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

by Christoffer Carlsson (Translated by Michael Gallagher)

  Charles studies Paul’s hands, folded in his lap. He hasn’t touched the coffee.

  The collection of documents that he is scanning, one by one, onto his computer, is all that remains: the only thing he has left to show what actually happened. It’s his chance to do something right.

  ‘It’s high time to put things right,’ he says, concentrating in order to keep his voice steady. ‘It’s time for us to pay for what we did.’

  ‘That was another age, Charlie, another life.’

  ‘Another age, maybe, but not another life. We are the same people. And,’ he adds, ‘I very much doubt that your motivation for coming here is quite as noble as you’re trying to make out.’

  ‘I do not wish to present it as anything other than what it is. But if you are compiling what I think you are compiling, and you then hand it over to the wrong person … It won’t just be you going down.’

  ‘I know. You will, too.’

  ‘But not just you and me. Others, too — many of them are still alive. Where are you going to send them?’

  ‘Where am I going to send what?’

  ‘You know what I mean. The papers, the documents. The pictures.’

  ‘I haven’t quite decided yet.’

  ‘Your talent for lying has withered with time.’ Paul smiles weakly. ‘I am …’ he continues, before changing his mind. ‘I don’t know what to say. I am genuinely sorry for what happened to Eva.’

  Charles blinks. Even now, after all this time, a burning sensation builds behind his eyes.

  ‘It was never meant …’ Paul says. ‘I didn’t know that … I was just trying to help you. I just wanted you and Marika to be okay.’

  ‘It was supposed to be a copy of the Ekblom recruitment.’

  ‘We stopped those kind of tactics before your time. Ekblom was one of the last — the method was too risky, involved too many external players. But that time … I had no choice, Charlie.’ His voice is now just a whisper, an affectation that, if you’re not careful, could easily be confused with genuine remorse. ‘They forced me to do it. You knew too much, thanks to the Lichter case. It was the only way.’

  ‘You could have used Bredström against me.’

  Paul sniggers.

  ‘Never would’ve worked. You’ve always been far too straight. But the accident … That she was walking down the road with Marika. It was never … I was only trying to help you. I called it off as soon as I saw what had happened.’

  ‘You let me believe,’ Charles says slowly, and, as the words emerge, he realises that he would really have liked to have been armed, ‘that it was my fault.’

  ‘You said yourself that you suspected it from the start. Why didn’t you ask? I wouldn’t have lied to you. Not then.’

  He can’t say it. He had no one else besides Paul then. Paul knew it, and exploited it.

  ‘You spiked me,’ says Charles.

  ‘You’re the one who drank the beer.’

  ‘But you’re the one who put something in it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stop lying!’ His roar comes as a surprise even to himself, a rage with its origins in an unknown part of him. ‘Don’t lie to me again, Paul!’

  His breathing is heavy.

  ‘This was … this was thirty years ago, Charlie.’

  ‘Since I came back here, I’ve been visiting her grave several times a week. Did you know that … that she was buried here, over in the graveyard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Charles almost laughs.

  ‘Of course you knew that.’

  It took him a while to find it on his first visit to the graveyard, but there it was, tucked away and uncared for in a lush corner of the surprisingly large area. EVA LEVIN, the headstone read, and he opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out.

  ‘When I heard that you’d met Elsa,’ Paul says, ‘I can’t remember who told me, but it made me happy. That you at least got a few good years with her, after Eva.’

  Charles didn’t answer. He had never loved Elsa, at least not like he’d loved Eva. But Elsa loved me, he thought. She loved me and I … I needed her. Needed, that’s the word. No one deserves to grow old lonely. Then cancer took her, and Charles was alone, again. And that’s how it stayed.

  ‘Can I at least see them?’ Paul asks.

  ‘See what?’

  ‘The documents. So that I know what’s coming.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’ Charles drinks some more coffee. It’s been a long day, and the tiredness radiates out from his temples, in behind his eyes, and down over his shoulders. ‘They’re by the computer.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Charles gets up and walks into the study ahead of him, over to the desk and the scanner. Paul inquisitively edges up to the boxes standing on the floor and peers down into them.

  Paul picks up one of the pictures from out of the box, a black-and-white photograph.

  Charles remembers taking it, from a distance, standing next to Paul one warm spring day. It’s the twenty-ninth of May 1985. A white Renault TS is being recovered from Hammarbykanalen, the channel that separates Södermalm from the city’s southern reaches. If you squint, you can just make out the silhouettes of two women inside.

  ‘I remember that day,’ Paul says, thumbing the picture thoughtfully before he drops it back into the box.

  Their deaths were deemed to have been accidental, but strange little details helped give credence to alternative theories: Why was Falck sitting in the driver’s seat when it was Gräns’ car? Why did they have clean water in their lungs, not the dirty water you’d expect in the channel? What caused the scrapes along one side of the car? And why was Lena Gräns’ necklace not around her neck, but found instead on the ground close to the quayside? And so on.

