Europa Blues (30 page)

‘A North Italy and a South Italy?’

‘All the money earned up here in the north simply runs down south. We want to keep it up here and become a country with normal European living standards.’

Arto Söderstedt suddenly held up a photograph. He studied di Spinelli’s expression closely.

‘Do you recognise this man?’

‘No.’

‘What about this one?’ he asked, holding up another photo.

‘No.’

‘The first was Leonard Sheinkman as an eighty-five-year-old, the second was Leonard Sheinkman as a thirty-five-year-old.’

‘Leonard Shinkman? I don’t know any Leonard Shinkman.’

‘Sinkman,’ said Söderstedt.

Marco di Spinelli looked at him suspiciously.

‘Thanks then,’ Söderstedt said, downing the last of his Calvados and getting up.

‘Are you finished?’ di Spinelli exclaimed in surprise.

‘You said you were in a hurry. I certainly don’t want to get in the way of your important New York trip. I’ve got everything I wanted. Thank you. I hope to see you again.’

He left the room before Marco di Spinelli even had time to get up. The man with the glasses was sitting at the desk, leafing through some papers. He glanced up at Söderstedt, perplexed. Söderstedt kept walking, out into the corridor. Three bodyguards were sitting there, eating apples. They immediately threw their half-eaten fruit into a nearby bin and began to reach for the bulges in their jackets. It was like synchronised swimming. Three men in perfect coordination, performing the exact same movements at the exact same moment.

Dunk, dunk, dunk, and the apples dropped into the bin.

‘Teamwork,’ said Arto Söderstedt, rushing off down the beautiful corridor. One of the bodyguards pushed past him, the others still behind. Unless you followed procedure, you were probably dismissed. Rather than receiving dismissal pay, you were more likely to end up with a lump of cement around your feet. That was nice too.

Yes, Arto Söderstedt was behaving oddly. He stopped on the pavement and glanced up at the blood-red sun which was just sinking behind the Milanese rooftops. He was behaving oddly because he thought – though it was vague, no more than a suspicion, a tiny little first suspicion – that he had found out exactly what he wanted to know.

Uncle Pertti’s slurring technique had served him well.

Marco di Spinelli had recognised Leonard Sheinkman. Not as an eighty-five-year-old, perhaps, but definitely as a thirty-five-year-old.

From 1947.

THE TWO WOMEN
Viggo Norlander would be watching videos with were really something. Alone with them in the small, sweaty room, he felt almost horny as he pressed play on the VHS machine.

It was true, he was having a hard time ignoring the short greenish hair, but given that it was crowning a face that was a triumph of youthful beauty, it was utterly irrelevant. The messy chestnut hair, on the other hand, was incredibly appealing. And the woman it belonged to, beyond description. He could see straight through her clothes. It was fantastic.

‘Lay off, Viggo,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘They’re practically popping out.’

‘What’re you talking about?’ Norlander asked with well-masked shame.

‘It’s like they say,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘Whenever a man finds out he’s fathered a baby, he suddenly gets hornier than ever.’

‘What is it with you two?’ asked Viggo, blushing for the first time in thirty years. ‘What have I done?’

‘Just press play, will you?’ said Sara.

‘I have,’ Viggo said confusedly.

It felt so strange to be blushing. Memories he had no desire to be reminded of were pushing forth. But at the same time, it felt good that they were returning. They had been gone for so long.

‘It’s coming in a second,’ said Sara Svenhagen. Norlander couldn’t help but interpret her words in all manner of ways.

‘The Environmental Protection Agency had four hours’ worth of film,’ she continued. ‘They’d been following the poacher from the St Anna Archipelago in Östergötland, where someone had reported seeing a bus full of feathers. They were filming while the poacher was having a coffee on the ferry. They shot this sequence just as he was about to disembark and be busted by the Polish customs police.’

The picture crackled into view, gradually coming into focus. The bow of a huge ferry. The bow visor rose slowly upwards; buses came driving out. A couple of tourist buses first, one German and one Swedish. Then a smaller one, an utterly clapped-out-looking thing. It was driving straight towards the camera, which followed its movements. The customs officers moved in. Tough-looking Polish officers in uniform, yanking the door open, rushing into the bus and hauling the driver out. The poacher was thrown to the ground. The camera was filming him as it passed by. The bus doors were open. The camera panned up the steps and then swung to the left, inside the bus. It moved over the passenger seats. Ten or so sea eagles were laid out on them. The picture swept down the left-hand side of the bus and then froze.

