The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

‘Boiled eggs shouldn’t be eaten hot. But maybe we can look into that later, too. At any rate, this Olle Rimborg was working the night Henrik Grundt went missing. The night between the twentieth and twenty-first of December.’

  ‘I know which night Henrik Grundt went missing.’

  ‘Good. Olle Rimborg was on the reception desk that night and he claims Jakob Willnius came back to the hotel at three o’clock.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll repeat that. Olle Rimborg, night porter at Kymlinge Hotel, claimed in a phone call to Gerald Borgsen earlier this morning that Jakob Willnius, who had set off for Stockholm just before midnight, came back to the hotel about three hours later . . . that same night.’

  ‘What the hell are you saying?’

  ‘Exactly. What the hell am I saying? Or rather: what is Olle Rimborg saying?’

  Gunnar Barbarotti sat in silence for five seconds.

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ he said.

  ‘I’m entirely aware of that,’ retorted Eva Backman. ‘But if it does mean something, then what does that something amount to? That’s the question I was asking.’

  ‘Thanks, I heard,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘And then – then the two of them went back to Stockholm early the next morning?’

  ‘The three of them. You’re forgetting little Kelvin, inspector. But you’re right, they left the hotel around quarter to eight.’

  Inspector Barbarotti contemplated his egg. I wish I had a couple fewer glasses of red wine in my bloodstream, he thought. Where is this leading?

  ‘Where is this leading?’ he asked. ‘How long have you had to think it over?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Just over fifteen minutes. But the analysis isn’t complete yet.’

  ‘Did he say anything else, this Olle Rimborg?’

  ‘Not much, evidently.’

  ‘But you didn’t speak to him yourself?’

  ‘No, only to Sorrysen.’

  ‘So why did he bother ringing us at all? Was Jakob Willnius behaving strangely that night?’

  Eva Backman gave this a moment’s thought before she replied.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t think so?’

  ‘No. But the very fact that he sets off at twelve, comes back at three and then leaves again before eight – the same night as his sister-in-law’s son vanishes – well, I reckon I’d have reported it, too. Though a little more promptly. Anyhow, the way I see it, this has come rather conveniently, what with you being in Stockholm and all. But maybe you’ve already had a word with Mr TV Producer Willnius?’

  ‘Only with his wife,’ conceded Gunnar Barbarotti.

  ‘Oh? Well then, perhaps you should have a word with him too? There could be something in what his ex-wife told you, after all.’

  ‘I’m going to pounce this afternoon,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘You can be sure of that. Have you got a phone number for this Rimborg?’

  She gave him the number and they ended the call.

  Strange, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, decapitating his lukewarm egg. I’d already decided to do that very thing. But I’m still wondering: what the hell does this mean?

  What?

  Leif Grundt was in a state of agitation.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know where he is?’ he shouted into the phone.

  ‘I expect he’s on the train,’ said Berit Spaak. ‘Take it easy. Or maybe he’s still asleep at his friend’s house. It still isn’t ten o’clock.’

  ‘Quarter past,’ said Leif Grundt. ‘Up here in Sundsvall, at any rate. Have you got this friend’s number?’

  ‘No, sorry. But it was someone he worked with at the shop. I think his name was Oskar.’

  ‘You think his name was Oskar! Are you out of your mind, Berit? You have to damn well make sure you know whose place he’s sleeping over at. I’ve been trying to get him on his mobile for over an hour now.’

  ‘It needs recharging, probably. Why are you making such a fuss, Leif? If he’s that precious to you, he’d better just stay in Sundsvall from now on. Kristoffer’s fifteen years old and he asked if he could spend his last night at a friend’s in the centre of Uppsala. That’s nothing to get worked up about, is it?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me about these plans of his.’

  ‘Didn’t he? Well if he didn’t, that’s your problem. Not mine.’

  ‘Thanks. But surely you understand why I get worried? I only want – I only want to know what time he’s arriving this afternoon, so I can pick him up from the station.’

  ‘He might already be on the train. As I said. And I’m sure you know how tricky it can be to make calls from trains? How’s Ebba, by the way?’

  Leif Grundt told her Ebba was more or less the same as before, and hung up. He rose from his desk chair, but then just stood there. Was that true? he thought. Was Ebba really the same as before?

  Good question. Another good question.

  Was there anything at all, in fact, that was the same as before?

  At any rate, it was Ebba’s doing that he had called Berit and asked about Kristoffer, and he knew, too, that his irritation was mainly directed at himself. He knew it very well, just as Berit had told him.

  Because strictly speaking – strictly speaking – things were not really as he had led his cousin to believe. In fact, they were just the opposite. He hadn’t been worried about Kristoffer, that was the problem. He hadn’t got the strength to worry any more. The sense of responsibility for continuing to find the strength was leaking out of him like water from a defrosting turkey. Just leaking away. Everything was crashing down, or that was how it felt; suddenly it seemed impossible to hold things together any longer, to make his thoughts run in their normal channels, to get things done – to carry on living in this unbearable, grating ordinariness – not with a son missing and a wife on her way into the darkness.

