He would go back to Kronoberg, to his office and Siw Malmkvist and the Schwarz investigation; the night seemed shorter there, among things that he recognized.
thursday
WHEN THE COFFEE CUP SLIPPED OUT OF SVEN SUNDKVIST’S HAND IT WAS about the last thing he needed. He swore so loudly that it echoed down the deserted corridor, and he kicked the panel at the bottom of the machine before bending down to wipe away as much of the brownish liquid as possible with his hand.
It was six in the morning and he was tired, irritated, and far from being the policeman who normally radiated calm and thoughtfulness.
He longed to be at home, in his bed.
For the second night in succession, Ewert Grens had phoned and woken him. For the second night in succession, Grens had said there was an early meeting in connection with the Schwarz investigation.
And as if that wasn’t enough, Ewert had then started to talk uncontrollably, first about John Schwarz and other things connected to their police work, and then after a while about everything else, about life, about things he generally never spoke about. In the end, Sven had asked if he was tipsy and Ewert had admitted that he’d had a couple of beers but that had been hours ago and why was he asking, anyway?
Sven had put down the receiver, pulled out the plug, and sworn that he would not head for the city any earlier than he’d promised Anita.
He walked down the dark corridor with a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, on his way to Ewert’s office, but stopped abruptly on the threshold. There was someone in there already. Someone with his back to the door, bending over slightly, in a very expensive gray suit. Sven Sundkvist took a step to the side and decided to wait outside until the meeting was over.
“Sven, for God’s sake, where do you think you’re going?”
Sven went back to the door. He looked at the man in the gray suit. Ewert’s voice. But no more than that.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, boy?”
“Ewert?”
“Yes. Hello?”
“What do you look like?”
Ewert Grens danced toward the door and Sundkvist.
“Like a hunk.”
“Like a what?”
“A hunk. Jesus, Sven, have you never seen a hunk before?”
“I don’t think so.”
“A good-looking guy. A hunk. I went out dancing with Hermansson last night. That’s what she called me. The sort of thing young people say.
Hunk, Sven, damn it!”
Sven was a few minutes early and sat down on the sofa that had once been dark brown corduroy, with distinct wales. Ewert stood in front of him in his new clothes, looking for all the world like a bureaucrat. Sven studied his face as he talked and saw a kind of relief there; Ewert told him about his first dance steps for twenty-five years, about how scared he’d been, that Hermansson had got the band to play “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” and that he’d laughed, an unexpected sound from his belly that had bubbled up and out and surprised him.
Lars Ågestam arrived at six o’clock sharp, Hermansson three minutes later.
They both looked surprisingly fresh and Sven suddenly felt even more tired, leaned back into the sofa and noticed that Hermansson gave an amused smile when she saw that her boss was still wearing last night’s suit.
“Do you believe in capital punishment, Ågestam?”
Grens was searching through the piles of paper that lay strewn across the floor when he asked the question.
“You know that I don’t.”
“Sven?”
“No.”
“Hermansson?”
“No.”
Ewert Grens squatted down, picked out a sheet of paper here and there, and put them to one side.
“I guessed as much. And as I don’t either, well, we may have a problem.”
He had now gathered a smaller pile, ten to fifteen typed documents, and stood up. Sven watched the large man lumbering toward him, as did the others, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the suit, and how incredibly different such an ordinary and accepted item of clothing could look on a person whose clothes were normally wrinkled, shabby, slightly too short or too big.
“I’ve talked to a number of people during the night.”
No one who was sitting in the room questioned that.
“They’re very busy now. The ass kissers who ordered the blackout via Ågestam.”
Lars Ågestam was red in the face, about to stand up, but then decided not to. The bitter shit would never understand.
Ewert Grens recounted in minute detail each of the late-night phone calls, explained that the activity in both countries’ foreign ministries was now focused on a person who was being held in custody a few floors up, who was under investigation by City Police for aggravated assault. The risk of extradition was starting to be more than a risk and he had no fucking idea how to prevent it.
He handed the pile of papers that he’d picked up from the floor to Sven.
“I want you to read this again. Everything we’ve got on Schwarz from the United States. You see, potentially we could be changing the sentencing framework in this country. We are in the process of imposing the death sentence on a man who possibly is guilty of aggravated assault.”
United Airlines flight UA9358 from Chicago landed at Arlanda outside Stockholm at 0645 hours, fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled. The pilot, who spoke with an accent that Ruben Frey didn’t recognize, had announced over the PA system that this was thanks to a strong tailwind, and when Ruben asked the man who was sitting next to him, who looked like a seasoned traveler, what that meant, he had been given a long and complicated answer that sounded knowledgeable but that he promptly forgot.
