Afsaneh is still deep asleep despite the fact that the alarm has gone off twice. Her long, dark hair flows over the pillow, and she snores lightly. On the bedside table sits the box of sleeping pills she got from her GP and a half-full glass of water. Next to the box is half a tablet that I know wasn’t there when I went to bed last night.
She must have woken up in the night and taken another half of a pill.
In the distance, I hear the bells of Hedvig Eleonora Church chime seven times.
Besides that, all is quiet.
This silence is so strange.
I’ve lived surrounded by the sounds of children for so long. First the shrieks and laughter of my older children. Then, after they moved out and Nadja was born, shrieks, children’s programmes and toys being dragged across the floor.
Now the only sounds are Afsaneh breathing, the door that leads to the inner courtyard of our apartment building, and the sound of steps crossing the cobblestones.
There is something very familiar about the unpleasant and intrusive presence of silence, and I recognise immediately why that is.
Aron.
It’s like the silence after Aron.
I grew up in this part of Östermalm. No one would have guessed I’d turn out to be a police officer even in their wildest dreams. That’s not the sort of thing you do when you come from an academic, haute bourgeois background.
It was understood that Aron and I would get a university education.
Of course, we were free to choose what we wanted to study, as long as we chose the law, medicine, or maybe economics. Art or literature were also acceptable, if you happened to be a bit soft and aesthetic.
Aron was my twin brother.
We were identical and almost impossible to tell apart, even for our own parents and friends.
But when we turned twelve, something happened. Aron didn’t want to eat. He claimed he couldn’t swallow. My parents took him to several doctors, all of whom stated that there was nothing physically wrong with him so the problem must be psychological.
The weeks went by, but Aron didn’t get any better. He just wasted away, and I got fatter.
I guess I ate for two.
In the end, Aron was so skinny that his ribs stuck out like tent pegs under his tight skin and his knees resembled bumps on thin legs. He was so weak he could only sleep on our Svenskt Tenn sofa in our large living room, watch TV and drink soft drinks through a straw.
One night, Dad said enough was enough, resolutely lifted Aron off the big flowery sofa, carried him to the car and drove him to the hospital.
Aron never came home again.
What the doctors thought was a psychosomatic disorder turned out to be an aggressive tumour of the thyroid gland, which had grown into the oesophagus.
The cancer had spread and Aron died after two months.
And that’s when the silence took over our apartment – the same silence as in our home now, with me and Afsaneh.
It’s the silence that comes out of the void of someone you took for granted – a wounded, numb feeling of sadness and loss. And many years later, when my ex-wife Beatrice took the children and left me, that same silence and emptiness occurred.
It was the usual – she said I worked too much and took no responsibility for my family. What she didn’t say was that she’d met a lawyer named Hasse. A man who moved in the right circles and had country homes in Torekov and Verbier. A man who could give her the life she’d always wanted. Beatrice was never cut out to be a cop’s wife.
I can’t say that I mourned the dissolution of our marriage, but it hurt to only see the kids every other week.
I have promised Afsaneh to never put my job above Nadja. Told her that this time things would be different.
I turn on my side, so that my back is to Afsaneh. On the floor behind my bedside table are a few red and blue Lego bricks, fragments of another life.
I hope I’ll get the chance to be that present and loving dad. I hope it’s not too late.
*
When I get to the office, Malin and Letit are sitting in front of the computer with a colleague of ours in his forties whom I don’t recognise. He’s lean and sinewy, like a marathon runner, and looks like he might be from southern Europe, or perhaps the Middle East.
The screen plays grainy footage from a car park.
I would guess it’s from a surveillance camera. Suddenly one of the cars explodes and seconds later another one.
‘Once more,’ Letit says and the unknown colleague plays the film again.
Letit runs his hand over his straggly beard and pushes his lower jaw forward in a way that makes him look like a sly old fish lurking in the reeds.
‘Stop,’ he says, pointing at the screen.
‘There. You see? The smoke is white, which means the explosive charge is made with gunpowder. I would guess some kind of home-made device, an IED, like a pipe bomb or a pressure cooker. Did you say those other cars were damaged?’
