Down for the Count

by Martin Holmén

  PRAISE FOR

  THE STOCKHOLM TRILOGY

  ‘A dark, atmospheric, powerful thriller, the best debut novel I’ve read in years’

  Lynda La Plante

  ‘Atmospheric Scandi retro, but Chandleresque to its core’

  The Sunday Times Crime Club

  ‘Punches you in the face like one of Kvist’s knockout blows’

  Crime Scene

  ‘A real tour de force… a fascinating race through 1930s Stockholm’

  Kate Rhodes, author of Crossbones Yard

  ‘A fabulously classy twist on pulp fiction’

  Elle Thinks

  ‘A tough thriller that packs a punch’

  Daily Star on Sunday

  ‘Blending noir with gritty violence, Clinch is a visceral, compulsive thriller’

  Col’s Criminal Library

  ‘This is noir writing at its best’

  The Bookbinder’s Daughter

  ‘As original as it is remarkable’

  Borås Tidning

  ‘Scandinavian Crime meets Film Noir, the crime novel of the year’

  Alexander Bard

  For Sandra

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER

  SATURDAY 23 NOVEMBER

  SUNDAY 24 NOVEMBER

  MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER

  MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER

  Our time is up.

  A sound of knocking vibrates between the graffiti-covered stone walls. The cowslip-blond youth, resting his head on my hairy chest, flinches. Every fibre of his body’s musculature tenses up. His nails dig into my ribs.

  We’re lying naked on the fold-down metal bed on the longer side of the cell. I push my head forward, hushing him, my boxer’s nose buried deep in his tangled locks. He smells of sweat, sex and ingrained dirt.

  ‘We still have a few minutes.’

  His cloying, salty taste sticks to the roof of my mouth. I clear my throat, then caress his hair and kiss his neck. It’s blotched with scratched flea bites. I lie back again. The wood shavings in the pillow crunch as I turn my head.

  On the floor beside the bunk is a pile of three books. At the bottom the New Testament, in the middle the Psalms and at the top a thin pamphlet entitled In My Lone Hour. A wall-louse laboriously clambers up the book spines. In the holding cell next to ours, a fellow prisoner slowly whistles ‘Death of a Drinking Girl’, although it’s forbidden.

  ‘Doughboy.’

  He hardens against my thigh as I squeeze him in my arms, even though we’ve only just finished.

  ‘I hope you haven’t played a trick on me now. For some it’s one thing while you’re in here and something else on the outside.’

  Doughboy shakes his head and makes a little sob. Again, I press my nose into his hair. Oh, that boy! That fragrance of his is so honest.

  There’s more thumping on the door. Harder, this time. It’s Wednesday, the twentieth of November 1935, a year and a half to the day since I entered through the heavy front gates.

  I shift Doughboy’s head and climb out of the sheets. He sits on the edge of the bed, covering his groin with his hands and hanging his head: a wilting cowslip on a wiry stem. Two violet bruises shine on his prison-pale body. Around his nipples, a few blond hairs spread outward like rays of light.

  I pull up the rough grey trousers, the shirt and the vest with the blue and grey stripes. Doughboy shrugs his bony shoulders: ‘We’ll see each other again in a week. Time will go by quickly. Even quicker for you on the outside.’

  ‘You remember what I’ve told you?’

  ‘I should come directly to you on Roslagsgatan. Over a funeral parlour.’

  ‘Do you remember the house number?’

  ‘Forty-three.’

  I nod. Beard stubble rasps under my fist as I rub my chin.

  ‘The screws will want you for the Home Guard but don’t listen to that. Come straight to me. I have gas and wood stoves, an ice cupboard too. Lundin, the bloke I’m renting it off, is not niggardly about turning up the heating, and anyone in the house will tell you that. It’s not big, but at least it’s bigger than this cell and it’ll do for the both of us.’

  ‘You’ve said that a thousand times.’

