Never Fuck Up: A Novel

by Jens Lapidus

  The cop paused. Niklas was into the story.

  “What happened?”

  “He clocked me. If I’d been out with a male colleague, someone from my usual gang, for example, that never would’ve happened. But now, now this girl’s there and we can’t bring the asshole down the normal way. He was just too tough. So we used the batons. A lot. Until we got him down and could cuff him.”

  Another pause. The cop swallowed. The gravity in his eyes gleamed again.

  “And now they’re talking excessive force. You understand?”

  Niklas was surprised at the turn. This felt private, intimate.

  “Sure. It sounds fucked up. You were just doing your job.”

  “This is society’s demise we’re talking about. If the police allow a bunch of violent old fuckers to go around and do whatever they want without us being able to fight back, then who’s going to stop them? If the police let a bunch of junkies deal drugs, who’s going to keep young people from dying prematurely? If the police can’t do anything about domestic violence, who’s going to make sure innocent women aren’t humiliated?”

  Niklas nodded in time to the outpouring. The last thing the cop said cut deep. This was bigger than he’d thought—Sweden was in worse shape than he’d expected. If the police didn’t do the job, who would do it?

  He felt drunk. The cop kept talking about society’s decline. Niklas’s thoughts galloped off. Again and again: if the cops don’t take care of it, then someone else has to.

  * * *

  AFTONBLADET—EVENING PAPER

  Pensioner Assaulted with Batons—and Is Written Up by the Police

  Two police officers almost beat a pensioner unconscious with batons. They then wrote him up for assault. A surveillance camera revealed how the police abused the 63-year-old man.

  Aftonbladet has acquired the videotape from the store’s surveillance camera, which shows the police officers striking the pensioner Torsten Göransson at least ten times with their batons. The tape has also been given to the prosecutor.

  The images were captured by a surveillance camera in a twenty-four-hour bodega in Aspudden in southern Stockholm.

  “I hope they’re prosecuted. The police can’t be allowed to do this kind of thing,” said Torsten Göransson.

  Victim was defending himself

  Göransson had driven to the store from his apartment in Axelsberg to buy cigarettes. But the store clerk had refused to sell him cigarettes because the bills he had were too large.

  “The ATM machine in Aspudden only had five-hundred-kronor bills,” Göransson explained. “Then the police showed up. They started beating me with batons. Over my entire body. I fought back as much as I could in self-defense.”

  Göransson was arrested and brought to Skärholmen’s police station. He was not released until late that night.

  Confiscated video footage

  The following day, he went to Huddinge Hospital to have his injuries documented. Then he reported the police officers.

  Meanwhile, the police officers had written up Göransson for assault.

  Judging by the video footage that Aftonbladet acquired, Göransson’s version of events appears to be the accurate one.

  The video footage clearly shows the two police officers using their batons to beat Göransson repeatedly over his entire body.

  Bert Cantwell

  bert.cantwell@aftonbladet.se

  18

  Journalists are the rats of humankind; fake-PC-dyke-Communist politicians are the cockroaches of the earth; and Internal Affairs police investigators are the bloodsuckers of the world. They live off of other people’s ruin. They thrive on betrayal: spit on loyalty, dignity, and respect. They let Sweden down. Let everyone down who is working for a better country.

  Thomas knew that most cops who loved the more confrontational side of police work, those who didn’t just waste away behind a desk or pussy out as soon as the heat was turned up, would, at some point during their career, be subjected to internal investigations. That was just par for the course; the police department was forced to stage a little self-scrutiny from time to time to keep the politicians and the public happy. But sometimes it got serious—when the media got involved. When journalists who knew nothing about life on the street started to scrutinize, criticize, theorize. Hunt. The beaters were consequence-neutral—they didn’t give a damn what happened to the individual policemen whose heads they wanted on a spit. The media should be outlawed.

  That’s why he wasn’t really too surprised when, three days after the articles appeared in Aftonbladet, Expressen, Metro, City, and probably a bunch of other newspapers, he saw the envelope in his mailbox at work. Internal Affairs (IA), Stockholm County. The message was brief.

  Ai 1187-07. Chief Prosecutor Carl Holm has decided to commence a preliminary investigation against you and Cecilia Lindqvist in regards to serious professional misconduct, etc., on June 11 of this year on Hägerstensvägen. The Chief Prosecutor has given the undersigned Internal Affairs officer the right to charge you with suspicion of grave professional misconduct or, in the alternative, grave assault. According to the internal database, you are scheduled to work during the day on June 25, therefore, you are called to Internal Affairs headquarters on that day at 1300. You are also hereby informed of your right to have legal representation present at the interrogation.

  His nose was pounding after the head butt from that fucking boozehound. He felt nauseated.

  They were going to commence an investigation against him—and that could lead to suspension and transfer, or, worse, dismissal. It could lead to a charge of professional misconduct being brought against him. He remained standing in front of the mailbox, the letter in hand. Didn’t know what to do.

  Read the verdict again. Saw the report number again. Ai 1197-07. Thought of all of those who’d been through this before him.

