The Swimmer

by Joakim Zander

  But it didn’t matter. There was no risk that he’d tell anyone about it. All he wanted was to forget. Something that insomnia and his few hours of nightmarish sleep hadn’t really allowed him to do yet. Everywhere he looked he saw Kirsten’s battered face. Any sudden noise sounded like a gunshot.

  He pressed the doorbell. Within a few seconds the door was thrown open. His old man stood there with outstretched arms.

  ‘George!’ he said. ‘The prodigal son!’

  He embraced George in a way he never had before, or at least as far as George could remember. At last the old man pushed him away to inspect him closely.

  ‘Oh my God!’ he said. ‘You look absolutely terrible! Come in and I’ll get you a tall Armagnac. Are you allowed to drink? They didn’t put you on any pills that don’t mix well, did they? Anyway, forget that, you need a drink. Ellen! Pour a stiff one for George here! I’ve never seen anyone more in need of a drink!’

  His old man led him into the living room where the whole family sat gathered in clusters on the sofas—as usual during the holidays. The storybook tree, with its burning candles, was in the corner where it always stood. The overladen dessert table groaned, and a fire was burning with an intensity that George worried might be too much for the fireplace.

  Big brothers and brothers-in-law gathered around him to inspect his wounds, pretending to punch him in the stomach, teasing him for being useless at driving, asking about what had happened to the Audi. Ellen pressed a plate of Boxing Day turkey on him with all the trimmings.

  Finally he sunk down into a sofa with a plate of cheese and a glass of port beside him. His extended family had left or retreated to the other rooms. He felt full and warm, drowsy for the first time since the terrible night of the twenty-third. It had been barely three days since he’d assaulted Kirsten and fled to the island by boat. Three days since he shot two men.

  And this Christmas stuff. All this comfort and familiarity. Everything he used to loathe. Suddenly, he was defenseless against it. Suddenly it felt like sinking into a warm bath after being so very, very cold. He sat back and allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of peace and security.

  ‘Are you asleep?’

  George looked up and saw his father’s wife Ellen standing in the doorway in her bathrobe. The fire had died down but was still burning faintly, enveloping the room in a soft, warm glow.

  ‘Nah,’ said George.

  His tongue, sweet from the port, was sticking against the dry roof of his mouth. He scrambled up into a sitting position. He had actually fallen asleep.

  ‘We told you we’re waiting until tomorrow to give you your presents, so you can recover a little,’ said Ellen. ‘But a package arrived for you by courier yesterday. I thought you might want to see what it was.’

  She held a square package from DHL toward him. She radiated curiosity. George reached out and took the large padded pouch. He ripped off the packaging. Inside it was a box, slightly smaller than a shoe box and completely square. His heart pounded, and he suddenly felt dizzy with fear.

  ‘Thank you, Ellen,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a look at this later.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You do as you like.’

  She retreated from the living room, clearly disappointed.

  George put the package in front of him on the coffee table and stared at it. It had arrived yesterday. After everything was over. Wild fantasies flashed through his exhausted brain. It was a bomb. They were all going to be blown to bits so they couldn’t ever disclose what they knew.

  But the package wasn’t particularly heavy. If it were a bomb, it couldn’t be very powerful. Didn’t they have better ways to kill people than with mail bombs, anyway?

  Eventually curiosity won over fear. With one decisive movement he lifted the package and ripped open the protective plastic.

  Inside there was a cherrywood box. A silver label on the front. George felt his pulse increasing, not with fear but with anticipation. Officine Panerai was written on the label. He opened the box reverentially.

  A Panerai 360 M Luminor lay on a deep blue velvet cushion inside. The jet-black watch face. The soft yellow, luminous numbers. The simple, minimalist design. The pale leather strap with its rough seams. George had to blink to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. What could the watch have cost? $50,000? More? If you could even find one anymore. It had been produced in a limited edition of three hundred.

  When George was able to breathe normally again, he noticed an envelope on the velvet beside the watch. He opened it up and pulled out a folded piece of paper. The handwritten note was in English:

  George,

  Just a token of our appreciation. All’s well that ends well. We expect to see you in the office no later than January 3.

  The letter was signed by Appleby. George closed the lid of the box with a snap and leaned back on the couch with his eyes closed. Merchant & Taylor. Appleby. Everything he’d been through. Everything they’d allowed him to go through. It was inconceivable that he would go back to the office on the Square de Meeûs. Out of the question.

  Slowly, he sat up on the couch again. He leaned over and cracked open the lid of the box. Through the small gap he could see that it was all there. The certificate of authenticity. The extra wristbands. Tiny tools in a small bag. He opened the lid cautiously and reached out to touch the almost invisible glass of the face.

  He slowly extricated the watch from the velvet and held it up in the faint glow of the dying fire. He turned and twisted it around. Studying the screws and the inscription on the back.

  He had to try it on, just as a test. The soft leather and the cold, pitch-black steel of the casing against his skin. The perfectly balanced weight. It fit around his wrist as if it were made for him, only him.

