The Nightmare (31 page)

“I think I found something,” he says simply.

They walk to the high window nook and Pollock undoes the clasp and opens the leather folder.

“What do we have here?” Kofoed whispers reverently.

Pollock lifts up the thin cover page with these few words on it:
Carl Palmcrona’s Last Will and Testament.

They read it in silence. The document is dated March 3, three years earlier. Palmcrona has bequeathed all he owns to one person: Stefan Bergkvist.

“Who the hell is Stefan Bergkvist?” asks Kofoed after they’ve finished reading. “Palmcrona has no relatives, and no friends either as far as I’ve found out.”

“Stefan Bergkvist lives in Västerås … at least when this was written,” Pollock says. “His address is Rekylgatan 11 and—”

Pollock stops and looks up.

“He’s still a kid. According to his personal registration number, he’s just sixteen right now.”

The will had been drawn up by Palmcrona’s lawyer at the firm of Wieselgreen and Sons. Pollock flips through the appendices that list Palmcrona’s property. “There are four pension funds; one forest property, leased, of only two hectares; a partitioned farm in Sörmland, also on long-term lease; and the high-priced condominium on Grevgatan 2. The really large inheritance seems to be in a bank account at Standard Chartered Bank on the island of Jersey. Palmcrona sets its value at nine million euros.”

“It looks like Stefan has become a wealthy kid,” Pollock says.

“Yes indeed.”

“But why? What’s the connection?”

Tommy shrugs. “Who knows? Some people give everything to their dogs or their gym trainer.”

“I’m going to call him.”

“You mean, call the boy?”

“What else do you suggest?”

Nathan Pollock picks up his phone and taps in a number, asks to be connected to Stefan Bergkvist, living at Rekylgatan 11 in Västerås. He finds out that there is a Siv Bergkvist at the same address and guesses this is the boy’s mother. Nathan looks out the window at the pounding rain and the gutters flowing over.

“Siv Bergkvist,” a woman answers in a broken-sounding voice.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I’m a criminal investigator. Are you the mother of Stefan Bergkvist?”

“Yes,” she says in a whisper.

“May I speak to him?”

“What?”

“Please don’t worry. I just need to ask him—”

“Go straight to hell!” she screams and slams down the phone.

Pollock redials the number but no one answers. He looks out the window, down at the road shining in the rain, and dials yet again.

“Micke here,” a man’s voice says in a reserved tone.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I—”

“What do you want?”

Nathan hears the woman sobbing in the background. She says something to the man and he tells her he can take care of it.

“No, let me,” she says.

Steps are heard as the telephone is handed over.

“Hello,” the woman says softly.

“I really need—”

“Stefan is dead!” she screams shrilly. “You say you are a police officer and yet you say you need to talk to him! Why are you torturing me? It’s just too much…”

She’s sobbing into the receiver. Something crashes to the floor in the background.

“I’m so sorry,” Pollock says softly. “I didn’t know. I—”

“I can’t take it any longer!” she sobs. “I can’t!”

Steps are heard again and the man takes up the phone.

“This is enough,” he says.

“Please wait a moment,” Pollock says quickly. “Please tell me what happened. It’s important…”

Tommy Kofoed, who has been catching Pollock’s side of the conversation, sees him listen intently, then turn pale and run his hand over his silver ponytail.

59

when life gains meaning

Officers have gathered in the hallway of police headquarters until it is filled with nervous energy. Everyone waits for the latest reports. First, contact with the Coast Guard boat had been lost; then radio contact with the rescue helicopter had also gone dead.

At CID, Joona stands in his office, reading a postcard that Disa once sent him from a conference in Gotland. “I’m sending along a love letter from a secret admirer. Hugs, Disa.” He guesses that she searched quite a while to find a postcard that would make him shudder so. He bites his lip as he turns the postcard over.
SEX ON THE BEACH
is printed over a picture of a white poodle wearing sunglasses and a pink bikini. The dog lounges in a deck chair and has a red drink beside it.

There’s a knock on his door. Joona’s smile disappears at the expression on Nathan Pollock’s face.

“Carl Palmcrona willed everything he owned to his son,” Nathan starts.

