The Other Son

by Alexander Soderberg

  “Enough,” Sonya said.

  “Enough, how?”

  “She was married to your brother, Hector.”

  Sonya steered the car along the winding road.

  “Where are we going now?” she added.

  “We need to disappear completely,” Hector said tightly.

  “We haven’t got any money,” Sonya said. “And without money we haven’t got any friends.” She tried to find Hector in the rearview mirror.

  “No friends, no money,” he said to himself. Then he smiled, as if there was something funny about that.

  They started suggesting names. Names of business partners, friends, acquaintances, people from the past. None of them was suitable, they all entailed too much risk.

  Leszek eventually said, “Your father’s cousin, Hector.”

  “Who?” Hector asked.

  “Every year Adalberto used to send money to the monastery in Tuscany; he kept it going, don’t you remember?”

  Hector searched his memory, yes, he remembered. Roberto…

  “Head toward Tuscany,” he said.

  The passports were standard EU ones.

  Marianne Grip from the Laundromat was sitting behind the wheel of her silver Jaguar XJ6, inspecting them like a customs official.

  “It took him a day and a half to do these after you called me, Antonia. Some forgers really do deserve their reputation,” she said, handing them to Antonia and Miles, who were sitting in the backseat.

  Miles and Antonia opened their new passports, looked at their pictures, the fake names, the fake signatures.

  “This isn’t exactly standard-issue stuff, as I hope you appreciate.”

  Miles and Antonia stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  “This is a miracle,” Marianne said. “Fake ID cards and passports that work….Don’t take any of this for granted.”

  Marianne fixed her eyes on them.

  “And finally: This is a ’76; I got it from Assar. If you so much as scratch it I’ll never forgive you.”

  She opened the car door; it was big and heavy. Marianne got out, then leaned over and looked in again. She let out a sigh and her sternness vanished, and her face went back to normal.

  “Be careful, whatever it is you’re going to do,” she said, and closed the car door.

  Miles and Antonia climbed into the front, Miles behind the wheel. It was wide and thin. He turned the key. The old car started. The engine purred reassuringly. Antonia switched on the GPS on her cell phone, opened the maps, and keyed in the address of the little village in Jutland that Sophie had given her.

  She held the phone up to Miles, who read it.

  “Ten hours driving ahead of us,” he said, pulling out of the parking space.

  “Do you want to play I Spy?” she said flatly.

  Tommy was lying on the sofa at home with his head against Monica’s breasts. She was stroking his hair. The movement was minimal, barely perceptible.

  “You’ve been good to me, Tommy.”

  Her voice was thin and slurred, her speech deteriorating, drawn out, almost dark. She struggled with the words.

  “Always, ever since the first time I met you. Toward me and the girls, everyone you know. Even your enemies.”

  He tried to find some sort of symmetry between the ceiling and the top of the open door.

  “But then you turned bad, Tommy.”

  With one eye closed he managed to line up the top of the door with the corner of the ceiling.

  “You stopped talking to me, you got quiet and depressed. And sometimes you got angry, as if your depression had found an outlet. You changed. I wanted to help you, but I couldn’t reach you, Tommy….You cut yourself off, and disappeared.”

  Tommy looked away from the corner and stared blankly up at the ceiling instead.

  “Perhaps that’s finished now, Tommy? Over?”

  Monica broke off abruptly, breathing shallowly, then she went on in a weaker voice. “You should talk to your daughters, explain yourself. Give them a chance not to have to carry your problems. You used to be able to talk to them. Do it again….Do good, Tommy.”

  Tommy listened. He heard what she was saying, but he didn’t understand. He used to understand. But that was then, and this was now—completely different things. He had been someone else then, everything was different. He used to be a policeman, a husband, father, colleague. Down-to-earth, considerate, and he used to try, in spite of a fairly negative view of the world, to do the right thing. Now he was still a policeman, a husband, father, and so on. But he was also a criminal, a murderer, and now, with the same negative view of the world, he was actively trying to do wrong. That was the path he had chosen. He couldn’t change it, no matter how much he might want to. The consequences would be too great.

  Monica…She meant everything to him. Perhaps that was his underlying driving force. It ought to be nothing but good, but it wasn’t; it was nothing but bad.

  He looked at his wife.

  “I’ve stopped drinking,” he said.

  She looked deep into his eyes.

  “That’s good,” she whispered.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She believed him, he could see that. That was a big thing, now that he no longer believed in himself. Tommy turned his head away.

  “I love our girls,” he went on.

  Monica stroked his head.

  The sun disappeared behind a cloud and the living room turned darker.

  “I wish I could turn back time, Monica. But I can’t.”

  She went on stroking him.

  “No, Tommy, you can’t.”

  Her voice was so thin, so weak.

  Time passed by around them. He wanted to stay there, to stay with his Monica. Where life was safe and normal.

  “Tommy?” she whispered.

  He waited.

  “I want you to promise me one thing.”

  He tried to preempt her. “I’ll take care of everything, I promise.”

  “No, not that,” she interrupted.

  Monica turned his face so he was looking at her.

