He had test-fucked the two new girls and they hadn’t been up to much.
True, they were practically virgins, apart from that incident in the ferry cabin, and weren’t actually too bad; they seemed to be getting the hang of it. It was their third day in the Völund Street flat and it wouldn’t be long now before they too serviced twelve a day, like that mad bitch Grajauskas and her dirty little friend had. Or had done, until they lost their cool and went berserk.
The new girls needed to get their act together, though. Not hot and eager enough, he reckoned. Customers paying good money had a right to feel they were attractive and drove girls crazy, and that they were part of a couple, just for a while. Otherwise they might as well wank in the toilet.
He had knocked the new girls around a bit, just to keep them in order. Just a few more days and he’d have put a stop to their snivelling. It got on his nerves, all their bloody whining.
He had to admit it, Grajauskas and Sljusareva were pros. They got on with it, took their kit off and acted randy as hell. But it was a relief not to have their sneering grins in your face all the time. And he was tired of being called Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp every time he showed them who was boss.
The first one would be here soon. It was just after eight in the morning.
Mostly they came straight from home, having left the wife who was starting to get fat, just wanting to experience something, an extra stop going to work.
He would watch the girls today. Exam time. Find out if their fucking was up to standard or if they needed some more tuition.
He’d start with the one in Grajauskas’s room. She looked a bit like her and he had put her there deliberately; it was easier on the old customers. She was tarting herself up, as she should, and putting on the bra and panties her client wanted her to wear. So far, so good.
A knock on the door. She looked at herself in the mirror. The locks were disabled now that he was keeping an eye, so she could open the door and greet the man outside with a smile. The client wore a grey suit of some kind of shiny material, pale blue shirt and black tie.
She kept smiling, used her smile even when he spat or, more like, let the gob just fall to the floor in front of her feet in their high-heeled black shoes.
He pointed.
His finger was straight, pointing downwards.
She bent down, still smiling as she had been told. Then down on her hands and knees, almost folding double as her nose touched the floor. Her tongue came out to take the spit into her mouth and she swallowed.
Then she stood up straight, her eyes shut.
The client slapped her with his open hand. She smiled and smiled at him, just as he had taught her.
Dimitri liked what he saw, gave the thumbs-up to the man in the grey suit, got thumbs-up in return.
She had passed.
Lydia Grajauskas didn’t exist any more, not even here.
He always felt a pang of fear when a plane touched down and the ground came into clear view, the snap when the wheels were released and the thump when they made contact. And it never got easier; rather his fear seemed to increase the more he travelled. In little planes like this one, only thirty-five seats and so cramped that you couldn’t stand up straight, take-off and landing were especially scary. He kept worrying until the bouncing changed into a smooth forward movement.
Sven Sundkvist breathed out again and went to find his car. If the traffic was reasonably light it took only half an hour to drive from Arlanda to central Stockholm.
Anywhere, just anywhere not to think about Ewert.
He was sixteen for a while and with Anita who he had just met and held naked for the first time and he was with Jochum Lang who stood at the top of a staircase in Söder Hospital and beat the life out of Hilding Oldéus and with Lydia Grajauskas lying on the floor in the mortuary next to the man she had hated and with one-year-old Jonas in Phnom Penh saying Dad just two weeks later and with Alena Sljusareva sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Klaipeda in her big red sweater telling him the story of a three-year-long humiliation and with . . .
With anyone at all, in order to avoid thinking about Ewert.
Roadworks outside Sollentuna meant that the cars were confined to one lane and there was a long queue. He inched forward in low gear, sped up a bit, slowed again, came to a halt. Everyone else was doing the same, sitting and waiting for the time to pass, staring blankly ahead. They probably had their own Ewerts to think about.
He gave an involuntary shudder, as you often do when you’re tense.
Then he decided to take the long way round by keeping south, via Eriksberg, where she lived. Lena Nordwall.
He needed more time to think.
The wooden bench was hard. In his time, he had sat on it for hours on end, enduring pointless court cases against refusenik villains. They were alone in the back row and the tired room was silent. Ewert Grens quite liked the old high-security court in the Town Hall, despite the hard seats and the chattering lawyers, because coming here was a kind of settlement, confirmation that his investigation had led to something concrete and the case could be closed.
He looked at his watch. Five minutes to go. Then the guards would open the doors, escort Lang into the room and tell him where to sit during the remand proceedings, the lead-in to a long prison sentence.
Grens turned to Hermansson, who was sitting next to him.
‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’
He had asked her to come along. Sven had disappeared without a trace, refusing to answer the phone; Bengt had been found dead on a floor, and he couldn’t offer Lena any comfort. He had wanted to be here with someone and that someone turned out to be Hermansson. He had to admit it, he really liked her. Her barbed comments about him and policewomen, or all women, should have infuriated him, but she had sounded so down-to-earth and calm, maybe because she was right. He would ask her to consider staying with the City force when her locum came to an end; he’d like to work with her again and perhaps talk to her more. She was so young that he didn’t want to come across as a dirty old man, because what he felt had nothing to do with the beauty of a younger woman, it was more a kind of surprise that there were still people around whom he wanted to get to know better.
‘Yes, it does. It feels good. I know what we’ve achieved, what with Lang and the hospital hostages and everything. Makes my time to Stockholm worthwhile.’
A courtroom is a bare, dull place without judges, magistrates, prosecutors, lawyers, accused and accuser and, of course, a curious public. The drama of a crime needs to be articulated, in terms of interference and vulnerability, a process in which every word adds to the act of recognising and then measuring the offence.
Without all that, no heart.
