Black Lies, Red Blood

Forty-five

There was no doubt that Anders Brant was clearly the most interesting passenger on the flight from Madrid to Stockholm. His head was bandaged. He was also walking with a cane. The pain in his legs and hips, which had not bothered him much to start with, had gotten worse. The whole right side from the hip on down was basically one big bruise. Despite the doctor’s assurances that he would recover completely, he was worried about his future ability to move.

Even so, it gradually occurred to him what incredible luck he’d had. He ached all over and one ear was sewn on, but he was alive.

The Salvador-Madrid leg passed in a daze. Before departure he took two of the pain pills he got when he was discharged from the hospital and then had a cognac on the plane. The effect was quick and tangible. The flight attendant had to wake him when the plane landed. He had dreamed about Vanessa: turbulent confrontations, filled with shouting and tears, hatred and ill will.

Anders Brant staggered around the airport in Madrid, so captured by his dreamed experiences that he felt sick. He had presence of mind enough however to make his way to the right gate and sink down in an uncomfortable plastic chair. He was sweating profusely. His head ached and the pain in his hip was getting worse and worse as the pain reliever wore off.

This is my punishment, he repeated his mantra from his sickbed. That he would be punished was a given. He had not only betrayed Vanessa but also his own convictions. The experience with Monica in the shabby hotel room was a death blow to his whole outlook on life. He had deprived her of a piece of her human dignity, he was a whoremonger, a john.

The nausea made him lean back and swallow. He breathed in deeply, tried to focus on details in the terminal-a little crack in the dirty panorama windows, a vending machine with soft drinks, and scattered passengers walking past.

“Forgive me,” he mumbled, and hated himself even more for being such a sorry sight. How could she forgive him? Idiot, he thought.

He stood up but immediately sank back in the chair, dizzy and terrified that perhaps he would not be able to take care of himself. Would he even be able to write the articles on Brazil he had promised? Would he ever be able to write about…?

“Lay off,” he mumbled.

Would he be able to look Ann in the eyes and explain what had happened? Or would it be best if he gave her up too, without pathetic attempts at explanations?

I have to start over, he thought, and tried to logically construct a prelude to normalcy and everyday life, to the person he had been before. But soon he began to worry that he was in the wrong place, at the wrong gate, maybe even in the wrong terminal.

He stared at the information board above the gate, but Stockholm had not come up yet. There was less than two hours until departure. Maybe the gate had been changed? Helplessly he sat and stared stupidly ahead of him, remembering the man who had lived in an airport for years. That felt like an attractive alternative, floating, vegetating without purpose or goal, in a departure hall.

He closed his eyes, rocked his upper body a little back and forth in a hypnotic swaying, a trick he had used before to reset himself and try to regain control over his thoughts.

When he opened his eyes a short, skinny man was standing in front of him. His furrowed face expressed unveiled curiosity.

“I hardly recognized you,” said the man. “But isn’t it Anders?”

Anders Brant did not recognize him, but something in his voice sounded familiar, a harsh tone that made Brant think of the endless Sunday dinners of childhood.

“And who are you?”

The man grinned.

“You don’t recognize me?”

Brant took a deep breath.

“Did you get beat up?”

Anders Brant felt his anger growing.

“Maybe you’ve lost your memory?”

The man let out a dry laugh, looking around as if searching for an audience.

“Go to hell, you fucking nobody,” said Brant.

The man was startled.

“You curious little piece of shit,” Brant continued, and immediately started laughing.

It was not so much the man’s astonished face that made him burst out in uncontrolled laughter, but rather the liberating feeling of being able to say something in Swedish, and above all to tell someone off.

He got up from the chair, took his cane and shoulder bag with his computer, and limped away.

“You think you’re so fucking remarkable, huh?” the man shouted after him.

Without looking around Brant raised his cane.

“But all you write are lies!”

Brant stopped and looked over his shoulder. The man was gesturing and his mouth was moving, but Brant didn’t care about the words. It was as if he had left something behind on the spot he had left.

“Lies!” the man shouted again.

Brant nodded and went on. He needed a restroom.

“A pretty solid hit,” Sammy noted when Anders Brant told him about the accident. “Do you still have a headache?”

He had met the journalist in the arrival hall, introduced himself, and explained that the Uppsala police had a number of questions. If I get coffee right away, Anders Brant had said, and they sat down at a coffee bar.

Brant did not answer but instead stared without seeing at the people streaming past. He was actually not surprised to be met by the police, but felt too tired to answer questions, much less argue.

“A number of things have happened-”

“I know,” said Brant. “But I don’t get what this has to do with me.”

“Bosse Gränsberg,” said Sammy Nilsson. “You saw him the day before he was murdered, and I think you know why he was murdered.”

“What does Ann say?”

“About what?”

Brant shook his head.

“I met Bosse to interview him, that’s all,” said Brant.

He told how he and Bo Gränsberg ran into each other by chance and exchanged a few words about old times, bandy and so on, but pretty soon got on to the homeless situation in Uppsala.

“I’m writing a book about the homeless in several countries, and Bosse was simply an informant.”

