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

by Christoffer Carlsson (Translated by Michael Gallagher)

  [He places it on the table. Silence]

  GOFFMAN: This really is a funny place. I can see why you find it so difficult to relax in here. I think that’s probably a sign you’re getting better more than anything else. [Laughter]

  [Silence]

  GOFFMAN: I’m going … I have to tell you that this isn’t easy for me. It gives me sleepless nights. I know that you know. Do you know what I mean? I know that he talked to you, that he told you. Of course, he claimed that things were so bad that you weren’t registering any of it, but he wasn’t at all convincing, if you ask me. And now I think, quite honestly, that my fears were well founded.

  [Long silence]

  MARIKA: Hesitation.

  GOFFMAN: Quite.

  MARIKA: Soot and ash. All that was left.

  GOFFMAN: Soot and ash.

  MARIKA: The car was on fire. Soot and ash were all that was left.

  GOFFMAN: I understand. You’re talking about when your mother died.

  MARIKA: Soot and ash were all that was left.

  GOFFMAN: I understand that it changed your life in so many ways. I remember the first time we met down in Bruket — what were you then? Seven, eight maybe? And then those times we met in Stockholm, eighty-three? Eighty-four? I could tell even then that you weren’t very well, even before … But your mother’s death, it must have made it worse. You must hate him for what he did, and I understand you. I am very sorry for what happened to your mother.

  [Long silence]

  MARIKA: Are you?

  GOFFMAN: Yes.

  MARIKA: Soot and ash.

  GOFFMAN: Soot and ash.

  MARIKA: Were all that was left.

  GOFFMAN: Yes. [Sighs] Yes, I know. I really need to talk to him, Marika. I need to see him. I am worried that he might do something stupid. I have asked you this before, but I’m going to have to ask you again. I know that he has been here, that he has visited you several times.

  MARIKA: Not again.

  GOFFMAN: You don’t want me to ask again?

  MARIKA: Not again.

  [Silence]

  GOFFMAN: Do you mean that he isn’t going to come here again? Did he say that?

  MARIKA: Mm.

  GOFFMAN: He said that to you.

  [Silence]

  GOFFMAN: I know why you are here, Marika. I know what you tried to do, and I can’t say I blame you for it. Quite the opposite, in fact. I know that you know where he is. I know that he told you. I have been looking for him for nearly a week, but with no success. He seems to have just gone puff, up in smoke. It’s typical of your dad, if you ask me. He has a habit of doing that. But he is in Sweden, I know that much. Is he in Stockholm?

  [Silence]

  GOFFMAN: I know that he — [Deep breath] He’s there, isn’t he? He went back?

  [Silence]

  [Goffman leaves the room without another word. The warden returns and starts helping Marika out. After a couple of steps, he discovers that she has the MP3 player on her. The file ends with it being switched off]

  ‘Rewind it,’ I say.

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘No, just a little bit.’

  Tove clicks and drags the cursor backwards, then releases.

  ‘I know what you tried to do …’ Goffman’s voice says.

  ‘Just there,’ I say.

  ‘… and I can’t say I blame you for it,’ he continues. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  Tove pauses the file. Sitting next to her on the sofa, I drink some coffee and carefully tilt my head back. The pain has now reduced to a muffled murmur just behind my temples.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Tove. ‘But it doesn’t sound good.’

  I close my eyes. The hot mug is burning my hands.

  Paul Goffman.

  Other than the fact that he works at SEPO, I know next to nothing about him. Our paths crossed last winter, after a sociologist was stabbed to death in Vasastan. The case, which ended up with me and Birck, was linked to far-right and far-left extremism, which piqued SEPO’s interest, and Goffman emerged from the shadows to take the investigation off us. What I remember most is the impression he gave of being unshockable, impossible to surprise. Paul Goffman kept shtum when he should’ve been talking and talked far too much in situations where he would’ve been well advised to keep his mouth shut, and I think he did so on purpose. People who break with micro-norms make those around them tense and uneasy — the balance of power shifts towards the norm-breaker.

