‘How the hell did they get in?’ I say. ‘The door was untouched.’
‘Must’ve had a key. Like we did. Maybe it was Heber himself. I don’t fucking know,’ Birck adds when he sees my confused expression.
Clues like these, just like the stuff found by the body, mean nothing in isolation, without the story that ties them all together. They are like road signs without symbols or letters.
Somewhere halfway between Vanadisvägen 5 and the scene of the crime on Döbelsgatan, two cars collide head-on at a junction. A violent confrontation ensues. We stop and observe it from a distance.
‘You do realise,’ Birck says, ‘that if word gets out that you’re trying to come off Serax, but that your withdrawal symptoms are so bad that you’re throwing up, you’ll be pulled off duty again?’
‘I’m clean. Ask my psychologist.’
Birck sniggers. From a nearby bar, a child’s voice sings I believe in Santa, and he’s coming to my house.
‘How long did you believe in Santa for?’ I ask.
‘We didn’t have Santa. You?’
‘Long enough that it made me sad when I found out he wasn’t real.’
‘You’re breaking my heart,’ says Birck.
A stream of loud, drunk men and women walk past us. They’re laughing.
‘How on earth did you not have Santa?’ I ask.
Morning. Another St Lucia procession sloshes through the sludge on the other side of the road, led by a woman about my age. The children are wearing long tunics and red Santa suits, holding battery-powered candles. Cones, hoods, and glitter adorn their heads. None of them seem particularly enthusiastic. Stockholm is still swathed in darkness, but the city woke up a long time ago, if it had even been asleep. Out on Hantverkargatan, the exhaust fumes from the heavy traffic rise into the hazy glow of the streetlamps.
The floor of the building that is home to the City and Norrmalm Violent Crime Unit is quiet, apart from a photocopier in a room a little way away spitting out paper, and a radio playing St Lucia songs. A waist-high plastic Christmas tree fills one corner. It’s covered with gold and silver handcuffs, red and blue truncheons, candy-striped pistols, and wooden policemen which are supposed to have been hand-painted by the previous, now retired, chief constable Skacke. At the top is a perfectly normal Christmas star.
My office comprises a desk with a computer on it, a desk chair, and a rickety old wooden chair for any visitors. Behind that is a row of empty bookcases. All the furniture came with the room, and several days passed before I even noticed the cigarette-burn marks on the surface of the desk.
A little square window in one of the walls gives a view of a little square piece of the world — of the snow, which has started falling again. That’s it.
On my desk is a pile of paper that Birck has printed out, consisting of the preliminary investigations into Thomas Heber’s two convictions, and the first reports from Döbelnsgatan. Nine or ten hours have passed, and the victim’s family have been informed and interviewed. Circumstances meant that this had to be done by telephone, and now the transcripts are lying in front of me, signed by Birck. The last report is recorded at 5.27 am, and it’s details like that which make me wonder if Birck ever actually sleeps.
Witness accounts have started to emerge and to be processed, but so far nothing significant has surfaced. A prosecutor, Ralph Olausson, has been assigned to the case, and will lead the preliminary investigations. I’ve never heard of him, but a note on my desks instructs me to contact him as soon as possible. I wonder who wrote it.
Thomas Heber’s parents were devastated by the news of the death of their only son, and Frederika Johannesson, who was apparently the dead man’s most recent girlfriend, took it almost as hard. In terms of the investigation itself, none of them had anything relevant to tell Birck. The parents described their son as likeable and popular, but had great difficulty in telling Birck who his close friends were. He worked as a sociology lecturer at Stockholm University and, according to the mother, he had twice won prizes for his work. He’d split with the girlfriend more than two years before, when he was finishing his thesis, and apparently it had been the work that had caused the split. It had torn them apart. Frederika Johannesson had no idea whether Heber had had any romantic involvement since then, but she assumed he had. Who that may have been with, she had no idea.
I put the reports away, go out of the room and past the Christmas tree, over to the coffee machine, and push out a black cup. As I wait for it to fill, several sleepy colleagues file past with snow on their shoulders, pale cheeks, and bloodshot eyes. They avoid eye contact, and say nothing. It’s been like this since I got back on duty. To them, I’m just the rookie from Internal Affairs, the idiot who lacks team spirit and who put a bullet in a colleague’s neck. The old lag who, since that day, has been unable to hold a firearm without being crippled by panic.
I want a Serax, but I don’t take one. I wonder when the anxiety and the fear of weapons will subside. The psychologist insisted that it was important for me to give it time, but he was never any more specific than that. I should have asked him before he got rid of me.
Back in my room, I turn to the preliminary investigation into Heber’s breach of the peace in November 2001, and the assault in December 2002. Attached to the reports are the subsequent court verdicts.
On the thirteenth of November 2001, neo-Nazis gathered in central Stockholm to commemorate the anniversary of the death of King Karl XII. The number of skinheads who came to pay tribute to the old king was greater than it had been for many years. Counter-demonstrations were organised by groups on the far left, and one was led by Thomas Heber, a young sociology student considered at the time to be a leading figure in AFA, the Anti-Fascist Action network. AFA had not applied for a permit for their demonstration, and their protest against the neo-Nazis was broken up by police, who also made sure that the youths were hit with pretty hefty fines.
