“Schwarz did not intend to kill him.”
“You have no idea what bleeding and swelling in the brain can do. You have no idea of the consequences. He fucking kicked his head with all his might!”
He was driving faster now, unconsciously pressing the accelerator to the floor while he waited for the young prosecutor to answer.
“I hear what you’re saying, Grens. But
I
have the legal knowledge,
I
am heading the investigation, and
I
will decide what kind of charge is reasonable.”
“It was—”
“And only
me
.”
Ewert Grens didn’t shout as he normally did when Ågestam tried to fill a suit that was too big. He just hung up in despair and dropped his speed as he came off the Lidingö Bridge, past the apartment buildings and expensive houses as the traffic thinned out. He knew. He was on his way to her and he knew.
The nursing home was beautifully lit, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day; floodlights angled across the facade of the old house—that was new, he hadn’t seen it before.
A warmth surged through his body when he got out of the car. Every time the same feeling, as if all the tension was released. He didn’t need to be on his guard, he didn’t even need to be angry. This house meant trust and routine. And she was sitting inside waiting for him; he was the way he was and she had always put up with it.
She was sitting by the window, as usual. She must know that the life she was no longer part of was going on out there, so she took her place, as best she could, in her own way.
It was the young auxiliary nurse who met him out in the hall. White coat over her own clothes. Ewert Grens knew that she was studying to become a doctor, that this was extra money to pay off her student loan, and she was good, looked after Anni well, so he hoped that it would be a while until she passed her exams.
“She’s waiting for you.”
“I saw her. By the window. She looked happy.”
“I’m sure she knows you’re coming.”
She didn’t hear him open the door to her room. He stood on the threshold, looked at her back that stuck up from the wheelchair, her long blond hair that had recently been brushed.
I held you when you were bleeding from the head.
He went over, kissed her on the cheek, maybe she smiled, he thought she did. He moved the cardigan that was hanging on the chair beside her bed and sat down next to her. She continued to stare out the window, eyes unwavering. He tried to understand what it was she was looking at, followed her gaze, same direction. The open water. Boats sailing far below in the sound between west Lidingö and east Stockholm. He wondered whether she actually saw anything. And if she did, if she then knew what it was she was looking for out of the window all day.
If I had been quicker. If I had realized. You might still have been with me today.
He laid his hand on hers.
“You’re beautiful.”
She heard him talking. At least, she turned around.
“It’s been crazy today. I had to come. I needed you.”
Now she laughed. The loud, gurgling laughter that he loved so much.
“You and me.”
They sat next to each other and looked out of the window for nearly half an hour. Silent, together. Ewert Grens breathed to her rhythm, he thought about another time when they had walked slowly side by side, days that could have been so different; he thought about yesterday and this morning and the unidentified suspect who was stealing time from other things, of Sven, whom he should appreciate more, of Hermansson, whom he didn’t really understand.
“I said yesterday that I’d employed a young woman. That she’s so like you. She doesn’t take any nonsense. She knows who she is. It’s as if you were back in the corridor again. Do you understand? It doesn’t mean anything, not for us. But sometimes I forget that it isn’t you.”
He had stayed longer than he intended. They’d sat by the window some more, she had coughed and he’d got her some water, she had dribbled and he’d dried her chin.
It was then that it happened.
She had been sitting beside him and the boat was so clear as it passed below on the water.
She had waved.
He’d seen it, he was sure of it, she
had
waved.
When the big white ferry from Waxholmsbolaget had sounded its horn, she had laughed, lifted her hand, and waved it back and forth several times. He had gone to pieces.
He knew that she couldn’t do it. All the fucking neurologists had concluded that she would probably never be able to perform such a conscious action.
He had run out into the corridor, his heavy body lurching forward, shouting to the young woman who had let him in earlier.
The auxiliary nurse, whose name was Susann, had listened. One hand on his shoulder. The other on Anni’s arm. Then she had slowly tried to help him understand that it hadn’t happened. She explained that she understood that he loved her and missed her and so desperately wanted to see what he claimed he’d just seen, but that he had to accept that it wasn’t possible, that it hadn’t happened.
