The Bucket List

by Peter Mohlin

  “You’re on a leave of absence until further notice at your own request. What happens then, I don’t know. You’ve committed gross negligence and this will have consequences.”

  “Of course, I understand. But I still hope this can be dealt with discreetly. If word gets out around the police station it’ll leak to the media and my real identity will be exposed.”

  Primer snorted and shook his head.

  “Well, you should’ve thought about that before you blundered in here and sabotaged the investigation. You put yourself in this mess. I’m not responsible for your witness protection status.”

  He was so angry that John realized it was meaningless to try to warn him of the risks of the story getting out. Primer was neither willing nor able to make any promises of secrecy. The decision would be made at a higher level and in consultation with Mona Ejdewik in Stockholm. Maybe even Brodwick would get involved. John could imagine his old boss’s thirst for revenge. He would love to remind John that he had been opposed to the idea of Sweden from the very beginning.

  John dismissed the picture of the lopsided smile from his mind and glanced into the interview room. Through the glass, he could see his brother’s morose expression as he listened to Erina Kabashi. The lawyer seemed to be talking without interruption, and John wondered what was going through Billy’s mind. Being forced once again to spend his nights in the police station cells was probably not what he had been hoping for when his big brother had finally come back to help him.

  26

  Heimer slowly jogged the final stretch back to the house at Tynäs. He had done the last kilometer in 3:34 and it had finished him off. His legs felt like lead and he wanted nothing more than to flop onto the sofa. But if he was going to cut any more seconds from his time, he had to take care of his body after a workout. Which is why he so slavishly followed the routine from Runner’s World.

  The magazine’s guide was taped to the hall wall. Step one—slow jog. Step two—stretch. Step three—water and protein powder. Step four—hot shower. Step five—oil and massage. Step six—rest and mental visualization training for thirty minutes. He’d started doing it after the trip to Majorca and noticed that his body was recovering more quickly after a workout and that his muscles were more malleable the morning after.

  He thought about Sissela. She was just as obsessed with the family firm as he was with running. Right now, she was presenting the new partnership with Nyla. The Finnish star designer had agreed—after much hesitation—to do an exclusive collection for AckWe, on the condition that the launch took place in Karlstad, the company’s birthplace.

  Sissela loved the idea and had talked of nothing else lately. Models and stylists had been flown in from New York, and together with editors from the world’s leading fashion magazines they turned the town’s hotel into a significantly more fashionable place than it usually was.

  The lunchtime showing was taking place in an old warehouse that had once been AckWe’s first factory. Heimer had been there the night before, at the general rehearsal. The show was fantastic. The contrast between Nyla’s urban, scaled-back designs and the projected images of seamstresses from the first half of the twentieth century would definitely make an impression on a discerning audience.

  He had considered being there today too but had decided against it. Heimer always felt slightly in the way when AckWe was beating its drum. He struggled to handle the double emotions of being fussed over because he was the queen’s husband, and on the other hand feeling lost since he had no role to play.

  He took an extra long stride to avoid a puddle and then looked toward the gate up ahead on the road. There was a car parked outside—as if it were waiting for someone to come home. The man leaning against the driver’s side door was someone he hadn’t seen in many years, but seeing that face still made his stomach cramp.

  This could only mean bad news. Heimer had spent the last ten years developing a strategy to cope with daily life. Nevertheless, its structure was so fragile that all it would take was the slightest prod to bring his existence tumbling down.

  The man had seen him and raised his hand in greeting. Heimer nodded in response and jogged over to him.

  “Have you been waiting long?” he said, sounding as relaxed as he could.

  “Don’t worry, I only just got here,” said Bernt Primer.

  Heimer felt the warmth in his body from the run disappearing, to be replaced by the uncomfortable feeling of cold sweat lingering on the skin under his running clothes.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of your wife on the phone but didn’t manage to get through,” Primer added.

  “She’s busy with work,” said Heimer. “What’s it about?”

  Primer fidgeted and seemed to struggle to get the words out.

  “I’d prefer to speak to both of you together,” he said eventually.

  Heimer only needed a couple of seconds to understand what this was about. Why else would the policeman standing before him have gone to the trouble of coming all the way out here?

  “Emelie …” he heard himself say. “You’ve found her.”

  “You know what, Heimer? I think we should go inside and …”

  “Answer me. Have you found her?”

  Primer lowered his shoulders and scanned the neighborhood with his eyes. After what felt like an eternity, he took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

  “Yes, we’ve found her. She’s dead. I’m so sorry.”

  Heimer had to fight to keep his balance. The black reinforced steel gate, the cars on the drive beyond it, the hornbeam hedge with its brown leaves running alongside the fence down toward the big band king’s house—everything in his field of vision took on strange shapes. As if he was seeing the world through the peephole in a door.

  “Where … Where did you find her?”

  “She was buried in the woods alongside Hallerudsleden. I know this must be a shock to you. Shall we try to call Sissela again?”

  The policeman got a phone out of his pocket, but Heimer waved dismissively at him.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said. “I’ll speak to her myself.”

  Primer appeared to hesitate.

