The Dying Detective

by Leif G. W. Persson

  4

  Monday evening, 5 July, to Wednesday afternoon, 7 July

  It was the driver of the police minibus who discovered Johansson. When he got out of the vehicle to stretch his legs he saw Johansson’s head leaning motionless on the steering wheel, and when he opened the driver’s door to see what had happened the unconscious Johansson would have fallen out and hit his head on the road if his colleague hadn’t caught him with his arm.

  Things moved fast after that. They were told over the radio that the ambulance would be another five minutes, which in practice usually meant double that, but because the commanding officer of the rapid-response team had no intention of letting one of the force’s very own legends die as a result of that, still less in his own arms, they lifted Johansson into the van, laid him on the floor, switched on the engine, siren and blue lights and set off at top speed for Karolinska Hospital. It wasn’t, perhaps, an altogether orthodox means of transportation, but they were dealing with a colleague who was in dire straits, in which case all the rules and regulations in the world could get stuffed.

  It was barely a kilometre as the crow flies to the A&E department of the Karolinska, and they stuck as close to that path as they could, and pulled up two minutes later in front of the main entrance. Considering the life he had led, and which was now threatening to leave him, Johansson made both a grand and a fitting entrance. Lying unconscious on a trolley, surrounded by rapid-response-unit officers and medical personnel, straight into the intensive-care unit, past all the bog-standard patients sitting or lying there waiting, with their chest pains, broken arms, sprained knees, ear aches, allergies and common colds.

  From then on everything went according to routine and, four hours later, once the immediate danger had been fended off and the diagnosis was more or less settled, he had been transferred to the neurosurgery ward.

  ‘I spoke to the doctor who was on duty on Monday evening,’ his female doctor said. ‘He’d talked to one of your colleagues, who brought you in. You caused quite a stir, by all accounts.’ She nodded. Smiled slightly, but without tilting her head.

  ‘A stir?’

  ‘Evidently someone recognized you and got it into their head that you’d been shot in the stomach.’

  ‘Shot? In the stomach?’

  ‘You had sauerkraut and mustard on your shirt. Loads of it. And there were all those police officers, of course. Someone thought your guts were falling out.’ She looked even happier now.

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Johansson said. Where do people get it all from? he thought.

  ‘Apparently, you collapsed at that hotdog kiosk up on Karlbergsvägen. Before you had a chance to stuff yourself with all the unhealthy food you’d bought. Sauerkraut, fried white bread, a fat, greasy sausage and God knows what else.’

  What’s she going on about? Johansson thought. Must be Günter’s. He had stopped at Günter’s, the best hotdog kiosk in Sweden. He had talked to some younger colleagues. His memory was coming back. He could remember that much.

  ‘I had a workmate who died while he was standing in the queue for that kiosk. He had a heart attack. He more or less lived on that sort of food, despite the fact that he was a doctor.’ Head tilted, serious now.

  ‘Sauerkraut,’ Johansson said. ‘What’s wrong with sauerkraut?’ Sauerkraut must be pretty fucking healthy, he thought.

  ‘I was thinking more of the sausage.’

  ‘Listen,’ Johansson said, feeling inexplicably furious now that his head had started to ache really badly. ‘If it hadn’t been for that sausage you’re going on about, I’d be dead now.’

  She contented herself with a nod and adjusted the angle of her head. Didn’t say anything.

  ‘If I hadn’t stopped to get a hotdog, I’d have been sitting in my car on the way out to the country, and then things would have gone seriously wrong.’ At worst, for far more people than just me, he thought.

  ‘We can talk about this later,’ she replied, then leaned forward and patted him on the arm, the arm which wasn’t asleep but had simply stopped working.

  ‘Have you got a mirror?’ Johansson asked.

  She must have heard the question before. She nodded, put her hand in her coat pocket and pulled out a small mirror and put it in his outstretched left hand.

