The reply from Carl Palmcrona is dated Wednesday, June 2, at 6:25 p.m.:
I do not know who you are, but I do know you have no idea what you are getting yourself into. You must have absolutely no clue.
I warn you, therefore, that this is a very serious matter and I ask that you send me this photograph before it is too late.
On Thursday, June 3, at 2:02 p.m., clearly not having heard from Björn, Palmcrona sends a second reply:
It is already too late. We are both dead men.
Björn sends a response to that two hours later:
All right, I’ll do as you ask.
And Björn Almskog sends a third e-mail the following day, Friday, June 4, at 7:44 a.m.:
Dear Mr. Palmcrona
I’ve sent the photograph. Forget I even tried to contact you.
Greetings from a “skunk”
After reading through the e-mails twice, Saga looks up at Joona.
“So Björn Almskog wants to sell a compromising photograph to Palmcrona. It’s obvious that Palmcrona believes him but also that the photograph is much more dangerous than Björn imagined. Palmcrona warns Björn that he’s not going to hand over any money and even seems to believe the mere existence of this photograph threatens both their lives.”
“So what do you think happened next?” asks Joona.
“Palmcrona waits for an answer by e-mail or by regular mail,” Saga says. “When there’s no reply, he sends his second message warning that they both will die.”
“And then Palmcrona hangs himself,” says Joona.
“When Björn shows up at the Internet café and reads Palmcrona’s second e-mail—’It is already too late. We are both dead men’—he gets scared and replies he’ll do just what Palmcrona asked.”
“Without knowing that Palmcrona is already dead.”
“Right,” Saga says. “It is already too late and anything Björn can do now will be in vain.”
“He seems to panic after receiving Palmcrona’s second e-mail. He gives up any idea of blackmail and now just wants to get out.”
“But the problem is, the photograph in question is taped to Penelope’s door.”
“So he doesn’t have a chance to get at it until she leaves for the TV studio,” Joona continues. “He waits outside, watches Penelope leave in a taxi, rushes in, sees the little girl on the stairs, gets into the apartment, rips the photo from the glass door, takes the subway, mails the photo to Palmcrona, and then sends Palmcrona an e-mail. Then he goes to his apartment on Pontonjärgatan 47, packs for the boat trip, takes the bus to Södermalm, and hurries to his boat anchored at Långholmen Harbor.”
“So what makes you think that this is bigger than common blackmail?”
“Because Björn’s apartment was completely destroyed by a fire barely four hours after he’d left it,” Joona replies.
“I’ve stopped believing in coincidences when it comes to this investigation,” Saga says.
“Me, too,” Joona says with a grin.
They look at the correspondence again and Joona points at Palmcrona’s two e-mails.
“He must have contacted someone between his first and second e-mail,” he says.
“The first is a warning,” Saga says. “The second one says it’s already too late and they’re going to die.”
“I believe that Palmcrona called someone for advice when he received the blackmail letter. He was scared to death, but he was hoping to get help,” Joona says. “Only when he realizes that there’s no help to be had does he write the second e-mail where he tells Björn that they will both die.”
“We’ll have to put someone on his telephone lists,” Saga says.
“Erixson’s already on it.”
“What else?”
“Who’s the person mentioned in Björn’s first e-mail?” Joona says.
“Raphael Guidi?”
“Do you know about him?”
“He was named after the archangel Raphael,” Saga says. “He’s an Italian businessman who deals in weapons contracts for the Middle East and Africa.”
“Weapons contracts,” Joona repeats.
“Raphael has been in the business for thirty years and he’s built a private empire. There have been rumors, of course, but never anything concrete. Interpol’s looked but never found anything on him.”
“Would it be unusual to find Palmcrona in Raphael’s company?”
“Not at all,” she replies. “It’s part of his job. But toasting something in champagne? I don’t know.”
“But you wouldn’t kill someone, murder someone, because of that,” Joona says.
“No.”
“That photograph must reveal something else, something much more dangerous.”
“If Björn mailed it, it must have arrived here, in the apartment,” Saga says.
“I looked through the mail in his in-box but—” Joona cuts himself off mid-sentence. Saga gives him a look.
“So, what is it? What are you thinking?”
“There are only personal letters in the box. No ads. No bills,” he says. “The mail had already been sorted when it arrived here.”
45
riding down the highway
The housekeeper, Edith Schwartz, has no telephone. She lives forty-six kilometers north of Stockholm just outside of Knivsta. Joona is in the passenger seat next to Saga, who’s driving at a reasonable clip down Sveavägen. They leave Stockholm’s central area at Norrtull and get on the highway near Karolinska Hospital.
“Säpo has finished going through the crime scene at Penelope Fernandez’s apartment,” Saga is telling him. “I’ve gone through all the material, and based on that, it’s perfectly clear she has no connection to left-wing groups. On the contrary, she’s distanced herself from them and is an avowed pacifist. She actively argues against their methods. I’ve also gone through what little information we have on Björn Almskog. He works at Debaser, which is a club located at Medborgarplatsen. He’s not politically active but was arrested once at a street party organized by Reclaim the City.”
