Never Fuck Up: A Novel

by Jens Lapidus

  The only thing he wanted to know: Who were the three biggest assholes? Who should he focus on? Him: a pro. Ice water running through his veins. He could wait.

  Back in the present. On his way back over Vinterviken’s allotment gardens. He didn’t see any war scenes today. No blood. No ambush. He thought maybe it was because he was about to begin his own ambush. The weeks’d gone so well. Him: a hunter. A predator. A man who made his mark on history. Who changed circumstances.

  The sweat ran down over his eyebrows. His eyes stung. He wiped his forehead with his T-shirt.

  The only thing he needed now was a firearm.

  It had to come to an end. The rats.

  The men.

  The enemy combatants.

  27

  Gloria Palace, Playa de Amadores, Gran Canaria. They could’ve gone to a flashier place: Aruba, Mauritius, or the Seychelles. But what were they supposed to do there? The only reason Thomas made the trip was to get away. And to calm Åsa.

  Still: the hotel, Gloria Palace, had four and a half stars from the charter travel company. You couldn’t top that on Gran Canaria. Big rooms with panorama windows looking out over the ocean. A small sofa set and a coffee table with a basket that room service filled with fresh fruit every day. Over thirty channels on the TV, an in-house movie channel, Swedish newspapers, amazing breakfast. One of the pools, the one with seventy-seven-degree water, lay only a few feet away from the Atlantic—you looked out over the waves washing in while calming Muzak played from the hotel speakers. Not to mention the gym: the machines looked like they were bought yesterday. After a workout, his hands smelled of new plastic instead of cop sweat. He worked out every day. It was everything he’d imagined, but better. Åsa loved it. Thomas tried to relax.

  His dirty money came in handy. Åsa wondered how they could afford to stay at the closest she’d ever come to a luxury hotel. But it wasn’t that expensive, and Thomas explained that they were spending prize money he’d won at the shooting club. He wasn’t going to pinch pennies. Åsa could get as many treatments as she liked at the hotel’s Thalasso Treatment Center. He rented a Jet Ski and tried scuba diving, tested his swing at the nine-hole golf course, went out for an all-day fishing trip on a boat with some middle-aged Germans. Every night, they ate a three-course meal at one of the à la carte restaurants or took the panorama-view elevator up to the walk on the mountainous strip above the hotel and wandered to Dunas Amadores, the hotel next door.

  He grew a beard for the first time, surprised himself every morning in the mirror. It itched, he tried to trim it—but man, it was nice not to have to shave. Åsa claimed that it was prickly. But really: they’d been away for almost two weeks and hadn’t had sex once. Okay, maybe they kissed sometimes, but you could count the number of kisses on the fingers of one hand. Both of them knew the beard wasn’t to blame.

  Sometimes he thought he should go to therapy. He loved Åsa—so why didn’t she turn him on? Why did it work better in front of the computer screen than with a real woman? At the same time: therapy wasn’t his thing. What if someone found out?

  They were each sitting in a beach chair on the sun terrace. Smeared with the right SPF. The pool’s clear-blue water lapped peacefully. The hotel towered up behind them like a mountain. Eighty degrees out. Gran Canaria was good in that way: the Atlantic climate didn’t turn it into the same kind of oven as, say, Sicily—where they’d been last year.

  He tried to read a Dennis Lehane paperback: Darkness, Take My Hand. Let it lie on his belly. Restless, couldn’t read for too long, even though it was a real page-turner. The dialogue was the best he’d ever read.

  Åsa lay with her eyes closed, shiny with lotion and sweat. She was “baking,” as she called it. Listening to an audio book. He looked out over the people on the terrace. This wasn’t the worst kind of family-friendly hotel. Neither he nor Åsa would’ve been able to handle seeing happy parents cuddling with their fat little four-year-olds around the edge of the pool every day. The hotel was populated mostly by couples a few years younger than themselves—no kids—and older people in their sixties. As well as a bunch of super chill groups of friends. Four guys who weren’t a day over twenty-five were sitting at the pool bar. Downed parasol drinks like it was light beer. Thomas liked their style. Saw himself the way he’d been a few years ago. What was even better: up and down in the pool, a group of chicks the same age as the guys. He thought, There might not be a lot of good in this world, but nothing can take away the pleasure of a string bikini. Any man who denies it just isn’t right in the head.

