Emelie Schepp - Marked For Revenge

That he had witnessed her violent encounter with Danilo gave her an uneasy feeling.

She pushed open the door to the parking garage just as a police car swung out from a parking space and disappeared in the heavy snowfall, its lights flashing.

* * *

Henrik Levin pushed the gray button that opened the door to the Psychiatric Clinic at Vrinnevi Hospital. They had hoped that someone would soon come forward with information that would help them find the missing woman, and he realized now that he had the most faith in the train attendant, Mats Johansson.

Henrik shook hands with Mats’s doctor and exchanged a few words with him before being allowed into the patient’s room.

A woman was sitting on the bed, and he met her brown eyes. She drew her hand through her curly hair before standing and quietly introducing herself as Marianne.

“I’m Mats’s wife,” she added, taking Henrik’s jacket and hanging it carefully on a hook on the back of the door. As quietly as possible, she moved her chair closer to the bed, sat down and took her husband’s left hand in hers.

“Mats,” she whispered. “You have a visitor.”

Henrik stood on the other side of him and observed his angular face, the wide mustache, the thin hair and pale skin. Mats’s eyes moved under his closed eyelids.

“He’s been dreaming a lot,” Marianne said, smiling apologetically. “It’s horrible, of course, to witness such a thing...and on his train, too... He’s been rambling quite a bit.”

“What does he say?” Henrik asked.

“Mostly nonsense, actually.”

Marianne chuckled.

“I heard that,” Mats said, opening his eyes. He lifted himself up on one elbow with a great deal of effort and looked at Henrik.

“Hi,” Henrik said, putting his hand out. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Henrik Levin. I need to talk with you, ask a few questions.”

“Okay,” Mats said, weakly shaking Henrik’s hand.

“As I understand it, you found the woman in the train bathroom.”

Mats nodded.

“Yes, I found her. She was lying in there...on the floor.”

“Can you tell me anything else about it?”

Mats bit his upper lip.

Henrik took the close-up picture from the security camera out of his pocket.

“I’m going to show you a photo now, and I want you to look at it very carefully.”

Mats sat up and looked at the photograph for a long time—at the black hair, the narrow eyes, the pale skin.

“Do you recognize this woman?” Henrik asked. “This isn’t the one you found in the bathroom.”

Mats nodded.

“This is the girl who was standing outside the door, who ran away when I opened it. I couldn’t stop her. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I had to stay with the girl in the bathroom. Noi, her name was.”

“Noi? You mean Siriporn? The girl who died?”

“No...” Mats looked confusedly at him. “I mean Noi.”

Henrik cast a glance at Marianne.

“Think carefully, Mats,” his wife said.

“Was her name Noi?” Henrik asked.

“I don’t know.” Mats sighed. “But that’s what she said, the other one, the one who ran away. When I came down the aisle, I saw her standing there, banging on the bathroom door. She was yelling ‘Noi’ again and again. I assumed that was the girl’s name. And when I had opened the door, she ran away. I called out to her to stop, but she didn’t.”

Henrik thought for a moment.

“Where were they while the train was moving?”

Mats rubbed his eyes and raked a hand through his hair. He seemed tired now, weary of thinking, of remembering. He took a deep breath before he answered.

“Both were in Car 5, but they weren’t sitting together. They were each in their own seat, one in front of the other, if that makes sense. There were plenty of open seats. The train wasn’t full.”

“How were they acting?”

Mats wrinkled his forehead as if he didn’t understand the question.

“Were they nervous, uneasy, sullen, angry?”

“No, they mostly just slept.”

“Where did they get on the train?”

Mats lay down with his head on the pillow and looked at the ceiling.

“They got on at the start, in Copenhagen.”

“And they were heading for...?”

“Norrköping. That’s why she screamed...why I needed to open the door. They were supposed to get off.”

Mats paused, closed his eyes. Marianne stroked his cheek in an attempt to comfort him, but he turned his face away.

“I’ll leave you to rest now,” Henrik said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Marianne nodded in response.

Henrik met her gaze and saw that she was holding her husband’s left hand in both of hers.

* * *

“So Anders is still in town?”

Gunnar Öhrn glared at Carin Radler, who was sitting in a visitor’s chair in his office.

“Yes, and the next time you call a meeting, it’d be best if you let him know,” she said, crossing one leg over the other. She bounced one high-heeled foot up and down.

“Or he’ll make sure he’s here in the building,” Gunnar said.

“Which he’s doing anyway after he’s gotten settled in the hotel.”

“Is it certain that he’s staying here?”

“Considering that we have just had a case of narcotics smuggling fall into our laps, yes.”

“He’s not going to give up?”

“Anders has fought for many years to stop narcotics trafficking. It’s thanks to his efforts that we’ve been able to arrest multiple central figures who control the different narcotics markets in Sweden. Just last spring, coordinated raids flushed out a huge gang in Gothenburg. Anders had comprehensive responsibility for the whole operation, and long prison sentences are waiting for those who were arrested.”

“Yes, I’d heard that he got to show off in the newspapers.”

Carin raised her voice.

“His war against drugs has given results, Gunnar!”

“And now he wants to do the job for us?”

“No, but he is extremely competent when it comes to questions of narcotics, which we can naturally benefit from.”

Gunnar sneered. “So we’re supposed to be best friends now?”

“You know that he’s working hard for the new Police Authority, and I am, too.”

“I understand your new role, but his?”

“He is running to be the National Police Commissioner, as I think you are well aware.”

“So he’s looking for more power, you mean.” Gunnar rubbed his eyes.

Carin uncrossed and recrossed her legs, answering in a calm voice. “I know that you don’t like him. But he is actually a good boss. Just like you.”

“Cut the flattery. You and I both know that I may not be here long.”

Carin sighed. “The problem with this reorganization is that we’re faced with completely new, maybe even unforeseen, challenges, and that will require a lot from everyone.”

“So who’s to stay?”

“I can’t answer that right now.”

“Because you don’t know?”

“I understand you’re worried.”

“I’m not one bit worried. But my colleagues are worried, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell them.”

“Tell them that we have a narcotics case that we have to solve. That’s where our focus should be right now.”

“In cooperation with Anders,” Gunnar said with a sigh.

“Yes, in cooperation with Anders,” Carin replied.

* * *

Mia Bolander came into the police station cafeteria, took a pear from the fruit bowl and stuffed two more into her pockets. It was really too many, but she knew she couldn’t put them back once she turned around and caught sight of Henrik Levin and Ola Söderström. She rubbed the pear on her knit cardigan and sat down across from them.

Henrik removed the blue lid from his glass container, the steam from the red curry stew warming his face.