CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
ANNELI LINDGREN TOOK off her gloves. She was feeling rather faint. It had been an incredibly demanding day and she hadn’t eaten anything all those hours she’d been working. She longed to get home to her flat and to get some sleep. But first she’d have to pick up her son from her mother’s; Anneli had had to call her in to look after him when she realized how much work she had ahead of her.
It was eleven in the evening when the last marks had been made in the area and in the containers. The camera contained more than one thousand photos and the battery was almost empty. The team had left the salvage site, there were just a few uniformed police officers left, and Gunnar Öhrn.
He came up to her.
“Time to call it a day?” said Gunnar.
“Yes.”
“Can I give you a lift?”
She looked at him with suspicion.
“You look tired,” said Gunnar.
“Thanks.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that...”
“I know. I’m tired and I just want to get home but I’ve got to go to the station first and leave the camera there and some other stuff.”
“Then we’ll drop in there on the way.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, sure. Come on.”
* * *
Jana Berzelius stood close to the wall with her briefcase in her hand and looked out over the open office landscape. There was just one woman sitting at one of the desks typing away with her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her. The office was otherwise empty. It was 11:00 p.m. and presumably the rest of the night shift was out on calls. Or they had been sent to the salvage site.
Perfect, Jana thought.
Thanks to the lie about having to visit the detention cells, it had been easy to get into the police building. She walked determinedly toward the woman who immediately looked up from her work when she heard Jana approaching. She was young, twenty-something. Blue eyes, pearl earrings.
“Hello, I’m Jana Berzelius. Prosecutor.”
“Hi, I’m Matilda.”
“I’m working with Gunnar and his team and we usually meet in here,” said Jana and pointed toward the conference room.
“Oh yes?”
“And I need your help. During our last meeting I happened to leave my notebook in the conference room and I wonder if you could open it for me.”
Matilda looked at the clock and then at Jana, hesitant.
“I’m going to the arrest unit,” Jana explained. “And I’ve got to have something to write my notes on if somebody is arrested tonight.”
Matilda swallowed the lie, smiled and got up from her chair.
“Of course I can open for you.”
Matilda got up.
Jana glanced quickly at her computer screen and saw that the police register was open. So Matilda was logged in.
She followed her down the corridor to the conference room. Matilda opened the door with her key card and held it open for Jana.
“Here you are.”
“Thank you,” said Jana. “Now I’ll manage.”
“Close the door after you when you’ve found your notebook.”
“Yes, of course. It must be here somewhere,” said Jana and stepped into the room.
She heard Matilda returning to her desk and computer, and walked round the conference table to make the search more credible. Then she opened her briefcase, took out her notebook and closed the door behind her.
“Here it is,” she said when she went past Matilda. “Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. No trouble,” answered Matilda and waved absentmindedly to the prosecutor when she left the office landscape.
* * *
It was silent again around Matilda. Now the hard disk sounded loud and the ceiling fan buzzed.
She liked working on her own and especially at night when you didn’t risk being interrupted by questions from colleagues or being disturbed by all the telephones ringing that could be heard throughout the day.
She heard the ping from the lift and how the doors closed again.
She picked up her cell and was just about to phone her boyfriend when she heard something. It sounded like metal, and it came from the kitchen. She listened carefully to see if she could hear it again. Had she imagined it? No, there it was again.
She got up to go and see what it was. With her phone in her hand she walked toward the kitchen, turned on the light and glanced around at the sink and the dining table. It was cold in there and she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. The sound returned. She turned her head toward the windows and saw that one of them was open. She relaxed and went across to close it. The very moment she shut the window, she heard a loud noise behind her. She was scared and it gave her a start. The kitchen door had slammed shut.
“Oh, it’s only the door, from the draft,” she mumbled to herself when she felt how fast her heart was beating.
She pressed the handle on the window frame to the locked position. She glanced at the well-filled fruit basket on the sideboard but decided she’d rather have something sweet. In a striped tin she found what she was looking for and immediately popped a round biscuit into her mouth. With another one in her hand, she closed the lid and decided to go back to work. She took hold of the kitchen door handle but...nothing happened. It wouldn’t budge. The door was locked! Hell!
