The Falling Detective (3 page)

Down by the body, a lot has changed, yet nothing has changed. He's no longer wearing shoes, and someone has taken off his overcoat. From a distance, the body is scarcely visible, obscured by everyone moving around it. Outside, far away near the edge of the cordoned-off area, what could be an undercover police car is waiting. In fact, it belongs to
Aftonbladet
or
Expressen
. The constables are nowhere to be seen. They might be composing themselves after calling Gabriel Birck. It's even colder now, at least it feels like it, but changes like these are neither here nor there, because the dead man is just as dead, the snow is falling as relentlessly as before, and some nights that sort of thing is all that matters.

‘Who made the emergency call?' I ask, holding my phone in my hand.

I don't trust my memory anymore, and I need to summarise the conversation with the boy, but I don't have anything to write on, apart from my phone. One of the uniformed constables is holding a notebook in one hand and a half-eaten ham-and-cheese roll in the other. His name is Fredrik Marström, a young officer from Norrland with shoulders like a weightlifter.

‘Oh yes,' he says, and flips back two leaves. ‘It was an anonymous call made from a mobile. The individual's voice sounded strange, as though he or she was disguising it. But we don't know. I've ordered a copy of the recording, which is being sent to you. The duty officer tried to get their name, but then they hung up, apparently. Fortunately they decided to send someone down anyway.

‘And that was you?'

‘Me and Hall,' Markström says, taking another bite of the roll. Åsa Hall is from Gothenburg, and is essentially the complete opposite of Fredrik Markström: chatty, small in stature, and cheerful.

‘Who came after you?'

‘Larsson and Leifby.'

‘Larsson and Leifby?'

‘That's right.'

‘What the hell were they doing in town?'

Markström takes another bite.

‘No idea. They said they were in the area.'

Larsson and Leifby are beat officers out in Huddinge, and they're the type that almost never get to represent the force on information days and at recruitment events. One is scared of heights, the other of guns — burdens that are troublesome, to put it mildly, for police officers to carry. Not only that, but they like a sensational story as much as the tabloid hacks do.

When Markström and Hall arrived at the scene, they did everything by the book. Larsson and Leifby were charged with talking to possible witnesses. Neither is anywhere to be seen, and I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I head over to the big bins that line the walls of the yard. They smell sour. I kneel down in front of them, once again feeling the cold from the ground surge through my jeans and up my thighs, only this time my senses are slightly dulled and the cold is blunter, more bearable.

Behind one of the containers, the thin dusting of snow is not intact. Someone has been standing there, taking a few steps back and forth. The shoeprints are indistinct. Boots, but well-worn — the sort you wear if you can't afford to buy new ones every year.

‘Victoria,' I say quietly, causing Mauritzon to look up from the body. ‘I think someone has been standing here.'

She makes a note in the notebook she keeps in the breast pocket of her overalls.

I walk out onto the street and down the road, go past the cordon, and smoke a cigarette. The music from the club is pulsating, this time an old tune that's been remixed, so that you can dance to it. I remember the melody from being a teenager, and for a second I wish I was fifteen years younger, that I was still in education, that the future felt a little more unwritten.

In the inside pocket of my coat, my phone vibrates. It's a text from Sam.

are you asleep?

no I'm on duty

having a good night?

I consider my answer, take a drag.

it's alright
I end up writing
. murder in vasastan,
I go on, but then change my mind, delete it, and write
how about you?

i miss you,
comes the reply, making me wish that I was somewhere else right now.

tomorrow?

yes, tomorrow's good for me.

I wonder what it means. Sam almost always cancels or postpones when we're supposed to meet up.

A well-dressed man with equally well-kept hair and with his unbuttoned overcoat flapping behind him walks through the snow towards me. He raises his hand and looks at the cigarette between my fingers, with a disdain that becomes desire as he gets closer.

‘Happy Saint Lucia,' I say.

‘Can I have the end?' he asks.

I give Gabriel Birck the half-smoked cigarette, and he sucks the life out of it.

‘I didn't know you smoked.'

‘There's a lot you don't know. Who's in charge here?'

‘You.'

‘Me? We need a commissioner. Where's Morelius?'

‘On leave.'

Birck rolls his eyes.

‘Well, get Calander down here then. He's not on leave, and I know that for sure, because I saw him by the hotdog stand on St Eriksplan a few hours ago, and he looked very much ready for action.'

‘He's busy with the axe man on Tegnérsgatan.'

‘Fuck. What about Bäckström? He's better than nothing.'

I shake my head.

‘On secondment with the National Crime Squad.'

‘Fucking hell. Poor NCS.'

Birck stubs out the last embers against the wall of the building and moves as if to leave, but then stops, sniffing the air.

‘Have you been sick?'

‘No.'

‘You smell of vomit.'

‘I haven't been sick.'

‘In that case, someone's been sick on you.'

‘Not today.'

This tickles Birck, and he laughs. He pulls a pair of gloves from the pockets of his coat.

‘Where is he?'

