“Well, so-so,” Irene replied. “I was lucky. It’s worse for Jimmy.”
“I talked to the hospital an hour ago. He has to stay there at least another night. But we have to talk about this damned mess of an investigation. As I said, a lot has happened. We’ve got Narcotics involved with Billdal. First they give us a lousy little assistant, and then the whole division comes and takes over!”
“Sven, please. Don’t call Jimmy ‘a lousy little assistant.’”
“Hmm. It turns out that International has had a motorcycle gang on the west side of Göteborg under surveillance for several months. They’re suspected of smuggling in large quantities of narcotics via Holland and Denmark. These scumbags are connected to the Hell’s Angels, the gang that you and Jimmy ran into. They call themselves ... ‘Ded skvadron n-o one.’”
She understood that he meant “Death Squadron No. 1.” Without laughing she said, “I wonder if they can spell it. What did the Narcs find out at the cottage in Billdal?”
Tommy took over. “Actually quite a bit. The grenade you talked about yesterday left a small crater. The door of the cottage was broken in. We found some pizza boxes and empty beer cans in the kitchen. In the little bedroom there was a bed, and on it was a brand-new down sleeping bag. On the floor was a plastic box and a receipt from Allsport on Södra Vägen dated last Friday. Today we checked with the staff at the sporting goods store and it turned out that Bobo Torsson bought it.”
“Excellent! But you’ll have to excuse someone who was just hit hard on the head—what does this all mean? Von Knecht? Pirjo and the murder bomb? Shorty, Bobo, and Hell’s Angels?”
Both the superintendent and Tommy stared at her for a long time. Finally Tommy said, “And it gets even messier. We knew about it yesterday, but didn’t want to tell you. We didn’t want to upset you. Bobo Torsson is dead.”
“Torsson is dead? Keep going, before I fall over!”
“Remember the car bomb in the parking lot at the Delsjön golf course early yesterday morning?”
Was it really only yesterday? It felt like several years ago, but she nodded to show that she was following. She began to understand the reason for Andersson’s restrained agitation when he’d come to see her at the hospital.
Tommy said dramatically, “The techs found parts of a body, including a finger. The fingerprint shows that it was Bobo Torsson who was blown sky-high! And the car turned out to be Torsson’s.”
She wondered vaguely why the superintendent quickly interjected, “A red Toyota Corolla.”
“Give me strength!” was Irene’s only, but spontaneous, comment.
Andersson took over and nodded in assent. “Yeah, that’s what I said too. ‘Holy shit,’ I said. How are we going to make any sense of this? But now the Narcs have agreed to join the investigation. Which in all honesty is lucky for us, because this is starting to get out of control!”
“What kind of bomb was it?” Irene asked.
Tommy gave her a rundown of the details. “A pipe bomb. In a briefcase that exploded when the briefcase was opened. The iron pipe was the same type used on Berzeliigatan, but much smaller. Svante thinks the type of pipe is interesting. They’re old threaded drainpipes of different diameters. Modern ones are made of plastic, so they’re no good for making bombs.”
“Do we know what Bobo was cooking up with the Hell’s Angels?”
“No. On Friday he bought a sleeping bag and headed out to the summer cottage. He probably knew we wanted to talk to him about the attack on Birgitta. We don’t know what he was up to on Saturday and Sunday. But on Monday morning, at six o’clock on the dot, he was blown to bits by a bomb in his car!”
Irene looked just as confused as she felt when she asked, “Fatso thought that Bobo had split with the bread!
What bread
, I have to ask. Then he got the idea that Bobo had squealed and set us on the trail out to Billdal. While they ‘sat and waited with their pants down,’ as he expressed it. What did he mean by that?”
Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “Good questions. I don’t have any good answers. We know that the biker gang hadn’t been at Bobo’s cottage for very long. At most a few hours. On the other hand, we found plenty of traces of them in the summer cabins a few hundred meters away. They obviously stayed there a few days. We’re still looking into things, although now Narcotics has taken over. But we do know one thing: how they knew that you were on the way.”
“I’d really like to know that!”
“They had set up an electric eye by the road, hidden in the lumber pile. When you crossed the beam an alarm went off inside the house.”
“But why?”
