Clinch (26 page)

‘Your daughter must be twelve or thirteen now. It’s a pity she has to grow up without a father.’

‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘What happened?’

‘What do you think happened?’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘You have all the damned pieces in front of you. Now you only have to lay the puzzle.’ As I hiss out those words, I feel tiny droplets of saliva flying from my lips, and I stare at him with fury.

The signal from Berglund’s bell under the table makes me jump. The stripling screw comes in at once. His handcuffs rattle, I hold out my hands, and there are two clicks around my wrists. I grab hold of the edge of the table to stand up. The pain is burning in my right hand.

‘Sit down!’

I stop myself in the middle of the movement. Berglund nods at the screw. I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder, and I sink back down.

‘Could the duty constable stay a little longer?’

‘Yes, chief!’

Berglund smiles and puts his hand in his inside pocket.

‘Honouring one’s word,’ says Berglund, as he gets out a pack of Carat and shakes out a cigarette. ‘It’s one of the characteristics of the Swedish spirit to honour one’s word.’

I feel a curious sense of calm emanating throughout my body. Handcuffs or not, I can deck them both if I want to. A phosphorus stick makes a rasping sound and Berglund lights his cigarette. The matchstick ends up in the ashtray on the table.

‘So what is it that makes certain people break their promises and be faithless about their loyalties? A weakness, naturally, a
defect. Deceit is in the very nature of some people. Why did this once so proud nation topple into the dirt? Well, because the Jew has a certain weakness. He belongs to a race that is greedy by nature, with a lack of loyalty, fealty, and patriotism. Who are the people getting rich now because of Ivar Kreuger’s death? Answer that question and you’ll find his assassins.’

Berglund inhales and sends a thin streak of smoke up towards the ceiling. I allow myself a chuckle. I wedge my foot under the chair and put both hands on the table top.

‘If this country is going to rise again we have to cut out the defective elements from the body of society. So you see, Kvist, it really makes no difference to me if you’re innocent or not. It’ll be a true pleasure for me to lock you up in either case.’

‘Whether I killed them or not?’

‘You see, your perversion is your defect. It makes you unseemly and faithless.’

There’s a crackling sound when the glow of Berglund’s cigarette consumes a little section of the paper. He blows smoke from a corner of his mouth, and his eyes meet mine with a smile. I smile back at him.

‘As in the case of your wife and daughter.’

I take a deep breath before pushing the table into his chest with all my strength. My right hand screams out with pain. There’s a thump when Berglund is pinned between the wall and the table. His spectacles end up hanging lopsidedly, his eyes open wide. All the air is forced out of his lungs, and his cigarette rolls across the floor.

I stand up with my thighs against the side of the table, and lean over him. The screw yells something at me. I force the little chain of my handcuffs under Berglund’s chin and tighten it until my hands meet behind his neck.

The first baton blow hits me on my right upper arm. I hardly feel it. Berglund makes a hissing sound, saliva gleaming on his dry lower lip. I spit in his face. The gob hits a lens of his spectacles and trails across his cheek. He pulls and strains at my lower arms but I latch onto him. My head explodes in a burst of darkness and light as a baton blow comes in at my temple.

Nothingness courses like a flash through my body.

A couple of hours later I vomit in the bucket for the third time. They refuse to empty it, though it’s practically full. Afterwards I squat on one knee with my arm over my mouth. The thumping headache seems to be intent on blowing up my head from within, and nausea makes cold sweat break out like hoar frost over my body. For a short while I experience double vision. I’m sobbing.

‘Get up and walk, there’s nothing else to do.’

The trainer’s words issue from my mouth. I grip the edge of the bunk. Its wood is cold and smooth in my hand. I stand up with a wobble.

Running my hand across my chin, I realise that my beard stubble has almost had time to go soft. I spit on the floor and start pacing. It’s all about working through the body’s limitations. To get the bastard to do as it’s told.

‘Nothing else to be done. Hold on to the ropes if you have to.’

My head spins and I totter off course. I reach out with my left hand and support myself against the wall. Outside in the corridor I can hear steps. There’s more than just one person out there. They stop in front of my door. I have my back to them. Someone rattles the keys.

‘He’s in here, sir.’

I still have my hand against the wall. The door closes again, the lock rings out sharply. I hear an agitated voice: ‘Harry? How the heck are things with you?’

