Siren Song: A Different Scandinavian Crime Novel (21 page)

Lena enters the ladies-only bathroom, closes the door behind her, and sighs. A brief breathing pause. Silence and cold water to sharpen her thoughts. When she feels a little more awake, she will head back to the office and wait for the techs to trace the mysterious phone. They have an hour; after that, she will take to the streets and walk while she awaits the call. The office is slowly suffocating her.

The bathroom is a tiled corridor with six stalls along the left wall and a row of porcelain sinks on the right. A long mirror above the sinks reflects the yellowish light from the fluorescent tubes high above. At the far end of the corridor, opposite the door, is a large frosted window that overlooks a landscape of rooftops. In a corner of the ceiling is a small air vent, humming softly. She is alone; the doors to all the stalls are open.

Grimacing at the smell of disinfectants, she walks past the stalls and locks herself inside the last one. The blue T-shirt she has brought smells of dust, but it is dry and clean. Sweat, dirt and spots of blood stain the one she wears.

She takes off her shirt and slips into the T-shirt, wishing thoughts were as easy to swap. If they were, she would change her loop of anguish for the measured clarity that people expect from her. Not for the first time, she considers suggesting to Gren that Agnes could take over her role, and normal recruitment protocols be damned. Gren wants Lena in proper rehabilitation anyway. He may welcome the chance for a smooth transition.

The door to the bathroom opens and closes, and someone occupies the stall next to her, making only enough noise for Lena to know someone is using it. So much for a moment of privacy.

She takes her shirt under her arm, leaves her stall, and turns to the mirror in an effort to put her hair up. Pulling her hair back so hard she winces, she winds the elastic band hard around the tangled mass and studies her face in the mirror. Pasty skin, dirt on her forehead, bags under her eyes so dark she could have been in a fight. No wonder people fussed.

She needs more sleep, but that has to wait until John is found, brought in, sedated, and locked up. He has thrown the lid to her box of secrets open, and the contents are seeping out, making themselves known in her actions and words, even her face. Unless she finds John, he will destroy them both.

Breathing out, she cranes her neck and walks towards the exit, her dirty shirt clenched in her fist.

You were right
, a male voice whispers.

Lena stops, frowns, and turns around. The voice was so hushed she barely caught the words. The stall adjacent to the one she used is still occupied, but she is sure the voice belonged to a man. No men use the ladies bathroom here.

Walking down the bathroom, she checks the other stalls. All empty. She shakes her head and takes another step towards the exit.

There is a place for people like us
, the voice whispers again.
A prison. A dead end. A home
. Childish but deep, the voice trembles as if on the verge of laughter.

She walks back, slowly, until she faces the closed stall. Behind the door is a man, in the women’s bathroom, whispering nonsense, raving to himself or someone on a phone.

Staring at the door, she tries to picture the man inside, but the notion feels contrived and false. The space where the vision would fit is already taken by another, more alarming sensation. Sweat trickles down her back again. The hum from the air vent seems to grow louder.

Do you understand the world now?
The voice sighs.
You have lived like a bug on its surface, never crawled inside it. Until today.

Lena backs away from the closed stall until her back is against the sink. Her eyes are fixed on the door. The voice is familiar: it belongs to a face that hovers on the threshold of her awareness, refusing to come into focus.

“Can I help you?” Lena demands in a weak voice.

Oh, but the chance to help has come and gone. It’s too late for me, too late for him, and much too late for you.

“I haven’t got time for this shit. If you want to–”

Such a swift journey,
the voice giggles.
A pull, a slip and a twitch, and here we are. We bought the ticket, you and I, and we took the ride. We went all the way down. I just went a little faster than you.

Finally, Lena recognises the voice. She drops her shirt and grips the sink so hard one of her fingernails cracks in half. Her eyes are so wide they fill with tears.

The voice laughs.
Is that disbelief on your face? How pathetic. Did you think your badge would save you? That a lacquer of virtue could hold the real you in a cage?

Inside the stall is the paedophile she shot in the botched raid.

The first and last time she heard that voice, it accused her for bursting into its private domain of abuse and misery. She shut it up with a bullet sent straight through the man’s words.

Your moral high ground can’t keep your feet dry,
the voice continues.
There’s no stopping the flood, and it has come to wash you away.

“Never,” Lena whispers.

We’re together at last. Didn’t you know?
A burst of dry laughter.
Of course you don’t. You’ve never looked.
The voice gains in strength and makes the closed door shudder.
You never. Fucking. Looked
.