Grens looked around at the dark wooden panelling, the large filthy windows facing Scheele Street, the far-too-beautiful chandelier, inhaled the smell of an old legal tome.
‘It’s strange, Hermansson. Dealing with professional criminals like Lang is my job, I’ve done it all my life, but I still don’t understand any more now than I did when I started. Take the way they act up under interrogation or in court. Well, clam up. Whatever we say or ask, they ignore it. Don’t know. Never heard of it. They deny everything. I can see some point in their strategy, of course. For a start, it leaves it up to us to prove that they’ve done whatever we say they’ve done.’
Ewert Grens raised his arm, pointing at the wall opposite, at a door made of the same heavy, dark wood as the panelling.
‘In a few minutes Lang will come in through that door. And he’ll play the same lousy old game. He’ll say nothing, deny, mumble I don’t know, and that is, Hermansson, that is exactly why he’ll lose this time. This time that game will be the biggest mistake in his life. You see, I think he’s innocent. Of murder, that is.’
She looked surprised, and he was just about to explain when the door opened and four guards came in, followed by a uniformed and armed constable on either side of Jochum Lang, who was handcuffed and dressed in prison-issue clothing, blue and baggy. He looked up, Ewert Grens smiled and waved.
Then he turned to speak to Hermansson, lowering his voice.
‘You see, I have read the technical report and what Errfors has to say in the autopsy report. Oldéus wasn’t murdered. Lang broke five of his fingers and crushed one kneecap, as he was instructed. But no one had ordered and paid for death. I think Oldéus lost it and the wheelchair careered down the stairs and into the wall.’
Ewert pointed ostentatiously at Lang.
‘Watch him. There he sits, the stupid bastard. Today he’ll get himself ten years in the jug for keeping his mouth shut. He’ll receive a sentence for murder when he could have talked himself into two and a half years for GBH.’
Grens waved again, in the direction of his hate. Lang stared, as forcefully as the day before when they had confronted each other in his cell, before turning away. Behind him, behind his shaved skull, people were filing into the room.
Ågestam came in last. He and Grens nodded at each other.
Briefly, the policeman’s thoughts touched on their last meeting and he wondered what the prosecutor had made of it and of the lies he had dished out.
He dismissed the thought – he had to – and leaned towards Hermansson, whispering: ‘I know that’s what happened. It wasn’t murder. But believe you me, I’m not going to say a word. Lang is going down. Boy, is he going down!’
Dimitri was pleased. Both girls were young, nice smooth skin, fucked like rabbits. He had bought them on credit and decided from the outset that if they were no good he wouldn’t pay.
But they worked. He’d pay up.
The cop wasn’t around any more, of course, but the woman he worked with had done a good job without him. She had delivered two new whores, as agreed. She was waiting for him now. Time for his second payment, one third of the total cost: three thousand euros for each girl.
He opened the door to Eden. A naked woman on the stage, her tits against an inflated doll, making provocative thrusts and groans, whining a bit. Everyone at the tables, all men without exception, had their hands down their trousers.
She was sitting in her usual place, in a far corner near the fire exit.
He went over to her table and they nodded at each other.
She always wore the same tracksuit. Always, with the hood pulled down around her face.
She wanted him to call her Ilona, and he did, even though it annoyed him. It wasn’t her name, he knew that.
They didn’t talk much, never did. A few polite phrases in Russian, that was all.
He gave her the envelope. She didn’t bother to check the money, just put it away in her bag. Agreed to meet next month.
One more month, one more payment and then the girls would be his. His property, both of them.
Ewert Grens got up and waved at Hermansson that she was to follow him. They left just as the remand procedure was concluded. He hurried down the three flights of stairs to the basement and along the corridor to the underground car park. Hermansson asked where they were going, and he replied that she would soon see.
This haste had made him gasp for breath, but he didn’t stop until he was almost suffocated by the stuffy underground dust. He looked around, saw what he wanted and then walked towards a metal door which led to the lifts that went all the way up to the cells.
He planted himself in front of the door, knowing that Jochum Lang would be brought here on the way back to his cell.
He only needed to wait for a minute or so before the four guards, two policemen and Lang came into view, heading towards the metal door.
Ewert Grens went to meet them and asked the officers to wait a few metres away while he had a word with Lang. The officer in charge of the prisoner wasn’t best pleased, but agreed. Grens normally got what he wanted in the end anyway.
They glared at each other, as they always did. Grens waited for Lang to react, but he just stood there, handcuffed, his large frame swaying as if he couldn’t decide whether to hit Ewert or not.
‘You stupid bastard.’ They were standing so close, Grens need do no more than whisper for Lang to hear. ‘You kept your mouth shut, as you always do. But you were remanded and you’ll be sentenced later. I know you didn’t kill Oldéus. But what are people to believe? As long as you behave like a villain, refusing to say anything, only to deny everything, I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They will make you pay. It will cost you six or seven years, on top of what you might have got regardless. Enjoy!’
Ewert Grens turned and called the guards back.
‘That’s all, Lang.’
Jochum Lang didn’t say a word, didn’t move, didn’t even turn to look at Grens when he was moved on by the guards.
Not until the guards had opened the door and he was on his way through and Grens shouted for him to turn round. Then Lang turned and spat on the ground as the superintendent shouted at the top of his voice, reminding Lang about the body scan session, the way he had taunted him about his dead colleague and made kissing noises. Grens screamed, Do you remember? And the kisses were returned, flying through the air. Grens stood with pursed lips and made loud smacking sounds as Lang was led back to the lift and the cells.
