She put the false passport down on the desk in front of him, the fresh fingerprints beside it.
“John Doe.”
Klövje sighed.
“Again?”
“He goes by the name of John Schwarz. Age, height, the details in the passport are all correct.”
“Is there a rush?”
“His committal proceeding will be in a few hours.”
Klövje looked through the passport, page by page, then studied the fingerprints. He hummed something that Hermansson didn’t recognize.
“Is this all?”
“You can get a DNA profile tomorrow. But we don’t want to wait until then. Grens is certain that he’s registered somewhere, in the criminal records.”
Jens Klövje put what he’d got in a plastic envelope, weighed it absently in his hand.
“How does he speak?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does he speak Swedish?”
Hermansson visualized John Schwarz sitting silent in the back of the car, his face hidden in his hands, screaming in English in the holding cell corridor with his arms waving in front of him.
“He hasn’t said much. But from what I’ve heard, on the stairs when we went to get him . . . yes, he does.”
“Accent?”
“British. Or American. The passport is Canadian.”
Klövje smiled.
“Narrows the search down a bit.”
He put the plastic folder in a tray by the computer.
“I’ll send this out in fifteen minutes. I’ll stick to English-speaking countries to begin with. It will take a few hours, time differences and all that, but I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.”
She nodded to him, he nodded back. She turned around and moved to leave.
“By the way, I agree with Grens.”
He kept on talking as she left.
“We’ve got him.”
THE OLD STONE STAIRWELL ECHOED WITH THE SOUND OF THE GUARDS’ hard heels, mixed with the monotonous sound that the man who called himself John Schwarz made as they went up into the courtroom on the second floor of Stockholm City Hall. He’d been making the noise ever since one of the guards had locked the handcuffs around one of his thin wrists—an irritating shrill sound that pierced through your head and got louder the closer they got.
The oversized clothes John wore were made from a fabric that scratched and was too thin. He was freezing; it was cold outside and almost as cold inside the vast, high-ceilinged building, and the radiators were few and far between. Same officers as yesterday afternoon, the older one with the silver hair and the younger one who was tall and had blue spectacle frames; they walked beside him, one step for every step he took, but he barely noticed them, just increased the force of the noise that locked his jaws shut and stared straight ahead.
The door was wooden; it was open and there were people inside.
Public prosecutor Lars Ågestam (LÅ): During a search of John Schwarz’s apartment on Monday, these pants and these shoes were found.
For the defense, Kristina Björnsson (KB): Schwarz pleads guilty to kicking Ylikoski in the head.
Someone turned on the ceiling lights. It was still a long time until dusk, but it was one of those days when the light seems to have petered out by midmorning and a gloom held the capital in its great embrace. The silverhaired guard looked him in the eye and unlocked the handcuffs. The man who called himself John Schwarz kept making the grating noise as he looked out of the large window that flashed in the artificial light. It was a long way down to the ground—he’d considered it, of course he had—but he didn’t dare jump.
LÅ: A forensic analysis has shown traces of Ylikoski’s saliva on the pants, and Ylikoski’s hair and blood on the shoes.
KB: Schwarz pleads guilty but states that his intention was to force Ylikoski to stop harassing a woman on the dance floor.
He sat beside his lawyer. She was stressed, he could feel it, but her smile was friendly.
“That noise. I wish you’d stop it.”
He didn’t hear what she said, the sound was in the way and he didn’t dare stop, it kept his jaws together, if he let it stop then only the scream would be left.
“It might not be to your advantage. Making that noise.”
The sound. He wouldn’t let it go.
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Would you prefer me to speak English? These are the committal proceedings. From experience, I know that suspects get a more favorable hearing if they behave as normally as possible.”
He lowered the volume.
But it was still there.
The sound was his, the only thing in the room.
LÅ: Schwarz is not named Schwarz. He has no identity. I request that he is held in custody on charges of aggravated assault, due to the risk that he might further complicate the investigation by absconding. KB: Schwarz had no intention to injure. Furthermore, he suffers from acute claustrophobia. Being held in custody would therefore be inhumane.
He was quiet then. When the court clerk explained to him the terms of custody on the grounds of suspected aggravated assault, he instead sank to the floor in a fetal position with his hands over his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear, while the clerk ran his hands through his red hair in agitation and repeated his request that he stand up.
Both the officers held him by the arms, they pulled him to his feet. Handcuffs around his wrists again. He was shaking when they pushed him out of Court no. 10 and down the stone stairs.
The monotonous noise echoed like before, and the silver-haired guard seemed to be exasperated. He walked beside him the whole way down, alternately hissing quietly, then raising his voice.
“Had you planned your strategy with your lawyer, then?
“You’re going to be here for a long time.
“Until they’ve IDed you. Until you’ve got a name.”
He looked at the officer, shook his head.