Ruben Frey had never been to Europe before. In fact, he had never flown before. The state of Ohio was large enough for him, and his regular trips from Marcusville to Columbus, or even as far as Cleveland, held about as much excitement as he needed from life. The day had started early in Marcusville. He had driven his second-hand Mercedes, a car that he’d owned for almost twenty years, from his home westward through the dawn to the airport in Cincinnati. He had checked in two hours before departure, just as he was requested to do on the ticket, and then eaten an expensive lunch in a chaotic restaurant for people with hand luggage who were on their way somewhere. A short flight from Cincinnati to Chicago, they were barely up in the air before they started the descent to a two-hour wait in an airport as big as Scioto County. It had taken considerably longer between Chicago and Stockholm, and even though the air hostesses had been friendly and the film that was shown on the small screens that hung down between the seats had been an OK comedy, once he was home he would never venture beyond Ohio’s state lines again.
It was colder in Stockholm than in Marcusville; the snow lay deep along the roadside as he sat in a taxi from Arlanda airport into Stockholm. The driver spoke reasonable English and gave him a detailed report of the weather forecast that was for more snow and even lower temperatures over the coming days.
Ruben Frey had a pain in his chest.
The last few days were not something he ever wanted to experience again. It was eighteen years since the Finnigan girl had been murdered and his son had been accused, prosecuted, and convicted. Eighteen years and it was still going on.
It had been hard to deny it when he knew the truth so well. The interviews in Cincinnati had been horrible, he felt uncomfortable lying to the boy Hutton and his colleague, and several times he had been close to admitting what he mustn’t. It had been even harder to pretend to be as happy and thankful as a father should be when he’s told that his only son, whom he had buried, has now been found alive. Ruben gave a loud sigh and the driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He had been close to breaking, he assumed that it was pure luck that he hadn’t been detained by the FBI and he wondered how much it had to do with the fact that it had been Kevin Hutton sitting on the other side of the desk.
It took a good half hour to get to Bergsgatan and Kro
noberg. He had asked about Stockholm on the plane and been told that it was a beautiful capital, lots of water, parts of the city built on islands and an endless archipelago strewn out in the sea toward Finland.
It was undoubtedly beautiful. But he didn’t see anything. To be honest, he didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t here to sightsee. He was here to rescue his son from death, for the second time.
He paid and got out. It was still early and the main entrance was locked.
He knew who he was looking for.
When Ruben Frey left the final interview, Kevin Hutton had pulled out and shown him one paper too many. He had put it down on the desk in front of Ruben, then turned to look out of the window as if something had caught his eye, and had waited long enough for Ruben to read it, before turning back again and picking it up.
It was a request for legal assistance in connection with the questioning of Ruben Frey.
The request had been faxed from Sweden, a formal request from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a note that it had been copied to a detective superintendent called Ewert Grens.
Sven Sundkvist weighed the pile of paper in his hand for a while, distracted, then put it down on his knee while he looked at Ewert, who was standing choosing between two cassettes from the shelf behind his desk.
“A doctor can’t participate in an execution. Did you know that?”
Ewert didn’t answer, nor did Ågestam or Hermansson, as they hadn’t heard it as a question.
“The Hippocratic oath they have to take, and the medical ethics they promise to respect, don’t allow them to be present when society takes a life. On the other hand, and this is what’s interesting, they are liable and responsible for the procurement of the drugs that are used for executions.”
Sundkvist didn’t expect a response. He wasn’t even sure if the others had heard what he said. Ewert was still choosing between Siw and Siw, and Ågestam and Hermansson were reading the documents they’d been asked to read. It didn’t matter. The irritation that had been buzzing around his head like an angry fly had gone, and the tiredness from a night of unwanted wakefulness was retreating. Ewert and his suit and talk of being a hunk, Hermansson and Ågestam in a good mood, the unlikely story they held in their hands and the realization of how serious it could become—Sven Sundkvist no longer had anything against sitting there on the worn sofa as the dark dissolved outside the window.
“He was seventeen years old.”
Ågestam shook his head and looked at the others.
“Do you have any idea of how rare it is to impose the death sentence on a minor? Schwarz, or maybe we should call him Frey, was obviously considered to be and judged as an adult. Seventeen years old and such a serious penalty—that takes one hell of a lot.”
He heard that Grens had put on his stupid music again, low; it provided an awkward backdrop when he continued.
“This is how it works in the United States: jurors serving on a case where the crime might lead to a death penalty are only selected if they are not opposed to capital punishment. You see? Right from the start the selected jury is made up of people who support the death penalty. And when the pro-death jury has decided that someone, in this case Frey, is guilty of a capital crime, in other words, that the crime might result in a death sentence, then it has to be decided whether to impose life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after twenty-five or thirty years, life imprisonment with no possibility of parole, or the third alternative, the death penalty.”
Ewert Grens nudged up the volume on the Siw Malmkvist tape, the calm that helped him to think, but he also listened with interest to the prosecutor, who had knowledge that he lacked. Ågestam looked at Grens and his music machine in irritation, but Grens just flapped his hands, go on, I’m listening.
“They choose to find him guilty, and they pick the third choice, the death penalty. Yes, his fingerprints were found everywhere in the house. Yes, it probably was his sperm inside her, according to the blood-group determination that seems highly likely. But good God, several witnesses have confirmed that the two had had sexual relations for over a year! Of course his fingerprints would be there, then, of course the pathologist could find traces of his sperm. It shouldn’t take a jury long to work that out.”
