The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

  Albeit not actually real. The snow is still falling as he moves about the kitchen getting himself some tea and sandwiches. The time is ten past nine and there isn’t any sign of Berit and Ingegerd yet.

  Gunnar Barbarotti is stuck in a snowdrift, and while he waits for help that is taking its time to arrive, he makes up his mind. Beside him in the car is his daughter Sara, and when she tells him she is going away with some friends for the weekend, that clinches it. It gives him the necessary room for manoeuvre. To hell with Backman, he thinks. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. I needn’t even tell anybody I’m making the trip. To hell with rhyme and reason, I’ve got to talk to her again.

  But not a word to him. There’s only a fraction of a suspicion; a fraction of a fraction. If it were false it would be disastrous.

  If it were true it would be doubly disastrous.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Dad?’ said Sara. ‘Is it work again?’

  He laughs. ‘Not at all, sweetheart. I’m wondering whether it wouldn’t be best for you to get yourself home on foot. You should be there in ten minutes, and all you’ll do here is freeze your backside off.’

  She laughs too. ‘What, leave my dad in a car in a snowdrift? What sort of daughter would that make me?’

  He switches the engine on and sets the windscreen wipers going. It’s quarter to ten in the evening. ‘Tell me what you want to be when you grow up,’ he says.

  Leif Grundt has dropped off in front of the television but is woken by the ring of the phone.

  Initially he mistakes the remote control for the cordless phone. But he just about gets out into the hall in time to answer.

  It’s Ebba.

  His wife Ebba. They haven’t spoken to each other for more than a week.

  ‘I want to talk to Kristoffer,’ she says.

  ‘Kristoffer isn’t here,’ says Leif Grundt.

  ‘Where is he then?’ asks Ebba.

  ‘He’s down in Uppsala at Berit’s,’ explains Leif. ‘I did tell you about it. They’ve got work experience week at school, and he’s working in one of our shops down there—’

  ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘You needn’t be.’

  ‘I’ve been worrying about him all day. You’ve got to look after Kristoffer, Leif. You mustn’t forget him.’

  I mustn’t, thinks Leif Grundt in suddenly flaring anger. I mustn’t forget Kristoffer? This is going too far. It’ll end in—

  ‘I don’t like you sending him to Uppsala.’

  ‘Ebba, please . . .’

  ‘You know what happens when we send our children there.’

  ‘Ebba, he’s staying at Berit’s. He’s working in a Co-op store for a week, nothing’s going to happen to him.’

  There’s a long silence at the other end of the line. Then a click. She has hung up. Leif Grundt puts the phone back on its hook on the wall. He stands there in indecision for thirty seconds while irritation and sorrow change places inside him.

  Then he goes out to dig the snow off the drive again. It is past ten, and the snow must have been falling for almost twenty-four hours.

  ‘That policeman, what was his name?’

  ‘Who?’

  Jakob Willnius comes in from the bathroom. Yellow towel round his waist. Kristina is already lying in bed. It is around twelve and he has been out to dinner with a Danish producer. Or was it German? Or maybe just a Swedish one? There is a haze of alcohol in the air around him but it is only a thin one. He definitely isn’t drunk. Perhaps he’s just randy, yes, that’s probably it – the towel is bulging. She takes a deep breath and steels herself, running one hand over her taut belly. From behind, he’ll take her from behind, that’s how it has been these last months, in view of the current state of things.

  ‘From Kymlinge.’

  ‘What – what are you talking about?

  ‘Barotti? Wasn’t that it? Italian name? The one who came here.’

  She shakes her head, not understanding.

  ‘Oh, him? Yes, it was something like that. Why have you brought him up?’

  He sweeps aside the towel to reveal his splendid erection. ‘You don’t happen to have heard from him?’

  ‘No, why would he . . . ?’

  He slips under the quilt and puts a hand on her hip.

