Anger Mode (18 page)

“Noooo, Chri-ist, you hit too bloody hard. His fucking lights went out!” Jerry Salminen roared in Finnish Swedish and punched the wall with his fist. A fist-sized hole appeared in the plasterboard wall.

Tor Hedman went towards the rotund man on the floor. He approached carefully and nudged the man’s head with his size thirteens. At first glance, the man did not seem to present much of a threat. Even so, Tor was on his guard when he bent over him to see how hard he had taken the blow. He had read the Lisbeth Salander novels and knew not to judge a book by its cover. If a thin anorexic could floor a blond giant, then this little fatso could take Tor, despite the fact that he was over two metres tall and had been a hardened criminal for thirty-five years.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jerry exclaimed.

“You can never know for sure,” Tor said and pointed at the man with one of his skinny, tubular arms.

“Know what?”

“He could jump up and nail us both,” Tor answered and looked at Jerry with a serious face.

Jerry was just about to ask Tor if he was a complete idiot, but stopped himself, because he already knew the answer. If there was one thing Tor detested, it was being called an idiot. Jerry knew this after eight years in his company.

Despite his one metre and seventy-five centimetres of height, Jerry looked like one of the seven dwarfs next to Tor. Not widthwise, however. Jerry pumped iron seven days a week and had been regularly taking steroids for the last four years. He had a natural aptitude for bodybuilding. Jerry’s forearms were as big as Tor’s thighs and, on the beach, he received envious stares from men without muscles and from women of all ages and shapes. He could thank his mother for his genetic pedigree; she was built like a Finnish sauna.

Jerry looked around anxiously. They had gone through the entire flat without finding what they were looking for. Was it a CD or a DVD? Was it a file on a PC or a videotape? Or was it one of those fucking USB memory sticks that were so small that they could be hidden inside an arsehole?

Jerry didn’t have a clue. “Nix, he must have fucking hidden it somewhere else,” he swore and started to pace around the room. “We’ve bloody well torn the whole fucking floor to bits and still not found any fucking multimedia evidence.”

“But we don’t know what to look for,” Tor said, waving his inner-tube arms about. “The bloke said that the sucker would know what we needed to find.” Tor looked up from the man on the floor and gazed inquiringly at Jerry.

“I know that, but Christ,” exclaimed Jerry, unable to control himself any longer. “No fucking way are we going to find that out if you nail the fucker before he’s spilled his guts.” He kicked the heap of wreckage on the floor.

A muffled groan came from the floor as Jörgen recovered consciousness. He squinted with one eye, not able to make out anything. The pain from the eye that had swollen shut after the blow rushed through his nerves. His head was about to explode from the pain. It felt as if his brain was at least three sizes too big.

“Water, quickly. He’s waking up!” Tor screamed and took hold of Jörgen’s hair. He was going to drag him into the bathroom, but did not have the strength.

Jerry shoved Tor out of the way and instead lifted up Jörgen by his arms. Jerry only worked out for the body mass. Strength was incidental. It was therefore with some difficulty that he dragged the paunchy journalist by the arms into the bathroom.

Jerry heaved Jörgen’s upper body over the toilet rim and pushed his head into the bottom of the bowl.

“Flush it,” he shouted at Tor.

Tor flushed the toilet and a gurgling sound was heard deep down in the toilet.

“Good, he’s coming to,” Jerry said and gritted his teeth as his arms began to shake from the exertion. The fatso was hardly a featherweight.

“Flush again, fuck it,” Jerry ordered and forced Jörgen downwards against the porcelain as hard as he could. Jörgen moaned from the pain and the water was coloured red with blood, as his nose had been broken. He flailed wildly with his arms while choking violently.

Jerry pulled Jörgen’s head out of the toilet bowl and let him drop to the bathroom floor. Jörgen coughed up toilet water while blood spurted out of his nose.

“Now tell me, what the fuck have you done with the multimedia evidence?” Jerry screamed and squatted down beside Jörgen.

