The Falling Detective

by Christoffer Carlsson

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You just do. It’s just there, between the lines.’

  She goes quiet for a moment, before taking up the story again. Neither of us say anything. I wonder whether she’s lost it.

  ‘Sometimes a month would go by without any contact, and then he’d get in touch and ask if we could do another interview, that new information had come to light which he needed to talk about, and then we’d meet, and everything would just blow up again, intensive as hell for a couple of weeks, and then it would die down again.’

  ‘How did you feel about that?’ Birck says. ‘Would you have preferred to have met more regularly?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘That kind of relationship suits me. I don’t need much — I prefer my own company. A lot of men are quite simply useless, but a few are good at a couple of things that I like. One is having sex. Another is talking politics. Thomas was good at both.

  ‘Thomas kept it to himself,’ Birck says, ‘your relationship. Did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long was it going on like this?’

  ‘Until … well until Thursday, I suppose.’

  Birck leans forward, his elbows resting on his thighs.

  ‘Okay. Tell us what happened.’

  ‘That night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’d arranged to meet … a place where we often meet up, or used to. An alley off Döbelnsgatan. A friend of mine lives round the corner, and I sleep over sometimes. That’s when we’ll meet there, me and Thomas, outside the gate, and then walk back to his place. But this time we’d said we’d meet in the yard.’

  ‘Had you done that before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why did you decide to this time?’

  ‘It just turned out that way.’ She hesitates. ‘I was scared.’

  ‘What were you afraid of?’

  ‘I stood behind the bins,’ she continues, as though she hasn’t heard Birck’s question. ‘They were lined up against one wall. I was waiting for Thomas to come round the corner. I stayed there until I heard footsteps. Then it occurred to me that it might not be Thomas, and I wanted to make sure it was him. I could see his profile, from where I was standing, and I could see that he was looking for me, that he hadn’t seen me. He took his gloves off and put them in his pocket, and I started walking over, but at that moment I heard something that scared me, made me back away —scurrying footsteps coming rapidly down the alley. And before I knew what was happening, he collapsed onto the ground. My field of vision, or whatever you call it, was blocked by one of the bins, and I didn’t dare move, so all I could see was Thomas’s face. He’d fallen on his back, and then someone was rifling through his pockets. I didn’t even have time to … he never even saw me.’

  ‘How do you know this person was going through his pockets?’ Birck asks.

  ‘I could see his coat was being pulled and tugged at.’

  This detail in Lisa’s story makes her go stiff, and then stare fixedly at Birck’s table, her lips strained and tight. It’s always the unexpected details that hit hardest. I know that better than most.

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I heard the rucksack being picked up, the sound of the zip, and someone rooting around in it.’

  ‘And then?’ I ask.

  ‘He or she left. I remember being surprised, because I was sure that whoever it was had seen me, and that I’d be next. But he or she made off. I must have been in shock, because my heart was pounding so hard and so fast. I came out from behind the bins and went to see … I was really terrified … I was so shocked. I crouched over him and tried to see if he was still breathing. He wasn’t. He might not have been dead yet, but … sometimes you just know it’s too late. This might sound strange, but this feeling just came over me … I couldn’t bear to look at him.’

  ‘What did you do next?’ Birck asks.

  ‘I said goodbye, without touching him. I was worried that I might leave some trace on him if I did. I didn’t want that. I got out of there as fast as I could, and went and called the police.’

  ‘You dialled 112.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did you say to them?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard it? Those calls are all recorded, aren’t they?’

  ‘We haven’t listened to it yet,’ says Birck.

  We had requested the recording, but it hadn’t arrived by the time SEPO took the case from us.

  ‘I said that a person had been stabbed, and gave them the address. That was it.’

  ‘Did you disguise your voice?’

  ‘I did my best — I tried to make it a bit deeper.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I didn’t want … I can’t …’

  Lisa studies her hands. They are beautiful, clean, the sort of hands that have never had to work to ensure the survival of their owner.

  ‘The assailant,’ I say. ‘You didn’t see him?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t even say if it was a man.’

  ‘It takes a fair bit of strength to push a knife into someone like that.’

  ‘Like, women couldn’t do it?’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ I say, ‘they could. But it’s far more unusual. What were they after? In his clothes, his rucksack, what were they looking for?’

  ‘That,’ she says.

  ‘The Dictaphone? How do you know?’

  ‘Once you’ve heard the tape, you’ll understand. Even if it’s not completely accurate, I … I don’t know anymore. I’m so bloody torn.’

  ‘Tell us,’ Birck prompts. ‘We’re going to listen to it later, but you tell us first.’

  ‘I … I can’t.’

  ‘How did you get hold of it?’ I say instead.

  ‘Someone gave it to me.’

  ‘The attacker?’

  She doesn’t answer. Instead, she reaches over and turns it on. The Dictaphone responds with a gentle beep, and the little screen lights up.

  She holds it out, towards Birck.