‘There,’ said Sara, pointing at the television screen. Above the eagles, the bus window was visible. Through it, the front of another, smaller bus had appeared from the left.

She let the film play, as slowly as she could, until the front window of the other bus became visible. A face could be seen through it. She froze the image again.

‘This,’ said Sara, ‘is Svetlana Petruseva, the Belorussian from room 226 of the Norrboda Motell.’

Viggo Norlander and Kerstin Holm both glanced at Svetlana Petruseva’s passport photo, comparing it with the slightly blurry figure from the screen.

‘Yeah,’ said Viggo. ‘That’s her.’

‘Seems that way,’ said Kerstin. ‘But the question is whether it holds up as evidence.’

‘There’s more,’ said Sara.

The bus continued its slow-motion journey past the poacher’s bus. Just as it passed by, the camera shifted slightly and the back of the other bus, the one in which they had seen Svetlana Petruseva, came into view. The picture froze again.

They had a clear view of the rear window of the other bus. Two faces were peering out at the customs raid. They immediately recognised one of them. It belonged to Lina Kostenko, the Ukrainian from room 225, the room the ninja feminist had been calling. The face next to her was unfamiliar, but belonged to a young, dark-haired woman, and in her hand a mobile phone was visible.

‘There you have it,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘A few hours later, that phone would be ringing a disembodied arm in Odenplan metro station.’

‘This is our first and last picture of a member of the league,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘The technicians are working flat out on it. They’re working with this, too.’

Her finger moved down the screen to a blurred, half-obscured registration plate.

‘It’s Swedish,’ she said. ‘But we can’t see much else for the moment.’

‘Swedish vehicle …’ said Viggo.

‘Driving through Sweden, from Stockholm to Karlskrona, in a Ukrainian bus, would probably have been tricky,’ Sara replied. ‘It would’ve drawn too much attention. They probably rented it.’

‘Should we assume,’ said Viggo, ‘that the ladies also had Swedish passports? That they did the whole thing as Swedes? And their real passports stayed behind?’

‘Yeah,’ said Kerstin, standing up and stretching. ‘It seems pretty likely they were given fake Swedish passports. Or Western European ones, at least. So there wouldn’t be any problems with customs. We’ll send the picture of that girl out, plus the registration plate, as soon as the technicians are done. Sara, are you still going to Karlskrona?’

‘It’s too late now,’ said Sara, glancing at her watch. ‘Apparently it’s the same crew coming back from Gdynia tomorrow. I’ll catch them then.’

‘Take Viggo with you,’ said Kerstin. ‘He doesn’t seem to have much to do. Plus I think a bit of sea air will cool him down.’

Viggo Norlander nodded eagerly.

It would be another thirty years before he blushed again.

THE TIME HAD
come. Chavez couldn’t quite understand why Hjelm was making such a big deal of it. They were in a drab old bachelor pad in Eriksberg, to the south of Stockholm. Their host, serving them coffee, looked like any other old man.

But for Paul Hjelm, it was a momentous occasion. He would probably have felt exactly the same if he were given access to Jan-Olov Hultin’s legendary house down by the waters of Ravalen. Though he had worked under Erik Bruun for considerably longer.

The fact was, he had learned everything he knew from Bruun; nothing to make a fuss about.

But he didn’t recognise him.

It wasn’t exactly a tragic experience, like seeing an old sports star strutting about in a body that looked like it might fall apart at any moment. It was more complicated than that.

Detective Superintendent Erik Bruun had always been a fairly solid-looking man with a greyish-red beard that covered his multiple chins. His most distinguishing feature had been an omnipresent, foul-smelling, black Russian cigar resting between his lips. The health authorities had condemned his office in Huddinge, known as the Bruun Room, on a regular basis. And it was that very fact, that he had incessantly gone against all conceivable rules and regulations, which had prevented such a brilliant policeman from advancing further through the ranks. If Erik Bruun had been National Police Chief during the past few decades, a lot of things would have been a lot better. Paul Hjelm was convinced of that.

