Down for the Count

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Stina. My flatmate.’

  ‘Explains why you smell of herring.’

  Elin bites her lip, folds her bun wrapper down the middle and then into a triangle, before she starts drumming her fingers gently against the tabletop.

  ‘What do you think of my hat? It’s new.’

  I glance at her cloche hat with its blue band.

  ‘It suits you. And Mrs Ryman?’

  ‘She’s waiting. We’re waiting.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘It’s almost one. I bet her old man comes to see her if he finishes his round early.’

  ‘Another drop of coffee?’

  Elin nods.

  ‘I wish I had a cigarette to go with it.’

  I grunt, peering again at Mrs Ryman from under the brim of my hat. Just then I see a small, thin man in a uniform approaching her stall with sprightly steps. He’s carrying a black-lacquered postbag. The strap has worn a smooth diagonal line across his chest. His small eyes are too close together, and there’s something bird-like about his face. For the first time since we caught sight of her, Mrs Ryman breaks into a smile as she stands up and runs her hands over her apron. He gently touches her arm in greeting, but no more.

  ‘Will you bloody look at that.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  Elin gives me a wry smile. I fumble about in my inside pocket for the leather cigar case.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘More waiting about.’

  I grunt as I take out a Meteor.

  ‘That’s my speciality.’

  ‘I’ll bet it is.’

  ‘No one beats me on that score. Patient as a bloody night fisherman.’

  The Rymans are each tucking into a sandwich. Sitting beside one another, their eyes seem to be looking right into the café through the plate-glass window. I quickly look down, covering my eyes with the brim of my hat, and, out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Elin is doing the same. Another locomotive yells out a warning signal from the siding. I whisper: ‘Did they see us?’

  ‘What bloody difference does it make?’

  I let out a hoarse, involuntary cough. The sound explodes like dynamite through the premises. I clear my throat: ‘No, of course, what do they know about us? What do we do afterwards, when they’re done?’

  I strike a match and get the cigar going. Elin brushes crumbs off the table.

  ‘I suggest we split up if they go their separate ways. You take the husband and I’ll have a word with the wife?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Elin touches up her lipstick and blots her lips on a tissue, then checks the result in a mirror.

  ‘Go easy on the poor sod, and meet me later by the car?’

  ‘Of course.’

  We remain there in silence, and when the gaunt Mr Ryman at long last takes his farewell of his wife with a cursory nod, I pick up my cigar case from the table. With a parting wink at Elin, I follow him out of the café.

  I take off my tie, roll it up and put it in my trouser pocket. Ryman walks out of the back door and cuts through salesmen, lorries and porters. I keep about ten metres behind. His uniform hat is an excellent marker.

  At the north end of Saluhallen market, some blokes are unloading big blocks of ice. Just as I’m passing, one of the blocks hits the floor with a crunching sound. Fragments of ice fly through the air like transparent shrapnel.

  Ryman turns around.

  For a second or so I get the idea that he’s staring right at me. I slow down, look the other way and start rooting about in my pockets. Ryman carries on, but he seems to be moving faster now. We emerge into the heavy traffic of Vasagatan and turn off towards Central Station. I’ve let the distance between us increase a bit. Ryman steps aside for a man pushing a cart of flour sacks, touching the brim of his uniform hat as if he knows him.

  If he’s on his way to the central Post Office depot, a little further up on the other side of the street, I don’t have a lot of time to play with. I crack my finger joints and quicken my pace. When I’ve almost caught up with him, I take a quick look around me. Two wrinkled old bats, with wicker baskets hanging from the crooks of their arms, are waiting to cross Vasagatan. Wrapped in aprons, scarves, cardigans and shawls, they both look like colourful versions of Karloff’s mummy. On the other side of Bryggargatan, a tramp has laid out his wares on a blanket: boot straps, safety pins and other bric-a-brac. In a telephone box behind him stands a copper; he gives himself away with his uniform trousers. I have to go easy here, for the sake of Ida and Doughboy if no one else.

