Anders Roslund - Box 21 aka The Vault

Sanna glared at her little brother, making him the target of the bad thoughts she didn’t want to have any more.

Lisa’s hand moved to stroke Sanna’s cheek. ‘Don’t think about him like that.’

‘But he was.’

‘Don’t say these things. What happened was an accident. He died because he lost control of his wheelchair and it fell down the stairs.’

‘I don’t care what you say. I know he was a junkie. And I know that’s why he’s dead. You can pretend what you like, because I know anyway.’

Jonathan listened but didn’t want to know. He got up from his armchair, crying now. His uncle wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be.

He shouted at his sister. ‘It’s your fault!’

He ran from the room and all the way downstairs and across the concrete flags on the courtyard, screaming all the way.

‘It’s your fault! You’re stupid! It’s your fault, if you say that!’

The afternoon was fading into evening. Lars Еgestam was surprised to see Ewert Grens open his office door without knocking. His looks, his massive body, thinning grey hair, the straight leg that made him limp, none of that had changed.

‘I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.’

‘I’m here now. And I’ve brought you some information.’

‘Information about…?’

‘The murders. That is, the investigations into the incidents at Söder Hospital, both of them.’

He didn’t wait for Еgestam to offer him a seat, he simply grabbed the nearest chair and carelessly dumped a pile of papers on the floor. Then he sat down opposite the young prosecutor, whom he had mentally consigned to his large category of ‘stuck-up prats’.

‘First, Alena Sljusareva. The other woman from Lithuania. She is on her way home now. I have questioned her and she has got nothing to offer us. Didn’t know who Bengt Nordwall was, didn’t know where or how Grajauskas had got hold of arms and explosives. She had never heard of any kidnapping plans. I helped her to catch the ferry to Klaipeda and so forth. She needs her home and we don’t need her.’

‘You sent her home?’

‘Any objections?’

‘You should have informed me first. We should have discussed the entire matter, and if we both agreed that sending her home was reasonable, the final decision would still have been mine.’

Ewert Grens stared at the young man with distaste. He felt the urge to shout, but refrained. He had just created a lie and presented it to the prosecutor. For once he chose to hide his anger.

‘Anything else?’

‘You have sent home a person who could be guilty of a serious gun crime, as well as being an accessory to the potential destruction of property and aggravated taking of hostages.’ Lars Еgestam shrugged.

‘But if this woman is on board a ferry… that’s it. End of story.’

Grens fought his contempt for the young man on the other side of the desk. He couldn’t explain it properly; he always despised people who used their university education as a reference for life, who hadn’t actually lived, only pretended to experience.

‘Right. Next, about Jochum Lang.’

‘Yes?’

‘Time to lock him up for good.’

Еgestam pointed at the papers which Ewert Grens had dumped on the floor.

‘Grens, that pile is interview transcripts, one after the other. No result. He’s stonewalling. I can’t hold him for much longer.’

‘You can.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can and you can even inform him that he is a suspect for the murder of Hilding Oldйus. We have a positive identification.’

‘Do you indeed? Who?’

Lars Еgestam was slightly built, wore small round glasses and his short hair combed forward in a half-fringe, and, although he had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday, looked more like a little boy than ever as he leaned back in the large leather chair and listened.

‘A doctor in the ward where Oldйus was a patient. Woman called Lisa Öhrström. She is Oldйus’s sister.’

Еgestam didn’t reply at first. He pushed his chair back and got up.

‘According to a report from your colleague, DI Sundkvist, an identity parade did not have the expected outcome. Not so good. Lang’s lawyer won’t leave me alone, of course. He demands that his client be released instantly, as no one has identified him.’

‘Listen to me. You will get your identification. I’ll bring it in tomorrow.’

The prosecutor sat down again, dragging his chair closer to the desk, and then raised his arms in the air, as people do in films when someone points a gun at them.

‘Grens, I give in. Explain what you’re up to, please.’

‘You will get your identification tomorrow. No further explanation required.’

Еgestam pondered over what he had just been told.

He was in charge of two separate investigations into three deaths that had taken place in the space of a few hours in the same building, and in both cases Ewert Grens was the man who reported directly to him. Somehow the stories Grens had just told didn’t ring true. Too simple.

Sljusareva had been sent home already, Lang had been identified – he should be satisfied that the superintendent running both shows insisted that everything was well in hand.

But Еgestam was not reassured. Something wasn’t right, something just wasn’t right.

‘The media are pestering me, you know.’

‘Sod them.’

‘I’m being asked about Grajauskas’s motive. Why would a young female prostitute want to kill a policeman and then herself? In a closed room, for Christ’s sake, a mortuary? I don’t know. I need answers.’

‘We haven’t got the answers. The case is under investigation.’

‘In that case we’re back to square one. I simply don’t understand you, Grens. If the motive is still unknown, why let Sljusareva go? A woman who is possibly the only person who might know something.’

Ewert Grens’s anger welled up, his permanent rage at these interfering prats. He was just about to raise his voice, but his burden, Bengt’s damned lie, stopped him, making him again into someone he was not, someone who looked before he jumped. He had to be cautious, just for once. Instead his voice dropped, almost to a hiss.

‘Look Еgestam, don’t treat me like you’re interrogating me.’

‘I’ve been reading the transcripts of the communications you had with the mortuary before the shooting started.’

Еgestam pretended not to hear the threat in his voice, didn’t look at the large policeman as he searched for the right sheets of paper in the bundle on his desk. He knew where they were, somewhere in the middle. He found what he had been after. He followed a few lines with his finger and read out loud.

‘Grens, this is you speaking, or shouting, actually. And I quote: “ This is something personal! Bengt, over! Fuck’s sake, Bengt. Stop it! Squad, move in! All clear. Repeat, move in! ”’

Еgestam looked up and spread his thin, suit-sleeved arms in a gesture.

‘End of quote.’

The telephone on the desk between them suddenly started to ring. Both men counted the signals, seven in all, before it stopped to make space for their exchange.

‘Quote away. You weren’t there, were you? Sure enough, that’s how I felt at the time. That some personal issue was at stake. I still think that, but I don’t know what it was.’

Lars Еgestam looked Grens in the eye for a while before turning to the window and scanning the view of the restless city. You couldn’t get your head round it all, it was too much.

He hesitated.

The intrusive sense that something was not right had made him formulate what could be taken as an accusation against this powerful man, and he didn’t want to say it out loud. But he should, he must.