“I have two people guarding the house. You won’t see them, but they’re good at what they do. If anything happens, anything that doesn’t feel right, you call me immediately.”
“And the kids, what should I tell . . .”
“I love you.”
He kissed her, and she asked no more questions. He then managed to avoid the creaking on the staircase and the action figures on the hall floor, but he couldn’t escape the buzz of that fucking vibration as a third text message arrived while he was on his way out the door.
Later today you will receive your orders. The weapon you should use on our account. Time and place in our next message.
Go take care of a few things.
That’s how he described those filled-in boxes in the crossword puzzle stuffed into his pocket, which provided the plan not just for his escape, but for his family’s, and a place for them to escape to.
Later today.
Piet Hoffmann knew he didn’t have much time.
And now he understood how very little.
He started the car he’d parked at the rusty gate of the house that had been their home since Hugo was born. He could still see Zofia standing there, pregnant, laughing until she made him laugh, until they were both giggling and didn’t want to stop, it had felt so enormous—that first time they stepped over the threshold hand in hand into their very own house.
Morning traffic hadn’t really gotten going yet, almost no slowdowns at all as he drove in the direction of Stockholm’s inner city.
He was always one step ahead, that’s how he survived.
But not now.
The timing of his actions was being decided by those who threatened him. And when they contacted him later, he’d do what he could to stall them until this evening, maybe until tonight; with a bit of luck and some lies that were more skillful than the ones he’d give to Zofia, he’d stall them until tomorrow morning. Twenty-four hours. But he wouldn’t get more than that. He would just have to be ready by then. One step ahead of a faceless organization with arms so long they reached into the upper echelons of the Stockholm police.
* * *
• • •
He’d left home dressed as usual, same time as usual, moved like he always did. If someone was sitting in front of a computer monitoring him through a camera—as he would be if he was them—they’d see nothing unusual. It was now, in his car and on his way, that he’d slip away from them so he could transform. He doubted that whoever was watching him had cameras placed anywhere besides his home and office, but just to be sure he wasn’t being followed, first he drove to a garage beneath Globen Stadium, left the cell phone they wanted him to answer on the passenger seat and switched to a Volvo he kept parked there for exactly this type of occasion. He drove it to a garage under Medborgar Square and a blue car he kept parked there, then to a garage under Åsö Street and a black Opel.
* * *
• • •
He drove the oval onto Söderleden, crossed the Central Bridge, took the tunnel from Tegelbacken to Kungs Street. The city was waking up now, but still fairly empty, so it didn’t take long to get by Stureplan and Humlegården and on to Vallhalla Road and Sophiahemmet hospital, christened long ago by a queen. The doctor, a man in his fifties wearing a slightly too short lab coat, was waiting as promised at the entrance to the K-building—as far from the front entrance as you could get. They shook hands firmly, they’d never met before, but they were about to spend several hours together locked in a room with no other eyes. They walked side by side, almost in sync, up heavy stone steps to something called the Swedish Phoniatric Clinic. At this time of day it was as empty as the streets.
The large room Hoffmann was led into was divided into two sections. The first looked like a normal office with a standard desk and standard chairs and a couple of computer screens. And on the other side of a glass door, the second section contained a small operating room with cold bright lights, a stainless steel rolling cart, and an operating table that could be raised and lowered like a dental chair. The doctor turned on one of the computers, placed a tripod and a microphone on the desk, and pulled a visitor’s chair out of a small closet.
“Here we go. Please sit down. We’ll need to get acquainted with each other before continuing.”
Anonymous. That’s what they were.
A white coat with no name tag, a visitor with no medical records.
“Our shared acquaintance said time was of the essence. And that you could pay for speed and discretion.”
Piet Hoffmann took an envelope from the same pocket where he’d kept the fucking phone. It was thick—cash takes up more room than you’d think.
“You can count it.”
“No need. I trust you. Trust, it’s often lacking when we need it the most. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Hoffmann dropped the envelope onto the desk next to the microphone stand. Inside was stack of bills that added up to twenty thousand dollars. They’d once been part of a much larger stash in a suitcase he’d carried home from his hellish trip to North Africa. Enough for a family to get by on for a while.
When the doctor didn’t immediately pick it up, Hoffmann pushed it across the desk to him and wouldn’t let go until the money exchanged hands.
“Now you’ve got your fee. What you came here for. I want you to do what I came for.”
The doctor was wearing a pair of frameless glasses balanced on his nose, and he held them to keep them from falling off as he leaned over to put the envelope into his briefcase.
“Very well, please begin by speaking into this.”
The microphone. That’s what Hoffmann was supposed to use.
“What should I say?”
“Whatever you like. I need at least twenty seconds.”
Piet Hoffmann leaned closer to the microphone while the doctor clicked open a window on the computer screen to something that looked like a regular chart. The scale on the left read Volume (dB) and the scale at the bottom read Pitch (Hz).
