Lynx stood up. He had put away the pistol and was standing at such an angle that Katz could get a glimpse of his face in the light from the lanterns that came in through the cabin window. He was in his seventies. In good condition. Fit. With old stabbing scars on his throat. A man who had recently killed another: Klingberg. To save his own skin. And he had done it with no hesitation.
He took a passport from his inner pocket and placed it on the table in front of Katz. A Russian passport.
“The question is, what are we going to do with you? As I see it, you have two options. One, you can stay here. We can help you. You’ve already got the beginnings of a new identity . . . as the Russian journalist Igor Liebermann. No family at home, no one waiting for you. There’s fifty million in an anonymous account in Banco Popular Dominicano; it would be easy for us to change the information so that part of that sum suddenly belongs to you. Let’s say, fifteen million. And if you don’t like living in the Caribbean, my friends here can work things out so you can go with them. You’d be following in your grandparents’ footsteps, so to speak.”
He knows all about me, Katz thought; he’s followed me at a distance all these years, he’s watched me like a scientist through a magnifying glass.
“And what’s my other option?”
“We’ll fix the mess that Klingberg left behind. You’ll be exonerated and you can go on with your regular life in Stockholm, but on one condition: you will be at our disposal. I must admit that I’m impressed by you.”
“What if I say no?”
“It would be rough. Pretty soon you might need to help a friend who is about to get into trouble.”
He stopped talking, looked intently at Katz, letting the enigmatic message take hold.
“In any case . . . we have one basic demand, no matter what you choose . . . and that’s that this meeting never happened.”
Stockholm, June 2012
They were sitting in the living room of Jorma’s apartment in Midsommarkransen. It was the last week of June. The night was painfully bright. Cool air streamed in through the open balcony door.
“What are you thinking about?”
Eva’s voice, right next to him. He filled her glass from the bottle of rum he’d brought with him—Haitian Barbancourt.
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure? It looked like you were.”
“Absolutely sure.”
They knew almost everything by now. He’d told them what had happened, except for the meeting with Lynx. He’d explained that Klingberg was dead, that the information came from a reliable source, but that he didn’t know how it had happened. He’d told them about Ingrid, Joel Klingberg’s girlfriend, about what had happened to him at the sugar-cane plantation, about Julin’s role in the story, and about Gustav Klingberg’s involvement in Kristoffer Klingberg’s abduction. They’d asked questions that he’d answered as best he could. Then the conversation died out. They were exhausted, he thought, after all they’d been through.
“A Star of David, just like when you were sixteen.”
She touched the trinket that was hanging at his throat.
“I got it from my dad when I did my bar mitzvah. I put it on today. For the first time in years.”
He had thought a lot about Benjamin recently. Katz had been only fourteen when he died. His memories had faded. He supposed he hadn’t wanted to remember him, that it was too painful.
He closed his eyes and, before him, he saw the synagogue on Sankt Paulsgatan as he was called forth to bless the Torah and read a passage in Hebrew. His father’s pride as he saw that he had learned to place the tefillin, the small prayer boxes, in the right places: the shel rosh behind his hairline above his forehead, the shel yad on his right bicep, because he was left-handed. He had worn a tallit, too, a prayer shawl, for the first and only time in his life, and his father had beamed like the sun from his place in the front row with the kippah on his bald pate. Six months later, he was gone.
His parents had visited him like ghosts in Santo Domingo. They’d forced their way to him with their mysteriousness, causing him to wonder about things he’d never thought about before. Why had they left him in the lurch; why had they always moved around? Benjamin’s rage, where had it come from? And had he really killed a person for the sake of a passport? Anne, his mother, had been fifteen years younger. Katz had never gotten to know her either; they’d kept him at a distance. It had been the two of them against the world.
He realized he was cold. Eva got up, walked over to the balcony door, and closed it.
“I’m curious about something,” she said. “The file you found in Klingberg’s computer, with the notes. Why was it there? He linked his brother’s kidnapping to his parents’ death.”
“Because he wanted to appear innocent. After all, he didn’t know exactly what would happen once everything was set into motion. And if anyone were to start digging deeper, in his computer, for example, there would be small, subtle things that pointed to his innocence.”
Jorma nodded at them from the piano stool:
“He wanted to be able to come back and say, ‘Look, I have nothing to do with this.’”
Jorma’s voice—it wasn’t quite there. Katz wondered if he was starting to get drunk.
“And Jonas Åkesson . . . there must be more people like him out there, drug addicts Julin experimented on?”
Maybe, he thought; they didn’t know. And they would probably never find out. Lynx would clean up this mess.
Jorma had started playing again. Katz followed his fingers—the left hand, leading its own life among the low notes, striking colorful chords as the right hand delicately groped for the melody. Something by Carmichael; it was incredibly beautiful.
He felt Eva’s arm around his waist. He pretended not to notice it.
