CH 11

Mads decided to do the interrogations in Ulea, with Jorgen's help.
They started with the couple of the third cabin, two nostalgic hippies, who drowned in alcohol their dislike of modern society.
Then Mads wanted Ole. The phone in his pocket when the special team captured him was the one Frank was in contact with.
Ole was like a stone, silent like a rock, he did not answer Mads, who after a while called his vice to continue the questioning,
Saga and Henrik were watching from monitors. Saga observed Henrik closely, fearing a Frank-like suspect could set him off balance.
Rasmus was the talker. He had experience of people who made a deal with police so Mads did a bargain with him: info in exchange of less heavy accusations.
With the deal quickly confirmed by the prosecutor, Rasmus started his tale. The Russians were in contact with Ole mainly, the trucks were full of legal goods, undercovering more profitable and sordid business.
Mads' eyes were like steel arrows into Rasmus' skin.
His long experience as detective helped him to keep his true feelings in control.
He was proud that after a long time behind a desk he still had the ability to do a proper interrogation.
The fatherly part of him wanted to go directly at Rasmus' neck when he talked about the girls they deal with.
Mads could only barely imagine how Henrik was feeling in the other room.
"And the girl you kept there, Astrid?"
"I liked her, I was sorry. I never hurt a child. We had sex with them only with grown up teens."
"Why did she remain with you?
"She was too young to be sold."
"But the plans for her?"
"She'd be transferred in Russia as soon as she entered puberty. Ole says the younger they are, the more they are paid. "
Henrik's sharp fist on the wall startled Saga, concentrated on the dialogue.
She turned to Henrik who didn't register the pain, the fast swelling of his hand, the blood from his bruised knuckles.
His face was an inexpressive mask, he was lost in another world, consumed by rage; a vein pulsing on his temple revealed Saga his inner turmoil. He was ready to kill those man with his bare hands. Saga pushed him along the corridor to the bathroom where she opened the emergency kit.
"I need to listen." He protested when she cleaned the wounds.
"I'll do it for you. Sit down and keep the ice. If fingers are broken we must go to the hospital."
"No, you'll fix and band it for me. I don't want to scare the girls about doctors."
"Good. But you go to a pharmacy now."
Meanwhile Rasmus told Mads that the traffics of gold and girls gave the group enough money to support them. Mads' assistant brought him the criminal record: he was wanted in Finland for armed robbery, a shooting ensued and injured a man now living on a wheelchair.
Ole was Swedish and accused of various rapes.
Mads paused to discuss with Saga.
"We miss the link with Frank." She declared. They needed proofs or a witness against Wahlgren, Saga wanted to demonstrate Frank killed Alice after what Anna told her.
"Wahlgren is clever, I think he planned this operation well."
"I'll send my it colleague John their records."
"Our IT experts are good, too." Mads knew Saga enough to understand where to let her have her way. "Anyway, Rasmus said he don't know Frank."
"Do the Russians collected Anna in Malmo area then heft her there? Or was Ole the one to go south?"
"There's also Gunnar, if Ole was wanted in Sweden he probably stayed here safe, do you feel to question him with me?"

