The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Zé moves slowly and noiselessly, camouflaged by the undergrowth, and comes across a whole network of paths and hidey-holes dug into the ground, protected by cardboard, planks, and sometimes carpeting.You can bet that after dark, this sort of wild garden, so close to the dormitory suburbs, will be teeming with people. Zé looks for a hole that appears to be empty and finds one on an area of high ground near the motorway from which he can watch the building. He clears some space for himself with a few flat stones, wedges himself in and waits. The building looks deserted. In the late afternoon, Zé distinctly hears the noise of people flocking back to the squat and going about their usual business. In the openings of the façade he’s watching, he sees lights flickering.Then darkness falls and the waste ground comes alive. Life rises up from the canal, floats above the ground, as if immaterial. Rustling, whispering, half-glimpsed flames. Zé hopes he’s not in the path of the main tide of people and focuses on the façade. Sniff out any clandestine contacts between the squat and the waste ground.That’s his way in. He lights a joint, to blend in, and pulls his hood down over his eyes.

  As the night’s very dark, for a few hours he concentrates on the sounds so as to chart the comings and goings, and thinks he’s identified more intense activity under the brambles at the farthest corner of the building. He doesn’t budge. He waits. Around 4 a.m., life begins to flow back towards the canal and dissolves into the night by osmosis.

  Zé uncurls himself, dives under the brambles closest to the building and finds a clear path running its entire length. At ground level, the five bricked-up basement windows must open into the cellars. Zé stops in front of the fifth one, bricked up like the others, and prods the breeze blocks. Finding they’re loose, he pulls a knife from his pocket and inserts the blade between the rubble stones. They’re a snug fit, but not cemented in. Zé moves away quickly, and hides in a dip in the ground, keeping still again.Take time to think. I’ve found the front door. No doubt I’m sharing it with dealers I know nothing about. So I don’t know what I might find behind it. Don’t want to know. Too great a risk of being seen. Come back tomorrow, properly equipped, and give it a go, blind.

  Around 5.30, the lights begin to come on again in the squat. Between the dealers leaving and the squatters waking, I have got a good half hour to act undisturbed.That’s plenty. Zé too makes his way back to the canal.

  Day 3

  Back to the waste ground, same time, same clothes, to find the same hole and wait there. The routine, in other words. Zé’s brought an old ruck-sack, crammed full, and a sleeping bag. The hours tick by. Nothing out of the ordinary. Only, around midnight, a kid who’s already well out of it and really wants to hang out with “a grown-up” and “possibly more”. Zé frightens him off with a few curses in Serbo-Croat and the kid doesn’t insist.

  4.20 a.m. Zé gets up, walks quickly over to the fifth basement window. Crouching in front of it, from his rucksack he pulls a pair of rubber gloves, a balaclava and night-vision goggles, which he puts on. He inserts a flat hook between the breeze blocks and loosens them just like that, throws his rucksack through the window and drops down into the cellar. First surprise, he hits the ground sooner than expected. A huge underfloor space rather than a cellar. Barely room to stand up. Senses a presence in a corner: a horizontal shape beginning to sit up. In two strides, Zé’s on top of him, pinning him to the floor. He knocks him out with a punch to the chin. He finishes him off with a stone picked up from the ground. Quick, find the trap door leading up to the ground floor.

  Torch. Some kind of flimsy wooden partition gives way to his touch. Piles of rubbish.Towards the centre of the building, a few wooden cases full of wire jewellery, wooden statuettes and leather belts, street hawkers’ wares no doubt, wonderfully flammable material. And the trap door. A gentle push: it yields easily; glance around, I’m just under the main staircase.