  But then, yesterday evening, this dark wife had called him and said she was worried about Kristoffer and wanted to speak to him. Leif had explained that the boy was currently on a week’s work experience down in Uppsala, and Ebba had asked him to get the boy back home straight away. He had argued with her about it for a long time and finally given her a semi-promise to . . . well, he didn’t quite know what. Ring Kristoffer and talk to him, at least. Check up on him a bit.

  And that was what he had tried to do for the rest of the previous evening. At regular intervals and without result. He had also rung cousin Berit repeatedly, both her landline and her mobile, but there had been no answer from her, either.

  In the latter case, it was because she and Ingegerd had been invited to an American supper round at a neighbour’s house, as he had discovered this morning. They hadn’t got home until after twelve.

  Her mobile? Why would she have needed her mobile for dinner at a neighbour’s? Ingegerd had been sitting beside her all evening.

  Leif had not slept well. He stood in the study a while longer, looking at his reflection in the mirror and seeing the telltale signs. I’m forty-two, he thought. That flabby, grey-faced bloke looks at least fifty-two.

  He shrugged his shoulders and rang Kristoffer’s mobile number again.

  No answer.

  Gunnar Barbarotti decided not to use the telephone.

  At least not if he could avoid it. He also decided not to contact his colleagues in the Stockholm police force. He was sure they had enough on their plates already, and the role of ham-fisted country cousin asking for assistance in a matter like this was not a very tempting one.

  But he rang Backman and told her what he intended to do.

  Go out to Old Enskede. Go to Musseronvägen, ring at the door of number five and ask for answers to one or two questions. That was all.

  He hoped he’d be home. It was a Saturday, after all.

  ‘Brilliant plan,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Are you sure she won’t have told him the two of you had that little talk?’

  ‘As sure as I can be,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘Can you
stay within reach of your phone in case I need some sound advice?’

  Backman promised she would. She wasn’t busy, it being a Saturday, as previously mentioned. There were at least three different unihockey matches on the day’s agenda, but she had decided to stay at home. The four men of the family were already champing at the bit in the hall.

  ‘Good,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I sense we’re getting close now.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Eva Backman.

  He took the underground to Old Enskede. Got off at Skogskyrkogården, made his way under Nynäsvägen and got to 5 Musseronvägen just before half past twelve. He stood outside on the pavement for a while, contemplating the lovely old wooden villa with the mansard roof, as he tried to control the nerves he could feel ticking away inside him. The weather had turned a little milder; the streets were full of slush but in the garden in front of him there was still a thick layer of snow covering the trees and ground. There was no sign of life in the house; there was no car on the drive. Perhaps they were out shopping? Buying food and wine and other requisites for the evening. At some foodie heaven like Östermalmshallen. He remembered finding himself prey to a sense of class consciousness last time he had been in the district. But also feeling that Kristina Hermansson did not really belong here, either.

  He went through the gate, up the three steps to the front door, and rang the bell.

  Waited thirty seconds or so and rang again.

  No reaction. I’m stupid, thought Gunnar Barbarotti. Of course they’re not at home. It’s common knowledge everyone’s out shopping at half past twelve on a Saturday.

  He went out into the street again. Plan B, he decided. A bite of lunch, then another try.

  And if Plan B didn’t work, either, he could always resort to Plan C. The telephone. It might prove unavoidable. He had their home number and he had Jakob Willnius’s work number. He also had his mobile number and his wife’s mobile number.

  But anyway, that was Plan C. There was a clear advantage to confronting Jakob Willnius face to face. That was the main idea. To ask those questions and observe the reaction, without giving him a chance to prepare himself first.

  It was imperative, really. The phone had its disadvantages, thought Inspector Barbarotti. You couldn’t see the person you were talking to. Not on ordinary phones as yet, at any rate, and of course one had to be grateful for that. Most of the calls going on were hopefully not of the kind he anticipated his conversation with Jakob Willnius would be. Anticipated and hoped. He nodded grimly to himself and set off back to the little square of shops at Nynäsvägen, where by all the usual conventions of town planning there ought also to be a local pub or restaurant.

  It was called the Red Lantern and he spent a bare hour there in the company of hash with boiled beetroot, washed down by a low-alcohol beer. Coffee and a gooey macaroon. Eva Backman rang once to ask how he was getting on, and he replied that it was only a matter of time.

  It was five to two when he rang the doorbell at 5 Musseronvägen for the second time, and by his third attempt it was already three thirty. Dusk was falling, bringing with it showers of fierce, diagonal rain.

  What the hell am I doing, thought Detective Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti as he headed despondently back to the tube station. And why haven’t I even got an umbrella?

  Forty-five minutes later he was back in his room at Hotel Terminus, implementing Plan C.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Are things that bad?’

  It was half past seven in the evening. Gunnar Barbarotti was slumped in the room’s sole armchair, staring glumly at his trousers. There were two unmistakable beetroot stains, one on each leg. The only result of his day’s work, you might well say.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Things are that bad.’

  ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘That’s because I am.’

  ‘Shit happens. They’ve probably gone off for a weekend’s sailing or something.’

  ‘In December? Are you mad?’

