by Peter Mohlin
John shook his head slowly.
“We can’t use her father like that.”
“Use? What are you talking about? He wants it.”
John fell silent and looked at her. There was something about her frank, almost arrogant attitude that was seductive. She knew how beautiful she was and didn’t hesitate to use it in both her personal and professional lives.
“Sorry, I can’t sit on this fucking fruit crate any longer,” she said, getting up. “Why don’t you get some real chairs?”
“Well, you’ve got free massages whenever you want.”
John had expected a response to the taunt, but instead she tucked her hair to one side and headed toward the bed. She stopped by the crumpled sheets and glanced at him.
“Haven’t you figured out yet why I’m here?”
John smiled and drained his glass before getting up to walk over to her.
“No, I haven’t actually.”
When he reached her, she surprised him by taking a step back. When Erina pressed her buttocks against his crotch and took hold of his neck with both hands, a thrill ran through him.
“Do you see now?” she whispered, putting her lips to his throat.
She turned around and kissed him. Her tongue was bitter from the wine and her lips hot. He immediately felt himself getting hard but he also knew what a terrible idea this was. If he needed sex, it would be better to head to the pub and pick up a stranger rather than sleep with the sharpest lawyer in town—who happened to know his real identity.
“You need to leave,” he said.
Erina shook her head slowly and undid her shoulder straps. Her top fell down to her waist.
“I know you want me. You’ll regret it if I leave. You know it.”
John stopped resisting and decided that if he was going to do this then he might as well enjoy every moment.
Erina was dressed and standing by the bed, looking at him.
“I need to be in court in a couple of hours,” she said.
John turned to look at the clock on the bedside table. The sex had been explosive for them both and before they’d had time to decide whether she was spending the night they had fallen asleep.
He got out of bed and pulled on his trousers. Then he went with Erina into the corridor and called the elevator. They stood slightly apart and listened to the whining sound as the elevator began to ascend.
“Hmm. I was thinking about something,” he said tentatively.
Erina turned to him.
“What?”
“I was just wondering whether there are any legal obstacles to letting Emelie’s father see Primer?”
She laughed and shook her head.
“Not if you guarantee the safety of both of them,” she said, getting into the elevator.
Then she pressed the green button for the ground floor and the doors slid shut.
Once John was back in the apartment, he became aware of how grubby he felt. He went into the bathroom, urinated silently in the toilet bowl, and then got in the shower. The water was cold, but he still decided to move the dial another half-turn toward the blue end of the scale. The cold was his punishment for being unable to resist sleeping with Erina Kabashi.
He tried to tell himself that she had just wanted sex, and that he had simply been a suitable candidate for the job. Erina was unlike the women he’d been with in the past. They had all been so predictable and had never challenged him. But the lawyer was different. She knew what she wanted and was happy being the smartest person in the room. But this was hardly the right time to embark on a relationship. His own safety mattered more. Sooner or later they might fall out—he knew that—and then all bets would be off.
He turned off the water, wrapped a towel around his waist and picked up his toothbrush. As he looked in the bathroom mirror at his own reflection, the anxiety returned like a punch to the gut. The experience with Erina had been so intense he had managed to forget about the email from Trevor.
He dropped the toothbrush in the sink and went back into the still-dark apartment. He went to the laptop and opened it.
The email service had kicked him off due to inactivity. He logged in again and began to read the email. After getting through the first paragraph, he couldn’t keep going. The message was simple, but still hard to take in.
Inoperable.
It’s all over.
John’s eyes filled with tears and a cold hand grasped his heart. It was the worst possible news.
He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. Then he forced himself to return to the laptop and keep reading. Trevor told him what the doctor had said. The tumors had spread and were so bad that surgery would be highly risky. The best course was to give him the least painful, most worthwhile life possible until the unavoidable end. The doctor hadn’t wanted to speculate about when that might be. But he had finally managed to squeeze a prognosis out of him. Eight to twelve months. He had no longer than that.
John pushed the laptop away so hard that the computer almost fell onto the floor.
Was this really happening?
It couldn’t be happening.
The final sentences in the email were the ones that hit him hardest. Trevor asked whether they could meet one last time. He wanted to visit John before he put on his wooden jacket, as he put it. He still felt tolerably well between his hospital visits. If Trevor’s trip to see John took place during one of these gaps, they’d be able to spend some time together almost like normal.
John felt his eyes fill with tears again.
It was him—a colleague—that Trevor planned to say farewell to. Not the wife he still loved or the child he wasn’t allowed to see.
John thought it was the saddest damn thing he’d ever read.
47
Heimer had just gotten home from one of his increasingly punishing runs when he heard his phone vibrating on the hall table. The taste of blood in his mouth and his muscles throbbing with pain, he had answered without checking who was calling.