  “Shall we go inside anyway?” he insisted, nodding toward the house. “I think it would be best if we could get your wife to come here, so that we can all talk together.”

  Sissela, Heimer thought to himself. He wouldn’t be able to play his role any longer.

  Wouldn’t be able to pretend to be the grieving but strong husband who had moved on and found a life after losing his daughter. There was no life after Emelie—there never had been.

  Primer put a hand on his shoulder and gestured that he should open the gate.

  “No,” Heimer said in a voice he didn’t realize he possessed.

  Then he began to run.

  It was about ten kilometers to AckWe’s old factory on the outskirts of Karlstad. The asphalt felt hard under his feet, but he ignored the pain in his joints from the rough surface. The rain had begun to fall without him noticing. His hair was suddenly wet and there was spray flying off the tires of passing cars.

  Sissela had to know, he thought to himself as he increased his speed. The voice in his headphones said his pulse was 152 and that the last kilometer had taken 3:42 minutes. Heimer took them out, leaving the buds dangling around his neck. For each step he took, he got a little closer to his wife—he didn’t need to know more than that.

  He licked the drops of water from his lips and felt his lungs filling with air, bringing him oxygen. The images he was trying to ward off were still forcing their way into his head. His daughter, buried in the ground. Her beautiful face covered by the dirty soil. Worms slithering between locks of her long blonde hair.

  He wondered what she looked like after ten years. She was presumably unrecognizable. Her body must be decomposed. Nevertheless, it wasn’t as a rotting body that he thought of his daughter. In the pictures appearing in his mind’s eye, Emelie’s face was peaceful—as if she
had just closed her eyes as life had left her. Shovelfuls of earth covering it, spade by spade, until there was nothing left to see.

  He passed the bridge and looked down into the water below. The raindrops formed small circular ripples that kept colliding—turning into one large effervescent mixture. The railing wasn’t high—Heimer guessed it was about a meter. It wouldn’t be hard to climb up, lean out, and then feel the relief of free fall.

  He increased the frequency of his stride. It had worked before: physical exertion as a way of subduing anxiety. What unpracticed runners thought was their max was in fact just half of the power it was possible to squeeze out of the human body.

  When the red brick building appeared on his right, his heart was thudding so hard he thought his rib cage was going to burst. The red carpet was out, and the parking area was full of cars. Inside he could hear sharp, electronic music—but it was almost desolate outside. Heimer slowed down to avoid running straight into the security guards manning the entrance.

  The oldest of the four broad-shouldered men approached him with a skeptical expression. He wasn’t keen on leaving the shelter of a marquee outside the entrance which was keeping him out of the rain.

  “Sorry, but you need an invitation to get in here,” he said.

  Heimer bent forward and rested his hands on his knees while catching his breath.

  “Are you alright?” the bouncer added in a friendlier voice, when he saw how worn-out the man in front of him was.

  Heimer nodded and then straightened up slowly.

  “I need to go in and speak to my wife.”

  “Sorry, but like I said, I can only let in people with an invitation.”

  “You don’t understand. My wife …”

  Heimer paused to catch his breath again. The bouncer brushed his neck to stop raindrops from running inside his shirt collar.

  “My wife,” Heimer continued. “She’s in there. She’s Sissela Bjurwall.”

  “The Sissela Bjurwall?”

  “Yes.”

  The bouncer looked doubtful, but Heimer must have been sufficiently credible to avoid being immediately taken for a madman.

  “Wait here,” he said, disappearing beneath the protective roof of the marquee.

  He dialed a number on his phone and a moment later a young woman came out. Heimer recognized her. She was one of his wife’s assistants and had been on the trip to Majorca. The bouncer waved at him to come closer.

  “Come with me,” the woman said, opening the door into the cacophony.

  Heimer followed her. They walked through a foyer full of abandoned champagne flutes and plates of half-eaten lunch canapés.

  “The show is almost over,” she shouted in his ear, nodding at a new bouncer who opened the next door leading onto the old factory floor.

  The woman put a tag reading VIP around his neck and pointed at an empty seat at the very front, by the stage. The audience was sitting on temporary raked seating on either side of the catwalk running through the center of the room, while the end was reserved for photographers. The music had been loud enough in the foyer, but in here it was deafening. The deep bass bounced between the red brick walls and made the steel structure he sat down on vibrate.

  On the stage, young women were showing Nyla’s collection for AckWe under bright lights. Camera flashes went off and the models assumed poses to show the clothes in their most flattering light.

  Heimer saw the man next to him lean away. The woman on the other side did the same. He suddenly became aware of his running kit and the fact that he was dripping with rain and sweat. His mouth felt dry after running and he regretted not asking the assistant for a glass of water.

  He looked up at the stage again. The models had changed into new outfits and were earning appreciative applause as they faced the audience. He tried to make eye contact with the woman at the head of the procession. Her face was covered in mud and her hair tangled in rotten leaves. The models following her looked the same. Their lips were bloodless and white, and their eyes lacked all signs of life.

  He forced himself to keep watching.

  Then he saw it—they all had Emelie’s face.