Sven Sundkvist parked in a street of terraced houses, crowded with kids playing hockey in between two home-made goals that blocked the traffic. They had noticed the car, but didn’t bother about it at first. He had to wait until two nine-year-olds finally moved the cages, sighing loudly about the old fart who was messing things up.
He knew now. Knew that Lydia had already decided to kill Bengt and then herself. She had wanted to tell the truth, give voice to her shame. Ewert had denied her that.
What gave him the right to do that?
Lena Nordwall was sitting in the garden. Her eyes closed, she listened to the radio, a commercial station of the kind that interrupts the music with jingles about its name and frequency.
He hadn’t seen her since the evening they came to tell her about Bengt’s death.
Ewert wanted to protect a friend’s wife and children.
But by doing so, he denied a dead woman the right to speak out.
‘Hello.’
It was a warm day and he was sweating, but she had greeted the sun in trousers and a denim jacket over a long-sleeved sweater. She hadn’t heard him arrive, and when he went closer, she jumped.
‘Oh. You startled me.’
‘I apologise.’
She made a gesture inviting him to sit down. He moved the chair, now sitting facing her, the sun burning his back.
They looked at each other. He had phoned and asked if he could come. It was up to him to start talking.
He found it hard. He didn’t really know her. They had of course met on birthdays and so on, but always in the company of Bengt and Ewert. She was one of those women who made him fumble for words, feeling inadequate and too old. He didn’t know why. She was beautiful, true, but beauty didn’t usually affect him. It was her poise that made him insecure, like some people do.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’
‘Well, you’re here now.’
He looked around. The only other time he had been in this garden was some five, six years earlier, on Ewert’s fiftieth birthday, when Bengt and Lena had had a dinner for their friend. It was the only celebration Ewert had ever permitted. Sven and Anita had sat on either side of him at the table. Jonas had been a toddler then and had run around on the grass with the Nordwall children. There were no other guests. Ewert had been unusually quiet all evening; Sven had thought he was happy, just uncomfortable about being celebrated.
She kept rubbing the sleeves of her jacket.
‘I’m so cold.’
‘Now?’
‘I’ve felt frozen ever since you were here last, four days ago.’
He sighed.
‘Please forgive me. I should have understood.’
‘I have to dress warmly even on a day like this, almost ninety degrees in the shade. Can you understand that?’
‘Yes. Yes. I think I can.’
‘I don’t want to be cold.’
She stood up suddenly.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’
‘No, you mustn’t trouble yourself.’
‘No trouble. Do you want one?’
‘Yes please.’
She went in through the open French windows and he listened to the kitchen noises and the shouting of the hockey players. Maybe someone had scored a goal, or another boring old bloke was interfering with their game.
She served the coffee in tall glasses, topped up with foaming hot milk, the way they served it in the cafés he never had time to go to.
He drank a mouthful, then put the glass down.
‘How well do you know Ewert?’
She studied him with that special look in her eyes, which made him feel awkward. ‘Is that why you’re here? To discuss Ewert?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is this? Some kind of interrogation?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘What is it then?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Not sure?’
‘No.’
She rubbed her sleeves again in that chilly gesture.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I wish I could be more helpful, but I can’t. Please see it as me thinking aloud. As far from police work as you can get.’
She sipped from her glass, finishing her coffee before she spoke.
‘What can I say? He was my husband’s oldest friend.’
‘I know. And you, how well do you know him?’
‘He isn’t an easy man to know.’
She wanted Sven to go, didn’t like him. He was aware of her dislike.
‘Tell me something. Please try.’
‘Does Ewert know about this?’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘If he did, I wouldn’t need your answers.’
It was hot, his back was soaking. It would have been better to sit somewhere else, but he felt he shouldn’t fuss, the situation was tense enough.
‘Has Ewert spoken to you about what happened? In the mortuary? About what happened to Bengt?’
She wasn’t listening any longer. Sven could tell. She was pointing at him, holding her hand up for so long that he felt uncomfortable.
‘He was sitting there.’
‘Who?’
‘Bengt. When you lot called him in. To the mortuary.’
He should not have come. He should have left her in peace with her grief. The trouble was that he was desperate to hear about another side of Ewert, the positive side, and surely Lena would be able to help him. He repeated his question.
‘What has Ewert said to you about that day? About what happened to Bengt?’
‘I asked my questions. He didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t have read in the papers.’
‘No? Nothing else?’
‘I don’t care for this conversation.’
‘For instance, you haven’t asked him why the prostitute chose to shoot Bengt?’
She was quiet for a long time.
He had put off asking the question, his real reason for being here. Now it was done.
‘What are you implying?’
‘I just wanted to know what Ewert might have said to explain why it was Bengt she killed.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I asked you.’
Her eyes were fixed on him.
‘No.’
‘And you never wondered?’
Suddenly she burst into tears. She looked so small, curled up in the chair, shaking with grief.
‘Of course I’ve wondered. And asked. But he won’t say, he’s said nothing that makes sense. It was chance, that is all he says. It could’ve been anyone. It was Bengt.’
Someone was standing behind him. Sven Sundkvist turned. A little girl of five or six, younger than Jonas, was dressed in white shorts and a pink T-shirt. She had come from the house, now stopped in front of her mother, observing how she was upset.
‘Mummy, what’s wrong?’
Lena Nordwall leaned forwards and gave her a hug.
‘Nothing, sweetheart.’
‘You’re crying. Is it that man? Is he being horrid to you?’
‘No, no, he isn’t horrid at all. We’re just talking.’
The little pink-and-white body swung round. Sven met her wide-open eyes.
‘You see, Mummy is very sad. My daddy is dead.’
He swallowed, trying to look kind and serious at the same time.
