Box 21

by Anders Roslund

  He took the lift down to the basement, the same route Grajauskas had taken two days ago, a badly injured woman with a plastic bag hidden under her hospital clothes, whom no one would beat up again.

  The last part of the corridor was cordoned off with blue and white police tape, from roughly the point where Sven had been lying in wait, some thirty metres away from the door, but close enough to see that it was no longer there. Ĺgestam bent down under the tape, avoided the bits of broken wall, and made for the hole where the door had been. It was sealed with a criss-cross of tape that he ripped off.

  A hallway, then the room where they had been found on the floor. Their outlines in white chalk were close. Her body so near his. Their blood mingling. He had died with her. She had died with him. Ĺgestam felt certain it had been deliberate, this final resting place of theirs, side by side.

  It was silent down there. He looked around the room. Death terrified him; he didn’t even wear a watch any more as it just measured time. And yet here he was in a mortuary, alone, trying to understand what had happened.

  The tape recorder. He placed it in the middle of the floor.

  He wanted to listen to them talking.

  He wanted to be part of it, afterwards, as he always did.

  ‘Ewert.’

  ‘Receiving.’

  ‘The hostage in the corridor is dead. No visible blood, so I can’t make out where she shot him. But the smell is odd, strong. Harsh.’

  Bengt Nordwall’s voice. Steady, at least it sounded steady. Lars Ĺgestam had never met him and never heard his voice before.

  He was trying to get to know a dead man.

  ‘Ewert, it is all one fucking big con. She hasn’t shot anyone. All the hostages are still here. All four of them are alive. They’ve just walked out. She has got about three hundred grams of Semtex round the doors, but she can’t detonate it.’

  He noticed the man’s fear. Nordwall continued to observe and describe what he was seeing, but the tone of his voice had changed, as if he had understood something which the listeners upstairs had not and which Ĺgestam, a late listener, was trying to grasp now.

  ‘You are naked.’

  ‘That’s how you wanted it.’

  ‘How does that feel? What is it like to be here, in a mortuary, standing naked in front of a woman with a gun?’

  ‘I have done what you asked me to do.’

  ‘You feel humiliated, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Afraid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kneel.’

  Not even two days had passed. The recorded voices were alive still, even the Russian interpreter’s version. Every word was distinct. They were speaking in a closed room. She had made up her mind, Lars Ĺgestam was certain of that. She had decided from the start what would happen. She was to die there. He was to die there.

  She would humiliate him and afterwards they would both cease to breathe.

  For all eternity they would lie together on a mortuary floor.

  Ĺgestam didn’t move from where Nordwall had stood, wondering if he had known that he had only a few seconds left, a fraction of a moment, and then nothing.

  Ewert Grens couldn’t concentrate.

  He hadn’t slept at all and told himself that he should’ve kipped down on the office sofa. There was too much on his mind that needed attention, stuff that had to be mulled over and over, interminably. Sleeping at home was not an option.

  He had promised to have lunch with Lena, who wanted to carry on talking about Bengt. He said no at first, he didn’t want to. He missed his old friend, of course he did, but he was also aware that the man he missed was someone other than the Bengt Nordwall he had learnt more about recently.

  If only I had known then what I know now.

  Did you think about her? Did you ever? And when you came home, did the two of you make love? I mean, afterwards?

  I’m doing this for Lena.

  You are not alive.

  When she had asked him again later, he agreed to have lunch with her.

  Lena ate nothing, only played with the food on her plate and drank mineral water, two whole bottles. She had been weeping, mostly for the children, she said, it is so hard for them and they don’t understand, and if I don’t understand either, Ewert, how can I explain to them?

  Afterwards he was glad that he had been with her. She needed him, needed to say the same things so many times that they gradually sank in and she could begin to understand.

  He didn’t have the courage to grieve properly.

  It felt right to watch somebody else doing it.

  Lars Ĺgestam listened to the tape over and over again. He had stood in the middle of the room listening, and then sat with his back to the wall just like the hostages. He had lain down one last time where Bengt Nordwall had been, protected his genitals with his hands, and stared at the ceiling. He was aware of the white chalk outline, drawn around a body larger than his own. He listened to the whole exchange between Bengt Nordwall and Ewert, and was now convinced that Nordwall, who had ended his life just where he himself was lying now, had known exactly who Lydia Grajauskas was, and that they somehow belonged together, which was what Grens had sensed or maybe even knew and why for some reason he was prepared to throw away a whole life in the police force in order to protect the truth.

  By the time he was ready to leave, Ĺgestam had spent two full hours in the mortuary. Suddenly he was panicking about death, had to get away, needed to eat breakfast in a large café packed with people who were noisy and hungry and alive.

  ‘I had this area cordoned off.’

  Lars hadn’t heard him come in: Nils Krantz, a technician from Forensics. They had met, but didn’t know each other.

  ‘I’m sorry, I had to get in. I was looking for some answers.’

  ‘You’re trampling all over the crime scene.’

  ‘I am the prosecutor in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘I know, but to be frank I don’t give a damn who you are. You stick to the marker lines like everyone else. I’m responsible for any evidence here that’s worth having a look at.’

