The Last Lullaby

by Carin Gerhardsen

  As they waited the heat in the car rose under the May sun, and the boys in the back seat started to become insufferable. She suggested that they should play a quiz game and that kept them distracted for a few minutes, until little Tobias lost concentration. She also told them a story, but it was not long before that also got boring for the boys. Then she caught sight of a kiosk a hundred metres further on, where the river curved, and it struck her that it was Saturday after all and that she could spoil the boys with something sweet while they were waiting.

  ‘I know!’ she said, turning towards the back seat. ‘Let’s drive over to the kiosk up there and each get an ice cream!’

  ‘Yes, let’s do that!’ the boys answered with one voice.

  ‘But I want a lollipop instead,’ said Andreas.

  She was happy with this suggestion, because lollipops would do less damage to the upholstery of the car than ice cream, she knew that, and she did not feel ready to let these little urchins loose right next to the river.

  ‘Me too,’ said Tobias, ‘and I can drive the car that short way.’

  ‘That’s out of the question, Tobias, but you can each have a lollipop.’

  ‘Can you drive the car then, Lady Girl?’ asked Tobias, noticeable doubt in his voice.

  ‘Of course, little man. I’m actually the best driver in the family. But you’re not allowed to tell anyone I said that,’ she added with her finger secretively to her lips.

  The boys exchanged looks and started giggling, whether in delight at the confidence itself or complicitly finding her statement absurd she could not decide, but in any event they sat quietly and watched large-eyed while she climbed over to the driver’s seat. She turned the ignition key and released the handbrake while the little boys expectantly studied her every move. She felt their eyes on her back and suddenly became almost nervous under their watchful gaze. Then she decisively shook off her discomfort and drove the short distance up to the kiosk, backing down by the side of the little shop so that she stopped facing towards the street, and put on the handbrake.

  ‘You could drive the car!’ Tobias exclaimed in an impressed tone of voice.

  Her gaze met his in the rear-view mirror and his small green eyes glistened eagerly above his freckles.

  ‘May we go in with you and choose?’ Andreas asked.

  ‘No, stay in the car. What would you like?’

  She turned towards them.

  ‘I want a big lollipop,’ Andreas replied.

  ‘I want a red lollipop,’ said Tobias.

  ‘A big lollipop and a red one,’ she repeated. ‘Does it matter what colour the big lollipop is, Andreas?’

  ‘Just not liquorice.’

  ‘My red lollipop should be big too,’ said Tobias. ‘Otherwise a little one is fine.’

  ‘Just so long as it’s red,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I think I understand.’

  She opened the car door and stepped out into the spring sunshine. There was a lovely breeze from the river, and the sweet aroma from a flowering hedge on the other side of the street struck her.

  ‘Behave yourselves, boys. Don’t kill each other, because then there won’t be any lollipops.’

  With a smile and a wink she closed the car door.

  * * *

  Johan Bråsjö, who had just turned ten, had his first bus pass. Ever since the start of term in January he had been allowed to walk to school without a grown-up. Even though Mum or Dad still had to walk with Sanna, who was in the first grade, at about the same time, he would slip out just before them, ring the doorbell of his best friend Max in the building next door and together they enjoyed the newfound privilege of moving freely through the city streets. His mum later revealed that she had sneaked after them a few times in the beginning, to check that they crossed the streets responsibly.

  After hard pressure and references to this good behaviour in traffic he also finally managed to get permission to go to and from his guitar lessons on his own. So now, with his instrument on his back and in the company of Ivan, a friend from another class, every Tuesday afternoon he boarded the number 4 bus at Skanstull, showed his coveted bus pass and rode the whole way to Gärdesskolan in Östermalm, where the lessons were held.

  Today was Thursday, but the boys were on the bus anyway. Johan had been allowed to go home with Ivan after school. No one was at home at Ivan’s and after some resistance Johan let himself be talked into going to the cinema at Hötorget at Ivan’s expense. Johan had a strong feeling that his parents wouldn’t like this, but on the other hand they did not need to find out about it. Now they were on their way home after the film and Johan started to feel a bit calmer as they approached those parts of Stockholm where he had permission to be.

