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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
THE THIRD AND FINAL THRILLER IN THE STOCKHOLM TRILOGY'Sin City meets Raymond Chandler in this atmospheric and compulsive series' AttitudeIt's summer in Stockholm, and the city is sweltering in the grip of a rare heatwave while fascists and communists beat each other bloody in the streets. Harry Kvist has had enough. It's time for him to leave. But first he has some business to take care of. His old friend and ex-lover, Reverend Gabrielsson, has been murdered, and the police are more interested in anti-Semitic rumours than finding the truth.Kvist investigates the only way he knows how, with his fists, uncovering a Nazi terrorist plot and a cabal of corrupt cops. Before long he finds himself caught in the middle of a turf war between two of the city's most brutal gangs. Can he fight his way out of one last corner and find a way to freedom, or has Kvist finally taken a punch too many?What readers have to say about The Stockholm Trilogy'Harry Kvist is a great character... Swedish noir? Yes, please' - Goodreads reviewer'F**k me. This was amazing' - Goodreads reviewer'A true noir... dark, dirty and bruised' -Goodreads reviewer'A Swedish noir par excellence. Bravo' - Goodreads reviewer
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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
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 öre 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.
‘If only I could afford a ticket to Motala.’
‘What the hell are you going to do there?’
‘My sister is married to a farmer in Bråstorp. He has pigs and cows and is chairman of the dairy cooperative.’
‘A regular lord, then.’
‘Horses too.’
Her voice breaks. She clasps her stomach.
‘It’s crying inside me,’ she screams. ‘I can feel it. It’s crying!’
I grunt and catch a scent in the air. I think it’s the familiar smell of blood. With the cigar in the corner of my mouth, I roll off a few sluggish uppercuts into the air while glaring at the radio set. I should put a sales advertisement in Social-Demokraten next time I let a radio get involved in a private detective gig. If no one goes for it I’ll have to lug the damned thing to Ström the junk dealer.
Evy calms down and catches her breath.
‘Do you have children?’
My mouth fills with tobacco flakes as I near enough bite my cigar in two. I take it out of my mouth and spit on the floor.
‘None of your bloody business.’
‘Please, be honest.’
‘America. A daughter.’
I drag the glob of spit over the linoleum floor with my shoe. The woman inside the surgery has stopped howling. All is quiet.
‘So you know.’
‘Never hear from her.’
A headache grinds deep inside my skull. I scrunch up my eyes and massage the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.
‘You must know.’
The ache is only getting worse. Once, off the coast of Africa, I was drunk during the day and fell asleep on a pile of hawsers in the forepeak. Afterwards you could have peeled my skin off in large strips, and I had a headache for three whole days. I learnt that it’s good to get a few Pilsners under your belt when it’s hot so as not to get dehydrated.
I walk over to the sofa and sit down. I take off my hat and use the brim to fan myself. I haven’t had a chance to properly tame my hair since I got out of Långholmen Prison in November but for once I don’t give a damn. Evy is rubbing her hands together.
‘What’s your daughter’s name?’
‘Ida.’
‘That’s a pretty name. How old?’
I count to myself quietly. It doesn’t take long.
‘Sixteen in a couple of months.’
My head shakes involuntarily. Her number was almost up before her life had barely begun, from sheer poverty, in a clinic similar to this one. Maybe it would have been better that way. My hand is trembling as it brings the cigar to my mouth.
The memories have largely burned to ashes, and I tend to force the rest out of my head with schnapps, but they are flaring up more often these days, and in the most inconvenient of situations – like now.
Evy shakes me out of my thoughts.
‘Why haven’t you written to each other?’
Typical nosy bloody woman. I did send a picture of myself when I wrote a line to America last autumn, but no answer came. The cigar crackles as I consume a whole centimetre of tobacco. I glance at the doctor’s door. I swallow.
I have taken thousands of knocks both in training and in the boxing ring. I have been persecuted and mocked for my relations with men, and have been beaten by the screws at Långholmen Prison. In this shit line of work I have been stabbed, bitten and slashed, and I probably have more stitches than a mainsail.
Still, nothing can hurt a man like remorse.
I pull the elasticated strap off my wallet, flip it open and look inside. Wirén gave me an advance of 450 kronor to pay Jensen. What the hell can that puff-guts do about it? Demand his money back?
