Slugger

by Martin Holmén

  PRAISE FOR

  THE STOCKHOLM TRILOGY

  ‘Sin City meets Raymond Chandler in this atmospheric and compulsive series’

  Attitude

  ‘A brilliant new talent’

  Sunday Times Crime Club

  ‘A dark, atmospheric, powerful thriller, the best debut novel I’ve read in years’

  Lynda La Plante

  ‘Holmén has Raymond Chandler’s rare ability to evoke a character in a few deft strokes’

  Mail on Sunday, best crime reads of 2016

  ‘Ferociously noir… If Chandler and Hammett had truly walked on the wild side, it would read like Clinch’

  Val McDermid

  ‘Gritty, stylish Scandinavian noir from one of Sweden’s hottest emerging authors’

  Booklover

  ‘Atmospheric Scandi retro, but Chandleresque to its core’

  Sunday Times Crime Club

  ‘Well-crafted noir that doesn’t pull its punches, hitting you in the guts with stark surprises’

  Thriller Books Journal

  ‘A gritty, stylish debut from a Swedish history teacher and in Kvist he has created a brutal anti-hero quite unlike any seen in crime fiction before’

  Express

  ‘Harry Kvist with a magnificent comeback’

  TQR Stories

  ‘The plot is excellent, the filth and every punch palpable’

  Strange Alliances

  ‘If you’re looking for a new addiction, try [Clinch]… it’s a tough thriller that packs a punch’

  Daily Star Sunday

  ‘A real tour de force… a fascinating race through 1930s Stockholm’

  Kate Rhodes

  ‘Punches you in the face like one of Kvist’s knockout blows. Definitely not for the faint-hearted’

  Crime Scene

  ‘A remarkable novel that works well at many levels’

  Thriller Books Journal

  ‘A fabulously classy twist on pulp fiction: it’ll be a top-notch summer book for readers looking for something diverting but smart, as long as they don’t mind a little blood and bonking’

  Elle Thinks

  ‘This is noir writing at its best and you won’t want to give this book a miss if you are a fan of this genre’

  The Bookbinder’s Daughter

  Born in 1974, Martin Holmén studied history, and now teaches at a Stockholm secondary school. Slugger is the third thriller in The Stockholm Trilogy, after Clinch and Down for the Count.

  For C.-M. Edenborg and Martin Tistedt

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PART ONE

  SATURDAY 18 JULY

  SUNDAY 19 JULY

  MONDAY 20 JULY

  MONDAY 20 JULY

  TUESDAY 21 JULY

  TUESDAY 21 JULY

  PART TWO

  WEDNESDAY 22 JULY

  WEDNESDAY 22 JULY

  THURSDAY 23 JULY

  THURSDAY 23 JULY

  FRIDAY 24 JULY

  FRIDAY 24 JULY

  FRIDAY 24 JULY

  EPILOGUE

  AVAILABLE AND COMING SOON FROM PUSHKIN VERTIGO

  COPYRIGHT

  PART ONE

  SATURDAY 18 JULY

  The wall-lice are thriving in the heat.

  There is a bang on the other side of Mosebacke Square as a man in a gas mask flings a window wide open. The reek of hydrogen cyanide spills out into the high-summer air in bitter coils that skulk around the tree trunks in the park, play in the lilies, chase chaffinches and sparrows in flight. They travel farther on a light easterly breeze towards a uniformed Lindholmian seeking shade under the foliage of a tree, causing him to fan his chubby mug with a bundle of National Socialist flyers.

  The sharp smell prickles in my nostrils as I sit on a big beast of a radio set in the shade of the doorway to house number 9. I light an eight-öre Meteor cigar to clean out my lungs.

  In the flower bed a peacock butterfly is cavorting in the honeysuckle; down at Stadsgård wharf the steam-winches are puffing in the heat. Sweat streams from my forehead, finds channels in the scars on my face and flows down my cheeks.

