Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [30]
“Well, no-one ever told me that the warehouse was doubling up as a woodland cemetery. Who were those dead bodies?”
Nieminen had a vicious retort on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped himself. Waltari may be an idiot, but this was no time to start an argument. The important thing right now was to consolidate their forces. After stonewalling his way through five police interrogations, it was not a good idea to start boasting that he actually knew something on a mobile less than two hundred metres from a police station.
“Forget the bodies,” he said. “I don’t know anything about that. But Magge is in deep shit. He’s going to be in the slammer for a while, and while he’s gone, I’m running the club.”
“O.K. What happens now?” Waltari said.
“Who’s keeping an eye on the property?”
“Benny stayed at the clubhouse to hold the fort. They searched the place the day you were arrested. They didn’t find anything.”
“Benny Karlsson?” Nieminen yelled. “Benny K.’s hardly dry behind the ears.”
“Take it easy. He’s with that blond fucker you and Magge always hang out with.”
Sonny froze. He glanced around and walked away from the door of the corner shop.
“What did you say?” he asked in a low voice.
“That blond monster you and Magge hang out with, he showed up and needed a place to hide.”
“Goddamnit, Waltari! They’re looking for him all over the country!”
“Yeah … that’s why he needed somewhere to hide. What were we supposed to do? He’s your and Magge’s pal.”
Nieminen shut his eyes for ten full seconds. Niedermann had brought Svavelsjö M.C. a lot of jobs and good money for several years. But he was absolutely not a friend. He was a dangerous bastard and a psychopath – a psychopath that the police were looking for with a vengeance. Nieminen did not trust Niedermann for one second. The best thing would be if he was found with a bullet in his head. Then the manhunt would at least ease up a bit.
“So what did you do with him?”
“Benny’s taking care of him. He took him out to Viktor’s.”
Viktor Göransson was the club’s treasurer and financial expert, who lived just outside Järna. He was trained in accounting and had begun his career as financial adviser to a Yugoslav who owned a string of bars, until the whole gang ended up in the slammer for fraud. He had met Lundin at Kumla prison in the early nineties. He was the only member of Svavelsjö M.C. who normally wore a jacket and tie.
“Waltari, get in your car and meet me in Södertälje. I’ll be outside the train station in forty-five minutes.”
“Alright. But what’s the rush?”
“I have to get a handle on the situation. Do you want me to take the bus?”
Waltari sneaked a look at Nieminen sitting quiet as a mouse as they drove out to Svavelsjö. Unlike Lundin, Nieminen was never very easy to deal with. He had the face of a model and looked weak, but he had a short fuse and was a dangerous man, especially when he had been drinking. Just then he was sober, but Waltari felt uneasy about having Nieminen as their leader in the future. Lundin had somehow always managed to keep Nieminen in line. He wondered how things would unfold now with Lundin out of the way.
At the clubhouse, Benny was nowhere to be seen. Nieminen called him twice on his mobile, but got no answer.
They drove to Nieminen’s place, about half a mile further down the road. The police had carried out a search, but they had evidently found nothing of value to the Nykvarn investigation. Which was why Nieminen had been released.
He took a shower and changed his clothes while Waltari waited patiently in the kitchen. Then they walked about a hundred and fifty metres into the woods behind Nieminen’s property and scraped away the thin layer of soil that concealed a chest containing six handguns, including an AK5, a stack of ammunition, and around two kilos of explosives. This was Nieminen’s arms cache. Two of the guns were Polish P-83 Wanads. They came from the same batch as the weapon that Salander had taken from him at Stallarholmen.
Nieminen drove away all thought of Salander. It was an unpleasant subject. In