He looked up at Carlos.
“Why?” he went on.
Carlos licked his lips.
“I don’t know. I was wearing it but Hector didn’t talk to me.”
Lars was sitting on one of kitchen chairs watching all this.
“He’s going to fall, and you’re going down with him,” said Erik. “I’m giving you a chance here, Carlos. A chance to get out of this mess a free man. But for that to happen, you need to help us. Understand?”
Erik’s tone was patronizing, as if he were talking to a child. Lars looked at the bruises on Carlos’s face. “Have you been beaten up?” he asked.
Carlos looked at Lars with a questioning expression.
“Shut up, Lars,” Erik said.
Erik held up the microphone again.
“Wear it all the time. We’ll be back in two days, and by then it needs to be full of info.… There you go.”
Carlos looked at the microphone that Erik was holding out, then down at the floor, as if he were searching for options.
“Take it,” Erik said.
Carlos shook his head. Erik’s patience ran out.
“Take it, man!” Erik’s voice cracked halfway through.
Lars stood up. “Are we done?”
Erik turned toward him.
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”
Lars smiled insolently at Erik.
“Shut up yourself. You can’t do anything properly. Do you think this is a good strategy?”
Erik looked at Lars in surprise. His blood pressure went up, his face got redder.
“You fucking little cocksucker,” he said in a low voice, and was about to go on when he suddenly stumbled. He muttered something inaudible. His voice sounded thick and muffled. Lars and Carlos looked at him in surprise. Erik tried to say something, he was squinting as if the light had suddenly gotten too bright. Erik rubbed a hand over his head, blinked, stumbled, and grabbed the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
“I can’t see properly,” he said.
“What?”
Erik’s left arm began to tremble, and he looked at it in astonishment.
“What the fuck?” he whispered quietly to himself.
His gaze moved from his own shaking arm to Lars, then to Carlos. He made a guttural, incomprehensible sound, then projectile vomited. One of his legs gave way. He fell to the left, taking the chair with him, and hit the floor hard. He ended up lying in his own vomit, screwing his eyes up.
Carlos stared. Lars stared and leaned over cautiously.
“How are you feeling, Erik?”
No answer.
“We have to call an ambulance,” Carlos said.
Lars held a hand up at him.
“Erik?” he whispered.
Erik was gasping for breath as he lay there on the floor. Carlos grabbed the phone off the kitchen wall, and was about to dial the emergency number. Lars drew his pistol and aimed the gun lazily toward him.
“There now, put it back.”
Carlos stared into the barrel of the gun, hung the receiver up again, and took a step back.
“He can’t die on my floor!” Carlos said.
“Of course he can.”
Lars crouched down with the pistol hanging from one hand between his legs, staring at Erik in fascination. Waved his other hand in front of his eyes.
“Erik?”
Erik moved his eyes slightly, looked at Lars. Lars could see something pleading in them. The muscles in his thighs started to ache and he stood up and turned to Carlos.
“The police officers who were here before?”
Carlos looked at Lars, unsure what he was getting at.
“There were other police officers here before, they gave you the microphone. Tell me!”
“Two men came ’round the other evening, one big one and one … ordinary one. They asked questions.… They threatened me.”
“Why?”
Carlos looked at the pistol hanging from Lars’s hand.
“I don’t know. Put the pistol away.”
Lars looked at the pistol without putting it away. “But I’m not even aiming it at you.”
Carlos put his left hand over his eyes.
“What did they ask?” said Lars.
“About Hector …”
“What did they ask about Hector?”
Carlos put his hand down, looked at Lars.
“If I’d met him at the restaurant that evening.”
“What evening?”
Carlos gestured to his battered face.
“And did you?”
Carlos shook his head.
“How did they threaten you?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know that?”
“They hit me.”
“What else?”
Carlos looked confused. Lars clarified.
“Did they mention anyone else?”
“Like who?”
“A woman?”
“What woman?”
“Sophie?”
Carlos thought, nodded.
“Yes, they asked if I saw her that evening.”
“And did you?”
Carlos shook his head.
“What did you tell them?”
He looked at Lars as if he was stupid.
“That I didn’t see her!”
“So what happened at the restaurant?”
Carlos looked away. “I don’t know.”
He said the words as if he was tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.
“I want you to let me know if they contact you again.”
“Why?”
Lars pointed idly at him with the pistol.
“Because I say so.”
Carlos thought.
“What do I get out of it?”
Lars looked closely at Carlos’s injuries.
“Nothing. You escape getting beaten up again, I guess.”
Carlos shook his head.
“So what do you want, then, Carlos?”
“Protection, if I get in trouble.”
“OK, agreed, but part of the deal is that no one finds out that any time has passed between the old man hitting the floor and us calling for an ambulance.”
Lars gestured with his pistol for Carlos to leave the kitchen.