  His phone rang.

  “Hello, Andrén. This is Stig Adamsson. Are you in?”

  After the incident at the morgue, Thomas didn’t trust Adamsson one bit. What did he want now? Could it have to do with the murder? More likely, it had to do with the Internal Affairs investigation that he’d just found out about. He responded, “I just got in.”

  “Great. You think you could come by my office? The sooner the better.”

  Six colleagues were standing around the coffee machine in the hall. They greeted him. Everyone knew. He could tell. He could see right away which ones were on his side. A discreet nod, a wink, a wave. But two of them stared straight through him—there were quislings among the patrol officers too. Thomas made a point of greeting the four who were his friends.

  The door to Adamsson’s room was closed. According to police etiquette, that meant you were expected to close it after you when you went inside.

  Thomas knocked. Heard a quiet “Come in” from inside.

  Adamsson was sitting in front of his computer with his back to the door. A tired, old ballbuster. The unit chief turned around.

  “Hey, Andrén. Have a seat.”

  Thomas pulled out the visitor’s chair and sat down. He was still holding the letter from IA in his hand. Stig Adamsson looked at it.

  “This is really unfortunate.”

  Thomas nodded. Could he trust Adamsson?

  “So, I’m guessing everyone already knows?”

  “Well, you know how it is. Talk spreads faster than wildfire around here. But I heard it by the formal route. They made this a rush job and everything, sent it straight to the prosecutor. They’re dragging the girl into it too, Lindqvist.”

  “So, what do you think? Will the media calm down?”

  “They always calm down. But if you’re unlucky, some damn politician’s going to add his two cents, too. Unfortunately, that usually sets a fire under IA’s ass. And then the police commissioner’s got to make a decision about where you’ll be working, too.”

  “When will that happen?”

  Adamsson put both hands on the table. They were rough hands. Hand
s that’d taken their fair share of hits in their day: probably been pricked on injection needles, dug through vomit, but also dealt a few more blows than most. He sighed.

  “I just spoke to him. He’s going to wait for IA’s verdict. If they make a case of it, prosecute you and get a conviction, there’s a risk that you’ll have to quit altogether. If they drop the preliminary investigation, the situation is more hopeful, but even then there’s a risk that we’ll have to transfer you.”

  Thomas didn’t know what to say.

  “Andrén, I just wanted to tell you that I completely understand. I’ve read your report and the assault report. I mean, I know Torsten Göransson from way back. He was a good boxer, twenty-five or so years ago. Trained at Linnéa. You know that club?”

  “Of course.”

  “A real beast. Then something went wrong. Or else it’d gone wrong already before the boxing. I don’t know. Anyway, he’s been convicted of assault at least five times before. Summa summarum: you were totally right to use the batons. And it’s not your fault that the new collapsible batons are too weak. And it’s not your fault that Cecilia Lindqvist is too weak.”

  Thomas nodded in time to Adamsson’s harangue. He thought, Shouldn’t the guy at least mention the incident at the morgue? But he didn’t say anything. Instead he said, “Exactly. If we’d been two regular officers we’d have been able to handle him without using the batons so much. I appreciate your support, Adamsson. It feels good. But, can you tell me one thing?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Who made the call for me to take the shift with Cecilia Lindqvist? Everyone who knows me knows I don’t work too well with little girls.”

  “I honestly don’t know who made that call. But Ljunggren had to cover for Fransson, who was sick. So we had to put someone in. That’s just the routine, you know that. But I’ll look into it.”

  Thomas nodded. Adamsson didn’t say anything. His facial expression, however, said: This conversation is over.

  Thomas wanted to say something about the morgue. Get a sensible explanation.

  But no words came. He got up.

  “One more thing, Andrén. Take a few weeks off. Go on disability for a month or so. I really think you should. It’ll be hard, being here.”

  It was an order.

  On his way home, Thomas drove the roundabout way across Norrmalm. Didn’t take the Essingeleden highway. Needed time to think. The lower part of Fleminggatan: Irish pubs and small restaurants. He thought about his and Ljunggren’s night at Friden. The places he was driving past now didn’t exactly radiate glamour. But Friden still took home the dumpy prize.

  Then it hit him: he couldn’t exactly put his finger on what it was, but Ljunggren’d been acting weird. First he’d been all about them grabbing a beer after work. And then, when they got to Friden, it was like he had nothing to say. Ljunggren wasn’t the world’s most talkative person, sure—still, they usually conversed at their own pace, exchanged a few words. Analyzed the day. Complained about their bosses, worthless colleagues. Evaluated the women in the place. But yesterday, Ljunggren’d seemed scattered. Flitted between topics and kept bringing up the same thing over and over: the way Thomas’d dealt with the drunk boxer. And all of that could’ve been normal, except for his comment after a while, a few minutes before those guys at the next table over started talking to them. As if Ljunggren’d had to force his question out: “Hey Thomas, you’re not mad at me, are you? I mean, I got called to something else, that’s why they sent that chick.” But even that wasn’t strange—of course he felt bad about what happened. But the thing he said after that—after Thomas’d shaken his head and said it wasn’t his responsibility—was all to hell:

  “Andrén, now that they’ve started this whole internal investigation you’ll stop digging around in that Hägerström crap, right?”

