The crowd stood there with banners and placards, in the middle of the field. Pushchairs jostled for position with pensioners and students who linked arms, forming a chain. A fat, black woman was speaking on the stage. Her voice was nasal and whiny. Only a handful of police were on hand to observe the whole thing.
Michael threw a flare straight into the crowd. Christian threw a second. Smoke rose along with fear, thick and vermillion.
Radical Anti-Fascism came rushing over from the other side of the field. They stopped just a little way short of Swedish Resistance. Radical Anti-Fascism took two steps forward. Swedish Resistance took three. The distance between them was shrinking, becoming claustrophobic.
Everything turned into a tangle of fighting talk and fighting. The police, broad-shouldered men with truncheons and shields, ran towards them. Christian spotted them out of the corner of his eye, and when they got close enough he could see the panic in their eyes: they weren’t expecting this.
Not far from Christian stood Michael, and one of the reds hit him across the throat with a wooden pole.
Michael squealed and groaned, bent double, while Christian jumped on the bastard. It was a man about his age, maybe a year or so younger. He had a scarf wrapped around his face, and his hood pulled up.
Christian hit him in the chest with his elbow, and they fell to the floor, with Christian landing on top. He pulled the scarf away, punching the exposed face with his clenched fist, and the sensation as his knuckles connected with the cheekbone tore him up inside.
Now he could see Michael in his peripheral vision: he had got to his feet and was massaging his throat.
‘That fucker could’ve killed me,’ Christian heard him hiss, through all the screams and brawling.
Michael took a step forward, and kicked the scum in the face. His lip split, and a thick stream of blood gushed out, splattering onto his cheek and the ground by his head.
Christian got up, dropping the scarf, which he had been grasping the whole time. His hands were shaking.
Michael kicked the face again, harder this time. There was a crack as the jawbone broke, and a hoarse scream from the activist’s throat.
It almost sounded like a word, Christian thought, but he couldn’t make out what.
Michael was winding up for another kick, and Christian put his arm around his shoulders, trying to lead him away.
‘That’s enough,’ he hissed. ‘Look at me — that’s enough, that’s enough.’
Michael batted Christian’s arms away without making eye contact.
He kicked again, this time in the temple. The young man’s eyes opened wide as if in surprise and his mouth was open. Christian could see down his throat as he lay there, but no sound emerged. Instead, his legs started shaking.
Michael took one step forward, and lifted his boot above the man’s face, like the instant before you kill an insect. Then he stamped.
The man’s eye popped out of its socket.
Christian moved away and threw up.
Michael was praised within the group for his conviction and his capacity to put ideology into action; but for the Swedish judicial system, such qualities are of no value. He was sentenced to six years in prison. Christian got off, after his careerist lawyer managed to sell his plea of self-defence. When the verdict arrived, he was overwhelmed by relief at having avoided punishment, but then came the shame. He should have shared this with his friend. The guilt at having got away with it, that all the blame was put on Michael, was hard to bear.
‘Have the others been here?’ Christian asked now.
‘No. No one apart from you and Jens. They haven’t been approved by the institution yet. But they’ll come.’
‘I sent in seven or eight applications yesterday.’ He attempted a smile. ‘You’re sorely missed.’
Michael nodded.
‘Good. That’s good.’ He leant forward, over the table. ‘It’s your turn now. You’re taking over until I get out.’
‘But I’m not sure if I’m the right man.’
‘Why wouldn’t you be?’
‘I’m not like you.’
‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
‘I don’t have your leadership qualities. You know that.’
It had never even been an issue between them. Michael was the obvious front man. Christian was his sidekick.
‘You’ll have to do little jobs for me. That’s all you need to worry about. We can keep in touch by phone and stuff. It’ll be fine.’
Christian stared at his hands.
‘I don’t know if I can.’
Michael smiled.
‘You need to believe in yourself, just like you believe in our struggle. You deserve to believe in yourself, your own abilities.’
