The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

  Gunnar Barbarotti reflected for a moment on his use of that particular French phrase – misuse, actually, in Barbarotti’s opinion – but he didn’t query it. It was some kind of class marker, he presumed. On the whole, Jakob Willnius came across as calm, urbane and well-balanced; he had married into the Hermansson family, and while this did not fill him with great joy, he at least seemed to have peace of mind enough to take it with equanimity.

  And why shouldn’t he, wondered Gunnar Barbarotti when he had taken leave of the couple and was on his way to the underground station. Considering he had got himself a wife like Kristina.

  As for Gunnar Barbarotti, he had stayed away from women entirely after his divorce from Helena. Until a month ago, that was. Her name was Charlotte and she was a fellow police officer; he had met her at a conference in Gothenburg. They both had a bit too much to drink and then got good value out of each other in her hotel room for most of the night.

  The problem was, she was married. To another policeman. They lived in Falkenberg and had two children aged ten and seven. She had informed him of this the following morning, over breakfast; but after all, he had had the chance to ask her about it the night before, and had not done so.

  They hadn’t met since, but they had spoken on the phone a couple of times. She sounded as embarrassed as he felt, and they had agreed not to have any more to do with each other for the time being. But to be in touch towards the summer, possibly. Gunnar Barbarotti didn’t really know how he felt about the situation – nor what state Charlotte’s marriage was in – but his heart was racing throughout the two phone calls, and the night in Gothenburg had without a doubt been his most memorable for a number of years.

  But getting off with a colleague’s wife, even if you didn’t know him, was definitely not a thing to be proud of, and he was relieved they had put a lid on it for now. Yet the sense of regret and the faint sweetness of unspoken hope were not to be sniffed at, either.

  Robert Hermansson’s flat was in a block dating from the 1930s, in Inedalsgatan in the Kungsholmen area. Fourth floor; a brass plate on the door said Renstierna, but there was a handwritten scrap of paper with the name Hermansson above the letter box. Gunnar Barbarotti spent an hour poking around two small rooms plus an even smaller kitchen, looking for any indication of what might have befallen the missing tenant. A PC Rasmussen from the Stockholm force kept him company, mainly by going outside to smoke on the diminutive balcony overlooking the inner courtyard.

  When they left the flat and locked the door behind them – with the assistance of a rather grumpy caretaker – Gunnar Barbarotti had two items in his briefcase. One was an address book he had found behind a packet of spaghetti and a teapot on a kitchen shelf, and the other a kind of notepad that was beside the phone on the bedside table in the bedroom. Both the impounded objects contained a mess of scribbled names and telephone numbers, and he did not look forward to sitting down and starting to go through them. Barbarotti had come across the manuscript of the novel he had been told about – Man Without Dog seemed to be its working title – in two piles on a cluttered desk. He had glanced at it and decided to leave it in peace for the time being. Six hundred and fifty pages were six hundred and fifty pages, when all was said and done . . .

  It was quarter to seven by the time he was back in his room at Hotel Terminus, and once he had called home to check Sara was all right, he decided to work for exactly two hours, not a minute more. Then he would cross Vasagatan, have two dark beers at the pub in the central railway station, and digest the day’s impressions.

  And that was exactly what he did.

  21

  While Barbarotti was having breakfast, Sorrysen rang.

  ‘He made a call in the night.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We’ve got the mobile phone records. Robert Hermansson made a call at 01.51 on Monday night.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you know. I mean, the number must be—’

  ‘He rang another pay-as-you-go mobile. We’ve got the number but we don’t know who it belongs to. You know how it is.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘And Henrik? Henrik had a mobile too, didn’t he?’

  ‘We haven’t got those records in yet. It’s a different operator. I expect they’ll turn up during the day.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘So, Robert Hermansson made a call in the middle of the night, before he vanished. Now we know. Anything else?’

  ‘Not for the moment,’ said Gerald Borgsen.

  Hmm, he thought, slipping his mobile back in his jacket pocket. What conclusions can we draw from that, then?

  None at all, that was the fact of the matter. Hypotheses, then? Well, possibly. There was one very plausible guess, at any rate: Robert Hermansson had decided to pay somebody in Kymlinge a visit. He had rung up the person in question – in the middle of the night – and asked if it was all right to come round. And then . . . ?

  Well then he had either gone there, or gone somewhere else. Take your pick.

  But on the other hand, continued Barbarotti, sharp as a knife in his deduction work as he decapitated his four-minute egg in one well-aimed swipe, on the other hand, he could just as well have rung up a former girlfriend in Stockholm. Why not? Just for a chat and to wish her Merry Christmas while he happened to be rather the worse for drink. Was it possible to localize the recipient of the call as well, nowadays? Roughly, at any rate? Or did that only apply to outgoing calls?

