The Invisible Man from Salem (38 page)

I'm glad I can sit at your bedside and hear your breathing. Hear that you're alive, just as I did after the events on Gotland. Events which, no matter how you look at it, can be traced back to me, not you.

I was given a memo. It instructed me to put you on our unit: someone who could be held to account if necessary. They'd done a search and considered you an eligible candidate. Everything was hypothetical, ‘if', ‘in the worst case', and ‘in the event of one of our operations being compromised'.

It came from above, from the paranoid people, and I had no choice. They were threatening to leak details from my past. They still are. I can't say any more. Not now.

Forgive me, Leo.

Charles.

I TRY TO ESTABLISH
what I'm feeling, now that I actually know. The knowledge ought to come with some relief; perhaps it does, but that means nothing right now. I feel nothing. Everyone betrays everyone, and everything falls down. I know surprisingly little about Levin's background, and I wonder what they've got on him, what made him obey.

I stand near the Triad, on the other side of the road. The blocks look like they did last time I was here, and the time before that, and the time before that. Time swooshes past inside my head, until I'm sixteen again and I'm standing in front of our block, on my way home from somewhere. It looks exactly like this. Certain things only change on the inside.

I take the lift up to the seventh floor, then walk the few steps up to the eighth and highest floor. I look at the door, at
JUNKER
, push the handle down, and carefully open the door.

‘Hello?' I say, hearing my own voice, unsure.

The rug in the hall is a bit rumpled, but the hall looks otherwise untouched. The smell in here is the same, as though it were eternal. From the opening into the kitchen, my mum pops her head out. Her short hair is flecked with grey.

‘Oh my God, Leo.'

She lets go of something, presumably crockery, and doesn't bother washing her hands. Instead she puts her arms around me and gives me a hug. I reciprocate carefully. I can't remember the last time I got a hug from either of my parents.

‘I … we came to the hospital, but they said you were asleep. Oh goodness, is it … we talked to a policeman there, we got so …'

‘It's okay, Mum.'

She looks at me. I've always thought I had my dad's eyes, but the older I get, the more I think that the ones I see in the mirror are, in fact, my mother's.

‘Are you hungry?'

‘No. How's Dad getting on?' I ask.

‘Good,' she says. ‘He's sitting in there.'

‘Did he really go with you?'

She nods.

‘Are you sure you're not hungry?'

‘Yes.'

‘You look a bit skinny. Come in.'

I sigh, frustrated that she can still make me feel like I'm twelve again, and I step out of my shoes, take my jacket off. She goes back into the kitchen. I go in to what was once my room. It's a sort of home office now, with a desk, computer, bookcases, and wardrobes. At the table, my father is hunching over something, in that way that only people capable of weirdly intense concentration do. He's wearing a checked shirt. His grey hair hasn't been combed, and he runs his hand through it.

‘Damn thing,' he mumbles. ‘Damn … where's it got to, where have I …'

‘Dad,' I say, carefully putting my hand on his shoulder.

‘Leo?' He looks up at me. His gaze is emotional, glossy, and medicated. ‘Is that you?'

‘Yes, it's me.'

‘Leo,' he repeats, not sure what to do with the information.

‘Your son,' I say.

His eyes look sad. He frowns, turns back to whatever's lying on the desk in front of him.

‘I need help. I can't remember how to do this.'

It's a remote control, lying buttons-down on the desk. The battery compartment is open, and three batteries lie spread out around it.

‘Do you really not remember, Dad?'

‘It is … it's there somewhere, right at the back.' He blinks over and over again, his stare fixed on the opening, the small coils sticking out inside it. ‘I almost remember.' He looks up. The sadness is gone. He smiles. ‘You hear that? I almost remember.'

‘Shall I help you?'

‘Let him do it himself,' my mother says, standing in the doorway. ‘He remembers. He just needs to make the effort.'

I look at my parents — first one, then the other.

‘Mum, I don't think he's going to manage it.'

‘He will.'

A few years ago he started forgetting things: where he'd put the keys, what he'd had for dinner, when he'd last spoken to me or my brother on the phone. At first, we didn't react. Instead, we were irritated by him forgetting whether or not he'd made coffee. When he actually had made it, he'd forget whether or not he'd turned the coffee machine off. It went quickly: before long, someone called the police. They wanted to report a man sitting in his car outside a school, staring at the kids through the windscreen. The person making the complaint was worried about the children — as, presumably, was the unit that responded. They soon realised that he was telling the truth about having forgotten the way to work.

‘Does he understand what has happened?'

‘He understands that something has happened,' she says. ‘He's about to have his medication; he'll be better once he's had it.'

I study his back. The front door opens. It's my brother, still wearing his work clothes. He gives me a long hug, and I think I respond to it.

‘How are you?' he asks.

‘I think I can't hear very well.'

‘That's good.' He slaps me on the back. ‘Then you don't have to listen to all the bullshit.'

For some reason, this makes me laugh. In the office, my father drops one of the batteries onto the floor, and it rolls off under one of the bookcases. My brother goes straight in to help him.

‘Leo?' my father says, unsure, looking at him.

‘Leo's in the hall, Dad,' my brother says, distracted, looking for the battery.

‘Uh-huh.' He's looking out the window; his stare is uneasy, and his hands are tightly locked round the armrests of his chair, as though it were the only thing stopping his head from floating off. ‘Leo is in the hall.' He smiles and turns his head, looks at me. ‘Good.'

LATE THAT EVENING
, I leave Salem. I step out into the cool air, and out of the corner of my eye I see the entrance that used to be theirs — see it there, waiting in the darkness. I don't want to leave yet, and I go and prowl outside their door, as I used to then. It's summer again, for a second, a summer from long ago.

And after a while: I leave. I walk towards the bus stop, to get into Rönninge and carry on further south. I want to sit with Sam, at the hospital. There's a fog moving in. I make my way through the place where I grew up, and it's a long way home, but tonight everything in Salem is unusually quiet. Stockholm's southern suburbs are all but silent.

Afterword

As authors, we take liberties. In this book, I have taken many: among other things, I have re-imagined a number of details surrounding the water tower, and its form. I've squeezed in a bar here, a homeless shelter there, rechristened a trio of high-rise blocks, and so on. Not to mention the great many lines of text I've taken the liberty of inserting!

There are a few people I need to thank. Mela, Mum, Dad, my little brother, Karl, Martin, Tobias, Jack, Lotta, Jerzy, Tove, Fredrik, and my wonderful Swedish publishers, Piratförlaget: one way or another, you have all contributed to making sure that Leo Junker and
The Invisible Man from Salem
actually saw the light of day.

It is never easy to write a story, but to be the partner, friend, parent, or colleague of the author in question is probably harder still. You are all fantastic.

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Grim's Letter

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Afterword