  A hand on his thigh. Åsa was looking at him. She’d taken the earbuds out.

  “Can you believe we only have two days left? Awful.”

  Thomas looked at her. Put a hand on her shoulder. He could feel it clearly: she was tenser than usual.

  “Yep. Soon it’s time to head home to the fall. But we might still get a few warm days at home. Apparently there’s some nice Indian summer heat going on right now.”

  “Thomas, we have to talk. It’s not just the fall. You have to tell me what’s really going on.”

  Thomas knew what was on her mind. She couldn’t understand why he wasn’t freaking out about the internal investigation. But it was more than that: Åsa felt left out. Didn’t think he was opening up to her, wasn’t saying what he thought would happen next. He couldn’t explain, but maybe he should.

  “We’ve already talked about that. I’ll get the decision in a few days. Then we know. Either they screw their heads back on and nothing happens, or else they prosecute and then I’ll be transferred. But they’ve got to be pretty damn stupid for that to happen.”

  “You’re not mentioning the last possibility, Thomas.”

  “Stop it. If I get convicted for this thing, we’ll leave the country. It would be a scandal. If that happens, not a single patrol officer should still be working on the force. Everyone would’ve done what I did. Everyone with a pulse.”

  “But as far as you can tell, how likely do you think it is that you get convicted and they fire you? Thomas, I need to know. We need to know. We can’t live with this uncertainty. I’ve had a stomachache for two months now. What if it happens? How will we be able to afford the house? How will we be able to take care of a child?”

  The final thing sent a burning flare through Thomas. Then he thought, I guess you’ll have to start working full-time, then. But he kept his mouth shut. Didn’t want to discuss this again. Had already been through it four times on the trip. It always ended with irritation. Åsa wanted him to start looking for other jobs. How could she know—what he’d already been offered was out of the ordinary.

  “You’re getting all worked up for no reason. They’re not going to fire me. I promise.”

  “You stop it. I don’t understand how you can be so calm. Don’t you understand that this isn’t just about you? It’s about both of us, we’re a team. You’re sitting there pretending to be all relaxed when it’s going to affect me too—affect us, our family. We’ve always said that if we adopt a child, it’ll get to grow up in a real house with a yard. Living in a house is safe, secure. How will we be able to afford that if you get fired? Do you even understand what a good stroller, car seat, toys, clothes, crib, and all that costs? And I’m not going to IKEA.”

  Her eyes were burning bright against the blue sky.

  “To live in a house is not always that safe, I’ll have you know.” In his head, he saw the man who’d been standing outside their window at home. “But I promise, on my badge. It’ll work out. You don’t have to worry.”

  She got up. Jerky movements. Typical fury à la Åsa. Went to the bar, or up to the room. He didn’t care either way. Didn’t have the energy to argue.

  He closed his eyes. The sun warmed. He saw images in his head.

  The last few months: some of the worst of his life. On a par with the weeks after Åsa’s miscarriage. Sometimes confused, often sleepless. Most of all: exploding with worry. But he still didn’t think there was reason to
keep going on about it, to talk with Åsa about everything. She hadn’t heard his whole side of the story. She couldn’t help him. Why should he let his worry rub off on her? That would just be cruel.

  The investigation into the so-called assault in the bodega was making crawling progress. After the decision’d been made to start a formal inquiry, he’d had to go in for an interrogation with IA. Tell his side of the story. A small, Hägerstrom-like fucker on the other side of the table: Assistant Detective Rovena. Had probably spent the seven years since cadet school behind a desk. Or even more likely: under a desk, ’cause he was so damned scared that something would fall down from the ceiling. Paint, maybe. Or dust? It was insane that a guy like that was even allowed to call himself a cop. He’d probably slid in on some fucking blatte quota. It was clear, this guy didn’t have the stuff.

