The Other Son

by Alexander Soderberg

  Then everything happened automatically, and time became disjointed and hazy. Miles ended up on top of Roger, raining blows down on him, then grabbed his head and brought it down hard on the floor. Roger Lindgren tried to resist, flailing at the air.

  Miles found his rhythm and lost track of time and space. A harmonious state of being. Apparently it was called flow, and there were entire books all about it.

  Lindgren was finished, he wasn’t coming back, was about to be knocked out for good. But he mustn’t die; Miles wasn’t finished with him yet.

  Cold water.

  Miles stood up, walked through the apartment, and found the kitchen behind a locked door.

  A plastic curtain, then he was met by a bright blue light, as if he were on his way to heaven. But this wasn’t heaven, it was a laboratory, a meth kitchen.

  Miles stepped inside. There was a heavy, acrid smell. The windows were covered with black garbage bags, and the strong blue light came from UV lamps above an extended kitchen table. There were hot plates, cookware, heat-proof glass beakers, Bunsen burners and chemicals, benzene, acetone, gasoline, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid. Also lighter fluid, dismantled children’s anti-allergy inhalers, cotton balls, coffee filters, tea towels, and matches.

  Miles stared.

  There was a small mountain of pure white powder under one of the UV lamps.

  Better than cold water.

  He picked up a transparent plastic bag, found a spoon in a drawer, filled the bag with amphetamine, and left the kitchen.

  Lindgren was lying on his back, his hands cuffed behind him. He followed Miles with his swollen eyes.

  “What’s that?” He sounded like he had a harelip, his voice coming from his nose and mouth simultaneously.

  Miles didn’t answer, and Roger realized. There was genuine panic in his voice when he started to plead.

  “No, for fuck’s sake, it hasn’t been diluted yet!”

  Miles sat astride Lindgren’s chest, took a spoonful and drove it into the man’s throat. Roger coughed, trying to spit it out, but Miles held his mouth closed as he looked around the living room. It was very shabby, furnished with stuff from secondhand shops and crap from cheap trips to Asia. Ugly pictures, stupid artistic photographs. Cultural nonsense…Miles waited patiently for Lindgren’s swallowing reflex to kick in, as eventually it did. The anguish in his wide-open eyes was unmistakable. This was high-octane amphetamine. This was a nightmare. The mother of all bad trips…

  A new start.

  Longer life.

  Bang!

  His whole system was working hard, pulse, heart, blood. Miles watched. Lindgren was behaving like the Hulk, mid-transformation, as his insides boiled—vomiting and writhing in pain and anguish.

  Miles couldn’t be bothered to hit the bastard anymore. He leaned forward and whispered Sanna into Roger’s bleeding ear. Then he looked on calmly as Roger Lindgren died of what was probably a heart attack, unless it was just the general shutdown of everything.

  Miles stood up, unzipped his trousers, and pissed on Roger Lindgren. It just felt right, like a sort of grand finale.

  There was a noise behind him, and he turned around, urine spraying across the body.

  Tommy Jansson was standing there in the room with another man.

  “Hi, Ingmarsson,” Tommy said.

  A few seconds ticked by before Miles understood. He finished pissing, shook the last drops, and tucked himself away.

  “Hi, Tommy,” he said, for some reason brushing the legs of his trousers.

  Miles’s face and hair were covered with blood—his hands and arms, too. A butcher who had just pissed on a corpse.

  “Miles Ingmarsson,” Tommy whispered. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  No response. Miles waited for him to go on.

  “It appears things have gotten a bit out of hand, I must say,” he continued.

  Miles wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  “That depends how you look at it,” Miles said.

  “ ‘How you look at it’?” Tommy let out an affected laugh. “I’d say it looks out of hand,” he went on, and turned to the other man. “Wouldn’t you say, Ove?”

  Ove looked at Roger Lindgren.

  “Things have gotten out of hand, no doubt about that,” he said.

  Tommy scratched his chin.

