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

by Christoffer Carlsson (Translated by Michael Gallagher)

  DAVIDSSON: Nothing more? You can’t just shake your head, the video camera’s not working so you need to say it so that this microphone picks it up.

  BREDSTRÖM: Aha. No. No. Nothing more.

  DAVIDSSON: So a brief exchange in the queue, and that was it?

  BREDSTRÖM: That’s right.

  DAVIDSSON: After not having seen each other in thirty years?

  BREDSTRÖM: That’s right.

  DAVIDSSON: You didn’t say anything to each other outside, on the street?

  BREDSTRÖM: No.

  DAVIDSSON: We have solid intelligence that says that you spoke to each other standing outside the alcohol store. Why are you lying?

  BREDSTRÖM: What difference does it make if I did?

  DAVIDSSON: It might make a huge difference, Daniel. Answer now.

  BREDSTRÖM: [long pause] Okay. We talked.

  DAVIDSSON: Why didn’t you say that to begin with?

  BREDSTRÖM: I know he’s dead. I get brought in by Kling and Klang, sirens blazing, and you sit me down in here and ask me when I last saw him. I’m not daft, I have done this before you know.

  DAVIDSSON: So, one more time. Tell me about when you met him.

  BREDSTRÖM: [sighs] Nothing much happened inside the store. I paid for my stuff and went outside. Then I had a chat with him.

  DAVIDSSON: Go on.

  BREDSTRÖM: Well, I suppose I just went up to him and asked him what the fuck he was doing here after all these years, whether he’d come back to ruin even more people’s lives. I told him to keep out of my way. That he should watch it if we bumped into each other again.

  DAVIDSSON: And then you did? Bump into each other?

  BREDSTRÖM: No.

  DAVIDSSON: We’ll come back to that. How did Levin respond to your threat?

  BREDSTRÖM: It wasn’t a threat, more of a useful tip.

  DAVIDSSON: It could be interpreted as a threat, I would say. I asked you how he reacted?

  BREDSTRÖM: Nothing special. He just gave me a look.

  DAVIDSSON: And then what happened?

  BREDSTRÖM: Nothing. I took my crate of beer and went home.

  DAVIDSSON: Tell me about your relationship to Charles Levin. How did you get to know each other?

  BREDSTRÖM: I didn’t get to know him. I got to know his wife. If you know what I mean.

  DAVIDSSON: You’ll have to expand.

  BREDSTRÖM: She, Eva, worked on the till in the shop. I thought, well all of us thought, she was fucking gorgeous, I’ll tell you that. But she wasn’t the least bit interested in anyone or anything. Then she married that cop and had a kid, and it must’ve been when the marriage got a bit shaky, a few years down the line, that she was unsatisfied and started looking for something. Then we started seeing each other.

  DAVIDSSON: When was this?

  BREDSTRÖM: Summer 1980. I don’t remember when exactly.

  DAVIDSSON: Charles Levin. When did you first meet him?

  BREDSTRÖM: Let me see. Later that summer, at some point. I think he was on leave, but he went into work anyway. So Eva rang me, and I went round. Their kid was away at summer camp or something, so she was there on her own. But then, of course, he came home in the middle of it, during the actual … into the bedroom.

  DAVIDSSON: And then what happened?

  BREDSTRÖM: He just stood there staring at us, didn’t even blink. I remember that clearly. Then he turned around and left. That’s how it ended, I think. Eva came down to my workshop a week or so later, said that things at home were a mess, that the kid was getting really down, and that she had to try and keep the family together. We couldn’t carry on.

  DAVIDSSON: And how did you take that?

  BREDSTRÖM: I was pretty upset, I think. I was young, you know, hadn’t found my feet yet. I thought that maybe she was the one. I liked the daughter, Marika, too. She was a sweet little girl. Maybe a bit difficult, but all kids are at that age. So yeah, I took it badly. But you know, I picked myself up after a while. I suppose it was then, that autumn, that I realised what that guy was capable of.