  He couldn’t help the smile that spread over his lips. The heat radiating through his body. The pride. Wasn’t he worth this kind of life, now more than ever?

  86

  April 1, 2014

  Washington, DC, USA

  Klara leaned her head against the dirty window of the taxi. Arvo Pärt played through her earbuds. ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’. For a while after Christmas, she’d spent most of her time in her bed at her grandparents’, listening to this play on repeat twenty, thirty, forty times a day. Staring up at the ceiling, leaving her room only to poke at her food or go to the bathroom. She’d taken the SIM card out of her phone to avoid calls from Gabriella or any of her casual friends from Brussels. Officially burnt-out and on sick leave.

  She’d lost track of how many days she lay like that. Maybe a couple of days. Maybe a week. Just the music and Grandma’s and Grandpa’s worried faces.

  In the end, it hadn’t been possible to keep Gabriella away, of course. One day she was just sitting on the edge of Klara’s bed. A little more anxious than usual. A little older. Ignoring both Klara’s protests and her anemic fury, Gabriella managed to get her out of bed.

  After forcing her into warm clothes, she had guided her down the stairs, out through the door, and down to the boat where Grandpa, Grandma, and Bosse were already waiting. And then they returned to Smugglers Rock. To take back the archipelago, as Grandpa put it. To expunge the horror. To reclaim their own memories.

  They’d only stayed for the afternoon. There were no reminders left of that terrible night. No blood. No bodies. No bullet holes. Nothing. It was just a small, snowy, rocky islet in the middle of the sea. Bosse got the gas stove going and boiled them some coffee. They hardly spoke.

  But after that, things became a little easier. Mostly thanks to Gabriella, who took care of all the practical details. Contacting Eva-Karin Boman, presenting herself as Klara’s lawyer, and handing over Klara’s resignation after she made sure Eva-Karin gave Klara a year of severance pay. Gabriella was tough. Much tougher than Klara. Gabriella had been back at work before New Year’s Eve. As a new partner. The youngest one in the firm. Perhaps the youngest in Sweden.

  After Klara left her bed, she did her best to stay on her feet. At first s
he did little things around the house. Cooking with Grandma. Going out on the boat with Grandpa.

  After a week, she put on some city clothes and hitched a ride into town with Bosse. She’d started with Söderköping, so as not to be completely overwhelmed by civilization. Bought some paperbacks and ate a pizza on Skönbergagatan. Walked around in the winter landscape, letting the complete normality of it present itself. In the evening, she took the bus to the movies in Norrköping by herself. A worthless comedy. But it made her feel alive again, almost.

  And after a few more weeks, she’d gone up to Stockholm for a weekend to visit Gabriella. They’d gone shopping at NK and Nitty Gritty. Eaten oysters at a new bistro. Afterward there were drinks, and Klara made out with a copywriter on a couch at Riche for a while. Laughing. A little drunk. Stumbling home along the frozen water with a 7-Eleven hot dog in her hand. Slowly starting to get used to this quite ordinary, quite wonderful life.

  But when she got back to the archipelago everything that had happened washed over her again. It was as if she couldn’t escape the betrayal. Her father’s betrayal, Cyril’s betrayal, and most of all her own.

  No matter what she did, she couldn’t rid herself of the idea that she was responsible for Mahmoud’s murder. That she was responsible for her father’s murder.

  But she couldn’t go on like that, lying there in her childhood room dwelling, dwelling, dwelling on it. The only way to avoid it was to stay active.

  In mid-March, she contacted her old teacher and Mahmoud’s supervisor, Lysander, and they’d met for lunch at the Saluhall in Uppsala.

  He was the same. Steel gray hair and a rigid posture. A soft heart that he masked well behind a facade of filterless Gitanes. He knew of course that there had to be something else behind Mahmoud’s death than the story in the papers, spread by Bronzelius and his colleagues. You couldn’t dupe Lysander into thinking Mahmoud had come into contact with a terrorist network through his research, and then tried to infiltrate it. That this led to his heroic death. But still Lysander didn’t try to fish for information from Klara, for which she was grateful. And he agreed without hesitation to let her finish Mahmoud’s dissertation.

  So she went to Brussels and arranged for the move. Found a small studio in the Luthagen area in Uppsala and took over Mahmoud’s office. Maybe it was unhealthy. Maybe it wasn’t a normal grieving process. But it was what she had to do.

  And so, finally, when the ice over the Fyris river had disappeared almost entirely outside her office window, when Uppsala started buzzing about Walpurgis celebrations and the spring ball, Klara opened the drawer where she had kept the note with the e-mail address of the woman who called herself Susan.

  She asked the taxi driver to stop at the Smithsonian metro station. The early summer warmth hit her as she opened the back door. The Mall was green and full of joggers and people eating lunch. It was her first time in the States. How was it possible that she hadn’t been here before? Everything felt so familiar. She removed her earbuds, letting this new world wash over her without a filter.

