‘Kvisten’s going to show them. Trying to pin a murder on a bloke when he’s as innocent as a bride!’
From the castle a hundred or so metres away comes the sound of a band playing a march. It’s the changing of the guards. The lane is empty apart from a messenger boy hurtling round the corner to Lilla Nygatan. Once I’ve spoken to a few of the girls I might make my way up to Tjärhovsplan so I can rule out Doctor Jensen from this story. On the way I could stop off to see my old confirmation priest August Gabrielsson in Katarina and have myself a cup of church coffee, unless he’s busy with the service. He used to be a seaman’s chaplain, and he’s the only one of the black coats you can actually talk to. Sometimes I read about him in the newspapers, because he’s outspoken about the Nazi threat, but it’s been a good while since I saw him in person. On the way home I might also look into the boutique on Kungsgatan to ask if Sonja is a regular customer. What was the name of it again? I get out my wallet from my pocket.
An emaciated mutt comes up and carefully sniffs at me. I squat down, let him feel the warmth of my hand and scratch him behind his ear.
From Stora Nygatan, the tall man in the bowler hat appears. Maybe he’s drummed up a bit of courage in one of the licensed premises further down among the lanes. His iron-shod boots clatter against the cobblestones. The dog pricks up its ears and turns about.
I look around and put my wallet in my pocket. I don’t know what it is that makes me stop. Maybe it’s the lanky man’s determined gait. Maybe it’s the slight but clear limp on his left leg. A good boxer knows to duck well before the punch comes in.
We’re less than ten metres from each other when our eyes meet. He smiles as if he’s caught sight of an old friend. His coat-tails flap like a burial shroud when he parts them. The pistol has a long, black barrel. The hilt is made of a light-coloured wood. He gives a full-throated bellow as he picks up speed, raising his pistol without closing his eye.
I throw myself into the doorway at the same time as a shot hits the wall next to me. A cloud of ochre-coloured cement flies around me like a swarm of angry wasps. The bullet removes a piece of the façade.
I’m running. Far ahead of me I see the dark waves of Riddarfjärden splashing against the abutments of the train line out in the water. Another two shots ring out. The echo chases me down the narrow lane.
I go around the book printer’s on the corner and turn into Lilla Nygatan, slip and hit my knee hard against the pavement, swear loudly and get back up on my feet. I just have time to skip across the path of an oncoming truck and gain a moment’s respite. Its signal blares out, hoarse as a fog horn in my ears. My heart jumps between the walls of my chest. My pumping lungs are freezing themselves solid in the cold December air.
Behind me, the steps thump irregularly but too fast for my liking. I turn off down Kåkbrinken. The sound of our racing steps echoes between the houses. A sharp, smacking noise, as when the old women work over the laundry with clubs down by the jetties in spring.
The man is starting to gain on me. I give in to the cough, it tears and tugs at me, makes me stoop with pain at the same time as I keep stumbling on. Viscous strings of slime are rising from my chest.
The steps behind me halt. This means he’s taking aim. I throw myself around the corner into Munkbrogatan at the same time as the fourth shot is fired.
Twenty or so metres on, the cobbled lane opens into Mälaretorget. Here, the market stalls stand side by side, enveloped in a light fog rising up from the water. The more elaborate ones have grey canvas roofs, whereas the cheaper ones are nothing but a couple of planks resting on a pair of up-ended apple crates. The market madams sit on split herring barrels filled with straw. The stalls offer semi-soft winter potatoes and turnips packed in sod, big jugs of country cream and piles of round crispbreads. Old blokes from the archipelago, their hands shimmering with fish scales, stand behind mounds of perch, zander and pike, and eels slithering in zinc-plated buckets. On the edges the down-and-outs are loitering: the ones who have spread blankets with boot straps and ribbons, the dextrous shoeshines, the knife sharpeners with portable whetstones, and along with them, the pick-pockets blowing on their hands to keep their fingers warm.
