The Falling Detective (5 page)

It happened during one of the first meetings at St Göran's, and I've been tangled up in it ever since. I should have known that I was always supposed to end up in this struggle, a struggle that seems more and more likely to be in vain.

‘You haven't thought about quitting?' Grim asked.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Those things.'

Grim pointed at the little tube in my hand. I made no attempt to hide it from him.

‘Yes, I've thought about it.'

‘Does Sam know you're taking them?'

‘No.'

‘What would happen if she found out?'

‘I don't know.' That was true. I didn't know how she would react. ‘But I don't think she'd like it.'

‘Hmm,' said Grim.

‘What does that mean?'

‘Well, you want to get back on duty, don't you?'

‘Yes.'

Grim leaned forward.

‘Why is it so important to you? Getting back on duty, I mean.'

‘I … I've got nothing else to do. I don't know how to do anything else. And I need something to do.'

‘Haven't you got Sam?'

‘No.'

‘I thought you were together.'

‘We're not.'

He nodded.

‘Considering your background, they're not going to have you back as long as you're taking them. Or rather,' he corrected himself and flashed a grimacing smile I remembered from when we were friends, ‘as long as they
think
you're taking them.'

‘I don't know if I can stop.'

‘Have you tried?'

‘No.'

‘Aren't you going to try?'

‘I'd need to do it myself. If I get help from outside, people in the building are going to notice. And, as you said, with my background, I'm not going to stay around for long. I can't risk it.'

‘Do it yourself then. Try cutting down. If you do succeed, you'll feel liberated.'

I stared at him.

‘The only reason we're talking about this is because you think it's going to fuck my life up even more, and that's the only kind of injury you can inflict from in here.'

‘You don't understand a fucking thing.' Grim raised his arms and rattled the handcuffs around his wrists. ‘If I could,' he went on, ‘I would hit you so hard in the face right now.'

The vast, green university campus is beautiful, even in December, but the large South Building still feels like the kind of place where you'd park the mentally ill for secure storage. It stretches up nine stories, in bleached-out light blue, with small windows. I arrive at the same time as a thousand students, who all seem to be dreaming of better days. A few are talking, but the vast majority are walking in silence, staring at the ground, holding plastic cups of coffee and carrying heavy rucksacks. Posters for a leftist demonstration cover the walls, and someone has defaced them with the words
LEFTY PIGS, RED BASTARDS, COMMIE WHORES
. The graffiti has in turn been crossed out with a thick black pen, by someone who had has also taken the time to leave their own message:
DIE NAZI PIGS
.

The Sociology Department is at the top of the South Building. I buy my own cup of coffee on the way, mainly to give my hands something to do. Up in the department it's quiet; it feels more like a prison than anything else. The head of the department, Marika Franzén, is sitting in her office a little way down the corridor, in the only room with the door ajar.

‘Leo Junker,' I say. ‘Stockholm Police.'

She spins around in her chair, clearly surprised.

‘Sorry,' I say, ‘I didn't mean to …'

‘No, don't worry.' I see her eyes scanning me, from my boots up to my unkempt hair, and then she gets to her feet and shakes my hand. ‘Come in.'

From the desktop speakers I can hear a choir singing Lucia songs. Marika Franzén is short, with dark hair. She has a narrow face, large glasses, and a little, round button-nose. It's a funny look.

‘I need to ask you a few questions. It's about Thomas Heber. I'm assuming that you have heard?'

‘Yes,' she says, turning down the volume, before deciding to turn the sound off altogether. Her brown eyes reveal that she is shaken, but she is otherwise composed. ‘I have heard. It's awful. I can't quite believe it. Please, sit down.'

One corner of the room is dominated by a three-piece-suite, and I ease myself into one of the armchairs. A pile of papers is lying on the table, and next to that is a bottle of brandy, and two glasses, one of which has traces of lipstick on it.

Marika follows my gaze, and puts the bottle and the glasses into a cupboard. She blushes.

‘I had a drink with a colleague last night — we had a late meeting.'

‘What time was the meeting?'

‘We started at five, and it went on till eight.'

Marika sits down opposite me, on the edge of the sofa, as though prepared for me to spill my coffee and ruin her armchair at any moment.

‘Was Thomas still around?'

‘He was here then. His door was open, and I saw him as I was leaving.'

‘Do you know what time he left?'

‘Well, I did ask if he was going home, as it was getting on. But he'd arranged to meet someone at half-past ten, so he was going to stay till then.'

‘Half-past ten,' I say, pulling a notebook from my inside pocket. ‘Do you know who he was going to meet?'

‘No, but he was doing fieldwork at the time, so I just assumed that it was one of his interview subjects.'

‘Fieldwork?'

‘That's what we usually say — gathering information, empirical data — we call it fieldwork. It's part of the research process.'

‘What was he researching?'

‘Social movements.'

‘And what does that mean?'

She crosses her legs.