  With the cigar in the corner of my mouth, I take off my hat and wipe the inside rim with a handkerchief. It’s hell wearing the same hat all year round. If only I had a straw one for the summer I wouldn’t be bathing in sweat the moment I step out the door. The posh blokes in Östermalm flaunt theirs. Wide-brimmed and fashionable. Preferably worn with sunglasses. Well-fed swine.

  I put my hat back on. Walking around without it is unthinkable. The heat melts the pomade in my hair and it’s not fifteen pissing minutes before it looks like someone has poured a jug of melted lard over my head. It is hotter now than back when I used to heave coal in ships’ boiler rooms during my years at sea, and from what I hear it’s going to continue for weeks to come.

  We are not built for this sort of heat in this country. It drives people to madness. Old folk are dropping like flies, and babies too.

  I fiddle lazily with the radio dial, turning through the names of different cities’ medium-wave stations with the stump of my severed little finger. I have painted the town red in Marseilles, Bremen and a few of the other cities many times.

  I have been cursing the weight of this damned radio since lunchtime. I was sent to collect a debt from a blacksmith in Kungsholmen. He had no money. I worked him over with the handle of an axe I found in the yard and took the radio for my trouble.

  ‘Damn, do I have to sell this thing now?’

  My voice echoes in the shade of the empty doorway. I already have a radio. A rather nifty AGA sitting at home in my flat in Sibirien. I look up again and survey the square. A travelling tradesman drives his coarse-limbed mare up the hill on Svartensgatan to the left of the park. The iron-shod hooves strike the paving stones. Lather lines the horse’s shoulders like the foam on a Pilsner. The driver snaps the whip across its hindquarters. A cloud of small flies rises from the animal. Horse and carriage turn right at the elementary school, its windows vacant during the holidays, and disappear down Östgötagatan with a two-metre-long dust tail behind them.

  The Katarina Church clock tower strikes the quarter-hour. The girl was supposed to be home by two. I hope she hasn’t stopped somewhere along the way.

  ‘Five more minutes,’ I mumble to myself.

  Then it’s about damn time for a Pilsner.

  I fish out my pocket watch, lift it up and tap the glass with my fingernail. It has been broken for half an eternity but I’m not giving up on it.

  I loosen my tie a little and run my forefinger along the inside of my shirt collar. I flick the sweat off my hand, take out the photograph from the inner pocket of my jacket and inspect it for the fifth time.

  In the foreground stands the boss himself, squinting into the camera. He is a corpulent fellow in a light summer suit holding a walking cane. His wife stands beside him. She has half a poultry farm on her hat and looks as if her bodice is too tight.

  In the background, off to one side, is the housekeeper Evy Granér. Her gaze is downcast and she stands with her hands clasped at the height of what other men would call her glory. Perhaps that is why she appears as exposed as poverty itself.

  ‘Twenty-five years old as I understand it.’

  The Lindholmian surrenders to the July heat and sinks down onto his backside against the tree trunk. He puts the flyers down and unfastens the leather strap stretching across his belly and chest.

  A woman comes hurrying across the park. I stand up and take one last look at the photograph before putting it back in my pocket.

  It must be her.

  I kill the cigar under the heel of my shoe.

  Miss Granér has left her hat behind, tied a handkerchief around her hair and pinned up her
dress. Twists of newspapers and the tops of various root vegetables stick out of the woven basket in her slender hand. Her movements are light and lithe.

  No one would be able to tell.

  I heave the damn radio onto my shoulder with a sigh. Evy slows down as she catches sight of me and slips into the doorway quietly and slowly like a ferry boat into the dock.

  ‘Miss Granér?’

  She stands as still as a picture. Her bright blue eyes are struck with fear. She smells faintly of female sweat. I wrench the basket from her hand, kick open the door and put the groceries down in the stairwell. My back cricks painfully when I straighten up again.

  ‘You’re late. You had an appointment with Jensen. Two o’clock.’

  ‘But… my dear sir…’

  Her voice trembles like a violin string.

  ‘Your boss has put his foot down. Nothing else to be done.’

  Her eyes tear up. My overworked shoulder joint aches under the weight of the radio. I grab hold of her wrist and pull her out into the heat.