  I follow Ryman as he crosses Bryggargatan. Once we’re on the opposite pavement, I glide up on his right side. He’s just about to turn his head when I grab his ear, slap my other hand over his mouth and drag him along behind me. The heavy Husqvarna bangs against my ribs. Ryman’s postman’s boots bump along the pavement, a couple of muted shrieks of anguish slipping through my right hand.

  I kick open the first door on the left and toss Ryman inside, following him into the gloomy stairwell. If I’m not mistaken, this was where the editorial department of Stockholms Dagblad used to be. I feel as if I can still hear the thumping of the presses, and the reek of printer’s ink in the air. Maybe another newspaper has moved into the premises.

  I put my left hand around Ryman’s throat and press him up against a wall from which most of the plaster has fallen. He collapses like a pocket knife when I give him a sharp jab in the stomach. I straighten him up again and take a firm grip on his testicles. He knocks my hat off with his left arm. He’s as weak as a fly. I chuckle.

  ‘You ought to calm yourself down,’ I say, gripping even harder on his crown jewels. ‘You want me to tear off your balls?’

  I consider whether I should snap his collarbone with my right. It’s easily done with shorter blokes, because you can punch from above, doesn’t cause a lot of damage, but hurts enough to persuade them to betray their own mothers if that’s what’s required. No need for it this time, though: Ryman’s already whining piteously. I have him exactly where I want him. Limp as a midshipman after a litre of vodka and two hours with the harbour whore.

  ‘A couple of months ago you buried your father-in-law. The undertaker was Lundin on Roslagsgatan. Do you remember?’

  ‘The Mora grandfather clock,’ hisses Ryman. By now his mug is as red as his ear. He gags for air. His gob is moving like the mouth of a babe on the breast. I slacken my grip on his throat.

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘That heirloom. You can take it if you want.’

  I grip hold of his jaw, pull his face forward and drive my elbow into his solar plexus, all while squeezing even harder around his balls.

  ‘On the way to Lundin you saw something. A black car. Didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Is it my brother-in-law what sent you?’

  ‘Compose yourself! Think about it. A black car. A couple of men carrying out a body, or taking a large man away?’

  ‘I remember! I remember!’

  ‘Start with the car. What model was it? Do you remember a number plate?’

  ‘The car was black.’

  ‘Aha?’

  I squeeze even harder. It’s not entirely unpleasant feeling the weight of the seed-basket in my hand. Work and pleasure at the same time. Ryman whines like a street dog outside the abattoir.

  ‘My wife. My wife thought it was suspicious.’

  ‘What was, that the bloody car was black?’

  ‘Those blokes.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘They took out a body, a woman I think. They threw her into the car.’

  ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘Both of them wearing black.’

  ‘Poplin coats?’

  He shrugs, terrified.

  ‘Anything that stood out?’

  ‘One was smaller than the other.’

  I sigh and tense my jaw.

  ‘That’s all I know. I swear.’

  I glan
ce briefly into the street before I look into Ryman’s eyes again. I’ve been in this game for long enough to register the slight glint in his iris. He’s preparing himself for some desperate attempt to escape. It’s not a question of courage, only the dumb despair that absolute panic gives rise to. Inexperienced people can come up with all kinds of nonsense when they’re in a tight spot.

  I let go of his balls and block the knee that comes flying towards my crotch. Then I pile an uppercut into his chin. There’s a crunching sound as his teeth snap together, and the back of his head thumps into the wall. The postman goes out like a candle in the wind and collapses on the floor.

  A little cloud of pulverised plaster hangs in the dark air where his head was a moment earlier. I clutch my aching right fist, grunting to myself.

  Ryman lies on his side, red blood flowing out of his broken gob. His uniform cap has rolled into a corner by the stairs. One of his feet is twitching. Blood and dust from the floor are all over his bird-like face. I resist the urge to search him for his wallet. Can’t be bothered.

