by Will Dean
‘Hello?’ I call out. ‘Anybody home?’
No answer. The place is immaculate like a holiday rental on day one. The stainless steel countertops are gleaming and the floor’s polished and buffed and the cushions are plumped. I slip my boots off and walk further inside. My nerves are prickling. Not supposed to do this. Only chance I’ll get. There’s no basement, thank God, I don’t think I could handle going underground right now. Lena’s explained to me that most houses in the area have no basement because the land is so boggy. The water table’s about as high as it can be without us living in a goddam lake. I walk around in my socks and have to be careful not to slip, and I feel more vulnerable without my shoes on, less able to defend myself. The ground floor doesn’t feel quite real, except for the kitchen area. It’s like nobody ever comes here but it’s here just in case they do. Like when I came. I see the espresso machine with its drawers and grinders and steam wands and dials. Above it there are three sharp scoops, also stainless steel, of different sizes, like you see baristas use in cafes to measure out the ground coffee. Under the window there’s a sous-vide machine, at least I think that’s what it is, like a vacuum-pack thing for slow-cooking. There’s a door near the kitchen sink. I pull on my wool gloves, not ideal but they’ll do, and open the door and step inside, and now I really am intruding. I’m being rude but I need this story – a full report of the Medusa murders compared to Freddy Malmström’s death, no holding back. If the police won’t make the connection, then I will. I’ll have the local perspective, from the inside; quotes and diagrams and a detailed analysis of what we know and what we don’t. I’ll be as comprehensive as I can be and I’ll focus on the community and on the victim’s families, the things national papers gloss over.
I see racks bolted to the wall with lined-up boxer shorts hung on them, three to a rack. All white. I see a washing machine, and an ironing board with a can of spray starch on it. There are three vertical drying cabinets set against the wall for wet coats and hats. I open the first door and see shelves and shelves of dehydrating mushrooms. They’re Karl-Johans, I think, Porcini, the expensive Disney type. Each shelf is packed with wafer-thin slices and they smell strongly of the wild. I check the other two drying cabinets and they’re full of other mushrooms. I walk out and head to the foot of the staircase. It’s the kind with no back risers, the see-through kind. I look around and step up and that’s when I trip the alarm.
The noise is a squealing pulse. I switch off my aids without pulling them out because I can’t be without them in a place like this. I run up the stairs expecting the police to arrive any second and then I realise that they’re all tied up and they won’t be coming and there’s no panic. Make the most of this opportunity, Tuva.
The master bedroom. The walls are covered in mirrors and I mean every fucking wall. The bed’s unmade. I turn left and find a clean bathroom with a grey towelling robe hanging on the back of the door. There are two other rooms up here and both the doors are closed. I head to the first and push down the handle.
The bedroom’s carpeted. There’s no guest bed or any furniture at all. The walls are covered with simple white shelves and each one’s laden with identical white box files. Six shelves high, across three and a half walls; there must be close to a thousand files. I step closer and the distant hum of the alarm is just detectable in my unaided ears.
I find ‘P’. Two files on Pearls marked ‘Pearls I’ and ‘Pearls II’. One on Prairie dogs and one on Peru and one on Playing cards and then three files on Pantomime. In the other direction, I crouch down and find Oysters and Opera and Ocular surgery and Ospreys and Oslo. I open Oslo. The paper is graph paper, the kind with tiny square boxes. Holmqvist writes with a very fine hand and he must use some kind of draughtsman’s pen. Page upon page of research and snippets of dialogue heard on travels, and small maps of street intersections. I put Oslo back and walk over to the window. It’s not mirrored at all from the inside. Looks normal. I see my truck and then turn and stroke my fingers across the edges of the files. Black holes and Berettas and Batteries and Bat Mitzvahs. He has a lifetime of information up here. Damascus and Disguises and Dragonflies and Diphtheria and Dior and Dionysus. It’s like Wikipedia in paper form. I’m impressed and bemused by the sheer amount of work. I do research all the time for my articles, but this?