‘Completely wrecked,’ says the dark-haired man.
‘We found splinters . . .’
‘Splinters?’
Letit leans forward and squints at the screen.
‘Then I’d put my money on a pressure cooker,’ he continues. ‘Then we have the fact that two explosions were triggered. The bombs must have been remote-controlled or on a timer. Any idiot can build a simple bomb, but this is something else. But talk to the bomb squad, they know it better.’
The man I don’t recognise thanks Letit, stands up and slouches off towards the stairs with his USB stick in hand.
‘Hey, Manfred,’ Malin says from her chair and smiles. ‘Did you know that Gunnar worked for forensics in the past?’
I shake my head.
‘Pressure cooker?’ I ask. ‘Are they actually used for real?’
‘Yep,’ Letit says without changing his expression.
Then he nods at the computer where the smoke still rises from the car.
‘It’s sort of a special interest of mine,’ he says, rubbing his nose. ‘Film and image analysis, that is. But everyone finds explosive charges interesting.’
I don’t say that I thought his special interest was women.
‘Is it time?’ Malin says.
‘It is,’ I say.
*
Johannes Ahonen’s mother lives on the top floor of a high-rise building in central Jordbro, not far from the commuter train station.
We enter the building and call the lift. It’s rundown, and swear words and obscenities are scratched into its green walls. The mirror that covers one wall is frosted, as if it had been polished with steel wool for years.
Visiting next of kin of the deceased is the absolute worst part of being a police officer. But it’s also inevitable and important – not just so that we can investigate crimes, but so that these families know what happened to their relatives.
Though in this case, we’re not even sure if the body found in the sea belongs to Johannes Ahonen.
Ahonen could be sitting somewhere drinking a beer. Ahonen might be in bed with a woman, in an apartment not far from here. Ahonen might not be dead at all, not swollen up in that cold room at the forensic pathology unit in Solna, his body covered in corpse wax.
Nevertheless, we’re here to talk to his mother, because we don’t have time to wait for the results of the DNA analysis. If we’re unlucky it could take two weeks to get the results.
The lift comes to a halt with a little lurch. The doors slide open exposing a stairwell with speckled walls and a row of identical dark brown doors.
We step out – Letit goes to the right and Malin to the left. I myself stand in front of the lift doors, which close with a sigh behind me.
‘Here,’ says Letit, who has stopped at the door at the far-right corner.
Malin and I walk towards him while he rings the doorbell.
The angry ring is clearly audible through the door, and a few seconds later I hear steps approaching from inside. A moment later a short woman in her mid-forties opens the door. She has her bleached blonde hair swept up in a knot and she’s wearing black jeans and a floral blouse.
‘Tuula Ahonen?’ Malin asks, flashing her police ID.
The woman nods and her eyes widen.
‘Malin Brundin, I called earlier. Can we come in?’
She nods and takes a few steps back without uttering a word. The apartment is small, but neat and cosy. The sofa in the tiny living room is full of colourful throw pillows and on the walls hang framed posters of tropical beaches and sunsets.
Tuula gestures to the sofa.
‘Take a seat. There is more room here than in the kitchen. Do you want something, coffee, tea?’
Her accent is so slight that it’s almost imperceptible. If it hadn’t been for the Finnish-sounding name, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
‘No thanks,’ I say. ‘We won’t stay long.’
Malin and Tuula both sit down on a sheepskin-covered pouffe. I sit down next to Letit on the sofa. There’s a stab in my knee, and I have to stand up for a second and breathe through the pain.
Tuula looks at me, her eyes shiny and glazed.
‘Have you found him?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ I say truthfully. ‘So we’d like to ask you a few questions. If that’s all right.’
Tuula shrugs and reaches for a pack of unfiltered Marlboro, taps out a cigarette and lights it.
‘I’ve already talked to several of your colleagues,’ she says quietly, takes a drag on her cigarette and stares out of the window.
Beyond the light green treetops, several tall buildings stand out silhouetted against a clear blue sky.
‘We know,’ Malin says. ‘And we do apologise for that.’
