Down for the Count

by Martin Holmén

  ‘How much money have I worked off so far?’

  Lundin checks his gold watch, opens the book, spits on his pen and writes up the figures: ‘One krona sixty.’

  I change down and try to make sense of the house numbers, but soon give up. Behind me, the number 2 tram rings its bell by the stop. The sound reminds me of the porridge bell at the poorhouse. A bastard of a childhood I had.

  Lundin and I are sitting at his kitchen table drinking afternoon coffee when the door of the funeral parlour tinkles. In my head, I can still hear the mourners’ out-of-tune rendition of ‘I Go towards Death Wherever I Go’. I’m leaning my kitchen chair back against the green wallpaper with the yellow floral pattern. Lundin spills some snuff over the tablecloth. There’s a sighing of pipes as someone uses the shared water closet on the stair landing.

  Lundin winces slightly as he pushes back the chair and stands up. He thumps his fists a couple of times against his legs, and then chops his left hand up and down in the air. As soon as he’s disappeared into the front of the shop, I take the bottle of Kron and pour another tot into my coffee cup. I spin the contents around, then knock back the warmth.

  ‘Yes, he’s here all right,’ I hear Lundin say. The floorboards creak as he limps back.

  In front of Lundin’s desk waits a woman of short stature, her hands clasping a handbag made of imitation crocodile skin. Under the beret, her full red head of hair frames a square-hewn face with a broad, mannish chin more or less like that Italian on the balcony, whose name I’ve forgotten – although, come to think of it, I’m not sure he has quite so full a bosom. It’s rising up and plunging down in time with her breathing.

  The firmly tightened belt of her coat makes her hips swell. Her skin is pale and waxy, but her cheeks are flushed as if she pinched them before coming inside. I’d say she’s a good way past forty.

  ‘Mr Kvist?’

  She has a deep voice, which seems to emanate from the bottom of her sturdy body.

  ‘In person.’

  I try a smile: ‘And who do I have the honour of meeting?’

  Her bottle-green eyes narrow into a squint, and she takes one hand off her handbag to push a lock of red hair behind her left ear.

  ‘Miss Johansson. Elin Johansson.’

  ‘And how can I help, Miss Johansson?’

  ‘It would be enough if you kept your nose out of my affairs.’

  She spits the words from her unpainted lips, and raises one of her bright-red eyebrows defiantly.

  The flush spreads over her face. I straighten up and insert my thumbs into my waistcoat.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can understand that might be difficult, bearing in mind the width of the nose in question, but I’d be grateful.’

  There’s a dash of ridicule in her green eyes.

  ‘What the hell are you saying to me?’

  ‘Cursing and fighting, that’s all you blokes are good for.’

  I take my thumbs out of my waistcoat and form my hands into fists. The woman stares intently at me. There are not many who can hold my gaze for more than a few seconds.

  ‘I don’t quite understand…’

  ‘Hardly surprising.’

  ‘Are you calling me stupid?’

  ‘You said it yourself.’

  ‘I’ve been all around the world and I’ve seen a thing or two.’

  ‘Such as?’

  She’s certainly mouthy, that damned woman. I rock back and forth on my feet and think it over.

  ‘For example, did you know that there’s a sort of edible rubber in America now? They give it all sorts of sweet flavours. You put a piece in your mouth and chew it without swallowing, and the taste stays in your mouth for at least ten minutes but it gives you no satisfaction at all. Did you know that?’

  ‘Every other ragamuffin is chewing gum these days.’

  ‘I’ll be damned.’

  ‘My turn: did you know that I have a purchaser of the laundry opposite, who wants to renege on the agreement because a certain violent type, also drunk, and according to people in these parts almost certainly you, assaulted this said purchaser last night?’

  That damned delivery man with his broken pocket watch. Didn’t I toss him fifteen kronor so he’d forget about the whole thing? I forget things all the time, completely free of charge.

  ‘Kullberg is telling an untruth.’

  ‘And yet you know his name? And you have a bruised eye to back his story up?’

  Elin takes a step forward in the little foyer, and leans over the desk. There’s a faint waft of pickled herring.

