The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘You’re assuming Henrik’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, I think I probably am.’

  ‘And why was it Henrik, in particular, who meant everything to you?’

  ‘That’s something else I’ve no control over. Is it all right if I have a Marianne?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘You know what, I don’t think I’ve had one of these since we were revising for our exams.’

  ‘Nor me. But why Henrik specifically? When we have children, it’s part of the deal that they can die before we do. There are no guarantees, you know that as well as all other parents.’

  ‘I – I think I’d forgotten.’

  Benita Ormson gave a laugh. ‘Yes, I think you had, Ebba dear. I’m sure there are a few other things you’ve forgotten along the way, too. But of course, we all do that and it generally works until we get to about forty. You’re in good company.’

  ‘I’ve no desire to be in that sort of company.’

  ‘I know that. You’re not a social person, Ebba, but in some situations, we just can’t cope on our own. That’s why I brought you the Bible.’

  ‘Good God, Benita, you know I . . .’

  ‘We all need some company, Ebba. We all need someone to talk to. You’ve been your own company for forty years and now you’re tired of it. You’ve got to choose, either other people or Our Lord.’

  ‘No thanks, that kind of thing isn’t—’

  Benita Ormson raised a hand and Ebba broke off. She took another sweet and regarded her friend with eyes brimful of scepticism. A few seconds went by.

  ‘I do understand,’ said Benita Ormson. ‘You prefer to keep all the doors shut. To shut me out, too. But it’s your choice, Ebba, and you’re the one this is all about. I’m not the least bit religious, you know that. I’m pretty much an agnostic. But this book represents ten thousand years of collected experience. It’s not propaganda, it’s wisdom. What you need is to be comforted. You need consolation and love and a decent dose of compassion, nothing else can help you. All other questions simply pale into insignificance, and I think you’re discerning enough to understand that. But you’re not wise. You’re stunted, Ebba, you’ve chosen to trap yourself with Henrik in a closed room, a dark and claustrophobic space. At least try to expand it a little, let in a bit of light. But again, it’s up to you, and I . . .’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘And I’m only the messenger. Don’t shoot the messenger, Ebba.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Right then.’

  ‘Mm, they’re really nice, these Mariannes. Imagine it being so long ago . . . and them still being around.’

  ‘Of course they’re still around, Ebba.’

  Silence. A long silence. A nurse opened the door a crack. He closed it again when he saw the two women sitting on the edge of the bed, one on either side.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Ebba?’

  ‘I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking about Kristoffer. Please excuse me Benita, but I believe I need to call my husband.’

  ‘You know best what you need to do, Ebba. Today as on every other day.’

  ‘Thank you, Benita. Thank you for coming, but I think I ought to get on with it right away.’

  ‘Of course, Ebba. Of course. I’ll leave you with the Bible and the Mariannes, and come back to see you another day.’

  Somehow she held out.

  It amazed her that she was capable of it. That she could persevere despite Jakob’s more or less single-minded attacks. Perhaps it was because she was sober, perhaps it was as simple as that. Jakob was drinking Laphroaig, glass after glass, his voice sounding airier and airier, but he never flared up and lost his temper. That calm was still in him, lying there in wait like a cobra in the sunlight. That’s what his problem is, she thought, the whole problem with his life. The fact that he can go on storing up more and more emotions until he is finally full of them and explodes.

  But it struck her that the explosions, too, were strangely cold. Calculated. He never lost his self-control, not entirely. Even when he killed Henrik he was in control of what he was doing.

  Even then. When she came to think of it, this was probably the most horrible thing of all.

  The control. The inhuman composure.

  ‘What did you think of him?’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That cop. When he was here in January?’

  It was quarter past eleven. They were sitting in the armchairs in front of the open fire. Kelvin had been asleep upstairs in his bed for the past two hours. Jakob lit a thin black cigar. Barrinque, which was the only make he smoked. They were specially imported for him by a small shop on Hornsgatan.

  ‘I scarcely remember him. Jakob, can we talk about something else?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Thailand, maybe? We’d better go into town and buy a couple of guide books tomorrow, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Done that. Popped into Hedengrens and picked up three. It’s all sorted. So, what did you think of him?’

  ‘I don’t remember, Jakob. For God’s sake, I told you I don’t remember him. What are you so suspicious about?’

  ‘Suspicious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there any reason why I should be suspicious?’

  ‘No, but you sound as if you are.’

  ‘I find it a bit hard to believe in coincidences, that’s all. In some situations.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh yes you do.’

  ‘No Jakob, I don’t. What is it you’re trying to get me to say? I’ve nothing to hide.’

  He took another gulp of whisky and another drag on his cigar. He was filing his arguments to a sharp point.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘That cop rings here at the start of the week and asks for you. He lives down in Kymlinge, four hundred kilometres from here. Three days later I see him coming out of the Royal Viking, at the very time my wife claims to be in there having a chat with a girlfriend I’ve never heard of . . .’

  ‘How many of my girlfriends do you know, Jakob?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘No you don’t. Can we go to bed now, I’m tired . . .’