  ‘You were a little scared, I could tell,’ said Ivan.

  ‘Not scared exactly, but the film was exciting,’ Johan replied. ‘Really exciting. Thanks for the popcorn. And the film.’

  ‘It’s cool. It wasn’t my money anyway.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’

  ‘No, it was Mum’s money.’

  Johan looked worriedly up at his considerably taller friend.

  ‘That is, I get to take money from Mum. I didn’t nick it, if that’s what you were thinking.’

  ‘I guess I was,’ said Johan, relieved. ‘I only get a weekly allowance.’

  ‘Actually I have an allowance too,’ Ivan explained. ‘Or I did have before. But Mum always forgot to give it to me, so now I take money when I need it instead.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Johan did not feel entirely satisfied with this answer, but chose to drop the subject and looked absent-mindedly at the passengers in front of them on the bus. Suddenly he caught sight of a familiar back a few seats in front of them.

  ‘Check it out, Ivan, there’s the guy who’s ahead of us at guitar!’

  ‘You don’t need to yell,’ Ivan hissed, sinking down a little in the seat.

  ‘I’m not yelling, am I?’ Johan defended himself. ‘I’m whispering. Are you scared of him or what?’

  ‘No, are you?’

  Johan thought that Ivan’s eyes did look a little afraid, but chose not to comment on that.

  ‘No, but he looks scary. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Yes, he’s ugly as hell,’ said Ivan with his hand in front of his mouth so that no one but Johan would hear him.

  ‘He’s not exactly ugly. He’s more … like, big. And old.’

  ‘But then what’s he doing at guitar lessons?’ Ivan exclaimed. ‘Such an old dude.’

  ‘He’s not exactly ancient. Maybe he just wants to learn to play the guitar?’ Johan suggested jokingly, and received a look that clearly showed that Ivan was not in the mood for sarcasm right now.

  ‘Everyone else there is, like, kids and teenagers,’ Ivan said dismissively. ‘He’s a grown-up.’

  Evidently Ivan meant that this made the man in front of them a loser, but Johan happened to think of his Uncle Danny and held his ground.

  ‘My uncle takes guitar lessons. There’s nothing strange about that. Who says you can only learn when you’re a kid?’

  Ivan looked indifferently out of the window. Johan tried to recapture his interest.

  ‘But he is scary, he really is. He never says hello. He doesn’t even notice us, even though we sit there outside waiting every Tuesday. weird.’

  Ivan’s eyes flashed as he turned back towards Johan.

  ‘And he’s tall as hell. He could strangle us both, one in each hand.’

  Johan looked at the big man and imagined himself and Ivan hanging from his coarse fists, their feet kicking in the air.

  The bus braked and it was time for them to get off. The guitar man got up too and a woman holding a little child by the hand slipped in between them and him. As they passed the place where he had been sitting, Johan happened to look down at the seat and noticed that the man had left a pair of gloves behind. He snatched them up in passing and called spontaneously after him, over the head of the child.

  �
�Hey, you forgot your gloves!’

  The man was already getting off the bus and did not react, but the woman with the child turned towards him with a puzzled look, Ivan likewise. Johan responded to the woman’s look with a shrug. To Ivan he said, ‘He forgot his gloves. I only wanted –’

  ‘Cool,’ said Ivan. ‘Then we have a hold over him.’

  ‘A hold?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll follow him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see what kind of shady character he is. Like detectives!’

  ‘But if he discovers us –’

  ‘Then we’ll give him the gloves!’

  With enthusiasm mixed with terror Johan accepted this suggestion and they started tailing their unknowing target.

  In the throng at Skanstull they kept close, but when the guitar man slipped into the ICA Ringen store they did not dare follow. They did not have to wait very long however; after a couple of minutes he came out again, now with a plastic bag in his hand.

