Black Lies, Red Blood

by Kjell Eriksson

  “We’ve found his fingerprints in Ingegerd Melander’s apartment, so he’s certainly still relevant in the investigation. He has connections to both Gränsberg and Melander, and through bandy to Kumlin. He e-mailed you that he had interviewed Gränsberg for an article about the homeless, and it is conceivable that he was at Melander’s to meet him on the job, so to speak.”

  “You think he’s physically been there, at Melander’s?”

  Sammy Nilsson nodded, but did not say where they found Brant’s fingerprints.

  “He has a lot to explain. How tall is he, this Brant?”

  Ann looked at him with surprise.

  “Like me?”

  “Shorter, maybe a couple, three centimeters taller than me.”

  “That’s good,” said Sammy. “The Russian outside Kumlin’s was about one hundred eighty centimeters.”

  Normally Lindell would have asked how he knew that, but now she simply nodded, absent, already on her way elsewhere.

  “Brant said that the Russians lacked sympathy, that was something he read in a book. Do you know that he read out loud to me sometimes? I don’t read much, but he consumed everything. It was a little tiresome sometimes. He might be reading a paragraph, and when he stopped he looked at me as if I should comment on what he’d read. What could I say? I felt so stupid.”

  Sammy smiled.

  “You should have told him about the pain,” he said.

  Lindell looked at him, perplexed.

  “Your pain, what they try to write about in books. Do you remember Enrico and Ricardo from Peru? The one murdered and the other pressured into suicide. I was there, I saw your pain when you were told about it. Do you remember the mother and daughter by the roadside out in Uppsala-Näs, massacred, the girl had been picking flowers and Josefin, dying, who tried to crawl to her Emily, but didn’t make it? We stood there beside each other. Do you remember Jansson’s tears? That monster of a patrol officer was crying like a child.”

  “Stop!” said Ann, but Sammy would not let himself be stopped.

  “Those are the true stories. People don’t believe that we see, smell, and feel pain. No, we should be cops, some kind of caricature from a video, or … fiction, to put it simply. That beats all Brant’s reading out loud. The best thing would be if all of us were like Riis, then we wouldn’t have to think about what’s happening around us. Then we could be like Persbrandt in a TV series, with a little fake angst for the sake of effect, but in reality machines to create smutty headlines about our cleaning job.”

  “We can’t—”

  “No, we never can!” Sammy interrupted her. “People don’t want to hear that sort of thing. They want to know everything else about our job, but not what it’s really like. For us, for the ones who shovel up from roadsides and concrete floors, pick up along the railroad tracks, for those we met, for those we are compelled to visit with horrible news.”

  Lindell nodded and looked very tired.

  “And it will only get worse, no one understands anything anymore. Think if we were to write down—”

  “We can’t!”

  “We shouldn’t. We mustn’t. The true story would tear everything apart, the politicians’ talk and all the empty words. Behind every crime is greed and the imperfection of our society, people’s anxiety. And not only our stories. On the way to us, the final station, there are lots of truths that should be told. Away with the fine words, the lies in the newspapers!”

  “You sound like Brant,” said Ann.

  “We would avoid eighty percent of all crimes if…”

  Sammy fell silent, as if the air had gone out of him, and suddenly looked very helpless.

  “If what?”

  “I don’t know,” he retreated.

  “That other twenty percent, what’s that about?”

  “Craziness,” Sammy replied, after thinking a moment. “Craziness and love.”

  “It’s the same thing,” said Lindell.

  He started to say something, but changed his mind. They heard a car drive into the lot, car doors opening and closing, voices and laughter. Sammy thought about getting up, going to the open window, and looking out, curious about the life outside, but he remained seated.

  “We needed that pizza,” he quietly said at last.

  “Do you want to go home?”

  Sammy shook his head.

  “You wanted to get me to talk,” said Ann. “But what comes bubbling out is your own terror.”

