Anger Mode (3 page)

People started to gather around the scene of the accident. What were they staring at? What did they want from him? One of them approached Bror. Bror pulled his knees up to his chest and hid his face behind them.

More onlookers rushed quickly to the scene of the accident. Some had called the emergency services on their mobile phones. Others used their mobiles as cameras and documented the accident. The newspapers would pay well for a hot MMS picture.

A young man with long sideburns asked Bror if he was injured. The man explained that an ambulance was on the way. He put a reassuring hand on Bror’s shoulder and said that everything would be all right.

What did he know of that? What was it that would be all right?

Bror did not care to listen. Sounds merged like a symphony orchestra in which everyone played different instruments. He could not separate what he was hearing, whether it was footsteps coming or going, the rain hitting the tarmac or car doors slamming. He pulled up his knees a bit more and took a deep breath.

Suddenly, it ended and the world around him ceased to exist. One tenth of a second on the wrong side of the road and a life had been torn into thousands upon thousands of pieces. Death had irrevocably arrived.

First, there was the shock. Then, denial came – this only happened to other people. But death was a reality he could not avoid, no matter how much he wanted to. It was eternal and brutally final.

Afterwards, grief flooded him, sweeping every emotion in its path. All that remained was the loss after the love. He hovered between life and death, a rope and a footstool. Soon it would all be over. The suffering would be gone forever and the memories would die with him.

Self-pity stopped him. He wanted the pain. He wanted the loss. Perhaps he was weak, a pathetic little being. The emptiness followed him like a shadow. He thought of her room and her possessions. The smell of her that was still left in her clothes, in her pillows. The soft, tender scent of life and happiness. The cuddly toys that patiently waited in line on the bed.

Sometimes he could feel her presence. He spoke to her, screamed in despair how much he missed her, all the things they should have done and how much he loved her.

Then decay set in – the booze and the sedation. The collapse, but also the recuperation. A new time, a new era.

The rage grew slowly within him. The love transformed itself to hatred for the guilty, hate against the system. They should be punished.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The foundation to the temple of wrath was already in place – in the laboratory, in all the things he and his colleagues had accomplished. They were the best of the best. And what they had discovered was a vital link in a chain that would change the world, astonish everyone, and destroy the religions for which so many had given their lives. A new god would be created: the God of Science.

And now, his vengeance too was within reach. There were some small adjustments still and, for this, he was required to work by himself. He had lied and cheated in order to succeed, betrayed those who had dedicated their lives to help him. Thousands of hours. Nights that passed into days. Months and years. It was a fire that would not go out. Step by step, he had got closer and closer to his goal.

Then the breakthrough came. In the fifth year, he was finally ready.

And yet still he had failed.

But there were others in line, unwittingly queuing to enter the graveyard of his grief.

C
HAPTER 2

“WALTER!” YELLED CHIEF Inspector David Lilja from his office. He heard Walter’s characteristic walk in the corridor – heavy on his heels, yet unusually brisk in his pace for someone soon to be sixty years old. Detective Inspector Walter Gröhn was as capable of making a discreet entrance as a herd of runaway rhinos. Lilja knew that Walter was always incommunicado in the first hour of the morning shift and that he would try to slip into his office unnoticed, just to be able to drink his morning coffee in his office with no interruption. Normally, this was none of his concern. He had a great deal of patience with Walter’s idiosyncrasies and whims, as long as they were within reasonable limits and did not expose Lilja to anything that could damage his own reputation. Today, however, Lilja was forced to break with this practice.

Walter had, as usual, envisioned a calm morning break with a mug of coffee and the sandwich he had bought at the café on Flemingsgatan. Under normal circumstances, he would have paid no attention to Lilja’s request. It was not even eight o’clock yet. If Lilja wanted something, he would have to come to Walter, and not vice versa.

David Lilja was indeed Walter’s superior officer, but this was a more academic than practical rank. For Walter, Lilja’s superior rank implied a shitload of irrelevant questions and bureaucratic red tape that had to be observed, despite the occasions he needed Lilja to back him up. Walter had a habit of getting into conflicts with both colleagues and the Prosecutor’s Office, which all too often required the intervention of Lilja. When it came to the art of internal politics, Lilja was like a duck to water.

