“Well, I must say, I find this a bit confusing,” Saga says. “You told our colleague that you saw the noose on Wednesday, but just now, you said the opposite.”
Joona checks his notebook for Saga’s earlier question.
“Edith,” Joona says, “I believe I understand what you’ve said.”
“That’s good,” she replies.
“Concerning the question of whether Palmcrona hung up the noose on Wednesday, you said no—because Palmcrona wasn’t the one who put it up.”
The old woman gives Joona a hard look. Then she says firmly, “He tried, but he couldn’t do it. His back was too stiff from his operation last winter … so he asked me to.”
Silence falls again. The trees surrounding them are completely still in the heat of the day.
“So you were the one who tied a laundry line into a noose and hung it from the ceiling?” Joona asks.
“He tied the knot and held the ladder when I climbed up,” she says.
“Then you put the ladder away, went back to your normal duties, and went on home after washing up the dishes from Wednesday’s dinner,” Joona says.
“That’s right.”
“You came in the following morning,” he continues. “You began the day as usual by making his breakfast.”
“Did you know that he wasn’t already hanging from the noose yet?” Saga asks.
“Well, I took a peek into the small salon,” Edith answers.
The shade of a sarcastic smile appears for a split second on her closed face.
“You’ve already told us that he’d eaten breakfast as he usually did, but that he didn’t go to work Thursday morning either.”
“He was in the music room for at least an hour.”
“Was he listening to music?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Right before lunch, he placed a call,” Saga says.
“Well, that I don’t know. He went into his office and closed the door, but before he came to eat his lunch of boiled salmon, he asked me to order a taxi for two o’clock.”
“Was he planning to go to Arlanda Airport?”
“Yes, he was.”
“And at ten minutes to two, someone called him?”
“Yes, he’d already put on his coat and he answered the hall phone.”
“Did you hear what he said?” Saga asks.
“ ‘It’s not a nightmare to die,’ ” replies Edith.
“I’ve asked you what he said,” Saga repeats.
“Now you’ll have to excuse me,” Edith says shortly and begins to close the door.
“Just a second,” Joona says.
The movement of the door stops and Edith frowns at him through the gap without reopening it.
“Did you sort Palmcrona’s mail today? Do you have it here?” Joona asks.
“Of course.”
“Please bring us everything that’s not an advertisement,” Joona requests.
She nods, walking into the house, leaving the door ajar, and returns with a blue bowl filled with mail.
“Thank you,” Joona says as he takes the bowl.
Edith closes the door completely and they hear her locking it behind her. A few seconds later, they hear the whirring of the dog’s tether again. They hear his aggressive barking behind them as they walk to the car and climb in.
Saga starts the engine, then puts the car into gear and turns it around. Joona puts on protective gloves to sort through the letters in the bowl and then pulls out a manila envelope with a handwritten address. He opens it carefully and just as carefully slides out the photograph for which at least two people have died.
47
the fourth person
Saga Bauer pulls onto the shoulder of the road and parks. The grass in the ditch is so tall it brushes the passenger-side window. Joona Linna remains absolutely still as he contemplates the photograph.
There’s something fuzzy on the upper edge of the picture, but in general, it is perfectly sharp. Probably the camera was hidden and the photograph taken secretly.
There are four people sitting in the large box of a concert hall. Three men and one woman. Their faces are clearly visible. Only one person is turned away, but even that face is not hidden.
There’s champagne in a chiller and the table has been set so they can converse and eat and still listen to the music.
Joona recognizes Carl Palmcrona right away. He holds a champagne flute. Saga can identify two of the other people.
“That one is Raphael Guidi, the weapons dealer mentioned in the blackmail letter,” she says as she points to a man with thin hair. “And the one looking away is Pontus Salman, the head of Silencia Defense.”
“Weapons,” Joona says.
“Silencia Defense is a well-known company.”
Under the spotlight, onstage behind the men, a string quartet can be seen: two violins, a viola, and a cello. The musicians are all men. They sit in a half circle, their faces calm in concentration. It’s hard to tell if their eyes are closed or slightly open, whether they are looking at their music or simply following the different parts.
“Who is the fourth person, the woman?” Joona asks.
“Let me think and it’ll come to me,” Saga replies as the wheels turn in her mind. “I do recognize her, but … damn …”
Saga’s voice fades as she stares at the woman in the picture.
“We have to find out who she is,” Joona says quietly.
“Right.”
Saga starts the car and, at the same time she bumps back onto the road, she has the answer. “That’s Agathe al-Haji,” she says. “She’s the military adviser to President Omar al-Bashir.”
“Sudan.”
“Right.”
“How long has she been his adviser?”
“Fifteen years or so. I can’t really remember.”
“So what’s going on in this picture?” Joona muses.
“I have no idea. I mean … the fact that the four of them are meeting is not so strange. Perhaps they are discussing business proposals,” Saga speculates. “These kinds of meetings happen all the time. This could be a first encounter. You meet, explain your intentions, and maybe ask for ideas, even a preliminary decision, from Carl Palmcrona.”