  Sammy made an effort to protest but knew she was right.

  “I know all about the lies, but I hoped that here at home I could bring a few truths to life,” she resumed. “Instead I got lies here too.”

  “What got into you outside the preschool?”

  Ann closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled, as if it required an enormous effort of will to remember what had happened.

  “I got tired,” she said at last. “I just wanted to lay down and sleep, go away. I couldn’t cope, couldn’t take another step. All my reserve energy was gone. The mask fell, you know. The preschool, chat a little, answer all of Erik’s questions, fix dinner, put Erik to bed, and then … keeping your inner self closed, picking up around here, and then—”

  “Have some vino to fall asleep,” Sammy observed.

  “But you wake up again. When he was here, then … well, you know. I got a taste of intimacy for a few weeks. I was starved. In the beginning I was just happy and satisfied, then came the thoughts, hopes, plans. It got serious. Besides, he’s different than anyone I’ve ever met, even if he did remind me of you, Sammy. A kind of restlessness, close to sweetness, but also to fury, an inconceivable fury. He could get hopping mad over a trifle.”

  “Did you ever suspect anything?”

  Ann shook her head.

  “Never. But I guess that’s how it is. You don’t see the cracks, or pretend not to. I feel hate, but perhaps mostly self-contempt. That’s how much of an investigator I am. And now Klara Lovisa. I thought I’d solved the whole thing. First Fredrik and then Andreas, and I had to let both of them go. Andreas said finally, when I pressed him about the necklace, that he put it in Klara Lovisa’s mail slot the morning she disappeared. And I can’t disprove that.”

  “That may be so. But you think it’s Andreas?”

  “I don’t really know. I can’t separate lies from truth there either.”

  “Only hate and self-contempt?” Sammy asked.

  “If it were only hate, I would manage better.”

  “Hate burns,” said Sammy. “It may feel good in the short term, but you get deformed.”

  “As if I didn’t know,” Ann hissed.

  She got up, stole a glance at the sideboard—he guessed that was where she stored the wine—before she went up to the kitchen counter, filled a glass with water from the tap, and drank it.

  “You still want him,” Sammy observed.

  Ann slammed the glass on the kitchen counter.

  “Are you going to take sick leave?”

  She turned around.

  “You know the answer to that question,” she said. “It would be fatal to stay home and brood.”

  “Maybe you can go somewhere for a few days.”

  “My job is the only thing I have left.”

  “One thing,” said Sammy Nilsson. “What would you say if I e-mailed Brant a few questions, maybe asked him to call? I mean, it’s more awkward for you to get hold of…”

  The question hung in the air between them. Then she shook her head, but tore off a piece of the pizza carton anyway and wrote down his e-mail address.

  * * *

  It was eleven before Sammy went home. He was tired, but happy about the long conversation with Ann. She needed it, and maybe he did too. They seldom sat down and talked things out.

  The air was still warm, people were walking on the streets or sitting on balconies and patios, enjoying the night. Sammy was struck with a bad conscience, he ought to have been at home. But Angelika would understand.

  D
uring the short walk from the parking space to the town house he thought about Henrietta Kumlin. That besides the terror and grief at her husband’s violent death, she seemed relieved.

  Thirty-five

  Twenty-three murders in the course of forty-eight hours. Anders Brant read the headline in A Tarde, let his eyes run over the photographs of the murder victims—among them a local politician, two shopkeepers, a coconut vendor, three teenage boys, a young mother and her two-year-old son. A gallery of young men and women, famous for a day.

  All of them looked serious in the photos, as if they were aware that they would meet a violent death. Who would I vote for, thought Brant.

  No picture of any perpetrators. He skimmed through the text. No, no one had been arrested.

  With those figures it was not particularly surprising that the jails were overcrowded, even though many of the crimes of the past few days would remain unsolved. He was also convinced that more murders had been committed, deeds that would never be reported, either in the statistics or in the mass media. People simply disappeared, were buried, thrown into the bay, or incinerated.

