The Man Who Wasn't There

by Michael Hjorth

  To begin with he had been very nice and helpful, particularly towards Rafi, but soon he started turning up at the shop with increasing frequency. He had an opinion about everything, acted as if he owned the place. It drove Said crazy. Rafi tried to mediate, so did Turyalai, but it didn’t do any good; Said continued to accuse Joseph of meddling in matters that were not his concern.

  Joseph insisted that the loan to Rafi meant he was now joint owner.

  Said insisted that the loan to Rafi had nothing to do with the shop.

  Joseph said the shop was his security; he was simply looking after his investment.

  The arguments continued. Eventually the cousins had intervened and asked Joseph to stop coming round. They promised to repay the loan, and Joseph agreed. He drew up an instalment plan, with interest that would become interest on the interest if the payments were late; he described in graphic detail what would happen if he didn’t get his money. Rafi and Turyalai started stealing from the till in order to be able to pay him, and after a while Said caught them.

  It had been terrible, Melika said. Said had accused her entire family. They had told him about Joseph, how afraid of him they were. Said was furious; he would show Joseph! Anyone who stole from the shop stole from Said, and no one stole from Said! No one!

  He and Hamid had gone to Vällingby. They never revealed how they did it, but they came back with the money. They had allowed Joseph to keep the amount he had originally lent, but they had taken back the rest. They boasted about how scared Joseph had been. Said was the hero; he was unstoppable. He and the cousins became friends once more. They apologised, and he accepted their apology. They all promised to stick together from now on – no more arguments. Everything was going to be fine.

  But it wasn’t fine.

  Melika had started to weep as she went on with her story.

  A month later, Said and Hamid vanished without a trace. Shibeka had been the first to worry when they didn’t come home. She had called everyone she could think of; Hamid wasn’t the kind of person to disappear. They had searched everywhere, spoken to all their friends. But Said and Hamid were gone.

  No one knew anything.

  Rafi got the idea that Joseph was involved. He plucked up his courage and tried to get hold of him, but Joseph was in Egypt.

  A few weeks later, Joseph had come into the shop. He had stood there and demanded his money back, now they could no longer hide behind Said.

  Rafi persuaded his brother to sell up. They repaid Joseph, gave Said’s share to Melika. They couldn’t prove anything, but they always suspected that Joseph was somehow involved in Said’s disappearance. Rafi was the one who felt most guilty. He had borrowed from Joseph, he had stolen money from the till. If he hadn’t done that, perhaps Said would still be here. It almost killed him. He didn’t want to see Melika any more, or his brother. He moved to Malmö, and soon after Turyalai followed him. Melika hadn’t seen either of them since.

  Mehran couldn’t understand why no one had said anything. How could they just leave it, without finding out the truth? Said was her husband. The father of her children. And Hamid was his father.

  It had been difficult to explain, but also very simple.

  They were all scared. They didn’t know anything for sure. They started off by keeping quiet, and it was easier just to carry on.

  That was how her life had been since Said went missing. First of all she had been frightened of Joseph. Frightened that Shibeka and the others would find out about the loan.

  She had been frightened all the time.

  At first Mehran had expected to hate her, but he couldn’t. He and Shibeka might have lived with uncertainty, but at least they hadn’t lived with fear. He actually felt sorry for Melika.

  However, Mehran had forced her to give him the address. He wasn’t afraid. He needed to understand, for Shibeka’s sake, but he hadn’t said anything to her; she would never have let him go. She would only worry, so he had pretended to go off to school as usual.

  He had reached Härjedalsgatan. It didn’t look much; red apartment blocks, not as tall as the ones in Rinkeby. He counted three storeys. Older, but in better condition. There was a large patch of grass in front of the L-shaped building. Number 44 was in the long part of the L. He looked around, glanced down at the scrap of paper Melika had given him. Number 44, that was right. An elderly couple was walking along the pavement a short distance away, otherwise the place was deserted. He set off.