  I remember that, and that he had a knack for turning up at precisely the right moment. That time last winter, he very probably saved my life, as well as Birck’s.

  ‘It would be good if we could talk to him,’ says Tove.

  I open my eyes. The ceiling light is painfully white.

  ‘Yes.’

  Tove reaches for her mug, still untouched next to the computer. She takes a gulp and winces.

  ‘Not very nice.’

  ‘I thought it might not be.’

  ‘He scares you, doesn’t he?’ she says.

  ‘Who, Goffman?’

  ‘I can tell just looking at you.’

  ‘Okay.’ I would really like to close my eyes again. ‘Yes.’

  Seconds away from midnight.

  When our paths crossed last winter, I did a search on Paul Goffman. Doing searches on people who cannot be linked to a live investigation is strictly prohibited. The risk of getting caught is pretty much guaranteed, since all searches are logged. I was given a ticking off, then a warning, and eventually threatened with a heavy fine if it happened again.

  His details were marked confidential on the electoral roll, but that’s not unusual for SEPO employees. The only detail I found was the one that flashed up when I did an internal search and saw where his wage slips are sent.

  At least there was an address coupled to Paul Goffman, by the green expanse of Tessinparken, close to Gärdet. Blanchegatan 14. It’s an eight-storey-high block, muted orange, that towers proudly above us as we slow down and then stop on leafy Askrikegatan, on the opposite side of the park.

  ‘There are lights on in some of the windows,’ Tove says. ‘But how do we get in?’

  ‘We wait until someone arrives or leaves, I suppose.’

  ‘Do people do that at this time of night?’

  ‘There’s always someone who does. There’s a one-way system here. Let me out and then drive round, I’ll go and stand by the entrance.’

  ‘You?’ she says. ‘In that state?’

  ‘I’ve met him before. You don’t know what he looks like.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. Are you going to do it on your own? That’s just asking for trouble.’

  ‘We don’t even know if it is him. It might not be. But if it is, I’m better off going alone.’ I check the time. ‘If you haven’t seen or heard from me in fifteen minutes, then come up. And ring 112.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to have something to defend yourself with, if it is him.’

  She leans over the gearstick, opens the glove box in front of me. Out pour soft-drink bottles, a pair of gloves, pepper spray, Highway 61 Revisited on CD, and a road atlas.

  ‘Take this.’

  Right at the back is a knife, a small black one with a button that makes the blade flick out.

  ‘You’re supposed to have this on you,’ I say, picking the pepper spray off the floor. ‘It goes against directives, having it lying around like this.’

  She puts it back in the glove box and then closes it, leaving the rest of the stuff spread across the floor.

  ‘Says you.’

  I open the door, and the night air that rushes in is cool and light.

  The area around Tessinparken is quiet and still. Karlavägen hums away in the distance, and the cars rol
l slowly southwards along Värtavägen. The tarmac smells like it does just after a rain shower, but the ground beneath my feet is dry. I cross the park, notice that I’m limping. For some reason, that makes my ribs hurt less. I bend over and pick up one of the park’s countless stones, so that I’ve got something to prop the door open with if I do manage to get inside. The stone is as big as a heart, and, as I stand up, the dizziness returns, makes me stumble.

  I reach Blanchegatan 14, and lean against the wall for support before going up to the locked door and checking it. The stairwell inside is just straight lines and shadows, with the darkness getting progressively deeper. I light a cigarette and smoke it greedily while I wait.

  Five minutes pass. Across the street, a car pulls up, then goes quiet. Tove.

  Levin is dead. I will never speak to him again. I’m not sure how I’ll get home, and I am so, so tired.

  A man passes by, veering back and forth and slurring into his mobile phone. He’s about my age, I think to myself, but then I catch sight of my reflection in the glass door and realise that I must be at least ten years older than him.

  I light another cigarette. Time is passing so slowly. My car is still down in Bruket. How am I going to get it home? Is it even worth it? Everyone would probably think that I was doing them, and the car, a favour if I was just to leave it there to disintegrate on its own.

  Inside, from the stairwell, there’s a click. The lights come on. Hard heels echo down and then the door opens from the inside.

