Emelie Schepp - Marked For Revenge

With her briefcase in one hand and her overcoat in the other, she went down to the basement. Her high heels drummed rhythmically as she walked quickly over the concrete in the garage. She unlocked her black BMW X6 from thirty feet away and placed her briefcase on the black leather passenger seat.

A shiver went down her back. She felt ready to work, again checking her face in the mirror, repeating to herself that no one would suspect anything through the makeup.

But she was still nervous. She hesitated a moment before pushing the start button and driving out of the garage.

* * *

Anneli Lindgren sat on the edge of the bed, her hair loose and not yet brushed. She opened her nightstand drawer and took out a pair of heart-shaped diamond earrings, weighing them in her hand. She carefully fastened them to her ears and stood, remaining there for a moment in her nightgown, gazing out the window. The wind rustled the frosty leaves on the trees. A rabbit bounded away, and she followed it with her eyes until it disappeared into a yard.

She lifted her hand to her ear, twisting one of the earrings and thinking about when she had received them. It was a long time ago now, during a period when everything had been different, free. She still remembered that time in his apartment, how she had looked at him with red, warm cheeks. He had opened a dresser drawer, taken out a plastic fastener and a soft whip, forcing her arms up over her head. She’d lain on the bed protesting, keeping her legs together, twisting away when he pulled her panties down. He’d hovered over her, kneeling, watching her attempts to get free. He had smiled when he began to caress her from her knees up to her upper thighs, smiled even wider when she had stopped protesting, spread her legs and let him enter her.

He had carried the package in his sport coat, then placed it on her naked stomach and said something that sounded like love. But she hadn’t been looking for love—she had only wanted to quench her desire. For once, at least, she had been able to give herself up to the desire she felt for him.

For Anders.

“The meeting starts in ten minutes.”

The door to the bedroom squeaked when Gunnar came in with a towel around his hips.

“Yep...” she said absentmindedly.

Gunnar laid his hand on her shoulder, and she felt the warmth from his damp skin. He gently caressed her neck, under her hair, over her right shoulder. She felt the shoulder strap of her nightgown slip off. When he then tried to caress her breast, she carefully pushed his hand away.

“What’s wrong? What were you thinking about?” he asked.

“About you. And us,” she said, leaving the window. “We have to get going. We can’t be late to this meeting.”

She opened the closet and grabbed the first shirt she touched. She just wanted to get out of the bedroom without him seeing the blush on her cheeks.

The blush of shame.

* * *

Jana Berzelius entered the conference room on the third floor of the police station in Norrköping. She sat at the oval table and glanced furtively at the team that was already seated there. Anneli Lindgren was taking down important details about the dead woman from the train; Mia Bolander was drawing ten pointy flowers in the margin of her notes. Ola Söderström was adjusting the screen of his laptop. Gunnar Öhrn was sitting with his hands folded on the table.

“Ah, so you also had to show up?” Mia said without raising her eyes.

“Yes,” Jana said, her head held high and her back straight. Her jacket was black, her skirt was knee-length and her hair was stick straight.

“But don’t you prosecutors usually wait until we’ve done the heavy lifting? Or at least until we have a suspect?”

“Not all do,” Jana said.

Henrik gave Mia a tired look, as if he wanted to tell her to skip the bullshit. She knew very well that preliminary investigations were led by the prosecutor if the victim was under eighteen years old.

“And not all come rushing into the initial briefing,” Mia continued.

“No,” Jana said. “But that’s how it is to be devoted to your work.”

“Thanks, I know what that means,” Mia said, glaring at her.

“Well, then,” Henrik said, tossing the autopsy report on the table, thus beginning his report on the preliminary examination that Björn Ahlmann had performed on the dead woman from the train.

“So you’re saying she had swallowed fifty capsules of heroin and cocaine,” Gunnar summarized when Henrik was done. Standing, he continued, “One capsule had begun to leak, and she died of an overdose. We’re dealing with an obvious case of narcotics smuggling, right, Ola?”

“Yes,” Ola said, opening the screen of his laptop. “The woman was a ‘bodypacker,’ a person who transports illegal narcotics within her own body. A courier, drug mule, pack mule...”

“Pack mule?” Mia repeated. “‘Bodypacker’ sounds more accurate.”

“I agree,” said Ola. “And that’s one typical name. But despite the fact that drug mules are a well-known problem, it’s hard to catch them. Every year, between sixty and seventy million people cross the Swedish border.”

“It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Henrik said.

“Right. Many more mules get through than are caught. Customs largely works based on intelligence. Sure, they are always trying to find patterns in the modus operandi, but these drug mules crop up everywhere, frequently change their identity and come from all different countries.”

“In this case, from Thailand,” Henrik said.

“But she could just as well have come from Japan. Or China. Or Malaysia or something,” Mia said, rubbing her nose.

Gunnar cleared his throat.

“Her passport was issued in Thailand, so we can assume that she is a Thai national. So, Ola, continue.”

“Lots of mules come via budget flights from Spain. Often what happens is that vulnerable people are recruited in the Málaga area. But a lot also come from West Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle Eastern countries and South America. A lot of narcotics pass through Holland. Schiphol Airport has such a huge problem that the border police sometimes don’t even arrest the drug mules. Instead, they just send them back on the next flight out. It is, as you might guess, a lengthy process to secure evidence against bodypackers.”

Ola crossed his arms and rested his elbows on the table, continuing.

“If they are arrested, the police have to decide if the mules should be X-rayed at the hospital, then further decisions have to be made about whether the suspects should be kept under constant observation until they have answered nature’s call. The swallowers have to use a nonflushing toilet, and then the jail guards have to dig around in the toilet to find the capsules and confiscate them.”

“Sounds lovely,” Mia said.

“We used to use an emetic to make them vomit. The mules would take a huge dose and then after just a couple seconds, the proof would come up. It was effective, but the Swedish Prosecutor-General decided sometime in the nineties that it shouldn’t be allowed anymore, that it violated human rights,” Ola said.

Jana straightened up, saying, “From what I know, it takes about five days for the capsules to pass through the body.”

“That’s right,” said Ola, “but it varies a lot. It can take as short as two days or as long as two weeks. Most use a laxative or enema, but not everyone has access to these, and it has happened that smugglers have died from injuries related to constipation. The most common cause of death, though, is leakage, as with our victim.”

Ola closed his computer.

“But drug mules, or rather those who employ the mules, are constantly learning better ways to smuggle. It’s not common to use cutoff rubber gloves or condoms anymore. Now, the capsules are machine-made, wrapped in multiple layers and coated with beeswax. Generally the mules are carrying between fifty and seventy capsules in their stomachs, and every capsule contains about ten grams of narcotics. The capsules are then divided into ‘balls’ of two-to three-tenths of a gram. One ball of heroin could cost one hundred fifty kronor on the street—a third of what it cost a few years ago.”