“What you say isn’t important, it’s how it sounds.”
Piet Hoffmann sat in silence. It was ridiculous—he had no words left. What should a person say when they have no background and don’t want to be identified if anyone ever heard this?
“I’ll start recording as soon as you begin. Go ahead.”
“Phonetogram.”
He looked at the doctor who nodded for him to continue.
“Ground floor. Nasolabial fold. Detcord. Jammers. Positioning. Encryption code. Phonetogram. Ground floor. Nasolabial fold . . .”
Hoffmann interrupted himself.
“Is that enough?”
On the screen, a choppy pattern had appeared. Like a map, points linked together in straight lines that formed the borders of a country, or maybe an island in a checkered sea.
“I’ve made many a recording here. But what you said, what was it now?—well, that was a first.”
“Just what I had in my mind. A crossword I solved this morning.”
“I know I said it could be whatever you like. But unfortunately that’s not enough. It’s important that you speak more . . . normally. Complete sentences. So I can establish your basic vocal range. Maybe you could tell me a story. Or describe what it looks like at home, tell me about your children, if you have any. Anything that sounds normal.”
Piet Hoffmann did as he was asked. Let his mind lead them through a house he always longed for as soon as he stepped out of it. But he replaced all names, reversed all the facts.
“Good. Good. So . . . two girls?”
“And a newborn baby boy.”
The doctor studied the new image, which looked like the borders of a new country on another map, or another island with a new shape.
“Perfect. Now we have something to compare with. Your voice is very deep, much deeper than most, but you probably already know
that. I say this because I have some patients who come here quite unaware of how they sound. And therefore they don’t realize the difference afterward.”
Hoffmann nodded. He knew that his voice was easy to recognize. That’s why he was here—he had no other choice. His voice, his appearance, his way of moving. It added up to a personality, what could expose a person.
“The fact that your voice is so deep is a good thing. Because only the bass tones will disappear. I just need to remind you—just to make sure we’re on the same page—that the new condition we will create, shifting your voice upward, is irreversible. Once I’ve stretched out the vocal cords and increased their rigidity they’ll vibrate more quickly, and from that moment on, your voice will be changed forever. Still deep, still a man’s voice, but more like everyone else.”
The operation was usually performed under anesthesia.
Piet Hoffmann didn’t have time for that.
The doctor with no name tag, after an intense discussion, agreed to using only local anesthetic—so the patient who lay on the operating table staring into the icy light was aware of how his neck was being opened, how the cartilage in his larynx was being pulled tight. The next time they communicated—the wound just freshly sewn and taped up—Hoffmann carried out his end via paper and pen. Every time the doctor tried to strongly recommend that a patient should stay for observation after this procedure, Hoffmann replied via a notepad with the hospital’s logo in one corner that he had to go, and he wouldn’t be doing that.
When they sat down at the desk again and Piet Hoffmann spoke into the microphone, they could both see how the map had changed—the points and the lines formed a new voice with another tonal range.
“If you go home now you do so at your own risk. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“You can eat normally tonight, but don’t forget to keep your head bent a bit forward. And please try to speak as little as possible over the next few days. I’m giving you some antibiotics to prevent any infection in the wound.”
The doctor handed him a small round bottle with white tablets inside, and then they both stood up. It was over.
Back at the entrance to the hospital, they were met by heat and sound. It was morning now.
“When the thyroid cartilage and cricoid cartilage are pulled together like this, swallowing usually becomes a little more difficult. It’s nothing dangerous, just uncomfortable, but it will pass in a few weeks.”
The doctor readjusted the collar of his white coat, smiled slightly.
“And there’s also the matter of your singing voice. It won’t sound like it did before. You lost a few notes. But maybe it’s not singing that’s got you in such a hurry?”
* * *
• • •
The traffic was heavier, but still navigable. A couple of times he had to drive up onto a sidewalk, spent a short stretch headed the wrong way on a one-way street, took the car down a pedestrian-only street, but soon he was back in the tunnel beneath the city, headed south. He exited at the Johanneshov Bridge, made a sharp turn toward Södermalm and Skanstull. A right just before Ring Road, where he knew there were a few good short-term parking spots beneath the Clarion Hotel, maximum thirty minutes.
He turned off his car and took out his phone, opened the browser window. Apartments for sale. That’s what he was looking for now. A condo in a southern suburb, at least five but no more than ten kilometers from his family’s house in Enskede. The price didn’t matter, nor did the number of rooms, nor did he care if it had a balcony or tiled stove. He was looking for a building that was cast in place, where the structure was solid concrete, with walls at least fifteen centimeters thick. Impossible for most weapons to pierce. That was his first priority as he searched through everything that was on the market, hundreds of apartments that looked the same because they’d been home-staged by the same companies.
But he couldn’t find what he wanted.