  My heart rate picks up, and at last my brain engages: ‘Johansson? A relative of Beda and Petrus? Are you the daughter?’

  ‘I managed without her when she was alive, and I’ll manage just as well without her now she’s dead. But I’m warning you, my dear sir, I work at Standards corner and I can be here in five minutes. From now on you’ll leave Mr Kullberg well alone.’

  ‘Beda was…?’

  She interrupts: ‘You’ve gone too far.’

  I recoil when the shrill tone of the telephone cuts into our exchange. I stare at my visitor. She has those eyes in common with Beda.

  ‘I should like to have a word with you.’

  ‘And I’d like you to leave me and my buyer in peace.’

  Miss Johansson’s mannish chin is set firm. She nods firmly. Behind me the telephone is ringing again, and I hear Lundin’s tottering steps approaching.

  The woman turns towards the door in the same moment that Lundin answers. I raise my voice: ‘Listen to me, damn it, I just want to talk to you for a moment.’

  Awkwardly I reach out towards her back.

  ‘Keep your dirty paws off me. Goodbye.’

  She hisses her farewell across her shoulder, as if she had just seen a black cat crossing her path. The doorbell tinkles. Through the soot-stained windows of the funeral parlour, I see her lolloping off briskly in a southerly direction. Before I know it, her red hair and sturdy posterior disappear down Roslagsgatan.

  ‘I’ll be damned.’

  I root around in my pockets for a cigar as I walk towards the door. I grasp the handle.

  ‘Constable Hessler wants to talk to you.’

  I turn around. Lundin is holding the receiver of the wall-mounted telephone. I peer out into the now-empty street. Dusk has already started falling. I make a grunting sound, then take the telephone.

  ‘It’s me.’ Hessler sounds out of breath.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I’m calling about Petrus Johansson.’

  ‘And there I was thinking you wanted to invite me for supper at the Grand Hotel.’

  ‘Damn it, Harry, I’m trying to do you a favour.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s a maniac.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘He’s been placed in a lunatic asylum. Lindström, the senior physician at Konradsberg, signed the order.’

  I pick up the notepad from my pocket and dab the end of my pen against my tongue.

  Hessler reads out loud: ‘“Johansson suffers from imbecility and homosexuality. Further, the patient displays various traits of hysteria, largely on the basis of hereditary factors.” Do you have any idea what that means?’

  For a moment I’m overwhelmed, standing there with the notepad pressed against the wall.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s the thing…’ Hessler clears his throat at the other end of the line. ‘There’s nothing else in the investigation file. No proper examination of the crime scene, no pathologist’s report, no documents from the court. Apart from the senior physician and Johansson, there are no names mentioned at all. As far as the justice system is concerned, Johansson only exists as a couple of lines written on a pre-printed form.’

  ‘You’re as pale as a damned shroud.’

  I’ve just hung up, and Lundin stands there, stooped, rubbing his bloodless, twig-like legs while watching me. I put my notepad in my pocket and pick up
Dixie’s lead. She wags her tail with delight.

  ‘Something smells rotten here and for once it’s not one of your blasted corpses.’

  ‘What are you driving at, my brother? This is a businesslike operation, I follow the health regulations rigorously.’

  ‘Did you know they’re keeping Petrus locked up in Konradsberg?’

  ‘Not a day too soon. Lunatics should be kept in asylums.’

  ‘And the filth never even investigated the murder?’

  ‘What was there to investigate? A witless whoreson kills his own blessed mother. Happens all the time in America, Bruntell with the Kodak told me.’

  ‘What the hell would a shopkeeper know about that?’

  I head for the door with Dixie.

  ‘I need a hand with a couple of coffins; tomorrow morning you have to pick up a boy at the stiff-house.’

  ‘Tomorrow I’m all yours.’

  ‘Sounds like a good line for a movie. I actually also need your help today.’

