They didn’t say much as they walked, past Slussen, over Skeppsbron and past the palace, over the bridge to Gustav Adolfs Torg, pausing there amongst all the prestigious buildings: the opera house behind them and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in front.
She lived on Kungsholmen, by Västerbron, he on Sveavägen, by the crossroads with Odengatan. They couldn’t walk in the same direction any farther and were already going their separate ways.
Ewert Grens watched her back as she slowly disappeared. He stood at a loss for a couple of minutes. He didn’t want to go home.
He held his face up to the sky for a while, to the light snow that fell on his skin. Until he felt cold and his cheeks were red; then he spun around and looked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the window up there on the second floor that was still lit.
He thought he could see the outline of a person.
Someone standing looking out over the city.
No doubt some bureaucrat or other who was sitting there struggling with the John Schwarz case and the diplomatic pitfalls it entailed.
And good luck to them.
Half an hour until midnight. State Secretary Thorulf Winge stood by the window in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, looking out at Gustav Adolfs Torg, not concentrating. An older man and a young woman down there, the woman kissed the man on the cheek and then they parted.
Thorulf Winge yawned, stretched his arms up above his head and turned back into the room.
He was starting to get tired. The long day had become even longer a few hours ago. A formal request for the extradition of John Meyer Frey had arrived by fax as soon as Leonardo Stevens had politely wished Winge good night and gone down the steps to the black car that would drive him to the residency at Gärdet.
But this was what he lived for.
Diplomatic sparring with no onlookers other than power.
He had been in contact with the foreign minister several times that day.
Twice with the prime minister. And for the past three hours he had been locked up in his office together with two civil servants, going through every sentence of the extradition agreement between the EU and the United States in detail, looking at different solutions and the consequences that a refusal to extradite might have on relations between the two countries, trying to predict how the press and the public would react if the extradition case became known.
He stretched again, leaned forward, then back, as his physiotherapist had taught him. He got some warm water and put some fresh tea in the strainers in their cups.
Still a few hours of night left.
By dawn they would have a proposal regarding John Meyer Frey’s future, and how to ensure it caused as little damage as possible.
EWERT GRENS WALKED THROUGH THE COLD AND ALMOST SILENT
Stockholm night. He had tried to get her to take a taxi, it wasn’t entirely without risk for a beautiful girl dressed up for dancing to walk alone through the city, but she had insisted, got him to cancel the reservation and trust that she could look after herself. He was in no doubt about that, of course, she could look after herself perfectly well. But he still wasn’t happy about it and made her promise to keep her phone at hand with his number at the ready, just the press of a button away.
She had kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for a lovely evening, and when she left he had felt happier and lonelier than he had for years.
Now, with the front door to his large, empty apartment open in front of him, he felt the waste like a hand around his throat. He wandered in and out of the rooms that all looked the same as when he’d left them.
He drank some ice-cold water straight from the tap in the kitchen.
He leafed through a book that lay half-read on the table in his study.
He even switched on the TV and watched part of an episode of some police series that he’d watched a few years ago on a different channel, the sort where everything moves fast to monotone music and the cops always hold their guns with two hands when they fire.
Ewert Grens didn’t want to be there.
He put his coat on again, called a cab, and hurried down to the entrance.
He would go back to Kronoberg, to his office and Siw Malmkvist and the Schwarz investigation; the night seemed shorter there, among things that he recognized.
WHEN THE COFFEE CUP SLIPPED OUT OF SVEN SUNDKVIST’S HAND IT WAS
about the last thing he needed. He swore so loudly that it echoed down the deserted corridor, and he kicked the panel at the bottom of the machine before bending down to wipe away as much of the brownish liquid as possible with his hand.
It was six in the morning and he was tired, irritated, and far from being the policeman who normally radiated calm and thoughtfulness.
He longed to be at home, in his bed.
For the second night in succession, Ewert Grens had phoned and woken him. For the second night in succession, Grens had said there was an early meeting in connection with the Schwarz investigation.
