The Invisible Man from Salem (6 page)

I'd stopped thinking about the party I was supposed to be going to. Grim was easy to be around, maybe because we talked about simple things: music, school, films we'd seen, and rumours we'd heard about older guys from Salem who'd graduated from high school. Some already had kids. Some were working full time; others were out travelling. Others still were studying. A few were in young offenders' institutions. And one, then, had recently had his teeth knocked out.

‘Do you know anyone who's been in prison?' I asked.

‘Apart from my dad, no.'

‘What was he in for?'

‘Drunk driving and assault.' Grim sniggered again, but it was a hollow laugh. ‘He was driving once, drunk, and he nearly ran this guy over. The guy had walked out into the road without looking. Dad stopped the car and started shouting at him. It turned into a row, and my dad ended up smacking him in the face. The guy hit his head on the floor and was knocked out, got concussion.'

‘Do you get prison for that?'

‘If you're unlucky. But he only got six months.'

Grim drank some more beer, and took a packet of fags from his pocket and offered me one. He didn't smoke himself, but if he ever came across any cigarettes he would save them, just so he could treat me. I took one and lit it, and sat there for a while thinking about what I would have done if my dad had been in prison. I immediately felt restless — felt the need to get moving, to go to that party.

‘Here comes Julia,' Grim said and nodded towards someone walking in our direction in the darkness.

‘Who?'

‘My sister.'

She had her dark hair up in a ponytail, and was wearing a white dress under a denim jacket that hung open. A wire ran from the jacket pocket, split in two at her chin, and carried on up to two white earphones. A necklace dangled round her neck. Her legs — black, because of her black tights — were long and thin. Unlike Grim, who had a slightly strange look about him, Julia Grimberg didn't look like she was going to have any difficulties when she started at Rönninge High that autumn. She was browner than her brother, but had the same thin face and prominent cheekbones, and she smiled as she noticed him.

‘Where have you been?' he asked.

Julia pulled out the earphones, and I could hear the music and someone singing. She took the CD player out of her jacket pocket and turned it off.

‘Out.'

‘But where?'

She shrugged, looking at me.

‘Hi.'

She stretched out her hand, which surprised me. Julia behaved more like a parent than a little sister. She smiled. Her front teeth were big, almost rectangular like a child's, yet her eyes conveyed that cool distance and scepticism that you only see in adults. I still remember that now, how childlike and grown-up at the same time Julia Grimberg was, and how she could flip from one to the other in the blink of an eye.

When I held her hand in mine, it was small and warm, yet strong.

‘Julia.'

I took a swig of beer.

‘Leo.'

‘Is there another beer in that bag?'

‘Yes,' I said and looked hesitantly at Grim, who was gazing at something else and didn't seem to be listening.

Julia sat next to me on the bench, with her legs crossed. She had heavy black boots with the laces undone, and she smelt fruity, like shampoo. On the road in front of the Triad, someone walked past wearing a long black trench coat and headphones round his neck. I watched him until he turned off the road and disappeared from view.

‘Why don't we go somewhere?' said Julia.

‘Leo's on the way to a party.'

‘I reckon it's a bit late for that,' I lied, and lit another cigarette. ‘It's probably dying down by now.'

‘We could go back to yours, couldn't we?' said Grim.

MY PARENTS WERE AWAY
for the weekend, and my brother was out somewhere. That's the only reason I went along with it. Our flat comprised four rooms and a little kitchen, and although I only rarely brought friends back, this wasn't the first time. It was, however, the first time I experienced the place through someone else's senses. I saw the ugly rug in the hall, and noticed the smell of cigarette smoke coming from the arms of the clothes hanging on the hooks inside the door. I heard the hum of the ventilation system, and saw the photo of my grandparents and how wonkily it was hanging above the living-room sofa. The tap in the kitchen sink was dripping, as it always did. Like most things that never change, I'd got so used to it that I no longer noticed it, but that evening it seemed more intrusive and noticeable than usual. My dad drove a forklift truck in a big warehouse in Haninge. He'd been a boxer when he was young, and claimed that was why he'd never studied. He could do physical work, which was better than using your head. He preferred to leave his head in peace, and to concentrate on other things. I liked that way of thinking. My mum worked in reception at a hotel in Södertälje. They were born the same year, met in a pub on Södermalm when they were nineteen, and split when they were twenty-two because they weren't ready for commitment. They met up again when they were twenty-five, and had my brother when they were twenty-seven. There was something romantic about it all, their splitting up, looking for someone else, only to realise that the person they were looking for had been there all along. He worked days, she often did the night shift, and the flat didn't get cleaned that often.

‘What's that noise?' Grim asked.

‘The kitchen tap. Can't turn it off.'

He stepped out of his boots and looked around.

‘Which is your door?'

‘The one nearest the front door, on the left.'

My room contained a bed and a bookcase half-filled with CDs, films, and some book a relative had once given me. Opposite the bed was the desk, where I never spent any time. Clothes and shoes were strewn across the floor, and the walls were plastered with posters for
Reservoir Dogs
and
White Men Can't Jump
.