  You look fucking awful, Lars Martin, Johansson thought. His whole face seemed to have slumped, his mouth was tilted off balance and he had a number of small bruises under his eyes, like dots, bluish-black, no bigger than pinheads.

  ‘Strangulation marks,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Petechiae,’ his doctor agreed with a nod. ‘You stopped breathing for a minute or so, but then one of your colleagues got you going again; it seems he was an ambulance driver before he joined the police. A trained paramedic. I have to say that I agree with you,’ she went on. ‘All things considered, in spite of everything, it was lucky that it happened where it did.’

  ‘I look fucking awful,’ Johansson said. But I’m alive, he thought. Unlike everyone else he had seen with similar marks under their eyes.

  ‘I daresay your wife must be here by now,’ she replied. ‘I thought I’d leave you alone to talk in peace. I’ll come back and see how you’re doing before bedtime.’

  ‘Do you know what?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You look like a squirrel,’ Johansson said. Why am I saying that? he thought.

  ‘A squirrel?’

  ‘We can talk about it later,’ Johansson said.

  5

  Wednesday afternoon, 7 July

  Pia, his wife, walked straight up to his bed. She was smiling at him, but the smile didn’t match the expression in her eyes, and when she went to sit down on the chair beside the bed she managed to knock it over. She pushed it out of the way with her foot, leaned over and wrapped her arms round him. She held him tight, pressing his head to her chest, rocking him like he was a small child.

  ‘Lars, Lars,’ she whispered. ‘What have you got yourself into this time?’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ Johansson said. ‘Some crap happened up in my head, that’s all.’

  At that moment something tightened in his throat and he started to cry. Even though he never cried. Not since he was a little boy. Except for his mother’s funeral a few years ago, and his father’s a couple of years before that, but then, of course, everyone had been crying. Even Johansson’s eldest brother had rubbed his eyes and hid his face behind his hand. But, otherwise, Johansson never cried. Not until now, and without really understanding why. You’re alive, aren’t you? he thought. What the fuck are you blubbing for?

  Then he took some deep breaths. He stroked his wife’s back with his good hand. Wrapped his arm round her and hugged her chest.

  ‘Can you get me a handkerchief?’ Johansson asked. What the hell is going on? he thought.

  After that he was himself again. He blew his nose loudly several times, fended off his wife’s attempts to dry his tears and wiped his face with the back of his hand instead. He attempted a smile with his crooked, drooping mouth. The ache in his head was suddenly gone.

  ‘Pia, lovely Pia, little Pia,’ Johansson said. ‘It’s okay now. I feel like a pig in shit, on top of the world. I’ll soon be walking about with a skip in my step.’

  Then she smiled at him again. With both her mouth and her eyes this time, leaning forward on the chair she was now sitting on.

  ‘Do you know what?’ Johansson said. ‘If I budge up a bit, you could hop up and lie here next to me.’

  Pia shook her head. She squeezed his healthy hand, stroking the one that wasn’t asleep but just felt like it was.

  Then she left him and, because his need to be alone was stronger than ever, he had made her promise to go home to their flat in town and talk to everyone who would be worrying unnecessarily. And then get a good night’s sleep and not come back until the following afternoon.

  ‘Once all the white coats have finished messing about with me,’ Johansson explained. ‘Then we’ll
be able to talk in peace and quiet.’

  ‘I promise,’ Pia said. Then she leaned over and took hold of his neck, even though it was usually him who took hold of hers, and kissed him. Then she nodded and walked out.

  You’re alive, Lars Martin Johansson thought, and even though his headache had come back again he felt happy, suddenly, without knowing why, and in spite of the pain.

  After that he fell asleep. The ache in his head had eased, and someone touched his arm, a woman who couldn’t have been a day over thirty. She nodded towards the tray of food she had left beside his bed. A woman who was smiling at him with dark eyes and a generous mouth.

  ‘I can help you, if you like,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Johansson said. ‘I’ll manage. Just give me a spoon.’