Lars Ågestam’s face was getting redder, his thin body more agitated. He had stood up and was walking around the room as he talked.
“I’m not saying that it wasn’t him. It might possibly have been. All I’m saying is that it’s remarkably weak evidence to base a conviction on, and what’s more, to then impose a death sentence on a seventeen-year-old boy.
The prosecutor who succeeded in that did a damn good job. I would never have managed that. I don’t even know if I would have started a prosecution with so little to go on.”
He looked around the room with something close to anger, raised his voice without being aware of it.
“No one saw him there at the time of the murder. No blood belonging to him was found at the scene of the crime. Not a single sentence to say that traces of gunpowder were found on him or his clothes. All that we have, all that the jury had, is the sperm and fingerprints of a boyfriend who had frequented the house and had regular sex with the girl for a year. We also have a record of his background: he’d resorted to violence on previous occasions, and in two cases spent some months in a juvenile correctional institution. John Meyer Frey doesn’t appear to have been a very nice young man. But that doesn’t make him a murderer. Not even with a flimsy chain of circumstantial evidence.”
Ruben Frey presented himself at the counter, showed his ID, and asked to talk to a Detective Superintendent Ewert Grens. He made great efforts to speak clearly and to sound as calm as he was not. The security guard was wearing a green uniform and sitting behind a glass wall, surrounded by a number of monitors that showed black-and-white images from different parts of the building’s exterior, and he spoke English in the same correct, but rather stiff way that the taxi driver had, recommended brusquely that the visitor should sit down and wait on one of the three chairs that were lined up in the small reception area.
The lack of sleep was catching up with him. He had tried, but the hum of passengers talking incessantly and the sharp lights on the ceiling of the cabin had made it impossible. Ruben rubbed his itching eyes, he yawned twice, he leafed absentmindedly through a magazine that he didn’t understand a word of but recognized in a way: photos of celebrities posing in pairs on a red carpet that led the way into some important cultural premiere. The same sort of gossip magazine that he would pick up at the barber’s in Marcusville or in the newspaper rack at Sofio’s restaurant; another language and different people, but the same content.
After a quarter of an hour he heard the green-clad guard call out his name and he hurried over, the clumsy brown travel bag in his hand. He was introduced to a woman wearing the same green uniform—she used her whole hand to indicate which direction to go in. Her English was considerably better than her colleague’s, she didn’t say much but when she did it was without hesitation. A couple of grim corridors and a couple of locked doors, then they stopped outside an office where the door was ajar and the music playing inside was slightly too loud.
The female guard knocked on the door and a voice shouted something like come in.
It was quite a large office, much bigger than the FBI room in Cincinnati where he’d sat answering questions for several hours the day before. The man who was standing in the middle of the room and who had asked them in a loud voice to come in was big, dressed in a rather fine gray suit and, Ruben guessed, about the same age as himself. Farther in, in front of a window that lacked curtains, three more people—a woman and two men—were sitting on a brown sofa.
He took another step into the room and put down his voluminous bag.
“My name is Ruben Meyer Frey.”
He assumed that they understood and spoke English, everyone in this country seemed to. They stared at him, said nothing at all, waiting for the shor
t, overweight American with red cheeks and tired eyes to continue.
“I’m here to talk to Yoo-ert Grens.”
The big man in the suit winced a little, but nodded.
“That’s me. Ewert. And what is it you think I can help you with?”
Ruben Frey tried to smile as he pointed toward the cassette player.
“I recognize that. Connie Francis. ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.’
Though I’ve never heard it in another language before.”
“Tunna skivor.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what it’s called. In Swedish. Siw Malmkvist.”
Ruben felt as if he’d got something that at least resembled a smile in return. He took a photograph out from his shirt pocket. It wasn’t a particularly good one, the person in the picture was fuzzy and the sun was too strong for the real colors to come through. The grainy person was sitting on a stone, he had a bare chest and was pretending to tense his muscles for the photograph. A young boy, a teenager, long dark hair over his eyes and tied in a braid down his back, acne on both cheeks, a sparse mustache on his upper lip.
“This is my son. John. Many years ago. It’s him that I want to talk to you about. Alone, if that’s possible.”
A person who knew Connie Francis and “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool”
had already by virtue of that won a little respect from Ewert Grens. No more than half an hour later the two men were sitting on either side of the detective superintendent’s desk and that respect seemed to have grown on both sides.
Ruben Frey had quite quickly decided to be as honest, as open as possible. Everything that he hadn’t been the day before. He quite simply had no choice. Ewert Grens had also emphasized that the presumed crime they were going to talk about had taken place in the United States and was therefore well beyond his jurisdiction, which meant that even if he had wanted to, there wasn’t much he could do.
It was blowing hard outside the window, early morning fast turning into midmorning as the wind pounded regularly against the glass, dull explosions, a force that made them fall silent a couple of times and turn around to check that it hadn’t smashed.
CELL 8 Page 20