The Dying Detective

by Leif G. W. Persson

  ‘You look brighter today, Lars,’ Jarnebring said, giving his shoulder a comradely pat.

  ‘I know,’ Johansson said. Nag, nag, nag, he thought.

  Johansson ordered a starter, main course and dessert. Mostly to tease his companions. Max looked uncomfortable but had the good manners not to say anything, but his best friend did not suffer from any such inhibitions.

  ‘Sometimes, I can’t help thinking that you’re trying to kill yourself,’ Jarnebring said, nodding towards the plates containing Johansson’s starter.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Johansson asked innocently, as he spread a large dollop of mustard and dill mayonnaise across his salted salmon on toast.

  ‘The salmon is fine, but that mayonnaise is the kiss of death for someone in your state. What the hell’s happened to your short-term memory, Lars? It’s only a month since you almost died because you’re always stuffing your face with crap like that and refusing to take any exercise.’

  ‘A month ago no one was asking me how I was or commenting on what I ate,’ Johansson said. ‘Now that’s all I hear. People talking to me like I’m a child.’

  Then he took a large mouthful of his salmon and toast, wiped some sauce from the corner of his mouth with his forefinger and, to underline his point, licked his finger, before drinking half his vodka and rinsing it all down with a gulp of beer.

  ‘Where were we? Oh, yes,’ he said, and raised his hand before Jarnebring had time to say anything. ‘If you can’t treat me as an adult, gentlemen, then I suggest you take your wretched salad and grilled beef and go and find another table, so that I can have a bit of peace and quiet while I eat.’

  Max seemed fully occupied with his salad and made do with a nod, and Jarnebring shrugged and, evidently, decided to change the subject.

  ‘Max,’ Jarnebring said. ‘Evert told me you’re thinking of joining the police. How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-three,’ Max said.

  ‘Then it’s high time. Lars and I were twenty-one when we started at the Police Academy.’

  ‘I never graduated from high school,’ Max said. ‘I left school at the end of year nine.’

  ‘You can sort that out easily enough,’ Jarnebring said, seeing as he himself had been accepted thanks to his sporting merits, despite atrocious grades from the junior school where he had abandoned his academic studies after just eight years.

  ‘Maybe,’ Max said. ‘But that’s not the real problem.’

  ‘I understand,’ Jarnebring said. ‘I’ve hit a few idiots in the past. And quite a few after I joined the police. Plenty more, actually.’

  ‘But you were never in a children’s home,’ Max said.

  ‘No. But I’m bloody good at telling the difference between good people and bad. You’re good, Max. That’s what counts.’

  ‘What kind of bollocks is this?’ Johansson interrupted. ‘The world is mostly ruled by shitheads. So, Max, give us the important facts about you, the way you see it. Tell me who Max is.’

  ‘Where do you want me to start?’ Max asked. Faint smile, calmer now, his sturdy lower arms resting on the table.

  ‘At the beginning,’ Johansson said. ‘And, you, Bo – you keep quiet.’

  ‘Okay.’ Max smiled. ‘Well, my name is Maxim Makarov, and no, I’m not related to the great Sergey.’

  Maksim Makarov was born in Leningrad in 1987, a Leningrad that four years later reverted to its original name in tsarist Russia: St Petersburg. In those days, he still spelled his name with ‘ks’ rather than ‘x’.

  ‘Mum worked as a doctor, Dad was a chauffeur and bodyguard for one of the local Party bosses. He earned four or five times as much as Mum. In the Soviet Union, being a doctor was a typically low-paid job. It still is, I think. Unless you were a member of the Party and managed to grab yourself a hospital when we liberated ourselves.’

  ‘There, you see?’ Jarnebring said. ‘Don’t get too hung up on studying.’

  ‘Shut up, Bo,’ Johansson said. ‘Go on, I’m listening,’ he continued, nodding at Max.

  Max’s parents split up soon after he was born. When he was two years old, in the autumn of 1989, and the foundations of the Soviet empire were beginning to tremble, his mother sneaked through one of the cracks and went to a medical conference in Tallinn. Once she was there, her Estonian friends helped her to get to Finland. There, other contacts took over and got her on board a boat to Sweden. She applied for political asylum in Sweden two days after leaving Leningrad, having left her little son in the care of his grandparents.