He recognized her voice right away. It had a particular clarity and precision that he appreciated but which also intimidated him. He was grateful that he could blame his breathlessness on the workout he had just finished. Mona Ejdewik didn’t need to know that he probably would have sounded the same if she’d called while he was on the sofa.
The detective opened with “How are you?”
Heimer thought it sounded a little strained, as if she were obliged to say something pleasant before getting down to business.
“Fine given the circumstances, thanks.”
That was what he was expected to say. In reality, that was as far from the truth as it could be. Not knowing what Primer was saying during questioning by the police was driving him insane. Over the last few days, he had been running farther, more frequently, and faster than ever before, while Sissela had her own method for distracting herself: working and screwing Hugo Aglin. There’d been several more late nights at the office. Heimer didn’t have the energy to care about whether she was lying to him. All he could think about was Bernt Primer.
He grasped the phone tightly and tried to prepare himself for what was to come. His heart had been pounding in his rib cage as if he had taken the final, lactic-acid-filled steps up a long climb.
“I wanted to ask you whether you were willing to assist us with something,” the detective had continued.
The question took him by surprise and he was slow to reply.
“Oh? With what?”
Mona Ejdewik explained that they had reached a dead end in questioning, so she was ready to try unconventional methods. When Heimer asked what that meant, he was told she was considering letting him visit Primer in lockup, hoping that it would provoke the man into confessing.
Heimer was surprised and also pleased but tried not to sound too enthusiastic.
“Let me give it some thought … I mean, if you feel it would help the investigation …” he said, trailing off into a meaningful silence.
&nbs
p; “We don’t know how Primer will react, and I definitely don’t want to pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do. But we need to break the deadlock, and I think this might work.”
Shortly after, he gave up his feigned reluctance and accepted her suggestion. They agreed that he would come to the police station the next day and that Mona would meet him by the entrance.
Then Heimer ended the call and went into the bathroom, relieved. He tossed his sweaty clothes in the laundry hamper, shaved, and got into the shower.
Emelie, he thought to himself.
With his eyes shut and the water rushing over his face, he was able to feel his daughter’s presence for just a brief moment.
Afterward, he massaged oil into his muscular legs and lay down on the bed naked. He could allow himself thirty minutes of rest, he decided. The remainder of the day would be spent preparing for the visit to the police station. He would only have one chance, so nothing could go wrong.
“How do you think you’ll feel when you see him?”
Heimer caught Mona Ejdewik’s gaze. She was sitting on the other side of the desk in the zombie basement of the police station. He pretended to think and then gave her the answer he had so carefully crafted the evening before.
“I don’t think I can really know until I’m sitting face-to-face with him. I’d be lying if I told you anything else. For me it’s about justice for Emelie. I need to know what actually happened—I need closure.”
“And if you succeed and he actually starts talking about what he did to your daughter, what happens then?”
“I don’t know. But I promise to try to think about Emelie and what’s best for the investigation.”
The detective was trying to get him to relax while simultaneously evaluating his mental state. The questions about how he felt were discreet and deftly smuggled into the conversation. If she saw even a tiny crack in his façade, she would call it all off.
Heimer made an effort to be the person she wanted him to be. He couldn’t seem unaffected—that would seem psychologically aberrant. At the same time, he couldn’t be too emotional—that might make him seem unbalanced or a downright liability.
“Will I be alone with him?” he asked.
Mona cleared her throat and he thought he glimpsed a flash of concern cross her face.
“As I said, this is an unusual situation. But my feeling is that you’ll meet alone, with a guard outside and cameras recording everything. How does that sound to you?”
Absolutely perfect was how it sounded. But he couldn’t show that.
“How quickly can the guard get into the room?” he said.
“A few seconds. But if you feel uncomfortable, he can be inside the room instead. It’s up to you.”
Heimer pretended to think about it.
“Let’s do it your way. I feel okay with that.”
He caught himself touching the outside of his jacket with his hand. He looked at Mona to see whether she had reacted to his body language, but the movement seemed to have escaped her.
“What do you want me to ask him about?”
“Our problem is that he admits he had oral sex with Emelie but denies everything else. He says it was consensual and that she was alive when he left the scene.”
She paused to see his reaction to what she had said. Heimer felt disgusted and there was no reason to conceal that.
“I want you to try to ask open questions,” Mona continued. “Ask him to tell you about what happened that night. Say that you have a right to know. After all, you are her father. If you want to take a break, then that’s totally fine. Just call for the guard and you’ll be let out. And above all, stay calm—otherwise we’ll have to come in and break it off. We’ll see and hear everything you say.”
Heimer nodded. He understood.
“Do you have any questions before we get started?”
“No, I feel ready. Well, as ready as I’ll ever be for something like this,” he said, to soften the absolute certainty.