  ‘Only trying to console a colleague, but see what thanks I get for it. We’ll just have to deal with this character when he turns up. There’s no actual law to say you have to answer your phone . . . or be at home.’

  ‘Thank you, I’m aware of that,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I’m just saying it’s a cussed nuisance. People do generally answer their mobiles, you know. The ones I ring do, anyway.’

  ‘Did you leave a message?’

  ‘Of course not. I don’t want to give him the advantage.’

  ‘You sound pretty sure he’s involved in some way.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes, actually.’

  ‘Really? No, I’m not at all sure he’s involved, though I certainly am bloody keen to grab a chat with him. But seeing as it’s been a year already, maybe there isn’t any great hurry.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Calm down. Go out for a beer or ring Maria or something.’

  ‘Marianne.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Marianne. Her name’s Marianne.’

  ‘All right. Call her for a bit of lovey-dovey stuff, and put that shady producer out of your mind for now. He isn’t worth our attention. We’ll have to carry on working on this when you’re back on Monday.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti sighed. ‘You’re balm for the soul, let me tell you, Mrs Backman.’

  ‘That’s what my husband says, too,’ said Eva Backman. ‘In his better moments. Kiss kiss, have a nice time.’

  I can’t be bothered to go out, he thought once Eva Backman’s voice had gone. Not in this foul weather. He tried to see out of the window, but there was very little to make out. The rain was still falling, the wind driving it against his window in cascades so it looked like a storm in an aquarium. Presumably Central station was still out there somewhere. And City Hall. Not that he gave a damn. The dejection hung in him like lingering heartburn. What the hell did I expect, he thought. What did I think I was doing here?

  Bloody good thing he hadn’t asked the Stockholm police for assistance, anyway. At least that was something; they’d have laughed their arses off.

  He decided to heed his inner voices and the weather gods, and stay in his room. He browsed through the information folder on the diminutive desk and then rang down to order a Caesar salad and a dark beer from room service.

  He had watched the news and two thirds of an old American gangster film when his phone rang.

  Marianne, he thought hopefully, muting the sound on the television.

  But it wasn’t Marianne. It was Leif Grundt, ringing from up in Sundsvall.

  44

  She switched off the light and closed her eyes.

  Double darkness, she thought. Just what I need. What I deserve.

  And all at once, the unfamiliar room felt like an embrace. A cocoon of safety or a womb where she could rest, beyond reach of all danger. Hidden. Saved. Yes, it was really true; she listened, and the only sound to be heard was the faint hum of the ventilation system – and Kelvin’s breathing, fainter still.

  My poor, sleeping child, she thought. She gently ran her hands over her taut belly and rephrased herself. My poor, sleeping children.

  What is to become of you?

  What was to become of her was less important; here in this anonymous capsule of the hotel it was so clear that they were the ones who mattered. Kelvin and his unborn sibling. They were the ones she had to get to safety. The innocents.

  Safety, she asked herself. What do I mean, safety? What are these spurious solutions my mind is laying out for me? What are these figments of my imagination?

  And yet: the innocents? Well yes, that was how it felt to her. It was a justified thought, that they were the ones she had to protect. Why else should she go on living? Why care about struggling on for even another second?

  But where shall I find the strength, she thought. How in the world shall I find the strength?

  And once again she wished it were possible simply
to switch everything off. Stop it all. Perhaps that would be the best outcome, even for the innocents? The finality of nothingness. She lay there for a while, listening to the ventilation and to Kelvin. If the universe is going to collapse, it will do it now, she thought. Now.

  But nothing happened. She opened her eyes and turned her head. The little red numbers on the TV set were just changing from 23.59 to 00.00. Midnight, she thought. Can it ever possibly be more like midnight in any person’s life than this?

  Presumably not. Hopefully not.

  And yet . . . here she was. She had got herself all the way here. It was a fact that could not be ignored. They were here. Right now. When she thought back over the previous twenty-four hours it seemed almost inconceivable. Yet here she was, lying with her children in the illusory womb of the night, and she still had the game in her hands. Wasn’t that so?

  Why yes. There was still everything to play for. The luggage was by the door, ready to go; she hadn’t thought it worth unpacking. She had a change of underwear for herself and Kelvin in her shoulder bag. Tickets, passports and money.

  A sponge bag and Robert’s book. That was all she needed. And courage to carry on finding strength for a little longer. Extend this moment, she thought. Let us stay here for a long time, let these hours pass slowly; I need time to gather my strength, ready for tomorrow. Sleep and more sleep.

  Yet she felt that this was the one thing she was not going to be allowed. Her body was like a nervous, ticking bomb; she presumed it was utterly futile to believe she could sleep in this state.

  She sat up. Padded over to the desk and switched on the lamp. Kelvin didn’t react. Kelvin hardly ever reacted to anything and at that moment, she was glad of it.

  She dug Robert’s manuscript out of her bag. Robert, my brother, she thought, I wish – I wish we were children again and you were here beside me. It could have been so different. It should have been so different. Things weren’t meant to go like this for us.

  In life and all that. You lost yours because you once abandoned a girl in your youth, a moment’s thoughtlessness. She came back many years later and killed you, if things really happened the way the police described it.