The Bucket List

by Peter Mohlin

  “Do you know why they were fighting?”

  She shook her head.

  “Dad told me to go to my room and play with my headphones on. That’s why my tablet died.”

  When Billy returned, she took the opportunity to sneak back into the house. His brother drained the last of the coffee from the mug he had left on the step.

  “I’d put on a fresh pot for you,” he said, waving the mug. “But it’ll have to be another time. Some guy from Sunne is on the way over with his wrecked Impala.”

  He just seemed to want John to leave him and his daughter alone as soon as possible.

  49

  Heimer hadn’t been able to sleep after the visit to the police station. Somewhere, deep down, he was relieved to look into Primer’s eyes and be convinced that it wasn’t him. At the same time, it was possible he was mistaken. In the witching hour, with the duvet tangled around his legs and Sissela snoring on the pillow next to his, he questioned the moment when he decided to believe Primer. Did he really trust the former detective, or was it about fear of actually using that knife? Did his courage betray him, and did he choose to see that failure as something else?

  He tried to replay what had happened in the interview room several times during the night. Primer’s face looked different each time. His memory couldn’t be relied upon. Eventually, he managed to get to sleep by accepting that all he could do was trust his instinct.

  In the morning when Sissela had gone to work, he began to work through it with precise logic.

  If it wasn’t Primer then it had to be someone else.

  The only question was who.

  Heimer checked the time and realized he had better get started. Sourcing three hundred thousand kronor in cash in just five hours wasn’t all that easy—not even when your last name was Bjurwall.

  He got into the shower. He hadn’t thought he would need to leave any money in the locker at the station. But after his visit to the police station, the game plan had changed, and he now saw no option but to follow through with the letter writer.

  Half an hour later, he reversed out of the drive while calling the bank. He introduced himself and was immediately put through to the private banking department. He told them a lie about an opportunity that had come up to buy a vintage Mercat, saying that the seller was insisting on payment in cash. The woman on the line didn’t ask any further questions but promised that the money would be ready for pickup the next day.

  “That won’t work,” he said. “I need it in an hour.”

  The woman said that might be tricky, but that she would do her best. He thanked her and said he hoped she would find a solution, adding that it would be a pity if he had to call other banks to get their help with a simple thing like this.

  He ended the call and counted the seconds silently. This time it was a male voice, reeling off a title that Heimer didn’t catch, but which was undoubtedly more important and better paid than the woman’s. Of course the money would be ready for collection from the Karlstad branch right away.

  A little while later when Heimer arrived at the bank and was handed the bundle of cash, the bank employee bowed so low he almost struck his head on the desk in front of him.

  The next stop was the Clas Ohlson store near the railway station, which was where Heimer parked the car. Inside the shop, he grabbed a toolbox, a power drill/ screwdriver combo, some workman’s clothes, and a backpack. The purchase of the webcam took longer. He wanted to be sure it was of a good enough quality and that it could be connected to the internet.

  He changed in the shopping center bathrooms. The carpenter’s trousers felt uncomfortable and looked far too new when he examined himself in the mirror. He slid his middle finger along the edging on the tiled floor and spread the grime on the coarse material. The result was surprisingly good. With a few tools in his pockets, he would pass for a workman.

  He dumped his own clothes in the trunk of his car and walked to the train station. The building on the other side of Hamngatan was a classic: red bricks, arc-shaped window frames, and a fancy clock tower. He ran up the steps and passed through the automatic doors.

  Inside, he saw a beggar on the right-hand side, holding a paper cup from Pressbyrån, and on one of the benches there was a gaggle of schoolgirls giggling over a cell phone. The lockers were farther in and he wondered from what position number 109 would be most visible. He settled on one of the walls beside the information boards. The higher up the camera was positioned, the better the angle would be, and he began to regret not bringing a ladder.

  Was it workmanlike to stand on the bench?

  He thought back to when they had built the house in Tynäs and reassured himself that he could get away with any behavior he liked. The builders had pissed in the flowerbeds and stubbed out their cigarettes on the custom windowsills.

  Heimer took out the mounting for the camera and stood on the worn-out wooden bench. Using a pencil, he marked the holes using the metal plate as a template and then drilled four holes in the wall. Then he inserted the anchors and attached the plate using the screws that had come with it.

  He jumped down to the floor and looked around. The schoolgirls and the beggar seemed uninterested in what the workman was doing over by the wall. He got the webcam out of its box and checked that the battery was charged. Then he stood on the bench again, hooked it on to the mounting, and pressed the on switch. The technology worked. Using an app on his phone, he could watch a livestream from the camera. The image was better than he had dared to hope for, and after making a few adjustments, the lens provided exactly the view of the locker that he needed.

  He returned the tools to his backpack and attempted to discreetly brush the brick dust off his feet. Once he was satisfied, he left the station and glanced at the clock in the tower.

  The time was 11:54 A.M.

  In two hours’ time, he would return with the three hundred thousand in the backpack.

