The Invisible Man from Salem

by Christoffer Carlsson

  THE INVISIBLE MAN FROM SALEM

  CHRISTOFFER CARLSSON was born in 1986. The author of two previous novels, he has a PhD in criminology, and is a university lecturer in the subject. The Invisible Man from Salem has been a bestseller in Sweden, and won the Swedish Crime Academy’s 2013 Best Crime Novel of the Year award. It is the first in a series starring a young police officer called Leo Junker, and will shortly be developed into a three-season TV drama by StellaNova Film.

  Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

  18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia 3056

  2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

  Originally published in Swedish as Den Osynlige Mannen Från Salem by Piratförlagets 2013

  First published in English by Scribe 2015, by agreement with Pontas Literary & Film Agency

  Copyright © Christoffer Carlsson 2013

  Translation copyright © Michael Gallagher 2015

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  Carlsson, Christoffer, 1986- author.

  The Invisible Man from Salem/Christoffer Carlsson; translated by Michael Gallagher.

  9781925106466 (AUS edition)

  9781922247988 (UK edition)

  9781925113655 (e-book)

  1. Detective and mystery stories. 2. Murder--Investigation–Sweden–Stockholm–Fiction. 3. Stockholm (Sweden)–Fiction.

  Other Authors/Contributors: Gallagher, Michael, translator.

  839.738

  scribepublications.com.au

  scribepublications.co.uk

  To Karl, Martin, and Tobias

  I’m hanging around outside your door, just like I used to all those years ago. Only it’s not your door, you’re not here. Haven’t been here for a long time. I know this because I am following you. I’m the only one here. And I’m not even really here. You don’t know me. Nobody knows me, not anymore. No one knows who I am.

  You can sense that something isn’t right, that something is about to happen. You remember the times recorded on these pages, but you choose to push them away. Isn’t that right? I know this, because I’m just like you. Those few times the past turns up in your everyday life, you do recognise it. You recognise it but you’re not sure what was true and what wasn’t because everything gets blurred over time.

  I am writing this to tell you that everything you think is true, but not necessarily in the way you think. I’m doing this to tell you all that I know.

  I

  SWEDEN MUST DIE. The words are daubed on the wall of the tunnel, in thick black capitals. There’s music coming from a nearby shop, and outside the tunnel the sun is shining, warm and white, but in here it’s cool, quiet. A woman with headphones and a ponytail passes by, jogging. I watch her until she disappears.

  From somewhere a child appears, running along holding a balloon. The balloon is bobbing jerkily and excitedly on a string behind him, until it hits something sharp in the roof of the tunnel and bursts. The boy looks scared and starts to cry, perhaps because of the loud noise, but probably not. He turns around like he’s looking for someone, but there’s no one there.

  I’m in Salem, visiting for the first time in ages. It’s the end of the summer. I get up from the bench and walk past the child, out of the gloom and into the bright sunshine.

  II

  When I wake up it’s dark, and I just know that something has happened. Out of the corner of my eye I see something flashing. Across the road, the wall of the building opposite is struck by a bright-blue flashing light. I get out of bed and go to the kitchenette, drink a glass of water, and pop a Serax pill on my tongue. I’ve been dreaming about Viktor and Sam.

  With the empty glass in my hand I go over to the balcony and open the door. The wind, warm but damp, makes me shudder, and I can see the world that’s waiting down there. An ambulance and two police cars are grouped outside the entrance. Someone is pulling blue-and-white incident tape between two streetlamps. I hear muted voices, the crackling of a police radio, and see the silent flashing of the police cars’ blue lights. And beyond that is the hum of a million people, the sound of a big city in temporary slumber.

  I go back in and pull on a pair of jeans, button a shirt, and run my fingers through my hair. In the entrance hall I hear a fan spinning somewhere behind a wall, the muted rustle of clothes, a quiet, mumbling voice. Someone pushes the button to call the old lift down, and it starts its descent with a mechanical crunch, making the whole shaft vibrate.

  ‘Can’t we shut that bloody lift off?’ someone hisses.

  The lift masks the sound of my footsteps as I make my way down the staircase that winds itself around the lift-shaft. I stop at the second floor and wait. Below me, on the first floor, something has happened. Not for the first time.

  A few years back, the large apartment was bought by a charity with the help of a donation from someone who had more money than he needed. The group remodelled the apartment into a hostel for down-and-outs, and named it Chapmansgården. It is visited at least once a week, usually by jaded bureaucrats sent by Social Services, but quite often by the police. The hostel is run by a former social worker, Matilda or Martina — I can’t remember her name. She’s old, but commands more respect than most police officers.

  As I look over the bannister I see that the heavy wooden door of the hostel is open. The lights are on in there. An irritated male voice is being soothed by a softer one, a woman’s. The lift passes me on its way to the first floor, hiding me from view as I follow it down. The two police officers standing there freeze when they catch sight of me. They’re young — much younger than me. The lift stops on the ground floor, and suddenly it all goes very quiet.

  ‘Watch your step,’ says the woman.

