A table in a dining room or living room and what looked like a birthday party; a crowd, every seat taken, everyone dressed up, sitting around a white tablecloth and a big cake. The boy leaning over, about to blow out half the candles, missing two front teeth.
‘My boys, please, two sons, look, look, brothers …’
‘Turn around.’
He snatched the two faded photographs and dropped them on the floor.
‘Two boys, my boys … please!’
‘Turn around! On stomach! And stay!’
Vincent guided a rubber boat across calm water. Drevviken. One more wide turn, his hand on the steering rod of the two-cycle engine, and to his left he saw the light beyond the forest’s edge – Farsta – and the darkness straight ahead of Sköndal Beach. He turned off the engine, gliding towards the jetty and the beach. He got out, and pulled the boat into the reeds. He’d thought for the last two kilometres he was running late.
Right then he realised why Leo had chosen this place. The bay was sheltered, and beside the beach was a swimming pool that was long since closed for the winter. Their mother had once worked there with disabled children of his age, some with and some without wheelchairs.
He stood on the long wooden jetty, rocking slowly. Not far away lay a second jetty, shorter and much older, and he was reminded of the summer Leo taught him to swim. He had called it the Dock, and Vincent would earn the invented swimming badge (of which only one copy existed) when he was able to swim the ten metres that separated the old wooden jetty from the new one. He’d thrashed his arms and drummed his legs, and one evening after the others had gone home he’d managed to make it the whole way without putting his feet down. Leo had applauded and given him the badge – a large piece of wood with words carved into it.
He was being rocked up, down, by a plank that sagged just a little too much – even the new jetty was getting old. The very plank he’d held onto after that last stroke, as he’d gripped Leo’s hand to keep from sinking into the cold. Leo’s voice was always there, telling him to concentrate on the next stroke, and only that, not on what he felt or saw, just straight ahead to the next stroke.
They should be here already. He should have been there. Anything but this – the not knowing.
He smelled bad. Vincent could feel it oozing out of his pores, a scent he’d never smelled before, strong, acrid, stifling – more fear than he could hold inside.
He leaned down on his knees towards the glassy surface of the ice-cold water and rinsed his face.
The gun pressed against his back and he readjusted it. Leo had handed it to him in the hallway before they parted, always keep the barrel pointed down until you’re ready to use it, Leo had emphasised as he showed him, safety off, safety on, safety off, grabbed his shoulders tightly, just remember, Vincent, that you decide, not the weapon.
18.11.
They should have been here by now.
Felix ran down the hill, through the woods and community gardens, towards the car. Down the narrow gravel road and then onto the slightly wider asphalt road, until he found himself at the flyover. His heart was just beginning to beat a little more regularly, his breathing starting to even out – when he heard the sirens.
When he saw the rotating blue light.
‘Vincent, where are you?’
‘I’m still here. At the jetty. Waiting.’
The phone he was only supposed to use for emergencies.
‘They’re not here yet,’ said Vincent, his voice weak.
This was an emergency.
‘Fuck … Fuck.’
‘Felix?’
‘Fuck!’
‘Felix, what’s—’
‘The fucking police just drove by now! In a few minutes they’ll be there, where you are!’
Vincent was holding the phone and Felix’s voice in his hand. The fear poured out of him stronger than before.
It was at that moment that he saw it, heard it.
The car stopped and its headlights streamed onto the windows of the changing rooms at the beach.
And then – the voices. Talking loudly. Screaming.
Leo looked at his watch.
18.12.
No one was behind them at the checkpoint. They still had time to force open the locked door that separated them from another nine million kronor. He was just climbing out when Jasper dragged out the guard. Both pushed beyond their limits.
‘Open! Or I shoot!’
‘I … can’t. I can’t!’
Jasper stood up and shoved his automatic weapon into the guard’s mouth.
‘I shoot!’
The watchman kneeled down, weeping and trying to speak.
‘Please! Please please please please!’
Jasper cocked the gun and raised his weapon. His black boot sank into the grass as he leaned forward, pressing the butt firmly against his shoulder. His finger on the trigger, his eyes unreachable.
Vincent heard shots.
Not one. Not five. Twenty, maybe thirty.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to be seen. There were only supposed to be two robbers. The only ones the security guards would see and report later.
But Felix had called. The cops were close. He had no choice.
Pain cut into Jasper’s right shoulder: it felt good. His breath was ragged. But despite emptying his magazine into the locked door, there was not a scratch. He fished a new magazine out of his vest.
Then he heard footsteps in the darkness, getting closer.
He turned in their direction, his weapon in front of his body, ready to shoot.
Vincent had to warn them. He ran across the fine-grained sand and over the grass they used to lay their towels on, ran until he saw the outline of the van, and beside it, Leo and Jasper.
Jasper pointed his weapon in the direction of the approaching steps.
A face. He was sure of it. Out in the dark.
He fired the first shot.
Leo had heard those steps, too. He saw Jasper turn his weapon in that direction, squeeze the trigger, and then recognised something familiar: the way a person puts down their foot, moves their upper body. And he just knew.