Walter’s lack of social skills did not, however, prevent him from having the highest total of solved murders in his thirty-five-year-long career. With the aid of long experience and an unorthodox mindset that often set aside legal conventions, he was able to sustain a high percentage rate of closed cases. This was unfortunately at a cost to his own career, which had stalled at the rank of detective inspector. He was not considered to be “potty trained” and sufficiently diplomatic for the position of chief inspector.

Over the years, a string of high-profile murder investigations had contributed to Walter’s reputation as brilliant yet impossible to work with. One of his most well-known cases involved the murder of the Hungarian twins, which, after a long and prolonged investigation, proved to be the work of a third, and completely unknown, triplet brother. Walter saved the two foster parents from being unjustly convicted for the double murder. This achievement was rewarded with a two-month suspension from duty because of insubordination, since it had entailed ignoring several explicit orders from the Chief Prosecutor.

Walter had not been able to be of any assistance in the investigation into the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. This was partly because of his late involvement in the investigation, after the most relevant leads had either been missed or lost due to incompetence. True to his modus operandi, he immediately made himself unpopular with the investigation leaders, whom he accused of incompetence and of having the mental vision of a mole digging a tunnel. Nor was the Chief Prosecutor exempt from his criticism. Walter did not stay long on that investigation.

With a cheese roll in his hand, but without the cup of black Java, he turned on his heel and went into Lilja’s office. He found the head of the Stockholm County CID, with his glasses high up on his forehead, behind piles of paperwork. His uniform was impeccably pressed and the knot of his tie folded with military precision.

“Good morning,” Walter greeted him, even though he knew that this morning was going to be anything but good. His day could hardly have had a worse start.

“Close the door behind you,” Lilja admonished, gesturing at Walter.

Walter shut the door and sank into the familiar visitor’s chair in front of Lilja’s desk. “I shall get straight down to it,” Lilja began in a serious voice, leaning forwards between the paper heaps on the desk.

Walter gazed uninterestedly at Lilja and tried to recall if he had forgotten to fill in some form, or if he had said something indiscreet during the past week. Possibly, it could be about the stuck-up, pinstriped lawyer last week who had persistently repeated her client’s innocence like a photocopier. Walter had felt obliged to exchange some less than flattering words with her.

“We’ve been given a real hot potato,” said Lilja and paused theatrically.

Not so much as a nerve twitched in Walter’s face. He continued to watch Lilja while thinking about whether he had time to fetch a coffee before Lilja got to the point.

“We have a judge at the Stockholm District Court whom we think is responsible for manslaughter – or even murder,” said Lilja.

Walter raised an eyebrow as he removed the clingfilm from the cheese roll. This was not because of what Lilja had just said, but because the cheese roll was so excessively shrink-wrapped.

“So what has this Stockholm District Court judge done then?”

“A taxi driver was killed in a car accident. The judge was the passenger in the taxi,” explained Lilja.

“I see,” said Walter, thrusting his lower lip forwards. “So, driving judges around is a dangerous business.”

“As I said, we have reason to believe so.”

“And who’s ‘we’, in this case?”

“Forensics and the Traffic Police.”

Walter stared at Lilja for a few seconds. “Since when did the Traffic Police start conducting murder investigations?”

“They don’t.”

“Yet they seem to think that he has committed murder or manslaughter?”

“This is pure speculation based on witness testimony and the medical examiner’s preliminary report,” Lilja brushed it aside.

“I see,” said Walter, unconvinced.

“It’s nonetheless never a good thing when high-level bureaucrats within the judicial system commit serious crimes,” continued Lilja. “Especially if there are fatalities involved. That’s the reason this is a hot potato and that is why it has landed in my lap.”

What makes bureaucrats from the judiciary different from the rest of us? wondered Walter as he took a big bite from his cheese roll.

“It’s not good for society’s sense of right and wrong if judges are walking around bumping off citizens. They are supposed to sentence people, not be the ones being sentenced. That just doesn’t make any sense.”