  He just needed to know if Joseph was there, that was all. He wasn’t going to do anything else. He would tell him he was Hamid’s son, see how he reacted. If he was still there, of course. It was an old address.

  Slowly, Mehran approached the door. This wasn’t as easy as he had thought; the closer he got, the heavier his footsteps became. After a while he had to force himself to keep going. He could feel the sweat trickling down his back, even though it was a chilly day. However, he couldn’t come all this way without trying. He would be careful, he promised himself. But he would also act like a man. He was Hamid’s son. One day long ago his father had walked through this same door and met Joseph. Now it was his turn.

  No entry code was required for the main door, and he stepped into the dark entrance hall. Didn’t bother switching on the light. He looked at the list of residents; there was someone called M. Al Baasim, which was the only thing that even came close to the name Melika half-remembered. Silently he climbed the stairs to the first floor. Stood outside the door. He tried to picture his father; Hamid had stood here with his friend Said. He had rung the bell, forced the man inside to return the money Rafi had stolen from the shop. Mehran wondered what had happened; had Hamid been the strong one, or had he just gone along to support Said? Mehran decided that Hamid had been the hero.

  Just like him. He was walking in his father’s footsteps now.

  A stocky, unshaven man opened the door.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Mehran didn’t recognise the voice. He was unsure about a lot of things as far as Joseph was concerned, but he would recognise that rasping voice anywhere. He was absolutely sure of that; the man in front of him was not Joseph.

  ‘I’m looking for Joseph,’ he said, sounding as confident as he could.

  The man stared at him. Mehran wasn’t sure what that look meant.

  ‘Joseph? He doesn’t live here any more. He moved away a long time ago. Who wants to know?’

  ‘My name is Mehran, Mehran Khan. I’m Hamid’s son.’

  ‘I don’t know any Hamid.’

  ‘But Joseph did. Can you tell me where he is?’

  The man laughed, showing an array of yellow, uneven teeth.

  ‘No, but if you see him, tell him he owes me money. He hadn’t paid the water or electricity bills when I took over the apartment.’

  Mehran didn’t have time to answer before the door closed in his face. He stood there for a moment, then went back down the stairs. He didn’t really know what to do now.

  Inside the apartment the man with the yellow teeth was peering through the spyhole in the door, watching as the boy disappeared.

  From the living room came a voice speaking Arabic. It sounded more like a croak than anything else.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Problems, I think,’ the man replied.

  Vanja emerged from the lift on the ground floor, walked along the corridor to the left and went into the staff canteen through the open glass doors. On the right was the self-service section: four large gondolas with a selection of dishes for lunch. Meat, fish, vegetarian and salads. Two queues snaked past the tills and out into the main dining area, where drinks, bread and condiments were available from a long counter. There were some forty tables covered in white wax cloths, with a vase containing sprigs of lingon on each. The largest had room for sixteen people, the smallest for four. Lots of people, long queues, the constant hum of conversation, the clatter of cutlery on china.

  Vanja stopped dead when she saw who had just paid and was makin
g his way between the tables. Håkan Persson Riddarstolpe. She stared at him, wondered whether to catch him up, ask what had happened, what she had done wrong. She would have to find out some time; she wouldn’t be able to put this behind her if those questions remained unanswered. But was this the right time, the right place? Why not, she thought, setting off after him.

  Then she noticed Sebastian, sitting at a table by the window. Riddarstolpe was about to walk past him. Sebastian looked up at his former colleague. Vanja slowed down; she wanted to see whether Sebastian was going to speak to him. It would suit her very well if Sebastian had a go at Riddarstolpe in front of a packed canteen, told him he was an incompetent fool. Nearly there. If Sebastian was going to do something, it had to be now. And he did do something, but definitely not what Vanja had expected.

  Sebastian closed his eyes for a second and nodded.

  A nod.

  Vanja couldn’t believe what she had seen.