They quickly pass between the flickering black fence posts along North Cemetery and Haga Park’s wall of greenery.
“I’ve also looked through our archives,” Saga continues. “Everything we have on both the left-wing and right-wing extremists in Stockholm. It took me most of the night. Of course, most of this is classified as top secret, but there’s one thing you need to know: Säpo made a mistake here. Neither Penelope nor Björn have ever been involved in sabotage or anything remotely resembling sabotage. They’re almost laughably innocent.”
“So you’re dropping that angle?”
“Like you, I’m convinced that we’re investigating something in another league entirely, far above either left- or right-wing local extremists … a league that’s perhaps even beyond Säpo and the National Criminal Investigation Department for that matter. I’m talking about Palmcrona’s death. Connect that with the fire in Björn’s apartment and Viola’s murder … this is something else again entirely.”
Saga falls silent. Joona thinks back to the housekeeper’s strange manner as she looked at him and asked if he’d cut Palmcrona down yet.
He’d said to her, “What do you mean by that?”
She’d said, “Excuse me, I’m just a housekeeper and I thought …”
He’d asked her if she’d seen anything unusual.
“A noose from the ceiling in the small salon,” she’d answered.
“So you saw the noose?”
“Yes, indeed.”
Of course she did, Joona thinks as he watches the highway unroll before them. “Yes, indeed,” she’d said. The housekeeper’s forceful expression—in words and manner—reverberates in his head. So does the look she gave him when he’d told her she would have to go down to the police station to give a statement. He’d thought that would alarm her, but it hadn’t at all; she’d just nodded.
They’re now passing Rotebro. Joona was involved in an old case there in which they’d d
ug up ten-year-old remains in a garden while looking for Erik Maria Bark’s son, Benjamin. It had been winter then. Now wildflowers and greenery soften the rust-brown railroad tracks and brighten the way around the parking lot and on toward the town houses and larger homes.
Joona decides to call Nathan Pollock at the National Criminal Investigation Department. After a few rings, he hears Nathan’s nasal voice.
“Nathan here.”
“You and Tommy found circles of footprints beneath Palmcrona’s body.”
“That investigation was shut down,” Nathan answers as Joona hears him typing on a computer.
“Right, but now—”
“I already know,” Nathan said. “I’ve just talked to Carlos and he told me about the new developments.”
“So can you take another look?”
“I’m already doing that,” Nathan says.
“Sounds good. When will you have some results?”
“Now,” Nathan replies. “They’re from Palmcrona and his housekeeper, Edith Schwartz.”
“Nobody else?”
“No one.”
Saga is keeping a steady speed of 140 kilometers an hour. They’re heading north on European Route 4.
Earlier that morning, Joona and Saga had gone to the police station to listen to the recorded interrogation of Edith Schwartz while simultaneously following John Bengtsson’s handwritten notes.
Joona reviews the questions and answers in his memory. After the standard formula statements informing Edith that there was no suspicion of a crime, they requested whether she could shed some light on the reasons behind Carl Palmcrona’s death. Silence. Then Joona and Saga could hear the sounds from the ventilation system, the creaking of a chair, and the scratching of a pen on a sheet of paper. John Bengtsson had decided that due to Edith Schwartz’s apparent disinterest, he would let her speak first.
At least two minutes passed before she spoke. Two minutes is a long time to sit before a police officer’s desk while a tape is running.
Finally, she asked, “Did Director Palmcrona take off his coat?”
“Why do you ask that?” John Bengtsson replies in a friendly manner.
She said nothing. Another half minute went by. Finally, John ended the silence by asking, “Was he wearing his coat the last time you saw him?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Earlier, you told Detective Linna that you’d seen a noose hanging from the ceiling.”
“That’s correct.”
“What did you think he was going to use the noose for?”
She did not answer.
“How long was the noose hanging there?”
“Since Wednesday,” she said calmly.
“So you saw the noose hanging from the ceiling on the evening of June second, went home, returned the next morning, the third of June, saw the noose still hanging there, met Palmcrona, left the apartment, and then returned on the fifth of June at two p.m. when you met Detective Linna.”
The notes state she shrugged her shoulders at this point.
“Could you tell us something about those four days?” he asked.
“I come to Director Palmcrona’s apartment every morning at six. I am only allowed to use my key early in the morning, since Palmcrona sleeps until six thirty. He keeps regular hours and he never sleeps in, not even on Sunday. I grind the coffee beans in the hand grinder, cut two slices of brown bread, and spread extra salted margarine on them before I place two slices of truffle-filled liver pâté and pickles along with one slice of cheddar cheese to one side. I set the table with starched linen and the summer porcelain. I must remove all advertisements and the sports section from the morning papers and place them, folded, on the right side of his plate.”
With minute detail she ran through the entire preparation of Wednesday’s ground-veal patties in cream sauce as well as her preparations for Thursday’s lunch.
When she got to the point where she returned to the apartment with food for the weekend and rang the doorbell, she fell silent again.