“My theory is that they wanted to be forewarned in case anyone showed up, because they were busy with things that absolutely could not be seen by strangers. Actually, I can’t imagine any activity of theirs that outsiders might see. Except when they ride around in big gangs on their choppers and look generally terrifying.”
So it hadn’t done them any good to turn off their flashlights and stumble blindly through the dark. Again the feeling of total helplessness came over her. She tried to control it and said matter-of-factly, “So we could have been struck down when we got to the summer cabins. Why weren’t we?”
“They must have wanted to know who you were.”
“I think I need some coffee before I look my Hell’s Angels in the eyes. Even if it’s only in mug shots.”
Irene and Tommy went to get three cups of coffee from the vending machine. Mainly to put off confronting the photos. Suddenly an idea occurred to her.
“Tommy, have you questioned Shorty about this?”
“Have I! Ask Andersson!”
His cheerful response provoked premonitions that were verified by the superintendent.
“That idiot is nuts! We took him in last night, three guys from Narcotics and Fredrik Stridh from our group. We had known for three hours Bobo Torsson had been blown up in the car at the golf course. When the guys rang Shorty’s doorbell he tore open the door as if he’d been standing there holding the knob! He yelled something like ‘You fucking photo queer . . .’ and then he shut up. Then that idiot started throwing punches! Since he was high on something, he mostly hit thin air. Which was damned lucky for our guys. Finally they got him on the floor and cuffed him. But they had a hell of a time getting him to the car! Right after we visited you in the hospital, I went to question the honorable tobacco dealer.”
Andersson paused and took a big gulp of his coffee. It wasn’t very fortifying, but he needed it before he could continue. “He refused to talk. Sat there staring into thin air. Finally I thought I’d better shake him up a little. ‘Listen, you scumbag, do you know that Bobo’s dead?’ I said. He just kept on staring. After at least two minutes, when I had repeated that Bobo was dead several times, the devil seized hold of him! He jumped me and tried to get me in a choke hold! Howling like a wounded gorilla! Luckily Tommy was with me in the interrogation room, along with Bertil from Narcotics. And a few more came rushing in. That was the end of the interview last night. This morning we tried again, with strange results.”
“What kind of strange results?” asked Irene.
“At nine-thirty this morning Tommy and I went to see him in the interrogation room. There sits Shorty Johannesson, public enemy number one, neat and dapper, newly showered and shaved. When we come in the shithead says, ‘Forgive me for yesterday, superintendent. But it was such a shock when you said that Bobo was dead. I couldn’t believe it.’ And he gives me the most angelic look in the world. I was completely at a loss. I probably said, ‘That’s quite all right’ or something of the sort. Then he says, ‘Pardon me, but how did Bobo die?’ And without thinking I told him about the bomb in the briefcase and all that. After that Shorty never opened his mouth.”
“Didn’t say a thing?”
“Not a damned word! We kept at him for several hours—nothing.”
“That’s weird.”
“Weird? You can bet your . . . boots!”
He changed the end of the sentence abruptly after a curt knock was followed by the door opening. Prosecutor Inez Collin made her entrance and filled the small room with her authority and the scent of Chloë. She was slim and almost as tall as Irene. Her long blond hair was worn in a tight French roll. The hairdo and the high-heeled pumps with the dark gray suit made her look even taller. Her makeup was discreet, but the bright red silk blouse and her manicured nails were the same color. She smiled and said, “Hello. Excuse me for interrupting, but there’s a little problem with Lasse Johannesson.”
Andersson nodded and said courteously, “Hello. There’s always been a problem with Lasse Johannesson.”
“No doubt. It has to do with his arrest. From what I understand, there are no grounds for requesting detention of Johannesson, correct?”
“It’s not so damned . . . not so easy to detain somebody when you don’t know what crime he’s committed. Just that he’s done something!”
“Correct. But admit that there would be problems if we began taking away the freedom of everyone who fulfilled that criterion. Unfortunately I couldn’t get away this morning when you were questioning Johannesson. I just went to talk with him. He didn’t answer. The only thing he said was, ‘You can’t keep me here. I haven’t committed any crime.’ My question is: Has he?”
“But it’s obvious that he has!”
