* * *
—
What was this all about? he had asked. But in fact, he wanted answers to a different set of questions. How long will I be here? What are you going to do? What am I expected to do? What’s going on?
He didn’t understand. Reality lost its shape, its stability. He had been transported. Searched. Dressed in someone else’s clothes. He slept. Woke. Ate.
What is going on? The panic would ease if only he received an answer. If only someone would explain. But no one did.
Each time the door closed, he started over. Like a fly on the hunt for a place to die, he moved around the cell. Sat down. Stood up. Sat down.
When would the door open next? What would happen then? When would this end?
He never asked.
11
At Emla Prison there was no graffiti. No discarded, empty bottles on the side of the driveway, no tunnel stinking of urine that visitors must pass through with their hearts in their throats. There were neither sheer cliffs nor a ferocious sea around the prison. There was no sniper at the ready. There were only row houses, managed forests, and fallow fields. The Emla facility was centrally located, in among baby carriages, pets, and apple trees. When Sophia got off the bus and began to walk toward the building, she found herself in the company of a man with a Rollator. He was out for a walk and looked at her as she glanced toward the prison: at the perimeter fence, the lawn, the security wall, the spotlights, the palisade fence, and the security cameras. Nothing was visible of the world inside.
Sophia approached the wooden security booth, feeling oddly cheerful for such an errand, and pressed the button to state her business. A dull metallic pop from the gate let her know that she could enter. The same pop echoed from every door. Even as she lifted her hand to touch the handle, it buzzed. Someone was watching her and knew when she was ready to open it. There was no need to wait.
The visiting room was empty when Sophia stepped in. She sat on the chair, leaving the sofa for Stig. While she waited for him to arrive she armed herself as usual, with a pen and notepad. She had jotted down a number of questions beforehand. But in fact, she was most interested in what Stig Ahlin would tell her about his expectations, should she take up his cause. And what she could expect from him.
A few minutes later he came through the door. He didn’t look like the man Sophia remembered. During the trial his hair had seemed unnaturally thick, and his teeth ridiculously white. But that was all gone. What was left was a sinewy man with his gray hair cut so short it hardly covered his scalp.
They said hello. Sophia tried to squeeze his hand with the perfect amount of pressure, then sat down again, a bit too quickly, and ran her hand over her notepad a few times.
She cleared her throat. Stig Ahlin said nothing. His hands rested against his thighs, still, his palms upturned. It looked like a meditation pose. He looked at her without smiling, absently. Neither spoke.
Sophia cleared her throat again. She would have to be the one to begin.
“Well,” she said. “You know why I’m here.”
Stig Ahlin threw out his hands, then returned them to his legs and smiled stiffly. “And here I am.”
Sophia didn’t say anything for a moment, waiting for more words that never came.
I could stand up and leave, she thought. I don’t have to stay.
“Right. Well,” she said. “I need to know why you want me to work with you, if that is in fact what you want.”
“Hans Segerstad recommended you. And so far, that’s enough. For me.”
“Thank you for your confidence,” she managed to say. She opened her notepad and looked down at it. Thirteen years he’s been behind bars. And yet he manages to look as if I’m the one who came here to bother him. As if he’s spending his precious time on me, and not vice versa. I suppose I should count to ten. To keep from saying something I might regret.
“How can I help, counselor?”
One, two, three, four, Sophia thought. Five, six, seven, eight. Nine. Ten.
“You can tell me what you want. How you feel about this. Whether you truly want me to take this on. As I’m sure you know, it is very unusual to be granted a new trial. It would be simpler to apply to have your sentence converted to time-limited. The chances of that happening are much higher. And that doesn’t rule out…You could petition for a retrial from the outside.”
“I’m not interested in having my sentence converted.” Stig’s voice sliced through the room. “As long as I remain convicted, there is no reason for me to get out. I can’t work, I have no family, I have no life. That’s all been taken from me. In here, at least I’m somewhat safe.”
He fell silent and returned to staring at her.
“Safe?” Sophia asked. “You know, there are ways to…If you get out, you can apply for protected identity.”
Stig Ahlin shrugged.
“Then how do you think I can help you?” she asked.
Stig Ahlin remained silent. His hands were motionless on his legs. She tried again.
“If I’m going to help you, you need to help me.” Sophia looked at her wrist. It was bare. She’d had to leave her watch at the security checkpoint. “I’m not a mind reader. Tell me something I haven’t read in the papers. Or in the case file. I assume you’ve had time to take a look at it. Could you tell me what you think of what’s in there? Anything, really.”
“So that’s it,” said Stig. “You want to know who I am. Get to know me?” Even though they were sitting less than three feet apart, Stig managed not to look at her. “What an empathetic person you are, I’m impressed.”
Sophia didn’t respond.
“Are you looking for a good reason to say no?” he asked.
Sophia still didn’t respond.