“I thought he had no relatives.”

“His son is dead. He was sixteen years old. It appears there was an accident yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Joona repeats.

“Stefan Bergkvist survived Carl Palmcrona by just three days,” Nathan says softly.

“What happened?”

“I don’t really know. Something about his motorcycle,” Pollock says. “I’ve asked for the preliminary autopsy report—”

“What do you have so far?”

“I’ve talked to his mother several times now. Her name is Siv Bergkvist. She lives with her partner, Micke Johansson. It appears that Siv was a substitute secretary for Palmcrona when he was working at the Fourth Navy Flotilla. They had a short relationship. She became pregnant. When she told him, he wanted her to get an abortion. Siv returned to Västerås instead, had the baby, and never told anyone the name of the father.”

“Did Stefan know that his father was Carl Palmcrona?”

Nathan shakes his head and thinks back on the mother’s words:
I told my son that his pappa was dead, that he had died before my little honeybee was born.

Another knock on the door. Anja walks in and puts a report on the table. It’s still warm from being printed out.

“An accident,” Anja says grimly, without further explanation, and then leaves the room again.

Joona picks up the plastic folder and begins to read the report from the initial technical investigation. Death was not from carbon monoxide poisoning but as a direct result of burns. Before the boy died, his skin had swollen and split as if from deep cuts, and then all the internal musculature shrank. The heat had exploded the skull and the long bones. The coroner had put the cause of death as heat-related hematoma, due to the fact that the blood began to boil between the skull and the hard brain membrane.

“Unpleasant,” Joona mutters.

Basically, nothing was left of the shed where Stefan Bergkvist’s remains were found, which hindered the work of the fire investigators. The shed was now nothing more than a smoldering pyre of ashes, a few blackened pieces of metal, and a charred body in a fetal position next to what had been the door. Police based a preliminary theory of what had happened on the testimony of a single witness: the train engineer who’d called the fire department. He’d seen the burning motorcycle wedged next to the shed. Indications pointed to an accident in which sixteen-year-old Stefan Bergkvist had been trapped inside the old shed when his motorcycle had fallen over and blocked the door. The gas cap was not secure and gasoline had leaked out. The spark that led to the fire was still not accounted for, but the guess was that it was due to a cigarette.

“Palmcrona dies,” Pollock says slowly. “He leaves his entire fortune to his son. Three days later, his son is also dead.”

“Does the inheritance go to the mother, then?” Joona asks.

“Yes.”

In silence they listen to the slow, halting steps in the hallway before Tommy Kofoed comes in.

“I’ve gotten into Palmcrona’s safe,” he says triumphantly. “Only this inside.”

Kofoed holds up a beautifully bound book.

“What is that?” asks Pollock.

“It’s a summary of his life,” Kofoed says. “Very common among the nobility.”

“So a kind of diary?”

Kofoed shrugs.

“Just a simple memoir not really meant for publication. Like a genealogy, it’s meant to pass along another part of the family history. These pages are handwritten. It starts with a family tree and mentions his father’s career and then a boring recitation of his school years, his diplomas, his military service, and his career … He’d made some bad investments and he needed money, so he sells some property and some other possessions. Everything in a very dry manner.”

“What about his son?”

“At first, his relationship with Siv Bergkvist is described, short and sweet, as an ‘unfortunate event,’” Tommy Kofoed answers. He takes a deep breath. “Soon, however, he begins to mention Stefan in his memoirs. All the entries for the past eight years are about his son. He follows his son’s developments from a distance. He knows which school he’s attending, what interests him, who he hangs out with. He says he’s going to build up the inheritance again. It appears that he’s saving everything he has for his son. Finally, he’s decided to contact the boy when he turns eighteen. He hopes that his son will forgive him and that they will be able to get to know each other after all these years. That’s the only thing he cares about … and now, they’re both suddenly dead.”

“What a nightmare,” Pollock mutters.

“What did you say?” Joona looks up.

“I just said, I thought it’s a nightmare come true,” Pollock says, wondering why Joona’s face is suddenly alive. “He does everything he can for his son’s future and then it turns out that his son survives him by only three days. His son never even knew who he was.”