He threw himself forward, his hand around the barrel of Jasper’s gun, forcing it upwards.
‘Felix called, he said …’
Someone who Leo recognised, who shouldn’t be there, who could have died just now, was whispering, pressing his mouth to Leo’s ear.
‘… the cops are on the way – they’ve passed the checkpoint!’
Leo grabbed his youngest brother tightly.
You should have stayed at the jetty.
‘Go back.’
I could have lost you.
‘And get the boat started.’
Leo looked at Jasper and at the still intact steel door. Vincent would never have disobeyed an order if it weren’t an emergency.
‘Leave. Now,’ Leo ordered.
They’d used up their nine minutes from Farsta to the shores of Drevviken lake. He’d allowed four more as well. There was no more time.
‘Now.’
Jasper saw the bluish light above the trees, getting closer. He had an almost full magazine, thirty-five shots. Leo was going to have to wait. He wanted to make a stand, face those bastards.
‘Now!’ Leo screamed.
Jasper started running, but not towards the boat, first to the security guards, one at a time.
‘We know your names, sharmuta.’
He tore off the IDs hanging from their jacket pockets. Names, service numbers.
‘If you ever talk …’
The three-metre-long rubber boat glided through the reeds. Leo in the front, Jasper in the middle, and Vincent in the back with one hand on the engine cord.
He pulled on it. Nothing. He pulled again. Still nothing.
‘Come on, for fuck’s sake!’
Vincent’s fingers were slippery, they slid and couldn’t get a good grip – and when they did, he pulled on the cord a few more times and nothing happen
ed.
‘Damn it, Vincent, the choke!’ barked Leo.
Vincent pulled the square button all the way out, then pulled hard on the engine cord.
The engine started.
Leo looked at his youngest brother. He’d always been so little, but just now he’d made his own decision, disobeyed an order and left his spot to warn them. And he watched the blue lights flashing behind him, almost beautiful against the blackness, ebbing away on the other side of the cliff as their boat reached open water and disappeared into the darkness.
5
JOHN BRONCKS LEANED his head against the inside of a large window. It was cool, almost cold against his forehead. The leaves of the wiry, newly planted trees standing in a line in the courtyard of the Kronoberg police station had recently turned from yellow to red, and were now brown, falling to the ground to be trampled on.
Ten to seven on a Friday evening.
Not much life out there. Not much life in here.
He should go home.
Maybe he’d do that.
He went to the kitchenette that stood in the middle of the office, put a saucepan on the stove, then poured boiling water into a deep porcelain cup someone else had bought and left behind, making silver tea. He usually drank it like that. Only a couple of offices still had their lights on: Karlström’s four doors away, and one at the end of the hall, where a chief inspector approaching retirement was playing sixties music and sleeping on a brown corduroy couch. Broncks never wanted to end up like that, spending his nights at the station to escape the loneliness like a black hole you were falling headlong into. Broncks was here for the opposite reason. He didn’t need to hide here. He liked going home when he felt he deserved it, when he gave himself permission.
A warm cup in hand, the water didn’t taste of much, but it went down smoothly. Broncks’s desk looked like everyone else’s. Piles of folders, parallel investigations. Others seemed to be drowning in them, but to him it felt more like autumn on his desk, something that made it easier to breathe.
Interrogator John Broncks (JB): She lay down?
Ola Erixon (OE): Yes.
JB: And then … you hit her?
OE: Yes.
JB: How?
OE: I sat on top of her, on her breasts, straddled her. Right hand. Again.
JB: Again? As in several times?
OE: She usually pretends.
JB: Pretends?
OB: Yes, sometimes … usually she pretends to faint.
Every night, around the time he should be heading home, they started pushing harder – investigations that just wouldn’t allow him to leave and let him take part in whatever lay outside.
Thomas Sörensen (TS): I took him to his room and asked him if he saw anything different.
Interrogator John Broncks (JB): Different?
TS: The damn lamp was on. It’d been on all day. So I had to teach him.
JB: What do you mean by that?
TS: The book. Against the back of his head. He needs to understand it costs money! This wasn’t the first time.
JB: That you hit him?
TS: That he left the lamp on.
JB: Your son is eight years old.
(Silence.)
JB: Eight.
(Silence.)
JB: You continued? Hitting him? With the book … a thick, hardcover book?
TS: Mmm.
JB: And then … I want you to look at the pictures a bit further down – the back, the body, neck?
TS: But you have to understand he deserved it?
Night after night he went through these investigations, most of them like this. But he didn’t do it because of the attacker. Or the person who’d been attacked. It wasn’t for their sake. He’d never met them before, didn’t know them. That wasn’t why he stayed here long after the corridor was empty. It was the attack itself. Folder by folder, document by document.
Erik Linder (EL): She didn’t do what I told her to.
Interrogator John Broncks (JB): What exactly do you mean?
EL: I mean exactly that.
JB: And so … what did you do?