  “Help me go when the time comes.”

  Tommy didn’t know what to say.

  “Promise to help me if I get trapped inside myself. I don’t want to end up there, I don’t want to be scared. Promise to give me a bit of help along the way.”

  He stared at her. But she just looked calmly back at him. Tommy stood up and walked away, into the kitchen, walked around the kitchen table, his hand on his head….What the hell was he doing in the kitchen?

  Then down into the basement, down the steep, narrow steps.

  The bottom drawer of the desk was empty; he’d emptied the bottle of gin down the toilet earlier.

  There was a humming sound in his head and he bit his thumbnail.

  His cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he answered it.

  “Yes?”

  “Stefan here.”

  “Stefan who?” he shouted.

  “Stefan Andersson, Forensics!”

  Tommy scratched his head hard.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve managed to locate the cell phone. The GPS has just been switched on.”

  “Where?”

  “Norrbackagatan, Vasastan—Birkastan.”

  —

  Tommy unlocked the gun cabinet where he kept his hunting rifles and took out an old snub-nosed revolver, a .38 he stole during the search of an embezzling lawyer’s home four months ago.

  He checked the gun—fully loaded, silver-colored with a mother-of-pearl handle—and weighed it in his hand.

  Tommy grabbed his winter jacket in the hall. He tucked the revolver away in a hidden inside pocket, pulled the jacket on, and headed off into the vile world outside.

  He called Negerson from his car and gave him the address in Birkastan. Tommy drove fast, his car straining around him.

  —

  Ove Negerson was already there, at the address where Antonia Miller’s phone was supposed to be, leanin
g against the hood of his Mercedes when Tommy drove past, looking for somewhere to park.

  Ove was standing at the back of the car when Tommy walked up. He opened the trunk with the remote. All of Ove’s guns lay spread out on a blanket. He waved his hand.

  “Voilà.”

  Tommy saw two pistols, two rifles—one shorter, with a sniper sight, the other old and rusty—three knives (two butterflies and one bowie), and two silencers.

  “So what’s it to be?” Tommy asked.

  Ove scratched his chin, as if he were only allowed to pick one chocolate from a full box, then pointed at a modern black pistol and one of the silencers.

  He leaned in and screwed the silencer onto the pistol, then held it up like a trophy.

  “What about you?”

  “Nothing,” Tommy said.

  Ove opened his mouth theatrically and stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Living on the edge, Tommy?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Ove shut the trunk and they walked toward the entrance to the building. A man with a young dog was walking toward them.

  Ove stiffened as he stared at the dog.

  “Scared of dogs?” Tommy chuckled happily.

  “Yes,” Ove said. “I’ve always been frightened of dogs, ever since I was little.”

  They were on their way in through the door when Stefan from Forensics called again.

  “What the hell is it now?” Tommy answered.

  “The signal vanished, then popped up again. They are heading south on the motorway.”

  “Dammit.”

  Tommy turned and ran toward his car.

  “Let’s take mine,” Ove called after him.

  The weather had turned vicious. It was blowing a storm, and the trees outside were bending under the wind as sleety rain lashed the windows. Lothar was standing looking out of the leaded window of his room.

  Sophie was leaning against the doorpost. She didn’t know if he was captivated by the storm or just letting his thoughts roam free.

  She leaned heavily to one side, her body weight pressing harder on the doorjamb, and the old wood creaked.

  Lothar turned around. He looked at Sophie for a few moments before saying, “Am I going to have to escape from here?”

  “No, you won’t have to escape from here, Lothar.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” His voice was firm.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Have I been kidnapped again? By you this time?”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “So I can take my things and just walk out?”

  “No, you can’t,” she said.

  “So I have been kidnapped?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. Sometimes it was cold, even though it was warm.

  “I want to be with my dad,” he said, almost in a whisper.

  She didn’t want any more of this, couldn’t do any more of this. She turned to go back downstairs.

  “Albert said you think you’re not allowed to make mistakes,” he said to her back.

  Sophie stopped and turned around.

  Lothar went on: “He said you think you’re not allowed to make mistakes. So you always think you’re doing the right thing instead.”

  “I know I make mistakes,” she said in her own defense.

  Lothar shook his head slowly.

  “He didn’t mean it as a criticism. He didn’t know if you were alive. I’d told him about my mom, about them killing her. He was frightened the same thing had happened to you.”

  “So?”

  “That’s why things are the way they are.”

  “Because of that? Because I’m not allowed to make mistakes?”

  He shrugged.

  “Maybe.”

  “Did Albert say that?”

  Lothar nodded.

  She felt like snorting. Felt like saying he didn’t know what he was talking about…But she knew he did.

  “What else did Albert say?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He was calm. Matter-of-fact.

  “Why are you telling me this, Lothar?”

  “Because my mom’s been murdered. Because I’m being dragged around in a world that’s got nothing to do with me. I have no voice. I met a dad I didn’t know existed, and then I was dragged away from him just as abruptly.”

  He paused.

  “And the whole time, you’re the one who decides the outcome, Sophie.”

