Leif Persson - He Who Kills the Dragon

‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,’ Bäckström said.

‘Okay,’ Annika Carlsson said, her little black notebook out at the ready.

‘I want to know all about Akofeli’s newspaper round,’ Bäckström said. ‘What his route was, which building he started in, where he finished, how many papers he delivered in total, how many he delivered in Hasselstigen, and what order he did it in. Clear?’

‘Okay,’ Annika Carlsson said with a nod. ‘And how do I reach you when I’m done?’

‘At work,’ Bäckström said. ‘Just need to throw some clothes on.’

Even though it was Saturday Bäckström was sitting at work, thinking hard. He was even thinking so hard that he forgot about lunch.

‘So this is where you are,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I was looking for you down in the cafeteria.’

‘Thinking,’ Bäckström said.

‘You were right,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘There’s something really weird about the way Akofeli delivered his papers.’

Surprise, surprise, Bäckström thought. By that time he already had a fairly firm idea of what was going on.

‘Tell me,’ Bäckström said.

Every day at three in the morning Akofeli and the other deliverers who worked the same district picked up their papers from the distribution company’s collection point on Råsundavägen. In Akofeli’s case, just over two hundred Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet , and a dozen copies of Dagens Industri . Then he followed a fixed route that the distribution company had worked out for him, intended to stop him doing any more walking than he needed to as he delivered them.

‘You can pretty much say he kept to the block to the north-west, and there were only two more buildings on his round after the building at number one Hasselstigen. The whole thing ought to take between two and a half and three hours, and the idea is that everyone should have received their paper by six o’clock at the latest.’

‘The last two buildings?’ Bäckström asked.

‘This is where it starts to get weird,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘The last building on his round is number four Hasselstigen, and the second to last is number two Hasselstigen. Number four is down by the junction with Råsundavägen, and the underground station home to Rinkeby where he lives is a couple hundred meters farther down Råsundavägen. Instead of taking the shortest route, it looks like he rearranged the end of his route. He goes past number one Hasselstigen without delivering any papers. He goes straight to number four, which should be the last building, and delivers papers there. Then he goes back up the road to number two, the penultimate building, and hands out papers there. Then he crosses the road and finishes his round by delivering the papers in number one Hasselstigen.’

‘A detour of a couple hundred meters,’ Bäckström said. By now he was well acquainted with the geography.

‘More than three hundred meters, actually,’ Annika Carlsson said, having checked the distances herself just a couple hours before.

‘An entirely unnecessary detour that must have cost him at least five minutes,’ she went on. ‘It’s a bit odd, seeing he might reasonably be expected to want to get home to Rinkeby as quickly as he can, to dump his cart and get a couple hours’ sleep before he heads off to work as a courier.’

‘Then what?’ Bäckström said. ‘What does he do inside number one Hasselstigen?’

‘This is where it gets even weirder.’

There were eleven tenants in number 1 Hasselstigen who subscribed to a morning paper: six Dagens Nyheter and five copies of Svenska Dagbladet . Only ten since Karl Danielsson’s murder, and because old Mrs. Holmberg had switched from DN to Svenska Dagbladet , the two media groups were evenly matched for now.

‘Five DN , five Svenska Dagbladet ,’ Annika Carlsson summarized.

What did that have to do with anything? Bäckström thought.

‘I’m listening,’ he said.

‘The first to get her paper is Mrs. Holmberg, who lives on the ground floor. That’s not so strange, since he passes her door on the way to the elevator. Then he should have taken the elevator to the top floor of the building and walked down the stairs delivering the remaining ten copies on the way. The last person in the block to get their paper ought therefore to be our murder victim, Karl Danielsson, because he lives on the second floor and is the only person on that floor to take a newspaper.’

‘But not that morning?’ Bäckström said.

‘No,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘Because, as you pointed out when you arrived at the crime scene, Akofeli still had the papers left in his bag. According to the inventory Niemi and Hernandez took when they arrived at the scene, he had nine morning papers left in his shoulder bag. And they’re both meticulous. Eleven minus the one he delivered to Mrs. Holmberg minus the one he was going to deliver to Karl Danielsson when he saw his door ajar and found Danielsson lying dead in his hall.’

‘The newspaper that he put down beside the door,’ Bäckström said.

‘Exactly,’ Annika Carlsson said.

‘Did he always do it like that?’

‘Seems to have been doing for a fair while, at any rate,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘At least that’s my impression.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Bäckström said.

‘I got to the crime scene just before seven in the morning, and I agreed with Niemi that I would search the building while they carried on inside Danielsson’s apartment. On the ground floor there’s a room used for storing bicycles and strollers. Not many, because most of the tenants are pensioners, but there were still one stroller and several bikes in there. As well as Akofeli’s cart. According to the inventory I wrote at the time, even though it didn’t strike me as odd then.’

‘Why not leave it by the front door?’ Bäckström said. ‘That would have been simplest for him.’

‘That’s what I think too, although it didn’t occur to me at the time. You’re just smarter than me, Bäckström,’ Annika Carlsson said with a smile.

‘Well...,’ Bäckström said, smiling his most modest smile.

‘Then, while I was busy in there, one of the tenants came down to get her bike,’ Annika Carlsson went on.

‘In a state of extreme anxiety,’ Bäckström said.

‘Yes, she was wondering what had happened, since there must have been at least ten of us there by that time, searching the building. I didn’t go into detail. I explained that we were there because of an emergency call we’d received. I asked who she was and what she was doing down with the bicycles. She told me her name, even showed me her ID before I asked for it. She explained that she lived in the building, that she was on her way to work, and that she always took her bike if the weather was good enough. She works as a receptionist in the Scandic Hotel down by the motorway to Arlanda Airport. It’s about five kilometers away, and she was due to start work at eight o’clock.’

‘The newspaper cart?’

‘I didn’t have to ask. She said it was usually in there. Had been over the past few months at least. It used to annoy her, she said, because it was always in the way when she was trying to get her bike out. She said she’d even been thinking of leaving a note on it. She realized it belonged to the paperboy. She herself didn’t have a paper delivered. She got to read them for free at work.’

‘So she didn’t have any reason to keep an eye on Akofeli’s timing?’

‘No,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘She presumed their paths had crossed inside the building. And, like I said, it didn’t occur to me. Not then, anyway.’