  “Is he still alive?” he asked, pointing at the body on the floor.

  Miles turned around and tried to see any sign of life in Lindgren.

  “No, I don’t think so. He’s probably dead now.”

  “And what the hell happened to your hand?” Ove asked, staring wide-eyed as he pointed to Miles’s right hand.

  Miles inspected it. The knuckles of his first and middle fingers were shattered, and the bones on the back of his hand were stretching the skin like tent poles.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “For fuck’s sake, it’s broken,” Ove laughed.

  “Is it?”

  Ove couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Yes, it’s fucked.”

  Miles examined his hand.

  “Yes, it probably is,” he mumbled.

  “You hit him so fucking hard you broke your hand!”

  Ove had a chuckling laugh; it sounded genuine.

  “In this short time you’ve won my undivided respect, Miles Ingmarsson. I want you to know that. My name is Ove, Ove Negerson.”

  Miles didn’t understand.

  “What are you doing here, Miles?” Tommy asked.

  “What are you doing here, Tommy?”

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  “What did you find in Vinge’s safe-deposit box?” he asked calmly.

  “Nothing,” Miles lied.

  Tommy nodded, pretending to accept the lie.

  “So what the fuck is this?” Tommy gestured round the room. “Why did you kill this poor bastard?”

  Miles shrugged.

  Ove mimicked the shrug, exaggeratedly and theatrically.

  “You can do better than that, Miles,” Tommy said.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters!”

  “I had to,” Miles said.

  Ove put his hand over his mouth and opened his eyes wide.

  Tommy glanced at Ove in irritation, then turned back to Miles again.

  “Had to?”

  “There was a development.”

  “What?”

  “A development. A personal development. I found love,” Miles muttered.

  Tommy looked disgusted. Behind him, Ove was making a pantomime gesture of surprise.

  “And I almost died in a car crash,” Miles went on. “I had some sort of revelation.”

  Ove was stuck in pantomime mode now, protecting his face in a car crash, then looking terrified, and finally acting like Jesus on the cross.

  “Then he showed up and ruined everything.” Miles pointed at Lindgren’s body with his left thumb.

  Ove turned into a sad clown, clasping both hands to his heart.

  Tommy was irritably aware of the performance taking place out of the corner of his eye.

  “Can you just stop that, Ove!” he yelled.

  Ove froze like a cartoon character and looked exaggeratedly sad; the corners of his mouth hung down, his shoulders drooped, and he walked with heavy steps toward Lindgren’s body. Then he relaxed and straightened up. In the end he was standing perfectly normally beside the body.

  “Now I’m myself again, Tommy!” Ove smiled broadly, sat down next to the body, and pointed up at Miles.

  “The same thing goes for your colleague. He’s himself again, that’s what he’s trying to say,” Ove went on.

  Tommy looked Miles Ingmarsson up and down.

  “ ‘Himself’? So what does that mean, then?”

  No answer.

  “Are you? Yourself again?” Tommy asked. “Is this Miles Ingmarsson?” He pointed to the room once more. “Well?”

  “Maybe,” Miles whisp
ered.

  “We’re all being nice and honest today, I like it!” Ove said.

  Tommy scratched his stubble.

  “You’ve committed murder here. Would that be a fair assessment, Miles?” Tommy asked.

  Miles shrugged. “Maybe,” he said once more.

  “Maybe?” Tommy let out a crooked laugh. “This is murder!”

  Ove found the amphetamine and tasted it with his finger, then turned to Tommy.

  “What the fuck are you up to, Tommy?”

  “What am I up to? If we can get Ingmarsson for this murder, then that ought to be enough. That’s what I’m up to,” Tommy said.

  Ove snorted, then stood up with the bag of amphetamine in his hand.

  “He’ll sit in prison singing his heart out until someone listens to him. He’s a cop. What sort of fucking stupid idea is that, Jansson?”

  “I’m just trying to find different solutions,” Tommy said weakly.