  The police investigation that followed was deliberately useless and compromised by hands with dextrous fingers and powerful connections.

  Paul picks up another photo: a picture taken in the vicinity of the East German Embassy. It’s six months older, taken in November 1984. Johann Kraus’ silhouette is easily identifiable, as is Charles. Cats Falck was the photographer.

  After putting her and Lena Gräns at the bottom of Hammarbykanalen, they make their way to Falck’s apartment, search it for photographs and documents pertaining to the scoop that never was. Paul is shaken, while Charles is numb — his eyes, and his mind, are blank. They burn everything, except a second copy of the photo, which Charles recovers from a shoebox in Falck’s wardrobe. He folds it and then puts the photo into his coat pocket while Paul has his back to him.

  1984 to 2014. Thirty years in a single breath. It was so long ago, yet somehow it wasn’t.

  Paul examines Charles’ other documents for a while, pulling out papers and reading them, before they both head back to the kitchen.

  Charles stares at his friend, and realises that he needs to try to compose himself. He’s close to the limits of what he can deal with. The limits are there though, waiting, just under his skin.

  He sits down on his chair. He drinks some coffee.

  The car outside is still there, empty and in darkness.

  ‘I was looking for you, too,’ Charles says, and it sounds like an admission but it isn’t. ‘In the archive.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I didn’t find anything.’

  ‘I know.’

  It’s been gnawing away at Charles for ages, and now, with the end near, it is a question that remains unanswered.

  ‘Back then,’ he says, ‘you told me that you did what you did because you had once needed help and got it. Gert, I think his name was.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just like you were helping me. That’s what you said.’

  Paul doesn’t blink.

  ‘And?’

  ‘What did he help you with? I know,’ he ad
ds when Paul doesn’t respond, ‘that you grew up in a foster home near Uppsala, and that’s where you met. You must have been very young then.’

  ‘Why are you asking about this now?’

  ‘I need to know. Before … I just want to know how it all started.’

  ‘This doesn’t have to have an unhappy ending, Charles.’

  This time, it’s Charles who says nothing.

  ‘I was seventeen when we met,’ Paul says, eventually. ‘At that point, I had been living there, on this big farm, for four years. I had gone into town and came back, armed with a shotgun and a hunting knife to take the lives of my stepfather, his two sons, and the other two foster children. Actually, it was a while before I realised that only two of the children were his, because he treated them all as if they were his own. But with me … I guess it was because I got there so late — I was thirteen when I first arrived. And he never treated me like anything other than a dog.’ Paul’s lips have thinned to a bitter grey line on his face. ‘Gert had spotted me in Uppsala. He was a sergeant at the time, and he’d thought there was something strange about my bag, but also about my general demeanour. So he followed me out to the farm.’

  ‘He stopped you then?’

  ‘That depends what you mean. He stopped me from killing the children, at least. And with hindsight, that might have been for the best. The kids were awful, but they were the way they were because of him.’

  ‘You killed your foster father.’

  ‘I saw it more as a cleansing. In a way, so did Gert. He knew what was going on at the farm, the assaults and the violence, but was never able to do anything about it. There wasn’t enough evidence. Anyway, he helped me, made it look like a robbery gone wrong, and I never had to do my time.’

  ‘And then he demanded something in return?’

  ‘Not until much later, when I’d ended up with SEPO. I think that was the first time I was useful to him. He was on the police board at the time, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A Palme-hating far-right extremist in a Palme-led Sweden.’

  ‘You could have said no.’

  He cocks his head to one side.

  ‘Think about what you’re saying now. You should know better than anyone that it isn’t that simple. But that’s not why I, or rather we — me and you — did what we did. If you’re looking for an absolute starting point, a definitive beginning, then yes, that’s how it started. But life can’t be reduced to something as banal as one’s childhood. I did what I did because … I could. Because I wanted to. Because it served me well.’ He blinks. ‘Simple as that.’

  ‘Is Gert still alive?’

  ‘He died of cancer a few years after Palme.’

  Charles doesn’t know what to say. Then it strikes him:

  ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘I think you know that, if you give it some thought. The personnel have changed, times are different, but the organisation remains the same. You must stop this.’

  ‘I won’t be doing that. I should have done this years ago.’

  If only he hadn’t been such a coward.

  Paul bends down and opens the bag, then pulls out a cold, black revolver. He pops the cylinder out to make sure it’s loaded, then closes it.

  He stands up.

  ‘I’m asking you, Charlie. If not for my sake or yours, then for Marika’s. Don’t do this.’

  ‘That’s funny. I was about to say the same thing to you.’

  All of a sudden, Paul looks very tired. He lifts his arm and clenches his jaw.

  The deep throat of the revolver’s barrel is so black, and only when Charles sees that does it begin to vibrate inside his chest.

  We were allies. The great betrayal had all started with a lie between friends.

