Europa Blues

26

THE TIME HAD come. Chavez couldn’t quite understand why Hjelm was making such a big deal of it. They were in a drab old bachelor pad in Eriksberg, to the south of Stockholm. Their host, serving them coffee, looked like any other old man.

But for Paul Hjelm, it was a momentous occasion. He would probably have felt exactly the same if he were given access to Jan-Olov Hultin’s legendary house down by the waters of Ravalen. Though he had worked under Erik Bruun for considerably longer.

The fact was, he had learned everything he knew from Bruun; nothing to make a fuss about.

But he didn’t recognise him.

It wasn’t exactly a tragic experience, like seeing an old sports star strutting about in a body that looked like it might fall apart at any moment. It was more complicated than that.

Detective Superintendent Erik Bruun had always been a fairly solid-looking man with a greyish-red beard that covered his multiple chins. His most distinguishing feature had been an omnipresent, foul-smelling, black Russian cigar resting between his lips. The health authorities had condemned his office in Huddinge, known as the Bruun Room, on a regular basis. And it was that very fact, that he had incessantly gone against all conceivable rules and regulations, which had prevented such a brilliant policeman from advancing further through the ranks. If Erik Bruun had been National Police Chief during the past few decades, a lot of things would have been a lot better. Paul Hjelm was convinced of that.

But now, he was a shrunken old man with only one chin, no greyish-red beard, no black cigar. He looked much healthier – but also more boring.

And his legendary bachelor pad in Eriksberg looked like any other pensioner’s flat. And this particular pensioner was serving – cinnamon buns.

‘You know, I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ he said, sitting down.

‘Probably,’ said Paul Hjelm.

‘I had to,’ said Erik Bruun. ‘I would’ve died otherwise. The legend would’ve lived on and I would’ve died. I’d rather the legend died and I lived.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Paul Hjelm.

‘Of course,’ said Bruun, leaning forward. ‘Of course you understand it. But you don’t accept it. You can’t accept the fact that I’ve become a plain old pensioner who shuffles around in slippers and serves thawed cinnamon buns with a high mould content. It would’ve been better to keep living on the legend. And the fact is that at this very moment, you’re thinking it’s a shame the heart attack didn’t finish me off.’

‘You’re hardly a plain old pensioner,’ Hjelm argued, taking a bite of a bun. ‘Though the mould content’s high all right.’

‘What is an ordinary pensioner anyway?’ asked Chavez in an attempt to join in on what seemed to be some kind of mutual appreciation society. ‘Is it something like an ordinary immigrant?’

‘Something like that,’ said Erik Bruun with a neutrality that immediately made Chavez understand. Understand Hultin’s roots, understand Hjelm’s roots. It was an enlightening moment. ‘Boys, boys, your boss is a former pensioner. It’s not everyone can say that. When Jan-Olov was a pensioner, we used to play chess in the Kulturhus once a week. Those were the high points of my life. But we never do it any more. I’m lonely in the way that only an old policeman can be. Utterly lonely.’

Hjelm and Chavez glanced at one another and realised that this might well turn out to be hard work.

‘Just don’t forget that I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ Bruun continued with a smirk. ‘Both of you.’

‘You don’t know me,’ Chavez said irritatedly. ‘How can you claim to know what I’m thinking?’

‘Because I know what kind of policemen you both are.’

‘Come off it,’ said Chavez.

‘You thought you were hearing the start of some kind of pensioner’s lament just then, but that’s not the case. I am utterly lonely – but I want to be. It suits me to a tee. I hope I’ll get the opportunity to die utterly alone as well. I want them to find my body after it’s started to stink. I want them to have to fish me out from a sea of maggots.’

The combination of Bruun’s imagery and the amount of mould in the cinnamon buns was worrying.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Hjelm.

‘You know full well. You’re the same, despite the wife and kids and cat and dog.’

‘Parrot,’ said Hjelm.

Chavez laughed, short and abrupt. Like a parrot. He still felt annoyed at the old man. He was a know-it-all, that much was clear.

‘Jorge Chavez,’ said Bruun, glancing wryly at him, ‘you think I’m a know-it-all, don’t you?’

‘True,’ said Chavez, attempting to seem unperturbed.

