Marked For Revenge. Emelie Schepp

and we haven’t gotten any more info from the street,” Henrik said. “Our usual sources have been silent. Either they don’t know anything or they don’t dare say.”

      “Typical,” Ola said.

      “Yeah, but I still think something about it is strange. A young girl dies with her body packed full of narcotics—someone should have seen or heard something. It’s not usually the case that someone hides their tracks so well. This is no amateur we’re dealing with. They clearly have their eye on importing and distributing. Someone has to be willing to talk.”

      “Had an eye, you mean. Obviously something went wrong with the girl on the train.”

      “Absolutely, but as I said, they’re calculating for some waste, as in all import/export businesses.”

      Ola held out the files.

      “I did a little searching of my own and printed out all of the files on men with connections to drug trafficking. I thought someone must know something. Two of the files are thick as Bibles.”

      “Great,” Henrik said, taking the files. “If we aren’t going to get anything from the streets, we’ll have to do our own digging.”

      * * *

      In spite of the growing blister on her skin, Pim continued fighting to get the ropes around her wrists to snap. Even with the chill in the room, sweat was running down her back.

      Suddenly she heard footsteps outside the door.

      She hurried to the corner of the room, overturning the bucket in the process. She picked it up and huddled with her knees to her chest, taking short, silent breaths, sitting completely still, listening.

      The door slid open and a man stepped into the room. He was wearing dark clothes, and his eyes were as dark as night. He put a plate of food on the floor.

      Pim looked at the food, then pushed it away.

      He stood in front of her, stared, and then in a single movement ripped the tape from her mouth. The pain was immense. She wanted to scream, but she was too scared to make a sound. She didn’t say anything when he violently loosened the ropes around her wrists. She only rubbed one hand carefully against the smarting sore on the other wrist.

      She heard him say something before the door closed behind him.

      She carefully picked up the plate and looked at the sandwiches and plastic gloves. Only then did she think about the capsules that were still in her stomach.

      She returned to the corner, picked up one of the sandwiches and forced herself to chew.

      Touching one of the thin gloves, she looked at the bucket and knew what she had to do.

      * * *

      Henrik Levin turned slowly out of the general parking lot of the Ektorp shopping center. Next to him sat Mia Bolander in an oversize down jacket.

      “He didn’t say shit,” she muttered, waving one of Ola Söderström’s files in Henrik’s face before tossing it in the backseat. She balanced the others on her lap.

      “I don’t get it. He’s committed hundreds of break-ins and has been caught for possession a thousand times, and now he’s on disability for a slipped disk. And he’s not even thirty? And he’s got five kids. Completely unbelievable. Completely fucking unbelievable.”

      “Yeah...” Henrik sighed.

      “If they’d placed the camera at a smarter angle at the convenience store, we wouldn’t have to drive around chatting with criminals,” Mia said.

      The afternoon traffic moved slowly down Kungsgatan. A bus stopped in front of them and released a single passenger, who immediately jaywalked across both lanes. Henrik considered honking his horn, but changed his mind.

      “Who’s next?” he asked instead.

      Mia flipped through a new folder, looking at the picture for a moment.

      “Stojan Jancic,” she read. “Born in Serbia. Was sentenced for, among other things, a felony narcotics charge after being arrested for selling a mix of Ecstasy and ketamine. Three years in prison.”

      She entered the address into the navigation system and closed the folder.

      Twelve minutes later, they were there. Henrik made a U-turn across both lanes and parked in a spot reserved for visitors.

      A streetlight flickered on when they got out of the car. The light stretched over a gravel field.

      Stojan opened the door on the second ring. His hair was sticking out at all angles, his jeans were filthy and his T-shirt had large holes along the neckband.

      “Come in,” he said after Henrik had introduced them and their errand.

      Mia was quiet and kept her hands in her pockets as they stepped into the apartment and sat at the kitchen table.

      Henrik leaned against the kitchen counter and took a notebook from his pocket. He squinted out the gray-streaked window that faced the parking lot.

      “Your tattoo...” he said. “Does it mean something?”

      “No, well, yes, well, fuck. I don’t know,” Stojan said.

      He sat across from Mia and rubbed his hand across his neck, over the large cross and the black letters above it that spelled “Respect.”

      “I mean, is it a sort of identification?”