CELL 8

by Anders Roslund; Börge Hellström

  “I know that that’s what you think you saw. I also know that it’s impossible, in neurological terms. A reflex. I think it was a reflex movement. That’s all.”

  “I know exactly what the hell I saw.”

  She turned toward him.

  “I don’t want to upset you. But you will be, you’ll get hurt if you invest too much hope in this. That’s all. I mean, you should take her out like this, I think it’s fantastic for her, and maybe that’s enough, isn’t it? To know that, I mean.”

  He didn’t really know what he’d actually thought. That when she saw the boat, she’d wave again? That she’d show the bastards, convince them? They ate in silence, the fish was as good as he’d heard it was, but there wasn’t much more to talk about. Anni had a good appetite, she ate and she dribbled and spilled on herself, and he and Susann raced to be the first to clean her up. He’d arranged for a cab to come at half past one and it arrived on time, and an hour or so later they parted at Gåshaga dock. He kissed Anni on the forehead and promised to come and see her, on Monday at the latest. He managed to get through the city pretty quickly as the rush-hour traffic hadn’t built up yet, so he could concentrate on making a call to Sven Sundkvist from the car to get an update on what had happened in the past few hours, and to Ruben Frey at Hotel Continental—he wanted to talk to the poor man, he wanted to warn him that perhaps he shouldn’t hope for too much.

  THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS WERE UNLIKE ANYTHING HE HAD experienced before. Not even that day eighteen years ago when his only child had been found dying on his own bedroom floor. He had been emotionally more open then, easier to touch. He had really internalized her death, he had felt it and understood that it was real, and on several occasions had been close to taking his own life, as there was nothing left to live for. He had become more closed since then. He had, apart from the time when they desperately tried to have another child, not been able to touch Alice, not at all; he had been as good as the living dead.

  Edward Finnigan was sitting in his car driving north along Route 23. He had worked as the governor’s adviser for as long as they could remember, since they met when studying law at Ohio State University two decades before Robert was elected. And then when the long campaign that they had fought together for all those years finally resulted in a governor post, they had simply moved their work to the office on South High Street in Columbus, all their efforts and strategic planning had finally paid off, he was the governor’s closest partner and the one who dealt with everything that officially and unofficially passed through Ohio’s center of power.

  It was as if Elizabeth’s death had made him even more efficient. He worked even harder so he didn’t have to feel, and somewhere, somehow, hoped the victory in his working life would translate into solace in his private life. He wound down the window on the driver’s side and spat angrily into the cold air. How incredibly naive he had been.

  He had realized this in the hours that had passed since the prison’s senior corrections officer, Vernon Eriksen, had come to visit them early in the morning the day before. Suddenly, after all these years, it was as if he could feel again. When Eriksen had told what he’d come to tell them, when he had explained that Frey was alive, that he was being held behind bars in a city in northern Europe, it was as if someone had pummeled Finnigan hard with a fist again and again until they were certain that he could really feel the blows. He was alive. That meant he could die. Edward Finnigan had stripped when Eriksen left, crying out for her skin again, his erection as hard as it had been long ago, and she hadn’t understood, she’d asked him to leave.

  Of course he’d phoned. And Robert had understood and immediately contacted Washington. They would get Frey at any cost. They perhaps didn’t have the same motivation, Finnigan who wanted revenge and the governor who wanted to be reelected, but that didn’t matter: the bastard was coming back and they would stand together and watch his execution.

  It was only seventy-four miles between Marcusville and Columbus and he drove his year-old Ford there and back several times a week. He did have an apartment he could use only a hundred yards from the office, at the top of a beautiful building and with an interior that was professionally designed at the state’s expense, but he wasn’t comfortable there. The small rooms reeked of loneliness, and strangely enough, despite having closed down, he didn’t want to feel lonely, so he commuted every day, there and back, and if he left early and drove slightly too fast, he could avoid most of the traffic and do it in just under an hour.

  It was quite icy and he had driven more slowly than usual, the dark was deceptive and he had already veered too close to the shoulder on two occasions. As he approached what was the geographical and political heart of Ohio—around eight hundred thousand people with a considerably higher than average wage, education, and living standard than the population of Marcusville—he phoned and asked the governor for an early morning meeting in his office. He wanted to know what was happening with the Frey case. Or rather, why nothing at all seemed to have happened in the past twenty-four hours.

  The office was on the thirteenth floor, 77 South High Street. It wasn’t particularly impressive, and the few friends who had dropped by to say hello over the years had tried hard to hide their disappointment when the office of the governor’s adviser turned out be pretty much like any other office in any other company, for any level of management—Edward Finnigan had made a point of it. To be fair, his bright office had a view over half of Columbus, but the exterior was modest and the interior simple and functional, thus communicating cost-effectiveness and moderation, which were important in a state that regularly battled threats of tax hikes.