I turn out of the room and onto the landing. My gloved hand’s on the door handle of the second guest room when I feel something at my back. Coffee breath. Warm. Damp. I spin around on my axis and lift the canister of bear-spray but he’s got his hand on my arm so I can’t use it. He’s shouting at me. I shake my head. I CANNOT HEAR YOU. I struggle to loosen his grip on my arm and then I focus on his lips.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
I point to my ears and then I switch my aids back on and the siren bursts into my head.
‘The door was open, I was checking to see if Holmqvist was here.’
Viggo frowns at me. His breath reeks of Nescafé and sleep.
‘This alarm is hurting my ears and he’s clearly not home. I’m leaving.’
‘He went to the police station,’ Viggo says. ‘You should know, Tuva. You followed him out there.’
I sigh and keep my finger on the top of the bear-spray.
‘Okay. I wanted to see if there were any clues here before the cops came. Guilty.’
Viggo nods and walks downstairs and I follow with my hands clasped over my ears.
‘You think you could give me a lift back home down the hill? I came up here for a stroll, doctors orders, so to say, but now it’s getting late and I need to cook the boy his dinner.’
I look at him. It’s the last thing in the world I want to do right now but with the alarm pulsing in my ears I feel I have no choice. I nod to him.
We drive back down the hill and I pull up to his red house. I see little Mikey in the garden playing with a hosepipe and he waves to me.
‘I told you to stay indoors until I got home,’ Viggo says to Mikey in a flat tone.
Mikey stops waving.
‘See, he likes you a lot, Tuva. He’s got excellent taste, that one. Hasn’t stopped yabbering about you.’
I smile to the boy and he runs up to my truck and comes over to my door and knocks on the window.
‘Hi Mikey, you remember me?’
He doesn’t smile, but he nods. I’ve never seen him smile. I open the truck door and he tries to pull me out of it by my hand.
‘Sorry, little man, I’ve got work to do.’
‘Could you watch him for ten minutes while I make his dinner?’
I look at Mikey’s grey eyes and pull my truck into the driveway. Ten minutes in the garden won’t hurt. I hear a distant gunshot. Then another. The grass is waterlogged from the downpour, puddles gleaming on the grass. Another gunshot. Two more. Mikey grabs my arm and tugs at it to follow him indoors. I pass the threshold and see houseplants and a box of ammunition on top of the bookcase and that whining noise is still here.
‘Is it safe to have them out?’ I point up to the box of bullets lodged between two miniature ferns.
Viggo smiles. ‘Mikey can’t reach up there. Plus, it’s empty, so . . .’
I’m going to tell Thord all this and I’m going to make him listen to me.
‘Viggo, can I ask you,’ I’m scanning the room for clues, anything that looks out-of-place. ‘What’s that high-pitched squeak? It’s probably my hearing aids, but I get a lot of feedback in your house. Can you hear it?’
‘Oh, it’s not you,’ he says, smiling and pointing to the plug socket on the kitchen counter. ‘It’s the mouse-repellers. Have them all over the house. They’re ultrasonic, so to say. Only kids and rodents can hear them. And you, I suppose.’ He looks down at his son with his gaunt little cheeks and his dark circles under his eyes. ‘I don’t think it bothers Mikey any more, he’s got used to it. Before Mikey was born I used to poison the vermin, but that’s not safe now. Tried acid buckets but these ultrasound things work pretty good, t
hey use the building’s electrical wires as conductors. They turn the little mouses and rats half-crazy they do. Now, Mikey, get to the table please, dinner’s ready.’
I look over at the little boy and I know he can still hear the piercing squeals. I pass the two identical high chairs and wave goodbye to Mikey and leave.
18
I wake up early for a weekend. My neighbour’s swapped me his Sunday laundry slot with my Thursday slot for the next two weeks. I need his slot, my clothes stink. The room in the basement’s a good place for me. It smells of synthetic meadows and artificial forests and man-made ocean breezes and that’s just the way I like them.