He didn’t want to.
Didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to talk.
Old Silverhair didn’t give up, took a couple of steps forward, stopped directly below him on the last step and turned around. They were about the same height now, their breath mixing between them.
The guard punched the air.
“Don’t you get it? Kronoberg detention center is full of foreigners like you, who don’t have any ID. With no fixed custody period. Why don’t you just say who you are instead? And get procedures moving again? They’re waiting for you. It’ll take the time it takes. You’ll be the one who loses out, you’ll be the one sitting here with full restrictions for longer than you need to, cut off from everyone you care about.”
The prison clothes scratched, the thin man who had just been held in custody on reasonable grounds was tired; he looked at the silver hair, his voice weak.
“You don’t understand.”
He moved restlessly from one foot to the other on the hard step.
“My name.”
He coughed, spoke louder.
“My name is John Schwarz.”
IT WAS JUST AFTER THREE O’CLOCK WHEN JENS KLöVJE FAXED OVER several documents regarding a man in his thirties who called himself John Schwarz and had been kept in custody. Klövje had for the present concentrated on countries where English was the official language—after all, Hermansson had been clear on that point, the suspect’s accent was significant, his mother tongue easy to identify.
A couple of minutes later, various hands in various Interpol offices around the world picked up the inquiry from their Swedish colleagues from the fax machine.
Some sighed and put the paper to one side, some planned to do a search later in the day, others immediately started to look through the registers that were open on the screen.
Marc Brock in the Washington Interpol office was one of them. On the desk in front of him he had half a café latte, paper cup with a plastic lid every morning from Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue. He drank it slowly without really loo
king at the fax he’d just received.
That meant work and concentration at the computer, and he . . . he was tired. It was just one of those mornings.
He looked out of the window.
It was the eleventh of January, still cold, spring was a long way off.
Marc Brock yawned.
The fax, it was still lying on top, he pulled the pile over. A search request from Sweden.
Northern Europe. Scandinavia. He had actually been to Stockholm once, when he was young and in love and the woman was beautiful.
The summary was written in good English. A person who was probably not of Swedish origin had been held in custody for aggravated assault. A John Doe who called himself Schwarz, who had a false passport and now refused to give his correct identity.
Marc Brock studied the photo, a pale man with a stiff smile and uneasy eyes.
A face he might have seen before.
He turned on the computer, opened the registers he needed, searched using the information that the Swedish police had sent—the photo, known personal details, fingerprints—with a request that it be dealt with swiftly.
It didn’t take particularly long, it actually never did, not even when he was tired.
He drank some more coffee, yawned again, and then realized he didn’t really understand what he was looking at.
He shook his head.
It didn’t make sense.
He sat quite still and stared at the screen until it became blurred. Then he got up, walked around the room, sat down again and decided to go through the whole procedure again, one more time. He logged off, turned off the computer, waited a few seconds, then turned the computer on again, logged on, opened all the registers and ran the search a second time, using the information he’d been given about a man who only a matter of hours ago had been kept in custody in a city in northern Europe, and who called himself John Schwarz.
He waited with his eyes glued to the top of the desk, then slowly looked up at the screen.
The same answer.
Marc Brock swallowed his discomfort.
It didn’t make sense. Because it quite simply couldn’t make sense.
The man in the photo, the man he only minutes ago thought he might have seen before, was dead.
EWERT GRENS KNEW WHAT HE HAD SEEN. HE HAD WAITED TWENTY-FIVE years for this. He didn’t give a damn about whether it was possible or not. She had seen the boat, and she had waved her hand back and forth, several times. It had been a conscious action. He, if anyone, knew every single expression she used, each one she was capable of, as only people who have lived together closely for many years do.
It was one of the archipelago ferries. They all looked the same. Grens pushed the Schwarz investigation over into a corner of the desk, placed an empty notebook in front of him, and phoned Waxholmsbolaget, which operated ferries all through the Stockholm archipelago. He swore loudly at the electronic voice that asked him to press a number and then another number and he shouted, I want to talk to a person, at the receiver and then threw it down. He sat there with the empty notepad and receiver lying in front of him, then after a while turned around to the old cassette player and put on one of three mix tapes of all the songs that Siw Malmkvist ever recorded, in chronological order. He fast-forwarded to her version of “Ode to Billie Joe” from 1968—it was different, he liked it a lot. He listened to the whole song once, time 4 minutes and 15 seconds, calmed down, rewound it, turned down the volume, and listened to it again while he lifted the receiver. The same damn electronic voice, he pressed this number and that, and waited where he was supposed to wait until he eventually heard a real human being.
Ewert Grens explained the time and place, he wondered what the boat was called, the one that had passed along the water below the nursing home. He also wanted to book some tickets, three people, for sometime later in the week.
She was helpful, the woman with the real voice.