She made a call and shortly after the door to the office opened and a prison guard entered. The detective introduced the men to each other before the three of them headed for the interview room. When they were almost there, Mona stopped. After a quick “good luck,” she disappeared into the adjacent room to check that the audio and video were working as they should.
Heimer nodded to show that he was ready. But the guard cracked his knuckles and adjusted the baton on his belt.
“Please spread your legs and hold your arms out.”
The casual tone in which the man spoke the words contrasted sharply with the panic that had erupted inside Heimer. He couldn’t permit a pat down.
Autopilot kicked in—or his survival instincts did.
“I need to go to the men’s room before I meet him,” he said.
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course. It’s just over there,” he said, pointing.
Heimer felt the man’s gaze following him and he made an effort not to walk faster than normal. As soon as he locked the door he sank onto the toilet seat and allowed the panic to take hold of his body. His legs trembled and his breathing was heavy.
After a while, the worst had passed. He had to be quick. There was a limit to how long he could stay in there without drawing attention.
He searched the room for suitable hiding places. There weren’t many to choose from. It was either the toilet tank or the paper towel dispenser. He chose the latter. He carefully pried the lid off and put it on the sink. He stood on tiptoe and saw that the dispenser was half full. Then he took the stiletto switchblade from the inside pocket of his jacket and put it on top of the paper towels. It worked. The stack of paper supported the weight of the knife and there was plenty there in the event that anyone visited the bathroom.
He put the lid back on the dispenser and looked in the mirror. His face looked tense, but it was supposed to. His eyes were more indicative of his state. There was something there that was harder to conceal. A kind of intense energy bordering on obsession. He was glad that Sissela couldn’t see him like this. She would have seen right away that something was wrong.
He opened the door and went back into the corridor, where his chaperone was leaning against the wall fiddling impatiently with his keys. Unprompted, Heimer held out his hands and stood with his legs wide apart. The guard searched him and then showed him into the empty interview room.
“She wants you to sit there,” the guard said, pointing at the chair bolted to the floor with its back toward the door. “For the camera.”
Heimer turned his head and saw a discreet camera setup on the wall, aimed at the seat opposite his own.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’ll go and fetch Primer,” the guard said.
Heimer nodded while trying to find something to fix his gaze on. Given the absence of windows, it had to be the camera on the wall behind him. He turned around and looked into the lens. That was his only contact with the outside world—a black hole registering every flicker of expression on his face. He had to look resolute.
48
John looked into Heimer Bjurwall’s eyes through the monitor in the observation room where he was keeping Mona company. The face on the screen reminded him of how the young men in the NYPD’s SWAT team usually looked just before a raid. Emelie’s father was certainly no twenty-five-year-old bodybuilder in a bulletproof vest, but there was something there that connected the two—determination, which streamed through the lens of the camera and into the room next door.
For a moment, John doubted the whole operation. Maybe it would hurt the investigation more than it helped. But it was too late now. He had suggested Erina’s idea to Mona and she gave her approval.
“They’re on their way now.”
Mona repeated what the guard who had fetched Primer had just told her via her headset. John nodded and looked at the screen again. Heimer Bjurwall had turned his back to the camera and clasped his hands on the table.
There was a buzzing in John’s pocket. His phone was on silent so Mona didn’t notice anything. He discreetly rejected the call. It rang again after just a few seconds. This time he got the phone out to see who was calling. It was coming through the switchboard. Curiosity got the better of him and he accepted the call.
“Hello?”
“John, buddy!”
He pushed the phone tightly against his ear so that Mona wouldn’t hear. The voice on the line had used his real name. It took a second for him to place it.
Billy.
His brother was calling.
He considered whether to go outside and take the call, but with Primer en route to the interview room that was out of the question. Mona would wonder what call could be so important that he would disappear at this moment.
“I’m busy right now,” he said in a formal voice.
“You need to come by. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
Billy’s voice was slurred. He clearly had been drinking, but the gravity of his tone penetrated the inebriation. This wasn’t just any old drunk talk. His brother really did have something he wanted to say.
Mona looked at John in irritation and indicated he should end the call.
“I can’t talk,” he said, ending the call.
He sighed as believably as he could.
“I thought the switchboard had been told to refer all reporters to the press office.”
Mona’s gaze lingered on him for so long that for a few seconds he thought she had heard the voice and realized that it belonged to his brother. John hadn’t forgotten their conversation when he had told Mona he hadn’t been in contact with either Billy or his mother.
“They’re very creative when it comes to getting past switchboard operators,” she said finally, turning back to the screen.
John tried to relax. He could see Mona checking that the equipment was recording as it should be. It was the umpteenth time, but it was obvious she was nervous about what was to come.
He switched off his phone to make sure his brother didn’t disturb him again. It was definitely not okay for Billy to call him at work. John could only hope that he hadn’t said anything to the operator that might reveal his true identity.