Hessler. Of all the damned people. Slowly I turn round and change hands, so that I am now leaning against the other. Hessler hurries up to me. He puts his arm around my shoulders and tries to buoy me up. He smells of Aqua Vera and pilsner.

The senior constable helps me across the cell and lets me sink down on the bunk. I hang my head and support it in both hands. Hessler is wearing black, highly polished boots with his uniform. He sways slightly, but quickly regains his balance.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it, Harry! You’ll be thirty-four? I remembered.’ Hessler slurs his words.

I stare at him while I scratch at my throat. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

‘That doesn’t explain anything.’

‘As you know I don’t touch schnapps any more.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s been years since the last time.’

‘Okay?’

Hessler looks at the latrine bucket with distaste and puts his hand over his mouth. The nausea takes hold of me again, but I manage to control it. There’s a rustling of crumpled silk paper when Hessler pulls out a red and white cracker from his uniform. A podgy bookmark angel has been glued to the middle of it. He holds it out towards me.

‘The children have been busy.’

‘And where the hell should I hang that up, do you think?’

The senior constable looks around the cell. ‘Maybe I can get you a nail for the door.’

‘God damn it, Hessler.’

The ears of the senior constable turn bright red. He gently puts the cracker next to me on the bunk. Quickly he caresses my hair. There’s a blaze inside my skull, and I turn away.

‘I was thinking, maybe you’d like someone to take care of you for a while, Harry. Like I used to do.’

‘You’re all boozed up.’

‘But we may never see each other again!’

‘Go home to your wife and children. They probably need you a lot more than I do.’

‘You’re the only one for me, Harry. There’s only ever been you!’

Hurriedly I get up. The tremulous nausea works its way through my body. Impotently I wave my forefinger in front of me.

‘Go home! It’s Christmas, for God’s sake!’

‘What if I never get to see you again?’

Hessler grabs my arm, and cups his other hand over my crotch. His breath really does reek of pilsner. He tries to press himself against me, but I manage to impose my left fist between us and push him away. With firm steps I walk over to the cell door, and start banging on it.

‘Have a cup of coffee with the duty sergeant and sober yourself up.’

‘You smiled at me once, Harry.’ He purses his lip acidly like a lass who’s been denied a cone of sweets.

‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘It was years ago but I still remember. Just the once.’

The door opens. Hessler gives me a last, surly look before it closes behind him. I hear him and the screw mumbling something to each other as their steps slowly fade away.

My neighbour gives off a long, desolate yell. I feel nauseous again and go over to the barred window at the far end of the cell,
where I stand on my tiptoes. The window is not airtight and one can get the odd breath of fresh air that way.

The cold calms my stomach. In the evening gloom, I can see the metre-long icicles glittering like predatory fangs along the drainpipe of the tall house opposite. I ruminate on whether they could have some evidence against me, which they’ve not yet revealed. A sort of ace in the pack.

‘Maybe someone from that damned torch-lit procession.’

That’s as far as I get in my musings. With a sigh, I gently move my head back and forth, as if this might rattle my thoughts into place.

Outside the cell door, steps are coming again. Someone hollers excitedly, another laughs pointedly. The viewing hatch slides open with a metallic scrape.

I peer out. In the corridor, the stripling has lined up two other screws in uniform. The old latrine man is on the right flank. All four of them are holding sheets of paper in their hands.

‘One, two, three,’ the stripling counts, and then, ringing out between the corridor walls, comes the opening verse of a schottische that I know much too well:

‘Stop that!’ I roar through the hatch. ‘Stop it, for Christ’s sake!’

I smash my right fist into the door. The searing pain almost makes my legs give way beneath me. The screws snigger and carry on even more loudly.

The queasiness forces me down on my knees. I try to get up, but my body doesn’t do what I tell it to. I crawl over to the bucket and throw up sour bile, while my body is racked with convulsions. The yellow stomach fluids trail into the bucket, while the last verse of the schottische resounds through the cell:

I crawl off and sit in the corner with my knees drawn up to my chin. The hatch in the door closes, and the chortling of the screws slowly dies away. Wiping my mouth on my arm, I rock from side to side.

