Box 21 (41 page)

 

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.

 

Ĺgestam would never know what Sljusareva had really said.

 

He felt ashamed.

 

 

 

 

 

THREE YEARS EARLIER

 

 

 

 

 

The flat is small, just two rooms and a kitchen.

 

There are five of them. Mum and Grandma. Her older brother and little sister. And herself, of course. She has never really thought about it before. It has always been like that.

 

She is seventeen years old now.

 

Her name is Lydia Grajauskas.

 

She longs to be somewhere else.

 

She wants a room of her own and a life of her own. This place, this life is so cramped. She is a woman now, or almost. Soon she will be a woman, grown up and needing space.

 

She misses him.

 

She often thinks of him. Dad, who was always there for her and always understood her.

 

She has asked, many times, but nothing can make her understand why he had to die.

 

She misses their walks together most of all. He would take her hand in his as they walked, lost in plans about the day they would leave Klaipeda.

 

They used to walk to the edge of town, just as she and Vladi do now. Then they would turn round to look back at the town, really take in what it looked like. Dad often sang for her, songs he had learnt as a child, which she had
never heard anyone else sing. Their heads would be filled with longing. That was what they did; they longed together.

 

This flat. Too small, too crowded! Always someone underfoot. Always someone.

 

She remembers last night, the two men who came to the café. She had never seen them before. They shook hands with Vladi and they seemed nice.

 

Her Vladi, who has been her friend for ever, who had been next to her on the sofa when the military police burst in, shouting
Zatknis!
and pinning Dad to the floor.

 

The two men smiled at her and chatted while they ordered coffees and sandwiches. They spoke Russian, but one of them, the older man, didn’t look Russian, more like people from Sweden or Denmark.

 

They had stayed for quite a long time. She refilled their cups twice. Then Vladi had left and she talked to them for a bit. They wanted to know what she was called and how long she had worked in the café and how much she earned. They seemed interested, nice and polite, not slimy at all. They didn’t try anything on, didn’t flirt, nothing like that. She sat down at their table later. She wasn’t allowed to, but the place was almost empty right then and there was nothing much to do.