  Ĺgestam sighed loudly, suggesting that he wouldn’t waste time arguing about trivia. He turned away, picked up his tape recorder and his notebook, put them in his bag. Time for breakfast.

  ‘You’re in a hurry.’

  ‘You gave me the impression I was to get off site as quickly as possible.’

  Nils Krantz shrugged, started studying the remains of explosive round the door frame to the store and suddenly spoke in a loud voice.

  ‘Thought you might be interested to hear that the test results are in.’

  ‘What test results?’

  ‘From the other investigation, the one involving Lang. We did a body scan.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean, nothing?’

  ‘We went over every square inch. No trace of Oldéus anywhere on his body.’

  Lars Ĺgestam had been on his way out, but stopped when Krantz raised his voice. Now he felt empty, couldn’t muster the energy to move.

  ‘There you go.’

  He stood still, looking glumly at Krantz, who carried on prodding the area round the door frame with his gloved hands. Finally he managed to pull himself together enough to pick up his briefcase and start off towards what had once been the door. He was just about to step through the hole in the wall when Krantz called after him again.

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Lang’s clothes, we did them too, of course. And the shoes. There it was. Traces of blood and DNA – Oldéus’s blood and DNA.’

  After lunch, Ewert Grens had left Lena alone in the restaurant. She told him that she wanted to sit for a bit longer, ordered a third bottle of mineral water and hugged him. He had started walking towards Homicide when he changed his mind and took the slightly longer route via the police cells.

  He couldn’t resist it.

  It wouldn’t be enough to
have a reliable doctor identifying him from photographs, even if she insisted with one hundred per cent certainty that he was the killer. If that same killer managed to threaten and frighten the witness once more, neatly timed for the identity parade, so that no identification was made after all, then the law said that he could go free to kill again.

  This time was different. This time it would be enough.

  Grens took the lift and got out on the second floor, where he told the guard he wanted a word with Jochum Lang, that he wanted to fetch him himself and take him to the interrogation room.

  The guard led the way past silent, closed doors, stopped in front of number eight. Ewert nodded to the guard who then pulled back the little flap to let Ewert peer inside.

  He was lying on his back on the bunk, his eyes closed. He was sleeping. There was nothing much else he could do, locked up for twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours, confined to a few lousy square metres without newspapers or radio or TV.

  Grens shouted through the opening.

  ‘Hey, Lang! Time to wake up!’

  No response, not a twitch. He had heard all right.

  ‘Now. Time for a chat. Just you and me.’

  Lang moved a little, lifted his head when Grens shouted, then turned on his side with his back towards the door.

  Irritated, Grens slammed the flap shut.

  He nodded to the guard, who unlocked the door. Grens stepped inside the cell, saying that he wanted to be alone with the prisoner. The officer hesitated. Jochum Lang was classified as dangerous. He decided to stay put. Grens explained, as patiently as he could, that he would take full responsibility for the prisoner for the duration, and that if there was a cock-up, it would be his fault and his alone.

  The officer shrugged, and closed the door behind him.

  Grens took a step closer to the bunk.

  ‘Lang, don’t mess with me. Get up.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  One last step and he was close enough to touch the body lying there. Instead he grabbed the edge of the bunk and shook it until Lang got up.

  They stood facing each other. Staring hard. Staring.

  ‘Interview time, Lang. Get moving.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘We’ve found matches with his blood group and DNA. We have a witness. You’ll be put away, Lang. For murder.’

  Ten or twenty centimetres between their faces.

  ‘Grens, you’re a stupid twat. I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Perhaps you should take it easy, be a bit more careful. You know that policemen have hurt themselves falling out of cars before.’

  Ewert Grens smiled, showing plenty of stained teeth.

  ‘You can threaten me as much as you like. Whatever. There’s nothing I can lose now that isn’t worth putting you away for good. You’ll be wanking behind bars until you’re sixty.’

  It was hard to tell which of them hated the other more.

  Each man looked into his enemy’s eyes, searching for something that should be there. When he spoke, Lang’s voice was low, warm puffs of air in Grens’s face.

  ‘I’m not taking part in any more of your interrogations. Period. Just so you know, you old shit. If you or any other pig turns up to drag me off to just one more chat show, I’ll hurt the poor fucker badly. Take my word for it. Fuck off now. And shut the door behind you.’

  Sven Sundkvist had phoned home and tried to explain why he had disappeared in the middle of the night without a word, just leaving a note. Anita had been upset; she didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t spoken to her, especially as they had promised never to take off suddenly like that without saying why. They ended up having a row, and when Sven tried to make it better, it just made things worse.

  He had been on his way home, feeling cross at the world, speeding a bit now that the queues had thinned out. He had just passed the stupid oversized boats moored at the Viking Line terminal, when Lars Ĺgestam rang and started to speak quietly.

  He wanted Sven to come to the prosecutor’s office for a meeting after hours. Just the two of them.

  Sven Sundkvist had stopped the car, phoned Anita again and made everything worse still. Now he was back in town again, alone, not sure what to do with all the spare time. It was in fact only an hour or two, but just then an eternity.

