The Other Son

by Alexander Soderberg

  Daphne came in carrying a tray with a carafe of juice and some glasses. She put it down on the coffee table and served the boys first, then Angela, and Sophie last.

  “Have you got everything you need?” Sophie asked.

  Angela made an effort to smile. “We’re staying in the basement. Daphne and Thierry are giving us everything we could ask for.”

  Sophie looked at the devastated family: the boys seemed somehow hollow, empty and alone in their grief.

  Sophie gave Daphne a look she understood.

  Daphne went over to the boys and spoke to them in French: “Come with me, I’ll show you the workshop. Thierry’s got all sorts of funny things in there.”

  Andres looked at his mother, who indicated that it was OK. He took Fabien by the hand and the boys got off the sofa. Hasani stood up from his chair and followed them and Daphne out into the garage.

  Angela’s smile faded. She was pale and brittle. Nothing could be controlled; the world was a lethal place. That much was clear from her eyes.

  “Is Hector alive?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophie said. A lie that didn’t make any difference.

  “It’s his fault,” Angela said.

  Sophie said nothing.

  “If it wasn’t for Hector, Eduardo would still be alive. We picked France and Biarritz to get away from all this.”

  Angela was struggling to control her feelings, but they slipped out anyway.

  “I almost felt relieved when I heard Adalberto had died,” she said. “Not because I’d wish that on anyone, he was Eduardo’s father, after all, my father-in-law—but it lowered the risk for us. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Angela looked weighed down by guilt.

  “Yes, I understand,” Sophie said.

  They could hear laughter from Daphne and one of the boys out in the workshop.

  “Who did it? Who killed Eduardo?”

  “I don’t know.” Lying came automatically now.

  Keys in the lock of the front door, a door opening and closing.

  Thierry appeared in the living room. He always had the same cheerful expression on his face. He was holding a bag of groceries in each hand.

  “Hi,” he said. “Daphne and the boys?”

  “In the garage,” Sophie said.

  He looked at the two women, and perhaps he noticed the somber mood.

  “Come with me,” he said. “Help me prepare dinner.”

  —

  The three of them stood in the kitchen. There was a lot of food, all of it vegetarian. Thierry gave them instructions on how to prepare it all. Halfway through the chopping and slicing Daphne and the boys came back, with Hasani following behind them. The boys were happier, and they sat down at the kitchen table together and were given something to drink and crayons and paper to draw on.

  Daphne and Thierry. Smugglers in Hector’s organization who used the cover of a shop in Stockholm that sold ethnic artifacts. They were currently a dormant resource now that everything had ground to a halt in Hector’s absence. They seemed to be enjoying it, living the quiet life in the suburbs for a while.

  Daphne kissed Thierry on the cheek and helped a bit with the food but mostly stood close to Thierry making small talk. They were always like that. Sophie watched them discreetly. They appeared to be naturally in love, whatever that meant.

  Everyone ate dinner together at the kitchen table in silence. It wasn’t oppressive, the silence among them, just no one felt any need to talk. Hasani picked at his vegetables, and the boys noted his reluctance. When he tentatively asked if there was any meat, the atmosphere lightened and they started laughing. Angela got up and fried a piece of steak for Hasani. A quiet, hesitant conversation developed, and soon they were all chatting. Everyone but Sophie. She kept her distance, reluctant to get too close.

  But the atmosphere around the table affected her nonetheless, and she couldn’t help seeing the boys’ temporary happiness, Angela’s smile, Daphne and Thierry’s warmth, and Hasani and his fondness for meat. They were all individuals who wanted nothing more from that moment than to feel a bit of human camaraderie.

  But she knew something they didn’t know: she knew who had killed the boys’ father. She also knew that she couldn’t tell anyone, because the consequences would be uncontrollable. She saw it all the time: Aron’s progress, the risk-taking, the proximity of violence…And that was how everything would develop. Aron would fight to the last. Leszek would follow him. That was just the way it was. Predetermined, decided by fate…

  Andres and Fabien were laughing so hard now that they almost spat their food out.

  Sophie looked at the boys, unaffected by their laughter. Just as she was considering giving up everything, something began to grow in her mind. The germ of an idea. The last of all ideas, the one that really shouldn’t be there. The people around the table laughed, and the thought inside her pleaded and begged to be allowed to live, if only for a short while.

  Sophie ate, trying to ignore the idea. But it was impossible. The idea grew too strong, taking clearer shape, assuming a face.

  Ralph Hanke’s.

  Lothar Tiedemann was rinsing vegetables under the kitchen tap. His mother, Franka, was working at the kitchen table. She usually sat there, counting and sorting. She was clever and smart, and he felt a natural pride in her.

  He turned the tap off, then began to chop the vegetables for a salad. The window to the courtyard was open. Down below, children were playing football, a neighbor was beating one of her carpets, and over on the playground there was a moped constantly revving its engine in a sand pit.

