by Arne Dahl
Hjelm and Holm stared at him.
‘Judgemental, I know,’ he said. ‘I live in the south myself now. Unemployed and uneducated, living in the southern suburbs. Judgemental, but it’s the best I can do.’
‘No, one more thing,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘Come with me to the police artist. He does it all on computers now, so it won’t take long.’
She stood up. Per Karlsson stood up. She was taller than he was, Hjelm noticed irrelevantly.
‘You don’t have anything else to add, Per?’ he asked.
Per Karlsson shook his head and gave him a furtive glance. That peculiar, paradoxical clarity in his eyes.
‘Well, thanks for your help.’
They disappeared.
Paul Hjelm disappeared, too. Into the vague half-world of daydreams. Per Karlsson. Born twenty years ago in Danderyd. Born in the affluent suburb of Danderyd, but hadn’t even stayed on at school. Unemployed, but sat in the most well-known and notorious of Södermalm’s pubs, reading the classics. What had happened? It was impossible to guess. An outsider at school? Thrown out of his father’s firm? Made to feel small, but on the way up? Rebellion against his father? Generally obstinate? Former addict? Dim-witted?
No.
Maybe the others, but not that. Not dim-witted. That much Paul Hjelm had seen, even though he felt, well . . . dim-witted.
Demoted to the dreary limbo of pub brawls.
Paradise lost.
No, not dim-witted. On the contrary, Per was unusually observant. But now Hjelm had to forget him. Now they had to plough on through more miserable interrogations with hungover witnesses, and Per Karlsson needed to be on someone else’s mind. Only his evidence could remain.
Hjelm yawned, his thoughts trundling on. The months spent with the local police. The violent crimes division of Stockholm’s City district. Police headquarters on Bergsgatan. The utterly temporary office which, equally temporarily, he had been liberated from. The office actually belonged to Gunnarlöv, a policeman on sick leave, whose telephone he always answered with: ‘Gunnar Löv’s telephone, Paul Hjelm speaking.’ It was only when an old colleague of Gunnarlöv, now stationed in Härnösand, came in and asked after ‘Nils-Egg’ that he understand why there was always a pause on the other end of the line when he answered. People were simply recovering from his strange pronunciation of Gunnarlöv. His jaw dropped when he looked up the name in the internal telephone catalogue and saw it there in black and white: it wasn’t ‘Gunnar Löv’ at all, but ‘Nils-Egil Gunnarlöv’. Shortened to Nils-Egg.
Were people really allowed to be called such things? Weren’t there laws? Wasn’t it the same as naming your child Heroin, like a family in Gnesta had tried to do a while ago, Heroin Lindgren? They had been turned down and written a whole series of letters to the local press where they went on the offensive against the nanny state.
In any case, Gunnarlöv was on sick leave because he had, while on duty, found himself in the Stureplan branch of Föreningssparbank when a hysterical female bank robber aged around fourteen rushed in with a staple gun at the ready, demanding ‘all your high-yield shares, ready to go’. Don’t staple guns need to be plugged in? Gunnarlöv had thought to himself, going over to the robber to calmly point out that fact and receiving, to his surprise, no fewer than thirty-four staples peppered across his face. Miraculously enough, none of them hit his eyes. The first thing he said on waking from unconsciousness was: ‘Don’t staple guns run on electricity?’ His wife stared at his bandage-covered head, her eyes swollen and red with crying, and answered: ‘There are ones that run on batteries.’
The adventures of Nils-Egil Gunnarlöv.
Nils-Egg in Wonderland.
Still, Paul Hjelm’s own story wasn’t all that much more entertaining. Quite the opposite, in fact, since the story of Nils-Egg actually had its bizarre moments.
Kerstin Holm came back, leafing through a notepad.
‘Welcome to reality,’ Paul Hjelm said gruffly.
‘It’s not much different in Gothenburg.’
‘Sweden’s shithole.’
‘What’re you getting at?’ exclaimed Kerstin Holm in her good-natured Gothenburg accent.