  DAVIDSSON: What does that mean?

  BREDSTRÖM: When my company was driven to the wall.

  DAVIDSSON: You were arrested on the seventeenth of October of 1980, a week before your thirtieth birthday. Convicted the following February. Bankruptcy —

  BREDSTRÖM: March eighty-one.

  DAVIDSSON: That’s right.

  BREDSTRÖM: And that was him. I know you lot talked about how much you’d checked it all out and how it was nothing to do with him, but I know that’s what happened.

  DAVIDSSON: You do, do you?

  BREDSTRÖM: He was at me the whole time, sat there photographing people coming in and out of my workshop, that kind of thing. An acquaintance saw him doing it. Fine, I wasn’t whiter than white. It was me in those pictures, and the stuff that I was getting in and selling on was stolen, right. I’ll admit that. But I couldn’t have kept the business going otherwise.

  DAVIDSSON: When was this, him photographing you?

  BREDSTRÖM: I don’t know. I didn’t find out until afterwards, when the verdict came. And I know that’s what happened, but I can’t prove it. By then, Eva was dead and buried, and Levin had moved on, as luck would have it.

  DAVIDSSON: Are you insinuating something about her death?

  BREDSTRÖM: I don’t know any more than the next man. She had a car accident. At least, that’s what everyone’s always assumed. And that’s all I know. But it was all hushed up, if you ask me. I reckon that, one way or another, he did it.

  DAVIDSSON: [long pause] So Charles Levin killed his wife.

  BREDSTRÖM: I’ve got no evidence for that. Everything to do with that fucking man was hushed up. He had friends in high places. Considering everything else that has to do with Charles Levin, it just felt like a very strange coincidence that she happened to be killed in an accident just a few months after she’d been unfaithful. Now, Eva did have a licence, but she almost never drove anywhere. She preferred to go on her bike or walk, even in winter. That she just got in her car that night, I don’t buy it. Did you even check whether anyone saw her in the car that night?

  DAVIDSSON: Of course we did.

  BREDSTRÖM: Who saw her, then?

  DAVIDSSON: It was over thirty years ago. I don’t remember right now, Daniel. But we checked.

  BREDSTRÖM: I’ll bet you anything that if you go back and check the details, you won’t find a single witness saying that they saw her in the car. The official version, your explanation, isn’t true.

  DAVIDSSON: That seems to upset you, Daniel. Did you mention this when you saw him on Wednesday? Did you talk to him about Eva?

  BREDSTRÖM: No.

  DAVIDSSON: But perhaps it crossed your mind? You remembered it?

  BREDSTRÖM: Course I did.

  DAVIDSSON: Perhaps you were still thinking about it when you drove round to Levin’s that evening?

  BREDSTRÖM: You’re not hearing what I’m saying, are you? I wasn’t there.

  DAVIDSSON: Well, in that case, there are a few things that I don’t quite understand, if what you’re telling me now is that you’re not the one we’re looking for in connection with Levin’s death.

  BREDSTRÖM: I’m not the one you’re looking for.

  DAVIDSSON: No, so you keep saying, but we don’t altogether believe you. The reason being that you had a stolen car in your garage. The car is no longer there, as you showed me. It’s burnt out, in the forest on the other side of the graveyard, and was last seen on the evening of the murder. We know that the car was parked outside the victim’s house at the time Levin died, a time you cannot account for beyond the fact that you had had a lot to drink, and we both know how you have a tendency to behave when you’re drunk and upset. You get blackouts, and you don’t know what you’re doing. Just a fe
w hours earlier, you met Levin and behaved in a threatening manner towards him. Not only that, you suspect that he was somehow involved in Eva’s death, many years ago, a suspicion that has now resurfaced in your mind.

  BREDSTRÖM: [long pause] I —

  DAVIDSSON: It doesn’t look good, Daniel. Surely you can see that.

  BREDSTRÖM: Someone bust the padlock on my garage. Someone stole the car. I didn’t drive the car that night. And it wasn’t me. I was at home.