  Half an hour later she came back. During that time Johansson had tasted the boiled fish (two spoonfuls), the white sauce (half a spoonful), the creamed rhubarb (three spoonfuls) and drunk a whole glass of water.

  While she was standing there again he pretended to be asleep, evidently successfully, seeing as he was already thinking about Günter’s, the best hotdog kiosk in Sweden, smelling the heavenly aromas that always greeted him several metres before he reached the counter.

  Then another young woman dressed in white emptied his bedpan, and he promised himself that next time he would make his way to the toilet. Like any normal person, even if he had to balance on his good arm to get there.

  After that his very own squirrel paid him a visit.

  ‘A direct question,’ Johansson said. ‘How old are you?’ Mostly to divert any more nagging about his dietary habits and generally useless state.

  ‘I’m forty-four,’ she replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Ulrika Stenholm,’ Johansson said. ‘I swear to you, not a soul would believe you were a day over forty. We can take up that squirrel business another day.’

  And with that he fell asleep again.

  An anxious sleep, to start with, and his head had begun to ache again, but then Hypnos must have stuck his oar in – he had a vague memory of someone moving about by his bed and fiddling with one of the many tubes that led from the drip-stand above his head – because the ache in his head had disappeared and he started to dream.

  Enjoyable dreams. Dreams that healed more than just an ordinary headache. Dreams about all the squirrels he had shot when he was a young lad living at home with Mother Elna and Father Evert, home on the farm in northern Ångermanland. How it had all started with Great-uncle Gustaf sitting on their kitchen sofa complaining about his rheumatism and saying that the only thing that would help was an old-fashioned waistcoat made of squirrel skin, with the fur facing inwards.

  ‘I can get you one if you like, Uncle,’ Lars Martin Johansson had said, sitting on a stool by the woodpile, just a third the size of all the others in the room.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Lars,’ his great-uncle had replied. ‘You can borrow my rimfire rifle, then you won’t have to mess about with that air rifle your father gave you last Christmas.’

  ‘Why not?’ his dad, Evert, had said. ‘The lad’s got an unChristian talent for shooting, so that would be fine. Give him your rifle and he’ll get you a waistcoat.’

  That was how the business of the squirrels had started, because of his great-uncle’s offer and his father’s consent, in reality as well as in the dream, and it would be only sixty years before he met Ulrika Stenholm, qualified doctor and neurosurgeon, and she reawakened his childhood memories. Forty-four years old, even though she didn’t look a day over forty.

  6

  The night between Wednesday, 7 July, and Thursday, 8 July

  Johansson dreams of all the squirrels he has shot. About the waistcoat made of the skins of squirrels which he, in little more than a year, shot for his great-uncle Gustaf. Admittedly, he had to cheat slightly in using both summer and winter pelts, but his mother, Elna, who had to act as furrier, said that didn’t matter. As long as you put the winter pelts at the back where the pain was, there wouldn’t be a problem.

  During that first year he had shot just over fifty squirrels, because, like all the other men in the family, his great-uncle was generously proportioned across both back and chest. The shooting had taken less than a minute in total.

  Tiny, jet-black eyes, heads that jerked and twisted as they darted between the pines and scampered up and down the trunks. Sometimes they would stop halfway, no matter whether they had their heads facing up or down, and would turn their necks to look at everything and everyone, and even at him. Curious, alert, wary eyes, tiny and black as peppercorns, and even though he already had them in his sights and was just about to fire, they always used to sit quite still, with their heads tilted. Then he would squeeze the trigger. He would barely hear the whip-like shot of the rifle, and it was goodbye to another squirrel.

  On numerous occasions his prey would snag on a branch on the way down. When he was still a little boy he would poke them down with another branch cut from a birch or aspen tree. When he got older and had arms that were almost as thick as those of his eldest brother, Evert, he would climb the trunks and grab them. No problem, even when the pines were frozen and slippery in winter, covered with patches of snow and ice: he would manage with a length of rope tied round his waist and a hunting knife clutched in his right fist to help him get a better grip.

