The Disciple (28 page)

‘Is there something I can help you with?’ Annika looked up again; presumably she had been aware of his silent scrutiny since he emerged from Haraldsson’s office. Haraldsson, who had just confirmed that well-known hypothesis that most people climb one or two steps higher up the career ladder than their competence should allow.

Sebastian couldn’t resist the temptation. ‘Your boss said you’re to bring him a coffee.’

‘What?’

‘Milk, no sugar, and you’re to get a move on, he said.’ Sebastian could see how annoyed she was. Perhaps not by the request for coffee in itself, but by the mention of the need to hurry things along. She got up with a restrained sigh and went over to the coffee machine between the two sofas. Picked up a plastic cup.

Sebastian decided to take things one step further. ‘He doesn’t want instant,’ he said. ‘Real coffee, from the cafeteria. In a proper cup.’

Annika turned to check if she had heard him correctly. Sebastian shrugged to indicate that he was only the messenger.

‘Would you two like something as well, since I’m going anyway?’ He could hear her struggling to prevent the resentment from coming through in her voice.

‘No, we’re fine, thanks.’ Sebastian gave her a warm, sympathetic smile. ‘If we change our minds we can use the machine.’

Annika nodded and gave him a look that said she thought Haraldsson could have done the same, then she left the room, slamming the door behind her. Sebastian went back into Haraldsson’s office feeling slightly more cheerful.

His timing couldn’t have been better. Haraldsson put down the phone, turned to his computer and started tapping away at the keyboard.

‘As I understand it there’s no one who is or has been particularly close to Edward Hinde. Roland Johansson was in the secure unit with Hinde, and they evidently had a certain amount of contact, but he’s been out for almost two years.’ He looked up at the screen and scrolled down with the mouse. ‘Yes, two years in September.’

‘No one else?’ Vanja asked as she made a note of the name.

‘He occasionally used to play chess with José Rodriguez in the library,’ Haraldsson went on, tapping on the keyboard again. ‘It says here that he was released just under eight months ago.’

‘I’d like to take a copy of everything you have on them,’ Vanja said, jotting down the second name.

‘Of course; I’ll get their dossiers printed off and you can pick them up from Annika when you leave.’

Vanja nodded her thanks; this had been easier than she expected. She was just getting to her feet when there was a tap on the door and Annika came in with a cup of coffee.

Sebastian pointed to Haraldsson behind the desk. ‘For the boss.’

Annika went over and put the coffee down in front of Haraldsson without a word.

He looked up at her, pleasantly surprised. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’ He took hold of the handle and turned the cup around a little way, as if to examine it. ‘And in a china cup too, for once.’

Sebastian saw the dark look Annika gave her boss before she left the office. Maybe he should send her for a cake when they were leaving? Or perhaps that would be a step too far. He heard Vanja thanking Haraldsson for his help, and left the office with her.

When Riksmord had left the room Haraldsson picked up the coffee cup and leaned back in his chair. He took a sip. Delicious. Not the usual dishwater from the machine. He would ask Annika if she would mind fetching his coffee from the cafeteria all the time in future. But that could wait.

So Hinde was involved in several murders.

Several.

Plural.

Surely it had to be the serial murders he had read about in the papers. ‘The Summer Psycho’, as one of the tabloids had dubbed the killer. Four dead within a month. Stabbed, according to the press. A major investigation. An important case, and Riksmord thought Hinde was somehow involved.

Edward Hinde, in Haraldsson’s secure unit.

He took another sip of the hot, delicious coffee. Riksmord were obviously looking for a murderer on the outside, but they had no idea who that might be. Did Hinde know? What if Haraldsson could help them? Even better, what if he could get Hinde to tell him what he knew? It would be no bad thing if he could be the one to provide the missing pieces of the puzzle in such a high-profile case. Perhaps he wouldn’t always want to remain a prison governor. There were other posts available. Higher up. Haraldsson took another sip of coffee and decided to go and visit Hinde more often. Become his friend.

Gain his trust.

He could see the headlines.

He could already hear the praise.