He pulled up a chair, sat down, and looked at Erik Strandberg’s rigid body. The old bastard was slowly suffocating. Lars looked into his eyes to reassure himself that he, Lars Vinge, would be the last thing Erik Strandberg ever saw in this life. Erik died after a long and painful struggle, Lars didn’t miss a second of the drama. The corpse looked odd, the face was drooping weirdly. Erik was lying dead in his own vomit. Lars felt a certain satisfaction at that.
Albert lay there, pressed to the ground, it smelled of soil and grass.
He had received a text from Sophie. Stay where you are. Keep hidden.
He heard steps out on the road, saw the second man, the one named Anders. Where Hasse was, he had no idea.
Albert made up his mind to run again, knew he had the advantage then.
There was a rustling sound a few yards away from him. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears. The man, whichever one of them it was, was standing close by. Albert had no choice. He got up quickly and started to run. He hadn’t gotten more than ten yards when he ran straight into an outstretched arm, was hit in the throat, and pulled to the ground. Strong hands held him down, a heavy knee on his chest pressed the air out of him. Albert could see Hasse’s contorted face as the fat man snarled curses at him, saliva running from his mouth. With a hard stranglehold around Albert’s neck Hasse started punching him in the face. Hard blows to his eye, nose, mouth. He stopped hitting but kept his stranglehold and squeezed. The air soon stopped. Albert could feel that the oxygen in his head was running out, that the life was running out of him. His mind was screaming for more.… His eyes could no longer keep themselves open.
Just when it felt like he was about to lose consciousness,
Hasse let go. Albert rolled onto his side, retched, and tried to get his breath back.
Hasse dragged him up from the ground, holding his arm tight.
“I’ve got him,” he shouted.
At that moment Albert managed to break free. He set off again. His legs were driving him forward even though he couldn’t feel them. He had the taste of blood in his mouth, and every joint in his body ached. He got out onto the road and heard the car accelerate behind him. He managed to get into a garden. His steps were slow and heavy, his balance poor. The whole time Albert could see Hasse from the corner of his eye, running parallel to him. When he realized that Hasse was managing to keep up with him Albert leaped over the fence to run out onto the road in the hope of meeting someone, maybe stop a car … get help.
He emerged onto the road, tried to increase his speed. The Volvo came from the left, at high speed, didn’t even try to brake. The blow was hard. The car struck him on the kneecaps and Albert was thrown into the air, where he performed a half somersault over the roof of the car and fell, after his long, silent flight, onto the blacktop, his back hitting first, then the back of his head, with such force that the back of his skull shattered. Everything went black.
Sophie had called, sounding upset, incoherent. It had taken a while before he realized what she was saying. He threw himself into the car.
Her son was lying in some bushes in a garden with two cops circling around him. She had said that they mustn’t get hold of him, she’d repeated that to him several times. Jens had tried to calm her.
He wasn’t far away when the ambulance overtook him at high speed. He followed it. The ambulance stopped a block or so farther on, beside the bloody body of a boy lying alone in the middle of the road.
Sophie bit off part of the nail on her little finger. None of her nails looked the way they usually did. They were short now, uneven.
She was standing in an empty patient’s room at work. She’d been walking aimlessly around the room ever since she got Albert’s text. Now she was just waiting.
An image flickered past inside her, Albert in the garden, playing with Rainer. The image vanished as quickly as it had arrived. She didn’t understand why she had suddenly come to think about the dog. Rainer had been a golden Labrador, and Albert had loved him dearly. They had bought the dog when Albert was two, possibly as a substitute for a brother or sister. Albert had chased the dog around the lawn from the age of six, summer and winter alike. By the age of nine he had learned to read the dog’s movements, its way of thinking. He caught it every time. She had stood in the window watching. Albert concentrating, Rainer boisterous.
Albert was twelve when Rainer died. He cried until there were no more tears to cry.
The cell phone rang, rousing her from her thoughts.
“Yes?”
She heard what Jens said, heard his clear, factual tone of voice. Her legs gave way under the weight of her despair and horror. She managed to grab the windowsill, and clung to it as if it were the only lifeline in her fall into the darkest of all dark holes. Then everything went black. The next thing she could remember was running down a corridor. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, ran down service corridors, through the entrance lobby, and into Accident & Emergency.
She got there just as the ambulance was pulling into the bay. She ran over, shoving aside the nurse who had just opened the back door of the ambulance.
She saw Albert lying on the stretcher, his face smeared with blood. His head was locked in place, with a broad strip over his forehead and his neck in a plastic collar. His torn clothes from the last day of school were covered in blood. She was about to clamber up into the ambulance when a nurse caught hold of her and pulled her away.
The exhaust fumes in the garage were stronger now that it was warm outside. She had the window open.
Gunilla was waiting in her Peugeot in the garage at Hötorget. She watched Anders’s Honda in the rearview mirror as it drove up and stopped behind her. Anders opened the passenger door and sat down heavily in the seat beside her.
“Everything went to hell,” he said in a low voice.
“Is he going to be all right?”
Anders rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. The car hit him hard, he landed on his back.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Gunilla was sitting quite still.
“The car?” she asked.
“We’ve washed it, fixed it so it hit another car. It’s parked and secure.”