  Evy’s shoes clatter as she stumbles behind me. A few stifled sobs escape her lips. I drag her behind me down Östgötagatan, lined by rental shacks with flaking plaster and beat-up little wooden houses. Sheer curtains billow sleepily from the wide-open windows. Women in aprons can be seen inside, standing at wood stoves like phantoms glistening with sweat. A flock of small birds tweet in an elderflower bush where the blossoms are already withered.

  ‘If he would just listen…’

  ‘Nothing else to be done.’

  Two soot-black police cars drive up Högbergsgatan in the direction of the church farther up the hill. I pull Evy alongside me as we wait for them to pass. I fix my gaze on the furniture workshop on the other side of the road. The pulse in Evy’s wrist is trilling as intensely as the birds in the elderflower bush. She gasps for breath, and I squeeze her tighter.

  ‘Calm down, lass.’

  It would be quicker to take a shortcut via Katarina Church, but I don’t want to risk bumping into Reverend August Gabrielsson. We have known each other for twenty-five years, ever since he was a naval chaplain, but if he saw me now he would no doubt lecture me with chidings and the Word of God. Besides, I still owe the sod a few hundred kronor. He would relieve me of a bundle of dough and give me pangs of conscience to boot.

  The squad cars pass by, sunshine bouncing off the black lacquer. I drag Evy across the street and continue along the cemetery wall down towards Tjärhovsgatan.

  She is crying loudly now, sobbing and sniffling. I push her around the corner just as the Katarina bells hammer out their half-hour strikes. I drive her forward with shoves and slaps. The sun is burning my back, my shirt is sticky and I am puffing like a bellows. Sweat stings my eyes and my throat feels like it’s glued shut. I would kill for a Pilsner, and I have killed before, but beer will have to wait until later, when the job is done.

  We pass the fire station with its square lantern. The pavement merges into a wide gravel ditch bank. A stench emanates from the outhouses in the yards where the shit has fermented. We skirt around a stray mutt sprawled, exhausted, with its tongue hanging out. It is dying of thirst.

  Someone ought to give it a bowl of water.

  A couple of blokes are standing at the end of Södermannagatan chatting. I take a few steps to the left, stop and look up at Katarina through the arched gate in the wall. The golden-yellow, black-domed church sits enthroned on her spot high on the hill. If I recall Gabrielsson’s words correctly, those walls hold 2,000 God-fearing souls on Sundays.

  Emergency lights lash the church façade with red streaks, just like Our Saviour himself, but I see no vehicles from where I am standing. I sniff the air for smoke. The more superstitious folk here in Söder say that Katarina is doomed to burn down twice and that the dome will collapse. That is what people have said ever since the Danish king burned the bodies of his enemies here, during the Stockholm Bloodbath, hundreds of years ago, but from what I know the old dear has only lost her top the once.

  So far.

  Evy turns to look at me and I look straight back. The municipal water carts have stopped sprinkling the streets due to the watering ban. The street dust clings to her wet cheeks, turning them grey. She opens her mouth, begging like a baby for a tit, but I take a few quick steps and push her on before she can say anything. The force makes her jaws snap sharply shut.

  Then finally she gives up. Surrender spreads through her body and soon she lurches limply in front of me in the quivering brilliance of the sunshine, arms dangling loosely, the roadside dirt like a little yellow dust cloud around her worn shoes as she drags them through the gravel. She doesn’t say a word and I am getting closer to that Pilsner.

  Forty-five minutes, an hour at the most.

  Outside the abandoned palace of an elementary school, I haul the radio onto the other shoulder, waving away a stubborn wasp. It flies across the street. On the opposite side of the street is a ramshackle block of flats. The plaster has crumbled to expose a wall that appears to have been repaired with reeds and old rice. The Söder folk have it nice and draughty on a summer day like this. Worse in winter, of course, but they keep each other warm and seem to produce children at a faster rate than death takes them.

  ‘At least that’s something.’

  ‘Pardon, sir?’

