Down for the Count

by Martin Holmén

  ‘That may be so.’

  I indicate that he should keep moving. He purses his fat lips, then goes on.

  ‘Here are the dormitories.’

  We go into a darkened room. On the short side is a little window. It’s almost completely dark outside now. There are about twenty iron bedsteads in all, arranged in two rows. They’re neatly made up, with white sheets folded over grey blankets. A notice on the wall lists the general rules.

  ‘We have no fewer than three similar rooms for the boys, and two for the girls. Obviously the pupils are monitored at night by staff.’

  Elin looks around.

  ‘It seems a little impersonal. Don’t they miss their families?’

  I can hear the emotion in Elin’s voice.

  ‘The pupils’ personal belongings are kept in boxes under their beds, so they can look at them whenever they want to remind themselves of home.’

  Elin takes a couple of deep breaths, then runs her finger along one of the bedposts to check whether it’s been dusted.

  The superintendent smiles cautiously: ‘All parents want the best for their children, wouldn’t you agree?’

  I glance over at Elin. Her hand trembles as she smoothes back a lock of hair behind her left ear.

  ‘Of course it’s hard for all involved when a family is broken up. On the other hand we have generous visiting hours and the pupils spend their vacations at home.’

  ‘There are some things one can’t do anything about.’

  With this Elin gives a little sob and digs a handkerchief out of her handbag. She seems a better actress than Greta Garbo to me. Or Doris Steiner for that matter. But her looks might count against her.

  ‘Your daughter’s handicap is hardly your fault, my dear lady. How old is the girl?’

  Without thinking about it I spit out ‘fifteen’ at the same time as Elin says ‘twelve’. In the silence that follows I catch myself thinking I can even hear the indistinct mumbling of deaf children in the corridors.

  ‘My husband was thinking of our eldest.’

  ‘Twelve, then?’

  The superintendent’s gaze passes fleetingly across me. My chest is more painful than when I had to go through those last few rounds with ‘The Mallet’ Sundström in ’22, and at that point I did have three broken ribs.

  Or was it four?

  The vein in my forehead is thumping to life. I clamp my jaws together so hard that it hurts: ‘Twelve.’

  Elin tucks her handkerchief back into her handbag. She turns around and goes into the corridor again. The superintendent and I stay where we are for a few seconds before following her. We go back to the entrance and reception area. The fop walks ahead of us, throwing out his arms now and then, as if guiding us through a museum filled with priceless art.

  ‘How are the fees arranged?’

  Elin’s voice echoes over the sound of our feet on the stairs. The superintendent lowers his voice as if he’s just about to reveal a secret, and I notice Elin leaning forward so she can catch his words.

  ‘The cost per pupil is six hundred and ninety kronor per year, of which the state makes a contribution of two hundred and fifty. For children that cannot be provided for through private financing, a few are admitted by means of a grant from the school’s own support fund. The greater part of this is provided by the royal household.’

  ‘Royal household?’

  ‘His Majesty is a generous benefactor.’

  The fop makes a sweeping gesture at the portrait on the wall.

  ‘I have a feeling that our neighbour at home in Roslagsgatan had her son here for a few years. Petrus. Petrus Johansson,’ Elin said.

  The superintendent checks his wristwatch. It’s almost gone five. He pulls at his ear lobe and clears his throat.

  Just like me, he wants to call it a night.

  ‘I read somewhere that the level of civilisation of a nation should be judged by how well it cares for the weakest of its people. I am convinced that His Majesty shares that view.’

  ‘Maybe you remember Petrus?’

  In the corner of my eye, I can see Elin flashing the same sort of smile she gave Wallin. It suits her about as well as a ball gown on a gnarled peasant wife.

  ‘I don’t have extensive contact with the pupils.’

  ‘He was here during the War.’

  ‘Before my time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is anyone still working here from that period?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘What was the name of your predecessor?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  Elin catches her breath.

