The Andalucian Friend: A Novel

by Alexander Soderberg

“And Ask? What the hell was Anders Ask doing in all this?”

  Tommy left another dramatic pause before he replied.

  “I asked Gunilla when I saw him at Trasten. She said he had been helping with some surveillance work. Said she didn’t want to overburden the force.”

  Gunnarsson looked up.

  “She said that, overburden the force?”

  Tommy nodded.

  “So why did he kill himself, then, Ask?” Gunnarsson asked.

  “Why does anyone kill themselves? I don’t know, but he’s not the first officer to take the shortcut. You know about his past. No one wanted to work with him, or even have anything to do with him after the debacle with the Security Police. He was tainted, used up, alone.… I’d guess he was just pretty damn tired of it all.”

  Tommy saw a quick nod from the man opposite. “Pretty damn tired” was a phenomenon that Gunnarsson was well acquainted with.

  Gunnarsson took a deep breath.

  “Don’t you think there are an unusual number of question marks surrounding this whole business, Tommy?”

  Tommy let a few moments pass.

  “Well, yes …”

  His answer stretched no further than that. The sound of traffic could be heard from somewhere below. They were sitting in Police Headquarters on Kungsholmen. Björn Gunnarsson filled his pipe again and sighed out of habit.

  “How do we proceed?”

  “There’s not so much we can do. It’s a tragedy, Björn. The work of a madman, a madman by the name of Lars Vinge. End of story. As far as Gunilla’s Guzman investigation is concerned, we’ll continue with what we’ve got. The same with Trasten.”

  Gunnarsson had his matches ready, and said gruffly as the pipe tapped against his teeth: “We’ve probably only got ourselves to blame for part of this tragic business. Gunilla wanted to work without supervision, and we allowed that. We allowed her to fail. And if she for her part could have just dropped the clever-girl routine and asked us for help when she realized she wasn’t getting anywhere, then maybe the situation would be very different today.”

  Tommy read his boss. Somewhere in there Gunnarsson was terrified. Terrified he was going to have to take responsibility for this chaos. Just as Tommy had hoped.

  “I’ll take care of it, Björn. I’ll make sure it all gets sorted out.”

  Gunnarsson lit his pipe again, took several deep puffs, the smoke was almost blue. He looked at Tommy carefully as he let the nicotine do its work on his tongue and cheeks.

  “Gunilla and Erik were close friends of ours, Tommy. They had a good reputation. I want their memory to stay that way.”

  Tommy nodded.

  Epilogue

  AUGUST

  She moved Albert from the front seat and down into the wheelchair. She knew he hated that. There were so many aspects of daily life that he found humiliating. But he was brave, never showed that he was weak or despairing. Sometimes it scared her, she was worried he was bottling up his grief.

  But the glint in his eyes was there, she’d seen it when he woke up in the hospital two weeks before. That had dispelled all her anxiety, it was her Albert waking up, it was her Albert asking questions, who got angry when he realized what his life was going to be like from now on, who after two days started crying, and after four started joking with her for the first time. Then it was her turn to grieve. After that came his questions. She told him everything, from the day she first met Hector in the hospital, about Gunilla and her threats, right up to the point when she fled to Spain. He listened and did his best to understand.

  Tom and Yvonne were being a nuisance. They stood by the car door, wanting to be helpful. They were in the way, and she asked them to go and wait inside.

  Sunday dinner, there they were again, Jane and Jesus, Tom and Mom, Albert and her. Yvonne was happy and upbeat, Tom the same. Rat, the dog, was barking, Jane and Jesus were silent and kept to themselves. The terrace doors were open, the table set in the loveliest way, and the warm evening caressed the dining room—everything was as it should be … almost.

  She looked around the table at her nearest and dearest. Albert was reading texts on his cell phone in his lap, Yvonne was nodding eagerly at something Jesus had just said. And Tom was smiling at her. And then Jane—Jane, who without any questions had shown such immense strength and stability. She had just rolled into action. She did that whenever anything serious happened. Then she switched from being a dizzy gadfly to calmness personified, taking charge where other people lost their grip or the plot. Jane was a rock, and hardly anyone knew.