  Evy sniffs and stops as if by command. She begins to turn around. I slap her on the shoulder.

  ‘I didn’t say a damn thing. Come on, work those pins.’

  We are nearly fifty minutes late by the time we finally arrive at Jensen’s surgery. It is located diagonally opposite the trade school in the lifeless part of Tjärhovsgatan. The curtains are shut tight in the windows. I was here just last November when I needed to get a nasty knife wound in my side stitched up. My opponent came out worse, may he rest in peace.

  I knock on the door. The sound seems to spread like a jolt through Evy’s body, bringing her back to her senses.

  ‘My little precious.’

  Her voice barely holds. She is about to turn on the waterworks again. What a shitty fucking job. I bang harder on the door. I hear shuffling steps on the other side and the click of a lock. The door swings open and we are met by a sharp whiff of schnapps.

  Evy gasps. The boar of a doctor fills the entire doorway. He removes his round spectacles from his nose and wipes the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

  ‘Ah, Kvist, what time do you call this?’ he says in Danish. ‘You’ll have to wait, I have a little problem with a patient.’

  Jensen coughs and we are engulfed in more alcohol fumes. The doctor is wearing a shirt with a dirty collar and a white doctor’s coat. Like an old field surgeon, he is soiled with blood.

  ‘My little precious,’ Evy repeats.

  The heavy green sofa in Jensen’s sparse waiting room creaks as she rocks back and forth with her hands on her knees. The air is already thick with cigar smoke. I rest my feet on the radio. I might not be able to afford a pair of sunglasses and a summer hat, but I’ll be damned if I don’t maintain the shiniest shoes in the city.

  I take out my handkerchief and try to whip the dust off them. The shoes make the man, and everybody knows one can determine a bloke’s standing in life by looking down at his feet. People who claim anything different are poor devils who shine their shoes with soot and coffee grounds.

  The protracted female moans coming from the doctor’s surgery are interrupted when the Katarina bells announce it is already half past three. Evy looks up and grabs hold of my arm. She is shaking.

  ‘If he would just listen.’

  ‘We’re getting rid of it and the boss is paying well.’

  ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘More than you’ve got.’

  ‘I have money.’

  Evy digs out a shabby little coin purse with a brass clasp. She tries to get it open with trembling fingers. A woman’s shrill scream issues from inside the abortionist’s room. The purse jumps out of her hands and a mass of ör
e coins roll out on the linoleum floor.

  Evy dives to the floor and breaks down again. She sobs as she chases the coins with her arse in the air. Her tears and the coins on the floor are both glinting. My guts feel like they’re tangled together. I think I’ll have a strong dram with my Pilsner later.

  I get up from the sofa and help her. She barely has enough for a meal. I stick my cigar in the corner of my mouth and pull her to her feet. The red-lined purse gapes open like a wide wound in her hand. I drop the coins inside with a jangle. The sofa creaks when I push her back into her seat. I sit down next to her.

  Evy sniffs. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and undoes the top two buttons of her dress. There is plenty to look at if one were so inclined. A blush spreads across her cheeks and she speaks with a tremble in her voice.

  ‘Mr Wirén taught me how the French girls…’

  ‘No need for that.’

  ‘When it’s their time of the month.’

  ‘You might as well do up your buttons.’

  ‘You know…? With… their mouths…?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’

  I am invaded by the strange sense of shame that has recently begun to arise when people degrade themselves so openly before me.

  The sofa creaks even louder when I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. I tap my foot a couple of times against the linoleum floor. It’s muggy as hell in this little room. Sweat is pouring down my body.

  Don’t go soft now, Kvist. You need this pittance.

  I get up, walk over to the window, pull back the curtain and hook it up. Another scream rings out from the surgery. It sounds like Jensen is castrating piglets.

  I close the window and turn around. Evy is pressing the palms of her hands against her ears. She has resumed rocking.

  ‘What will I do?’

  ‘There’s nothing to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You haven’t got the dough for a littl’un.’

  For a moment Evy looks confused. She blows her nose in a handkerchief and folds it up. She struggles to find the words.