And as if that wasn’t enough, Ewert had then started to talk uncontrollably, first about John Schwarz and other things connected to their police work, and then after a while about everything else, about life, about things he generally never spoke about. In the end, Sven had asked if he was tipsy and Ewert had admitted that he’d had a couple of beers but that had been hours ago and why was he asking, anyway?
Sven had put down the receiver, pulled out the plug, and sworn that he would not head for the city any earlier than he’d promised Anita.
He walked down the dark corridor with a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, on his way to Ewert’s office, but stopped abruptly on the threshold. There was someone in there already. Someone with his back to the door, bending over slightly, in a very expensive gray suit. Sven Sundkvist took a step to the side and decided to wait outside until the meeting was over.
“Sven, for God’s sake, where do you think you’re going?”
Sven went back to the door. He looked at the man in the gray suit. Ewert’s voice. But no more than that.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, boy?”
“Ewert?”
“Yes. Hello?”
“What do you look like?”
Ewert Grens danced toward the door and Sundkvist.
“Like a hunk.”
“Like a what?”
“A hunk. Jesus, Sven, have you never seen a hunk before?”
“I don’t think so.”
“A good-looking guy. A hunk. I went out dancing with Hermansson last night. That’s what she called me. The sort of thing young people say.
Hunk, Sven, damn it!”
Sven was a few minutes early and sat down on the sofa that had once been dark brown corduroy, with distinct wales. Ewert stood in front of him in his new clothes, looking for all the world like a bureaucrat. Sven studied his face as he talked and saw a kind of relief there; Ewert told him about his first dance steps for twenty-five years, about how scared he’d been, that Hermansson had got the band to play “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” and that he’d laughed, an unexpected sound from his belly that had bubbled up and out and surprised him.
Lars Ågestam arrived at six o’clock sharp, Hermansson three minutes later.
They both looked surprisingly fresh and Sven suddenly felt even more tired, leaned back into the sofa and noticed that Hermansson gave an amused smile when she saw that her boss was still wearing last night’s suit.
“Do you believe in capital punishment, Ågestam?”
Grens was searching through the piles of paper that lay strewn across the floor when he asked the question.
“You know that I don’t.”
“Sven?”
“No.”
“Hermansson?”
“No.”
Ewert Grens squatted down, picked out a sheet of paper here and there, and put them to one side.
“I guessed as much. And as I don’t either, well, we may have a problem.”
He had now gathered a smaller pile, ten to fifteen typed documents, and stood up. Sven watched the large man lumbering toward him, as did the others, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the suit, and how incredibly different such an ordinary and accepted item of clothing could look on a person whose clothes were normally wrinkled, shabby, slightly too short or too big.
“I’ve talked to a number of people during the night.”
No one who was sitting in the room questioned that.
“They’re very busy now. The ass kissers who ordered the blackout via Ågestam.”
Lars Ågestam was red in the face, about to stand up, but then decided not to. The bitter shit would never understand.
Ewert Grens recounted in minute detail each of the late-night phone calls, explained that the activity in both countries’ foreign ministries was now focused on a person who was being held in custody a few floors up, who was under investigation by City Police for aggravated assault. The risk of extradition was starting to be more than a risk and he had no fucking idea how to prevent it.
He handed the pile of papers that he’d picked up from the floor to Sven.
“I want you to read this again. Everything we’ve got on Schwarz from the United States. You see, potentially we could be changing the sentencing framework in this country. We are in the process of imposing the death sentence on a man who possibly is guilty of aggravated assault.”
United Airlines flight UA9358 from Chicago landed at Arlanda outside Stockholm at 0645 hours, fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled. The pilot, who spoke with an accent that Ruben Frey didn’t recognize, had announced over the PA system that this was thanks to a strong tailwind, and when Ruben asked the man who was sitting next to him, who looked like a seasoned traveler, what that meant, he had been given a long and complicated answer that sounded knowledgeable but that he promptly forgot.
