Never Fuck Up: A Novel (31 page)

The following weeks, he went to work as much as he could. They wondered what the hell he was doing, screwing around with the schedule as if it was a grab-a-beer-with-a-bud appointment that you really couldn’t care less about. But what could he do:
Si vis pacem, para bellum
. The mission took time.

During the bright summer evenings and nights, he sat in the Audi outside the apartment complexes or houses where they lived. Tried to guage the situation. Which ones he should begin with.

All six of them were normal dudes. From the outside. They didn’t have particularly late habits on weeknights. Niklas set the cameras up during three nights in the beginning of August. Worked in silence. It was easy: he’d already zeroed in on the spots where he’d put them. Felt so good not to have to deal with daytime noise pollution: cell phones ringing, the rush of traffic, neighbors pounding on each other. Outside one house: a CCD camera in a tree. Outside the other house: the camera in a bush behind an electrical cabinet. The apartments were harder. How would he be able to see into them? One of the apartments was on the ground floor. He hid the camera in a stairwell on the other side of the street. The distance was a little too great, but it would do for the kinds of photos he needed. The other three apartments wouldn’t work. He’d have to guard them personally.

The only thing he wanted to know: Who were the three biggest assholes? Who should he focus on? Him: a pro. Ice water running through his veins. He could wait.

Back in the present. On his way back over Vinterviken’s allotment gardens. He didn’t see any war scenes today. No blood. No ambush. He thought maybe it was because he was about to begin his own ambush. The weeks’d gone so well. Him: a hunter. A predator. A man who made his mark on history. Who changed circumstances.

The sweat ran down over his eyebrows. His eyes stung. He wiped his forehead with his T-shirt.

The only thing he needed now was a firearm.

It had to come to an end. The rats.

The men.

The enemy combatants.

Gloria Palace, Playa de Amadores, Gran Canaria. They could’ve gone to a flashier place: Aruba, Mauritius, or the Seychelles. But what were they supposed to do there? The only reason Thomas made the trip was to get away. And to calm Åsa.

Still: the hotel, Gloria Palace, had four and a half stars from the charter travel company. You couldn’t top that on Gran Canaria. Big rooms with panorama windows looking out over the ocean. A small sofa set and a coffee table with a basket that room service filled with fresh fruit every day. Over thirty channels on the TV, an in-house movie channel, Swedish newspapers, amazing breakfast. One of the pools, the one with seventy-seven-degree water, lay only a few feet away from the Atlantic—you looked out over the waves washing in while calming Muzak played from the hotel speakers. Not to mention the gym: the machines looked like they were bought yesterday. After a workout, his hands smelled of new plastic instead of cop sweat. He worked out every day. It was everything he’d imagined, but better. Åsa loved it. Thomas tried to relax.

His dirty money came in handy. Åsa wondered how they could afford to stay at the closest she’d ever come to a luxury hotel. But it wasn’t that expensive, and Thomas explained that they were spending prize money he’d won at the shooting club. He wasn’t going to pinch pennies. Åsa could get as many treatments as she liked at the hotel’s Thalasso Treatment Center. He rented a Jet Ski and tried scuba diving, tested his swing at the nine-hole golf course, went out for an all-day fishing trip on a boat with some middle-aged Germans. Every night, they ate a three-course meal at one of the à la carte restaurants or took the panorama-view elevator up to the walk on the mountainous strip above the hotel and wandered to Dunas Amadores, the hotel next door.

He grew a beard for the first time, surprised himself every morning in the mirror. It itched, he tried to trim it—but man, it was nice not to
have to shave. Åsa claimed that it was prickly. But really: they’d been away for almost two weeks and hadn’t had sex once. Okay, maybe they kissed sometimes, but you could count the number of kisses on the fingers of one hand. Both of them knew the beard wasn’t to blame.

Sometimes he thought he should go to therapy. He loved Åsa—so why didn’t she turn him on? Why did it work better in front of the computer screen than with a real woman? At the same time: therapy wasn’t his thing. What if someone found out?