  The door closes behind me. It’s got even colder. I pull out my Viking watch from my pocket. It’s five to three. Not much daylight left. Outside Beda’s old laundry a couple of girls are playing hopscotch. In the doorway to the right stands a young woman without a hat, wrapped in a grey coat with shoulder pads. She is watching them, holding a lit filter cigarette between her thin fingers.

  There aren’t many cars or carts in evidence, and Dixie and I can calmly cross Roslagsgatan while I bite the end off a cigar. I cup my hands around my eyes and try to peer inside the darkened laundry. Bearing in mind the shortcomings of the police investigation, I wouldn’t mind taking another look.

  I miss the constant mist outside when the hot steam of the laundry tubs hits the cold air in winter, and then also the old woman herself with her toothless smile and her warm heart. She always had a friendly word on offer, even for someone as queer as me.

  ‘Standing there smoking for everyone to see? And nothing on your head either!’

  I turn around. A young man is holding the young woman in the grey coat by the elbow. He’s a short bloke, wearing brown plus fours. There’s an empty pack of Bridge cigarettes between them on the pavement. There’s a slapping sound as he hits her face with the bony back of his hand, and the woman’s nose springs a leak. A scarlet droplet flies through the cold November air and lands in one of the chalked hopscotch squares.

  The rhythmic jumping of the girls stops abruptly. Dixie puts her head on one side. The woman draws breath. Blood drips onto the grey lapels of the coat, melting into the fabric. The man raises his hand again. One of the girls hides behind a friend.

  ‘That’s enough.’

  The young man stops himself; his eyes meet mine. I strike a match and light my cigar. The woman flushes, covering her nose. The man opens the door so fiercely that the handle crashes into the wall, and then pulls her into the stairwell. I take another deep puff, and cough. He should have used the flat part of his hand if he had to hit her. It reduces the risk of mess.

  The normal sounds of the girls’ play start to come to life again. One of the girls squats in front of Dixie and cocks her head too. Another one looks first at me, then at the pack of cigarettes on the pavement. I nod at her.

  The bells of Stefan Church up in Vanadislunden and Johannes Church strike six times in unison as I walk two blocks down Roslagsgatan. Dusk is falling quickly now.

  The door leading into old man Ström’s shop needs no greasing: it glides open without a sound. A light bulb in the ceiling spills a white luminescence across a floor stained with street dirt and rat droppings. It smells of small beer, dust and poverty. I call out a couple of times before the bearded face of the jumble dealer peers at me from behind a batch of wooden crates and rag rugs.

  ‘What’re you after, Kvisten?’

  Ström is holding a unica box of banknotes and coins in his hands. The jumble shop is a mess of piles and stacks of all kinds of rubbish. There’s no cash till in the proper sense of the word, apart from the one he’s holding.

  ‘Good to see that the house pixie’s at home.’

  I take a puff and blow a jet of smoke at the ceiling.

  Ström looks timidly at me, but summons up some courage: ‘Don’t yell. I’m hung-over today from the party. Didn’t open until eleven.’

  He smacks his lips and swills the tobacco juice around in his mouth. As far as I’ve heard, the jumble dealer sleeps on the floor at the back of his shop wrapped in a couple of layers of newsprint and rags.

  ‘Is that so.’

  ‘Why are you out and about, then?’

  ‘On my way to Nyström to see if he trims dogs.’

  Ström sniffs loudly.

  ‘I heard that the little one has to have a drink of porter every morning.’

  ‘You were the last to see Petrus?’

  Ström puts down the unica box on a pile of wooden crates, pulls out a handkerchief and blows his nose with a trumpeting sound. When he’s done he folds it and tucks it into his trouser lining. Outside, the number 6 rattles past. Somewhere in the house above us a woman can be heard; I can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying.

  ‘I handed in my coat to be washed before winter set in.’

  I get out my notepad and turn a few pages. Dixie growls at the back of her throat and tugs on her leash. Something is moving behind a box filled with nails that Ström has straightened. Probably a rat.

  ‘To Petrus? On the 17th?’

  ‘Petrus was taking care of everything at the end. Customers and the washing. After closing for the day he’d bring home a food box from the Restaurant NORMA, or tinned soup.’

