Clinch

by Martin Holmén

For the hundredth time I read the graffiti on the door: names, lines in clusters of five, swastikas and insults. Somehow, what I remember best is what was written in my last cell, two weeks earlier: What one knows, no one knows. What two know, the goons know.

  I have spent my every waking minute obsessing over Doris Steiner. Either she sold me out to protect herself, or Berglund is trying to lure me into a trap. I don’t know what to think. It’s best not to think anything at all; one gets a lot of silly ideas in one’s head while under lock and key.

  ‘All things in their time.’

  Out in the corridor, rushing steps are heading for my neighbour’s cell. The door opens. One can’t hear what the screw is saying, but the thumps that follow are recognisable. Also the yells. The door closes and the steps fade once again. Hopefully the bird of ill omen will keep his mouth shut for a while.

  Probably the goon doesn’t have a shred of evidence against me. At least there’s nothing to connect me to the two addresses on Regeringsgatan: no blood, no fingerprints, and no witnesses. I make a listless left-right combination in the air.

  I go and stand in the window as dusk falls rapidly and the screw resumes his wandering. I wonder whether Doris has realised I have a weak spot for blokes. Maybe she got the green-eyed monster when she found the gold lighter, and maybe that was why she shopped me?

  I go on with my pacing as it’s getting dark. Once it’s absolutely black outside, the screw’s endless patrolling outside my door comes to a stop, and the lock makes a snapping sound.

  ‘The prison doctor is here, as you’ve asked.’

  The door closes behind an elderly, white-robed bloke with a bulbous schnapps nose and a receding hairline. There’s something pasty about his appearance. His cheeks hang like bags on the side of his skull. When he straightens up and pulls in his stomach, a double chin appears.

  ‘So?’ He puts his big doctor’s briefcase of leather on the stone floor. ‘I understand it’s about your hand?’

  I sit down on the bunk and hold up my fist.

  ‘It needs to be dressed, preferably with a splint. I asked for medical help four days ago.’

  ‘It is Christmas, you know.’

  The doctor, standing in front of me, takes my hand. He mutters something one cannot hear, and gently squeezes the swelling around the knuckle.

  ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘I was kicked.’

  ‘Your entire knuckle’s been crushed. It’s moved two centimetres.’

  ‘That’s an old injury.’ I sniff.

  ‘And the finger is wrongly aligned. I can feel a diagonal fracture in the middle bone.’

  ‘Old.’

  ‘And then there’s an injury in the outer phalanx.’

  ‘That swine has pointed the wrong way for ten years.’

  ‘And lastly, here.’ The doctor squeezes that part of the hand where the blue discolouring is most obvious. The sharpness of the pain takes me unawares.

  ‘Ow, damn!’ My voice bounces between the stone walls. I snatch my hand back, while the doctor mutters something. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I should have been called in much earlier. Now we have to pull it right.’

  I sigh. ‘So pull the sod, then.’

  I hold out my hand again. The doctor puts his thumb against one side of the finger, cups his fingers around the other side of it, and tugs. The pain that shoots up my hand makes me clench my jaws and close my eyes. My hand starts trembling.

  ‘There we are. And now it has to be bandaged very hard. If you’re still here in three weeks I can take a look at it then.’

  ‘As far as I know I’m not going anywhere.’

  The doctor leaves me, my hand thumping with pain. My ring finger and the little finger are joined by means of a greyish bandage that winds through the gap at the base of my thumb and around the palm of the hand. I pace about for a moment, coughing and spitting and holding my hand above my head.

  In the corridor, the latrine man is slamming with his buckets. The snapping sound of opening locks gets closer and closer until finally a key is inserted into my door. I look up at a young stripling with a double row of brass buttons on his uniform jacket, which is too big for him. He has a big bunch of keys and a truncheon in his belt.

  ‘Kvist has to go up to Berglund.’

  I grunt and stand up slowly.

  ‘Hurry up!’

