Leona Read online

  This was to be expected. Having the police run the investigation was usually simpler, partly because the person in charge was then easily accessible in police headquarters and not at the city prosecutor’s office, which was some distance away, but mainly because detectives were more on the ball and aggressive when things got heated. Police officers were more inclined to use force where necessary, while prosecutors were usually more cautious. They were focused on whether the case would work out in the courtroom, and only interested in an eventual conviction.

  In this case I saw an advantage in having a prosecutor lead the preliminary investigation rather than a detective. Some prosecutors were relatively passive, which was a good thing, as I hoped to be able to conduct the investigation in my own way, without having to account for every little step. The person in charge of the preliminary investigation was important — they would set the bar for how the investigation would proceed. On a couple of occasions I had refused to take a case because of the person who was leading it. We didn’t get along. He kept interfering with my work. I couldn’t deal with that. I preferred to work on my own.

  “I’ve put together a team and scheduled a meeting at three o’clock so you can brief them on the case. By then presumably we’ll have the prosecutor in place.”

  He looked at me to gauge my reaction. He knew that I didn’t like working with just anyone. I nodded curtly.

  “How much money did they get?” Fredrik asked predictably. He was always interested in unusual crimes. He had said “they,” which implied he assumed that others besides the girl were behind the robbery. This was a reasonable conclusion, of course, if you ruled out the unlikely possibility of a hyper-intelligent, criminal little girl. If anyone believed that, though, presumably the case would have ended up at the Juvenile Division rather than the VCD. Even so, it was impossible to get away from the fact that it was the girl who had committed the robbery.

  “You mean how much did she get, that little seven-year-old girl?’ I said, smiling.

  Claes flung a folder on the table with a thud. He seemed to have had enough of my comments.

  “Maybe I can’t trust you to be responsible for a case of this importance, Leona. You don’t seem to be able to handle it.”

  I was getting tired of Claes’s attacks.

  “Not the Humle murder either, then? Or the robberies from last week? You can let someone else handle them, too, if you’re suddenly doubting my ability. Why don’t you assign the robbery to another detective, if you think there is someone more capable!”

  If he wanted a fight, I wasn’t going to back down. He stared at me. A flicker of doubt flew through my mind. Had I crossed a line? I had, after all, implied that I was a better investigator than my colleagues. A statement like that was almost a capital offense around here, where everyone was supposed to be equal. No one was allowed to claim superiority, unless they had been promoted to a management position.

  The room was again dead silent. Claes stood leaning over the conference table with both hands on the tabletop. He stared at me wide-eyed.

  “You’re dismissed!” he said.

  I stared at him, trying feverishly to read his expression. Was he serious? He raised one hand and pointed at the door with an outstretched arm. I didn’t move.

  “Are you having trouble understanding, Leona? Get out!”

  “But Claes, dear, surely you don’t mean that…”

  Claes raised a hand to stop Anette, who was trying to come to my rescue. Without taking his eyes off me, he continued to point toward the door. Everyone sat petrified. I gathered up the report and the other documents and stood up so quickly that my chair skidded back with a sharp scraping sound until it ran into the wall behind me. After I had adjusted my shirt with my free hand I walked around the table on hard high heels toward Claes. He was still standing with his arm pointed at the door as I passed behind him. I flung the door wide open and then slammed it behind me.

  TWO

  Olivia had started shaking. She tried to relax, but couldn’t. The rain made everything wet and cold. She itched, too, and her eyes and nose ran. Every time she tried to scratch, it hurt so much it brought tears to her eyes.

  She had barely been able to lift the backpack off the floor inside the bank. Once she had it on her back it was fine. But not later, when she needed to take it off. Then she lost her balance and fell right down on the asphalt. The wound on her knee was bleeding and stung much more now than before. The backpack was wet and dirty. She prayed that nothing had broken, because then Daddy would be very angry.

  Nothing had been the way Daddy had said. He must have forgotten. Forgotten to tell her that it would be so…scary.

  The black rain cape was wet both inside and out. It clung to her body, like an icy blanket on her skin.

  It smelled weird, too. And she kept hearing strange sounds. Lots of people. Sirens. They echoed loudly. Cut into her ears even though she covered them. She had also heard dogs. She loved dogs, but these ones sounded so angry. But now all the sounds were gone.

  She sang quietly to herself, even though Daddy said she wasn’t allowed to. Time went faster then. It was a song that Mommy used to sing to her. She could hear Mommy’s voice humming the tune in her head. If only Mommy were here now, she thought.

  Daddy was really strange to let her go out without clothes like this. Mommy would never let her do that. If she had only told Mommy right away that she really didn’t want to go away alone with Daddy, but she had been so happy that he had chosen only her to go with him. She had danced with happiness around the kitchen table when she’d found out that she would get to go on a boat for the first time in her life. Her whole body had tingled. Even if she’d been a little afraid, she had missed Daddy so much. And he had promised that she would get to see Grandma, too.