Panic closes in on Lena. This is a wind-up, an illusion, a nightmare reinforced by fatigue and fear. She has fallen asleep in the stall or at her desk, accidentally letting the demons in to taunt her. Still, her senses tell her otherwise. The sink is icy cold against her skin, the pain from her broken fingernail hot and vivid. The voice is real.

“Shut up.” Lena’s voice is a coarse murmur.

You ought to thank me. I’ve showed you what you’ve forgotten, or tried to forget.

“Go away.” Her mouth is parched, her lungs empty. She swallows and draws a haggard breath. “You’re not real.”

I pulled your curtains of pretty ideals apart.

A pause, followed by long, wheezing laughter.

How do you like the view?

At last, Lena snaps. Adrenaline fountains like wildfire in her limbs. She has to look inside the stall, and when she does, she will see a man whose face she will ruin for pulling off this psychotic prank.

There is no slit under the door; the only way to see who hides in the stall is to peek over its walls, which means standing on the toilet in one of the adjacent stalls. She cannot will herself to do that, so instead she takes a step back and kicks the door with all her strength.

The thin door cracks down the middle with a sharp
pang
that makes her ears ring. Splinters and chipped wood explode into the stall. One part of the door remains hanging askew on a hinge while the other half falls down onto the tiled floor.

The stall is empty.

Standing in the doorway with her fists balled, she blinks with watering eyes into the stall. Toilet, brush, toilet roll, coat hanger. No man. The voice is gone. The small vacant space is a void where something had been a second ago.

She stumbles back to the sink, slumps down onto the floor, and rests her head in her hands, still keeping an eye on the stall. There is nowhere to hide or escape, but she did hear the words, every drawled syllable. It was not a hallucination.

Wiping away her tears, she coughs and bites back a sob. She cannot crack now. Not before she has found John. If she is destined to lose her sanity, she will do so only when the chase is over. Perhaps her saneness is not an essence she can keep bottled up by will alone, but she will try.

Slowly, she rises from the floor, picks up her shirt, and looks at the destroyed stall. Her breathing is shallow and rapid.

She gives the stall the finger, and leaves the bathroom.

*

Agnes is waiting by Lena’s desk. In her hand is a paper, but she lowers it as Lena approaches.

“Are you okay?” Agnes asks. “Someone just said they heard a crash from the ladies’ room.” She frowns at Lena’s torn fingernail. “Is that blood?”

“The door was stuck. I broke it. Remind me to tell the janitor.” Lena pulls a Band-Aid from a green plastic first-aid kit on the wall. “What is that in your hand?” she asks. “News?”

Agnes nods. “The phone is an anonymous prepaid account, but they got a good approximate location. It’s on the system.” She uses Lena’s computer to open up the map.

A thumbnail-sized shadowed circle in the middle of the city marks the supposed location of the phone. The circle covers four blocks. There will be hundreds, if not thousands of people inside the area.

“We’re lucky,” Agnes continues. “The phone is in the city, so it was easy to triangulate.”

“Great.” Lena inspects her bandaged finger. “Have they got a call log for that phone?”

“It’s on the system.”

Lena sits down to open the file on her computer, but her hands shake so much she cannot type. Before she can say anything, Agnes leans over and uses Lena’s mouse.

“Here.” Agnes runs a finger down the list of incoming calls on the screen. “That’s Niklas’s number, third from the bottom.”

Lena nods and puts her hands in her lap to stop them from trembling. She hopes Agnes has not noticed how unsettled she is. “Let’s check all calls he made and received today and yesterday,” she says. “Names, addresses for the landlines.”

“I thought you would want to do that.” Agnes moves the mouse and clicks. “Here. Eighteen calls, eleven to landlines.”

Lena reads through the names and addresses of the landline phones that had called the anonymous mobile. This time, they were less lucky; the locations are across the entire city. She reads through the list again. “Fourth and eight addresses,” she says. “Tobias Fryklund, Farsta, and Tom Lundberg in Bromma. One south, one west.”

“You think one of them is him?”

“Their names start with T. It’s a far shot, but worth testing.” Lena enters one of the names in a criminal record search and shakes her head.

“Tobias was nabbed for bike theft at the age of fifteen, and that’s that. It was also last year. Let’s try Tom.”

