Clinch

by Martin Holmén

‘Did Zetterberg wear glasses?’

  ‘We haven’t any confirmation about that as yet.’

  The kitchen wall around the gas cooker has been scorched by the fire. The flames have consumed a good part of the cork mat and also licked at the wall on the other side, apparently without really taking hold.

  ‘Here the murderer makes a mistake,’ says Berglund and holds up an empty, unmarked, glass bottle. ‘Do you know what this is?’

  ‘Paraffin oil?’

  ‘That is probably exactly what the murderer thought when he started the fire to get rid of the evidence.’ Berglund smiles and peruses me over his spectacles. ‘In actual fact it is carbolineum, not a very flammable liquid. It burns, but not very well.’

  I shrug again. Outside the kitchen window the rain is belting down. Increasingly it’s looking like a proper autumn storm.

  I hope I’ll be allowed to see the other rooms in the apartment, but the two goons turn back into the hall and head for the door. On the way, Berglund stops and turns to me.

  ‘We found a twenty-five öre coin here on the telephone. Possibly the murderer’s excuse could have been that he wanted to use it to make a call.’

  He scrutinises me again. Lord knows what he’s after.

  ‘But the bloodstains are much closer to the front door,’ I object. ‘It doesn’t look as if they got this far.’

  ‘Maybe Zetterberg stayed here during the phone call, and was then beaten to death?’

  I look around the hall for a moment before I stride up to the door. The frame of the door has a deep gash in it at the top. I point at it.

  ‘The inspector is mistaken,’ I say. ‘The murderer had hardly come into the hall before he raised his axe.’ I look around the vestibule, and slide my hand across the overcoats. ‘Did you find any clothes hangers in the hall?’

  Without waiting for an answer I open the door and go into the corridor. Berglund quickly tails me. I crack my finger joints.

  ‘Yes, it’s being checked for fingerprints at the Central Agency but we haven’t had an answer yet. How did you know?’

  ‘I’d swear on a huge pile of Bibles that there was a camel-hair overcoat hanging there when I came to visit,’ I tell him as we’re walking down the stairs.

  Outside in the illuminated circle under the streetlight, Olsson is waiting in the pouring rain with the extinguished pipe in his mouth and my hat in his hand. I’ll have to have it re-pressed.

  I turn up my collar. The street is empty but for a bloke swaying back and forth as he stands there thoughtfully counting in his wallet. You know the weather’s bad when Kungsgatan is deserted on the maids’ Saturday off.

  ‘Now for some gymnastics,’ Olsson half yells to make himself heard over the wind. ‘Put on your hat and run down to Vasagatan, then turn left and stop by the constable.’

  ‘Hold up, now,’ I say. ‘What’s the idea?’

  The wind knocks down a couple of potted plants that someone has put out on the window ledge, and the pots slam into the street ten metres from us. The weathervane is spinning so fast that its screeching has turned to a constant wail.

  ‘We need to reconstruct the getaway with you in the central role.’

  ‘The conditions are hardly the same,’ I call out and point at the streetlight outside Zetterberg’s house. ‘It was dark that evening, it was like looking up a chimney sweep’s arse.’

  ‘Something you must have done scores of times,’ says Olsson.

  He looks at the streetlight before he lifts his stick and crushes both the lampshade and the bulb with a well-directed blow. Fine shards of glass rain over us. Berglund gives Olsson a look and brushes himself off.

  ‘Are you as careless as that with Dahlman’s stick?’ I venture.

  ‘Dahlman’s stick? Like hell,’ the large-hewn inspector calls out, before adding: ‘I only use it on Sundays.’ We stand in silence for a few moments.

  ‘I need to smoke,’ I holler through the bad weather and look around.

  A few floors up in the house opposite, a bloke stands in a window looking up at the dark sky, but before long he turns back into his flat. Cold rainwater finds its way inside my collar and runs down my neck. The lice bites sting.

  ‘Your position,’ Berglund snorts with irritation, ‘is hardly one in which you can start making demands. Surely it’s in your own interest to clear your name?’

  ‘I also want to wash myself down and shave.’

