She’d always imagined that he just went round the corner and called back. Or that he sat in the car. She’d seen him in it with his phone pressed to his ear. He’d looked pretty upset that time.
The police wanted to check all the calls to and from the carpet shop, his home on Holmhällevägen, and his cell phone. It would take time to get a comprehensive list, but it could be done, she’d understood. Carl-Ivar had a cell phone service subscription rather than a pay-as-you-go card, so his calls were all traceable.
Just the simple fact that he had such a payment plan suggested that he hadn’t been up to anything dodgy, Christoffer said. The real bad guys had disposable phones that could be topped up with minutes as needed and then just dumped as soon as they’d done a job.
She’d called her mother to tell her that Carl-Ivar was dead. She’d done so as soon as she herself had found out, but her mother had just started going on about herself, as usual. Annelie hadn’t been surprised, just tired and a little irked for once, even though she knew it was a waste of energy.
Her mom had launched instinctively into a sermon about her lack of money, about having worked her fingers to the bone her whole life, about her aches and pains, and about losing her teeth. She’d begged and pleaded with Annelie to come home and help her. The least she could do was pay for a dentist; she who was, after all, married to a doctor and lived so well.
“It’s the least a mother can ask of her daughter. All the times I’ve taken care of you,” she said, her voice whiney.
“Don’t you understand what I’m telling you, Mother?” she’d screamed at last.
“What?”
She sounded like an innocent babe.
“Your little brother’s dead. Don’t you get it? Carl-Ivar’s been murdered.”
“Oh, right, yes, how awful…”
Annelie could still hear how her mother had just breathed down the line then. The hamster wheel had probably stopped turning. She just didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want the outside world getting into her brain. Couldn’t cope with other people’s business; she was forever stuck in her own calamity. She was a victim on many levels. All levels, possibly.
Jesus Christ!
“Oh, my darling brother,” she finally managed. “He was the nicest person on earth! Is it really true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Carl-Ivar, who is goodness itself… My little Anneling, tell me it’s not so!”
“Mother, it’s all over the papers…”
“Carl-Ivar, my darling brother! What’ll I do without him? My little Anneling! You know that Mommy misses you, don’t you? You must come home, now that this terrible thing has happened to me. My daaaarling brother is dead…”
Annelie could feel her heart grow cold. She refused. There was no way she was going to sit at her mother’s kitchen table, listening to the woman, full ashtray in front of her, croaking on about herself. About not being able to afford her sixty cigarettes a day. And now she’d need even more because poor her had lost Carl-Ivar. Her beloved brother! That was something you didn’t hear much otherwise.
But as soon as she hung up, Annelie was filled with regret. Of course it was a great loss to her mother that Carl-Ivar had died. They had, after all, always stuck together in some strange way, brother and sister. But mostly on the quiet.
She went down and splashed cold water on her tear-puffed face. When she heard the shop door pling open, she quickly blew her nose and ascended the stairs. But before she had time to stick her head up into the shop, the door jingled again as the visitor clearly left.
For heaven’s sake, some people are so impatient, she thought.
She hurried over to the windows, first the one and then the other, to see if it had been a customer she recognized. She’d then be able to call after them, apologize and explain.
But the pavement was deserted in both directions, with the exception of a young couple in dark, baggy clothes, hair all tousled and dyed. Those two had definitely not come into the shop.
She turned around and was just about to turn down the radio when she noticed that the rug she’d just been busy unwrapping was gone.
She ran her eyes over the shop. She’d put the rolled-up rug by the table, hadn’t she?
CHAPTER 29
AT LAST CHRISTOFFER was able to leave the ward. He was heading home, but he made it no further than around the corner of the stairwell when his phone began to vibrate in his back pocket again.
An expected call, but not one he really wanted to take. On the other hand, he’d lived with his ambivalence for a long time, so why not a little longer?
And he’d already survived one blow today, once he’d finally dragged himself to work – the disastrous meeting with Ronny Alexandersson in the surgery unit, which hadn’t, after all, been that bad. He brushed aside the thought of the woman who’d died at home and instead fished out his phone to check the display.
He was right. It was her. She was tenacious. But he got a kick out of it, nonetheless.
“Hiiii,” she purred, voice silky and languid, with her usual intimacy. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. “I saaaw you earlier at the unit.”
“Yes, I saw you, too,” he said softly.
The red paper ball rolled once more over the rubber mat at the foot of his passenger seat. Minor panic. Where had it gone? He couldn’t really cope with more contrition, most of what he had he’d consumed earlier that day when Ronny had come looking for him. But still it chewed him up. Gnawed, clawed, and sawed away.
“Are you leaving for home?” Tina asked. He didn’t answer. “How are you?” she asked tenderly.
“Fine.”
Her softness made the world stop spinning for a brief moment.
“Where are you?”
“On the stairs just about to leave for home. You know I don’t want you calling me,” he said in a low, guilty voice.
“But I couldn’t help it… I love you so much,” came the words, as quiet as a whisper.
He didn’t respond in kind. Not there, where he was right now. He’d have to hide himself away to say things like that. So he said nothing now either, but nor did he hang up.
