Two Soldiers

by Anders Roslund

  “Some things do get better with the years.”

  He lifted the bottle up, still without answering.

  Sometimes it was good to have a glass in the evening. Like now, for instance.

  Lars Ågestam was holding something else in the other hand, a corkscrew and two cognac glasses.

  “You should really have coffee with it. But you normally drink enough of the stuff, so we’ll skip it today. Any presents?”

  He filled the glasses to just over half.

  “Must be thirty years since the last one.”

  Raised glasses, the first mouthful.

  “But you’ve already got what you wanted.”

  “Armagnac? That’s lovely.”

  “A murder.”

  Another mouthful, a full flavor, good vintages often were.

  He smiled a bit.

  “Yes, a murder.”

  They didn’t say anything else for a few minutes while they stood relatively close and drank a few centimeters at a time until they were both holding an empty glass.

  “And you’d prefer to sit here by yourself for the rest of the evening?”

  The detective superintendent nodded and Ågestam took with him an empty glass and an empty wooden box when he left the room. He’d gone as far as the photocopier and kitchen when Ewert Grens caught up with him and held out his hand.

  “Um . . . thank you.”

  The strange feeling persisted.

  Grens went back to the beautiful bottle and felt happy. Not because Ågestam had known. But that he had known and yet not said anything, but had come himself and left after a short time; he’d understood.

  Ewert Grens had been twenty-nine the last time he had shared, really shared, this day with anyone else. He remembered with horror his fiftieth birthday, sitting in a garden on a wooden chair between Sven, who had understood, and Bengt and Lena, who would never understand and how he’d cringed every time he was forced to smile and say thank you to those who had come to surprise him without saying anything.

  It hadn’t felt like that at all now. He’d had a glass of something strong and looked at Ågestam and it had tasted good.

  Maybe next time. Sixty-one.

  Maybe then.

  ———

  “Are you finished?”

  I have an accurate time of death.

  If I get DNA, blood, fibers, fingerprints.

  “Soon.”

  If I have all four.

  “Nils, I need . . .”

  Then it’s not my responsibility.

  “Ewert?”

  “Yes?”

  It’s not my job to worry about the consequences.

  “You can come down here.”

  Not even when I arrest you, put you in prison, again.

  He had pressed Nils Krantz as far as he could. It was late in the evening and he would soon have answers that it normally took twenty-four hours to get. It was his day and he had got his present. A murder. And now he wanted to open it.

  “Light jacket. And now you smell of alcohol . . .”

  The forensic scientist was standing by one of the long tables in the laboratory with his black bag only an arm’s length away.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never seen you in anything light-colored before. And I’ve certainly never seen you drink a glass of what you smell of right now.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  “Ewert?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve known you for over—”

  “Absolutely nothing, Nils.”

  Two men looking at each other in a room full of bags that say AUTOPSY and white cotton swabs with the remains of blood on them. Two men who could have been sitting in an armchair watching TV a long time ago, but who this evening, like every other evening, preferred, no matter the time, to be here, where there was a context, rather than in an empty apartment where there was nothing.

  They were now standing on either side of three different documents,

  In the victim’s mouth AB/4409-12/G234 (stains between two teeth on the upper jaw examined) evidence of secretion/DNA. The result confirms that the secretion/DNA comes from Jensen (Grade +4).

  Grens followed every line with his finger,

  In the backseat of the escape car AB/2344-12/G342 (stains on lower part of textile cover examined) evidence of blood. The result confirms that the blood comes from Jensen (Grade +4).

  Krantz underlined with a pencil the keywords that would later be summarized in a final report.

  On the victim’s trousers AB/4513-12/G018 (stains on lower part of left pant leg examined) evidence of fibers. The result confirms that the fibers come from Jensen (Grade +4).

  “Three out of four.”

  “Yes, and if you only knew how much I’ve pushed the NLFS and got them to—”

  “And the fourth?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The fingerprints. I explained that I wanted all four.”

  The forensic scientist had only a few hours earlier raised his voice and then pushed over two of his microscopes.

  It hadn’t been worth it. He would never do it again.

  “Soon.”

  White rubber gloves on when he carefully extracted the piece of tape that he’d ripped from the dead woman’s wrists a few hours ago, and put it on the grille in the red metal cabinet.

  Fifteen drops of superglue in an aluminum tray on the hot plate at the bottom of the cabinet.

  One hundred and fifty degrees and the white gas looked quite beautiful through the glass door.

  “Your jacket? And the alcohol?”

  “Absolutely nothing, Nils.”

  A dish of warm water and a tin with a vibrant yellow powder which the forensic scientist mixed, stirred, whisked, then poured the yellow liquid into a bottle.

  Ten minutes. The whitish gas had become transparent. Krantz’s rubber gloves took out the tape, studied it with a magnifying glass, and nodded.

  Obvious fingerprints.