  “ ‘Different solutions’?” Ove mimicked the words like a child. “You’re not looking for different solutions, you’re chickening out, you haven’t got the balls to go through with what we agreed. There are no other solutions, Cap’n Jansson!”

  Ove took a few steps toward Tommy.

  “What the hell do you know about what I’m thinking…?” Tommy began.

  Ove slapped him hard across the face. It made a loud noise.

  Tommy was bewildered.

  Miles tried to see an opportunity to run, out of the room, out of the building. But they were standing in the way. The apartment was on the third floor, so he couldn’t jump out the window. Unless that was what he ought to do? Headfirst. Maybe that would be better than what was to come?

  “Here, Tommy,” Ove said softly. “Have some of this.”

  He held up the bag of drugs.

  “What is it?”

  “Speed. Looks like absolute dynamite. It’ll help with your cowardice.”

  Tommy lost his cool.

  “And you think it’s wrong drinking beer at lunchtime!”

  “Ooh, that one hit home,” Ove said.

  He was smiling again now, the change in mood was striking. He offered the bag to Tommy.

  “What? You think I’d take drugs?” Tommy said, affronted.

  “Yes, just have a little bit and stop being such a girl.”

  Ove dug out a little pile with his forefinger and balanced it in front of Tommy.

  “You first,” Tommy said in a hostile voice.

  Ove snorted it up his nose, pulled out some more, and held his finger up to Tommy.

  Tommy inhaled and made a face, then rubbed his nose hard.

  “Tastes like medicine,” he said.

  “You really do have a way with words, Tommy. Now, let’s get dear old Miles out of here.”

  —

  Tommy was high, clinging to the wheel with both hands as he stared ahead, wide-eyed. Ove was grooving to the music on the radio, and Miles was sitting in the backseat with cuffs on. They drove for a good half hour, away from the city, away from civilization. Then the car suddenly stopped. Ove pulled Miles out; they were in a dark, deserted place. He led Miles down toward a lake.

  Cold, black water spread out in front of him into eternity, a few thin ice floes on its surface.

  “You know none of this really has any purpose,” Ove said, pointing out into the darkness.

  “What?” Miles asked.

  “It’s all unnecessary, completely devoid of meaning.”

  Miles looked out across the threatening water.

  “Lie down now,” Ove said.

  The water is death.

  “I don’t want to,” Miles said. He heard his own voice. He sounded like a child, a frightened child who didn’t want to die.

  “It’s OK.” Ove’s voice was very close to him.

  “I don’t want to,” Miles replied once more.

  Warmth down one leg, he’d wet himself.

  “Tommy?” Miles cried.

  A hard kick to his knee, and Miles’s leg buckled. Then a heavy shove that got him off balance, followed by a punch to the head. Miles collapsed. Ove grabbed his arms and dragged him to the shore. Miles saw the sky up above, the stars, galaxies.

  Ove turned him over onto his stomach, Miles stared down into the water. Ove’s steady hand on his head pressed him below the surface.

  The water was ice cold. Miles kicked, to no avail. He tried to move his whole body in an effort to slip out of Ove’s firm grasp.

  Ove called Tommy, somewhere above the surface, and Miles felt Tommy grab his legs and sit on them. He didn’t stand a chance, there was no escape as the air in his lungs ran out. His ears were buzzing, his throat burned, he felt pressure building behind his eyes, his skin felt like it was boiling. His heart beat shallowly and quickly.

  Then the oxygen ran out, and pain twisted through his body.

  He was going to die now, and he wasn’t at all ready.

  But just as Miles realized that his life was coming to an end, something else appeared. Something else, between the thin veil of life and the great, dark eternity. Something that didn’t exist, yet did exist. Without dimensions, without form or structure, but definitely real. A voice that wasn’t speaking, a presence, invisible hands holding him, calming him.

  Whatever it was, it presented itself to Miles as an alternative. The alternative that he had never made use of. The alternative that he had always shunned and avoided, that he had smirked at as something for the weak, the lonely, the slightly crazy. The alternative that wasn’t real….

