And Petersson had dealings with someone like that. They’ve got a lot to look into, there are masses of files in several rooms of the castle, and when there’s been a murder they can seize whatever they want, without the permission of the victim’s solicitor. If Jerry Petersson was in business with Goldman, how many others like him are there?
Malin looks out over the mist-shrouded field and forest and road. Thousands of different shades of grey blurring together. The wind is strong enough to send the leaves flying like flakes of copper across the green-black ground, swirling to and fro like metallic stars hanging in an absurdly low sky. In a clearing there are several ridges of deep-red leaves, like the blood pouring from Jerry Petersson’s body.
Must call Tove.
Malin tries to focus her gaze, but everything is floating in front of her eyes. The rear-view mirror. She doesn’t want to look in it, hates her swollen features, the reason why she looks like that, doesn’t want to see the shame etched in her forehead, in the tiniest corner of her face. The car seems to contract. She’s having trouble breathing. Wants to jump out. Tove. Janne. How are you ever going to forgive me?
Damn.
Just give me a fucking big drink. Now. I’m pouring with sweat. I know all the things I ought to do, but I can’t handle any of it.
‘Are you OK?’ Zeke asks.
‘Fine,’ she replies. Forces herself to think about their heaven-sent case.
A black car in a dream? Lindman’s? Johansson’s? But why?
Jochen Goldman.
The entire Fagelsjo family.
Avaricious bastards in general.
I wonder which one it’s worth annoying most?
15
The very thought of going through all the files is making Johan Jakobsson annoyed. How many have they carried into the room now?
Two hundred? Three hundred?
His light blue shirt is flecked grey with dust from all the carrying.
Johan surveys the meeting room in the heart of the police station. Burps and gets a taste of the mince he had for lunch.
The windowless room, with its grey-white textured wallpaper and basic shelving, is going to be their strategy room for the duration of the investigation into the murder of Jerry Petersson.
Two hard-drives.
A successful working life gathered together in a corner of the police station. Grim, Johan thinks, but he is also rather glad that something’s actually happening today. They hadn’t even reached Nassjo and his parents-in-law when Sven Sjoman rang, told him what had happened and asked if he could come in.
‘I’m on my way. I’ll be there in an hour or two.’
His wife had been furious, and he didn’t really blame her. She had reluctantly driven him to Skogsa, then turned back towards Nassjo on her own with the children.
Even all the impending paperwork is preferable to hobnobbing with the oldies in Nassjo. They have far too many opinions about things in general, and about Johan’s family in particular, for him to enjoy their company.
Everyone should mind their own business.
It is much better that way.
The files of documents and the hard-drives full of more documents are all concerned with instances of people minding their own business, Johan is certain of that. Who knows what they might find here? And what might that lead to? Or else they’ll find nothing. It’s not against the law to have a dodgy reputation.
The files are marked by year, and occasionally by name.
So far they’ve only taken a quick glance at a couple of them, but Jerry Petersson seems to have been a meticulous record-keeper, and every document appears to be in exactly the right place. This won’t make his and Waldemar Ekenberg’s job any less wide-ranging, but it will make it a fraction easier.
The names on the files.
He doesn’t recognise them, apart from one: Goldman. A mocking shadow who almost seems to be a fictional character, even though he really does exist. Malin called and mentioned the connection to Goldman, and now the files with his name on are on the table in front of Johan. There must be at least thirty of them, full of the specific details of avarice.
Malin’s voice. It sounded rough, in the way that only alcohol can make a voice rough. And she sounded tired and sad. She’s been looking more and more tired, and Johan has often felt like asking how she is, but Malin Fors isn’t the kind of person with whom you exchange small talk about feelings.
The door of the room flies open with an angry bang.
In the doorway stands Waldemar, weighed down by two boxes.
Files, documents, computer disks.
This is ideal for me, Johan thinks, but Waldemar sees the job as a punishment, and maybe it is on some level: Sven wants to keep their renowned loose cannon under control. His reputation is deserved, Johan has seen him use physical force to get information out of people. Once Waldemar shoved the barrel of his pistol deep into the throat of a suspect to make him tell the truth. But violence can work. In the short term. In the end it always ends up biting its own tail.
Waldemar drops the boxes unceremoniously in a corner of the room.
Stretches his back.
Huffs and puffs, mutters something about needing a fag, then he sits down on one of the chairs around the table, and Johan sees the uncomfortable back of the chair bow under his colleague’s weight.
‘Christ, look at all this fucking work in here.’
‘If we’re lucky, something will come up to save us going through most of it,’ Johan Jakobsson says.
He remembers clearing out his parents’ flat four years ago, when Dad died just months after Mum. The way he had hunted through all their papers, looking for something that he reluctantly had to admit was probably money, a banker’s draft for a large sum of money, a lottery win, the only way his parents would ever have managed to get a large amount of money.
But there was no money. And he was ashamed.
‘Do you believe that?’ Waldemar says.
‘No.’
‘What’s to say that this Petersson wasn’t a fucking crook? He could have had contacts in the underworld. We ought to check. I could head out and make a few inquiries.’
‘We need to concentrate on the paperwork,’ Johan says wearily.
Waldemar pulls out a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and holds it towards Johan.
‘Want one? You don’t mind me smoking in here, do you?’
The room is full of retch-inducing cigarette smoke.
Smoking isn’t permitted anywhere in the police station, but Johan couldn’t say no. Didn’t want to look like an asthmatic weakling in front of the tough guy.
Why, Johan wonders, do I give a shit what he thinks?
But I do.
They leaf through a few files at random. They’ve ordered extra screens from the techs so they can go through the contents of Petersson’s hard-drives here in the room.
Where to begin?
No idea, and Waldemar seems to think the same, saying: ‘There’s so fucking much of it. We need help. And it’s all going to be financial stuff that I honestly won’t have a clue about. Do you know about stuff like that?’
Johan shakes his head. ‘Only a little.’
