CELL 8

by Anders Roslund; Börge Hellström

  She shook her head.

  All these nut jobs.

  The city bred them, fed them, hid them.

  Mariana Hermansson watched him until he disappeared into some bushes, then kept on walking, past the city hall and under the railway bridge, a couple of minutes more, then an elevator up to the glass door that opened from the inside when she rang the bell; she was expected.

  The Canadian embassy official introduced himself as Timothy D. Crouse; he was a tall young man with short blond hair. He had a friendly face and walked and talked like they usually did. Hermansson had met quite a few in connection with various investigations and had already been struck by how similar they were, embassy people, no matter what nationality or ethnicity, the way they walked and moved like diplomats, the way they talked like diplomats . . . she wondered if they were like that from the outset and that’s why they were attracted to it, or whether they became like that along the way, fitting in so they wouldn’t be noticed.

  She handed him the passport that belonged to a man who was now sitting in custody in a holding cell, suspected of attempted murder. Crouse felt the dark blue cover with his fingers, the paper inside, he studied the passport number and personal details.

  He didn’t take particularly long and seemed to be certain when he spoke.

  “This is genuine. I’m convinced of it. Everything’s correct. I’ve already looked up the number. The personal details are identical to the ones that were entered when the passport was issued.”

  Hermansson looked at the embassy man. She took a couple of steps forward, pointed at the computer.

  “Can I have a look?”

  “There’s no other information. I’m sorry. That’s all we can get up.”

  “I want to see him.”

  Crouse considered her request.

  “It’s important.”

  He shrugged.

  “Of course. Why not? You’re here. And I’ve already given you all the other information.”

  He pulled over a chair and asked her to sit down beside him, poured a glass of water, and then apologized for the time it took for the computer to hook up to the system.

  Two men in dark overcoats were now standing outside the glass door and were let in by a female employee. They passed by Crouse’s desk, nodded in recognition, and continued on.

  “Soon. We’ll get there soon.”

  The screen started to come alive. Crouse typed in a password and then opened something that looked like a register. Two new screens, names in alphabetical order: a total of twenty-two Canadian citizens with the surname Schwarz and the first name John.

  “The fifth from the top. See. He has this passport number.”

  Crouse nodded at the screen.

  “You want to see what he looks like.”

  A new register, a new password.

  A photograph of the John Schwarz who had ordered and received the passport that was now lying in front of them on the desk, the John Schwarz who, according to the Migration Board, also had permanent residency in Sweden, now filled the computer screen.

  Crouse looked at it without saying anything.

  He leaned forward, flicked through the passport, then pulled up the photograph and personal details.

  Hermansson knew what he was thinking.

  The man in the passport was white.

  The man she had described who was suspected of attempted murder and who was now sitting in a holding cell was white.

  But this man who was beaming at them from the Canadian authorities’ computer, the man who had once been the legitimate owner of the passport that Crouse was holding, he was black.

  EWERT GRENS WAS IRRITATED. THE DAY THAT HAD STARTED BADLY AT SIX in the morning when he opened the main door to the police headquarters had now, as the morning slid into lunch, got worse. He couldn’t face any more idiots. He wanted to sit behind his closed door and play loud music and have the time to systematically go through at least one of the piles of investigations that should have been closed ages ago. He didn’t get time to do more than start before someone knocked on the door. Pointless questions and unfounded reports that he snorted at as before, and people who came to say he should turn down the music, who he told to go to hell.

  He longed for her.

  He wanted to hold her, feel her steady breathing.

  He had been there the day before and normally waited for a few days, but he felt compelled to go out there again this afternoon, a hamburger in the car and he should be able to squeeze in a short visit.

  Grens waited until Siw had sung her last, then lifted his new cordless phone that he couldn’t quite get his head around and phoned the nursing home. One of the younger female staff answered, one of the ones he had gotten to know. He said that he’d thought about coming out in a couple of hours and wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t clash with a visit from the doctor or some group activity.

  It felt better. The anger that always lurked in his chest shrank a little, didn’t take up so much space, he had the energy to sing along again to Siw’s “Seven Little Girls (Sitting in the Back Seat).”

  Seven little girls sitting in the back seat

  hugging and a-kissing with Fred

  He even whistled, out of tune and with a sound that could peel the walls.

  I said, why don’t one of you

  come and sit beside me

  Ten minutes. That was all. Then the door again, someone feeling lonely. He sighed, put the report he was reading to one side.

  Hermansson. He waved her in.

  “Sit down.”

  He didn’t know why. And was still unsure how he should deal with his reaction. But it made him happy whenever he saw her. A young woman . . . it wasn’t that, and he was careful to keep it that way.

  It was something else.

  He’d considered sleeping at home in his large apartment more often, thought that he’d be able to cope.

  He suddenly found himself reading the movie listings in Dagens nyheter, he who hadn’t been to the movies since James Bond and Moonraker in 1979, when he’d fallen asleep watching it, all the boring, endless space voyages.

