The Other Son (19 page)

He woke up in the same position he had fallen asleep in. On his back, on top of the bedspread. No Sanna beside him. Night outside the window.

Miles searched through the apartment. She hadn't come home.

His cell phone was on the kitchen table. Five missed calls, all from Sanna. Three messages in his voicemail.

He called her, but her phone was switched off.

Miles checked the messages.

“
Hi, it's me, can you come and get me at the club? I'll wait here.
”

She was speaking in a tone of forced calm.

The next message followed.

“
They're closing soon, the place will soon be locked up. I can't walk out of here on my own. Please, call me.
”

Miles could hear an unmistakable anxiety in her voice.

Then another message, the call made by mistake. A scraping sound as she walked, her voice, muffled by the fabric of her pocket. The words were unintelligible, but the pleading tone was clear enough. He heard a male voice, complaining, loud, high-pitched, agitated, wounded, intense….

The line went dead.

The taxi stopped outside Sophie and Albert's apartment on Eriksbergsgatan.

The elevator up.

Sophie unlocked the door and walked through the apartment to the guest bedroom. There, in a closet, up on a shelf behind a box of winter gloves—a wooden casket. She took it down, opened the lid. An old napkin, white and crumpled. There was a phone number written on it in firm handwriting, written by a man who had promised to return a favor to her.

She dialed the international code for Germany, then the number on the napkin.

A male voice answered with a German
hallo?
after three rings.

“Klaus?” she asked.

“
Who wants to know?
” the voice said in German.

“An old friend,” she said quietly in English.

“
Klaus isn't here anymore
,” the man said in English.

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“
He's passed away
.” The voice was subdued. “
Who am I talking to?
” he asked again.

“What happened?”

“
The cancer got him in the end.
”

Sophie felt a wave of grief. She could see the man in front of her, Klaus Köhler. Wiry, dangerous, different…and sensitive. He was one big paradox. He'd arrived in Stockholm together with the big Russian, Mikhail Asmarov, and they had both worked for Ralph Hanke. They were planning to put Hector under pressure. It didn't go as planned.

They kidnapped Hector, drove him out into the woods, put a gun to his head, and made demands. Aron, Sophie, and Jens followed. Aron shot Klaus in the stomach. Hector and Aron wanted to leave him to die there, bleed out in the forest. But Sophie didn't listen to them. She stopped the bleeding temporarily, demanded that they drive Klaus to the hospital. They did it reluctantly.

She would meet Klaus Köhler two more times. In the chaos that followed, everything became increasingly blurred. Enemies and friends became friends and enemies. Mikhail Asmarov came with Klaus to her and Jens's hideout. Klaus was hurt again. This time a bullet in his shoulder. She helped him again. The third time it was Klaus's turn to help her, and indirectly Hector and Aaron, when he and Mikhail stepped into Trasten at the right moment and fired their weapons against the Russians who were about to kill them all.

Klaus made her the promise there and then.

You've saved my life twice,
Klaus had said, then wrote his number on one of the restaurant's napkins before walking away.

“When?” Sophie asked the man on the phone.

“
Two months ago.
”

“Had he been ill for long?”

“
Yes. But it was diagnosed too late.
”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“
My name's Rüdiger. I lived with Klaus.
”

“I'm sorry,” she said. It sounded hollow.

A pause.

“
Is that a Scandinavian accent I hear?
” he asked.

“Yes…”

“
Then I think I know who you are.
”

“Who am I?” she asked.

“
You're the woman who helped him, the nurse. Aren't you?
”

She didn't answer.

“
Thank you, Sophie,
” he said, as if they knew each other.

Several seconds passed before he went on. “
What did you want to talk to Klaus about?
”

“I wanted to ask for help,” she said quietly.

“
What with?
”

“It doesn't matter now.

A pregnant pause.

“
Goodbye,
” Rüdiger said, and hung up.

Miles slipped into the strip club. There were just a couple of poor, lonely jerks waiting for the morning show.

He headed straight for the curtain that was off-limits to people like him.

A heavily made-up woman with fiery red hair, thigh-high boots, a leather corset, and a bullwhip in her hand was walking toward him along the corridor on her high heels.