  Heimer wondered whether the beggar sitting on the floor by the entrance recognized him in his normal clothes. It didn’t seem like it. The man tilted his head back and shook the paper cup. Judging by how few coins were jangling inside, it hadn’t been the most lucrative of days.

  Heimer looked toward the wall where he mounted the camera. Everything appeared to be in order, which was confirmed by checking the phone in his jacket pocket. The livestream was still running and he had checked the picture quality just a few minutes earlier.

  With a determined stride, he walked up to locker 109. He opened the door and stuffed the backpack containing the cash inside. There was plenty of space for it. He pulled a coin from his trouser pocket and put it in the narrow coin slot. Then he shut the door and locked it. He put the key in his other trouser pocket. The letter writer hadn’t asked him to leave it there, so he assumed he or she intended to gain access to the locker by other means. Perhaps the lock would be broken. Or maybe there was a spare key.

  Heimer left the railway station and began to walk toward the bus station. When he got there, the number 800 bus to Säffle was already there. He bought a ticket from the vending machine in the waiting room and got on. The driver nodded at him and he sat down on a seat almost at the back of the deserted bus.

  After a while he heard the hiss of the doors closing and soon the driver pulled away. Heimer waited until the bus made it to the first red light before getting out his phone. He opened the app and watched the livestream from the railway station. It showed a peaceful scene with just a few people sitting on the benches waiting for their trains.

  It didn’t matter if the letter writer already had time to empty the locker. The system saved all video content for twenty-four hours. But Heimer didn’t think that was the case. It was more likely they would wait until he had left on the bus.

  On the walk from the station, he’d tried to see whether anyone was following him, but he hadn’t identified any suitable candidates. Still, it didn’t really matter. When the locker was emptied, he would know who was behind Nadja6543.
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br />   The bus turned onto the highway and the driver accelerated. The connection remained constant without any disruption. The footage was crystal clear and he had no difficulty seeing which brand of soft drink a snuggling couple on the bench closest to the lockers was sharing.

  Heimer had to look up from the screen for a while to avoid getting travel sick. When he looked down at the mobile again, he saw the beggar get up. Maybe he was going to give up for the day or switch to a location where there were more passersby. He slowly ambled forward—not to the doors, but in the opposite direction.

  Toward the lockers.

  Heimer could never have anticipated what happened next. The beggar stopped in front of locker 109 and inserted a key into the lock. He turned it, opened the door, and removed the backpack. In one swift movement, he slung it over his shoulder and headed for the exit. As he passed the webcam, he stopped and waved at the lens before vanishing out of sight through the automatic doors.

  The bus didn’t stop until Grums. The smell of the paper mill was the same here as in Skoghall. It stank of cheap housing and people grilling ham steak and drinking boxed wine on their patios.

  Heimer was the only person to get off at the stop and he had to wait for a bus going the other way to take him back to civilization. He sat down on the bench in the bus shelter and replayed the video on his phone. When the beggar looked into the camera, he hit pause. He could hardly be looking at the letter writer—surely it was a courier? A hungry member of the Roma community that God-knew-who had given a few hundred in return for collecting the backpack and delivering it to them? It probably wouldn’t be hard to track down this person. After all, there weren’t that many Roma in Karlstad. On the bus back to town, Heimer searched online and found an article in Värmlands Folkblad about a camp behind the gym next to the I2-forest. Once he was back in town, and had collected the car from the lot, he drove there.

  He strolled into the area behind the fitness center, noting that the heavy rain had made the trails muddy. His Italian calfskin shoes were made for walking from pizzeria to pizzeria along cobbled streets—not expeditions into the forests of Värmland. Mud splattered up the tongues of his shoes and he regretted not changing into the work boots from his carpenter’s outfit.

  The closer to the camp he got, the more trash there was lying around the forest. He saw an abandoned grill setup for cooking and some frying pans under a tree, together with several Lidl grocery bags. Animals had torn the plastic to shreds.

  After taking a sharp right-hand turn, the first tents appeared in a cluster of trees a little farther on. There were children playing football outside and some of the women were cooking over an improvised fireplace built with loose bricks. The men appeared to be occupied with repairing one of the tents that had collapsed.

  Heimer stopped on the path. No one had seen him yet, and part of him just wanted to turn on the heel of his Italian calfskin shoes and head back to the car. But leaving wasn’t an option. He was here to find the beggar.

  He carried on toward the men, who were trying to fix a broken tentpole using duct tape and wire.

  “Hello,” he said tentatively.

  They didn’t answer. They just looked at him with fear in their eyes. Heimer realized they thought he’d come from the city government and was there to chase them away.

  “I’m looking for someone who might live here,” he continued, still speaking English.

  They didn’t answer, but they seemed to relax a little. The eldest of them stepped forward and looked him over from head to toe. He was a thin wiry man with eyes well recessed into their sockets and a comb-over.

  “Do you have a name?” he said.

  He had a rough voice and his English was surprisingly good.

  “No, just a photo on my phone.”

  He held up the phone and the man glanced at it.

  “Why do you want to find him?” he asked.

  Heimer decided to stick to the truth—or as much as he thought necessary.