  It was only quarter to nine in the morning, but he could already feel the weariness creeping over him. Not physical fatigue; he would happily have run eight or ten kilometres – twelve if he were beside the sea – but a sort of persistent, hopeless pressure, a state that was hard to describe. A feeling of . . . well, of inadequacy in the face of a superior force. The villain of the piece was the flow of information, he was quite clear on that point. The condition of the modern age was the fact that you suddenly found yourself with any amount of data – potential and actual information by the ton. That was the way with modern police work; it was not a matter of hunting down information, that most readily captured of prey – what mattered was being able to sift through it.

  They could, for example, talk to all the seventy-seven or one hundred and eleven people Henrik Grundt had called or been called by in the past two months, once they had his phone records in their hands. They could interview all his fellow students and all his teachers in the faculty of law, they could widen it out to the student-club choir and his old circle from upper secondary in Sundsvall and then send the whole lot to Guinness World Records, thought Barbarotti gloomily. ‘The world’s largest and least successful police investigation’, huh, there was plenty of competition for that title, no doubt. As for Henrik’s uncle Robert, Barbarotti had spent three hours last night (one of them on his return from the pub) poring over the scrawls on the man’s notepad, trying to sort out what wasn’t important; the problem was that there was no method for that kind of weeding out, or none that worked particularly well, anyway, for the simple reason that he didn’t know what he was looking for.

  And if he put the work into the hands of others, they wouldn’t know what they were looking for, either. He remembered having read somewhere about this sort of information overload in the old East Germany. With one in four citizens being a Stasi informer, and each informer’s foremost task being to inform, they simply received such a volume of reports that they scarcely had time to skim through them, let alone read them in depth and evaluate the content.

  Never mind acting on it.

  And how was he to know which phone number or hastily scribbled name was crucial for the case? Or which of the 172 ink-shitting young lawyers up in Uppsala actually had their fingers on any pulses? It was just like with new technology: the haystacks grew and grew, but the needles didn’t get a millimetre bigger. Why not go and check out Robert’s fellow contestants on the real
ity TV show, for that matter? Perhaps the whole thing was some kind of grudge match originating on Koh Fuk? That would be worth a headline or two in due course, if he was right.

  Another variant was that Robert Hermansson had simply wearied of all the attention and other crap, and had gone to ground with some old flame. Was lying low somewhere. Considering the overall situation – and bearing in mind that his nephew had also gone missing, and in the latter’s case without having any particular cause to lie low – this solution did not seem altogether plausible. But even so, he could feel the haystack weighing on him. Or haystacks, plural, if he was looking for two needles.

  Backman had a good model, he remembered. First you decided what to do. Then you did it. If that didn’t solve the case, you had to decide on another step to take.

  Backman’s as smart as a killer whale, thought Gunnar Barbarotti. I’ll go and get myself another cup of coffee, I think, so at least I stay awake.

  He did achieve one thing that afternoon, as it turned out. He located the psychologist whom Robert Hermansson seemed to have consulted after his breakdown on Fucking Island. His name was Eugen Sventander, he had consulting rooms in Skånegatan in the Söder part of the city, and his recorded message informed callers he was away for Christmas and New Year and would be back on 9 January. Sventander was one of a group of psychologists and therapists at various addresses in Stockholm who were specialists in this field: taking on burnt-out reality TV participants and building them back up into viable citizens again. They usually managed it in six to eight months, with two sessions a week, reducing to one towards the end; quite often it was the relevant television channel that paid for the treatment.

  Satisfied with this clear and unambiguous briefing from one of Sventander’s colleagues in the group, Gunnar Barbarotti got on the train and continued north to Uppsala. Henrik’s accommodation was in the student housing area of Rackarberget, known as the Triangle. It contained five rooms, each with its own toilet and shower. There was a communal kitchen, decorated with a Che Guevara poster, a semi-naked black woman and a dartboard. Gunnar Barbarotti asked himself if there had been any progress at all since he sat drinking warm beer out of a can in student accommodation in Lund, twenty-five years earlier.

  The girl who let him in was called Linda Markovic and one of the rooms was hers. She was small and slender. She was studying maths, and her parents lived in Uppsala, but she preferred to spend the time between Christmas and New Year in her own little place in the Triangle. She had to study and for that she needed peace and quiet. The occupants of the other four rooms weren’t there, she told him, and they wouldn’t be back for a few days.

  She asked if he wanted coffee. He accepted, and sat down at the kitchen table with its indestructible laminated top, probably originating in the same era as Señor Guevara.

  ‘Henrik,’ he started. ‘As I said, it’s about Henrik Grundt. The reason I’m here is that he seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared? There’s only instant. Is that OK?’

  ‘That’s OK. Your rooms are wall to wall with each other, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been here three terms. Henrik’s is a sublet; it’s almost impossible to get your own room when you’re a fresher. Anyway, he moved in here in September.’

  ‘Do you know him well?’

  She shook her head. She had a strange, old-fashioned hairstyle, he thought. Short, dark brown corkscrew curls, and cut short at the back of her neck. Or maybe he was the old-fashioned one, that was always a possibility. She poured hot water into two purple mugs, pushed the instant coffee across to him and opened a packet of Singoalla biscuits.

  ‘Not much to offer you, I’m afraid,’ she explained. ‘But I hardly suppose you’ve come here expecting a slap-up meal.’