“I understand that this might be difficult for you,” John Bengtsson said after some more time had passed. “But I’ve been listening to your every word for quite a while. You have gone through Wednesday and Thursday but not once have you said anything that might touch on Palmcrona’s unexpected death.”
She said nothing.
“I ask you to search your memory again,” John Bengtsson said with great patience. “Did you know that Carl Palmcrona was dead when you rang the doorbell?”
“No.”
“Did you or did you not ask Detective Linna whether he had been cut down yet?” John asked, irritation creeping into his voice.
“Yes, I did.”
“Had you already seen him dead?”
“No, I had not.”
“But what the hell!” John’s irritation burst forth. “Can’t you just tell me what you know? What made you ask whether we’d taken him down or not? You were the one who asked that! Why did you ask if you didn’t even know that he was dead?”
John Bengtsson noted that he’d unfortunately allowed himself to be provoked by the woman’s stolid avoidance of direct answers and that after he’d cursed, she’d closed up like a clam.
“Are you accusing me of a crime?” she asked coolly.
“No.”
“Then I believe that we’re finished.”
“We would really like your help …”
“I remember nothing else,” she said as she got up from the chair.
Joona looks at Saga. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead.
“I’m thinking about the interview with the housekeeper,” he says.
“Me, too.”
“John got fed up with her attitude and thought she was contradicting herself. He assumed that she knew that Palmcrona was dead when she rang the bell and we answered.”
“Right,” Saga says, still not taking her eyes from the road.
“But she was speaking the simple truth. She really did not know that he was dead. She believed he might be, but wasn’t sure,” he continues. “That’s why she said no to his statement.”
“Edith Schwartz sounds like an unusual woman.”
Joona says, “I believe she’s trying not to lie but still keep something secret from us.”
46
the photograph
Neither Joona nor Saga believe they’ll be able to get anything important from Edith Schwartz, but perhaps she can reveal where the photograph might be. They need it to solve this case.
Saga turns west onto Route 77 underneath the highway viaduct on the way to Knivsta, then almost immediately turns off onto a small gravel road paralleling the highway.
Low spruce forests line fallow fields. The masonry edge of a manure pool has broken and its tin roof is hanging lopsidedly.
“We should be there,” Saga says with a glance at the GPS.
They slowly roll up to a rusty boom and stop. As Joona gets out, he hears the dull drone of traffic on the highway. Twenty meters along, they can see a one-story house of dirty yellow brick. Decorative shutters are screwed on, and moss covers asbestos cement sheeting on the roof.
As they approach the house, they hear an unusual whirring sound. They glance at each other and move cautiously toward the outer door of the house. A rattling noise is coming from out back; then they hear the metallic whine again, coming closer. Racing around the house comes a German shepherd, mouth gaping wide. He slams to a stop a meter away from Saga, jerked back onto his hind legs by a long leash. He shuffles back a little, crouches, and begins to bark. He tosses his head from side to side to set himself free. As he jumps, the leash slides along a wire line with a whining, rattling sound.
The dog turns to rush at Joona but is choked back again. He barks dementedly but stops the second he hears a voice from inside the house.
“Nils!” a woman commands.
They hear the floor creak inside and a moment later the door opens. The dog scurries back behind the house and the whirring
sound disappears with him.
“We need to talk to you,” Joona says.
“I’ve already told the police everything I know,” she replies.
“May we come inside?”
“No.”
Joona glances past her into the dark interior of the house. The hall is littered with pots and pans, plates, a gray vacuum-cleaner hose, clothes, shoes, and a rusty crayfish pot.
“We can stay outside,” Saga says reassuringly.
Joona glances at his notes. It’s routine to go over details from an interrogation to catch any discrepancies or even catch someone out in a downright lie they no longer remember correctly. “What did Palmcrona have for dinner on Wednesday?”
“Ground-veal patties in cream sauce,” she says.
“With rice?” asks Joona.
“With potatoes,” she replies. “Always boiled potatoes.”
“At what time did Palmcrona return to his apartment on Thursday?”
“At six in the evening.”
“What were your duties when you left Palmcrona’s apartment on Thursday?”
“He gave me the evening off.”
Joona looks directly into her eyes and decides there’s no point in beating around the bush. He goes straight to the point.
“Did Palmcrona fix the noose already by Wednesday evening?”
“No,” says Edith.
“That’s what you told our colleague, John Bengtsson,” Saga said.
“That’s incorrect.”
“Your interview was recorded,” Saga wants to say, but she finds herself so irritated, she decides to keep quiet.
“Did you ask Palmcrona any questions about the noose?” Joona asks.
“We never discussed private matters.”
“But isn’t it odd to just leave a man with a noose hanging from his ceiling?” asks Saga.
“Well, what could I do? Stay around and watch him?” Edith replies with a small smile.
“That’s true,” Saga agrees calmly.
For the first time, Edith inspects Saga. Without embarrassment, she runs her eyes from Saga’s fairy-tale hair caught back in a colorful headband to her clear face and down to her jeans and running shoes.