  The superintendent needlessly adjusts his tie. I look him in the eye and cut in: ‘Just plain bloody curiosity I’m afraid.’

  I feel Elin grip my arm and she carries on: ‘We just want to know as much as possible about your school before we put our faith in you to care for our little girl.’

  ‘My predecessor’s name was Erik Gyllenbrandt. A pioneer in our field. Unfortunately he’s been dead for many years. What is your daughter’s name?’

  ‘Ellinor.’

  ‘Ellinor. A lovely name. When was she born?’

  ‘The twelfth of March, 1923.’

  I glance at Elin and try to do the mental arithmetic. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said she has a good head for numbers. That’s damned quick.

  ‘Is her deafness acquired or did she have it at birth?’

  ‘She was born that way.’

  ‘Better born deaf than dead.’

  I laugh hoarsely at my own joke. Both Elin and the fop stare at me blankly. I crack my finger joints and rock back and forth on my feet. Not long now until I can have a cigar. The superintendent’s gaze passes from my hand to Elin’s.

  His eyes narrow; a twin furrow appears above the top of his nose.

  ‘Have you both misplaced your wedding rings? Excuse me for asking…’

  Elin gasps but she recovers: ‘Handed in for a clean. It will be our fifteenth wedding anniversary next week.’

  ‘Well, then congratulations are due.’

  The superintendent bows slightly:

  ‘Would you just allow me make a call and fetch some applications, and then I think we’re all done here. Roslagsgatan, wasn’t it? What was the surname again?’

  I sit on the driver’s side with Elin next to me. The car is already heavy with cigar smoke. Keeping my eyes on the rear mirror, I quickly change my tie knot to a double Windsor.

  The front steps of the school and the heavy copper doors are illuminated by a faint, half-moon-shaped light. Somewhere nearby, hoarse factory whistles announce the end of the first working day of the week.

  ‘You didn’t think he was flustered when I asked about Petrus?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘You come on to people like a bloody buffalo.’

  ‘What sort of buffalo would that be, then?’

  ‘You might find you’d get further if you were a bit more pleasant.’

  Elin raises an eyebrow and surveys the dark courtyard. I mutter: ‘If you hadn’t given away our names the first thing you did, I could have squeezed one or two things out of the bloke.’

  ‘Squeezed, huh? You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?’

  I fix my eyes on the grey pillar of ash at the tip of my cigar. Elin sighs.

  ‘I suppose this is the end of the line?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘I’ll go to the police tomorrow.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’

  ‘Sometimes, Harry, you’re completely bloody impossible.’

  An approaching motor makes itself heard over the churning sounds of the city. The gravel crunches under two pairs of tyres. A double beam of headlights sweeps across the courtyard. The leather creaks as Elin and I instinctively slide down in our seats.

  A car pulls in and stops by the steps some ten or so metres away. Its black-as-night paintwork melts into the dusk. I remove my cigar from my mouth: ‘Rolls.’

  ‘Are you
sure?’

  Elin grasps hold of my lower arm.

  ‘That damned fop and his telephone.’

  ‘Can you see the number plate?’

  ‘Not from here.’

  My nerves are yelling for tobacco but I daren’t have a puff in case they see the glow. A car door slams, then another. Slowly the cigar goes out between my fingers, it’ll be sour now when I relight it.

  I crane my neck and peer over the steering wheel. For every step they take, the two men in black grow clearer in the light. They’re strapping fellas, of similar height. If they were boxers they’d both be heavyweights, but they look agile and quick with it. They both wear identical black poplin overcoats with belts.

  ‘Maybe my instinct was right again! Can you see anything?’

  I hiss: ‘Shut your big mouth!’

  The two men step into the faint half-circle of light by the door. One of them rings the doorbell. The other takes off his hat and turns towards us. I quickly slide down a few centimetres. As if the hearse was not already eye-catching enough without occupants. I wish we could just disappear.

