The Falling Detective (31 page)

He survived, as it turned out, thanks to simple good fortune: he was moved to another institution, closer to Stockholm, to prepare him for life on the outside. The decision came from the prison authorities three days after their conversation.

Back in Mariefred, they hadn't managed to get him on his own, and the threat to him at the new place was smaller. Instead of being beaten to death, he was punched a few times and took a few kicks in the gut.

He pissed blood for a couple of weeks, but that, outwardly, was all.

Outside Jonathan's flat in Hallunda, the storm is raging. He's standing by the window with his back to the telly, where updates about the attack on the party leader alternate with information about Edith's relentless progress.

In daylight, Hallunda is no more than great concrete hulks of buildings and graffiti-covered walls — lawless country. It's been like that for a long time, but much more so since the May riots, when cars were torched and the niggers battled the police, who called them monkeys and made everything worse. Now, in this weather, Hallunda rises in the darkness like a great, grey ruin.

Jonathan has been ripped off. Again. They've tricked him. Why do I have to be such an idiot, he thinks to himself.

And, at the same time, he's ashamed.

He looks at himself in the reflection in the glass: the short hair, the pronounced eyebrows, one of which is bisected by a big scar, the bulbous nose, low cheekbones, narrow, stretched eyes. He's wearing black, baggy jeans and a white T-shirt. Poking out from the sleeve is a tattoo — the word
SWEDEN
and a swastika. His arms are pale and spindly. He avoids looking at the tattoo.

He picks up the phone and calls Christian. The ring tone is choppy and scratchy, but there's no answer.

He peers over at the door to the flat, and then at the knuckleduster on the windowsill in front of him. That's all he's got, if anything happens.

Jonathan moves away from the window. He doesn't want to see himself. Standing there, close to the wall, he can feel the storm; he can feel the draught by the skirting boards. The windowpane shakes, as if it were about to give way.

He rings Christian again. He doesn't answer.

The flat has a little hallway, a door leading to the bathroom, a kitchenette where the day's washing up is still waiting. He's lived here since he left home three years ago. One wall is covered with a huge Swedish flag. Jonathan has written
SWEDISH RESISTANCE
by hand, in the yellow cross. On the desk is a wrapped parcel, with a dressing gown inside.
To Mum from Jonathan,
he's written on the tag, which is shaped like Santa's hat and tied to the ribbon.

It just rings and rings, but no one answers.

The windscreen wipers in Iris's car attempt to provide some visibility through the windscreen, but their motion is in vain. Christian Västerberg is registered as resident at 19 Olshammarsgatan in Hagsätra, a journey that would normally take just over fifteen minutes. In this weather, it's a different story.

Around us, Stockholm is on the verge of collapse. The airports at Arlanda and Bromma have cancelled all flights. In the Baltic, the sea level is rising, and Edith has pushed the waters of Lake Mälaren to more than a metre over normal levels, and the great turmoil in the water is smashing huge sheets of ice onto the shore.

Emergency Service vehicles are blocking the road. Iris lowers the window and holds up her badge towards the unmoved constable.

‘Where are you going?' the officer shouts.

‘Hagsätra,' says Iris.

‘Eh?'

‘Hagsätra.'

He laughs.

‘Good luck.'

Iris closes the window again. The radio plays a festive tune,
It's worth the wait the whole year through, just to make someone happy like you.

‘Christian Västerberg,' Birck says thoughtfully. ‘Who is that?'

‘Something of a low-profile member of Swedish Resistance. We know he acts as a go-between for the members and the leader of the Stockholm division, Keyser. Västerberg and Keyser have been friends since childhood.'

‘Keyser,' I say. ‘Where have I heard that before?

‘About ten years back, he kicked a left-wing activist in the face, so hard that his eye popped out of its socket. He got a very harsh prison term.'

‘No,' I say. ‘It wasn't that.'

‘Considering their notoriety, we actually know very little about them. Their operation is completely closed. As I was saying, Asplund was our contact inside the movement.'

‘Shouldn't you have been keeping an eye on them?' says Birck.

‘You can always think that,' Iris says, cuttingly. ‘At least you can always think that afterwards.'

