Spring Tide

by Börjlind, Cilla

  He had to push with his toes to move forward. If he raised his head he hit the rock. If he lowered it too far he scraped his chin. It was extremely slow, but he moved forward. A decimetre at a time shuffling in the black passage. He felt the sweat running down his neck. It took a while before he reached the bend he had seen. There, he would have to make a decision. If the bend was too sharp he would never get through. The risk of getting stuck was too great.

  The risk of living his nightmare was maximal.

  Now he was at the bend.

  He turned on the torch and saw the rat’s yellow eyes little more than a metre in front of him. It didn’t really bother him. If you have lived as a rough sleeper for a few years you get to be very familiar with rattus norvegicus. Often the only company available. The rat probably felt something similar because it turned round after a second or so and disappeared past the bend.

  Stilton shuffled after it. Into the bend. Halfway through he stopped. The angle was too sharp, which Stilton unfortunately discovered too late, when he had already got the greater part of his body into the bend. He wasn’t going to get through. What was a lot worse, existentially speaking, was that he wasn’t going be able to go back either. His body had jammed in the bend.

  He was stuck.

  Like in a vice.

  * * *

  He had parked his grey Jaguar not far from the Maritime Museum. The front of the car pointing towards the Djurgård Canal. It was almost the only car there. He had nevertheless looked around before he pulled out Wendt’s cassette. An old cassette tape. Why hadn’t he copied it onto a CD, he wondered. Typical Nils. Luckily the exclusive car had a player for cassettes too.

  Now he took the cassette out of the player and held it in his hand. He had listened to the entire taped conversation, even though he remembered every word.

  He had tormented himself.

  Very slowly, he pulled the narrow plastic tape out of the cassette. Bit by bit, until he had the whole tangle in his hand. Not that it helped very much to destroy the tape. The original tape was still somewhere. Somewhere unknown. With exactly the same conversation, and the same disastrous information. A tape that he must get hold of, one way or another. Preferably within three days. The idea of doing what Wendt demanded, going along with his ultimatum, that was not something he would consider. It wasn’t part of his plan.

  Yet.

  But he was enough of a realist to realise that there was a risk it would end up there. In his plan. When the three days had run out.

  What would he do then? If Wendt made the conversation public? What could his lawyers do? Claim that it was a forgery? But a voice analysis would of course reveal that it was him. And Linn? She would immediately recognise his voice.

  Bertil lit a cigarillo. He had got through almost a whole packet today. He glanced at his face in the rear-view mirror. He looked just as worn out as Wendt had done. Unshaven, grey skin. Hadn’t slept last night, no breakfast, some spiteful comments about cancelled meetings, and then Linn. He knew that she was sensitive to any change in his behaviour and would be wondering what was going on, and that she would ask some very difficult questions as soon as she got the chance. Questions that he couldn’t answer without lying. And it wasn’t that easy to lie to Linn.

  He was under a great deal of pressure.

  ‘You sound a bit stressed?’

  ‘Oh really? Well, yes, rather a lot on just now.’

  Erik Grandén suddenly phoned. He had got home from Brussels and insisted on a light dinner and since Bertil wanted to avoid close contact with Linn as long as possible, a dinner there would be.

  ‘The Theatre Grill at half seven?’

  ‘That’ll do nicely.’

  ‘Will you bring Linn?’

  ‘No.’

  Bertil hung up on Grandén. He looked at the tangle of tape in his hand, looked out across the Djurgård canal and felt a clump forming in his throat. A warm clump. He swallowed, and swallowed, and then he gave in.

  One could call the interior at the Theatre Grill intimate. Muted dark red wallpaper, small gold-framed pictures and dimmed lighting playing on the walls. Erik Grandén liked it here. Right in the city centre. This was where he wanted to be. He had just looked in at the Bukowski auction showrooms on Arsenalgatan. The viewing was for the coming Modern Art auction and Grandén had come across an early Baertling that he was charmed by. He might put in a bid. Baertling had suddenly become bankable again.

  He had manoeuvred his tall gangly body into a small sofa cubicle opposite his ‘old boy’ Bertil Magnuson. Not that they had ever been boys together, but in their circles people liked to be part of the ‘old boys’ club’. Now they were sitting here and toying with a sole meunière and a couple of glasses of chilled wine, one of the best. Wine was Grandén’s field. He had invested a considerable sum in a number of rare bottles that he kept in a special store at the Opera Cellar restaurant.

  ‘Skål!’

  ‘Skål!’

  Bertil was quiet. That suited Grandén nicely. He liked to hear his own voice. He expressed himself well, his words were chosen carefully, he had had plenty of training in the public eye.

  And he liked being there too.

  When he started talking about his ‘possible’ future appointment at the highest level in Europe it was like hearing an election speech for his own election.

  ‘I say “possible” because nothing is certain until it is certain, as Sarkozy usually says. Incidentally, we have the same barber in Paris. But I would be rather surprised if this didn’t come about. Who else would they choose?’

  Bertil knew that the question was rhetorical so he took another bite of sole.