  ‘This codger won’t be waking up for a while. You have dynamite in your fists, Kvisten, even if some might say you’re thick as two short planks.’

  I disappear out the door before I’m caught red-handed. Calmly I walk back to the car on Norra Bantorget, as agreed. I sigh loudly, dusting off my hat and pressing it down over my cropped Långholmen hair. I doubt Elin has had any more success than me, which wouldn’t leave us very much to go on. Just as well. I think we have taken this as far as it’ll go. It’s time to drop it.

  There’s no Elin waiting for me in the car. I turn up my collar and make myself comfortable in the driver’s seat. In the square, the tram tracks glitter, green rivulets running between cobble-stones, rubbish and horse manure. There’s a large crowd waiting at the bus stop for the number 56. The queue for the hot dog stand of the bloke who was knocked down by Prince Gustaf Adolf ’s car a couple of years ago is almost as long. His sports car skidded, they said. Good for business, but not so good for the hot dog man himself, who was left with his legs all twisted at the end of it all. I let out a sigh so long that it seems it will never end.

  I push my hat forward and close my eyes. In my dream I hear Doughboy calling out my name. An old woman, so badly disfigured by chickenpox scars that you’d think someone must have tortured her with a fistful of cigarettes, is keeping him prisoner. I can’t help him.

  Despite the icy air I wake bathed in sweat like an old carthorse when the car door is opened.

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Elin smoothes the back of her coat and gets into the passenger seat. She’s bought a bunch of flowers wrapped in brown paper. I catch the smell of hyacinths.

  I shake my head to chase away the images from my dream and clear my throat: ‘Must have nodded off.’

  The sweat stings where the prison fleas have ravaged me. Elin takes off her gloves and puts them on top of the dashboard.

  ‘The old man was taken by lung fever. One week he was fit as a fiddle and the next he was dead. Seventy-six years old, but still. Life is hard to fathom.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Her father. Apparently he had a cat. It was meowing so pathetically after he died. That was how they found him. Hadn’t been fed for days, poor little thing.’

  For the second time in two days I burst out: ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Had coffee.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Did you find out anything yourself?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘I found out quite a bit. She sketches in the evenings, goes to classes at the Workers’ Association.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I think she’s got a good memory.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  Elin takes a deep breath. From the dairy on Tunnelgatan a girl, her long hair all tousled with sweat and dust, comes running with a jug of cream. An emaciated horse hitched to a cart slowly raises its head and follows her with pleading eyes as she passes. The nag should have been sent for slaughter long ago.

  ‘Just like we thought, the Rymans were on their way back from Lundin’s when they brought out my mother. The car had Stockholm plates. She was sure it was a Rolls-Royce. Her brother has a car workshop.’

  ‘But he doesn’t have the Mora clock.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘There were four blokes involved, but two of them were standing on the other side of the window with Petrus and she didn’t get a good look at them.’

  ‘And the other two?’

  I pick up my notebook and the pen.

  ‘She remembers them as looking very different. She even joked about them being like Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘One large bloke and one smaller?’

  ‘One of them looked like an old boxer. A big fellow. With a smashed nose like yours. And a bushy white moustache.’

  I stop writing. That bloke is an old acquaintance: the same man who cut Petrus’s throat at Konradsberg and later assaulted me outside Lundin’s. Now his ashes rest in consecrated ground one fathom down, with the remains of a fourteen-year-old lad.

  When my day comes I wouldn’t mind a similar resting place.

  ‘And the other one?’

  ‘Short and slim. About one metre sixty-five tall, about the same height as her husband. He had a hooked nose, and he was a bit slow, had trouble keeping up with the others, he was following behind.’

  ‘And they didn’t find it at all odd to see them there?’

  ‘As far as they were concerned everything was in order. There’s another detail, you see: there was a constable in uniform patrolling up and down Ingemarsgatan.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘She couldn’t say. He was quite far away and she only saw his back.’