  She looked at Albert again. His phone buzzed, he read a text and replied with his thumb.

  And then she looked at herself for the first time in ages. She saw a flame somewhere, a shimmering light that she recognized. The flame didn’t burn, it wasn’t blinding, it just lay there soft and warm inside her, rocking gently within a feeling that told her something about herself that she had forgotten. A feeling that said she could step away from her fear, away from her self-imposed isolation, that she was bigger than she had dared to see. That she didn’t need to understand the fear in order to get rid of it; she could just walk away from it quietly, leave it behind, say good-bye. It didn’t happen after a chain of thought where she put words to something. It was crystal clear. She was changing, shedding the skin of her personality. The change had happened gradually. She realized that she had stopped fighting against it. Everything was changing, it was always changing, everywhere throughout the universe, day and night alike, for all eternity. The change that no one and nothing could shield themselves from, not even her. She felt angry, warm, intense, empty, and determined all at the same time. And it felt completely natural.

  Sophie turned to Albert, who met her gaze, and gave her a wide, heartfelt smile. She wondered why, until she realized that she herself was smiling.

  They drove home at dusk. Even though it was still warm, it felt like a different season, a season when the darkness came earlier. A season when the green leaves of the trees hung heavily on thin branches, a time just before the visible change, when the leaves could no longer hold on, just before they lost their grip.

  They parked outside the house and repeated the procedure, out of the car, down into the wheelchair, up the ramp to the front door. He wanted to do it all himself. He could move freely at home, where all barriers had been removed and a lift had been installed on the stairs.

  Sophie locked the doors all around the house with the extra locks that she’d had fitted, and activated the alarm in the rooms they weren’t going to be in.

  When Albert had fallen asleep, Aron called. He told her what was going on in the world around them, asked questions, and kept her informed. She listened and spoke to him, reasoning and trying to find the best solutions to his queries. She asked if there was any change with Hector, but there wasn’t. He was lying there connected to machines that were keeping him alive.

  She made tea. Drank it alone, cursing herself. She would always do that, the guilt would never leave her. She wished Jens had been there. But he had vanished, gone. She had gotten a text. Something along the lines of: I’m forced to go away for a while. Forced … she thought. I’m forced as well. Everyone is forced.

  And amid all of this, she took care of Albert and kept looking over her shoulder. That was what her life looked like.

  She woke up eight hours later and ate breakfast out on the veranda. It was pouring rain. She was sitting in the cover of the balcony above, drinking her tea and listening to the water falling from the sky. Sophie heard the sound of tires on gravel on the other side of the house, footsteps approaching. When she heard the front doorbell ring she got up and leaned out from the end of the veranda.

  “I’m back here!”

  Around the corner came a woman of her own age, possibly a few years younger. She was fairly tall, had dark hair, and was wearing high boots and tight jeans. Trinkets rather than classic jewelry, Sophie had time to note as the woman jogged around toward her to get out of th
e rain.

  “Ugh!” the woman said as she came up the steps to the veranda, brushing the rain off her clothes with her hand.

  “Goodness! Antonia Miller, detective inspector,” she said, holding out her wet hand.

  “Sophie Brinkmann,” Sophie said.

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  “No, come and sit down, I was just having breakfast.”

  Sophie and Antonia sat on the veranda; Sophie offered tea, Antonia accepted the offer.

  “You have a nice house,” she said.

  The woman seemed to mean what she said.

  “Thanks,” Sophie said. “We’re happy here.”

  Sophie could see Antonia wondering who “we” was.

  “I live here with my son, I’ve been a widow for many years now.”

  Antonia nodded.

  “I understand. I’m not married myself, I live in a two-room apartment in the city … it faces south. Every morning this summer I’ve woken up asking myself why I live in a sauna.”

  Antonia reached for a slice of bread from the little bread basket, took a bite, looking at the flowers and trees.

  “I could certainly live like this.”

