To the Top of the Mountain

by Arne Dahl

  ‘How many parties are actually relevant?’ asked Hjelm. ‘Is it two or three?’

  ‘Instinctively, I’d say three,’ said Holm. ‘But the third is too vague. Still, I’m wondering what Per Karlsson was up to. He was reading Ovid and didn’t see anything, but all the same, it turns out he saw a lot. He wasn’t focusing on the book, that’s clear. The only thing he didn’t see and didn’t hear was the gang sitting closest to him, talking English right in his ear. It’s not enough, though. He didn’t run off after the killing so I’d say two. Two parties.’

  ‘Two gangs. One’s sitting by the door, at the table next to the wall. The other’s sitting at the middle table, furthest away against the opposite wall.’

  ‘The first consists of five “macho homos”, “skinheads who’ve passed the age limit”, “thoroughbred Swedish bodybuilders” you’d expect to be “the rowdy kind”. The other consists of “three or four Slavs” or “probably South Mongolians” having an English “multicultural exchange” with a Swede who was presumably the man that waved his police ID to get out.’

  ‘And in this English-speaking gang, there’s “distrust”, they’re “trying to agree on something”, possibly about a “meeting place”. Three or four “southern Europeans” in discussion with a – real or fake – Swedish policeman. Nothing suggests they were aware of the five thoroughbred Swedes in the other gang who seemed to be watching them. Our friend Hard Homo said of our friend with the book: “A group of macho gays were staring at him the whole time,” but the waitresses said: “They weren’t staring at him. Further away.” And then, further away, we have our little “multicultural exchange”.’

  ‘And then there’s the headphones.’

  ‘Then there’s the headphones. And then the killing takes place. They react instinctively, realise the place is going to be crawling with police soon. So they run. Both groups blend into the Hammarby fans running off. One man from each group stays behind. Should we assume that the “policeman” stays behind so that he’s not seen running off with the “Slavs”? In that case, it’s highly likely that he really is a police officer. Or someone who’s aware of police work at least. He knows that the time around the killing is going to be looked at from all possible angles so he aims to slip out towards the end, when the “Slavs” have already gone. But he’s a little too late. The doormen have suddenly realised that something more dramatic than keeping the place free of “immigrants” is required of them. So he weighs up the situation for a moment. Is it worth showing his police ID to get out? Or is it better to stay and make up a nice excuse? Act like a policeman should act, and take control of the situation. From his decision, maybe we can draw the conclusion that there’s a lot at stake for him. He doesn’t dare take the risk of being identified. He waves his ID in front of the stressed doormen and slips out. No one can identify him. He made the right choice.’

  ‘One man from the thoroughbred Swedish gang stays behind. He’s ready to leave like the others but he’s told to stay behind. Why? What was your first impression when you saw Eskil Carlstedt?’

  Hjelm thought about it. The man with the shaved head and thin blond moustache walking into the interrogation room. He was in his thirties, wearing quite a stylish pale suit with a yellow tie; he was a real powerhouse. Hjelm wondered whether his jacket sleeves were hiding a range of prison tattoos.

  ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Eskil Carlstedt was bait. All five of them probably looked just as dodgy, but Carlstedt must’ve been the only one without a criminal record. By staying behind, he drew our attention away from the fact that the gang, when you think about it, were acting damn suspiciously. They weren’t talking, they weren’t drinking; they were just staring, listening. It was real quick thinking. For a moment, he got us to believe that they were a group of salesmen out drinking and chasing women, even listening to a demo tape. And that was all he needed to go up in smoke, and with him the rest of his band of thieves. He was pretty experienced for someone without a record.’

  ‘They had the entire night to go through their strategy. Carlstedt’s kept behind by the police, gives a short statement saying he didn’t see anything, tells them his name and address and comes back to us in the morning. By then, his statement has changed. The whole thing was well rehearsed. The only time he slipped up was when we mentioned the earphones. But he dealt with that nicely.’