  Over at Tjurberget fewer people were moving about and the boys had to keep a considerable distance from the object of their detective game. They followed him a long way on Ringvägen, past Rosenlund Hospital, and when he eventually made his way across the street and down into Tantolunden they kept so far back that, after he had turned in among the allotments, they had to run so as not to lose him. Once in among the hotchpotch of small cabins and cultivated plots it was easier to follow him. Most of the cottages were closed up for the season and in the eagerness of the hunt Johan did not hesitate to follow his friend when he climbed over a fence to hide behind the cabins and frozen piles of soil.

  The man was truly both tall and well built, and more than once Johan noticed the unusually large hands hanging by his side as he walked purposefully through the deserted allotment area. Occasionally the man turned and took a few quick glances around him, as if he felt he was being followed. With pounding hearts, the boys crouched behind a rubbish bin or some bushes so as not to be discovered by the man who, as the hunt dragged on, began to seem more and more terrifying.

  At last he seemed to have reached his goal. While the boys hid behind a leafless but dense low hedge three plots away, he fiddled with a padlock and then opened the decaying gate to an allotment with a ramshackle little cabin. When he had carefully closed the gate behind him and disappeared from view, they ventured to dash up to the hedge that surrounded the plot. They could not get closer than that without risking discovery.

  Breathing rapidly, they crouched behind the untended bushes and tried to hear the man inside. To begin with Johan could only discern the rattle of keys, but as his heart rate calmed down he could clearly hear what was going on there just a few metres beyond the hedge. He heard a key being put in a lock and turned, a metallic sound like a padlock being opened. The creaking of a wooden floor and a door being closed. Rather a long silence. Several creaking steps. Silence again. Then an angrily hissing voice.

  ‘And here you lie, you fucking little pig, rolling in your own dung! My God, how you shit! Maybe the food isn’t good enough for you?’

  Then a dull thud, like the sound when you box a punchbag, Johan thought at first, but then imagined that it might sound like that when you kick a pig. The boys exchanged glances without saying anything. Johan shuddered.

  ‘You won’t get anything else anyway.’ The hissing voice was speaking again. ‘This is all I’ll spend on a swine like you. No potatoes for this pig.’

  A rustling sound from the plastic bag, and the noise of liquid being poured out of one container into another. Footsteps on a wooden floor. More kicks.

  ‘It’s your lucky day today. Duty calls, so I have to leave now. But when I’m finished we’ll have a proper chat. Bye-bye.’

  Johan looked in terror at Ivan.

  ‘He’s coming,’ he whispered so quietly that it was barely audible. ‘We have to leave.’

  Ivan nodded and they made their way, half running, half tiptoeing, all the way along the slushy gravel path until it turned ninety degrees, and they heard a door closing far behind them. Then they took to their heels and ran for all they were worth on the crooked paths between the garden plots, across lawns and all the way down to the promenade at Årstaviken. Only then did they slow their pace and started walking quickly, over towards Eriksdalslunden, back among the buildings.

  ‘What was he doing with that pig?’ Johan panted, still out of breath after the run. ‘Boxing workout, maybe?’

  ‘I said he was a shady character,’ Ivan replied. ‘Maybe he’s going to slaughter the pig and eat it up.’

  ‘Well, it won’t taste any better after he’s hit it,’ Johan said. ‘It’s fucking animal cruelty.’

  Ivan looked at Johan with a slightly amused expression. Johan understood why, but pretended not to. He usually didn’t swear, but this was a day when he had done many forbidden things and in any event the swear word felt justified. To further underscore his repugnance at cruelty to animals, and perhaps also mark a certain independence from his parents, he delivered another swear word.

  ‘Bloody hell, what an idiot. I hope his hands freeze. I’m never going to give him the gloves now.’

  ‘We have to rescue the pig,’ Ivan stated.

  ‘I’m not going back there!’ said Johan.

  ‘Why not? He’s at work, he said that.’

  ‘It sounded like he had a padlock on the door. How would we get it open?’

  ‘Doesn’t your dad have any good tools?’

