Marked For Life. Emelie Schepp
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aren’t they?” she said in an irritated voice.
Henrik and Mia just sat there in silence.
Lena opened the tray, saw that there was still some paper left and closed it again, this time with a bang. The printer started up, but no pages came out.
“Oh, why are you being so difficult!” Lena hit the start button with her fist and that got the printer to work. Embarrassed, she ran her fingers through her hair until all the pages printed out. Just then, the phone rang and in a short conversation the receptionist informed Lena that Jens Cavenius had arrived.
* * *
Jens Cavenius stood leaning against a pillar in reception. The nineteen-year-old looked as though he had just woken up. His eyes were red, and his hair was flattened on one side and untidy on the other. He was wearing a lined jean jacket and white Converse sneakers. When he caught sight of Henrik and Mia, he approached and stretched out his arm to shake hands.
“Shall we sit down?” Henrik asked.
He gestured toward a sofa and armchairs to the right of reception, which was surrounded by two-meter-high plastic Yucca palms. Some Arabic brochures were in a display on the white coffee table.
Jens flopped onto the sofa, leaned forward and despite his red-shot eyes, looked expectantly at Henrik and Mia. They sat down opposite him.
“You worked here on Sunday?” Henrik said.
“Yeah, sure,” said Jens and clapped the palms of his hands together.
“Was Hans Juhlén here then?”
“Yep. I chatted a bit with him. He was the boss, like.”
“What time was it then?”
“Perhaps around half past six.”
Henrik looked at Mia and saw that she was prepared to take over the questioning. With a nod he let her do so.
“What did you talk about?” she said.
“Well, it was more like we said hello to each other. You could say,” said Jens.
“Okay?” said Mia.
“Or nodded, I nodded to him when I went past his office.”
“There was nobody else here then?”
“No, no way. On Sundays it’s just dead here, like.”
“When you went past Hans Juhlén’s office, did you see what he was doing then?”
“No. But I could hear him using the computer keyboard. You know, you’ve got to have good hearing to be a security guard, so you can notice sound that might be weird or something. And my night vision is pretty good too. I was the best in the test in fact, in the selection. Not bad, eh?”
Mia was hardly impressed by Jens’s senses. She raised her eyebrows to indicate ridicule and turned toward Henrik, whose gaze had fastened on one of the Yucca palms.
When she saw that Henrik appeared to be lost in thought, she thumped him on the arm.
“Hans Juhlén’s computer?” she said.
“Yes?” said Henrik.
“He seems to have used it quite a lot.”
“Yes, all the time,” said Jens and clapped his hands.
“Then I think we should take it with us,” said Henrik.
“So do I,” said Mia.
POLICE OFFICER GABRIEL MELLQVIST was shivering. It was cold. His shoes were leaking and the cold rain trickled down from his cap onto his neck. He didn’t know where his colleague Hanna Hultman was. Last he saw her, she was standing outside house number 36 ringing the doorbell. Together they had gone door-knocking at about twenty detached houses this morning. None of the residents had made any observations that were of any importance to the investigation. And not a single strange man or woman had been glimpsed. On the other hand, most people weren’t even at home on Sunday. They had been at their summer cottages, on golf courses, at horse-jumping competitions and God knows what. A mother had seen a little girl go by, probably it was a playmate who was going home for the evening, and Gabriel wondered why she had even bothered to mention it to him.
He swore to himself and looked at his watch. His mouth was dry, and he was tired and thirsty. They were clear signals that his blood sugar was too low. Even so, he went off to the next house which was behind a high stone wall.
Door-to-door canvassing was not his favorite occupation. Especially not in the rain. But the order had come from the very top of the criminal department and that meant it was best to do as he was told.
The gates were closed. Locked. Gabriel looked around. From here he could hardly see Östanvägen 204 where the murder had been committed. He pressed the intercom next to the gate and waited for an answer. Pressed again and added a “Hello!” this time. Gave the locked gates a bit of a push and they rattled. Where the hell was Hannah now? She couldn’t be seen anywhere on the street. She couldn’t have gone down one of the parallel streets. No, not without telling him first. She’d never do that. He sighed, took a step back and walked straight into a puddle. He felt how the cold water was sucked up by the sock in his right shoe. Oh great! Really great!
He looked up at the house again. Still saw no sign of life. He wanted most of all to give up and go off to the nearest lunch place and just get some grub. But then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something that moved. He screwed his eyes up a little in an effort to see what it was. A security camera! He pressed the intercom, shouted a few times to elicit an answer and managed in his enthusiasm to suppress the sensation of dizziness that gradually crept up on him.
* * *
Forty minutes and ninety-eight kronor later, Henrik Levin had eaten his fill. The Thai buffet had consisted of far too many tasty dishes. Mia Bolander had accompanied him, but chosen something lighter, a salad.
Henrik regretted his choice of lunch when he got back in the car again. He felt heavy and drowsy and let Mia drive to the police station.
“Next time can you remind me that I must have salad too,” he said.
Mia laughed.
“Please?”
“I’m not your bloody mother! But all right, then. Does Emma want you to lose weight or what?”
“Do you think I’m fat, then?”
“Not your face.”
“Thanks.”
“She won’t let you fuck her, is that it?”
“What?”
“I mean, you seem to want to go easy on the carbs, which means you want to lose weight. I read online that the biggest motivation for men to lose weight is that they want to have more sex.”
“I was just talking about a salad. I just want to eat salad next time. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you think I’m fat?”
“No. You’re not fat. You only weigh eighty kilos, Henrik.”
“Eighty-three.”
“Sorry, eighty-bloody-three kilos, then. You’re a pudding, right! Why would you want to weigh any less?”
Mia winked provocatively.
Henrik remained silent and kept his real reason for wanting to eat lighter to himself.
Mia didn’t need to know that seven weeks earlier he had embarked on a low-carb diet. He was also aiming to get more exercise on weekdays. But it was hard to keep to his new lifestyle choices, especially when Thai food tastes so much