Master, Liar, Traitor, Friend: a Leo Junker case

by Christoffer Carlsson (Translated by Michael Gallagher)

  On the back: Me, Marika, and Eva, spring ’78.

  The picture makes something tremble inside Tove, and at first she doesn’t know why.

  She turns around, and looks at the walls. Behind the three of them in the picture, she can see the same pale-green patterned wallpaper.

  Then it hits her.

  The picture was taken in this room.

  Tove is driving along roads that are so familiar yet alien, unpredictable. That’s how it goes: places that you leave and then return to, they are as they always have been, feel just like they used to feel, and yet not quite.

  A wide pick-up truck, laden with beer, pulls out in front of her. The man at the wheel is wearing a cap, and he’s alone in the cab.

  The house in which Lars-Erik Sunesson has spent most of his life is discoloured by moss and surrounded by mature deciduous trees that look as though they might soon envelop it. A lawnmower stands abandoned on the lawn, which is enclosed by a sparse, spindly fence. The gate is open.

  Sunesson and Police Constable Klas Mäkinen are sitting at the kitchen table. Mäkinen holds both hands round a coffee cup, while Sunesson empties his glass and reaches for a bottle. The bags around his eyes are puffier than usual.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Sunesson says. ‘Midsummer is off to a bloody awful start.’

  Mäkinen’s gaze is fixed on Tove — an imploring stare. There’s a pad lying on the table in front of him, but he doesn’t seem to have committed much to paper.

  Tove pulls up a chair, sits down at the head of the table, and turns towards Mäkinen.

  ‘You’re more useful at Alvavägen than here.’

  Mäkinen, a charmless man who really ought to have become a caretaker rather than a cop, gets to his feet.

  ‘Good luck,’ he says.

  ‘What a fucking day,’ Sunesson says as he fills his glass, his eyes a bit moist.

  The worktop is straining under piles of unwashed plates and glasses. A coffee machine is spluttering away in the background. Then, before long, the sound of Mäkinen starting his car and driving off.

  Sunesson sighs and holds the bottle aloft, a Polish ‘Famous Grouse’ lookalike.

  ‘You want one?’

  ‘No. But thanks.’

  Hanging on the wall behind him is a framed needlepoint canvas: Beautiful things, howe’er begotten, in this place all soon forgotten.

  Sunesson, like his father before him, worked at the glass factory that gave Bruket its name. When the plant closed down, he started driving heavy goods vehicles for a haulage firm, where he stayed, as far as anyone knows, until he retired. Tove’s colleagues are pretty certain that, besides delivering the haulage firm’s freight, he was also smuggling alcohol in his load. They were never able to prove it, though, and now it’s too late. She never sees him at the alcohol store, down by the market place, and she’s been there a lot since she came back.

  ‘How are you feeling, Lars-Erik?’

  ‘What a fucking day.’ He sips the whisky. ‘Blood,’ he continues, shaking his head. ‘Blood, blood, blood. Jesus.’

  ‘When did you last speak to Charles?’

  ‘Last night — I called him, and we arranged to meet for coffee today, at eleven.’

  ‘What time did you call?’

  ‘As I told your colleague — what’s his name … Gösta’s son … Klas — it was about half-nine.’

  ‘How did the conversation go?’

  Sunesson looks confused.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘What I mean is,’ Tove says, ‘what did you talk about?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. I met him down by the market square when I was out getting some shopping the day before yesterday, and asked him what on Earth he was doing here, and he said he lives here now. I said I’d like to hear more about that, so we exchanged numbers and said that we’d be in touch. I rang him yesterday and suggested meeting for a coffee. We arranged a time and then we hung up.’ Sunesson takes another swig. ‘I hardly knew the bloke, hadn’t seen him for over thirty years.’

  ‘He’s lived here before, then?’

