The Memory Man Page 14

  Which begged the question: did that mean he knew about Björn Dahlberg?

  And did the killer?

  The card urging Anglemark to remember Bonn was here, not in chambers or his own apartment, or any of the places he kept out of town. It was here. Meaning either the killer had sent it to this address, and thus knew the Dahlberg connection, or Anglemark had brought it here himself and hidden it because he considered this the one safe place in his world.

  She was still trying to make sense of all of it when she heard a knock at the door. She had company. Fifteen minutes. Right on time.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Another cafe, another dead end.

  This time it was a small, and desperately old-fashioned place; the kind that still had a brass bell on the door that chimed every time it opened and closed. A small bird-like woman approached as he entered, all smiles as she ushered him to a two-top and took his order.

  Dooley had already been dead by the time he was supposed to meet his nemesis. The coroner’s time of death pronouncement had a little wiggle room, but he was several hours cold by the time stamped on the card.

  He put his warrant card on the table, not making a big thing out of it. It didn’t do to spook anyone. ‘My name’s Peter, I’m with the Eurocrimes Division.’ She nodded like that meant something to her, which of course it didn’t. The badge did all the meaningful talking for him. ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions about yesterday if that’s OK?’

  ‘Of course, happy to help if I can, officer.’

  ‘I’m interested in anyone who came in alone, specifically around two to three in the afternoon, maybe looked like they were expecting to meet someone that never showed?’

  ‘A lot of people come here for a drink and a chat, you know how it is. Lots of people come in by themselves these days, too. It’s not like it used to be when it was embarrassing to eat alone.’

  ‘I understand,’ Ash said.

  ‘It means that folks don’t stick out like a sore thumb any more. People use this place differently. We have some guys who come in with their laptops and sit for three or four hours on one cup of coffee. We have others who are leaving before the dregs in their cup have gone cold.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m sure you see all sorts. But think about yesterday afternoon, maybe someone came in and went out again without ordering?’

  ‘You heard the bell? I’m like Pavlov’s Waitress. That rings, I’ve got you in a seat faster than you can say milk and two sugars, dear. Besides, yesterday was quiet. It always is, midweek. We have our regulars, of course. I could probably make you a list of every person who came in through those doors. Most of our custom is on patterns. Like ten thirty, the mother and baby group lets out and we get half a dozen mums who need their sugar infusion to survive the oncoming storm of toddler days. Then it’s the office crowd who are on a grab and go schedule with their takeaway lattes and sourdough sandwiches. The third wave comes when the schools finish and we get the sixth-formers coming in to hang out for an hour or so before going home. Used to be they sat around inside the Ashley Centre, killing time or shoplifting, but now it’s all frothy coffees and poetry.’ She smiled, obviously very fond of the young Byrons and Shelleys who frequented her humble abode. ‘We get the gentle artistic souls, mainly from the art college, the others all want to hang out at the Starbucks down the road.’

  ‘There are worse kids to have as regulars,’ Ash said, and meant it. ‘I don’t suppose you have cameras watching the street?’

  She shook her head. ‘The cost isn’t worth it. We’re not a Nero or Costa. We don’t have a problem with vandalism or theft.’

  ‘You’re very lucky.’

  She didn’t disagree.

  He thanked her, and decided to canvass the area, making a list of cameras in the area and the kind of coverage they offered. It wasn’t as bad as Paris, but it still wasn’t great as most of them were traffic cams linked to the lights, and their focus was squarely on the road.

  It was all about patterns of behaviour; people were creatures of habit. They took comfort in the familiar and repeated what had worked before. It stood to reason that he watched his victims. That reduced the element of surprise and the room for things to go wrong. So, if he’d followed Tournard to their meeting, it was reasonable to expect repeated behaviour. But where would he start watching the old man? Nearly eighty thousand people lived in the borough, even if Langley Vale itself was maybe two hundred at best. Epsom wasn’t so small that there was only one way in or out, but there was only one sensible way from the Downs to the town centre. But even so he couldn’t just sit at a bus stop and wait to be sure the old priest was on time. People were random. They didn’t follow predictable patterns: like Brownian random motion playing out on a massive scale, they bounced off each other and got side-tracked by signs, hungers and thirsts, and distractions. Unless they had a destination in mind, then they followed the shortest possible route from A to B. But even then there were just too many opportunities for things to go wrong. A double-decker bus reinforced that as it drove slowly by obscuring the other side of the street for a good forty-five seconds. A lot could change in even that short time. So why risk missing your man by lying in wait any sort of distance from their destination?

  There were far too many places on the busy street for someone to hide in plain sight.

  He was thinking about this all wrong.

  He needed to break out of this mindset. He gave up, deciding to head back into River House.

  He was halfway back to the car when his phone rang; it was Laura.

  ‘What’s the good news?’

  ‘You only want the good? Or are you up for the bad, too?’

  ‘Give me the good news first.’

  ‘OK, I’ve managed to pull together a list of the orphanages that the EuropaChild Foundation has helped set up. Most of them are across Eastern Europe and were set up after the Berlin Wall came down.’

