‘We’ll know in ten minutes.’
John Broncks turned to the interview room where the woman sat.
‘Is it OK if I listen in?’
The butt of the gun smashed right through the brittle window of the door. A hand and an arm reached between the sharp fragments of glass to the lock inside the door. The door banged against the gable as Leo opened it and the wind snatched it from his grip.
A cold hallway. Windless. And no snow.
The power switch stood on the wall under the hat rack. But the ceiling light remained off.
‘Dad? The main fuse.’
A simple kitchen. A sofa, a dining table, two chairs. Crowded, but with room for four. A wood-burning cast iron stove and next to it a birch basket filled with old newspapers, pieces of wood and boxes of matches.
‘Jasper, there was a phone line out there. Find the socket and the phone.’
Two small rooms next to the kitchen, a living room, a bedroom. Jasper searched through cupboards, drawers and small baskets on the floor, while Leo opened the wood-burner’s black iron door, placing strips of newsprint and thin needles at the bottom and filling it with two logs.
A thumping sound came from the hall. His father had found the fuse box and the main fuse. Electricity rushed through the old wires, and the ceiling light came on.
Newsprint flared up, wood chips crackled.
His father handed him a pair of work trousers and a tracksuit he’d found in the hall and sat down at the old pine table, moved the dish of mummified autumn pears and replaced it with a packet of thin cigarette papers and the last of his tobacco. Two rolls left, no more. And he usually smoked twenty a day. He needed it now more than ever, if he wasn’t going to open the things that stood on the tile shelf between the stove and sink. Four bottles. Swedish vodka and Canadian whisky, a bottle of wine from South Africa and another one from Greece, something sweet and brown that he’d drunk before.
‘Leo, you need to take your boots off. Dry them before we go any further.’
‘We had ninety minutes. Total. We can only spend half that here.’
‘You have time to dry them. You’ll freeze otherwise! Gangrene. Then they have to amputate, I saw it when I lived … there. It starts with your toes, then your fucking foot turns black and begins to rot and then … death spreads upwards if you don’t cut it off, Leo.’
He did as his father said, untied both boots and placed them in the middle of the black cast iron stove top that was getting hot, then changed into the two pairs of trousers from the hallway, both too short and too tight.
Ivan put his shoes on each side of Leo’s, lit a newly rolled cigarette, inhaled deeply and let out a swirling, meandering cloud of smoke while he grabbed one of the still unopened bottles …
‘Dad, fucking hell! Do you think that’s a good idea?’
… and handed it to Leo.
‘Vodka. Take a sip, it’s good for you, it gets the blood flowing.’
Leo drank straight from the bottle and knew his dad was watching him the whole time. He’d done that the whole evening, and it had felt strange, as if he were being judged, as if he were a kid and an adult was assessing him, approving.
‘What the hell are you up to?’ asked Leo.
‘Nothing.’
‘Bullshit, you’re looking at me like that!’
‘How?’
‘Like that.’
Ivan looked away, past his son, so as not to disturb him.
‘Leo, we … you … might need to reconsider.’
‘Reconsider?’
‘Sometimes you just have to accept things.’
He’d just finished drinking and screwed on the cap. Now he twisted it off again and put the bottle down on the table between the tobacco and his father’s trembling hands.
‘What the hell are you talking about? I never give up! That’s you, Dad! What exactly do you want to do? Is that why you wanted to come to this fucking cabin! Drink then, damn it! Drink!’
Jasper was in the doorway with a telephone under his arm.
‘I found it,’ he said, interrupting. ‘It was on a shelf in the bathroom. And the socket’s in the corner by the radio.’
The boots on the stove were not completely dry, but they were drier. The bottle stood in front of his dad, open until coarse and shaking hands chose to screw the cap shut.
While Leo went into the living room, to the telephone socket.
Broncks was in the interview room listening to the woman with a blanket over her shoulders struggle to answer each new question. After just a few minutes it was clear that she wasn’t confused, she was pretending to be. And she wasn’t doing it particularly well.
‘I have a couple of questions,’ he said. ‘What do you say, can I jump in?’
His younger colleague shrugged and Broncks assumed that meant do what you want, I want to go home and eat some Christmas ham. He sat down on the only empty chair and introduced himself.
‘Broncks, City Police, Stockholm.’
Her hand was cold, thin.
‘Anneli.’
‘I’ve been listening for a while. You say you were on your way to your relatives’, and that you always drive there along this road. Then suddenly they were standing there. Masked robbers in the middle of the road. They wanted your car. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they threatened you?’
They never use unknown getaway cars.
‘Yes.’
‘With weapons?’
They choose them carefully and leave them in position themselves.
‘Yes.’
‘And they wanted you to give them a ride?’
And they would never let a driver this fragile, scared and stressed, be the key to an escape plan. Unless I’ve succeeded. Unless I’ve finally forced Big Brother to the point of desperation, taking risks, making mistakes.
‘Yes.’
