I go towards him. Once we’ve passed each other I quickly cross the street and come up behind him. He’s a head shorter than me. The sound of my finger joints cracking as I straighten them is so loud that he stops and turns around. I flick his cap off his head. He’s almost completely bald. The crown of his head is soft as baby soap. I toss the cap under a car as if I’m skimming a stone. The bloke gawks, opens his eyes wide and curls his upper lip. He has a weak mouth, a girl’s mouth. I take a drag on my cigar and blow the smoke into his eyes. He blinks.
‘Didn’t your mummy teach you about going bareheaded when it’s snowing?’ I hiss.
He looks stupefied. I have a hard time stopping myself from bursting out laughing. With my left hand I grab him by the chin and whack him into the wall. I puff a few times on my cigar and move the glowing tip so close to his eyes that his eyelashes start curling up.
‘Sonja?’
He yells and makes a proper racket. I’m glad there aren’t a lot of people about. I move my hand down. The yell turns to a croak.
‘Sonja?’
I puff gently at the glow and gently brush his ear with it. He wriggles about.
‘The next time I’ll take out your whole eye.’
The stench of his burnt eyelashes is more or less like the slaughterman singeing a pig. I give Petersén such a slap that the sparks fly all around us. His nose springs a leak. An old bat overhead opens a window and threatens to call the police if we don’t keep the noise down. The man, who’s almost wilting in my grip, pees himself. I feel I’m about to lose my temper. I blow on the cigar again. The glow lights up his face – it’s scarlet like the mug of the uniformed goon who patrols the third-class section at the Sture baths.
I release my grip.
‘Yes,’ says the porter, tears hanging discordantly in his voice. ‘I know her. I know Sonja.’
‘Sonja,’ I say for the third time. ‘Where is she?’
The little hotel room is stained yellow with tobacco tar. The furniture consists of a bed, a secretaire with a matching chair, and an armchair next to a little side table. A lighter square on the dark floorboards indicates that there was once a rug. The walls are hung with everyday pictures, city motifs. I sit in the armchair. In the ashtray the cigar smoulders like a discharged weapon. Petersén sits on the bed with one hand on his wet knee. The handkerchief he presses to his nose is red with blood. He’s pale as a deckhand during his first proper storm. The type that has to be lashed down a few times before he learns to cope.
‘That I don’t know.’ He blinks unceasingly. ‘Is she…? Does she owe you money?’
I sigh. ‘I just want to talk to her.’
‘Everyone wants to talk to her, but she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.’
‘When did you see her last?’
‘That must have been…’ The porter pauses briefly. ‘Three or four days ago. She came by in the evening. She needed money.’
‘What day was that?’
‘It must have been Monday. I’d been to the barber’s in the afternoon. She thought my hair looked nice.’
Petersén caresses his bald head. I leaf through my notebook. That was the day I visited Zetterberg. The gold lighter clicks, I fire some life into the cigar. The night porter straightens up.
‘That suits you better.’
‘She was in a right state. She needed money. For Doctor Jensen up in Katarina.’
I chuckle.
The porter looks down at the rug, mumbling, ‘She said it was mine.’
‘Obviously.’
‘She’s very careful about that. With the others. Guaranteed rubbers, you know? Royals? We’re a bit special, the two of us. More like a couple.’ He clears his throat and spits out a reddish lump into the handkerchief.
‘She’s a beautiful lass. Must pull in quite a penny.’
‘It was very urgent.’
‘What happened?’
‘I borrowed money from the till and went to the bank the next day.’
‘And?’
‘She was staying at the Pension Comforte but she’s not there any more. I’ve telephoned.’
‘Might she have gone back to the Dales?’
For a moment the porter looks bewildered. ‘No… she’s as much of a native here as myself. Her mother and father moved down from Rättvik twenty years ago. The dialect is just something she does. She’s very cautious by nature.’
I push back my hat with my forefinger. The stench of urine is slowly filling the little room.
‘Are they alive?’