“And his positive reaction could mean that the ISP will most likely give export permission in the end?”
“Exactly. It would be a good indication.”
“Does Sweden usually export war matériel to Sudan?” asks Joona.
“No, I don’t think so,” she answers. “We should ask an expert. I believe that China and Russia are the largest exporters to Sudan, but I’m not so sure anymore. There was a peace pact made in Sudan in 2005 and I imagine that the export market was opened after that.”
“So what does this picture tell us? Why would Carl Palmcrona take his own life because of it? I mean, they met in public in a concert-hall box.”
In silence they keep driving south on the dusty highway while Joona goes over the photograph again and again, turns it over, notices the torn corner, and thinks.
“So this actual photograph cannot be dangerous to anyone,” he states.
“Not if you ask me.”
“Did Palmcrona take his own life because he realized that the person who took this picture could expose something? Maybe the photograph is just a warning? Maybe Penelope and Björn are more important than the picture?”
“We don’t know a damn thing.”
“Yes, we do,” Joona says. “The problem is that we don’t know how to connect the dots. We’re still guessing at the orders for this hit man. It looks like he was only trying to find this photograph to destroy it and that he killed Viola because he thought she was Penelope.”
“Perhaps Penelope took the shot,” Saga suggests. “Even so, this killer wasn’t content with just her murder.”
“Exactly. We don’t know which one comes first: Is the picture a link to the photographer, who is the true threat? Or is the photographer the link to the photograph,
the primary threat?”
“The first attack was on Björn’s apartment.”
They say nothing for a few minutes. They’ve almost gotten back to the police station when Joona takes another close look at the photograph. The four people in the box, the food, the four musicians onstage, the instruments, the heavy curtain, the champagne bottle, the champagne flutes.
“Looking at this photograph,” Joona says, “I see four faces. One of them must be behind the murder of Viola Fernandez.”
“Right. Palmcrona is dead, so we can probably exclude him. So that leaves three … and two of them are out of our reach, so we can’t question them.”
“We’ve got to interview Pontus Salman,” Joona says.
48
the bridal crown
It is difficult to find a real human at Silencia Defense AB. All outside lines lead to the same labyrinth of automated menus and recorded information. Finally, Saga decides to bypass it all with the number 9 and the star key. She is connected to the company secretary. She ignores this person’s questions and goes right to what she wants. The secretary says nothing for a moment and then tells Saga that she must have gotten the wrong number and that everyone has gone out for lunch.
“Please call back tomorrow morning between nine and eleven and—”
“Tell Pontus Salman to be ready for a visit from Säpo at two this afternoon,” Saga says in a loud, firm voice.
“I’m sorry,” the secretary says. “He’s in meetings all day.”
“Not at two o’clock,” Saga answers sweetly.
“Yes, his appointment book says that—”
“Because at two o’clock, he is meeting with me,” Saga says.
“I will forward your request.”
“Thank you very much,” Saga replies. She meets Joona’s eyes across the desk.
“Two o’clock?” he confirms. “Yes, indeed.”
“Tommy Kofoed would like a look at that photo,” Joona says. “Let’s stop by his office after lunch, before we head out.”
———
While Joona is having lunch with Disa, the technicians at the National Forensic Laboratory are enlarging the photograph.
The face of one person in the box is specifically being blurred so as to be unrecognizable.
Disa is smiling to herself as she removes the inset from the rice cooker. She holds it out to Joona and watches him as he moistens his hands to check if the rice is cool enough to form into small patties.
“Did you know that Södermalm used to have its own Calvary?”
“Calvary like Golgotha or cavalry like horses?”
“A place for executions.” Disa nods as she opens Joona’s kitchen cabinet, finds two glasses, pours white wine into one and water into the other.
Disa looks relaxed. Her freckles have turned darker and she’s put her disheveled hair into a loose braid. Joona washes his hands and takes out a new kitchen towel. Disa goes up to him and puts her arms around his neck. Joona answers her embrace by putting his face next to hers and breathing in the scent of her hair even as he feels her hands gently caressing his back and neck.
“Let’s go ahead,” she whispers. “Let’s try.”
“Maybe,” he says in a low voice.
She holds him tightly, very tightly, and then she eases from his arms.
“There are times I get really mad at you,” she mutters as she turns away.
“Disa, I am who I am, but I—”
“I am very happy that we’re not living together,” she says, and then she leaves the kitchen.
He hears her lock herself in the bathroom and wonders whether he should follow and knock on the door, but he also knows that she really wants to be left alone, so he just continues making lunch. He picks up a piece of fish, places it on his palm, and then spreads a line of wasabi onto it.
A few minutes later, Disa comes back. She stands in the doorway and watches him finish making the sushi.
“Do you remember,” she says, laughing, “how your mother always took the salmon off the sushi and fried it before she put it back on the rice?”
“Of course.”
“Should I set the table?”