‘I knew your daddy.’
Sven Sundkvist looked at the woman who had been left a widow with two young children for four days now. He could sense her deep pain and realised why Ewert thought the last thing she needed was the truth and had chosen to protect her.
Ewert Grens couldn’t wait until the next day. He longed to be with her.
Sunday traffic meant that it was easy to cross the city and the Värta motorway was almost empty. He put on a tape and was singing along with Siw as he crossed Lidingö Bridge. The rain started up again, but he didn’t notice.
He pulled into the usually empty car park and realised that it was full. He was baffled, thought for a moment that maybe he had taken a wrong turn, until he remembered that today was a Sunday, the most popular day for visiting the sick.
The receptionist looked surprised. Mr Grens didn’t normally come on Sundays. He smiled at her surprise.
She called out after him.
‘Mr Grens. She isn’t there.’
He didn’t catch it.
‘She isn’t in her room.’
He stopped. In the time it took for her to draw breath before continuing, he felt all that he had felt back then. He died. Again.
‘She’s with the others on the terrace for Sunday afternoon coffee. We try to get everyone outside in the summer. Even when it rains, the parasols are big enough.’
He didn’t hear what she was saying. Her lips were moving, but he didn’t hear.
‘Go out and see her. She’ll be pleased.’
‘Why isn’t she in her room?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Why isn’t she in her room?’
He felt dizzy. A chair. He took off his jacket and sat down.
‘Are you all right?’
The young woman knelt in front of him. He saw her now.
‘On the terrace?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Most of the decking outside was protected from the rain by four large parasols, emblazoned with an ice-cream manufacturer’s logo. Ewert recognised some of the staff and all of those who were sitting about in wheelchairs or with Zimmer frames parked next to their chairs.
She was sitting in the middle of the group, with a cup of coffee beside her, a half-eaten cinnamon pastry in her hand. He heard her childish laugh above the patter of rain on the umbrellas and the sporadic singing. He waited until the group of singers had finished their tune and then joined the crowd on the terrace. His jacket was already wet.
‘Hello.’ He greeted one of the white-coated women, who had a familiar face.
She smiled pleasantly.
‘Mr Grens, how nice to see you. And on a Sunday too!’
She spoke to Anni, who stared blankly at them. ‘Anni, look! You’ve got a visitor.’
Ewert went to her. As usual he put his hand on her cheek. He turned to the care assistant.
‘Do you mind if I take her inside? I’ve got something to tell her. Good news.’
‘Of course. We’ve been here for quite a while. Anyway, Anni, you don’t want all of us around when you have a gentleman visitor.’
She released the brake on Anni’s wheelchair and he took over.
Anni was wearing a different dress today, a red one. He had bought it for her a long time ago. It was still raining, but only lightly, and she barely got wet as they dashed from the parasols to the side of the building. He steered the wheelchair in through the door and down the long corridor to her room.
They sat as they always did. She in the middle of the room. He, on a chair at her side.
He caressed her cheek again, kissed her forehead and took her hand in his. For a moment he thought she squeezed his hand in return.
‘Anni.’
He tried to make sure that she was looking at him before continuing.
‘It’s over now.’
It was one o’clock and Dimitri had promised her an hour’s rest. She had been working non-stop since the morning, since the first customer came and spat on the floor and she had to lick it up with a smile.
She was crying.
That man. Then seven others. Four more later. Twelve a day. The last one was coming just after half past six.
One hour’s rest. She lay on the bed in the room she thought of as hers.
It was in a pleasant flat, on the fifth floor in a nice block.
A couple of the men had called her Lydia. She had told them that that wasn’t her name, but they insisted that for them, that was what she was called. She knew now that Lydia was the woman who had been there before her and a lot of the men had been Lydia’s customers. She had inherited them from her.
Dimitri didn’t beat her so much these days.
He had said she was learning the ropes, she had to make more noises, that was what was missing, she had to groan when they pushed inside her, and whimper a little, with pleasure, of course. The customers liked noises; it made them feel they weren’t paying her to do it.
She only cried when she was alone. He hit her more if he saw her cry.
One hour. She had closed the door and would cry in peace for an hour. Then she had to smarten up and smile in the mirror and cup her hand over her genitals, as the two o’clock man wanted.
Ewert Grens had been back in his office for only an hour or so, but already he felt restless. He couldn’t concentrate on anything. He went to the toilet, got a coffee from the machine and asked reception to fix a pizza delivery for him, but that was that. Now, all that was left to him was his office.
It was almost as if he were waiting.
He listened to Siw Malmkvist’s warm voice and held her close, dancing with her in the tight space between his desk and the sofa.
He had no idea where Sven was and Ågestam hadn’t been in touch.
He turned up the volume. Soon it would be evening once more and he could hardly figure out how. His room was warm after a day of summer sunshine and he sweated as he moved to the rhythms of the Sixties.
Bengt, I miss you.
You pulled a fast one on us.
You see that, don’t you?
Lena knows nothing.
Not a thing.
You, who had the children.
You, who had something!
He switched off the tape recorder and put the tape back in its box.
He looked around. No, not this place, not tonight.
He left, walked along the empty corridors and stepped outside into the fresh air, to the car left unlocked as usual. Settling in the seat, he decided to go for a drive. He hadn’t done that for a long time.
It was half past six and she had spread her legs for the twelfth and last time today.
He had been quite quick and he hadn’t wanted to hit her or anything, and no spitting. He had only penetrated her anally, but barely, and told her to whisper that it turned her on, so it hadn’t hurt much at all.