  Perhaps a few of those pictured had been victims of police bullets, not policemen in service, but moonlighters, earning an extra buck by taking the lives of criminals and homeless youth. Contract jobs, where the payment was settled when the victim had his picture printed in the newspaper. A newspaper the victims seldom if ever read themselves.

  He pushed the paper aside. He was not surprised at the sensational headlines. He was aware of the Brazilian reality, but could never get used to the ever-present violence. Once he had a taste of it himself, but got away with only a scare, and a scar. It was during an outdoor concert at Farol da Barra. He had walked around the lighthouse to find a place to relieve himself. On the slope down toward the sea a couple was necking, a few others were sleeping off a bender. The sea, which had gathered momentum all the way from Senegal, was whipping its white cascades against the rocks.

  Out of nowhere a gang of boys and young men suddenly appeared. They came toward him on the narrow cast-iron passageway. He sensed the danger and stepped aside, looking around. It was dark, there was no one nearby, the loud music would drown out all calls for help. The group surrounded him. There was no hesitation in their movements, this was not the first time. No pardon would be given.

  Immediately, without a word having been spoken, he took a blow to the back of his head and fell forward, was caught up by a swipe that hit above the eyebrow. He felt the pain and the blood, and now felt really afraid. Someone laughed, it sounded like glass cracking.

  He had a rather slender build and knew that he would never escape by muscular strength, but he was agile and limber and that was his only chance. Blinking away the blood in his eyes he saw a gap between two of the attackers, feinted to the right but threw himself to the left.

  His experience from bandy helped him. He knew, as he slipped between two bodies, vainly grasping arms that reached out a tenth of a second too late, that he would escape. A feeling of triumph made him let out a howl. With blood running down his face he ran crouching like a rugby player around the lighthouse, and was soon surrounded by people.

  A group of policemen took care of him, and at the Portugal Hospital he got seven stitches. The scar, a white line right above his left eyebrow, was the only evidence of what he had experienced.

  He had never told anyone about his experience. Even if it was a true picture of Brazilian reality, it felt like a betrayal of the country to brag about the incident behind the lighthouse. He could tell about anything else—the landless, the poverty, the homeless, the struggle for justice, the corruption, but what people would remember was that he had been assaulted.

  * * *

  He had not seen Ivaldo Assis since they visited Vincente in the jail. The neighboring building, or what was left of it, was silent. Brant peered through the window several times a day. The scene was deserted, as was the alley. The dark stain on the cobblestones was the only evidence of what had happened. The trash along the wall had been removed and nothing new had been collected. The carts with which the Assis family gathered rags and boxes were quietly parked with their shafts in the air. Perhaps the Assis family had gone away?

  There was no peace and quiet, and he accepted that in the time until his departure not much would be accomplished. He could only wait. The problem was that things were not going very well. It was not just the murder and his false testimony that worried him, but above all, thoughts of Vanessa and his own life.

  The day before he had decided to go back to Itaberaba, took a taxi to the bus terminal, bought a ticket, but then never got on the bus. Instead he remained sitting on the bench and watched it disappear in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

  The 10,000 reais he should have given her were now rolled up in a sock hidden under the sink. What should he do with the money? In a few days he would be going home. He could exchange them again, at a significant loss, or save them for the next trip, but he sensed it would be a while before he returned to Brazil, if he ever did.

  The material he had collected was more than enough—statistics, a hundred interviews with homeless people, politicians, public officials and others, and thousands of photos. He was perhaps the Swedish journalist who best knew the conditions of the most marginalized in Brazil, the smiling country, the country with the samba and Carnival, but also the devastation of nature, especially to produce agrofuel.

  And a Brazil with a woman he had betrayed in a degrading manner.