“Please.”
Disa carries plates and chopsticks to the big room, stops next to the window, and looks down at Wallingatan. A grove of trees lights up the view with its green late-spring leaves. Her eyes wander over the pleasant area all the way to Norra Bantorget where Joona Linna has been living for the past year.
She sets the off-white dinner table, returns to the kitchen to take a sip of wine. The wine has lost the crispness from being chilled. She dismisses the sudden urge to sit down on the lacquered wooden floor under the table and have lunch, eating with their hands as if they were still children.
Instead, she says, “I’ve been asked out.”
“Asked out?”
She nods and feels she wants to be a little bit mean, even though she doesn’t really.
“Tell me about it,” Joona says calmly as he carries the tray with sushi to the table.
Disa picks up her glass and says in an easy tone, “It’s just that there’s a man at the museum who’s been asking me out to dinner for the last six months.”
“Do people still ask people out to dinner these days?”
Disa smiles somewhat crookedly. “Are you jealous?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a little,” Joona says as he walks over to her. “It’s always pleasant to be asked out to dinner.”
“That’s right.”
Disa pushes her fingers through a bit of Joona’s thick hair.
“Is he good-looking?”
“Actually, yes he is.”
“How nice.”
“But you know that I really don’t want to.” Disa smiles.
He doesn’t answer and turns his head away.
“You know what I want,” Disa says softly.
Joona’s face is now a little pale. She sees a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He slowly turns his face back to her. His eyes have darkened until they’re as black and hard as an abyss.
“Joona?” she asks. “Forget about it. I’m sorry—”
It looks like Joona starts to say something and begins to take a step when his legs buckle.
“Joona!” Disa cries and knocks her glass off the table as she hurries to his side. She holds him closely and whispers that it will be over soon.
After a few minutes, Joona’s face relaxes bit by bit from its tight expression of pain.
Disa gets up to sweep the broken glass off the floor. Then they sit at the table and eat in silence.
After a while, Disa says, “You’re not taking your medicine.”
“It makes me sleepy. I have to think. It’s important to think clearly right now.”
“You promised me that you’d continue with it.”
“I will, I will,” he reassures her.
“It’s dangerous not to. You know that,” she whispers.
“As soon as I’ve solved this case, I’ll start taking it again.”
“What if you never solve it?”
At a distance, the Nordic Museum appears to be a fancy image carved in ebony, despite being built of sandstone and limestone. It’s a Renaissance dream of elegance with its many towers and pinnacles. The museum was planned as an homage to the sovereignty of the Nordic peoples, but by the time it was inaugurated one rainy day in the summer of 1907, the union between Sweden and Norway had dissolved and the king was dying.
Joona walks swiftly through the enormous great hall of the museum and stops only after he’s climbed the stairs. He collects himself, then walks slowly past the lighted display cabinets. Nothing there catches his eye. He keeps going, his thoughts bound in memories and the sadness of loss.
The guard has seen him coming and has set a chair out for him next to one particular display case. Joona Linna takes his seat and lifts his eyes to the Sami bridal crown before him. The eight points of the crown are like linked hands, and the crown shines softly in
the light behind the thin glass. Inside himself, Joona can hear a voice, and he sees a face smiling at him as he sits behind the wheel of his car. He is driving. It rained that day, but now the sun is reflecting in the puddles on the road so brightly, it’s as if they’re lit by fires below. He turns toward the backseat to make sure that Lumi has been buckled in properly.
The bridal crown appears to have been made from light branches of leather or braided hair. He drinks in its promise of love and joy and remembers how his wife looked: her serious smile, her sand-colored hair brushing her face.
“How are you doing today?” the guard asks.
Joona looks up at the guard in surprise. The man has been working here for many years. He’s middle-aged with stubble on his cheeks and tired eyes.
“I really don’t know,” Joona replies as he gets up from the chair.
49
the blurred face
Joona Linna and Saga Bauer are in the car on their way to the interview with Pontus Salman in Silencia Defense’s main office. They’re bringing the photograph that the technicians at the National Bureau of Investigation have enlarged. Quietly they travel south on Highway 73, which runs like a dirty track down to Nynäshamn.
Two hours ago, Joona had been looking again at the four people sitting in the box: Raphael with his calm face and balding pate; Palmcrona with his weak smile and steel-framed glasses; Pontus Salman with his placid, almost boyish demeanor; and Agathe al-Haji with her wrinkled cheeks and intelligent, heavy gaze.
“I have an idea,” Joona had said slowly, catching Saga’s eye. “If we could reduce the picture quality and touch it up so that Pontus Salman is no longer identifiable …”
He falls silent as he follows his internal train of thought.
“What would we achieve?” asks Saga.
“He doesn’t know that we have a sharp original picture—right?”
“How could he? He’d expect us to make the photo more in focus, not the opposite.”
“Exactly. We’ve done all we could to identify the four people in the picture and we’ve figured out three. The fourth is somewhat turned away and the face is too blurry.”