Next time he visited, Christian was worried that Michael would look much worse than he did the first time. Bruises and grazes were one thing. Christian had heard the rumours: there were people inside who hated Michael and what he stood for, who were going to hurt him. But when Christian arrived, Michael was sitting in the chair, looking relaxed and healthy. The bruises from last time had gone.
‘Don’t you worry,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ve sorted it.’
‘You’ve sorted it? How did you manage that?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
The time that followed was a period of decline. Swedish Resistance became weaker, people left, and way too few people joined. It wasn’t Christian’s fault, but it felt like it.
The man from Sölvesborg was elected leader of the Sweden Democrats. They talked about it on the phone, how that tendency, which had been present during their time in Sweden Democrat Youth, had started to take hold in the party proper: falling into line. Purging and streamlining.
‘His problem is that he thinks washing out peoples’ mouths cleanses their thoughts as well,’ Michael said. ‘But that’s just not how it works.’
‘But he’s attracting supporters,’ Christian said. ‘A lot of supporters.’
Michael sniggered down the phone.
‘A bunch of hypocrites, the lot of them. If it carries on like this, they’ll drop the immigration issue and then want to open the doors to everyone. They’re attracting people who really should be on our side, with us. This is a bigger obstacle for us than anything else.’
But which is our side? Christian thought to himself. Who are we? At the latest group meeting, ten people had shown up.
‘Don’t you think they’re still on our side?’ said Christian. ‘They’re toning it down to try to move forwards, and upwards in the polls.’
‘It doesn’t matter. They’re populists, they’re not after anything other than power. As soon as they get close to the arenas of mainstream politics, their own politics are going to be affected. The party has no heart, no true ideology.’
A man standing nearby shouted his name sharply.
‘I have to go. Speak soon.’
‘Yes,’ Christian said, and felt a pang of sadness at how he missed him. ‘Speak soon.’
He visited his friend whenever he could, watching him being broken down by the institution. It hurt, and everything felt shaky. Eventually, the anguish he felt before the visits outgrew the relief that he felt when he’d been.
He started feeling desensitised, numbed. He saw a girl getting hassled by three guys on the underground. They got off, leaving her in peace, just as Christian had decided to intervene.
He tried to recruit her to Swedish Resistance, but failed. She called him a Nazi swine.
‘You do realise that this is probably the slowest car journey in history?’ says Iris.
Iris Berger is my age, with dark, shoulder-length hair, locks of which fall straight over her cheeks. She’s wearing a dark-brown mac. It makes her seem twenty years older. She’s sitting with her hands in her pockets and her face turned
away from Goffman as we move through the streets of Kungsholmen back towards HQ. Her eyes are large and brown, so dark that I can see the shop-fronts of Hantverkargatan reflected in them.
‘I can’t drive any faster in this weather,’ Birck says, with a sharp intake of breath, as he slams on the brakes so as to avoid ruining Christmas for the old dear with the walking frame, who is beating a determined path across the road, just a little way from the pedestrian crossing.
I’ve got a feeling this year’s for me and you, so happy Christmas …
Goffman sticks his head out between me and Birck.
‘Could you turn that off?’
I can see a better time, where all our dreams come tr—
‘Thanks.’ Goffman joins his hands, folding the long fingers across one another. ‘What did the messages say?’
‘You should have read them aloud,’ Iris’s voice says from behind me.
‘Wouldn’t that have been a bit weird, in the circumstances?’ Birck says. ‘Who the hell reads things out loud?’
I pull Ebi Hakimi’s phone from my pocket and give it to Iris.
‘Jonathan Asplund makes contact with Ebi Hakimi in October,’ says Birck. ‘He says there’s a rumour going round that RAF are about to lose it altogether, as he puts it. He’s referring to the planned attack on Antonsson. I’m guessing he was worried about his childhood friend. It’s a pretty fucked-up situation, so it’s understandable that Hakimi is confused, and intrigued.’
We move slowly along the road. Iris gives Goffman the phone, and he puts it in his pocket without even looking at it.