For Saga it was an effort to follow the interrogation. Her concerns were elsewhere. A new awareness, she was no more alone.
Twenty years after Jennifer Saga had the strong impulse to take care of other human beings. It seemed strange to feel emotions for two girls she barely knew, but they had been in the peripheral part of her brain for two years now.
She obliged Hernik to go check the girls at Mads' place and to stop in a pharmacy for the hand.
She knew well what Martin did, she was sure Henrik had strong reasons to avoid similar risks but in her brain rose the need to protect him, so she decided to work alone with Mads instead of increasing Henrik's anger with the suspects.
Gunnar seemed a man of few words, Mads told him they had enough evidence for the prosecutor to start a trial and Gunnar became slightly nervous.
His record in Sweden wasn't impressive for a man around thirty, he had been condemned for thief but he was a loner, keeping a low profile, never getting into gangs.
"You're from Goteborg, why do you end up in Norrland?" Mads asked.
"I met Rasmus in prison."
"You and Rasmus shared the same cabin." Saga stated.
"My wife throw me out. She god single custody of my son. I had no other places to go."
"Do you know this man?"
Mads placed Frank's photo on the table.
"No."
"Are you sure? Look at it, he gave you Anna. He was in contact with Ole."
Saga's phone received a photo from John, a five years old road infraction on Gunnar, still unpaid. John search had a sudden impulse with the idea that Ole couldn't have drove Anna up there.
Saga enlarged the photo, Mads nodded in agreement.
"You got a fine around 200 km north Malmo. We know from Ole's phone someone went South."
Mads decided for a pause, leaving Gunnar in the interrogation room.
"Let's take a break while he thinks about his travels." He told Saga with the aim to making Gunnar uncomfortable and worried what to expect next.
Saga asked John to verify alias related to Gunnar, then she went to the kitchenette to get a cup of tea and to deal with her restlessness.
Never it happened to her during an interrogation. Something wasn't right. It was worse than after prison, she felt subtle tremors in all the body. What if she had a panic attack in presence of the girls?
She tried to take long breaths, like Henrik taught her.
She had been stabbed, found out she was pregnant and the prison was like a loaded gun at her head, all factors that prepared the attack..
The situation was 180 now but her reaction at the cabins told her she was changing again.
For the umpteenth time she looked at her phone, results from John's search could solve the stand by. Barbara was helping John, in two they could be faster and more efficient.
There was a text from Henrik, who was coming back.
Immediate relief.
How much he meant to her was evident now and she felt glad whenever they were together.
They met at the lift and Saga checked his hand; it was swollen and purple, he let her move his fingers to see if they were broken. They sat around a desk in Mads' assistant room.
"The ice helped a lot. The pharmacy gave me this cream to apply twice a day with a bandage."
The hand touch Saga, so she managed to make it last rubbing the cream; it was an antibiotic and was cold to ease the burning.
Whenever they were in contact Henrik was happy. The hand was an excuse.
"I don't want to return to police." Saga blurted out while wrapping his hand with the bandage he bought.
"Nobody forces you."
"You're on leave."
He nodded. With Astrid he planned to take the whole summer off, with Astrid and Anna he doubted if he would work again in the near future.
"Jonas asked me to work in Denmark, but we cannot team now they know we're involved. Your hand is done."
He controlled her perfect dressing.
"What would you like to do?"
"A sabbatical year at university. Then I'll see. I got enough savings to pay my share of domestic bills."
"I never meant for you to .. "
"Two teens means a radical change. I'll show you articles about the money parents spend for kids from birth to university. And if yours need special teachers or counselling we'll have to study a proper budget."
Henrik was glad she was evaluating things as if they were a family, he let her continue to quote statistics and ways to start savings for future universities, listening with a happy heart. He suggested only to invest the money from Alice's life insurance in a saving plan. She had done researches in her efficient ways because now she had people to care for.

Barbara sent a mail with an attachment, Saga enlarged and printed the file, the photo was blurred but sure was Gunnar.
A Russian passport, for a Ivan Andrianov, trucker, working for a Russian transport firm with weekly service with scandinavian countries.
John called to tell Saga they started from the snack Henrik found, verifying it was sold only in ex Soviet Union countries.
Lillian was sure many truckers were involved and wanted an Interpol search regarding Ole, Rasmus and Gunnar.
Her boss called the government buildings to have a direct link with the Russian embassy. It did the trick. Gunnar had a fake passport and the firm he pretended to be employed by was completely unaware of his existence.
Mads called Saga in the interrogation room, Henrik sat at his previous place. Mads' attack was direct.
"We know you travelled. You can be accused for more than what you really did. Last chance to tell us all about Frank and the others related to the human traffic."
Faced with the proofs, Gunnar knew it was useless to resist.
"Ok. I know Wahlgren, Ole keeps the contacts. I did the drive only once, with Anna. I met Frank, he was strange, said he had to get rid of the strongest girl. Ole don't trust Rasmus so he choose me."
Saga turned to the camera, how was Henrik reacting? Was it difficult for him to know the line between survival and desperation for his daughters had been Anna's strength, the trait father and daughter shared? Another thing to discuss later, another aspect to discuss in theraphy.
Mads was worried because they had no easy ways to find the Russian trucks, they could only transmit via Interpol all the info about the case to their foreign counterparts, the possibilities the truckers would stop again at the cabins was remote.
Saga wanted to know more about Frank and soon the pieces made the whole puzzle.
Ole met Frank a decade earlier while attending a group for unemployed people, Frank was the coach and Ole had to attend it or get a cut of his social wage.
Frank visibly fancied a woman of the group, who was married and - although with some conjugal problems she discussed with Frank - had no intentions to leave her husband.
Frank got very angry and disappointed with her and Ole offered him to set up an aggression against the couple in exchange for a positive evaluation of Ole.
It never happened because the couple left Stockholm for whatever reason, but Ole and Frank started to bond.
So Ole wanted Gunnar to go south with a Russian truck to get rid Frank of a problem and Gunnar returned with Anna.
Enough to start digging in Frank's past, to find other women he attracted, like Alice and Sofie.
Few the choices to incriminate him for Alice's death, according to Anna's words, enough to keep him in prison for a very long time.