  I hold out my hands and the handcuffs click into place around my wrists. The stripling shifts out of the way and I walk down the partially lit corridor. There’s a stink of shit. I stop.

  Further down the corridor, the latrine man is carting off two galvanised buckets hanging on a pole carried across his shoulders. He’s a bearded, stooping bloke in his sixties, wearing a grey overall and staring down at the floor.

  ‘There’s always someone worse off.’

  ‘What did you say?’ The stripling appears at my side.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You muttered something. What did you say?’

  I stare at him for a second or so. ‘Did I? I don’t think so.’

  He sighs. ‘Sometimes I think Kvist has more pomade than brains up there.’

  My right fist tightens with pain when I instinctively try to clench it. ‘Are you calling me stupid?’

  ‘Straight on, the door on the right.’

  The stripling taps me on my shoulder, and I clatter off in my wooden clogs, my hands clutching my waistband. I feel the vein on my forehead thumping in time with my hand. Behind me, I hear a match being struck and the glow of a cigarette sizzling as the boy takes a drag. He’s doing it just to be bloody-minded. I clench my jaw and move on.

  When we come into Berglund’s room, I realise that it’s the same little interrogation chamber as the last time. I recognise a crack in the ceiling. The screw unlocks my handcuffs.

  Berglund sits at the table. In front of him is a notebook, a black fountain pen and a thick brown file of documents. He’s wearing a black three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a blue, hand-tied bow-tie with narrow black stripes. When he raises his hand and slides his glasses down to the tip of his nose, a cufflink with a coat of arms on it emerges from under his sleeve.

  ‘Kvist. Please do sit.’

  I do as I’m told. The chair legs scrape against the floor. Berglund pushes his glasses back up again and opens his file of documents. He caresses his ridiculous grey moustache.

  ‘We’ve conducted a personal investigation into your background in preparation for trial. I would ask you to confirm what I am reading out, and fill in any omissions.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Harry Kvist, residing at Roslagsgatan forty-three, born in Torshälla parish on thirty December, 1898. Is that correct?’

  ‘It’s correct.’ I hold my thumping right hand in my left. My stomach churns, the pain is making me feel nauseous.

  ‘Your mother’s name was Gerda Kvist. Your father is not known. Your mother died in childbirth.’

  ‘She got a fever. You want me to sign somewhere?’

  ‘One moment. After that your grandmother took care of you and your twin brother John. He died at the age of four. The cause of death was whooping cough.’

  ‘His blasted coughing kept me up through the night. We slept head to foot on the kitchen sofa.’

  ‘And then the parish placed Kvist in the care of the workhouse committee?’

  ‘When grandmother grew too frail.’

  ‘You were more or less five years old. Do you remember it?’

  ‘There was a workhouse auction to the lowest bid on the church hill. It was snowing that day and the bidding never really took off.’

  ‘You were sent to live with a farmer in the area.’

  ‘He made a partition in the pigsty in the barn with a couple of planks. I lived on one side and the boar on the other. Every morning I woke up when he scratched himself against the planks. Nice company.’

  ‘How were things for you there?’

  ‘What difference does it make? I
didn’t kill them, not Zetterberg and not the others either. You know I didn’t kill them. You just need someone to blame.’

  ‘Just answer the question, if you’d be so good.’

  ‘You have nothing that connects me to Regeringsgatan, and the only witness on Kungsgatan freed me, isn’t that so?’

  ‘The only witness that’s still alive, yes. Would you be kind enough to answer my questions? How long did you stay at the farm?’

  I sniff, and scratch my head. Berglund checks his watch and goes back to fingering his moustache.

  ‘A couple of years. I ran away.’

  ‘And where did you stay after that?’

  ‘With the other workhouse inmates, usually. In all I had two years in school.’

  ‘They were hardly days of plenty, were they?’

  ‘What do you think, Detective Inspector?’

  ‘I think blood puts its stamp on a human, but there are instances where circumstance comes into play.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Berglund leafs through the papers in his file of documents. Most are handwritten, yellow sheets of foolscap, full of smudged ink.