  The wooden staircase. Perfect. Zé lets the trap door close, hurriedly goes over to the body, drags it under the trap door, piles up the planks from the partition, the boxes full of stuff, the guy’s sleeping bag, syringe, needle, tourniquet, spoon, cotton wool, bottle of water and even a dose of smack: do the job properly. Sprinkles several litres of methylated spirits over the whole lot. Then takes a spirit stove out of his rucksack, lights it, throws it onto the sleeping bag and opens the trap door. The fire catches immediately. Zé picks up his rucksack, runs to the window, clambers up into the open air with no difficulty. He walks quickly down to the canal without looking back. He must get as far away as he can before the fire spreads to the upper floors. As he walks, he stuffs the balaclava, gloves and goggles into his rucksack, reaches the towpath and breaks into a run, like an early-morning jogger. He watches the building out of the corner of his eye. Judging by the façade, nothing’s happening. The fire hasn’t caught, did it burn itself out in the cellar? Not enough meths? He carries on jogging, keeping up the same pace. Just as the outline of the building vanishes behind the carcass of an abandoned cement silo, he hears a rising scream. Don’t turn around. Hot fl ush.That’s it, you did it.They chucked you out of their place, you chuck them out of yours. Nice work.

  He keeps on running. A kilometre further on, the rucksack will sink to the bottom of the canal, in two kilometres, he’ll be back in his Clio and will drive straight down to Marseille.Tomorrow, he’ll be out of the country. The fire engulfs the cellar, a magnificent blaze sucked towards the stairwell, which grows scorchingly hot before the staircase bursts into flames in several places, crackling. The dangling naked electric wires catch fire and give off a smell of burning rubber which masks that of the corpse being slowly burned to cinders.Wreaths of grey and black smoke billow from the ground floor, spread over the motorway, rise to the roof. Men abruptly roused emerge to see what’s going on just as the first flight of stairs collapses in a shower of sparks. Screams. In a few seconds, the alarm’s raised and the whole building resounds with panic-filled shouts, jostling, stampeding. The fire spreads to the upper storeys – there’s little to hinder it, the doors have been ripped off and the curtains replacing them catch fire at the slightest gust. The women and children gather by the windows at either end of the building, the men try to halt the progress of the flames by blocking any opening with everything they can get their hands on; it’s a ludicrous battle which only feeds the flames. Gas stoves explode here and there.Women jump out of first-floor windows clutching their children. Others on the fourth and fifth floors fling bundles of clothes out of the windows, hover over the void, scream for help. The distraught squatters scatter onto the motorway slip road where traffic is at a standstill.

  The fire brigade arrives, sirens wailing, three fire engines, just as the roof over the staircase collapses.They extend their ladders, evacuate the inhabitants, attack the flames. Four more engines arrive. Then the police show up. Two police stations have been mobilized, plus a brigade of riot police.The area is cordoned off. Nobody’s allowed near. Not onlookers, friends or family. Orders are clear: avoid any demonstration of support for the victims, no breaches of the peace. All the uninjured squatters are herded into big buses: immediate removal to a municipal sports centre placed at the disposal of the disaster victims.The dead are taken to the morgues in ambulances and the burned and the wounded to various hospitals, as and when the fire-fighters are able to drag them out of the blaze. Some people manage to slip through the police cordon and run off across the waste ground.

  By 6 a.m., in the building where the fire’s still smouldering, only a few bodies are left, along with the fire-fighters still battling the flames and drowning what’s left of the squat under gallons of water. According to the police bulletin, 123 people were living in this squat, seven are dead and fifteen others injured, three of whom are critical; 101 people are in the municipal sports centre where identity checks are being carried out.The plan is to escort any illegal immigrants to the border and rehouse those whose papers are in order. The investigation should establish whether the fire is of criminal or accidental origin.
/>   Two Years Later

  A twelve-storey steel and glass structure hugs the curve of the A86 motorway slip road, which has been concreted over and where at this very moment a garden is being laid out.The façade overlooking the canal has reflective glass echoing the changing hues of the weather, blue sky, clouds, storms, in an arresting mirror effect. A vast paved esplanade stretches down to the canal. In the centre is a circular, white stone fountain with geometric sculptures. On either side, a row of lime trees in front of two multilevel apartment blocks. Terraced gardens that will soon be verdant slope down to the canal. An old-fashioned bandstand has been installed on the quayside, which has been turned into a promenade.