  Sophie was waiting, and Antonia noticed.

  “Sorry … I’m in charge of an investigation, a murder inquiry. A triple-murder in Vasastan, at the Trasten restaurant, I’m sure you’ve read about it?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “It’s a real mess.… I’m slowly feeling my way forward.… That’s pretty much what the job’s like, feeling my way the whole time.”

  Antonia drank a sip of tea, then put the cup down.

  “And as you’ve probably also read, there was another murder, a meeting between two police officers that ended in tragedy.”

  The rain was still falling beyond the terrace.

  “Yes, I’m aware of it, and my name’s cropped up somewhere, and now you’re here to ask some questions.”

  “Yes,” Antonia said.

  “I’m afraid there’s not much I can tell you. But I’ll try to help you as much as I can.”

  Antonia took a little notebook from her jacket pocket and turned to a fresh page. There was something uncomplicated about Antonia Miller. She was easygoing and had honest eyes. Sophie liked her, and that scared her.

  “Apparently Gunilla Strandberg’s investigation hadn’t gotten anywhere. She left very little material about the case … but among that material your name did crop up.”

  Antonia looked at her, then she asked: “How did you come into contact with each other?”

  “She came to see me at the hospital where I work, Danderyd. She told me she was investigating a Hector Guzman. He was on my ward, he had a broken leg after being hit by a car. That was at the end of May, beginning of June.…”

  Antonia listened.

  “Gunilla asked me some questions about him, but that was all.”

  “Did you know Hector?”

  “I got to know him a bit while he was in the hospital. That sometimes happens with patients, you develop a relationship with them. We’re always being told that we’re not supposed to … but that’s easier said than done.”

  Antonia was taking notes in her book.

  “Then what?”

  “She called me a few times, asked questions I didn’t have any answers to. Hector was discharged, he invited me to lunch.” Sophie leaned forward and drank some of her tea.

  “He invited you to lunch?”

  Sophie nodded. “Yes …”

  Antonia was thinking.

  “What was he like?”

  Sophie kept her eyes on Antonia.

  “I don’t know, pleasant, well mannered … almost charming.”

  Antonia was taking notes.

  “Leif Rydbäck?” she said suddenly without looking up.

  “Sorry?”

  “Leif Arne Rydbäck, does that name mean anything to you?”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “No, who’s he?”

  Antonia looked at Sophie, wrote something in her pad.

  “We found three murdered men at Trasten, but also a fourth when we searched the place, he had died earlier. I’ve only recently had his identity confirmed, Leif Rydbäck.”

  “I see.… No, I’ve never heard the name before,” Sophie said.

  “Lars Vinge?”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “No, I’ve never heard that name either, who’s that?”

  Antonia didn’t answer immediately.

  “Lars Vinge was the policeman who murdered Gunilla Strandberg, even if his name hasn’t been officially released yet.”

  Antonia went on asking questions. There were a lot of them—small, thin, and harmless. Antonia Miller didn’t know anything, she had nothing to go on. She didn’t know who had been working on the case. She had no knowledge of Hector, no knowledge of anything, really.… But she wanted to know, wanted to be able to build up a picture. Sophie could hear it in her voice, see it in her slightly forced unobtrusive manner.

  Sophie shook her head to all of Antonia’s questions, totally ignorant, just like the innocent nurse that she was.

  They were interrupted when Albert came rolling out onto the veranda. The suntanned boy in the wheelchair threw Detective Inspector Miller off balance slightly.

  “Hello! My name’s Antonia,” she said rather too cheerily, standing up and shaking Albert’s hand.

  “Albert,” Albert said.

  Sophie put her arm around him.

  “This is my son, he’s got one more week of his summer vacation left. I’ve told him it’s time to start getting back into a proper routine, but you don’t really care about that, do you?”

  And with that, she kissed him on the head.

  About the Author

  Alexander Söderberg has worked as a screenwriter for Swedish television and lives in the countryside in the south of Sweden with his wife and children. The Andalucian Friend is his first novel.