Letit takes out a notepad and a pen and clears his throat.
‘So Johannes disappeared in March?’ he says.
Tuula shrugs again slightly, runs her hand through her harshly bleached hair and makes a face that’s difficult to decipher. It almost looks like a smile, but it’s a sad, slightly ironic smile.
‘Yes, well . . .’
She draws out her words and continues:
‘I wish I knew. Johannes was often away for days on end, sometimes weeks, without saying where he was. And he lived here sometimes and sometimes with his girlfriend, so it wasn’t that easy to keep track of him. But I reported him missing at the end of March, and at that point I hadn’t seen him since the beginning of March. So . . .’
She leaves the sentence unfinished and taps ash from her cigarette into a small silver ashtray. Then she silently examines her well-manicured nails.
‘And neither you nor Johannes’s girlfriend have heard from him since?’ Letit asks.
Tuula shakes her head causing the knot on her crown to sway.
‘No. Poor Bianca. And the baby is due in a month. Who knows if the child will ever meet his father?’
I remember now reading that Johannes’s girlfriend was pregnant at the time of his disappearance.
‘Johannes was convicted of illegal possession of weapons, drug possession and theft,’ Letit says. ‘And he spent six months in a juvenile detention centre when he was seventeen.’
‘Well, you know that was three years ago,’ Tuula interrupts and stamps the cigarette hard into the small pile of ash on the silver dish. ‘I don’t understand why you people keep bringing it up over and over. He’s on the straight and narrow now.’
Then, without warning, she starts sobbing loudly.
Letit leans forward and lightly puts a hand on her arm.
‘Tuula,’ he says with authority.
Her arm trembles, as if she’s just about to pull away from his touch. But then I see it.
Tuula’s eyes meet his, she relaxes and her cheeks flush. For a second, everything is quiet, but you can’t mistake the energy that darts between Tuula and Letit. Eyes locked, a touch that lasts far too long.
So it must be true, I think. All those stories about Letit, Inspector Let-it-happen.
Then the moment is over. They let go of each other, and Tuula’s gaze falls to the floor.
‘I’m just afraid you’re not taking his disappearance seriously,’ she sobs. ‘That you might neglect the investigation because you think he’s still a criminal.’
‘We take Johannes’s disappearance very seriously,’ Letit says. ‘That’s why we’re here. But we need to know how he spends his days. If he had any enemies. If he had any reason to . . .’
He seems to be searching for the right words.
‘If he was . . . depressed,’ he concludes.
Tuula nods earnestly and reaches for a white napkin next to the ashtray. Then she sniffs loudly and knots the napkin into a small ball. When she speaks again, her voice is raspy, as if she has a cold.
‘He wasn’t depressed. And he took care of himself. Sure, he was unemployed, lots of people are. But he wasn’t doing anything illegal. I would have known.’
Malin meets my eyes and raises an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.
We often meet parents who can’t or won’t believe anything bad about their children.
‘And you don’t know if anyone threatened him?’ I ask.
‘Threatened? If anyone did it would’ve been me,’ Tuula says with a dry laugh.
Then she smooths out the balled-up napkin and blows her nose again.
Letit stares at me from beneath those heavy eyelids, and I nod.
‘On Saturday, the body of a young man was found on an islet in the southern archipelago,’ he begins.
‘Oh my God, no,’ Tuula moans and crosses her arms over her chest.
Malin holds up her hand.
‘We have no idea who it is yet,’ she says slowly, emphasising every word. ‘But the man who was found had a tattoo. We have a photo of it. Could we show you that picture?’
Tuula doesn’t answer. Instead she rocks back and forth on the pouffe.
Malin looks at me helplessly, and when I nod once more she takes the photograph out of her bag. She hesitates a bit before adding:
‘Now this is just a picture of a tattoo. Even if you do recognise it, that doesn’t mean it’s Johannes’s body. Many people might have the same tattoo.’
Then Malin puts the photo on the glass coffee table and pushes it towards Tuula.
Tuula freezes mid-move. Extends a hand and runs it over the photo of the eagle tattoo.
‘No,’ she whispers. ‘No.’