  ‘So I was left with Grandma and Grandpa,’ Max said.

  ‘What about your dad?’ Jarnebring asked, in spite of Johansson’s warning glance.

  ‘No.’ Max shook his head. ‘I can’t have met him more than ten times. He isn’t even a face to me. Anyway, he got shot when I was four. He went to pick his boss up at his home and they were shot as they came out through the door. Dad, his boss and their driver. There was a full-blown war going on in Leningrad in those days. Comrade Kalashnikov, and then there was all the money the Party bigwigs wanted to keep to themselves.’

  ‘Can’t have been much fun,’ Jarnebring said, even though his best friend looked like he was going to groan out loud.

  ‘It didn’t really make any difference to me,’ Max said. ‘After all, we didn’t know each other. I suppose I thought it was quite exciting, having a dad who’d been shot. So it didn’t really matter. Grandma was a good woman. Grandpa was a good man. But then things got worse, until nothing was good at all.’

  ‘What happened?’ Johansson asked.

  ‘First, Grandpa died. He was old, he took part in the Great Patriotic War, and he was already retired by the time I was born. He had a heart attack and died, just like that. I was five at the time. The following year – the day I turned six, I remember – my grandmother died. Also of a heart attack. She collapsed in the kitchen just as she was about to serve my birthday cake. So I ended up in the children’s home. I was there for four years. I came to Sweden when I was ten.’

  ‘What was it like, then?’ Jarnebring said. ‘The children’s home?’

  ‘I’ve tried to forget it,’ Max said, looking at Jarnebring through narrow eyes as he clasped his big hands together. ‘I don’t think any of us really wants to hear about that.’

  ‘Your mother,’ Johansson said, to change the subject. ‘Why didn’t she try to get you to Sweden earlier? If I’ve understood correctly, she’d been here for several years. Presumably, she had a residence permit and a job by then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Max said, nodding. ‘To start with, things went really well for her. She was given a residence permit and got a job. She worked as a doctor in Sundsvall Hospital – she got the job when she’d only been here for a year or so, in fact. Then she met a new man, a Swede, and had children with him. I’ve got two half-siblings, a nineteen-year-old brother and a sister who’s eighteen. Things have gone well for them: my half-brother’s at university, studying computer science, and my sister’s in her last year at high school.’

  ‘A direct question, and sorry if I’m being repetitive,’ Johansson said. ‘Your mother? Why didn’t she make sure that you got to Sweden?’

  ‘I suppose she wasn’t that bothered,’ Max said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘A new life, new man, new kids. I don’t really want to talk about that. Anyway, it didn’t matter, not at first. I was fine while I was living with Grandma and Grandpa.’

  ‘Let’s change the subject,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Everything went wrong for her,’ Max said, in a toneless voice now, merely presenting the facts. ‘She started to drink, her bloke left, taking my half-brother and sister with him. She got fired from the hospital because of her drinking, and for stealing drugs. She used to sell them, apparently, out in the city. To a load of addicts. She ended up in psychiatric care, then at a rehab centre, and that was when she finally remembered about me.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Johansson said. ‘So it was her therapist who came up with
the good idea of getting you over here? As part of your mother’s treatment plan?’

  ‘Yes,’ Max said, smiling at Johansson. ‘You’re quite right, boss. I couldn’t have put it better myself. It only took a year or so until I was able to move in with the mother I hadn’t seen in eight years. By then she’d got both a flat and a new job. She worked as a care assistant in the rehab centre she’d been in. Gave lots of lectures and classes. And she’d got it together with the psychologist who was with her when she came to get me from the children’s home. Obviously, I couldn’t speak a word of Swedish, but Mum refused to speak Russian to me.’

  Interesting woman, Johansson thought. ‘And as soon as you got here everything went wrong again,’ he said.