  “No, it’s not like that…” she attempted.

  “Yes, it is. My life is in your hands, but you wouldn’t dare admit it.”

  She looked away from him. Rain and snow lashed the window, and the wind made a sucking sound as it tried to find a way into the old house.

  “What do you want me to do, Lothar?”

  She felt awful.

  “Rise above it.”

  “ ‘Above it’?”

  “Above all the wrong.”

  Hector’s son. The spitting image of his father just then, that much was obvious. The sudden ability to put something into words, to overturn your view of yourself, make you see something as it really was. Unafraid, courageous, wise. Boundless.

  “How?” she whispered.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, and what’s going to happen to me. I have to know.”

  “You know,” she said.

  “No, how could I know if you don’t tell me?”

  Sophie wanted to flee. But she remained where she was. She swallowed twice, then said: “I want my son back, and I’ll do anything to make that happen.”

  “Anything?”

  She nodded. Her jaw was clenched.

  Then Sophie turned and went downstairs, into the kitchen. She went and stood by the sink, leaning on it heavily with her hands, breathing hard with her eyes closed.

  Lothar came down behind her.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked with her back to him.

  “A drink would be good,” he said, sitting down on a chair.

  Mikhail hunched forward as he made his way across the square, fighting against the wind and rain.

  The silver Jaguar was parked in front of the café.

  He approached the car from behind, read the license plate, and without looking around pulled open the back door and squeezed into the backseat.

  “Drive,” he said to Miles at the wheel. Antonia glanced back at him from the passenger seat. Mikhail indicated that she should look forward.

  They drove away from the square and out of the town. Mikhail directed them onto a main road and they speeded up. Mikhail leaned back, pulled a walkie-talkie from his jacket pocket, and pressed the Talk button.

  “How does it look?”

  There was a crackle. Jens’s voice.

  “I can’t tell, can you?”

  Mikhail looked back. The weather was still bad, and visibility poor. He could barely make out Jens in the Passat, three cars behind.

  “There’s no one following us,” he said.

  “We’ll take a few detours, then carry on.”

  Mikhail directed Miles to drive in circles, around and around, this way and that.

  Half an hour later they headed up the drive to Jens’s grandmother’s house. Miles parked in front of the entrance and they got out.

  Antonia looked around. In spite of the storm, it was beautiful. A chalk-white, half-timbered house with a thatched roof.

  Mikhail had already opened the trunk and taken out the sports bag, and now he walked up to her and gestured that she and Miles should lean against the car. Mikhail hurried Miles along, pushing him toward the car, and Miles put both hands out to brace himself, wincing at the pain in his broken right hand.

  “Stay like that,” Mikhail said, then frisked him. He did the same to Antonia.

  “In my handbag,” she said. “My service pistol’s in my handbag.”

  Mikhail indicated that they should go in.

  Sophie met them in the hall. They were wet and cold after being made t
o stand in the storm while they were searched.

  “Hello, Sophie,” Antonia said, brushing the wet hair from her forehead.

  Sophie didn’t respond.

  “Miles Ingmarsson.” He introduced himself.

  “Follow me,” Sophie said, and walked into the kitchen.

  Miles and Antonia sat down at the kitchen table. Sophie leaned back against the counter, radiating watchfulness.

  Mikhail walked in behind them and put the bag on the table, then pulled out a chair, put it over by the wall, and sat down, legs wide apart.

  “Thanks for letting us come,” Antonia said.

  Sophie waited.

  Antonia reached for the bag. She pulled out all the copied photographs and dropped them on the table, and gestured for Sophie to take a look.

  Sophie saw herself in various situations in her house out in Stocksund. She saw Albert before the accident, standing in the kitchen behind her. She saw herself riding a bike, driving a car, working in the garden.

  “There are hours and hours of audio recordings of you as well,” Antonia said.

  “I know,” Sophie said.

  Miles and Antonia were taken aback.

  “How do you know?” Miles asked.

  “We found the microphones,” she said.

  “How? Why?”

  “We scanned the house,” Sophie replied bitterly.

  “Who installed them?” Antonia asked.

  “You did,” Sophie said.

  “No, not us,” she said.

  “Yes, you, the police. Gunilla Strandberg had them installed.”

  Antonia’s mind was spinning.

  “What for?” Her eyes were blazing.

  Sophie recognized that eagerness from their first meeting, that thirst, that curiosity…that urgency. There was something compulsive about it, something Antonia Miller tried to hold in check.

  Sophie snatched up a photograph of Albert.

  “Tell me what you know, and why you’re here,” she said.

  Antonia looked at Miles, as if to ask: Can you help me?

  “This is your show, Antonia,” Miles said.

  “Could I have some water?” she asked.

  Sophie took a glass from the shelf, filled it from the tap, and gave it to Antonia, who drank half of it in one gulp.

  She put the glass down on the table, then stared into it as if her story were floating around in it.

  “I was the first detective to arrive at Trasten after the shootout and murders in August last year,” she began. “I started to investigate but couldn’t make any progress. Not long ago I was pulled from the case, and Miles was brought in instead.”