They were each sitting in a beach chair on the sun terrace. Smeared with the right SPF. The pool’s clear-blue water lapped peacefully. The hotel towered up behind them like a mountain. Eighty degrees out. Gran Canaria was good in that way: the Atlantic climate didn’t turn it into the same kind of oven as, say, Sicily—where they’d been last year.

He tried to read a Dennis Lehane paperback:
Darkness, Take My Hand.
Let it lie on his belly. Restless, couldn’t read for too long, even though it was a real page-turner. The dialogue was the best he’d ever read.

Åsa lay with her eyes closed, shiny with lotion and sweat. She was “baking,” as she called it. Listening to an audio book. He looked out over the people on the terrace. This wasn’t the worst kind of family-friendly hotel. Neither he nor Åsa would’ve been able to handle seeing happy parents cuddling with their fat little four-year-olds around the edge of the pool every day. The hotel was populated mostly by couples a few years younger than themselves—no kids—and older people in their sixties. As well as a bunch of super chill groups of friends. Four guys who weren’t a day over twenty-five were sitting at the pool bar. Downed parasol drinks like it was light beer. Thomas liked their style. Saw himself the way he’d been a few years ago. What was even better: up and down in the pool, a group of chicks the same age as the guys. He thought, There might not be a lot of good in this world, but nothing can take away the pleasure of a string bikini. Any man who denies it just isn’t right in the head.

A hand on his thigh. Åsa was looking at him. She’d taken the earbuds out.

“Can you believe we only have two days left? Awful.”

Thomas looked at her. Put a hand on her shoulder. He could feel it clearly: she was tenser than usual.

“Yep. Soon it’s time to head home to the fall. But we might still get
a few warm days at home. Apparently there’s some nice Indian summer heat going on right now.”

“Thomas, we have to talk. It’s not just the fall. You have to tell me what’s really going on.”

Thomas knew what was on her mind. She couldn’t understand why he wasn’t freaking out about the internal investigation. But it was more than that: Åsa felt left out. Didn’t think he was opening up to her, wasn’t saying what he thought would happen next. He couldn’t explain, but maybe he should.

“We’ve already talked about that. I’ll get the decision in a few days. Then we know. Either they screw their heads back on and nothing happens, or else they prosecute and then I’ll be transferred. But they’ve got to be pretty damn stupid for that to happen.”

“You’re not mentioning the last possibility, Thomas.”

“Stop it. If I get convicted for this thing, we’ll leave the country. It would be a scandal. If that happens, not a single patrol officer should still be working on the force. Everyone would’ve done what I did. Everyone with a pulse.”

“But as far as you can tell, how likely do you think it is that you get convicted and they fire you? Thomas, I need to know. We need to know. We can’t live with this uncertainty. I’ve had a stomachache for two months now. What if it happens? How will we be able to afford the house? How will we be able to take care of a child?”

The final thing sent a burning flare through Thomas. Then he thought, I guess you’ll have to start working full-time, then. But he kept his mouth shut. Didn’t want to discuss this again. Had already been through it four times on the trip. It always ended with irritation. Åsa wanted him to start looking for other jobs. How could she know—what he’d already been offered was out of the ordinary.

“You’re getting all worked up for no reason. They’re not going to fire me. I promise.”

“
You
stop it. I don’t understand how you can be so calm. Don’t you understand that this isn’t just about you? It’s about both of us, we’re a team. You’re sitting there pretending to be all relaxed when it’s going to affect me too—affect us, our family. We’ve always said that if we adopt a child, it’ll get to grow up in a real house with a yard. Living in a house is safe, secure. How will we be able to afford that if you get fired? Do you even understand what a good stroller, car seat, toys, clothes, crib, and all that costs? And I’m
not
going to IKEA.”

Her eyes were burning bright against the blue sky.

