The Other Son (17 page)

“Are you OK?” he asked.

Miles guessed his face was turning blue.

“What is it?”

Miles raised his chin and pointed at his throat. The air had run out. He closed his eyes, he was suffocating. Sounds became muffled, the world was dark, Miles didn't want to die. He started to jerk as his body screamed for oxygen, and the jerks turned into convulsions. About then, Miles slipped into unconsciousness.

Miles opened his
eyes. He was lying outside the car, coughing and gasping for breath. The suntanned man was sitting on top of him.

“Good! Thought you were going to die.” He smiled with his white teeth, and patted Miles on the shoulder. “I'll take this as payment.”

He dangled Miles's key to the handcuffs. He stood up and quickly disappeared from view.

Miles turned his head and watched the man and the two others hurrying away from the police car. He took several slow, deep breaths, then rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky, where he saw thick white clouds against the blue, and realized that life was finite. And that he didn't want it to be, because he hadn't had time to do anything yet. After all, he'd only just met Sanna.

According to the plan, the police car should have had time to stop. But it hadn't.

Sophie had been sitting in the getaway car and watched the accident happen in the rearview mirror as the police car crashed into the van, then was run into from behind.

It had taken much longer than expected. But they all appeared in the end. Leszek, Hasani, and Jens. All in one piece.

Leszek hurried to her car, Hasani and Jens jumped in the rental car alongside. She caught a glimpse of him, their eyes met, he smiled. She wanted to reach out to him.

Then they drove off.

Sophie headed for Stockholm.

Her heart was thudding so hard that she felt physically exhausted. She wanted to pull off and leave the motorway, hide somewhere. But Leszek ordered her to carry on. They drove along the motorway, painfully slowly.

Sophie wished she had Jens with her rather that Leszek. She wanted to talk to him, look at him….

Leszek turned the radio on. A hostage drama on Sveavägen meant that half the city was closed off.

“We were lucky,” he said.

As they approached the building on Norr Mälarstrand Leszek's phone rang. He answered, listened, said little. He was facing away from her. She got the impression something was up….

The call ended.

“Who was that?” she asked.

He didn't answer, just bit one of his cuticles, which was unlike him.

“Leszek?” She tried to sound normal.

He turned toward her, and the look on his face made her blood run cold. Disappointment, derision, something impenetrable.

“What is it?” she managed to say.

He pointed at a free parking space close to the door. She parked the car and switched the engine off.

Leszek remained in his seat and held his hand out to her.

“Give me the key.”

“What for?”

“Just give me the key, Sophie.”

She pulled the key out of the ignition and gave it to him.

“Get out of the car,” he said.

“Leszek, I don't understand.”

But she did understand. This was about her. They knew something.

“Just do as I say.”

She stared at him. “No, I'm not going to. Who was that calling, Leszek? Who did you just speak to on the phone?”

She tried to play the game, to get a hint of what was going on. What did they know?

But Leszek didn't answer. He simply pulled out his pistol and laid it on his lap. His voice was slow, threatening, restrained but aggressive.

“Get out of the car. Now, Sophie.”

He raised the pistol a centimeter from his leg, it was pointing at her.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

Nothing she said seemed to have any effect on him.

Sophie opened the car door and got out. She walked across the street toward the entrance.

As she tapped the code in she turned around and saw Leszek drive off again in the car.

The elevator made its way slowly upward.

She entered the apartment.

“Hello?”

No answer. She hurried to Albert's room.

He was sitting on his bed, his big headphones over his ears, sketching on a pad. He saw her and pulled the headphones off.

“Hi,” he said.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

He thought for a moment. “Leszek and Hasani are with you. Angela and the boys are out. Where have you been?”

“Where are Angela and the boys?”

“Out somewhere, I don't know.”

“When did she leave?”

“Fifteen minutes ago, maybe. Someone called, then she took the boys and left.”

“Where to?”

“I don't know,” he said irritably.

“Who called?”

“I don't know. Mom, what is it?”

She turned around and walked out.

In the hallway she took out one of her cell phones from her handbag and called Hasani's number. The call didn't go through. She tried Leszek's number, but his cell phone was just as dead.

Jens?
She pulled out her other cell phone, the one only he knew the number to, checked that it was working, that the volume was switched on, that the battery was charged. She put it back in her bag.

In the kitchen she got a glass off the shelf near the sink, turned on the tap, and let the water run until it was so cold it hurt. Sophie tried to think. Tried to figure out what had happened, if they knew anything—and, if so, what?