  ‘Someone from the Ninth District. You said they were on their way back from Lundin’s?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘So they saw nothing on their way there? Did they hear anything?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Shots, for example.’

  ‘She probably would have mentioned that.’

  I hum to myself as I jot some notes. At last the number 56 bus comes chugging along. Passengers alight and get on.

  ‘So, you had coffee with her?’

  I think about Ryman’s bleeding, unconscious body in the dark stairwell. Someone should have found him by now. I hope I didn’t cause any lasting damage.

  I start the motor car and put it in first gear. After checking behind me, I pull out and drive off towards Vasagatan, heading for the electrically lit King’s Bridge to Kungsholmen.

  ‘We had two cups, drank ’em from the saucer with sugar lumps. Sweet buns too.’

  I rub my chin and root out a cigar from my coat. I push down the accelerator; the tyres sing as we cross King’s Bridge.

  Elin holds onto her new hat as the hearse sways from side to side. In the back, the coffin rattles about. A rhythmic thumping of wheels against the welds in the track can be heard as a fast train pulls into Central Station from the north.

  ‘What was that?’

  Elin leans towards me.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said something.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t think so.’

  Women have got something wrong with their hearing, I’m sure of it. I spin the steering wheel and turn right. On the corner of Scheelegatan and Fleminggatan, the number 2 tram has collided with a horse-drawn carriage. A shiny brown mare lies on her side breathing heavily, with distended nostrils. Her right back-hoof scrapes against the paving stones. One of the wagon’s shafts has broken off and pierced deep into her side. Life is slowly draining out of her, filling the gaps between the cobblestones with blood.

  The gawping passengers press their hands and pale faces against the misted windows. The driver limps back and forth in front of the horse in his dusty leather boots, tears ru
nning into his beard as he slaps his cap against his thighs again and again.

  Elin gasps and I slow down. As I turn the steering wheel to overtake the wagon lying halfway across the lane, I see a motorcycle policeman unbutton the holster of his service pistol. Just as I’m turning into Agnegatan by the old lunatic asylum, I hear the shot, to put the animal out of its misery. It echoes all over the block. Elin flinches in the passenger seat. I take a deep puff on my cigar.

  ‘Not like in the cinema, is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Makes more of a noise than you think. It would have been heard halfway across Sibirien.’

  ‘I read a serial in the Sunday supplement of Social-Demokraten once: the murderer muted the sound of the shot with a pillow.’

  ‘We’ll have to ask Hessler the copper about that,’ I say, pointing at the large police headquarters building looming up ahead of us. We park and go into the lion’s den, waiting for a while in a room filled with secretaries and clerks before the head of the spirit-smuggling unit can receive us.

  A constable in uniform leads us through an anteroom full of typists clattering away at their machines, then a hall dominated by a gigantic oak table surrounded by chairs. None of the group of dumb coppers sitting there pretending to work has the energy even to look up.

  ‘There’s more brass here than on Karlavägen when the May Day parade goes by,’ I mutter to myself.

  Hessler has his own office at the back of the hall. He’s been promoted since the last time I saw him, as if he didn’t already rake in enough, including bribes from the gangster syndicates organising vodka smuggling. The chief constable is in uniform sitting behind his desk, which is crammed with piles of documents and papers, all of exactly the same height. There are a few crow’s feet around his blue eyes and the well-trimmed little moustache on his thick upper lip is shot through with grey streaks. He’s pulling a comb through his pomaded hair when we walk in, but stands up when he sees Elin. He gives me a meaningful pursed-mouth glance as they shake hands. He turns to me.

  ‘Harry. Been a while. Three years?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The last time we saw each other was in the remand cells at the bottom of the building. Hessler was drunk and in need of some company. I get out my notebook from my pocket and he breaks into a smile. I’ve never been able to make head or tail of the bloke.