  ‘We can take care of it,’ Olsson interjects. ‘That’s not too much to ask, is it, Alvar?’

  Berglund removes his steamed-up spectacles, squints, and then puts the spectacles back on again.

  ‘As long as you run, so we can leave this place,’ he cries, getting out a pack of Carat from his inside coat pocket and handing it over.

  I shake out a cigarette. Olsson offers me a light. I shudder as I smoke slowly, the cigarette held between my thumb and forefinger so that the glowing ember is shielded from the rain while I’m looking around. The drunk is still rifling through his wallet in the middle of the street. An open invitation to be robbed if I ever saw one.

  The shards of glass from the streetlight crunch under my feet. They make me run four times before they’re satisfied. When I limp back panting after the last pass, I can finally see what I’ve been trying to understand since we came out of the front door: in the house opposite Zetterberg’s, a curtain moves in a dimly lit window.

  ‘So that’s where you are, you bastard.’

  ‘What the hell are you on about, Kvist?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Someone has seen the murderer leaving the crime scene. There’s a witness.

  When I was pushed back against the ropes for the first time, my old trainer yelled at me that closing your eyes didn’t make it hurt less. I was a newcomer in the ring, but already sparring with heavier and tougher lads, and sometimes I tried to dig myself in by putting up my guard.

  I only wake when the key is inserted into the lock. It’s a cold morning in the cell. I’ve draped my jacket over the blanket but I’m so cold that I’m shivering. The same screw as yesterday brings me similarly smooth porridge. I don’t look up but I take the bowl. I shiver so violently that it’s difficult to eat.

  I think about the trainer’s words while I’m eating. He was right. In actual fact, it hurts even more when you close your eyes. That’s when the memories ambush you, run riot while you lie sleeping. Some things cannot be gotten rid of; they stay with you as stubbornly as ash in the pores of a stoker.

  I swallow down the last spoonful of cold porridge. I am already missing Långholmen, missing the company and the work. There’s not such a difference between life at sea and life in prison: both places harbour a gang of blokes in similar clothes who do as they’re told. From time to time you find someone whose warmth you can bask in, and no one raises an eyebrow about it. As long as I managed to keep out of the metal cages of the isolation cells in the cellars, life was much better on the island than here.

  ‘Better tuck, lovely lads.’

  I stretch and yawn. The key is re-inserted into the lock. The goon, roaring at me to follow him, doesn’t require me to put on handcuffs.

  ‘By no means have you been ruled out of the investigation,’ Olsson informs me without looking up as I enter the little interrogation chamber. He has three thick piles of paper in front of him. At the top of one is a photograph. It’s impossible to see what it features. Olsson looks up and follows the direction of my gaze.

  ‘Sometimes I’m still surprised when I see how much blood there is inside a bloke.’

  I remember the first time I was made aware of it myself. It was in the port of Cherbourg, just a few months before I was paid off for the last time. There was a strike and we couldn’t unload the cargo. I was hanging about on the ship’s railing. A fresh, salt-spattered breeze was making the flags flutter. Much further down on the quay, a couple of stevedores had got hold of a scab. They were working him over hard with their loading hooks. They stood in a ring around h
im, someone rolled a cigarette, and the scab bled dry. A couple of sturdy blokes hooked him in the back and dragged him off towards a crane. Behind him ran a wide rivulet of blood. Soon he was swinging by his feet under the crane.

  I flinch when Olsson clears his throat. He slides a card across the table.

  ‘Speaking of blood, we have to take some of yours, but then you’re free to go. Currently we’re working on the hypothesis that you were the last person, apart from the murderer, to meet Zetterberg. Call me if something occurs to you about your meeting.’

  I take the card and pocket it. ‘So the witness freed me?’

  ‘If you mean the street girl, we never found her, not a Vanja and not a Sonja either.’

  ‘You know who I mean.’

  ‘Don’t call me unless it’s for a good reason. I don’t like you.’

  I walk through the monotonous corridors of the police station to the Anti-Smuggling Section at the other end. This temporary specialised task force is expected to track down home-distilled wares from the northern parts of the country and smuggled spirit from the east. At the same time, the section manages now and then to close down the odd drinking dive, preferably the sort of place frequented by nonces, communists and artists. With all its points of entry, harbours and long quays, Stockholm is in fact quite impossible to keep under control. The Anti-Smuggling Section always makes its raids when the big syndicates are getting some competition from a lesser newcomer. Anyone with any insight into the business knows this.