  ‘I want to sit here for a while and talk to you, Kristina. But OK, I’ll leave the cop for now. You can switch the light out, and we’ll sit on the sofa. Shall we have a bit of Coltrane?’

  He’s getting horny, she thought. There was even more air in his voice now. But that was just as well, of course. She sighed. Cautiously, without making a sound. Two days to go, perhaps she could pull it off.

  Inspector Barbarotti got back to his hotel around eleven. Even though he had had two glasses of red wine and a large brandy, he was perishing cold. Stockholm was in the grip of a raw and biting winter, with a northerly wind sweeping through its streets and whirling up any snow that had not been melted by the under-road heating. Christ, thought Gunnar Barbarotti. I’m glad I don’t live here. How do the rough sleepers cope? They must freeze to death every single night.

  Once he got up to his room, he called Marianne. The weather wasn’t much better in Helsingborg, she told him. Three degrees above zero, rain and a fierce westerly wind.

  It would be nice to have a man and a glass of red wine to warm me up, she added.

  Gunnar Barbarotti asked her whether there might possibly be a night train from Skåne up to Stockholm in, say, about half an hour. He’d be happy to meet her at Central station early tomorrow morning and his hotel room was booked for another night.

  ‘I thought you were working?’ said Marianne.

  ‘Well, off and on,’ declared Inspector Barbarotti.

  ‘I’m afraid my children need me all weekend,’ said Marianne. ‘How about planning things a bit further in advance?’

  Gunnar Barbarotti promised to sharpen up his act in future and then they cooed nonsense at each other for a while before hanging up.

  Working, he thought, and then went to the window to look out over the railway station and the tracks. W
ell yes, that was the idea. Had been the idea. But things had gone somewhat awry.

  Or had they? Perhaps his usual, naturally depressive evening tendencies were just playing tricks on him? What had he really expected from his session with Kristina Hermansson? That she would break down and admit something, God only knows what?

  Scarcely. But in fact – he thought with a wave of optimism that was as sudden as it was unexpected as he unscrewed the top of the small bottle of red wine from the minibar – hadn’t she rather confirmed his suspicions, when it came to it? As they sat there in the Royal Viking lobby, she’d definitely been keeping a lid on all manner of things, hadn’t she?

  Hadn’t she? And wasn’t that exactly what he’d wanted confirmed? The fact that there was something very wrong with the Hermansson-Willnius marital idyll in Old Enskede. Something that just didn’t tally and that he couldn’t simply ignore, now he’d come this far.

  He took a drink from the plastic bottle and poured the rest down the washbasin in the bathroom. What rotgut, he thought. And I shall have to pay 65 kronor for that crap when I leave.

  But to get back to Jakob Willnius. Wouldn’t it be just as well to take the bull by the horns?

  He undressed and got under the shower. Turned on the hot water and decided to stay there until he had come to a decision.

  It took twenty minutes, and when he climbed into bed he was still far from convinced he had made the right choice – but at least he had made it, and he felt in rather better spirits than he had when he was struggling through the biting wind on the streets and squares of the capital an hour before. That was a fact.

  42

  Kristoffer Grundt was freezing cold.

  It was twenty past twelve. Finally. He walked slowly past the house, 5 Musseronvägen. This was the second time; a quarter of an hour before, he had gone past in the other direction, on the opposite pavement. All the windows were dark, the only light coming from a little orange lamp above the front door. It had looked just the same fifteen minutes ago. They were asleep; every indication was that Kristina and Jakob were asleep in bed, like all their neighbours. Kristoffer knew this was not the sort of area where people lived it up, late into the night. Not entirely unlike his own neighbourhood up in Sundsvall, in fact. If you happened to get home after midnight, you generally found every house in total darkness. Not a sign of life.

  While he was wandering round the woodland cemetery area and the streets on either side of Nynäsvägen, he had been struck by a sudden worry that he wouldn’t be able to find the right house in Musseronvägen – but once he saw it he knew straight away. He realized it was being cold and alone that had made him imagine things. Going in and shooting the wrong guy, well, that would have been quite something!

  But as it was, there was no doubt. There were various things he recognized. The path leading to the front steps, where he and Henrik had mucked about with a ball, two and a half years ago. The little summer house in the middle of the lawn, now completely covered in snow. The terrace where they had drunk squash and eaten buns. Oh yes, this was where they lived all right, Auntie Kristina and her husband – the man he was going to kill. He carried on walking, right past the house, and the mere thought seemed almost to warm him.

  The thought of killing. It was strange, but perhaps that was how it was. Perhaps the blood started to flow more quickly through your veins when you thought about certain things? And not only girls.

  He had felt freezing cold for so long. He’d bought a hot dog and a coffee from a burger stand about an hour ago, but that was all he’d had. You could warm up a bit if you kept on the move, but it didn’t work indefinitely.

  And it was still a bit too early to get started. He decided he would do one more circuit of the entire area, and if everything looked peaceful when he got back to the house, he would strike.

  OK bro? He had to ask the question.

  OK, answered Henrik.

  Five to one. He hadn’t met a soul. The house was as dark as it had been half an hour ago. He was not quite as cold any more, for some reason. Perhaps it was the tension, just as he’d thought.