60

a little more time

Beverly is already in his bed when Axel enters the bedroom. He’s gotten only two hours of sleep the night before and now feels a little dizzy with fatigue.

“How long does it take for Evert to drive here?” she asks in a small, clear voice.

“It would take about six hours to get here,” he replies succinctly.

She gets up and starts to the door.

“What are you doing?” Axel asks.

She turns around.

“I thought maybe he’s sitting in the car waiting for me.”

“You know that he doesn’t drive to Stockholm,” Axel says.

“I just want to look out the window and make sure.”

“We can give him a call—should we call him?”

“I’ve already tried,” she says.

Axel reaches out and brushes her cheek with his hand and she sits back down on the edge of the bed.

“Are you tired?” she asks.

“So tired I’m feeling sick,” he replies.

“Do you want me to sleep in your bed tonight?”

“Yes, that would be nice.”

“I believe that Pappa would like to talk to me tomorrow,” she says softly.

Axel nods. “I’m sure it’ll go well tomorrow.”

Her large shining eyes make her look younger than ever.

“Come lie down,” she says. “Lie down so you can sleep, Axel.”

He blinks tiredly at her and then watches her lie down on her side of the bed. Her nightgown smells like freshly washed, pure cotton. As he lies down beside her, he wants to cry. He wants to tell her that he’ll arrange psychiatric help for her. He’ll help her out of this mess. Everything will get better. Everything always gets better.

He slowly clasps one of her upper arms and lays his other arm over her stomach. He hears her squeak as he pulls her closer to him. He presses his face into her neck, breathes moistly against her skin, and holds her tight. After a while, he hears her breathing soften. They lie completely still as their body warmth together brings sweat to their skin, but he does not let go of her.

*   *   *

The next morning Axel is up early. He’s slept for only four hours and his muscles ache. He stands awhile at the window looking out over the dark outlines of the lilac hedge.

When he comes into his new office, he’s still feeling frozen and tired. Yesterday he’d been one second away from signing his name to a dead man’s contract. He would have put his personal honor into the hands of a man who’d hanged himself—trusted the judgment of a suicide and not his own.

He’s glad he decided to wait, but regrets drawing the cartoon on the contract.

He knows he’s obligated to approve the export of ammunition to Kenya in the next few days. He opens the report folder and begins to learn about Sweden’s trade there.

One hour later, the door to Axel Riessen’s office opens and Jörgen Grünlicht comes in. Without a word, he pulls a chair up to the desk and sits down. He opens the folder, takes out the contract, flips to the page where Axel’s signature was supposed to be, and then meets Axel’s eyes.

“Hi,” Axel says quietly.

Jörgen Grünlicht can’t help smiling. The cartoon face with spiky hair does resemble Axel Riessen and in the dialogue bubble from the figure’s mouth the word “Hi!” had been written.

“Hello,” Jörgen says.

“It was just too soon,” Axel explains.

“I understand. I didn’t want to pressure you, even if we’re in a bit of a hurry,” Jörgen says. “The trade minister was on my case again and Silencia Defense is ringing the phone off the hook. Still, I get you, you know. This responsibility is totally new to you and you … want to be especially thorough.”

“That’s right.”

“And that’s a good thing,” he continues. “But you can send the agreement to the government instead if you’re unsure about it.”

“I’m not unsure,” Axel replies. “I’m just not finished. That’s all there is to it.”

“It’s just … from their perspective, things are going unreasonably slowly.”

“I’m putting everything else aside for the moment and so far I can say that everything looks good,” Axel replies. “I’m not telling Silencia Defense to wait before loading the freighter, but I’m just not finished yet.”

“I’ll let all parties involved know you are positive.”

“Go ahead. I mean, if I don’t find anything unusual, it’s just—”

“You won’t. I’ve done all the research myself.”

“Well, then,” Axel says softly.

“I won’t disturb you anymore,” Jörgen says. He gets up from the chair. “Any hint when you think you’ll be ready?”

Axel glances down at the paperwork.

“Count on at least a few days. Maybe I’ll have to look a little more into Kenya first.”