Authors: Hakan Ostlundh
This was clothing and equipment he almost never used. The last time was when his own clothes had been completely drenched in blood and he had nothing else to change into. The blood had come from a man who tried to kill himself with a handsaw when Fredrik and Gustav Wallin were going to arrest him.
He pushed away the unpleasant memory, took out the holster and wriggled it on. He shut the locker, went up to the gun room, and took his service pistol out of the white gun cabinet with number sixty-three on the cover. He checked the gun, inserted the magazine, and put the pistol in place in the holster. He had been meticulous about target practice, but apart from that he had not had any occasion to carry a gun since he came back from sick leave.
Fredrik went straight from the gun room and out onto the enclosed courtyard on the back side of the police station. The sun made his face feel hot. In the crown of the big elm tree migratory birds were rustling around hunting for lethargic late-summer insects.
Fredrik went past two marked police cars parked in the shade of the tree, continued out through the gate, and took a step up onto the sidewalk to the right of the entry. Now he was definitely outside the domains of the police department. He was standing in public space with his service pistol in its holster. He could maintain, if anyone was possibly interested, not only that he was employed by the Visby Police Department, but that he was in service at this very moment, right there on Avagatan in the middle of Visby, a stone’s throw from the commerce of Östercentrum and another stone’s throw from the medieval World Heritage City. Admittedly he was not performing any sensible task at the moment—no one had asked him to go out and stare at Avagatan—but he was in service. Patrol duty.
Fredrik put his hands at his sides and took a couple of deep breaths. He was a policeman again.
He felt relieved, excited, and slightly nostalgic. A little proud even. His little ritual would probably seem silly to an outsider’s eyes, but for him it was important. What he was doing right now he had not been able to do yesterday. Today, Monday, was a workday. For the first time in almost two years he was a policeman, in every sense of the word.
The whole thing was over in fifteen seconds, but Fredrik was convinced that he would never forget that brief moment. He went back into the building. On his way up to his office he encountered two colleagues in the stairway. They said hello quickly and continued their conversation. He felt a vague disappointment and was forced to smile at himself. What had he expected? That everyone should stand and applaud and cheer under a big banner that said “Welcome Back, Fredrik”? His colleagues on the stairs presumably did not even know that this was his first day back on patrol duty. He had been back at work for six months now. Obviously they did not keep track of exactly what he did day by day.
He came up to the investigation department’s long corridor of white walls, birch doors, and dreary linoleum flooring. Instead of turning right to his own office he turned left. He could just as well stop by Göran Eide’s office and remind him that he had resumed patrol duty today. To be on the safe side.
On his way there Fredrik stopped by Gustav Wallin’s open door. Gustav, in a light, discreet glen plaid suit and light blue shirt, was leaning over his desk browsing through a thick bundle of papers. He did not notice him. Fredrik took a couple steps closer and said hello.
Gustav looked up from the desk. The narrow edge of beard along his jawline had been shaved with the utmost precision.
“Hey there,” he said absently.
He kept hold of one of the papers with his thumb and index finger.
Fredrik exchanged a few words with Gustav and thought that he ought to react to the coat of arms, but no, not a look. It was clear, they were surrounded by people who wore the coat of arms all day long. Why should Gustav react to it? For his colleagues it was just an ordinary day at work. Evidently even for his closest associates.
The disappointment came creeping again, and again he pushed it away. How could they know that he felt almost like the day he graduated from Police Academy? Proud, relieved, a little nervous, and above all full of expectation without any real target.
For almost two years he had brooded every day about whether everything would be like before or if he would never again get to work as a policeman.
Today he got his answer.
He left Gustav with his pile of papers and continued over to Göran’s office. He knocked and waited until he heard a stifled murmur from the other side of the door before he pushed it open.
Göran Eide, the head of the Gotland police investigation department, got up quickly when he caught sight of Fredrik. He was almost sixty and the grizzled hair on the side of his head was all he had left. A little ways down on his nose sat a pair of cheap reading glasses.
Göran rounded the desk and extended his hand.
“Welcome back,” he said with a big smile, bowing solemnly.