She felt the door handle again. How could it lock itself? She couldn’t fathom it at all. She knocked lightly on the door but realized immediately that it was a waste of time.
She was the only person in the department.
* * *
Jana Berzelius heard Matilda knock on the door when she quickly sat down on the office chair and pulled the keyboard toward her.
Now she would have to work quickly.
* * *
Gunnar Öhrn opened the door for Anneli Lindgren who yawned widely. She had dozed off during the drive from the salvage site to the police building.
“Are we already there?” she said.
“Yes. Shall I take it all up for you?”
“No. I’ll come with you.”
Gunnar opened the boot, lifted out a large, heavy bag and grasped the camera bag too, which he handed over to Anneli.
She hung it over her shoulder and yawned widely again. Then they walked side-by-side to the lifts, pressed the button and waited to go up to the third floor.
* * *
Matilda didn’t know what on earth she should do. She pounded on the door. Felt the handle again and tried to push against the door with all her weight. But it didn’t help. She banged on the door, once, twice and a third time.
“Hello!” she called out. “Hello!”
Yet again she reminded herself that there wasn’t a single person in the department apart from her. Then she realized she had her mobile in her pocket. But who could she phone? Her first thought was to ring her boyfriend. But he wasn’t authorized to get into the police building, she almost laughed at the silly idea. The reception? They could send somebody up, a maintenance man or something. But then she remembered that she only had her private mobile in her hand. And that she didn’t have any direct numbers or internal numbers to the various departments.
“Oh Christ, this is so stupid,” she said out loud and kicked the door.
* * *
Jana heard how the elevator started up. And how Matilda hit the door. Although it sounded more like a kick.
She had done the search but...nothing. No results when she tried “Hades.” What else could she try? She thought frantically. Think up something! Think! Think! Think!
The elevator had stopped. Probably on the floor below but just as she sighed with relief she heard it starting up again. On the way up.
Jana was still thinking. What else could he be called besides Hades? What? She bit her lip, her thoughts spun round. Then a name floated up from her memory. Something beginning with Dan...
She wrote “Dan” and got lots of entries for various people with that name. But it didn’t feel right. Dano... Daniel... Danilo... Danilo! She immediately entered that name.
The elevator was close now.
Come on! Give me something!
Jana looked up over the screen then quickly down again. Then she saw the result. There were several Danilos. But her eye fell on Danilo Peña. In Södertälje.
Jana pulled out her mobile, took a picture of the screen and then immediately exited from the register. Then she grabbed her things, quickly took off her shoes and ran in her stockinged feet with them in her hand toward the elevator. She pressed the button and the doors opened immediately. She sneaked up to the staff kitchen, carefully pulled the chair away from under the door handle, before rushing back to the now open elevator, and pressing the button for the garage.
The doors closed slowly and just as they did so she heard the neighboring elevator give a ping as the doors opened and somebody stepped out.
* * *
The heavy bag rubbed against his hip, and Gunnar changed his hold on it when he entered the lift.
Anneli went in after him.
The department was empty and silent, as it usually was at night. They both went along to Anneli’s room, turned on the light and left the two bags inside.
* * *
“Hello!” Matilda called out. “Is someone there? Hello?”
She banged on the door and felt the handle which...easily went down. She pushed open the door and almost bumped into an astonished Gunnar.
“Oh, God!” said Matilda. “Lucky that you’re here. I’ve been locked in.”
“What did you say? Locked in?” said Anneli who had just come out from her room.
“Yes, in the kitchen! The door locked itself. I couldn’t get out.”
Gunnar went up to the door and felt the handle. Up and down, no problem at all.
“Strange. This door can’t lock itself. You can’t lock it at all,” he said.
“But... I couldn’t get out,” said Matilda.
“Well, how did you open the door now?”
“Well, I...opened...”
“So it was unlocked?”
“No, it was locked. I couldn’t open it.”
“But then you could.”
“Yes.”
Matilda felt like an idiot. How could she explain to them? She had been locked in! But now she couldn’t face having to explain the whole thing to them.
“Well I couldn’t get out,” she mumbled to herself and walked off with a grumpy expression back to her desk.