EWERT GRENS WAS FAIRLY CERTAIN HE’D SLEPT FOR AN HOUR, BETWEEN
five and six, squashed onto the cramped sofa in his office. Klövje had run back and forth with a pile of faxes through the evening and early part of the night, which now lay scattered all over the floor; the autopsy report, patrol reports, and forensic records, upside down and in the wrong order—he was glad that they were numbered.
The printout of an inquiry concerning an inmate at a prison in southern Ohio still lying on his stomach, crumpled and with grease stains on most of the pages.
He remembered the loud-ass cat.
Just as he’d tried to get to sleep, it sat down in one of the empty parking spaces and made a hell of a racket in the courtyard. Whether it was in heat or angry or just lonely he didn’t know and didn’t particularly care either, it had screeched as only cats can and he remembered vaguely getting out his gun at one point and, in line with regulations, firing a couple of warning shots, deliberately high but close enough to shut the beast up for a few minutes. Then it had started again, of course, and he’d considered firing another shot, this time aiming and firing with intent, but had refrained, and it had eventually stopped of its own accord or he’d just stopped hearing it, drifted off to sleep.
Grens got up.
It was as if he had a hole in his back.
He looked at the alarm clock that stood on the edge of the desk. It had been late when he called Sven and Hermansson and Ågestam, but they had understood and in one hour, at seven, they would be sitting here in his office listening to his long night of faxed papers, telling a story unlike anything he’d come across before.
They were all early.
Ewert Grens looked at them with satisfaction when they were all seated. Their eyes were tired, their skin paler than usual, and Ågestam, who had come first and normally had an immaculate side parting, was a bit disheveled.
Grens spoke quietly.
“John Schwarz.”
His only words. It was such a good story. Almost as if he wanted to string it out as long as possible.
“He’s dead.”
Their faces, Grens enjoyed their confusion—were they going to shout or was he putting them on, or were they just still tired and didn’t understand?
“But yesterday, Ewert, I saw . . .”
Ewert Grens waved his hand at Sven and asked him to sit down again, to listen.
“He’s still lying in his cell over at Kronoberg detention center.”
Grens pointed to the wall behind his back, at the facility.
“And you might even say that he’s doing very well. Given that he died over six years ago.”
“Grens, what’s this all about?”
The public prosecutor, Lars Ågestam, stood up, his thin legs restless.
“You too, Ågestam. Sit down.”
“Not before you’ve explained yourself.”
“When you sit down.”
Ewert smiled. And waited.
“When you sit down, I’ll explain to you why it may be a good thing to consider personal reasons when prioritizing.”
Ågestam looked around the room, then made a great fuss of sitting down again.
“John Schwarz died while awaiting execution at a prison in Marcusville, some dump in south Ohio.”
Their faces again. Equally uncomprehending.
“His name was John Meyer Frey back then. He had been on Death Row for more than ten years, convicted of the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. He died in his cell of something that I think is pronounced
cardio-myopathy
.” Grens shrugged.
“Something to do with the heart growing so big that it finally quits.”
He leaned over to pick up the glass of water that was standing by the alarm clock on his desk. He drank, filled the glass again, emptied the rather filthy jug.
“Does anyone else want some?”
They all shook their heads.
He took another drink, three sips, then he was finished.
“John Schwarz, who is John Doe, is in fact John Meyer Frey. A dead American citizen.”
He smiled.
“My friends. We have, in other words, done something extraordinary.”
His smile was even broader.
“We’ve imprisoned a corpse.”
THE CLOCK ON TOP OF THE HEDVIG ELEONORA CHURCH HAD JUST STRUCK
seven when Thorulf Winge opened the main door to his building on Nybrogatan and went out into the slight, but cold, wind. As always, he crossed the street, holding a freshly squeezed orange juice in a paper cup from the early morning café that already smelled of cinnamon buns and the big brown ones with a gooey center.
It had been one hell of a morning already.
At half past four, he had finished an urgent call from Washington that had been redirected to his home via the foreign ministry. The state secretary for foreign affairs had gotten used to it over the years; it wasn’t unusual for the odd night to turn out like this, questions that needed immediate answers, statements that had to be formulated before daylight got the upper hand.
But he had never been involved in anything like this before.
An American prisoner who had died while awaiting execution on Death Row. Who had been dead and buried for over six years. And was now being held in custody in Stockholm.
Thorulf Winge walked from Nybrogatan on Östermalm toward the city, Gustaf Adolfs Torg and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was in good shape despite the fact that he’d turned sixty a couple of years ago, slim, straight backed, his hair still thick and dark. He worked more or less continuously, but was different from the others, those who slowly burned out when there was no rest and recuperation; the long hours, the very air that he breathed, were
precisely
what kept him young and alert, there wasn’t much else.
He drank the juice full of pulp and filled his lungs with winter as he mulled over the long conversation, the astonishing information, and worked on a solution that was taking shape in his mind. This was what he did; threw himself into looking for solutions the moment a crisis erupted. It was what he was good at, as both he and the people around him knew.
This, this could have been another fairly straightforward case.
A prisoner who disappears, a criminal who escapes his punishment and lives the life of Riley in freedom and is then returned to his cell and the penalty.
But this was something else.
It was a matter of prestige, principle.
Crime and punishment and the victim’s right to retribution held a unique position in American society. All those new prisons recently, even longer sentences, and governors and senators and congressmen who had won elections on the promise of tougher measures, of breaking the escalating cycle of crime. This person who was now sitting locked up in a Swedish prison would be a serious and dangerous headline for politicians who wanted to be reelected. They would get him back at all costs, he would be returned to his cell and he would be executed to the applause of the people and the authorities,
an eye for an eye
, that was the law of the land.
The United States would definitely demand his return.
