The Invisible Man from Salem (5 page)

This was the latest technique — proactive internal investigations, whereby IA supervised operations, advising right from the start. It all came down to one thing: covering your own back. This probably sounds rather alarming to outsiders, but for those of us on the inside it was a purely practical measure.

‘And you want me to keep an eye on IA?'

Levin smiled, without saying anything. I leant against the cold, tiled wall of the toilet cubicle and closed my eyes.

‘You know that there are rumours going around, in the building,' I said, ‘that something isn't quite right?'

‘What do you take me for?' Levin said, rubbing his great beak of a nose. ‘Of course I know. You report to me, and me alone. Anyone else contacting you is an attempt to expose you.'

My task was to observe the IA investigators and only get involved in exceptional circumstances, to save the raid. Levin was the only one who knew I would be on Gotland and about my role on the fringes of the operation.

A few days before the bust I made my way over to Gotland, to a little hamlet outside Visby. I'd never been there before, and I needed to get my bearings. It was May — grey, windy, and cold. Birds hunted along the coast, as though they were fleeing. Perhaps they were. I walked around, memorising footpaths and tracks, smoking cigarettes, and waiting for something to happen. The closer it got to the raid, the more unsettled I became, without really knowing why. My nights were filled with bad dreams about Sam and Viktor, and I would find myself standing in the hotel bathroom, staring at my own reflection.

Down in the harbour, a stone's throw from where the raid was to take place, I was standing, looking at the sky late one evening when I heard a voice behind me. I turned my head to see someone who was dressed to avoid being recognised — baseball cap, big hoodie with the hood up, baggy jeans — waving at me. Lasker.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' he said, dragging me into the shadow cast by one of the larger buildings in the harbour.

‘Holiday.'

‘Get out of here while you can, Junker. I've got a bad feeling about this.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Something's gonna go wrong.' He let go of me and started backing away. ‘Everything's fucked.'

He disappeared into the darkness, and I stood there smoking, alone. A shiver went through me. Was this an attempt to expose me, as Levin had said? I guessed it was, but I couldn't figure out Lasker's role in the whole thing. He was working for us, after all.

The boat carrying the goods docked two days later. In the meantime I lay low, checked out of the hotel, and stayed at a nearby guesthouse, using a false name. It was important to keep moving. I noted the IA investigators and the firearms unit arriving in Visby, tailed the unmarked cars rolling out of the belly of the Gotland ferry, and made notes of who the officers were, where they were staying, what they got up to. I restricted my notes to a single black notepad, which was always in the inside pocket of my jacket. That gave me a sense of having things under control.

The internal investigators were not going to be present in the harbour itself. They were to be stationed in a nearby apartment, and would receive updates from the officer leading the operation. They would then pass this information on to Stockholm. I wondered who was waiting at the other end of the line, how high up this went, and what would happen if something did go wrong.

The vessel was a small motorboat, unlit, that glided through the night. I was hidden by the building where I'd talked to Lasker a few days earlier. Shadowy figures moved along the quay, and I tried to hear their voices. Members of the firearms unit were waiting at a distance: they were not to intervene until after the goods had changed hands. I was carrying my weapon, although I hadn't wanted to.

I saw the boat pull alongside, and then the shadows flitted by, surrounded by darkness. The harbour was deserted. A large jeep emerged from somewhere in the darkness and rolled quietly towards the boat. When it stopped, a figure climbed out and opened the boot. There was the sound of voices — buyers against sellers.

‘Let me see,' said one. ‘Open one of them.'

‘We haven't got time,' said another voice at his side.

I recognised that voice: it was Max Lasker.

‘Quickly.'

‘I want to see,' the first voice said. ‘Open it.'

‘Alright,' said a third.

There was the sound of a box opening, followed by no one saying anything for far, far too long.

‘Are you taking the piss?' I heard the first voice say.

The man holding the box lifted the lid and looked down into it.

‘What?' He stuck his hand into the box and rifled around inside. ‘It … I … I don't know what …'

Somewhere behind them a huge floodlight came on, its yellowy-white light illuminating the harbour and the tall silhouettes. Voices behind the floodlight shouted ‘
Police
', and that's how it all started. Everyone, including Lasker, was armed. His movements were fitful and jerky, as though he couldn't control them. The man who had just looked inside one of the boxes was standing with a pistol in his hand, staring up towards the floodlight, and then he ducked out of the way and behind a car, out of my sight. Suddenly the box fell to the floor. It landed with a heavy thud, and I took my pistol from its holster and held my breath.

The firearms crew rushed in with their weapons and shields, looking as though they had come to fight a war. I don't know who, or even which side, fired first, but there was a bang from somewhere. Lasker raised his gun, but was hit in the thigh before he'd had the chance to fire. In the stark light, the smattering drops of blood looked black, and his leg went from under him. His face contorted and he dropped the weapon, grabbing his thigh as he let out a high-pitched squeal.

Someone started the boat again, perhaps trying to leave the harbour. There was a blare of gunshots, and the sound of glass shattering. From the corner of my eye I saw a police officer fall to the ground; I wondered who it was. Their uniforms made them faceless.

Further away, blue lights and sirens were switched on, flashing and wailing. I moved out of the shadows, weapon drawn, not knowing what I was going to do. The man who had taken cover behind the car must have spotted me, because something cold and hard whistled past me, forcing me back into the darkness.

The jeep's driver's door opened, and the man climbed in and started the engine. I saw how the interior lights came on before he closed the door and sped away. I watched as it disappeared from view. My hands were shaking.