  The first day of the trip was fun. The boat they were on was the biggest one she had ever seen. It was bigger than their whole building and even had room for a couple of shops. In one shop she was allowed to pick out any candy she wanted. Then they found another shop, where Daddy had bought her a soft teddy bear and a bracelet with white stones. He had been so nice. Let her stay up until ten-thirty and then sleep in a bed that was above the one Daddy slept in. It wasn’t scary at all to sleep on the boat, not like her sister had said. She had told her that there would be such big waves that you fell out of bed at night, but it only rocked a tiny bit, like when Mommy rocked her when she was little.

  It wasn’t until they came ashore that all the scary stuff started. Then Daddy got really mean. That was strange because he was so nice sometimes. She had wanted to sleep every night with the teddy bear that she had got on the boat, but after only one night he took it away from her. He said that it was sick and that he had to spray something on it so that it would get better. That was strange. Teddy bears couldn’t get sick, could they? Sometimes she wondered if it was Daddy who was sick, but she pretended to believe that it was the teddy bear so that Daddy wouldn’t get mad. He always got so mean when he was mad, shouting and waving his arms.

  He used to hit her sister and her Mommy. That was a long time ago, before they moved away from Daddy. But he never hit Olivia then, because she was nice. He was just mean to people who were stupid, he always said. Olivia tried to be nice all the time, but sometimes it was hard because she didn’t always know what he wanted her to do. Then he said she was slow on the uptake. So she always tried to think really fast.

  Sometimes Daddy said that she had been stupid without her even knowing why. Like today. She must have been really slow, because he had forced her to do such hard things. The backpack was the hardest because it was so heavy. And then it was so cold. But Daddy would pick her up when it got dark. She couldn’t wait for that, because she was sure by then he would be nice again.

  She crouched down for a while. It was hard to keep standing for so long, but it was too wet to sit down. And there were creepy beetles on the ground. Not the tiny round red ones with black spots that were always on the flow
ers in her grandmother’s summer house. These were much bigger and had long feelers on their noses. Not cute at all. They made a strange scratching sound when they moved, and they could walk up the walls, too. One had run up her leg, but she’d swatted it away, and it had ended up on its back. It lay there, kicking its legs. Two of the others were eating something from the ground.

  Olivia was hungry too. Daddy had given her a sandwich and a banana that morning, but she wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anymore, because then she would have to pee, he had said. She could almost taste the banana in her mouth. Sweet and creamy. If only she had one now.

  THREE

  A fleeting sense of freedom passed over me in the corridor as I walked quickly away from the meeting. I reached my arms toward the ceiling and stretched my whole body, then I pulled out my ponytail and shook my head until my hair fell down over my shoulders. I wasn’t worried about being thrown out.

  On the contrary.

  I smiled.

  Smiled because I had avoided having to sit there for the rest of the hour. Especially as I wanted to get to the crime scene as soon as possible. I held my ID against the card reader by the glass door and entered the code that would admit me into the corridor leading to my office.

  After taking two steps into the corridor I saw it. The picture. It was hanging crookedly. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to disturb my enjoyable walk from the meeting. I took hold of one corner of the framed print and moved it up a couple of millimeters, then I stood back against the opposite wall and admired my handiwork. Not that I was the artist, but by making sure the work was hanging parallel with the floor and ceiling I had enabled the artwork to display its full potential. I didn’t care much for what the print depicted, but at least now it was in harmony with its surroundings.

  I exhaled.

  It had been quiet all morning, but when I stepped into the elevator I was reminded of the renovations. The cardboard covering the inside of the elevator made the space feel smaller than usual. Not that small spaces were generally a problem for me, but this reminded me of something. I couldn’t remember what. The gravel and the moisture from people’s shoes had broken up the cardboard on the floor, creating a musty, moldy odor that made me feel queasy. I swallowed. Looked up to see what floor I was passing. Judging by the elevator graffiti some people were getting tired of the never-ending construction work. “WHEN IS THIS DRILLING HELL GOING TO END?” and “CAN YOU CHARGE SOMEONE FOR POSSESSION OF LOUD POWER TOOLS?” were written on the cardboard walls.

  When the door opened, three workmen in blue overalls were waiting to get in the elevator. Out of the corner of my eye I saw them turn around to watch me as I got out. I sighed. The renovations would be going on until next summer, which meant that the workers would be in the building at least until then. Since the Police Department had decided to solve the shortage of office space by expanding the headquarters at Kronoberg so that the whole department could fit under the same roof, the construction workers were unavoidable. In my opinion workmen weren’t the most sociable of creatures, so I had been surprised to find that they spoke to me fairly often, asking questions about everything from burglaries at summer houses to who had assassinated Olof Palme. Some of them seemed genuinely interested in the police and saw their work as an important part of the agency’s reorganization. They thought it was good that the investigative department was divided into several squads and that VCD sounded “cool, like a crime show on TV,” as one of them had put it.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket.

  “Violent Crimes, Leona Lindberg.”

  “Hi honey, it’s me.”

  I recognized that gentle tone of voice all too well. What did he want?

  “I’m busy — on my way to a crime scene,” I said.