  ‘In the Seventies. It must have been seventy-one he moved in, because I remember I’d just bought a new car, a P1800. There I was, bragging, you know how it is, proud as a peacock of that car, and I was down at the square just showing it off. I suppose that’s when he spotted it.’

  ‘Who?’ said Tove. ‘Who saw what?’

  ‘Oscarsson’s boy, Malte. The one who stole it.’

  ‘Did he steal your car?’

  ‘That same evening,’ Sunesson says glumly and takes yet another gulp of whisky. ‘Bloody miscreant, that lad. But then I had to go down to the police station, and it was closed, so I went to the one in the city, and there he was. I hadn’t seen Charles before, you know, back then … How old are you, by the way?’

  ‘I was born in eighty-one.’

  ‘So you might remember what it was like. There were a lot more people living here then. I think it was nearly eight thousand. Now it’s a different story — the hotel’s closed down and the alcohol store is going after Christmas. Did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The thing is, you didn’t necessarily notice a new face back then. Anyway, he took my statement. He was nice, too, even if he was from Stockholm. And,’ Sunesson adds, raising his finger, ‘he tracked down the car in no time. Two days later, it was back in my garage, even though the investigation was left to the clowns down here. That’s when I realised he was a good bloke.’

  His lowers his gaze to the tabletop, nodding slowly at his own words.

  ‘When did he move?’

  Sunesson looks up, his eyes cloudy.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘He came here in the Seventies. He must have moved away again.’

  ‘Oh yeah. He left in 1980.’

  ‘When did he move back again?’

  ‘I don’t know, but quite recently, I think.’

  He drains his glass, holds the whisky in his mouth before leaning back, crunching his neck, and gurgling loudly and then swallowing. He licks his lips.

  ‘Where did he live then, the first time?’

  ‘Same place.’

  ‘Do you mean in the same house? What made him buy that particular house?’

  ‘Damned if I know. He was a quiet fella, Charles.’

  ‘Can you imagine anyone wanting to hurt him?’

  Sunesson reaches for the bottle again.

  ‘What, here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No way.’ He pours a few fingers’ worth into the glass and then clunks it onto the table, as if to emphasise his point. ‘No way.’

  ‘You seem very sure of that.’

  ‘Just my supposition, officer. But that’s the sort of thing the authorities ought to be able to establish without any help from me.’

  ‘Indeed we can. Thank you.’ She taps the pen on the pad. ‘Can you think of anyone who might be able to tell us a bit more about him?’

  Sunesson can’t. Or else he can, but he’s sick of talking to her.

  She shows him the photo from 1978.

  ‘Do you recognise these people?’

  ‘Well, that’s Charles for a start, I can see that much.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘And then that’s got to be his little family.’ Sunesson waves his hand dismissively. ‘But you’ll have to talk to someone else about that. I don’t remember all that.’

  ‘This is a small place. Everyone knows everyone. You must remember something?’

  ‘It was a very long time ago. I think it was a car crash. Awful.’

  ‘A car crash,’ Tove repeats, studying him carefully.

  ‘Or something. I can’t remember.’

  He’s not lying, you can tell, but he’s drunk and slurring so much that it does nothing for his credibility. Bollocks — she should
’ve shown him the photo before doing anything else.

  Tove repeats the question, but Sunesson simply raises his glass, takes a swig, and shakes his head. His eyes now stare blankly.

  ‘Oh, did you see my favourite chair?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s out there. It belonged to my gran — in fact, you know, I think she even made it herself. A good woman. Charles should’ve had someone like that, and then this would never have happened. I’m always sitting on it on days like this, having my coffee. Speaking of which, I’m going to have some now.’ He laughs. ‘I never got any at Charles’.’

  Tove stands up and leaves without saying anything to Sunesson, who doesn’t seem the least bit surprised, and it’s only once she’s back in the car that she notices it: the old metal rocking chair, alone on the lawn, rusting away.

