Kornhamnstorg was cordoned off. There were riot barriers, police officers and vans with flashing blue lights. Hundreds of young people were pressed up against the barriers. They were pouring into the street, making cars and buses hit their brakes while drivers honked. There were cries and shouts and loud police voices through megaphones.
At first, Sara was alarmed. Had the shooter returned? Was someone in her family hurt? Or dead?
‘What’s happened?’ she asked an officer when she reached the fence. She showed her police ID and at the same moment noticed a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and two Rolls-Royces parked outside her own building.
‘Uncle Scam’s here,’ the officer said wearily. ‘God knows how all these kids got wind of it.’
‘OK. He’s probably at mine,’ said Sara. ‘I’ll climb over.’
She made to jump onto the riot barrier, but the policeman took a step forward and raised a hand to ward her off.
‘Sealed off. We can’t let anyone in.’
‘But I live here. That Scam guy’s in my apartment. My husband brought him here.’
‘Sorry, it’s sealed off.’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘Do you get how big a deal this is? There are more cops out here than there would be for a state visit.’
‘But why the hell are the police handling this? Surely they can hire security?’
‘Didn’t you say your husband brought him here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, tell him that. It makes no difference to me. With a little luck, I might get a selfie with Scam. I’ve got one with Obama and one with Katy Perry,’ the policeman said with satisfaction.
‘Who’s in charge here? Of the cordon?’
‘No idea. The record company?’
Sara pulled her mobile out from her pocket and called Martin while screaming youths pushed from behind, jostling her up to the barrier.
‘Get back!’ she shouted over her shoulder. It was no use.
No answer.
Then Olle called back.
‘Mum, guess who’s here?’ said Olle, who sounded like he was bursting with pride.
‘I know,’ said Sara. ‘Guess who can’t get into her own home? Give the phone to Dad.’
‘He’s with Scam.’
‘And I’m here with a thousand screaming teenagers. Give Dad the phone!’
‘Yes?’ Martin’s voice was audible on Olle’s phone. ‘Is it important? I’m a little busy.’
‘Yes, it’s important! I can’t get in. They’ve sealed off the whole square for the sake of your little popstar. Tell them to let me in!’
‘Show them your police ID.’
‘It’s not helping. They say it’s the record company calling the shots. Fix it. NOW!’
‘Yes, yes.’
Three minutes later, the young assistant – Tindra – emerged from the main door with her laminated backstage pass on a lanyard around her neck, a clipboard with lots of sheets attached to it and three mobiles clutched in her hand. She looked around, found Sara and went to the closest police officer – the one hoping for a selfie.
‘She’s OK,’ said Tindra, pointing to Sara.
The policeman waved to Sara that she should climb over, and then had to quickly run forward to stop the teenagers trying to emulate her.
‘Thanks,’ said Sara. ‘Did you get any sleep last night?’
‘Half an hour,’ said Tindra, flashing a feeble smile.
‘Look, could you do me a favour?’
‘Of course.’ There wasn’t even the slightest hint of hesitation even though she must have had a thousand things to do.
‘Can you make sure that guy doesn’t get to take a selfie with Uncle Scam,’ Sara said, pointing to the policeman who had prevented her from climbing over the barrier.
‘OK,’ said Tindra, making a note on her clipboard.
The bass was audible from three floors down. And when the lift reached the fifth floor, the music was pounding from inside the apartment. Sara followed Tindra into the hall, then she went into the living room and turned down the volume.
An elated, tipsy Martin turned his gaze towards her. The person he had been talking to, a skinny little guy in a vest and with tattoos all over his body, took a drag on a very fat cigarette. Uncle Scam, she presumed.
The sofa and armchairs were occupied by half a dozen other young men with caps and bandanas on their heads and trainers on their feet. But wearing three-piece suits, which surprised Sara. Apparently she wasn’t keeping up with hip-hop fashion.
‘Hi, darling,’ said Martin. ‘Did you get in all right?’
‘Yes. Thanks for helping out,’ said Sara with irony that did not transmit.
‘We’re just loading up for tonight. This is Scam.’ Switching to English, he added: ‘Scam, this is my wife, Sara.’
‘The cop?’ said the skinny man in amusement, raising his hand to fist bump. Sara opted to do likewise but felt incredibly ridiculous.
Uncle Scam was barely one hundred and seventy centimetres tall, thin and pale, but with tattoos that reached all the way up to his throat and parts of his face.
‘You coming tonight?’ Scam said politely.