  I turned onto Kungsgatan in one of the agency’s unmarked cars that these days I pretty much saw as my own. The car behind was much too close. I let it be.

  “Just one quick thing,” said Peter.

  Hardly. Quick things no longer existed in our relationship. Simple conversations that we had previously dealt with in minutes had now been transformed into thorny disputes that could end in hours-long discussions.

  Though not all at once.

  There was never time for that.

  Between work, taking the kids to and from day care, shopping, cooking, playing, story time, and bedtime, there was never enough time to do anything for several hours in a row. Instead, we would drag out the most trivial arguments over the course of a few weeks. Peter loved to dwell on things. Personally I saw most of our disputes as completely meaningless.

  “Can you pick up the kids at day care this afternoon? Something’s come up for me,” he said.

  I should have known. Of course something would come up for him today, while I was busy with the new case. I glanced at my watch. After I had visited the crime scene the afternoon would be filled with meetings and investigations.

  “I can’t, Peter. Claes has just put me on a big robbery. I won’t have time.”

  “Well, things are really piling up here too, Leona. You’ll have to try to work something out.”

  “Peter, this is a bank robbery with a child involved. It won’t work.”

  “It’s just a job, Leona, try to keep that in mind. Anyway, aren’t your own children more important?”

  I shook my head, astonished that Peter still hadn’t realized that it was pointless to try to play on my conscience.

  “They’re your children too, remember? And isn’t your job just a job as well?”

  “You know how my boss is. I don’t have any flexibility. I’d much prefer to be a stay-at-home dad and take care of the kids full time if we could live on your salary alone, but a single person can barely live on that, let alone a family.”

  There it was again.

  Another jab.

  Peter’s comments confirmed that our relationship had taken a path I saw as failure. My efforts to create a well-functioning family life had succeeded for years. We lived just like the majority of our acquaintances. For the same reasons that I needed my job, I needed a normal family life. It was vital. It helped me keep my head above water.

  But it was wearing me down.

  Eating me up from inside.

  Soon it would come to an end.

  The fact that Peter was trying to make his job at the advertising agency seem of vital importance was pathetic. I had an increasing desire to hang up on him. Let the children rot at day care. When the staff called and asked, Peter could explain why he hadn’t picked them up on time. If only the day care staff could learn to call Peter instead of me when there was a problem with the children. There was no equality there.

  I didn’t have time to pick a fight with Peter right now. Another quick glance at my watch. With a little luck I might have time to pick them up anyway.

  “I’ll work it out,” I said, driving onto Nybrogatan, heading toward the SEB branch at number 39.

  There was still a significant response at the crime scene. Two marked cars with blue lights rotating on their roofs were parked on the street. Curious bystanders, journalists, and photographers were crowded outside. Most of them holding umbrellas to escape the pouring rain. I had to squeeze my way to the field commander. I flashed my badge.

  “Leona Lindberg, detective. How are we doing?”

  He nodded and raised the barricade tape for me.

  “Antonsson. The witnesses are being interviewed in the van. No trace of the girl yet.”

  Antonsson was probably the oldest officer still on patrol duty that I had ever met. His age wasn’t his only distinguishing feature; he was also big-boned and a head taller than the rest of his colleagues. His gray-and-white mustache and beard made him look like an old-time constable from the movies.

  A male journalist with blond hair appeared and looked at me. “Excuse me, can I get a brief statement? What’s known about the girl?”

  “I’ve told you that we can’t make a statement yet,” Antonsson said to the journali
st.

  He followed me away from the barricade, toward the bank.

  “Forensics?” I asked.

  “They’re on the scene. No information yet, but you know how Forensics is these days, they refuse to collaborate. I’m just waiting for them to be done so we can pack up. I haven’t seen such a crowd of journalists since Anna Lindh was stabbed at NK. This little girl seems to be prime front-page news.”

  “You can refer all media to me,” I said.

  On my way to the bank I turned toward Antonsson.

  “Could you ask the officers over there to turn off those lights?”

  I had never liked the blue lights. Some of my colleagues seemed to love them. They didn’t feel like real cops unless they were riding around in uniform in a marked car with the sirens blaring. The louder and more visible they were, the higher their sense of self-worth. It was mainly the younger officers who liked to show off. A few of the older ones who still worked in the field were the very best kind of officers. They were able to distance themselves from their role, and they didn’t feel the need to assert themselves or display their authority as soon as they got the chance. Unfortunately there were far too few experienced officers in the field because the work — outdoors, with inconvenient shifts at night and on public holidays — didn’t fit with the kind of family life that most officers preferred.

  The blue lights were irritating.

  “You can get epilepsy from less,” I muttered as I approached the entrance.

  Just outside the bank I turned around and looked out over Östermalmstorg. The square a little farther away was almost empty. The rain made people move slowly along the building facades. I walked into the bank. A man approached me.

  “Gunnar Månsson, Forensics. We’ll be done here soon. Not much for us to do, unfortunately.”

  “The witnesses said the girl was covered with blood. Any traces?”

  “Not even a drop.”

  “Fingerprints? Anything?”