The Other Son (29 page)

Tommy Jansson could talk to anyone. He regarded this as one of his greatest skills.

And now he was talking to the branch manager of the bank where Lars Shitstain Vinge had his account.

Tommy was so damn good at talking that the bank manager didn't even question the right of a police officer, simply by flashing his ID, to look through the bank's customers' transactions without either a warrant or any other appropriate documentation.

Tommy discovered that Lars Vinge had opened his safe-deposit box the previous day, was told the time, and was given access to the security footage for the time in question.

Miles Ingmarsson, seen from above, in black and white, standing there confidently, talking to the cashier.

Tommy stared at the picture as one of the nerves in his left eye began to twitch.

Tommy drove through
the city toward Miles's place, drinking gin and tonic from a take-out cup.

Miles Ingmarsson's front
door had seen better days. Easier to smash in than open with a lockpick. Tommy broke the lock with a crowbar. The door flew open and he stepped into the hall, shut the battered door behind him, and listened in silence—nothing but faint clicking sounds from small movements in the walls and floor of the old building.

Tommy worked quickly, like a burglar, going through every room. The kitchen, living room, bedroom, study, bathroom, hall, then back to the living room. He searched everywhere, cleared everything out onto the floor.

He was out of breath by the time he finished. Standing there in the middle of the mess, he looked around. He hadn't found any trace of what he was looking for.

The USB memory stick in Lars Vinge's sports bag contained audio files. Antonia listened to them on her cordless headphones. They were surveillance recordings of Sophie Brinkmann at her house in the suburbs…a dead loss. Nothing but pointless, everyday conversations between Sophie and her son, Albert. A few telephone calls. Nothing that stood out in any way.

Antonia went through the pictures again, one at a time—Sophie Brinkmann at close quarters, in various situations.

She had been scrupulously observed.
Why?

The other material was scattered across the floor and she tried to piece everything together, all the while with the audio files playing on her headphones.

A different sound from somewhere. She lifted one side of the headphones. The doorbell was ringing insistently and monotonously out in the hall.

Through the spyhole, Tommy Jansson looked rough. He was standing out in the stairwell looking down at his shoes. He leaned forward and pressed the bell again, staring right at her.

Fear cut through Antonia and she took a step back. She didn't know why Tommy was standing outside her door…yet somehow she did know.

Antonia backed away silently. The doorbell rang several more times. She tried to think; should she open the door? She tried to think of something…come up with a lie, some sort of explanation for Tommy….

The next sound she heard outside the door was quiet—a rasping, clicking sound. Tommy was trying to pick her lock.

Antonia had no time to lose. She hurried into the living room. There were photographs and notes spread out across the parquet floor, and she gathered everything together with her arms and stuffed it all into the sports bag. The lockpick was working quickly outside the door.

A loud tug at the door handle, but the door didn't budge, and the clicking continued.

Antonia tried to gather the papers, storage devices, printed photographs, notebooks, and all the other things she had found.

She thought she was going to die of the paralyzing fear that took hold of her as the door opened and she heard Tommy Jansson break into her home.

Picking up Lars Vinge's sports bag and her computer, Antonia crept out of the living room. Tommy's footsteps were close.

She didn't have time to think clearly; there was only one place she could hide.

Antonia made her way quickly and quietly into the kitchen. She saw an old cupboard turned into a pantry, no door, just a curtain across the front, and she had just tucked herself inside it when Tommy Jansson stomped into the kitchen. Antonia didn't move, didn't breathe. He stopped just a couple of meters away from her on the other side of the curtain. She could hear him breathing, and could smell stale alcohol.

Then he left the kitchen and went into the living room. Antonia heard him searching as things fell to the floor and furniture was turned upside down.

Antonia was trapped. The only way out was through the living room. She waited. Her pistol was in her handbag, hanging in the hall behind her jacket.

Then everything was silent. Completely silent. Had he gone? New sounds, loud. From her bedroom. Cupboards and drawers being opened, Tommy acting like a burglar.

She stepped out from behind the curtain and started to walk through the kitchen, passing her bedroom where, from the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of her boss tugging at her bedclothes with his back to her.

She carried on, out into the hall, grabbing her jacket and handbag on the way, went on out through the half-open front door and down the stairs, outside through the rear exit, and then turned right, the whole time expecting to hear a voice behind her shouting at her to stop. But there was no voice. She dropped her cell phone in a trash can, left her car standing in the street, and kept on walking fast. She didn't look back. After a while she realized that she wasn't wearing any shoes, and was walking in just her socks.

Antonia waved down a taxi, sank into the backseat, then gave the driver the address of Ulf's apartment out in Sundbyberg.

He wasn't home. She sat down to wait on the stairs, clutching the sports bag on her lap.

Tommy drove through the city. There was a picture of a face on the seat next to him, a woman's face. He'd found a printout in Antonia Miller's living room, under an armchair. He wouldn't have spotted it if he hadn't put his head down on the floor. It was a printout of a photograph. He recognized it immediately. It, along with plenty more, had been in a sports bag that Lars Vinge had handed to him at Mariatorget last summer. It was Sophie Brinkmann, the nurse Gunilla had tried to use to infiltrate Hector Guzman's network…one of many pictures of her.

Tommy had finally made sense of everything. Lars Vinge, the idiot, had made copies of everything and put them in his safe-deposit box. Miles Ingmarsson had taken them out using a fake ID, and had passed them to that bitch, Antonia Miller.

Vanessa's tree-hugging boyfriend,
the cocksucking ethnologist Mattias, was sitting in Tommy's armchair in the living room, being a twat and reading a book. There was clattering from the kitchen, Vanessa and Emelie helping their mother.

Tommy stood in the doorway. Mattias felt his presence and looked up.

“Hi,” the little Communist bastard said.

Tommy didn't answer, just nodded, barely perceptibly.

Mattias held up a paperback book.

“I found this in the bookcase.”

Tommy squinted.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
. One of Monica's books.

“Oh?”

“It's about a guy who's paralyzed, he's got Locked-in Syndrome.”

Tommy glared at the slack-limbed boy. No muscle on him, which was presumably why he had to emphasize how clever he was. Difficult books evidently were part of all that.

Tommy didn't move. Mattias grew uncertain.

“It's quite interesting,” he said, then buried himself in the book again.

“Why aren't you helping in the kitchen?”

“They said they didn't need me.”

“They said that?”

Mattias nodded.

“Word for word?”

Mattias didn't answer.

“So you came and sat down here, in my armchair?”

“Yes?”

“It's a bit early to be taking over, don't you think?”

Tommy walked out.

He heard Mattias chuckling behind him.