MemoRandom: A Thriller (31 page)

Wallin gestured vaguely toward Bergh, and Sarac saw him look away.

“And as far as Peter and his specialist team are concerned . . . well, perhaps you remember how sensitive the district commissioner is about subgroups that don’t follow the rules, particularly very male groups?”

Molnar’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing.

“As long as the results keep coming in she doesn’t care,” Wallin went on. “She’s more than happy to hold a press conference and present their results as her own. But if the slightest little difficulty occurs, something that might put a spoke in the wheel of her plans to become our next National Head of Police, then . . .”

Wallin smiled again, the same cold, impersonal smile as before.

“Well.” He nodded to Bergh and Molnar. “These two gentlemen want to make sure there are no loose ends, at any cost. No unnecessary risk factors.”

Wallin paused, then looked directly at Sarac. “Such as you, David.”

“Wallin’s a slippery bastard,” Bergh muttered as he maneuvered the car through the traffic. “Seriously ambitious, almost certainly aiming to become National Head of Police. This inquiry for the Ministry of Justice has given him the perfect platform. A chance to keep an eye on the competition.”

“You mean the district commissioner in Stockholm?” Sarac said.

Bergh nodded.

“There are plenty of people who’d like to see a woman in the top job. Eva Swensk is a strong candidate, and she’s strengthening her grip on the largest police district in the country. Which simultaneously means there’s less room for mistakes, to put it politely.”

Sarac said nothing for a while. Wallin’s words were still bouncing around inside his head. He had broken the rules, he knew that already. He had actually known all along that Janus wasn’t just an ordinary informant but an infiltrator. Someone he controlled, gave orders to, missions. Someone who even committed crimes with his tacit consent, as well as that of the police authority, indirectly.

But the feelings of guilt Sarac had been having trouble shaking off weren’t the result of professional misconduct. An infiltrator who was managed well was an excellent asset. The question was rather: How well had he handled Janus? Or himself, for that matter? He still couldn’t explain why his apartment had looked as if it belonged to a junkie, and he had no desire at all to go back there. Bergh seemed almost to have read his mind.

“The apartment’s been cleaned up,” Bergh said. “Must have been that girl, your care assistant, who did it. I think you’ve got a bit of new furniture as well, and the locks have been changed, but Peter knows more about that.”

Sarac nodded, then suddenly remembered that Natalie had said she’d cleared up. He wondered where she was. And whether she was still sitting and waiting in the car over at Högbergsgatan.

“Listen, David.” Bergh turned toward Sarac, and both his expression and tone of voice told Sarac what was coming.

“I know, I know,” he said. “Obviously I should have called you or Peter rather than just going off to see Sabatini.”

Bergh shook his head. “That wasn’t actually what I was going to say, David, even if you’re right. No, I actually wanted to apologize to you.”

Sarac was taken aback and tried to work out which way the conversation was heading now. He failed completely.

“I shouldn’t have put pressure on you the way I did up at the hospital,” Bergh went on. “Not to mention the whole business of pretending to transfer you to the property store.” He shook his head.

“Wallin’s well informed. I’m not just your boss but also your controller, the one who should have been keeping an eye on you. But I allowed myself to be persuaded to ignore the rules. Janus insisted that only one police officer knew his true identity, otherwise he wasn’t going to cooperate. So I wrote my own name on the form, even though you were actually entirely on your own. Kollander gave the whole thing his unofficial blessing. We let the possibilities blind us and didn’t realize the risk we were exposing you to.” Bergh shook his bald head.

“After your accident I panicked. Forty years in the force, mortgage on the house and the country cottage, Jonas’s course fees, everything. I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t end up like the Duke. Bribed and dishonored.”

The name brought Sarac up short. A memory appeared but
disappeared before he managed to grab hold of it. Eugene von Katzow, that was the name of Bergh’s predecessor, although he was usually known as the Duke. He was long gone by the time Sarac joined the department, after a lengthy internal investigation and a lot of media attention. But there was something else there, something that involved him personally. Another piece of the puzzle for his growing collection.

Bergh pulled into a parking space a thousand feet from Sarac’s building. Then turned to face him.