  Thomas told him the way things were. Rovena was interested in the details. How many times did the man strike Lindqvist? Why hadn’t Andrén managed to put handcuffs on the man? When did he decide to use the baton?

  “Hey, there’s a great movie about this. You should watch it,” Thomas said. Rovena didn’t laugh at his joke. Didn’t want to watch the video from the surveillance camera. Claimed he would rather listen to Thomas’s own version of events. Bullshit.

  Other than that, the investigation shit was all happening in writing.

  After the interrogation, Thomas gathered his strength and got in touch with a lawyer. The old suit wrote two letters. In the first, he demanded to see some of the investigation material that Thomas hadn’t been permitted to see. In the second, he attacked the preliminary investigation for allowing an assistant detective to interrogate a police inspector—a subordinate should not be interrogating a superior—and for not noting that Cecila Lindqvist’d actually tried to alert dispatch but had had to abort the attempt due to the fact that Göransson’d acted so aggressively. Thomas wasn’t impressed. The only thing the letters led to was that he had to go in for another interrogation—with a detective chief inspector. All he could do was wait for the decision.

  He stayed at home, mostly. Gained a certain degree of understanding for the panic that hit the rabble after they’d been in custody for a few days. And he could still watch DVDs and surf unbelievable quantities of porn. Wanted to work on his Cadillac, but it didn’t give him any peace of mind. The men sent him a box of chocolate, which made him feel stronger. They’d written him a short letter: “We look forward to having the Sharpshooter back.” “The Sharpshooter,” that felt good. Thomas was often the best in their practice shoots at work, so the nickname was right on—there were a lot worse things you could be called on the force. Sometimes he lifted weights in the den. But without any real drive. The days passed. The summer rolled by outside his window like an irritating glare on the TV screen.

  After four weeks, he’d gotten in touch with Adamsson. The whole thing felt shady. Adamsson ought to understand that it wasn’t a problem for Thomas to stay at work while the investigation was going on. But as Thomas’d observed before: Adamsson couldn’t be trusted in this case. Thomas knew he should look into things more.

  Thomas tried to sound as nice as possible when he called him. “Hey, Adamsson. It’s me, Andrén.”

  “Yeah, I can hear that. How are you doing, anyway?” He tried to sound accommodating. But Thomas hadn’t been the one who asked to go on sick leave.

  “You know, I don’t think I can take this much longer. I’m pacing around at home like a lost soul, waiting for the verdict.”

  “I understand. But I still think it’s best that you stay away. You know, the mood will get weird here if people know you’re just waiting. Either they drop it or there’ll be a trial—that’s just the way it is.”

  “Stig, may I ask you something?”

  Using his first name, Stig, was really too personal, but Thomas couldn’t care less at the moment. “I have a great deal of respect for you and I always thought we worked well together. If anyone were to ask who’d been my mentor and role model, I would give your name, without a doubt. You’re a straight shooter and don’t compromise with the things we all want to preserve. And I’ve always believed you thought I was one of the good ones. So now I’m wondering, is there anything you can do in this situation? Talk to the police commissioner or someone at IA?”

  Stig Adamsson breathed heavily on the other end of the line. “I really don’t know. It’s dicey.”

  Thomas could feel it clearly: the irritation was welling up inside him. What was this bullshit? He would’ve done anything for Adamsson and now the old jerk wouldn’t even try for his sake. Adamsson knew something, that much was obvious.

  “Come on, Adamsson. I thought we were batting for the same team. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you? I. Don’t. Know. Is that clear enough?”

  Adamsson pulled the carpet out from under his feet. It was a betrayal. Just like when he’d barged into the morgue. Thomas mumbled something in response. Adamsson said good-bye.

  They hung up.

  He took sleeping pills in order to fall asleep that night.