  ‘I’m sure their money was welcomed with open arms,’ Ash said, cynically.

  ‘You remember what it was like. The governments in most of those countries didn’t have the resources or were using them to shore up their regimes in the wake of civil unrest. They were happy to let foreign aid take on the financial burden, but most of the orphanages themselves were eventually taken over by either the government or local groups. A few have been closed down, of course, as the need for them has diminished.’

  ‘That’s good to hear at least.’

  ‘I’ve whittled the list down to the ones still open and run by the charity, rather than reabsorbed into state control.’

  ‘Any of them in Germany?’

  ‘Like I said, good news, bad news. That’s the bad news. Or some of it at least.’

  ‘You’re breaking my heart here, Law.’

  ‘I’ve had Division run a historical search on crimes involving victims being sent body parts. We’ve had two fresh hits.’

  That immediately changed things. He stopped dead in his tracks. ‘I want to know everything.’

  ‘The first match turned up in Seville, Spain, though it didn’t get flagged immediately because the recipient’s cause of death was determined to be a heart attack. His daughter found a finger in a plastic container in the fridge when they were clearing the house out. The guy lived on his own since his wife died five years earlier. The initial police reports describe him as a loner. It is believed he died several weeks before his body was found.’

  ‘Close-knit family. How long ago?’

  ‘Just over a month.’

  The implications washed over him. A month. He looked over his shoulder, suddenly conscious of just how public he was, before he said, ‘We’ve had a killer out there for over a month and we’ve only just realized?’

  ‘Natural causes. No one was looking for a murderer.’

  ‘Even so. I don’t suppose the local plod turned up a note? A nice little “remember Bonn” warning to link things definitively to our case?’

  ‘If only. Looks like
daughter dearest either boxed up or burnt anything that might have been of use, cleaning the place out. Not one for sentimentality, I guess.’

  ‘And the other victim?’

  ‘Rome, Italy.’

  ‘Rome? That’s on Donatti’s doorstep. Surely it was on his radar?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. You know what it’s like over there with the Vatican police, the Polizia di Stato, and Carabinieri, it’s not like all of these forces are all lovey dovey. Chances are because it’s got zero to do with the Church he doesn’t even know about it.’

  ‘I don’t know … he’s got a habit of hearing things,’ Ash said, already going through a list of possibilities why the Church man might hold out on him. ‘So, what do we know about the vic?’

  ‘This one was sent to a judge. His wife opened it and, assuming it was some sort of Mob threat, reported it to the Carabinieri straight away. The judge is in protective custody.’

  ‘Has he missed his meeting?’

  ‘Not yet. It’s scheduled for this afternoon, three o’clock.’

  Ash checked his watch, even though he knew that it was physically impossible for him to make the journey, lose an hour in the time zone change, and make the meeting.

  ‘The Carabinieri have a body double taking his place to see if they can lure the suspect out.’

  ‘He won’t be there.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Patterns of behaviour. He didn’t turn up to the meet when Dooley didn’t show, but he did turn up for Tournard’s because the Monsignor was there. He’s watching them. He knows the judge is a no-show. He’ll know it’s a sting.’

  ‘So, does he come back for the judge a second time?’

  Ash found himself shrugging, as if she could see his response. ‘Yes. Absolutely. There’s no forgiveness here. No absolution. You don’t get lucky and get to live just because you missed the showdown. If anything you sign your death certificate by not taking that meeting, that’s the threat isn’t it. Don’t show, you get chopped up into little pieces and mailed across Europe.’

  ‘And show up and you only lose one extremity. Deal or no deal?’

  ‘He’s got a grudge list. One by one he’s facing them down to settle old scores. Whatever happened in Bonn they’re being made to remember their role in it. And he isn’t going to stop until he has made each and every one of them face up to what they did.’

  ‘Unless we stop him.’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘There’s no room to manoeuvre,’ Ash said. She assumed he meant for them, but he didn’t, he was thinking like the killer. The man was working to a tight schedule. He was in Stockholm less than a week ago, in Paris only a few days ago, and London yesterday. Now he’s supposed to be in Italy this afternoon?

  ‘I want you to get onto the Civil Aviation Authority, run a check for any travellers who have flown from Stockholm to Paris to London and on to Italy in the last week, or any two from four. There can’t be too many of them. Then get those passport numbers to border control at the other countries and see if they entered by any other means, like the Tunnel. We’ve got a map here. Let’s follow it.’

  ‘On it,’ Laura promised.

  ‘Dooley has fucked things up for him. He is missing a body part. And now the judge is off limits he’s oh for two. He’s going to need to adjust, and it’s in that window of adjustment he fucks up. His schedule’s off. He’s got no room for manoeuvre. He’s rigidly locked into this pattern of threat and vengeance, he’s not going to just jump to the next name on the grudge list. He wants these people to remember Bonn, and the body parts are part of the message. They have to be. And he needs them or the message doesn’t work.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Laura said. ‘But surely he can just kill somebody else for the necessary body part?’

