Anger Mode

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  Ojo swung into that taxi rank and had only two taxis in front of him in the queue. The first car disappeared with a woman in high leather boots. The next car moved forwards. There was a short pause in the stream of customers and the driver in front of Ojo took the opportunity to get out of his car. He leaned against the car’s front wing and was just about to light a cigarette when a man came up to him. Some words were exchanged and Ojo saw the taxi driver point out Ojo’s taxi. The tall man took some quick steps in Ojo’s direction. He opened the passenger door, threw in a flight bag, and then sat down behind Ojo.

  “I assume you’re free,” began the man in an unfriendly tone.

  “Yes, I am,” Ojo answered cordially as he looked for the owner of the unpleasant voice in his rearview mirror.

  “Drive to Täby,” ordered the man.

  Ojo shifted into gear and started to roll slowly away from the train-station forecourt.

  “What’s the address?” inquired Ojo and tried to catch the eye of the man in the rearview mirror. As he got only evasive glances, he started to punch “Täby” into the sat-nav.

  “You don’t have to bother with the address in that sat-nav,” said the man in a hard voice. “Our little street seems to have been overlooked by the map company. I will give you directions when we get close.”

  “Okay, it’s your money and your decision,” said Ojo, while turning onto Vasagatan.

  The afternoon rush hour had subsided and Ojo could safely zigzag between cars in the sparse Stockholm traffic. The light dusk spatter had turned into a rainy shower, and umbrella-less people were hurrying along the pavement. The car’s wipers were sweeping with increasing frequency. The squeak from the rubber blades relentlessly scraping against the windshield cut through the car cabin.

  The man in the back seat was pressing his hands over his ears and the shirt under his jacket was soaked with sweat. He ripped open the top buttons in an attempt to dispel the heat from his body.

  “Drive up Sveavägen and into Roslagstull,” he hissed impatiently. His breathing became heavier as he rocked backwards and forwards.

  Ojo caught a glimpse of the man’s face in the rearview mirror. He felt the car rock in sync with the passenger’s movements in the rear seat.

  “Aren’t you feeling well?” asked Ojo, with all the courtesy he could muster.

  “Don’t bother yourself about that. Just do as I say!” roared the man.

  Ojo flinched. Despite the man’s unpleasant behaviour, Ojo stood his ground. He could be sick. Ojo had made emergency detours to the hospital too many times and knew when someone was genuinely unwell. Involuntary anger can come from suppressed pain. Ojo had driven all sorts: from screaming, pregnant mothers halfway to childbirth to stocky, two-metre giants whining and rolling around like small kids from the pain of a gallstone. This looked as if it would develop into another emergency trip to one of the hospitals. He wondered what sort of pain the man was in. Hardly gallstones and definitely not childbirth. Perhaps it was a panic attack – or that mental fatigue everyone is talking about and that only seems to exist in Western society. They did not have these problems in Nigeria – only HIV and malnutrition unless, of course, corruption is also classed as a health problem.

  “Shall we go to the A&E at Karolinska instead?” asked Ojo in a steady, calm voice. “You don’t sound or look especially healthy.”

  “No, you will drive to Täby. Can you manage that?” The man shouted his answer.

  Ojo made eye contact with the man in the rearview mirror and saw how his facial muscles had tensed. It was as if he had an aura of rage cloaking him. Pierced by the man’s coal-black eyes, Ojo began to feel a creeping uneasiness. The steering wheel was sticky from his sweating hand and his heart beat like a bongo drum.

  “Either we’re going to the Karolinska A&E or I’m stopping the car and you can get out,” he explained with as much authority as he was able to muster.

  The ultimatum was given.

  Ojo pulled over and parked, with the engine still running. He turned around to confront the man in the back seat and saw with some surprise that he was pulling his leather belt out of his suit trousers.

  “Shut up and drive!” roared the man as he suddenly grabbed Ojo’s neck rest with one hand.