  I do up the wooden buttons of my uniform jacket. Doughboy looks up as the lock rattles and the door opens. Jönsson stands there; he’s an evil-eyed day-shift screw with a black full-length beard divided into two forks, hanging over his chest. He’s not tall but his girth almost fills the doorway from side to side. The emblem on his uniform cap glitters in the frail morning light.

  ‘Damn it, Kvist! Never before have I had to yank someone out of their cell when they’re being released.’

  ‘I paid for a full half-hour.’

  ‘You’ve overshot that bastard half-hour by a mile. Move it! The director’s waiting.’

  I fumble with my clothes. Kneeling while putting on my prison-issue shoes, I rest my fist on the bed.

  Doughboy quickly runs his hands over the scars on the back of my hand. My gaze runs into his eyes of pale blue. The same colour as my own.

  ‘If you’re released at the same time as others, don’t throw your lot in with them, they’re only after your money. Just make sure you come home to me in Sibirien, and I’ll make sure you’re well taken care of. You remember the house number now?’

  ‘Forty-three.’

  ‘Maybe I’d better meet you here instead.’

  ‘No need. I’ll find it.’

  ‘No, it’s probably better. Let’s leave it like that. I’ll wait for you outside the gates at lunchtime in seven days’ time. Twelve o’clock. I’ll bring the suit.’

  ‘I can manage without it.’

  I stand up. Doughboy stares intensely at the wall behind me, as if he’s found something new and interesting among the usual graffiti. The screw takes a few steps into the cell and grasps my arm. I twist out of his grip, then nod at him. He turns around and walks out onto the top gallery.

  ‘A promise is a promise and I’ve promised you a suit, have I not? In exactly a week. Twelve o’clock outside the gates. Time will pass quickly, you’ll see.’

  I run my hand through Doughboy’s mop of hair, and a second later I’m following Jönsson through the door, away from my love and out onto the suicide gallery. A wave of giddiness hits me; I put my right hand on the railing. It’s about six, or eight, metres down to the hard concrete floor. Despite all the hours spent up in the rigging during my years at sea, I have never got used to heights, even after all the woodpeckers’ eggs I had as a child. If it hadn’t been for them I’m not sure what would have become of me; probably I wouldn’t even be able to stand on a chair.

  The yellow door slams between me and Doughboy, and Jönsson rattles his keys. There’s a clicking sound as the bolt shoots into the lock.

  We start moving along the row of cell doors, with me leading the way. Behind each and every one of them sits a scrap of humanity, steeped in loneliness, too weak or proud to fit into the machinery of society.

  At every step the screw thumps his baton against his thigh. The keys rattle on his ring. A weary November sunlight only just penetrates the large skylight above us. It’s spitting rain.

  ‘Grey inside, and grey outside too,’ I mutter.

  Our steps echo desolately on the
spiral stairs leading down to ground level. There’s a smell of root mash, tarred rope and leather. Jönsson’s big belly is rumbling. I hurry my steps and we walk into the large round central hall, all while the taste of the youth slowly withers in my gob.

  ‘Bloody lucky you were banged up, Kvist, otherwise you’d probably have been accused of murder about a month ago.’

  The screw laughs. I don’t understand what he’s driving at. I shuffle on.

  We emerge into the light rain and walk down the imposing manorial steps, skirting the prison buildings, built from stone the dirty yellow of a lion’s mane, past the old wool-making house, the kitchens and the sickbay, towards the main guard post. I put my hands in my trouser pockets and start whistling an old Ernst Rolf tune.

  The air is loaded with a scent of hops. In the distance I hear the sounds of the city, more intense than usual, like a demonstration at Gärdet on Workers’ Day, the first of May, or outside a football ground on the evening of a match.

  A rush of wind drives the raindrops under the brim of my cap, and I look down. The wet gravel mutes the sound of our steps. Jönsson overtakes me; his broad arse seems about to burst out of his uniform trousers. He’s breathing heavily.