Fredrik thanked him. Göran made a gesture toward the blue armchair on the other side of the desk.
“Have a seat.”
Göran went back and sat down behind his desk. His comfortable office chair had an extra-high back and a small adjustable neck support; in some way it made it noticeable that he was the boss.
He took off his glasses and looked at Fredrik.
“All’s well that ends well, or what do you say?” he said with a smile.
“Yes, I’ve had worse days,” said Fredrik.
Göran laughed, but then became serious.
“Twenty-three months ago it didn’t look that promising.”
“No,” said Fredrik, moving the chair a little closer to the desk.
At last someone who understood how important this day was to him. At the same time he hoped that Göran would not get caught up in anything too long and sentimental. That was not really the relationship he had with his boss.
Strange thing about attention. First disappointment that he didn’t get any. Once he got it he wanted it over with as quickly as possible.
“If I were to be completely frank,” said Göran, “I didn’t think you would be sitting here today. I mean, not when I was up at the hospital the first time.”
He shook his head thoughtfully and looked down at the table for a moment. “Yes, you’ll have to excuse me,” he added with a new gleam in his eye.
“No, it’s no problem,” said Fredrik. “I probably didn’t believe that I would even be able to sit up again myself. And to be completely honest I didn’t even notice that you were there.”
Göran smiled. “But now you’re sitting here,” he said.
“Now I’m sitting here.”
“I’m extremely happy to have you back in the group. And I’m happy that it has worked so well, the whole apparatus with doctors, psychologists, the union, management, and … well, you know. But above all I’m happy for your sake. I know that this is what you’ve wanted the whole time.”
Fredrik was content to nod slowly but definitely, afraid of a nostalgic quiver in his voice if he opened his mouth.
“I assume that you’re anxious to get going,” said Göran, changing his tone of voice. “To get out.”
“That’s right,” Fredrik managed to squeeze out in a steady voice.
“Okay then. I have a case for you.”
This was exactly the way Fredrik wanted to come back. From the first moment to feel that he had Göran’s full confidence. No soft start, no hesitation at the goal. He had been soft starting for six months now. That was more than enough.
“There’s a family on Fårö that—”
Göran interrupted himself, and Fredrik was startled by a fizzing sound and a strange glow right behind him. He excitedly turned around in his chair.
Two steps inside the doorway stood Gustav with a cyanide-blue princess cake on a paper plate. From the middle of the cake a sparkler crackled. In the midst of the surprise, Fredrik could not help wondering about the embers that floated down onto Göran’s linoleum floor.
Behind Gustav, Fredrik’s immediate coworkers had lined up: Sara Oskarsson, just as dark-haired as Gustav, today in a jeans shirt and black pants, was standing with a heap of coffee cups and small paper plates in her arms. Ove Gahnström was peering behind aviator eyeglass frames, holding a pump thermos pressed against his sturdy stomach. Even Lennart Svensson had shown up, although he had retired a month ago. The gray curls were slightly unrulier than usual and his dress somewhat more casual. Fredrik was very moved to see him there, which definitely was a unique feeling.
Once the sparkler had burned out, they came forward one by one to dole out congratulations along with hugs and thumps on the back. Fredrik was a little worried about the cake as Gustav balanced it with one hand and embraced him with the other.
Fredrik looked at them all and stammered out a thank you. He had a hard time finding the words.
“What is it?” said Lennart. “You didn’t get a cerebral hemorrhage from the fireworks?”
“Lennart,” said Sara, with a tired expression.
“It’s okay,” said Fredrik. “I would be deeply disappointed if he suddenly started choosing his words with care.”
The truth was that he actually missed Lennart. The opposite of what he had thought. Fredrik wondered whether they hadn’t become a little more boring after Lennart quit. Only in the vacuum after his bad jokes, small provocations, and politically incorrect comments did Fredrik realize that perhaps they did have a certain significance for the group after all. It stirred things up. Distracted, in a good way. Kept them alert.
Gustav put down the cake on the visitor group’s round table. He noticed Fredrik’s look at the vivid blue casing.
“They hadn’t had time to make any green ones yet. I was in the bakery right when they opened.”