  ‘I haven’t had it very long — I only got hold of it this morning. The files are named after people, or his subject number. So the first interview with me is called 1599. The second is 15992, the third, 15993, and so on.

  ‘One more thing,’ Birck says slowly, not taking the Dictaphone. ‘You know that we’re no longer running the investigation into Thomas’s death? That the security police have already taken over?’

  ‘I know that. They’ve already been on to me.’

  ‘What did you say to them?’

  She lowers her outstretched hand, and strokes the Dictaphone with her thumb, as if she were cleaning it.

  ‘I’ve … SEPO, they never leave us alone. They’re so fucking paranoid, they just see terrorists everywhere they look. Like us. You get blacklisted, just because you’re struggling for something that they don’t agree with. They’re fascists, hardly better than the neo-Nazis. So they didn’t get a lot out of me. I want his … I want Thomas’s death to get solved, but I don’t trust SEPO at all. They called him a pseudo-scientist and a secret terrorist. See what I mean? He was an award-winning international sociologist, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Who’s we?’ I say. ‘You said “they never leave us alone.” ’

  ‘Oh, I mean the anarchist movement, everyone who has a copy of The Coming Insurrection, or any books like that, really. I’ve heard that they do checks on anyone who buys it and pays with a card. They can trace it that way. It’s crazy. And then, of course, there are parts of the anarchist movement who do use violence in the struggle against fascism. It’s a form of self-defence. But then the movement also includes animal-rights activists, syndicalists and feminists, anti-fascists who have never used violence.’

  ‘What was the SEPO officer’s name, the one you spoke to?’

  ‘Gof
fman, something. And there was another one — there were two of them. A woman, called Berg, I think. No, Berger.

  ‘Who gave you the Dictaphone?’ Birck attempts.

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Are you protecting someone?’

  ‘The person I got it from hasn’t heard any of it, I know that much.’

  No one knows what to say next. Lisa drinks a bit more coffee.

  ‘Radical Anti-Fascism,’ I say slowly. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Haven’t you got Google on your phone?’ she asks.

  ‘I have indeed, but the only thing about it on the internet, as far as I can tell, is a homepage with the logo on it — a front that leads nowhere.’

  Lisa leans back on the sofa.

  ‘We’re not an organisation, even if that’s what the media and the police call us. That makes me mad, because the thing about an organisation is that it has a hierarchical structure, with superiors and their subordinates. We oppose the very idea of hierarchy. Radical anti-fascism is more of a network. We’re part of the anarchist movement, struggling against fascism and oppression, above all against white-power movements like Swedish Resistance.’

  ‘And your struggle sometimes gets expressed through criminality,’ I say. ‘Have I got the right idea?’

  ‘That’s what you define it as. We believe that it isn’t possible to fight fascism through purely legal means, in a society that has inherent fascist tendencies. It’s no different to Rentokill treating insect infestations. We …’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I say.

  ‘This is exactly what I’m talking about,’ Lisa says, sharply. ‘You don’t see anything beyond your little, little cop-world. You don’t see the oppression going on out there, day in and day out.’

  ‘What I’d like to know,’ Birck says, ‘is what the difference is between RAF-W and RAF-B? Are they separate movements?’

  ‘No, one and the same. They’re called that after the way movements usually act on demos, in a white bloc and a black bloc. The white bloc are the ones who like to avoid conflict, but who can turn to violence if it becomes necessary. The black bloc are the ones who have a more violent nature, who are always ready for confrontation. I think I’m right in saying that they were SEPO’s names, named after an earlier organisation where the less violent members wore white, and the rest didn’t. But then gradually it became a more general description of how the groups split into different blocs. RAF-W and RAF-B are not names we use about ourselves, but Thomas used them to categorise his interviewees. For us it’s a strange distinction, because everyone in RAF is prepared to use physical force to defend themselves in the struggle against fascism.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say, ‘how … you said that you’d arranged to meet that evening. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It was nearly always Thomas who contacted me, usually when some new pattern or theory cropped up in his research. It was him this time, too.’

  ‘You said that you were scared,’ Birck says. ‘Why were you scared?’

  ‘I … I can’t …’ she replies, and turns her gaze away, and you can almost feel them, those words waiting just on the tip of her tongue, yet something is stopping them.

  We should be going at her harder, we should be a bit tougher, but the risk then is that she’ll clam up instead.

  ‘In the notes that Thomas wrote about his field work,’ I say, ‘he described his research and his interviews.’

  Her look reminds me of someone who has just found out about their partner’s infidelity.

  ‘You didn’t know he was making them,’ Birck says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Apparently it’s not exactly unusual for researchers to do so, but …’

  ‘Have you read them?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Can I see them? Have you got them here?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘When SEPO took over, they got all the material.’

  She studies my face for a long time.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, as though she’s decided that I’m telling the truth. ‘Shame. I would’ve liked to read them. Did he write anything about me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Birck says. ‘But not your name, and nothing about your relationship. He refers to you as 1599.’

  ‘In them,’ I continue, ‘towards the end, he mentions that you had told him something. That was late November, I think. He wrote that you had contacted him, because you wanted to meet up.’