  A guard in the inside courtyard follows us with his eyes. He purses his mouth when I give him a sunny smile, and turns his back on us. Since our little altercation last winter he rarely smiles back. He still has a few teeth missing at the front. It cost me a week in dark solitary. For a moment I toy with a thought: if I give the fatty in front of me a workout, it might put back my release by a week, and then I’ll get out at the same time as Doughboy.

  We press on through another gate and reach the outermost area, where the screws are armed with revolvers and rifles. The heavy reception door creaks when Jönsson opens it. I lift my cap and smooth down my hair before I put it back on. The swine have left it to grow for three months, without the regulatory cut. It will take another year at least to tame it and get my usual hairstyle back. Damned way to treat a grown man!

  I follow Jönsson into the reception to meet the director, a middle-aged bloke with a handlebar moustache. He’s wearing a uniform. As we walk in, he’s waiting next to his desk with his hands clasped across his back. He gestures at his helmet.

  On the dark-panelled walls hang rows of portraits of his predecessors, also the rules and by-laws that have held sway over my life between half past five in the morning and ten at night for the last year and a half. My clothes and personal effects have been placed on a bench. The director sits at his desk and clears his throat.

  ‘Prisoner 420, Harry Kvist, I presume?’

  His voice is hoarse, as if after a night of schnapps-drinking and singing. The floorboards creak as Jönsson shifts his weight to the other leg.

  ‘Yes, that’s him all right.’

  The director’s tongue emerges at the left corner of his mouth. He continues leafing through the papers in front of him on the desk.

  ‘Do you not have the common sense to take off your cap when you’re talking to me?’

  ‘Not today.’

  The director recoils and continues looking through the papers.

  ‘This is Kvist’s third internment. For intimidation, this time. And a serious assault involving an alcoholic-beverages delivery man and his son.’

  ‘Just get the papers in order.’

  The director looks up, I see his eyes grow intense: ‘What can you mean?’

  ‘Just that I’ve heard the lecture before.’

  The director leans back in his chair, the armrests made of cherry wood or mahogany, and puts his hands together on his belly. He looks amused now. Again his tongue flicks over his lips.

  ‘Six times in this term we had to put you in solitary and dark confinement; on a couple of occasions there was even talk of having you transferred to an institution for the mentally ill.’

  ‘As I said, get on with it!’

  ‘Kvist, you should show some humility.’

  ‘You can’t throw me in the cellars now, or threaten me with more beatings, so just bloody well get this over with and let me get out of here!’

  The gruff, schnapps-tinged voice of the director is silenced. Behind me, Jönsson coughs gently. There’s a gleam in the director’s eye.

  ‘Well, at least you’ve behaved yourself these last six months. As I understand it, this may be ascribed in some way to a certain Gusten Lindwall, serving a six-month sentence for bread-thieving?’

  I shut my mouth. The director rises and walks round the desk. He hands the screw a fountain pen and a form.

  ‘Jönsson will have to conclude this. I need time to get changed for the inauguration.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Jönsson takes over. The director picks up a blue envelope from his desk and gives it to me.

  ‘Just short of a hundred kronor, that’s what you’ve earned. I suppose we’ll be seeing each other soon, I just hope it won’t be too soon. A queer like you, Kvist, has a detrimental influence on the other prisoners.’

  Involuntarily, I clench my fists. A vein in my forehead starts to throb.

  ‘For a year and a half I’ve slaved for your profit, that much is true.’

  The director smiles brightly and gives Jönsson a nod before he leaves the warders’ office through an adjoining door.

  ‘Right then,’ says Jönsson, walking up to the table with his form. ‘You can get undressed.’

  I do as I’m told while the screw goes through my clothes and belongings, ticking them off on the form and loudly pronouncing: ‘Outdoor clothes: a black three-piece suit in light wool, labelled Herzog, a white shirt, a grey necktie with silver stripes, braces, singlet and elasticated underpants. A pair of shoes labelled J.J. Brandt of size 41, also a black hat with a narrow brim, labelled Paul U. Bergström, size 57. It’s all there.’

  ‘It seems so, yes.’