It was after lunch by the time they gathered in the Room again. Sebastian had been home for a shower. He still hadn’t got over his failure at Lövhaga. Not only had he not found out anything, but Hinde had won. A straight knockout. Sebastian had gone over the entire meeting in his head as he stood in the shower, and had come to the conclusion that it was actually Vanja’s fault. Not because she had started bargaining with Hinde – they might have been able to turn that around, not to their advantage but at least into a no-score draw. The problem was Vanja herself. Who she was. His daughter. Sebastian had walked into the meeting with secrets. When he had met Hinde in the past, there had been nothing he felt he needed to hide. He could play his hand, react as he wished, make decisions on the spur of the moment without being afraid that the man on the other side of the table would find out more than he ought to know. That was no longer the case. If you were going to keep up with Hinde, then you had to be able to use the whole playing field. If there was a tiny area where you were unwilling to go, then you could count on the fact that Hinde would steer the conversation in that direction. This time not only did he have secrets to keep from Hinde, but from Vanja too. An impossible situation.

Torkel’s fault.

Or his.

He should have said no.

He shouldn’t have gone to Lövhaga with Vanja, he should have gone with Billy.

Pity he didn’t think of that until he was in the shower.

Sebastian sat down next to Ursula. The Room was hot and sticky, with a stuffy smell. Someone had opened the window, but it didn’t help at all. There was no air conditioning in the Room; it was merely connected to the ordinary ventilation system, which struggled to cope with the heat in summer.

When they were all sitting down Billy started the projector on the ceiling and switched on his laptop.

‘I’ve found both men who were released from Lövhaga; it wasn’t difficult, we’ve kept tabs on them pretty well.’

He pressed a key and the picture of a man aged around fifty appeared on the wall. Ponytail. Broad face, broken nose, and a red scar running over his left eye and down his cheek. The man looked like a caricature of a career criminal.

‘Roland Johansson. Born in Gothenburg in 1962. Two attempted murders and aggravated assault. Substance abuse. Held in Lövhaga from 2001 to 2008. Moved back to Gothenburg after serving his sentence. I spoke to his liaison officer. They were away together when the second and third murders were committed. Coach trip to Österlen with Narcotics Anonymous.’

‘Is he using again?’ Vanja chipped in.

‘Not according to his liaison officer, but he does attend meetings on a regular basis.’ Billy glanced down at his notes. ‘He doesn’t have an alibi for the first murder, but yesterday morning he was definitely in Gothenburg, again according to the liaison officer.’

Torkel sighed. Johansson definitely sounded like yet another person they could eliminate from the investigation. ‘Who’s his liaison officer?’

Billy leafed through his papers. ‘Fabian Fridell.’

‘What do we know about him?’

Billy understood why Torkel was asking. All Johansson’s alibis were provided by the same person. It was unlikely that two different people had committed the murders, but Johansson might have some kind of hold over Fridell, forcing him to provide an alibi.

‘Not much. Nothing on record as far as I could see, but I’ll check him out.’

‘Good.’

‘And I’ll speak to some of the others who were on that coach trip.’

Torkel nodded. No doubt Roland Johansson had been ambling around Österlen visiting breweries and painting in oils by the sea, or whatever Drug Addicts Anonymous did on their coach trips. But the sooner they knew for certain, the sooner they could eliminate him.

‘I’ve requested his fingerprints and those of the other guy from records,’ Ursula stated. ‘So we can compare them with those found at the crime scenes.’

‘Good,’ Torkel replied. ‘We’ll run both a forensic check and an activity check on both of them.’

‘I can take Fridell,’ Billy said.

‘How did Johansson get that scar?’ Sebastian wondered.

Billy looked through his papers again, quickly and eagerly. He wanted to appear keen. ‘It doesn’t say. Is it important?’

‘No. Just curious.’

Billy brought up the next picture. A younger man, Latin-American appearance. Large gold hoop in each ear.

‘José Rodriguez, aged thirty-five. Held in Lövhaga since 2003. Assault and rape. Lives in Södertälje.’

‘That’s where the Focus was stolen,’ Vanja said.