‘In their last conversation,’ Birck says, ‘the night before the demo, Asplund says that he’s got something that Hakimi needs, and asks to meet by the swings at eight. I’m guessing that they used to meet up there.’
‘My attention span is dreadful. I drift off.’ Goffman blinks once, twice, three times, and studies his fingernails. They’re clean, as though he’d just had a manicure. ‘This is a very strange puzzle.’ He sighs. ‘And I hate puzzles.’
Birck rolls up towards Bergsgatan. Iris is restless and bored in the rear-view mirror. On a corner, the wind gets hold of an advertising billboard, which flies off and somersaults in mid-air, before crashing to the ground and scraping noisily along the road. It’s not snowing, but the persistent wind whips up the snow that has already fallen, forming drifts which cling resolutely to the walls of the buildings.
‘Asplund and Hakimi meet up on the morning of the demo in Rålambshov Park,’ Goffman says. ‘The night before, Asplund has told Hakimi that he has something which Hakimi needs. Might that be the Dictaphone?’
‘Yes,’ says Iris, ‘But it’s a tenuous link.’
‘That,’ says Goffman, ‘is precisely the problem.’
‘I don’t see why it’s tenuous,’ says Birck. ‘Asplund gives it to Hakimi, who gives it to Swedberg, and that’s how it ends up with us.’
‘Yes,’ says Goffman. ‘Perhaps. In that case, how did Asplund come to have it?’
‘He might be the attacker,’ I say.
‘Exactly,’ Birck says. ‘You see, contrary to what SEPO would have you believe, it’s not just Muslims and communists who are capable of committing serious crimes.’
‘No,’ says Iris, who apparently hasn’t heard Birck. ‘It’s not Asplund.’
‘How do you know that?’ I ask.
‘He’s got alibis for both murders.’
‘So you’ve had him in?’ asks Birck. ‘Why?’
No one says anything. Birck sighs.
‘Swedish Resistance,’ I say. ‘Who are their leaders?’
‘Nationally, it’s a guy called Jens Malm,’ says Iris. ‘A nasty bastard. They’re divided into geographical groups, the largest being the Stockholm one. That’s the one Asplund belongs to. Jonathan’s immediate superior, or whatever you want to call it, is a guy named Christian Västerberg.’
‘Isn’t it possible that it was them?’
‘That’s unlikely,’ says Iris. ‘The main threat comes from the left, not the right.’
‘One thing I don’t get,’ I say. ‘Is how Asplund came to know that RAF were planning an attack on Antonsson?’
‘Asplund is Iri—’ Goffman begins, before he smiles and shakes his head.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ says Iris, staring daggers at him.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I’m getting old. Sorry. Sometimes my mouth gets there before my brain.’
‘I don’t get it,’ I say.
‘Well, I do,’ Birck says, coldly. ‘He knew the same way you knew he had alibis for both murders. You told him. Lisa Swedberg was your informer,’ he says to Goffman. He moves his stare over to Iris. ‘Jonathan Asplund is yours.’
Iris reacts as though it were an accusation. It might be.
‘Well, we can rule out Asplund, then,’ I say.
‘Yes. Although, of course,’ Goffman says hesitantly, as the phone rings and he moves his hand towards his pocket. ‘That would explain why …’ He puts the phone to his ear. ‘Hello? What? When was this? And the attacker … I understand. Okay. We’re on our way.’
He leans back in his seat. Everyone’s waiting. Those seconds of silence are so awkward that I want to put the radio on again.
‘He’s been stabbed,’ he says, as though he were telling us the time of day. ‘About ten minutes ago, during a speech at Central Station.’
‘Who?’ says Birck. ‘Antonsson?’
‘No.’
The dying man’s last words were recorded on the Dictaphone, slurred by his accent, the medication, and his brain injuries. They are being deciphered in my head.
‘Who killed Thomas Heber?’
‘Sweetest sisters.’
Swedish Resistance.
‘Who’s next?’
‘Esther.’
