The Invisible Man from Salem (17 page)

‘We get ten customers a week, who stay for an hour each.' She drains her glass. ‘I'm almost always alone here.'

‘I'm here more than that.'

‘You don't count.' She puts the glass away. ‘What are you having?'

‘Nothing. A coffee.'

This surprises her. Her blonde hair is up in a loose knot, and strands of stray hair fall across her face, down her neck to her collarbone, which is just visible through the wide neck of her shirt.
She's a bit like Sam
, I think to myself.

‘Someone's coming here in a bit,' I explain. ‘Someone who thinks I've stopped altogether.'

‘I understand,' she says, turning her back to me and setting to work on the ancient coffee machine. ‘I'm guessing it's a she?'

‘Yes.'

‘If you have to meet someone who thinks you're on the wagon,' she continues, ‘is a bar really the best place?'

‘Is everything okay?' I ask, tentatively.

‘Yes. Everything is okay.'

‘I didn't know of anywhere else where it's …' I say, but don't know where to go from there.

‘Where it's …?' Without turning around, she starts the coffee machine, which splutters and hisses.

‘Where it's safe.'

‘Are you not safe anywhere else?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘You sound paranoid.'

‘I know,' I say, and I notice that I'm fiddling with my phone, so I stop.

‘What makes you think you're safe here?'

Enough coffee to fill a mug has dripped through into the jug, and she passes it to me and turns around. Anna's expression is hard to read. She might be hurt, but she looks almost scared.

‘I just think so.'

‘What's her name?'

‘Who?'

‘The one who's on her way here.'

‘Sam.'

‘Sam, as in …?'

‘As in Sam.' I hesitate. ‘We were together once.'

‘What happened?'

‘An accident.'

Anna walks over to the counter, pours herself another glass, and comes back. When she notices my gaze fixed on the glass in her hand, she becomes embarrassed.

‘I'm happy not drinking, if it makes it easier for you.'

I shake my head.

‘Drink away.'

The door to
BAR
opens again, and Sam's face peers round it. It's started raining outside; the pattering sound rushes into the quiet premises, and it's dripping onto Sam's coat. Her hair is lank, sticking to her forehead and her cheeks. She walks up to the bar and takes off her coat while studying the coffee cup in my hand, as though trying to decipher what it means. Then she orders a beer.

‘I recognise you,' Anna says. ‘Tattoos.'

‘That's right.'

Sam gets her beer and checks something on her phone before looking around.

‘Interesting place to meet.'

‘It is special.' I glance at Anna, who takes a couple of steps back and seems to be trying to make herself invisible by counting the contents of the till. Apart from a handful of lonely notes and coins, it's empty. ‘John Grimberg,' I say, looking at Sam, and, as is so often the case when our eyes meet, everything else becomes fuzzy and dim. The only thing I see is Sam.

‘Yes.' She drinks some beer. A little ribbon of foam sticks to her lip, and she wipes it away with the back of her hand. ‘Well, I think it was him.'

‘Think?'

‘It was years ago now, when we were exp—. When we were together. I didn't say anything at the time.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because it didn't seem like the sort of thing you tell someone who is a cop.'

That stings. Even though I was expecting it, it still stings.

‘I was your partner.'

‘Anyway,' she goes on, ‘it was autumn, I think. Someone called just as I was leaving the parlour one evening, refused to say who he was. As you know, I don't usually accept customers who won't give their name, and besides it was late, but this person offered me a lot of money. I was going to get half before the work was done, as soon as they came through the door, and the other half afterwards.'

‘How much money?'

‘Fifty thousand.'

‘Jesus.'

‘I know.' Sam takes another swig. ‘So I asked what it was about, and the only thing he would say was that he wanted a tattoo removed. That's really a medical procedure, so I recommended a clinic instead, but he wasn't interested. He'd heard that I'd done it before, which was true. That was before the rules were changed. I insisted that what I could do was more painful than, and not as safe as, going to a professional clinic, but he said that wasn't an option. I think he even laughed at the suggestion. So he asked me to stay put, and hung up. An hour later, there was someone at the door — a very, very blond man. I remember thinking that he must dye his hair, because his eyebrows were much darker. I thought it was the guy I'd spoken to. He introduced himself as Dejan, but I doubt that was his real name. He said he was there to get rid of a tattoo. “Was it you I spoke to on the phone?” I asked, and he just shook his head and walked past me, into the studio. Behind him was another person, who I hadn't noticed. It was dark, of course, and it's hard to see just to the right outside the door there, because of the angle. This other person,' she says, looking down, ‘it was him I'd spoken to. He was quite tall and was also blond, but not shockingly so like Dejan. He had a handsome face, angular, but well formed and tanned. Nicely dressed in a dark trench coat, looked like an advertising executive just back from holiday. But there was something about the look in his eyes that was very different. It was … empty. Hollow.' She takes another swig of her beer. ‘There was nothing there, no identity, neither warmth nor coolness, no feelings whatsoever, nothing.'

‘What colour were his eyes?'

‘Blue. But,' she adds, ‘I think they were contacts.'

‘Why do you think that?'

‘I wear contacts myself, Leo, so I know what eyes look like after a whole day with them in.'

‘Did he introduce himself?'