Sweden, a little country in northern Europe, would be expected to comply.
But in recent years, the Swedish Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had, in connection with negotiations on the extradition agreement between the EU and the United States, time and again explained that
no
EU country would
ever
extradite
anyone
with a death sentence.
Thorulf Winge looked appreciatively at his surroundings as he crossed the roundabout in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the building that was called the Hereditary Prince’s Palace. It was still very quiet, not much traffic, only a handful of people to be seen in the corridor of power that ran from here to the parliament and government offices at Rosenbad.
He opened the door and walked into the impressive building.
He needed time.
He needed peace.
He needed complete latitude, and the longer it was until anyone else knew, the better.
Ewert Grens had looked at them, he had dazzled them with a broad grin. He was enjoying the situation, Lars Ågestam was sure of it. Once he had explained what had happened, let the statement
we have imprisoned a corpse
settle in the room, it was as if he quickened, his tired body and bitter face had radiated energy, something awful and awkward had happened and Grens lit up in the way that those who had worked with him before said he did, when he was at his best.
Ågestam sat still. This whole thing was something he’d never encountered before and he was just about to ask one of the many questions dancing around in his head when his phone rang. He put his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket, apologized, ignored Grens’s irritated expression, left the detective superintendent’s office and went out into the corridor that smelled of dust and something else.
He knew who it was.
But had never spoken to him before.
“Good morning. My name is Thorulf Winge, the state secretary for foreign affairs.”
Lars Ågestam didn’t really need much more than that. He had understood what it was about, even before Winge continued.
“I just want to confirm that the information I have is correct, that you are leading a preliminary investigation in connection with a certain John Schwarz who was recently detained.”
“Why?”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“You know that confidentiality prevents me from discussing who has been held in custody and who hasn’t.”
“And don’t fucking tell me what I already know.”
Ågestam saw some policemen coming down the corridor who were either about to start their day or had worked the night shift and were on their way home. He moved farther away so no one would overhear.
“What you’re implying, what you’re getting at, could be interpreted as unconstitutional ministerial rule.”
He heard Winge take a deep breath, that he was preparing to raise his voice.
“The John Schwarz case doesn’t officially exist. You will therefore, under no circumstances, answer any questions about the detainee. Keep a lid on it, Ågestam. Keep a lid on it!”
Lars Ågestam swallowed, in anger and surprise.
“Am I to understand the state secretary’s . . . words as . . . well, let’s just say that the blackout is a directive straight from . . . the minister of foreign affairs?”
“You little smart-ass . . . just wait five minutes. And then take the call.”
Ågestam stood by the coffee machine. The weak disgusting coffee that Grens normally ran around with. He read the square buttons and then pushed one of them. It didn’t look particularly nice. But he took the cup that had just been filled and drank it, as he needed something.
Exactly five minutes later his phone rang again.
The voice was more familiar. The chief prosecutor. His direct boss.
The conversation was brief.
The preliminary investigation into a case involving a man called John Schwarz, who was being held in detention, was now subject to total confidentiality.
Ågestam loitered in the corridor, finished the coffee that tasted of nothing. He tried to gather his thoughts. He had received a direct order. Totally incorrect, but an order all the same. He didn’t like the earlier tone of voice, the state secretary’s hiss; it smelled of old men, the tone that old men resorted to, old men who had lived with power for so long that they no longer noticed it, took it for granted.
He stood outside the closed door, looked at the handle, took a deep breath, opened it.
Grens was still standing up, holding some reports in his hand, quoting from one of them. Sundkvist and Hermansson were both sitting nearby listening and seemed to be unsettled by what they heard. They all looked at Ågestam, who walked over to the chair he had left twenty minutes ago.
“Well? What was it that was so much more important than our meeting?”
Ewert Grens waved the handful of papers at the young prosecutor.
“It
was
very important.”
Grens was impatient, waved his pile up and down several times.
“Well?”
“This case. John Schwarz. From now on the preliminary investigation is subject to total confidentiality. We can’t talk about it with anyone, at all.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
Grens threw down the papers he’d been holding. They floated around the room, big white leaves on their way to the floor.
“It’s an order.”
“For Christ’s sake, Ågestam, you’d better run along and comb your hair. Maybe you should
open
a preliminary inquiry first, before you make it confidential! The only preliminary investigation regarding John Schwarz that I’m aware of is in connection with a suspected act of aggression on the Finland ferry. And why should I keep quiet about that?”
Hermansson turned to look at Sven. She’d heard people talk about Ewert Grens’s temper. But even though she’d been with the City Police for a good six months now, she had yet to see it this bad. Sven just shook his head discreetly and she realized that the force of the anger that was now bouncing off the walls couldn’t be stopped.
“What I want to know, Ågestam, is where an order like that might come from?”
“My boss.”
“Your boss? The chief prosecutor?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you last suck him off?”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“The chief prosecutor! That ass kisser! Then it must come from even higher up. Because he’s a spineless bastard like you, Ågestam, the sort that’s well groomed and diligent and kindly passes the buck.”
Hermansson couldn’t bear it any longer. Ewert, who was about to lose his dignity, Ågestam, who looked like he was about to throw a punch, Sven, who just sat there and took it all in. She got up, looked each of them in the eye, and said in a quiet voice, almost a whisper: “That’s enough.”
If she had tried to raise her voice the sound would just have been drowned out by more of the same, but that was now interrupted as she forced them to listen.
“I want you to stop. I am not going to watch two grown men beating their chests. I appreciate that this investigation is difficult. I mean, if it really is true, if he really has been on Death Row and managed to escape and we’re going be involved with sending him back to a death penalty we don’t believe in, I mean, obviously that’s going to be hard and we’d far rather just stand here and take it out on each other. But we don’t have time.