The Thin Blue Line

by Christoffer Carlsson

  He posed the question so simply, so naturally, despite the words puncturing me from the inside out.

  The end sometimes justifies unconventional means, that was SGS’s motto. It’s more of a feeling than an insight as such — the fact that, in moments like these, something bigger than your own hopes can steer the course of events.

  Now, afterwards, the regret hits me in the chest. We’ve committed a violent act, there’s no denying it. I look at my hands. I can feel Wester’s face in my palms, his cold cheeks and his hard jaws, how they creak as I prise them apart and force him to open wide.

  ‘So?’ Birck asks again. ‘Do you think it’s worth it? I mean, your friend died because of this.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Hi,’ Birck says into the phone. ‘It’s me. I know that it … Yes, I know, I was about to apologise, but we … I need your help.’ Short pause. ‘A murder.’ More silence. ‘Yes, Angelica Reyes. I can … I don’t know. That’s for you to decide.’

  They end the call. I stare out the window. We’re heading towards Bromma.

  ‘He’s going to do it,’ says Birck.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No.’ He changes lanes. ‘But as soon as he can. Probably tomorrow night.’

  We keep talking through the journey, but Birck never says his friend’s name, and that’s probably deliberate, to protect him. Before long, we stop outside a house in Bromma. It’s in the heart of a leafy suburb, identical to so many others.

  ‘Stay here,’ Birck says, and takes the little tube with him.

  Birck stops on the doorstep and knocks on the door. A man opens it, and takes a step outside. He’s our age, and he’s wearing a dressing gown. I glimpse his profile, sharp and angular. He holds out his hand. They exchange a few words, but I can’t discern which ones, then the door closes and Birck returns.

  ‘Who is that?’ I ask. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘His name’s Birck.’

  ‘What do you mean, Birck?’ I feel like I’ve lost it. ‘You’re Birck.’

  Birck smirks.

  ‘His name’s Daniel Birck, and he’s my big brother.’

  ‘You’ve got a brother?’

  ‘Haven’t I mentioned that?’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  We leave Bromma. The night is as thick as smoke.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ he asks.

  ‘Grim’s funeral.’

  77

  Two days later, a few hours before a court is to decide whether the decision remanding Wester into custody needs to be reviewed, the test results come back from National Board of Forensic Medicine. It has no sender, and no addressee. It is delivered by hand. Birck shows it to me, standing in my office.

  The new sample, collected at an unknown location at an unspecified time, is a match with the unidentified DNA recovered from Angelica Reyes’ apartment on the night of the thirteenth of October 2010.

  ‘We got him,’ says Birck.

  ‘Yes.’

  I start laughing, but I don’t really know why.

  I think about the swab, its little protective sleeve, the glistening saliva, and I wonder where it is, whether Birck’s brother held onto it. For a second, I see myself holding it in my hand, then throwing it away, then destroying the whole kit.

  It feels shameful, like trying to cover up a crime. As though I’m trying to convince myself that I were a more honourable cop, a better person, than I actually am.

  Because I do want to know. It was worth it.

  As if this force, too, ultimately took a firm grip on me.

  People don’t change. They adapt. Because I never learn. Maybe that’s the truth.

  78

  The bells chime in Salem Church.

  It’s the twenty-second of December, a Tuesday, and the priest is an older woman with short silver hair and round glasses that remind me of John Lennon or Harry Potter. The fact that there are no more than eight people present, of whom only seven are alive, seems to make her take the task in hand even more seriously.

  I’m in the front row. Behind me, a few lonely souls; one of them is Nikola Abrahamsson. He was already sitting there when I arrived, and I tried to make eye contact, but he avoided it. I don’t blame him. At least, I don’t think so. I see Ludwig Sarac and a few others; we don’t say much to each other either during or after the ceremony.

  The priest stands where she’s meant to, the man from the undertakers is somewhere in the background, and in a simple wooden coffin is my friend John Grimberg.

  My suit feels stiff. Before I left, Sam fixed my tie and pushed a roller across my back to get the dust off — I haven’t had time to get it dry-cleaned — and then she asked me if I wanted her to come with me. I regret saying no.

  The priest starts talking, and our eyes meet, but I hear only snippets of what she says. The organ begins to play. The priest sings beautifully; I grasp a book of psalms in my hands and follow the words, studying the text.

  Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,

  I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

  We could’ve been something big. I convinced myself of that, I think, that we had that potential. We could’ve broken free, like the music that streamed from the rolled-down windows of the cars those nights in Salem.

  I hear his voice, his Leo, have you ever thought about … and that billowing laugh, I can see that serious stare. He should still be around, should be here now, next to me.

  Instead, he disappeared before time, and I’m already starting to forget how his skin felt against mine.