  On a few occasions he’d even nearly gone to those fucking awful shopping streets in the center to try on some new clothes—he hadn’t done it, but nearly.

  She put a piece of paper down on his desk. A picture of a man’s face, a passport photo.

  “John Schwarz.”

  A man somewhere in his thirties. Short, dark hair, brown eyes, black skin.

  “The original owner of the passport.”

  Grens looked at the picture, thought about the man who called himself John Schwarz and who, according to the reports he’d got from Sven, Hermansson, and the prison staff, was not doing well at all. He was a nobody now. The Swedish police authorities didn’t even have a name for him anymore. His strange behavior, his fear, and the kick he’d given someone else in the head; he was carrying some baggage with him, he came from somewhere.

  Who? Where? Why?

  The investigation of an attempted murder had just become more complicated.

  “I want you to set things up for questioning.”

  He paced restlessly around the room as he always did, from the desk to the worn sofa where he sometimes slept, back to the desk, back to the sofa.

  “You’ll get him to talk. I’m sure that you can do it better than Sven or me, that you can reach him.”

  Grens stopped, sat down on the sofa.

  “You have to find out who he is. I want to know what the hell he’s doing here. Why the singer in a dance band is running around hiding behind a false identity.”

  He leaned back; his body was used to the hard stuffing, he had lain there many a night.

  “And this time, report directly to me, Hermansson. I don’t want to have to get any information via Ågestam in the future.”

  “You weren’t here this morning when I came in.”

  “I am your boss. Is that clear?”

  “If you’re here next tim
e, or at least contactable next time, then I’ll report to you in detail. If you’re not, I’ll report to the prosecutor who’s heading the investigation.”

  She had left his room angrier than she cared to admit and was on her way to her own office. She hadn’t got very far when she suddenly turned—she just had to do it.

  She knocked on the door again, for the second time in twenty minutes.

  “There was something else.”

  Grens was still sitting on the sofa. He sighed, sufficiently loudly to be sure that she heard, then waved his arms around in front of him and said that she should continue.

  “I have to know, Grens.”

  Hermansson took a step into the room.

  “Why did you promote me? How did I manage to bypass the officers with far longer service than I have?”

  Ewert Grens heard her question. He wasn’t sure whether she was joking.

  “Is it important?”

  “I know your views on policewomen.”

  She wasn’t joking.

  “Well?”

  “So explain.”

  “City Police employs about sixty people a year. What the hell do you want to hear? How good you are?”

  “I want to know why.”

  He shrugged.

  “Because you are. Really fucking good.”

  “And policewomen?”

  “The fact that you’re good doesn’t change anything. Policewomen aren’t good enough.”

  Half an hour later he was sitting in the car on his way to the woman he’d longed for. A hamburger and a low-alcohol beer from the fast-food place on Valhallavägen just before he turned off for Lidingö. It was still cold outside, the thermometer hadn’t managed to get above zero, not even at this time of day. He felt the chill, as he always did after he’d eaten, and the damn heater in the car wasn’t working.

  He phoned Ågestam, who answered, out of breath, in his shrill, almost falsetto voice. Grens really didn’t like the young prosecutor, and the dislike was mutual. They’d met and worked with and against each other a couple of times too many in recent years, and with each investigation their differences became more pronounced.

  But today he held his tongue. He was on his way to see Anni and wanted to keep hold of the feeling that the prospect of the visit had given him.

  Instead he explained that he wanted information about the committal proceedings that Ågestam was going to instigate later that afternoon against a man who was still called “John Schwarz” in the court papers. They talked about Ylikoski’s cerebral edema; he was in the neurosurgical ward at the Karolinska Hospital, still sedated so he could breathe with a respirator. They discussed how claustrophobia now dominated the holding cell corridor, then talked briefly about the details of a false identity, and “Schwarz,” waiting to learn if his case would go to trial, and with what charge.

  “Aggravated assault.”

  Ewert Grens started; the car swung into the middle of the road and was about to cross the continuous white line when he gripped the steering wheel, forced the veering vehicle back, and continued driving on the right side.

  “Aggravated assault? Did I hear you right, Ågestam? This is attempted murder!”

  “Schwarz did not intend to kill him.”

  “You have no idea what bleeding and swelling in the brain can do. You have no idea of the consequences. He fucking kicked his head with all his might!”

  He was driving faster now, unconsciously pressing the accelerator to the floor while he waited for the young prosecutor to answer.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Grens. But I have the legal knowledge, I am heading the investigation, and I will decide what kind of charge is reasonable.”

  “It was—”

  “And only me.”

  Ewert Grens didn’t shout as he normally did when Ågestam tried to fill a suit that was too big. He just hung up in despair and dropped his speed as he came off the Lidingö Bridge, past the apartment buildings and expensive houses as the traffic thinned out. He knew. He was on his way to her and he knew.

  The nursing home was beautifully lit, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day; floodlights angled across the facade of the old house—that was new, he hadn’t seen it before.