John Broncks held her cold and lifeless hand a second time. Then he went out and started searching for a free room. But the police station, which looked small from the outside, seemed even smaller inside. With both temporary interview rooms occupied by witnesses, and the few offices equally busy with conscripted personnel, only the kitchenette was left. Broncks closed the door in order to speak confidentially; while the call was going through, he picked up some leftover crackers from a dish on the Christmas snack table.
He heard those happy songs before his boss put the phone to his mouth.
‘John?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s still Christmas Eve tomorrow.’
‘I’m in Heby.’
‘Do you know how to make a real Christmas mumma, John? A classic Christmas mumma. Do you know?’
‘Three minutes. Closing time. Military weapons. Shots fired.’
‘You take some cold ginger beer and—’
‘That’s what I knew when I headed here.’
‘—two bottles of beer and—’
‘Now I’ve picked up the shot-up cameras, looked at the cartridge cases from military weapons, talked to witnesses.’
‘—a bottle of porter. Then you mix them together.’
‘And – I’ve seen them. On the surveillance tape. The two inside the bank. Big Brother. And the Soldier.’
‘I think you should go home and try it, John. If you don’t know where to go and need a reason to feel part of something, there’s nothing I can do about it. But I can command you to not use your badge.’
Broncks couldn’t remember ever raising his voice to his boss, it wasn’t his way of arguing, just as it wasn’t Karlström’s way. So when he did it, screaming inside this enclosed pantry, they were both taken by surprise.
‘You and I have sat next to each other, watching them on the surveillance tapes from nine other robberies! I’ve lived with them for over a year! I know it’s them! And now, Karlström, they’ve shot at us, the police, for the first time. They’re under pressure, we’re close … and these people, I’ve said it before – they use guns like t
hey’re the tools of their fucking trade – if we get any closer without backup … there’ll be hell to pay!’
He screamed until his throat hurt. His last words were hoarse and strained his vocal cords, he’d forgotten that he could feel like this.
‘Wait a second.’
Broncks heard Karlström put down the phone and cross the carpet to the music, which got louder then died completely. Then he heard him continue up the stairs and into his office, with its view over the bay of Stockholm.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure. It’s them. Armed with automatic weapons that they will use – have used. I don’t want the Heby police and the Sala police running in there. I don’t want to see dead colleagues. I want the national SWAT team.’
It was quiet. That fucking music was gone. Just Karlström breathing.
‘I’ll contact the police chief with your request.’
‘I’ve already done that.’
‘You’ve … already done it?’
‘When I was driving here. Because every minute that passes is the difference between life and death. So they’re on their way. I just wanted you to come to the same conclusion. It doesn’t look good for a detective to take that kind of initiative without his superior’s permission. And I said I had it.’
They’d drunk almost all of Vincent’s Christmas present. A few hellish minutes had stretched into a hellish half-hour.
The robbers, who earlier today opened fire inside a bank in Heby in Western Upland, are still at large.
Vincent was subdued, collapsed on the sofa with two remotes, alternating between television and radio news broadcasts. And Felix paced back and forth between pulled-down blinds in an apartment that seemed to have shrunk, a cell of seven square metres.
During the chase automatic weapons were fired at the police. The SWAT team was called in and has arrived at the scene.
Shots fired at the police. The national SWAT team.
Felix poured, drank the last of the bottle. A cell with no windows. That was how it felt.
There was another bottle. Vincent’s other Christmas present. This time Felix didn’t even pour any for Vincent.
Then the landline rang.
‘Hello.’
His voice. You’re alive. Is everyone alive?
‘Felix, how are you?’
They’re hunting you.
‘I just wanted to talk to you.’
‘Is he with you?’
‘Who?’
‘Ivan.’
‘Yes.’
Someone was moving something in the background. Maybe Ivan. Or Jasper.
‘If it goes to hell, Felix …’
‘They’re already in place.’
‘If it does, I want you and Vincent to disappear.’
‘The SWAT team. They’re in place. They said it on the news.’
‘They’re not.’
‘That’s what they’re saying! The national SWAT team.’
‘It’s not possible. It would take them too long to get here.’
‘Don’t do anything stupid!’
‘I’ll say it again. If it goes to hell, Felix, you leave that apartment. Disappear. Any-fucking-where at all.’
‘Why should we?’
‘You shouldn’t take the heat for something I’ve done.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘I’m not running away.’
Vincent lowered the volume on the radio and the television.
‘Why do you have to be so damned stubborn, Felix! Just for once – do what I fucking tell you to do without arguing!’
‘I don’t rob banks any more. And I’m not running away after some bank robbery either. I’m staying here. We’re staying here.’
Vincent was now standing next to him, leaning towards the narrow gap that separated the telephone from his ear.
‘Do you want to talk to Vincent?’
He hadn’t even finished the question, hadn’t received any response, before Vincent snatched the phone from his hand.
‘Leo?’
‘Yes?’
Their youngest brother stopped short, held the phone tightly to his mouth, trying to say something that had been said to him so many times.
‘Leo … you … we’re going straight through them.’