  ‘The four names he gave for his friends were pure fabrications. Not one of them exists in the real world. He was looking at his watch the whole time, they were going to meet and disappear together. He just needed to get out of the police station and then that was the end of it. So he was playing along, went to the police artist and put together a fake drawing, left four false names that he knew wouldn’t be checked out for several hours, and left. And now the whole gang is lying low together somewhere. What for?’

  ‘What we can say is that both parties were acting extremely professionally. But we can also say that they haven’t actually done anything illegal. Not really. Not like killing someone with a beer mug.’

  They both stood up from the park bench. A hint of dusk had begun to fall over Björns trädgård, the playground had started to empty. Only the skateboarders remained, continuing to arc up and down, back and forth, over and over. Like the pendulum of a clock.

  ‘Should we check, then?’ asked Paul Hjelm. ‘If all of this is just a figment of our imagination, two frustrated CID officers who aren’t happy with it being just a pub brawl?’

  ‘Or if we’re actually on the way to becoming CID officers again,’ Kerstin Holm nodded.

  It wasn’t far to Kvarnen, one of Sweden’s last remaining beer halls. It had turned ninety the previous year. Never before had it been a murder scene, though it had been on the verge of it.

  It had been built during the first decade of the twentieth century as a replacement for Källaren Hamburg, the legendary tavern where those sentenced to death ate their last meal and had a last drink for the road before they were taken up to the gallows in Johanneshov.

  The same had happened with Anders Lundström from Kalmar.

  The doormen recognised them and let them past the non-existent queue of ‘difficult immigrants’. The inner door opened and they entered the pub. The waitresses nodded briefly at them.

  Sure enough, the pub was packed. Outside, it was a beautiful summer’s evening, but inside, in the smoke-filled pub, it was jam-packed. They glanced to the right, towards the table where Eskil Carlstedt and his friends had sat. They looked over to the bar, where Anders Karlström from Kalmar had met his unexpected fate. They peered over to the middle table, where Per Karlsson and Ovid had sat. And they pushed their way over to the table against the opposite wall, the table where the multicultural exchange had taken place.

  A group of a dozen twenty-year-olds sat squashed together around the table. They were laughing, smoking and drinking beer. They looked like they were having fun. Enjoying being in a place that was the object of so much rumour and speculation in the media. The centre of the action.

  Hjelm guessed that seventy-five per cent of them dreamt of being TV presenters. The national average.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, kneeling down.

  They stared at him, instinctively moving their legs out of the way. He descended among the dewy young women’s legs and bunched-up miniskirts. Their protests subsided as he ducked into the darkness under the table; he presumed that Kerstin had shown her ID.

  Open sesame.

  He crept further under the table. He hadn’t needed to. A small gadget was stuck near the very edge of the table, so small that he had gone past it without noticing.

  He pulled it loose, crawled out, heaved himself to his feet, brushed the ash and snus tobacco from his knees, and turned towards Kerstin Holm.

  He waved the little microphone before her eyes.

  And the figment of their imagination fell dead to the floor of Kvarnen.

  10

  THEY’RE LYING IN bed. The sunset is reflected on their young bodies, s
till damp with sweat. It’s the calm after the storm. The desire has subsided but it will wake again soon, it’s never far away. It will always be there. Not even death can keep them apart.

  But it’s also the calm before the storm. That’s how the saying really goes. And now, for them, the storm really is approaching.

  The hurricane.

  That’s the insight that slowly begins to spread through them. The calm, the always temporary calm, gives way.

  Trembles of unease ripple through their nakedness.

  He sits up on the edge of the bed. He is pale, she is dark, and she can see, at that moment she can see where his mind has gone. Again. She leans over to him, her breasts softly grazing his back. Slowly and carefully, she pulls him back from the shadow of death. Like he has done so many times for her.