Gunilla leaned her face into her hand. The silence was making Anders impatient.
“I took the boy’s cell. He’d sent Sophie a text. She knows it was us.”
Gunilla said nothing.
“What do we do?” he asked.
She sighed. “I don’t know.… Right now, I don’t know.”
He looked at her, had never seen her like this.
“You know what we have to do,” he said.
She looked up at him, then put her face in her hands again.
“Gunilla?”
She didn’t respond.
“You know what we have to do?”
“Let the boy be,” she said.
Anders was halfway out of the car.
“Why?”
“Because I say so.”
He thought for a moment.
“OK, for the time being. But if he wakes up, he’ll have to be gotten rid of, you must see that?”
Gunilla was staring ahead of her.
Anders jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind him. She heard the little squeals of the tires on the polished concrete floor as the car left the garage. The sound died away and everything was silent. She tried to think, to find a path, a direction.… Her cell interrupted her thoughts when it started ringing in the pocket between the seats. Gunilla answered. It was Lars, who told her that Erik had just died. She understood what he said, but asked anyway.
“Which Erik?”
21
Sophie was sitting at Albert’s bedside, holding his hand. He was even more tightly restrained than he had been in the ambulance: straps, neck brace, clamps, and a surreal metal crown on his head that held him perfectly still. Both legs were in a cast from the thighs down to the ankles.
The doctor came in, her name was Elisabeth, Sophie knew her slightly. Elisabeth stuck to the facts.
“We believe that Albert’s damaged his twelfth thoracic vertebra. It’s been driven into the marrow but we don’t know what sort of state it’s in.”
Albert looked like he was sleeping.
“His skull was fractured. Because we dare not move him at the moment, we don’t actually know very much. Just that there’s pressure on his brain. We want to reduce that pressure. As soon as it’s possible we’re going to move him to Karolinska.”
Throughout all her years as a nurse she had tried to calm patients’ relatives by saying that injuries often looked worse than they were. And that had been true, that was often the case. But now the opposite was true, Albert’s injuries were worse than they looked. Much worse.
Dear God, please, help us now.…
Jane came into the room, took a frightened look at Albert, and hugged Sophie.
Jens had called several times on the secure cell phone. In the end she had answered. He sounded stressed.
“You need to get away from there now.…”
“I can’t leave him.”
“Of course you can. I spoke to the ambulance staff, Albert didn’t have his cell on him. The police may have taken it, they’ll have seen your messages.… They know that you know. And when they find you, they’ll hurt you.”
“No, I’m not leaving him.…”
“I’ve called for help. Two friends will take turns sitting with Albert. They’ll guard him, protect him.”
Sophie had a hundred questions.
“Leave now, Sophie!” He almost spelled it out.
Jane w
as standing behind her when Sophie ended the call.
“What’s going on, Sophie?”
She didn’t answer.
“It isn’t just Albert’s accident, is it?”
Sophie considered telling her. She’d always told Jane everything. And Jane had done the same with her. Truth, honesty. The glue that bound them together. She looked into her sister’s eyes, fighting against the impulse to tell her.
“Not now, Jane. I have to get away from here, don’t ask me why. Don’t leave Albert for a moment. Two men will be coming. Let them stay.”
Then she turned and walked away, unable even to say good-bye to Albert. She just left. Jane stared after her.
Sophie was packing a bag in the bedroom. She was rushing, trying to think what she’d need—the cell with the direct line to Jens was the most important thing, then her other cell, the charger. She tipped everything into her handbag, hurried into the bathroom, and started to fill a toiletry bag. There was a noise downstairs in the living room. She stiffened, kept very quiet, and listened. Nothing. She carried on, putting in toothpaste, toothbrush, creams … anything that was within easy reach. Another noise—a click, a door closing. She stopped breathing and just listened. Nothing. Was it just her imagination? No …
She crept over to the bathroom window and peeped out. There was a Honda parked out on the road by her gate. She left the window and crept out of the bathroom. Now she could hear the parquet floor downstairs creaking. An icy chill swept through her and she stood utterly still.
“Check upstairs.”
A low male voice, then steps approaching the stairs. She just stood where she was, trapped on the upper floor. What should she do, hide? Fight? With what? There were at least two men against her.
Footsteps on the stairs. She tried to think of a weapon, couldn’t think of anything. The steps were getting closer. Then a thought struck her—the fire escape ladder outside Albert’s window. Sophie left the bathroom and made her way toward Albert’s room as the steps got closer. She made it at the very last moment and shut the door silently behind her. Sophie hung her handbag diagonally across her chest, opened the window, climbed up on the rickety desk, and was just about to climb out when the door flew open behind her. A strong hand grabbed her collar. She was dragged backward and down onto the floor, landing hard on her back. Hasse Berglund was kneeling on her chest, a hand around her neck. His cheeks hung as he leaned over her. He looked like a dog. She met his staring, watery eyes, could see he was enjoying this.
The Andalucian Friend: A Novel Page 33