The Department of Sensitive Crimes

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Ulf asked Blomquist if Malte was expected. Before Blomquist could answer, Hampus spoke. “I didn’t mean to harm him,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  Blomquist reached down and put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, Hampus,” he said. “You tell that to the court, not us. When the prosecutor asks you what you did, you can tell him that. Explain it.”

  “He hates me,” said Hampus.

  Ulf shook his head. “He doesn’t. He’s just doing his job.”

  “Which is to put me in prison,” muttered Hampus.

  Ulf glanced at Anna.

  “You shouldn’t think like that,” she said. “Nobody hates you, Mr. Johansson. Not even Malte Gustafsson. He told us that he’s forgiven you. He feels bad too.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ulf. “He said that he feels really bad about laughing at you because of your height.”

  Hampus glowered. “There are plenty of people,” he said, “who are shorter than I am.”

  “Of course there are,” said Anna quickly. “What Mr. Varg meant was that Mr. Gustafsson laughed because he thought you looked funny.” She paused. That was not what she had intended to say, and she could see that it was not going down well.

  “He doesn’t look all that funny,” said Blomquist. “There are people who look much funnier than you do, aren’t there, Hampus?”

  Hampus did not answer. But in the silence that followed, they saw that he had begun to cry. Blomquist reacted immediately. Crouching down, he put his arms around the small man. “Don’t cry, Hampus, don’t cry. Nobody’s going to prison.”

  “I think we should get ready for the judge,” said Ulf. “And anyway, here’s the prosecutor.”

  Lars had entered the court from a side door. Wearing his black gown, a couple of files tucked under his arm, he looked every bit the well-organised, dispassionate official. But then he saw Hampus, in tears, being comforted by Blomquist, and for a moment he faltered. Ulf waved to him, and he waved back, but only half-heartedly. Then he sat down, abruptly and too suddenly, as people do when they suddenly feel dispirited—or guilty.

  Blomquist led Hampus to a court official, who was standing nearby. The official indicated the defendant’s place and gave him a glass of water. Hampus drank it immediately, holding the glass with both hands to prevent spillage. His lawyer came in—a small man, too, although not as small as his client. Blomquist, who seemed to know the lawyer, shook his hand firmly and whispered something into his ear. The lawyer nodded, and then placed a reassuring hand on Hampus’s shoulder. Then Hampus was sick, suddenly and uncontrollably. A court official rushed forward, taking a white handkerchief out of his pocket. The judge came in, followed by two lay assessors. They stopped and stood still as they took in the scene before them. Then the judge nodded and indicated they take their places on the dais.

  In the back of the court, Ulf whispered to Anna, “Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

  “He’ll be all right,” she whispered back. “Look at your friend Lars—he’s almost in tears himself.”

  Ulf glanced at Lars, who returned his gaze. Ulf thought: Which forest was it? Which one? The exact spot?

  * * *

  —

  The trial did not take long. Under the Swedish non-adversarial procedure, it was not necessary for the lawyer representing Hampus to say very much—the task of mitigation was taken on by the prosecutor himself and the judge, who asked every question he could possibly think of that would put Hampus in a better light. And so, when Hampus was invited to explain himself to the court, the ground was more than prepared.

  Hampus took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and began to read it. Apart from the sound of his voice, the court was completely silent. Nobody moved, or whispered, or shuffled paper. All eyes were fixed on the small figure, dressed in a sombre grey suit, the size of a child’s outfit and yet bunched at the ankles, for the trouser legs were still too long.

  “I understand what I have done,” began Hampus. “I lost my temper because everything had become too much for me. I very much regret it. I picked on Mr. Gustafsson because he had laughed at me and because there was a person who paid attention to him when I had hoped she would pay attention to me. Nobody has ever loved me. Nobody has ever been anything but embarrassed to be in my company. Nobody has ever called me and asked me to meet them for a drink or for coffee. Laughter—and ridicule—rubs off on others. People don’t realise that, but that is what it does. Those who laugh at me will laugh at those who are with me. That is what they do.

  “I do not say all this to get your pity. I do not want your pity. I say this only because I am so ashamed of what I did and I want to explain that I am not one to go around using a knife on people. That is not who I feel I really am. That is why I must explain.

  “I am now ready to be punished. I deserve punishment. I have not come here to argue about that.

  “I ask Mr. Gustafsson to forgive me for what I did. I do not know whether he can do that, but if he can find it in his heart to do so, I shall be very pleased. I am sorry. I am truly sorry.”

  He sat down.

  The judge looked at the assessors on either side of him—they were mute. One adjusted the necklace she was wearing; the other stared fixedly at the ceiling. Down on the floor of the courtroom, Lars fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt. He half turned and glanced at Ulf.

  Which forest? thought Ulf.

  Then the judge cleared his throat. “Community service,” he announced. “Two hundred hours of community service. That is all I intend to say.”

  The judge arose. His two assessors were momentarily confused, but soon stood up, as did everybody else in the courtroom. Hampus looked at his lawyer for guidance; the lawyer shook his hand and said something to him that nobody else could hear. Hampus nodded.