‘Ah, sorry. No, well, it was just something that was being bandied about in the media a few weeks ago. The Black Army, you know, the AIK supporters’ club, it was on their answering machine before the team’s cup final against IFK Göteborg, in Ullevi Stadium. Stockholm arrogance and tribal football hate in an unhealthy union.’
‘Yeah, and now we’ve got it again. Stockholm arrogance and tribal football hate, only a more serious type. Did you see him?’
‘Anders Lundström from Kalmar? Yeah. Really nasty. His head was a terrible mess. To think a beer mug can do so much damage!’
‘Why? How do we explain it?’
Paul Hjelm looked at Kerstin Holm. They had a shared past which meant that no glance was entirely innocent.
‘Are you serious?’ he asked, half serious himself.
‘Yes. Yes, I am, I really am. Why’s the violence getting worse?’
He sighed. ‘Well, at least now we’ve been able to see it up close. For just over six months. The grey, everyday violence in the city. It doesn’t exactly do much to encourage your philanthropic tendencies. Are you back for good now, Kerstin?’
‘I was on loan. You know what it’s like with footballers who’re on loan, there’s something wrong with them. Now I’m not on loan any more.’
‘For good, though? How was being home in Gothenburg?’
‘This is home now, that much I’ve figured out. That’s probably all, though.’
‘But life is OK?’
‘Exactly. OK. No more, no less. Under control. Could wish for a little more . . .’
‘Sure, same here. I think I’m beginning to have a little midlife crisis. Is this all there is? Isn’t there more to it? You know.’
‘I think so.’
‘You’ve just got to make the best of the situation. We’re back together again, and now we’re going to smoothly wrap up what the media are already calling the Kvarnen Killing. Right?’
Kerstin Holm chuckled slightly and slipped a sachet of snus tobacco under her upper lip.
‘What’s this, then?’ said Hjelm, pointing.
‘A fresh start,’ said Kerstin Holm without batting an eyelid. She changed to another subject, one from the past. ‘How are the others? I’ve kept in touch with Gunnar the whole time, things are going well for him.’
‘Yeah. Ah yes, our friend Gunnar Nyberg . . . He was the only one who stayed with national CID, actually. A reward for refusing to take part in the final phase of the hunt for the Kentucky Killer. He ended up in the middle of the paedophile busts. The so-called Paedo University.’
‘I can just see him,’ Kerstin Holm smiled, leafing through her little notepad. ‘He’s just re-established contact with his kids and his one-year-old grandchild, and then he finds himself thrown head first into the world of Internet paedophiles. Like a steamroller.’
‘You’re right there.’
An image emerged in both their minds, doubtless almost identical. A snorting giant with a bandage around his head, hunting paedophiles with a blowtorch.
‘Yep,’ said Hjelm gloomily, ‘the rest of us got our little punishments. Bad blood always comes back round.’
‘We should never say that again.’
‘You’re right, never again.’
‘And the others?’
‘I haven’t had that much contact with them since the A-Unit split. I ended up on that God-awful loan to the local police. “Gunnar Löv’s telephone.” Punishment. Deep down, I think they held me responsible for the cock-up with the Kentucky Killer, but Jan-Olov was the scapegoat.’
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘No, he just disappeared. Involuntary retirement. Retired Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin. I think he even stopped playing football. That’s the end of the saga of Wooden Leg Hultin. Söderstedt and Norlander ended up with l
ocal CID’s violent crimes squad, and Chavez has been doing more training.’
‘At the Police College?’
‘Yep. Career plans rumbling on. Are there still superintendent courses? It’s something like that he’s doing if there are.’
‘There you go. And our room? The “Supreme Command Centre”?’
‘I think they’ve got admin staff in there now.’
They sat in silence for a while, observing one another. All they had experienced together . . . For a short moment, their hands met, pressing together. That was enough. A lot of work lay ahead of them. Kerstin Holm glanced through her notepad, Paul Hjelm leafed through the mediocre notes from the brief interrogations carried out by the night staff. Together, they looked at the little sketch of the Kvarnen bar.