‘In the yard at the back.'

‘We've got one witness,' I say, and look up at the window where the Christmas star is still glowing. ‘John Thyrell. He has, in all probability, seen the perpetrator.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘I've spoken to him.'

‘And what did he say?'

‘Well, quite a lot, I think, but …'

‘What?'

‘According to his mum, he's six years old.'

‘Six years old?' Birck grimaces. ‘Great.'

He crouches beside Thomas Heber's still, lifeless face. The card holder is lying in its spot by the rucksack, and he picks it up and pulls out the ID-card.

‘A good-looking bloke.'

‘They die too, you know,' says Mauritzon.

Birck puts the card back in the card holder and puts it back on the ground, gets up and looks around, taking a couple of minutes to orientate himself at the crime scene.

‘Heber comes here,' I say. ‘He stands here. Maybe there's already someone else here, behind one of the bins. There probably is. Another person arrives, the one who puts the knife into Heber. Considering the wound is in his back, he probably comes from behind. Heber drops, and then the perpetrator roots around in his rucksack, finds what he's looking for — we should probably assume — and then leaves the scene, probably with Heber's mobile phone on him, since we haven't found one here. He's heading for the city centre. After that, the person behind the bins also leaves, according to the witness. Maybe it's him, the one behind the bin, who makes the call to the police. The question is, what was he doing here? Either he's got something to do with it, or else it's a coincidence. Maybe some homeless bloke or a junkie.'

‘Your witness is a six-year-old boy,' says Birck.

‘But his account tallies with how it looks behind the bins. Someone has been standing there.'

‘Let's hope there are other witnesses.' He looks around. ‘It could have been a robbery. But why leave the cash, in that case? It must have been something else.'

‘Yes. The question is what. The phone, maybe?

‘But would Heber have had it in the rucksack? How many people keep their phone there?'

Markström approaches us with his notebook in one hand and coffee in a plastic cup in the other. I wonder if I have ever seen Markström without food or drink in his hands. I doubt it, but then again haven't known him that long.

‘Thomas Markus Heber,' he says, then slurps some coffee. ‘Born seventy-eight. Single, no children. Living at Vanadisvägen 5, less than a kilometre from here. Convicted of assault eleven years ago, 2002, and a breach of the peace the year before that.

‘Assault and breaching the peace,' Birck says, turning to me. ‘You'll take that?'

‘Yes.' I look up at the window again. ‘I suppose I will.'

John has disappeared, probably forced into bed by his mother. I wonder if this has affected the boy, whether this evening will stay with him. I hope not. ‘Tomorrow.'

‘I'll do his apartment,' says Birck.

‘Have you got a key?'

Birck points quizzically at the key ring lying on the ground. I hesitate.

‘Do you want company?'

‘No. But you can't always get what you want.'

Those who don't know that there's something wrong with the door never notice, despite Christian having used a big fucking hammer. That was all he could think of at the time, the only thing he took with him. The door handle is hanging loose, and the door won't close completely, but that's all. In the dark it's hardly noticeable.

He's standing on the road, in full view. The lights in the building are off, apart from an advent wreath in one of the windows a couple of storeys up. It's just after half-past nine in the evening. Less than an hour until Thomas Heber dies.

He's stuffed the plastic bag with the knife in inside his coat, and he can feel it against his body, moving in time with his strides. He leaves Kungsholmen in a hurry, on foot. He throws the hammer into a builder's skip near St Eriksplan. No one sees him. No one sees anything anymore.

Christian and Michael spent half their lives without each other; half, together. There's a symmetry to this that tells you something, isn't there?

They were fifteen, fifteen years ago. They were at a party in Hagsätra, in one of the tower blocks by the centre. It was March, and no other month can drag on forever the way March sometimes does. Everything was grey.

They knew of each other, but had never talked, just seen each other in the square and at the recreation ground a few times.

Christian went out on the balcony for a smoke, and there he was. They started talking. There was something weird between them, at least that's the way he felt, but at first he couldn't put his finger on what.

Then he realised that they were both wearing T-shirts with
SKREWDRIVER
on them. They both noticed at the same time, looking down at each other's chests. They laughed. Christian's was white. He had got it from his brother, Anton. Michael had a black one.

‘Do you like Skrewdriver?'

‘I've only heard the first album, nothing else,' Christian replied. ‘I got that and the T-shirt from my brother. But I do like that album.'

‘Same here. I like
All Skrewed Up,
but not the others. You know they became Nazis later, right?'

‘What?'

‘Neo-Nazis.'

Christian was stumped. The T-shirt print changed, became threatening. He wondered if Anton knew, if that was why he'd given him the T-shirt. To wind him up. So that Christian would get beaten up.

‘No, I had no idea.'

‘Fucked up,' said Michael. ‘That a band start out as punks, then do a whatsit, what's it called?'

‘U-turn.'

‘That's right. Fucked up, isn't it?'

‘Yes.'

On the other side of the glass, inside the flat, someone fell off the sofa's armrest. They turned around and peered into the room.