  A nod – and it wasn’t a greeting, it was more like an acknowledgement, a mutual agreement.

  Crazy.

  She was going crazy.

  Sebastian didn’t like Riddarstolpe. He hated him. Maybe he didn’t want to make a scene, but a nod? Had it been a polite, reserved nod? With a hint of disdain, perhaps? Had she misinterpreted it? No, she knew what she had seen. It was a satisfied nod, eyes closed, the kind of nod you give to thank someone who has done you a favour.

  But that was ridiculous.

  What could Riddarstolpe possibly have done for Sebastian? Nothing. In fact Sebastian ought to dislike him even more after recent events. Ignore him. Glare at him. Treat him with arrogant contempt.

  Anything but that nod.

  The idea came from nowhere. Took her breath away. It was impossible. There was absolutely no reason to suspect such a thing. She really had lost her mind.

  But recent events . . .

  Nothing good. Valdemar, Trolle, Ellinor, the FBI. One common denominator.

  Sebastian Bergman.

  But why? What possible reason could there be? Now? None at all. It was insane, but the thought had taken root. The explanation as to why Trolle had handed the material over to Sebastian hadn’t been completely convincing, and now that conspiratorial nod. Vanja backed out of the canteen. When she got in the lift, she pressed the button for the sixth floor.

  * * *

  She looked around; the whole floor seemed to be deserted, probably because it was lunchtime. She set off along the corridor. The first offices were empty. She heard the main door open, and turned around. A woman with short dark hair and brown eyes came in, carrying her lunch in a plastic bag.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said as she went into the little kitchen next to the door. Vanja joined her.

  ‘I’m not sure . . . My name is Vanja Lithner, and I’m with Riksmord. This might sound a bit weird, but I have a colleague called Sebastian—’

  ‘Bergman?’ the woman said, turning around with a smile.

  ‘That’s right – do you know him?’

  ‘I do.’

  The brief response and the accompanying smile told Vanja that she knew Sebastian in the biblical sense of the word. They had slept together, Vanja was sure of it. She couldn’t suppress a sigh.

  ‘He was here last Thursday,’ the woman said, placing her meal in one of the two microwaves on the worktop. Vanja stiffened. She had come here to confirm how insane it was to imagine that Sebastian was involved in everything that had happened to her, to push those thoughts aside once and for all.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes, he came to see Håkan,’ the woman said as she closed the door and set the timer for one minute forty-five seconds.

  Chaos. There was no other word to describe what was going on inside Vanja’s head. Her mobile rang. She looked at the display. Anna. She couldn’t cope with that right now. She rejected the call. The dark-haired woman was leaning against the worktop, looking at Vanja as if she was expecting their conversation to continue, but Vanja was in a world of her own. She didn’t even know where to start. For some unknown reason she kept coming back to Sebastian’s apartment. Dinner. The overnight stay. The evening when he gained her trust. Not because he wanted to sleep with her, he had said. So, why? Her phone rang: Anna again. This time she answered.

  ‘I’m busy,’ she snapped. ‘Is it important?’

  It was.

  Lennart had gone straight to Swedish Television and taken out one of the production department’s cars. He decided it was a good idea to use an official vehicle; it would serve as a business card for the man he was going to meet. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going; he wanted to follow this lead first. If it was any use, he would tell Linda and possibly Sture when he got back; if not, he didn’t need to say anything, and could avoid the humiliation of getting it wrong. What worried him most was that he still had too much alcohol in his bloodstream. It took something like twelve hours to leave the body, and he had had his last drink at half three, four in the morning. He was in the risk zone, but he would just have to drive with extra care. He had got away with it before.