“Where are you?” he asked finally.
“I’ve shut myself into the washroom.”
“OK.”
He realized that someone would soon yank the door open and find her there, cheeks all flushed.
“So maybe I can catch a ride with you so I don’t have to take the bus and Pär can get the job he’s working on done and not have to pick me up? My mom’s picking the kids up and is taking them back with her.”
She was babbling. The coast was clear, in other words. She’d handed him this on a plate. He couldn’t turn it down.
But still he didn’t answer straight off. Didn’t like people seeing her slide into his car. Tongues wagged so easily.
“But I was thinking of leaving this very second,” he said, hoping that she wasn’t ready to go home herself.
“Great. It’s pretty quiet today on the ward, so I can leave a bit early. See you by the car?”
And so it was to be.
Just as he was getting changed, Michael Strong called. He was a man with a firm grasp of the pecking order, and so had a surname that suited him perfectly. Michael should have stayed in academia, Christoffer had often thought. Here in the country they didn’t feel the need to keep pulling rank.
“I’m just about to sign off for the day,” said Michael. “You’ll have to go to the ward and discharge three patients for me,” he continued without even asking if this was possible.
Christoffer’s hackles were raised.
“You know, I’m on my way home, too, and have already changed. They’re your patients, you discharge them.”
He hung up before he could hear Michael snap at him. Only a year ago, he would have swallowed and gone to the ward and discharged the patients and been even more annoyed at Michael. If that was at all possible.
By now, the parking lot was half empty. The
rowan trees that had been planted between the different sections were covered with new leaves and clusters of small white blossoms. He’d never noticed the little flowers before, but there wasn’t much else to look at as he sat there behind the wheel waiting for Tina.
She was called Rosie by her colleagues, on account of her surname being Rosenkvist. She lived with some thuggish type, he’d understood from what Tina herself had told him.
He didn’t know Pär more than from a distance. A good plumber, people said. She’d grumbled a lot when they first met, venting her frustration at his stupidity and rabid jealousy. But he thought that Pär seemed laid-back. He was the broad-shouldered, muscular type, a fact that Christoffer had noted with a pang of envy.
So why did she hang around?
Such questions never had simple answers, he’d learned that from experience. He couldn’t live without Annelie. He stayed with her because he wanted to. All the other stuff was unimportant, really. All that which happened on the sly. But without it, life would be boring.
Anyway, he realized that Tina wasn’t the woman who’d make him happy for the rest of his life. He’d need more. He was fussy. Needed a little friction now and then. Above all, his ambivalence meant that he didn’t want to commit himself to any one person. But he needed Annelie. She was there. That’s what he liked about her. She was smart and good to talk with about stuff other than love. She was nice company, even though he was bored with sleeping with her.
But you had to give to get. He’d learned that trick early in life. Practiced it on his old mom, and she’d been a tough nut to crack. She wasn’t exactly the kind of person to clasp you to her breast without a second thought. No huggy-mommy, in other words.
Tina and he had talked quite a bit about Pär, as if he, Christoffer, could rescue her. He wanted to, at first. Wanted to be the knight in shining armor. He’d thought, Fuck it, she shouldn’t have to take this crap! A man who threatens and beats his wife! Jesus!
These days, though, he didn’t feel so worked up by it anymore. Tina didn’t talk that much about leaving Pär. As if the man had become less of a control freak. More decent, perhaps.
She wanted to stay for the children’s sake, they weren’t that old, you know, she said. She wanted to hang around for a while, at least, she said in a little girl’s voice so that he’d soften and understand. Meanwhile they could work on their relationship. It was like they were made for each other, she said, and he didn’t object.
But time had done something to them. It was like they’d taken their relationship to a different level than when they’d first met. As if their relationships really could continue as it was forever. A kind of equilibrium, perhaps. In which case, having your cake and eating it was brilliant.
In the middle of all this thinking and waiting in the car for Tina, he was struck by the sudden urge to talk to Annelie. If nothing else, he wanted to be sure that the coast was clear – that she hadn’t cancelled that evening’s dinner with Gabbi.
She picked up right away.
“How are things?”
Fine, she guessed.
“Just wanted to say hi.”
“So you didn’t call for a particular reason?”
He had to confess that he hadn’t. Her voice sounded odd, he thought, but he didn’t ask why.
“So you’re not coming home this evening?” he said instead.
“Nah, I reckoned on going to Gabbi’s as planned… But is something up? Do you want me to come home?”
She sounded a little concerned.
“Not at all,” he responded hastily. “Have a great time!”
He hung up.
What the hell was he doing? Was he getting paranoid? There was nothing strange about giving Tina Rosenkvist a ride home, was there? After all, they lived just a few houses down from each other. Good neighbors help each other out here in the countryside.
This realization calmed him, on that point at least. He had other things to worry about. He was going on report and there was no denying that he only had himself to blame. He sucked on that bitter thought for a while to accustom himself to the taste.
Or perhaps it’d be Ronny who’d take the brunt of it. They’d know once the autopsy was over, Ronny had said. The hospital was going to conduct an investigation into possible negligence. The wheels would start grinding. But they already knew, he thought. That he’d acted irresponsibly. That he had been negligent.