  The yellow liquid over the tape, rinsed off with water, and the prints had become luminous. The one who first taped her mouth and later pushed a sock down her throat. The forensic scientist moved closer to the lamp, which made them clearer even for Grens. He compared them with the fingerprints that he’d secured during the autopsy and were now in a line on the transparent foil.

  “So we can confirm then that those are hers.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And . . . who else?”

  “We’ll know in a couple of minutes.”

  Side by side down the Forensics corridor, Grens’s great lumbering body and Krantz’s considerably smaller, a closed door to a room at the end.

  “The forensic engineer. That’s his chair and he’s the expert. But at this time of night . . . and as you’re so . . . I’ll do it myself this evening.”

  A narrow room. The forensic scientist moved the fingerprints that had been luminous only minutes ago from the scanner to a computer and Ewert Grens tried to stand behind him so he could see. He didn’t manage, the walls and cabinets kept knocking his back.

  “If you turn the screen a little. You know, the light, Nils, maybe it would be better if I sit here.”

  He had three already.

  And if he could get the fourth.

  This anxiety, Grens didn’t understand it, it had hounded him since a conversation in the middle of the night.

  “One detail.”

  Now, with the fingerprints on a big white screen, it was getting stronger and becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

  “One more.”

  Krantz had traced a papillary ridge to the far left that split into two, a fork. He needed at least eight to ten details, preferably even more. Unique patterns on a person’s fingers that were there before birth, there after death. The next line ran slightly closer to the middle only to suddenly break off, a gap, before continuing again.

  “And there, the right loop, you see? Curved. One delta.”

&n
bsp; In Krantz’s hands, each new detail became a red dot on the screen, a network that bit by bit became an image that would become a pattern.

  “Eleven. That’s enough for us to be certain.”

  It quite possibly only took a few seconds.

  The computer compared the patterns of one hundred and twenty thousand fingerprints with the ones here.

  But the anxiety that had been rampant for nearly twenty-four hours now and had deepened to great discomfort, understood nothing about time.

  “Hit.”

  Ewert Grens looked nervously between the two pictures. Red points that showed an identical pattern. The anxiety, discomfort, in that moment changed to something else.

  Something that perhaps resembled relief.

  “Completely sure?”

  Krantz pointed at the red line that linked what could only be found in one individual.

  “Eleven details. Yes. I’m completely sure.”

  One press of a button away.

  931020-0358

  One more.

  Jensen, Leon.

  ———

  He wasn’t tired. The dark and the car and the southbound highway. Every time the same strange feeling when thoughts were clearly washed away by adrenaline and anticipation, and the energy that should have run out surged again.

  He’d had three.

  On the duct tape around the victim’s wrists AB/10942-12G009 5 identifiable prints, of which 1 palm. Data search carried out. The prints definitely originate from Jensen (Degree + 4).

  He had all four. And a time of death. He had all five.

  He was driving fast, on his way to a woman who had given birth to her child in a prison cell. He’d been standing beside Erik Wilson, and she had looked at him afterward. She was only seventeen and had felt it lying quietly on her stomach for a short while.

  The highway exit past the police station, over there, one of the delayed evening trains that raced into the platform at Råby station, and exchanged people on their way home for people on their way out. A blue-and-white car with a police emblem on the door, he seldom traveled in one of them, so much easier when he turned onto one of the paths for pedestrians and cyclists and drove right up to the door of Råby Allé 34.

  The smell in the elevator was just as strong. But this time he chose to hold his breath and go up, even tried to read the spiky scrawls that had replaced the mirror; if they meant anything, it wasn’t important to him.

  Third floor. And there she was. Feet that didn’t shuffle when he rang the doorbell, a hall light glimpsed through the peephole.

  “Enough’s enough.”

  “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “You were here this morning asking questions. A few hours later you sent a whole troop of policemen to pin me to the floor.”

  “Open up. Let me show you what I’ve got. Then I’ll go, I promise.”

  A stairwell is home to many noises. On this floor alone, six apartments, he guessed around fifteen people moving around, doing their own thing, only a few meters away.

  She turned the lock. He could see one of her wrists through the opening, the red bracelet, irritated skin, the handcuffs had been tight.

  “Listen to this.”

  He held out a CD player and some earphones.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ten seconds. No more.”

  She stood in the door opening, reluctantly took the headphones, and put them over her ears.

  “Now.”

  A choked, gurgling noise.

  “Can you hear that?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’ll play it again.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’ll be quiet now.”

  Ana looked at him. Her face showed nothing.

  “You know what you’re listening to?”

  She didn’t answer. She looked past him. He didn’t exist.

  “Can I come in?”

  She opened the door wide, came out onto the landing, and then closed it behind her.

  “You will never come into my home again.”

  “What you just heard—”

  “I know what I just heard.”

  He waited until she had taken off the earphones and felt that she was ready. Then he held up four pieces of paper.

  “And if you could read these, please.”