‘They’re waiting out there,’ Kerstin said, sighing.
‘Yeah, yeah. The next man to be held to account,’ said Paul, also sighing.
2
SKY.
How long had it been since he had seen it?
In Sweden, there are fifty-seven prisons with over four thousand places. They are divided into six security classes, of which class F prisons are open institutions and classes A to E are closed. Of these, class A prisons are the most secure, with the most dangerous inmates, and in Sweden there are two: Hall and Kumla.
Now he was looking directly at the sky, actually looking, not from behind bars. He glanced back to the gates which had closed behind him, and for a moment it felt as though he had left his body and become one with the sky; he saw the flat landscape below him, the whole of southern Närke county with its square green, brown and golden fields. The prison looked like nothing more than two square fields among all the others.
He couldn’t see the walls.
Dissolved by perspective.
Then he was down again.
Back to earth.
His feet on the ground.
He turned round once more. The walls were completely bare. Nothing behind them, nothing sticking up. Only walls. Grey. Grey walls.
He moved off. A smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
He walked towards the van that stood waiting. Ticking over. The sound of freedom. Freedom was a metallic-green van.
He stopped. Stood for a moment. Gentle, warm summer wind against his newly shaved cheeks. The sun. Morning heat. Asphalt quivering in the distance.
He glanced towards the van. Hands protruding from it. Waving. No sound yet. The sound didn’t reach him. The movements within. Like a foetus. An egg about to hatch. Preserved movements. Future events. Many quick steps coming together at one point.
Step one. Wallet out. Pitiful banknotes. Three forty an hour basic pay. Also a small device which looked like a miniature calculator.
He took it out. Weighed it in his hand. Held it up towards the van.
The waving stopped. The sound disappeared before it had reached him. Future movements were put on hold.
A single button, slightly raised. Red. Almost luminous.
He pressed it, smiled faintly and climbed into the van.
A fiery blaze rose up behind the walls.
High, high up towards the sky.
No longer only walls behind him.
As the van gathered speed, the sound still hadn’t reached him.
3
‘SO YOU’RE ON the committee for the Bajen Fans club?’
The man was in his thirties, and squinting as though the light in the darkened interrogation room was blinding. Behind his hangover, something else was going on. Watchfulness. The feeling that they would always be the accused.
‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Committee member.’
‘What is the Bajen Fans club, exactly?’ Kerstin Holm asked.
‘Not a violent organisation if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘No one’s suggesting that, not by any means. But a Hammarby supporter committed a terrible act of violence in a known Hammarby haunt, in the presence of at least one committee member from Bajen Fans. So it’s relevant for us to ask.’
He looked sullen. Remained silent. Glanced over to Hjelm, who was trying to look as though he was awake.
‘I know roughly what it is,’ said Hjelm. ‘An independent supporters’ group. Something that grew out of the Hammarby tribe in the early eighties.’
‘There you have it,’ said the man, with obvious pride. ‘We organise trips to the away games and our clubhouse on Grafikvägen is open on Thursdays and before every home game. We’re the ones making sure it doesn’t degenerate into violence. We stand for the only bloody bit of carnival colour in this monochrome country, and that’s why suspicion automatically falls on us.’
‘The club isn’t suspect. You are, Jonas Andersson from Enskede, you. You’re suspected of withholding the identity of the Kvarnen Killer.’
‘The Kvarnen Killer . . .’
‘The papers’ name for you-very-well-know-who.’
Jonas Andersson from Enskede met Hjelm’s eye without hesitation.
‘I was bloody well sitting there pressing a jumper to the guy’s mashed head. I knew right away it’d be us who’d get the blame.’
‘Did you see the perpetrator?’
‘No.’
‘Where were you?’
‘In a group by the wall, a little way from the door. It was crowded and there were loads of people and I didn’t see anything.’
‘You didn’t see anything?’
Hjelm hung up his boots. It was the fourth time that day he had uttered those words. Kerstin Holm saw him throw in the towel and picked up the baton. To mix a few metaphors.
