‘Sebastian?’
Anneli was already sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
‘Now listen to your mum, little one – it’s time for you to get dressed. If you do that, we’ll soon be going.’
She stubbed out her cigarette in an almost full ashtray, lit another and looked at Leo.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘Leo – I can see something’s wrong.’
‘I just need a cup of coffee, and I’ll be fine.’
There was just one cup left in the coffee pot. The last drops ran along the porcelain rim.
‘We’re in a hurry, get dressed.’
‘Is that why you sent the hooligan to wake me up?’
‘I don’t like it when you call him that.’
‘And I don’t like it when you smoke indoors.’
He snatched the cigarette from her mouth, walked over to the open window, and threw it out.
‘Especially right now – do you really need to smoke when Sebastian’s here so little?’
He opened the other window, wide.
‘I probably can’t go with you today.’
Anneli looked as disappointed as he’d guessed she would, and she glanced towards the hall and whispered.
‘We had an agreement. And now he’s getting ready.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Has something happened? You came home late last night. Again. Where were you? What are you up to?’
‘I was working.’
‘And why can’t you come with me now?’
‘Because I have to keep working.’
‘Work? Do you understand how disappointed he’ll be?’
‘Damn it … he’s your son, he doesn’t care about me.’
Leo searched through his pocket and pulled out a 1000-kronor note – from the Savings Bank in Ullared, the one he’d taken alone.
‘I can’t go with you.’
Sebastian waited at the front door, fully dressed, his eyes shining with expectation. Leo opened his little hand and put the money in it.
‘But have fun today.’
Anneli did not look happy. And she wasn’t trying to hide it. What Leo had just done was on the verge of insulting, and he rarely made her feel that way.
‘That’s enough for every ride, little fella!’
Leo ruffled his blond curly hair, and Sebastian looked at the 1000-kronor note lying in his palm.
‘Ride them … all?’
‘Fun, right? You can do whatever you want all day without any boring grown-ups stopping you.’
Anneli’s gaze burned into Leo’s neck, while Sebastian nodded without really understanding. She whispered again.
‘We’d decided.’
‘But I have some complications. A job.’
‘What “job”?’ she said, miming air quotes.
Leo hated it when she did that, and she knew it. Idiots used it when they were unsure of what they wanted to say and felt the need to reinforce it with some sort of theatrics.
‘The “job” that’s going to pay for the “house” you “want”,’ he mimicked her. He was still as annoyed as he had been before and last night and every other day since that phone call.
‘If your name is Anna-Karin …’
That bastard had known. He’d known something he shouldn’t know.
‘… what do you call your brother?’
And even though Leo hadn’t actually said one word too many, Broncks had got him to say too much. He’d informed on his brothers, confirmed something that fucking cop couldn’t have known, and if they ever got hold of him, they’d arrest his brothers too.
Leo heard her close the door without saying goodbye. He changed into his carpenter’s clothes, it was important that everything should appear normal.
One more cup of coffee and he felt himself slowly becoming less irritated. That fucking detective, he was just like the fat cop who’d once sat at the kitchen table. You drive a lead pencil through the hand of a man like that – not even a child has to sit quietly and be controlled.
Because what you don’t get, you have to take.
Reclaim it.
And never, ever let go again.
67
THE POLICE STATION’S cafeteria was half full. People sitting together during their free time, without much to talk about besides the one thing they had in common – work. John Broncks usually avoided eating here, conversations that felt natural during an investigation became strained at the long identical tables. He filled a cup of warm water from the machine without paying.
Karlström sat at a small table close to the window overlooking the courtyard. A fork in his right hand, his left hand leafing through the pile of documents. Broncks had never seen that before. His boss usually gave all his attention to his food.
‘Hello.’
A plate of overcooked chips surrounding a tough piece of meat. Not really Karlström’s style either. But he looked up from the stack of papers, took a drink of iced water and swallowed – at least that fitted, he never talked with food in his mouth.
‘John. I’m glad you could come.’
Broncks sat down while Karlström wiped his hands with a paper napkin.
‘It’s done. There’s a black bag on the floor behind my desk. Twenty-five million kronor. Cash. Used notes.’
Shared laughter from a group a couple of tables away. Staff from the Emergency Call Centre. They seemed relieved to not be answering the phone.
‘You now have everything you need to make the exchange. Weapons for cash. But it’s not enough.’
‘Enough?’
‘I had to run this past both the national police and the minister for justice. They aren’t content with just taking the guns off the market. They want to see an arrest.’
‘And what the hell do they think I want?’
‘Weapons. And an arrest. Do you understand? And I need to be informed about everything that happens.’
‘Of course. Everything.’
‘So I want to know when, where and how the exchange will take place.’
‘We’re not there yet. Just communicating.’
‘And when they make their demands and tell you what they want you to do, then you should give them your demands. So we can plan our countermove.’