I sigh. Frankly, I am starting to feel too weak for work.
I turn to Evy.
‘So what does that bloody ticket to Motala cost?’
I open the door and step headlong into a wall of heat. I stop for a moment to scratch myself.
I hear the faint sounds of traffic coming from Folkungagatan, and crickets that have started their monotonous song. I put down the radio, take my tie out of my trouser pocket, flip up my collar and tie a double Windsor knot.
An elegant gentleman comes sauntering along the pavement with a wide grin plastered across his face. He is wearing a straw hat, pale summer suit and light leather shoes. His beard is fluttering in the dazzling weather. Perhaps he is on his way to amuse himself at the cheap, seedy brothel behind the Navigation School.
The wealthy man gives me a look and crosses the street. I am used to it; they never forget. Some stare at me as if I’m a freak and whisper behind my back; occasionally someone dares to shout abuse at me, others avoid me like the plague.
No big deal.
I walk down Tjärhovsgatan with the radio on my right shoulder. I stop at a crossing and look at the queue of workaday men at the tram stop farther down towards Slussen. They are waiting quietly and soberly in the heat.
With my left hand I fish out my Viking watch. It’s still not working. I could really do with that Pilsner. I calculate how I can make time for both a beer and a measurement at Herzog’s.
I jog over to the other side of the street. The edge of the radio is thumping on the muscle between my shoulder and neck. There’s a beer café called the Stone Angel opposite the rectory that usually serves a tankard that doesn’t taste quite as much like stale sawdust and laundry soap as what some other places offer up.
If I cut through the cemetery I might bump into Gabrielsson and get the chance to tell him about my recent good deed. Maybe it’ll buy me a place at the Lord’s feet. Salvation is probably reserved for those with enough dough to afford good deeds.
‘Whereas the hungry take the cage lift down below,’ I mutter to myself.
I could also finally pay off a portion of my debt to the rector. He has always looked out for me – a good Samaritan when my need was greatest. We met in Buenos Aires a long time ago. I wasn’t much more than a cabin boy. The memory makes me chuckle.
He won’t want a Pilsner. Not so early in the day and with a service to give tomorrow.
I walk back along the ditch bank. The air is thick and hard to breathe. The sun is blazing directly in my face. I tilt the brim of my hat over my eyes and breathe heavily. I swap shoulders.
Fifteen years ago I could skip rope for an hour, do another half-hour on the punchbag, spar twelve rounds and finish off with a hundred push-ups. Not any more. Far from it. My body has given up on me, destroyed by violence and hard labour, all before forty. Every joint has nearly seized up and they creak reluctantly with every step I take. My lungs are clawing me apart from the inside out; sometimes it’s so bad that I think I’ll cough my guts up. This bloody dust will be the death of me.
In the vaulted gate of the cemetery wall, there is a crowd of poor people standing there, mumbling with their heads huddled close together. A slip of a lad in short trousers has a nosebleed and is holding his hand up to his face but none of the adults can be bothered to help him. He is well behaved. I clear my throat; the cluster of people parts like water for Moses and my feet touch consecrated ground.
The pebbles on the path grumble under my feet. I walk a few metres, stop and explore my pockets with my free hand. With some effort, I light my final cigar with the old one. I mash the butt under my heel with a crunching sound.
Several metres along the path a sparrow has fallen victim to a cat. Its grey down moves back and forth gently in the barely perceptible breeze. Along the left row of crosses on the graves walks a hunched figure, pulling up dandelions.
I look up at the church with its mighty dome. The emergency lights have stopped, but to the left of the building a black police car rears its ugly head. Straight ahead of me, in the dim light between the flights of steps up to the church, I see a couple of rows of brass buttons.
My nerves are prickling with unease but I trudge up to the church as calmly as I can. Some drunk has vomited in the green grass by a grave in the night. The flies tear themselves away from the yellow-brown sludge and whirl up in the air as I pass. I take a deep breath through my mouth.
Constables emerge from the shadows, with pallid complexions not unlike those of the whores in the doorways of Norra Smedjegatan. I shield my face with the brim of my hat and turn the corner around the church. I gasp and stop. A torrential stream of sweat runs down my spine and for one second I forget about the weight of the radio on my shoulder.
Two men are standing outside the west entrance. Facing me is a middle-aged copper in full uniform. He is pasty white despite the heat and looks like he has just forced down a piece of bad meat.