  I let go of the cigarette, grab the handle and hold the door open.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ the woman says, wafting away the cigarette smoke with obvious irritation, then walking past without looking at me, too busy adjusting the shawl around her neck.

  I’m in. Finally. I place the stone in the doorway and make sure that the door doesn’t shut behind me.

  I find a list of residents on the wall, and, according to that, there’s a P. Goffman on the third floor. I get in the lift and wait as it climbs up the shaft. Around the temples, my pulse is increasing, and the dizziness makes me unsteady, but the buzzing in my fingertips is quite a pleasant sensation. Must be the morphine.

  On the third floor, a pale, cold light enters through the stairwell window. I find his door, a thick, heavy one, and if someone was moving on the other side I’m not at all sure it would be audible.

  The doorbell sits at the same height as the door handle. I push it with my thumb and hear it echoing around on the other side of the door.

  Something tells me that he already knows.

  The lock clicks and the door handle turns in front of me. I clench the knife in my pocket.

  ‘Leo,’ he says. ‘I thought it might be you.’

  DECEMBER 1980

  That memory would always remain too clear to be distorted by time, or space: it was a winter night in Bruket, 1980. Eva’s heart was no longer beating, had been still for several minutes, when Charles got back behind the wheel.

  Are you sure that no one saw you, that no one saw the car, Charlie? Are you sure that no one saw you?

  He wasn’t. He avoided looking at his wife lying still and cold on the ground, her legs splayed strangely. The idling engine puffed out exhaust fumes from the little round pipe.

  As fast as you can, Charlie. As fast as you dare.

  Next to him, Paul stood holding a jerry can full of petrol. In spite of the chaos, there was something methodical, rational, and well thought-out about what was happening.

  It was an accident. I understand that, an accident that should never have involved you at all.

  Behind them, Marika stood and stared.

  Listen to me, Charlie. You are innocent. You couldn’t … Doing this will just put things in order.

  As he closed the car door, Charles felt no rage, no gratitude, no grief, not even fear.

  He revved the engine and could sense the vibration in his feet, saw the clump of trees rushing towards him, much faster than he had imagined, and felt nothing.

  JUNE 2014

  EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (REF 0500-K1754-08)

  INTERVIEWEE: Bredström, DANIEL

  ID NUMBER: 19501024-4674

  ROLE: Accused

  SUSPECTED CRIME: Suspicion of murder: Charles Jan Levin 140618, at victim’s home address: Alvavägen 10, Bruket.

  INTERVIEWER: Ola Davidsson

  DATE OF INTERVIEW: 20140621

  INTERVIEW START: ca 22:15

  INTERVIEW END: ca 22:30

  LOCATION: Interview room, Bruket Police Station

  INTERVIEW TYPE: RB23:6

  TRANSCRIBED BY: R. Å.

  _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  DAVIDSSON: Right then, Daniel. Now you’ve eaten, drunk, pissed, shat, and anything else you can think of. So let’s try again.

  BREDSTRÖM: Alright, alright. That was me sitting in the car in that picture.

  DAVIDSSON: We knew that much already. Tell us what you’re doing in the picture instead.

  BREDSTRÖM: Well, I’m leaving, aren’t I.

  DAVIDSSON: You get in the car to leave Alvavägen 10.

  BREDSTRÖM: Yes.

  DAVIDSSON: The time is?

  BREDSTRÖM: I don’t really know. Somewhere between half-ten, eleven.

  DAVIDSSON: And how long have you been there?

  BREDSTRÖM: Not sure. An hour, maybe.

  DAVIDSSON: So you get there sometime between, what, nine and half-past?

  BREDSTRÖM: Something like that.

  DAVIDSSON: So you’ve been at Levin’s house for nearly an hour. What did you do in there?

  BREDSTRÖM: No. I never went in.

  DAVIDSSON: What do you mean?

  BREDSTRÖM: What it sounds like, that I never went in.

  DAVIDSSON: You’re confusing me, Daniel.