The water gushed from the tap. The noise suddenly sounded far too loud. Like in a dream. And beyond it there was another sound somewhere, harder, farther away. She turned the tap off.

Something clicked. The front door closing?

“Hello?” she called out.

She tried to listen.

“Hello?” she said again, much quieter this time. As if her own voice had scared her.

She went out into the corridor.

There was a man standing there. In the middle of the hall floor. Short, dark clothes, shaved head. Hands in his jacket pockets, head thrust forward, crooked eyes that were staring at her.

Fear landed heavily in her stomach. She hurried toward Albert's room. The man was close behind her, and grabbed her hair and dragged her to the floor.

“Albert!” she cried, even though she knew he couldn't do anything, he was sitting there paralyzed on his bed.

“
Mom!
” he called back.

The man sat on top of her. His crooked eyes were clearer now, asymmetrical in a pale face.

He was working efficiently, holding her down with brute strength. There was something in his hand: a folded handkerchief. He pressed it into her mouth as she tried to scream. He held her nose tight. Out of reflex she opened her mouth, and breathed in through the handkerchief. Strong, bitter, chemical. She felt giddy instantly. She had time to see him shake out a black cloth sack, which he pulled over her head and tied around her throat.

Everything went black.

A stray dog was running around, sniffing anxiously among the dead and buried.

Antonia was standing in Västberga Cemetery looking at the stone beneath which Lars Vinge lay buried beside his parents.

Why was she standing there? Because she wanted to understand something? Hear something—a whisper, voices from the other side? But nothing of that sort came to her. Only that morning's events, which didn't want to leave her consciousness. The chaos at the bank on Sveavägen. The shot, Håkan Zivkovic's skull exploding, the blood on the wall.

Antonia sighed.

The stray dog scampered around in front of her.

Was she standing here among the dead in the hope of coming to terms with everything?

No…

She just wanted to know. Just like she did on all the other days of the week.

Antonia walked away and got back in her car, putting it in reverse. The stray dog pissed on Lars Vinge's grave before wandering off.

She drove back to the station, sat down behind her desk, and read through the report on his death.

Vinge had shot himself in the head six months ago with a stolen weapon in an apartment on Södermalm after murdering his boss, Gunilla Strandberg. There were plenty of convincing statements from forensics experts and medical officers. Suicide, nothing more, nothing less.

But it felt shaky. She had felt as much the first time she read it. There ought to be more there. There always was in other investigations. Official details, bureaucratic nonsense, references, and all manner of information about things no one would ever be interested in. But not here, not with Lars Vinge.

Antonia leaned back.

Where was all the information about bankruptcies, relatives, his estate, debts? There wasn't even some of the most basic information, such as where his belongings had been archived. Lars Vinge's employment file ought to have been there as well, and all the details of his employment history. But there was nothing like that. Was it just a matter of sloppiness? Or was it more deliberate?

Antonia opened a search engine on her computer. There were eight companies and individuals who dealt with the belongings of dead people in Stockholm. She called each of them in turn, introducing herself and giving them Vinge's name and ID number, and said the same thing to them all: “It's urgent.”

Miles had a drip in his arm and was staring up at a blank white ceiling.

A gray-haired doctor came in. White coat, blue trousers. He was reading some notes.

“You've got three broken ribs, a concussion, and numerous scratches and bruises.”

He moved on to the usual questions:
How are you feeling, any memory loss, anxiety?

Miles answered
OK, no, no.

“I'll prescribe some painkillers, something for anxiety, and some sleeping pills, in case you have trouble sleeping.”

“But I don't feel anxious,” Miles said.

“This is Sweden, everyone's anxious,” the doctor muttered. “Nurse will give you some pills on your way out, until you get to a pharmacy.”

The staff room
smelled of scorched coffee when Miles got back to the station. He filled his cup.

Antonia Miller came in and got a mug from the cupboard.

“What happened?” she asked.

He recognized her curiosity. It was always there, like some destructive torment.

“I don't know. A prisoner breakout.”

She looked tired. There was something brittle about her, and her eyes were blazing.

“How are you doing?” he heard himself ask.

“How am I doing?”

She sounded as if he'd accused her of something.

“Yes, how are you doing, Antonia?”

“I'm fine. You?”

“Absolutely fine,” he replied.

She looked doubtfully at the injuries to his face.

“Who is he?” she said.

“Who?”

“The guy from Mexico.”

“No idea.”

“But this must mean something?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe he was just a guest at the restaurant, or one of the staff. That could be why the alert sounded when his prints popped up.”

She almost snorted.

“But he was broken out of custody?” she said.

“Yes, people get all sorts of ideas in their heads these days. There's not necessarily any connection.”