  * * *

  —

  The brevity of the trial meant that Ulf and Anna had an hour to kill back at the office before the interview with Bim. Both had correspondence to catch up with; both found it hard to concentrate on the task in hand. Eventually Ulf rose from his desk, stretched, and said, “Café.”

  “A very good idea,” said Anna, closing the lid of her laptop with more than necessary firmness.

  From his desk on the other side of the room, Carl looked pointedly at his watch. “Late lunch hour?” he enquired.

  Ulf was unapologetic. “No, coffee break.”

  Erik glanced at Carl. It was not for a clerical assistant (grade 3) to question a detective (grade 7), but since Carl, who was of equal rank to Ulf and Anna, had made the initial comment, he felt that he could join in. “Nice to be able to take a coffee break whenever one wants. Very nice.”

  Ulf smiled at Erik. “You can take one too, Erik.”

  “You know I can’t,” Erik snapped back. “You know that I’m grade 3 and that the clerical division has strict rules about that sort of thing.”

  Anna brought the discussion to an end. “Ulf and I have been in court,” she said. “We skipped our lunch hour, as there’s always a lot of sitting about to do in court. You know that, Carl. So we’re entitled to a break now.” She turned to Ulf. “Come on, Ulf. Our young friend will be arriving in less than an hour.”

  They sat in the window seats of the café—the most sought-after seating, as it allowed people to look out onto the street and observe the comings and goings. At first, neither said anything, as if by tacit agreement they were allowing themselves time to reflect on what had happened in court.

  When Ulf eventually spoke, it was despondently. “It was like crushing a beetle, you know. Just like that.”

  Anna looked thoughtful. “I suppose I see what you mean. Something large and powerful stepping on something small and powerless.”

  “Except...Well, you could say that about any criminal trial, couldn’t you? The defendant is always small and powerless when up against the state. Of co
urse he is. But this was different—this seemed cruel.”

  Anna remembered something. “Did you see his suit? Did you see the legs?”

  “Yes. They were too long for him. They were crumpled around the ankles.”

  Anna looked at Ulf. They noticed the same things—they always had. Was that because they had worked together for so long, and had learned to do the job in the same way? Or was it something to do with a shared fundamental outlook on the world, what the Germans called Weltanschauung? The Germans had a word for everything—a word that could be very focused, very specific, because it could be constructed for a precise set of circumstances. They even had a word, it was said, for the feeling of envy experienced when one sees the tasty dishes ordered by others in a restaurant and it is too late to change one’s own order. Mahlneid, meal envy, she believed that was the word—if it existed at all. People invented German composite nouns as a sort of parlour game, and most of them would never catch on—though some must, sometimes. For every word there was a first user, an ur-speaker; that was how language developed: somebody considered a particular word right for a particular moment, and began to use it. Mahlneid could well catch on because many are bound to have felt that sort of envy as the waiter carries the dishes of others, gorgeously tantalising, past their own table; many might be expected to welcome that particular word.

  She reflected on how she and Ulf saw things in the same way. Whatever the cause of that, she enjoyed it. Unfortunately, she and her husband saw the world quite differently. Of course they agreed on the big things—they both voted the same way and had roughly the same taste in aesthetic matters—but, when it came to what they actually took note of, there was a yawning gulf between them. Jo failed to notice the body language of others. He failed to notice what they were wearing, and what that said about them. There was so much, she felt, that simply passed him by. By contrast, she and Ulf dwelt on the minutiae. Ulf could see a frayed shoelace in somebody’s shoe and spin from that an entire theory as to who that person was, what motivated him, what he did for a living, and even more. She found that she could do much the same, and as a result they could sit together in one another’s company, saying very little but observing the world about them in all its fascinating detail. Then they would turn to one another and laugh, because they both would have noticed some absurdity and each knew that the other would have seen it too and found it amusing.

  Anna did not like to compare Jo and Ulf, mainly because the comparison always seemed to favour Ulf. Jo was a modest man—she thought most anaesthetists were, simply because they are attracted by the thought of quietly sitting in the operating theatre and not having to talk to their patients. Anaesthetists did not feel the need to talk very much, being happy with their gases and their valves and the bleeping of their machinery; they were diffident people by and large, unlike the loud and boastful surgeons whom they served. And yet, perhaps not surprisingly, Anna found the company of anaesthetists tended to put her to sleep, as had happened more than once when Jo had brought his hospital colleagues round for dinner. She had done her best on these occasions but had nonetheless found herself nodding off by the time it came to the cheese course.

  Of course there were people who must have an even bigger challenge—Erik’s wife, Birghitta Nykvist, came to mind. She and Erik had been married for over thirty years; she had been a bus driver who had met him when they were both on a trip to Stockholm—she in the driver’s seat of the bus in which he was a passenger. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Erik said. “So I made sure that I did the return trip when she was on duty. By the time we got back to Malmö, I had made up my mind.”

  This touching story had been narrated at an office party—one to which spouses and partners had been invited. Birghitta had been there, beaming as Erik related the tale of their meeting. “I had noticed him too,” she said. “I knew that he wanted to ask me out. You can always tell.”

