The Invisible Man from Salem

by Christoffer Carlsson

  ‘Have you copped a beating?’ he asked, looking at Grim.

  ‘Some guy misunderstood something, that’s all.’

  ‘Shall I do him?’

  ‘No.’ Grim looked around. ‘See you round.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He turned and trudged off, and we headed back towards the Triad. Grim counted the money.

  ‘Fifteen hundred,’ I said.

  ‘I’m getting more and more expensive,’ Grim said.

  IN A LOT OF WAYS, we were very different. But more than anything else, this meant that we complemented each other. We would now sometimes think the same thing, say the same word. We’d started using each other’s phrases. Without realising, I’d started buying clothes that were more like his, and he had several pieces of clothing that could have come straight out of my wardrobe.

  I assumed that these sorts of changes were almost inevitable when two people spend a lot of time together, understand each other, and share so much, but perhaps there was also a deeper bond between us. I was the only one who knew about Grim’s fake-ID business. Apart from his customers, of course — but he told most of them that he was just the middleman. He claimed that no one would have believed that a seventeen-year-old possessed the skills he did. He was probably right. That would lead to suspicion, and suspicion was bad for business.

  IN SALEM, high summer had made way for a cooler end to the season. It was the end of the holidays, and when they were over Julia was going to join me and Grim at Rönninge High School. We would be walking the same corridors, maybe meeting up at break-times.

  The day after I came home from Öland, the phone rang. Dad answered, and knocked on my door, smiling.

  ‘For you. Julia.’

  I pushed him out of the room and closed the door.

  ‘Hello?’ I said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  I had missed her voice.

  ‘How are things?’ I asked.

  ‘Good.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m home alone today.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘John’s gone out. Mum and Dad are at Granddad’s.’

  Diana Grimberg’s father lived in a nursing home outside Skarpnäck. It was death’s waiting room, but while they waited for the next life, each month there was a big dinner for the old folk and their relatives. Julia had gone along once and said it was a real drag, a view shared by both Grim and Klas. The only one who had enjoyed the dinner was Diana, who was apparently determined to make dinnertime as uncomfortable as possible.

  ‘Do you want to come round?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  When I went out that day I had a feeling that something significant was going to happen. It couldn’t go on like this. The door to the Grimbergs’ flat wasn’t locked, and I walked into their hall.

  ‘Julia?’

  ‘Come in.’

  She was sitting on the edge of her bed, and she looked up at me.

  ‘You’ve done something with your hair,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve put curls in.’ She hesitated. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Actually, you know what, don’t say anything. It shouldn’t matter. You know? It shouldn’t matter what my stupid brother’s stupid fucking mate thinks of my hair. It doesn’t matter. So don’t say anything.’

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and said: ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I think it looks lovely.’

  Julia sighed heavily. Her room was a mess. It didn’t look like it had been tidied since the last time I’d been there.

  ‘This was just a laugh,’ she said. ‘For me, anyway.’ She avoided looking at me. ‘Something I was drawn to, maybe because it’s taboo. I mean, my brother’s best mate. It’s the sort of thing you only see in bad comedies.’ She laughed, but there was no joy in the laughter. ‘Maybe I’ve always been drawn to this sort of thing. I mean, to things that are just a bit wrong. Like the coat with the weed, that I told you about. The one I stole at school?’

  I nodded. I remembered.

  ‘I hadn’t really thought about it before now, this week you’ve been away, but maybe it’s my fault. I never meant it to get serious.’

  ‘But it got serious?’ I asked, unsure how I was supposed to be feeling.

  ‘I think so.’

  Then she snogged me, violently, before she reached for the stereo remote and turned it on.

  ‘Julia, we should talk. We should talk some more.’

  Julia turned up the volume. It took a couple of seconds before I realised it was ‘Dancing Barefoot’, and I only knew it because Julia once told me — I can’t remember when — that it was one of her favourite songs.

  The volume made it difficult to distinguish words from sound, and the music just turned into a pulsating wall of sound that, I thought at the time, was beating in time with my heart. Her necklace dangled above my face, and in an odd moment I lifted my head, kissed her neck, and took the necklace in my mouth, and felt how cold it was. I closed my eyes.

  Something made Julia stop. I opened my eyes, she reached for the remote again, and everything went very quiet. The barrel of the lock clicked around, and someone opened the front door.

  ‘It’s John,’ Julia whispered in my ear, and quickly climbed off me, making the bed underneath creak. ‘Lie still.’

  She looked annoyed as she stood up. She pulled on a pair of denim shorts, and opened the window.

  I lay there on the bed, not knowing what to do. A split second before the knock on the door, she pulled the duvet over my head and whispered: ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘Are you home?’ I heard Grim’s surprise as he opened the door.

  ‘You’re on summer holidays, too, aren’t you?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Yeah, but …’

  I wondered what he might be looking at.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  I was pretty sure that I heard him sniffing the air for something.