  ‘When did you go to sea?’

  ‘Early on.’

  ‘And when did you permanently sign off?’

  ‘After the war, with good references.’

  ‘Always something. And since then you have lived in Stockholm?’

  ‘I don’t get this, what’s the bloody good of it?’

  ‘While doing various labouring jobs, such as working as a stevedore, you made a career as a boxer, I understand.’

  I sigh. ‘Undefeated to date.’

  ‘In 1920 you marry Emma, born Jönsson, on the fourth of March.’

  ‘What concern is that of yours?’

  ‘And not quite nine months later, on the twenty-fourth of October, she gives birth to a daughter at Södra maternity hospital. She’s baptised Ida.’

  ‘A Monday. It was a Monday.’ My nausea gets more intense. I feel as if I’ve been running up a hill without water. I want to vomit. I lean back, stare at the crack in the ceiling and let my stomach settle.

  ‘So she got knocked up, did she?’

  ‘That wasn’t the reason.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She did, but that wasn’t why we got married. Not only that.’

  I scratch my scalp again. I hear the second hand of Berglund’s wristwatch ticking away. I meet his gaze.

  ‘A few years later, in August 1923, your wife and daughter emigrate to America. They embark from Gothenburg. You do not go with them?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The Swedish Championships were a few months later. Just a formality, they said. It would look better if I had that on the pro contract.’

  I look up again. Berglund’s pen scrapes the paper as he makes a few notes.

  ‘America?’

  ‘Where else?’

  Berglund makes a few more notes.

  ‘Are they alive?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘Where do they live?’

  ‘The last I heard from them they were living somewhere near Grand Forks in a place called North Dakota. But that’s almost ten years ago now.’

  ‘Do you want them to be informed about your current situation?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have any others, relatives or such like, whom we should contact?’

  ‘None.’ I sniff. Gradually, the nausea dissipates.

  Berglund nods thoughtfully and looks through his documents. ‘The following year you made your debut in our protocols. Paragraph eighteen, indecent behaviour, in 1924. You were fined seventy-five kronor.’

  ‘It was worth it.’

  Berglund doesn’t see the joke.

  ‘Then you were sentenced for grievous bodily harm and spent most of 1926 at Långholmen.’

  ‘Innocent as God’s little lamb.’

  ‘Really? And yet you signed the declaration of satisfaction. Then you were only out for a year before you had to go back in again. The same crime. You seem to like it at Långholmen, don’t you, Kvist?’

  ‘Like hell I do, it takes an age to get your hair back in order when you’re released.’

  ‘Further to that you’ve faced charges for assault on three occasions between 1924 and now without a conviction. I assume you’re involved in some sort of extortion activity…’

  ‘I’m mainly involved with private investigations.’

  ‘Things should be known by their proper names. It’s called extortion, mark my words.’

  ‘If you prefer.’

  Berglund puts down his pen and leans back in his chair. He puts his hands together over his stomach. I splutter and cough, and Berglund watches me calmly.

  ‘Let’s go back for a moment to your wife and daughter.’

  My body tenses up, as if in preparation for a punch. I lean across the table. ‘What for?’

  ‘Your daughter must be twelve or thirteen now. It’s a pity she has to grow up without a father.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘You have all the damned pieces in front of you. Now you only have to lay the puzzle.’ As I hiss out those words, I feel tiny droplets of saliva flying from my lips, and I stare at him with fury.

  The signal from Berglund’s bell under the table makes me jump. The stripling screw comes in at once. His handcuffs rattle, I hold out my hands, and there are two clicks around my wrists. I grab hold of the edge of the table to stand up. The pain is burning in my right hand.

  ‘Sit down!’

  I stop myself in the middle of the movement. Berglund nods at the screw. I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder, and I sink back down.

  ‘Could the duty constable stay a little longer?’

  ‘Yes, chief!’

  Berglund smiles and puts his hand in his inside pocket.