Then, fumbling with my hand along the wall and standing on unsteady legs, I put my nose as close to the window as possible. A thin, cold draught of air makes its way into the cell. I come to life. A large flock of crows takes off without warning from the top of the roof on the other side. Their ominous croaking reminds me of the whooping cough that took my twin brother, and left me all alone in the world.

When I press my cheek to the wall and gaze up through the barred window, I can see a little strip of sky, tinged with pink and purple. If I’ve counted the days correctly I may be able to see the New Year fireworks spreading their eruptions of light across the sky tonight. I’m hungry, but it must be hours until dinner time.

I’m no longer vomiting and the headache is not as intense, but sometimes I still lose my balance as I walk back and forth across the cell floor. My thoughts float slowly through my skull, as viscous and thick as Långholmen porridge. My cell neighbour gives off a lone, prolonged roar. He stops abruptly – maybe he’s learned his lesson.

I hear keys rattling outside the cell. The door opens, and a young, blond goon stands there with a pair of handcuffs. His large peaked cap only seems to stay in place thanks to his protruding ears. Did he get the New Year’s shift because of his youth?

I nod and he comes into the cell. I hold my hands out to him, and he snaps on the handcuffs. Only when he offers me a cigarette does it occur to me that I have not been wanting a smoke all day. A matchstick scrapes, and the first drag makes me shiver with wellbeing. He takes me by the elbow and leads me out.

Smoking, we move through the deserted corridors and silent stairwells of the police station, which is almost completely steeped in darkness. Our steps echo between the walls as we work our way higher and higher up into the building. I feel as if I’m smoking
my last cigarette before the gallows. We cross a big hall between rows of desks, and reach a door with a pane of frosted glass. The goon takes my hands and unlocks the handcuffs.

‘You have to wait in here.’

I massage my wrists and look at him. He shrugs.

‘That’s all I know.’

The door swings open without a sound. He shows me in with a gesture of his hand, then closes it behind me.

The spacious office, which is fragrant with pipe tobacco, is dominated by a large desk of oak facing the door. In front of it, two chairs have been positioned so that visitors can see Kungsholmen’s sky through a large picture window. The desk holds piles of paper, folders, a desk pad and, under a table lamp with a green glass lampshade, a pipe rack. The window rattles slightly in the wind. Next to it is a little telephone table and a globe mounted on lion paws.

I remain there for a few moments, scratching my lice bites. When no one turns up I take a tour of the office. There’s a bookshelf running the entire length of the long wall, filled with books on police work and criminal psychology in Swedish, English and German, but also literary works, including the leather-bound collected writings of Strindberg.

By the other wall is a long, low filing cabinet. I stand there looking at the framed photographs and newspaper clippings above them. The photographs are of Oskar Olsson and the new, Social Democrat prime minister; then Olsson again, kneeling by a felled brown bear. He’s resting his rifle butt against his thigh and staring into the camera without smiling. The newspaper clippings describe some of the most spectacular murder cases in the last twenty years.

I am just reading about the car bomb on Pipersgatan, a mere stone’s-throw away, when the door opens. I turn around.

Olsson is wearing a dinner jacket. His trousers are five centimetres too short. His cheeks are flushed with schnapps, and over his arm he carries a jacket and a belt. The latter are mine, as is the hat in his hand.

‘Mr Kvist.’ He nods first at me, and then at the visitors’ chairs, before draping my clothes across one of them.

We make ourselves comfortable. Olsson, whose shirt piece seems a size too small, calmly stuffs a straight-stemmed pipe, lights it with a match and blows a plume of smoke at the ceiling. Leaning back in his armchair, he takes another few leisurely puffs, and I note that my desire to smoke is coming back. Olsson clears his throat.

‘That photograph of myself with Per-Albin is not only intended for the gallery.’ He sounds hoarse, possibly also tired and slightly inebriated. ‘I vote for the Social Democrats. Does that surprise you?’

‘Very few things surprise me nowadays.’

‘Do you vote yourself, if I may ask?’

‘I might if I get out of here, against all expectations.’

Olsson nods. He takes the pipe from his mouth and stands up. His desk screeches when he opens a drawer and takes a bottle of aquavit, from which he pours himself a decent tot into a square glass, then moves to the window, where he stands partially with his back towards me, and says, with a sigh: ‘Would I be wrong, then, if I said that, in spite of all, you might be inclined to feel a certain amount of social responsibility?’