  ‘You need to tidy up. And make your bed.’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  He disappeared from the doorway and Julia closed the door, then sat down on the bed with a heavy sigh.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered, and I carefully pulled the duvet away from my head. ‘That was close.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘I’m whispering.’

  ‘You’re whispering loudly.’

  ‘How can you — ’

  ‘Shh.’

  Two, three, four bangs came from outside the window. The sound of gunshots. A light wind found its way into the room, making the curtains flutter. It was afternoon, and the summer had stretched itself unnaturally. Julia turned around and looked at me. She had her hand on her necklace, pulled it from side to side on its little chain.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ she whispered, and I knew she was right.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ Grim’s voice said outside her door, a few moments later. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Julia attempted.

  ‘Are you alone in there?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  He stayed there, outside the door, I could hear that much, but he didn’t say anything else.

  Julia was staring at her hands, and I realised that I was holding my breath. Soon a door opened and then closed, and Julia nodded to me.

  ‘He’s in the bathroom now — get out of here.’

  I opened my mouth to say something, I didn’t know what; Julia looked away, and I knew that there was no point in trying to think of something to say, so I carefully stood up and left her room. Through the bathroom door, I could hear Grim as he turned the shower on.


  XVII

  Dawn is breaking, and the city is waking up. I’m standing on the balcony watching a young constable remove the incident tape. He seems to be taking his assigned task very seriously, and he is carefully wrapping the tape around his hand. A stinging sensation behind my eyes, a sudden hunger, takes hold of me, and I go back in and eat an improvised sandwich made from leftovers while I stare at an invisible dot somewhere in front of me.

  ‘Counterfeiter’. It’s not really the right word, but that’s what the police call it anyway, since most of them started just like Grim did, forging ID cards for sixteen-year-olds who want to get into bars. Counterfeiters exist; everyone knows that. Their task is a difficult one, and if they’re not up to the job they soon disappear, one way or another. But they are out there, and those few have major resources because their services are so expensive. In this town, money buys anything, and in a time when disappearing is impossible, there are few things more valuable than a new identity.

  Since John Grimberg hasn’t been on any up-to-date registers for ten years, and yet earns a living supplying people with new identities, it might be safe to assume that he, too, has another name. Maybe more than one. Probably, I decide. He obviously no longer uses the original one, and it would be unlike him to restrict himself to just one alternative identity.

  My phone rings. It’s Levin’s number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Leo. Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘I understand you’re looking for a John Grimberg.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘My secretary said so.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’d forgotten that. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘I don’t know much,’ Levin says, ‘but I can tell you what I know.’

  ‘Can we meet?’

  ‘That’s why I called. If you hurry — I’m about to leave.’

  OUTSIDE THE ENTRANCE to my building, on Chapmansgatan, something bright flashes in my face, and I am temporarily blinded. The noise — humming voices — is coming from journalists. A black TV4 mic is pushed under my chin, and I blink again and again to try to get rid of the white dots floating across my field of vision.

  ‘According to police, you are a potential suspect in the murder of Rebecca Salomonsson; would you like to say anything?’

  ‘You were at home when she died, weren’t you?’

  ‘Is this revenge for your suspension?’

  The questions patter down. I look for the young officer, hoping for help, but he seems, appropriately enough, to be looking the other way, strangely absorbed by the incident tape. The last question grabs my attention, and I look for the face it came from.

  ‘I recognise you,’ I say.

  ‘Annika Ljungmark, Expressen. What have you got to say about the allegations?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  The questions start up again, but it becomes a wordless hum and my pulse is rising, and I do the one thing you should never do: I push between two of the reporters and start running.

  They follow me for a while, but with their cameras, bags, and dictaphones in their hands, they soon give up. I make it to Hantverkargatan, out of breath, and head down into the darkness of the underground.

  I’m outside Köpmansgatan 8 in Gamla Stan. No reporters. It’s still early.

  A buzz comes from the heavy door and I push it open, step into the cool stairwell, and realise for the first time how warm I am. I might have a temperature; I think I do. In the lift, everything starts spinning, and I feel nauseous and double over, convinced I’m about to bring up my breakfast. Nothing happens; I just stand there, panting, and the lift door opens and waits for me to step out. Something is wrong with me.

  ‘Leo,’ Levin says, and behind his little glasses his eyes widen as he sees me standing outside the door. ‘How are you feeling?’

  He takes me by the arm; presumably it looks like I need it, and apparently I do because I stumble just inside the door, and have to hold on to the hat-stand while I take my shoes off.

  ‘Okay. The lift made me dizzy.’

  I manage to get my shoes off and I wave Levin’s hand away. He asks me to sit in the kitchen, and I walk in and slump onto one of the chairs next to the little round table. The chair creaks but is noticeably comfortable, and I feel like I could fall asleep. Levin takes a glass from the cupboard, pulls out a tube I don’t recognise, drops an effervescent tablet into the glass, and fills it up with water. It starts fizzing and bubbling pleasantly.