  Ojo backed down. He instinctively wanted to throw himself out of the car, but then his fear instantly changed to anger. He should not be the one running away. It was his car and his livelihood. He removed his seat belt and was just about to open the car door when he felt the man’s belt around his neck. Before he could get a hand between his neck and the belt, the man had pulled it tight.

  Ojo could not get any air. He desperately tried to reach the man in the back seat, but he was trapped, locked in his own seat. He lashed out with his arms and finally managed to grasp one of the man’s hands. Ojo twisted towards the man’s wrist and tried to pull the hand away, but it seemed to be riveted to the leather belt. He stretched for the door handle again, but could not move out of the seat. Alarm turned into panic as the lack of air quickly weakened Ojo. An enormous pressure was growing in his ribcage. It felt as if it was going to explode.

  BROR LANTZ PUSHED his knees against the back of the driving seat to get a firm grip. He did not know why he had taken off his trouser belt, nor why he wanted to strangle the driver with such a deadly passion. Quite simply, it felt good and, in some way, like a rebirth. As if a safety valve had been opened at the same moment as the pain in his head went away. Each muscle was tensed to breaking point now, a paradox that he normally would have pondered over – but not now. The harder he pulled, the less the knives cut in his head.

  Ojo was ready to let go. The pressure in his chest had disappeared and, instead, he was filled with calm. It was a safe and overwhelming feeling. But then, for a short instant, he regained his senses and was back in the cold darkness. His body screamed with the pain, but he was not ready to die yet.

  With a final, all-out effort, he got his arm to the gear stick. His hand shook with nerve spasms as he pushed the button lock and pressed the gear stick backwards. It was as heavy as lead. At the same time, he tried to reach the accelerator with his foot. Even though his leg was shaking, he managed to push the pedal to the floor with his last ounce of strength. The engine raced and the taxi shot with reckless speed across the road into the oncoming traffic.

  Bror lost his balance and fell against his flight bag. He tried to regain his balance while fumbling for the belt. He had not yet silenced the driver.

  Ojo’s final exertion had drained him of any strength. He collapsed over the steering wheel.

  As Bror managed to sit up in the back seat, he saw that the taxi he was sitting in was driving headlong into an oncoming vehicle. The airbag exploded in Ojo’s face and his head was thrown backwards with lethal force.

  Dazed, Bror got himself out of the demolished taxi. The engine had stopped running and a deep, ghostly silence reigned over the car. The front of the taxi was bent inwards all the way to the wheel arches. Oil and radiator coolant was spreading over the ground.

  Bror curled up on the ground next to what was left of the taxi and gazed bewilderedly about him. The rage he recently had felt within himself had disappeared. It was as if it had never existed. Suddenly, his stomach muscles cramped, in a vomit reflex. He threw himself on his side and coughed up the contents of his stomach while the tears welled up inside him. He did not want this. He had done nothing wrong. It was not his fault that this had happened. The driver would not be silent, he …

  People started to gather around the scene of the accident. What were they staring at? What did they want from him? One of them approached Bror. Bror pulled his knees up to his chest and hid his face behind them.

  More onlookers rushed quickly to the scene of the accident. Some had called the emergency services on their mobile phones. Others used their mobiles as cameras and documented the accident. The newspapers would pay well for a hot MMS picture.

  A young man with long sideburns asked Bro
r if he was injured. The man explained that an ambulance was on the way. He put a reassuring hand on Bror’s shoulder and said that everything would be all right.

  What did he know of that? What was it that would be all right?

  Bror did not care to listen. Sounds merged like a symphony orchestra in which everyone played different instruments. He could not separate what he was hearing, whether it was footsteps coming or going, the rain hitting the tarmac or car doors slamming. He pulled up his knees a bit more and took a deep breath.

  Suddenly, it ended and the world around him ceased to exist. One tenth of a second on the wrong side of the road and a life had been torn into thousands upon thousands of pieces. Death had irrevocably arrived.