‘This isn't the boy scouts we're dealing with. This is a militant neo-Nazi organisation. Damn right that you, with all your resources, should hav—'

‘Our department relies on two things: what happens out there, and intelligence that informs us of it. We don't put people under constant surveillance, especially people who are not suspected of any criminal activity. And we, too, have limited resources. We have focused heavily on
RAF
. We have our mole within Swedish Resistance, as I said, and he was previously able to give us precise information about their plans. We have not had any indications about this.'

‘Asplund might not have known about it,' I say.

‘No,' Iris says stiffly. ‘Maybe he didn't. We don't even know if it was them. We don't even know who the assailant was.'

No one says anything. Behind us, a tree is blown down, crashing into the fence that lines the road. The fence gives way, bulging out across the carriageway.

That's when it comes to me: Christian Västerberg. I think he had a friend with an unusual surname — could have been Keyser. There was an assault in Salem, years ago, and I think they were involved. I was still living at home, but I spent almost no time there. I wonder if Grim knows about it. Maybe. I can't remember whether Västerberg was the victim or the perpetrator. Maybe those kinds of details don't really matter.

Christian Västerberg lives in one of the tower blocks, near a pizzeria. We climb out of the car, and the snow finds its way inside my coat, under the collar, in my eyes and mouth, everywhere.

A harder, sharper wind arrives, like a wave.

One minute, Birck and Iris are standing next to each other. He's looking something up on his phone, she's putting the car keys in her pocket. Then a shadow falls, fast and heavy, and the next minute, Iris has flung herself at Birck, and a deafening crash — like a skip hitting the ground — makes the earth shake, and my ears pop. A ten-centimetre-thick roof panel, several metres across, has fallen from one of the buildings.

‘Thanks,' Birck says, shocked.

‘You're welcome.'

I look up towards the sky, which is being torn apart. The clouds are dark and heavy. When the next gust arrives, the noise escalates to a roar and we duck, instinctively. There's a creaking sound nearby, but I don't know where, because the noise is too weak when it reaches us, and can't be identified. On the other side of the road, part of the façade is being ripped off. Roof tiles drop, crash to the ground, and shatter.

Iris looks at Birck.

‘Are you okay?'

‘I think so.'

She turns around. The roof panel fell so close to the car that it took out one of the wing-mirrors.

‘Car's fine, too,' she says, ‘more or less.'

Christian turns his gaze away from the television, where pictures of the attack roll on a constant, never-ending loop. Where's Michael? He wants to contact him, but he doesn't dare.

The phone keeps ringing, over and over again. It's Jonathan. He doesn't answer.

A torrent of regret flushes through him, so strong that he almost gets carried away on it, and he realises he won't be able to hold out for very much longer.

The time inside had left Michael with a few new scars and a new iciness to his stare. It had also strengthened his resolve: he'd made it. He'd survived. The worst scars were not visible. Later, Christian would think, Michael could get very down, introverted and absent in a completely different way than before. He got a job as a caretaker in a warehouse. He hated it, and did the bare minimum required so as to keep hold of the job.

The first meeting after Michael's return was attended by three more people than the one before. This brought the total to seven.

‘You mustn't blame yourself,' Michael said, ‘that we got so small while I was inside. I know you did your best.'

Christian didn't know what to say. Had he done all he could? He didn't know the answer to that question. Michael had never blamed him for the failure, their dramatic decline. Michael had nodded and looked sad. He said he understood. But, he'd added, it wasn't over yet.

‘It's a different climate now,' Michael went on. ‘Not just here, but across Scandinavia, too. We've got the whole of Scandinavia with us.' He laughed. ‘Do you see? And soon enough, the whole of Europe.'

It was just after the general election. TV pictures showed the Man from Sölvesborg, beaming. The Sweden Democrats had passed the famous 4 per cent threshold, and had possibly succeeded in holding the balance of power in Swedish politics. That was what the election had really been about, not which of the two electoral blocs would come out on top. Sweden was split, divided. The Sweden Democrats got all the attention, both before and after election night itself.