  At first, Thomas hadn’t understood what he meant. Then it became clear what he was implying. His only response was, “I’m still a cop. So I’ll keep doing what cops do.”

  Thomas drove across the Central Bridge toward Slussen. Riddarholmen, with all the courthouses, was on his right. Where they claimed that justice was served in Sweden. Lady Justice was blind, they said. It was true, she was blind.

  He added up the facts. Someone’d deleted things from his report. Someone’d deleted things from the forensic pathologist’s autopsy report. Adamsson wanted to stop him and Hägerström from taking pictures of the corpse. Then something else hit him: Ljunggren’d called him while he was at the morgue—tried to get him to come on a call, said something about a shoplifter in the Mörby mall. Not only had he asked him to stop the murder investigation, maybe he’d tried to trick him too.

  Summation of his analysis: there was only one explanation for all the weirdness piling up in his head. Someone wanted to stop him from continuing his search. That someone might be Ljunggren. But how much power did Jörgen Ljunggren have to make things like that happen? No, it wasn’t Ljunggren. And Adamsson? Maybe. Thomas had to find out more.

  But right now, he couldn’t care less who it was. He had to do something on his own. He made a U-turn at Slussen.

  Twenty minutes later he got out of the car in front of Danderyd’s morgue. The sky was a clear blue. His nose still hurt like hell. He thought about the smell in the room with the cold chambers. He thought about Hägerström. Suddenly, he changed his mind. Called Hägerström.

  He didn’t pick up. Thomas left a message. “Hi there, it’s Andrén. A lot of shit happened today. You might already know about it, but I’ll tell you later. Anyway, I’m going in to see the pathologist right now. Just so you know.”

  When he’d hung up, he realized that Hägerström was really the enemy. Being disloyal to police colleagues was what Hägerström’s past life was all about. Those IA rats.

  He rang the bell at the welcome desk. An autopsy technician came out. He looked surprised.

  “Hi, may I help you?”

  “Yes. I was here a few days ago. Andrén, Southern District.”

  “Right, now I recognize you.”

  Not an unusual reaction from people who’d previously only seen him in uniform. As if he were a completely different person in his civilian clothes. But considering the Adamsson incident, maybe this little autopsy technician ought to have a better memory.

  “You’re Christian Nilsson?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  Thomas lowered his voice. Unnecessary to speak too loudly. Nilsson might get stressed out by the thought that someone could come into the waiting room and hear.

  “You were present at the autopsy of the corpse that me and my colleague were looking at the last time we were here?”

  “I don’t remember exactly, it’s been busy here lately.”

  “Okay. Then I can tell you that you were present, the autopsy report says so. The dead man’s face was basically torn off and the guy had no teeth, so we need more input to make a positive ID. Can you tell me something? Was there anything special about the victim’s right arm?”

  “As far as I remember, things got a little tumultuous when you were here last. And I can tell you straight away that I don’t remember all the details from that autopsy, unfortunately. But if you want, I can get my report so that you can see what it says in it.”

  Thomas considered his options. The autopsy technician seemed cocky, but it wasn’t certain that he was hiding something. Things had gotten pretty weird when Adamsson stormed in. Thomas asked him to get the report. There was always a chance that the track marks were mentioned in that version. He came back after three minutes. Without the report.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t give you the report. You’re no longer a part of the investigation, as far as I can tell.”

  Thomas thought: If the guy says “as far as” one more time, I’ll crack his skull. Then he said curtly, “Get your boss, Bengt Gantz. Now, please.”

  The autopsy technician stared him in the eyes. Turned on his heel and disappeared through the door.
>
  Ten minutes later, a tall, thin man came into the waiting room. The same uniform coat as Nilsson. Thomas wondered why it’d taken so long. The forensic pathologist’d probably been elbow-deep in some corpse, or else he was worried about his major miss in the autopsy report.

  Three slow steps. Almost as if he was trying to act dignified.

  “Hello. My name is Bengt Gantz.” Slow drawl. “I don’t want to be unpleasant in any way, but we have been informed that you are not a part of the team involved in this preliminary investigation. Therefore, in the present situation, our privacy rules do not permit us to give you access to journal material, reports, or other things of that nature.”

  Thomas thought, The doctor dude’s language is nerdier than a pompous defense attorney’s. He tried to calm down.

  “I understand. But I just have a very simple question. You seem to have forgotten certain information in the autopsy report. It concerns findings on the victim’s right arm. Do you remember anything in particular about that?”

  The forensic pathologist actually looked like he was thinking it over. He closed his eyes. But what came out was all wrong. “As I said, we are unfortunately not able to comment on this case at all. I’m sorry.”

  Thomas thought Gantz’s attempt at a smile to smooth things over was the most disingenuous thing he’d ever seen.