  ‘Did he manage all that?’

  ‘He was slow, but it seemed to go all right.’

  ‘And there was nothing unusual about that day?’

  Ström closes his eyes: ‘I also handed in a shirt with lingonberry stains on it. There’re bloody loads of lingonberries this year. I don’t usually take shirts to the laundry.’

  ‘I mean unusual about Petrus?’

  ‘No, he was giggling away, working hard. He signed to me that I should write my own receipt. Couldn’t do it himself, couldn’t read either. Everything was the same as it always was.’

  For a moment I reflect on what Lundin said this morning. About the tall jumble dealer in front of me possibly being Petrus’s father. I had to admit there were certain similarities.

  ‘You said he killed her with an iron.’

  ‘A stone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He killed her with a stone from her old mangle.’

  ‘Before you said it was an iron.’

  Ström raises a beer bottle to his lips, takes a couple of gulps, then lowers the bottle into a vat of soapy water where he washes and sorts his empties. After sucking the last few drops out his moustache, he goes on: ‘It was a stone.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The police told me. I went back the day after to pick up my clothes.’

  ‘What did the copper look like?’

  ‘Nothing special. Like any old bloke. Skinny.’

  ‘No uniform?’

  ‘Not when I saw him.’

  ‘So how do you know he was a policeman?’

  ‘What else would he be?’

  ‘Did you see when she was brought out, or when they took Petrus away?’

  ‘From a distance. I heard someone yell out, and I stuck my nose out of the door. I saw them putting Petrus in the car.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘Around half one, maybe.’

  ‘Do you know if anyone else saw?’

  ‘No, there was a couple standing outside Lundin’s, but they weren’t from around here, I don’t think. I went over to Bruntell’s to ask if anyone knew what was going on, but no one had heard about it. What are you fishing for?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I lick my aniline pen and make a couple of notes in my book, in purple.

  ‘Are you playing detectives, Kvisten?’

  Ström peers a
t me. I feel like a copper, standing there with notebook in hand. Only the sodding brass is missing. I shiver with distaste, then, with a nod, pull Dixie towards the exit. Ström holds the door open for me: ‘If you’re buying porter for the mutt, I could do with one myself.’

  I turn around. He’s an arselicker if ever I saw one, old man Ström. I clench my fists.

  ‘If you haven’t spilled the whole truth to me, I’ll be back to kick your arse again. And this time I’ll drag you up on the roof first.’

  His grin fails. White-faced, the jumble dealer backs into his shop and closes the door.

  While Nyström reluctantly works Dixie over with a cut-throat razor and scissors, I cross the street to the cigar shop. The widow Lind has been replenishing my supply of Meteors for over ten years. Almost for as long there’s been a black molly cat sitting on the first step. As always I get her purring by tickling behind her ear. I think she recognises me. The little bell over the door tinkles warmly as I step into the gloom of the little shop.

  I’m enveloped by the smell of fresh tobacco. In one corner, a fire is blazing in a square ceramic burner, soot marks running across the ceiling at the top by the joist. A metallic-green winter fly shimmers in the half-light, buzzes over the glass counter, on which a brass cigar cutter lies next to piles of newspapers and stacks of postcards, continues along the side wall with its enamelled plates of beaming, curvaceous blondes and perky young men advertising Gillette razors, or various magazine covers and cigar brands.

  On the wall behind the little glass counter, the shelves are almost empty, but five sturdy knots of tobacco trail down from hooks in the ceiling. Under the glass are lighters, pipe cleaners, tobacco pouches and penknives, all in separate compartments with handwritten price tags. On the cash till the proprietress has taped up a sign: SHOP FOR SALE, BUSINESS CLOSING DOWN.

  The widow Lind comes out of the back room of the shop. She’s a short, square woman with substantial hips and a heavy bust. Numerous fair-coloured bristles sprout from her chin. She wipes her hands on her striped apron and gives me a broad smile. A couple of top teeth are missing. I touch the brim of my hat. Without even asking she digs out a box of a hundred cigars. I count out seven kronor and put the coins on the counter. It feels good to be home.