‘I’m not sure it’ll work like that.’
Broncks studied Karlström. After ten years of working together they knew each other well, at least here, inside the walls of the police station. And he could see that Karlström knew they might be heading in different directions.
‘It will, John. If we plan properly.’
‘These guys have bombs and guns. They never shy away from violence. Their actions are always well planned. A single mistake during the exchange and … people could die.’
‘That’s exactly why they need to be apprehended.’
‘If they butcher our colleagues, and then escape, then we won’t know a damn thing more about who they are – nobody knows who they are! They’re invisible. And willing to do anything to stay that way.’
Now it was Karlström who studied Broncks. And his face changed colour. Broncks’s boss was rarely angry, he wasn’t the type. But he was losing the self-control he’d nurtured until it became part of his personality.
‘John?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know how this fucking works. Only time earns trust. The kind of trust that gives you the possibility of asking for favours. But you only get so many. So you have to choose when to use them up. I’ve done that now. Getting hold of twenty-five million without any guarantee of anything in return, taking the risk that some shitty criminals might manage to blackmail the government, which could become common knowledge later … our country’s highest officials went along with it, because I’ve earned it. Because I used up one of my few opportunities and demanded it. John, damn it, make sure it’s not in vain!’
Broncks leaned across the table, over the plate of l
eftovers.
‘Karlström – they have no contacts. I know it. They have no criminal history, and if they try to approach someone out there to sell those guns … our informants will know it. So they won’t. Not because they’re afraid, but because they’re smart.’
‘And you’re absolutely sure of that?’
‘The only thing I’m sure of is that if we force them to keep robbing banks then our chance of catching them increases. So if we don’t contact them, don’t come back and explain that we want to buy back … Karlström, they’ll get desperate. They’ll have to do another robbery. And if you’re desperate, you expose yourself.’
Karlström rearranged the silverware on his plate. First the bad food. And then this.
‘How long … damn it, John, how long have you … been heading in that direction? To that decision? To this approach? Not paying?’
‘Since the first letter.’
‘And you let me run around begging for money for nothing!’
‘Not for nothing. I need to know that it really exists, I don’t want to stand there and lie – Big Brother can’t have any doubts, he should hear in my voice that there’s twenty-five million kronor on my desk, see pictures of it if that’s what he wants.’
Broncks pushed back his chair, about to stand up.
‘And … if I’m wrong. If. Then I’ll use it. If that’s our only option. If that’s the only thing keeping all hell from breaking loose.’
He got up to go, but Karlström – just as he’d done at their last meal together – reached out and put his hand on Broncks’s arm.
‘John? Are you interested in what I think?’
Broncks pushed away the feeling of wanting to break free, nodded and listened.
‘I believe in making the sale and an arrest. We have more resources than they have. But the most important thing is to end this madness. To be able to show everybody that we took them when we had the chance and not by luck. And after that … fewer bank robberies, fewer victims.’
Karlström still held onto him. Just like last time.
‘One more thing.’
And Broncks felt equally uncomfortable.
‘When this is over … I want you to take some time off. Do you understand?’
‘Sure.’
‘You hear that, John? Not a single case. Free.’
‘Later. When this is over. But I have a few things to do before that. For example, for the first time in my life I need to write a personal ad.’
68
THEY’D HAD A six-year-old in the house for a week, but Leo had barely been there. He knew that Anneli was disappointed, it was so rare for her son to visit his second home, but she’d understand. He knew that too.
When this was over.
Now Anneli was asleep, now Sebastian was asleep, when suddenly Leo heard the lid of the mailbox being opened and closed, a metallic rattle in a beautiful, warm May dawn – the newspaper arriving and with it, the beginning of the end. He filled a large porcelain cup with coffee and put it down on the kitchen table.
All his planning had led to this moment. He went the few steps to the gate and the mailbox. Later today, he’d post the last letter, instructions the cops would use for the actual exchange.
Then it would be over.
All the planning, all his preparation had boiled down to this reply. He opened the newspaper near the middle, flipped, skimmed.
Page thirty-seven.
Leo stopped. His rage became an icicle, dripping from the top of his skull and cutting through his chest.
He wasn’t going back to the house and his coffee steaming on the table, he’d sit down in his car and drive while the day woke up.
He hated that fucking cop.
John Broncks hadn’t slept. Hadn’t even tried. The bed was still made, the bedroom door closed.
Three cups of coffee at the kitchen table, and he never drank coffee. But the blackness and bitterness seemed appropriate for a night of waiting.
The phone, lying next to page thirty-seven of the newspaper, the classifieds, rang for the first time. Then moments later it rang again while he was reading. And again.
Personal.
Anna-Karin,
I don’t give a damn
about you and don’t want
to see you any more.