The very thought wearied him. The question was whether it wouldn’t be best for his mental health to stand up and accept the blame. To don the heavy, sodden mantle of remorse and, of course, apologize. So that would be that and he’d be able to move on. Not because they’d be able to bring the woman back to life or that he could count on being forgiven. But really just to put an end to it all.
But on the other hand, it might not have made such a difference for the patient if they’d sauntered on up and had a look at her. What did they know? Damn it all, said Ronny. Only that she should have been sent for further examination rather than sent home. After all, it had only been a simple gall bladder case, and the patient herself had stated on her health declaration that she was in good physical shape and was not taking any medicine.
He saw Tina walking toward him. And then she was opening the passenger door and plonking herself down onto the seat beside him.
“Hi,” she said, looking at him with intense eyes. A gaze that burned like a welding torch.
He reversed and drove out of the car park while scanning for anyone that might have spotted them.
Silence settled in the car. He held the wheel with both hands. Tina laid a hand on his thigh and gave it a squeeze. This rankled him at first, but he let it lie there, which it did all the way to the Århult junction. When they turned in toward Kristdala, the air was so thick that the car was fit to explode.
CHAPTER 30
THE POLICE CAR HAD LEFT the Sea of Marmara and turned onto a winding network of streets with ascending, densely-packed residential quarters.
Claesson sat silently in the back seat, taking in this indescribably thronging world that seemed to float in a faint blue afternoon fog. Or maybe it was exhaust fumes that made the air dense and shimmery.
They were driving alongside a narrow open space with a lawn in its center and tall obelisks rising at each end. Tourists stood in clusters around the flowerbeds adorning the bases of the obelisks, which they photographed with necks bent to get in the top. Buses stood parked in a line along the curb. Any fool could see that this was a historical place. Like an arena, thought Claesson.
The man behind the wheel said something to Özen, who then turned to Claesson in the back seat.
“The hippodrome,” he explained in Swedish, pointing. “The stadium was built a long time ago by the Romans for horse racing. It was then developed by the Emperor Constantine…you know, the Greek… whenever he was…”
“The thirteen hundreds,” Claesson offered. “I was reading about it while you slept. He was the one who founded the city. It was called Constantinople once. We in the north called it Miklagård during Viking times.”
He felt like a school teacher, and was just about to wax descriptive about the Byzantine period when Özen interrupted him.
“And right next to it is the famous Blue Mosque. As you can see, it’s not blue, but has blue tiles inside. It’s easy to recognize because of its six minarets. It’s unusual to have so many. Here in Istanbul people don’t say the Blue Mosque but Sultan Ahmet Camii. It’s high up and can be seen from the sea.”
The car drove on, weaving between tourist shops and buses of all shapes and sizes. The smaller ones were normally white, he noted. The policeman, who was driving with an easy, accustomed hand through this maelstrom of human bodies, continued to supply facts, which Özen conveyed back to Claesson.
“And there’s Hagia Sofia.” Özen pointed at an imposing, brick-colored building with a domed roof and a conglomeration of annexes, flanked by four minarets pointing like sharpened pencils into th
e heavens.
“It’s one of the real big tourist magnets alongside the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace, which has harems, you know! The Sultan was busy…” Özen grinned as he listened again to his Turkish colleague. “When Hagia Sofia was built it was a Christian church, that was long ago… I don’t know how long…”
“I can look it up,” said Claesson, who was totally captivated by the unreal environment on the other side of the car window.
He didn’t expect to have time to do any tourist stuff. The sights would, however, still be there for another visit, he thought, feeling a spontaneous urge to share all this with Veronika. But Istanbul was hardly a place to go to with small children. It’d have to wait.
“The guy here says that Hagia Sofia means the Church of Holy Wisdom,” continued Özen, who’d put on a well-modulated guide’s voice. “Now it’s a museum. Always packed with tourists. There are even some runes there that were scratched into the walls by Vikings. The emperor employed Vikings as guards and soldiers because they were reliable and hard as nails.”
Shortly afterwards, the marked police car rolled onto a narrow street untouched by the sunlight. Lining the pavement were workshops, small boutiques, and bars, like holes in the walls with a scattering of rickety plastic tables outside.
Then the car stopped by a large building with an old-looking façade but with modern-looking windows, noted Claesson. He and Özen took what little luggage they had, which for Claesson consisted of the smallest model of rolling suitcase and a shoulder bag containing a laptop and documents about the case.
The air inside the police station offered little succor from the heat, but Claesson was so tense that he didn’t care. His forehead and cheeks were burning and his hands were moist.
He was wearing a short-sleeved checkered shirt of thin cotton and relatively new, slightly tidier chinos. He suddenly wondered if he should have dressed more appropriately. Many hours had passed since the shirt could have claimed to be freshly ironed. A jacket and pressed, sharply creased slacks might have looked better, but were not as comfortable to travel in. At least he had a navy blue linen jacket with him, neatly folded into his case, to put on when necessary. Although this need rarely arose as he found jackets uncomfortable these days.
Death of a Carpet Dealer Page 18