  Another thing’d been eating away at him, too: the unsolved murder. So many questions. The most probable answer was that the dead guy had some sort of connection to someone in the building. Or else he was a simple burglar that one of the neighbors’d caught red-handed. But something told Thomas it wasn’t a question of coincidence. There was a connection to someone—but how would they find out who when they didn’t even know who the dead man was? The murderer had to have known about the victim’s past. On the other hand: the murderer hadn’t taken care of the slip of paper with the telephone number on it. Other questions were piling up. Why was there no sign that the victim’d resisted? No traces of blood or torn skin from the murder or murderers. The victim wasn’t exactly a small person, there ought to have been a struggle. And the track marks, what was the deal with them? Finally: Whose was the phone number on the slip of paper?

  Hägerström’d looked up the registered phone plans—none of the owners appeared to have anything to do with the murder. But could Hägerström be trusted? He didn’t want to think about that right now. And no matter what, there were still the prepaid phone plans that hadn’t been checked yet. The first’d been used by some young girl without a connection to the murder. But the other one? It was still unclear who owned it. Only three numbers’d been dialed. Two people who claimed not to have a clue and a third who Hägerström hadn’t been able to get ahold of.

  Just three numbers dialed—something wasn’t right. The only people who used prepaid cards that way were troublemakers.

  During the first few weeks of his so-called sick leave, he’d had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. But a few days after his conversation with Adamsson: dammit, he was going to figure this shit out on his own. As an active-duty police inspector or as a cop on sick leave. The idea about the IMEI number’d been in the back of his mind, but had gotten lost when his problems began to pile up.

  He’d written down the phone’s IMEI number even though bringing home classified investigation material was prohibited. Fifteen numbers. A code. A signal that was sent out every time someone placed a call from the phone. No matter the plan. In other words: if the phone’d belonged to someone else, or had belonged to the same person who, for some reason, switched out the prepaid plans often, it was possible to find other numbers that’d been dialed from it.

  The question was how. Thomas was no detective, but he knew that this wasn’t exactly rocket science. The detectives did it all the time. He wasn’t going to call Hägerström, though. Didn’t want to call anyone else in Skärholmen to ask, either. Dammit, he wished he knew this shit. Thomas: alone against the conspiracy.

  Theoretically, he should be able to get the information from the major phone companies. Demand a search on all calls that’d been made on plans that they owned from a phone with IMEI number 351549109200565. But what would happen if they asked to call him
back at the police’s number, just to be certain he was who he said he was? If they asked him to fax his request from a fax machine with the police’s official phone number? But what the hell: he was just on sick leave. He was still a cop. It had to work.

  Three days later, he called TeliaSonera, Tele2Comviq, Telenor, and a few smaller carriers. Thomas spoke with his most authoritative voice. TeliaSonera and Tele2Comviq promised to check—it would take a few days. They bought his story. Promised to send their findings to a fax number other than the police’s usual one—Thomas’s private number. No confirmation of who he was, no double-checking from where he was calling. Nothing.

  But Telenor.

  He introduced himself, but changed certain information. Instead of the Southern District, he said the Western District. If they were to call back to Skärholmen or some other station in his district, everyone would know right off the bat that he was away from work. The Western District was safer. He asked to be connected with someone responsible for technology. He explained the situation. He was calling in regards to a murder investigation with high priority. The police needed to know all the calls that’d been made from the phone with the IMEI number in question. The girl on the other end of the line listened, said yes and mmm—seemed on board. Until he asked her to make it snappy.

  “You know, I have to ask you something before you start a bunch of extra work for us here.”

  “Okay.” Thomas hoped it’d be a simple enough hoop to jump through.

  “Can I call you back at the police’s number? You know, we have our protocol and stuff.”

  Thomas felt his hands grow cold and sweaty at the same time. What was he supposed to say now?

  He put his bet on the authoritative voice again: “This is what we’ll do. I’ll fax you an official request tomorrow. You’ll get our official fax number to your fax. That’s what we’ll do.”