‘Yes, you would be wrong.’

Olsson chuckles. He knocks back half his schnapps and takes a quick puff on the pipe. ‘But maybe you feel, hmm, that the nation needs a new start, so to speak?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Commissioner.’

I scratch my head. Olsson stays by the window, hanging his head for a few moments, before answering at last, finishing his aquavit before he does so.

‘In a few hours, 1932 will be history. A new year is coming, and, hmm, I suppose we’re all hoping it will be a better one than the last? Tomorrow a new state police force will start operating, a specialised division with myself as the departmental head; also we have a new ministry and a new prime minister. What we need now is a bit of peace and quiet to get on with our work, so to speak.’

Olsson slurs his words slightly. He runs his hand over his short hair.

‘This was the year when there was something rotten in the nation. First we had the von Sydow murders, when the head of the Employers’ Association was murdered by his own son. A few weeks later, Kreuger and Toll went to the dogs. Tens of thousands of workers lost their positions, tens of thousands of small savers lost their capital. And as if that wasn’t enough, the prime minister stepped down with allegations of corruption hanging over him. Despite emergency assistance, one in four men are unemployed.’

‘Thanks, I take a newspaper and I also have a radio.’

‘The country is trying to recover from Kreuger.’ Olsson continues his speech as if he hasn’t heard me. I’m starting to think that he’s properly pissed. ‘Bloody Kreuger,’ I hear him mutter before he once again raises his voice: ‘Even though the Wallenbergs avoided doing business with the Match King and now seem to be earning themselves, hmm, a decent profit, there are also other heavy players in the financial market who are close to collapse.’

Olsson turns round and fixes his lustrous eyes on me. His cheeks are flaming red.

‘One of the groups that bought Kreuger stocks last winter is the one that’s controlled now by the almost ruined Steiner family.’

Silently I draw breath. He spins his armchair round and sits. He seems to give it some thought before turning on the desk lamp. He puts his pipe in the ashtray and starts rifling among his papers.

‘I’m not quite clear about how it all hangs together here, but I think you could help me.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Don’t say that. Let me tell you what I know. Kvist, I think this is as interesting to you as it is to me.’ When he opens a file, I lean forwards slightly. ‘On Christmas Eve, an Austrian war veteran by name of Karl Herberger was found murdered in a restaurant on Regeringsgatan. Next to the body lay a bayonet bearing the fingerprints of the murdered man. This bayonet matched the wounds of a prostitute, Alice Ljungström, found dead just a few blocks away.’

So it was Alice. Not Sonja. Beautiful Alice. Bowlegged Alice.

‘Furthermore, we found hair on the lapels of the dead man’s coat, which, when examined under a microscope, matched Miss Ljungström’s. This Alice is assumed to have been a witness at a murder scene on Kungsgatan, one you are very familiar with, namely the one relating to Zetterberg.’

He raises his eyes. I hardly dare breathe. Olsson takes the pipe out of the ashtray, strikes another match and gets his pipe going. I nod at him to go on.

‘Zetterberg used to be the driver of the Steiner family, who were also, in fact, Herberger’s employers.’

My heart is bolting; my hands start trembling. I try to keep my expression impassive, while Olsson takes a long pause and goes through his papers. The swine is letting the poison get to work. The window behind him rattles again.

‘And even if we don’t have any tangible evidence, I am assuming that Zetterberg was murdered by his replacement. I have a photograph of Herberger, somewhere.’

He hands over a photograph. I put my fingers on it but Olsson doesn’t let go. My fingers tremble against the photograph, and an eternity seems to pass before I snatch it out of his hand. He smiles.

‘The question is, how the hell can I make any sense of the lady in the photograph visiting your one-room flat in Sibirien?’

The photograph is a few years out of date. In the background one can see a blurred-looking Herberger, next to a white Packard. The Steiner family is standing on a neatly raked gravel drive in front of the car. Steiner himself smiles directly into the camera. He’s a slightly corpulent, middle-aged bloke, wearing a light summer suit and a white hat. He’s also a touch shorter than his wife, who is standing further away, wearing sunglasses, almost as if screened off from the others, and looking away from the photographer.