Five hundred kilometres away.
‘Right, Leo?’
And in the same room.
‘Yes. Straight through, Vincent.’
Behind the door they’d chosen to shut.
‘And Vincent … Felix isn’t listening. So you have to listen. If this ends badly, if it does … then you have to take care of yourselves. Do you understand? You have to finish this in your way. In your own way. Whatever you do, Vincent, you’re doing the right thing. You hear me? Whatever happens … what you do is right, no matter what.’
There was a small plastic Christmas tree on the table.
He hadn’t seen it before. Felix must have bought it.
His brother didn’t even like Christmas.
‘Leo?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I should have been there.’
‘No, little brother … you shouldn’t.’
Broncks stood in front of the wall with the giant map on it. A large cross in black ink marked the place where a car – which he now knew had been rented in the name of Anneli Eriksson and had been transporting fake Christmas presents – lay in the ditch. The fleeing robbers had made their way from there on foot through a vast wooded area covered by half a metre of snow – he guessed at a speed of three, possibly four kilometres per hour, no faster. He looked at the clock, counted, and drew a circle with the cross at its centre, six-kilometre radius. A search area that hadn’t become too big. And, with reinforcements in place, it would soon be narrowed.
‘I’m going in again,’ he said to Rydén. ‘And when I’m done, contact the prosecutor. She should be arrested and taken into custody. I don’t know how she’s involved – but she is involved.’
He went into the interview room, to the woman who was still pretending to be confused.
‘Anneli?’
She was looking down at the table, the floor.
‘Anneli, look at me when I’m talking to you. I want you to tell me everything you know. If you don’t, this could end very badly.’
‘What do you mean, “everything”?’
‘Everything you know. About the people in that car. The ones who robbed a bank. I want to know what their names are. If you can communicate with them. How they’re armed. I think that’s important. If you ever want to see them again.’
She looked at him for the first time for real, without that dissembling gaze.
‘Anneli … how are they armed?’
Not long, but long enough. She knew what he was talking about. She knew what the men running around in that forest were capable of.
‘In order to protect them, we have to know what we’re up against.’
And she was scared.
‘Do you understand, Anneli? We have to know. If we’re going to take them alive.’
‘Put on your shoes.’
‘Leo, damn it …’
‘Shut up, Pappa! We have a head start, and we’re going to keep it! Jasper – water, food, take whatever the hell you can find!’
‘But the SWAT team … Leo, son, listen to me, you have to—’
‘No, you listen to me! No bastard will ever get close to me again! Nobody!’
The storm and wind had died down. Weak light from the stars above the trees. It would be a quiet night. And their trail would be easier to follow. But it would also make it easier to move forward – out of the reach of those hunting them.
Leo was pulling on his boots, jacket, bulletproof vest and grabbing his gun when he noticed something. Not clearly, more like a glimpse of something that you become aware of without understanding it.
Except back then, when all this started, he’d been the one using darkness as cover. Now othe
rs lay in the dark watching him.
First, to the left of the kitchen window, it seemed as if a shadow had come alive and was moving beside a tree. Then, to the right, as it moved to the next tree, a shadow with a half-blackened face. And finally, when he lay down on the floor and crawled to the window to get a better look, there were multiple shadows carrying weapons similar to his own, moving in a wide arc around the house. And if he really was seeing all this – events that seemed so strangely familiar – it felt in some way as if it was all taking place at the same time.
‘They’re here!’
He turned to Ivan who was sitting in an armchair in the living room, and Jasper who was searching the kitchen cupboards for anything edible he could pack into the weapons case.
‘They’re already here!’
Ivan sat there as if he were paralysed, leaning back in the chair, while Jasper ran first to the window to see what Leo had already seen, then to the jacket hanging over the armrest of the sofa. He carried it to the kitchen and took a hand grenade from one of its pockets, placing it on the table. Then another. And another.
‘This group, what we’ve done – it’s not going to end like this,’ urged Jasper. ‘We aren’t going to end it like this.’
Three grenades. Beside them he laid out the bag that held the magazines, evenly spacing them out in a new line.
‘Jasper, you’re fucking crazy – grenades?’
‘Grenades, Leo! Tomorrow, when we’re on the front page, it will be with our hoods pulled down! They won’t fucking be able to point to us and say, “So that’s what they look like.” Tell me what to do, Leo. I’ll do anything you want. You know that – anything! We can’t die like failed robbers or end up in a fucking cell in some fucking prison! Then there’ll be no group left!’
He cocked his weapon, aiming into the night, ready to shoot the shadows.
‘For fuck’s sake, calm down,’ said Ivan, standing and walking over to the lined-up arsenal. ‘If you want to die, you’ll manage it tonight, I can guarantee it. But you’re not the only one in here, you fucking idiot! So stop waving your gun around!’
‘Jasper. That’s my name! Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, you’re damn good at it, you always have been. You can even hit people in the face. But you can’t fucking keep track of your equipment! It’s your fault we’re here!’
The Father: Made in Sweden Part I Page 50