  The bloke has close-cropped hair and a small, rounded head. His dark eyes are far apart and he has a thick-set neck, like a bull.

  A cake slice of yellow light cuts into the faint semi-circle when the door opens. The bull turns around and follows his companion inside. When the door closes, Elin sits up. I puff intensively on the cigar, inhale and blow out a half-kilo of smoke: ‘Christ Almighty.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Fucking poplin overcoats.’

  ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘Can you see the plates?’

  ‘Not from this angle.’

  ‘Wait here.’

  Quietly I open the door and let my cigar drop to the ground. I put my foot on it, and then I’m outside in the November cold. Leaving the door ajar, I squat behind the bonnet. Listening.

  Nothing.

  Staying low, I move in a half-circle across the courtyard so that I have the school building and the car right in front of me the whole time.

  The gravel makes a racket under my feet. Gradually the digits on the rear-end number plate loom into view, one by one, and every time I see another I gasp as if I’m watching a muscular sailor removing his garments. Finally the trousers come off.

  One, zero, five, nine.

  A1059.

  Even though I’m halfway between the Rolls and Lundin’s hearse without so much as a dandelion to hide behind, I can’t stop myself from lowering one knee to the ground and rooting about for the hard outline of the notebook in my coat pocket. I quickly find the right place, angle the book to catch some light and peer at the page. My heart leaps.

  One wrong digit. One damned digit. Otherwise Hessler would have been able to identify the car earlier this afternoon.

  The hinges of the heavy door screech about five metres in front of me. I throw myself flat on my belly and bury my face in the wet gravel. My heart thumps hard against the damp ground. Steps tap against the stone steps and one of the doors of the Rolls opens and closes. I raise my head and catch a glimpse of the other man: the bloke has an almost triangular head. The high, wide forehead tapers off towards a weak little chin. The tips of his moustache are waxed. He quickly tightens the belt of his overcoat before putting his hand on the door handle. The passenger door closes behind him; then the courtyard gravel glitters in the sudden glare of the headlights. The motor starts up with an angry sound. The driver releases the clutch and the little pebbles spray over my head like a double-barrel of lead when he pulls away with a wheel spin and disappears onto Pilgatan with screaming tyres.

  Elin has already started the hearse, and I throw myself into the passenger seat as we start moving off. She turns first left and then right, and we exit through the gates. The empty coffin in the back of our car bounces from side to side. I’m practically hyperventilating. I manage to get out a cigar even as I’m struggle to find my balance in the seat. As the match flares I see the grim expression on Elin’s face.

  ‘Is it them?’

  ‘All the numbers except one.’

  The red tail-lights of the Rolls disappear round the right curve towards Norr Mälarstrand and I tumble against the window, as I draw the Husqvarna from my shoulder holster.

  ‘It’s them?’

  ‘Too bloody right it’s them.’

  ‘So in the end I was right!’

  The way this harpy goes on, you’d think it was some sort of bleeding contest. I grunt instead of answering. My thumb slides over the engraved emblem of the Swedish Royal Navy; I flick the safety catch and feed a bullet into the chamber.

  The dark waters of Mälaren reflect the lights lining the quay and hanging from the sterns of the skiffs. Waves are breaking hard against the dock. A seagull cries somewhere. The hearse speeds along, following the shoreline towards the west. I look up at the red-painted hovels on Mariaberget, across the water. I lived there with Emma and Ida before they took the ship across the ocean. I squeeze the butt of the pistol and concentrate on the Rolls instead. Elin turns abruptly to the right, into St Eriksgatan. The coffin strikes the left-hand side of the car with a hollow thud.

  ‘Don’t lose them now, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Elin leans towards me. Maybe I should have enrolled her in the school for the deaf?

  ‘Don’t lose them like you did on Väster Bridge!’

  ‘No risk of that. Not again.’

  The traffic gets heavier as workers pour out of Kungsholmen’s many factories on their bicycles. Under their peaked caps you can see the whites of their eyes gleaming in their sooty faces. Frozen fingers grip the rain-soaked wooden handlebars.