Lena expects a similar, useless record, but when the result whisks onto the screen, she raises her eyebrows. “No recent activity,” she reads out loud, “but he’s got a string of old charges for minor possession of illegal substances, eight in total.” She scrolls down. “He has also been in court for one charge of assault and fraud, and he did time in a juvenile prison. There’s also a recent suspicion of tax evasion. No convictions, though.”

“What do you think?” Agnes asks.

“Look at that.” Lena points to another window. “He’s filthy rich, too. I think Tom’s our man.”

“Do you want to bring him in? I can call the prosecutor.”

“What I want,” Lena says quietly while she browses Tom’s details, “is to get everyone on the streets and scour the damn city for a trace of John. This is a good lead if we want to nail Tom for dealing, but we haven’t got time for that. We need to make sure every taxi driver has a picture of John. He’s running on empty now. John must be a wreck, and he must look like one too.”

“Understood,” Agnes says. “We can alert coaches and the national railway as well, in case John tries to leave Stockholm.”

“Good idea. I don’t want to take any chances with either of the two. We might as well talk to the airports too, and ask them to raise their alert.”

“Do you think Gren will authorize it?”

“He’ll agree after I’ve called them. Meanwhile, you can look up the call logs for Tom’s landline.”

Lena looks up the number to the national railways administration. Getting train staff and bus drivers involved means more people looking, and John will surface somewhere. The more eyes that search for him, the quicker she will know.

Someone will spot him. Someone must. She refuses to be shoved back to square one. They are tracing a bomb that should have gone off long ago.

She busies herself with filling out the necessary forms and makes a mental note to contact the search patrols again. After that, she will ask the forensic team if they found anything useful in the flat on their second visit.

Just as she submits the form, Agnes materializes by her side.

“I got the call logs like you asked me to,” Agnes says.

“And?”

“I found something.”

“Yes?” Lena motions for Agnes to continue.

“It’s the call log from Tom’s landline. A call was made to Tom’s landline from a phone booth in Hässelby Gård, only minutes before someone at Tom’s home called the mobile phone we traced in the city.”

“Are you sure?” Lena asks. “What time was the call made?”

“About an hour after John was spotted in Hässelby.”

Lena looks at Agnes. Thoughts and suspicions fly through her head, and she struggles to separate wishes borne by hope from conclusion based on logic.

“Anyone who’s got the number to Tom’s landline,” Lena says, “can have Tom’s mobile phone number too.” Still, the timing disturbs her. Even if it had been one of Tom’s friends who called, the message could have been related to John.

To find out who called Tom’s landline, they have to ask the person who answered the call. Lena dials the landline number and waits while the phone rings on the other end.

“Marie,” a sleepy woman’s voice answers.

Lena moves to activate the phone’s loudspeaker but changes her mind. “This is detective Lena Franke from the
Stockholm
County
Police
Department,” she says. “We would like your help with a few brief questions. Thank you for taking your time.”

“I don’t–”

“You received a phone call at twenty to eleven this morning. We require the full name of the person who called you.” Lena does not know if the woman on the other end took the call in question, but she hopes so. And if she does not cooperate, there are more suspicions she can test.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The woman’s voice has gone from sleepy to tense in the space of a few seconds. “How do I even know you’re the police?”

Lena wonders if people often called the woman and pretended they were someone else. She opts for some mild coercion.

“If you have a number display,” Lena says mildly, “you will see that this call comes from the police department’s exchange. Feel free to look up the number at your own leisure. If you’re still in doubt, we’re more than happy to come visit you.”

“No, wait. I just–”

“There is a patrol car close to where you are, but we would rather do this over the phone to save time. It’s your call.” The effort of polished formality makes Lena cringe, but she needs to play this straight. The woman will not want police officers in her home, and the more formal Lena sounds, the more she tightens the vice. Given the things found in Mick’s flat, Tom’s home will be turned upside down at some point anyway.

When the woman on the other end speaks again, she sounds fraught. “I don’t have anything – shit, what has he done – look, can I call you back?”

“Absolutely, but there is no need. I’ll send the officers up instead. They won’t be a minute. Thank you for your–”

“No, wait. Hold on. What was it you wanted to know?”

“The full name of the person who called you at twenty to eleven this morning. And that person’s residential address, if you know it.”

“Let me think.” A short pause. “I remember now. There was a man who called and asked for Tom. I told him Tom was still at the office. They had a big party yesterday. Tom always stays there when he’s hung over,” the woman explains with a note of hysteria in her voice.

“What was this man’s name?” Lena asks.