  When the ceremony is over, I walk to the water tower. I’m drawn to it, cannot resist.

  Leo, have you ever thought about how it sometimes feels like life hasn’t even started yet? As though we’re … I don’t know. As if we’re waiting.

  Yes, and while we were doing that, waiting, time passed and life-changing tragedies occurred. We hurt each other in small ways and big ones, and once real life did kick in we could never share it.

  I lie down on my back again. It feels good to be back. The ground is cold and wet. This, here, is the end of something.

  In my inside pocket, I still have the list I got from Jonna Danielsson. I’m reminded of it and I pull it out, I want to touch it, to have something tangible, him, to hold on to.

  I hold it in front of my face, read the names once more. Such a tiny list, really, such a shitstorm of consequences.

  It might be the light from the sky shining through the thin sheet of paper, it might be something else. Here by the water tower, it feels like he’s so close, but there’s no way I can explain it. On the paper, small indentations emerge, like when you write something on one piece and the pen’s movements leave marks on the page beneath.

  No ink, but an impression.

  I laugh.

  It’s a name, written in Grim’s handwriting. Perhaps it was more of a suspicion, a hunch. If it was, where did it come from? Or perhaps he really did know — but how? I will never know.

  It was him Grim was on his way to see, that day when it all came to an end, under the bridge. Lansec Security’s offices are located on Vasagatan, not far from there. That’s why he was out.

  Jon Wester?

  That’s what it says. One last mystery.

  79

  On the twenty-eighth of March 2016, he is convicted of the murder of Angelica Reyes, having pleaded not guilty. By that time, he has reached fifty-two years of age. The time on remand has hollowed him out, made him grey. You can see that from a mile off.

  It’s the DNA that ties him to the deed. It is noted that the method by which it was obtained was questionable, but that the analysis and processing of the DNA sample has been handled according to NFC’s rules and guidelines, and as such it should be permitted to form part of the
evidence. The court spends a full day on the question of the sample. Birck and I give evidence. As soon as the name Carl Hallingström is mentioned, the questions dry up.

  Besides that: testimony from two beat officers, Larsson and Leifby; a cancelled parking ticket; a video clip found on a dead cop’s computer; and other supporting evidence, including a mobile phone picked up by a child the morning after the crime. The court rules that as a whole, the evidence is sufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Jon Wester took Angelica Reyes’ life. Wester, meanwhile, claims that he was in Kronoberg Park as part of an SGS operation, an assertion only supported by flimsy circumstantial evidence.

  The only point at which the prosecutor’s version of events is seriously called into question is in connection with the list of informants. It is shown behind closed doors, and after the fact it emerges that the defence have managed to insert a large question mark in the middle of the chain of events: how did the list end up in Angelica Reyes’ hands? Who did she take it from? Was it from Wester, and in that case, why was he carrying it? The prosecutor counters that this has no bearing on whether or not Wester was guilty, since Reyes was demonstrably in possession of the list and used it against Wester. The defence claim that it has a crucial role in explaining the relationship between Reyes and Wester.

  The court accepts the prosecution’s version. Wester immediately declares his intention to appeal.

  Birck and I leave the courtroom side by side.

  Morovi never did report me. The month I spent restricted to administrative duties was punishment enough, she felt. I spent the time tying up loose ends surrounding the Angelica Reyes case, before returning to regular duties at the end of January. I visited Salem several times a week.

  For so long, I was looking for a home. For a while, I convinced myself that it was with Sam; after that, it was in work; and then when everything seemed to be falling apart after the shot in Visby harbour three years ago — the shot that killed Markus Waltersson — it was in my ties to Grim.

  I think I have recently started to understand something about the place where I grew up and the people who have shaped me, but for now it remains more of a feeling than an insight, difficult to express.

  It’s been over three months since Grim’s funeral. Sometimes I think about my image of the future, how we were going to meet under blazing sun on Norr Mälarstrand. Maybe it is only in their thoughts, their memories, that certain people can meet. That isn’t a melancholy thought, it doesn’t feel like that anymore.

  It feels redemptive.

  Maybe I’ll never learn. It could be that people don’t change, just adapt. I don’t know. What I do know is that I feel different.

  Me and Birck head for the entrance. The reporters can sniff a headline; they want a quote. It’s not our job to give them one. It’s Monday, the end of March, and the new year is just a quarter old. We walk back to HQ.

  ‘Are you coming up?’ I ask.

  Birck shakes his head.

  ‘I’m meeting my brother.’

  ‘You’ve never really talked about him.’

  ‘Our relationship is …’ he says, seeming to look for the right word. ‘… complicated.’

  ‘Aren’t all sibling relationships complicated?’

  Birck laughs.

  ‘True.’ He turns serious. ‘How are things? How does it feel?’