  ‘I was a ten-year-old Russian kid stuck in a junior school in Sundsvall. By the time I was fourteen I looked the way I do today,’ Max said. ‘So I kind of found my place.’

  ‘What about your mum and her new man? How did that work out?’

  ‘Mum did a repeat performance. First, she—’

  ‘I get it,’ Johansson interrupted. ‘What happened to you, then?’

  ‘First, I was put in a foster home. I was there until I hit fifteen. Up in Timrå, north of Sundsvall. They were decent people, it wasn’t their fault I ended up back in a children’s home. I was a nightmare back then. I was in and out of the home loads of times until I turned eighteen, then, when I was discharged for the last time, my care worker found me a job. That was with Evert, at a building firm he owned in Sundsvall. Most of the work involved doing up his own properties. I’ve worked for him ever since. For the past year at the farm where he lives.’

  ‘So what did my brother say, then?’ Johansson said. ‘The first time you met him, I mean.’ Stupid question, he thought.

  ‘I can still remember,’ Max said with a smile. ‘More or less exactly, in fact. He said that if I didn’t stop fucking about and start behaving like a normal, sensible person, he’d personally see to it that all I wanted would be to get back to that fucking children’s home over in fucking Russia among all the fucking bastard Russians.’

  ‘Sounds like Evert,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Evert’s not a man you fuck with.’ Max smiled meaningfully. ‘And he’s also the best person I’ve ever met. He speaks very well of you, by the way, boss.’

  ‘For the same reason that he always speaks well of you, Max,’ Johansson said seriously. ‘Bo?’ he added, nodding at his best friend. ‘Anything else you’ve been wondering?’

  ‘Your mother, Max. What’s happened to her?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Max said. And shrugged his shoulders. ‘She died seven years ago. Cancer of the liver. It’s funny, really, because I was sixteen at the time, but I can hardly remember what she looked like. Same with Dad, but I was only four when he left, and hardly ever met him.’

  Must have felt like a release for you, Johansson thought. ‘Bo,’ Johansson said. ‘That little blonde waitress over there, the one you’ve been staring at for the past five minutes . . .’

  ‘What about her?’ Jarnebring said.

  ‘Get her over here so I can have a glass of red wine to go with my meatballs,’ Johansson said.

  ‘There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about, boss,’ Max said a couple of hours later, once they’d dropped Jarnebring off and were heading back to Södermalm.

  ‘I’m listening,’ Johansson said.

  ‘This business with the police, me applying to join the police, I mean. Is that very likely, really? That they’d accept someone like me?’

  ‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘But, if it’s any consolation to you, you won’t be missing out on anything.’

  ‘Just as I thought,’ Max said, with a nod.

  When they got home Johansson lay on his sofa and fell asleep as good as instantly. He woke up to find Max gently touching his arm.

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Your wife rang, boss,’ Max said. ‘She wanted to know how you were, and asked if it was okay for her and her friend to spend the night in the country.’

  ‘What did you say, then?’

  ‘That everything was fine.’ Max smiled. ‘That you were fine, boss. That everyone was fine.’

  ‘Good,’ Johansson said.

  Then he must have dozed off again. Without dreams this time, and he only woke up when it was getting light outside the windows of his room. His head ached; he had forgotten to take his pills. He went out to the bathroom and rinsed his face with cold water. He took a few extra pills, just to be on the safe side. Then he went to bed and fell asleep again.

  71

  Sunday, 8 August

  Sunday was a bad day, and it wasn’t made any better by his suspicion that this was not unrelated to the previous day’s long lunch. The only good thing about it was that Pia wasn’t expected back until the afternoon, so he had time to sort himself out. He called her on her mobile. Not because he missed her but to assuage his guilty conscience. She sounded happy. There had been more mushrooms than she had expected, and it made sense to make the most of the opportunity.

  The tightness in his chest was making it noticeably harder to breathe properly, and his headache refused to budge. At first, he sought refuge in routine. He took his pills, had a shower and a shave. Then he went into the kitchen to get his breakfast. Max came in while he was at it. He had trouble concealing his concern as he cast a surreptitious glance at Johansson.

  ‘How are you, boss?’ he asked.

