The Andalucian Friend (26 page)

She backed out between the gate posts.
She drove around the block a couple of times to see if anything looked unusual, but there was no sign of anything. She headed in toward the city, car windows down, and drove all the way down Birger Jarlsgatan to the junction with Engelbrektsgatan, and pulled into the underground garage on David Bagares gata. She emerged and walked toward Engelbrektsplan, put her phone card into a public phone, and dialed a number.

“Yes?”

“It’s me again.”

“Hello.”

She waited to give him time to say something. He didn’t.

“Are you home now?” she said.

“Yes.”

He was terrible on the phone, abrupt and impossible to gauge.

“Can we meet?”

Twenty minutes later they met up on Strandvägen, on the quayside. He was already sitting there on a bench when she walked up. He saw her, stood up, kept his distance, no hug or weird handshake. She found that a relief.

They sat down on the bench. It was a warm evening. He was wearing jeans, a tennis shirt, and sneakers. She was in pretty much the same, but the women’s version. People were strolling past them, sober and drunk alike. The city was lively even though it was a weeknight. She took out a newly bought pack of cigarettes from her pocket, pulled off the cellophane, and got one out.

“Want one?”

He took one, she lit hers and passed him the lighter. They took a few puffs, and she pointed toward the Strand Hotel on the other side of the water.

“I worked there once.”

The hotel glowed luxuriously.

“I’d been traveling in Asia. When I got home I got a job in reception … I was twenty-two, twenty-three.”

He sat with his legs apart, looking at the hotel, and smoked some more.

“Tell me about the people who were in your house.”

She thought. Trying to figure out what to say and what not to say.

“Two men claiming to be policemen were in the house a few weeks ago. My cleaner caught them red-handed when she arrived. She’s got her own key. They threatened her, said she’d be in trouble if she told anyone.”

Jens was sitting with his arms resting on his legs, looking down at his shoes.

“How did they threaten her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why’s she telling you now? Why didn’t she tell you when it happened?”

“She was scared.”

He nodded to himself.

“Did they take anything?”

She shook her head.

“So what were they doing there … what do you think?”

Sophie thought for a moment, then looked at him.

“I don’t know.”

He tried to read in her eyes if she was telling the truth, but found nothing that could help him decide. Instead she looked the way he remembered her.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

She smoked the cigarette down to the filter, then crushed it under her shoe.

“How do you know Hector?” he said.

She knew the question would come.

“He was in my ward … in the hospital. He’d been in a road accident. We became friends.”

“Good friends?”

“Fairly … fairly good friends.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Like I say, fairly.”

They sat in silence, each of them aware that their first encounter at the restaurant concealed many more secrets than either of them was willing to reveal.

“And this has got something to do with Hector?”

“I think so,” she whispered, still thinking.

Jens noticed and let her think in peace.

“But I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“What else is there in your life that could have led the police into your house, if we assume that they were from the police?”

She kept pulling at the thoughts flying through her head, then got up from the bench and walked over to the edge of the quay.

“Have you changed over the years, Jens?”

He didn’t answer the question. She turned around and looked at him for a moment, then hugged herself, trying to find the right words.

“There’s someone in the police who’s after Hector, he doesn’t know. She, the police officer, has asked me to give them information about him. …”

Sophie looked at Jens with a look that said she hoped she hadn’t said too much.

“Have you said anything about that night?” he asked.

“Of course I haven’t,” she said quietly.

“So what have you said, then?”

She tried to gather her thoughts.

“Little things … nothing much. Names, places, people. But she called and asked about that evening … I don’t know if she knows something.”

Jens’s surprise was genuine.

“What did she ask?”

“What I was doing that evening.”

“And you said …?”

“I said we were going to have dinner, but that Hector had to go to a meeting and I went home.”

“Did she imply anything?”

Sophie shook her head. Jens thought for a moment. Then he looked up.

“What else?”

She didn’t answer.

“Sophie?”

“Yes?”

“Go on.”

She hesitated.

“Aron told me … ,” she continued.

“Aron told you what?”

“Something along the lines that I should keep my mouth shut.”

“A threat?”

She nodded.

“And Hector? What does he say?”

She sighed. Didn’t want to talk about Hector.

“What else?”

“No, that’s enough.”

She looked pained. Her voice changed, its tone lower. Her whole being seemed to shrink.

“I’m in the shit, Jens … I don’t know what to do.”

He was having trouble looking at her.

“Can you help me?”

He nodded curtly, as if he had already answered that question.

“So, who was in your house? Hector’s gang or the cops?”

She still had her arms wrapped around her.