  ‘Correct,’ he said. ‘So you don’t know Henrik all that well, then?’

  ‘No,’ she said, taking a biscuit. ‘I can’t really say I do. We don’t socialize very much at all in this flat; they do vary. We see each other at breakfast time, and over tea in the evening. That’s it.’

  ‘But you have chatted to him a bit?’

  She shrugged. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘What impression do you get of him?’

  ‘Fine, I’d say. Not cocky like some of the guys can be – no, he seems reliable, I’d say. Calm. What’s he got himself into?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. All we know is that he’s missing.’

  ‘How can . . . I mean, he’s just vanished?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sounds horrible.’

  ‘Yes. Though some people choose to disappear, of course. Or to stay away for some reason. That’s precisely what I’ve got to try to find out.’

  ‘About Henrik . . . ?’

  She stopped herself and looked at him in slight confusion. He met her eye and had no trouble interpreting her look.

  ‘I can see what you’re thinking. Yes, some do kill themselves as well. There’s nothing to indicate Henrik’s done that, but one never knows.’

  ‘I can’t imagine he would . . .’

  She left the sentence unfinished. Gunnar Barbarotti tried his coffee and burnt his top lip.

  ‘Is there anyone in the flat Henrik has a bit more to do with?’

  Another shake of the head. Her corkscrews danced. ‘No. He and Per went out to the same student club together at the start of term, but it was only the once. Per . . . Per’s a bloody pest. When he’s drunk, I should say, which he is from time to time.’

  ‘Has Henrik got a girlfriend?’

  ‘In Uppsala?’

  ‘Yes. Or anywhere else?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘That I don’t think he’s got a girlfriend, of course.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti thought quickly and decided to rely on his intuition.

  ‘I got the feeling it meant something else.’

  ‘I don’t follow. What do you mean?’

  But he could see she was flushing. She tried to hide it by biting into another biscuit, and suddenly seemed nervous. She had hinted at something, and now she wasn’t prepared to back herself up. What in hell’s name? thought Gunnar Barbarotti.

  ‘Linda, I’m pretty used to reading what people say and don’t say,’ he said slowly, trying to nail her with his look. ‘And what they say without really being aware of it. When you said, “I shouldn’t think so”, you were really saying something else as well, weren’t you?’

  A bit pompous, he thought, but she fell for it. She hesitated for a second or two, bit her lip and tugged at one of her corkscrews.

  ‘I only meant I wouldn’t be surprised if Henrik’s gay.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘But that’s only my own private guess, remember that. I’ve never asked any of the others and it doesn’t bother me a bit. Sometimes you just get that impression, that’s all . . . well, I expect you know?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Not one of those really camp gays, of course, and I could be totally wrong. It’s not something I’ve thought much about.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘Does he often have friends round – or fellow students – male or female?’

  She thought about it. ‘I think they came round for a study session a few times. Four or five of them, all law students, er, two boys and two girls, I’d say.’

  ‘Does he go out partying much?’

  ‘No. He goes to the student club now and then, I guess – the Norrland club, in his case. I think he sings in their choir as well. And Jonte’s cafe, of course, all the law students hang out there. But I’ve never seen him really drunk, he’s pretty moderate, actually.’

  ‘Which can’t be said for everybody?’

  ‘No, it can’t be said for everybody.’

  Barbarotti leant back. Homosexual? He hadn’t heard that from anyone else.

  ‘Jenny?’ he asked. ‘Have you met any friend of Henrik’s called Jenny?’

  ‘Nev
er.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘If I have, we’ve never been introduced. But one girl in three seems to be called Jenny these days.’

  ‘All right,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘That’ll probably do for the moment. You’ve got spare keys to each other’s rooms, you said? Could you possibly let me into his?’

  She seemed unsure. ‘Have you got permission for this?’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t you show me that in writing first?’

  He nodded and took out the search warrant. She glanced at it, got up and opened one of the drawers by the cooker. And suddenly, as she bent over momentarily, he saw a breast and a nipple. Her maroon top was cut low under the arms and within it her right breast was hard to ignore.

  ‘We had these keys cut voluntarily,’ she said. ‘Except Ersan; he doesn’t trust anyone, but then nor would I if I had his background.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti swallowed and accepted a key. He decided not to go into where Ersan came from. ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ he said instead. ‘I won’t disturb you any more. I’ll let you know when I’m through.’

  ‘That’s quite OK,’ said Linda Markovic. ‘There are thirteen days to go to the exams, I’ve got all the time in the world.’

  ‘I remember what it was like,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti, realizing he didn’t envy her in the slightest.

  But that breast refused to leave his retina of its own volition.

  He spent the afternoon and evening meeting a choir leader, a cousin of Leif Grundt’s and a study adviser in the law faculty. The choir leader was called Kenneth and was able to contribute his verdict on Henrik’s baritone. It was very fine, he maintained, although in the choir he was merely one amongst many, of course, but with the right sort of ambition, he could certainly develop into a soloist.