  On the right we pass the headquarters of Belzén, the gangster, and the hearse brushes against a fearless man in clogs, who’s hastily clattering across the road. I lean forward in my seat. By St Erik Bridge the driver seems to slow down and Elin follows suit. She positions the motor car a comfortable distance of about twenty metres behind, with another three vehicles between ourselves and the Rolls. Elin anxiously runs her hand through her hair: ‘What the hell do we do now?’

  ‘We see where they lead us.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we know.’

  ‘What sort of types do you think they are, these bastards?’

  ‘They’re coppers.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  She sounds astonished.

  ‘There are two kinds of people I can smell at a distance. One of them happens to be coppers.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘They’re picking up speed. Stay with them!’

  We make an abrupt right turn by St Eriksplan. Outside the dairy by a pharmacy known as the Ram stands a young woman with a swaddled infant in her arms. She’s telling passers-by that her milk’s run dry, and asking them to buy her a bottle of milk for the baby. If some kind soul takes pity on her, she’ll sell the bottle back to the dairy at half the retail price. She’s been standing there for years. God only knows where she gets the babies from.

  ‘You have to talk more clearly!’ Elin raises her voice in the gloom.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re mumbling! Speak up!’

  ‘I never said anything.’

  Not only is she deaf as a post, she also hears voices.

  The playground in Vasa Park lies deserted. The familiar apartment buildings at the bottom of Odengatan’s long incline go flying past. Elin’s hands clutch the steering wheel. A feeling of unease is growing stronger and stronger in my belly. Once again I visualise Petrus with his throat cut open like a slaughtered animal on a meat hook.

  ‘Damned butchers.’

  Outside his bazaar on the crossing of Roslagsgatan, Johnsson is limping about, bringing in the apple boxes filled with cut-price bargains from the pavement. I almost bite off my cigar when the Rolls turns left towards my own home.

  ‘Damn it!’

&nb
sp; Now we only have a Volvo between ourselves and the Rolls, and Elin slows down to increase the gap as we continue north along Roslagsgatan. I’m squeezing the criss-cross pattern of the pistol butt so hard that it hurts. I glance at the police station on Surbrunnsgatan.

  ‘Where are they going?’

  We’re coming up to the next crossing. On the pavement outside the jumble shop, old man Ström and Rickardsson, Ploman’s gangster, are caught in the beam of the Rolls’s headlights. They both stare at the car.

  ‘Where do you think? Turn left, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘But we don’t know where they’re going yet! I mean, they’re going past your house but how would they know you live there?’

  Again I see Doughboy before me, the smell of his unwashed head of hair and the feeling of his slender fingers caressing my chest. I think about his new serge suit hanging in the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll tell you later! Turn off!’

  Elin swings the car violently left into Frejgatan and immediately stamps down on the accelerator. I put my hand on her shoulder and look at her. The redhead and I are no longer hunters.

  We’re prey.

  Stina’s room in the flat on Dalagatan smells distinctly of the sea. The fishwife herself is spending the night with her bloke, the copper.

  I lie awake in her bed, although the bells of Matthew’s Church have just rung one in the morning. A trace of a chiffon curtain is visible in the dark. A couple of gilded picture frames gleam over a crocheted tablecloth. On the bedside table lies a novel with the title Matrimonial Cares. With a sigh I turn over for the hundredth time. The sheets give off a smell of mothballs. I stare at the wall.

  ‘Damn it, Kvisten, this time you’ve really made a mess of it.’

  I pull the blanket up to my nose, coughing slightly. My thoughts keep churning, revisiting the widow’s cigar shop, Doughboy, Beda and Petrus, and how the superintendent at the Institute must be mixed up in this whole blasted mess. And those men in black who increasingly seem like hitmen of some kind.

  ‘It won’t exactly be child’s play taking care of them.’