‘As Grim. “You can call me Grim.” That's all he said. I was nervous, and you know I try and joke about things when I'm nervous, so I said something about the Brothers Grimm, asked him whether he was the cheerful one or the grumpy one, but that just made him ask if we were going to get started. And he stuck his hand — he was wearing thin gloves, too — he stuck his hand inside the trench coat and pulled out a wad of notes. “Twenty-five thousand,” he said, “clean enough to take to the bank.” I'd never seen that much cash before, not in a wedge, you know, so I could only nod and put it away in the office. “I've heard you're good,” he said. “My usual expert has experienced some difficulties, which unfortunately means I need to find a new one.” If there's one thing I know about, it's my job. So I said, “Yes, I'm good, but good at giving people tattoos, not removing them.” That made him lean in, towards me, and I know this sounds weird, but I'm pretty sure that he was sniffing me.' Sam blushes.

‘It was very uncomfortable. I don't know what he got out of it, but he looked over at Dejan, gave him a quick nod, and said, “Let's do this.” So I sat Dejan down in my chair and he showed me the tattoo. A black, two-headed eagle, big as a fist, and level with his heart. It's a well-known motif, but this time it was apparently something to do with his homeland.'

‘Albania.'

‘That's it.'

‘Dejan Friedrichs,' I say. ‘Could that have been his name?'

‘I never heard his surname.'

Dejan Friedrichs. I was after him once, for an arson attack on a pub on Sveavägen. The owner had declined the offer of protection from one of the cartels, and the price of independence turned out to be a licence for someone to set fire to the premises. I never interviewed Dejan, and I don't think he could ever be tied to the attack, but I had a feeling that it was him. He earned a living as an assassin for Silver, who ran parts of the Stockholm underworld at the time.

‘It sounds like him,' I say, and sip my coffee.

I wonder why he introduced himself as Grim. He should have been using another name by then. Maybe he still used it informally?

From the corner of my eye, I notice that Anna is doing her best to appear not to be listening. Sam makes me think more clearly, makes me more focused. I feel awake and alert in her presence.That's the way it's always been, as though the pieces fall into place.

‘So Grim sat on the sofa and fiddled with his phone, and I started work on the tattoo, anaesthetising, cleaning, and so on, but I was pretty sure that the result wasn't going to be great, definitely not worth fifty thousand. So when I was about halfway through I suggested to Grim that I take the first twenty-five thousand and that would be plenty, but he said we had a deal, and deals are not to be broken.'

‘Did they seem to know each other well? Him and Dejan?'

She shakes her head.

‘I got the impression that Dejan was a client. Grim was on the phone pretty much the whole time. When you're sitting in the studio, working intensively — I was incredibly tired, don't forget — when you're sitting there just working, it's like you're in a world of your own, and although I wasn't listening, I just suddenly heard his voice right behind me. It sounded as though he was sorting out all kinds of stuff at the same time. I think he was trying to help the guy leave the country. Money was mentioned, too, in those calls. Something had run into difficulties, and Grim sounded annoyed, hung up and rang someone else, told them it was going to cost more than he'd thought. That sort of thing. It sounded hectic, like he had a deadline to make, and I was getting quite worried because Dejan's tattoo wasn't professionally done. It was an amateur job, probably done in the clink, and it was uneven in the skin. I had to scrape, scrape like fuck. I wouldn't have wanted to be there when the anaesthetic wore off. The guy looked completely flogged, but Grim didn't seem to be bothered. Oh yeah, I remember him taking a pill while I was busy with Dejan. It wasn't exactly the kind of packet you get at the chemist's. I remember that.'

She looks at me as though this means something.

‘Okay,' I say.

‘Anyway, I was finished; it was about half-two in the morning, and I'd taken care of the wound and all that. It was so deep that I could see his chest muscles, can you imagine? Mental. I gave both of them instructions about how to take care of the wound. I supplied them with things that might help him through the first few days. Grim gave me the remaining twenty-five, and thanked me for a successful collaboration. Just as he was leaving, he leant over to me and said something, something I didn't know what to make of.'

‘Which was?'

Sam clears her throat, drinks some more beer. Her eyes flit between me and her feet.

‘He whispered that I smelt like an old friend.'

She goes quiet for a moment, and Anna has finished counting the till and is now dusting off the bottles covering the wall behind her, one at a time.

‘I took it to mean that he trusted me,' Sam went on. ‘As if I were one of his friends. Do you see?'

‘Yes.'

That wasn't what Grim meant. For a second, I'm back in Salem. I'm sixteen, watching my friend fake his mum's handwriting; he's standing in the playground at Rönninge High, holding up his first home-made ID card. Coming back from the young offenders' summer camp, able to copy bankcards without it registering in the ATM — that must have been how it started. For over ten years, he's only been recorded in the Whereabouts Unknown register … He's not dead, but he doesn't exist either.

Suddenly I fall into a heap in front of Sam, and she grabs my arm, holds me up.

‘Leo,' she says, looking worried. ‘Are you okay?'

‘It's been a long day,' I mumble, and turn to Anna, ask her for a glass of water.

Forty-eight hours have passed since Rebecca Salomonsson was found dead. Those critical first few days are about to run out. The perpetrator is about to dissolve, disappear. At that moment, I receive another text from the unknown number.

I think you should watch the news

XIV

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD STABBED AT CAMP, SERIOUSLY INJURED.

Julia stood in front of the telly in my room with the remote in her hand, and read the headline on teletext. She'd just called my name. I was in the bathroom when she did so, and I wrapped the towel around me and came out, and stood next to her. The sun was shining outside. It was my parents' last day at work, and it was the first time I'd had a shower with someone.

‘It's that camp,' Julia said, surprisingly composed. ‘Outside Jumkil. It's the camp he's at.'

She searched, perhaps subconsciously, for my hand as she read. Once she'd found it and I felt her grip, I realised it was deliberate.