(Silence.)
JB: This image – according to the doctor, first you fractured the shop assistant’s jaw.
(Silence.)
JB: And here – you fractured her cheekbone.
(Silence.)
JB: This is an image of her chest, which you kicked repeatedly.
(Silence.)
JB: And you have nothing to say about that?
EL: Hey!
JB: Yes?
EL: If I’d wanted to kill her … I would have.
And yet. Even though he didn’t care about these strangers. Each time he investigated incidents where excessive force had been used, it was as if he became more alert, more interested – something that pulled him in and wouldn’t let go. Until the perpetrator was sitting in a jail cell four floors above.
‘John?’
There was a knock. Someone was standing in his doorway. Someone was stepping inside.
‘You’re still here, John.’
Karlström. The chief superintendent. His boss. Wearing a winter coat and carrying a couple of overflowing paper bags.
‘Did you know I end up with an average of fifty cases a year of serious violence on my desk, Karlström?’
‘You’re still here, just like you always are, every night.’
Two pages of photographs of a woman’s body. Broncks held them up.
‘Listen to this: If I’d wanted to kill her I would have.’
‘And this weekend, John? Will you still be here?’
More photographs from another folder. He held them up as well.
‘Or this, Karlström: But you have to understand he deserved it?’
‘Because if you are going to be here, I want you to put that aside.’
More pictures, not especially sharp, probably taken by the same forensic scientist in the same hospital lighting.
‘Wait, this, this is the best: She usually pretends to faint.’
Karlström took the documents and piled them on the desk without looking at them.
‘John, did you hear what I said?’
He pointed to the clock on the wall behind Broncks.
‘One hour and seven minutes ago a security van in Farsta was hit. More than a million taken. Automatic weapons, shots fired. The van was hijacked and driven to a beach in Sköndal. More gunfire took place there when the two masked robbers tried to break into the safe.’
Karlström lifted the pile of pictures and waved them.
‘Now forget these. These investigations are over. I want you to go there and take over. Now.’
He smiled.
‘Friday evening, John. All of Saturday. Maybe Sunday, too – if you’re lucky.’
Karlström was just about to grab the two bags and leave when he changed his mind, lifting out a live black-spotted lobster with rubber bands around its claws.
‘My evening, John. Homemade ravioli. A basil leaf on each circle of pasta. You cover it with fresh lobster, grated truffle, salt and olive oil. Fold the circle into a crescent, press the edges together firmly to seal it. The kids love it.’
John smiled at his boss, who every Friday afternoon rushed to Östermalm Market to sample the raw entrecôte, and then sat in a café mourning the fact that free-range corn-fed chicken had been banned by the EU.
One man with lobsters wearing rubber bands. Another one with a security van robbery to investigate.
You got the weekend you wanted. And I got the one I wanted.
Felix wasn’t freezing, even though he was naked. And it was for the same reason that he hadn’t shot that black car before it turned.
A calm that was his alone.
If Leo, three years his senior and who took the brunt of it, had been lying on that hill he would have taken the shot just to be sure. If Vincent, who was four years his junior – protected, allowed to be a kid – had been there, he would have fired in panic. And if Jasper, who so
eagerly wanted to be the fourth brother, had been up there he would have fired just because he could.
Felix looked around the dark forest, towards the dark water.
Barefoot against the damp rock, he pulled on the tight wetsuit, thin, with short sleeves and legs in order to reduce buoyancy; soon he would need to dive.
Holding the unlit torch in his hand, he searched the water ahead, but saw only long waves with foam crests rippling in the breeze.
Silent. Too silent.
Was the wind covering up the sound of a rubber boat with a Mercury motor?
He flashed his torch three times with the green light.
The signal.
First came the gently arced bay, then the jutting cape, power lines connecting two beaches like thick clothes lines above their heads, then steep cliffs and then, there in front …
There.
It was still far off and the trees on the beach were in the way, but Leo could just make it out: the green light, three blinks.
‘Vincent?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Change places.’
Leo had practised navigating in this kind of darkness. For the last stretch, they’d be close to land, manoeuvring around sharp stones you couldn’t see. Tiller in hand, he slowed down, turned, turned again.
‘Fucking hell, we did it!’ said Jasper, putting an arm around Vincent’s neck. ‘No one has ever hijacked a security van so fucking perfectly! What the hell’s the matter with you, Vincent? You feeling OK?’
‘What’s the matter with me? You nearly shot me.’
‘You had orders to remain on the boat. How could I know you would run up there?’
‘If I hadn’t warned you, if I hadn’t—’
‘Quiet now. Both of you,’ said Leo. ‘And Jasper, take off your wig, put it in the bag and wash your face.’
Leo slowed down a bit. The propeller was sluggish in the black water as he made a wide arc around a rock, then a small hill. Three flashes. The green light was getting brighter. He steered towards it. Their target was a low bluff with two scrawny pines. And Felix was standing on it, barefoot in a wetsuit.
The Father: Made in Sweden Part I Page 5