The following year, in December 2002, demonstrations took place in Salem in honour of another Swede, Daniel Wretström, who was seen as another victim of anti-Swedish violence and immigrants’ hatred of Swedes. By then I had moved away from Salem, and so never attended the annual demonstrations, but my parents sometimes talk about them. It’s an event that makes the residents of the town steel themselves, as they would before a violent storm. Windows are boarded up, cars parked in their garages, and if possible, people spend the day and night somewhere else entirely.
Every year, Salem becomes a battlefield. During the 2002 demonstration, the third since the murder of seventeen-year-old Wretström, Thomas Heber assaulted a man. He hit a neo-Nazi with an empty bottle, which, unfortunately, broke. Was this down to an existing crack, which Heber could not possibly have known about, or was the strike so powerful that the bottle shattered? The prosecution claimed the latter. The question was considered at great length and in great technical detail during the investigation and, indeed, the trial. In spite of this, the answer could not be established beyond doubt, and Heber was given a two-year suspended sentence and community service.
The sins of youth?
Perhaps.
I stand up and walk over to the window. Outside, the Stockholm morning is lighter now. Need to talk to someone. Need to keep moving.
It happened during one of the first meetings at St Göran’s, and I’ve been tangled up in it ever since. I should have known that I was always supposed to end up in this struggle, a struggle that seems more and more likely to be in vain.
‘You haven’t thought about quitting?’ Grim asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Those things.’
Grim pointed at the little tube in my hand. I made no attempt to hide it from him.
‘Yes, I’ve thought about it.’
‘Does Sam know you’re taking them?’
‘No.’
‘What would happen if she
found out?’
‘I don’t know.’ That was true. I didn’t know how she would react. ‘But I don’t think she’d like it.’
‘Hmm,’ said Grim.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, you want to get back on duty, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
Grim leaned forward.
‘Why is it so important to you? Getting back on duty, I mean.’
‘I … I’ve got nothing else to do. I don’t know how to do anything else. And I need something to do.’
‘Haven’t you got Sam?’
‘No.’
‘I thought you were together.’
‘We’re not.’
He nodded.
‘Considering your background, they’re not going to have you back as long as you’re taking them. Or rather,’ he corrected himself and flashed a grimacing smile I remembered from when we were friends, ‘as long as they think you’re taking them.’
‘I don’t know if I can stop.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘No.’
‘Aren’t you going to try?’
‘I’d need to do it myself. If I get help from outside, people in the building are going to notice. And, as you said, with my background, I’m not going to stay around for long. I can’t risk it.’
‘Do it yourself then. Try cutting down. If you do succeed, you’ll feel liberated.’
I stared at him.
‘The only reason we’re talking about this is because you think it’s going to fuck my life up even more, and that’s the only kind of injury you can inflict from in here.’
‘You don’t understand a fucking thing.’ Grim raised his arms and rattled the handcuffs around his wrists. ‘If I could,’ he went on, ‘I would hit you so hard in the face right now.’
The vast, green university campus is beautiful, even in December, but the large South Building still feels like the kind of place where you’d park the mentally ill for secure storage. It stretches up nine stories, in bleached-out light blue, with small windows. I arrive at the same time as a thousand students, who all seem to be dreaming of better days. A few are talking, but the vast majority are walking in silence, staring at the ground, holding plastic cups of coffee and carrying heavy rucksacks. Posters for a leftist demonstration cover the walls, and someone has defaced them with the words LEFTY PIGS, RED BASTARDS, COMMIE WHORES. The graffiti has in turn been crossed out with a thick black pen, by someone who had has also taken the time to leave their own message: DIE NAZI PIGS.
The Sociology Department is at the top of the South Building. I buy my own cup of coffee on the way, mainly to give my hands something to do. Up in the department it’s quiet; it feels more like a prison than anything else. The head of the department, Marika Franzén, is sitting in her office a little way down the corridor, in the only room with the door ajar.
‘Leo Junker,’ I say. ‘Stockholm Police.’
She spins around in her chair, clearly surprised.
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I didn’t mean to …’
‘No, don’t worry.’ I see her eyes scanning me, from my boots up to my unkempt hair, and then she gets to her feet and shakes my hand. ‘Come in.’
From the desktop speakers I can hear a choir singing Lucia songs. Marika Franzén is short, with dark hair. She has a narrow face, large glasses, and a little, round button-nose. It’s a funny look.
‘I need to ask you a few questions. It’s about Thomas Heber. I’m assuming that you have heard?’
‘Yes,’ she says, turning down the volume, before deciding to turn the sound off altogether. Her brown eyes reveal that she is shaken, but she is otherwise composed. ‘I have heard. It’s awful. I can’t quite believe it. Please, sit down.’
One corner of the room is dominated by a three-piece-suite, and I ease myself into one of the armchairs. A pile of papers is lying on the table, and next to that is a bottle of brandy, and two glasses, one of which has traces of lipstick on it.
