Lars Kepler 2-book Bundle (81 page)

“All that we know is that at least one person is willing to kill for this photograph,” Joona says.

“Yes, but why?”

Erixson pulls out a glue stick from his supplies and sticks Björn Almskog’s bank-account withdrawals to the wall. He also sets up lists from each phone call, copies of bus tickets, receipts from Björn’s wallet, and notes from the voicemails they’d collected.

“This photograph must reveal something so important that someone is desperate to keep it a secret,” Joona says, as he takes out a marker and begins to write a timeline on the largest flip chart.

“Right,” Erixson answers.

“Let’s just stop him by finding this photo,” Joona says.

06:40 Penelope takes a taxi from her apartment

06:45 Björn arrives at Penelope’s apartment

06:48 Björn leaves the apartment with the photograph

07:07 Björn posts the photograph from the Pressbyrån at Central Station

Erixson rolls up to look carefully at each point while he peels the wrapper and foil from a chocolate bar.

“Penelope Fernandez leaves the television studio and calls Björn ten minutes later,” he says, pointing to the list with the phone calls. Her strip of transportation coupons is stamped ten thirty. Her little sister, Viola, calls Penelope at ten forty-five. Penelope is probably already with Björn at the marina on Långholmen.”

“But what does Björn do in the meanwhile?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Erixson says contentedly and cleans his fingers with a white handkerchief.

Erixson rolls his wheelchair along the wall and points to another strip of transportation coupons.

“Björn leaves Penelope’s apartment with the photograph. He takes the underground and at seven minutes after seven he buys the envelope and two stamps.”

“And posts the letter,” says Joona.

Erixson clears his throat and continues. “The next piece of evidence is a transaction on his Visa card. He pays twenty crowns to Dreambow Internet Café on Vattugatan at seven thirty-five.”

“Five minutes after seven thirty,” Joona says as he writes this on the chronology.

“Where in the hell is Vattugatan?”

“It’s a fairly small street,” Joona says. “It’s in the old Klara Quarter.”

Erixson nods and continues. “I’m guessing that Björn continues on the same stamp to Fridhemsplan. After that we have a phone call from his landline in his apartment. It was an unanswered call to his father, Greger Almskog.”

“We’ll have to ask his father about it.”

“The next piece of evidence is a new stamp on the coupon strip for nine o’clock. Apparently, he took the number 4 bus from Fridhemsplan to Högalindsgatan on Södermalm. From there he went to the boat at Långholmen Harbour.”

Joona fills in the last notes on his paper and then steps back to take a good look at the timeline of that morning.

“So Björn is in a real hurry to get that photograph,” Erixson says. “But he doesn’t want to run into Penelope so he waits until she’s left, rushes inside, takes it off the glass pane, leaves the apartment, and heads to Central Station.”

“I want to look at all the security tapes,” says Joona.

“After that, Björn heads to a nearby internet café, stays there about half an hour at most, and then goes—”

“That’s it,” Joona says.

“What’s it?”

“Both Björn and Penelope already have internet access at home.”

“So why’d he go to an internet café?”

“I’ll head there now,” Joona says, already walking out of the room.

Detective Inspector Joona Linna turns onto Vattugatan from Brunkeberg Square behind the City Theatre. He parks, gets out, and hurries through an anonymous metal door and down a steep cement walkway.

It’s quiet at the Dreambow Internet Café. The floor has been freshly scrubbed. The scent of lemon and plastic hangs in the air. Shiny Plexiglas chairs have been pushed below the small computer tables. Nothing moves except the patterns on the monitors. A plump man with a pointed black goatee leans against a high counter, sipping coffee from a mug with the inscription ‘Lennart means Lion.’ His jeans are baggy and a shoelace hangs untied from one of his Reeboks.

“I need a computer,” Joona says before he’s even reached the man.

“Get in line,” the man jokes as he makes a sweeping gesture towards the empty seats in the room.

“I need a specific computer,” Joona continues. “A friend of mine was here last Friday morning and I need to use the same computer he did.”

“I don’t know if I can give out—”

Joona bends over and ties the man’s loose lace. “It’s extremely important.”

