Watching You(75)

Berger muttered something and they both went back to their computers. Blom sat quietly, typing her way deeper and deeper into the Security Service’s endless archives. Berger was digging into an abandoned police investigation, trying to find connections. At one point he got up and went over to the big whiteboard. Eventually he found what he was looking for. A video clip had been running for a while on his computer before Blom folded the screen of her laptop down with a groan.

‘No luck?’ Berger said.

‘No Nils Gundersen in any Security Service files,’ Blom said.

‘It was a gamble,’ Berger said, shrugging. ‘Gundersen may be no more than a character from Alicia Anger’s confused imagination.’

Blom nodded. ‘There might be another option, but it’s considerably more complicated.’

Berger thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know if I dare activate Syl …’

Blom looked at him. ‘Now you’re being almost ridiculously mysterious.’

‘Syl,’ Berger said slowly, ‘is the reason I was able to find you.’

‘I’ve been wondering how you managed that,’ Blom said. ‘So Syl is some sort of program?’

Berger laughed. ‘Not far off, really.’

‘Stop being difficult.’

‘I shouldn’t be saying this even now.’ Berger sighed. ‘But you and I have ended up in a tricky position of reluctant but unavoidable trust. Syl’s real name is Sylvia Andersson, and I’ve worked with her pretty much since Police Academy. She conducted an anonymous search for Wiborg Supplies Ltd and found your name on a list that we then cross-referenced with Botox clinics.’

‘A list?’ Blom exclaimed. ‘What sort of list?’

‘The Security Service’s “internal” and “external” resources.’

‘What? All of them?’

‘There was something about weak security around the time of the reorganisation at the end of last year. Syl said she’d found several anomalies there. Maybe she found her way down to the very deepest levels.’

‘There may well be files I don’t have clearance for,’ Blom said, ‘but I’d still prefer not to have to rely on this Syl of yours. After all, we are on the run from justice. Let me try my way first.’

‘Your considerably more complicated way,’ Berger nodded. ‘So what is it, then? No secrets, now.’

‘MISS,’ Blom said bluntly.

Berger looked at her and slowly shook his head.

‘The Military Intelligence and Security Service?’ he said. ‘Have you got friends there? An old lover, perhaps?’

‘Not old at all,’ Blom said calmly. ‘So what have you been up to? “No secrets, now.”’

‘This,’ Berger said, turning his laptop round.

It was security footage from a cash machine somewhere in the city centre. It was raining gently, but the scene was well lit, and deserted. Eventually a young girl walked past. In her hand she had a pair of bolt cutters. Berger froze the film when the girl turned her face towards the camera. She really did look tense. Tense to the point of bursting.

‘Emma Brandt, fifteen years old,’ Berger said. ‘Hornstull, late on Midsummer’s Day this year.’

‘Good,’ Blom said. ‘Take a screenshot. I want a printout.’

‘A printout?’

‘I want pictures of all the kidnapped girls,’ she said, pointing at the whiteboard.

Berger nodded, took a screenshot and went on playing the clip. Once again, the scene was completely deserted. He pressed fast-forward. If it weren’t for a moonlighting sparrow, the footage would have looked like a still picture. Then he slowed the playback to normal again. Soon a van swept past. He froze the picture again. On the side of the white van the word Statoil stood out clearly, above a line of much smaller writing.

‘Ah,’ Molly Blom said.

‘Ah,’ Berger echoed, and zoomed in on the writing below.

The picture was badly pixelated and barely legible, but the letters spelled out the name G?vle.

‘Here comes William,’ Berger said. ‘Seven minutes later. By now Emma Brandt has made it all the way to the crown of the bridge. Maybe she’s also started to cut the fence.’

The van flickered past, frame by frame. When Berger stopped the clip again it was possible to read a couple of letters and at least one digit on the number plate.

‘You lot kept the information about the Statoil van secret from us,’ Berger said. ‘But I just found it on your board. The number matches.’

Blom nodded. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? Statoil in G?vle. The one at S?trah?jden. We checked it out thoroughly. Hired in May by a Johan Eriksson.’

‘Brother of Erik Johansson?’

‘Hmm,’ Blom said. ‘We followed it up carefully. There was no trace of it. And the security footage from the petrol station had long since been wiped.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the same van that was seen outside Ellen Savinger’s school in ?stermalm.’

‘At least we’re getting closer to some real evidence,’ Blom said.

They went back to their respective laptops. The darkness outside the boathouse couldn’t get any darker. The passage of time, though impossible to tell from the world around them, showed on their increasingly tired faces.