SD. He’s saying Sweden Democrats. It’s him.
Fuck.
‘Is he still alive?’ Iris asks.
Goffman doesn’t reply.
IV
SOME DAY SOON
WE WILL ALL
BE TOGETHER
The hands were perfectly still on the tabletop. A wedding ring shone on the ring finger, discreet yet elegant. The woman it belonged to looked urgently at Christian sitting in the seat in front of her.
‘Tell me,’ she says, ‘how things have been recently. Shall we start there?’
She didn’t have any paper, no folder or file. Not even a pen. He wondered if this was part of her job, keeping everything in her head, or whether she just didn’t care.
‘Good. Like normal.’ He hesitated, checked that the chain around his neck was hidden by his T-shirt. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘What you’re feeling. What you’ve been doing recently, how you’re getting on.’ She smiled. ‘It’s up to you.’
Time passed relentlessly, yet stood still. Nothing was as normal, yet things were still the same.
‘I feel sort of unsure … somehow. And I don’t really have anyone to turn to. I guess that’s why I came here.’
He’d seen an ad on the bus the week before: DO YOU NEED SUPPORT IN YOUR LIFE? TALK TO ONE OF OUR CBT-CERTIFIED COUNSELLORS — FREE OF CHARGE! He’d made a mental note of the address but hadn’t planned to go, until he ended up going past the place on his way to the gym. He’d made an appointment, and then, standing on the pavement outside, wondered what he was playing at. Now there he was, still wondering.
‘You feel unsure,’ she repeated. ‘In what way?’
‘Well, I don’t know about unsure. Lonely. My best friend’s been inside a few years. That might be it.’
‘Inside?’ The counsellor said. ‘You mean he’s in pris—’
‘Yes.’
She nodded.
‘I understand.’
He looked around. The room was light and airy, looking like an estate agent’s ad. He looked down at his hands, and saw that they were tightly clenched. He tried to relax.
Swedish Resistance was falling apart. It was, he thought, that defeat which disturbed him the most. He couldn’t lead them — he didn’t have his friend’s abilities. Their activities had become more sporadic than systematic, and the numbers turning up when something did actually happen were getting smaller and smaller. It was obvious to anyone that they were in deep trouble.
‘Are you still in touch?’
‘A bit, by phone and stuff. I do visit him, but I get rejected every other time I apply for a permit. It … he’s in a right fucking state in there. I know that, and I can’t do anything about it. That is fucking hard to take.’
‘But this being unsure, or loneliness, how does that show itself?’
‘I don’t get out much. I stick to the people I know.’
Erik, Klas, Daniel, Frank, Jack. He could turn to them, but they were all members of Swedish Resistance. There was no one else. He felt isolated, enclosed within himself. He hadn’t spoken to his mum since Christmas. Nearly six months. His relationship with Anton was even worse. They lived such different lives. Sometimes blood-ties don’t mean a thing, Christian thought, and the insight came as something of a surprise. Anton had a family, kids with blonde hair and symmetrical faces. His wife was beautiful. They looked like Green Party types, which was disgusting.
A memory came to him: Christian was fifteen. He got a band hoodie from Anton, who looked pleased. The top would soon bring him and Michael together.
‘Can you talk to them?’ she asked. ‘Your friends?’
‘Not really. Well, I could, but I don’t want to.’
‘I understand.’
He wondered if she did. Wondered if she was Swedish, how long she’d been married, whether her husband was Swedish, who she voted for. He looked down, because her eyes were bright blue, and it was as though she would see through him in an instant.
‘I …’ he began. ‘Sometimes I see people in town, my age. They’re holding hands, pushing the pram in front of them. I imagine that they’re on the way home, that they’ve just bought something for their kid. They’ve got jobs in service industries or whatever, and they live in a little house, or maybe they own a flat just south of Södermalm. We get the same underground train and get off at the same station, and walk home. And I’m struck by what different lives we live, everything that they’ve achieved while I haven’t …’
The Falling Detective Page 25