  ‘I haven’t slept much,’ I mumble and stare at the glass. ‘What is that?’

  ‘For tiredness.’

  ‘But what is it?’ I insist.

  ‘Like twenty cups of coffee. The military use them. I got them from a good friend, a major. I’ve never taken one myself.’

  I pull the glass towards me. Levin straightens his glasses and stares at it.

  ‘Drink it.’

  I take a swig, and it’s harsher than I was expecting, like a fizzy drink with way too much carbon dioxide. It burns my palate, my tongue, my teeth, everything.

  ‘Is it nice?’ Levin asks, and the corner of his mouth twitches slightly.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘John Grimberg,’ Levin says. ‘How come, may I ask, you are looking for him?’

  I take a deep breath, just as the discomfort in my mouth starts to subside and a smooth sensation spreads inside me. It’s subtle, but unmistakeable. Warmth gathers in my stomach, moving up to my chest, out to my fingertips. My eyes seem sharper, my movements more precise. Whatever it is Levin’s just given me, I’m going to make sure I get myself a tube.

  ‘Well?’ Levin says.

  I tell him about Julia, and her death, but not everything. I can’t face that. I tell him about Rebecca Salomonsson again, about the necklace in her hand. How Grim once paid Sam a visit. With each word that leaves my mouth, I become more and more vulnerable. Levin’s gaze slips from me, to the glass in my hand, to something outside the window, to the pattern in the wooden tabletop, to the time on his wristwatch. For some reason, he decides to wind his watch back a minute or so, and stares at his hands. He might seem bored, but in fact he is listening attentively. I drink from my glass again, and the anxiety is muffled, but still there.

  ‘So,’ I say eventually. ‘That’s why I need to know whatever you know.’

  ‘I see,’ Levin says. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me to Kungsholmsgatan.’

  For a second, I am convinced that I have made a serious mistake.

  ‘No, no,’ he adds quickly. ‘Not like that. Not for that reason. But I’m late. My taxi is waiting down by Slottsbacken. I’ll explain on the way.’

  I stare at the glass.

  ‘What is this, seriously?’

  ‘If I remember rightly, it’s amphetamine.’

  I stare at him.

  ‘You’ve got me high.’

  ‘Just a little bit.’ He stands up. ‘Come on.’

  XVIII

  Levin walks alongside me, down towards Slottsbacken, tall and gangly in his gloomy grey jacket and black jeans, his bare head pale and round. A wind blows from somewhere, and on a corner, half-hidden by a skip, someone is sitting — maybe homeless, but maybe not — and shaking a collecting tin with one hand and holding a mobile phone in the other.

  ‘Señor, please.’

  Levin shakes his head, and I raise my hand dismissively without stopping.

  ‘What a fucking city,’ Levin mutters.

  ‘You get that in small cities, too.’

  ‘Not like here.’

  The taxi is waiting there with the engine running. Behind it, the Royal Palace towers over us. A boy is standing there with his tourist parents, staring blankly at it. The palace stares back, just as blank
ly. We say nothing for a while, and Levin suddenly looks troubled, his gaze fixed on something beyond the windscreen.

  ‘I did a bit of extra work at one time,’ he says, as the taxi slowly turns down Myntgatan, towards the Vasa Bridge.

  In the distance, the Parliament building and the City Hall stand proud, with the three crowns like pale-yellow sequins against the white sky somewhere above.

  ‘They wanted me on the recruitment unit — go out to schools and explain what applying to join up involves, what demands are made, and so on. Quite a pleasant job, a bit of a change. So I took it, did it when we didn’t have too much on. Later, I was asked about going to see kids and young people in care homes, not so much to recruit but to show them a different side of the force from the one they would normally experience. It was a pretty thankless task, but who could blame them for having problems with the police? Most of the force have got a problem with young people; a surprisingly large part spend most of their time chasing kids for minor theft and vandalism, as though they were witches. Why shouldn’t young people have something against the police?’

  ‘I’m from Salem,’ I say. ‘I know what it’s like.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Levin. ‘Naturally. Anyway, one autumn, I think about twelve or thirteen years ago, I visited the young offenders’ institution in Jumkil — the place where one lad tried to kill another by tipping a big drying cabinet on top of him. The staff knew enough from previous experience to make sure it was properly secured to the wall, so the attempt didn’t get very far. But still, this had happened during a near-riot only a week before my visit; as you can imagine, even I felt pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. It wasn’t that I was afraid — more that I thought they would see my visit as a threat or a mockery. I would have, had I been in their position. I tried to get the visit postponed, but Benny — you know, old police chief Skacke — refused. He said it was now more than ever we needed to show ourselves there. Maybe he was right, I don’t know. So I didn’t really have much choice. I went.’

  The taxi swings onto Vasa Bridge, where the traffic is heavier than before. It’s still so early that I can see the mist rising around the heavy white bulk of Central Station. The warmth from the weird drink is still present, and I feel awake and alert. I think about the timescale of what Levin is telling me. Grim would have been about twenty then.