  In the heart of the section is a table several metres long. On either side of it are five chairs. Three desk goons, all with their ties undone, sit there pushing papers.

  My old friend Johan Hessler isn’t at all happy to see me. The constable in charge of the Anti-Smuggling Section is the sort of bloke that most women would describe as handsome. His thick, dark hair is carefully tended, with a centre parting. He has one of those small, ridiculous moustaches like Ronald Colman. Certain members of the police corps must find his facial hair too daring, but every button of his blue uniform is well polished, as are his shoes. I think his main task is to pose with what they’ve seized for the newspapers.

  When I come in, Hessler stops what he’s doing and stands up abruptly. Without greeting me, he grabs me by the arm and bundles me into an adjoining cubbyhole. The room is filled with bookshelves and dusty boxes. It smells like a dry sauna at a gentlemen’s Turkish bath. The door closes heavily behind us.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Hessler’s voice is an octave higher than usual. ‘I heard they put you up for Kungsgatan? And look at the state of you!’

  ‘I was in the house. Visiting an old friend.’

  ‘When did they release you?’

  ‘Just now. A witness wouldn’t cooperate.’

  ‘You seem to get out of trouble that way at regular intervals.’

  ‘It happens.’

  Hessler lowers his voice. ‘So there’s a witness?’

  ‘There are more. Among others a tart, Sonja, but they can’t find her.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be so hard.’

  ‘Precisely.’ I stroke my beard stubble. ‘Make a note of it! I have to know if they find her.’

  ‘But that’s on the first floor.’

  ‘Don’t you have a notebook?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on up there.’

  ‘A goon without a notebook. Listen carefully: her name was Sonja, you got it? In case they find her. A bit of public insight into the investigation wouldn’t do any harm.’

  Hessler looks around the minimal space and shifts his weight from one leg to another. ‘I do have a notebook.’

  ‘Well, then! Sleuth around a bit and call me at Lundin’s in a couple of days.’

  Hessler goes on walking on the spot as if he needs a pee. Most likely he doesn’t. I take a step towards the door, but he clutches my elbow.

  ‘Harry,’ he whispers. ‘It’s been so long since I could stay the night with you.’

  I prise his fingers off. It’s not so difficult. ‘Sleuth around. Call me when you’ve come up with something.’

  I leave the door open when I walk out. ‘By no means have you been ruled out of the investigation.’ I laugh to myself. I’ll show the bastards. I’m not only going to clear my name, I’ll make it clear to them who’s the best snooper. I’ve tracked down whores many times before.

  I’ll present Sonja to them before evening has fallen. The easiest way of catching a moth is in daylight, when it lies sleeping.

  The water in the big saucepan on the wood-burning stove is slowly coming to the boil. I close my right eye. A half-extinguished cigar is wedged in the corner of my mouth. I slap banknotes onto the table. Count them a second time. The money is still here, as well as the Husqvarna pistol – etched with the navy’s K.Fl. stamp – in its hiding place in the wardrobe. The long arm of the law has kept its inept paws away for a change. The poor man sleeps more soundly.

  The AGA radio is switched on, at high volume. In a lifeless voice, the radio announcer reads out the names of all those who have contributed to the Christmas collection for the city’s poor. I drag the saucepan off the stove and slosh most of its contents into the big bathing tub. It is already half filled with cold water. My clothes are left in a lousy little pile on the kitchen floor as I step in, a brush in one hand. St Stefan’s church bells strike once, and before the reverberations have completely ebbed away, St Johannes answers in its deep timbre, like the last punch in a perfect left-right combination.

  I soap myself, work over the tattoo of the full-rigger on my chest and continue scrubbing under the water. My skin smarts wherever the brush works its way. The lice bites burn. I massage my scalp with liquid soap and rinse my hair with the help of the saucepan. I forget that I have a Meteor in my mouth. I put down the saucepan and spit the cigar onto the draining board.