  Lisa doesn’t say anything, but nods faintly.

  ‘A week or so later, he writes again, but this time nothing more than that he feels torn by what you told him. He doesn’t write what it was.’ I hold my breath. ‘What was it you told him?’

  ‘I … it was about … I can’t say it, because I don’t even know if it’s still true.’

  ‘Was it about his own death?’ Birck asks. ‘Did you know that someone was going to kill him?’

  ‘Oh God no!’ she says, in a tone that makes you expect her to get up and leave. ‘I had no idea about that … there was no threat to his safety, no, it was nothing like that.’

  ‘There was no threat to his safety,’ Birck says, ‘but there was a threat against someone else? Is that what you mean?’

  She doesn’t respond.

  ‘Right then,’ I say, calmly. ‘You’re named in his notes, and it also says that you talked about something. He also names another interviewee, 1601.’ I try to read her reaction, but it’s difficult. I don’t think she recognises that number. ‘We believe,’ I continue, ‘that 1601 gave him information about the same event, but that the information 1601 gave didn’t tally with what you told him. Maybe what you’d said wasn’t altogether accurate.’

  Lisa is observing us with her mouth half-open. It’s impossible to tell whether or not she knew about this. She might be surprised to hear it — it might be news to her. Or she might be surprised that we know.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, eventually.

  ‘You don’t recognise the number, 1601? You never talked about it?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Is there anything … in your social sphere, or whatever you call it,’ Birck says. ‘Are there rumours about something that’s about to happen?’

  No answer.

  ‘Okay. I’ll take that as a yes. Are there different versions of this rumour? Or is it about two or more different things?’

  ‘I …’ She hesitates.

  ‘Explain,’ Birck persists.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It …’

  ‘It’s a person,’ I say. ‘Who is under threat?’

  She nods weakly.

  ‘Who?’ I say. ‘Who is it? You really should be helping us, Lisa.’

  She gives me a sharp stare. My words came out sharper, more accusatory than I intended.

  ‘Why the hell do you think I’m sitting here?’

  ‘I …’ I start, but there’s a beep, and Lisa pulls out her phone and reads the text message.

  ‘Oh Jesus.’ She gets up from the sofa. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Now? You can’t go now.’

  ‘I have to.’

  She starts getting her stuff together.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ Birck says.

  ‘I can’t. Something has happened in Rålambshov Park. One of my friends has been hurt. Listen to that,’ she says, looking at the Dictaphone before she hurriedly makes for the door. ‘Don’t give it to Goffman.’

  ‘How do we find you, if we need to talk to you again?’

  She gives an address in Bandhagen as she passes by, without even slowing down. I rush to write it down. She opens the door, and in an instant Lisa Swedberg is gone, and it’s as though she’s never been here.

  During the co
unter-demonstration, Jonathan ends up near one of the trees. He’s wearing a hoodie. That’s all he needs to withstand the cold — the adrenalin coursing through his veins combined with amphetamine takes care of the rest.

  He’s holding a flare in one hand, a knuckleduster in the other. There are so many people, everything’s a blur. He chucks the flare towards a nearby cop. It lands close to his shoe, smoking and sparking. The cop’s colleague must have noticed it, because the next minute someone attacks Jonathan from the left. An unsheathed truncheon crashes into his forearm, causing him to groan loudly.

  Jonathan turns around. For some reason, this cop isn’t wearing a helmet. It’s lying on the ground between them. The truncheon swings in again. Jonathan defends himself, and the second blow crashes against his shoulder. It feels like something’s been dislocated. He takes yet another blow. He swings the knuckleduster in front of him, but it slams into the shield, mute and futile.

  Someone comes running over and pushes both palms hard in the cop’s back. The shove takes him by surprise, making him lose control. Jonathan steps to one side to avoid the collapsing cop, who slumps to the ground.

  Ebi is standing just in front of him. He’s wearing the same clothes he had on when they saw each other in Hallunda, but now he’s wearing a mask, too. Jonathan recognises his childhood friend’s eyes. Ebi rushes over to the policeman and pushes him against the tree, making him drop his truncheon.

  ‘Fascist bastard!’ Ebi hisses. ‘Fuck off!’

  Jonathan should’ve seen it, the fear in the cop’s eyes, how his free hand was heading for his holster. In a flash, the cop is holding it in his hand. Ebi lets go too late. The cop’s face is white with panic.

  As the shot rings out and Ebi falls to the ground, Jonathan can’t do anything. He can’t even get down on his knees next to him. He wants to so badly, but it cannot be done. Everything would come out.

  The tears that force their way from the corners of his eyes are hidden by his mask.

  Christian doesn’t see it happen. He’s there, a couple of metres away, but he doesn’t see it.

  The smoke from the flares envelops the missiles, the struggling, the shouting and screaming, which mixes in turn with the sound of his own heartbeat. From the corner of his eye, he sees two policemen, armed with batons and shields, throwing themselves onto one of his friends.