“To live in a house is not always that safe, I’ll have you know.” In his head, he saw the man who’d been standing outside their window at home. “But I promise, on my badge. It’ll work out. You don’t have to worry.”

She got up. Jerky movements. Typical fury à la Åsa. Went to the bar, or up to the room. He didn’t care either way. Didn’t have the energy to argue.

He closed his eyes. The sun warmed. He saw images in his head.

The last few months: some of the worst of his life. On a par with the weeks after Åsa’s miscarriage. Sometimes confused, often sleepless. Most of all: exploding with worry. But he still didn’t think there was reason to keep going on about it, to talk with Åsa about everything. She hadn’t heard his whole side of the story. She couldn’t help him. Why should he let his worry rub off on her? That would just be cruel.

The investigation into the so-called assault in the bodega was making crawling progress. After the decision’d been made to start a formal inquiry, he’d had to go in for an interrogation with IA. Tell his side of the story. A small, Hägerstrom-like fucker on the other side of the table: Assistant Detective Rovena. Had probably spent the seven years since cadet school behind a desk. Or even more likely:
under
a desk, ’cause he was so damned scared that something would fall down from the ceiling. Paint, maybe. Or dust? It was insane that a guy like that was even allowed to call himself a cop. He’d probably slid in on some fucking
blatte
quota. It was clear, this guy didn’t have the stuff.

Thomas told him the way things were. Rovena was interested in the details. How many times did the man strike Lindqvist? Why hadn’t Andrén managed to put handcuffs on the man? When did he decide to use the baton?

“Hey, there’s a great movie about this. You should watch it,” Thomas said. Rovena didn’t laugh at his joke. Didn’t want to watch the video from the surveillance camera. Claimed he would rather listen to Thomas’s own version of events. Bullshit.

Other than that, the investigation shit was all happening in writing.

After the interrogation, Thomas gathered his strength and got in touch with a lawyer. The old suit wrote two letters. In the first, he demanded to see some of the investigation material that Thomas hadn’t been permitted to see. In the second, he attacked the preliminary investigation for allowing an assistant detective to interrogate a police
inspector—a subordinate should not be interrogating a superior—and for not noting that Cecila Lindqvist’d actually tried to alert dispatch but had had to abort the attempt due to the fact that Göransson’d acted so aggressively. Thomas wasn’t impressed. The only thing the letters led to was that he had to go in for another interrogation—with a detective chief inspector. All he could do was wait for the decision.

He stayed at home, mostly. Gained a certain degree of understanding for the panic that hit the rabble after they’d been in custody for a few days. And he could still watch DVDs and surf unbelievable quantities of porn. Wanted to work on his Cadillac, but it didn’t give him any peace of mind. The men sent him a box of chocolate, which made him feel stronger. They’d written him a short letter: “We look forward to having the Sharpshooter back.” “The Sharpshooter,” that felt good. Thomas was often the best in their practice shoots at work, so the nickname was right on—there were a lot worse things you could be called on the force. Sometimes he lifted weights in the den. But without any real drive. The days passed. The summer rolled by outside his window like an irritating glare on the TV screen.

After four weeks, he’d gotten in touch with Adamsson. The whole thing felt shady. Adamsson ought to understand that it wasn’t a problem for Thomas to stay at work while the investigation was going on. But as Thomas’d observed before: Adamsson couldn’t be trusted in this case. Thomas knew he should look into things more.

Thomas tried to sound as nice as possible when he called him. “Hey, Adamsson. It’s me, Andrén.”

“Yeah, I can hear that. How are you doing, anyway?” He tried to sound accommodating. But Thomas hadn’t been the one who asked to go on sick leave.

“You know, I don’t think I can take this much longer. I’m pacing around at home like a lost soul, waiting for the verdict.”

“I understand. But I still think it’s best that you stay away. You know, the mood will get weird here if people know you’re just waiting. Either they drop it or there’ll be a trial—that’s just the way it is.”