The other one is a slim bloke. A holster sits on his belt holding a revolver. He has a broad-brimmed straw hat and grey hair that cuts across his neck with an exemplary sharp edge. He is wearing a Prussian blue suit with a waistcoat. This year’s colour, so I read. His jacket is slung over one arm.
He says something to the uniformed constable, who stiffens and salutes. The pale git nods at me over the other’s shoulder and slouches away towards the verdigris copper door. It slams shut with a bang as the well-dressed man turns around.
I look over the familiar wrinkles, the gold-rimmed glasses and the ridiculous thin moustache. He is wearing a light shirt with iron-grey stripes and a white collar. A blue-headed silver pin sticks through his tie knot, matching his cufflinks and reflecting the colour of his eyes. As always, whenever our paths cross, a malicious grin lights up Detective Chief Inspector Alvar Berglund’s face.
‘Well, shit, if it isn’t the city’s worst slugger visiting the world beyond prison walls. Has Kvist gone and become a radio trader?’
Berglund’s melodic Norrland lilt is audible in his voice. He juts out his chin and rests his hand on the butt of his revolver for a brief moment. I put the radio down by my feet, roll my shoulders and crack my knuckles. I shift my weight and look around. It is so fucking easy to act tough when you’ve got a firearm and the law to back you up.
‘Like hell am I a slugger. Boxing Monthly! magazine called my style elegant and technical.’
‘Long time ago now.’
‘Surely Olsson is still the chief of police? He can vouch for it.’
Berglund is smiling even wider. One minute alone with the bastard and I could squeeze the life out of him. He takes a cigarette from a Carat carton and packs the tobacco down by tapping the end against the box. The back door opens and the pale-faced constable pokes his head out.
‘You’re needed inside, Inspector. They can’t get him free.’
Berglund nods and looks back at me. He shifts his weight to his other leg. The door shuts. Berglund puts the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and pats his pockets. His voice falters as he speaks.
‘I always thought that a poof like Kvist would catch fire if he set foot on consecrated ground. Maybe he’s here for the confirmation candidates?’
The church bells pound out their thunderous song with four chimes, as if the Lord Himself were joining in the conversation. A murder of crows on a tree takes off and darts into the sky.
Hatred sings in my veins. The blood vessel in my forehead is throbbing with rage. I have half a mind to pick up the apparatus between my feet and smash it over his head, see if I can’t tune into the police radio that the coppers have been bragging about so much in the papers lately.
Two, three.
The final strike rings out. I clear my throat and spit.
‘Little boys? Like hell. I’m a good friend of the rector himself.’
‘Of Gabrielsson?’
I knock the ash off my cigar with my forefinger and stare at the spot where his scrawny neck disappears into his well-starched collar. His loose jowls wobble below his chin. Three years ago I managed to wedge a handcuff chain around that neck and if some fucker hadn’t knocked me senseless with a baton, Berglund would have burnt in Gehenna.
I salivate at the memory, and swallow. The inspector takes the cigarette out of his mouth. The official grin fades and his moustache curves downward. Behind the glasses there is a glint in his eyes and Berglund takes on an air of importance again.
‘Well, if that’s the case, by all means, go in. The priest is at the altar but you will have to forgive him if the conversation is somewhat one-sided. He seems to take his vow of confidentiality deadly seriously.’
Berglund laughs drily and puts the unlit cigarette back in the packet. The pebbles crunch under the inspector’s costly summer shoes as he walks to the door. I lift the radio with both hands and follow behind. The headache is back and I need a Pilsner more than anything but it feels urgent that I see Gabrielsson.
Berglund turns to me with one hand on the door. I put the radio down.
I poise the index finger of my left hand against my thumb and flick the glowing tip off the half-smoked cigar. It travels through the air like a firefly. I put the butt in my trouser pocket and follow Berglund through the door.
Katarina wraps me up in her coolness. I breathe out, I breathe in. A familiar scent mixes with Berglund’s Aquavera but I can’t quite place it.
The Detective Chief Inspector goes first and our steps echo against the stone floor. Farther ahead in the church I hear murmuring voices. We turn to the right and emerge behind the altar.
My eyes wander upward, over the immense organ loft with its gilded pipes and the pompous chandeliers in the cross vaults, but then a strange noise brings my gaze plunging down like a shot bird.