  First, there was the shock. Then, denial came – this only happened to other people. But death was a reality he could not avoid, no matter how much he wanted to. It was eternal and brutally final.

  Afterwards, grief flooded him, sweeping every emotion in its path. All that remained was the loss after the love. He hovered between life and death, a rope and a footstool. Soon it would all be over. The suffering would be gone forever and the memories would die with him.

  Self-pity stopped him. He wanted the pain. He wanted the loss. Perhaps he was weak, a pathetic little being. The emptiness followed him like a shadow. He thought of her room and her possessions. The smell of her that was still left in her clothes, in her pillows. The soft, tender scent of life and happiness. The cuddly toys that patiently waited in line on the bed.

  Sometimes he could feel her presence. He spoke to her, screamed in despair how much he missed her, all the things they should have done and how much he loved her.

  Then decay set in – the booze and the sedation. The collapse, but also the recuperation. A new time, a new era.

  The rage grew slowly within him. The love transformed itself to hatred for the guilty, hate against the system. They should be punished.

  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The foundation to the temple of wrath was already in place – in the laboratory, in all the things he and his colleagues had accomplished. They were the best of the best. And what they had discovered was a vital link in a chain that would change the world, astonish everyone, and destroy the religions for which so many had given their lives. A new god would be created: the God of Science.

  And now, his vengeance too was within reach. There were some small adjustments still and, for this, he was required to work by himself. He had lied and cheated in order to succeed, betrayed those who had dedicated their lives to help him. Thousands of hours. Nights that passed into days. Months and years. It was a fire that would not go out. Step by step, he had got closer and closer to his goal.

  Then the breakthrough came. In the fifth year, he was finally ready.

  And yet still he had failed.

  But there were others in line, unwittingly queuing to enter the graveyard of his grief.

  CHAPTER 2

  “WALTER!” YELLED CHIEF Inspector David Lilja from his office. He heard Walter’s characteristic walk in the corridor – heavy on his heels, yet unusually brisk in his pace for someone soon to be sixty years old. Detective Inspector Walter Gröhn was as capable of making a discreet entrance as a herd of runaway rhinos. Lilja knew that Walter was always incommunicado in the first hour of the morning shift and that he would try to slip into his office unnoticed, just to be able to drink his morning coffee in his office with no interruption. Normally, this was none of his concern. He had a great deal of patience with Walter’s idiosyncrasies and whims, as long as they were within reasonable limits and did not expose Lilja to anything that could damage his own reputation. Today, however, Lilja was forced to break with this practice.

  Walter had, as usual, envisioned a calm morning break with a mug of coffee and the sandwich he had bought at the café on Flemingsgatan. Under normal circumstances, he would have paid no attention to Lilja’s request. It was not even eight o’clock yet. If Lilja wanted something, he would have to come to Walter, and not vice versa.

  David Lilja was indeed Walter’s superior officer, but this was a more academic than practical rank. For Walter, Lilja’s superior rank implied a shitload of irrelevant questions and bureaucratic red tape that had to be observed, despite the occasions he needed Lilja to back him up. Walter had a habit of getting into conflicts with both colleagues and the Prosecutor’s Office, which all too often required the intervention of Lilja. When it came to the art of internal politics, Lilja was like a duck to water.

  Walter’s lack of social skills did not, however, prevent him from having the highest total of solved murders in his thirty-five-year-long career. With the aid of long experience and an unorthodox mindset that often set aside legal conventions, he was able to sustain a high percentage rate of closed cases. This was unfortunately at a cost to his own career, which had stalled at the rank of detective inspector. He was not considered to be “potty trained” and sufficiently diplomatic for the position of chief inspector.