“Then what? Do we have proof of any crime? Are there any grounds for detention?”
Andersson’s face slowly began to assume that unbecoming tomato-red shade. Controlling himself, he said, “He and his cousin Bobo Torsson were up to some monkey business!”
“What was it?”
“We don’t know! Something with the Hell’s Angels out in Billdal. Drug deals!”
Inez Collin raised one discreetly penciled eyebrow and asked, “Do we know whether Johannesson had anything to do with the motorcycle gang? Any evidence?”
“Bobo did.”
“But you don’t know whether Johannesson had any contact with them. No evidence, that is.”
“He was partial owner of the cottage! Along with Torsson!”
“That’s not much evidence. I’m waiting with the detention order. We’ll try to hold him for five days. ‘Interfering with a criminal investigation’ or ‘risk of removal of evidence,’ or the like. But if any legal representative starts yelling, I’ll have a hard time justifying it. Within ninety-six hours I want hard evidence of a crime committed by Lasse Johannesson. Otherwise we’ll have to release him. We have to try to keep in daily contact for a while now. I’m also dealing with the investigation of the bomb that killed Bo-Ivar Torsson. The top brass thought it would be practical. Now I won’t disturb you any longer. Excuse me for interrupting.”
She turned to go. At the door she stopped and turned back to the superintendent.
“Speaking of the top brass, Chief Bergström was chuckling about how well informed he was about the von Knecht case. I pressed him a bit to find out how that could be. It came out that he had asked you ‘to please submit ongoing confidential reports.’ I told him that all ‘confidential reports’ from here on have to come through me. Just so you know. See you later!”
She swept out leaving a cloud of Chloë.
Tommy sniffed the air and sighed, “What a woman!”
“Oh yes!”
The superintendent sounded as if he agreed, but Irene could tell that their reasons were not the same. To hell with it; the point now was not to delay any longer. Reluctantly, she slid over the first folder and started to page through it. But the pictures began to blur before her eyes and without being able to stop herself she asked, “How long do you have?”
“What? Time? As long as you need,” the superintendent said generously.
Irene sounded like she was a crying for help. “No! Not the photo ID! How much time do you have from when the pin on a hand grenade is pulled until it detonates?”
The silence was intense and unpleasant. Finally Andersson said, “Don’t think about it. Everything turned out all right.”
“No! It did not turn out all right! I’ve been blown to bits! In my soul!”
Andersson gave her an uncertain look. Was she having a breakdown? Maybe women couldn’t stand such rough stuff. But Irene was a hardened cop who had been through plenty of trying situations. He had never seen this kind of reaction from her before. At a loss, he said, “What do you mean? Why?”
“Why? The feeling of being totally at the mercy of these shitbags! The helplessness! Knocked unconscious and disarmed, then attempted murder with a hand grenade! Pissed on and degraded! And we couldn’t do a thing. No, I did do one thing. I threw the grenade out the window. And that’s what keeps going through my mind. What would have happened if I’d missed? Imagine if I hadn’t grabbed it right away. Imagine if it had rolled away into the room. I know the answer to those questions, but I can’t let go of one thing: How long have you got?”
Tommy stood up and went over to Irene. To Andersson’s astonishment he bent over and put his arms around her. He leaned his head on hers and said, “Four seconds. He threw the grenade as soon as he pulled the pin, without holding on to it. They were in a hurry, he was probably stressed. That’s why you made it. The throw must have taken at least half a second. Subtract that from the original four and a half. You had four seconds max.”
“If he hadn’t thrown it right away I wouldn’t have made it!”
“No, Irene. You wouldn’t have made it.”
Tommy was still holding her, but she felt no comfort and warmth. An icy cold seeped up out of the black depths, and the voices echoed:
You wouldn’t have made it! You would have died. Both of you ought to be dead! Nobody can make it in less than four seconds. Four seconds!
Andersson fidgeted uncomfortably. “Stop thinking about what didn’t happen. Don’t get hung up on it; we have to go on with the investigation. Damn it, Irene, you’re a hero who saved Jimmy’s life! And your own. That’s the sort of thing you get a medal for.”
He stood up. Tommy had let go of her. The superintendent aimed a clumsy little pat at her sore shoulder. She flinched but said nothing.