that case. He’s extremely dangerous.’
‘I know. I’ll try to find a way.’
‘What’ve you got from the Web?’
‘“Brambo’s” pictures. I’ve got them here. Do you want to see?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Gunnar Nyberg, holding out his mouse-arm to take the pictures. Colour printouts from the Internet. A whole cavalcade of degradation. He had got it into his head that it belonged to the past. He took his time; his thoughts were out of gear. Behind each picture, he saw Ludvig Johnsson’s face.
‘He can’t have been planning to let Nedic go,’ he said. ‘He must’ve been planning some kind of double-dealing. Get the money from Nedic, leave the country and put him away. I can’t imagine anything else.’
Sara nodded. ‘I know how passionate he was about this. His own kids died, now he could save others. It was personal. Too personal, maybe. His passion burnt him out. But there’s no way in hell he’d let a paedophile go for money.’
Nyberg nodded and handed back the pictures. ‘There’s a little girl there…’ he said, pointing at them.
‘Yeah,’ she said, casting a glance at the pile of pictures. ‘The poor thing appears more often than others. I’m going to try to track her down. And that gold cushioned room.’
‘Do it,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘We thought Nedic’s operation was watertight, but we’ve found several leaks. There’s a chance. If anyone in the organisation knows he’s a paedophile, then it’s not impossible that he or she doesn’t like it. Try to find someone you can put pressure on.’
Sara Svenhagen stood up. They were still holding hands.
‘And you’ll take care of Ludvig?’ she asked. ‘Do it right, Gunnar. Promise me that.’
He nodded, clasping her hand. ‘I promise, Sara,’ he said.
The journey to Grillby was no normal journey. It was an agonising journey. But also one of metamorphosis. Gunnar Nyberg was, to put it simply, doing a runner. Cutting the ties. Leaving the A-Unit. Maybe he would be dismissed, maybe even prosecuted, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking: Now Ludvig can bloody well tidy up after himself.
Beside him on the passenger seat of the Renault were two laptops with mobile phone connections, two mobile phones and an adapter for the car’s cigarette lighter. There was work to be done.
He stopped to buy food, beer and coffee at a petrol station. No Danish pastries, though.
He even checked to see whether he was being followed. He didn’t quite trust Ragnar Hellberg.
The oilseed-rape fields were golden yellow, and when Gunnar Nyberg pulled up alongside the little cottage just outside Grillby, Ludvig Johnsson’s car was there – but not the man himself. He was probably out running. Nyberg tried the door. It was open. He stepped into the little cottage clutching the bag of food in his right hand, opened the gas-powered fridge and shoved the whole lot in. Then he opened a beer and sat down on the veranda. The sun shone kindly down on him.
Sure enough, Ludvig Johnsson came jogging back after an hour. He smiled faintly when he saw Nyberg on the veranda. Nyberg saw his smile. He saw what it held. The realisation.
It had all gone to hell.
‘There’s a barrel of rainwater round the back of the cottage,’ he said. ‘You pour the water over yourself.’
‘That can wait,’ said Nyberg.
‘Yeah,’ said Ludvig Johnsson, sitting down on the steps. ‘It can wait. You got a beer for me?’
‘I’m not planning on letting you go into the cottage alone,’ said Nyberg. ‘I’m not planning on leaving you alone, either. Not for a second.’
Ludvig Johnsson looked up at the sky. His gaze seemed to disappear into the blueness.
‘Who else knows?’ he asked.
‘It was Sara who found you. The “policeman”. Through “brambo”, if that means anything to you.’
‘Sara,’ said Johnsson, smiling. ‘I should’ve guessed. And Hellberg?’
‘Hellberg knows, too. But he’s sitting on it for now. Waiting for me. So don’t even think about killing me.’
‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Ludvig Johnsson. ‘What is it you think of me?!’
‘What I think is that your little operation has cost eight people their lives so far. Three ex-Yugoslav war criminals, a man called Lordan Vukotic, as well as Eskil Carlstedt, Sven Joakim Bergwall, Roger Sjöqvist and Dan Andersson. I could’ve lived with all of that. But the other day, two of my colleagues and closest friends were shot: Paul Hjelm and Kerstin Holm. You met them recently. Kerstin was talking about the marathon with you at that party for the World Police and Fire Games, if you remember.’
Ludvig Johnsson met his eye. His gaze was completely broken. There was nothing left behind there.
‘How are they?’ he asked.
‘They’re alive. But only by a couple of centimetres.’
‘All I wanted was to go to a place where the winters are shorter…’
They sat a while in the shade. The sun’s rays bore down stronger on the nearby field. It glowed yellow. The colour of betrayal.
‘I wasn’t planning on letting him go,’ said Ludvig Johnsson. ‘I wanted to get away. Then I was going to make sure that the material was sent to the police. I just wanted a little bonus.’