I walk upstairs with a basket of tangled sheets and bras and jeans and pillow cases. They’re warm and soft from the dryer, and they remind me of Mum before she lost him. Before I lost both of them. The light bulb in the stairway has blown. I get inside my apartment and put all the clothes and bedding away and then I go to the office, feeling clean and a little more organised like I can face what lies ahead even though I have to work all day and I still haven’t seen Mum. I’ll get down there soon. She’s my constant niggle, my tiny itch of guilt just behind my ear.
My heart says drive-thru so I follow my heart. When I arrive at work, it’s already open and there’s someone lingering on the other side of the street. The guy runs off as soon as I get to the office door. I don’t see his face. Inside, the lights are on and the computers are off.
‘Hi Lena,’ I say, placing a McDonald’s coffee down on her desk. The coffee’s pretty good actually. It’s the best in town but that doesn’t say much.
‘Hi yourself,’ she says.
‘What’s the plan?’ I ask, sitting down in front of her desk.
She drinks and then reclines, the red underside of her baseball cap casting a warm glow over her elegant face. She breathes deeply and then she straightens up and looks at me.
‘I’m increasing circulation for the next issue, an extra thousand copies. I want the murder and your analysis to be front and centre, but I want the usual stuff, too. Just because someone got shot doesn’t mean that Håkan from the hardware store forgot about his triathlon personal best, or that Margit from the bank doesn’t want to read all about her charity jumble sale. That stuff stays, but it’s at the back and it’s lean. You write about Freddy from a Gavrik point of view, try not to sound like the police or like you have theories or you’re investigating. Local people want facts and they want it clear and they want to know how, if it all, this is going to affect them in the coming days. Does that make sense?’
I nod. ‘Do you know David Holmqvist, Lena?’
She shakes her head. ‘Know of him, but don’t think I’ve ever met the man. ’Course, when I see his photo on the news I think maybe I’ve seen him on Storgatan or at the movies, but he looks pretty normal, don’t you think?’
‘I have no idea if he shot Freddy Malmström.’
‘Not your job, Tuva. Now, listen up because I reckon what I’m about to say is important because someone smart once said it to me.’
She takes a slurp of coffee.
‘You get a story like this maybe once a decade in a town like Gavrik and you gotta make the most of it. Now, I see you’re working long hours and covering all the bases and that’s great. But you need to think about the printed word. What you write in the next issue will remain. Those words will stick around. For ever. You need to write well and with purpose and with courage. Your articles will follow you around whether you like it or not. So stay focussed on the story and on the local perspective, don’t get too fancy or too speculative. I want it direct, I want it relevant, and I want it so you’re still proud of it when you’re my age, yes?’
I nod and walk to my desk and check that it’s not too early and then I pick up the phone and call Thord.
‘Gavrik police.’
‘Hey, just wanted to check in about David Holmqvist. What’s his status, please?’
‘Holmqvist is a person of interest, Tuva, you know that already.’ He sounds tired. ‘No arrests have been made but he’s still here at the station, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘What about his house, are you searching it?’
‘You know I can’t talk about that.’
‘I have two neighbours saying they’ve seen official cars round there, that’s all.’
He sighs.
‘Off the record, nowhere near the record, I can tell you that forensic teams are working with Holmqvist’s permission.’
I pause for thought, staring at the pen pot on my desk. Thord has stopped calling him Dave.
‘There anything else or can I get back to work?’
‘Ballistics results?’
‘White coats at the National Forensic Centre are quick, but they’re not that quick. Detailed report may take another week.’ ‘Have they told you anything?’
I hear him sigh down the phone. ‘Eight millimetre. Most likely an older rifle, that’s all I know. No more details.’
‘Thanks, Thord. Talk soon.’
I make a note of the gun details and then put on my coat and my boots and say bye to Lena and get into my truck. It’s four degrees. My clothes smell fresh and I put a weekly reminder on my phone so that I never forget another damn laundry slot. I join the motorway and head north, towards Dalarna. The view’s static. It’s rolling by, I don’t mean that, but it’s unchanging, the same trees, the same colours, the same milky sky. I drive and drive and it’s like a retro console game with shitty graphics. Grey road, white sky, green pines. I call Mum but she doesn’t pick up.