“Let me take a look at Friday’s log,” the man says, an embarrassed flush coming to his cheeks. “What’s his name?”

“Björn Almskog,” Joona says.

“He used number five, the one in the corner,” the man says. “I need to see your ID.”

Joona hands over his police ID, and the man looks confused as he writes it all down in the log.

“Go ahead and start surfing.”

“Thanks,” Joona says in a friendly way as he walks over to computer number 5.

Joona takes out his mobile phone and places a call to Johan Jönson, a young man in the CID’s department for cyber crimes.

“Just a mo,” answers a ragged voice. “I’ve just swallowed a piece of paper … an old tissue … I blew my nose and at the same time breathed in to sneeze and … no, I really don’t have the energy to explain everything. Who am I talking to?”

“Joona Linna, detective inspector with the National Criminal Investigation Department.”

“Oh, damn. Hi, Joona, what a surprise.”

“You’re already sounding better.”

“Yes, I’ve swallowed it.”

“I need to see what a guy was doing on a computer last Friday.”

“Say no more!”

“I’m in a hurry. I’m sitting in an internet café.”

“Are you on the same machine he used?”

“Right in front of me.”

“Much easier. Much easier. Try to find History. It’s probably been erased. That’s what they do after each user, but there’s always something left on the hard drive. All you have to do is … or really, the best thing to do is to take the thing away and bring it along to me so I can go through the hard drive with a program I’ve designed for—”

“Meet me in a half an hour in the meditation room at Saint Göran’s Hospital,” Joona says as he unplugs the computer, takes it under his arm, and heads towards the exit.

The man with the coffee mug stares at him, astonished, and tries to block him.

“Hey, wait! The computer can’t leave the premises!”

“It’s under arrest,” Joona says in his friendliest manner.

“What’s it suspected of?”

The man’s pale face stares at Joona as Joona waves at him with his free hand and walks out into the bright sunshine.

The car park in front of Saint Göran’s Hospital is hot and the air is thick and muggy.

Inside the meditation room, Erixson easily manoeuvres his wheelchair around what has truly been converted into a base of operations. Erixson has accumulated three phones, which now all ring at once.

Joona carries in the computer and puts it on a chair. Johan Jönson is already there. He looks about twenty-five years old. He wears an ill-fitting black tracksuit, has a shaved head and thick eyebrows that grow straight across his face. He comes up to Joona shyly. He shrugs off the shoulder strap of his red computer bag, and shakes Joona’s hand.

“
Ei saa piettää
,” he says, while he pulls out a thin laptop. Erixson pours some Fanta from his thermos into small, unbleached paper cups.

“Usually I put the hard disk in the freezer for a few hours if it’s wobbly,” Johan says. “Then I plug in an ATA/SATA contact. Everyone has a different method. I have a pal over at Ibas who uses RDR and he doesn’t even meet his clients in person—he just sends all the shit over an encrypted phone line. Usually you can save most stuff, but I don’t want to just get most of it—I want it all! That’s my way, getting each and every crumb, and then you need a program like Hanger 18 …”

Johan Jönson throws his head back and pretends to laugh like a mad scientist: “MWA-HA-HAH!”

“I’ve written it myself,” he continues. “It works like a digital vacuum cleaner. It picks up everything and arranges it according to time down to every microsecond.”

He sits down on the altar rail and connects the two computers. His own computer clicks faintly. Typing commands at a furious pace, he studies his screen, scrolls down, reads some more, and types in a new set.

“Is this going to take a while?” Joona asks after a few minutes.

“Who knows?” Johan replies. “Not more than a month.”

Johan swears to himself and writes a new command and then observes the blinking numbers.

“I’m just joking,” he says.

“I realised that.”

“In about fifteen minutes we’ll know how much can be retrieved,” Johan continues. He looks down at the piece of paper where Joona has written the time and date for Björn Almskog’s café visit.

“The history is usually erased in batches, which can be difficult …”

Fragments of old graphics pass over the sun-bleached screen. Johan shoves a piece of snuff under his lip without paying any attention to it. He wipes his hands on his trousers and waits with half his attention on the screen.