  ‘Put the tape up,’ he says, and holds out the roll of incident tape, to which she responds with a stare.

  ‘You put it up, and I’ll take care of him.’

  She has taken her cap off and is holding it in her hand; her hair is up, in a tight ponytail that makes her face look stretched. The man has a square jaw and kind eyes, but I think both officers are quite shaken because they’re constantly looking at their watches. On the shoulders of their uniforms are single gold crowns, with no stripes. Constables.

  He walks towards the staircase with the roll of tape in his hand. I try to smile. ‘Listen, something has happened here,’ says the woman. ‘I’d like you to stay in the building.’

  ‘I’m not going out.’

  ‘What are you doing down here, then?’

  I look at the stairwell window, which is large and looks out at the house over the road that is still soaked in blue light.

  ‘I woke up.’

  ‘You were woken by the flashing lights?’

  I nod, unsure what she’s thinking. She looks surprised. I detect a sour smell, and only now do I notice how pale she is, that her eyes are bloodshot. She’s just been sick.

  She tilts her head ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, and furrows her brow.

  ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ I venture, ‘but … no, I don’t
think we’ve met.’

  She looks at me for a long time before pulling out her notepad from her breast pocket and flipping through it, then clicking her pen and jotting something down. Behind me, her colleague wrestles clumsily with the tape in a way that gets on my nerves. I look at the door behind the woman. It shows no sign of having been forced.

  ‘I had no information about any police officers living here. What’s your name?’

  ‘Leo,’ I say. ‘Leo Junker. What’s happened here?’

  ‘What department are you with, Leo?’ she continues, in a tone that reveals she’s far from convinced I’m telling the truth.

  ‘IA.’

  ‘IA?’

  ‘Internal Aff—’

  ‘I know what it stands for. May I see your ID?’

  ‘It’s in my coat, up there in my flat,’ I say, and her gaze moves over my shoulder, as though she is trying to make eye contact with her colleague. ‘Do you know who she is?’ I chance. ‘The body.’

  ‘I …’ she starts. ‘So, you know what’s happened?’

  I’m not really that observant, but it’s pretty rare for men to use the hostel. They have other places to go to. Women, on the other hand, don’t have that many hostels to choose from, since most places turn away anyone using drugs or involved in prostitution. Women are generally allowed to do one or the other, but not both. The problem is, of course, that most of the women do do both. Chapmansgården is an exception, which means that lots of women come here. This place has just one rule when it comes to being allowed in: you mustn’t be carrying a weapon. It’s a generous attitude.

  So the chances are it’s a woman, and, judging by the commotion, she’s no longer alive.

  ‘May I …?’ I say, and take a step towards her.

  ‘We’re waiting for Forensics.’ I hear her colleague’s voice behind me.

  ‘Is Martina there?’

  ‘Who?’ says the woman, confused, and looks at her notepad.

  ‘The one who runs the shelter,’ I answer. ‘We’re friends.’

  ‘You mean Matilda?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly.’

  I step out of my shoes, pick them up, and walk past her into the hostel.

  ‘Excuse me!’ she says sharply, grabbing my arm. ‘You stay here.’

  ‘I just want to know how my friend is,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t even know her name.’

  ‘I know how to move around a crime scene. I just want to know that Matilda is okay.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. You’re not coming in.’

  ‘Two minutes.’

  The policewoman stares at me for some time before she lets go of my arm and looks at her watch again. Someone is knocking on the door downstairs, forcefully and sharply. She looks for her colleague, who’s moved up the stairs and is now out of sight.

  ‘Wait here,’ she says, and I nod and smile, doing my best to look sincere.

  THE WORLD SEEMS hauntingly quiet inside Chapmansgården. The roof hangs low above my head; the floor is an ugly, rutted parquet. The hostel comprises a large hall, a breakfast room with a kitchen, a toilet and shower, an office, and what I assume is the dormitory, furthest from the entrance. The smell brings to mind what you’d expect to find in an old man’s wardrobe. Just inside the door there’s a big basket, and beside it a hand-written sign: WARM CLOTHES. A pair of gloves are sticking out from underneath a hooded top; I pull them out.

  A little way down on the right, off the large hall, there’s a neat, tidy kitchen with a square, wooden table and a couple of chairs. At the table, Matilda, the old bird, with her pointy features and fuzzy silver curls, is sitting opposite a man in police uniform. She seems to be answering questions in a quiet, composed voice. They look up as I go past, and I nod to Matilda.

  ‘You from Violent Crime?’ he asks.

  ‘Sure.’

  He looks at the gloves in my hand and I look down, and I notice the pronounced shoe-prints that are visible on the floor. It’s not a boot, more like a trainer of some sort. I put my own shoe alongside the print, noticing that I have the same-size feet as whoever’s just been here.

  ‘Where are the other women?’

  ‘She was the only one here,’ says Matilda.

  ‘Do you recognise her?’

  ‘She’s been here several times this summer. I think her name’s Rebecka.’

  ‘Rebecka with a “ck”?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I think it’s a “cc”.’

  ‘And her surname?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘As I said, I don’t even know how she spells her first name.’