  Over the years, a string of high-profile murder investigations had contributed to Walter’s reputation as brilliant yet impossible to work with. One of his most well-known cases involved the murder of the Hungarian twins, which, after a long and prolonged investigation, proved to be the work of a third, and completely unknown, triplet brother. Walter saved the two foster parents from being unjustly convicted for the double murder. This achievement was rewarded with a two-month suspension from duty because of insubordination, since it had entailed ignoring several explicit orders from the Chief Prosecutor.

  Walter had not been able to be of any assistance in the investigation into the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. This was partly because of his late involvement in the investigation, after the most relevant leads had either been missed or lost due to incompetence. True to his modus operandi, he immediately made himself unpopular with the investigation leaders, whom he accused of incompetence and of having the mental vision of a mole digging a tunnel. Nor was the Chief Prosecutor exempt from his criticism. Walter did not stay long on that investigation.

  With a cheese roll in his hand, but without the cup of black Java, he turned on his heel and went into Lilja’s office. He found the head of the Stockholm County CID, with his glasses high up on his forehead, behind piles of paperwork. His uniform was impeccably pressed and the knot of his tie folded with military precision.

  “Good morning,” Walter greeted him, even though he knew that this morning was going to be anything but good. His day could hardly have had a worse start.

  “Close the door behind you,” Lilja admonished, gesturing at Walter.

  Walter shut the door and sank into the familiar visitor’s chair in front of Lilja’s desk. “I shall get straight down to it,” Lilja began in a serious voice, leaning forwards between the paper heaps on the desk.

  Walter gazed uninterestedly at Lilja and tried to recall if he had forgotten to fill in some form, or if he had said something indiscreet during the past week. Possibly, it could be about the stuck-up, pinstriped lawyer last week who had persistently repeated her client’s innocence like a photocopier. Walter had felt obliged to exchange some less than flattering words with her.

  “We’ve been given a real hot potato,” said Lilja and paused theatrically.

  Not so much as a nerve twitched in Walter’s face. He continued to watch Lilja while thinking about whether he had time to fetch a coffee before Lilja got to the point.

  “We have a judge at the Stockholm District Court whom we think is responsible for manslaughter – or even murder,” said Lilja.

  Walter raised an eyebrow as he removed the clingfilm from the cheese roll. This was not because of what Lilja had just said, but because the cheese roll was so excessively shrink-wrapped.

  “So what has this Stockholm District Court judge done then?”

  “A taxi driver was killed in a car accident. The judge was the passenger in the taxi,” explained Lilja.

  “I see,” said Walter, thrusting h
is lower lip forwards. “So, driving judges around is a dangerous business.”

  “As I said, we have reason to believe so.”

  “And who’s ‘we’, in this case?”

  “Forensics and the Traffic Police.”

  Walter stared at Lilja for a few seconds. “Since when did the Traffic Police start conducting murder investigations?”

  “They don’t.”

  “Yet they seem to think that he has committed murder or manslaughter?”

  “This is pure speculation based on witness testimony and the medical examiner’s preliminary report,” Lilja brushed it aside.

  “I see,” said Walter, unconvinced.

  “It’s nonetheless never a good thing when high-level bureaucrats within the judicial system commit serious crimes,” continued Lilja. “Especially if there are fatalities involved. That’s the reason this is a hot potato and that is why it has landed in my lap.”

  What makes bureaucrats from the judiciary different from the rest of us? wondered Walter as he took a big bite from his cheese roll.

  “It’s not good for society’s sense of right and wrong if judges are walking around bumping off citizens. They are supposed to sentence people, not be the ones being sentenced. That just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That it’s not good for the public sense of right and wrong, I can accept,” said Walter, getting ready for another bite. “But they are only mere mortals like you and me. And if they commit a crime, they will have to face the music and pay the penalty – regardless of whether they are judges or not. All people in positions of authority are supposed to set a good example.”

  “Under all circumstances, this must be handled cleanly and with meticulous sensitivity,” Lilja insisted. “No bulls in a china shop, please. You’ll have to drop whatever you are doing. Under no circumstances is the judge to be prejudged, if you see what I mean.”