  A warmth surged through his body when he got out of the car. Every time the same feeling, as if all the tension was released. He didn’t need to be on his guard, he didn’t even need to be angry. This house meant trust and routine. And she was sitting inside waiting for him; he was the way he was and she had always put up with it.

  She was sitting by the window, as usual. She must know that the life she was no longer part of was going on out there, so she took her place, as best she could, in her own way.

  It was the young auxiliary nurse who met him out in the hall. White coat over her own clothes. Ewert Grens knew that she was studying to become a doctor, that this was extra money to pay off her student loan, and she was good, looked after Anni well, so he hoped that it would be a while until she passed her exams.

  “She’s waiting for you.”

  “I saw her. By the window. She looked happy.”

  “I’m sure she knows you’re coming.”

  She didn’t hear him open the door to her room. He stood on the threshold, looked at her back that stuck up from the wheelchair, her long blond hair that had recently been brushed.

  I held you when you were bleeding from the head.

  He went over, kissed her on the cheek, maybe she smiled, he thought she did. He moved the cardigan that was hanging on the chair beside her bed and sat down next to her. She continued to stare out the window, eyes unwavering. He tried to understand what it was she was looking at, followed her gaze, same direction. The open water. Boats sailing far below in the sound between west Lidingö and east Stockholm. He wondered whether she actually saw anything. And if she did, if she then knew what it was she was looking for out of the window all day.

  If I had been quicker. If I had realized. You might still have been with me today.

  He laid his hand on hers.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  She heard him talking. At least, she turned around.

  “It’s been crazy today. I had to come. I needed you.”

  Now she laughed. The loud, gurgling laughter that he loved so much.

  “You and me.”

  They sat next to each other and looked out of the window for nearly half an hour. Silent, together. Ewert Grens breathed to her rhythm, he thought about another time when they had walked slowly side by side, days that could have been so different; he thought about yesterday and this morning and the unidentified suspect who was stealing time from other things, of Sven, whom he should appreciate more, of Hermansson, whom he didn’t really understand.

  “I said yesterday that I’d employed a young woman. That she’s so like you. She doesn’t take any nonsense. She knows who she is. It’s as if you were back in the corridor again. Do you understand? It doesn’t mean anything, not for us. But sometimes I forget that it isn’t you.”

  He had stayed longer than he intended. They’d sat by the window some more, she had coughed and he’d got her some water, she had dribbled and he’d dried her chin.

  It was then that it happened.

  She had been sitting beside him and the boat was so clear as it passed below on the water.

  She had waved.

  He’d seen it, he was sure of it, she had waved.

  When the big white ferry from Waxholmsbolaget had sounded its horn, she had laughed, lifted her hand, and waved it back and forth several times. He had gone to pieces.

  He knew that she couldn’t do it. All the fucking neurologists had concluded that she would probably never be able to perform such a conscious action.

  He had run out into the corridor, his heavy body lurching forward, shouting to the young woman who had let him in earlier.

  The auxiliary nurse, whose name was Susann, had listened. One hand on his shoulder. The other on Anni’s arm. The
n she had slowly tried to help him understand that it hadn’t happened. She explained that she understood that he loved her and missed her and so desperately wanted to see what he claimed he’d just seen, but that he had to accept that it wasn’t possible, that it hadn’t happened.

  She had stroked her hand back and forth several times.

  He knew exactly what the fuck he’d seen.

  Ewert Grens had barely left before he started to feel stressed again. Anni was still with him as he approached central Stockholm and the rest of the day that was waiting for him. He hated the feeling of being behind and, in order to stifle it, reached for the mobile phone that was in his briefcase and dialed one of his few stored numbers.

  Hermansson’s broad Skåne accent after two rings.

  “Hello.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “I’ve just read through everything we’ve got. I’m well prepared. I’ll question him after the committal proceedings.”

  She had waved.

  “Good.”

  She would wave again.

  “Good.”

  “It was you who called, Ewert. Was there anything else?”

  Grens focused on the car in front; he had to forget for a while—later, he could continue to think about Anni later. Right now there was a Finnish man lying in the Karolinska Hospital, someone else who risked becoming a person who would forever more watch life through a window.

  “Yes. There was something else. I want to know who that bastard is.”

  “I’ve—”

  “Interpol.”

  “Now?”

  “I want to find his identity. He exists somewhere. The level of violence . . . he’s done this before.” Grens didn’t wait for an answer. “Go up to Interpol in C Block and speak to Jens Klövje. Put out a blue notice for the bastard. Take the photographs and fingerprints with you.”

  Ågestam had wanted more. He would get more.

  “He exists in some register somewhere. I’m sure of it. We’ll know who John Schwarz is by tomorrow morning.”

  IT TOOK HERMANSSON EXACTLY FIVE MINUTES TO GET FROM HER OWN office to Jens Klövje’s much larger office in C Block. It was her first visit to the Swedish Interpol, but she recognized him all the same, one of several guest lecturers for one of the courses at the Swedish National Police Academy. Klövje was Grens’s age and he nodded at her absentmindedly when she opened the door, that uneasy feeling of disturbing someone again.