  Robert was already sitting in the visitor’s chair when he came in. Two sticky doughnuts on a plate on the desk. He looked healthy following a short break, skiing in Telluride, about as high as you could go in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. He was tall and fit, with a tanned face and fair hair parted in the middle, and he looked young, certainly much younger than Edward. There was only a month between them, and no one who saw them, absolutely no one, would ever believe anyone who told them that. Lean versus lumpy, a mane of hair versus balding, suntanned versus pasty, but for the most part it was the sorrow that had weathered him, for each year that had passed since Elizabeth was taken away, Edward Finnigan had lived two.

  “Edward, if I’m going to be honest, you look terrible.”

  Finnigan walked into the room, a few hurried steps across the soft carpet to the window. The sun that shone in the distance behind the highrise blocks was strong and he didn’t want all that damn light. The blinds were dark and he adjusted them so that it was impossible to see the day outside that wanted attention.

  “Bob, I want to know why nothing’s happening.”

  The governor took one of the doughnuts, ate half of the sticky treat and kept the rest in his hand.

  “You’ve been waiting eighteen years. Eighteen years, Edward! I, if anyone, know how you feel, and what you want, but just let the wheels of bureaucracy turn for a while, be patient, you’ve already waited so long. He’s coming back here. He’s going to sit on Death Row again, in Marcusville prison, and he’s going to be executed. Every time that you and Alice get ready to go for a walk in town, I assure you, every time you see that great ugly wall you will know that he sat inside there, that it was there he ceased to be.”

  Edward Finnigan snorted. He couldn’t remember that he’d ever done that to his oldest friend. He looked in the briefcase he had with him—the envelope had slipped in between two plastic files and he swore loudly before he found it. He emptied the contents onto the desk and asked the governor to look at it.

  A photograph. A man in a dark shirt who seemed to want to avoid the camera.

  “Do you know who that is?”

  “I can guess.”

  “I hate him!”

  “And you’re sure that it’s him?”

  “He’s cut his hair, he’s thinner, his eyes are somehow darker, more wrinkles. But i
t’s him. I’ve known him since he started primary school. It’s him, Bob!”

  The governor picked up the photograph, held it under the desk lamp so he could see better in the dark room.

  “You don’t need to worry. He’ll be coming back.”

  “I can’t wait any longer!”

  Finnigan paced restlessly around the room, his voice was too loud and the governor didn’t like it.

  “Edward, if you’d like me to stay, I want you to sit here and calm down.

  We’ve gone through this far too many times before. I’m your friend. And I think of you as mine. I watched your daughter grow up. You know that I would happily administrate his execution. And we will. If you don’t lose your head now.”

  They’d both thought about it, were forced to every now and then when they worked side by side over a long period of time. Even from their student days it had been obvious: Robert had been the politician candidate and Edward his trusted adviser. It wasn’t anything they’d decided, it had just turned out like that, they had found their roles and were happy with them. They seldom, or rather never, responded hierarchically, they were friends and friends didn’t shout at each other, so the fact that Robert had now raised his voice and demonstrated his irritation was so unusual that they were both startled for a moment. Edward took a step forward and pulled the photograph from his grasp.

  “For six years, I’ve thought he was dead! He tried to trick me from my legal right to revenge. And then I find out that he’s alive in goddamn Sweden! I want to see him here. Now! I won’t wait any longer.”

  The governor had been particular when he made sure that the door to Finnigan’s office was closed. He had then pulled up the blinds, despite Edward’s protests, and let in the light that would give them energy. He had even opened a window wide, allowing the rumble of the traffic to find its way up and into the room to compete with their raised voices.

  They had then shouted at each other as they had never done before.

  For all these years, they had consciously avoided confrontation. They had built a relationship that was uneasily protected from strong words and had feared the day that would inevitably come. Now it was here and it was almost a relief to get rid of everything, to shout until they were hoarse, to not give a damn for once whether the staff were listening outside, and if they were, what they were thinking.

  Their argument came to a violent end after about twenty minutes.

  In a fury, Robert had pushed his friend up against the wall and with his mouth close to his ear lowered his voice and pointed out that if Edward wanted to succeed in this, it was fucking important that no one could interpret it as a personal vendetta, that they had to make it political and use political arguments, just like the last time, that they would get the journalists to write about men who killed women and then ran around making a joke of the American legal system.

  He had stood there with a firm grip on his adviser’s collar.

  Suddenly, Finnigan had twisted himself free, and struck him to the floor with his fist, then turned, picked up a penholder and thrown it in his face.

  The governor had started to bleed profusely from a cut on his forehead, and heard his best friend tell him to go to hell as he flung open the door and stormed out.

  IT WAS AFTERNOON IN STOCKHOLM. STILL COLD, STILL WINDY, AND SPRING seemed more distant than ever. State Secretary Thorulf Winge had just replaced lunch with a cup of Earl Grey and a dry cinnamon bun that had been lying on the table since the late meeting the evening before. He had dipped it in the hot liquid and it hadn’t really tasted of anything, but for a moment had resembled something like nourishment. On days like this, there simply wasn’t the time, and that was that.

  He walked the short distance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the government offices in Rosenbad. Head down, eyes focused on the icy asphalt, he looked like all the other people trying to escape the cold that assailed your face in January. He walked along the water beside the parliament—this was where he existed, amongst the corridors of power, and it was to these corridors that he had given most of his life.