  ‘Honouring one’s word,’ says Berglund, as he gets out a pack of Carat and shakes out a cigarette. ‘It’s one of the characteristics of the Swedish spirit to honour one’s word.’

  I feel a curious sense of calm emanating throughout my body. Handcuffs or not, I can deck them both if I want to. A phosphorus stick makes a rasping sound and Berglund lights his cigarette. The matchstick ends up in the ashtray on the table.

  ‘So what is it that makes certain people break their promises and be faithless about their loyalties? A weakness, naturally, a defect. Deceit is in the very nature of some people. Why did this once so proud nation topple into the dirt? Well, because the Jew has a certain weakness. He belongs to a race that is greedy by nature, with a lack of loyalty, fealty, and patriotism. Who are the people getting rich now because of Ivar Kreuger’s death? Answer that question and you’ll find his assassins.’

  Berglund inhales and sends a thin streak of smoke up towards the ceiling. I allow myself a chuckle. I wedge my foot under the chair and put both hands on the table top.

  ‘If this country is going to rise again we have to cut out the defective elements from the body of society. So you see, Kvist, it really makes no difference to me if you’re innocent or not. It’ll be a true pleasure for me to lock you up in either case.’

  ‘Whether I killed them or not?’

  ‘You see, your perversion is your defect. It makes you unseemly and faithless.’

  There’s a crackling sound when the glow of Berglund’s cigarette consumes a little section of the paper. He blows smoke from a corner of his mouth, and his eyes meet mine with a smile. I smile back at him.

  ‘As in the case of your wife and daughter.’

  I take a deep breath before pushing the table into his chest with all my strength. My right hand screams out with pain. There’s a thump when Berglund is pinned between the wall and the table. His spectacles end up hanging lopsidedly, his eyes open wide. All t
he air is forced out of his lungs, and his cigarette rolls across the floor.

  I stand up with my thighs against the side of the table, and lean over him. The screw yells something at me. I force the little chain of my handcuffs under Berglund’s chin and tighten it until my hands meet behind his neck.

  The first baton blow hits me on my right upper arm. I hardly feel it. Berglund makes a hissing sound, saliva gleaming on his dry lower lip. I spit in his face. The gob hits a lens of his spectacles and trails across his cheek. He pulls and strains at my lower arms but I latch onto him. My head explodes in a burst of darkness and light as a baton blow comes in at my temple.

  Nothingness courses like a flash through my body.

  A couple of hours later I vomit in the bucket for the third time. They refuse to empty it, though it’s practically full. Afterwards I squat on one knee with my arm over my mouth. The thumping headache seems to be intent on blowing up my head from within, and nausea makes cold sweat break out like hoar frost over my body. For a short while I experience double vision. I’m sobbing.

  ‘Get up and walk, there’s nothing else to do.’

  The trainer’s words issue from my mouth. I grip the edge of the bunk. Its wood is cold and smooth in my hand. I stand up with a wobble.

  Running my hand across my chin, I realise that my beard stubble has almost had time to go soft. I spit on the floor and start pacing. It’s all about working through the body’s limitations. To get the bastard to do as it’s told.

  ‘Nothing else to be done. Hold on to the ropes if you have to.’

  My head spins and I totter off course. I reach out with my left hand and support myself against the wall. Outside in the corridor I can hear steps. There’s more than just one person out there. They stop in front of my door. I have my back to them. Someone rattles the keys.

  ‘He’s in here, sir.’

  I still have my hand against the wall. The door closes again, the lock rings out sharply. I hear an agitated voice: ‘Harry? How the heck are things with you?’

  Hessler. Of all the damned people. Slowly I turn round and change hands, so that I am now leaning against the other. Hessler hurries up to me. He puts his arm around my shoulders and tries to buoy me up. He smells of Aqua Vera and pilsner.

  The senior constable helps me across the cell and lets me sink down on the bunk. I hang my head and support it in both hands. Hessler is wearing black, highly polished boots with his uniform. He sways slightly, but quickly regains his balance.