Marika follows my gaze, and puts the bottle and the glasses into a cupboard. She blushes.
‘I had a drink with a colleague last night — we had a late meeting.’
‘What time was the meeting?’
‘We started at five, and it went on till eight.’
Marika sits down opposite me, on the edge of the sofa, as though prepared for me to spill my coffee and ruin her armchair at any moment.
‘Was Thomas still around?’
‘He was here then. His door was open, and I saw him as I was leaving.’
‘Do you know what time he left?’
‘Well, I did ask if he was going home, as it was getting on. But he’d arranged to meet someone at half-past ten, so he was going to stay till then.’
‘Half-past ten,’ I say, pulling a notebook from my inside pocket. ‘Do you know who he was going to meet?’
‘No, but he was doing fieldwork at the time, so I just assumed that it was one of his interview subjects.’
‘Fieldwork?’
‘That’s what we usually say — gathering information, empirical data — we call it fieldwork. It’s part of the research process.’
‘What was he researching?’
‘Social movements.’
‘And what does that mean?’
She crosses her legs.
‘Social movements is a rather fluid notion, but generally we’re talking about groups, like networks or organisations, and their collective actions. The focus is on the group rather than the individual members.’
‘Like AFA, for example?’
‘Exactly. Like AFA.’
For a second, her gaze seems clear and sharp. Then suddenly her eyes glaze over, becoming almost murky, and she lifts her hand up to her mouth and grimaces. She sniffles, straining to concentrate on the facts. It might be a coping strategy.
‘Social movements are generally concerned with protesting against the status quo, so it’s a sensitive subject in many ways.’
‘So it’s about political groups?’
‘Not necessarily. It can be about other things — of course, that depends on how you define political. In Thomas’s case, it was about the anarchist networks, groups like AFA or Revolutionary Front on one side, and the nationalist movement, like Swedish Resistance, on the other.’
‘Left- and right-wing extremists, in other words?’
‘If you want to use those terms, yes. Thomas got funding from The Swedish Research Council to study how the members of various social movements interact with one another, above all members of those social movements that are diametrically opposed to one another. Those who are in effect struggling against each other.’
The page in my notebook is empty. I write social movements, far r, far l, AFA, then a question mark. My phone rings in my inside pocket. I divert the call without looking at it, and hope it wasn’t Sam.
‘I’m wondering about his choice of subject matter.’
‘You mean why he chose social movements?’
‘Why he was looking at the far left and far right. Why them?’
She shrugs.
‘It’s no secret that he himself has … had a history in the anarchist movement. We tend to choose research subjects that are close to home, one way or another, and he was no exception.’
‘So you know about his past, with AFA?’
‘Of course. I’m also aware of the assault and breach-of-the-peace convictions. I’m reminded a couple of times a year, in those emails we get sent.’
‘What emails?’
‘They come from Nazis, racists, and all sorts of internet trolls.’
A little bubble of clarity has gathered somewhere immediately behind my eyes. I wonder if it is visible to others.
‘Tell me more about the emails.’
‘You know,�
� Marika says, gesticulating, ‘it’s nothing unusual. Sociologists are sometimes rather vulnerable, particularly if the research concerns a subject that is politically contentious at that moment. Lots of people have been sent similar emails, and we always act, report it to the police and everything. Since Utøya and Breivik — well, actually, since 2010, when the Sweden Democrats made it into parliament — we’ve had a lot more from extremist groups, left and right.’
‘When were these ones sent?’
‘I think the most recent ones were early autumn, but we’ve received them before. Of course, it’s very serious, but there isn’t an awful lot we can do about it, besides sending them to the security department, who in turn come to you.’
‘And you said that they come from Nazis, racists and …’ I look down at my notebook, searching for the word. ‘Internet trolls.’
‘In Thomas’s case. As far as I’m aware. The sender was never identified.’
‘Breach of the peace to sociologist,’ I mumble. ‘Had his political convictions changed over time?’
‘He was very left-wing, but I don’t think he believed in direct action anymore. I think he got older — it was as simple as that.’
‘Older?’
‘Getting older is quite enough to change people. But he wanted to understand everything he’d seen during his time as a member.’
‘Was he still a member?’
‘I can’t answer that. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have thought so.’ Marika looks terrified, as though a gruesome face had suddenly appeared above my right shoulder. ‘Was he really murdered?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you don’t know who did it?’
‘No, not yet. I’m trying to understand,’ I continue, slowly, ‘the period leading up to his death. Was there anything different about him?’
She pauses for a second, her eyes gliding across the spines of the books on the shelf.
‘Not that I can think of, no.’
‘What did he do yesterday daytime?’
‘Thomas always got here about nine,’ she says. ‘Like most of us up here do. Thomas came in at nine yesterday, too. I was here before him, and I was standing in the kitchen when he arrived. After that, he sat in his room. I think he was transcribing interviews. He was still sitting there when I left, and he said he was staying until that meeting at half-past ten.’
The Falling Detective Page 4