  They spent a lot of time together, Lothar and Franka. Mainly because they enjoyed it, but also because Lothar didn’t have any brothers or sisters, or a father. Franka’s face was always radiant, and she seemed happy and grateful about something that he, at seventeen, never quite understood. They didn’t live anywhere particularly nice, one of Berlin’s southern suburbs. She worked as an accountant, and saw to it that he always had everything he needed, even if it meant her going short. They didn’t have much money. But she was always smiling, as if she took pleasure in the simple fact of living. She was naturally beautiful, with her long blond hair. Men occasionally courted her, but she wasn’t interested. Perhaps she thought she had everything she could wish for, and a new man didn’t seem to be part of that.

  She made a joke. She was always making jokes. Lothar was about to turn toward her when he suddenly saw a man standing in the kitchen. A short man in dark clothes, with a shaved head. He was pale, and his eyes were small and close together.

  “Lothar?” the man asked.

  Lothar looked uncomprehendingly at his mother, then back to the man, nodding automatically when he heard his name.

  The man raised a pistol fitted with a silencer and fired a shot. The weapon made a puffing sound, and Franka Tiedemann was left with a hole in her forehead.

  The paralyzing effect of shock left Lothar immobile. The man took a few steps forward and pressed the silencer to Lothar’s forehead. With the other hand he drove a hypodermic needle into Lothar’s arm and injected him with the contents. His legs gave way instantly and Lothar collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

  The man sat down on a chair next to Franka’s body and waited patiently. His name was Koen de Graaf, and he was twenty-nine years old. His lack of height and the somewhat compressed nature of his face was due to his mother’s persistent consumption of alcohol and heroin during pregnancy. His pale looks were genetic.

  Koen looked at Lothar as he lay on the floor. To begin with, he had doubted that the boy really existed. It had started as a rumor. Ralph Hanke had searched half the known universe in his hunt for any sign that could tell him if Hector Guzman was alive or not. Koen was his right-hand man in that enterprise. And two months ago one of their sources told them he had heard about the possible existence of an illegitimate child that Hector was said to have fathered
. It sounded too good to be true.

  Hector Guzman’s son…

  Two men came into the apartment, each carrying a large wooden box. They cleaned up the kitchen, lifted Franka’s body into one of the boxes, and put Lothar in the other one.

  Koen checked the apartment one last time, then they carried the boxes down the stairs and loaded them into a waiting van.

  They drove several hours on the Autobahn, then turned off at an isolated rest area. The two men pulled out the box containing Franka Tiedemann’s dead body, took a couple of shovels, and headed off into the dark forest. Koen went to the rest area’s public toilet.

  He sat down with his feet on the toilet lid. The room stank of urine and excrement, the lamp in the ceiling was feeble. He worked quickly. The rubber tube round his upper arm, the syringe already prepared. He found a vein, pulled the plunger back slightly, and drew out a little of his own blood. Whoosh—blood and heroin in a beautiful, pale-red mixture. Then into his system with the whole thing. He counted backward from twenty before untying the tubing and letting the syringe fall to the floor. The heroin had kicked in properly by the time he got to four. Koen made his way out and back to the van, managed to get in the cab, and leaned back.

  The other two men returned and they drove off.

  The headlights of the oncoming traffic formed a soundless symphony. Koen drifted south along the Autobahn, with beautiful music playing in his veins.

  The sun was blazing from its zenith. He was lying immobile on his back, vultures circling high above in the blinding sky. His throat made a whistling sound as he breathed, his skin was sunburned, painfully tight.

  Jens turned his head and saw an infinity of flat, hard-packed sand, stones, and in the distance…mountains etched softly against the hard blue sky. With an effort he managed to raise his head….Everywhere, stony nothingness.

  They had left him there, whoever they were, to die in the middle of the desert. They hadn’t even been willing to spare him a bullet. Would he have preferred that? A bullet in the head instead of this? No, he never wanted a bullet in the head. But this was fucking awful.

  Jens tried to stand up, but it was as if he were stuck in quicksand. He gave up and rested his head on the hot ground again. His body temperature kept on rising. He shut his eyes and drifted through fevered dreams, hallucinating, coming to once more and realizing the extent of his predicament with a little more clarity….This time he really was beaten.

  Fear of death hit him hard and without mercy. Now he did just want a bullet to the head. He felt affronted at having to lie there, didn’t want to die in emotionless darkness. Jens wanted light, begged for it. And it came to him in small doses, in the form of images and smells. Mom and Dad, his family and childhood. Fragments, things that had evidently meant something…the smell of English tea, sleeping between clean sheets, freshly cut grass…And in the midst of all that warmth, Sophie Brinkmann’s face appeared….She was close, he wanted to reach out and touch her…feel her. But Jens couldn’t reach her. Maybe he never had. They had met one summer when they were young. A genuine infatuation. It scared him, he didn’t know what to do with it. He left her without a word and just disappeared. The years passed, but Jens never forgot her. They bumped into each other by chance last year….She was in a hopeless position, caught between helping the police and helping Hector Guzman. Jens helped her out. They grew close again. But that closeness scared him. The closer he got to her, the harder it became. And Jens ran away, the way he always did.

  The vision of Sophie vanished, taking everything else with her….Only Jens was left. Alone…

  The paradox was striking. He had worked single-mindedly to look after himself all his life, to be free from having to rely on anyone else….But now he didn’t want to be independent, he didn’t want to be alone, not now.