  It’s summer, the weather’s very hot, the whole complex is still empty, a few finishing touches yet to be added. The Bâtimo construction company is holding a party to celebrate the completion of the works before the August holidays. White marquees have been set up along the canal and a throng of men in dark suits and a few women in light dresses are crowded around the buffets piled with refreshments and champagne. Entrepreneurs and politicians big and small, of all persuasions, mingle and rub shoulders.

  When the mayor arrived, flanked by his deputy, he was a little tense. The tragedy that took place here two years ago is on everyone’s mind, he was thinking. Granted, the police investigation concluded it was an accident following a fight between dealers who had broken into the basement of the squat. But eight dead . . . Granted, the city council rehoused all the legal immigrants. But not locally, not together, a long way from Paris . . . and the illegal immigrants were deported before they’d had time to recover. Granted, some immigrant support organizations were invited to this inauguration of the new canal district. But only those with close ties to the mayor’s office.What if the others, the ones the police repressed with some brutality during the fire and afterwards, were to decide to come and spoil the party . . . Then he relaxes a little more with each glass of champagne. And whisky. After all, the fire, the dead, you’re probably the only one still thinking about it.Too sensitive . . .

  Marchal, the CEO of Bâtimo, has invited Louvois, the big boss of the construction group that bears his name and which owns Bâtimo. The big boss hasn’t come, but he’s sent his son. And Marchal is blowing his own trumpet.

  “With this scheme completed, we’ll be pitching to the mayor and the regional authorities for the renovation of the entire canal area. We’re the experts in mixed business and residential developments.This is the way forward.”

  The mayor, who’s perked up, glass in hand, explains to the Paris and regional authorities: “We need to change the image of social housing. There’s a high demand for quality social housing here. Among our council employees alone . . .”

  Louvois junior gazes after a tubby man in a navy blue suit, panting and sweating profusely, who’s drinking too much, steering between groups, always on his own. A man who looks completely out of place. He leans towards Marchal. “Who’s that guy? Do you know him?”

  “Yes.Alfred Poupon, a property agent. He’s got an extraordinary nose for sniffing out new sites. He’s the one who discovered this one, under the most difficult circumstances.” A pause. “The old buildings were occupied, and the mayor wouldn’t hear of expulsions, of course.” A fresh silence, no questions. “He made a lot of money from the deal, but he’s a sad case. Everything he makes, he loses on the horses.”

  Translation by Lulu Norman and Ros Schwartz

  A Really Shitty Day

  Camilla Läckberg

  “Fatso!”

  “Hey! Stupid idiot!”

  “God damn, you’re so disgusting!”

  The words hit him like needles, as he walked across the school grounds. He should have gotten used to it by now, because he had heard such words for years, but they still caused him pain. A lot of pain.

  “Hey fatso, tell us if you want us to help you walk. Maybe we could push.”

  Five of the toughest boys in the school sat on benches and made very sure that Maria and Ellen heard what they said.These girls were officially recognized as the prettiest in the school, and they radiated the knowledge of this, as they glided past the boys on the benches.

  Each eager to be the most impressive, the boys increased their efforts and yelled their taunts so that they almost drowned each other out.

  “Nice boobs you got there,Wilbur!”

  Wilbur, after his maternal grandfather. As if it weren’t enough that he was fat.

  With the taunts and insults ringing in his ears, he slowly approached the school. There was nothing enticing him to enter within its walls. It was as though he was a wandering target, or a vent for all the other teenagers’ frustrations about their existence. Life seemed so much better when one realized that at least one wasn’t Wilbur. Kicking him gave a few moments respite from one’s own anxiety, and gave a feeling of power that was otherwise utterly lacking, in a world that was governed by parents’, teachers’, and other grown-ups’ rules and laws. He wasn’t stupid. He understood all of this. Understanding just didn’t make it any easier.

