he moved quickly close to the table.
‘Let me explain.’
He paused.
‘All you need to know is, you haven’t seen a frigging thing. You haven’t got a clue who visited Hilding Oldйus today.’
She closed her eyes. Not more of this. Not now.
A stomach spasm. She vomited into her lap and on the tablecloth. Bloody Hilding. She kept her eyes closed, didn’t want to see, not again, not any more. Hilding, Hilding. Fuck him.
‘Hey.’
Her eyes were still shut. Her body was still racked by pain, more spasms; she wanted to throw up again.
‘Lisa. Look at me!’
Slowly she opened her eyes.
‘All you have to do is keep your mouth shut. Simple, isn’t it? One word, and you’re dead.’
Ewert Grens had expected to feel something more when he got the message that Jochum Lang had been arrested. He had waited for so long and this time had a reliable pair of eyes that had seen Lang in action, someone who could testify to the murder all the way to a life sentence.
But he felt nothing.
It was as if he were anaesthetised. Thinking about Grajauskas, who was holed up in that basement hellhole, playing games with hostages’ lives, stole all his energy. Later, when Grajauskas had been dealt with, then he could take the good news on board.
But he did leave the room so he could find a place where he could phone that prosecutor prat in peace. Еgestam had to know that they had a witness this time, a hospital doctor who had seen Lang come along to beat up Hilding Oldйus. They also had a motive. A recent report from two regional detective constables indicated that Lang was acting on behalf of his Yugoslav bosses, who had taken a strong aversion to Oldйus’s trick of cutting their speed with washing powder.
Ewert promised himself that under no circumstances would he end the call before Еgestam had understood and had agreed to charge Lang on the grounds of a reasonable suspicion of murder and then ordered a complete body search, mainly for traces of the victim’s DNA and possibly some blood. The beating must have caused a fair amount of splashing.
Lisa couldn’t hold back any more. Her stomach was in pieces and she leaned over the table and threw up again. She sensed that the man who was threatening her had come closer.
‘Lisa, Lisa. You’re not well, are you? As I had to wait to speak to you, first downstairs, what with the cops crawling all over the place, and then again outside your office, I made a few phone calls to pass the time. Get that, Lisa? A few quick calls to the right people, that’s all it takes, and then you’re king of the castle, eh? Know everything you need to know.’
His face came closer still.
‘You can’t answer. Maybe you should listen instead. Your name is Lisa Ohrstrom. You are thirty-five years old and have been a doctor for seven. You have worked in this place for the last two years.’
Lisa sat very still. If she didn’t move, didn’t speak, it might be over soon.
‘You are unmarried. No children. Still, never mind, you have these photos pinned to your noticeboard.’
He showed her the photographs. In one of them it was summer and a six-year-old boy was lying on a wooden jetty next to his older sister. The sun was shining and they both looked a little too red. The other picture was of a Christmas tree and the same children, surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbon, their faces winter-pale but full of anticipation.
Lisa closed her eyes again.
She saw Sanna, she saw Jonathan. They were all she had. She was so proud of them both, felt like another mother to them. There were times when they stayed at her place more than at home with Ylva. They would soon be grown up. In this horrible world. She prayed that they would never have to deal with someone close to them being an addict. Prayed that neither of them would ever be haunted by the sick behaviour patterns driven by addiction. Prayed that they would never have to feel the terrible fear that gripped her now.
She kept her eyes closed and would keep them closed until all this was over.
What you don’t see doesn’t exist.
‘Ewert?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know.’
Ewert had no idea. He still couldn’t feel anything. She had given them half an hour. Why not twenty minutes? What about that? Or ten? Why not just one minute? What did it matter, when they had no choice?
‘Ewert?’
‘Yes?’
Bengt Nordwall was holding on tightly to the edge of the trolley. He found it difficult to speak, even to stand up straight. Why ask? Why am I pushing this? he thought. I’m saying things I don’t want to say, which means that I’ll have to do things I don’t want to do. I don’t need this. Some bloody awful terror is tearing me apart. I don’t want to think about it. Not the commotion in the stairwell, not her lashed back. Not the
‘Ewert, you know that I have to. We have no choice.’
Ewert knew it was true.
He knew it wasn’t true.
The minutes were ticking away. Find a solution, only there isn’t one.
He wanted to leave the room, but had to stay.
He had completed the Lang negotiations with Еgestam and looked around for Edvardson, who was still sitting in another room, keeping his boss up to speed with the situation. He tried to contact Sven, who was down in the basement corridors, waiting for the mortuary door to open again.
He needed them there. Hermansson was a good police officer, but he didn’t know her in the same way he knew the other two. As for Bengt, well, it was all about him, so he was the last person he ought to discuss the situation with.
‘She wants you with her. She will free the others in exchange for you.’
Ewert went over to his colleague, his old friend. He waited.
‘Are you listening? I don’t understand. Do you?’
Bengt still had the earphones on. He had put the receiver down a while ago, but their conversation was still going round in his head: he heard what she said and he heard what he said and the dialogue got nowhere, the same sentences, over and over again.
He had understood. He would never admit it.
‘I don’t understand either. But if you want me to, I’ll go in.’
Ewert went over to the phone that was their link to the mortuary. He listened to the monotonous tone in the receiver, shouted at it, incoherent phrases about whores and wired-up bodies on the floor and detonators and clocks ticking away time to think.
The colour in his face didn’t fade even when he had put the receiver down and circled the trolley a couple of times.
‘It would be a breach of duty to order you to go down there. You know that.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And so?’
Nordwall hesitated. I can’t, he thought. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
‘It’s your decision, Ewert.’
Ewert carried on pacing, completing one circle after another.
‘Hermansson?’
He looked at her.
‘Yes?’