  Right then, he told himself. Let’s go, it’s now or never. He looked all round, right and left, then pushed his way through the hedge and into the garden. He’d decided on the French windows facing onto the terrace. No point having to hoist yourself over windowsills, if you could just walk straight in. He might be able to force open the French windows just by applying some pressure with his shoulder, like you could back home in Stockrosvägen.

  He tramped through the snow, which lay half a metre deep in some parts of the garden, whereas out in the street, most of it had melted. Or the snowplough had cleared it. Coming up onto the terrace, he saw a pair of French windows, just as expected, and crept over to them. There was wooden decking beneath his feet and no snow, because this area was under cover. It creaked, but only slightly. Nothing to worry about, thought Kristoffer. He screwed up his eyes and peered through the panes of glass, but he could scarcely make out anything in there. The French windows had no handles on the outside, but the doors seemed to open inwards. He stood stock still for five seconds, then tried applying a measured dose of shoulder pressure.

  Nothing happened. He cupped his hands together, leant forward and tried to see what the handles inside looked like. An ordinary lever latch handle on one of the doors, as far as he could see. He pressed his shoulder to the doors again, a bit harder. Thought he felt them give a little. But it was going to take a lot of force to make the wood yield.

  And it would make quite a lot of noise. He decided to go for the alternative solution. Make a little hole with his pistol butt and then enlarge it by breaking off more glass, bit by bit. He wasn’t entirely sure it would work, but he had seen someone do it in a film a few months ago, as smoothly as anything. The important thing was not to let big chunks of glass drop down, otherwise there’d be a terrible racket as they smashed.

  But a single, brief crunch wouldn’t wake anybody. Not if they were asleep in bed upstairs. And if they did happen to wake, they would decide it must have been a cat and go back to sleep. So it was important to leave a bit of time before starting to enlarge the hole. And important not to make any more noise.

  He took the pistol out of his pocket. Counted to five and then hit the glass. There was a tinkling as the bits fell to the ground. He went down on one knee by the wall so as not to be seen if anyone put the light on. He had the gun raised, ready to fire; if Jakob Willnius opened the door and came out, he would mow him down instantly.

  There was no sound from inside. Nobody switched on a light. He waited nearly two minutes before getting up to look. He studied the hole in the glass, which was big enough to put his hand through, and only then did he realize the door was double glazed, meaning he would have to break the other pane of glass, too. That film he’d seen had presumably been set in a warmer country.

  But it was as silent as the grave in there, and after a little while he had picked away the whole outer layer of glass without dropping a single bit. It worked. Time to knock another hole, he thought. He raised the gun and struck.

  At virtually the same moment as the fragments of glass hit the floor, the light went on inside. Jakob Willnius was standing there in the doorway to the hall, stark naked and staring straight at him. Kristoffer hesitated for half a second. Then he hurled himself at the doors, leading with his left shoulder. He heard wood splintering as shards of glass went flying around him. He got inside the room and stopped dead; Jakob Willnius wasn’t moving, and Kristoffer saw that he had something in his hand. A poker. He felt wild triumph bubble up inside his head, just as he saw Kristina coming up behind her husband. She wasn’t naked but wrapped in a red bath towel and she, too, had something in her hand, though he couldn’t see what.

  A poker against a pistol! It was laughable! Kristoffer raised his weapon. Kristina screamed and Jakob Willnius finally moved; he put up his hands – still with a firm grip on the poker – a stupid sort of gesture, presu
mably meaning . . . well, that he gave up. Kristoffer gave a laugh. Aimed at his chest and pulled the trigger.

  The pistol clicked.

  He fired again.

  Another click. Jakob Willnius lowered his hands and took a step forward.

  A third try. Not even a click. The mechanism had jammed. Kristoffer stared at his gun – and at his hand holding the gun – and at his aunt Kristina, clutching the red bath towel to her protruding belly, holding something in her other hand and looking utterly terrified. Suddenly he heard someone give a howl.

  It was him. It sounded barely human. Jakob Willnius was only a metre away from him now.

  43

  His mobile rang while he was at breakfast.

  It was Eva Backman.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘Did you go up to Stockholm in the end?’

  He hesitated for a moment. Then he admitted that her surmise was correct.

  ‘Good,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Because it turns out you could be right after all.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I spoke to Sorrysen this morning. That is, he rang me. Apparently tried to get through to you first, but you didn’t answer.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti now registered that his display had said New Message when he answered Backman’s call. ‘Must have been in the shower,’ he said.

  ‘Right. Anyway, a certain Olle Rimborg rang the Kymlinge police . . . er, about an hour ago.’

  He checked the time. It was quarter to ten.

  ‘Olle Rimborg?’

  ‘Yes. You don’t happen to know who he is?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.

  Eva Backman cleared her throat. ‘He’s – amongst other things – the night porter at Kymlinge Hotel. He thought about ringing the police earlier. He actually did ring on one occasion, but got cut off, which is too bloody bad of course, but we’ll have to look into that later.’

  ‘What did he want?’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I’ve got an egg going cold here.’

  ‘Boiled?’

  ‘Yes, boiled. Get to the point, Mrs Backman.’