'Should I answer it, Ewert?'
'It's on my desk.'
He got up patiently and lumbered toward the loud ringing.
'Yes?'
'You sound out of breath.'
'I was lying on the floor.'
'I want you to come down here.'
Grens and Sundkvist didn't say anything, they just left the room and went down the corridor, waited impatiently for the elevator that took for ever to go down. Nils Krantz was at the door to the forensics department and showed them into a narrow room.
'You asked me to extend the search area. I did. All the stairwells between numbers seventy and ninety. And in the trash store of Vastmannagatan 73, in a paper recycling container, we found this.'
Krantz was holding a plastic bag. Ewert Grens leaned closer and put on his reading glasses a few moments later. Something in fabric, gray-and white checks, partially covered in blood, a shirt perhaps, or maybe a jacket.
'Very interesting. This could be our breakthrough.'
The forensic scientist opened the plastic bag and put the fabric on something that looked like a serving tray, and with a bent finger pointed at the obvious stains.
'Blood stains and gunshot residue that take us back to the flat in Vastmannagatan 79, as it's the victim's blood and gunpowder from the same charge that we found in the flat.'
'Which doesn't get us anywhere. Which doesn't give us a damn shit more than we already knew.'
Krantz pointed at the gray-and-white piece of clothing.
'It's a shirt. It's got the victim's blood on it. But there's more. We've identified another blood group. I'm certain that it belongs to the person who fired. Ewert, this is the shirt that the murderer was wearing.'
A courtroom. That's what it felt like. A room that smelled of power. A document that described a violent incident lying on an important table. Goransson was the prosecutor who checked the facts and asked the questions; the state secretary was the judge who listened and made the decisions; Wilson, to his right, was the defense who claimed self-defense and asked for leniency. Piet Hoffmann wanted to get up and walk away, but was forced to stay calm. After all, he was the accused.
'I didn't have any choice. My life was in danger.'
'You always have a choice.'
'I tried to calm them down. But I could only go so far. I'm supposed to be a criminal, through and through. Otherwise I'm dead.'
'I don't understand.'
It was a bizarre feeling. He was sitting one floor away from the Swedish prime minister in the building that ruled Sweden. Outside, down on the pavement in the real world, people were walking back from lunch with a warm low-alcohol beer and a cup of coffee because they'd chosen to pay five kronor more, while he was here, with those in power, trying to explain why the authorities should not investigate a murder.
'I'm their number one in Sweden. The people who were in the flat have been trained by the Polish intelligence service and know how to sniff out anything that doesn't feel right.'
'We're talking about murder. And you, Hoffmann, or Paula, or whatever I should call you, could have prevented it.'
'The first time they put the gun to the buyer's head, I managed to stop them shooting. But the next time, he had just exposed himself, he was the enemy, a snitch, dead…
'And as you didn't have a choice, neither do we, and so should we just pretend that the whole thing never happened?'
All four of them looked at him, each with the report in front of them on the table. Wilson, Goransson, and the state secretary. The fourth person had remained silent. Hoffmann couldn't understand why.
'Yes, if you want to break this new mafia branch before it gets established. If you want to do that, then you don't have any choice.'
This courtroom was like all the others, just as cold, no real people. He had been in this situation five times before, the accused, in front of people he did not respect but who would decide whether he should be part of society or live in a few square meters behind a secure door. A couple of suspended sentences, a couple of acquittals due to lack of evidence, and just one prison sentence, and a year from hell in Osteraker.
That time he had not been successful in defending his case. He would not do it again.
Nils Krantz leaned nearer the computer screen as he pointed to the image of small red peaks that all pointed upward over different numbers.
'The top row, if you look here, is from Copenhagen police. The DNA profile of a Danish citizen called Jens Christian Toft. The man who was killed in Vastmannagatan 79. The bottom row is from the National Laboratory of Forensic Science, an analyzis of all the blood stains on the shirt over there that we found in the trash at Vastmannagatan 73 that are at least two by two millimeters. You see, identical rows. Every single STR marker- that's the red peaks-is exactly the same length.'
Ewert Grens listened to him, but still only saw a very uniform pattern. 'I'm not interested in him, Nils. But I am interested in the murderer.' Krantz considered a sarcastic retort or irritated comment. But he did neither, chose to ignore Grens instead, as it often felt better.
'But I also asked them specifically to give the same priority to analyzing even smaller spots of blood. Too small to stand up as evidence in court. But big enough to establish any marked difference.'
He showed the next image.
A similar pattern, red peaks, but with larger distances and different numbers.
'These are from another person.'
'Who?'
'I don't know.'
'You've got the profile.'
'But no hits.'
'Don't be so damn difficult, Nils.'
'I've matched and compared them with everything I've got access to. I'm certain it's the murderer's blood. But I'm equally certain that this DNA won't be found in any Swedish database.'
He looked at the detective superintendent.
'Ewert, the murderer is probably not Swedish. The course of action, the Radom gun, no DNA matches. You'll have to start looking farther afield, in other places.'
It looked like it would be a lovely evening. The sun was already dipping like a ripe orange at the point where the sky melted into Riddarfiarden, the only thing you could see from the large window of the state secretary's office. Piet Hoffmann looked into the light that made the sad, expensive birch meeting table look even sadder. He longed to be out of here, for Zofia's soft body, for Hugo's laugh, Rasmus's eyes when he said
'Before we continue the meeting-'
He wasn't there. He was as far away from it all as he could be in a room that contained power and the people who could decide whether he should be put even farther away.
Erik Wilson, the defense lawyer in this trial, cleared his throat.
'Before we continue the meeting, I want a guarantee that Paula will not be charged for anything that might have happened in Vastmannagatan 79.'
The state secretary had one of those faces that showed no emotion. 'I understood that that was what you wanted.'
'You've dealt with similar cases before.'
'But if I am to grant criminal immunity, I also have to understand why.' The microphone was still in place, halfway down his thigh.
But it was about to slip again, he could feel the tape was gradually becoming unstuck. The next time he got up, he was sure that it would not stay where it was.