‘I think so. Her father is a carpenter on Bondegatan.’
I pick up my indelible pencil, spit on it, and make a note.
‘Bondegatan is a long street.’
‘Sorry, that’s all I know, unfortunately.’ The bloke gives me a guarded look through one eye. ‘Were you… were you involved?’
‘Nothing like that.’
‘No, she said I was special.’
‘Bloody right you’re special. My daughter was potty-trained at two. You look like you’re forty but you still need diapers.’
‘I have problems with my nerves. I’m worried about how she’s feeling. Do you think she’s resting up somewhere? Or might something have gone wrong?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘With Jensen.’
It takes a while before I understand what he’s talking about. I nod listlessly, take a last pull on the cigar and mash it in the ashtray. The porter crumples slightly. I turn the pages of my notebook. Suddenly it dawns on me. My heart does a somersault and for a moment I think I’m ready for one of Lundin’s coffins. I fly to my feet. The man in front of me makes a panting sound and protects his head with his hands.
‘When exactly did she come by the last time? Think – it’s important!’
The porter exhales at length. Slowly he lowers his guard. ‘It was just after the other staff had gone home, because I was on my own here. They finish at nine.’
The time. What did Berglund say during the interrogation? So that was why she was keeping out of the way. Surely it had been about eight or nine?
‘She was in a state, you say?’
‘She had every reason to be.’
The porter sticks to his story, but I feel even more certain: Sonja saw something that made her need money immediately. I was probably not the only person she ran into that night. Either she has left the city, or she’s holed up somewhere. Everyone wants to talk to Sonja.
‘I’m an old-school, stubborn type,’ I say as I write down Lundin’s number in the notebook. ‘People aren’t made now like they used to be. Take Johnsson, who had the Oden-Bazaar on the corner of Roslagsgatan. You know about him? Old man Johnsson, I mean, not his dish-rag boys, they’re not worth much. In all I think I had to visit him three times about a debt, and I made a mess of him every time.’
The porter jumps when I tear out the page.
‘The third time he paid but he never really came back after that. We run into each other all the time. He limps and he’s got a stutter. The bloke is cock-eyed, put it like that.’ I give him the telephone number. ‘Call me if you see her. You don’t want to run into me again.’
The little man nods, then shakes his head.
I point my forefinger at him and repeat: ‘You don’t want to run into me again.’
‘Tell her I’m waiting here if you find her,’ he calls out after me as I go towards the door. ‘Tell her she can count on me!’
I shake my head. On the way out I take a couple of quick foxtrot steps. The gong has sounded. The match has started. No one is cheering.
The wet snow is not yet settling on Klara Norra Kyrkogata. The clotheslines are empty. I fold up my collar and shove my hands deep in my coat pockets. Outside the pawnshop stands the man with the top hat. A fool of a peasant with his trousers tucked into his high boots is scrutinising the ring he holds out. I walk the short distance to Kungsgatan at a brisk pace.
The tower window of Olivia Trysell, the widow, is lit up
, but the assistant landlord has locked the doors for the evening. At a loss, I stand with my bicycle in front of the house where Zetterberg died. For a few moments I stare at the spot where his signet ring hit the pavement when they almost dropped the corpse.
The air is saturated with the smell of lignite and burning birch wood. Probably all of Stockholm has got its wood-burners and ceramic stoves going at the same time. For several months, the sooty black emissions of industry will mix with the yellowish smoke of coal and the ash-grey fumes of wood smoke. Chimney heat will collide with the cold and Stockholm will be wrapped up in a permanent fog.
The snowfall intensifies in the yellow light of the Carlton. The flakes hurtle through the light like flocks of storm petrels. I hear that screeching weathervane again. It’s at least three kilometres to Bondegatan and with the rebuilding work going on at Slussen and the damned metro construction site, I probably can’t cycle the whole way. But there’s no alternative, and if I stay out in this cold for much longer I’ll be short of my toes as well as my little finger.