Dad and Saga are back just before dinner time. They look exhausted, dad has his wounded hand supported by his left arm. It hurts, he says. Saga roll her eyes at him, she wanted him to have an x ray, he refused.
We have to pack, our flight leaves tomorrow at mid morning.
I'm happy to return home, I move around the room smiling, in a goofy dance with my sister to celebrate. Dad is silent
"What's wrong?" I ask him
He sits on the couch and look at us, I pull Astrid down on the carpet, Saga leans on the window frame.
"I'm sorry girls, it had been difficult today. We questioned them, and Gunnar said things about Frank..."
Dad cannot continue, he starts crying, I see tears running down his cheeks; I never remember him crying so much before.
"If only I could turn back time, you'd never disappear..."
Astrid touch dad's good hand and he grabs hers, kissing it. I stand up, looking at Saga who nods, then I prompt Astrid to follow my lead and we sit on each side of dad, so he can hugs us both.
We remain in silence for a while, until dad lifts his head, eyes now dry, and looks at Saga. She moves closer, kneels on the carpet in front of us.
Her words make dad smile again.
"We're going home, nothing else matters now."

The darkness of this house once got the best of me, deprived me of my three reasons to live, three sins took their place.
Betrayal, lust, addiction.
I lived in the dark for a very long time, now I see the light again.
God listened to me, had mercy of me. I'm a different man, I can help people again, not only protecting them with my gun. It gives me satisfaction to use part of my free time for the young people at the community centre of the small church I attend now.
My daughters come often with me, our family is a miracle and I thank the Lord every day.

We're united like before, like it had to be from the beginning. We're sisters and our bond is again strong. She helps me to heal, my leg still fragile and weak. I'm the oldest but she's older than me, sort of, wiser, she endured things I never imagined.
We're at school together, in the same class, dad accepted my request, I don't care to repeat a year, I want to be with her, always.

I have my own space here, my shelves, my closet, my nightstand, my bathroom cabinet, my parking space.
I mark on the kitchen calendar my schedule so he knows when to prepare dinner.
I arrive on time, always.
Well, not always, sometimes a lesson ends a little late, sometimes I stop at a store on my way home and buy small gifts for my girls. Astrid draws, Anna is into photography. Memory cards are never enough.
He forgive me, always, keeps the food in the oven to eat together.
Every other Sunday I decide what we do, making a program in advance: the girls need to improve their culture, to visit museums, go to theatre and concerts, attend lectures for teenagers.
The remaining Sundays he decides, we can stay home and relax, visit his parents, have a walk or go to the beach. A fifty fifty agreement that suits all of us.
My life is neat and quiet and I feel at ease in this family.

We are officially a couple, we registered our domestic partnership and now share the same address.
We agreed for the girls, to give them a feeling of stability, not to define ourselves..
We don't need a marriage, promises are in our silences and our looks, in how we need each other, we're sure of this. We're no more active detectives, for now, one teaching at the academy, one studying at university, but we're together every morning, evening, night.
Talking and listening, giving and taking, learning and exploring, in passion and tenderness. Together.

THANKS