  He dreamed about Vanessa, devoting nights as well as days to the settling of accounts. He was out of the running, waiting for a flight that could take him out of the country; for a policeman at his door, who would give him a summons; for Ivaldo Assis.

  The cowardice, the lies, and betrayal haunted him. The boundaries of his personal life were becoming blurry, everything was being mixed into a bitter concoction that he was forced to swallow over and over again.

  He put on his shorts and a linen shirt, left the apartment and went out, strolling aimlessly, headed up toward the lighthouse, took September Seven Avenue north, stood for a long time by the wall above the little beach by the harbor and studied the bathers, thought he saw Vanessa several times, strolled over to the small square, sat at the outdoor café, and ordered a beer. He had always liked the little square by Barra’s harbor, even though it was a haunt for a number of shady characters. Various drug deals were settled around the pay phone; the fences, pimps, and whores wandered around. Others picked up cans or begged.

  He took several sips of beer, rejected a few offers of getting a massage, and studied the people. Some faces he recognized from previous years. The waiter was the same, always equally furious at Lula and the other politicians, “bandits” he called them. It struck him that this was where he felt at home, in this swarm of contrasts.

  It was as if he was seeing himself for the first time, as the person he really was. He was bursting with knowledge of Salvador and Brazil, but also almost completely isolated. He had experienced that before, the dilemma of the temporary visitor and passive observer of a reality that he would never be a part of. Until now he had managed to keep that feeling in check, handled it; he was a journalist, and could temporarily dampen the discomfort and alienation with alcohol. After that he had again plucked up courage, dutifully continued to record and industriously gathered material. Then he went home, simply to depart once again, apparently tirelessly curious.

  It was his duty to tell the truth, how things really were. That’s how he had viewed his work.

  The new insight that slipped up on him was that he was also isolated in Sweden. He only existed as the eternal activist, but without roots.

  He had been given a chance with Vanessa to become part of the Brazilian reality. He could have bought a house, married her, had children, and settled down, but he had chickened out.

  I’m too much of a European to feel at home here, he thought. Perhaps that was the ultimate reason for his flight from It
aberaba. Or was it? Yes, that’s how it is, he continued his monologue—now on his second beer—I love her, or in any case what I think is love, she loved me, but I put my tail between my legs and ran.

  I miss Europe … Sweden. It’s that simple. But what is in Sweden? A little Spartan two-room apartment in Uppsala, a number of contacts with newspaper and magazine offices, where I have a fair reputation, a few friends I’ve neglected over the years, a mother I haven’t seen in two years. That’s it.

  And then Ann Lindell. Is she what’s different from before? Do I love her? Can I imagine a life with a policewoman? What would that be like?

  What exactly it was about Ann that made him so deeply attached he did not really understand. Maybe it was an unspoken wish for a kind of normalcy, just to be part of a context, build something lasting with a completely normal woman.

  She was bright, pleasant to be around, her son seemed to be a good kid and would certainly not create any problems, they’d had an amazing time in bed. Ann seemed to be starved for love and affection, and she had made up for that with a vengeance. He had probably never experienced such intensity.

  They had widely disparate backgrounds and experiences. He was a politically oriented journalist and, from what he understood, she was a politically indifferent police detective, but that no longer worried him.

  He was facing a choice, perhaps the most significant in his life, and he had no answer. Soon he would go home to Sweden. The distance to Vanessa would become, if not insurmountable, then considerable. And perhaps she never wanted to see him again, or even hear from him. He had burned his ships and there was no point in going ashore and searching. But if … if he changed his mind, would she want him back, despite his treachery? The question tormented him. He hated making the wrong choice.

  He thought about Vanessa’s amazing body, got excited there at the outdoor café. She was a true Brazilian mix—a little white, a little red, and a lot of black. Her mother came from south Bahia and had half-Indian blood in her veins. Her grandfather was an Italian engineer from the southern part of the country, while the other relatives were descendants of African slaves from Benin and Senegal.