Everyone glanced around suspiciously as the smell dissipated.
Hultin made his usual entrance through his mysterious boss-only door and slapped his cell phone down on the table. “In case Norlander decides to report in from Tallinn,” he said to head off any questions.
Somebody burped.
There was a rather lax mood in the room. Hultin noticed it. “Okay. The investigation has stalled. But we’re used to that happening, right? You’re experienced and handpicked officers. Keep your spirits up.”
The previous day had felt like a hangover. All activity had seemed muted, and everyone had moved as if in slow motion-except for Norlander, apparently, who had gone to the opposite extreme.
“Senor Chavez?” Hultin began his systematic run-through.
Chavez sat up straight. “I’m still working on the MEMAB lead. If you can call it a lead. But I’m convinced that it is.”
The cell phone rang. Hultin held up his hand and answered it. “Viggo? Is that you?”
A faint murmur spread through the room.
“How does it feel to sing in the Maria Magdalena Church?” Holm asked Nyberg.
“Magnificent acoustics,” said Nyberg.
“How divine,” Holm said dreamily.
“What the hell is that on your cheek?” Chavez demanded of Hjelm.
“A blemish.” Hjelm had been practicing saying that word.
“Yes,” Hultin said in English into the cell phone, waving his free hand at the team members. Silence descended over Supreme Central Command. Hultin turned around and stared at the wall as he again said, “Yes.” Then he didn’t say a word for several minutes. Everyone could tell by looking at his back, perhaps from the way it was hunched up and leaning forward, that something had happened. No one spoke. Finally Hultin said, “Yes,” for a third time and put down the cell phone. At that moment the small fax machine whirred and churned out a piece of paper. Hultin held on to it as the machine released it. He read the message then closed his eyes for a moment. Something dramatic had happened.
“Viggo Norlander has been crucified,” he said, his voice failing for a second. “The Russian-Estonian mafia nailed him to the floor in an abandoned building in one of Tallinn’s roughest neighborhoods.”
Everybody exchanged wide-eyed glances. They were still missing the most important piece of information. Then it came.
“He’s alive,” said Hultin. “That was Superintendent Kalju Laikmaa from the Tallinn police. Norlander apparently set off on a fucking one-man vendetta against the mafia. And he ended up nailed to the floor. Laikmaa had put a tail on him, since he suspected something like this would happen. When his men, the so-called Commando K unit, entered the building, Viggo had been lying there like that for about an hour, with nails through both hands and both feet. Fortunately he was unconscious.
“The nail driven through one of his hands held this message, written in Swedish. I’ll read it to you: ‘To Detective Inspector Viggo Norlander’s boss, Stockholm. We are the group that you know as Viktor X’s group. We have nothing to do with any murders of businessmen in Stockholm. We prefer to keep more serious crimes of violence within our own borders, as you can see. We’re returning your Lone Avenger to you without even a broken bone. We’ll only put the nails through his flesh.’ It’s signed Viktor X, and then there’s a P.S.: ‘If this is the way you choose to proceed, then we can understand why the case hasn’t been solved. But good luck. It’s in our interest that you solve it quickly.’ ”
“What in hell was he thinking?” exclaimed Chavez.
Hultin shook his head. “Clearly he’d picked up a couple of leads. He’s still in serious condition, but he sent word via Laikmaa that a big Swedish media company, known internationally as GrimeBear Publishing, Inc., has been under heavy pressure from the protection racket of Viktor X and others, and that a couple of the racket’s booze smugglers, by the name of Igor and Igor, are operating in Sweden. Let’s try to get hold of these gentlemen, and check up on what this GrimeBear is all about.”
Hjelm looked at Nyberg. Nyberg looked at Hjelm. Igor and Igor. They’d already come across those two somewhere.
Hultin finished his summing-up. “Norlander also said that he’s done playing Rambo.”
Again the team members exchanged glances.
“I didn’t know he’d started,” said Holm.
Hjelm drove with Nyberg over to Sodermalm, to a small basement pub on Sodermannsgatan, and went to the apartment directly above. They’d been there before. They rang the bell twelve times before a man, bleary-eyed with sleep, stuck out his head. Within a tenth of a second he was wide awake at the sight of Gunnar Nyberg.
“Don’t kill me,” the man said submissively.
Hjelm thought about Nyberg’s menacing an-assault-is-imminent technique and the deepest bass voice in
“Don’t try to suck up to me, Bert,” said Nyberg. “We need a little more information about Igor and Igor. What exactly did you buy from them?”
“I told you last time,” the voice said faintly from the door opening.
“Tell us again.”
“Estonian vodka, 120 proof, from Liviko. Four shipments at various times last winter.”
“When and how much?”
“The first time was in… November, I think. The last time in early February. I haven’t heard from them since then.”
“Should you have?”
“They came in November, December, January, February. Not in March. Each time I bought a few cases. I knew I could sell it. Besides, you can water it down quite a lot without anyone noticing. It’s become something of a favorite with the regular customers-a bit unusual for a vodka, being Estonian and all. But I’ve run out now, and I haven’t heard from them again. Unfortunately. It was really cheap.”
“You’re going to have to come down to the station with us and help put together some pictures of the Igor brothers,” said Nyberg.
The not-very-heroic trio then made their way from Soder to Kungsholmen.
Hultin tapped on the table a few times and held up two classic police sketches. The one on the right showed a thin man with unmistakably Slavic features and an equally unmistakable Russian mustache. The man on the left was clean-shaven, stout, and powerful looking, not unlike Nyberg.
“These are two of Viktor X’s booze smugglers in Sweden,” Hultin began his three o’clock meeting. “They call themselves Igor and Igor. The photographic composites didn’t turn out too well so we had to drag out the old sketch artist from the museum corridors. The drawings were made based on information provided by a Mr. Bert Gunnarsson, a pub owner in Soder, who has purchased smuggled vodka from them on several occasions both this year and last. I’ve also been in contact again with Kalju Laikmaa in Tallinn. He identified them at once. Neither of them is named Igor. The thin guy is Alexander Bryusov and the fat one is Valery Treplyov. Both are small-time Russian gangsters active in Estonia until six months ago, when they apparently came to Sweden in the employ of Viktor X. The fact that they broke off contact with Gunnarsson in March may have significance.”
“Are we going to accept the damn official explanation for Norlander’s stigmata?” said Soderstedt.
“Stigmata?” said Billy Pettersson.
“Wounds that appear in the same places as on the body of the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Kerstin Holm pedantically.
“That explanation can’t steer the investigation,” said Hultin. “We’re going to have to ignore it, even if we believe it. So let’s try and get hold of these two Igor gentlemen. They’re our only solid link to Viktor X.”
Time now took on a new form, calmer and more protracted, more methodical. They published the drawings of Igor and Igor in all the newspapers but with no results. Messieurs Alexander Bryusov and Valery Treplyov remained nothing more than sketches.
There were several current hypotheses: (1) only Daggfeldt was the intended victim, and the other two were red herrings; (2) only Strand-Julen was the intended victim, and the other two were red herrings; (3) only Carlberger was the intended victim, and the other two were red herrings; (4) Daggfeldt and Strand-Julen were the real targets, and Carlberger was the red herring; (5) Strand-Julen and Carlberger were the real targets, and Daggfeldt was the red herring; (6) Daggfeldt and Carlberger were the real targets, and Strand-Julen was the red