“Do you know where I can find Sanna?” he asked.

“You're not allowed back here.” She had a strong Finnish accent.

“Do you know where I can find Sanna?” he asked again, frustrated.

“Why?”

“I need to get ahold of her.”

The woman looked at him carefully. “You're a regular here?”

He nodded again.

The leather mistress brightened up.

“Well, sure! We always give each other's addresses to customers who sit and stare at us all day long. All we ever dream of is that one of you will one day discover us and get in touch.”

The Finnish accent made her sarcasm even more biting.

“I actually know her. I want to talk to her….We're living together.”

She held his gaze. He looked away, dug out his wallet, and showed her his police ID.

“That doesn't make it any better,” she said.

Miles realized it was pointless and put his ID away.

“If you see her, tell her Miles is looking for her.”

He walked away.

The Finnish woman called after him. “How well do you know her?”

Miles stopped and turned around. “What?”

“How well do you know Sanna?”

Miles thought. “Fairly well.”

She waited for more. “That doesn't mean anything to me. Tell me something about her.”

“Tell you something about her?”

She knew he'd heard her, and said nothing.

“She's a good cook,” he said, but could hear how hollow that sounded.

The woman confirmed as much with an unimpressed stare.

“She likes comedies,” he mumbled. “She lights candles, buys flowers when she can. When she's by herself and in a good mood she sings old Swedish pop songs.”

Miles searched his memory and more images appeared.

“She's allergic to nickel. She hits me hard on my upper arm when she laughs, she's very good at French, good pronunciation….”

He shrugged, thinking it all sounded silly.

The Finnish woman stood there motionless; there was something bitter about her, as if she were giving him a last chance. Miles scratched his head.

“She grew up with her mom and dad in Malmberget. They were Communists,” he said.

He rubbed the back of his neck, then went on.

“Sanna thinks they loved her but their political convictions meant they sometimes neglected her….”

“Sanna's in Södermalm Hospital,” the leather-clad woman interrupted.

Miles looked up. “Sorry?”

She knew he had heard.

“Her ex was here yesterday after work. He beat the shit out of her.”

She walked off. Miles tried to make sense of what the woman had told him.

“Who? What's his name, the ex?” he managed to say.

The Finnish woman stopped, turned around, but seemed to hesitate.

“Roger Lindgren,” she said.

She stood there for a while with one hand on her hip.

“You're such fucking pathetic little cunts, all of you.”

She said this with genuine disgust, aimed at the entire male gender. He wanted to say he wasn't one of them. But of course he was.

Her stiletto heels clicked hard on the floor as she stalked off and disappeared behind the curtain to the strip club. A smattering of thin applause greeted her as she walked onstage and cracked her bullwhip in the air. Synth drums from 1986, Samantha Fox singing “Touch Me.”

She lay there,
unconscious and badly beaten. Her jaw was broken, the lower half of her face hidden by bandages, her eyes bruised and swollen beyond recognition, traces of dried blood.

Part of him wanted to walk away; another part wanted to stay, stay and keep watch.

Staying with her won.

He fetched a chair, pulled it to the side of the bed, and never took his eyes off her. He didn't cry. Everything was dry and revolting.

Hospital apparatuses hummed in the room. Miles wanted to lean forward and whisper something in her ear, tell her he was there now, that he'd never give up. But he didn't. Instead he just sat there staring at her, as if he were being forced to. As if some stronger power were holding him there. Look at this, look, and see how it feels, Miles Ingmarsson.

The Finnish woman at the strip club was right. He was a little cunt.

Miles had always wanted to believe that his nonchalant attitude toward life and the people around him gave him a sort of neutral alibi for everything and everyone: an in-between person, neither good nor bad, neither kind nor mean. Just drifting past everything without any responsibility. As if he had convinced himself that the reality he lived in was a sort of mixture of extremes. And that if he balanced precisely on the knife's edge, he would be immune to most things. But Miles Ingmarsson wasn't immune to anything. Not to mortal dread: the car crash had proved that. Not to love: Sanna had proved that. Not to fear: the previous evening had proved that.