At first, Jörgen did not understand. It felt as if he had been run over by a truck. He fumbled with his hand, over his forehead, down towards his swollen eye and then his nose. His eye had swelled to the size of a tennis ball and his nose was as broken as a bad engagement.

He pressed the tennis ball and an excruciating pain shot through his body. Jörgen could not contain the pain and howled uncontrollably.

“So far, so good. Now he’s talking at least,” Tor concluded.

Jörgen started to hyperventilate in an attempt to lessen the pain. It felt as if he had a thousand needles in his eyeball.

“So answer me!” Jerry yelled. “What have you done with the evidence?”

“Who are you?” Jörgen blurted out between deep gasps.

Jerry was really fed up with everything. Everything had gone wrong from the very beginning.

Zlatan, the locksmith, had made a fuss and wanted more cash to pick the door lock. Then they had been forced to wait until the sucker came home, since they could not find the evidence despite having slashed the furnishings to shreds. And anyway, it was Jerry who should be asking the questions, not that fucking loser on the floor.

Jerry twisted Jörgen’s wet hair. Jörgen screamed and flailed his arms in defence.

“What have you done with the evidence?” Jerry shouted in Jörgen’s ear.

“What evidence?” Jörgen asked in despair. He felt the tears pour out of him.

Jerry thrust his face so close Jörgen could feel his bad breath.

“Shit, why is it so fucking difficult to get you to talk?” Jerry hissed, with saliva bubbling at the corners of his mouth. He pressed one finger on Jörgen’s swollen eye, but quickly removed it when a heart-rending screech bounced off the bathroom walls.

Tor found a rag on the drying rack above the bathtub, which he pushed into Jörgen’s mouth. The screech was muffled to a faint groan. Then he took hold of Jörgen’s wrists and bent his arms behind his back, while pressing his knee into Jörgen’s back. With a nylon band he had in his back pocket, he tied Jörgen’s wrists together.

“Fucking shit. We’re going to have to take the bastard with us,” Jerry swore and stood up dejectedly.

“Now listen, you fucking pile of shit,” Tor shouted and glared at Jörgen. “Because you’re finding it so bloody hard to talk, we’re going to have to take you with us. Perhaps your memory will improve when we start softening you up on our home patch.”

The pain around Jörgen’s eye was fading slightly. It was his nose that was the worst. Since Jörgen could not talk with the gag in his mouth, he nodded his understanding instead. Things were beginning to fall into place. This was no random flat break-in by some drug-crazed heroin junkies. These guys were pros, and they were not looking for valuables like money or jewellery. The police informer must have sent these thugs to repossess the video. What the thugs called “the evidence” was, in actual fact, the video. The informer had obviously been very reticent about any details concerning what he wanted to be taken back, which indicated that, despite everything, he was still very worried about what it contained. Even if his informant had decided to break their contract, he was also not going to leave any loose ends. Jörgen was now forced to think of something fast.

The first thing he needed to do was to get the gag out of his mouth. If he could get just a few minutes with these guys, he was sure he could bring them round and get out of his current predicament. He could offer them cash for his release. Twice the sum that his informant had paid them for the job. But what guarantees did Jörgen have that they would not kill him even if he gave them the video?

To even have a productive conversation with these two hooligans, the rag had to be removed from his mouth. Jörgen started to mumble and shake his head, but had to stop as the pain shot through his head like a lightning bolt.

He took a few deep breaths through his nose, which had started to swell up again, and tried again. He emitted short bursts of sound without moving his head. His head still felt as if it would explode with the pain.

“What?” Jerry asked, pulling Jörgen to his feet.

Jörgen had a hard time keeping his balance as the blood rushed to his head. He sat down heavily on the toilet and looked pleadingly at Jerry as he continued to mumble.

“Do you want to say something?” Jerry asked.

Jörgen nodded his head cautiously. He was forcing back the tears.

“If I remove the rag from your cakehole, then you’d better not start bloody yelling,” Jerry ordered.

“One more scream and I will start pressing that bump again. Understood?” Jerry fixed his eyes on Jörgen and held his index finger in front of the swollen eye. Jörgen carefully nodded.