  BREDSTRÖM: [long pause] I was sitting at home, that evening, having a beer or two. And then, I don’t know, I just felt a bit uneasy, right, fucking irked, you know, after seeing him down by the square earlier on. I sat and mulled it over, back and forth, all the shit that’d happened since 1980, and I know I haven’t got long left, eh. I’m not daft. If you’ve lived a life like I have, it takes its toll on your body. So I wanted to put it to bed, to talk to him. I wanted him to admit that he’d stitched me up that time, because I know it was him. One way or another, it was him.

  DAVIDSSON: You went to talk to him.

  BREDSTRÖM: Yes.

  DAVIDSSON: In a stolen car.

  BREDSTRÖM: I had to — mine wouldn’t start. It’s played up before, and I couldn’t get it going — I was there on the drive for half an hour before I gave up. And once I’d decided to go and confront him, I had to do it. For my own sake. It was worth the risk. And fuck it — it was late, the area around Alvavägen is always dead, the risk of someone seeing me wasn’t very big.

  DAVIDSSON: And what do you do when you get there?

  BREDSTRÖM: The lights were on in there, so I knew he was in, but I couldn’t see him. And I dunno, maybe it was the beer making me a bit edgy, but I felt like I had to [long pause] pull myself together before I rang the bell. You see?

  DAVIDSSON: No.

  BREDSTRÖM: I don’t know what it was, but standing there, looking in, you know, it was the same fucking house, right? He was living in the same fucking house that him and Eva lived in. I had to pull myself together. And I know that there’s a path that goes round the woods at the back of Alvavägen. It’s a fair old way, an hour’s walk, give or take, and I thought it’d do me good. I’d sober up a bit, too. So I went off.

  DAVIDSSON: You did.

  BREDSTRÖM: Yes.

  DAVIDSSON: Leaving a stolen car on the road in the meantime.

  BREDSTRÖM: I wasn’t thinking straight, was I? You don’t, do you, when you’re a bit edgy, and I’d had a bit
to drink, too. Anyway, then I came back — you come back out onto Alvavägen if you follow the path around the edge of the woods for long enough, so I came out a couple of houses further down. It was a cracking walk, I tell you, I mean, I felt a lot cooler in my thinking afterwards.

  DAVIDSSON: Did something happen during the walk?

  BREDSTRÖM: No, nothing special. Well, actually, there’s a clearing in the woods, and when I’d gone past it, and I was a bit further on, I heard a car. I saw a car driving in and parking up there. It —

  DAVIDSSON: What kind of car?

  BREDSTRÖM: No idea. A normal car. Fucked if I know. I only saw it from a distance, must’ve been at least thirty metres, because I’d gone a little way. It was just a pair of headlights. I guess it was someone out walking their dog.

  DAVIDSSON: At that time of night?

  BREDSTRÖM: I don’t fucking know. You asked if anything had happened, and that was the only thing that happened — I saw a car in the clearing. Then there was someone in one of the houses further down, someone out fiddling with their garden furniture. I think he was taking down one of those, what do you call it, not an umbrella but a … What do you call it?

  DAVIDSSON: I know what you mean. When you come out of the woods again, what do you do next?

  BREDSTRÖM: I went to his house, and I was just thinking I’d knock on the door. The lights were on, I could see that as I was walking towards it, and when I got there I looked in the kitchen window to see if he was in there. And then, I don’t know what it was, but you get a fucking funny feeling sometimes, don’t you? Like there’s something going on that you’re best off staying out of?

  DAVIDSSON: Maybe. What do you mean? What did you see?

  BREDSTRÖM: Someone else was already there.

  DAVIDSSON: What?

  BREDSTRÖM: There was already someone else in the house.

  DAVIDSSON: And it wasn’t Levin?

  BREDSTRÖM: No.

  DAVIDSSON: What was he wearing?

  BREDSTRÖM: Some kind of light shirt, grey, I think it was. I just saw him from the waist up. [long pause] He was all bloody.

  DAVIDSSON: What did you just say?

  BREDSTRÖM: He had blood on him, on his sleeve and his face. Like it had splashed onto him.