Литагент HarperCollins - MemoRandom

‘Rich but absent father, overprotective mother with too much time on her hands. Ideally the victim should be an only child, or at least the youngest. Mommy’s little darling, isn’t that right?’

Natalie didn’t answer, just pressed the hands-free earpiece tighter into her ear as she tried to focus on the other people in the café. A man at the far end seemed to be talking on his cell phone.

‘You’re very careful with your choices,’ the man went on. ‘No celebrities or politicians, no Wallenbergs, H&M heirs, or anyone else who might be too rich and powerful. No, you focus on the ones just beneath them. Once you’ve identified the right victim, you get sexy Elita to pick him up. Hormones raging, the young man skips school to go off to the cinema one afternoon. After a bit of preliminary petting, Elita says she wants to spice things up a bit. She blindfolds him, and by this point the poor guy is practically bursting out of his Calvin Kleins, so he’s hardly going to protest. While he’s pulling faces in the dark with the blindfold on, you take a few pictures of his face.’

Natalie looked around, but the man she had seen seemed to have hung up.

‘And while the lad’s dreams are all coming true in the cinema, you e-mail his mother. You tell her that her darling has been kidnapped, attaching a grainy picture of the crown prince wearing a blindfold, and tell her she’s got one hour. Pay up, or he gets hurt. Don’t call the police, we’re watching your every move , and all the other kidnap nonsense she’s familiar with from cop shows on television.’

The man sounded amused, but Natalie wasn’t having any difficulty not laughing. Where was he, who was he, and how the hell could he know? She glanced toward the door again and wondered what would happen if she got up and left anyway. But the man seemed to know all about her. Trying to run might buy her a bit of time, but what could she do with it?

‘Obviously Mommy calls her little darling,’ the man went on. ‘But of course he doesn’t answer, because Elita’s made sure he’s switched his cell phone off. Then Mommy calls the school and finds out that junior isn’t there. She’s starting to panic now, and she calls her husband, but he’s away on business and probably isn’t the sort who answers when his wife calls. Time is running out, the deadline is approaching, and panic has really set in now.’ The man paused for a moment and Natalie realized she was holding her breath.

‘Then, all of a sudden, Mommy realizes that the amount you’re asking for isn’t actually that much. That she can buy her way out of this unpleasant situation in one go. The sort of people you pick on are, after all, used to solving all manner of problems with their wallets. And what’s a few hundred thousand on the Amex card when the crown prince’s life is at risk? So, within an hour, Mommy transfers the money to an anonymous Western Union account whose number you’ve given her. And after she’s sat there biting her nails for a good long while, the film ends and finally her little darling replies to one of her many anxious messages. She’s beside herself with relief. It takes her quite a time before her emotions settle down and she realizes that she’s actually paid for her naughty little boy’s very expensive afternoon blow job.’ The man chuckled again. ‘No one wants to make a fool of themselves in public, so after Daddy and the family lawyer have had a talk, everyone agrees to leave this unfortunate little incident behind them. No report to the police, no publicity, nothing.’ The line fell silent.

‘What do you want?’ Natalie’s voice wasn’t anywhere near as calm as she had been hoping it would be.

‘Open your laptop,’ the man said.

‘No way!’

‘Just do as I say, Natalie.’

She hesitated at first, then reluctantly did as he asked.

‘What now?’

‘Check your inbox!’

The icon for a new e-mail was lit up. No message, just a link to a web page.

‘Click the link,’ the man said.

She did as she was asked. The page loaded. A dull grey background, covered by black text and a 1970s-style logo. It took her a few moments to realize what she was looking at.

GENERAL POLICE REGISTER

CRIMINAL RECORD

Name: Natalie Aden

Date of birth / ID number: 19850531-2335

Eye colour: brown

Hair colour: red

Height: 163 cm

Build: large

Distinguishing features: tattoo, left calf – butterfly

09-19-2010 – minor drugs offense (fined)

02-02-2011 – theft, minor drugs offense (conditional sentence)

10-12-2012 – fraud (dropped)

07-14-2013 – fraud (dropped)

‘Not very pleasant reading, is it, Natalie? You’re on your way to becoming a doctor, then you get picked up in a car with the wrong crowd and a joint you’d forgotten about in your pocket. You might have got away with that, but then you were stupid enough to steal from the pharmacy at the hospital where you were doing your training, and that was that. Little Natalie with her lovely grades, who was going to be a doctor just like Daddy. And unlike him you’d have a Swedish degree so you wouldn’t have to clean floors. But with two separate entries in your criminal record, that opportunity has gone. So instead you make a living from fraud, like this one. You put a bit of money into your Mum’s account every now and then, in an attempt to ease your conscience. I’m guessing you and Daddy haven’t spoken for a while. You must have been such a disappointment to him.’

She opened her mouth and yelled at him to shut up and shove his criminal records up his ass. Then she hung up and stormed out of the café. Well, that was what she ought to have done. Instead, she sat there paralyzed, not saying a word as he went on.

‘Your boyfriend admitted responsibility for everything. Very good of him, I must say. He did that so you’d get off with a conditional sentence.’ The man lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘But both you and I know that the pills weren’t for him. It’s tough having to carry the weight of everyone’s expectations on your shoulders. Mommy and Daddy’s, and your family’s, and – not least – your own. It’s hard to unwind. Hard to get your head to relax, isn’t it, Natalie?’

Natalie swallowed the lump in her throat.

‘What do you actually want with me?’ she muttered.

‘I want to employ you. A task that would be a perfect match for your training, your intelligence, and your … special abilities.’

‘What do I get in return?’ she said.

‘What do you say about a fresh start? A chance to begin again?’

Natalie thought for a moment. A police officer, the man had to be a police officer. How else could he know so many details about her?

‘And if I refuse? Will you arrest me?’ she said.

The man laughed quietly. Outside the café a large black car with tinted windows pulled up. And stopped right outside her window. One of the rear doors opened but no one got out.

‘Get in and we’ll discuss it,’ the man said. ‘I’m confident we can find a solution that will satisfy both of us. By the way, you can call me Rickard.’

‘We now commit Adnan Kassab’s remains to eternal rest.’

The funeral director knelt on the mat surrounding the little hole and carefully placed the urn inside it. Down there threads of roots stuck out here and there, like narrow hairy fingers groping out of the earth and reaching toward the weak winter light.

They must have used a digger to break through the frozen ground, Atif thought. One single scoop in the ground, that was all it would have taken. Adnan had hardly been of a religious persuasion, so using a priest or an imam would have felt strange. Better like this. Cremation, a short ceremony, and then down with the urn. He glanced toward Cassandra, who was standing next to him. She hadn’t wanted Tindra to attend the funeral, said she was too young. A six-year-old shouldn’t have to confront death, at least not yet. There hadn’t been much he could say to that. But one thing he definitely didn’t agree with was the large wreath on the other side of the grave. An overblown affair, presumably the largest you could order, and it made all the others look insignificant.