  ‘Good,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I think so. What about you?’

  ‘Same here.’ He gives me a cautious smile. ‘See you tomorrow?’

  ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Up in the Violent Crime Unit, everything is quiet. There’s a man outside my door who I recognise, more a shadow than a person, with two plastic cups in his hands and a troubled expression on his face.

  ‘I thought,’ says Carl Hallingström, ‘that I could treat you to a coffee. In your office,’ he adds, offering me one of the cups.

  The man’s posture is slumped; he’s pale and gaunt, with bloodshot eyes. I take the cup and open the door, and Hallingström walks in ahead of me. The coffee burns the palm of my hand in a nice way, making me more alert. I take a little sip.

  Hallingström sits down and looks perturbed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.

  ‘Sit down, would you?’

  ‘This is my room.’

  Hallingström waves his hand dismissively.

  ‘Of course. Of course, sorry. I am a bit tired.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  I stay standing. He stares at the cup in my hand.

  ‘Have you tasted it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nasty, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Huh,’ Hallingström says and stares at his own coffee, as though he’s weighing his words carefully: ‘Nasty. Yes, that’s the word.’ He takes a gulp, then grimaces and clears his throat. ‘So … about your questions. The ones you put to me in this very room, back in the winter. We haven’t had the chance to talk since then, you see. And I want you to understand that I didn’t know that much.’

  ‘You must have known quite a bit.’

  ‘Yes, over time, I came to. But by then it was too late.’

  ‘Too late?’

  ‘To be able to do anything.’

  ‘You’re trying to wriggle out of it.’

  ‘No,’ Hallingström says, determined now, without blinking.

  ‘How much did you know at the time?’

  ‘That a young woman was dead. That it was probably one of her punters who’d done it.’

  ‘And when did you realise it was Wester?’

  ‘Only last winter. Patrik Sköld told me.’

  ‘And you suspended him.’

  Hallingström looks resolute. He drinks some of his coffee. I drink some of mine. Hallingström crosses his legs.

  ‘I was forced to. I had no choice.’

  ‘You always have a choice.’

  ‘No,’ Hallingström says, his voice heavy. A solemnity that can come only from having experienced that many times over. ‘You do not.’

  ‘This wasn’t a theft or fraud case you were dealing with here. This was a murder, and you knew it was him.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Hallingström, his mouth full of coffee, raises an index finger. He swallows. ‘Not exactly. Sköld claimed that he thought he knew who it was. There’s a huge difference.’

  ‘For a lawyer, perhaps, or NPA. Not for me, though. You, in fact, attempted to hamper our efforts.’

  ‘I know.’ Hallingström gets to his feet again. ‘That is … Well, that was everything. I just wanted to say that for a long time I didn’t know much, and when I did find out I simply did what was deemed necessary.’

  ‘Deemed necessary?’ I repeat. ‘By whom?’

  ‘Oh, you know how it is. Someone. There’s always someone.’

  Hallingström opens the door and walks out, disappears.

  80

  It’s evening. I’m in my office. It’s all over, but it doesn’t feel that way. The most difficult crimes might always remain unsolved.

  I think about all those who are no longer with us. The way we live without them, and yet still we live with them.

  I stand up from my chair, and walk around the desk. It’s going to be a long, warm spring, you can almost smell it in the air in the mornings.

  I am glad that I get to be part of it.

  For the very first time, I realise, I am going to try to hold on to that feeling.

  I put my coat on, switch off the light, and walk out into the corridor. Sam’s just coming back from the toilet, and she smiles when she sees me. She’s come straight from the gallery, to pick me up. We’re going to the cinema.

  ‘Are you done?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m done.’

  ‘Let�
��s go then.’

  I lock the door, take her by the hand, and walk over to the lift.

  And, from that moment on, you know nothing about me.

  THE LEO JUNKER SERIES

  Four gripping crime novels that cut to the corrupt core of Swedish society — and show one damaged police detective’s struggle to do the right thing.

  THE INVISIBLE MAN FROM SALEM

  Officer Leo Junker and criminal John Grimberg grew up together in the housing estates of Stockholm. Both men want to escape their past, yet its violence binds them together.

  THE FALLING DETECTIVE

  Hate stalks the streets of Sweden. But there are links from the lowest street to the highest office, and Leo’s murder investigation soon runs afoul of the national security service, SEPO.

  MASTER, LIAR, TRAITOR, FRIEND

  What fires forge the men who stand in the shadows of all police forces, intelligence agencies, and governments? Leo’s boss Charles Levin knows — a knowledge that will prove fatal.

  THE THIN BLUE LINE

  A final reckoning with the past, with truth, with lies, with the official version, and with what it takes — even breaking the law — to uphold the law.

  scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/authors/carlsson-christoffer