The Other Son

by Alexander Soderberg

  The water gushed from the tap. The noise suddenly sounded far too loud. Like in a dream. And beyond it there was another sound somewhere, harder, farther away. She turned the tap off.

  Something clicked. The front door closing?

  “Hello?” she called out.

  She tried to listen.

  “Hello?” she said again, much quieter this time. As if her own voice had scared her.

  She went out into the corridor.

  There was a man standing there. In the middle of the hall floor. Short, dark clothes, shaved head. Hands in his jacket pockets, head thrust forward, crooked eyes that were staring at her.

  Fear landed heavily in her stomach. She hurried toward Albert’s room. The man was close behind her, and grabbed her hair and dragged her to the floor.

  “Albert!” she cried, even though she knew he couldn’t do anything, he was sitting there paralyzed on his bed.

  “Mom!” he called back.

  The man sat on top of her. His crooked eyes were clearer now, asymmetrical in a pale face.

  He was working efficiently, holding her down with brute strength. There was something in his hand: a folded handkerchief. He pressed it into her mouth as she tried to scream. He held her nose tight. Out of reflex she opened her mouth, and breathed in through the handkerchief. Strong, bitter, chemical. She felt giddy instantly. She had time to see him shake out a black cloth sack, which he pulled over her head and tied around her throat.

  Everything went black.

  A stray dog was running around, sniffing anxiously among the dead and buried.

  Antonia was standing in Västberga Cemetery looking at the stone beneath which Lars Vinge lay buried beside his parents.

  Why was she standing there? Because she wanted to understand something? Hear something—a whisper, voices from the other side? But nothing of that sort came to her. Only that morning’s events, which didn’t want to leave her consciousness. The chaos at the bank on Sveavägen. The shot, Håkan Zivkovic’s skull exploding, the blood on the wall.

  Antonia sighed.

  The stray dog scampered around in front of her.

  Was she standing here among the dead in the hope of coming to terms with everything?

  No…

  She just wanted to know. Just like she did on all the other days of the week.

  Antonia walked away and got back in her car, putting it in reverse. The stray dog pissed on Lars Vinge’s grave before wandering off.

  She drove back to the station, sat down behind her desk, and read through the report on his death.

  Vinge had shot himself in the head six months ago with a stolen weapon in an apartment on Södermalm after murdering his boss, Gunilla Strandberg. There were plenty of convincing statements from forensics experts and medical officers. Suicide, nothing more, nothing less.

  But it felt shaky. She had felt as much the first time she read it. There ought to be more there. There always was in other investigations. Official details, bureaucratic nonsense, references, and all manner of information about things no one would ever be interested in. But not here, not with Lars Vinge.

  Antonia leaned back.

  Where was all the information about bankruptcies, relatives, his estate, debts? There wasn’t even some of the most basic information, such as where his belongings had been archived. Lars Vinge’s employment file ought to have been there as well, and all the details of his employment history. But there was nothing like that. Was it just a matter of sloppiness? Or was it more deliberate?

  Antonia opened a search engine on her computer. There were eight companies and individuals who dealt with the belongings of dead people in Stockholm. She called each of them in turn, introducing herself and giving them Vinge’s name and ID number, and said the same thing to them all: “It’s urgent.”

  Miles had a drip in his arm and was staring up at a blank white ceiling.

  A gray-haired doctor came in. White coat, blue trousers. He was reading some notes.

  “You’ve got three broken ribs, a concussion, and numerous scratches and bruises.”

  He moved on to the usual questions: How are you feeling, any memory loss, anxiety?

  Miles answered OK, no, no.

  “I’ll prescribe some painkillers, something for anxiety, and some sleeping pills, in case you have trouble sleeping.”

  “But I don’t feel anxious,” Miles said.

  “This is Sweden, everyone’s anxious,” the doctor muttered. “Nurse will give you some pills on your way out, until you get to a pharmacy.”

  —

  The staff room smelled of scorched coffee when Miles got back to the station. He filled his cup.

  Antonia Miller came in and got a mug from the cupboard.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He recognized her curiosity. It was always there, like some destructive torment.

  “I don’t know. A prisoner breakout.”

  She looked tired. There was something brittle about her, and her eyes were blazing.

  “How are you doing?” he heard himself ask.

  “How am I doing?”

  She sounded as if he’d accused her of something.

  “Yes, how are you doing, Antonia?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “Absolutely fine,” he replied.

  She looked doubtfully at the injuries to his face.

  “Who is he?” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The guy from Mexico.”

  “No idea.”

  “But this must mean something?”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe he was just a guest at the restaurant, or one of the staff. That could be why the alert sounded when his prints popped up.”

  She almost snorted.

  “But he was broken out of custody?” she said.

  “Yes, people get all sorts of ideas in their heads these days. There’s not necessarily any connection.”

  He smiled, a past master at dismissing objections.

  She met his smile, happy mouth, angry eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

  “No more than I said.”