She had stroked her hand back and forth several times.
He knew exactly what the fuck he’d seen.
Ewert Grens had barely left before he started to feel stressed again. Anni was still with him as he approached central Stockholm and the rest of the day that was waiting for him. He hated the feeling of being behind and, in order to stifle it, reached for the mobile phone that was in his briefcase and dialed one of his few stored numbers.
Hermansson’s broad Skåne accent after two rings.
“Hello.”
“How’s it going?”
“I’ve just read through everything we’ve got. I’m well prepared. I’ll question him after the committal proceedings.”
She had waved.
“Good.”
She would wave again.
“Good.”
“It was you who called, Ewert. Was there anything else?”
Grens focused on the car in front; he had to forget for a while—later, he could continue to think about Anni later. Right now there was a Finnish man lying in the Karolinska Hospital, someone else who risked becoming a person who would forever more watch life through a window.
“Yes. There was something else. I want to know who that bastard is.”
“I’ve—”
“Interpol.”
“Now?”
“I want to find his identity. He exists somewhere. The level of violence . . . he’s done this before.” Grens didn’t wait for an answer. “Go up to Interpol in C Block and speak to Jens Klövje. Put out a blue notice for the bastard. Take the photographs and fingerprints with you.”
Ågestam had wanted more. He would get more.
“He exists in some register somewhere. I’m sure of it. We’ll know who John Schwarz is by tomorrow morning.”
IT TOOK HERMANSSON EXACTLY FIVE MINUTES TO GET FROM HER OWN
office to Jens Klövje’s much larger office in C Block. It was her first visit to the Swedish Interpol, but she recognized him all the same, one of several guest lecturers for one of the courses at the Swedish National Police Academy. Klövje was Grens’s age and he nodded at her absentmindedly when she opened the door, that uneasy feeling of disturbing someone again.
She put the false passport down on the desk in front of him, the fresh fingerprints beside it.
“John Doe.”
Klövje sighed.
“Again?”
“He goes by the name of John Schwarz. Age, height, the details in the passport are all correct.”
“Is there a rush?”
“His committal proceeding will be in a few hours.”
Klövje looked through the passport, page by page, then studied the fingerprints. He hummed something that Hermansson didn’t recognize.
“Is this all?”
“You can get a DNA profile tomorrow. But we don’t want to wait until then. Grens is certain that he’s registered somewhere, in the criminal records.”
Jens Klövje put what he’d got in a plastic envelope, weighed it absently in his hand.
“How does he speak?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does he speak Swedish?”
Hermansson visualized John Schwarz sitting silent in the back of the car, his face hidden in his hands, screaming in English in the holding cell corridor with his arms waving in front of him.
“He hasn’t said much. But from what I’ve heard, on the stairs when we went to get him . . . yes, he does.”
“Accent?”
“British. Or American. The passport is Canadian.”
Klövje smiled.
“Narrows the search down a bit.”
He put the plastic folder in a tray by the computer.
“I’ll send this out in fifteen minutes. I’ll stick to English-speaking countries to begin with. It will take a few hours, time differences and all that, but I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.”
She nodded to him, he nodded back. She turned around and moved to leave.
“By the way, I agree with Grens.”
He kept on talking as she left.
“We’ve got him.”
THE OLD STONE STAIRWELL ECHOED WITH THE SOUND OF THE GUARDS’
hard heels, mixed with the monotonous sound that the man who called himself John Schwarz made as they went up into the courtroom on the second floor of Stockholm City Hall. He’d been making the noise ever since one of the guards had locked the handcuffs around one of his thin wrists—an irritating shrill sound that pierced through your head and got louder the closer they got.