‘Let’s make it easy,’ she said, pushing a sheet of paper in front of Jonas Andersson from Enskede. ‘Here’s a sketch of Kvarnen. When did you arrive, what did you see, and where?’
‘I was standing here, against the wall where the door is, with about ten people who were aiming to grab some seats over towards the corner. We got there at quarter past nine and we’d already had a fair bit to drink. So we were standing there, pressed up against the wall.’
‘OK. Had that group at the bar already arrived then?’
‘The bar was bloody busy. I don’t know. I swear I don’t know. It was packed, rowdy and noisy. A haze of disappointment. A 2–2 draw with Kalmar, at home. Last place confirmed. Everyone was pretty unhappy. Then suddenly it went quiet for a few seconds, the silence building like a little hole in the crowd. Then he was lying there. With a mashed head. I ran over and helped that Smålander hold the jumper to his head. It was all soft inside. Really fucking nasty. The only thing I saw was a whole load of people rushing for the door.’
‘A whole load of people?’
‘Yeah, twenty people escaped for sure before the bouncers turned up. They’d probably been off doing drugs.’
‘Twenty Hammarby fans?’
‘Others, too. Some managed to get out even though the bouncers were there. Talked their way out, probably, but I didn’t really see.’
‘So what you saw was a flood of people heading for the exit?’
‘I guess. Not what you’d expect. People normally react kind of like that group of dolled-up birds over in the corner did, screaming in panic and stuff like that. But quite a lot of people just rushed straight out.’
‘OK. Can you try to take us through where everyone was, using the sketch?’
Jonas Andersson caught his breath and groaned. He started pointing vaguely at the sketch, beginning with the row of tables by the window.
‘The group of girls at two tables over in the corner. Three of them panicked and got hysterical. The third table, nearest the door: a group of IT types. They were all still there afterwards. The next row: a group of Hammarby fans in the middle, next to some kid who was reading. Staring right down into his book. On one side of them, by the wall, a gang of Slavs. On the other side, nearest us, a group of bookish-looking students. Then on the row nearest the bar: the Hard Homo. Two couples taking up one table, and the Hard Homo squashed onto the sam
e table. On the next table: some drunks. Closest to us, a bit of a mixture. Then the table next to the door, along the wall here, a tough-looking group, not exactly skinheads but almost. They cleared out, all apart from one.’
‘This is getting complicated now. The tough guys, how many of them were there?’
‘We were standing next to them, tried talking to them, but they didn’t say a word, just sat there, pushed us if we got too close – one of them was even listening to music. Not the one who stayed behind, though. Slaphead. With a moustache. Five, there were five of them. One stayed behind.’
‘Who else? The Hard Homo? The drunks?’
‘They stayed. You’ve got their names. The Hard Homo is Sweden’s bravest fag. Always got his eye on someone from the tribe. We’re used to it now. He was just staring at that kid with the book, though. I didn’t recognise the drunks, but they were the usual. Alcoholics, culture and media types, the kind who love their artsy Södermalm area. Probably haven’t done a blind thing for culture these past thirty years.’
‘And next to the reader, you said “a gang of Slavs”?’
‘Yeah, three or four Slavs. Yugoslavs. They were talking. The guy with the book was sitting right next to them, he got pushed closer to them by the Hammarby tribe.’
‘How do you know they were Yugoslavs?’
‘They looked like they were. They disappeared, all of them.’
Kerstin Holm paused. Passed on the baton. Hjelm had returned. Recovered. He was ready again.
‘So that entire group of “three or four Slavs” rushed towards the exit as soon as Anders Lundström got the beer mug to the head?’
‘Yeah. There was something dodgy about them, that’s for sure.’
‘You saw a lot for someone who didn’t see anything,’ said Hjelm with a vague feeling of déjà-vu.
‘I’m on the committee,’ said Jonas Andersson, looking up. ‘I always try to keep an eye on what’s going on. I’m just really bloody sorry that I was focused on the wrong things. I want to get the bastard just as much as you. He’s ruined years of good work.’