  “What did you say, then?”

  “That there’s not necessarily any connection.”

  She was on the point of exploding but tried to hold everything in.

  “What did he look like?” she asked.

  “Nothing special,” he replied.

  “How does that look, then?”

  “Like nothing much,” he said.

  She scooped coffee into the filter.

  “Lars Vinge,” she said quietly.

  He stopped.

  “What?”

  “Lars Vinge,” she repeated.

  He didn’t know who she was talking about, and said, “Who’s that?”

  “Lars Vinge, he worked for Gunilla on the Hector Guzman investigation. The man who shot her, then himself…”

  Miles looked at her with distaste. “This is depressing, just let it go, for God’s sake.”

  “Let what go?”

  But Miles merely walked away.

  That, together with Miles’s dismissive attitude and her own inability to control herself, made her see red. She marched after him.

  “You’re pathetic, Ingmarsson. And soon you’ll be a laughingstock. You know that, don’t you?”

  He stopped.

  “What are you doing here?” she went on.

  An irritated smile crossed his face. “I’m doing my job.”

  “No, that’s exactly what you’re not doing. Are you pliable, Miles? Is that why you’re here?”

  She struggled to stay calm.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Yes, you do. When anyone needs to empty the bucket of shit, they call you. And you do the shitty job. You’ve been brought in here specifically not to do anything. I’m not stupid. How are you going to keep the lid on this incident?”

  “You look after your own cases and I’ll look after mine.”

&n
bsp; He kept on walking.

  “Yours? You’ve only got one, and it’s a joke,” she said.

  “You’re a very unpleasant person,” Miles said.

  —

  Back in his office Miles sat down on his chair, regretting his last words to Antonia. He didn’t like being bitter and mean.

  He stared out through the window, the sky was blue, the clouds were white, airplanes were flying around up there, and somewhere beyond the atmosphere the universe began, and beyond the universe there was evidently nothing.

  He could see her from the corner of his eye, she was standing by the door.

  “We protect the good from the bad,” she said. “We do it because we believe in it. And while we do it, we protect each other. We help each other and we all work toward the same goal. And you know why?”

  She knew he wasn’t going to answer that, so she went on.

  “Because we police officers have chosen to do this over any number of other good things.”

  She pointed behind her with her thumb.

  “Everyone in this corridor has made sacrifices. So who the fuck are you, Miles Ingmarsson?”

  She marched into his office, put a mug of fresh coffee down on his desk, and walked out.

  He stared at the mug of coffee, took hold of it, and drank a sip. It was perfect.

  —

  Miles left the office later that afternoon and walked home alone through the city. The pain in both his soul and his ribs was constant and severe. His injured face scared people he met. He smoked three cigarettes in a row and kept his feelings locked up. He was fine with that, he’d been brought up to do that whenever his emotions got too much.

  Sanna was home.

  She looked normal: no makeup, jeans, and a top. He liked that. But he liked it just as much when she looked like a whore. Sanna was perfect however she was.

  “How are you doing?” she asked, touching the wounds on his face carefully with her forefinger.

  “It’s fine.”

  Sanna searched his eyes. “No, it’s not.”

  He slumped on the sofa and she sat down beside him. Miles talked about the breakout and the car crash. Sanna looked horrified. She patted his cheek tenderly. Her gentle touch released the tension, and Miles sighed.

  Fifteen minutes later she was standing in front of him, hand on hip. She was posing very nicely, dressed up as a maid, with fishnet stockings and a skirt that was far too short. Her breasts were squeezed tight and her lips were redder than a Communist star. Sanna turned around and walked steadily toward the hall. She pulled one of his beige coats from its hanger and put it on.

  “See you,” she said, and disappeared.

  The front door closed with a bang.

  Miles listened to her footsteps in the stairwell until they faded away.

  He stared at the ceiling. The car crash came back. The feeling of suffocating, the cold, brittle anguish.

  That near-death experience had been of no value at all. Just horrible, in every possible way.

  Music from the radio in the kitchen, melancholic and beautiful; it hurt, cutting a breathing hole in what Miles was trying to smother.

  He made to get up from the sofa, but the pain in his ribs was instantaneous. He tried again and got to his feet with a short yelp of pain. He went out to the kitchen and turned off the damn radio.

  He leaned against the kitchen counter and stared down into the sink, silvery in a surprisingly ugly way. His breathing was fast and shallow, his heart was beating faster and weaker. The doctor was right, everyone was anxious. He found the pills the nurse gave him at the hospital.

  He took a painkiller.

  He took a tranquilizer.

  He took a sleeping pill.

  Miles waited a minute, nothing happened. He took one more of each again.

  Artificial reassurance forced its way through.

  Emotional vacuum…

  Miles stretched out on the bed, his breathing becoming deeper and steadier.

  The phone rang solemnly beyond walls of tiredness and emotional numbness. His eyelids closed.

