on the Lovisedal board together for only a brief period in 1991. Daggfeldt was a member from 1989 until 1993; Carlberger from 1991 until his death; and Brandberg from 1985 until 1991, when he was elected to parliament. The only year they had in common was 1991. At their deaths, only Carlberger was still a board member. One out of four.”
“The point is presumably that it was in 1991 that the company started probing the Estonian market,” said Hultin. “It’s the board from that time period that they’re after. Maybe they simply have an old list, or maybe it’s deliberate: maybe they’re saying it was that year, in 1991, that the company made the mistake of a lifetime when it tried to force its way into territory that had already been claimed. In any case, it’s the most reasonable explanation we have.”
“There’s one other catch,” said Viggo Norlander. “Juri Maarja and Viktor X allowed me to live as a means of proving their innocence. You’ve all read the letter that was pinned to me, so to speak.”
“That doesn’t prove or disprove anything,” said Hultin.
“I saw the surprise on Maarja’s face when I accused them. It was absolutely genuine.”
“Your Juri Maarja is a smuggler of refugees. It’s possible that he doesn’t have Viktor X’s ear in all matters.
Viggo Norlander nodded but remained unconvinced.
“Chavez has a list of the Lovisedal board members
“Seven on the list, six are still alive. One died of natural causes.”
“Six individuals. We have to keep an eye on those six at all costs. No one is a more likely victim.”
Hultin looked at his notes.
“Of the six, I’ll take Jacob Lidner, who was then chairman of the board; he still is. There are five more for you to divide up. Put some pressure on them, find out whether they know anything, whether they’re scared, and whether they have any security protection. They’re going to have to get some, like it or not. As of tonight, we’re putting the entire Lovisedal board under around-the-clock surveillance. And of course we’ve put out a juicy all-points bulletin for Igor and Igor. In all likelihood, they’re our Power Murderers. All right then, let’s get going.”
Hultin exited through his mysterious door, and the A-Unit gathered around the table to divide up the board members among themselves. The previous timetable, in which a murder occurred every other night, apparently no longer applied. If it did, then the previous night, sometime on the nineteenth or twentieth of May, which Hjelm had spent in a strange, fitful slumber in a little overnight room in police headquarters, would have produced a new corpse. The old theory about a specific pattern had fallen like a house of cards; the only constant now remaining was the fact that the murders were committed at night, so they probably had plenty of time during the day to talk to the board members. The important thing was to find the next potential victim before it was too late.
“I’m wondering whether there’s any system behind the selection,” said Soderstedt. “If we disregard Strand- Julen, we have Daggfeldt, Carlberger, and Brandberg, in that order. D-C-B. Are there any names that start with A?”
There weren’t. They divided up the board members. One person would be off the hook. Nobody wanted to be off the hook. Finally they agreed that Soderstedt and Hjelm would share one of the board members.
Hjelm went to Soderstedt and Norlander’s office; he already had on his denim jacket and was ready to go. Norlander left, eager to start on his first real assignment since Tallinn. He was alive but not exactly kicking-he was still limping slightly on his stigmatized feet.
Soderstedt reached for his lumber jacket, on a hook just inside the door.
Hjelm stopped him and pulled the door closed. “There’s just one thing I’ve been wondering about,” he said as he studied A. Soderstedt, formerly a top attorney in Finland, and Jari Malinen’s defense lawyer, hired by the mafia in February 1979. “Why the police?”
Arto Soderstedt returned his gaze as he took down his jacket. “What do you mean?” he asked without really asking. He slowly put on his jacket.
“And why Sweden?”
Soderstedt gave up. He sat down heavily on his chair and said dully, “Why I chose Sweden is simple: I was already a marked man in Finland; my name was known. I was the ambitious young attorney who rescued citizens with fat wallets from the worst possible jams. I had no way out in Finland.”
He paused for a moment and stared at Hjelm. For the first time the gaunt Finn looked completely serious. He grimaced slightly, then went on.
“Why I chose the police is harder to explain. In 1980 I was twenty-seven years old and had just become a partner in the firm. Koivonen, Krantz & Soderstedt. Fucking cute name. Everything that I’d been striving for in my short and extremely goal-oriented life had now been achieved. Then I got a case representing a real fucking bad guy. That wasn’t anything new-I’d been defending that type of person all my adult life. But this time something went over the line. Behind the man’s respectable facade, the most repulsive sort of business you could imagine was going on: a type of sex-slave trade, it was beyond description. Finland was a closed country, the land that almost always refused to accept any immigrants, yet a steady stream of drugged Asians was coming in, sold at what might be called… auctions.
“Naturally I got him off so that he could continue to conduct his business, but something happened inside me. In that proper-looking man with his elegant facade and his loathsome attitude, I saw my entire future. The upholder of facades. That’s when the whole shitload came down on me. I moved to Sweden with my family, became a Swedish citizen, and tried to go underground. After a few dog-years I decided to join the police force, maybe to try to change the system from inside-the system I thought I’d seen in its entirety, from above and below.
“But things don’t allow themselves to be changed from inside. During my time in Stockholm I became known as a controversial cop; then I was exiled to Vasteras, and that’s where I stayed. You might say I went underground again. The police work became routine. I acquired a large family, and I read books instead of putting any real energy into my work; the job just took care of itself. Somehow Hultin found me by looking through the records-don’t ask me how. The end.”
Soderstedt stood up.
He had undergone a transformation in Hjelm’s eyes. Gone was the buffoon. Here instead was a man who had suffered the consequences of taking a moral stand. He had given up millions of kronor in salary, he had accepted the fact that he’d thrown his life away, and for the sake of this insight he had changed his country and language and life.
“The last one to the car is a frog with no legs!” shouted the man with integrity as he dashed off.
On that sunny morning of May 20, Jacob Lidner, chairman of the board at Lovisedal, was home in Lidingo. Jan- Olov Hultin arrived at the magnificent villa in his Volvo Turbo and rang the bell, which blared long and loud and with a slight delay through all the rooms of the mansion and out into the garden in back. It was from there that Lidner came marching around the corner of the building. He was an impressive old man with an imperious gaze, wearing a white, monogrammed bathrobe. His white hair was a disheveled mane, as if he’d just climbed out of the bath. Up close he smelled of chlorine.
“Stop pestering me,” he said to Hultin and then continued without giving the superintendent a chance to get a word in edgewise. “I’ve had enough of publicists. I’m just an ordinary retiree who wants to wait for death in peace and quiet. Stop harassing me about the troubles on the board. I know you want press people on the board at all costs, but this happens to be a business we’re running.”
Finally he paused to catch his breath.
“Do I look like a reporter?” said Hultin, putting on his half-moon reading glasses.
“You certainly do,” said Lidner. Then a light went on in his head. “But you’re not, are you?”
“I’m Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin. I’m in charge of the investigation of what the mass media have labeled the Power Murders.”
“Aha,” said Lidner. “The A-Unit. An appropriate name. To distinguish you from the A-media of the Social Democrats.”
Hultin was thrown off balance but managed to hide it. “That’s not information that the media has had access to…”
Lidner laughed briefly. “Good Lord, superintendent, surely you know that a matter like that can’t be kept secret.
