“Not now, Dad!” Jack replied sullenly, because he was talking to their boss’s boss on the phone again.
“What do you want me to do?” Jim asked, because he needed to be needed.
“You can start by trying to get hold of people living in the neighboring apartments, the ones we never reached because of you and your ‘bomb,’ so we know that the rest of the building is empty!” Jack snapped.
Jim nodded, crushed. He looked up the phone numbers on Google. First the owner of the apartment on the floor where Jim had seen the bomb. A man replied, said he and his wife were away, and when his wife snapped: “Who’s that?” irritably in the background, the man snapped back: “It’s the brothel!” Jim didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, so he asked instead if there was anyone in their apartment. When the man said there wasn’t, Jim didn’t want to worry him by talking about the bomb, and there was no way the man could possibly have known at that point that if he had just said: “By the way, that box on the landing contains Christmas lights,” then this whole story would have changed instantly, so the man merely asked instead: “Was there anything else?” and Jim said: “No, no, I think that’s everything,” then thanked him and hung up.
Then he called the owners of the apartment at the top of the building, the one on the same floor as the apartment where the hostage drama was going on. The owners of that one turned out to be a young couple in their early twenties, they were in the middle of splitting up and had both moved out. “So the apartment’s empty?” Jim asked, relieved. It was, but in two separate conversations Jim still had to listen as two twentysomethings took it for granted that Jim would want to know why they had split up. It turned out that one of them couldn’t live with the fact that the other one had such ugly shoes, and the other was turned off by the fact that the first dribbled when he brushed his teeth, and that both of them would rather have a partner who wasn’t quite so short. One said that the relationship was doomed because the other liked coriander, so Jim said: “And you don’t?” only to receive the reply: “I do, but not as much as her!” The other one said they’d started to hate each other after an argument that, as far as Jim could understand, started when they were unable to find a juicer in a color that reflected them both as individuals but also as a couple. That was when they realized that they couldn’t live together another minute longer, and now they hated each other. It struck Jim that today’s youngsters had far too much choice, that was the whole problem—if all those modern dating apps had existed when Jim’s wife first met him, she would never have ended up becoming his wife. If you’re constantly presented with alternatives, you can never make up your mind, Jim thought. How could anyone live with the stress of knowing that while their partner was in the bathroom, they could be swiping right or left and finding their soul mate? A whole generation would end up getting urinary tract infections because they had to keep waiting to pee until the charge on their partner’s phone ran out. But obviously Jim said none of this, merely asked one last time: “So the apartment’s empty?”
They each confirmed that it was. All that was left in there was a juicer in the wrong color. The apartment was going to be put up for sale in the new year, with an estate agency whose name one of them couldn’t remember, only that it was “really corny, kind of dad-joke corny!” The other one confirmed this: “Whoever named that estate agency has a worse sense of humor than hairdressers! Did you know there’s one here called ‘The Upper Cut’? I mean, like, what?”
Jim hung up then. He thought it was a shame that they’d split up, those two, because they deserved each other.
He went over to Jack and tried to tell him about it, but Jack just said: “Not now, Dad! Did you get hold of the neighbors?”
Jim nodded.
“Is anyone home?” Jack asked.
Jim shook his head. “I just wanted to say that…,” he began, but Jack shook his head and resumed his conversation with his boss.
“Not now, Dad!”
So Jim didn’t say anything more.
* * *
What then? Well, then everything slid out of control, little by little. The whole hostage drama took several hours, but the negotiator got caught up in traffic and ended up stuck behind the worst multi-vehicle pileup of the year on the motorway (“Bound to be Stockholmers who set out without proper studded tires,” Jim declared confidently), so he never arrived. Jim and Jack were left to deal with the situation themselves, which wasn’t without its complications seeing as it took them a long time before they even managed to establish contact with the bank robber (culminating in Jack getting a large bump on his head, which itself is quite a long story). But eventually they managed to get a phone inside the apartment (which is an even longer story), and once the bank robber had released all the hostages and the negotiator made a call to that phone, that was when the pistol shot was heard from inside the apartment.
Several hours later Jack and Jim were still sitting in the police station, interviewing all the witnesses. That didn’t help at all, of course, because at least one of them wasn’t telling the truth.
22
The truth is that the bank robber went to ridiculous lengths not to point the pistol at anyone inside the apartment, to avoid frightening anyone. But the first person the bank robber accidentally happened to aim the pistol at was a woman called Zara. She’s somewhere in her fifties, and beautifully dressed in that way that people who have become financially independent on the back of other people’s financial dependency often are.
