The Last Lullaby

by Carin Gerhardsen

  ‘Lady Girl is planting flowers on the balcony,’ he replied, holding Tobias at arm’s length above him.

  ‘Oh,’ said Andreas, ‘can we help her? I love planting!’

  ‘Of course, I’m sure she’ll be happy to have help. She can put you each in a flowerpot so that you grow and get big, so I don’t dare wrestle with you any more.’

  ‘Come on, Tobias!’ Andreas called, already on his way out of the room.

  Tobias freed himself and rushed after his brother. He himself got to his feet, adjusted the rag rug on the floor of the children’s room with his foot and brushed off his trousers and jumper. He closed the outside door of the neighbours’ apartment and went into his own.

  On the balcony Andreas was standing, his little hands in the much-too-big gloves, with a stranglehold on his younger brother’s throat.

  ‘No, no, no,’ said his wife. ‘Not like that. Do you want to plant or shall we do something else instead?’

  ‘I want to have my own flower,’ said Tobias.

  ‘Yes, let’s do that! Decide which flower you want, Tobias, and then Andreas can choose one too. Then you get to plant them very carefully. But you have to remember to water them often too.’

  ‘I want that red one,’ said Tobias.

  ‘A geranium. Yes, it’s going to get really big and nice when it grows. And you, Andreas?’

  ‘The blue one,’ he answered, pointing down into the carton.

  ‘Perfect! A petunia for Andreas. Then we do it like this …’

  She gave each boy a terracotta pot with a shard in the bottom and set one in front of herself.

  ‘Take a little soil, like this, and place it in the bottom of the pot …’

  There was not room for all of them on the small balcony, so he stood in the doorway admiring his wife’s easy dexterity and enjoying her and the boys’ gentle voices. The aroma of freshly cut grass from the garden below and damp earth from the balcony filled his nostrils. Life had just begun.

  * * *

  Sjöberg left the police station without telling anyone where he was going. A gnawing unease followed him the whole way to Eriksdalsgatan. If Einar answered when he rang the doorbell, what should he say? He did not want to have to confront a dishevelled Eriksson reeking of alcohol and with his hair on end … He interrupted himself in mid-thought. Why should it be like that? Eriksson had never smelled of booze at work, which he himself, on the other hand, conceivably might have on a few occasions. But what else could it be? He wouldn’t just not come to work one day, after having done his job irreproachably, as far as Sjöberg could tell, for twelve years. Could he have hurt himself or got really sick? Then he should have been in touch; Mrs Eriksson would have called and reported him sick. If she hadn’t been injured herself, of course. They could have been in a traffic accident …

  An old man with a toy poodle came out of Eriksson’s entrance and Sjöberg ran the last few steps before the door closed.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Sjöberg, and the old man looked up at him with a watery gaze. ‘Do you live here in this building?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ the old man wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, excuse me …’

  Sjöberg pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and took out his police identification.

  ‘Conny Sjöberg. I’m a colleague of Einar Eriksson, who lives here too.’

  ‘I see. Is he a cop? I had no idea.’

  The old man peered at him with a knowing smile, which Sjöberg reciprocated.

  ‘Have you seen him recently?’ Sjöberg asked.

  The old man thought for a moment and then answered, ‘Recently? No, not since Saturday when he drove away in his car.’

  Sjöberg felt a stab of worry; was it as he feared, that Eriksson had been in a car accident?

  ‘He always drives off in his car on Saturday mornings when I’m out with Topsy,’ the man continued. ‘And he comes home late in the evening, but then usually I’m asleep.’

  ‘And last Saturday?’

  ‘I didn’t see him come back,’ the old man filled in. ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Was he alone in the car or did he have his wife with him?’ asked Sjöberg.

  ‘Wife? Eriksson is a bachelor, as far as I know. I’ve never seen a wife, or any other woman either for that matter,’ the old man chuckled.