The oversized clothes John wore were made from a fabric that scratched and was too thin. He was freezing; it was cold outside and almost as cold inside the vast, high-ceilinged building, and the radiators were few and far between. Same officers as yesterday afternoon, the older one with the silver hair and the younger one who was tall and had blue spectacle frames; they walked beside him, one step for every step he took, but he barely noticed them, just increased the force of the noise that locked his jaws shut and stared straight ahead.
The door was wooden; it was open and there were people inside.
Public prosecutor Lars Ågestam (LÅ): During a search of John Schwarz’s apartment on Monday, these pants and these shoes were found.
For the defense, Kristina Björnsson (KB): Schwarz pleads guilty to kicking Ylikoski in the head.
Someone turned on the ceiling lights. It was still a long time until dusk, but it was one of those days when the light seems to have petered out by midmorning and a gloom held the capital in its great embrace. The silverhaired guard looked him in the eye and unlocked the handcuffs. The man who called himself John Schwarz kept making the grating noise as he looked out of the large window that flashed in the artificial light. It was a long way down to the ground—he’d considered it, of course he had—but he didn’t dare jump.
LÅ: A forensic analysis has shown traces of Ylikoski’s saliva on the pants, and Ylikoski’s hair and blood on the shoes.
KB: Schwarz pleads guilty but states that his intention was to force Ylikoski to stop harassing a woman on the dance floor.
He sat beside his lawyer. She was stressed, he could feel it, but her smile was friendly.
“That noise. I wish you’d stop it.”
He didn’t hear what she said, the sound was in the way and he didn’t dare stop, it kept his jaws together, if he let it stop then only the scream would be left.
“It might not be to your advantage. Making that noise.”
The sound. He wouldn’t let it go.
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Would you prefer me to speak English? These are the committal proceedings. From experience, I know that suspects get a more favorable hearing if they behave as normally as possible.”
He lowered the volume.
But it was still there.
The sound was his, the only thing in the room.
LÅ: Schwarz is not named Schwarz. He has no identity. I request that he is held in custody on charges of aggravated assault, due to the risk that he might further complicate the investigation by absconding. KB: Schwarz had no intention to injure. Furthermore, he suffers from acute claustrophobia. Being held in custody would therefore be inhumane.
He was quiet then. When the court clerk explained to him the terms of custody on the grounds of suspected aggravated assault, he instead sank to the floor in a fetal position with his hands over his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear, while the clerk ran his hands through his red hair in agitation and repeated his request that he stand up.
Both the officers held him by the arms, they pulled him to his feet. Handcuffs around his wrists again. He was shaking when they pushed him out of Court no. 10 and down the stone stairs.
The monotonous noise echoed like before, and the silver-haired guard seemed to be exasperated. He walked beside him the whole way down, alternately hissing quietly, then raising his voice.
“Had you planned your strategy with your lawyer, then?
“You’re going to be here for a long time.
“Until they’ve IDed you. Until you’ve got a name.”
He looked at the officer, shook his head.
He didn’t want to.
Didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to talk.
Old Silverhair didn’t give up, took a couple of steps forward, stopped directly below him on the last step and turned around. They were about the same height now, their breath mixing between them.
The guard punched the air.
“Don’t you get it? Kronoberg detention center is full of foreigners like you, who don’t have any ID. With no fixed custody period. Why don’t you just say who you are instead? And get procedures moving again? They’re waiting for you. It’ll take the time it takes. You’ll be the one who loses out, you’ll be the one sitting here with full restrictions for longer than you need to, cut off from everyone you care about.”
The prison clothes scratched, the thin man who had just been held in custody on reasonable grounds was tired; he looked at the silver hair, his voice weak.
“You don’t understand.”
He moved restlessly from one foot to the other on the hard step.
“My name.”
He coughed, spoke louder.
“My name is John Schwarz.”
IT WAS JUST AFTER THREE O’CLOCK WHEN JENS KLöVJE FAXED OVER
several documents regarding a man in his thirties who called himself John Schwarz and had been kept in custody. Klövje had for the present concentrated on countries where English was the official language—after all, Hermansson had been clear on that point, the suspect’s accent was significant, his mother tongue easy to identify.