  ‘That wasn’t a question. Other loose items: under the hatband, a razor blade. A notebook and address book, an aniline pen. A Viking pocket watch with a gold chain, two cigars of the brand Meteor in a cigar case of wine-red leather embossed with the name of L. Steiner, a penknife, a comb, a bunch of keys, a box of matches, and a wallet containing six kronor and seventy öre, various receipts, and a photograph of a young girl. Sign here at the bottom of the page.’

  I would be stark naked were it not for the prison-issue underpants. My skin is covered in goosebumps. Jönsson’s face is heavily flushed after all his reading. He catches his breath. I take the pen he holds out, and draw my scrawl at the bottom of the form.

  I put on my own clothes while Jönsson watches. The trousers have become a few sizes too large, but anything is more elegant than the prison uniform. I fish out one of the dry Meteors from the cigar case and drill a hole in the end with the nib of the fountain pen. I may be as poor as a church mouse, but at least I have a cigar case that used to belong to a millionaire. My belongings drop into my pockets with a rattling sound.

  ‘If you hurry up you’ll make it in time for the inauguration.’

  I look up. ‘What inauguration?’

  ‘West Bridge. The official opening’s today.’

  I grunt. I’d thought it was getting close. For one and a half years I had seen them toiling on it a stone’s throw from my day-cell window. Morning to evening I had listened to the monotonous singing of the pole cranes, the spattering of the rivet-punchers and the faint rattling of the cement mixers. In the autumn evenings I had caught sight of the spark-fleas of the welders above the thick granite walls of the prison. Now she spans Riddarfjärden, hundreds of metres of her. In two mighty leaps she joins the two poorest parts of the city.

  I pick up my hat from the table. To hell with humility: ‘Kvisten doesn’t take off his hat for anyone.’

  ‘What was that? Stop mumbling, man!’

  ‘Nothing.’

  I push the hat down on my head. Jönsson gestures at the adjoining door, and I press down the handle and step outside into freedom – which greets me
with a gust of ice-cold easterly wind that claws at my eyeballs.

  A little girl aged about five squats a few metres from the door, wiping her fingers in the wet grass along the side of the ditch. She stands up when she sees me coming out.

  I turn up my collar and strike a match. The first draw on the cigar smoke makes my body tremble with well-being. I flick the match into the nearest puddle.

  The girl is wearing an eighties-style cardigan with puffed-up arms and a beret. Across her forehead are a pair of black lines, as if she’s wiped herself with soiled fingers. In one hand she holds a rag doll with a missing eye. She breaks off a couple of sprigs from a bush, still with foliage on them. I insert the cigar into my mouth, button up my jacket and fold up my collar. When I went inside it was early summer. Not now.

  The girl takes a few steps towards me. She has folded her woollen socks over the tops of her boots. As she peers curiously at me, I have a sudden notion that the child looks like my own daughter, Ida, even though she must be more than fifteen years old by now.

  ‘Are you here to meet the King?’

  ‘He’s not here to meet me, that’s for bloody sure.’

  ‘You swore.’

  ‘I did.’

  I exhale a heavy lead-grey cloud of smoke and look up at the sky. The light rain is mixed with the odd puzzled streak of sleet. The tobacco smoke whirls through my brain. I squat down, one hand on the ground, drawing air into my lungs. The girl is next to me in two seconds flat.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  There’s a sharp pain in my chest: ‘I feel fine. Better than in a very long time.’

  ‘Have you been in prison?’

  I nod.

  ‘But I was released today.’

  ‘Why were you in the prison?’

  ‘Someone wanted to hurt me.’

  ‘There were no flowers.’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’

  I stand up, put the cigar back into my mouth, scrape at a couple of flea bites on my chest.

  ‘For the King. I picked some leaves.’

  I smile. There’s a snapping sound as I pull back the elasticated band of my wallet.

  With one eye half-closed I peer into the coin compartment, find a five-öre piece and flick it over with my thumb and finger. It bounces against her chest and lands in front of her feet. She picks it up and curtsies, before she suddenly charges off as if someone had set fire to her bloomers.