He watched the phone as it rang for a fourth time, a fifth. Then stopped while Broncks counted the seconds to himself, like a child counting the time between the sharp flash of lightning and the muffled rumble of thunder.
Seven seconds. Then it rang again.
He let it ring three times this time.
‘Hello … Anna-Karin.’
‘You’ve made a big fucking mistake!’
So this was how his voice sounded when he was under stress. Neither powerful nor thin, and still absolutely no accent or dialect. It went well with the black-masked body he’d seen so many times.
‘You think so.’
‘Now listen to me, you little son of a—’
‘Are there many people there? Around you, there on Gullmars Square? Yes, I’ve had your last call traced. I can send over a patrol car if you want.’
‘We’ve been talking for fifteen seconds. I have thirty more seconds before you fail to trace the call. But first you need to understand one thing – you’ve just started a fucking war. You’ve put the weapons of the state into the hands of criminals.’
Broncks tried to catch any background noise. Completely quiet. Either he’d covered the receiver with something when he wasn’t speaking, or this particular phone booth was at a traffic-free site.
‘Big Brother … you know just as well as I do that’s not the case. Right? You have no record. Even though you might be the most dangerous bank robbers I’ve seen. How the hell does that work? It works because you can think. And therefore you won’t contact any other criminals.’
‘You shut the fuck up and listen closely, you little son of a bitch! I don’t need any contacts for my weapons to fall into the hands of others! I’ll just bury a few boxes and send a letter with red hearts on it, giving directions. Maybe you recognise the style? Forty automatic weapons in each box – one to the Hell’s Angels, one to the Yugoslavian mafia, one to those fools in the suburbs … and that’ll be your damn fault, yours, because you wouldn’t buy back what I stole!’
‘Listen. You know what? Right now there’s a black bag containing twenty-five million in used kronor on my desk at the police station. Your money. Which I was supposed to exchange. If I hadn’t decided to fuck all that.’
There was silence.
‘Because the only thing you’re really good at, Big Brother, is robbing banks. And you’re gonna rob again. And again! You hear that, Anna-Karin! You’ll be robbing banks again, you motherfucker!’
‘Broncks … John … you’re forgetting one small detail. You don’t know who I am or what I look like. But I know who you are and what you look like.’
Then the silence changed. No background noise. Big Brother had hung up. When Broncks put the phone down on the table, he realised he’d stood up during the call without noticing it.
Now he just had to wait for Big Brother’s next move.
It was eight o’clock by the time Leo rolled onto his property and parked. A coffee at one of the open cafés and a few hours’ aimless driving through the southern suburbs trying to calm himself hadn’t helped. The feeling that his plan had been a big, fat failure could not be dislodged.
He got out of the car and walked towards the garage. His persistent irritation was only increased by the sound of a bouncing ball. Sebastian was already awake and pretending to be a professional footballer, kicking the ball against the garage door, commentating on every shot in pretend English.
‘Hello, Extra Dad. Where are you going?’
‘Why aren’t you asleep?’
‘Wanna join in? I need a good goalkeeper.’
Leo opened the door beside the gate.
‘Sebastian? Go in to your mum.’
<
br /> The six-year-old managed an unexpectedly powerful kick with his right foot, and the garage door shook.
‘She just sleeps all the time. Sleeps and sleeps.’
Leo picked up the half-inflated ball, and drop-kicked it far across the vast concrete yard towards the house.
‘Play over there.’
A disappointed look from Sebastian as he ran after the ball and his extra dad went into the garage, turned on the lights and shut the door behind him.
It still stood under his workbench. He picked it up, put it down in the same place as before.
The typewriter.
Everything moved quickly then. A few steps towards the wall, to a sledgehammer. He raised it high above his head and swung, pulverising the heavy iron casing and slender keys, a loud scream ripping through his throat with each blow.
‘What are you doing?’
The damn kid had opened the door and was peering inside.
‘Get out!’
‘It’s so loud.’
‘Now!’
Leo didn’t even stop, raining down blow after blow as Sebastian closed the door behind him, and kept swinging until the typewriter was reduced to splinters of metal and plastic. It would never be used again! No fucking cop would be able to link it to those extortion letters! That was John Broncks’s decision, and Leo wanted nothing more than to complicate life for him, to fool him again and disappear before his eyes.
69
SEVEN MONTHS AGO the envelope had been entirely white and had contained eighty-six 500-kronor notes. Now it was dark from being thumbed open and closed, and just four of those notes remained.
After years of silence, Leo had come to his home and waved it around. I’ve just completed a major construction project in Tumba, the Solbo Centre. Seven hundred square metres. Commercial property, good money.
As soon as his eldest son had driven off in his shiny fucking company car, Ivan had rushed inside, looking for a pen under some Keno tickets, and had quickly written down what he needed to remember. He’d known it even then, forty-three thousand handed over like it was fucking Monopoly money.
The Father: Made in Sweden Part I Page 39