  DAVIDSSON: What was the registration number of the car that was parked in your garage?

  BREDSTRÖM: I don’t know. It had false plates.

  DAVIDSSON: It’s the false plates I’m interested in.

  BREDSTRÖM: FOR 528.

  DAVIDSSON: Take a look at this. This is you, isn’t it? And for the tape, I will point out that I am showing a photograph taken by a witness close to Alvavägen 10 on the evening of the eighteenth of June. A photograph where a Volvo, registration FOR 528, is clearly shown, as is a man sitting inside. That man is Daniel Bredström.

  BREDSTRÖM: That isn’t me. It can’t be me. I was at home.

  DAVIDSSON: Try and see this from my perspective, Daniel.

  BREDSTRÖM: You can’t even tell whether that’s a man or a woman. The picture is as blurred as anything.

  DAVIDSSON: I’m not even going to ask you one last time, Daniel. I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air instead, and let you sit here and think this through in peace and quiet.

  BREDSTRÖM: Fuck you.

  Birck looks down at his notepad, and for a second his own handwriting looks unfamiliar, as though the words have been written by another man’s hand. Must be the room, the whole of St Göran’s. Everything is slightly distorted. Nothing in here is quite like it is out there.

  The door in the corner is opened, by Plit, and, when Birck spots him, it’s like he’s finally being led out to the fresh air again after having been confined for a long time.

  Plit is holding a single sheet of paper.

  ‘I’ve got that list for you.’

  Grimberg looks curious.

  ‘A list?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Birck says, and exits the visiting room with Plit, closing the door behind him, leaving Grimberg alone in there.

  ‘From May, up to now,’ Plit says. ‘As you can see, she doesn’t get an awful lot of visitors. If I’m going to go any further back, I need to go into the archive, and that’s on another server.’

  ‘I think this should do it,’ says Birck.

  At the top of the page, Marika Alderin’s name and ID number, and then four columns: NAME, ID CHECKED, DATE/TIME, and RELATIONSHIP TO CLIENT. Her visiting history is recorded in them.

  ‘It looks like we’re a bit slack filling in the second and fourth columns,’ Plit says. ‘But if there’s no tick or yes in the ID CHECKED column, it means that the visitor has shown ID on a previous visit and that the person responsible recognises them. Same thing with RELATIONSHIP TO CLIENT.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘If anyone sees that,’ Plit adds, ‘it didn’t come from me.’

  Grimberg is just visible through the glazed part of the door. He is sitting very, very still.

  ‘He’s got another half an hour,’ says Plit. ‘Then he’s got his first hour of therapy.’

  ‘We’ll be done before then.’

  Birck studies the columns. Marika Alderin’s first visitor in May is Charles Levin: he arrives on the seventh at eleven thirty-five and stays for forty-five minutes. On the tenth, twelfth, and fifteenth, he visits her again, but in the afternoon. Apart from that, May seems to have been a rather lean month for Marika Alderin in terms of visitors. Occasional visits from external therapists and some poor officer from the Drug Squad who probably doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for when he arrives to interview Marika Alderin, apparently about a ten-year-old drug ring that was never cleared up. The case number is written in the margin.

  Charles Levin made his last visit to St Göran’s on the nineteenth of May, between four thirty and quarter-to five, and although it doesn’t say so, it doesn’t have to: he was saying goodbye.

  So far, she has had only six visitors in June, and even if there are a few days left of this cursed month, she’s unlikely to have many more. Another external therapist, a social worker, and a woman from the social-security department who has been here for some reason. Then there’s a man who has visited her three times, a man whose name confuses Birck. There are no entries in the ID CHECKED or RELATIONSHIP TO CLIENT columns; just the name and date are recorded.

  On each of the three occasions, he has arrived shortly after four p.m. Each time, he has left after forty-five minutes.

  Birck reads the name over and over again.

  Him. What the hell was he doing here?

  ‘If we carry on,’ says Birck. ‘When you got here, how long before you realised that Marika Alderin is also a resident?’