‘Out of the way!’ I shove past a butcher’s apprentice, who has half a pig on his shoulders, and dive headlong into the busy square, one hand on my hat. An express train passes, whistling shrilly, towards Central Station, on the connecting track a distance out over the water.
My pursuer doesn’t give up. I slip just as another shot goes off. The bullet smacks through the ribs of a wooden cage, takes the head off a cockerel and hits a young girl wearing an apron and a knitted orange hat like an upside-down flower pot. With a surprised look, the girl wraps her arms around her stomach, curtsies, and collapses. She gives a heavy sigh.
‘What was that?’ someone screams.
I jump over the girl just as her green eyes are going out. I turn a corner into the old Meat Market. Here everything stops.
It’s Advent. Between the block known as Icarus and the southernmost of the market halls, the merchants have framed the square with booths decked with spruce cuttings. Ladies with mittens are braiding goats out of straw, there’s a wealth of tapestries with embroidered quotes from the Bible, also dip-candles and carved Santa Clauses. A cul-de-sac. I curse the Redeemer.
I back up against the house wall and try to stop panting and get my lungs into order. I look up at the gravel pit of planks and reinforcement rods known as Slussen. Up on the Katarina lift, through the haze, I can make out the neon sign with the Stomatol tube. I close my eyes, inhale what feels like an ice block, and listen. I’ve had to trust in my hearing many times when I was on the ropes, when the swelling around my eyes was such that I couldn’t even orient myself, or when I was blinded by blood or sweat.
At first I only hear the screams from the market square and the cries for the police and the sound of my bolting heart. A high-pitched whining is ringing in my ears. I exhale and hold my breath again. I hear the swishing sound of yet another train approaching, and a lot of footsteps.
‘Look alive, Kvisten.’ My whisper is hoarse but it calms me. The noise of the train is just starting to build as I think I can make out the sound of a pair of boots moving with an irregular rhythm, just like the sound of the pistons of the locomotive.
I lunge from behind the corner, exhale through my nose and throw out my fist. The man in the bowler hat runs right into it.
There’s no bodily sensation that can measure up to a straight right, the sort of punch that connects with your opponent when your arm is almost completely straightened, your hip turned in the same direction, and the heel facing almost directly away from the body.
The pain vibrates and shoots back into my shoulder. The distinctive sound of bone and gristle giving way is even louder than the express train, rushing past no more than thirty or so metres away from us.
The man drops his bowler and sits on his arse with his upper body leaning forwards and his military boots far apart, showing the gleaming metal fittings on his heels. It looks as if someone threw a sticky clump of red kelp in his face. Thick strings of blood dangle over his hands, which are fumbling over his thighs towards the Mauser pistol that has ended up between his legs.
Flummoxed, I back away with my hand on my aching shoulder. No one’s actually meant to be conscious after a punch of that quality. He looks up at me. There’s something wrong with one eye. His face looks like something you might find hanging at a butcher’s stall behind us in the market hall, and as for his nose, there’s really no sign of it.
Through the blood, with a strangled, gurgling sound, he hisses: ‘Scheisse.’
Because the German bastard finds his pistol between his legs at the same time, I don’t stop to hear if he has something to add. I turn and run across the empty market square. A couple of the stalls have been overturned, a jug of milk has been spilled. I see the girl. She is lying where she fell, her blood forming a pattern between the cobblestones.
<
br /> I peer over my shoulder before going any further into the little lanes of Old Town. The German swine is tottering about on unsteady legs, with the pistol in his right hand. A police whistle pierces the air.
By the time I’m a few more blocks away, a couple of sharp cracks of gunfire roll through the narrow passages.
Only after dusk has completely fallen do I make my way home via detours and back streets. It’s snowing. The snowflakes are collecting in small, neat drifts on window ledges and the brims of men’s hats. The city is buzzing with gossip. At newsstands, spontaneous groups of curious people gather around newspaper vendors and police booths. Where one person says that the desperado was mowed down by the police, another claims that he hijacked a car and managed to get away. Another rumour maintains that the perpetrator swam away under the connecting railway line. Most people agreed that he must be a Jew or possibly a gypsy. One boy who says he was on the scene has given an opinion that the perpetrator’s appearance precisely matches the description of the Carriage Man, who caused mayhem in the city a few years back.