A mare harnessed to an empty cart trots by, the reins hanging limply across its back. When the horse tosses its head I notice it only has one eye. The driver, who’s wearing leggings, smokes with his free hand, and then makes his presence known with a slight tug on the reins. If this weather goes on, every bloke with a horse will put on the blade tonight so he can make a killing on snow clearance in the morning.
A tall, lanky sort limps into the Carlton, his bowler hat covered in snow. Behind him come two laughing ladies with Garbo haircuts, their arms locked together. An engine roars somewhere towards Målaregatan. I look up and scan the area. A white Cadillac passes Kungsgatan. I root about for a cigar.
A young man whistling ‘La Paloma’ passes with brisk steps. He’s an imposing lad with brown eyes and bony fingers. He carries a typewriter in one hand, while in the other he holds a whisk of chewing tobacco, swinging it like a stick. On impulse, my eyes wander over his crotch. For a second or two I remember Leonard. Fleetingly I touch my cheek.
From the other side of the street a bearded, scruffy bloke waves at me. He wears a stained Guernsey jumper under his jacket. There’s no sign of an overcoat. I look around and hold out my hands. He gets out of the way for a putt-putting Volvo and comes striding towards me. I take a deep breath.
As he comes closer I recognise the smell of ingrained sweat and poverty. A passing stray dog sniffs the air and turns around. I raise my arms again, quizzically. The man is bareheaded, and his eyes are too close together. The lapels of his jacket are worn to a shine.
‘Are you the gentleman looking for a whore?’ His voice is unnaturally gravelly.
‘Not just any whore.’
‘A certain Sonja?’ He smiles. The gaps between his teeth are black with snuff.
‘I might be.’
‘Yeah, the bowlegged one. The one from the Dales?’ The down-and-out with the gravelly voice points his knees out and makes an odd, swirling little jig.
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘I don’t, no.’ Now he starts thrashing his arms about as if he’s semaphoring as well. If it goes on like this I may give him a penny for the dance number.
‘So you don’t know where she is?’
‘I know where her brother is. Do you know your way around the Mire, sir?’
‘Like the inside of my pocket.’ The slum area lies a stone’s throw from home, exactly where Birger Jarlsgatan meets Karlavägen. I’ve tracked down one or two missing country molls there over the years. One of them bit me so hard on the hand that I still carry the scar. She only had three teeth in her upper jaw but she bit quite well in spite of it. When I was done with her she’d lost one more.
The tramp abruptly stops dancing, breathing heavily. ‘He lives there.’
‘Give me a name?’ I get out my wallet. If he wants more than one krona I’ll leave it.
‘The gentleman is mistaken.’ The folds of his hands are lined with dirt. ‘I don’t want any charity.’
‘You don’t?’
‘I have an honest job and I was paid today.’
Judging by the stench, he’s emptying latrines. I put away my wallet. Free information is difficult to evaluate: either it’s the most reliable of all, or there’s something shady in the offering. Maybe he just wants to lure me away from the lit-up street into some dark alley.
‘I’m cycling. You don’t have to come with me.’
‘I’d be quite happy to do that but unfortunately I don’t have time.’
I nod at him. ‘So,’ I say. ‘What did you say his name was?’
About a half-hour later I am almost back in Sibirien. I hop off the bicycle on the corner of Tulegatan and Rehnsgatan. To my left, Norra Real rests its head between the mighty paws of its gable buildings.
I park outside the bookshop, Nationen. A pair of enamelled cufflinks with black swastikas cost one krona and thirty öre. The cold feels like a flame against my skin. I walk around the grammar school, slapping myself to get my circulation going, and knocking snow off my shoulders as I do so.
‘Damned cold. Worse than the North Sea.’
The coffee has run right through me – I need to piss. The clock on the façade has gone eight. At the edge of the slum on the other side of the street the digging machines have already helped themselves to some land, and new houses have sprouted, but there’s still a host of people living and working among a welter of planks and corrugated iron. The shacks proliferate in any old way, as if tossed from a bucket of swill.