  Tommy undid the cuffs and took them back.

  Miles felt himself drifting slightly outside himself as Ove let go of his hair and he was pushed out into the water, gently sinking.

  Jens was putting gas in the car. Sophie and Lothar were stretching their legs. The filling station shone brightly in the evening gloom. Cars rushed past on the motorway.

  Lothar had his arms around himself as he stood there shivering.

  “Are you cold?” Sophie asked.

  He didn’t answer immediately, then muttered yes. Sophie put one arm around him. At first the physical contact made him stiffen up. Then he relaxed. Before long he started to cry. She could feel his body shake, and held him tight as he sobbed into her shoulder.

  She met Jens’s gaze.

  Deep inside her, responsibility, sympathy, and a reflex to look after people existed as fixed elements of her personality. They had always been there, for better or worse. Now she had to suppress them, shut them away, and persuade herself that the exact opposite was the right choice….Keep your distance, because you’re going to betray this boy…horribly.

  Sophie let go of him.

  Lothar walked away to be alone.

  Her phone rang. Number withheld.

  “Yes?” she said.

  Roland Gentz’s voice was very clear.

  “Have you paid us a visit?”

  “Where’s Albert?” she said.

  “Albert’s with us.”

  “Where’s Albert?” she repeated.

  “Do you know who you took with you from here, Sophie?”

  She turned around. Lothar was sitting at a picnic table between the filling station and the motorway.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “We’ll organize an exchange.”

  “I want that to happen as soon as possible,” she said. She kept her voice steady, didn’t want to sound too desperate.

  “Get in touch with Aron,” Roland interrupted. “Tell him you’ve got Hector’s son, and say you want to hand him over to them. Give us Hector. He’s the only one we want. If you can do that, you’ll get Albert back.”

  “Were you there?”

  “Where?”

  “At the farm. Was Albert there when we were there?”

  “No.”

  The line went dead.

  She let the phone sit there in her hand. Cars raced by in both directions on the motorway.

  Jens started the car.

  M
ikhail came out of the gas station.

  Lothar got up from the bench and walked back.

  Sophie watched him. Grief-stricken and unaware of almost everything, he walked toward the car in a crouch. He didn’t belong to anyone. His whole bearing radiated precisely that—abandonment.

  Antonia and Ulf were in bed. They had left Ulf’s apartment after she told him what had happened, and had taken refuge just two floors above: one of Ulf’s neighbors was away and had asked him to water the plants and feed the hamster for a few weeks. The hamster was dead, but the plants were still alive.

  They were lying on two mattresses on the floor, under the covers. Ulf was focused but tense, she could feel it. She spooned behind him.

  “I’m frightened,” she said.

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  “Are you frightened?”

  He thought about it.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said. His Dalarna accent was pronounced.

  “How are you feeling, then?”

  “Surprised…and angry,” he replied.

  She couldn’t really huddle up any closer, but she tried.

  In spite of the peculiar décor of the apartment, and the stupid pictures of crying clowns, dolphins leaping around at sunset, and a still life of a bowl of fruit, Antonia felt warm and safe there, intact.

  “What are we going to do afterward?” she asked.

  “Afterward?”

  “When we’re done with this. When we’ve done the right thing. When we’ve caught Tommy, when we’re free?”

  “Then we’re going to move back down to my apartment again.”

  “Really, though?” she said.

  Ulf gave the question almost half a minute.

  “Then I’ll take you up to the cabin. We’ll go hunting in the forest. We’ll make food and have sex in different places….Would you like that?”

  “Yes, I’d like that a lot,” Antonia replied.

  Miles was floating under the water. His consciousness was burning like a small flame. Life was a tenacious thing.

  He bumped against something. Something vertical, a chain. He came to a halt in his weightless state.

  The flame inside him got some oxygen, grew a little stronger, enough for the blood in his arms to start moving. And with that minute pulse of energy he gave himself a barely perceptible push to move up along the chain.