“But then I spoke to the wife. And realized that it really wasn’t the end of the world. To be honest, I’m sick of all the crap. I’m sick of arguing with officious assholes like Kollander who don’t understand police work and kick up a fuss every time we have to pay a source more than the embarrassingly low standard fee. He doesn’t give a damn about the benefit to society or how many crooks we catch, as long as the budget balances. Not to mention men like Wallin, only interested in their own careers.” Bergh shook his head again.

“As you already know, the backup list of your CIs was missing from the safe. An internal investigation is under way up in the department, under the leadership of our old friend Superintendent Dreyer. I could probably have ridden out the Janus problem, but a serious security breach in my own department is another matter.”

Bergh made a resigned gesture.

Sarac frowned. The name Dreyer felt familiar as well. Molnar had mentioned him before, but he hadn’t reacted then. Now the name filled him with anxiety.

“Management has to make a show of force,” Bergh said. “Kollander has already come up with one proposal, full salary up to retirement if I cooperate. Stick to the script and make sure nothing lands on him or the district commissioner. My lawyer says it’s a good offer, and in the end it always comes down to money, doesn’t it, David?”

Bergh shrugged and leaned closer to Sarac.

“You’re a good police officer. A damn good one. But I’ve been involved in several cases where a handler has got too close to his contact, almost forgot who he was and where his loyalties lay. It’s not really so strange. The job is all about dissemblance, assuming a role and making truth and lies sound exactly the same. But if you carry on for too long, in the end no one knows what the truth is—not even you yourself. We all have to calibrate our own moral compass, keep things tidy, if you know what I mean? Keep our own house in order.”

Sarac’s mouth had gone dry and he swallowed a couple of times.

“Right now the internal investigators are focusing on me,” Bergh went on. “But it’s only a matter of time before Dreyer comes knocking on your door, and you need to be prepared.”

He reached into the backseat and pulled out an old blue bag.

“I’ve been going through my old things. Getting rid of stuff I no longer need. Maybe you should do the same.” He passed the bag to Sarac. “There’s some things in here that I think you might need. But don’t open it until you’re on your own, okay?”

He leaned across Sarac and opened the passenger door.

“Once again, David, I really am very sorry.”

The apartment still smelled strongly of disinfectant. All the blinds were open and the wrecked sofa had been replaced with a new one.

“The boys sorted that out,” Molnar said. “They took a trip to Ikea. We thought it made sense to change the locks as well and get you a proper security chain, so you can stay here for a couple of nights if you don’t feel up to going back to the island. The internal investigators seem to be taking time off over the holidays; it’s been pretty quiet for the past few days. What have you got there?” He pointed at the bag Sarac was holding in his hand.

“From Bergh,” Sarac mumbled. “Some personal belongings of mine he managed to salvage down in the property store.” Lying came surprisingly easily.

Sarac went into the bathroom and shoved the bag into the cupboard under the basin. For a moment he was tempted to open it, but he could hear Molnar’s footsteps outside the door. So he took off his bloodstained jacket instead and threw it in the bath. He sat down on the toilet seat and began to fumble with his trousers. He realized that he’d left his stick somewhere, either in Högbergsgatan or in the police car. No matter, he seemed to be able to manage fine without it.

“David,” Molnar said on the other side of the bathroom door. “What Wallin said is pretty much true.” His voice sounded strained. “The whole Janus affair is a gray area, we were all aware of that.” Then silence.

“But the possibilities outweighed the risks,” Sarac said.

Molnar’s sigh was audible through the door.

“Janus was something quite unique, a chance to change the game completely. We got fantastic results, in total almost seventy pounds of narcotics. Doping drugs worth millions, stolen luxury cars, weapons,” Molnar said.

“But if anything went wrong, the damage would be limited to me. One single police officer who had exceeded his authority.” Sarac could feel himself getting angry.

“That wasn’t actually my idea, David.”

“So whose was it, then?” Sarac opened the bathroom door and found himself staring into Molnar’s sad eyes. His anger vanished instantly, he suddenly realized.

“Mine,” he muttered. “The whole thing was my idea?” Sarac gulped, suddenly feeling rather sick. So that was what Bergh had actually meant. That he should have protected him from himself. “What you really want to know, Peter, is if I’m still planning to keep my word? If I’m going to take the blame when all hell breaks loose?”