  ‘But enough about me, how are things going for MWM? I understand that there have been a few splashes in the pond, in connection with the award.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Congo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I read that stuff about child labour, it doesn’t look good that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps you should make a donation?’

  ‘To?’

  ‘A children’s hospital, in Walikale, pay for the construction and the equipment, plough a few million into the local health care, that would certainly make things look a lot better.’

  ‘Perhaps. The problem is the actual mining, we can’t get at the land we want.’

  ‘Have you moved too fast?’

  Bertil smiled a little. Erik was phenomenal at seeming to be an outsider. In every situation where there were ‘a few hitches’.

  ‘You know exactly how quickly we’ve been moving, Erik, you saw all the planning yourself, didn’t you?’

  ‘We don’t need to go into that.’

  Grandén didn’t like to be reminded that he still had his fingers in the jam jar. Officially, he had licked them clean a long time ago.

  ‘Is that why you seem a bit off?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  Suddenly Bertil came close, very close, to saying too much. It might have been the wine, lack of sleep, the pressure, or just the need to unburden himself. Just relax a little, with an old musketeer.

  But he stopped himself.

  He wouldn’t have had a chance to explain. The taped conversation. And even if he could, if he actually were to confess to his old friend the reason for the conversation, then he knew how Erik would react. What he knew was that Erik was the same type of person as him, through and through. Cast in the same egocentric steel mould. If he were to hear about the conversation it is highly likely he would have signalled to the waiter for the bill, thanked his old friend for a long and profitable friendship and then disappeared from Bertil’s life.

  For good.

  So he steered the conversation towards Erik’s favourite subject instead.

  ‘What actually is this appointment that’s coming up?’

  ‘Confidential. But if it falls into place then you’re going to be saying “Skål!” to one of Europe’s most powerful men next time we sit he
re.’

  Erik Grandén pulled in his lower lip a little. An organic movement that was his way of indicating maximal subtext.

  In Bertil’s eyes, he just looked affected.

  * * *

  He assumed he must have passed out for a while. How long? That he didn’t know. When he came to, he felt a cold draught through the narrow passage. Something must have been opened at the other end, the end that he was aiming for, and had created a cold draught. It was probably the cold that had caused his body to shrink a few millimetres and loosen. Just a little. But enough so that by manically pushing with his feet he could get through the bend and lie outstretched again.

  He breathed out, several minutes, and could only note that it would be impossible to slither backwards. If he was going to get out of here, there was only one way. One direction, and that was deeper in.

  He started to slither again.

  And slither.

  And because his sense of time had disappeared long ago, he had no idea how long he slithered, but suddenly he was there. Almost at the edge of the end of the passage. He slithered the last little bit and looked out.

  Into an enormous cavern hewn out of the rock.

  What he saw there, he would never forget.

  First it was the light. Or lights. Many stands hung with spotlights that spread a flashing rotating red and green light over the whole cavern. A strong light. It took a while for Stilton’s eyes to adjust.

  Then he saw the cages.

  Two of them. Rectangular. Three metres wide and two metres high. Set up in the middle of the cavern. Built of steel frames with grey metal netting between.

  And inside the cages, the boys.

  Two in each cage, around ten or eleven years old. Naked, except for a pair of small shorts in black leather. In an almost reckless fight with each other. Without gloves. Bleeding a bit here and there on their bodies.

  And the spectators.

  Several rows around the cages. Spurring them on. Shouting. Cheering. Their hands full of banknotes that changed owner several times during the course of the fight.

  Cage fighting.

  With betting.

  If he hadn’t been forewarned through Acke’s story, it would have taken a long time for him to understand what he was seeing.

  It was bad enough anyway.

  Even though he had used one of Situation Sthlm’s computers a couple of hours earlier and searched for ‘cage fighting’ and read a lot of extremely frightening information. How it had started in England many years ago. Parents who let their children fight in metal cages. To ‘train themselves’ as one father had put it. He had seen a video on YouTube where two eight year olds fought inside a steel cage at Greenlands Labour Club in Preston. It had almost made him sick to watch it.

  But he continued to click.

  Methodically, he had sought out more and more obscure information. How cage fighting had spread to other countries and escalated year by year. With more money and betting involved, and parallel with the spread it had moved further and further from public view. Eventually it ended up entirely underground.

  Hidden from the everyday world, but well known to those who enjoyed seeing children fighting each other in cages. Like under-age gladiators.

  How the hell could that be kept secret, Stilton wondered.

  And how could they get the children to take part?

  He understood that when he read a text that explained that the child who won a fight rose a step on a special ranking list. The one at the top of the list after ten fights won money. The world was crawling with poor children. Homeless children. Kidnapped children. Children without anyone who cared about them. Children who might have a chance to get somewhere by fighting in cages.

  Or children who simply wanted to try to win a bit of money to help their mum.

  Repulsive, Stilton thought. He read about how fights were often arranged by youths who themselves had started in the cages. And how they had a special tattoo which indicated who they were.

  Two letters: KF. With a ring round them.

  Like one of the people who beat up the rough sleeper at Västerbron.

  Kid fighters, according to Acke.

  That was why he was down here.