“The police, if you ask me.”

“Why?”

Sophie shrugged.

“I don’t know …”

She was pale and tired.

“But you must have some idea?”

“Maybe they were trying to find out something about Hector … Something I haven’t told them …”

“But something else has struck you, hasn’t it? The most likely explanation, assuming that they’re after information.”

She looked at him.

“Yes … But how am I supposed to know? Take the telephone apart, check the lampshades … is that how it works?”

He nodded, even though she was being ironic.

“That’s pretty much exactly how it works.”

They tried to make sense of the conversation in their heads, then after a while he looked up.

“Can you take the day off work tomorrow?”

“Yes …”

He could see how worried she was. Sophie turned and began to walk off toward Nybroplan.

He watched her
go from the bench, her walk hadn’t changed. He had been so fond of her back then … so long ago. He remembered it now, he remembered his suppressed feelings. How they met that summer a whole lifetime ago. How they found each other, how they talked about everything it was possible to talk about. How they got drunk, ate dinner late out on the terrace, and slept in every morning. How they would take his parents’ car and drive off to get breakfast. How he there and then decided for the first and only time in his life that he would be capable of mowing the lawn in the garden they shared until old age got the better of him. And how that feeling completely terrified him. How, against his will, he had managed to get rid of her … And he couldn’t remember a thing about the period that followed.

Jens took out his cell phone, pulled out a contact from the list, and called the number. An old man answered.

“Hello, Harry, can you tell who this is?”

“I certainly can, good to hear from you again.”

“Are you busy first thing tomorrow?”

“Nothing I can’t change.”

“Come ’round my place at seven o’clock and I’ll make you breakfast; bring your equipment and some overalls. Have you still got the company van?”

“Sure, it’s all just the same.”

“Same here … Look forward to seeing you then.”

Jens ended the call and looked out across the water of Nybroviken.

Why had he been so quick to say he would help her? She was involved with Hector Guzman, she was being watched by the cops and had just witnessed an attempted murder where he himself had been present. Hector and his gang were ruthless when things heated up. They had powerful people, like the Hanke group, after them, they smuggled coke, and God only knew what else they were involved in — and there, in the middle of all that, Sophie … Was that why he had agreed to help her, because he knew that world? Or was it because she was Sophie? Under normal circumstances he would have headed for the hills the moment he saw her. Run away, without really knowing why. That’s what he always did with women. But here he sat like a total idiot in his crappy tennis shirt, offering to help her. …

Jens hid his face in his hands, Christ, he was tired. He leaned back on the bench, wishing things could be the way they used to be. It had all been easier then, easier to push his feelings aside, easier not to give a damn … That was probably why everyone always said things were better before, because when they got older they couldn’t cope with the deluge of the past. Everything finds its way into the light sooner or later.

His cell vibrated in his pocket. He took a deep breath to shake off the slight pressure in his chest.

“Yes?”

He listened to the soft voice at the other end. Hector Guzman sounded friendly as he asked if Jens was the sort who drank coffee in the evenings.

Lars Vinge took
forty or so photographs of Jens Vall as he was sitting on the bench by the water. When Jens got up he turned directly toward the telephoto lens, and Lars got some great, clear close-ups. He left his position in a doorway on Skeppargatan and hurried back toward the garage on David Bagares gata to get there ahead of Sophie.

It was almost eleven o’clock, darkness had fallen.
Jens went in through the front door and up the stairs. There was a sign on the door: The Andalucian Dog Publishing Company Ltd.

He was sitting opposite Hector in his office. A window was open, the evening was still warm, and sounds rose up from the street below. Occasional laughter, noisy youngsters going past, “Volare” was playing in a nearby apartment.

Hector’s desk looked rather old-fashioned, and his chair was a leather-clad ’50s design on wheels. It looked very comfortable.

Hector was thinking.

“Before we talk, do you want anything? You look tired.”

“You offered coffee on the phone.”

Hector got up and left the office and Jens followed him, through a small conference room and a library packed full of books. Hector gestured as they passed through.

“These are some of the books we publish. A lot of them are translations from Spanish, but there are some original Swedish titles.”

Eventually they reached a kitchen.

“The office is on this floor, and I live directly above.” He pointed to the ceiling.

The kitchen was small but tastefully furnished, quality throughout. They stopped and looked at each other. Measuring up against each other. Jens was taller but he thought Hector felt bigger, as he somehow encompassed more than his physical body alone. If they had been younger they would have stood back to back.

Hector looked away and started to set up the espresso machine.

“What’s he like, Ralph Hanke?”

“I don’t know … Arrogant, theatrical …”