She showered for a long time, even though she had washed several times already. It was the best time for crying, when the water was pouring over her.
Dimitri had told her that she was to be fully dressed and smiling by seven o’clock, sitting on her bed. The woman who called herself Ilona, the one who had met them when they came off the ferry, was coming to see them, to check that they were all right. Dimitri explained that the woman still owned a third share of them, so her approval was important. For another month, anyway.
The woman arrived punctually. The kitchen clock: thirty seconds to seven. She was wearing her tracksuit with the hood up, just as before. She didn’t take it down as she passed the electronic locks and came into the flat.
Dimitri said hello, asked if she wanted a drink. She shook her head. She was in a hurry, just wanted to give the girls a quick once-over. After all, she did still have a stake in them.
When the woman popped her head round the door, the girl looked as happy as she could, just as Dimitri had instructed her. The woman asked how many men she had seen today and she replied twelve. That pleased her and she said that was good going for such a young Baltic pussy.
She lay down on the bed and cried again. She knew that Dimitri didn’t allow it and that he would soon come in and hit her, but she couldn’t help it.
She thought of the men who had forced themselves on her, the woman with the hood and that Dimitri had said that they had to pack their bags again as they were moving to another flat in Copenhagen, and all she wanted to do was die.
Ewert Grens had been driving aimlessly for almost two hours. He had started in the centre of the city, navigating the most heavily congested streets with their traffic lights and jaywalkers and imbeciles who punished their car horns. Later, he crossed to Södermalm via Slussen, made his way along Horn Street and Göt Street; the south side, which was supposed to be so damn bohemian, but to him this looked like any sad provincial dump.
Back to the northern side again and past the soulless facades in posh Östermalm, a loop round the TV building at Gärdet and then a run on Värta Road to the harbour, where large ships were arriving packed with Baltic whores. He yawned. Valhalla Road next, endless roundabouts as far as Roslag Junction.
All these people. All these people on their way somewhere.
Ewert Grens envied them. He had no idea where he going.
He was tired. Just a few minutes more.
He drove through the city centre to St Erik’s Square in the slowing evening traffic. After drifting on along the smaller streets for a while, he turned left, past the Bonnier building and into Atlas Street. Downhill, left again. He parked in front of the door, suddenly surprised at the thought that less than a week had passed since he had come here for the first time.
He turned the engine off. How silent it was, as silent as a big city can be when the working day is over. All those windows, all those fancy curtains and potted plants. Places where people lived.
He sat in the car and time passed. Maybe a minute. Or ten. Or sixty.
Her back had been torn and inflamed. She had lain naked and unconscious on the floor. Alena Sljusareva had been screaming in the next room, hurling abuse at the man she called Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp.
Bengt had been on the landing. He had been waiting there for almost an hour. Grens recalled the scene perfectly, where Bengt had stood.
You must have known even then.
Ewert Grens stayed where he was for a little longer. Not time to leave yet. Another minute, several minutes, whatever it took for him to calm down. He had to go to the place he still called home, although he often had no wish to be there.
Another couple of minutes.
Suddenly the heavy door opened.
Four people came out. He looked at them, recognised them.
Only a couple of days ago, he had taken Alena Sljusareva to the port to ensure that she boarded a ferry that would take her over the Baltic Sea, back to Lithuania and Klaipeda.
They had got off the ferry when it docked on Swedish soil. The man was wearing the same suit he had previously, another time in Völund Street. Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp. As soon as he had cleared passport control, he turned round and waited for two young women – girls, in fact, of sixteen or seventeen. He held out his hand and demanded to have their passports, their debt. A woman in a tracksuit, with the hood pulled up over her head, had come forward to meet them and kissed them lightly on each cheek, the way people from the Baltic states do.
Now, they filed out of the door in front of him: Dimitri first, followed by his two new girls with bags in hand, and the hooded woman.
Grens watched them walk away.
Then he phoned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was put through to the person he wanted and asked a few questions about Dimitri Simait.
God knows he had enough on his plate, but never mind. He wanted to know if that fucking pimp still had the right to claim diplomatic immunity and asked to find out who his female contact was.
A little additional information and then he’d have both of them in the bag.
When this was all over. When Lang was inside. When Bengt had been buried.
When he was certain that Lena was able to go on, without the lie.
The day had passed without him noticing.
He had woken up in a narrow hotel bed, in Klaipeda, then driven from Arlanda to Lena Nordwall, where she sat freezing in the hot sun, then on to his Kronoberg office and from there to the Prosecution Service building, where Ågestam had been waiting, nearly at the end of his patience.
Sven Sundkvist wanted to go home.
He was tired, but the day that was almost done had not quite finished with him yet. Instead it seemed its longest hours were waiting for him.
Lena Nordwall had run after him as he walked away from their futile talk in the garden, towards the hockey kids and his car. She had been short of breath when she grabbed his arm and asked if he knew about Anni. Sven had never heard the name before. He had known Ewert for ten years, had worked closely with him and come to regard him as a friend, but he had never heard the name before. Lena Nordwall told him about a time when Ewert had been in charge of a patrol van, a story about Anni and Bengt and Ewert and an arrest which had ended in tragedy.
He tried to stand still, but wasn’t able to stop trembling.
There was so much in life he didn’t understand.
He had no idea where Ewert lived. He had never, not once visited him. Somewhere in the centre of Stockholm, that was all he knew.
He laughed a little, but his face wasn’t smiling.
Strange, how one-sided their friendship had been.
He kept inviting and Ewert allowed himself to be invited. Sven believed in sharing, thoughts, emotions, strength, while Ewert hid behind his right to privacy.