“Naturally you don’t believe I’m innocent. But you don’t want to admit that’s the reason you don’t want to represent me. A pretty little lawyer like you. It won’t do to gain a reputation as squeamish.” Stig lowered his voice. “Is it money? Is that the problem? That’s usually the reason people like you say no to people like me. Or lack of time? Do you have too many clients already? Probably. And yet here you are. You need more, something you can tell Hans. Something he’ll have to accept but doesn’t cause him to lose respect for you. You don’t want to blame it on having too much to do, because it’s important for Segerstad to believe you can take on any amount of work. Did you come here to annoy me? A difficult working relationship would be a splendid excuse. Put the blame at my feet. The best thing for everyone involved, of course, would be for me to make the decision for you. ‘Stig Ahlin doesn’t want me to represent him.’ Because then you can say your hands are tied, that there’s nothing you can do.”
Stig Ahlin turned to the closed door. The room had no real windows, but just below the ceiling was a rectangular opening. Sophia leaned back. One of Stig Ahlin’s hands twitched.
“How do I convince you?” he snapped. A drop of saliva landed on the table. “What do I need to say to make you want to work to get me freed? Do I have to tell you about my unhappy childhood? How I was beaten as a boy, and lost my father at an early age? Or would you rather hear about something that happened later on? How I was a victim of prejudice? How the papers designated me a symbol of patriarchal oppression? How my ex-wife made sure to get me convicted of one crime by accusing me of another? You’re already sure that this is how I managed to convince Hans Segerstad. By taking that tack. Segerstad has a weakness for those who’ve been subjected to unfair treatment by women. Naturally, you’re already aware of that.”
He fell silent.
The window opening was barred on the outside. It was an inexplicable precaution. Even if someone did manage to squeeze through the eight-inch gap, it didn’t lead anywhere. The opening might as well have been an unlocked sliding door — it still wouldn’t have been possible to use it to escape.
You’re not relaxed and calm, Sophia thought. You’re nervous. Afraid of being turned down. You hate that you have to talk to me. For thirteen years you’ve been locked up, but you’ve never gotten used to depending on others.
“Nothing I say can make you change your mind,” Stig Ahlin said at last. “You can pretend as much as you want, but you believe I killed Katrin Björk and you have no desire to get your hands dirty with that sort of case. I’m sitting here because everyone thinks I’m guilty of killing a woman when I didn’t. But why should I expect you to believe that?”
Stig gestured around the visiting room. It was so cramped that, in doing so, he almost touched Sophia. He ran his other hand over his buzz cut.
“So, if that’s all…” Stig Ahlin rose and bent his head in a deliberate nod.
A woman, Sophia thought. So, you call Katrin a woman.
Katrin
1998
The night before his detention hearing, Stig Ahlin had to sleep directly on the plastic cover that was sewn onto the mattress. His bedding had been taken away. The suicide risk was deemed too high. Once every thirty minutes, the guards checked on Stig to make sure he was still alive. They kicked the door, stuck their heads in, and shouted. “Stand up!”
It was a different person every time. Each of them shouted. Stig never recognized the person who’d woken him. Because he did wake up. Every time. And he stood up. Only once did he not bother. That time, he was yanked up off the bed and shoved against the wall. “Stand up! Do you hear me?”
The next morning, Stig’s lawyer said there wasn’t much to be done about it. This would all soon be over anyway. Filing a complaint would only disrupt the process. It really wasn’t in Stig’s best interest to disrupt the process. And what was more, the wake-ups were done for Stig’s own safety rather than to disturb his sleep. It was forbidden in Sweden to wake someone up just to discombobulate them — in fact, it was forbidden in all civil societies, so naturally it would never happen in a jail. And least of all Sweden.
But it wasn’t over soon. The court approved the prosecutor’s detention request. Stig Ahlin was suspected with probable cause of taking Katrin Björk’s life. He was considered a risk; he might abscond, continue to commit crimes, or interfere with the investigation. Thus, he would continue to be held in jail. He was remanded.
Just over four months later, the preliminary investigation was concluded, and charges were filed. Stig was still in jail. Only then was he allowed to read the newspaper and watch TV again, since he could no longer obstruct the investigation. He had, of course, asked his lawyers to fight the restrictions long before they were lifted, but once they were gone he almost regretted it. At least, in isolation, there had been a strange calm. After he was remanded in custody, they’d stopped waking him up at night. He was taken out for breaks. They gave him food. He could ring the bell to use the bathroom. This was a type of security. Stig had gotten used to it — just as he had the urine odor in his cell.
Stig’s lawyer tried to persuade him not to read the papers. He told him to avoid the TV news. Half of what the media said wasn’t even in the preliminary investigation file and was thus not worth getting worked up over. That’s how the lawyer put it. Stig shouldn’t get worked up. His lawyer thought Stig should ignore what the world knew. But the guards left the evening papers out. Gave them to him. They wanted Stig to know.
The hearing at the district court lasted six days in total. A few days after the arguments were finished, it was decided that Stig would undergo a forensic-psychiatric evaluation. For five weeks Stig was relocated and had to live in a closed psychiatric facility. It was not a good sign that the court wanted his mental health examined, since it implied they planned to hand down a conviction. But Stig Ahlin didn’t absorb the implications. Instead he felt oddly relieved.