“Do you see any motive for the murder? Did Gränsberg say anything about feeling threatened?”

“No, the only thing I can imagine is the ‘Russian papers,’ as Bosse called them.”

“The Russian papers?”

“He claimed he had come across valuable documents about Russia.”

“Tell me more!”

“I don’t know that much, he was very secretive. He tried to sell the papers to me.”

“Sell? What would you do with them?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“And you said?”

“No, thanks.”

Sammy Nilsson looked at him pensively. Brant wanted to get home as soon as possible, the headache had come back with full force, but he understood there were more questions.

It was Sammy Nilsson who unexpectedly got up from the table.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said. “You don’t have any other baggage?”

“I’m guessing you know where I live.”

“I know how you live,” said Sammy Nilsson, taking off.

It took a few moments before Anders Brant understood what he meant, and he quickly caught up with the policeman, who had now made it to the exit.

“What do you mean? Have you been in my apartment?”

Sammy Nilsson nodded, but without slowing down.

“I’ll explain,” he said, pointing to the black BMW parked in a space reserved for taxis.

“That’s a break-in, damn it!”

Sammy Nilsson stopped short.

“Listen up now,” he said. “If you had talked with Ann, been a little more upfront with her, then that wouldn’t have been necessary. So stop the shouting. Do you want a ride or not?”

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

“No, thanks,” said Anders Brant at last. “I’ll take a taxi.”

He saw the vacillation in the policeman’s face.

“Then I’m compelled to take you with me anyway,” said Sammy Nilsson.

“You’re a senseless character,” said Brant. “First a little small talk and coffee, then you bring out the coercive measures.”

“You were actually suspected of complicity to homicide.”

“And now?”

“Stop talking nonsense, damn it!”

Anders Brant smiled for the first time in several days. Most recently was when the Assis family visited him for the last time in the hospital. He opened the back door, threw in his bag, and made himself comfortable in the back seat.

It was not until they passed the exit to Knivsta that Sammy Nilsson broke the silence.

“You played bandy with Gränsberg, is that right?”

“Why do you ask about things you already know?”

“And Jeremias Kumlin. He’s dead too, struck down in his garage. Did you know about that?”

“What the hell are you saying?”

Anders Brant leaned forward. Sammy Nilsson turned his head and their eyes met for a moment.

Sammy Nilsson briefly told how they had found Kumlin’s body in the garage.

“What the hell is this?” Anders Brant exclaimed.

“We’re wondering that too. What were you doing at Ingegerd Melander’s place?”

“Who’s that?”

“We found your fingerprints in her bathroom.”

“Is that Bosse’s lady friend?”

Sammy Nilsson nodded and gave him a quick look in the rearview mirror.

“I was there, but I didn’t remember her name. Bosse took me there. We were going to talk, I was going to record a little, Bosse and a few others in his gang. You can listen to it if you want.”

“Okay,” said Sammy Nilsson. “Tell me about the documents Bosse wanted to sell to you.”

“Like I said, I don’t know what they were about. Bosse was really desperate and thought he was sitting on a gold mine, but I had a hard time believing that. It would never occur to me to throw away fifty thousand on something without knowing what it was. Besides, I don’t have that kind of money. And I don’t buy information, which I explained to him.”

“Did he show you any samples?”

“No, he waved a few papers, that was all. I took it as a little confused talk. He was going to start a company and needed money.”

“We know about that,” said Sammy Nilsson. “Where did the papers come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“He never mentioned Jeremias Kumlin?”

“No.”

Sammy Nilsson stopped his questions. They came out on the plain south of Uppsala and the city’s thorny profile emerged, with the cathedral, the castle, and the chimneys of the heating plant as the most prominent landmarks.

When Anders Brant saw the industrial area on the south edge of the city, he was reminded of Bosse Gränsberg, his desperation, how he had burst into tears in the trailer. I betrayed him, he thought, but dismissed the self-reproach. He could not have acted any other way. Or could he have?

“What kind of condition are you in?” the policeman interrupted Brant’s thoughts.

“Pretty good now,” he answered.

He told about the accident in a little more detail and could not keep from mentioning that he had visited a jail in Salvador and about his impressions.

“What were you doing there?”

“Giving false testimony,” Anders Brant answered.

He saw the policeman’s wry smile in the rearview mirror, and found himself liking him more and more.

“I’ll drive you home, okay? I’ll wait while you get rid of your baggage, then we’ll go to the police building, so we can get everything on tape. Maybe you want to towel yourself off too?”

“Preferably not in the police building,” said Anders Brant.

“You don’t want to run into Ann?”

Anders Brant did not reply. He did not think the other man had anything to do with it. Ann and his story was their business, but at the same time he was curious about what Ann had said.

“She’s a good woman,” he said at last.

“So treat her like one,” said Sammy Nilsson.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

Anders Brant perceived it as a verbal wrestling match, an exchange of words he did not want to have, that he was not prepared for. What did he know about Sammy Nilsson? Nothing. And regardless of that, he only wanted to go home, lie down in bed, and sleep.

“I’m just about done,” he said. “Can we have this chat tomorrow?”

“We’ve got to do it today,” Sammy Nilsson decided.