  She knows that he can see the school playground. She knows that he has stepped out of himself. She knows that he can see a boy, a young, pale boy, lying on the desolate football field. She knows that he can hear ‘If you get up, we’ll hit you.’ One after another, they go forward. Stand there a moment. Peering down at him. Then they piss on him. One by one. Only the boys at first. The girls are in the background, giggling, thrilled. The brave ones leave, though none of them are brave enough to tell. It’ll just keep going on. And on. Still, no girl has done it yet. A comfort in his distress. Then the last floodgate opens. A girl comes forward. She is wearing a skirt. She has already taken her knickers off, she is holding them in her hand. She squats over him, carefully. Slowly pisses on his body. She is dark.

  He feels something soft against his back, and it brings him to his senses. He lifts off, floats, soars ahead. He is sitting on the edge of a bed, flying. He puts his hand behind his head and reaches her. Lets his hand move through her dark hair.

  And she can smile again.

  ‘I was hurt,’ she says, trying to stop herself from crying. ‘I was dead. You brought me back. You know that.’

  They sit there, their limbs strangely twisted. They’re a sculpture. For ever united. By an eternal love.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asks.

  It’s a ritual. Neither can depart from it. He smiles, and says: ‘I want to sit on a veranda, reading. It’ll be warm, but raining gently. The rain’ll be pattering nicely on the roof of the veranda, and when I look up from the book, I’ll see the steam rising between the raindrops.’

  She smiles. She knows it so well. She says: ‘D’you know what I want?’

  He laughs. ‘No idea.’

  ‘I want to hear the dolphins singing. I want to see the foam along the edge of the pale blue water. I want to see the dolphins playing in freedom. I want to hear them talk to one another when there’s no trainer there to drill them.’

  He turns round and gives her one last big embrace, stands up, pulls on his clothes and walks over to the backpack lying on the floor. He looks down into it.

  She stands up too, slowly pulling on her clothes, going over to him and wrapping her arms around him. She too looks down into the bag.

  Inside, there are two black, knitted balaclavas and two black pistols.

  He bends down and pulls the zip shut.

  Then he takes the car key from the desk, throws it up into the air, catches it and looks into her eyes.

  ‘Let’s go and arrange that, then,’ he says.

  11

  THE MAN STANDS completely still. He has given up everything, and is standing completely still next to his car. In his hand he is holding a briefcase. It hangs, motionless, by his side.

  It’s dark but warm. As though the summer day was lingering behind.

  As though there was still light.

  Summer has hardly begun but already the nights are growing longer. It’s Midsummer’s Eve, he thinks, it has been for a few hours. The week began with the summer solstice, and it’s ending with Midsummer’s Eve.

  What a way to celebrate the longest days of the year.

  No lilies or columbines, as the folk song goes; no roses or salvia, no sweet mint.

  No heart’s delight.

  All he really wants is to go to a place where the winters are shorter. That’s all he wants.

  That’s what he is waiting for.

  He stands completely still, looking out into the darkness.

  It’s not quite pitch black, it never is at this time of year. Not really, really dark. He can make out the shapes of old sheds and rusty, wrecked cars as he gazes out along the road in the cluttered industrial estate.

  And right then, that’s when he hears it.

  At the same moment he hears the muffled explosion, he knows that it’s all gone to hell. Everything. His entire life has gone to hell.

  He stands completely still.

  So that’s how fragile it was.

  The dividing line so thin.

  The balance so delicate.

  By the time he hears the third round of shots, he’s sitting in his car. He sighs and drives away.

  It’s already too late.

  Six men in a van. A metallic-green van parked up against an old industrial shed, windows glistening with condensation from their heavy breathing and involuntary perspiration.

  It’s a wait like they’ve never known before.

  The night drags on.

  Five of the men are moving slightly. Moving nervously. One of them picks non-stop at his thumb, one licks his lips so often he’ll develop a cold sore; one pinches his nose, one bounces his knee up and down, one chews his thumbnail.