  Johan didn’t know, but breaking into someone’s house was … burglary, wasn’t it? Then he remembered that he had seen on the news that cruelty to animals was also a crime.

  ‘It’s against the law to mistreat animals,’ he said. ‘We can report him to the police.’

  ‘We don’t know what his name is.’

  ‘No, but if we go to the police they can rescue the pig anyway.’

  ‘No way am I going to the cops. You can forget that.’

  Johan looked questioningly at Ivan, not really understanding what he might mean by that.

  ‘Are they after you or something?’

  ‘Very possibly,’ Ivan answered mysteriously, with a shrug.

  He didn’t elaborate further and the conversation died out. At Skanstull the boys separated, and the closer to his home on Åsögatan Johan got, the more he felt his bad conscience. It was dawning on him that his parents would probably be extremely disappointed in him if they found out what he had done, and he would not be surprised if they took away his bus pass. They might even decide that he could no longer go to and from school on his own, seeing as he had broken their agreement. He promised himself that he would behave himself in the future, and that being so, he convinced himself that it was not really necessary to reveal what he had been up to. But then he could not tell them about the mistreated pig either. And what would happen to it then? Well, anyway, it would surely get eaten sooner or later. Strengthened by having made this decision, he jogged up the steps to the apartment, where his dad and little sister were probably waiting for him with dinner.

  But just as he was about to turn the door handle he had a change of heart. He had done some stupid things today, he really had. All the more reason to end the day with a good deed.

  * * *

  Having determined that morning that Einar Eriksson had not fled the country by any traceable mode of transport, Hamad had spent the afternoon thus far going through Einar’s computer and all his papers. He had learned nothing from these activities that might be of use to the investigation. Eriksson was not up to anything dodgy on his computer: he was not interested in child pornography, and he had not sent or received any email that might arouse any suspicion whatsoever. He did not seem to be involved in any lone investigations or old closed cases, and there was no reason to think that Eriksson, any more than any other detective in the unit, could be considered a target for vengeful criminals or crime victims.

  Hamad had to force himself to concentrate to finish the job. He was thorough, bu
t it took longer than it should have. Now and then he drifted off into his own thoughts, and had to shake himself back to life to get the fruitless chore done. He was finally back in his own office, browsing through old appointment diaries he had saved for some reason in a desk drawer.

  There were two dates that interested him in particular. The first he would not forget any time soon: it was the date when he and Lina had definitively decided to separate. After a few weeks’ consideration on both sides, that evening they had sat down at the kitchen table and calmly and collectedly set out their views on things: how it should have been and what they should do now. It had been intense and sorrowful, but without drama, and they had been in agreement: life would be better for both of them if they went their separate ways. They had wished each other luck and ended the four-year relationship with a hug and tears in their eyes. It was a major failure, and this date, along with several happier dates, was now firmly engraved in his memory.

  With this incident as a reference point, he could clearly remember how the evening had gone before that important conversation at the kitchen table. Likewise the night and day that followed. Despite that he checked in one of the diaries that his memory was reliable. And he was right: the date he had seen in the lower-left corner of the film in which Petra played the lead role was indeed that very special Friday in November 2006.

  They had been in the middle of a serial murder investigation, and he had dragged a rather reluctant Petra from the station to the bar up at the Clarion. They drank beer and chatted. He got her to switch off from work and as usual the discussion was free and open. Both pleasant and less inspiring topics had been discussed, affectionately and with respect. And when he had left her it had not been because he wanted to, but because he had to. He had gone home to Lina to conclude a chapter in his life.

  The other date was not equally obvious. It too was a Friday, but this time in September 2007, so almost a year later. The only thing in the diary was a course that he, Petra and a few others from the Hammarby Police had attended. According to the diary it was called ‘Centring on Body Language’, and he remembered that the basis of the whole thing was that the impression you made depended on your posture. He recalled how to Petra’s annoyance Holgersson or Malmberg or somebody had got her to agree that the police commissioner was sexy. Hamad snorted when he thought about that. Sexy? Brandt didn’t even believe that himself.