First iron clinks against iron, then a shrill sound screeches through the large room. It sounds like a hinge in need of oil.
‘Fucking hell, it’s stuck fast!’
‘Stubborn as a fly on sugar.’
Between the pews, on the aged oak floorboards before the altar, stands a black cluster of motionless men gathered in a semicircle with their backs to me. A couple wear civilian clothes, some are uniformed. To the side, by the font where my daughter Ida was christened, stands an older man dressed in a white coat similar to the one I just saw Jensen wearing.
‘Make sure the brace board is in place.’
‘Is that a seven-inch nail?’
‘You have to work the bastard out. Pull it one way, then the other.’
A murmur moves through the group, metal clinks against metal again and the screeching sound cuts through the grey silence of the church.
Berglund clears his throat.
‘Gentlemen!’
The men stop what they are doing and a dozen heads turn towards us.
‘A good friend of the rector would like to pay a visit.’
My eyes dart down to my shoes as I feel the coppers’ eyes sting my skin. I force myself to look up and plaster a smile on my face. The old cigar butt dissolves into crumbs in my pocket.
‘The day after payday and half the force in church?’
Nobody laughs. One of them swings a huge crowbar onto his shoulder. Berglund’s steps echo on the timber and the black-clad crowd opens up a gap for me. I crane my neck and gasp.
The dark sinkhole of men reveals a pale body. Its naked limbs are lurid against the floorboards. It is angular and knotty from old age, and the skin is stretched taut across the ribs. Its thick white shock of hair is flecked with red like the feathers of a newly beheaded chicken.
I feel as if I’ve been struck with a hefty right hook. A shudder courses through my limbs. I take an involuntary step forward and accidentally bump my shoulder into one of the men. The colours become more vivid, then fade. I shut my eyes tight, then open them again.
Priest Gabrielsson’s face has frozen in a twisted expression with his teeth, yellow with age, showing through his bloodless lips. Someone has driven a substantial rail spike through his skull. Blood and brains have run down into his eye sockets, which now resemble small tar pits. The rector is lying with his arms stretched out, like Jesus Christ, with his bony feet crossed and pierced with iron.
Gabrielsson’s genitals seem to have shrivelled from lack of blood supply and in his grey chest hair the red has coagulated like winter frost on a tuft of grass. On the floor above his head is a vivid Star of David drawn in blood. It is his blood, but it feels as if it were my own.
I sink down into a squat in the quiet semicircle of men and take off my hat. I reach out my hand and run my index finger over a black trickle that has dried into a dark and grainy stain on the wooden floor. Everything he has ever thought, felt and experienced flowed out of him several hours ago. I shut my eyes again. My brain is trying to process it all. Hatred burns in my veins like petrol.
My Husqvarna pistol has been at the pawnshop for some weeks now.
It is time to set it free.
SUNDAY 19 JULY
Lundin the undertaker turns the page of his newspaper with difficulty. His iron hand-prosthesis rattles. The cut-throat razor scratches gently as I drag it at an angle across his sunken cheek. I clean off the soap and white hairs in a bowl of water sitting among the plates on the kitchen table. I stretch out his skin between my thumb and forefinger.
‘Synagogues on Wahrendorffsgatan and St Paulsgatan too. And they threw a flaming torch into the Jewish jail on Klippgatan. People have changed beyond recognition since the priest’s murder.’
His iron hand clinks. The ache in his hand got out of control last Christmas, and the doctor removed it and replaced it with a remarkable construction complete with knuckles and a pair of leather straps to attach it. Obviously it is completely useless and he has refused medical help ever since. He says that otherwise he will end up looking like a total fucking robot.
‘His name is Gabrielsson. Was.’
I sigh. The little kitchen smells of shaving soap, coffee and gas.
‘We have go back to the riots surroundings the abolition of the Jewish laws in 1838 to find anything comparable,’ Lundin reads aloud.
I have to struggle to hold the razor still.
‘And why would they be so fucking stupid as to daub their own symbol at the murder scene?’ I hiss.
Under the table Dixie growls in her sleep. A single fly drones around a plate of lard. The rhythmic sound of a carpet beater in the courtyard comes in through the window. It weaves in with musical notes when the jazz boy a couple of floors up starts abusing his trumpet. People say he has the gift. By which they mean communication with the spirit world rather than musicianship.