  ‘Could be better,’ Johansson said. ‘But it’ll be fine. How about you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Max said. ‘Nothing to worry about. If you sit down, boss, I’ll sort out some grub.’

  Then Max took over as Johansson took the easiest way out. He went into the bathroom and swallowed another little white pill, then an extra headache pill, the strong sort, before going to lie down on the sofa in his study and letting Max bring his food in to him on a tray.

  Johansson drank coffee, mineral water, freshly squeezed orange juice and a large glass of yoghurt. Then his headache eased and his chest, heart and lungs relaxed, making it easier to breathe.

  ‘How are you feeling, boss?’ Max asked, as he stood in Johansson’s study, gesturing towards the tray containing the remnants of his meal.

  ‘Stop fussing, Max,’ Johansson grunted. ‘Give me that book over there instead.’ He pointed. ‘The thin one with the blue cover.

  ‘German,’ Max said. ‘You read German, boss?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘But I was much older than you when I learned to speak German.’

  ‘I can barely speak Russian any more,’ Max said with a gentle smile.

  ‘I’ve got it in Swedish, too, if you’re interested. Der Richter und sein Henker. Or The Judge and His Hangman. Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the man who wrote it, was from Switzerland, an artist as well as a writer. Died twenty years ago. An excellent writer and a fine artist,’ Johansson said, who liked to know where he stood with the people in his life, even those he hadn’t met.

  ‘I don’t read a lot of books,’ Max said. ‘I spend most of my time on my computer.’

  ‘Reading’s rarely wrong,’ Johansson said. ‘If a book’s bad, you usually find out pretty quickly, and then you just chuck it in the bin. If it’s good, it can give you something to think about, and if it’s really good then reading it can even make you a better person. I’ve read this one several times.’

  ‘I think I get it,’ Max said. ‘The Judge and His Hangman. What it’s about, I mean. Let me know if you want me to do anything, boss.’

  ‘Like what?’ Johansson asked.

  ‘That fucking paedo,’ Max said. ‘That Nilsson, the one who killed that little girl.’

  ‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘I was thinking of dealing with him myself.’ So you’ve worked that out, then, he thought.

  Max said nothing, just shrugged his shoulders. Then he picked up the tray with his left hand, nodded and disappeared, silently, in spite of his size. He shut the door behind him, leaving Johans
son alone with his thoughts.

  No, Johansson thought as he put the book down an hour later. Not even if I was on my deathbed. No headache now, just tired, and then he fell asleep. Wonder what happened to him in that children’s home? he thought before he dozed off.

  When he woke up Pia was at his side.

  ‘I was starting to get worried,’ she said. ‘Do you have any idea how long you’ve been asleep?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. Have to go to the toilet, he thought. The pressure on his bladder was extreme, even for a real man.

  ‘Would you like any lunch, three hours late?’ Pia asked, and began to get up.

  ‘I’ve got to go to the toilet,’ Johansson said. ‘Sit down. There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

  No questions. She just nodded and sat back down. Wise woman, doing as I say for once, Johansson thought.

  ‘I’m listening,’ Pia said when he came back.

  ‘I’ve found him,’ Johansson said, and for some reason he nodded towards the boxes of papers on the floor of his study.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘He’s alive, and I don’t think he’s exactly been tormented by guilt about what he did to Yasmine.’

  ‘Dear God, that’s terrible. Incomprehensible. What sort of person could do something like that and then live with himself afterwards?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘It’s not a very edifying story.’

  ‘Does anyone else know?’

  ‘I’ve told Bo,’ Johansson said. And the world’s strongest children’s-home boy has worked it out for himself, Johansson thought. Maybe Matilda, too, he thought. Plus, all the former colleagues who would get there, sooner or later, once they realized that the perpetrator was hidden in their old boxes, lying there in his burrow while the dogs sniffed round above his head.

  ‘What are you going to do now, then?’

  ‘I don’t actually know, which is why I’m asking my beloved wife for advice,’ Johansson said with a weak smile. Why did I say that? he thought. To smooth it over, make what was unbearable possible to live with?