  The ringing phone was far away. Miles slipped into a black, medicinal torpor.

  The phone rang again.

  Sophie opened her eyes. Everything was black; there was cloth over her face. She was lying on the floor, her hands taped together behind her back. Something in her mouth…the handkerchief. She managed to spit it out. A headache was cutting through her head.

  “Albert!” she cried.

  A phone rang some distance away in the apartment.

  “Albert!”

  The phone rang again. She recognized it now. Jens’s phone.

  Sophie struggled and tugged, but her arms were held tight by the tape. She screamed in frustration and pushed herself back across the floor with her feet until she hit a wall, then pressed upward until she was standing.

  She felt her way toward the hall with her back-tied hands. She managed to get ahold of the strap of her handbag on the chair, and pulled it behind her as she hurried blindly toward Albert’s room.

  Beside his bed she sank to her knees and leaned forward, but could feel nothing but sheets; the bed was empty.

  “Albert,” she said, even though she knew he wasn’t there. Abbe…

  She had to get the phone out in case it rang again, and she managed to stick her taped hands inside the bag. She rummaged around with her fingers. There it was. Sophie took it out carefully and put it behind her so she could reach it with her fingers.

  Then she sat there on her knees, tied up and blind. There wasn’t anything else she could do.

  Time passed; there were no sounds at all, she guessed it was night. Tears came, she was frightened.

  The cell phone rang again.

  Sophie managed to press the Answer button. A muffled voice in the distance.

  “Jens, I can’t hear you. You’ve got to come!”

  Her voice was loud, almost a shout. She gave him the address and code for the door.

  “They’ve taken Albert! I’m tied up!” she went on.

  She could hear his voice but not what he was saying.

  “Don’t hang up!” she cried, terrified of being alone.

  He didn’t, and his voice kept her company for twenty minutes until she heard the heavy white wooden door open and Jens came rushing into the apartment.

  “I’m in here!” she called.

  He entered the room and first untied the cloth sack from around her neck and helped take it off. Then he sat down behind her and cut the tape from her wrists. She glanced around Albert’s room. His things were still there, but the wheelchair was gone.

  “Look for Albert,” she said as she got up. She went from room to room, leaning against the walls for support. The substance on the handkerchief that had drugged her was still in her system; she was having trouble keeping her balance, her headache cutting through her forehead and into her eyes. She searched manically through the apartment.

  “There’s no one here, Sophie.”

  Jens was behind her.

  She stopped in the living room.

  “You need to sit down, Sophie.”

  She turned toward him.

  “Why did you call me?” she said.

  Her suspicion was obvious.

  “In the middle of the night, Jens?”

  “I’m still on Mexican time, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “So you called me several times?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Why are you so suspicious?”

  “Why, Jens?”

  Jens tried to read her.

  “Your friend Hasani drove me into the city after you freed me. His phone rang; suddenly he was in a hurry, and he let me out. I thought it was odd. I made my way home but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, so I called you. But that doesn’t matter right now. Sophie, tell me what happened.”

  She did, as best she could. From start to finish.

  How she had been working
for Aron since she and Jens last saw each other. How she had recently contacted the Hankes after she found out that they and the Colombians were working together against Hector. The fact that she was doing it in secret, without Aron or anyone else knowing what she was trying to achieve. That her meeting had resulted in Daphne and Thierry being murdered. She told Jens about the phone call Leszek had received in the car, how she had made her way up to the apartment and found only Albert there, then how she was attacked and Albert taken.

  “Hector?” Jens asked.

  “Still in a coma.”

  “Aron?”

  “He’s in charge.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He makes sure things keep working.”

  “And are they?” Jens asked.

  “No.”

  He tried to understand.

  “Why didn’t you go to him first? You went to the Hankes? What were you thinking?”

  “Aron isn’t himself. He’s stressed and edgy, impossible to reason with. I knew he’d start a small war if I told him what I knew. And he would have lost, everyone would have lost.”

  “How much did you know?” he asked.

  “The Hankes and Ignacio Ramirez are working together to get rid of Hector and take everything he’s got. They murdered Hector’s brother Eduardo and tried to get Aron in Istanbul at the same time. That was how they started.”

  “But how did you know that?”

  “I was in Colombia shortly after Istanbul. It was supposed to be a routine meeting with Ignacio and Alfonse Ramirez. But it turned out to be their way of communicating with the organization, through me.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That we should lie down and give up, give the Hankes everything, Hector included.”

  Jens thought for a while.

  “And you went home and said nothing?”

  “There would have been a bloodbath….”

  They looked at each other. Only now did she really see him. He was the same as before, a bit older, maybe, but it suited him. She could see empathy in him; he radiated it as if he really did understand her position, her dilemma.

  “Do you regret it?” he asked quietly.

  She knew he didn’t mean any criticism. As usual, he was straightforward and undaunted when things got serious.

  “I can’t think like that. You can see that, can’t you?” she replied.