  After drawing a deep breath, he strode through the doors to the school, or the gates to hell, as he tended to call them, in his more ironic moments.There wasn’t really any need for irony though, it was more a case of cold, hard fact. For him they really were the gates to hell. Not that things were any better at home.That was a hell, too, but of a different type.

  Wilbur stole along the wall towards his locker. The trick was to make oneself as invisible as possible. Not an easy task with his height, but there were days when it seemed to work . . . Days when everyone seemed to look straight through him, as though he was made of air.Today was no such day.

  “Hey,Wilbur, how you doin’?”A falsely friendly tone of voice came from Martin, one of the boys in his class.Wilbur considered him suspiciously.

  “Fine, thanks,” he said, groping for words, and all the time on guard for the direction from which the next attack would come, be it verbal or physical.

  “I’m thinking of going camping this weekend,” Martin said, then paused.

  “Oh . . .?” answered Wilbur, hesitantly. He had no illusions that there was a possibility for this conversation to continue with the exchange of simple pleasantries.

  “Yeah. I wondered if I could use your pants – you know – as a tent.” Martin, and everyone else standing around, laughed loudly, extremely satisfied with what they thought was an especially humorous exchange. Wilbur just sighed, opened his locker and took out his books for the first lesson. He’d heard a lot worse. Martin wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and his insults were never very sophisticated.

  With dragging feet, Wilbur went to math class. Just another long day to get through.

  Patrick Hedstrom stared at the paper before him. He had no desire to work. He had no desire to do anything. Occasionally, he wondered what the point was with it all, and today was really one of those days. He, who had always loved his job, now had to drag himself out of the house and to the station in the morning. Not that things were much better at home, either. If only he could put his finger on what it was that was wrong. He had thought that he and Karen had it great together, but in the last few months she had pulled away from him, more and more.Well, he believed so, anyway. Sometimes he didn’t know. Sometimes things felt normal and he wondered if he was just imagining everything.

  With a deep sigh, he picked up one of the files in front of him.A name he had seen many times before, was written on the report, but as usual, a note had been added to the file saying that the charges had been withdrawn. Just what he needed today, another case of abuse that would never lead to any consequences for the abuser. It was all so damned meaningless.

  Patrick reached for the phone to call Karen. She had felt ill this morning and had stayed home from work. But his hand stopped halfway. He suddenly didn’t know what he wanted to say. They had had a really spectacular quarrel, before he left, about what he couldn’t remember any longer, and the bitterne
ss still hung in the air between them. If he called now, he’d be forced to apologize, and he didn’t feel he was ready for that, yet. If he was totally honest, he didn’t know what he should apologize for.The quarrel had popped up out of thin air and seemed to be about everything and nothing.

  Anne’s voice, from out in the corridor, interrupted these gloomy thoughts. The new Chief, Bert Mellberg, had called another one of his countless meetings. He mostly held them in order to make long monologues about his earlier successes with the Gothenburg police. Patrick’s mood sank to an even lower level.

  When math class was finished, he tried to steel himself to go out into the corridor. These fifteen-minute breaks, by definition, lasted only fifteen minutes, but to Wilbur they seemed to last for hours. He had no one to be with during the breaks, no little group to hang around the lockers with. No one was interested in hearing what he had to say.

  Most often he tried to find the most remote corner he could, squeeze himself into it and spend the rest of the break trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Eye contact was always problematic. It meant he was noticed, and that someone might see the possibility of feeling superior, by humiliating him in front of an appreciative public. He should have known that on this particular day, nothing was going to go his way. He hadn’t even gotten through the door out of the classroom, before a foot shot out right in front of him.With his arms full of books and pens, he tripped and landed face down in the corridor. He felt sharp pain in one of his elbows, but pretended he didn’t, as he stood up and tried to get away. He didn’t manage it. Another foot shot out in front of him and this time he landed badly on his knees. Wilbur felt how tears of anger and frustration burned behind his eye lids, but he fought against them, not wanting to give the onlookers the supreme satisfaction of seeing him cry. But it was too late. A single tear rolled down his round cheek and was immediately seen by those around him.