  I carry on down the hall and into the dorm. The walls are sickly yellow, covered in pictures. A window is ajar, allowing the August night to seep in and making the room unusually cool. There are eight beds, arranged along both sides of the room. The bedclothes don’t match: some are floral like the walls of a Seventies apartment; others are in bright colours — blue, orange, and green; still others have ugly, insipid patterns. Each bed is marked with a number, clumsily carved into the wood. In bed 7, second from the far wall, lies a body with its back to me, clothed in bleached jeans and a knitted jumper. Unkempt, dark hair is just visible. I leave my shoes on one of the beds and put the gloves on.

  People shoot, stab, hit, kick, chop, drown, and strangle each other, attack each other with acid, and run each other over. The results vary from being as discreet and effective as a surgical intervention to being as messy as a mediaeval execution. This time, life has ended suddenly and neatly, almost unremarkably.

  If it wasn’t for the little maroon flower adorning her temple, she could be asleep. She’s young, between twenty and twenty-five — maybe five years older than that — but a hard life leaves its mark on a person’s face. I lean over her to get a better look at the entry wound. It’s slightly bigger than the head of a drawing-pin, and the traces of blood and black dust from the weapon speckle her forehead. Someone has stood behind her with a small-calibre pistol.

  I look at her pockets. They appear to be empty. Her clothes seem undisturbed; a glimpse of her vest is visible under the knitted jumper, but nothing suggests that her body has been searched, that someone was looking for something. I carefully place my hands on the body and feel along her side, shoulders, and back, hoping to find something that shouldn’t be there. As I roll up the knitted sleeve, I notice the results of intravenous drug use, but they look neater than usual — she’d almost turned meticulous shooting-up into a competitive sport.

  I hear Matilda’s footsteps behind me. She stops in the doorway, as though scared to come in.

  ‘The window,’ I ask. ‘Is it always open?’

  ‘No, we usually keep it closed. It wasn’t open when I arrived.’

  ‘Was she dealing?’

  ‘I think so. She got here about an hour ago and said she needed somewhere to stay. Most of the women usually come a bit later.’

  ‘Did she have anything with her? Clothes, bag?’

  ‘Nothing apart from what she’s wearing.’

  ‘Are those her own clothes?’

  ‘I think so.’ She sniffs. ‘She didn’t get them from us, anyway.’

  ‘Did she have any shoes?’

  ‘By the bed.’

  They’re black Converse sneakers, with white laces way too thick for them. She must have bought those later and replaced the original ones. They’re lumpy and split — she’s been hiding pills inside them. I hold up one of the shoes and inspect the sole, nondescript and grey, before carefully putting it back. I get my phone out and point it towards her face, take a picture, and for a split second the phone’s tiny flash makes her skin painfully white.

  ‘How did she seem when she got here this evening?’

  ‘High and tired, like everyone else
who comes here. She said she’d had a bad evening and just wanted to sleep.’

  ‘Where were you when it happened?’ I ask.

  ‘I was washing up, with my back to the door, so I didn’t see or hear anything. I always do it about this time; it’s the only chance I get.’

  ‘How did you discover she was dead?’

  ‘I went in to see if she’d fallen asleep. When I went over to close the window I saw that she …’

  She doesn’t finish the sentence.

  I walk in a wide arc around the body, over to the window. It’s quite high up — it would take a serious jump to reach Chapmansgatan, down on the pavement below. I look again at the body, and in the light from the streetlamp something is glittering in her hand, like a small chain.

  ‘She’s got something in her hand,’ I say to Matilda, who looks puzzled.

  From the hall I hear a voice I recognise. I take a last look at the body before I pick up my shoes and follow Matilda back into the hall, where I meet Gabriel Birck. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but he looks the same, with his suntanned face and his dark, close-cropped hair. Birck has the kind of hair that makes you want to change your shampoo, and he’s wearing an understated black suit, like he’s just been yanked away from a party.

  ‘Leo,’ he says, surprised. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I … woke up.’

  ‘Aren’t you suspended?’

  ‘On leave.’

  ‘Badge, Leo,’ he says, tightening his lips to an ashen line. ‘If you don’t have your badge, you need to get out of here.’

  ‘It’s in my wallet, which is in my flat.’

  ‘Go and get it.’

  ‘I was just leaving,’ I say, holding up my shoes.

  Birck observes me silently with a grey stare, and I put the gloves back and go towards the door and out into the stairwell again. The policewoman looks startled as I walk past her.

  ‘How the hell did he get in here?’ is the last thing I hear from inside the hostel.

  Instead of going back to my place, I head down the stairs and around the lift on the ground floor, out into the dark, empty courtyard. Only when I feel the cold ground on the soles of my feet do I realise that I’ve still got my shoes in my hand. I put them on and light a cigarette. Above me, the high walls of the building form a frame around the night sky, and I stand there a while, alternating between smoking and chewing my thumbnail. I walk across the courtyard and unlock a door that takes me back inside, but into a different part of the building. The stairwell here is smaller and older, warmer. I go towards the entrance and out onto Pontonjärgatan.