It’s almost six by the time I walk into Ström’s miscellaneous goods store. The junkshop owner appears behind a pile of rolled-up rag rugs. He’s a sizeable old bloke, near on sixty, with a tangled blond beard shot through with quite a few grey hairs. Today he’s got a pair of rough trousers on, and a collarless linen shirt. In one hand he’s holding a little globe and, in the other, a pair of skiing boots. Loose talk on Roslagsgatan has postulated that although there’s never been a seaman in Sailor-Beda’s life, it was in fact Ström who fathered the simpleton, Petrus. The old man puts the ski boots on a shelf of empty jam jars.
‘I’ve closed.’
‘I’ll be quick.’
‘Have you heard what’s happened?’
‘In the market?’
‘No, at the laundry!’
‘Is the King visiting?’ I massage my aching shoulder.
‘No, Count Hamilton!’
‘At the marketplace, then?’
‘Terrible story. Fourteen years old.’
‘I heard she was sixteen.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘A naval-issue leather holster. For a Husqvarna.’
‘I have one of those somewhere.’
‘I sold it to you.’
Old man Ström runs his hand over his beard and mutters something before he disappears among his treasures. I stand looking out over Roslagsgatan, scratching my crotch and thinking about the vermin nesting in there.
It’s snowing plentifully. The number 6 tram ploughs through the darkness in a glittering cloud of snow crystals. Not far from the junction between Ingemarsgatan and Roslagsgatan, a shining white two-door Cadillac is parked. The Good Templar, Wetterström, who lives two flights of stairs above me, has stopped for a moment to peer in through the side window of the car. He cups his hands around his face to get a better view. A woman with a shawl over her head and shoulders hurries from the general store, carrying a basket of carrots, rolled-up newspapers and milk bottles with screw-top lids.
I would bet good money on Sonja being able to place the German swine on Kungsgatan at the time of the murder.
‘I think the bastard followed me to Old Town to find Sonja. What a prize swine.’
When I look back on the last few days he makes the odd appearance here and there in my memory.
‘What luck that she had time to move from the hostel. Who knows what might have happened otherwise?’
‘What are you standing here muttering about?’
I jump at the sound of Ström’s voice. ‘Nothing.’
‘Two seventy I want for that.’
‘You only gave me ninety öre for it.’
The holster has the national coat of arms pressed into the leather. I count out the money. I have one krona forty öre left in the kitty, and thirty kronor between my best china plates at home in the kitchen, and not a cent in the bank. I have to talk to Wernersson to see whether he has any more bicycles that need picking up.
I look about and hurry across the road. If the police haven’t already arrested the pistol-wielding lunatic in the bowler hat I want to get out my own shooting iron as quick as possible from my wardrobe.
Cheap Bengt, the itinerant knife sharpener, cycles past on an old Nordstjerna with a pack of sandwiches tied to his handlebars. He’s wearing a brimmed hat and a pair of thick woollen socks in his clogs. He waves cheerfully, I nod back tiredly.
As I reach the other side I almost drop to my knees in a furious coughing fit. I don’t know if I caught silicosis in the boiler rooms of the various ships on which I served for some years, or if it’s caused by my consumption of a hundred cigars a week. Every winter I cough myself half to death. My throat feels slimed up, as if I’ve been guzzling fat country milk. Toto’s throat lozenges don’t help, nor camphor drops.
I put one hand on the façade, lean over and spit. My breast is burning. The Good Templar, Wetterström, slows his steps but I wave dismissively at him and straighten up.
‘Nothing to be concerned about. From youthful speed, old men go to seed.’
My throat rattles like a coal chute during unloading.
‘Did you get hold of her?’ Lundin stands in the doorway, kneading himself a venerable quid of snuff.
‘She slipped away this time as well.’
‘Your last clue?’
‘Well.’