  Then, one day, he stopped shooting them. Their little heads darting about the whole time, the black eyes that could even be staring right at him when he fired. They never seemed to grasp the fact that they were staring at death. They were just as curious about that as everything else. Only a few minutes in total to squeeze the trigger and shoot hundreds of them. Hundreds of hours in between those shots in which he just sat and watched them.

  Much later in life, in a different life, he met Ulrika Stenholm. A neurologist at Karolinska Hospital, with short, fair hair, a wrinkle-free neck and no trace of either a brown pelt or a bushy tail. Not remotely like a squirrel, if it weren’t for the way she turned and angled her head when she looked at him.

  That, more or less, was when he woke up. He tried to lift his arm from the bed, without succeeding. It was still asleep, but he was wide awake. He was also thirsty, but when he reached for the glass of water he tipped it over, and when he made to call for the night nurse, he dropped the little gadget with the button on he needed to press.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ he yelled. Straight out, just like that, and then the night nurse came in and gave him a glass of water, patted his right arm even though it was already asleep, adjusted one of the drips, and then he drifted off to sleep again. Without dreams, this time.

  7

  Thursday, 8 July, to Tuesday, 13 July

  On Thursday he went to the toilet. Admittedly, with the help of a male nursing assistant and a stick with a rubber stopper at the end. But he had shaken his head at the offer of a wheelchair or a walker, and he peed all on his own. In spite of the drip-stand, his dangling right arm, his unsteady right leg and the ache in his head. He was filled by a strong sense of happiness, so strong that he couldn’t help sniffling. But no tears welled up.

  ‘Stop whining,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You’re getting better, for God’s sake.’

  Anything else would have been rather odd, because these days he was a challenge for the latest developments in medical science. Over the next few days Johansson’s bed was pushed around all manner of different departments, Johansson was lifted off and on, given new needles, wires, tubes and pipes, surrendered more blood samples, was X-rayed once more, strapped to a bare trolley and rolled back and forth in a large tube that made a whirring noise. He was examined from every angle. Torches were shone in his eyes, people squeezed him, bent, poked and twisted his arms and legs, hit his knees with a little metal hammer and then ran the hammer across the soles of his feet, and pricked him with tiny needles. In every imaginable place, and pretty much without interruption.

  Then he encountered the
physiotherapist who showed him the most basic, introductory exercises. She assured him that ‘soon the pair of us’ – careful to stress ‘the pair of us’ – would see to it that he regained both feeling, mobility and strength in his right arm. As far as his face was concerned, it was already regaining its former appearance. More or less of its own accord, as if by magic. The physiotherapist also gave him some brochures to read and a little red rubber ball for him to squeeze in his right hand. And if he didn’t have any questions just then, it wasn’t the end of the world, because they would be seeing each other again the following day.

  Ulrika Stenholm had gone off on holiday. Just for a few days, so there was no reason for him to worry about that either. While she was away her colleagues looked after him. A younger male junior doctor, originally from Pakistan, and a middle-aged blonde with fake breasts who had come to Sweden from Poland twenty years before and had spent pretty much her whole life working as a brain surgeon. Neither of them bore the slightest resemblance to a squirrel.

  His wife, Pia, visited him every day. If it had been up to her, she would have moved into his room, but Johansson had vetoed that. Once a day was fine, and if anything were to happen which necessitated other arrangements, she would find out about it in plenty of time. He was also careful to avoid questions about his health. Johansson felt better with each passing day. Soon he would be back to his usual self, and that was all there was to it.

  Anyway, how was she? He made her promise to look after herself. And would she mind bringing him his mobile phone, his laptop, and the book he had been reading when it happened? He had forgotten the title, but it was on his bedside table out at the cottage. Pia did as he asked. The book, of which he had read half, to judge by the bookmark, remained untouched. He discovered that he didn’t have a clue what it was about, and he couldn’t summon up the energy to start again. Not now; maybe later, when he was back on form again.