  ‘A man called yesterday and asked for you. It sounded like him. You know I’m good at recognizing voices.’

  ‘Why would he ring here? I mean, it’s been a year now . . .’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Jakob Willnius. ‘I don’t know what reason he could have for calling us. But it was you he wanted to speak to, not me.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he didn’t give his name?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Perhaps something’s happened that . . .’

  ‘That what?’

  He is kneading her buttocks now. Kneading and parting.

  ‘That changes things. Do you want me to put out the light?’

  ‘No, I want to see you, you know that. He didn’t ring back then, this Inspector Barbotti, or whatever the hell his name is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want you to tell me if he does.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I don’t want you to forget that.’

  ‘I promise not to forget that.’

  ‘There we are then. I’ve changed my mind. Put out the light.’

  And as he penetrates her from behind, she sees through the window that it has finally stopped snowing.

  38

  Just as Kristoffer boarded the bus out in Bergsbrunna on Thursday morning, his mobile phone rang.

  It was his father Leif.

  ‘How’s the snow?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘There’s lots of it,’ said Kristoffer.

  Then they talked about the job for a while. If Kristoffer might possibly consider following in his father’s footsteps, it was just as well to start with the basics, Leif said. So he knew what he was getting into.

  But perhaps he hadn’t any plans along those lines?

  Kristoffer conceded that for the immediate future he had no such plans, and then his dad asked him when he was planning to come home.

  ‘Saturday,’ declared Kristoffer. ‘I’ll take a morning train I expect. I’ll ring and let you know when I’m due to arrive.’

  ‘And you’ve got enough money left for your ticket?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And on your mobile top-up card?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘All right. If you let me know, I’ll come and pick you up at the station. Saturday afternoon, right?’

  ‘Saturday afternoon,’ confirmed Kristoffer.

  ‘Regards to Berit and Ingegerd.’

  Kristoffer promised to pass on the message and rang off.

  Reality, he wondered. What is it in actual fact, reality? That was the first question to come into his head after the phone call. For some reason. He tried to see out of the misted bus window. The snow had evidently stopped falling during the night and the snowploughs had pushed it into piles that were metres high. It felt as if all this snowing had something to do with what was going on. With the plan and the solution. The white world was an alternative reality, and it was in an alternative reality that he would carry out his deed. Then, when it was over, things would be more normal again. Go back to how they usually were. Finally. Once he had well and truly avenged his brother, he would reach a point from which it was possible to look forward. He had lived for almost a year in this strange state, where everything seemed to consist of nothing but obscurity and question marks. A dogged waking dream that held him captive in some peculiar way. He had lost contact with his old life, it was no exaggeration to say that; he couldn’t care less about school, nothing was important to him any more, his friends from Years 7 and 8 had drifted away and his family was in ruins. He smoked like a chimney and got pissed at least once a week – but he could see an end to this
whole desperate business. An end and a far boundary, he realized that now. Once he had killed his brother’s murderer he would reach that boundary. It was – it was, thought Kristoffer Grundt, as if there was a hand steering developments . . . or a director; a fixer who made sure everything that had to happen really did happen.

  Someone who arranged for Granny to say those words at Robert’s funeral, for example. Specifically to him. And who then made sure that he watched that useless TV film right through to the end so he would see Olle Rimborg’s name. And that he plucked up the courage to ring his aunt.

  And that his dad got the idea of sending him to Uppsala for his work experience week.

  As he thought like this, as his thoughts ran along these well-worn paths, it suddenly made his head spin. True, he was sitting on a bus crammed full of unfamiliar, sleep-fuddled, slightly grumpy people, rumbling through an alien landscape, wintery and white – but at the same time, at the same time, he was part of something else. A completely different story, so much larger and so much more important. A long chain of events, in which one thing led to another and it was impossible to stop and go into reverse once one had decided on the first step to be taken. Because there was no way of redoing and correcting any mistakes – and he suddenly realized, as the bus slowly manoeuvred its way along clogged Kungsgatan in Uppsala, this winter morning at the start of December, that this was exactly what life looked like. This was the model for it all. What happens, happens, and it was a question of understanding what you had to do.