The gunfire didn't stop altogether, but its intensity tailed off. A police car chased the jeep, and I wondered just how many police were there, how many were hiding in the shadows. I went over to Lasker, who was lying very still, grasping his thigh. As I rolled him over, I saw that he had also been shot in the head. His mouth was half open, and his blank stare was fixed on a point just above my shoulder.

Several police had managed to get on board the boat and disarm those who'd taken refuge in the cabin. The sound of a shot rang out from somewhere — I didn't know where — and I think I must have panicked, because I fired off a shot towards something moving in the darkness between two stacks of shipping containers.

I had wounded people before, but had never shot anyone. I was overawed: everything went quiet, and all the receptors in my body were sending their signals and impulses to my hand, to my index finger. The finger that had pulled the trigger was stinging and throbbing as though I'd burnt it.

My legs pulled me forward. I rushed towards whatever I had hit, and could just make out two heavy boots. Sensing that everything had gone terribly wrong, I pulled out my phone to light up the scene. That's my strongest recollection now. It was so unnaturally dark there in the harbour. I illuminated the ground in front of me, and saw the blood running in a fat ribbon from his throat, how still he was, and the badge on his shoulder, gleaming blue and gold:
POLICE
.

V

John Grimberg and I became friends, and I started calling him ‘Grim'. We were quite different characters. I realised early on that he was at times full of contradictions, at least on the outside. He claimed to have difficulty coping in social situations. Despite this, he was able to talk his way out of most scenarios if he found himself backed into a corner. He could either come up with an excuse, or simply express regret and then apologise, seeming perfectly sincere. I was much worse at dealing with those situations, and I never worked out how he did it. And he never seemed to have problems talking to people. I asked him how he could be unsociable, as he said, and yet deal with people so effortlessly.

‘It's just like masks, you know,' he said with a quizzical expression. ‘When someone's talking to me, I'm not really there.'

I didn't know what he was going on about.

Grim was good-looking, and his chiselled features, thick blond hair, and crooked smile were straight out of a summertime TV advert. I was taller than him, but lanky and not as broad-shouldered. I tried to keep up at school whereas Grim seemed completely uninterested in the whole business. He was a year older than me, having repeated a year because he hadn't got the grades he needed to carry on to high school. In spite of that, he skived off less than I did and was much more clever, but perhaps he'd realised that there were more important things to concentrate on than learning stuff. The only conclusion I could come to was that he simply had nowhere else to go. I was much sloppier than him. Grim didn't really commit to an awful lot, but those few things he did put his mind to he would do properly.

He had a little video camera, and we started making short films together, which we would then edit on the computers at school. They were simple films, often set around the water tower. We filmed them as we drank booze; wrote scripts, directed, and played all the parts ourselves. He found it easy to get into character, as though he could camouflage himself whenever he needed to. I did get better at that after a while, but I was never as good as Grim.

THE SKY OVER SALEM
was the colour of ink that had been spilled onto a blank page. We had only known each other a couple of weeks. I was carrying a bag full of beer and I was late, on my way to a party. I hurried round our block, past the block where the Grimbergs lived, looking up at the façade and the small square windows. Some were in darkness; many had their lights on. The lights came on behind one of the windows on the top floor, and shortly afterwards someone opened the window and threw something out. It fell in a wide arc before hitting the ground with a plasticky crash. I looked up to the window; the silhouette had disappeared, but the lights were still on. I carried on, but stopped as I heard the heavy front door of the block open and then slam shut with a boom, and someone came out. He ran over to whatever had been thrown, and picked it up. As he looked up, he caught sight of me, standing there under one of the streetlamps.

‘Leo?'

‘Everything okay?' I said, taking a couple of steps towards him.

‘My Discman.'

Grim was holding it out in front of him. The lid had almost come off its hinges, and the headphones were hanging limp on their wires.

‘I think it's bust,' I said.

‘Yep.' Grim scratched his blond hair and pushed a button that was presumably supposed to open the lid. Instead the whole lid flew off, pirouetting in the air before falling to the ground. Grim looked upset. ‘He will fucking pay for this.'

‘Who?'

He pulled the CD out of the smashed player and stuffed it into the back pocket of his baggy jeans. He threw what was left of the device into a bush behind the row of benches running along the front of the block, and noticed the bag in my hand.

‘Party?'

‘I think so. There's always a party somewhere around here.'

‘I suppose,' Grim said, deep in thought, and nodded towards the line of benches. ‘Do you want to sit down for a bit?'

‘I was actually on my way,' I said, but when I saw how dejected Grim looked, I nodded, pulled out two cans, and gave one to him.

‘A bit of music would've been nice,' he said, sniggering as he opened his can.

I opened mine after tapping the top twice with my index finger.

‘What are you doing?' Grim said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Tapping the can like that. Why?'

‘If there's a lot of carbon dioxide near the opening, it froths over.'

‘And tapping it is going to help is it?'

‘I think so. I don't know.'

‘Pointless,' mumbled Grim and drank some of his beer, and I drank some of mine.

It was only then it first occurred to me that the only reason I always tapped the can before opening it was that I'd seen my brother do it.

We sat there talking. After a while we heard music and raucous voices, and on the other side of the road a gang of skinheads went past. One of them had a Swedish flag draped over his shoulders. They were playing Ultima Thule, and seemed to be hoping for a reaction, that someone might confront them. It had been like this for a while; there were even some at Rönninge High School. Several fights had occurred around Salem. A twenty-year-old guy from Macedonia had had his teeth knocked out a few weeks earlier.