‘Gabrielsson was a known anti-Nazi,’ I say. ‘He wrote in to newspapers kicking up a fuss all the time. Now hold still.’
I work the razor around the undertaker’s bushy moustache with small strokes and for a brief moment I manage to get him to shut up, but he’s soon off again.
‘They’re not really like us though, in their thoughts or deeds. And those little caps too. No one knows how they stay in place. There are no two ways about it: they crucified the black-frock just like they crucified Christ once upon a time, you mark my words.’
‘I’m going to call my friend Senior Constable Hessler. He usually knows what’s going on.’
‘And they breed like rabbits, despite cutting off half their penis at birth.’
‘Lundin, go to hell. You’re talking about them as if they were Gypsies or Finns, or downright bums.’
‘At least ten kids per woman and I don’t have a single one.’
‘Jesus Christ was a Jew as far as I remember, and they have the most generous opening hours in the city. Didn’t the tailor just book me in for a measuring? You heard for yourself. Even on a Sunday. What the hell difference does it make how many children they have? Hold still.’
Lundin brushes some crumbs off the table with his good hand. He turns his head and stares out of the window. I snatch the razor’s edge away from his skin so as not to cut him.
‘I don’t give a shit about death. If you’ve got nobody to take over when the day comes, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve scrimped.’ Lundin’s voice is thick and he clears his throat. ‘I had the odd offer through the years, in my youth, but it was never to be. It’s a crying shame.’
I angle his head up towards the light and scrape away some leftover beard hairs from high up on his cheekbone.
‘Do you remember that week last autumn when you assisted me in the funeral parlour? That was pleasant, wasn’t it, brother?’
I glance out into the courtyard. The carpet beating has ended. Tablecloths and sheets billow lazily on the clothes lines in a gentle breeze.
‘When we cut up that bloke so he would fit in the child-size coffin? Delightful memory.’
‘He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster,’ Lundin quotes the Scriptures.
‘Shut up.’
‘You may not be the most logical, brother, but you have always got stuck in when it came down to it.’
‘Hire an assistant. You’ve got that Olympian, your cousin’s kid.’
‘My nephew. Haven’t seen him for years and years. And he was something of a slacker before he discovered his talent for shooting.’
‘I can track him down. That’s my job.’
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’ Lundin stares vacantly ahead. ‘Not long to go before the August building inspection. Nilsson says that his cooker is kaput and I think the Good Templars have broken a windowpane, though they’re trying to hide it.’ He sighs heavily, gathers his strength and continues. ‘And let’s not forget: I would still like to know who stole timber from the attic to use as firewood last winter. Haven’t I always been generous with the heating, damn it?’
‘You sure have.’
I moisten a towel in the water and wipe off the shaving cream. A drop of blood trickles down to the tip of his chin, gleaming like a ruby. Lundin looks at himself in the vanity mirror on the table and laughs without a trace of joy.
‘Not long now.’
I don’t know what to say in response. Instead I pour water into a pot on the hob and feed a gas token into the meter. It soon begins to boil and I fill up the washing-up bowl and place the dishes inside. Lundin takes another snifter from the bottle and sucks his moustache. He mumbles something but the sound is drowned out by the clatter of dishes.
‘What are you muttering about now?’
Lundin is staring out the window.
‘I just said I’m glad that my brother’s back.’ He tucks the schnapps bottle under his arm, and unscrews the lid. ‘It’s not like last winter when you took every act of kindness to be nothing more than an unwelcome interruption to your damned brooding.’
I continue rattling the dishes. Every time last autumn or winter comes up in conversation, I feel a hollowness in my stomach and a sudden wave of nausea. The sensation reminds me of being a child and going hungry for too long.
‘I was completely lost.’
I shake the water from my hands. Lundin cups his hand behind his ears.
‘Pardon?’
‘Just quit your damned blathering.’
I go over to him, lay his arm around my shoulder and pull him up to his feet. Dixie, the half-blind old bitch, wakes up and starts to whimper. I shuffle off with Lundin towards the entrance of the funeral parlour.
With a twinge of bad conscience I stare out across the foyer. A thick layer of dust lies over the desk, the wall mirror and the dead palm leaves, but I can clean another day.