The boat, the one he knew she had waved at, was called the Söderarm and stopped at Gåshaga jetty on Lidingö and arrived at Vaxholm forty minutes later.
You told me.
You wanted to go.
He turned up the volume, the same song for the third time, he sang along and he stood up, danced alone around the room, holding her.
Someone knocked on his open door.
“Apologies. I’m probably a bit early.”
Grens looked at Hermansson, nodded at her to come in and pointed to the visitor’s chair, went on moving slowly over the carpet; there were still some bars left.
Then he sat down, with a sweaty forehead, out of breath.
Hermansson looked at him and smiled.
“Always the same music.”
Ewert waited to get his breath back, it was more regular now.
“There is nothing else. Not in this room.”
“If you open the window. Out there, Ewert. In the real world. It’s a different time.”
“You don’t understand. You’re so young, Hermansson. Memories. The only thing that’s left when you’ve lived.”
She shook her head.
“You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t think it has to be like that. But you’re a good dancer.”
Grens nearly laughed. And that didn’t happen often.
“I used to dance quite a bit. Before.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Twenty-five years. At least.”
“Twenty-five years?”
“You can see how I look. With a limp and a neck that won’t move.”
They sat in silence for a while. Until Ewert leaned forward and pulled the telephone toward him.
“Do you mind waiting outside? Until the others come. There’s a phone call I have to make.”
She left the room and closed the door behind her. Grens dialed the number to the nursing home, asked to speak to the matron. He explained that he was going to take Anni on a boat trip and that he’d like one of the staff to go with them. The young woman, Susann, the one who was studying to become a doctor. He knew that she did extra shifts and so insisted on paying her himself, because it was important that it was her, and only her. Some protest, but he got what he wanted, and he was a happy man when he opened the door again and let in the three people who were standing waiting in the corridor by the coffee machine.
Sven was drinking some with that artificial milk substitute, Hermansson had something that looked like tea, Ågestam’s smelled like hot chocolate. Grens asked them to sit down and then went out to get himself a cup of black coffee, nothing else.
He drank half of it, felt the warmth moving around his body.
“Schwarz.”
He looked at them, they no doubt felt the same. Who could be bothered with this?
“Klövje has sent out an Interpol blue notice to search for the bastard. Every English-speaking country now has everything we have on him. If he’s in any of the criminal records, we’ll know about it in a few hours.”
They were all sitting on the old sofa, the one he usually slept on. All in a row, Hermansson in the middle with Sven and Ågestam on either side.
“Have you got anything to say?”
Hermansson blew on her tea before speaking.
“There are twenty-two people called John Schwarz in Canada. I asked the official at the embassy in Tegelbacken to check them all, the same guy who helped us yesterday.”
“And?”
“None of them matches the man who is now sitting locked up in Kronoberg detention center.”
Ågestam had hot chocolate on his upper lip.
“We don’t know who he is. Or where he comes from. What we do know, on the other hand, is that he’s capable of kicking someone in the face, and yet is terrified of us connecting the dots. Yesterday in court it was horrible—he lay down on the floor shaking when it was announced that he’d continue to be held in custody. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
Ewert Grens snorted.
“I don’t fucking doubt it. Chocola
te on your face, like a child. What exactly have you experienced?”
Lars Ågestam stood up and strode around the room on his skinny legs, hand through his hair several times to check that his fringe was in the right place, as always when he was agitated.
“I have not experienced ongoing investigations being put to one side to prioritize a comparatively insignificant one. I have not experienced an investigating officer attempting to influence the prosecutor’s choice of crime designation.”
He ran his hand through his hair again.
“Grens, are your priorities being guided by personal issues in this case?”
Ewert Grens slammed his hand down hard on one of two desk drawers that were open.
“You can bet your ass they are! And if you knew as much as I do about extreme violence to the head, you might give it the same priority, my friend.”
As he spoke, he grabbed hold of the open drawer, pulled himself toward it to gather momentum, and then let his chair spin around halfway until he was sitting with his back to the prosecutor, demonstrating his disgust.
Sven Sundkvist couldn’t bear any more tension between the detective superintendent and the public prosecutor, the silence that invaded as Ågestam stared at Grens’s neck, so he hurriedly interrupted.
“Schwarz’s reaction. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the assault that he’s pleaded guilty to.”
“Continue.”
“Ewert, I think that the inertia he showed when we first took him in, his withdrawal interspersed with sudden, loud, horrible screams, it’s shock we’re dealing with. He’s frightened. He’s frightened of something that’s happened before, that somehow has something to do with this. Being locked up. Controlled. He’s experienced it before, he’s been damaged by it.”
Ewert Grens listened. He’s smart, Sven, I forget it every now and then, I must remember to tell him. He looked at all three of them in silence, before starting to speak.
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