  And accepting it.

  And when finally, more than twenty minutes late, he elbowed his way off the bus at the station and set off on his tramp to the first shopping mall, he could hear Henrik’s voice deep inside him for the first time in ages.

  Well done, brother, he said, sounding both a little distant and unusually serious. Very serious.

  Good, you’re learning, Kristoffer.

  ‘I’m in Stockholm on other business so I thought I’d make the most of the opportunity.’

  He had decided on that opening gambit; it was important to find the right balance between earnest and casual.

  Not too serious. But still with a certain weight to it.

  He could hear her swallowing, or at least imagined he could. A sort of hesitation, wasn’t there?

  ‘I don’t understand. Are the police still working on this?’

  ‘Of course. Until we’ve established what happened, we keep the investigation open.’

  ‘But . . . ?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Has something new come up?’

  ‘Hard to say. But in any case, I’d appreciate a quick chat. Friday or Saturday, and it should only take about an hour.’

  ‘But what . . . I mean, can’t we do it now, over the phone?’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  There is something, he thought, feeling the excitement start to pound through his head. She’s afraid of something. Well I’ll be damned.

  She was silent for a few seconds. ‘I think . . . yes, I think I could see you sometime tomorrow afternoon. Where shall we . . . ?’

  He realized this was not a time for visiting her in Enskede again and was grateful she hadn’t suggested it. ‘The lobby of the Royal Viking,’ he suggested. ‘By Central station. We can talk undisturbed there. How about two o’clock?’

  ‘Two o’clock,’ she repeated. ‘Yes, I expect that will be all right. But I still don’t really see the point. You and your colleagues haven’t – you haven’t got a new lead or anything?’

  ‘It would be a bit much to call it a lead,’ he said. ‘Let’s just say a little idea.’

  ‘An idea?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll explain everything tomorrow. Two o’clock at the Royal Viking, then?’

  ‘Yes, all right, I’ll come,’ she said, and her voice sounded as fragile to him as old porcelain. Almost like the voice of a schoolgirl who has been caught smoking or bunking off PE or something, and has now been summoned in to see the head for a telling-off.

  I’m imagining things, he thought after he had hung up and found himself staring at his messy desk for ten seconds. I want this to be an opening, so I’m interpreting all the signs as though they support my hypothesis. I’m an absolutely worthless detective.

  Then he lifted the receiver again to book his train ticket and hotel room.

  On the Thursday evening – after Berit’s showpiece dinner of potatoes au gratin with strips of beef fillet and Béarnaise sauce – Kristoffer lay on his bed in the room with the big green plants and honed his plan.

  Tomorrow. The night from Friday into Saturday, that was when it had to happen. He had told Berit he was going to sleep over at a mate’s in Uppsala for his last night, and then take the train home to Sundsvall on Saturday morning. A mate? Berit had queried. Yeah, there was this really nice guy who worked on the checkout, he was nineteen, Kristoffer told her. They were going to see a film in the city centre, and then home to the guy’s parents’ place at Vaksala torg. His name was Oskar and he was in the Almtuna ice hockey team.

  He knew Berit wouldn’t bother to check up on him, and it was highly unlikely she would say anything to Leif, either. Not that it mattered – he’d just have to spin his dad the same yarn if need be. They would be going straight from work, he and Oskar, so it would be best for him to take his bag with him from Bergsbrunna on Friday morning. He was packed and ready to go.

  But there was no Oskar. Or at any rate, no Oskar who worked on the checkout at the Co-op and was a mate of Kristoffer’s. Instead . . . instead he would get on the train to Stockholm tomorrow evening, leave his bag at the station (he knew where the luggage lockers were), wait a few hours in the city centre, maybe go to the cinema if he felt like it. He had plenty of money, enough for a film and a couple of hamburgers.