‘So maybe we can talk about something else at breakfast tomorrow?’ Lundin stuffs the wad in.
I sigh and put a cigar in my mouth. ‘Tomorrow is tomorrow’s concern.’
‘Did you hear about the murder in Old Town?’
‘Ström mentioned something about it.’
‘Twelve years old.’
‘They’ll catch him.’
‘And this morning there were tonnes of police up in the park.’
‘Oh?’
‘You have a visitor again, my brother.’
‘Who?’
‘Well, not a one-legged whore.’
‘Bowlegged, I told you.’
‘Not a bowlegged whore. This one should even stir the interest of someone like you.’
I remove the cigar from my mouth and stare at him.
With the long, yellow nail of his forefinger he scratches off a flake of creamy white paint from the door frame, and then goes on: ‘Did you see the car parked outside? It’s hers. I think you can earn yourself a decent bit of cash.’
I nod before I turn my back on him. I open and close the fingers of my right hand a few times before I go up the stairs. It’s swollen but nothing seems to be broken. Before I press down the door handle, I take a short breather. The warmth of the flat hits me.
‘I usually like to talk business over a glass of red,’ says a woman’s voice when I step into the hall, ‘but you seem to lack wine glasses.’
The lamp on the desk is the only source of light. It’s directed into the hall, at my face, and I hold up my hand to get a better look at the woman sitting in my armchair with her feet on my desk. Beside her lies a pair of green leather gloves, a similarly green silk scarf and a wide-brimmed hat. She angles down the desk lamp.
‘You have to excuse me but I have a new pair of shoes and they’re absolutely deadly for my feet.’
By her voice I’d say she’s a big-time smoker. She lets me admire her long legs before decoratively sweeping them off the table. Her silk stockings are so thin that, in the lamplight, you can see her red toenails through them and a couple of bruises on top of her feet. She fires off a smile with her crimson-red lips, then bends down and straps on her shoes.
There’s a wide gap between her front teeth. Although she’s probably a good deal older than me, a thick layer of powder makes it more or less impossible to be precise about her age. Her eyes are chestnut brown, and she keeps her eyebrows severely plucked under the permed waves of her shoulder-length ash-blonde hair. Something about her features reminds me of someone I’ve seen before.
Remembering tha
t I have a hole in one of my socks, I keep my shoes on. I lean my shoulder against the ceramic stove, cross my legs, light a cigar and watch the performance. She’s dropped her brown fur coat on the floor in front of the desk. It lies on the cork mat like a run-over pedigree dog in the gutter. As she fluffs up her hair with her hands, showing me the pink pearls in her ears that match both her necklace and the brooch on her modestly swelling bust, I note that she’s too bony for my taste, while undeniably giving off a strong scent of class, style and oodles of dough.
‘Certainly I have wine glasses. You can’t have had a very good look in the cupboard.’
I give a thought to my money, hidden between the plates. There’s not a lot left, and though my total assets are obviously just small beer for this lady, you can never be sure. Some people steal because they need to, and some do it out of sheer boredom.
‘Then you must fetch some at once! You see, I had lunch at Cecil where my husband’s a regular at table three, even though he never goes out, and I had a glass of St Emilion and I told Hugo I absolutely must take home a bottle of it.’
The Oriental carpet absorbs the sound of her heels when she circles the table and parks her backend on the desk. She takes a cigarette from a case and inserts it into a long black cigarette holder embossed with narrow streaks of gold.
‘Hugo?’ I let her wait, the cigarette unlit in front of her.
‘The waiter at Cecil. Haven’t you been to Cecil?’
‘It’s been a while.’ I’m familiar with the restaurant on Biblioteksgatan, but my current financial situation probably wouldn’t even allow for a visit to their bathroom.
‘Then you should go there again soon.’
She waves her cigarette as if trying to point me in the right direction. I nod at a box of matches beside her on the desk. She purses her mouth. Outside, two of the alley cats are slugging it out.
‘I’ll absolutely do that.’ I point at the kitchen. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a glass, I’ve had a tough day at work.’
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