‘Lovely,' said Grim, without going in.

The three high-rises in the Triad were identical. Their flat was probably exactly the same as ours, possibly a mirror image. I opened another beer and sat down in an armchair in the living room. I had two left, and I put them on the coffee table for Grim and Julia. Grim went to the toilet, and Julia turned on the stereo on the shelf behind me and went looking for a record in my parents' LP rack. When she didn't find one, she put the radio on.

‘You can put one of mine on instead,' I said when she sat down on the sofa opposite me. ‘If you find anything you like.'

‘I don't want to go in your room. It feels private,' she replied.

‘It's fine, I don't mind.'

‘Yeah, but still.'

When Grim came back from the toilet, he took a seat in the armchair next to mine and we drank beer until we all started laughing at the DJ and mimicked his slow, soporific voice. I put the telly on instead and we watched MTV. When the beer ran out, I went down and got a bottle of spirits from the basement and we drank that, mixed with pop. Julia fell asleep on the sofa after a while. I looked at her as often as I dared to without making Grim suspicious. Her mouth was half open, and her eyes lightly closed. Then she moved, fumbling the bobble out of her hair. I think she did it in her sleep, without waking up.

‘Do you normally drink together?' I asked.

‘Better that she does it with me than with someone else.'

I laughed, drunk.

‘Sounds a bit over-protective.'

‘Maybe.'

‘Doesn't that get on her nerves?'

‘I don't fucking know,' he snarled, waving his hand.

I looked down at my glass. It was nearly empty.

‘By the way,' said Grim, ‘do you need any money?'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘I know where there is some.'

‘How do you know that?'

He tapped his nose lightly.

‘I know that smell.'

‘Money doesn't have a smell,' I said.

‘Everything has a smell,' Grim said, standing up; he went out to the kitchen and stood in front of the cupboards above the sink and the stove.

Above the kitchen cupboards were the more expensive wine glasses, a few vases, an old tin jug, and a heavy pestle and mortar that had belonged to my granddad. Grim stood and stared at them as he sniffed the air in front of him.

‘That one,' he said, pointing to the vases.

‘Which one?'

‘The floral one, second from the left.'

‘It's empty. Look at the dust on it'

‘Wanna bet?'

‘How much?' I said.

‘Half of whatever's in there.'

‘What do I get if you're wrong?'

He hesitated.

‘My rifle.'

‘I don't want your rifle.'

‘Then I'll sell it, and give you the money.'

I laughed at his cockiness, pulled a chair over, and clambered awkwardly onto it. I lifted my hand up and pushed it down into the vase, feeling the rustle of notes against my fingers. When I showed them to Grim, he didn't look at all surprised.

‘How much is there?'

I climbed down from the chair and counted the notes.

‘One thousand six hundred.'

He stretched out his hand.

‘Half of it's mine.'

I could see that he was expecting to get it. We'd made a bet. It was money that my parents were saving for something. It wasn't much, but it was all we had.

‘I can't give it to you.'

Grim's expression darkened.

‘We made a bet.'

‘But it's … it's my parents'. I can't.'

‘But we had a bet. You can't break it.'

I stared at him for some time, imagining my mother's face, how hurt she would be. I gave him a five-hundred note and three one-hundreds.

‘Almost enough for a new Discman,' he said, folded the notes, and stuffed them in his back pocket.

VI

The officer I'd hit in the neck among the shadows of Visby harbour died. He, Max Lasker, and a gang member from each side were the victims of the bungled raid. I know all of their names. I've seen so many pictures of their faces since then that I could draw them from memory. The boxes of weapons contained old copies of
Aftonbladet
and
Expressen,
orange plastic cars, swords and chainmail in grey and black, boy and girl dolls in blue and pink, and lots of Lego. The police were not responsible for the switch. Nobody seemed to know who had duped whom.

When the scandal broke in the press, everyone went looking for a scapegoat. The police's methods were exposed as risky and illegal, and everyone in the organisation hid behind someone else — except me, who had no one to hide behind. I was deemed to have had some kind of breakdown, and was kept under strict observation in Visby before being loaded onto a boat to the mainland under the supervision of two guards. One was called Tom, and when I asked him for a cigarette he looked at me as though I'd asked to have a go on his Taser. I went to the toilet and locked myself in, and spent most of the crossing in there with my head in my hands, not knowing what might happen next. The boat rocked constantly, making me so seasick that I vomited, causing the two guards to smash down the door. They thought I'd tried to kill myself. I was dragged off the boat and into an unmarked police car that took me to Sankt Göran's hospital in Stockholm. I heard someone, perhaps a colleague, whisper in my ear that I wasn't to talk to anyone.

I got my own room. There were no curtains on the window, because they were worried that patients could use them to hang themselves. On a table next to me there was a plastic glass and matching plastic jug. The ceiling was white, like fresh snow.