Page 49 of Capture
Ignoring her comment, I decided not to share what we know about Annika. I’d keep that piece of information for another day, as I knew she would find it difficult to understand. Keeping her out of the loop was convenient for now.
“Onto the next topic that I want to talk to you about,” I started, and she scoffed again, and I ignored it. I knew it annoyed her that I didn’t bite back over the prison comment.
The only way to move on is to allow myself to forgive and heal, and part of that healing involves spending time with Annika. Another part of the healing process was to find out who murdered Lars. At times, it felt like we were so close.
“Does the name Serg Popov mean anything to you?” I asked sternly, and again the line went dead. “Hello? Sylvie?”
“Yes, I’m here,” she said, sounding frustrated.
“Serg Popov, does that name sound familiar?” I pressed, then listened carefully to background noises, but it was quiet.
“Well, the Popov family has been around for a while here in Larsson, although they’re under the radar, but we know they collaborate with the Ivanov family,” she answered impatiently. “What is this about, Mikael?”
“What about Serg Popov, specifically? Do you remember him?” I kept pushing because she was vague, which could mean she was hiding something.
“I…ah…don’t remember-” she stalled as if trying to create a story to offload.
“Let me remind you,” I started. “Serg Popov died in a car crash nineteen years ago.”
“Oh?” Her surprise sounded fake.
“He was married to the cop that was heading the case that got me arrested and falsely accused of organizing Lars’ death,” I told her, leaving out Judith’s name because I didn’t think it was relevant. “She was so bereaved that she took out her revenge on our family.”
“What does our family have to do with it?” she asked so innocently.
“She believed that the Kaisers killed her husband, although there doesn’t seem to be proof. It’s only her hunch, I assume. After losing her husband, I guess she wanted to even the score. However, I feel like there's a missing link, which is why I’m calling you. Do you know anything about this?” I explained, hopefully.
“Nineteen years,” she parroted distantly, as if her mind was going back that far, but there was something there in her tone. Something she wasn’t telling me that I might do a better job atsiphoning out of her, if we were in the same room and I could look her in the eye.
“Yes, nineteen,” I encouraged her to continue whatever thought path she was on.
“I was hoping it would never come to this, but it’s all about the girl,” she sighed, saying something that I least expected.
“What girl?” I asked, mystified.
“The girl Lars found in the dingy apartment alone, with soiled diapers. She never cried, you know, and we thought she was brain damaged from the lack of nutrients and affection, but no, she just wasn’t a crier,” she explained.
The story was all too familiar, and a chill slid down my spine, causing the hair on my forearms to stand up on end. “Girl? Are we talking about Annika?”
She sighed again. “Yes. We discovered her as a baby and took her away, fed her, and changed her diapers. We had her at the house for two days, until the mother came crawling back. Well, it wasn’t the mother; it was the father. Her father, Poppa, Serg Popov.”
I didn’t see this coming. Every other piece of information that we’ve been given by our hired PI or what Sergeant Tindale told us has been astonishing. Maybe that’s the Kaiser in me. I was raised to consider all solutions and scenarios before acting on them—this scenario I hadn’t imagined.
“Ha,” she grunted half-heartedly. “Now you’re the quiet one. It seems I have stunned you, this time.”
I took a moment to digest the information, trying to make sense of it. Everything seemed to be linked. “I knew Lars,” I started slowly as my head spun. “He discovered her as a baby, abandoned in her cot, but then you gave the baby back, until she was a few years old, which was when you fostered her? Is that correct?”
“Yes, we put the mother into better accommodation, paid for by us, bought clothes, and baby formula. Whatever she needed, we didn’t hesitate to provide for them. But her habit had a stronghold on her, and there were people who she considered friends or allies who wanted her back in the game.”
She trailed off, and I could hear tapping like she was tapping her finger on a table, irritably. Stepping back into the past did that to the best of people.
She cleared her throat and continued, “We organized a drug rehab twice, and she would come out clean and then go back to the people who treated her poorly. I genuinely believe she tried to turn her life around, but as I said, the chokehold that drugs and the drug pushers had on her seemed impenetrable. We even considered moving her out of the state, but then we’d have less control over her.”
“So, was Popov one of the ones who was pushing her back onto the game?” The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and I knew the answer before she said it.
“Yes.”
“So, you organized his death?”