  And an underground ticket out to Enskede a bit later on. Around ten or eleven. As he remembered it, you had to get off at Sandsborg or at Skogskyrkogården, where the famous woodland cemetery was. The green line. He had been travelling with Henrik and Dad last time. But he would get a map at Central station to be on the safe side. The address was 5 Musseronvägen, he had checked.

  It would be dark when he got there. He would wait until midnight, or preferably a little later, before approaching the house. He would take a walk round, do a recce of the surrounding area. Check that no one was out and about and that Kristina and her family were at home. Perhaps, if he dared, he would already have rung Jakob Willnius earlier in the evening. Hung up as soon as he answered. Or if Kristina answered, disguised his voice and asked to speak to her husband.

  But only if he dared; there would undoubtedly be other ways of assuring himself the victim was at home. Perhaps he would simply catch sight of him through a window. It didn’t feel like a major problem.

  In actual fact, none of it felt particularly difficult as he lay there in the big, quiet room, digesting his dinner and trying to visualize the operation. That sense of carrying out an assignment, of following a pattern he had to follow, still hung inside him. It had been hanging there all day, there was no space inside him for hesitation and cowardice. He really was going to take the train to Stockholm, make his way out to the expensive wooden villas of Old Enskede, and there, at 5 Musseronvägen, he would shoot and kill Jakob Willnius. He would murder his brother’s murderer; it was no less than his duty. A sort of honour killing, in fact.

  And it was because it was a matter of duty that he would be able to carry it through. Exactly how he would achieve it was impossible to foresee, at least in detail. He would have to rely on his judgement and his – what was it called? – intuition? He would have to make it seem like a break-in, of course. Presumably he would have to smash a window to get in. He would wait a long time from when the last light went out in the house, give them plenty of time to fall asleep, but making too much noise as he went in might prove unavoidable. Perhaps he would encounter Jakob Willnius without even needing to go upstairs. He would have to be ready with the gun the whole time
; as soon as he was inside the house he would be prepared to fire. He knew their bedroom was upstairs, and it was quite likely Jakob would come rushing, or creeping, down the stairs. He wouldn’t give him a second. If he turned up there, he would shoot him instantly. Two shots straight in the chest, to bring him down. Then another in the head, to make totally sure.

  And then get out of there. Perhaps, if there was time, he could snatch something or other to make it look like a breakin. A burglar who had been caught red-handed and had fled.

  If Jakob didn’t come downstairs, Kristoffer would go up to the bedroom and shoot him there. In bed; that was actually a more attractive prospect, since bed was where Jakob had killed Henrik. If he had interpreted Kristina correctly.

  But he would have to get Kristina out of the way first. He wasn’t going to let her obstruct him, not on any account. Though he didn’t think she would try. She wanted Jakob dead as well, there could be little doubt about that. Perhaps she would be shocked when Kristoffer turned up, but that wasn’t important. He would not get into any kind of discussion, it was important to remember that, not with Kristina and not with Jakob either. He would not start talking.

  Just shoot him, plain and simple. No mercy, not for a single bloody second.

  And finally, when it was done, waste no time leaving the house and getting away from Old Enskede.

  No more underground. He would make his way into the city centre again by slow backstreets. Dispose of the pistol by throwing it into the water somewhere. Stockholm was full of stretches of water and it was simplicity itself to drop your gun from some bridge or quay. The only thing he had to watch out for was police patrols. A solitary fifteen-year-old walking the streets at three or four in the morning might arouse suspicion. Although, what did he know, maybe nobody would raise an eyebrow in Stockholm. Maybe the whole city was crawling with young people at that time of the night. But anyway, he would be careful, and gradually make his way to Central station, which opened about five or six in the morning, he thought. Possibly have a bite of breakfast – and then jump aboard the first available train to Sundsvall.