  When she gets back to the cordon, he’s there — Superintendent Ola Davidsson. Standing legs apart, hands on his sides, beer gut first. It grows bigger every year, Davidsson’s belly, and whenever anyone points that out, he just pats it and smiles, says that it’s all paid for.

  ‘We’ll have to take this ourselves to begin with,’ he says. ‘I’ve been on the phone to Stockholm for nearly an hour, just trying to sort out the bureaucracy. We haven’t got the resources to run this investigation, and even if we did, we wouldn’t be allowed to, given the victim’s identity. The National Crime Squad are coming down — they’ve already put a team together up in Stockholm. They’ll get copies of everything we do.’

  ‘When will they be here?’

  ‘Sunday night at the earliest, probably Monday. When they’re not locking horns with the media, they’re busy trying to help their local colleagues with the double-murder in Krokom. And it’s Midsummer.’

  ‘But there’s five of us, at the most. We can’t run a murder investigation.’

  ‘That’s not how it works,’ Davidsson says, propping his hand against his side again, and nodding towards the house that’s waiting there in the sunshine. ‘You know that as well as I do. The region will send reinforcements, of course, but not a huge number. What a fucking Midsummer this is going to be.’

  Inside the house on Alvavägen, Söderlund is moving from one room to the next, armed with her camera. Either she’s done with the body or else she needed a break. Davidsson and Söderlund say hello to each other, and then he asks when Levin died.

  ‘I’m not a pathologist, but I’d guess somewhere between ten and eleven last night.’ Söderlund fiddles with one of the dials on the camera. ‘Shot in the temple, probably from a revolver held by someone else. I haven’t found the weapon yet.’

  Davidsson notes the coffee cups on the table.

  ‘So he’d arranged to meet the suspect?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Söderlund replies.

  She takes a photo of the room’s light switch. Davidsson has a stretch and looks grumpy. Tove strains not to smile.

  ‘If you don’t mind awfully,’ Söderlund continues, ‘perhaps you could go somewhere else.’

  There’s a buzzing in the room, and Davidsson pulls his phone out.

  ‘Stockholm again,’ he asserts, without answering the call, and points the phone at Tove. ‘You’re staying here.’

  Tove and Söderlund watch him as he trudges out of the house.

  ‘Is that a good human being, that one?’ Söderlund asks, which makes Tove laugh.

  It’s the first day of my summer leave, and I’m spending it on the balcony, feeling cheated.

  Someone, I don’t know who, has told my boss, Anja Morovi, that I’m still not clean, that I’m still on the tablets. Whoever it was did so with the help of a tube of Halcion that came from my pocket.

  It wasn’t like I’d got them straight from the chemist’s either, which is why she called me in to see her yesterday.

  ‘Leo,’ she said. ‘You’ll understand that we can’t turn a blind eye to this. We have to take action.’

  Morovi comes from the Domestic Violence Team, and she’s only been here since March. Her degree certificate — a Masters in Criminology — hangs in pride of place on the wall of her office, and if that wasn’t bad enough she’s reputed to be one of Stockholm’s best marksmen. She was offered the post leading the Violent Crime Unit — the Snakepit, as it’s known in the force — and for some reason she said yes.

  ‘It was Olausson,’ I blurted out. ‘Wasn’t it?’

  Olausson is a prosecutor, a slippery character who’s never liked me.

  ‘Leo,’ she said again, more wearily. ‘Try and keep your focus on the right things here.’ She leaned in towards me. ‘I can make use of you here, but only if you’re clean. Functioning. You understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  That was true. I did. I do.

  ‘I’d like to suggest that you take a longer break. According to the rota, you’re not off until …’ She stared down at the sheet of paper in front of her. ‘The thirtieth of June. I think you should adjust it,’ she went on, passing over a new, blank holiday form, ‘so that you’re off from tomorrow, the nineteenth. Use some of the days you carried over, too, and we’ll see you back here on Monday the eighteenth of August. Between now and then, you go for treatment and therapy, starting straightaway. I’ll get a counsellor to give you a call and arrange the first session. Next time we meet, I want you to be clean.’