  The old man must be senile, thought Sjöberg. He had heard Eriksson mention his wife on a number of occasions. True, they had never talked specifically about her, but on the other hand they never talked about anything else either, if it didn’t have to do with work. Besides, he was as good as certain that Eriksson wore a ring on his finger. As if to refute Sjöberg’s assumption that he must be confused, the man continued.

  ‘But he must have come back, if that’s what you’re wondering about, inspector. The car is parked over there, and it was there on Sunday morning.’

  He nodded towards an old Toyota Corolla, which at this time of day was almost alone in the car park.

  ‘Thank you very much for the information,’ said Sjöberg, relieved in any event not to have to ring around the various hospitals in search of his missing colleague.

  The old man tugged lightly on the leash, and the little dog took off single-mindedly with him. Sjöberg wondered whether the animal would have been approved of by Lotten, their receptionist, and Micke, one of the caretakers at the police station. Both were crazy about dogs, in the proper sense of the word; the pooches sent Christmas cards to each other and likewise celebrated each other’s birthdays. And now Sandén’s daughter, the easily led Jenny, had joined in this hysteria.

  He went into the stairwell and made his way a half-flight up. Outside the door with ‘Eriksson’ on the letterbox he stopped and rang the bell. He heard it ring from inside the apartment, but that was all that he heard. After another two attempts he looked guiltily around before he took his lock-picking tools out of his jacket pocket. Eriksson had a very common lock, thank God, and it took Sjöberg only a few minutes to get inside.

  He called Einar’s name, but was met by silence. The first thing he saw was a golf bag. Sjöberg knew nothing about golf, but his instinctive judgement was that it looked old. He had never imagined Eriksson as a golfer. On the wall in the hall a framed black-and-white photograph was hanging, depicting a considerably younger version of Einar and a beautiful young woman, in all likelihood Mrs Eriksson, because it was a wedding photo. He had never imagined Eriksson as young either. Or happy. But he looked undeniably happy in the picture. There was no trace of worry on the smiling face, which testified to an openness that Sjöberg had never even seen a glimpse of.

  Einar Eriksson’s apartment proved to be a studio with a small hall, a rather large room with bed, couch and armchair, a little bathroom and a kitchen with a dining area for one person. He noted that the bed was a single. Sjöberg sighed in relief, having quickly gone over the apartment without finding his co-worker alone and drunk, injured or even dead. In a policeman-like way, he browsed through the post on the hall floor and determined that Eriksson had not made the effort to read – or even pick up – the newspaper since Saturday. Where in the world could the man be hiding himself? He tried to recall what outdoor clothing Eriksson wore this time of year. Neither the heavy shoes nor the black winter jacket were to be found anywhere in the apartment. So Eriksson must have come home in his car late on Saturday evening, as he usually did according to the neighbour, and then disappeared before breakfast on Sunday morning. The whole thing was incomprehensible.

  But what worried Sjöberg most was the awful fact that no one seemed to miss Einar Eriksson. Neither his neighbours nor his colleagues – besides himself, but that was primarily because he had been forced to perform the tasks that were normally Einar’s and had started getting annoyed about the whole situation. And Mrs Eriksson – where was she?

  For a moment he considered calling Sandén, but he stopped himself. Perhaps he had been over-hasty, after all, to break into Einar Eriksson’s apartment; he had only bee
n absent from work for two or three days unannounced, it was no more than that. It was nothing to do with Sjöberg; he was just a co-worker. And to intrude on his colleague’s personal life in this way was unforgivable. This was what he said to himself as he strode up to the bookshelf and without hesitating pulled out a binder with a wine-red aluminium spine marked ‘Important Papers’.

  Behind the first tab in the binder was a plastic sleeve and on it a handwritten label read ‘Solveig’. Carefully he pulled out a bundle of papers and skimmed over the one on the top. It was a bill, dated quite recently. The bottommost paper in his hand was a similar bill, dated ten years earlier. The bills had been sent from a nursing home called Solberga, which according to the address on the letterhead was located in Fellingsbro. At the back of the plastic sleeve he found a brochure that described the nursing home as a gem in Bergslagen, in picturesque surroundings close to the water. In addition, twenty-four-hour care by nursing staff was promised and daily contact with doctors as needed.

