Part 22 (2/2)

'OK, I'm going to have to arrest you according to chapter twenty-four, paragraph seven of the penal code,' Adam says.

'It's not my fault you went to a bad school and ended up having to join the police,' Eugene says sternly. 'The world's unfair, and-'

'You know Maria Carlsson, don't you?' Adam b.u.t.ts in.

'I love her,' he replies slowly.

'Give her a kiss,' Adam says, pulling out a picture from the crime scene.

In the sharp light of the flash, the dead woman's ravaged face, gaping mouth and broken jaw are brutally visible. Eugene whimpers, staggers backwards and knocks over a table lamp, and its brown ceramic base shatters.

41.

Eugene Ca.s.sel has put his clothes back on, and Adam has called for a patrol car. They're walking down the hotel corridor together.

'I'm really sorry ... I'm shocked, just tell me what I can do, I want to help, as a point of honour ... but I have to speak to my lawyer first.'

Eugene has washed his face, but his cheeks are white and s.h.i.+ny with sweat.

'I need to find Filip,' Adam says.

'He didn't do this,' Eugene says instantly.

'Filip isn't at any of the usual addresses, where is he?'

'I know, he's not doing too well,' Eugene says, scratching his forehead with his hat. 'Look, I'm not going to spread s.h.i.+t about Filip, but the way things are right now, I really don't want anything to do with him. I've tried to get him to seek help, but ...'

'Help with what?' Adam says.

The lift door opens and they step aside to let a woman in an orange trenchcoat get out before going in.

'He's been taking a bit too much,' Eugene smiles, waving his hand towards his temple.

'Is he an addict?'

'Yes, but the problem with taking too much MDPV, MDPPP, MDPBP, MDAI ... It doesn't work, you just get f.u.c.king paranoid, and then you get the wrong sort of high and end up feeling so bad you want to die.'

'Does it make you aggressive?' Adam asks as they step out of the lift on the ground floor.

'I mean, you're terrified the whole time, but sort of ultra-focused at the same time. You think too quickly, don't sleep at all ... The last time I met Filip he was completely f.u.c.king manic, said he was on thousands of satellite pictures on Google, kept going on about Saturn being forced to eat his own children ... He couldn't stand still for a second, he kept ranting, waving this little knife around, he cut my hand and yelled that I should be grateful ... and then he cut himself, right across the arm. He was dripping with blood as he ran off into the underground.'

They pa.s.s the lobby and walk out of the doors on to Tulegatan at the very moment a patrol car pulls up.

'Right now I just need to know where I can find him,' Adam repeats, stopping Eugene.

'OK, I feel like a traitor, but he said they couldn't see him in the storerooms.'

'Storerooms?'

'He rents a load of storage over on Vanadisvgen you know, that self-storage place. I think he's got more than half of the storerooms there.'

Two uniformed officers come over and say h.e.l.lo to Adam. One of them leads Eugene to the back seat of the car while the other one listens to Adam.

'Take him to the custody negotiation room,' Adam. 'Make sure he doesn't call anyone, buy us some time. Once his lawyer shows up we won't be able to hold him.'

42.

Joona is driving fast as he ignores the red light and turns left into Odengatan.

A homeless woman with two overloaded shopping trolleys is sitting asleep outside the 7-Eleven.

Adam tells him how Filip has been overdosing on several different varieties of MDPV for a while now, and that Eugene thinks he's entered a paranoid psychosis.

The drug has caused a number of deaths in Sweden, and was referred to in the evening tabloids as 'the cannibal drug' after a man who'd taken it tried to eat the face of a homeless man.

'We haven't got much time, they won't be able to hold Eugene for long, he'll be out soon and I reckon he's likely to warn Filip,' Adam says in a tense voice.

Joona overtakes a taxi on the inside, pulls in front of it, then swerves into the oncoming lanes and turns into Vanadisvgen.

The b.u.mper thuds as he drives up on to the pavement and stops in front of the pale mocha-coloured building with red garage doors.

Within central Stockholm the self-storage companies have had to make do with using existing bas.e.m.e.nts so as not to change the visible appearance of the city. Huge areas of small, locked rooms spread out just below the ground, like old catacombs beneath cathedrals.

Joona and Adam get out of the car and head over to the closed office looking out onto the little car park. In the gloom through the window they can make out flat stacks of removal boxes, a reception desk, and a large monitor for security cameras on the wall.

'I want to look at a map of the storerooms, and I want to look at those cameras,' Joona says.

'It's closed, we're going to have to go through a prosecutor,' Adam replies.

Joona nods, taps his stick against the edge of the pavement and thinks how it feels to sink through broken ice. It's when you warm up that you start to freeze, he thinks as he picks up a heavy kerb-stone and throws it through the window. There's a loud crash as the gla.s.s shatters and a red light begins to flash over on the reception desk.

'The alarm will have gone off at their security company,' Adam says feebly.

Joona pushes some loose splinters from the window frame with his stick, then goes in. Adam looks round, then follows him.

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