  I looked at my hands. It must have been Olausson. How many others know? Gabriel Birck, of course, my colleague and the closest thing I have to a friend in the force. He knows, but he’d never drop me in it. Or would he?

  ‘Do you understand, Leo?’

  ‘I understand that you’re suggesting that,’ I said. ‘But is it just a suggestion?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought it might not be.’

  Later that day, the phone rang, a number I didn’t recognise. The counsellor. I didn’t bother answering, just sat there on the balcony, smoking cigarettes and staring out across Stockholm.

  Yesterday became today, the nineteenth. The first day of my summer holiday.

  The phone ringing that afternoon, that ringtone chiming four times in the sunshine from the balcony table in my flat on Chapmansgatan — I’ve been waiting for it, for something to happen.

  I answer, and then hear Morovi’s cold voice.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks.

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.’

  I contemplate what I ought to say, how much lying I will have to do.

  ‘I’m okay. I’ll be alright.’

  She takes a deep breath.

  ‘I thought you should hear it straight from me.’

  ‘Hear what? What’s going on?’

  ‘Levin.’

  ‘What about him?’

  Silence. On the radio over in the tiny kitchen, someone’s singing is there somebody who still believes in love?

  ‘Hello?’ I say. ‘Hello, what is it?’

  As she’s telling me, Kit appears beside me, quiet at first and then, when he realises that something’s wrong, meowing gently. I prop the phone between my shoulder and my ear, pick him up, and head inside, closing the balcony door behind me.

  Levin is dead. They’re treating it as suspicious.

  I’m not sure if I’m expected to say something, so I say nothing. The music on the radio makes way for a newsflash: a bomber has walked into the Moderates’ party HQ in Gamla Stan, and is threatening to blow the place up.

  ‘Is there anything you want me to do, Leo?’

  ‘What might that be?’

  No reply. I can hear her breathing; I wonder whether my own breaths sound as shallow as they feel.

  ‘This wasn’t really the summer I was hoping you’d have.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you spending the weekend with Sam?’

  ‘She’s off to Lon
don tomorrow, with her mum. It’s been planned for ages.’

  More silence. The radio informs us that the bomber in Gamla Stan is heavily armed. And then new information: a TT News Agency bulletin reports that the Social Democrats’ HQ is also under threat.

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got plenty to be getting on with,’ I say.

  ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do,’ she says as she ends the call.

  My mentor is dead. Maybe I ought to be thinking that my friend is dead, but for some reason I just can’t. There’s something about friendship that just doesn’t apply to my relationship with Levin.

  I never knew him, despite working closely with him for a long time, first at the Violent Crime Unit when he was superintendent there and then later at Internal Affairs. I like to think that he took me under his wing. It felt good, for once, working with someone who noticed your potential and helped you nurture it.

  I trusted him.

  I really did.

  Levin could get you to talk, to reveal things you wouldn’t normally say to anyone, without giving away a single detail about his own life. But it felt like he did, that he shared things, at the time. You could easily come away with the impression that he wasn’t hiding anything. It was only later, when the spell wore off, that you realised that Levin had never said a word about himself.

  And then it all went to shit in Visby harbour, just over a year ago.

  The Gotland affair. A mistake. My mistake.

  The dead still follow me, in my thoughts by day, and in my dreams at night.

  The police had to cover their own backs after the incident. I was thrown to the wolves — politicians and the media got the scapegoat they wanted. I needed the pills to survive, Serax, and I stayed on them to keep myself afloat. I went on to Halcion later.

  I was starting to suspect that Levin had betrayed me, that I’d been put on Gotland for precisely that reason: should anything go wrong, the spotlight would be pointed at me.

  Our contact became sporadic, and our conversations characterised by awkward silences. Sometimes I wanted to scream at him, and I got the feeling that sometimes he wished he could tell the truth.