  It took her half an hour to get to Capitol Hill. A quick look at her phone’s map application. She took a right turn onto Independence Avenue around the congressional building and then left onto First Street. The smell of summer, hot dogs, and onions wafted from the vendors on street corners. Men and women in suits hurried by her on the street, heading to their next important, meaningless meeting. It was confusing. Just six months ago, that had been her. But that was another time. Another life.

  And there it was at last, right in front of her. The US Supreme Court building, as white and proud as a Roman temple.

  Klara saw her immediately. To the left, halfway up the stairs. Alone, small, and pale. Forgettable. Not someone you’d notice. Just as she’d described herself in her e-mail. Klara looked up at the angled roof of the building. equal justice under law. Was Susan being ironic when she chose this meeting place?

  Klara climbed the stairs and sat down diagonally one step behind the woman.

  ‘Welcome to Washington,’ said Susan, without turning around.

  Her eyes seemed to be fastened to the back of the Capitol Building. Klara said nothing.

  ‘Summer came early this year,’ said Susan.

  Klara nodded.

  ‘It would seem so.’

  Susan took a deep breath.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  They were surrounded by the sound of the city, the traffic, sirens. Klara leaned forward and filled her lungs with the early summer air. It was time.

  ‘Who was he?’ she said.

  Susan didn’t seem to have heard her at first. Then she turned slowly toward Klara. Her eyes were gray like the rocks of the archipelago, like ashes, like razor blades.

  ‘He liked to swim,’ she said.

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  Acknowledgements

  About Joakim Zander

  An invitation from the publisher

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, to everyone at Wahlström & Widstrand, above all my editor Helene Atterling who understood immediately what I wanted to do with this book and who gave me the opportunity to do it. Julia Lövestam; Åsa Selling; Astri von Arbin Ahlander; Håkan Bravinger; Johan Jarnvik; Pelle Hilmersson, now it’s your turn. And, finally, my beloved wife Liisa - We did it.

  About this Book

  Afterwards, it’s completely silent. The child is lying under me, my hands pressed tightly against its ears. The child blinks at me, takes a thin, feverish breath. Not even one sliver of glass has reached her.

  Klara Walldé​en was orphaned as a child and brought up by her grandparents on a remote Swedish archipelago. She is now making her name in the murky world of European politics – but she has just seen something she shouldn’t: something people will kill to keep hidden.

  On the other side of the world, an old spy hides from his past. Once, he was a man of action, so dedicated to the cause that he abandoned his baby daughter to keep his cover. Now, alone and far from home, only the rhythm of his daily swims can keep his ghosts at bay.

  Then, on Christmas eve, Klara is thrown into a terrifying chase through Europe. Only the Swimmer can save her. But time is running out...

  This is an electrifying thriller from a brilliant new talent. Published in twenty-seven countries, and already a bestseller in Sweden, The Swimmer is on the cusp of becoming a global phenomenon.

  Reviews

  ‘A multi-layered thriller full of style, drive and immediacy. It is so elegantly constructed that, while reading, I forgot I was holding a debut novel in my hands. Joakim Zander has used his insider knowledge to forge a powerful conspiracy story in which individuals can be lost, and power can be bought and sold.’

  Göteborgs-Posten

  ‘The Swimmer is a fluidly written, thrilling, and worthwhile read.’

  Folkbladet

  ‘A well-written thriller that drives tension through sparse minimalist language. Zander chooses his words carefully to support his agenda. He wants to scrutinize the methods and effects of the so-called battle between good and evil.’

  Norrköpings Tidningar

  ‘Well-written and incredibly compelling, with a carefully created cast of characters and a plot that avoids the usual genre clichés.’

  Skånska Dagbladet

  ‘This could easily have been just another conspiracy thriller, but Zander’s novel differentiates itself through rich language and well-structured plotlines. The story ranges from glossy EU parties to stormy boat rides between jagged cliff faces sharpened by thick ice. In the midst of the breathless action, Zander also succeeds in writing flesh-and-blood characters that feel believable.’

  Dalarnas Tidningar

  ‘An unsettling thrill
er about the ruthlessness underpinning democratic power, where ends justify means and good guys are bad guys. At the end you look up and see the world differently.’

  Lesley Thomson, bestselling author of The Detective’s Daughter

  ‘A fast-paced thriller with the potential to be an international bestseller. Joakim Zander has crafted a page-turning plot; a story about moral questions, guilt and atonement, culpability and revenge.’

  Borås Tidning

  ‘A terrific globe-trotting page-turner, rich with complex conflicts and a big, meaty, chillingly credible conspiracy.’

  Chris Pavone, bestselling author of The Expats

  About the Author

  JOAKIM ZANDER was born in 1975 in Stockholm, Sweden. He currently works as a lawyer for the European Union in Helsinki, Finland and has previously lived in Belgium, the USA, and the Middle East.

  Contact him via Twitter: @JoakimZander

  Find out more at: www.headofzeus.com/newvoices

  A Letter from the Publisher

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