Had it been a mistake not to stay in Santo Domingo? He had lingered for two weeks, living under the name Igor Liebermann at a beachfront hotel, seeing how it felt. Lynx was right; he had no family, no relatives—no one would miss him, except for the two people in the room right now. Jorma and Eva.
A new identity, the chance just to disappear. Wasn’t that what he’d dreamed of all these years? With fifteen million in starting capital. Why hadn’t he taken the chance? Because he couldn’t fool himself.
He poured more rum into the glass and took Eva’s hand, which was searching its way around his waist again. She was a bit too drunk. A leopard can’t change its spots, he thought.
Jorma was playing a classical piece now, a piano sonata. A long time ago, when they were living in the youth home in Hässelby Gård, a music teacher had said that Jorma was the most talented person he’d ever taught, and that the world would fall at his feet if he got the right education. But it had never happened. No one had had the strength to guide them into the right sort of future.
He looked at Jorma, his oldest friend: his closed face, his eyes in another world. The little gleam of pain in the corner of his eye.
His thoughts slid on. The money-begging letter he’d sent Klingberg fifteen years earlier . . . in the end, it had come back to bite him: Klingberg had anonymously sent it to the papers after Angela was murdered, so that Katz would appear guilty. His drug abuse had made him grovel; he would never allow it to happen again.
Jorma seemed distant as he played. Something wasn’t right. A friend who found himself in trouble? Was Jorma the one Lynx had been referring to? Or was he just imagining things?
Katz hadn’t replied to the offer yet. How could he? A person like Lynx wasn’t in the phone book. He guessed that he would be contacted at some point . . . unless it all came to nothing.
In any case, Danielsson had received the information he needed for Katz to be exonerated. Eva had taken care of that part. And people higher up had become involved. The investigation had been marked classified. Perhaps Lynx was pulling strings in the background.
It slowly grew dark outside; the light became weaker, but it wouldn’t vanish entirely. White nights in Stoc
kholm. His city. He reached for the bottle of rum and poured a little bit into his glass. That would be enough. He wanted to wake up sober.
Ten Questions for Carl-Johan Vallgren
Where did you grow up?
In a small village on the Swedish west coast; Falkenberg. Two younger sisters, hard working parents. Middle-class. Boring neighborhood, but secure. The perfect childhood for an author.
Is there a person who has significantly influenced your life?
My wife Rebecka, the wisest person on the planet.
What place fascinates you most?
Gotland, the island in the Baltic—it’s simply magical.
What are you afraid of?
Death—everything else is peanuts.
What makes you happy?
Writing.
Can you imagine a day without music?
Of course, when I’m writing I can’t listen to music at all.
Which role in a film would you have loved to play?
I prefer cameo appearances, but if I had talent: Walter White in Breaking Bad.
If you only had ten Euros left, what would you spend them on?
Swedish chewing tobacco—“snus”—I’m totally addicted.
Do heaven and hell exist?
No.
What’s important in life?
Love.
Carl-Johan Vallgren on The Boy in the Shadows
How did it come to pass that as a “literary” author you decided to write a crime series? What was your biggest challenge?
I felt a little weary at the thought of writing another “literary” novel. I needed something new, to surprise myself with, to develop myself as an author, and to find new pleasure in writing. And because I love the crime genre—in movies and books—it seemed the most obvious thing to move in that direction. The biggest challenge was to write in a less literary style, and with more pace, but without losing the depth. To think more of the plot, but without forgetting the scene setting.
Are there suspense writers you especially love reading or you see as an inspiration?
New and old noir authors, of course, from Chandler to Ellroy, but I wanted to write in a more modern style, for readers of our time.
The Scandinavian crime thriller boom has had major international impact in the last few years. What do you think of this development?
I don’t measure myself against other Scandinavian writers; I am trying to do my own thing. And don’t forget: there are also some very bad Scandinavian crime novels, and the fact is that most stuff from there is rubbish. That said, the competition is very tough, which is something good—you have to offer something new in order to widen your audience.
Your two main protagonists Danny Katz and Eva Westin both have lived through dark times in their pasts. What do you think is the appeal of these “broken” characters?
Firstly: they are facets of me. One can’t write literature without using oneself as “material.” But this kind of protagonist is also part of the genre. It all has to be dark and bitter. Violent people. The dark side of life. Night. Darkness. Drugs. Suffering. Life right at the bottom of society. That’s how one creates atmosphere. I’m very interested in Danny and Eva, both of them are very lonely and don’t fit into society. But they are also very talented people, and with their criminal background and street smarts there’s a lot of room to develop their characters in the novel.
You’re also active as a singer/songwriter—what is the biggest difference between writing a song and writing a novel?
Music is my hobby, just like others paint or play chess—and, coincidentally, I’ve had a bit of success with it. But writing novels is my profession and my life. I’d never compare them that way.
The Boy in the Shadows Page 29