The funny thing is that when the bank robber rushed in, stumbled, and ended up waving the pistol in such a way that Zara found herself staring straight down the barrel of the gun, she didn’t even look scared. Another woman in the apartment, on the other hand, let out a shriek of panic: “Oh, dear Lord, we’re being robbed!” Which seemed a little odd, because the bank robber had absolutely no intention that this bit should be a robbery. Obviously no one likes being treated in a prejudiced way, and the fact that you just happen to be holding a pistol doesn’t automatically make you a robber, and even if you are, you can still be a bank robber without necessarily wanting to rob individuals. So when another woman cried, “Get your money out, Roger!” to her husband, the bank robber couldn’t help feeling rather insulted. Not unreasonably, really. Then a middle-aged man in a checkered shirt who was standing by the window—Roger, evidently—muttered sullenly: “We haven’t got any cash!”
The bank robber was about to protest, but caught sight of the reflection captured in the balcony window. A figure with a masked face armed with a pistol, and the other people in the room. One of them was a very old woman. Another was pregnant. A third looked like she was about to burst into tears. They were all staring at the pistol, eyes wild with fear, no one’s wilder than the eyes staring out through the holes in the ski mask in the reflection. Then the bank robber reached a crushing realization: They’re not the captives here. I am.
The only person who didn’t look remotely scared was Zara. That’s when they heard the sound of the first police sirens from down in the street.
23
Witness Interview
Date: December 30
Name of witness: Zara
JIM: Hello! My name’s Jim!
ZARA: Yes, yes, fine. Get on with it.
JIM: So, I’m here to record your version of what happened. Tell me about it in your own words.
ZARA: Who else’s words would I use?
JIM: Well, yes, quite. Just a figure of speech, I suppose. But first I’d like to make you aware that everything you say here is being recorded. And you can have a lawyer present if you’d like one.
ZARA: Why would I want one?
JIM: I just wanted you to be aware of that. My bosses say that their bosses say it’s important that everything’s done properly. We’re going to be getting a team of special investigators from Stockholm who are going to take over this investigation. My son’s very angry about that, he’s also a police officer, you see. So I just wa
nted to let you know that bit about having a lawyer present.
ZARA: Listen, I’ll pay for a lawyer if I ever threaten anyone with a pistol. Not when I’m the one being threatened.
JIM: I understand. I certainly didn’t mean to be impertinent, certainly not. I realize you’ve had a difficult day, obviously I realize that. You just need to answer all my questions as honestly as you can. Would you like coffee?
ZARA: Is that what you call it? I saw what came out of that machine out there, and I wouldn’t drink that if you and I were the last people on the planet and you promised me it was poison.
JIM: I’m not sure if that’s more of an insult to me or the coffee.
ZARA: You said you wanted me to answer your questions honestly.
JIM: Yes, I suppose I did, didn’t I? Well, can I start by asking why you were in the apartment?
ZARA: What a stupid question. Were you the one standing in the stairwell when we were released?
JIM: Yes, that was me.
ZARA: So you were the first one into the apartment after we left? And you still managed to lose the bank robber?
JIM: I wasn’t actually first in. I waited for Jack, my colleague. You probably met him earlier. He was the first man into the apartment.
ZARA: You policemen all look alike, did you know that?
JIM: Jack’s my son. Maybe that’s why.
ZARA: Jim and Jack?
JIM: Yes. Like Jim Beam and Jack Daniel’s.
ZARA: Is that supposed to be funny?
JIM: No, no. My wife’s never found that funny, either.
ZARA: So you’re married, then? Well done you.
JIM: Yes, perhaps that isn’t entirely relevant right now. Can you give me a short explanation of why you were at the viewing of the apartment?
ZARA: It was an apartment viewing. Is that phrase too hard to understand?
JIM: So you were there to look at the apartment?
ZARA: You’re about as sharp as a wet box of cornflakes, aren’t you?
JIM: Does that mean yes?
ZARA: It means what it means.
JIM: What I mean is, were you planning to buy the apartment?
ZARA: Are you a real estate agent or a policeman?
JIM: I just mean that it would be easy to assume that you might be a little too well-off to be interested in that apartment.
ZARA: Oh, it would, would it?
JIM: Well, what I mean is that my colleagues and I might think that. One of them, anyway. My son, I mean. Based on some of the witness statements, I mean. You seem comfortably-off, that’s what I mean. And at first glance this apartment doesn’t look like the sort of thing that someone like you would want to buy.
ZARA: Listen, the problem with the middle class is that you think someone can be too rich to buy things. But that’s not true. You can only be too poor.
JIM: Well, perhaps we should move on. By the way, have I spelled your surname right here?
ZARA: No.
JIM: No?
ZARA: But there’s a perfectly logical reason why you think it’s spelled that way.
JIM: Oh?
ZARA: It’s because of the simple fact that you’re an idiot.
JIM: I’m sorry. Can you spell it out for me?
ZARA: I-d-i-o-t.
JIM: I meant your name?
ZARA: We’d be here all night, and some of us actually have important jobs to do, so why don’t I summarize things for you? A lunatic with a gun held me and a group of poor, less well-off people hostage for half a day, you and your colleagues surrounded the building, and the whole thing was on television, but you still managed to lose the bank robber. Right now you could have prioritized being out there trying to find the aforementioned bank robber, but instead you’re sitting here sweating because you’ve never seen a surname with more than three consonants in it before. Your bosses couldn’t make my taxes disappear faster if I’d given them matches.