Where the mud that constitutes the main thoroughfare of the slum starts, the Salvation Army has two mobile kitchens. Two slum sisters in blue uniforms with gleaming buttons serve up soup to a colourful line of ragamuffins. A stooped woman wearing a shawl holds hands with a little girl, who hangs her head. A bloke in a floppy hat is staggering about and falling out of the line, only to barge his way back in with oaths and curses. The distinctive smell of fusel oil indicates that the Salvation folk are not the only ones to keep a pot on the boil.
I limp across Roslagsgatan, convinced that I am on my way into an ambush. First the man with the signet ring, and now this. It might be because I’m wearing my best suit and pocket watch, or it could be down to the afternoon trail of scattered five-kronor notes. I’m bait for all kinds of sharks in this swampy water.
‘Do they think Kvisten was born yesterday?’
But apart from Sonja’s parents, this is, after all, the only lead I have. I take off my tie and fold it up in my coat pocket. I look around. The line of sick, silent faces shines palely like a pearl necklace dropped in the gutter.
At the front of the line, a young woman raises the soup bowl to her mouth with bony fingers. She slurps. Shaking with cold or ague, she wipes her pointed chin with her sleeve. The underskirt that sticks out from her coat once had a blue border. Her eyes, shiny with fever or schnapps, are oddly vacant. She is bareheaded, her thin blonde hair hanging down dead straight, as if someone had emptied a saucepan of melted butter over her head. I tip my hat slightly and let a couple of coins jingle in my other hand. She looks around.
‘Sir will have to come with me, then.’ Her voice is husky, marked by sickness and misery. She nods at me to follow her to the unpainted wooden shacks.
We squelch into a corner between two grey fences, a short distance away from the Salvation Army soldiers. The liquefied mud almost goes over the edge of my shoes. She gives me a brown-toothed smile. Before I know it, she’s unbuttoned her coat. She wears a shapeless, beige jumper underneath. Her slip is held up by a safety pin. She lifts the fabric and moves my hand up her naked thighs. Her skin is chapped with malnutrition and cold.
It’s icy between her legs. She wears no knickers. I feel the edges of her pubic bone through her skin. Her pubic hair frazzles against my hand when she rubs hard, up and down. The smell of dried-in urine is released from the rough bush, mixed with the reeking alcohol fumes from her mouth.
‘Now give it a good squeeze, sir.�
�
I’ve been given my orders, and I obey. The fingers of my left hand dig about in her most sensitive parts and tighten. Her eyes change; she starts whimpering. I let the coins rattle in my trouser pocket and fish out one krona. She grabs my wrist with both hands, skewered between my thumb and forefinger. I pinch even harder. She whines and doubles over. I support her with my shoulder. I hold the one-krona coin in front of her eyes.
‘Lill-Johan?’
She closes her feverish eyes and nods quickly.
‘Where?’
‘Almost at the far end. By Götgatan.’
I know where it is. I let go of her and jump out of the way when she falls sobbing into the mud, her legs beneath her. I sigh. The mud has spattered all the way up to her hair. I bend down, take her by the elbow and pull her to her feet.
‘There.’ I press the coin into her hand. She curtsies, by way of thanks.
I limp along one of the plank walkways that form bridges across the mire. The planks are stained with old mortar. They’re so narrow that I have to balance on them not to fall off. If I meet someone coming from the other direction, it certainly won’t be me who gives way.
The snow falls more and more heavily. A light wind brings a fragrance from a tobacco-drying place further up the street. An open fire on a metal plate throws out long, tremulous shadows from the people surrounding it. A few of them are squatting, their palms held out towards the flames. They watch me in silence. I jump to the third plank. It sinks into the mud and I shiver when my low shoes fill up in the quagmire. One of the tramps works up the courage to laugh hoarsely.
By the time the Engelbrekt church on the hill announces that it’s gone a quarter past eight, I’ve managed to work my way half into the labyrinthine slum. My feet are numb with wet and cold.
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