He got Ewert’s home address from the police staff records. He lived on the fourth floor of quite a handsome block of flats in the middle of the city, on a busy stretch of Svea Road. Sven had been waiting outside for nearly two hours. He had tried to distract himself by scanning the rows of windows. Not that he got much out of it. From a distance they all looked identical, as if the same person inhabited all the flats.
Ewert arrived just after eight o’clock, his big body rolling on his stiff leg. He opened the door without looking round, and disappeared into the building. Sven Sundkvist waited for another ten minutes, feeling nervous and lonelier than he could ever remember.
He took a deep breath before pressing the intercom button. No reply. A longer ring this time.
The loudspeaker crackled as a heavy hand picked up the receiver on the fourth floor.
‘Yes?’ An irritated voice.
‘Ewert?’
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me, Sven.’
The silence was audible.
‘Hello, Ewert? It’s me, Sven Sundkvist.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’d like to come up.’
‘Come up here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘We can talk tomorrow. Come to my office.’
‘It would be too late. We have to talk this evening. Open up, Ewert.’
Silence again. Sven stared at the still live intercom. A long time passed or, at least, it felt like that. Then the lock clicked and Ewert’s voice spoke, low and indistinct.
‘Fourth floor. Grens on the door.’
The pain in his stomach was bad now, as bad as when he’d watched that video. He had carried this pain for long enough. Time to hand it over, as it were.
He didn’t need to ring the bell. The door was open. He peered into the long hall.
‘Hello?’
‘Come in.’
He couldn’t see anyone, but Ewert’s voice was calling from a room further in. He stopped on the doormat.
‘Second door to your left.’
Sven Sundkvist wasn’t quite sure what exactly he had expected, but whatever, it wasn’t this.
It was the biggest flat he had ever seen.
He looked around as he walked slowly down a hall which never ended. Six rooms so far, possibly seven. High ceilings, elegant tiled stoves everywhere, plush rugs on perfect parquet floors.
Above all, it was empty.
He tiptoed, hardly breathed, feeling like an intruder even though nobody was about. He had never before been anywhere that felt so deserted. It was so large and clean and unimaginably lonely.
Ewert waited in something that might be called the library, one of the smaller rooms with bookshelves along two walls, from floor to ceiling. He was sitting on a worn black leather armchair in the light of a standard lamp.
Sven hardly noticed the rest of the room, because a few things caught his attention. On the wall by the door was a small embroidered wall hanging with MERRY CHRISTMAS in yellow letters on a red background. Next to it two black-and-white photographs, one of a man and the other of a woman, both in their twenties, both in police uniform.
A huge, never-ending place. But it was obvious. The two photos and the embroidered cloth were at its very heart.
Ewert looked at him, sighed, gestured to him to come in. He kicked a stool that he had been resting his feet on in the direction of his guest. Sven sat down.
Ewert had been reading when he rang the bell and interrupted. Sven tried to see what the book was, to find a way of starting the conversation, but it was lying to one side and he couldn’t see the title. So instead he got up and pointed at the door.
‘Ewert, what is this?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you always lived like this?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘I spend less and less time here.’
‘Our little terraced house would fit into your hall.’
Ewert nodded at him, wanted him to sit down. He closed his book, leaned forwards, red in the face. He was getting impatient with this meaningless chitchat.
‘Sven, it’s Sunday night, I believe.’
Sven did not answer.
‘After eight o’clock. Isn’t that so?’
It wasn’t really a question.
‘I have a bloody right to be left alone. Don’t I?’
Silence.
‘Why this invasion of my privacy? Can you tell me that?’
Sven tried to stay calm. He had encountered this anger before, but never the fear. He was certain of that. Ewert had never shown that before. But here, sitting in his own leather armchair, his aggression was masking his fear.
He looked at his older colleague.
‘The truth, Ewert – you know how hard it is to face.’
Sven ignored Ewert’s obvious wish that he should stay put. He stood up and wandered over to the window, stopped to look down at the cars in the street as they hurried from one red light to the next, and then went to lean against a bookshelf.
‘Ewert, I spend more time with you, just about every day of my life, than with anyone else, more than with my wife and my son. I haven’t come to see you because it seemed like a nice idea. I’m here because I have no choice.’
Ewert Grens was leaning back, looking up at him.
‘What a lie, Ewert. What a fucking big lie!’
The man in the armchair didn’t move, only stared.
‘You have lied and I want to know why.’
Ewert snorted.
‘Seems I’m being visited by the inquisition.’
‘I want you to reply to my questions, yes. Snort away. Call me names, by all means. I’m used to it.’
He went back to the window. There were fewer cars and they drove more slowly. He longed to get out there, once this was over.
‘Officially, I’ve been on sick leave for two days.’
‘You seem fine to me. Well enough to play the interrogator anyway.’
‘I wasn’t ill. I was in Lithuania. In Klaipeda. Ågestam asked me to go.’
Sven Sundkvist had anticipated an outburst, of course. He knew that Ewert would stand up and shout.
‘That little prat! You went to Lithuania on his orders? Behind my back!’
Sven waited until he had finished. ‘All right. Sit down again, Ewert.’
‘Fuck off!’
Ewert looked briefly at Sven and sat down, putting his feet on the stool.
‘I met Alena Sljusareva in an aquarium, a Klaipeda tourist trap. I got the answers we needed, step by step, the whole story. How she delivered the gun and explosives to Grajauskas. Very instructive.’
He waited. No reaction from Ewert.
‘I know that the two women communicated by mobile phone, several times. Before and during the hostage drama.’
He watched the silent man in the armchair.
Say something!
React!
Don’t just stare at me!