‘Social movements is a rather fluid notion, but generally we're talking about groups, like networks or organisations, and their collective actions. The focus is on the group rather than the individual members.'

‘Like
AFA
, for example?'

‘Exactly. Like
AFA
.'

For a second, her gaze seems clear and sharp. Then suddenly her eyes glaze over, becoming almost murky, and she lifts her hand up to her mouth and grimaces. She sniffles, straining to concentrate on the facts. It might be a coping strategy.

‘Social movements are generally concerned with protesting against the status quo, so it's a sensitive subject in many ways.'

‘So it's about political groups?'

‘Not necessarily. It can be about other things — of course, that depends on how you define political. In Thomas's case, it was about the anarchist networks, groups like
AFA
or Revolutionary Front on one side, and the nationalist movement, like Swedish Resistance, on the other.'

‘Left- and right-wing extremists, in other words?'

‘If you want to use those terms, yes. Thomas got funding from The Swedish Research Council to study how the members of various social movements interact with one another, above all members of those social movements that are diametrically opposed to one another. Those who are in effect struggling against each other.'

The page in my notebook is empty. I write
social movements, far r, far l,
AFA
,
then a question mark. My phone rings in my inside pocket. I divert the call without looking at it, and hope it wasn't Sam.

‘I'm wondering about his choice of subject matter.'

‘You mean why he chose social movements?'

‘Why he was looking at the far left and far right. Why them?'

She shrugs.

‘It's no secret that he himself has … had a history in the anarchist movement. We tend to choose research subjects that are close to home, one way or another, and he was no exception.'

‘So you know about his past, with
AFA
?'

‘Of course. I'm also aware of the assault and breach-of-the-peace convictions. I'm reminded a couple of times a year, in those emails we get sent.'

‘What emails?'

‘They come from Nazis, racists, and all sorts of internet trolls.'

A little bubble of clarity has gathered somewhere immediately behind my eyes. I wonder if it is visible to others.

‘Tell me more about the emails.'

‘You know,' Marika says, gesticulating, ‘it's nothing unusual. Sociologists are sometimes rather vulnerable, particularly if the research concerns a subject that is politically contentious at that moment. Lots of people have been sent similar emails, and we always act, report it to the police and everything. Since Utøya and Breivik — well, actually, since 2010, when the Sweden Democrats made it into parliament — we've had a lot more from extremist groups, left and right.'

‘When were these ones sent?'

‘I think the most recent ones were early autumn, but we've received them before. Of course, it's very serious, but there isn't an awful lot we can do about it, besides sending them to the security department, who in turn come to you.'

‘And you said that they come from Nazis, racists and …' I look down at my notebook, searching for the word. ‘Internet trolls.'

‘In Thomas's case. As far as I'm aware. The sender was never identified.'

‘Breach of the peace to sociologist,' I mumble. ‘Had his political convictions changed over time?'

‘He was very left-wing, but I don't think he believed in direct action anymore. I think he got older — it was as simple as that.'

‘Older?'

‘Getting older is quite enough to change people. But he wanted to understand everything he'd seen during his time as a member.'

‘Was he still a member?'

‘I can't answer that. I don't know, but I wouldn't have thought so.' Marika looks terrified, as though a gruesome face had suddenly appeared above my right shoulder. ‘Was he really murdered?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you don't know who did it?'

‘No, not yet. I'm trying to understand,' I continue, slowly, ‘the period leading up to his death. Was there anything different about him?'

She pauses for a second, her eyes gliding across the spines of the books on the shelf.

‘Not that I can think of, no.'

‘What did he do yesterday daytime?'

‘Thomas always got here about nine,' she says. ‘Like most of us up here do. Thomas came in at nine yesterday, too. I was here before him, and I was standing in the kitchen when he arrived. After that, he sat in his room. I think he was transcribing interviews. He was still sitting there when I left, and he said he was staying until that meeting at half-past ten.'

‘And you don't know who he was going to meet?' I say, one more time.

‘No, that's right, I've no idea. Oh yes, one more thing. At some point during the day, just after lunch, I think, he went for a walk with Kele, Kele Valdez. They often do that, go for a stroll round the campus.'

‘What sort of a person was Thomas?' Did he have any friends, relatives that he would talk about, anything like that?'

‘Thomas was … a loner. He did have a girlfriend when he started, I remember that, then they split, and after a year or so he started seeing someone, but that didn't last either. His closest friends were his colleagues. Kele Valdez in particular. I don't think he's been informed yet.' She hesitates. ‘Could y—?'

‘I'll do it,' I say, and make a note on the pad. ‘I need to talk to him anyway.'

Everybody is missed by someone. Grim used to say so, when one of our friends from Salem had disappeared and nobody seemed to notice. When someone dies there's always someone who lies awake at night, always someone who walks the streets where the deceased once walked, someone who'll go through their wardrobe to avoid letting go. I wonder who that person is this time.

Outside Marika Franzén's window, the snow has stopped falling. The world seems strangely quiet, as it often does from a distance.