  ‘So as I was saying, I’m bored.’ Grimberg examines him. ‘But you’re not. You are … shaken. What does it say on that list?’

  Birck weighs up his options. What the fuck is he actually supposed to do? He takes a deep breath.

  ‘If you give me information that leads to us arresting Levin’s murderer, I will do whatever I can to get your application for day-release approved.’

  Grimberg smiles.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Martin Sanchez-Jankowski is a friend of mine.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Well, for once, you’ve got that wrong,’ says Birck. ‘Me and the clinical director, believe it or not, we did our military service together.’

  He gets out his phone and scrolls through the text messages until he finds the conversation. Then he reads the most recent messages, sent just a few days earlier, to make sure they don’t contain any sensitive material.

  Grimberg looks at the screen.

  ‘Does Leo know about this? That you know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m going to tell him.’

  ‘You do that.’

  ‘When’s his birthday?’ he asks. ‘Martin Sanchez-Jankowski. What date?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘If you do know him, then you ought to know when his birthday is.’

  ‘Do you know when his birthday is?’

  Grimberg smirks.

  ‘Course I do.’

  The temperature under his shirt collar is rising. His tie’s become a noose, and loosening it, just a tiny bit, would be so nice, but he doesn’t want to give Grimberg the satisfaction.

  ‘March. Fifth of March.’

  ‘That might still be bollocks.’

  This time, Birck is the one smiling.

  ‘I suppose you’ll just have to trust me.’

  ‘When you arrived here, last autumn,’ Birck says, ‘how long was it before you realised that Marika Alderin was also a resident?’

  ‘A few weeks.’

  The memory starts playing in Grimberg’s head — Birck can see it. When he blinks, it’s gone. Seems like it appears on demand and disappears at will. If it was even there in the first place.

  ‘In the beginning, they kept me locked up for twenty-three hours a day, while they were doing all the tests and observations. So I didn’t see much beyond the four walls of the cell, or the room, which they call them here for some strange reason. When I did see her, it was during association. I said hello and she didn’t even react. It really was a sad sight, seeing how far down into the shit she had sunk, so I didn’t want to give it any more thought.’

  ‘When did you start talking to each other?’

  ‘We’ve just exchanged a few pleasantries, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m asking.’

  ‘November, maybe early December. She was sitting there in front of the telly
in the common room, and I happened to end up next to her. She recognised me.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘My name. Well, not my name, but the name she thought was mine. That was it. Since then, she always says something every time, but never more than a sentence or two.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘She asked if I could get her another chair so that she could use it as a footrest. I said, “I can’t, I’m afraid,” that I had certain … impediments.’ He smiles weakly. ‘It’s tough being bound at the hands and feet. “Oh, okay,” she said, “of course.” So one of the staff had to do it. Then she was gone again.’

  ‘I’m starting to feel a bit stressed,’ says Birck. ‘And I’m a bit disappointed.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘What you’re telling me are meaningless anecdotes. They don’t lead anywhere. I thought, quite honestly, that you knew more than that. This isn’t worth a day-release.’

  Grimberg’s hands are still, but Birck checks them to make sure, and although it’s barely discernable, he thrusts his shoulders upwards and doesn’t blink.

  ‘Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions.’

  ‘What should I be asking you, then?’

  ‘I’m guessing that when you and Plit were talking about Marika Alderin, he told you about a stereo. A stereo that was taken off her about a week ago.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘Why do you think it was taken away?’

  Maybe he’s lying. He could well be.

  ‘Why was Marika Alderin’s stereo taken away from her?’

  ‘Fourteenth of June,’ says Grimberg, ‘during association, after lunch, Marika leant over to me and said that she was scared. I asked her why. She said that she was expecting a man to come and visit her the following day. A man who wanted to hurt her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told her to do something about it.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘I told her to record the visit.’

  ‘Are you sure it was the fourteenth?’

  ‘Well, she certainly had a visitor the next day, the fifteenth.’