  She didn’t sigh. She wouldn’t give him that.

  She held the white A4 sheets and read about duct tape around the victim’s wrists and the backseat of the escape car and the victim’s pants and the victim’s mouth and what was called Grade +4, and then she opened the door again, went in without looking at him, and closed it.

  ———

  “He’ll contact you!”

  Ana was still standing in the hallway. The hat shelf was empty, but still sagged in the middle, it was clearly weighed down by a plastic bag with nothing in it.

  She stood there without crying or collapsing on the floor.

  “And when he does . . . then I want you to contact me!”

  She walked past the bedroom and the desk drawers that had been pulled out and were lying in disarray on the floor, the sitting room and the pictures that had been taken down and were leaning in toward the wall, into the kitchen, stepped across the rug that was scrunched up by a woman’s face while arms held her down, and over to the kitchen table and the cup of coffee that was almost stone cold now. She took a sip and lit a cigarette without bothering to open the window or turn on the fan.

  He was standing out there, ringing her doorbell, shouting something.

  She had listened to a recording of someone taking another person’s life. She had read the four sheets of paper.

  But she hadn’t fallen to the floor and cried.

  He rang the doorbell again, was probably down on his knees, mouth to the opening of the mailbox.

  “Don’t you understand? We need your help!”

  She could have shouted back. Enough’s enough. But she didn’t. She drank the cold coffee until the cup was empty and lit another cigarette and stared out at the buildings that all looked the same.

  Your dad.

  You.

  The ones who will see you on TV today and tomorrow and long to be like you.

  He rang the doorbell again. And again. Then he gave up; she heard him go into the elevator, going down, away.

  She waited for a while to be sure. Still silent out on the landing.

  The stairs down to the next floor and the trash chute.

  She opened it, put her hand up, felt around in the cement tube, four bits of tape, she loosened them, one at a time.

  It didn’t feel like anything anymore.

  She held the plastic bag in her hand, swung it gently back and forth, then let go, a thud when it hit the bin at the bottom.

  Her steps were light when she turned back.

  Cold coffee and a cigarette; she looked at the closed front door, whispered. Enough’s enough.

  ———

  “About to call it a day?”

  He’d known that Werner would still be there.

  “Not yet.”

  A building full of old men who didn’t want to go home.

  “Did you want something?”

  He hadn’t expected her to give him an address or to run and get her son from somewhere—he’d just wanted to give her a nudge so that she would be ready to do so when she knew. But she had been harder to reach than he’d imagined. Kneeling down and shouting through the mailbox had not been part of the plan.

  “The telephone, Werner.”

  The paved path back through the high-rise blocks and the on-ramp onto the highway to the center of Stockholm.

  “What about it?”

  He wasn’t driving particularly fast, and it was nice to talk to somebody in the dark that deepened when it started to rain.

  “Has it been used again?”

  They had stood on the eighth floor in one of Gunnar Werne
r’s tapping rooms and distinguished a choking sound, a gurgling sound and a dull sound.

  “No. Nothing more than what you’ve already heard.”

  The cell phone of one of the inmates in Aspsås prison that had been hidden somewhere and that Werner couldn’t talk about as the tapping warrant applied to another investigation.

  “And if it were to be used?”

  A telephone that they now knew had moved out of the unit inside the prison walls, had been in a car, and was probably still with the young man who had killed someone.

  “You know that I can’t talk to you about it.”

  “The same kind of thing as when we met earlier?”

  Grens couldn’t hear Werner smiling. But he did.

  “Yes, the same kind of thing.”

  ———

  He parked in one of the Homicide spaces and sat in the car for a while, the big garage under the police headquarters, so deserted at night.

  He felt a bit chilly, which he didn’t often do, somewhere that was cool on the warmest summer’s day was nearly cold in early autumn.

  He started to walk toward the elevator, but then changed his mind halfway and headed for the metal box that was built across four parking spaces, a part of the garage reserved for forensics.

  Silent. Empty. He turned on the light. The car was still there. A white Mercedes.

  Grens tried the door handle, unlocked, the smell of glue hit him when he opened the door. Krantz had taped the walls and floor and seats and then superglue-vapored cigarette butts, drinks cans, scraps of paper.

  He sat down on the protective plastic covering on the worn-out front seat. You were sitting here when you heard her banging against the metal. He moved into the backseat. And you sat on her here, and punched her three times for glory.

  She had still been alive at that point.

  He went around to the back of the car, stopped by the closed trunk, tapped on it absentmindedly. A sound that skipped off around the concrete space, bounced off the walls and into his lap.

  He opened it.

  It wasn’t particularly big. If he leaned forward, curled up, and pressed himself in, he had just enough room, his large frame pressing against every bend in the metal.

  He stretched up his arm, reached for the door handle and pulled it toward him, and a thin crack let in light and the air tasted of oil.

  She was lying here and you killed her.