But now, he was a shrunken old man with only one chin, no greyish-red beard, no black cigar. He looked much healthier – but also more boring.

And his legendary bachelor pad in Eriksberg looked like any other pensioner’s flat. And this particular pensioner was serving – cinnamon buns.

‘You know, I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ he said, sitting down.

‘Probably,’ said Paul Hjelm.

‘I had to,’ said Erik Bruun. ‘I would’ve died otherwise. The legend would’ve lived on and I would’ve died. I’d rather the legend died and I lived.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Paul Hjelm.

‘Of course,’ said Bruun, leaning forward. ‘Of course you
understand
it. But you don’t accept it. You can’t accept the fact that I’ve become a plain old pensioner who shuffles around in slippers and serves thawed cinnamon buns with a high mould content. It would’ve been better to keep living on the legend. And the fact is that at this very moment, you’re thinking it’s a shame the heart attack didn’t finish me off.’

‘You’re hardly a plain old pensioner,’ Hjelm argued, taking a bite of a bun. ‘Though the mould content’s high all right.’

‘What is an ordinary pensioner anyway?’ asked Chavez in an attempt to join in on what seemed to be some kind of mutual appreciation society. ‘Is it something like an ordinary immigrant?’

‘Something like that,’ said Erik Bruun with a neutrality that immediately made Chavez understand. Understand Hultin’s roots, understand Hjelm’s roots. It was an enlightening moment. ‘Boys, boys, your boss is a former pensioner. It’s not everyone can say that. When Jan-Olov was a pensioner, we used to play chess in the Kulturhus once a week. Those were the high points of my life. But we never do it any more. I’m lonely in the way that only an old policeman can be. Utterly lonely.’

Hjelm and Chavez glanced at one another and realised that this might well turn out to be hard work.

‘Just don’t forget that I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ Bruun continued with a smirk. ‘Both of you.’

‘You don’t know me,’ Chavez said irritatedly. ‘How can you claim to know what I’m thinking?’

‘Because I know what kind of policemen you both are.’

‘Come off it,’ said Chavez.

‘You thought you were hearing the start of some kind of pensioner’s lament just then, but that’s not the case. I
am
utterly lonely – but I
want to be.
It suits me to a tee. I hope I’ll get the opportunity to die utterly alone as well. I
want
them to find my body after it’s started to stink. I
want
them to have to fish me out from a sea of maggots.’

The combination of Bruun’s imagery and the amount of mould in the cinnamon buns was worrying.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Hjelm.

‘You know full well. You’re the same, despite the wife and kids and cat and dog.’

‘Parrot,’ said Hjelm.

Chavez laughed, short and abrupt. Like a parrot. He still felt annoyed at the old man. He was a know-it-all, that much was clear.

‘Jorge Chavez,’ said Bruun, glancing wryly at him, ‘you think I’m a know-it-all, don’t you?’

‘True,’ said Chavez, attempting to seem unperturbed.

‘I just think that happiness has become a bit predictable. We know in advance what the concept of “happiness” is meant to involve, and loneliness is right down at the bottom of the list. Behind mental illness and drug addiction. We can understand the mentally ill and the addicted, we’re socially educated humans after all, but we’ll never understand the lonely. Loneliness is an unpleasantness we try to overcome whatever the price. We’ll go through any suffering necessary if it means we can avoid being lonely.’

‘So you want to rehabilitate loneliness?’ Chavez asked sceptically.

‘That’s neither here nor there. Quite simply, we live in a society which is afraid of loneliness and silence. I want to be alone and I want to have silence around me. I know you two in the exact same way I want to know people in general: in detail, but from a distance.’

‘What do you mean? How do you know us?’

‘How do you think we passed the time during those chess games? The way pensioners always do: we recounted old stories.’

‘So you sat there in public, discussing individual police officers’ personalities?’

‘You had code names. You, Jorge, were Soli. And you, Paul, you were Keve.’

‘Keve Hjelm,’ said Paul Hjelm. ‘What an uncrackable code.’

‘Keve Hjelm was the first person to play Martin Beck on film,’ said Erik Bruun, looking up at his former trainee.

‘I’m hardly Martin Beck,’ Hjelm said self-consciously.

‘Not exactly, no,’ Bruun replied cryptically.

‘What about Soli, then?’ asked Chavez. ‘What’s that?’