‘No, sorry, working,’ said Sara. She reverted to Swedish, addressing Martin: ‘There are several thousand youths down in the square,’ she told him, while Scam turned away to his besuited entourage.
‘Yes, this secret was meant to be secret. We even sent the lookalike for a ride in the limo, but it leaked that Scam was coming here. I actually think it was Olle’s fault – kind of. He told people at school that Scam was coming round to ours today and then it spread. You know how it is with social media. But apparently he was king of the school.’
This time it was Martin almost bursting with pride, but as far as Sara was concerned it wasn’t really worth it. Hanging out with stars in exchange for being unable to get into her own home.
‘Can you promise me that this is the last time you bring some bloody megastar here?’
‘Definitely. I don’t think we’ll ever get another star this big to come here. But now we have bulletproof windows – so we can bring basically anyone here. I told Scam – he was into it.’
‘Good,’ said Sara. ‘We want him to feel safe.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Martin. ‘Thanks for helping.’ Then he looked a little uncertainly at Sara for a moment before continuing. ‘Can I . . .’ He twisted his hand in a gesture mimicking the turning up of the volume dial.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Sara, heading for the kitchen.
There was presumably no prospect of dinner with the family tonight, what with father and son bewitched by an American boy idol. She took a vegetarian lasagne from the freezer and while waiting for the microwave she Googled the big star she’d just had the honour of fist bumping.
[Wiki] Cornelius Crane Jr, better known by his professional name Uncle Scam, born 18 June 1996 in Manhattan, New York, is an American rapper, songwriter and actor. Uncle Scam is the most-streamed artist of the 2020s to date, with almost one billion streams of his big hit “Colour of my skin”. Uncle Scam grew up in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where his mother was an attorney and his father a Wall Street hedge fund manager. Uncle Scam has been the subject of criticism for pretending early on in his career that he had a tough childhood, but he has dismissed this, arguing that where you grow up does not say everything about who you are.
‘Did you talk to him?’
Olle came into the kitchen wearing his Uncle Scam top and headphones that were pumping out the very man’s music.
‘I said hello,’ said Sara. ‘Uncle Sam or whatever he was called.’
‘They picked me up from school. Did you see the cars? That was one fucking sick line of cars.’
The kids weren’t allowed to swear, but Sara had never seen her son so exhilarated. She only hoped that he didn’t know what his idol was smoking in their living room right now. But she knew she probably oughtn’t to harbour any illusions.
‘Mum,’ said Olle, sitting down at the kitchen table, ‘I’m a teenager now.’
‘Yes,’ Sara said, steeling herself. Something big was coming. But she had absolutely no intention of buying booze on his behalf.
‘And being a teenager, that means you’re not a kid any more. You want to show who you are, right? And things are different now to how they were when you were young.’
When you were young. He wasn’t selling it well so far, whatever it was.
‘What do you want?’ said Sara.
‘Nothing.’
‘There must be something. I know you.’
‘But I don’t want anything. I want to do something.’
‘OK . . .’
‘Look, Mum. Think about it. Look around town. Everyone’s got a tattoo. It’s not unusual.’
Get a tattoo? Little Olle?
‘Olle, when you turn eighteen you’ll be legally an adult. And then you’ll be able to make your own decisions. That is, provided you are getting by on your own, rather than living at home or off your parents. If you’re providing for yourself at eighteen then you can get as many tattoos as you like. But consider this: a tattoo is for life. And you can end up being stigmatised if you’re tattooed.’
‘Maybe it was like that for your generation. Back then it was only sailors and hobos who got tattoos. But now it’s almost weirder not to get a tattoo. And you don’t want people to think I’m weird, do you?’
‘No tattoos. End of.’
‘You’re so fucking boring!’
Sara’s mobile rang. It was Tore Thörnell, the retired colonel who had served with NATO in West Germany during the Cold War and who had helped her with information about the bombs that Abu Rasil and Geiger had been trying to detonate.
‘Thörnell,’ Sara said. ‘How nice to hear from you.’
‘You need to put a stop to that,’ Thörnell said on the other end of the line.
‘Answering the phone?’
‘Saying people’s names on the phone.’
Yet another lesson about the workings of the shady world that Thörnell had been in.
‘OK,’ Sara said, if nothing else to placate the old military man.
‘I’ve got something I need to discuss with you.’
‘Would you like to confess to a crime?’
Thörnell paid no heed to the attempt at a joke.
‘When can you come here? And what on earth is that noise?’
‘Right away,’ Sara said as the bass rattled the kitchen windows. ‘So I can escape this racket.’
‘Good. Oh, and by the way – don’t tell anyone you’re coming here.’