Sure, he was still locked up, but on the psych ward he was locked up in a familiar environment. The people he met were colleagues. They spoke the same language. The sheets on the beds were the same old county council ones he knew from the hospital. He’d slept on them often during his internship. It almost made him feel safe. He also had the idea that it would be to his advantage if the court understood that he wasn’t mentally ill. They would change their minds, he thought. They had to.
When it was time for the ruling to be announced, Stig Ahlin was moved back to the jail.
All in all, he had spent almost six months at the jail when one of the guards opened the door and said he was to call his lawyer. The thick mattress with its red plastic cover creaked as he rose. Stig called from a pay phone that was attached to the wall, with a steel-clad cord and a coin slot.
“We’ll appeal,” said his lawyer.
It was the first thing he said, and Stig didn’t protest. Then the lawyer read a few sentences aloud from the decision. The words floated out, blending with the voices from the jail corridor. The vocabulary seemed unfamiliar, as if it came from a different language.
“It will arrive any minute, if you haven’t already received it. It’s important that you take time to read it in peace and quiet. We can talk again later.” So his attorney said. He was probably trying to flatter Stig.
His attorney was an idiot. It was no special perk to get to read your ruling in peace and quiet; everyone had that right. Stig had allowed himself to be defended by a second-rater. The realization made his jaw clench and his chest constrict.
“Good,” Stig responded.
A few minutes later, the guard arrived with the district court ruling. It was seventeen pages long; the staff had put it in a brown envelope with Stig’s name handwritten on the front. The ruling found Stig Ahlin guilty of homicide. But nine days would pass before Stig read it.
“It was a show trial,” said his lawyer when they spoke on the phone. The lawyer was always trying out various outraged phrases, saying them two or three times in different tones of voice. Stig could tell he was preparing himself to speak to the media. “A show trial,” he repeated.
It’s all over, Stig thought. And that was more or less how it began.
12
Stig Ahlin was back in his room. He had a window, but he kept the black roller blinds down so the room wouldn’t become unbearably hot. He lay down on the bed.
Sophia Weber had asked him to tell her about himself. They did the same thing in the treatment program.
They wanted him to feel remorse. Only then could the therapists, lawyers, caregivers, other prisoners, and guards slot him neatly him into their own well-ordered lives. But he refused. Because they wanted to use his memories. Interpret them in a manner that had already been determined by what they thought they knew. Take control of the part of his life that wasn’t behind bars.
The fact that his dad had collected junk and claimed he used the garage as a workshop, even though he’d never even touched a sheet of 220 sandpaper, much less a saw or a screwdriver — why should a memory like that be important? What could it mean, that he had no siblings? Or that his father had died three weeks before Stig turned eighteen? Meaningless details were magnified by the very act of uttering them. The row house his mother scrubbed on her knees, his father’s TV chair no one else ever sat in, not even after he died. If he told these stories, they would be used to transform him into someone he wasn’t. Sophia Weber would believe he had turned out a particular way because he had lost his virginity to a classmate in a sleeping bag that smelled like sweaty feet and stale beer. Because he used a condom that made his penis itch and because he gave the girl four hickeys so they would have something to show off the next day. She would decide that events like these explained why some things happened and why others never did.
Stig didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t even want to think about it. Because if you spent enough time pondering life, your imagination would take over. You would start seeing connections and explanations. Ones that didn’t truly exist, and yet you couldn’t keep yourself from spotting th
em, filling in information and adding more color. It hadn’t been a happy childhood. But it certainly hadn’t been unhappy either.
Stig Ahlin looked at his blinds. He typically didn’t open them until nighttime. He could glimpse a piece of sky outside. Next to the window was an air vent. It was fitted with a metal covering, but it wasn’t airtight. On some cold winter days, he could occasionally feel the oxygen forcing its way in. The colder air. One breath later, it was gone. Then he would press his mouth to the opening. It didn’t help.
From his window Stig could see a narrow strip of grass and the inner wall that enclosed the sex crimes isolation unit. But that was as far as his view extended, because that wall was even higher than the one beyond it.
The sex crimes unit at Emla Prison was no moss-covered ruin that afforded scope for boyish dreams about spectacular escapes. The roof wasn’t made of copper and would never turn green with age. There was no wood paneling flaking in the wind, no stone steps turning porous in the salty sea breeze, no rusty, creaky hinges on settling doors. Here the building materials were dead, covered in graffiti, and fireproof. Straight lines, easy to clean and well laid out.
Stig spent as little time as possible dwelling on what had once been. But certain memories lingered in his body. A gentle reminder that life had been different. Good, maybe. Summer memories. A dad tossing his son into the sea, taking him by one wrist and ankle and spinning him around, then letting go, light as a fishing net on the smooth surface. Stig didn’t want to remember. Not the unhappy parts, and even less so the bliss. He tried to stick to the present. And remembering the good threatened to cast him over the edge.
His childhood had been neither difficult nor simple. But thoughts of his upbringing led to the most forbidden thoughts. The ones he must not entertain. What it had been like for his own daughter. Whether anyone had made her laugh, or tossed her into the water in his place.
Beyond All Reasonable Doubt Page 12