  Sjöberg could not remember Eriksson ever having mentioned his wife by name, but he thought that Solveig could possibly fit a woman of his own generation and consequently Eriksson’s too. It was quite clear that no Mrs Eriksson was living in this small apartment. Did she maybe live at the Solberga nursing home, and if so, why? Sjöberg cursed himself for having been content over the years with Eriksson’s muttering in response to his curious questions about how his leave or Christmas holidays had been, but his colleague’s grim expression and brusque manner effectively kept everyone at a distance. It was obvious that he was not prepared to share his life, and perhaps the reason was simply that he thought he had no life to share. Einar’s reticence and sulkiness were perhaps only an expression of general disappointment with a life that had not turned out as he had hoped, as he had perhaps imagined it when the photograph in the hall was taken.

  Sjöberg closed the binder without investigating its contents further. He already felt sufficiently ill at ease after the little insight he had got into his colleague’s personal life. Before he left Einar Eriksson’s apartment, however, he made a detour into the kitchen. He stopped in front of the cooker, which like the worktop and the little kitchen table was clean and tidy, and it suddenly struck him that actually it must be Einar himself who made his sausage stroganoff at this stove. Earlier that morning he had laughed to himself at the thought of Eriksson in an apron among the saucepans, but now he had no problem not laughing. The fact that Einar kept things clean and tidy around him and managed his personal hygiene – which he did, although he was always dressed in the same boring, cheap clothes – indicated that he had not given up. Although at ‘given up’, Sjöberg then thought: who was he to have any opinion about whether Einar Eriksson’s life was worth living? But there was something about Eriksson – there had always been something about Eriksson – whose sullen manner gave an impression of being sorrow-stricken and resigned. It was not something Sjöberg had immediately noticed, instead the feeling had grown stronger as the years passed, and he had never really been able to put his finger on what it was. That was why he always refrained from joining in his other colleagues’ rather harsh talk about Einar and the pointed remarks that were constantly made behind his back.

  On the little work surface to the right of the stove were a few cookbooks. One of them he recognized from his own mother’s kitchen. It must be at least fifty years old, he thought as he pulled it out, careful not to let the other books fall over. He turned to the title page to find out when the book was printed. He didn’t find that information, but there was an inscription inside the cover: ‘Sincere congratulations on your graduation to our clever dear Solveig from Grandma and Grandpa, May 1968.’

  So now we know where to find Mrs Solveig Eriksson, Sjöberg noted, but where the hell is Einar?

  Hamad and Westman had divided up the work on the phone list between them, and when Hamad was finished with his half of the job he went over to Westman’s office and invited her to come and eat. But she obviously had something else going on – when had they had lunch together lately? – so he decided to go out on his own, got his jacket and went down to street level. Sandén’s daughter Jenny was sitting alone on reception and her face lit up when she caught sight of him.

  ‘Hey, good-looking!’ she called loudly, so that it echoed in the marble hall.

  ‘The same to you. How are you doing? Are you by yourself?’

  ‘Yes, Lotten is at lunch.’

  ‘So when do you get to eat?’

  ‘I already ate. I brought my lunch.’

  ‘Too bad. Otherwise you could have come with me.’

  She gave him a sunny smile, happy to get some attention.

  ‘I have to stay here anyway, until Lotten comes back.’

  Good, she knew what was expected of her. Lotten was the perfect mentor for Jenny: definite about how she wanted things, appreciative and instructive. And Jenny was like a marionette in her hands, doing everything she was told.

  ‘Are they nice to you? No one is treating you badly?’

  ‘No one is mean to me.’

  ‘Of course, everyone likes you, Jenny. You’re a great girl.’

  Hamad saw how a little frown appeared on her forehead as she shifted her gaze towards the entrance.

  ‘But I don’t like everyone,’ Jenny said sullenly.