And then finally there’s Leonard, a few years younger but much the same, wearing short trousers and a knitted sports top. He leans slightly towards Steiner, his hand on his shoulder.

I start to shake even more violently. All at once I understand what Zetterberg also understood. Everything falls into shape. I’ve heard of so many homosexuals in marriages of convenience that I should have worked it out earlier. Doris lied. The lady lied about everything, except possibly what she said about the separate bedrooms in their imposing house. I should have seen through it, but she played her part well and I let myself be blinded by her wealth. Her skinny body was not one of a woman who had undergone a pregnancy.

The vein in my brow starts ticking. The question is how old Leonard was when he became a part of the family. Probably too young. This was the information that was worth five thousand kronor a month, and it was also the information that had cost Zetterberg his life. The Steiner family set a trap using Leonard as
bait. While I went up to Bellevue with the boy they sent Herberger after Zetterberg and put the blame on me. Why me?

‘I saw you.’

‘Sorry?’ I look up.

Olsson leans back and clasps his hands over his capacious belly. ‘I saw you. In the ring. I’m very interested in boxing. I saw the match with that fighter from Västra Götaland, the one you put in a coma, and I saw you against “The Mallet” Sundström. And I staked money on you for the championship the following year but you never showed up.’

‘Right.’

‘And not for one moment in all those rounds did Kvisten ever look quite as miserable as he does now.’

‘What do you mean?’

Olsson sighs. ‘If I had a watertight case against you, maybe I’d put you up for prosecution, but all I have is Mrs Steiner, and she seems, how can I put it, hmm, a bit of a case of bad nerves. Anyway I do actually believe you’re innocent, except in relation to Herberger. And to even out the score, I’d say he got what he deserved.’

I sit up. ‘So can I go?’

‘You had some of the qualities that make for a brilliant boxer, Kvist. You didn’t go charging in like an idiot. You were primarily a strategist and a technician. I hope you still have some of those attributes, and I hope you have enough teeth left to bite the sour apple if you have to.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘The last thing our country needs is a scandal of this magnitude.’

‘So can I go?’

‘Kvist has to understand two things: one, this conversation stays in this room. Two, if you in any way harass the Steiners you’ll
end up in Långholmen. I’ll track you down and I’ll book you for anything, whether it’s smuggling, breaking the speed limit, or paragraph eighteen.’

‘So? I can go, then?’

‘Wasn’t it your birthday the other day?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Look at it as a late birthday present.’

Olsson stands up and puts his pipe in his mouth. He offers me his hand, but I stare at it, then at him. He lowers his hand.

‘And may I say,’ he adds, ‘you look more like forty-four.’

‘The poor man grows up quickly, the rich one not at all.’

I stand up, and Olsson nods at my clothes on the chair. I put them on, and find a Meteor in my jacket pocket, then walk out of the room without looking back. The goon who escorted me is sitting outside. When the door opens he jumps up, ready to salute.

‘I hope you know how to get out of the building.’ I put the cigar in my mouth and button up my jacket. ‘And I hope for your own sake that you have a match going spare.’

The stripling goes pale under his oversized hat. Far away a church bell strikes three desolate chimes, one after the other, like the gong at the start of the final round.

Outside, little neat snowflakes are whirling about in the dark afternoon. It’s blowing less than I thought. Cigar in hand, I am left standing for a few moments on the front steps of the police station. The tobacco is dry and doesn’t taste as good as I was expecting. I pull my jacket tighter around me and turn up the collar. A numbing tiredness streams through my muscles. I rub my beard stubble and look around.

‘Kvisten needs a drink.’

I steer my steps up towards Fleminggatan and turn into the courtyard of number 23, where it still stinks of latrine. It’s only
been two weeks since I came here to repossess a Monark, but it feels like considerably more. For a moment I think about that old bloke with the bicycle in his miserable attic room. I wonder how he is doing in the cold. I should change jobs.

I go over to the shack in the corner. The crack between the frame and the door has been filled with jute sacking. I pull it open and push the heavy sheet of swine leather out of the way.

The drinking den hardly has space enough for its three tables. The walls are insulated with newspaper. On the tables are a couple of lit candle-ends in tin mugs of cracked white enamel. I sigh. It may not be the Cecil, Metropol or Continental, but at least it has a proper wood floor.