Exit 84. I see a shipping container in a field with a sign across it saying Enigma Gentlemen’s Club. The container’s placed at an angle and there’s a line of black crows or ravens perched on one end of it. Must be twenty of them. I drive off the motorway and pull into the parking area of the strip club. It’s big. They were optimistic in the business plan when they designed this place. I drive towards a puddle the size of a duck pond, engine oil slicking its surface with desperate, twisted rainbows. It shimmers and I drive through it to the back of the club. I see four cars and I recognise one of them. My eyes strain as I focus on the Volvo’s number plate, and then I drive around and head back out to the motorway.
Hannes is here.
I drive north. The woodland thins a little with farmers’ fields on my side of the road, and granite boulders with glacial battle-scars on the other side. I take it easy in the slow lane. Three on a Sunday afternoon and Hannes is in a strip club. I kind of feel sorry for him, but then I think about Frida and what lies he must have told her. A lorry comes up behind me laden with brand new Volvos without number plates, like newborn babies that haven’t been named yet. I swing over to the fast lane and accelerate up to one forty. Who goes to a strip club on a Sunday?
There’s a pair of hawks or falcons or something, circling at the horizon. They look untouchable up there, utterly safe and confident, like they can see the whole forest and beyond from up there, far beyond.
I take the next exit and join the southbound lane.
It’s five degrees and I think about how I’m going to write the articles for the next issue. I’ve got four days. Mum’s fine, don’t think about that, not now, she’s okay. I’ll call her and explain. I want something I can show to The Guardian or The Washington Post in a year’s time. I need to write something and hit the sweet spot, where I get the right words down in the right order and they actually move people. And it has to be accurate. No sloppy bullshit that might add to the distress of the families, it needs to be one hundred per cent correct.
The sky’s featureless on the way back to Gavrik: no birds, no planes, no nothing. The clouds look like they start at head height and there’s not quite enough air underneath them for us all to breathe comfortably. I jangle my key fob and hear the batteries clink together. I need to order more but I have enough for now.
I take Exit 84 and pass under the E16 and approach the strip club again. Hannes is gone. It’s half past
four and there are two other cars in the customer parking area and about five in the employee area. Locals don’t like to talk about Hannes, but maybe the employees here will. Hannes is a hunter who knows the woods and I don’t like how close he is to Chief Björn; it doesn’t sit right with me. I lock my truck. The building’s made from corrugated steel, like an aircraft hangar or a warehouse on an industrial estate. I put on some lip balm and smooth down my hair and then I walk over to the entrance.
19
The door’s so heavy I struggle to get it open. Then the music hits me. An R&B song from the ’90s with a baseline that beats through my bones. I feel it. The woman at the counter looks up at me and speaks. She’s had lip implants or fillers or something. I can’t hear her and I can’t read her swollen lips so I cup my hand to my ear and step closer.
‘Two hundred,’ she says. ‘Two hundred to come in. Open till eleven.’
I pay in cash and adjust the volume of my hearing aids, and she pushes something onto the back of my hand. It’s a stamp, a little red heart symbol close to a vein. In the corner of the entrance, on the plastic wipe-down flooring, there are two mousetraps baited and waiting.
The woman with the lips turns back to her magazine.
I walk in. It’s dark but I expected that. There’s a black stage with three vertical poles and there’s one woman up there on the central one. She’s topless and I stare at her. This is weird. Five minutes ago I was driving on a road and now I’m staring at a half-naked woman. Just like that. She’s blonde but she’s dyed her hair dark brown and she’s kind of awkward beautiful.
I walk further in and stand with my back to the bar. The room’s big, maybe thirty tables. I see three punters. There’s one table of two guys drinking beers and watching the stage, and one table against the wall with a guy having a private dance.
‘What are you drinking?’ the barman asks behind my shoulder. I turn and he looks familiar somehow. He’s got a solarium tan and there’s a scar running from his lip to his ear and the faint, white line glows like a smile in the club lighting.