poured two cups of coffee.
“Just one question,” said Chavez, taking the cup Hjelm handed him. “Would you have gone in if the guy was Swedish?”
“He
Chavez slapped the file folder against the desktop a few times. “Let’s roll,” he said, and then raised his index finger. “And hey-”
“Let’s be careful out there,” they both said foolishly, in unison.
“Our age is showing,” said Chavez, looking shamelessly young.
It was close to seven by the time Hjelm finished compiling his list. Kuno Daggfeldt and Bernhard Strand-Julen had both been members of the RSSS. Before finding out what the acronym stood for, Hjelm toyed with the idea that they had played in a punk band from the southern suburbs. But RSSS stood for the Royal Swedish Sailing Society, which had its headquarters in Saltsjobaden. Apparently lots of Swedish sailing enthusiasts were members, which meant this particular link wasn’t of great interest. On the other hand, their sailboats happened to be docked in the same place, provided they had already been launched for the season: in the Viggbyholm marina in Taby, north of Stockholm. The two men were also members of the Viggbyholm Boat Club. Hjelm wondered why Strand-Julen would dock his boat so far away when he had the Djurgarden small-vessel marina practically at his doorstep. At any rate, a visit to Viggbyholm was on the agenda for the following day.
The two men were also both members of the Stockholm Golf Association, which was headquartered at the Kevinge Golf Course in Danderyd. And that was where they both played whenever they were in town. Hjelm would have to go out there as well.
Finally, the men were both members of the same fraternal lodge, the Order of Mimir. Since Hjelm didn’t know one thing about fraternal orders, he was forced to do some serious checking up on the subject. This form of activity, which for all practical purposes was unknown to the general public, was apparently widespread among the upper classes throughout Sweden. The Freemasons alone had 25,000 members divided up among 125 lodges all over the country. After he’d read through the available material and become familiar with various orders of monks as well as military associations, with government groups and nonprofit organizations, all of them orders, both big and small, and after he’d learned about a whole series of founders of orders from the Middle Ages onward, and after he’d become familiar with the different training procedures and levels of promotion, each one more peculiar than the last, even then he didn’t have a clue as to the true nature of the activities of these orders. Their real purpose was secret and kept hidden from public scrutiny with the help of strange laws, many centuries old, but the reference books hinted that the most obscure rituals took place within those high-class walls. In general, women were excluded.
The Order of Mimir was one of the smallest and least known groups, which made this connection significantly more interesting than if the two men had been Freemasons or Good Templars (membership in the latter, it turned out, was impossible because of the gentlemen’s drinking habits, which were apparently well known). There were no written materials to be found about the Order of Mimir, but Hjelm managed to track down an address via a tax evasion lawsuit in which the order had been involved six years earlier. He blessed the search engine on the Internet.
No other common leisure activities showed up. As if three weren’t enough for hardworking businessmen.
So Hjelm put together a short list of activities to be investigated further the next day: (1) The Viggbyholm Boat Club, Hamnvagen 1, Taby; (2) The Stockholm Golf Association, Kevingestrand 20A, Danderyd; and (3) The Order of Mimir, Stall-grand 2, Gamla Stan. Talk about stepping into another world.
Hjelm stretched. They had turned off the ceiling light. It was unusable for anyone who wasn’t a masochist specializing in migraines. They were now working with the light from the two desk lamps, using ordinary 40-watt bulbs. The sky outside had not yet turned dark, although it no longer provided them with any appreciable light.
Chavez had lifted the computer keyboard to his side and was typing madly.
“Have you figured out any connections regarding their board memberships?” asked Hjelm as he stood up.
“Just a minute,” said Chavez, continuing to type. “It’s a hell of a mess.”
“I was thinking of taking off. Where do you live? Are you headed south?”
With an emphatic gesture, Chavez pressed enter, and the old dot-matrix printer started rattling underneath the window. He took a gulp of coffee and grimaced. “I live here,” he said, then continued melodramatically, “This is my home.”
Hjelm stared at him, his right eyebrow raised.
“It’s true,” Chavez asserted. “There’s a room where I can spend the night two floors up. They’re going to find me a proper place to stay tomorrow. At least I hope so.”
“Okay. See you in the morning.”
“Sure, see you,” said Jorge Chavez as he went over to the shuddering printer.
8
On the morning of April 2, Paul Hjelm sat at the breakfast table looking at his family with new eyes. Yesterday a destroyed man had consumed breakfast; today a resurrected man was telling them about his new situation. They received his news about being transferred to the city with moderate enthusiasm.
“That’s not really surprising,” said Danne. It seemed to Hjelm that his son was regarding him with the same expression that he himself had displayed at the sight of his wife’s menstrual blood a few days earlier. “You’re the Hallunda hero, after all.”
“Of course, it’s a promotion to get out of this ghetto,” said Tova, leaving the room before Hjelm could recover enough to ask her where she’d heard that word.
From him? Had he been spreading a bunch of shit around without even being aware that he was doing it? Had he corrupted the minds of the next generation, which had more experience than his own in dealing with what was foreign, in becoming familiar with it, in learning not to fear it?
It had been exposed for a second, but only a second, and now he had to hide the sight behind tons of work. And no one in his family had a clue about how close to the abyss he had come. They saw the hero; he saw the corpse.
He had been saved, but he was also being transferred. Maybe an officer from an immigrant background would take his place in Fittja, and maybe the Huddinge police would benefit immeasurably from his replacement.
The children had left, and just as he was about to discuss it with Cilla, she too disappeared.
When he got up to leave for the city, he felt lonelier than he’d ever felt. But also ready-to become someone else.
Maybe he sensed that this case was going to be different from any he’d previously encountered.
Something foreign.
He picked up the newspaper and glanced at the headline: DOUBLE MURDER OF TOP BUSINESSMEN. ITALIAN MAFIA IN STOCKHOLM?
He sighed heavily and left.
Cool breezes that couldn’t decide whether they belonged to the forces of winter or spring rippled the surface of the water. Slightly stronger swells lapped back and forth, shoving some of the boats a few extra feet. About a dozen small vessels were bobbing up and down on Neptune’s shoulders, making dots of various sizes on the water of Stora Vartan, almost all the way out to the horizon.
“A horrible affair,” repeated the man wearing a captain’s cap. “For both of them. Two of our most outstanding members. What are we going to do when we can’t even feel safe in our own homes? Will every decent citizen have to hire bodyguards?”
Hjelm and the man were standing on one of six long piers that stretched out from shore toward the breakwater. Together they formed the Viggbyholm small-boat marina. Only a few boats were actually in the water