Ruben Frey had never been to Europe before. In fact, he had never flown before. The state of Ohio was large enough for him, and his regular trips from Marcusville to Columbus, or even as far as Cleveland, held about as much excitement as he needed from life. The day had started early in Marcusville. He had driven his second-hand Mercedes, a car that he’d owned for almost twenty years, from his home westward through the dawn to the airport in Cincinnati. He had checked in two hours before departure, just as he was requested to do on the ticket, and then eaten an expensive lunch in a chaotic restaurant for people with hand luggage who were on their way somewhere. A short flight from Cincinnati to Chicago, they were barely up in the air before they started the descent to a two-hour wait in an airport as big as Scioto County. It had taken considerably longer between Chicago and Stockholm, and even though the air hostesses had been friendly and the film that was shown on the small screens that hung down between the seats had been an OK comedy, once he was home he would never venture beyond Ohio’s state lines again.
It was colder in Stockholm than in Marcusville; the snow lay deep along the roadside as he sat in a taxi from Arlanda airport into Stockholm. The driver spoke reasonable English and gave him a detailed report of the weather forecast that was for more snow and even lower temperatures over the coming days.
Ruben Frey had a pain in his chest.
The last few days were not something he ever wanted to experience again. It was eighteen years since the Finnigan girl had been murdered and his son had been accused, prosecuted, and convicted. Eighteen years and it was still going on.
It had been hard to deny it when he knew the truth so well. The interviews in Cincinnati had been horrible, he felt uncomfortable lying to the boy Hutton and his colleague, and several times he had been close to admitting what he mustn’t. It had been even harder to pretend to be as happy and thankful as a father should be when he’s told that his only son, whom he had buried, has now been found alive. Ruben gave a loud sigh and the driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He had been close to breaking, he assumed that it was pure luck that he hadn’t been detained by the FBI and he wondered how much it had to do with the fact that it had been Kevin Hutton sitting on the other side of the desk.
It took a good half hour to get to Bergsgatan and Kronoberg. He had asked about Stockholm on the plane and been told that it was a beautiful capital, lots of water, parts of the city built on islands and an endless archipelago strewn out in the sea toward Finland.
It was undoubtedly beautiful. But he didn’t see anything. To be honest, he didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t here to sightsee. He was here to rescue his son from death, for the second time.
He paid and got out. It was still early and the main entrance was locked.
He knew who he was looking for.
When Ruben Frey left the final interview, Kevin Hutton had pulled out and shown him one paper too many. He had put it down on the desk in front of Ruben, then turned to look out of the window as if something had caught his eye, and had waited long enough for Ruben to read it, before turning back again and picking it up.
It was a request for legal assistance in connection with the questioning of Ruben Frey.
The request had been faxed from Sweden, a formal request from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a note that it had been copied to a detective superintendent called Ewert Grens.
Sven Sundkvist weighed the pile of paper in his hand for a while, distracted, then put it down on his knee while he looked at Ewert, who was standing choosing between two cassettes from the shelf behind his desk.
“A doctor can’t participate in an execution. Did you know that?”
Ewert didn’t answer, nor did Ågestam or Hermansson, as they hadn’t heard it as a question.
“The Hippocratic oath they have to take, and the medical ethics they promise to respect, don’t allow them to be present when society takes a life. On the other hand, and this is what’s interesting, they are liable and responsible for the procurement of the drugs that are used for executions.”
Sundkvist didn’t expect a response. He wasn’t even sure if the others had heard what he said. Ewert was still choosing between Siw and Siw, and Ågestam and Hermansson were reading the documents they’d been asked to read. It didn’t matter. The irritation that had been buzzing around his head like an angry fly had gone, and the tiredness from a night of unwanted wakefulness was retreating. Ewert and his suit and talk of being a hunk, Hermansson and Ågestam in a good mood, the unlikely story they held in their hands and the realization of how serious it could become—Sven Sundkvist no longer had anything against sitting there on the worn sofa as the dark dissolved outside the window.