  And he used to think that at some point in his life there’d be a year with such a long summer, and during that summer he would fall desperately in love with someone he could never hurt. By then he would be older, would have learnt from his mistakes, accepted himself for who he was, and he would do whatever he could to spend the rest of his life around people who mattered to him. The years passed, though, and that moment he’d been waiting for never came; instead, his longing had subsided into that murky part of the soul where you keep things that you used to believe in, and it’s only now, as he realises that it’s too late, that the longing extricates itself and settles close to his heart, like regret. This wasn’t the life he had hoped for. This was just what was left behind.

  Sweden. He got scared of people and has never trusted anyone.

  Voices. Voices in the darkness.

  They’re talking about me. I slip in and out for a while. The voices blend with the sound of a whip cracking, with a spoon stirring a saucepan. A voice with another accent saying, If I see you again, I will beat you to death.

  The voices here and now, I hear them saying collapsed lung, hear intubate. I recognise one of them.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘It’s stable now — has been for more than twelve hours. Critical, but stable. He’s breathing for himself.’

  ‘Are you sure? He looks so … weak.’

  The voice. Sam.

  It isn’t dark. It’s me; I’ve had my eyes closed. The room is strangely pale and the light stings my eyes.

  I don’t know whether I say her name, but I think so, because my throat feels strange and when I open my eyes I see her face. Locks of her hair fall over me, touching my cheeks, and it’s a feeling I have missed and I don’t want it to stop, but she pushes the hair behind her ears, seems to be trying hard to smile.

  ‘They had to intubate,’ she says. ‘Mind your vocal chords.’

  Her fingertips touch my lips.

  ‘What day?’

  ‘What day is it? Wednesday. Wednesday the twenty-fifth.’

  ‘Ju …’

  ‘June. They’ve kept you sedated.’

  I realise now how scared she is. I want to say something soothing, but I don’t know what.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Sam shakes her head.

  ‘Everything’s okay. Don’t worry. Everything is okay.’

  ‘How’s Kit?’

  She smiles, a little smile.

  ‘He’s very well.’

  For some reason, this means an awful lot, and for the first time I see that maybe we’re going to get through this after all, and tears start streaming down my cheeks. Sam dries them carefully with her thumb.

  ‘It hurts,’ I manage.

  Sam puts something in my hand.

  ‘Here. I told them that you’d feel better if you could control your own pain relief. You push here, up or down.’

  ‘Sounds dangerous.’

  She lays her hand on my cheek.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘Sleep.’ Sam moves her hand, touches my arm. ‘I’ll be here when you wake up.’

  And maybe that is the only thing that really matters.

  ‘Do you know …’ I clear my throat, then swallow. ‘Goffman …’

  ‘Your colleague arrested him.’

  They’ve given me something that was supposed to be a sandwich. It tastes metallic and makes me feel sick, but I force myself to eat it because Sam seems to think it’s important.

  My colleague. Tove.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Your colleague?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was discharged yesterday.’

  ‘Did she get injured?’

  ‘Her arm.’ Sam purses her lips to a pale line. ‘That’s about as much as I know.’

  I look at my sandwich.

  ‘This tastes …’

  ‘I know. I had one myself.’

  ‘I thought it must’ve been me.’

  She shakes her head with a little laugh. That makes me happy.
>
  My mother and my brother have visited, apparently. There are some flowers on a table in the corner.

  ‘Who are those from?’ I ask.

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘The biggest bunch.’

  ‘From Gabriel.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘You haven’t spoken to him?’ she asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He said … him and Grim, something had happened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Just as well,’ I say, still staring at my sandwich. ‘I couldn’t face hearing about it now anyway.’

  ‘I thought you might say that.’

  Time passes. I eat my sandwich. I ask where my phone is, and Sam goes off to get it. I think about Levin.

  Sam returns with the phone, and I have a go at trying to use my arms. They’re heavier than normal, and the movements are much slower, but at least I can hold it, and dial the right number. Sam’s phone rings at the same time.

  ‘It’s the gallery,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d go and try and grab some lunch, too. Will you be okay if I leave you for an hour or so?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  She squeezes my hand before she goes, pushes her lips onto my forehead. Then she smiles. She still hasn’t said anything about the state of my face.

  I’m left alone with my phone, and I lift it to my ear.

  It rings for a long time, and the ringing tones themselves sound slow, drawn out.

  When she answers, with her name, it sounds a long way away.

  ‘Hi.’ I don’t know what to say next. ‘Are you in Stockholm?’

  ‘No, I’m at home.’

  ‘Okay. Good. That’s good.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Good. I think.’

  ‘I find that a bit unlikely. He tried to kill you.’

  ‘I don’t think he … I don’t think he was trying to kill me. He could’ve shot me in the head in that case.’ Silence. ‘And you?’

  ‘Me what?’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘My arm hurts. But it’s okay.’

  ‘I … Thanks. For bringing him in.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, it wasn’t me,’ she says. ‘It was a lorry.’