Watching You(91)

‘But something made you pick Olle Nilsson over all the other technical geniuses.’

‘He seemed trustworthy, invisible, and quiet as the grave. No problem with unorthodox payment. I paid cash. No receipt.’

‘So it could have been him who added that so-called microscopic alarm clock to your device. The intention could only have been to blow your cover. Maybe even our cover. In which case Olle Nilsson must have some connection to William.’

‘We should certainly talk to him,’ Blom said. ‘It could have been a mistake.’

‘Hardly, though, surely?’

‘No,’ Blom said. ‘Hardly.’

They passed the roundabout at Lindhagensplan, Traneberg Bridge and Brommaplan in silence. The Mazda headed down the length of Bergslagsv?gen until it reached the run-down Vinsta industrial estate. Berger glanced at the time as he pulled up in front of the apparently ramshackle Wiborg Supplies. It was almost seven o’clock, and there was no indication that there was any work being done anywhere in the desolate estate. They stopped on the loading bay and looked around the car park. There was no one there, no cars starting up. It was as deserted as the day after judgement day. Blom went over to a grubby keypad beside the door, tapped in a long sequence of digits, and the door, which itself looked remarkably analogue, slid open unexpectedly smoothly.

There was no sour receptionist smelling of methanol in the shabby reception area. Blom reached beneath the desk and found the button. The door behind the desk whirred and slid open with the same well oiled precision as the front door. Molly Blom and Sam Berger walked into the combined storeroom and workshop whose air of gentle shabbiness struck Berger as a facade. A solitary man in his fifties was sitting behind a pair of computers that seemed to be covered in layers of ingrained dust.

‘Duty officer?’ Blom said, holding her ID up at an illegible distance.

The man nodded and stood up.

‘H?gberg,’ he said. ‘And you?’

‘Eva Lindkvist and Roy Grahn, Security Service. Is Olle Nilsson here today?’

H?gberg shook his head and sat down again.

‘Haven’t seen him for a while,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, we never see much of him. He’s on easy shifts.’

‘Easy shifts?’

‘Works from home, as a rule. Only comes in when it really can’t be avoided.’

Berger and Blom glanced at each other.

‘Have you got an address for him?’ Blom asked.

‘I’m not authorised to give out addresses. We like to keep a low profile.’

‘I assume you know, H?gberg, what sort of relationship Wiborg has with the Security Service. Obey without question. Never leak anything to anyone. So – an address?’

H?gberg looked unimpressed, but clicked at his computer a few times.

‘Isn’t this leaking?’ he said.

‘You’re not leaking if you’re giving the Security Service what the Security Service wants,’ Blom said in a tone that made Berger feel sick.

H?gberg pointed to a printer. It contained a sheet of paper. Blom picked it up and read it. Then she walked out without another word. Berger followed her.

They got into the Mazda.

‘B?lsta,’ Blom said. ‘It looks like a rural address.’

‘From M?rsta to B?lsta,’ Berger said. ‘That’s plausible.’

He burned as much rubber as the Mazda was capable of. Bergslagsv?gen was mercifully free of traffic, and out on the E18 they made good progress. They still had a way to go.

‘We could have cracked this earlier,’ Blom said in self-reproach as she typed the address into the laptop and began to zoom in on a large green area on the map. Slowly the green turned into forest, forest as seen from a satellite.

‘Olle Nilsson’s house is in the middle of the forest?’ Berger said with a quick sideways glance at the satellite picture.

‘The closest neighbour is at least a kilometre away.’

Berger stared out into the darkness streaked by useless windscreen wipers. So far the road was lit up by powerful street lamps.

The feeling that they were really getting close grew with each passing minute.

They left civilisation via the turning to B?lsta. Blom guided Berger confidently along the increasingly narrow roads. They passed fewer and fewer cars, and the gaps between street lamps kept growing. In the end there was nothing but darkness. The desolate autumnal Swedish forest was only just visible through the rain surrounding the cocoon of the car. All that existed was a dull, pattering, echoing darkness.

‘Next right,’ Blom said, touching her shoulder holster.

The next right couldn’t even be called a road. A few hundred metres further on the track opened up a little.

‘Stop here,’ Blom said.

She held the laptop up towards Berger.

‘If we drive any closer he’ll hear us,’ she said, pointing at the satellite picture of the area.

‘Shitty bloody Mazda,’ Berger said.

‘Here,’ Blom pointed. ‘Forest for another four hundred metres or so, then what looks like a large clearing. It’s not easy to tell, but there’s open ground for two hundred metres. The house is on the far side of the clearing.’

Berger nodded and switched the engine off. Not much changed. The darkness growled around them.

They had their torches out, beams of light sweeping the trees, bouncing off the trunks, fracturing in the falling water that looked more like pins than drops.