“I don’t know,” the woman on the phone says. “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve never seen the number before. He didn’t even know the name of Tom’s company. It’s Lundberg Invest, but the guy who rang called it something else, like he was guessing.”

Lena sits up straighter. “Are you suggesting that the man who called wasn’t one of Tom’s friends?”

“I thought he was. He never said so, though.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He thanked me for helping him. Sounded kind of weird, now that you ask.”

“What did his voice sound like?”

“Not sure. Not young. Not old either. A bit stiff.”

Lena stares into the distance. The room grows glacially cold.

“Hello?” the woman on the phone bleats nervously. “Are you still there? Are we done?”

Lena does not reply. She recalls what she thought when she stood outside Mick’s flat: after what John had done there, he would want to get as far away as possible from the police, do anything to avoid getting caught, but also that he was not done.

A cold wave washes through her as she realises she was right. He was not done. John is still on the hunt.

“Did you give John the name of Tom’s company?” Lena asks the woman weakly, hoping the answer would be no.

“Who’s John?”

“Did you tell the man who rang you where Tom is?” Lena shouts.

“Jesus Christ, please calm down. Yes, I did. That’s hardly a crime, is it?”

Lena slams the phone down and turns to Agnes. “Get the call log from that phone booth.” Her throat hurts when she speaks.

While Agnes calls the telephone network, Lena turns to her computer and searches for Lundberg Invest. She finds the address: near Stureplan, right in the middle of Stockholm’s fashion and banking district. An expensive office address. The pieces come together. She looks up the address on a map, and as she dreads, the address is exactly in the spot where Tom’s mobile phone has been traced.

Agnes scribbles on a notepad, hangs up, and turns to Lena.

“Another call was made from the booth,” Agnes says. “Just after the call to Tom’s landline. It was to an office in the city.”

“This one?” Lena points to the screen where the address is highlighted on a map. Her heartbeats are a rising thunder in her head. The police office is quiet; everyone is watching her.

“That’s the one,” Agnes says. “Do you think it’s John?”

“I know it’s him.”

“How–”

“I just know.” She rises from the chair so fast it falls over. So many things she needs to do, all of them screaming for attention. “Agnes, call that office and tell them to lock all their doors and stay there. Nobody leaves until we get there. If they ask why, say there’s been a robbery next door.”

While Agnes calls, Lena points at a colleague and then at her own computer screen. “Get every damn available car to this address. The suspect might be present and violent.”

The officer nods and springs into action; the rumour of what Lena encountered at Mick’s flat has spread.

Lena snatches her jacket from the back of her chair and runs towards the door. As she runs, she touches her gun waiting in its holster like a patient promise.

Just as she exits the room, Agnes catches up with her, and the two women jog down the corridor side by side, towards the elevators.

“There was no answer at the office,” Agnes says. “Not even an answering machine.”

“Damn it,” Lena says under her breath and turns a corner. “It’s John. He’s there.”

“Do you want me to call Gren?” Agnes asks.

“I’ll do that,” Lena replies. “As soon as we’re in the car.”

Less than a minute later, Lena and Agnes shoot out of the garage and into the white afternoon.

Three other police cars follow them from the garage. Snow drizzles down from the grey sky and reduces their sight to only a block ahead.

Agnes turns right, skids up on the pavement, swerves back on the road, and continues around an empty park on a hill. Lena turns the siren on and gets her safety belt on. A moment later, one of their side view mirrors smacks into a parked truck and cracks. Until today, Agnes has always driven as she has acted: cool, gentle and controlled. This rough, reckless driving is new, and possibly lethal.

“Sorry.” Agnes’s hands grip the steering wheel hard. “I’m nervous.”

Lena’s phone rings while they turn another corner and continue downtown.

“Franke,” she answers while the city rushes past the window. Unless they slow down, they might not survive the short trip.

“This is Gren. Where are you?”

“I was just about to call,” Lena says. “We’re on our way to an office near Stureplan, and–”

“I know,” Gren says. “I came in to the headquarters just after you left. Why do you think John is heading to this office?”

“It’s complicated.” Lena holds on to her seat while Agnes turns a corner and guns the car down a sloping street. “But it’s not a wild guess. I promise.”

“The Piket group are on their way too. They’ll probably be there before you.”

Lena makes a disgusted sound. Bringing in the police’s heavily armed response team makes sense, but the presence of more officers could cause John to run or send him deeper into his escalating madness.