“That it’s not good for the public sense of right and wrong, I can accept,” said Walter, getting ready for another bite. “But they are only mere mortals like you and me. And if they commit a crime, they will have to face the music and pay the penalty – regardless of whether they are judges or not. All people in positions of authority are supposed to set a good example.”

“Under all circumstances, this must be handled cleanly and with meticulous sensitivity,” Lilja insisted. “No bulls in a china shop, please. You’ll have to drop whatever you are doing. Under no circumstances is the judge to be prejudged, if you see what I mean.”

“You’ll have to explain,” said Walter.

“I mean, what possible motive could he have unless it was pure self-defence, which is what I personally think seems to be the most reasonable explanation?”

Walter looked inquiringly at Lilja. “In other words, I’m not to get to the bottom of this investigation. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I didn’t say that,” sniped Lilja. “I just want you to remember that this is a judge with an impeccable background who has landed in the middle of, you could say, a disadvantageous situation. And, that self-defence seems to be the obvious conclusion. I believe that you will also reach the same conclusion.”

“So you haven’t got orders from high up to, shall we say, sugar-coat the investigation a little bit?” asked Walter.

“Absolutely not.”

“Besides, I’m not finished with the prostitute’s shooting yet,” Walter protested, with his mouth full of bread. “The pimp has an alibi, but I’m on the way to untying that knot as well. Laid awake all night thinking it over and …”

Lilja stopped him. “Excellent, but Jonsson and Cederberg will handle the investigation on the female prostitute from now on. I’ve already spoken to them about that. You are, from this moment on, formally in charge of this office’s investigation for the Prosecutor’s Office.”

Walter had no problems with jumping into a new murder investigation, with or without interventions, divine included. Just as long as he got to finish what he had started. And Jonsson and Cederberg were unfortunately not among the most talented in the County CID. To be sure, they were his nutters and part of the group that he unilaterally bossed over. But they were a very mediocre pair of murder detectives, who would try to tie up any loose ends by pinning it all on the prostitute. Cederberg was a semi-alcoholic from Värmland, who had problems with multitasking. He was all too easily sidetracked by small details.

Jonsson was his alter ego. He was rigid in his way of thinking and about as creative as an inspector from the tax office. Without Walter driving this two-man engine, the train would definitely go off the rails. They would never be able to break the pimp’s alibi.

“And who’s going to be on my new team then?” wondered Walter. “I’m assuming that this is not going to be a solo act?”

“Yes, there was one other thing,” Lilja added, ignoring Walter. “Your team, if you can call it that, will consist of one other person.”

“One person?”

“Yes, a colleague from the Special Investigation Unit. You can meet her later today. The only thing I know is her name, Jonna de Brugge.”

“The RSU,” muttered Walter. “My team is a single investigator from that new, pedantic, elitist unit, whose only achievement is to hire misfits and academics.”

“It wasn’t my decision that newly recruited RSU analysts and investigators should serve on active police duty,” interrupted Lilja abruptly as he got up from his chair. “However, even though they were picked for their high intelligence, they still need on-the-job experience.”

“The Security Service probably doesn’t want them tripping over their feet. Otherwise, they’d suit each other well, since both services are as equally unfamiliar with real-life police work,” retorted Walter.

“You know very well that RSU was created to support both the Security Service and the regular police, according to ”

“According to the American model of the FBI special analysis units,” Walter filled in the blanks.

“Whatever. The case file for the judge is lying on your desk,” Lilja finished and turned to take a file from one of his piles of paper.

Just as Walter was on his way out of the door, Lilja called him back.

“By the way,” he said, while reading something in his file, “how’s your progress in that social interaction training that we agreed you would attend?”

“Thanks for asking,” replied Walter. “The course trainer and I couldn’t interact. She should have taken the course herself first.”

“You know what the deal is if you don’t complete this training,” Lilja insisted, looking up from behind the document.

“I’m giving it another shot,” lied Walter. He would rather eat a tin of rusty nails than subject himself to something as meaningless as yet another course in social interaction.