The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (69 page)

Until Leo opened the door and left the car with the gun in his hands.

John Broncks was still sitting in his office with a computer monitor and a radio, following a bank robbery that was 110 kilometres away. The last of his colleagues had passed his open door, giggly from the mulled wine, wishing him a merry Christmas, and he’d smiled at them and pretended to look busy even though he wasn’t.

Three patrols were now in place. A fourth was on its way from Uppsala. According to witness statements, three or four robbers had fled in a passenger car, which had just been seen travelling in a northwesterly direction from the crime scene, on a minor road through an area of summer houses which lay somewhere between Heby and Sala.

He massaged his sore lower back, walked in a tight circle between the window and the desk, yawned.

A cup of silver tea always brought him to life. With the kitchenette finally free of Christmas celebrations, he walked towards the hallway to brew a new cup – but was stopped at the door. First, by the sharp beep from the communication radio. Then a colleague, eager.

‘I see them. A car with several passengers.’

A patrol car from Uppsala. A lone policeman.

‘I’m following them.’

John Broncks went closer to the desk and the radio. The car was a few metres away from the policeman, but a hundred kilometres from him.

‘It’s turning off. It’s stopped. It … I’m stopping.’

The sound of his car slowing down.

‘Someone … from the passenger seat … someone’s climbing out. He’s holding something. A gun! And he’s aiming at … me!’

Whirling snow. But Leo could clearly see the uniform. He raised the gun and waited. The door on the driver’s side opened.

His finger on the trigger.

He waited, but no one got out. The uniform just sat there.

So he fired.

A first shot at the engine. And a second. And a third.

Until the lone policeman ran out of the car, threw himself on the ground and rolled down into the snow-filled ditch.

Four more shots – all into the engine. That car wouldn’t be following them any more. He kept his eyes on the ditch as he went back and sat next to Anneli.

‘Drive.’

The situation had changed. To reverse past the police car and continue along the original escape route was no longer possible.

‘Where?’

‘Straight ahead.’

Leo knew where they were – in the middle of an area of uninhabited houses – though he didn’t know how to get out of there. But there was always a way.

The lone policeman’s voice had fallen silent. But it had been easy to understand, even via the radio, what had happened.

A car door had opened: he’d got out. Steps on the snow: he’d tried to escape. A dull thud: he’d thrown himself into shelter.

And then – four more shots. One by one. Burst mode.

Then only the wind.

‘They’ve driven on.’

He was alive. He wasn’t even hurt, from the sound of his voice. But he was still down, probably on the roadside, and it was clear that as he spoke, he was starting to realise what had really happened.

‘He … just stepped out. Methodical. Determined. I was sure I was going to die.’

And – could have happened.

‘He fired at the car and the engine block. An AK4. I saw it.’

When Broncks heard the gunfire, there was no anxiety left. He rushed out into the corridor again, towards the stairs and the garage and the car. More than six months and not a single sign of life. A night spent making one last phone call that should have forced them out. It hadn’t. A few more letters and a few newspaper ads before all contact suddenly ended, and Broncks had begun to doubt himself. Maybe he’d made the wrong decision, misjudged Big Brother. Despite the tips that continued to pour in from the public and an investigative team filling up with profilers and detectives, no breakthrough had come. And as spring became summer and then autumn, he increasingly thought he felt Karlström’s glance – ten years of trust had begun to crumble.

The day before Christmas Eve, and it was as if all of Stockholm had gone home. Christmas trees were lit up in each apartment. After a couple of minutes of driving he passed the tolls at Alvik Bridge at high speed, going towards the E18 west.

‘This is Broncks.’

I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t misjudge Big Brother.

‘I told you to go home,’ answered Karlström, his voice accompanied by Christmas carols and children’s voices. John Broncks remembered last Christmas, his visit to that beautiful house in that beautiful neighbourhood. A year ago. And he was investigating them, still.

‘I’m in the car, heading for Heby, just passing Rinkeby.’

‘John, damn it …’

‘It’s them.’

He reached the Rotebro junction and the traffic light shone red as he drove right through it. Karlström waited, silent. Then he turned the phone towards the room, and the sound of Christmas carols got louder.

‘Do you hear that, John?’

An old-fashioned gramophone. A needle scratching against vinyl. ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’.

‘Christmas songs, John. Ham. Mulled wine.’