  He nodded to the security guard who was sitting behind the glass wall, in a light uniform shirt and brown beret with a brass badge on the front.

  The guard, an older man who had been there almost as long as Winge, nodded in recognition and pressed the button that opened the main door.

  He was well prepared. The meeting with the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs was their first concerning John Meyer Frey, squeezed into the prime minister’s already full schedule.

  Thorulf Winge took a deep breath and looked at the clock on the wall.

  He had exactly fifteen minutes to explain why they would be forced to hand over the detained American citizen to the United States as early as tomorrow morning.

  EDWARD FINNIGAN’S FACE GLEAMED WITH SWEAT IN the reflection in the rectangular mirror in the elevator. His breathing was still labored, raising his voice against Robert, struggling free from his grip and then throwing that stupid penholder in his face, it was as if he’d been running for hours. The physical strain had perhaps not been so great, but he was tired to the point of exhaustion. People got in and out of the elevator on the way down, but he barely registered them. Someone was standing in his way, a fifty-five-year-old man who stared back at him in confusion from the mirror and wondered what the hell to do now.

  He was frightened.

  He didn’t regret that he’d shouted and fought. But he suddenly felt the fear when he realized what he was capable of. An act of violence. He who had never fought before. Uncontrolled anger that he had let loose, here, in an environment where he’d always been in control.

  The man in the mirror continued to stare.

  He had been dreading this confrontation for a long time. Just as he was sure that Robert had dreaded it. Thirty years together without ever clearing the air, as if their friendship was so fragile that they had both consciously avoided situations that might destroy the trust. Now he felt uncertain, he was filled with anxiety. An anxiety about the consequences that rattled in his chest, that as a result of the shouting and the fight he risked losing the support, the support of power, when he most needed it.

  He got out of the elevator on the ground floor. It was freezing out there; people seemed to huddle against the wind and cold. He loitered by reception for a while, nodded at the ubiquitous man who stood there every morning in his uniform and smiled at everyone who came in, who didn’t seem to have much more to do than that, other than put out the yellow plastic signs to warn that the marble floor was wet and slippery and people walked there at their own peril. Finnigan had always been irritated by the warnings that had no other function than to have been there in the event that someone did slip and then decided to go to a lawyer with their foot in a cast and file a suit against the owner of the property for not looking after the floor properly. Too much of the legal system was clogged up by ridiculous cases that were of little importance, and this morning he really wanted to kick the sign in front of him to bits.

  He waited in the warmth until he had decided what he was going to do.

  He didn’t kick anything, he left the yellow plastic sign standing there when he hurried out to the car that was illegally parked right in front of the building.

  It wasn’t far to Port Columbus International and he pulled his phone out of his coat pocket as he drove, phoned direct to the ticket desk and booked a seat on the United Airlines flight that was due to depart at twenty-nine minutes past ten.

  An hour’s flight later and he could see Washington Dulles International from the air. A few minutes ago, the pilot had started to prepare for landing, which was scheduled for eleven thirty-five. Edward Finnigan had traveled this route more times than he could remember in recent years, just enough time to read USA Today and the New York Times, have a beer and a sandwich, then a taxi and today’s Washington Post before he arrived at the center of the capital.

  You give and you get.

/>   He had learned the golden rule of power a long, long time ago.

  He asked to be dropped off some way down D Street. The Monocle on Capitol Hill was a lunch restaurant that was in no way as good as its reputation, but he didn’t go there for the food. They had met at a table at the back of the beautiful restaurant several times before when they had passed on information and promised support in exchange for support.

  You give and you get.

  He liked the tables with the red-and-white checked tablecloths, welldone pieces of tender meat, salads that tasted fresh. He even liked the bustling waiter who could sniff out tips. But most of all, he liked the openplan design that made it easy to see who was coming and going, when you should lower your voice without it appearing to be evasive.

  Norman Hill was about fifteen years older than him. A nice, softly spoken gentleman who seemed to have been born to this. The sort of person who was pointed out in primary school as a potential senator. He was thin, even thinner than Finnigan remembered, and several times he was about to ask if he was ill but refrained; Hill’s eyes and face radiated the same energy that he always did, he was the kind of man you listened to, had confidence in. Authority, Edward Finnigan thought to himself, had nothing to do with physical weight.

  At some point in the middle of their conversation, Finnigan started to smile. For the first time since Vernon Eriksen’s visit, he relaxed, felt his shoulders fall, the tension around the back of his neck let go. There was something so familiar about all this, secure even. They had sat like this eighteen years ago, in another restaurant a couple of hundred yards away, and Finnigan had appealed to him to apply political pressure that would result in media pressure—back then it involved a seventeen-year-old boy who had taken the life of a schoolgirl a year younger than him—to stoke public opinion in support of the severest legal penalty, even though the murderer was a minor. Senator Hill had then pressed all the buttons he could: ones that Finnigan had heard about and ones that you got to know only when your whole world was the blocks between the Potomac and Pennsylvania Avenue.