‘Before Sljusareva and I parted company outside a Chinese restaurant at the end of the evening, something odd happened. She wanted to know why I had asked all those questions, as she had already answered them. In an interview with another Swedish policeman.’
He said nothing.
‘Has the cat got your tongue?’
Nothing.
‘Say something!’
Ewert Grens burst out laughing. He laughed until tears came to his eyes.
‘What do you want me to say? What’s the point? You’re fucking babes in the wood, you two! Haven’t got a clue!’
He laughed even louder, wiping his eyes with his shirtsleeve.
‘As for Ågestam, it goes without saying. But you, Sven! Christ, little boy lost!’
He stared at his uninvited guest, who had invaded his house and taken away his right to be alone.
He was still chuckling, though, and shaking his head.
‘The perpetrator, Grajauskas, is dead. The plaintiff, Nordwall, is dead. Who cares about the whys and wherefores? Who? Eh, Sven? Not the taxpayers who pay our wages, that’s for sure.’
Sven Sundkvist stayed by the window. He felt like shouting to drown all this out, but kept quiet. He knew what it was about, after all, this fear masquerading as anger.
‘Is that how you see it, Ewert?’
‘It’s how you should see it too.’
‘I never will. You see, we talked for a long time, Alena Sljusareva and I. We went for a meal together. And when I asked, she told me about the three years she and Grajauskas spent in flats all over Scandinavia, being bought and sold as sex slaves. Made to perform twelve times a day. I thought that I was well informed, but she told me things about imprisonment and humiliation that I will never truly understand: about Rohypnol to endure it and vodka to deaden their senses, just to be able to live, to cope with the shame, in order to never let it get close.’
Ewert got up and walked towards the door, waving at Sven to come with him.
Sven delayed a little, looking at the photos of the two young people. Full of hope. The man’s eyes fascinated him especially, so alive and eager, different eyes which he hadn’t seen before. They didn’t fit in with this flat.
They had dreams, were full of life.
There was only emptiness here, as if life had ground to a halt.
He tore himself away from the eyes and the room, walked past two more rooms and into a third. It was a kitchen of the kind Anita dreamt about, large enough to cook in comfort and have space left for people to sit down together.
‘Hungry?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Coffee?’
‘No.’
‘I’m having a cup. Sure?’
The electric coil glowed bright neon red. Ewert filled a saucepan with water.
‘I don’t want your bloody coffee, Ewert.’
‘Sven, get off your high horse.’
Sven Sundkvist searched inside himself for the strength to carry on. He had to keep going with this.
‘Alena also told me about how they came here. About the journey here on the ferry. Who arranged it and came with them. Ewert, I know that you know who it was.’
The water boiled. Ewert made a mug of instant coffee. Turned the cooker off.
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Am I not right?’
Grens took his mug and went to sit down at the kitchen table. It was round and there were six chairs to go with it. Ewert’s face was still flushed. Sven wondered if he was still angry or if it was fear.
‘Are you listening to me, Ewert? Of course they couldn’t shut out what was happening to them. Rohypnol and vodka weren’t enough. So they tried other ways of dealing with it. Lydia Grajauskas didn’t have a body. She couldn’t feel it when they penetrated her and abused her, it wasn’t her body.’
Ewert Grens scrutinised his mug of coffee, drank some, said nothing.
‘And Alena Sljusareva, she did the opposite. She was aware of her body, and how they exploited it. But she didn’t register any faces. They didn’t have any.’
Sven took a step forwards and pulled the mug away from Ewert, forcing him to look up.
‘But you knew that, didn’t you? Because they said it all in that video of theirs.’
Grens said nothing, only looked at his mug in Sven’s hand.
‘You see, I knew something wasn’t right. I went through the reports to chase up the videotape she had brought to the mortuary. The scene-of-crime photos showed it lying on the floor and I got on to Nils Krantz, who confirmed that he had given it to you.’
Ewert Grens reached out for his mug, and finished his coffee. Once more he asked if Sven wanted one and once more Sven said no. They stayed in the kitchen, facing each other across a large island unit set out with cooking kit and a full set of kitchen knives.
‘Where is your TV?’
‘TV? Why?’
Sven went into the hall to fetch his case.
‘Where did you say it was?’
‘In there.’
Ewert pointed at the room across from the kitchen. Sven crossed the hall and asked Ewert to follow.
‘We’re going to watch a video.’
‘I haven’t got a VCR.’
‘Thought not, which is why I’ve brought a portable one.’
He unpacked it and connected it to Ewert’s TV.
‘Right. Now we’re going to watch this together.’
They settled in opposite corners of the sofa. Sven had the remote control. He used it to start the video he had just loaded.
Blackish image, lots of white flicker. The War of the Ants.
Sven turned to Ewert.
‘This one appears to be empty.’
No answer.
‘And it’s probably supposed to be, because it isn’t the tape you were given by Krantz. Is it?’
The tape was crackling, an irritating noise, letting his thoughts turn over and over in his head.
‘I know it isn’t, because Krantz confirmed that the tape found in the mortuary was used, rather dusty and with two sets of female fingerprints. None of which fits this cassette. There will be prints all right, but only yours and mine.’
Ewert turned away. He couldn’t bear to look at the man whose boss he was.
‘Ewert, I’m curious. What was on the original tape?’
He flicked the remote at the TV, shutting off the invasive noise.
‘OK, let me put it another way. What was on the original tape that made it worth risking thirty-three years of service in the force?’
Sven bent down to get something out of his case.
Another videotape. He took out the first one and loaded the second.