  Anna wondered what they talked about. Did Birghitta like fishing? Erik had once mentioned that she knew a lot about fish, but Anna thought that was probably osmotic knowledge—after thirty years of bombardment with fish lore, some must seep into the mind. Osmotic knowledge does not require an act of conscious acquisition; perhaps she switched off, as long-term spouses tend to do. They have heard everything their husband or wife has to say—they have heard it many times—and so they simply allow it to wash over them. It was a little bit like that with her and Jo, she realised; and blushed at the thought. She had never imagined that she would be in that position—in a marriage where everything that is to be said has already been said, and all that lay ahead would be more of the same, year after year, until the release of dotage or death. The prospect appalled her. It was not what she had signed up for.

  Yet surely it would be better, she decided, than the loneliness that must be the lot of somebody like Ulf. She had often thought of that, and pondered whether Ulf would ever do anything about it. It was some years, now, since Letta had left him, and Ulf had had plenty of time to recover from the loss. Losing your spouse when you did not want to lose her—and that had been the case with Letta’s departure with that somewhat creepy man (at least she thought he was creepy)—was surely much the same thing as losing your spouse to illness or an accident. What did people say about the grief that came from losing a husband or wife? Did they not say that the deepest grief ran its course within eighteen months and that thereafter one started to recover?

  It would have been easy for Ulf to find somebody. Anna was convinced that no matter what progress had been made in bringing about equality of the sexes, there remained areas in which the playing fields had not yet been levelled—and, she feared, never would. One of these was the prospect of marriage, or remarriage, beyond a certain age. In spite of everything that had been done to make life equal for men and women, in this respect it was not: no man—and Anna thought that one really could say no man—was unable to find somebody if he set his mind to it, no matter how unprepossessing he was. But women? Could one say the same thing about women? She knew a number of eminently deserving women who would have loved to find a husband but who did not seem able to do so because there were simply not enough men available. Demographic decline—and bad male behaviour—was responsible for that. Men evaded commitment; they were not interested in women; they drank, or fought, or ended up in prison for long periods. And as a final act of irresponsibility, men died, leaving women to fend for themselves and to look, so often in vain, for a man—any man—from the dwindling pool of males. Oh, the sheer waste, the sheer injustice—Anna felt a real sense of resentment over it. And she could not imagine a solution, other than for women to assert that they did not care, that they would be sufficient unto themselves. But the problem with that was that although there were many strong women who were happy without men, there were still many who would have it otherwise, who wanted to find a man and clung to the idea that there would be a man for them one day if only they were patient enough. These were the women who lived their lives under a growing shadow of disappointment.

  She had no doubt that Ulf could find a woman friend if he started to look for one. He could go online. That was how people did it these days—they went online and found people who shared their desire to meet somebody. It was simple, and apparently very successful; except, perhaps, in those cases where it was complicated and an utter failure. But whatever the odds, Ulf would have been well placed, as he was a good-looking man with a steady job and a comfortable flat. His dog might not be so much of an asset, but there was no rule that one had to declare a dog on the first date. That could be revealed later, when the relationship was strong enough to allow for disclosure of dogs, or even children. So might somebody reveal only on the fourth date, perhaps, that there were five children at home, the youngest of whom was still an infant. That would test the relationship, of course, but once people have fallen in love, five children is not necessarily grounds for calling the whole thing off.

/>   In spite of his evident eligibility, Ulf had done nothing. Or had he? The possibility occurred to Anna that perhaps she was wrong. Ulf might have a private life that he was keeping, well, private. For her part, she spoke to him freely about Jo and the girls, about the latest school issues and so on, and she assumed that he reciprocated the confidence. But perhaps he did not; perhaps Ulf was seeing somebody but did not care to mention the fact to her. The thought made her feel uncomfortable. It was none of her business, of course, if Ulf chose to have a secret lover, but it hurt her to think that he would not talk about it. And then she realised that what hurt her too was the thought itself of his having somebody else. This was jealousy. It was as simple as that. She did not want Ulf to have somebody else because...because...She could not bring herself to admit, even to herself, the reason for her discomfort, and so she put the matter out of her mind. She would not think along those lines; it was disloyal and dangerous. She would not.

  As Ulf and Anna finished their coffee and crossed the street back to the office, Ulf turned to Anna and said, “You know, sometimes, I hate the job I do. This morning was one of those times.”

  Anna saw the pain in his expression. “The fact that you say that,” she answered quietly, “is proof to my mind that you are exactly the right person to be doing this job.”

  Chapter Eight

  HE REPAIRED THE KING’S BICYCLE

  “Me?” Bim had said to her mother. “They want to talk to me?”

  Elvinia gave her an intense look—the sort of look that said, You can speak to me, but you have to tell me the truth. “Darling,” she began, “we all make mistakes from time to time. Sometimes those mistakes are serious ones. But nothing is so serious that it can’t be shared with those closest to you.” That was her. There was nobody else. “You know that, don’t you?”