  It took a little while to escape from the city; Valhallavägen was busy with lorries from the Freeport, but once he got out into Essingeleden the traffic was flowing well. Charles Cederkvist called and suggested they should meet north of Söderköping instead; he was out on business. That suited Lennart very well; it was a shorter journey. He reprogrammed the sat nav: just over two hours. He felt as if fate was smiling on him. He had a lead to follow up, the traffic on the E4 wasn’t too bad, and on the radio there was a fascinating programme about the repercussions of the Fukushima disaster. Lennart had always been interested in the issue of nuclear power, and he still proudly remembered one of his best reports, which was about inadequate safety procedures at the Forsmark nuclear power station. He had been nominated for an award; it had been a good story. Once upon a time he really had been capable of finding pure gold.

  The sat nav beeped and interrupted his train of thought. Apparently he was supposed to turn off. Was he already there? Lennart pulled over and stopped. He looked more closely at the sat nav; it seemed the address Charles had given him was much further off the motorway than he had first thought. It was very close to the water at Bråviken.

  He set off again, and took the next exit onto a minor road. He was in a good mood. This was the kind of road he loved, narrow and twisting; it required a certain amount of effort from the driver. That was probably one of the most boring aspects of living in Stockholm: there were no roads like this.

  He was concentrating so hard on his driving that he didn’t notice the black car that pulled out from a dirt track and settled in at a safe distance behind him.

  The urology unit, Karolinska Hospital.

  That was where they had taken her husband. The custody officer had called in the morning to tell her that Valdemar had been suffering such severe back pain that he had briefly lost consciousness when he tried to get up from his bunk. He had been taken to A & E, where the doctor had quickly referred him to urology. An hour ago Anna had arrived in A2. Valdemar was being examined, so she sat down to wait and called her daughter.

  Vanja was here now. They had hugged when she arrived; Anna’s first thought was that Vanja had a hunted look. Hunted and exhausted, as if she was keeping herself upright through sheer willpower.

  Vanja asked if she knew what had happened; Anna had no idea.

  They had sat down on one of the pale blue sofas in the relatives’ room. Anna wondered whether to ask Vanja how long she had been back, and why she hadn’t been in touch when she heard that Valdemar had been arrested, but decided against it. No good could come of it. The fact that Vanja and Valdemar had a special relationship was no secret; they were much closer than she and Anna had ever been, or ever would be. That was just the way things were. If she started asking questions, Vanja would say that the telephone worked both ways. Which was true. Anna hadn’t called Vanja either.

  ‘Did you know?’ Vanja said suddenly
.

  ‘No.’ Which was true, whatever Vanja was referring to.

  ‘How is that possible?’

  Anna turned to look at her daughter, who was staring straight ahead.

  ‘You mean did I know he was ill?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re over thirty years old. You knew what kind of life we lived. Did you know?’

  ‘No.’

  Vanja met her gaze. There was desolation in her eyes; could such a depth of unhappiness really have come only from what had happened to her father?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Vanja said, placing her hand on top of Anna’s. Somewhat surprised, Anna patted it reassuringly.

  A doctor came into the waiting room and they both got to their feet. He introduced himself as Omid Shahab, and suggested they should come along to his office for a chat. That wasn’t a good sign, Anna thought.

  ‘Do you mind going on your own? I’d rather wait here for Valdemar.’

  Vanja shook her head. Anna watched her daughter walk away with the doctor. It might seem odd, staying in the relatives’ room, but she just couldn’t cope with hearing bad news about her husband. She’d had enough. No more.

  * * *

  Vanja sat down in Omid’s office, and he rolled his chair close to hers. Not a good sign, she thought. A private room, close proximity and a grave, sympathetic expression. This was serious.

  ‘We’ve carried out an ultrasound scan,’ the doctor began.

  ‘And?’

  ‘We sent him straight up for a CT scan, just to make sure, but all the indications are that Valdemar has renal cancer.’

  Not this. Not again, Vanja thought. He’d been given the all clear not long ago. Hadn’t they suffered enough?

  ‘He had lung cancer a little while ago,’ she informed the doctor.

  ‘Yes, we’re aware of that. It seems likely that the cancer cells have metastasized and taken hold in the kidneys.’

  ‘OK, so what happens now?’