‘It's just a matter of time now,' Michael said as he watched the images.

‘A matter of time till what?'

‘Till someone kills him.'

Christian glanced over, wondering what he meant. That the party leader had enemies was universally known, and in the near future that fact would become all too obvious: the far left hated him. Before long, parts of the far right would feel the same way.

Michael threw all his energy into Swedish Resistance. The membership grew to over fifty, all of whom paid subs. They were able to move to larger premises. Their warehouse moved to another area. Some of them had been involved in the past, but most of them were new recruits, who they'd enlisted via high schools and the internet, via contacts' contacts. The media ran stories about them in what was presumably supposed to be an alarming tone. The effect was the opposite: they started becoming visible again. People joined up.

Christian and Michael were inspired by history: during the course of the year, they read Arthur Kemp's seven hundred-page
March of the Titans: the complete history of the white race,
as well as the new edition of
The Racial Elements of European History,
first published in 1927, by the author Hans F K Günther. They made for outstanding, uncompromising reading.

Everything fell into place, and the Stockholm division grew. People signed up — not just in working-class suburbs, but in the city's wealthiest neighbourhoods, too. They walked through central Stockholm handing out flyers, accompanied by a police escort. Christian stood at Michael's side, shocked and overwhelmed. Before long, the membership had reached one hundred.

‘This is mental,' said Christian.

‘And this is just the beginning,' said Michael, smiling.

Some people end up on the sidelines of history — as spectators — just watching as it unfolds before them. Others find themselves at the epicentre, shaping events, making a mark that changes everything.

Sitting in front of the telly, Christian returns to the past, and submerges himself in memories. They blur and overlap, merge into a haze. Too much has happened. People can't turn the chaos of reality into a neat order.

Michael had said this sort of thing before. At first it had been a joke, always followed by a laugh more than anything else: how they should throw Molotov-cocktails through the Migration Service's windows. Burn down refugee centres — swat a load of flies in one go. It had always been like that. Even in October and November, when the plan was sketched out and the details began to take shape, Christian still didn't believe it was actually going to happen. When Jonathan informed him that the
SEPO
had got wind of an imminent threat against Martin Antonsson, Christian passed it on to Michael. Michael's eyes lit up.

It wasn't the first time this had happened, nor the first time they'd deployed a similar strategy.

They attacked
RAF
and all the others, and they were attacked just as often. Sometimes it felt like a game to Christian — a serious game, where both sides played by the same rules with violent consequences.

Their plans were always uncovered — sometimes within an hour or so, sometimes within a couple of days. Despite this, their plans had the desired effect: to irritate and to undermine their opponents.

This time there were more details, and they gradually fell into place: they could use Jonathan, his connection to
SEPO
, and exploit the fact that
RAF
were planning an attack on Martin Antonsson. A missing knife at Café Cairo would ensure that the police focused their enquiries on them, and would exacerbate the reds' internal conflicts at the same time. All bureaucracies have finite resources, and the police's close surveillance of
RAF
would temporarily give Swedish Resistance free reign.

No one apart from Michael and Christian was to find out the truth. Not even Jens Malm.

That's not how it turned out.

They didn't tell anyone else, but there were certain details and issues that had to be dealt with on the hoof, with others nearby. Christian thought he could see their eyes widen and their ears prick up.

‘I think people suspect what's going on,' he said one evening in November. ‘I think it's about to go tits up.'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘It's more of a feeling.' He looked at Michael. ‘Don't you think?'

They stood in a secluded corner of a bar on Folkungagatan. A dark, heavy rain was falling outside. The neon signs glowed.

‘Yes,' Michael said eventually.

‘Well, then, we'll call it off.'

Michael shook his head.

‘We keep going. No one knows yet — there might be a few who suspect something, but they're on our side. That's what's important.' He lowered his voice. ‘I've talked to Jens about it.'

‘And what did he think?'

Michael didn't say anything, but the look of excitement on his face was enough of an answer.

They caught the underground home that night. Michael looked calm and collected, with his hands in his jeans pockets and a slight smile on his face. Christian tried to smile, too. The resulting grimace was tight, like a muzzle.