  But one of the men is completely still. He is squatting down in the back of the van. It’s as difficult as stretching; after a few minutes, the thigh muscles normally begin to twitch. But not this man’s. He is completely still. In his left hand, his sub-machine gun is resting against his thigh, the barrel pointing up towards the roof of the van. In his right hand, he’s holding something that looks like a miniature calculator. Thin, black, and with a single, slightly raised button. A red one.

  He looks at his watch and then surveys his men. He can see them sharply outlined in the faint darkness. Sweat is running from their thick, black winter hats, down over their faces. All are wearing these black hats apart from him; he is wearing a gold-coloured one. It sits, crown-like, on top of his head.

  The sweat is flowing, but their faces are controlled. Tense, strained, concentrated. Everything as it should be.

  ‘Three out,’ he says.

  The three men in the back of the van transform their black winter hats into balaclavas, pulling the thick material down over their faces. Their eyes shine bright against the black. They take their weapons off safety and climb out of the van. Pressing close to the wall of the shed, their sub-machine guns raised. Clouds of steam rise from their masks.

  He watches the movement of the second hand. Its calm, unaffected leaps. Step by step by step. Minutes of constant watching.

  The clock strikes two. One second past. Two, three.

  There, he hears the first sound of the engine.

  It grows louder. Eventually, he nods slightly and pulls the golden balaclava down over his face. The two men in the front do the same, though theirs are black.

  Behind the shed, headlights appear, illuminating the road. Only faintly at first, then more and more brightly.

  Just as the front of the black Mercedes appears from behind the shed, he presses the red button.

  It’s not like an explosion, more like the car is lit up from within. An inward flash of light, strangely soundless.

  The Mercedes rolls on for a few metres. Stops.

  The three men by the shed are already on their way over to it.

  The three still inside the van climb out. One of them is wearing a golden balaclava. He is the golden one and knows it.

  When he gets there, the situation has already been determined.

  The car is giving off a little smoke, no fire. Two men are standing on either side of it, leaning over the car. They’re frisked, sub-machine guns pointing at them. Inside the car, a man. In the back seat.
He is dead, his body blown to pieces. A chain coils from his wrist to a briefcase. It’s intact. Explosion-proof. The golden one nods to the masked man next to him – the broadest of them all. The broad man takes out some bolt cutters, leans into the car and cuts the chain. He pulls back out of the car-turned-hearse with the briefcase in his hand.

  The golden one nods to the broad man and looks fixedly at the men leaning over the car. Both have bleeding faces. Through the cloud of smoke, he catches the eye of the one furthest away from him. Blood is running down his dark face as he stands by the passenger side of the car. A dark, cold gaze which doesn’t waver. A gaze the golden one has seen before, a gaze he himself wants. The gaze of a man who has killed so many times that nothing else has any value any longer. The gaze of a man who knows he’s going to die, who isn’t afraid of it, and who just wants to take as many with him to the other side as possible.

  Two sub-machine guns are pointed at the man by the passenger side of the Mercedes, two at the man by the driver’s side. When the driver turns round, he looks like the passenger. Just like him.

  The same cold gaze.

  The golden one gestures with his gun and the broad one moves in front of the car, standing in its headlights. He lifts the briefcase up and opens it. The sub-machine gun hangs from a strap around his neck. He looks down into the case, then up again. Disappointment shines in his eyes.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ he asks.

  The golden one goes over, the shortest of the masked men with him. Three pairs of eyes gazing down into an open briefcase.

  A momentary lapse of concentration.

  In the briefcase, there is a key and a two-way radio, each in an individual holder. There is also a piece of paper. The golden one grabs it.

  When he looks up again, the man on the passenger side of the car has a pistol in his hand. He shoots behind him, over his shoulder. The shot hits the man behind him in the face, just where the two white holes are gleaming in the black balaclava. For a moment, they gleam red instead. Then they gleam no more.