JIM: I understand that you’re upset.
ZARA: That’s very clever of you.
JIM: I just meant that you’re in shock. I mean, no one expects to be threatened with a pistol when they go to view an apartment, do they? The papers may keep saying that the property market’s tough these days, but taking hostages is probably going a bit far. I mean, it says in the papers one day that it’s a “buyer’s market,” then the next that it’s a “seller’s market,” but in the end surely it’s always just the damn banks’ market? Don’t you think?
ZARA: Is that supposed to be a joke?
JIM: No, no, it’s supposed to be small talk. I just mean that the way society looks right now, the bank robber would have had considerably fewer police resources looking for him if he’d actually succeeded in robbing that bank than if he, as was actually the case, took all of you hostage. I mean, everyone hates banks. It’s like people say: “Sometimes it’s hard to know who the biggest crooks are, people who rob banks, or the people who run the banks.”
ZARA: Do people say that?
JIM: Yes. I think so. They do, don’t they? I just mean, I read in the paper yesterday about how much those bank bosses earn. They live in houses the size of palaces worth fifty million while ordinary people can barely manage to make their mortgage payments.
ZARA: Can I ask you a question?
JIM: Of course.
ZARA: Why is it that people like you always think successful people should be punished for their success?
JIM: What?
ZARA: Do you do some sort of advanced conspiracy role-play at Police College where you’re tricked into thinking that police officers get the same salary as bank bosses, or were you all just not capable of doing a bit of basic mathematics?
JIM: Yes, well. I mean, no.
ZARA: Or do you just think the world owes you something?
JIM: It’s just struck me, I never asked what you do for a living.
ZARA: I run a bank.
24
The truth is that Zara, who appears to be a little more than fifty years old, but exactly how much no one has ever dared ask, was never interested in buying the apartment. Not because she couldn’t afford it, of course, she could probably have bought it with the spare change she found between the cushions on the sofa in her own apartment. (Zara regarded coins as disgusting little havens of bacteria which have probably been touched by God knows how many middle-class fingers, and she’d rather have burned her sofa cushions than pick one up, so let’s put it like this: she could definitely have bought that apartment for the cost of her sofa.) So she went to the viewing with her nose already wrinkled, wearing diamond earrings large enough to knock out a medium-sized child, if that turned out to be necessary. But not even that, if you looked at her really closely, could hide the lurching grief inside her.
* * *
The first thing you have to understand is that Zara has recently been seeing a psychologist, because Zara has the sort of career which, if you do it for long enough, sometimes means you have to seek professional help to get instructions on what you can do with your life beyond having a career. Her first meeting with the psychologist didn’t go terribly well. Zara began by picking up a framed photograph from the desk and asking: “Who’s that?”
The psychologist replied: “My mom.”
Zara asked: “Do you get on well with her?”
The psychologist replied: “She passed away recently.”
Zara asked: “And what was your relationship like before that?”
The psychologist noted that a more normal response would have been to offer condolences on her death, but tried to maintain a neutral expression and said: “We’re not here to talk about me.”
To which Zara replied: “If I’m going to leave my car with a mechanic, first I want to know if her own car is a worthless heap of junk.”
The psychologist took a deep breath and said: “I can understand that. So let me just say that my mom and I had a very good relationship. Is that better?”
Zara nodded skeptically and asked: “Have any of your
patients ever committed suicide?”
The psychologist’s chest tightened; she replied: “No.”
Zara shrugged her shoulders and added: “As far as you’re aware.”
That was a fairly cruel thing to say to a psychologist. The psychologist, however, recovered quickly enough to say: “I only completed my training relatively recently. I haven’t had that many patients, but I do know they are all still alive. Why are you asking these questions?”
Zara looked at the only picture on the walls of the psychologist’s office, pursed her lips thoughtfully, and said, with surprising honesty: “I want to know if you can help me.”
The psychologist picked up a pen, smiled a practiced smile, and said: “With what?”
Zara replied that she was having “trouble sleeping.” She had been prescribed sleeping pills by her doctor, but now her doctor was refusing to prescribe more unless she spoke to a psychologist first. “So here I am,” Zara declared, and tapped her watch, as if she were the one being paid by the hour rather than the reverse.
The psychologist asked: “Do you think your trouble sleeping is related to your work? You said in your phone call that you run a bank. That sounds like it could be quite a stressful, high-pressure job.”
Zara replied: “Not really.”
The psychologist sighed and asked: “What are you hoping to accomplish during our meetings?”
Zara countered at once with a question of her own: “Will this be psychiatry or psychology?”
The psychologist asked: “What do you think the difference is?”
Zara replied: “You need psychology if you think you’re a dolphin. You need psychiatry if you’ve killed all the dolphins.”
The psychologist looked uncomfortable. The next time they met she wasn’t wearing her dolphin brooch.
Anxious People: A Novel Page 7