  “There’s something I want to ask him. It’s a private matter.”

  The man still looked skeptical, but he held out his hand. Heimer gave him his phone and let him study the photo from the webcam. He then showed it to the other men and an intense discussion erupted among the group.

  “Do you recognize him?” Heimer asked after a while. His voice sounded more tentative than he had hoped and he saw the dynamic was changing. When they had thought he was from the authorities, they were afraid. Now that it dawned on them that he needed their help, the situation was different. He wished he understood what they were saying. Was he prejudiced, or was one of the men looking at Heimer’s wristwatch a lot? It was worth more than the whole camp could raise in years from panhandling. He was crazy not to have taken it off and left it in the glove compartment of the car.

  “His name is Danut, and he lived here last spring,” said the older man. “But he moved. It’s mostly families here, and he lived alone.”

  A football rolled up to Heimer. One of the children had kicked it the wrong way and came rushing after it, hotly pursued by one of his friends. When they saw the visitor both of them stopped, unsure how they were expected to behave. Heimer stopped the ball, flicked it up with the outside of his foot, and volleyed it toward the boys. When he turned back to the men, he had at least regained some of his authority.

  “Do you know where he is now?” he said.

  The oldest man translated and another heated discussion followed. Heimer hoped it wasn’t about whether they should rob him and sell his watch.

  “It seems that he stays in town. He doesn’t stay here, anyway,” said the man.

  “Where in town?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders.

  “Our kind aren’t popular, so I guess he moves around a lot. Check lumberyards and underground parking garages. Anywhere you can find a roof to put over your head.”

  Heimer thanked them and wondered whether to give the men money. But there was something humiliating about offering them payment without them having asked. At any rate, that was what he told himself. Perhaps he was just afraid of what he thought might happen if he got his wallet out.

  Dusk had fallen, accompanied by a heavy drizzle. Heimer had left his coat on the back seat of the car. He turned up the collar on his jacket to protect himself from the raindrops. He was starting to lose hope. He had spent the last few hours trying to think like a homeless man and visited all the places in town where he would have chosen to sleep. He met society’s castaways. Mostly Roma, but also Swedish alcoholics and the mentally ill who didn’t want or weren’t able to seek out the shelter offered by the government and the church. But no one knew anyone by the name of Danut. Most people didn’t even want to look at the photo on his phone—if, that was, they even understood what he was saying.

  When the rain intensified, he decided to give up and go home. The car was parked next to the Wermland Opera. He sat there with the engine running, waiting for the heater to remove the fog from the windshield. Then he drove out onto the empty street, around the block, and onto the bridge across the Klarälven River. Halfway across, he turned his head and traced the winding river through the town. He counted three crossings just in his field of vision and if he looked the other way he would probably see a few more.

  Then it hit him.

  Bridges.

  They were such an obvious part of the urban landscape that he barely noticed them. Maybe Danut had beat a retreat to one of the bridge abutments in the town to seek shelter from the elements. It was at least worth exploring.

  Heimer turned left as soon as he reached the other side. He stopped by the curb and stepped out into the rain to see whether there was any trace of nighttime guests under the bridge he had just crossed. There were the usual graffiti and empty beer cans, but nothing to indicate anyone lived there.

  He jumped back into the car and drove alongside the river to the next bridge. It was impossible to see under the bridge from the car, so once again he had to get out i
n the rain. He parked on Bjurbäcksgatan in front of the big houses and made his way on foot through the park toward the bridge.

  Even as he was approaching it, his pulse quickened. The site—if you could call it that when describing outdoor sleeping spots—was ideal, with greenery nearby and plenty of space between the concrete foundations and the water. When he peered into the shadows under the bridge, he saw several sheets of cardboard stacked on top of one another to form a mattress. There were also traces of a fire on the ground.

  Someone had made the bridge underpass their home—that much was obvious. The question was who. Heimer had learned that there were more homeless in Karlstad than he had thought and there was nothing to suggest that Danut lived here. But it was clearly a spot to return to later.

  On the way back to the car, he saw a man walking through the park toward the water. He was pulling a wheeled shopping cart, the sort old women used. His clothes were tattered, and he was limping heavily with his left leg.

  Heimer kept moving to intercept the man. When they were around twenty meters apart, the man bent down into a trash bin to check it for deposit bottles. He put his finds in the bag and stumbled laboriously on.

  The man was now so close that Heimer could see his face. It was the beggar from the station.

  For a moment, Heimer thought the man would turn around and try to run away, but instead he took a couple of steps closer and looked at him in astonishment.

  “It’s you,” he said in heavily accented English.

  Heimer nodded.

  “Do you live over there?” he heard himself ask.

  “Yes, under bridge. Good place. Quiet.”

  It had stopped raining and Heimer pointed at a bench next to the path.

  “Can we sit down?”

  Heimer brushed the water off the bench with the sleeve of his coat. He sat down and a moment later the man sat down next to him.

  “You took something at the train station today.”

  “I don’t have now,” the man replied quickly.

  “What happened to the backpack then?”