  Night came, and with it biting cold. It cut into him. He would freeze to death if he stayed there.

  With an immense effort he managed to stand up on unsteady legs and stumble forward through the dead landscape. The night sky was clear, the Milky Way was lit up above him. He followed it, shivering, arms wrapped around himself, knowing he was going to die.

  Antonia could feel herself smiling. Not a happy smile, but an emotionally misleading smile that hid her disappointment.

  “I don’t understand. This is a bad idea….”

  Tommy rocked back on his desk chair, his arms folded across his chest.

  “Well, this is what’s going to happen,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what we do sometimes, reallocate work, reorganize.” Tommy stopped rocking. “You’ve got four murder investigations, Antonia. That’s too much, even for you. So I’m taking one of them away from you. There’s nothing odd about that.”

  “Why Trasten, why not the latest one, Blomberg? Or one of the old ones?”

  “Because you can make a difference to the Blomberg case. It might even get to clearance. And we need clearances.”

  “The Trasten case is closed.”

  Tommy stroked his mustache out of habit.

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “Why do you say that, Tommy?”

  “Because I do.”

  She didn’t have time to respond.

  “I have to consider the statistics,” he continued. “And the statistics from Trasten are bad. The investigation isn’t going anywhere. And the more time passes, the harder it gets.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Antonia said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Who’s taking over?”

  Tommy put his hands on the desk. The first sign that the conversation was approaching its conclusion.

  “Miles Ingmarsson,” he replied.

  So that was his name, she remembered. The introvert from the Economic Crime unit.

  “Why him?”

  Tommy searched for something on his desk. “Why you, why me, why anyone? This isn’t about the individual.”

  “What is it about, then?”

  “It’s about who’s available.”

  “There are hundreds of others, hundreds better than he is.”

  Tommy kept pretending to look for something among his papers.

  “Not available,” he said.

  “I’m available.”

  “Good,” he said dismissively, and made a move to stand up.

  She was unwilling to let it go.

  “Just one question,” she said.

  Tommy waited.

  “Ingmarsson. Is it because he’s good, or because someone has to investigate Trasten even though you don’t think it’s going to lead anywhere?”

  He had to think through her question one more time.

  “That’s not what I said,” he replied.

  “Yes, you did.”

  She saw him lose his thread. He started acting superior again.

  “Do you know what, Antonia? Stop arguing. This isn’t some fucking trade union where you and I are supposed to reach some sort of compromise. I’m the one who makes the decision, and me alone. I’m your boss and we investigate murders. You can either do as I say, or look for a new job. Your choice.”

  Tommy wiped his mouth, then went on: “Right, time to start the weekend.”

  A fake smile, a sigh, and Tommy stood up.

  —

  Antonia spun around on her office chair, biting one of her fingernails. Tommy was a damned idiot. She hated having to act subordinate, especially when something was obviously completely wrong…and aimed directly at her. Antonia felt like breaking something. But she held back and waited until her colleagues went home for the day. She wasn’t finished with the Trasten investigation yet.

  The office was deserted when she put the two Trasten murder investigation files on the desk in front of her. There were masses of papers, documents, photographs. She lifted them out, lining the edges up with the palms of her hands so they were neat.

  Then she went over to the photocopier and switched the big white machine on. A fan
started up, and the machine sounded odd, as if something inside was loose, trying to find its place. She waited patiently until it calmed down and the lights on the control panel were all glowing evenly.

  Antonia made a copy of the entire investigation. The machine swallowed up her documents and spat them out again just as quickly.

  The plans of the Trasten restaurant, statements, forensic medical reports, ballistic evaluations. Pictures of the Russians found dead in the restaurant. Information about Leif Rydbäck, a Swedish repeat offender whose body parts were found frozen in the restaurant kitchen, many of them already processed through the mincing machine. A passport photograph of Hector Guzman, who in all likelihood had been in the restaurant when the murders took place. Plenty of witnesses who weren’t witnesses, because no one had seen anything. Records of bullets from weapons that didn’t exist, fingerprints from people who didn’t exist, DNA samples that didn’t belong to anyone. But Antonia, as the detective on the scene after the shootings, had found Anders Ask and Hasse Berglund there, chained to a radiator in the restaurant’s office. At first she didn’t know who they were, and managed to ask them some quick questions. Berglund showed her his police ID, and Anders Ask claimed he was working freelance, and that they were watching Hector Guzman, who had been in the restaurant but had since vanished.

  Then a short report appeared from the copier, an excerpt of an interview she herself had conducted with a nurse who had gotten to know Hector when he was a patient at Danderyd Hospital: Sophie Brinkmann. The woman hadn’t had anything to say. Her son was in a wheelchair, she was a widow, she was reserved….

  More details were spat out into the photocopier tray, all circumstantial, without any real foundation. That was what the investigation was like. She skimmed the pages, interpreting them, trying to read between the lines, trying in vain to see something that wasn’t there.

  More pages kept coming steadily. It was hypnotic. Antonia thought she could hear distant sounds. Cries from the other side. Voices that wanted to be heard, and laid to rest.