“Blue is pretty,” said Fredrik, trying to mentally ignore his own words.
He still could not think of anything sensible to say.
“Here,” said Ove, handing over a cake cutter. “You start.”
Soon everyone had a piece of cake and a cup of coffee. There were only four chairs in the room, and Sara tried to offer Fredrik one of the chairs with the argument that he was the one being celebrated.
“No, what the hell, you sit down,” he said.
Fredrik and Ove stood up, or leaned a little carefully on the furniture.
“You fooled me completely,” said Fredrik. “I was starting to actually get a little—”
“You should have seen your face when I barely said hello,” Gustav said with a laugh, pointing at him with the cake spoon.
“I really didn’t suspect a thing,” he admitted. “You seemed completely absorbed by your pile of papers. In a completely natural way.”
“Hollywood is waiting,” said Lennart, with a wry smile.
“They’ll have to wait a little longer,” said Göran. “No thinking about alternative careers until I’ve managed to fill the gap left by Lennart.”
“That can’t be too hard,” said Fredrik, looking at Lennart with what he hoped was a gleam in his eye.
“Wait now,” said Lennart at once. “How was it? You had some kind of blow to the head, right?”
A strange mixture of laughter and embarrassed murmuring filled the room. Fredrik hurried to say something before the embarrassment took over.
“Listen, everyone, I have to say that I truly appreciate this. This day means a lot to me. You can probably say that this day is the only thing I thought about … No, not the only thing,” he corrected himself. “But this is something I’ve thought about and fought for every day for almost two years. I am grateful that you understood that! And that you did this.”
They looked at him seriously. Ove nodded. Sara smiled hesitantly.
“Even though the cake was blue,” he added.
They laughed with relief, and a little exaggeratedly, at the dry joke. A rescue plank under the seriousness. The conversation took off again, Lennart ate up half of Sara’s piece of cake and a couple minutes later Göran came up to Fredrik and took him aside.
“Yes, as I was going to say before,” he started, setting aside his cake plate, “this concerns a family on Fårö. Malin Andersson and Henrik Kjellander in Kalbjerga. They’ve been threatened.”
Göran Eide picked up a coffee mug that someone had forgotten on the shelf behind the desk. He felt slightly nauseated. It was the princess cake. He should have followed Sara’s example and left half. But you don’t want to act like an old lady, he thought, so instead you have to feel like you’re going to throw up.
Despite the nausea, he was happy about this day. He had truly not believed that Fredrik would come back. Not as a police officer or as anything else. It had been a dreadful accident and Fredrik did not look like much as he lay bandaged and seemingly paralyzed in the hospital bed.
Fredrik did not remember much of the accident, but Sara Oskarsson had been standing only ten feet away and seen him fall from the cliff. If you read her report you might say that what happened was partly self-inflicted. Fredrik did not have to chase after the man they had arrested when he tried to flee, if
flight
was the right word to describe someone who rushed toward his own death. No one would have accused Fredrik if he had stayed standing and let the man throw himself off the cliff.
But instead Fredrik ran after him, caught up with him at the edge, and tried to stop him. The fleeing man had locked Fredrik’s arm, intentionally or unintentionally, and pulled him down with him. If it was luck, or if during the brief seconds he had at his disposal Fredrik managed to get the man under him, it was impossible to say. In any event Fredrik landed on top of the man, who died instantly.
For Fredrik, the fall off the cliff resulted in a severe concussion and an extensive hemorrhage outside the hard membrane of the brain. The brain tissue itself had not been damaged directly by the fall, but was affected by the pressure from the hemorrhage. If bleeding had occurred inside the membrane of the brain, perhaps he would not even have survived the transport from Östergarnsholme to the hospital.
Göran suppressed a belch and silently cursed the princess cake. Crazy damned concoction. Couldn’t Gustav have had the sense to buy a Tosca cake or an ordinary Danish braid? The nausea made him almost dizzy. He pulled out the top drawer in the pedestal drawers and searched in the back among paper clips, business cards, and pens. He found two Maalox, wiped the dust from the package, pressed out one of the tablets, and swallowed it.