  Heimer turned to the man next to him. He didn’t seem to be reacting to the grotesque parade before them—all he did was make a note in a small notebook.

  The tunnel vision he had experienced earlier with Primer returned. His field of vision began to contract and Heimer was unable to take in enough air, no matter how much he breathed through his mouth.

  The models processioned back out and a woman in black jeans and a strangely cut gray top came in. The adulation in the room increased. It was Nyla herself. Next to her was the company’s CEO and public face—Sissela Bjurwall.

  Heimer could feel the music hurting his ears and he put his hands over them to shut out the noise. The lack of oxygen was getting worse and he stood up in an attempt to start breathing again. Once he was up on his legs, he felt how wobbly they were. The man next to him looked at him with irritation when Heimer grabbed hold of his shoulder to stop himself from falling, but continued writing in his notebook. On the stage, Sissela took a couple of steps back and joined in the applause, to show that the adulation belonged to Nyla alone.

  Heimer felt the nausea rising up through him and fell forward toward the small barrier separating the seating from the catwalk. He put out his hands to stop himself and promptly threw up. The yellow-green contents of his stomach sprayed across the shiny white stage floor, just a few inches from his wife’s high heels.

  27

  Despite the rain pouring down, he stood outside the car to eat. The hamburger he bought from a street vendor in the town center was on the greasy side, and John didn’t want to risk it on the leather seats of the Chrysler. Two hours had passed since the confrontation with Primer at the police station, and it was only now that he could feel the adrenaline beginning to subside. He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours and was drained of all energy after recent events.

  In the course of just a morning, he’d gone from being the hero who found Emelie Bjurwall’s remains to a liar being kicked off the investigation. He’d no longer get updates on the case, and that bothered him. But maybe there was a way to change that … It was at least worth a try.

  His phone beeped and he read the message. The person on the other end had agreed to meet. He threw the rest of the burger into a trash receptacle and put the address into the GPS. It took only five minutes to reach his destination. He pulled over to the curb. The place across the street didn’t look how he had expected. He checked the text message again to make sure he’d come to the right place. He compared it with the sign on the façade in front of him. Yes—it was correct.

  He got out of the car, crossed the street, and opened the door to Rat Chance Thai Massage. The sign in the shopwindow comprised colored lights flashing out of time with the unobtrusive pan flute music coming out of the speakers on the reception counter.

  The young Thai woman who greeted him was wearing a red kimono with beautiful embroidered butterflies on it. She smiled and bowed slightly toward him.

  “I must have the wrong address,” John said.

  “Follow me, mister.”

  The woman spoke broken English. She held back a curtain made from colorful plastic beads that concealed an arched opening in the wall. On the other side was a corridor with rooms on both sides. She knocked on the door of one of them, and a voice inside asked them to come in. John saw a familiar face look up from the massage table.

  “Sit down.”

  Erina Kabashi sounded just as commanding as she had when she had taken over as Billy’s lawyer. John looked around for something to sit down on. Another much older Thai woman, who was busily kneading the lawyer’s shoulders, looked up at him. She nodded toward a stool in the far corner. John fetched it and sat down at the head of the table.

  “And now I’d like to know who you are,” Erina added, groaning on the final syllable as the masseuse’s powerful thumbs dug into muscles gli
stening with oil.

  John hesitated. The number of people who knew that Fredrik Adamsson was just a front was already too high and he had no wish to include the lawyer in that party. On the other hand, it was important that he kept her on his side. Right now, she was the only way of maintaining any ongoing insight into the investigation against his brother.

  “Don’t worry about Gewalin—she doesn’t speak a word of Swedish,” said Erina. “I’ve often had confidential meetings here. Not all of my clients want to be seen hanging around outside my office.”

  John’s quizzical look made her elaborate.

  “I represented the family that runs the place in a civil case a couple of years ago and they ran out of cash. So in lieu of the final installment I accepted three massages every week. It was that or bankruptcy—and then I wouldn’t have gotten a penny.”

  A new groan of pleasure-filled pain escaped the lawyer’s lips.

  “That’s enough, Gewalin. Do my backside,” she commanded in English.

  The masseuse shifted the white towels on her back so that her shoulders were covered and the lower part of her body was bared. John tried to avoid looking at the lawyer’s ass.

  “You must realize that I’m wondering who you are,” Erina continued. “First you write to me, anonymously, to tip me off that Billy Nerman has been arrested again and needs a lawyer. There’s nothing unusual about that. I get tip-offs like that all the time. But then you write again and this time you want to meet—that makes me suspicious.”

  John was annoyed by his own awkwardness in the woman’s presence and tried to take control of the conversation.

  “Who I am doesn’t matter,” he said. “What does matter is what I have to say.”

  “Who a person is and what they say can’t be separated,” she replied, as quick as a flash. “I’ve been a lawyer long enough to know that. If you don’t want to tell me I’m sure you have your reasons, but then I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on the assignment.”

  Erina looked at the floor through the hole in the head end of the table, as if the conversation were already over. The Thai woman smoothed oil onto her rear and then began to knead her backside with brisk movements, up and down.