Europa Blues by Arne Dahl Read Free Book Online Page A

Kerstin Holm was the proudest person she had ever met. Even in profile – her dark, elegant, dishevelled hair; the well-defined lines on her face – everything suggested a kind of innate proudness which, she had to admit, she admired. It had been almost a year since Sara Svenhagen had joined the A-Unit and the two women had worked together a few times, but she had never felt that she was a real, proper equal. In her eyes, Kerstin Holm was the best interviewer the police corps had to offer, and she still had plenty to learn from her. That did mean it was tough sometimes, when you knew she had seen right through you. After a conversation with Kerstin, it was as though you had no secrets left. Everything always came out. But with Kerstin herself, the exact opposite was true: she was one big mystery. So that meant it felt good to have turned the conversation around. Even though Kerstin had clearly seen straight through it.
    ‘I’ll be coming alone,’ Kerstin said, guiding the old Volvo out onto the E4 motorway. ‘If that’s OK with you.’
    And with that, the conversation was over.
    They drove in silence for a while. Both were searching for something to talk about. It wasn’t an easy task. Sometimes, it was just too awkward. Sara knew that back in the beginning, Kerstin had been with Paul Hjelm, a married man. Her own husband Jorge Chavez’s partner and best friend.
    It all felt a bit complicated.
    ‘Is it true he’s the only
darkie
in the neighbourhood?’ Kerstin Holm eventually asked.
    That broke the ice. The two of them laughed. It felt good.
    ‘It’s very, very true,’ Sara said, then, changing tack: ‘Where are we going, exactly?’
    ‘No idea,’ Kerstin Holm said, still laughing. ‘No, we’re going to the Norrboda Motell in Slagsta. The refugee centre is full, so the immigration authorities have been renting rooms in the motel. Apparently some of the refugees staying there have gone missing. There seems to be a whiff of international criminality to the whole place, so they’ve called us in to take the case. If it even turns out to be a case. Any other questions?’
    ‘What kind of whiff?’
    ‘The motel seems to have been a bit too self-sufficient. A whole load of smuggling has been linked to it, with the Russians and the Baltic states mostly, but there’ve also been suggestions of prostitution. And a few of the women who’ve gone missing now are suspected to have been involved in that.’
    ‘So in other words, a group of whores have disappeared?’
    Kerstin Holm pulled a face as they drove through Skärholmen in the cool but bright May afternoon.
    ‘It’s looking that way,’ she reluctantly admitted.
    ‘Who reported it?’
    ‘The owner, apparently. He’s been the subject of certain suspicions himself. Jörgen Nilsson’s his name.’
    ‘What kind of suspicions?’
    ‘Not seeing, saying or doing anything. But he’s been cleared. Reporting this is probably just a way of showing us that he’s on the right side.’
    Sara Svenhagen leaned back in the worn-out passenger seat. She was forced to admit that she didn’t quite understand the priorities of Swedish immigration policy. From certain countries, primarily the EU member states, it was clearly possible to immigrate quite freely. Becoming a Swedish citizen was no problem. But from others, it seemed to be a completely impossible task. To even stand a chance, you had to seek asylum and claim to be a refugee. That meant you had to make sure not to stop off in any other countries along the way. If you managed that trick – which in itself meant increasing numbers of deaths, with people suffocating in containers or dying of dehydration in the boats transporting them – then you ended up in a refugee centre while your case was considered. The combination of growing numbers of asylum seekers, tougher regulations and more sweeping staff cuts meant that waiting times were becoming more and more absurd, the refugee centres brimming over and being