“For fuck’s sake, David!” Molnar looked pained and seemed to be searching for the right words.

“Bergh’s wavering,” Sarac said. “The head of Regional Crime’s offered him a deal. Full salary to retirement if he takes the blame for the theft from the safe and keeps the other bosses out of it. It’s probably part of the deal for him to talk about Janus, say he’s an illegal infiltrator and so on.”

Molnar pulled a doubtful face. “Kjell Bergh would never agree to anything like that. He’d never hang any of his own officers out to dry.”

“No?”

Sarac suddenly realized that he was standing in the hall wearing just his underpants, socks, and a T-shirt. He went into the bedroom. That too had been tidied up. There was a new mattress on the bed and he found all his clothes in the wardrobe, washed and neatly folded away. It must have been Natalie. For a brief moment he found himself wishing she was there. The way things had been going recently, she was the only person he dared trust.

He heard Molnar shut the bathroom door, dug out a pair of jogging trousers, and pulled them on. Then he limped back out to the living room. His right leg was working better and better. The sofa was empty, and he heard Molnar running water in the bathroom. He sat down. The padding was hard but would presumably give a bit over time.

“Wallin said someone was after me,” he said, loudly enough to be heard in the bathroom. “That someone had worked out that Janus is working for me, someone who might even have tried to kill me in the Söderleden Tunnel.”

The bathroom door opened and Molnar came out.

“And you believed him?” he said. “I’m guessing that Oscar also offered you protection, right? That’s what I’d have done in his shoes. First outline the threat, then offer protection. A classic way to recruit someone.”

“So you think he’s lying?” Sarac said.

“I didn’t say that,” Molnar said.

Sarac suddenly clutched his head, shut his eyes, and leaned back. Sabatini was back in his head. The blood, and his gasped whisper:
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. He promised . . .”

“Sabatini . . . you knew him, didn’t you?” Sarac said.

Molnar nodded. “I recruited him, once upon a time. You inherited him from me when I changed departments. A small-time crook, shame it had to end like this. You haven’t said what happened, or what you were doing up at Högbergsgatan.”

“I realized I wanted to ask Sabatini about something. But I was too late,” Sarac said.

Molnar sat down on the sofa.

“Did he say who did it? Who stabbed him?”

Sarac took a deep breath. The words
It’s all his fault
were echoing in his head.

“He was muttering loads of things, only half of it was audible.” Sarac tried to keep his voice neutral. Why was he lying? Why didn’t he just repeat what Sabatini had said?

“Brian Hansen, Selim Markovic, and Pasi Lehtonen,” Sarac
went on. He saw Molnar stiffen. “They all worked for me, didn’t they?”

Molnar nodded. “So you know?”

“That they’re dead, murdered, just like Sabatini? Yes, I found out, all on my own. Without anyone telling me.”

“The notebook.” Molnar’s eyes narrowed. “I had a feeling that was why you showed up at Sabatini’s. You cracked the code and got hold of a name, yet you still didn’t call me.” His voice sounded cool, nowhere near as friendly as before. “Don’t you trust me, David?”

Sarac shrugged.

“Do you trust me, Peter? Why didn’t you tell me that someone seems to be trying to get rid of my sources? Besides, there are other things you’re keeping from me, aren’t there?”

Molnar looked at him, ran his tongue over his teeth, and seemed to be considering how to respond.

“Okay, David,” he said. “You’re quite right. There are things I chose not to mention.” Molnar squirmed slightly, once again looking for the right words.

“At the hospital, after the crash. Your blood tests.”

“Go on,” Sarac said.

“You tested positive for both THC and methamphetamine.”

Sarac’s stomach clenched. He thought about the sticky meth pipe in his apartment. The smell, the feeling that it was a junkie’s home.

“And I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t exactly surprised,” Molnar continued. “I’d had my suspicions for a while. I suppose I should say that I was thinking of raising the subject with you, but to be honest, David . . .” Molnar sighed. “You were working night and day with Janus. Delivering fantastic results, making us all look damn good. So why try to fix something that wasn’t broken?” Molnar looked down at the floor.