He smiled, a past master at dismissing objections.

She met his smile, happy mouth, angry eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

“No more than I said.”

“What did you say, then?”

“That there's not necessarily any connection.”

She was on the point of exploding but tried to hold everything in.

“What did he look like?” she asked.

“Nothing special,” he replied.

“How does that look, then?”

“Like nothing much,” he said.

She scooped coffee into the filter.

“Lars Vinge,” she said quietly.

He stopped.

“What?”

“Lars Vinge,” she repeated.

He didn't know who she was talking about, and said, “Who's that?”

“Lars Vinge, he worked for Gunilla on the Hector Guzman investigation. The man who shot her, then himself…”

Miles looked at her with distaste. “This is depressing, just let it go, for God's sake.”

“Let what go?”

But Miles merely walked away.

That, together with Miles's dismissive attitude and her own inability to control herself, made her see red. She marched after him.

“You're pathetic, Ingmarsson. And soon you'll be a laughingstock. You know that, don't you?”

He stopped.

“What are you doing here?” she went on.

An irritated smile crossed his face. “I'm doing my job.”

“No, that's exactly what you're not doing. Are you pliable, Miles? Is that why you're here?”

She struggled to stay calm.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

“Yes, you do. When anyone needs to empty the bucket of shit, they call you. And you do the shitty job. You've been brought in here specifically not to do anything. I'm not stupid. How are you going to keep the lid on this incident?”

“You look after your own cases and I'll look after mine.”

He kept on walking.

“Yours? You've only got one, and it's a joke,” she said.

“You're a very unpleasant person,” Miles said.

Back in his
office Miles sat down on his chair, regretting his last words to Antonia. He didn't like being bitter and mean.

He stared out through the window, the sky was blue, the clouds were white, airplanes were flying around up there, and somewhere beyond the atmosphere the universe began, and beyond the universe there was evidently nothing.

He could see her from the corner of his eye, she was standing by the door.

“We protect the good from the bad,” she said. “We do it because we believe in it. And while we do it, we protect each other. We help each other and we all work toward the same goal. And you know why?”

She knew he wasn't going to answer that, so she went on.

“Because we police officers have chosen to do this over any number of other good things.”

She pointed behind her with her thumb.

“Everyone in this corridor has made sacrifices. So who the fuck are you, Miles Ingmarsson?”

She marched into his office, put a mug of fresh coffee down on his desk, and walked out.

He stared at the mug of coffee, took hold of it, and drank a sip. It was perfect.

Miles left the
office later that afternoon and walked home alone through the city. The pain in both his soul and his ribs was constant and severe. His injured face scared people he met. He smoked three cigarettes in a row and kept his feelings locked up. He was fine with that, he'd been brought up to do that whenever his emotions got too much.

Sanna was home.

She looked normal: no makeup, jeans, and a top. He liked that. But he liked it just as much when she looked like a whore. Sanna was perfect however she was.

“How are you doing?” she asked, touching the wounds on his face carefully with her forefinger.

“It's fine.”

Sanna searched his eyes. “No, it's not.”

He slumped on the sofa and she sat down beside him. Miles talked about the breakout and the car crash. Sanna looked horrified. She patted his cheek tenderly. Her gentle touch released the tension, and Miles sighed.

Fifteen minutes later she was standing in front of him, hand on hip. She was posing very nicely, dressed up as a maid, with fishnet stockings and a skirt that was far too short. Her breasts were squeezed tight and her lips were redder than a Communist star. Sanna turned around and walked steadily toward the hall. She pulled one of his beige coats from its hanger and put it on.

“See you,” she said, and disappeared.

The front door closed with a bang.

Miles listened to her footsteps in the stairwell until they faded away.

He stared at the ceiling. The car crash came back. The feeling of suffocating, the cold, brittle anguish.

That near-death experience had been of no value at all. Just horrible, in every possible way.

Music from the radio in the kitchen, melancholic and beautiful; it hurt, cutting a breathing hole in what Miles was trying to smother.

He made to get up from the sofa, but the pain in his ribs was instantaneous. He tried again and got to his feet with a short yelp of pain. He went out to the kitchen and turned off the damn radio.

He leaned against the kitchen counter and stared down into the sink, silvery in a surprisingly ugly way. His breathing was fast and shallow, his heart was beating faster and weaker. The doctor was right, everyone was anxious. He found the pills the nurse gave him at the hospital.

He took a painkiller.

He took a tranquilizer.

He took a sleeping pill.

Miles waited a minute, nothing happened. He took one more of each again.