  Cooking fumes with several different and competing smells find their way into the flat. I fancy I can distinguish mashed turnips and fried herring, pork sausage and meatballs. I smack my lips. There’s a firm knock on the door. It opens with a click, then closes.

  Lundin comes into the kitchen. Not only does he come and go as he pleases, he also lets in potential clients if I’m not at home. Doesn’t want me to lose out on the dough, he says.

  I stand up, the water dripping off me, and snatch up a towel by the draining board. Lundin takes a few big strides and sits at the kitchen table. He removes his top hat, puts it on the chair beside him, brushes off the crown of his head and folds his hands in his lap. I take the cold, hard lice comb and bend over the draining board. My scalp is smarting from the soaping it got earlier. One by one, the lice drop audibly onto the metal.

  ‘Your eye looks like a tram headlight.’

  ‘I feel as if I ran into one.’

  ‘You always said they started calling you Kvisten – twig – because you were tall and lanky.’

  ‘For a boxer, yes. That’s ten years and ten kilos ago.’

  ‘I had breakfast ready this morning.’

  ‘I was in the clink.’

  The water spills over the edge when I pull the tub towards the table. I take the paddle strop, the cut-throat razor with the mother-of-pearl hilt, and the mirror, and sit opposite Lundin. A few brown grains of lip-snuff stand out against his white collar. The seat of the wooden chair feels rough under my buttocks, but the badger hairs are soft against my cheeks.

  I put the mirror in front of me. Droplets of water in my chest hair make the full-rigger sparkle. My eye is red; the swelling beneath has a colour scheme of yellows and purples.

  ‘Also yesterday.’

  Lundin runs his finger over his moustache. The wad of banknotes on the table flexes under his hand when he gently presses it. I put the strop against my knee and sharpen the blade. The whispering changes tone as I roll the knife onto its back at the end of every movement.

  ‘I was inside.’

  ‘Stockholm – Motala,’ crackles the radio voice.


  ‘Eggs on both occasions. And sausage the day before yesterday.’

  Lundin puts on his hat again. Carefully I test the edge of the knife against my thumb. It’ll do for shaving. Also for castrating piglets, in case the need arises. The blade rasps against cheeks, upper lip and throat. At the end of every pass I flick the stubble and shaving soap into the bathing tub, which I have placed at my feet.

  ‘I hope you ate mine as well.’

  I remove the razor from my throat so I can cough. The radio voice is giving ski-wax tips for the winter holiday in the mountains.

  ‘I’ll have to make a note of it.’ Lundin stands up.

  ‘Obviously.’

  I bend over the bathing tub and rinse my face. I snort and blow my nose into my fingers.

  ‘It’ll have to be noted down. What else is there to do?’

  ‘Please do note it down.’

  I dig out a good scoop of Fandango from the jar and pull my fingers through my hair. The pomade smells of sandalwood.

  Lundin nods at me as he disappears out the door. He lowers his head as he crosses the threshold, to avoid knocking his hat against the top of the door frame.

  I go into the wardrobe and get out my best suit. It’s a black, three-piece number. Herzog himself, the tailor on Biblioteksgatan, sewed it for me a couple of years ago. I keep it for funerals and other cheery occasions. So far I have only used it once. I put on a white shirt and make a knot in a gleaming tie of deep red silk. I put the Viking timepiece with the gold chain in my waistcoat. I fold up yesterday’s copy of Social-Demokraten and put it in my overcoat pocket.

  I go into the kitchen, count out ten five-kronor bills and put them in my wallet. I wrap the cell clothes in newspaper and tuck the package under my arm. Whistling Ernst Rolf’s ‘I’m Out Whenever My Old Girl’s In’, I leave the flat. On my keyring is the key to my left-hand-drive Buick, which broke down this summer.

  At this time of year, the heat and steam from the Roslag laundry on the other side of the street collide with the colder air and wrap our part of the block in a fine mist. The three-point mark of vagrants, scratched with a needle into the brass plate on the door, announces that there are no coins to be had here, but certainly the odd sandwich for someone in need. A little bell on the door tinkles. I’m enveloped by the harsh stench of ammonia.