Two women. They are out of focus. The cameraman moves the camera about and twists the lens. The women look nervous as they wait for the signal to start.
One of them, a blonde with frightened eyes, speaks slowly in Russian, two sentences at a time. Then she turns to the dark woman, who translates into Swedish.
Their faces are serious and their voices strained. They haven’t done anything like this before.
They speak for more than twenty minutes. That’s how long it takes, their story of the past three years.
Sven stubbornly stared straight ahead, waiting for Ewert’s reaction.
There was none, not until the women had reached the end of their account.
Then he burst into tears.
He covered his face with his hands and wept, letting thirty years of grief flow out of him as he had never dared before in case he drained away and disappeared.
Sven couldn’t bear to watch. Please, not this. He cringed with embarrassment at first, and then anger surged through his body. He got up, stopped the tape and put it on the table in front of them.
‘You see, you only replaced one of the copies.’
Sven prodded it lightly and began pushing it towards Ewert.
‘I reread the statements made by the hostages. Ejder mentioned that Grajauskas talked about two tapes. And a locker at the Central Station.’
Ewert took a deep breath, looked at Sven, but couldn’t talk, still crying.
‘I found it there.’
Sven pushed the tape past a vase with flowers until it was in front of Ewert. His anger, it had to be released.
‘How dare you take away that right? They had every fucking right in the world to tell their story. And what was your reason? To keep the truth about your best friend from getting out!’
Ewert looked at the video in front of him, picked it up, but still said nothing.
‘Not only that. You actually committed a criminal offence. You withheld and later destroyed evidence. You kept a self-confessed criminal out of court by sending her home, because you were scared of what she had to say. How much further were you prepared to go? How much is this lie worth to you, Ewert?’
Grens fingered the hard plastic case.
‘This?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think I did it for my own sake?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘What?’
‘For your own sake.’
‘So it wasn’t enough that she lost her husband? Why should she have to face this as well? The bastard had lied to her!’ He threw the cassette back on the table. ‘Her empty life is more than enough! Lena doesn’t need this crap! She doesn’t ever need to know!’
Sven Sundkvist couldn’t take any more.
He had confronted his friend, seen him weep and now knew about the grief that had filled most of his adult life. He just had to get away. This day had been too much, he didn’t want another minute of today.
‘Alena Sljusareva.’
He turned towards Grens.
‘You see, she spoke about her shame. The shame she had tried to wash down the drain, twelve times daily. But this . . .’
Sven slapped the TV screen, hit out against what they had just watched.
‘This was because you couldn’t face it, Ewert. You can’t cope with the guilt you feel when you remember what you’ve done to other people, and the shame you feel when you think of what you’ve done to yourself. You can live with guilt. But shame is unendurable.’
Ewert sat there, his eyes fixed on the person, who kept talking.
‘You felt guilty because it was your decision to send Bengt into the mortuary, to his death. That’s understandable. There’s always an explanation for guilt.’
Sven’s voice grew louder, as often happens when you don’t want to show how close you are to a breakdown.
‘Shame, now, that’s different. Much harder to understand! You were ashamed because Bengt had managed to trick you so completely. And you felt ashamed that you would have to tell Lena who Bengt actually was.’
Sven became louder still.
‘Ewert, you weren’t trying to protect Lena. You were protecting yourself. From your own shame.’
It was strangely cold outside.
June is meant to be midsummer and warm.
He waited at the crossing outside the building where Ewert Grens lived. The lights turned red eventually.
Now he had finally shed the burden of the lies he had been carrying.
The story of two young people, erased to protect a man from the truth.
Bengt Nordwall was a swine, the kind that even Sven Sundkvist could hate. Until the end, he had behaved exactly like the swine he was, unable to change even when facing a gun, naked, in that tiled place of death. He had refused to acknowledge the shame she felt, even then. And Ewert had carried on refusing, reducing her shame to a mere flicker, a War of the Ants.
The green man showed, and he crossed the road and started walking northwards. He needed to get away, deep into the summer night. At the Wenner-Gren Centre he turned towards Haga Park.
Lydia Grajauskas was dead. Bengt Nordwall was dead.
Ewert had put it succinctly. A case with no perpetrator and no plaintiff.
He had always liked Haga Park, so near the city centre and yet so silent. A man was shouting despairingly for his dog, a black Alsatian. A couple were lying on the grass, holding each other tight. No one else was in sight. The green space was as empty as all city places are during the few summer weeks when life happens elsewhere.
No one was going to speak for the dead, not now and not ever. He was breathing heavily. What if he testified against the best policeman he knew? What good would that do? Would it matter? Should he demand answers from those who were still alive? What was better, Ewert Grens working with the City Police, or Ewert Grens lost in that silent home of his?
The water’s edge. He had reached the lakeside and saw the evening sun reflected in it, as it always was.
Sven Sundkvist was still carrying his case. A small VCR, some papers, two videotapes. He opened it and picked up the tape he had taken from box 21 at Central Station. The label with Cyrillic script was still there. He let the cassette fall to the ground and stamped on it until the plastic casing was in pieces. Then he ripped the tape out, metre after metre of curling ribbon, as if for a birthday present.
The Brunnsviken water was almost perfectly still, a rare kind of absolute calm.
He took a few steps closer, twisted the twirling ribbon round the remains of the cassette, lifted his arm and threw it as far as he could.
He felt both heavy and light. There might have been tears in his eyes, maybe he felt some of Lydia Grajauskas’s sadness. As he observed the scene from afar, he realised that he had done exactly what he had just condemned.
He had stolen from her the right to be heard.
Ågestam would never know what Sljusareva had really said.
He felt ashamed.