“They’ve done a good job cleaning this one,” he says. “But you can’t erase everything. There are no secrets anymore … Hanger 18 finds places no one knows exist.”

Johan’s computer begins to beep and he writes something down as he reads through a long table of numbers. He writes something else and the beeping stops at once.

“What’s that?” Joona asks.

“Not much. It’s just hard to get through all the modern firewalls, sandboxes, and faked virus protection. It’s amazing that a computer can even work at all with all these preventive measures.”

Johan shakes his head and licks a bit of snuff away from his upper lip.

“I’ve never even had one antivirus program and—hey, look out.” He interrupts his own lecture.

Joona comes closer to look over Johan’s shoulder.

“What do we have here? What do we have here?” Johan says in a singsong voice.

He leans back and rubs his neck as he starts writing with his other hand. He presses enter and smiles to himself.

“Here we are.”

Joona and Erixson stare at the screen.

“Just give me a second … this is not easy. It’s coming out in small bits and fragments.”

Johan hides the screen with his hand and waits. Slowly letters and pieces of graphics appear.

“Look here, the door’s opening … now we’ll be able to see what Björn Almskog was up to.”

Erixson puts the brakes on his wheelchair and leans far forward so that he can see the screen.

“Damn it all, this is just a few dashes,” he says.

“Look in the corner.”

“Okay. He’s used Windows,” Erixson says. “Very original.”

“Hotmail,” Joona says.

“Logging in,” says Johan Jönson.

“Now things are getting interesting,” says Erixson.

“Can you see a name?” Joona asks.

“It doesn’t work like that; you can only move through time,” Johan says as he scrolls down.

“What’s that?” Joona points.

“Now we’re in the folder for sent mail.”

“Did he send something?”

On the screen there are graphic fragments of advertisements for cheap trips to Milano, New Y k, Lo dn, P ris. Farthest down in the corner, a light grey tiny number, a time: 07:44:42 a.m.

“Here we have something,” says Johan Jönson.

Other fragments are appearing on his screen:

“Ads to connect with people.” Erixson grins. “I’ve tried those, and they never work …”

He falls silent at once. Johan has carefully scrolled past incomprehensible graphic garbage and stops. He pushes back from his machine with a big grin.

Joona takes his spot and peers at the monitor to read what’s at the centre of the screen:

Joona feels hair rising on the back of his neck.
Palmcrona
, he thinks again and again as he writes down what he sees on the screen. He tries to think clearly and breathe calmly. The small stab of an oncoming migraine comes and then goes.

Erixson stares at the screen and swears to himself.

“Are you absolutely sure Björn Almskog wrote this?” Joona asks.

“No doubt about it,” replies Johan Jönson.

“Absolutely sure?”

“If he was at this computer at this point in time, he wrote this e-mail.”

“So it is definitely from him,” Joona tells himself, wanting to make sure, but his thoughts already zoom away.

“What the fuck,” Erixson whispers.

Johan Jönson scans the address field fragments scattered over the screen: “[email protected].” He drinks Fanta straight out of the thermos. Erixson leans back into his wheelchair and closes his eyes for a moment.

“Palmcrona,” murmurs Joona again, his voice tense in concentration.

“This is fucking crazy,” Erixson says. “What the hell does Carl Palmcrona have to do with all this?”

Joona silently walks out the door, concentrating on his thoughts and leaving his colleagues behind. He walks quickly down the stairs and out of the hospital into strong sunshine. He hurries across the car park to his black car.

Joona Linna heads straight to Carlos’s office, full of the news about Carl Palmcrona. To his surprise, the door to Carlos’s office is wide open. Carlos is looking out the window.

“She’s still standing there,” he says.

“Who?”

“The mother of those girls.”

“You mean Claudia Fernandez?” Joona asks as, in turn, he goes to look out the window.

“She’s been standing there for an entire hour.”

Joona can’t see her. A father in a dark blue suit is walking past. He’s wearing a king’s crown on his head and holding the hand of a little girl dressed in a pink princess dress. But then, almost directly across from the National Police Board, he sees a slumped woman next to a dirty Mazda pickup truck. It’s Claudia, staring intently at the foyer of the police building.