‘I want the national SWAT team.’

‘John?’

‘I know it’s them.’

‘According to a witness outside the bank, the one who stood guard was significantly older than the others, slower and stiffer than the ones inside the bank.’

‘It’s them.’

‘And there’s never been an old man involved before. Right?’

‘Lennart?’

In ten years he had never used Karlström’s first name.

‘Yes?’

‘We’ve never been this close. But my colleagues in Heby need reinforcements. They’ve already shot at one of the cars.’

‘White Christmas’ was finally over. Now it was ‘Frosty the Snowman’ – a cheerful children’s choir singing a happy Christmas song.

‘John, I can’t contact the police chief tonight and ask her for the national SWAT team, not the day before Christmas Eve. Or any day at all if it’s not our district and if there’s nothing to indicate that it
is
them.’

‘Faster, Anneli!’

‘I haven’t driven this way before. We didn’t practise—’

‘Faster! We have to get out of here before they close off the roads!’

The snow danced in their headlights in the middle of a dark forest.

Leo had unfurled the map over his knees and the gun that lay there – moving his finger along the road they were on right now, while the car lurched violently and he bumped his shoulder and head on the side window.

‘I don’t know where we are, Leo, I—’

‘Just keep driving!’

She drove, but she wasn’t present any more, she was back there with the seven shots he’d put into a police car. They had opened fire. Those that shoot can be shot at.

‘When we pass those summer houses, there’s an exit to the road. Four kilometres. Just drive the way I tell you!’

She’d known that those guns could really be used, but she had never allowed herself to think about it.

‘Anneli?’

Now she had to think about it. They had already been used.

‘Anneli, stop!’

Weapons that could kill.

‘Stop! I’ll drive!’

She heard his screaming now. Stop here? In the woods? Why would she do that? And as she looked in the rear view mirror, searching for the police car they’d shot to pieces, the bend came closer and the wheel slid between her hands.

‘Turn!’

All three men yelled at the same time.

Too late. Her whole body braced against the brake pedal as the car slid, all four wheels gliding helplessly into the ditch, then tipped over the edge, going down as the snow was hurled at the window with a defiant sigh. There it stopped. The impact inside the car was hardly noticeable. The silence was more tangible. It confirmed that the unthinkable had happened. That there was no longer a getaway car to escape in.

Leo pushed open the door, which was forced back by a snowdrift. He turned his body, his back to the dashboard as he braced himself and
kicked, again and again, opening it a little more with each kick. He crawled out and stood in snow that reached above his knees.

‘Jasper, you take the weapons. Pappa, you take the money. Everybody out now!’

One by one, they stepped out into the snowstorm. Jasper with the handles of the weapons case over his shoulders like a backpack, Ivan with three and a half million in a sports bag in his arms, Anneli with blood gushing from her nose.

‘Here. Take this,’ said Ivan, offering his handkerchief. She wiped her face and cleaned herself off with snow.

‘Sebastian? Leo …’

‘Come on.’

‘What will he say? What will … he’s supposed to be coming tomorrow. To our home.’

‘Anneli? Look at me. We are going home, now.’

‘He’s coming tomorrow. We’re celebrating Christmas. And we’ve … fired a gun at someone.’

She pulled her thin coat more tightly around her body, climbed out of the ditch and onto the road. Leo opened the boot and threw all the carefully wrapped gifts into the snow, heaving out the bag that held the jackets and trousers used in the robbery.

‘It’ll be cold.’

A jacket for Anneli, who didn’t even try to catch it, one for Jasper who snapped it over the jacket he already had, and one for Ivan who accepted it, but then dropped it in the snow. He wasn’t cold.

‘Four kilometres to the main road on the other side. If we can get through the forest, no local cop can challenge our weapons, and it’ll take ninety minutes to get reinforcements here. We have to keep the distance.’

It was snowing, but the white wall was no longer there, it was more like a soft curtain, fabric billowing in slow motion. Easier to see. Easier to be seen. They started walking across the field, towards the edge of the forest, when Anneli stopped abruptly and sank into the deep snow on her knees.

‘I don’t want to go on,’ she said.

‘Damn it, Anneli!’

‘I don’t want to. I’ve never wanted to. I want to … go home.’

‘Get up right now!’

She sat there in the snow. And wept.

‘I said yes. To a question you never even asked! And now I’m … here.’