‘Exactly. When I made that connection I contacted the local force and they went to speak to him.’ Billy was pleased that he was one step ahead. He went on: ‘According to them, Rodriguez can’t remember what he was doing on the dates in question. Evidently he’s a pretty serious alcoholic, at least from time to time.’

He shut down the laptop, went over to the board and pinned up hard copies of the pictures they had just seen.

Torkel turned to Sebastian. ‘What did you get out of Hinde?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. ‘He’s lost weight and he wanted to touch Vanja’s tits, but that was about it.’

‘But he does know something about the murders,’ said Vanja, choosing to ignore what Sebastian had just said.

Torkel looked at her enquiringly. ‘And how do you know that?’

Now it was Vanja’s turn to shrug. ‘A feeling.’

‘A feeling?’ Torkel pushed back his chair with some force and stood up. He started pacing up and down the room. ‘So I have a man who claims to be an expert in serial killers in general and Edward Hinde in particular, and he gets fuck-all out of a face-to-face meeting.’ He scowled at Sebastian, who met his gaze with equanimity before reaching for a bottle of mineral water. Purely out of consideration for Torkel’s blood pressure, he chose not to respond. Torkel was usually the epitome of calm, but sometimes he erupted. All you could do was wait for it to pass. Sebastian opened the bottle and took a swig.

Evidently Torkel had finished with him, because he turned to Vanja. ‘And then I have an investigator who has a
feeling
that Hinde is involved. A feeling! What shall we do next? Get someone to draw up his fucking horoscope?! Bloody hell!’ Torkel stopped and slammed both hands down on the table. ‘Women are dying!’

The room fell silent. From outside they could hear the faint sound of traffic, which no one had noticed until now. A wasp buzzed in through the window, but seemed to change its mind; it banged into the glass several times before finding its way out. Nobody moved. Everybody kept their eyes fixed on some neutral area where they could be sure of not meeting anyone else’s eye. Except for Ursula, who looked at each of them in turn, apparently pleased not to have come under fire herself. Sebastian took another swig of mineral water. Billy adjusted a photograph which was already perfectly straight. Vanja started picking at a fingernail. Torkel remained standing by the table for a little while, then he walked very deliberately back to his place, pulled the chair towards him and sat down. If anyone was going to break the oppressive atmosphere that had descended, it would have to be him. He took a deep breath. ‘If I arrange another meeting with Hinde, is there any chance that you might get something this time?’

‘Possibly if I go alone,’ Sebastian replied.

Vanja reacted immediately. ‘Oh right, so it was my fault we didn’t get anywhere?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘You said you’d do better without me. How the hell am I supposed to interpret that?’

‘I couldn’t give a toss. Interpret it however you like.’ Sebastian finished off the bottle of mineral water and belched gently due to the carbon dioxide, which made his tone more unpleasant than he had intended.

Vanja turned to Torkel. ‘Do you think this is working? Do you?’

‘Vanja . . .’

‘Do you remember what we said we were going to do if it wasn’t working? We said we were going to kick him out.’

Torkel sighed. He had lost his temper, and now there was a bad atmosphere within the team. The question was whether it had arisen out of frustration because they still knew nothing about the perpetrator, or whether it was because they had let Sebastian in again. Torkel didn’t know, but he had to bring them back together, if only temporarily.

He slowly got to his feet. ‘Okay . . . let’s all calm down. It’s hot, we’ve been working hard, it’s been a long day, and it’s not over yet.’

He went over to the board and gazed at the pictures before turning back to face the others. ‘We need to get close to this man. We need to catch him. Ursula, compare the fingerprints and DNA with our records on Johansson and Rodriguez.’

Ursula nodded, got up and left the room.

‘Vanja, go over to Södertälje and see if you can improve Rodriguez’s memory.’

‘Shouldn’t we wait and see what Ursula comes up with?’

‘The car that has presumably been following Sebastian came from the same place. At the moment that’s enough to warrant paying a little more attention to Rodriguez.’

Vanja nodded. ‘But he’s not coming with me.’ She gestured in Sebastian’s direction without looking at him.

Torkel sighed. ‘No, he’s not going with you.’