  He cast an eye over towards the doors to find out which police officer it might be who was apparently not highly regarded by the new receptionist. With a smile, he leaned towards her and whispered confidentially, ‘It doesn’t matter. A lot of girls don’t like Holgersson.’

  While they were still on speaking terms Petra had said on several occasions that she could not stand the guy.

  ‘But I’m sure he’s just joking,’ Hamad continued. ‘What sort of thing does he do?’

  ‘I think he’s making fun of me,’ Jenny whispered back.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. There are idiots at all workplaces.’ Hamad straightened up and continued in a normal conversational tone. ‘And otherwise? Are things going okay? Do you need help with anything?’

  ‘No, I know exactly what to do. Although I have a problem at home that you can help me with.’ She lit up again as this thought occurred to her.

  ‘I see. What’s that then?’

  Holgersson had now made his way up to reception and Hamad nodded to him as he passed.

  ‘My computer,’ Jenny replied. ‘There’s something wrong with it. It’s so slow.’

  ‘Can’t your dad help you with that?’

  ‘Dad? He doesn’t know anything about computers either!’

  Hamad could only agree with her.

  ‘Okay, I can look at it sometime.’

  ‘Tonight, please!’

  Hamad capitulated before her childish eagerness and answered with a sigh, ‘Okay, Jenny. I’ll come over after work. Now I’m going to lunch.’

  As he left, he cast a glance over his shoulder towards the stairs, where to his surprise he saw Westman standing talking to the odious Holgersson. Hamad noted dejectedly that he himself had sunk lower than he thought was possible on her list, and continued on towards the doors.

  Petra Westman was hungry too, but she had been working on the same things as Hamad all morning; that was more than enough. Hearing his steps die away down the corridor, she decided to take a break too, pulled on her jacket and left her office. She was just at the stairs when Jenny’s voice echoed in the reception hall down below: ‘Hey, good-looking!’

  Well, Jenny was the way she was, but Hamad answered in the same spirit. And then there was some jolly small talk. Almost at the bottom of the stairs, she stopped at the sight of Hamad leaning over the reception counter whispering something in Jenny’s ear. Credulously Jenny whispered back, radiant with happiness. Nothing surprised Petra any more, but that Hamad needed so much self-affirmation that he couldn’t even keep his paws off Jenny Sandén, that took the biscuit. Yet another creep showed up in reception when Holgersson stepped in through the doo
r. Which made Hamad immediately conceal his intentions; he straightened up and abandoned the pathetic whispering game. After which it was loudly and clearly decided that he would go round to Jenny’s in the evening. Unbe-fucking-lievable.

  Holgersson was almost at the stairs now, eyeing her lasciviously up and down. She shuddered, but at the same time started moving so that her reaction would not be noticed.

  ‘He’d chase anything in a skirt, Hamad,’ Holgersson noted with a meaningful smile when they met on the stairs.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Westman replied tiredly, without really being clear what she meant by that.

  ‘She is good-looking, so it’s not that.’

  Westman stopped reluctantly.

  ‘So what is it then?’ she hissed, even though she was actually not at all interested in hearing the answer.

  ‘Well, I guess the lift doesn’t go all the way up. You know?’

  She considered making some scathing comment, but could not decide in what direction she wanted to direct her disgust, so with a look of contempt she just shook her head and left the asylum.

  Wednesday Afternoon

  Sjöberg had just hung his jacket over the back of his chair when Sandén walked into the office.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Sjöberg asked, sitting down.

  Sandén sighed and sat down in the visitor’s chair opposite.

  ‘I’ve managed to get hold of a translator. An old American officer, Sverker Ivarsson.’

  Sjöberg raised his eyebrows. ‘Sverker Ivarsson?’

  ‘Yes, he was born in Sweden, but emigrated to the US in the thirties. He was stationed at an American base in the Philippines during the Second World War and evidently learned the language then. After the war he moved back here again. He’s sitting in my office reading those letters, but they contain nothing of interest. The brothers and sisters are doing fine, and this or that cousin got married, and the roof has blown off and so on. It’s leading nowhere.’