  ‘He’s not a murderer,’ Ash said. ‘Not like that. He’s not killing randomly. He’s working to some sort of justice. He isn’t about to hurt someone he doesn’t believe deserves to be hurt.’

  ‘So, he sees himself as the good guy here?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone think they’re the heroes of their own lives?’

  ‘Good point,’ Laura said.

  ‘Do we have an ID on the finger?’

  ‘I’m waiting for the print to be processed and sent through. Rome have promised it within the hour.’

  ‘An hour? Jesus, it’s not like we’re in a race against time or anything. Let me guess, the lab closes for a siesta?’

  ‘Wish I knew. I’m trying to hurry them along, but frankly getting anything back feels like a miracle on the loaves and fishes level right now.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got faith in you, Law. You’re my own personal Jesus,’ Ash said. ‘But next time maybe you could shoot for a useful miracle, like the wine one.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The two men who arrived at the Dahlberg apartment were sharply dressed, in dark suits that no doubt came from the same bespoke tailor’s shop. They weren’t beat cops. She knew they were SAPO before they flashed their identification. SAPO. The Swedish Security Service.

  She produced her own Eurocrimes Division identification, but neither of them seemed the least bit interested in it.

  ‘We’ll take it from here, Miss Varg,’ the shorter of the two, who still stood close to six three, said, as they pushed their way into the living room.

  ‘Take over?’

  ‘The security of government officials falls within our jurisdiction.’

  ‘I don’t see any government officials,’ she said, looking pointedly at Dahlberg’s corpse. ‘And given how miserably you failed Jonas Anglemark isn’t this a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has well and truly bolted off to horsie heaven?’ Probably not the smartest thing to say, but their assumed superiority just pissed her off.

  ‘Which would be all well and good, but this has nothing to do with Anglemark,’ the taller of the two suits said.

  ‘How can you possibly be sure?’

  ‘Because we are good at what we do.’

  His partner asked, ‘Do you think he was killed here?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but …’

  The man raised his hand to silence her. ‘Do you have any reason to believe that this man was responsible for Anglemark’s death?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And there you have it. This has nothing to do with your investigation, Miss Varg.’ He scratched at the underside of his nose, and in the process let his jacket fall open just enough to reveal the butt of his own service weapon in a shoulder holster. This was a pointless hill to die on. When it came to picking your battles with SAPO and the suits of the Riksdag it was always better to let the small things go. She had what she needed from here. The rest was just a tangle of red tape that would take up far too much of her time to extricate herself from if she chose to fight the politics of it. Better to let the boys have their win so they could walk away thinking their dick-swinging had done the job. There were better hills to die on. Always.

  ‘OK, boys, you win. Your case. But do me a favour, one of you give me your number so I know who I’ve handed the crime scene over to, then I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Varg, you seem to be under the misapprehension that this is a crime scene? That would explain a lot. Let me set you straight. There is no crime scene. What we have here is a junkie who has, not so tragically, overdosed. He might have just as easily stepped in front of a subway train at T-Centralen. It is a waste of life, yes, but it is not a crime.’

  She looked the pair up and down and just shook her head. ‘I’m still going to need something I can put in the report. Not all of us have the joys of just writing “it’s above your pay grade” in the file and moving on.’

  ‘It’s your lucky day,’ the shorter of the two said. ‘You don’t need to write a report because you were never here.’ She started to object, but he cut her off. ‘Understand, if you were here I would have to start asking some very serious questions, not least what led
you to this place, and put you in the middle of our investigation. Bear in mind if there was anything in any way suspicious or, dare I say, illegal about the way the information was gathered there would be ramifications. And even if it was all entirely above board, your source would almost certainly suffer. No one wants that.’

  She maintained eye contact with the man. Still not a hill worth dying on, she told herself. But she was damned if she was just meekly going to roll over. ‘Perhaps you’d give me a call if you come across anything that might be of use in my investigation.’

  She reached into her back pocket for her wallet and offered her own card.

  He didn’t take it.

  ‘I know where to reach you,’ he said. ‘Rest assured, should anything of importance come to light, I will be in touch. We are, after all, on the same side.’

  She still didn’t break eye contact.

  ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  She bit her tongue.

  Better hills.

  Frankie left the apartment. She took the stairs down to the ground level without a backward glance. This wasn’t about hiding some scandal. They hadn’t been surprised or, to be brutally honest, bothered that there was a dead kid on the sofa. Their primary concern had been territorial. They were more worried about containing and controlling the scene. They knew the secrets of that apartment, and they obviously went beyond Anglemark fucking a twink because he was bored with his perfect little life at home.

  So, assuming Anglemark kept everything at arm’s length, ownership of the flat, everything else, it was conceivable the kid was the mysterious Dahlberg, or it was a hot couch. The kind of roll-on roll-off casual sex hook up arrangement where there was no Dahlberg, or everyone who walked through the door was Dahlberg. It wasn’t her problem if the guy was unfaithful. She didn’t care if he went from gloryhole to gloryhole pleasing himself and every other gay man in the city. All she cared about was who killed him, and why. And if his personal proclivities had something to do with it, great, otherwise, they were irrelevant.