Lundin grumbles as he arranges himself upright in his chair and then turns on the radio. It hisses as he sets the frequency. I check that the chamber pot is in place under the desk.
‘I’ll put your blankets in the cold room so they’ll be cool for tonight.’
‘Just forget about that damned dead priest.’
‘Of course.’
Lundin nods, tired, and puts on his top hat. The radio crackles as he tunes into the news.
‘A telegram received in London around midnight describes the entirety of Spain as a blazing inferno and details a bloody scene of individual acts of violence as well as outright battles.’
I walk over to the wall-mounted telephone and request the police station from the operator girl. The line crackles.
‘Large parts of Malaga are burning. New battles have broken out in La Línea, and from Gibraltar we have heard hammering machine guns and the thunder of artillery all night.’
Lundin fumbles with his top shirt buttons and grunts a few incoherent words. A new operator answers with a vacant tone.
‘Get me the Anti-Smuggling Section, sweetheart. Chief Constable Hessler.’
‘Violent fires rage in Fascist-controlled Seville, bombed by government aircraft during the night,’ the radio continues to rasp.
‘The sergeant has been dismissed with immediate effect.’
I am taken aback by the girl’s monotone voice. I lean closer to the mouthpiece, and a shiver runs down my spine.
‘He’s gone?’
‘Effective immediately. As of yesterday.’
‘Why?’
‘Unfortunately that is not information I am able to give, sir.’
I turn the crank once round and end the conversation. I face Lundin and grope around my pockets for a cigar.
‘In domestic news, this year’s general survey of the so-called vagabond community shows that between fifty and sixty thousand of these vagrants populate our streets during summertime. This is substantially fewer than the more severe years we have seen previously.’
Lundin has spilt snuff all over the desk. He is sleeping with his chin on his chest, dreaming about all the clients he might have had, if only people hadn’t stopped coming. It is months since the last time the doorbell rang. His moustache flutters when he exhales. His face is slack and drooping.
I bite the end off a Meteor and think about Hessler. It was only November when I saw him last, in relation to my client Elin Johansson and a particularly tricky case. He had risen above the cheap snoops and got his own office and desk. Now he has been dismissed. Something doesn’t add up. Since he has a propensity for strong liquor, and often personally confiscated a portion of police seizures of smuggled vodka, I could search for him in the city’s bars, if I could be bothered. He has probably already made a fool of himself in one of the harbour pubs. He’ll be sitting there staring at the sailors and dockers. After all, that’s how we met once upon a time.
I walk over to Lundin, who has jolted out of his sleep. He stares at me like a drunk. I fasten his top two shirt buttons and tie his black tie around his thin neck. He smells of breakfast’s coffee grounds, and vinegar. Occasionally I soak his bedlinen in sabadilla vinegar, strong enough to take your skin off, and powder it with insecticides to combat the lice infestation. The smell reminds me of the poorhouse of my childhood and every time I put him to bed it makes my stomach turn. Still, I endure. With so little time left he doesn’t need more things to complain about.
Once I am finished clothing him, his chin finally falls down to his chest again. Not enough coffee in his post-breakfast schnapps. I take his brass tin, prise out a pinch of snuff and lay it out for him on the edge of the table for later.
After another conversation with Herzog the tailor on Biblioteksgatan, I strike a match, puff life into a cigar and whistle to Dixie. She pricks up her ears, trying to locate the sound. Half-blind, she takes a few shaky steps in the right direction before sitting back down on her rump. She wags her tail listlessly a couple of times. I sigh, wedge the cigar in the corner of my mouth and pick her up. Her little dog heart flutters against my shirt front as I carry her outside to take a piss. I know I really ought to take the bitch to the park and put a bullet in her head. Put an end to her suffering. I can’t do it. Especially not on her birthday. In fact today she is having three porters instead of two.
I heard there are seven dog years to one human year. It sounds like bullshit but it’s the honest truth. I sat there trying to work out the numbers in a notebook for an entire afternoon but never managed to get the figures to add up. For simplicity’s sake we celebrate every seventh week.
The morning is about as hellishly hot as a log burner. I set Dixie down on the pavement and look around. Roslagsgatan is virtually deserted. The number 6 tram groans up from the south, heading towards the turning point up at the customs office. Rickardsson the gangster comes strolling from the north with his thumbs in his waistcoat like he owns the fucking place. My lungs sting from cigar smoke.