His second choice then was to find apartments located on the ground floor in buildings built in the fifties. Especially in the years 1953, 1955, 1958. This yielded more options. He found a total of seven apartments, and he was pretty sure that at least four of them sat on hollow-core slabs—which was key. He cleared his throat, tried out his new voice. It worked. And the doctor was right, not so uniquely deep anymore, just a normal voice, that’s who he was from now on. He made the call. Talked to a very friendly and helpful woman at the Stockholm city planning office, who confirmed this was such a building, built with exactly that sort of floor slab. So the ceilings, walls, and floors would have a helluva lot of air in them—a thin outer layer of three centimeters of concrete framed from two sides in twenty-two centimeters of sand and sound insulation and nothing more.
He asked her to email him the floor plans for these four addresses.
Waited impatiently for what never seemed to arrive and was about to give up when his inbox pinged.
He opened the attachments one at a time.
Turned and twisted the pictures, enlarged and reduced, juxtaposed the sketches of these large residential buildings constructed over sixty years ago.
Finally he found what he was looking for. One was absolutely perfect.
An apartment that not only lay on the ground floor—it also sat just above an air raid shelter.
* * *
• • •
The broker, a man in his fifties with a smile like a stencil, was wearing a black suit with busy pinstripes. The look was an attempt at successful lawyer who just won a big case or board member of some huge bank. As if that would induce confidence. He spoke in a broad Skåne accent, sat at the corner desk in an elegantly furnished office, and was by far the oldest broker on their staff.
“It’s a great location in a very popular area. Close to schools and grocery stores. A great condo association and lots of period details. Very well preserved. Herringbone parquet floors and kitchen with the original cabinetry. Even the original electric meter, you know the kind, black Bakelite, still hanging on the wall. The first thing you see when you step inside.”
“I’m here to buy this apartment.”
Piet Hoffmann was sitting in the visitor’s armchair, and he waved away the bowl of hard candies wrapped in paper bearing the company’s logo when the broker offered it.
“And I want to do it today.”
“We’re holding an open house this weekend. Seller’s wishes. Bidding. These are the times we live in—more buyers than there are apartments.”
“How much?”
“But—you haven’t even seen it?”
“How much . . .”
Hoffmann browsed through a stack of glossy brochures that lay between them on the broker’s desk, held up a page with a close-up of the antique electric meter that he cared about as little as he did the location of the closest grocery store.
“. . . to get your seller to sign the contract immediately?”
“Immediately?”
“As in right now.”
Something greenish, like a blade of grass, seemed to be stuck to one of broker’s front teeth. Food, probably. It was even more visible when he flashed one of his stenciled-on smiles. Hoffmann considered telling him.
“I’m dead serious. And I’m in a hurry so you better act fast if you don’t want me to walk out of here and lose out on the easiest commission you’ve ever stumbled across.”
The bowl of candies. The broker grabbed a couple for himself, somewhat absent-mindedly.
They crunched as he chewed.
“Yes . . . well, the price you see in the ad is of course just a starting point.”
He pulled himself together.
A possible business deal was sitting in front of him. Which of course meant a commission but also a negotiation. And that was always so much more fun than instructing the photographer on which angle to use and how best to retouch the ph
otos, or going through the list of visitors you had the day after the open house knowing no one was particularly interested in buying.
“Five million one hundred and ninety-five thousand kronor. That’s our starting price. But if I’m going to get the seller to bypass the bidding process, well, I guess probably somewhere in the neighborhood of . . .”
“Six million.”
“Six?”
“Half a million more if I can move in tonight.”
“Six and a half . . . ?”
“If we can sign the papers before I leave here—and I have the key in hand no later than two PM.”
The broker was the kind of guy whose cheeks turned red when he got excited. Even his neck turned bright red.
“The seller lives there. The whole family. They’re probably having breakfast right now in the kitchen you see in those pictures. Moving out right now without any warning, it seems . . .”
“Seven million kronor. The last five hundred thousand is for you. If you can get them to leave the kitchen table and the beds behind.”
When a half hour later Piet Hoffmann backed out of the narrow parking lot of the real estate office, he did so with the deed to a new apartment in hand. The increasingly elated broker only lost his smile for a moment when he realized the buyer insisted on paying that last half million as cash in two sealed envelopes. But he regained it, his smile perhaps even more wide and fake, when a third envelope with an additional one hundred thousand kronor was added to the other two in appreciation for how professionally the whole matter had been handled. Cash. Always useful. A year ago he left North Africa with a suitcase of dollar bills. Most of it he’d been able to launder through various bank accounts and old contacts who took twenty-five percent for their trouble, but some of it still lay in the safe that Zofia didn’t know about.
Hoffmann drove to the garage under Globen Stadium and parked next to the car he’d left there this morning along with the phone. Three missed calls—and one text message. Which he opened.
Knock Knock Page 9