Jerry pulled the cloth from Jörgen’s mouth so hard that he thought his teeth would follow.

“Are you going to talk to us now?” Tor asked, and sat on the edge of the bathtub. Jörgen tasted the bleach-like aftertaste of the cloth that Sebastian normally used to clean the toilet. He wanted to throw up his lunch, but managed to keep his gag reflex in check.

“Can I have a little water?” Jörgen asked, but was rudely interrupted.

“Right then, talk, you fucker,” Jerry yelled impatiently. He wanted to hear Jörgen say where he had hidden the evidence. No fucking shit about fucking water.

Jörgen realized he had to choose each word as if it were a gold nugget. In particular, the muscle mountain shouting with a Finnish accent seemed to have a very short fuse.

“I was a bit dizzy at the beginning of our meeting,” Jörgen began to talk. “But there were obvious reasons for that, you see,” he said and grinned feebly in an attempt to lighten the mood. It was like telling a joke to a deaf mute.

The tall one impatiently signalled to Jörgen to continue.

“It’s the video you’re after. Am I right?” Jörgen said matter-of-factly and watched the two hooligans.

“Video? I don’t fucking know. It’s some type of multimedia evidence,” the tall one answered, waving his arms in frustration.

“Yes, but video is a form of multimedia,” Jörgen explained pedantically. “Multi means many; media means different forms of information like photos, video, music, games, data files, etcetera. And multimedia is the combination of those two things. So, that’s what’s meant by the term multimedia evidence.”

It fell silent in the bathroom. Jörgen looked first at the hulk and then at the tall one, who was apparently showing a “Service not available” sign – he looked as if someone had pulled out the plug during a live programme.

“Jee-sus Christ!” Jerry swore loudly in Finnish after he had thought for a moment. “You know what we want, so all you need to do is to get it for us. No more fucking bullshit. You talk like you swallowed a bloody dictionary. And we also want any copies, if you have made any. Understood?”

Jörgen nodded. “I understand,” he said. “The problem is that I don’t actually have the physical video with me. And it’s quite a complicated procedure to get hold of it.”

“Why’s that?” Jerry asked impatiently.

“The banks have to be open for me to get to it.”

“You have it in a safety deposit box?” Tor asked.

Jörgen nodded.

Jerry’s face darkened. His jaw muscles danced as he snarled through his teeth. “If you’re lying, I’ll put this mop handle through your skull.” He glanced at a floor mop that was standing by the side of the washbasin.

“I have no doubt about that,” Jörgen answered. “But it’s the honest truth.”

Jerry kicked the bathroom wall and said something x-rated in Finnish. A bit of grout from between the tiles fell on the floor. If it was correct that the video, or whatever the hell it was, lay stored in a deposit box, this meant trouble. Neither Tor nor Jerry could get to the deposit box without being forced to identify themselves. Neither of them had fake IDs in the name of Jörgen Blad. Letting the bastard walk into the bank himself – even if accompanied by Tor and Jerry – was like walking into the lion’s den and hoping that nobody was home.

The banks were bristling with CCTV and had one in every bloody corner. Neither Tor nor Jerry wanted to be caught on film with a soon-to-be John Doe or on a missing persons bulletin on the Channel 3 crimewatch series “Most Wanted”. Then they might just as well walk into the nearest police station and turn themselves in. So that tactic had a load of unnecessary risks. Therefore, there were two options left. One was to take a chance, let Jörgen fetch the video himself and risk him alerting the police via the bank staff. Alternatively, they could arrange a false ID, which would cost about twenty thousand and take about a week to fix. There was still a risk that Jörgen Blad would be known by someone at the bank, which would lead to the whistle being blown if one of them tried to impersonate Jörgen. Even if nobody knew Jörgen, they would be captured on CCTV and the police would trace back the slob’s last days if he disappeared or ended up as a stiff on a rubbish tip somewhere. They could disguise themselves with wigs and fake beards. But some of those bank staff had eagle eyes, or even a sixth sense, for disguises and unusual behaviour.