  He found it hard to keep looking at the cages. One of the young boys had been knocked down and lay bleeding on the floor of the cage. A metal hatch was lifted slightly and the boy was dragged out. Like a carcass. The other boy danced around inside the cage while the spectators whistled and cheered and then became silent. A new fight was about to begin.

  That was when he sneezed.

  Not just once, but four times. The dust in the passage had lodged in his nose. By the fourth sneeze he had been discovered.

  Four of them pulled him out of the opening and one knocked him down. In the fall, he hit his head against the rock wall. He was dragged into a smaller cavern, out of sight of the spectators. There they pulled his clothes off him. There were still four of them. Two slightly younger, two slightly older. He was lifted up and thrown against the cold granite wall. Blood from his head wound ran down over his shoulders. One of the younger assailants pulled out a spray can and wrote TRASHKICK across his naked back.

  Another one pulled out a mobile phone.

  One of the disadvantages of mobiles is that you can phone someone by mistake when the phone is in your pocket. An advantage is that you can easily get at the last number you phoned. That was what happened when Mink’s mobile received a call. A call-back from someone who had been alert and focused during the last conversation but who now was in a totally different state. So different that Mink could only hear a weak wheezing. But the number on the display showed who it came from: Stilton.

  Mink quickly worked out where he must be.

  More or less.

  Årsta is large if you don’t know where to start looking, so it took a while for Mink to find nothing. In the end he phoned Vettan and spoke to Acke and got Acke to give him a more detailed description of where in Årsta it was. Approximately. It helped, a little. Mink got a good impression of the area. Good enough that he eventually could find Stilton. Huddled up against a grey rock face. Naked and bloody. His clothes thrown around him. He was holding his mobile in his hand. Mink could see that Stilton had been badly beaten up. But he was alive. And communicating. He managed to get his trousers and jacket on.

  ‘You need to go to hospital.’

  ‘No!’

  Stilton hated hospitals. Mink considered forcing him. He decided not to, and phoned for a taxi.

  The first that arrived immediately turned back when the driver saw the two of them. The second taxi stopped and the driver suggested that they should phone for an ambulance. Then left. The third taxi had just taken someone to a nearby address not far away when Mink waved it down. By then, Mink had learnt his lesson and put Stilton out of sight. Behind some bushes. He quickly explained to the taxi driver that his mate had been beaten up and needed to be bandaged up a little and before the driver could reply Mink pushed two five-hundred-crown notes through the window.

  The day’s winnings.

  ‘I drove a taxi for many years, so I know what it’s like sometimes, drunks and shit, but this is OK, we’re going to Wiboms väg in Solna, a thousand crowns without the meter, not bad for a short drive, eh?’

  Olivia sat in her kitchen and was eating an ice cream. With her laptop open. Suddenly she dropped the ice cream on the floor and stared at the screen, all eyes. She had gone into the Trashkick site out of pure curiosity. First she’d seen a naked man being beaten up, in a rock shelter somewhere, rather dark images, and then the body was thrown out somewhere and landed beside a stone wall.

  ‘Stilton?’

  At first she felt like the ice cream she had just been eating. Ice cold, inside. Then she keyed in Stilton’s number.

  And waited.

  Elvis quickly lapped up the melting ice cream on the floor.

  Would he answer? He did, in the end, although it wasn’t him. It was an unf
amiliar voice that answered on his mobile.

  ‘Hello, this is Mink answering Stilton’s mobile.’

  Mink? Was that one of the people who had beaten him up? Pinched his mobile? Why didn’t he answer himself?

  ‘Hi, my name is Olivia Rönning and… is Tom there? Stilton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Vera’s caravan. What do you want?’

  Vera’s caravan? That Vera? The one who’d been murdered?

  ‘How is he? I saw online that he’d been beaten up and…’

  ‘He’s OK. Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  White lie, a bit, Olivia thought. But I’ll make it even whiter.

  ‘He’s helping me with a job at the moment. Where is Vera’s caravan?’

  Mink needed help with the wounded Stilton. Above all he needed bandages and plasters. Olivia could get that. So he told her how to find Vera’s caravan and asked her to hurry.

  Olivia found her first-aid kit and threw herself into her car. It wasn’t entirely clear to her why she was doing this. Sympathy for the beaten-up Stilton?

  Presumably.

  But mainly pure impulse.

  Stilton pointed to the cupboard where it was kept. Vera had used it herself a few times when she’d had cuts and sores of one sort or another. Mink took out a glass jar with some yellowy-brown wax-like content. The hand-written label said ‘Healing resin’ and the contents were listed.

  ‘Resin, sheep fat, beeswax, alum extract…’

  He read from the label on the jar.

  ‘Just rub it on.’

  Stilton sat half-naked on the bunk with a bloody towel around the top of his head where there was a big gash that had been caused when he was thrown against the wall of the cavern. He pointed at his other wounds. The visible ones, where the bleeding had stopped. Mink looked at the weird mixture in the jar.

  ‘Do you have faith in this stuff?’

  ‘Vera did. She’d got the recipe from her grandmother, before she hung herself.’

  ‘Oh, hell, goes to show.’

  Show what? Stilton wondered. Mink started to rub on the ointment.