  It was one of those mild, warm June evenings. He walked slowly from Kronoberg, circling the streets, not taking in the music from far away and the smells from the restaurant terraces and pavement tables. Life was all around him and he should have been smiling, should even have joined in for a while, but he didn’t, hardly even noticed.

  He was beginning to feel tired after a long night and what seemed like an even longer day.

  He couldn’t bring himself to think about the video and about the awful truth he carried with him.

  Is that what did Ĺgestam wanted to go over?

  Did he want to have a go at shaking Sven’s loyalty?

  He was too tired for that kind of thing. No such decisions, not yet.

  They met at the Kung Bridge entrance a few minutes after eight o’clock. Ĺgestam was waiting. He looked the same as ever: fringe, suit, shiny shoes. He shook hands and opened the door with his ID card. They didn’t say much in the lift. Time enough for that later.

  They got out on the eighth floor and Ĺgestam ushered Sven into his office, where he caught a glimpse of the view of the city through the window, the summer night overpowering the day.

  He found a chair and sat down. Ĺgestam went off for a moment to get them both a cup of coffee. He also brought a plate of biscuits, which he put down next to a couple of massive investigation reports.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Just milk, please.’

  Ĺgestam was doing what he could to lower the palpable tension, to tone down any hint of drama, but his efforts weren’t all that successful. Both of them of course knew that their meeting had nothing to do with sharing a nice coffee break. It was too late for a start; everyone else had gone home by now, allowing them to talk together in confidence, without being overheard.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well last night.’ Ĺgestam stretched, raised his arms above his head, as if to demonstrate how tired he was.

  Nor did I, Sven thought. I didn’t sleep at all, what with that damned video and worrying about Ewert. Is that what you want to talk about? I still don’t know what to think.

  ‘I kept thinking about your friend, your colleague, Ewert Grens.’

  Not now. Not yet.

  ‘I had to discuss this with you, Sven. I believe there’s a problem.’

  Ĺgestam cleared his throat, shifted in his chair, but didn’t get up.

  ‘You know that Ewert and I are not the best of friends.’

  ‘There’s quite a few people who feel the same.’

  ‘Yes, I know. However, I thought it was necessary to point out that this has nothing to do with my personal feelings for him. I’m worried about Ewert Grens in his professional capacity. Especially as he is in charge of the police work in an investigation that I am ultimately responsible for.’

  He shifted position again. This time he got up, glanced at Sven and started pacing the room, clearly upset.

  ‘Take yesterday. I had a very strange meeting with Grens. He was just back from the Baltic ferry terminal. He had put Alena Sljusareva on board a ferry back to Lithuania. Without checking with me first.’

  He stopped and waited for a reaction. He didn’t get one.

  ‘Early this morning I went back to the hospital mortuary, in an attempt to understand. During the day I’ve interviewed some of your colleagues. One of them, Detective Sergeant Hermansson, a very sensible officer who was new to me, quoted statements by two independent witnesses confirming that a woman went into the toilet at the end of the corridor before Lydia Grajauskas went in, just before she started running around with a gun and taking hostages. Both witnesses describe a woman who could be Sljusareva. It’s easy then to suppose that it was Sljusareva who provided Grajauskas with weaponry. So why then was Grens in such a hurry to send her back h
ome?’

  Sven Sundkvist did not answer.

  The video. He had feared this meeting would be about the lost evidence, removed by a serving policeman in order to protect a colleague. The video that he now knew about. The video that would soon force him to choose between speaking the truth and lying.

  ‘Sven, I must ask you this. Is there anything you know that I ought to know?’

  Sven still did not answer. He had no idea what he should say.

  Lars Ĺgestam repeated his question.

  ‘Is there something?’

  He had to answer.

  ‘No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Ĺgestam began pacing the room again, breathing rapidly, nervously. He had barely begun.

  ‘One of the best officers in the force, so I should relax, shouldn’t I? Sit back and wait for the results of his investigative work, right?’

  A couple of deep breaths before he carried on.

  ‘But I can’t relax because something is not right. Don’t you see? Which is why I lie awake at night. Which is why I feel compelled to go to work absurdly early and lie inside the chalk lines around the position of a dead body on a mortuary floor.’

  He turned round and stopped in front of Sven, looked at him. Sven tried to meet the other man’s eyes, but stayed silent. He knew that no matter how much he said, it would never be enough.

  ‘Sven, I phoned Vilnius.’

  Ĺgestam didn’t move away.

  ‘I asked our Lithuanian colleagues to locate Sljusareva. They found her in Klaipeda, back at her parental home.’

  He perched on the edge of his desk and held up a bundle of papers, the documentation on the case he was talking about.

  ‘There is no transcript of the interview with Sljusareva that Grens claims to have carried out. He decided unilaterally that she should leave this country. What he says is all we know.’

  His voice cracked, knowing well that he was about to say something he should never say, not to a policeman, not about a colleague in the force.

  ‘Ewert Grens is telling a story and it doesn’t hold water.’

  He paused.

  ‘I have no idea why. I think Grens is tampering with the evidence in this investigation.’