‘That's Petter,' Christian said. ‘He's in my class. He always gets too drunk.'

Inside the flat, Nirvana were singing about finding their friends.

That's how it started.

‘Do you live in Hagsätra?' Michael asked.

Christian nodded, and shuddered from the cold.

‘On Åmmebergsgatan, over by the recreation ground. You too?'

‘Glanshammarsgatan.' He pointed between the tower blocks, where candles were lit in the small windows. ‘Can you see the lower block between those two high ones?'

Christian strained to focus, and adjusted his glasses. He smoked only occasionally, and when he combined it with beer, it was like he got twice as drunk.

‘Yes,' he said.

‘The second window from the top, second from the right. That's my room.'

The lights were off.

Christian had severe acne and was extremely short-sighted, so he wore glasses so thick they made his eyes look like drawing pins. There was a big guy at school, called Patrick, who used to shout, ‘Hello, zit, how's it going?' at him so that the girls would laugh. Christian tried to shrug it off. He was a sporting talent, good at basketball and floorball and table-tennis. That's how he made friends, even if he did suspect that they talked about him behind his back.

His new friend was just like him, he would soon realise. They were similar in that sense, apart from the fact that his new friend had neither acne nor glasses.

‘I need another fucking beer,' said Michael.

‘Me too.'

They dropped the cigarette butts from the balcony, watching them as they twirled away into the darkness. Then they opened the balcony door and went in. The warmth and humidity inside the flat made Christian's glasses fog up. When Michael saw the white screens hiding Christian's eyes, he burst out laughing.

‘It can't be easy to make a good first impression looking like that.'

It wasn't. Christian remembers it now. Under different circumstances, he'd probably have laughed at it. It must have looked funny.

Between the tower blocks, strong feelings built up, and most of the time there was nowhere to get rid of them, so you carried them around. You carried them in the corridors at school, kept out of the way of those you were scared of, and got drawn to those you hoped might be a bit like yourself. You carried them when your best friend's locker got prised open and someone had drawn a swastika on the inside of the door. You carried them when you had your first kiss, eleven years old at a disco in the clubhouse at Hagsätra's recreation ground. Her name was Sara, and she had the smoothest skin Christian's fingers had ever come across. They were together for a month. Despite being only twelve, Sara had started wearing a bra, and the day before they split up she'd let him touch her breasts. He wondered if that was why, that she didn't want to be with him because he'd been too forward.

You carried those feelings when you were fourteen and fell in love for the first time, and her name was Pernilla and she wrote
they can laugh if they want to, sneer at us — we're moving forward, they're standing still
on a note that she sneaked into his locker through the little gap in the door. It was with her he had had sex for the first time, at a party not unlike the one he wore his Skrewdriver T-shirt to a year or so later.

They were there when you saw three immigrants hitting a Swede in the gut, two holding, one hitting, behind the gym hall, and you carried them when you saw four Swedes beating an immigrant the following day, behind the kiosk owned by one of the Swedes' dads.

You carried them the first time you met someone at a party and he had the same T-shirt as you, and you soon realised that he was going to be your protector and executioner.

There's no catalyst, no single event that starts things rolling. No answer to the question
Why?
There are only events followed by events, and if you go back far enough, everything becomes an ethereal web of them. And that might be, Christian thinks to himself, how we end up becoming the people we are.

As instructed, he avoids the tube and its CCTV, and makes his way out to the university by bus instead. He makes a few detours, changes several times so as not to arrive too early. At each bus stop, he's freezing cold. The buses come coughing out of the darkness, and none of their drivers are Swedish. He passes The Vasa Real School, where someone has written
JEWISH SWINE,
followed by the number 1488. He wonders who held the pen. Snow has started falling. By Odenplan, a Saint Lucia procession made up of students winds past him, laughing and stinking of alcohol.

Stockholm University's large sheet-metal complex towers over him as he steps off the last bus into the darkness. He is waiting in the shadows by one of the corners of the complex, Christian can sense it as he gets closer. And, sure enough, there he is, eyes fixed on one of the windows above — the only one with the lights on.

‘Any joy?'

‘Yes.'

‘You don't sound sure.'

‘I'm not.'

‘Give it here.'

Christian pulls down the zip on his coat, and gets out the plastic bag. Michael takes it from him.

‘What were you goi—'

‘Get out of here. We'll get to that later.'

‘But I …'

‘No. Not this time. See you tomorrow.'

Michael looks up at the window again. The lights are still on. A second's hesitation gets stretched and becomes unnaturally long. Thoughts are washing through Christian like a strong current.

‘Alright,' he says, and turns to leave. The snow crunches under his feet. In front of him, the Statoil signage shines large and orange. Traffic swishes past, but it is strangely quiet. It's an evening where old feelings come back.

They were fifteen years old, fifteen years ago.
We're moving forward, they're standing still.

Christian turns his head one last time, looking for the window with the light on, but doesn't see it. The lights are off, and, by the corner of the complex, Michael isn't there anymore.