Page 34 of Capture
“I’m aware that the girl was coerced,” he told me straight. “Which is why I’m here. And to answer your question, I was part of the witness protection program under the Gothenburg Police dept that helped Annika relocate here.” He stalled for a moment to swipe his phone for the pics of the blond cop and her sidekick from Larsson. “I’m not sure if you’re aware that it wasn’t her choice to bring her to this location. It was hers,” he pointed to the blond cop, Judith.
“Did she know we were here?” I asked him carefully.
If he had been following her for a while, then he’d have noticed that she had gone missing for a while. He’d notice that she hadn’t turned up to class, and if he’s in contact with the blond cop, then he might also know that the last time she saw Annika was here at the club when we grabbed her.
“Yes, that was why she convinced Annika to study here to use her as bait to lure you out.” He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, then a strain washed across his face. “It wasconfusing to me at first because Annika was in disguise and had nothing to do with you until she started working here. I was perplexed because of all places, it was here in your club that she chose to work. I assumed Judith played a part in her finding work here, so I did a little digging and discovered there was a second player in the scheme.”
“Who?” Ronan asked, expectedly.
“The Russian family that was driven out of this area when your family came along. They went underground to strengthen their resources and returned wanting to take back what you took from them,” he explained breathlessly with a slight wheeze, indicating that he was an asthmatic or a smoker.
“We know,” I told him. “We’re fully aware of what the Ivanovs are trying to do.”
“If I were brutally honest with you, we’re not keen to have them back. They kept the streets dirty with drug dealing and forcing girls out onto the streets, coercion, among other crimes, and since your family arrived the streets had been cleaner, crime had dropped,” as he spoke, I felt proud of Ronan since it was him that had been working hard to do that while I was in prison.
We had contacts whom we called upon to remove street scum that was causing us problems. Even though we rarely saw their faces, we knew we could rely on them and had been calling upon them since my uncle was alive and running the family business in Larsson. He handed those highly secretive contacts down to me and Ronan.
Cleaning up the streets was done illegally, and I wondered if Tindale and his police colleagues were aware of that. Maybe they were and turned a blind eye. We were good at covering our tracks, and we even had hidden bank accounts under fake names specifically to pay them.
Tindale flicked his hand. “I’m digressing. Katerina Ivanov, strategically planted in the same hall to befriend Annika andthen sold her a fake ID with an older date of birth so she could start working here,” he stated flatly.
“We knew she was using a fake ID and sacked her. She doesn’t work here anymore,” I informed him, stretching the truth a little. She was sacked because she was betraying us, but we were aware of the fake ID for some time.
It was revealing to us how vital Katerina’s role was in the scheme of things.
“So, are you sure that the Ivanov family and the Larsson police department are working together?” I pressed, because this was our suspicion as well, but I felt there was a missing link.
Why would they join forces at the risk of corrupting the Larsson PD? That part didn’t make sense to me. Many things didn’t make sense to me. The eagerness to have me imprisoned in the first place and the eagerness to have me arrested and placed back in prison were oddly contrived.
“Yes. What alerted me was when Annika was being manipulated and emotionally blackmailed by Judith from the Larsson PD. So, I did some digging on her to discover that she was married to the nephew of one of the top-dogs in the Ivanov family and was mysteriously killed in a car crash a few miles out of the edge of Larsson city nineteen years ago,” he flicked me a sharp knowing look, like he suspected I had something to with it.
“The Ivanovs had no territory and no power in Larsson,” I educated him. “They were happy here in Gothenburg until they made some stupid financial decisions that destroyed their empire.”
“But they were trying to squeeze their way in, weren’t they?” he said it like it was common knowledge. “At the time, they were spreading their territories, not just into Larsson, but into other cities as well. We were aware of that and kept track of them.”
“What was the nephew’s name?” Ronan asked, keeping his tone even.
“Serg Popov or Poppa,” he answered, and I rubbed my jaw with the back of my fist.
“I was only a kid back then, so I’m unfamiliar with anyone called Poppa, although I am aware of the Popovs within the Ivanov family,” I explained as an eerie sensation traveled over the skin on my forearms. There was something about that incident that stirred inside of me. Nineteen years ago, I would have been only nine years old, but I knew someone older and probably knew more about the situation: Gunner’s mom, and my Aunt Sylvie.
“Judith changed her surname and first name, went on to enroll in the police force, worked her way up the ranks, and made it her mission to destroy the Kaiser empire, whom she held personally responsible for killing her husband.”
“Wow,” Ronan said under his breath. “That’s an incredible revenge plan. Did she have proof?”
“If she had proof, I haven’t found it. But she was coaxed by the Ivanovs to have someone working on the inside in the police to turn a blind eye to certain crimes, while coming down hard on your family, including the arrest and imprisonment several years ago of Lars Kaiser and then your conviction,” he described, clearing his voice a couple of times.
“False conviction,” I corrected him, then pointed to the canister of chilled water, so Ronan could pour a glass and offer it to the sergeant.
“Yes,” he sighed, then gulped the water on as three dribbles flicked onto his olive-green shirt.
“So, she’s crooked as a dog’s hindleg, and you’ve known about that for a while?” I stated, trying not to sound as if I were accusing him of withholding information.
“I became suspicious when I had a phone conversation with Annika and she seemed scared, and I knew that Judith hadgotten to her, so I, with support from the Gothenburg PD, began following them,” Tindale relayed to us.
Ronan filled his glass with more water, because it seemed like he had more to offload.
“I have to admit that apart from the shifty blond cop, we’re not surprised about anything you’ve told us,” I stated honestly.