‘I just think that happiness has become a bit predictable. We know in advance what the concept of “happiness” is meant to involve, and loneliness is right down at the bottom of the list. Behind mental illness and drug addiction. We can understand the mentally ill and the addicted, we’re socially educated humans after all, but we’ll never understand the lonely. Loneliness is an unpleasantness we try to overcome whatever the price. We’ll go through any suffering necessary if it means we can avoid being lonely.’

‘So you want to rehabilitate loneliness?’ Chavez asked sceptically.

‘That’s neither here nor there. Quite simply, we live in a society which is afraid of loneliness and silence. I want to be alone and I want to have silence around me. I know you two in the exact same way I want to know people in general: in detail, but from a distance.’

‘What do you mean? How do you know us?’

‘How do you think we passed the time during those chess games? The way pensioners always do: we recounted old stories.’

‘So you sat there in public, discussing individual police officers’ personalities?’

‘You had code names. You, Jorge, were Soli. And you, Paul, you were Keve.’

‘Keve Hjelm,’ said Paul Hjelm. ‘What an uncrackable code.’

‘Keve Hjelm was the first person to play Martin Beck on film,’ said Erik Bruun, looking up at his former trainee.

‘I’m hardly Martin Beck,’ Hjelm said self-consciously.

‘Not exactly, no,’ Bruun replied cryptically.

‘What about Soli, then?’ asked Chavez. ‘What’s that?’

‘The Mexican composer Carlos Chavez’s most characteristic work.’

‘You seem to have had a right royal time,’ Chavez said sourly. ‘What did you say about me, then? About… Soli?’

‘That’s confidential,’ said Erik Bruun with his head held high. ‘But we mulled over the pair of you so much that I think I can claim to know roughly how you think.’

Without thinking, Paul Hjelm took another bite of his cinnamon bun. He regretted it long afterwards.

‘What do you know about this case, then?’ he asked, feeling the lump of mouldy bun stick to the roof of his mouth. Each attempt to poke it loose with his tongue was in vain.

‘Much too little,’ Bruun said apologetically. ‘Jan-Olov hasn’t really been himself. Do you think he’s getting sick?’

‘Hardly,’ said Hjelm. ‘But he’s brooding about something. And he doesn’t normally brood.’

‘No,’ Erik Bruun agreed, ‘he doesn’t.’

Jorge Chavez had grown tired of their empty chatter. He said: ‘You know about our interest in a man without a nose, at the very least.’

‘Of course,’ said Bruun.

‘Have you searched your memory?’

‘Wasn’t necessary. I remember it all.’

‘How unexpected,’ Chavez said frostily.

Erik Bruun laughed. ‘Soli, Soli,’ he said, as though he was talking to a disobedient but dear grandchild.

‘What do you remember, then?’ Chavez persisted.

‘There was really just one lead worthy of the name,’ Bruun said calmly. ‘It was 1981. The phenomenon of unregistered taxis had only just started to appear. An illegal driver called Olli Peltonen was sitting in a pub, reading the articles on the murder in Aftonbladet and shouting all about how he’d driven that body without a nose. A woman heard him and called the police. By the time we got there, he was gone, but the people from the neighbouring table told us who he was. It turned out that Peltonen had already gone underground as the head of Stockholm’s first illegal taxi ring. We showed his photo everywhere, but he stayed hidden.’

‘Why wasn’t there a word about this in your report?’

‘I put in a reference to the illegal taxi investigation,’ said Bruun. ‘I suppose it got lost when they transferred it all over to the new computer system. Unfortunately, the small print usually goes up in smoke. Especially with cases no one cares about.’

Erik Bruun paused and stared up at the ceiling. Finally a gesture which Hjelm recognised. Then he continued, his face still raised to the ceiling.

‘It was nearly twenty years ago. It’s strange what a memory for faces you develop as a detective. I saw Peltonen in the paper a while back. There was a taxi driver strike up at Arlanda, if you remember it. Quite an interesting event, societally speaking. A group of petty capitalists tied to the syndicalists launching a wildcat strike because the taxi ranks closest to the airport had been reserved for three big companies. Petty syndico-capitalists protesting against big capitalists. Might well be the tune of the future.’

‘And?’ Chavez said, sounding increasingly impatient.

‘One of them was Olli Peltonen. There was a picture of him kicking one of Taxi Stockholm’s cars. There was a name beneath the picture, but it wasn’t Olli Peltonen. Apparently he’s calling himself Henry Blom these days. He runs a little taxi firm with the confidence-inspiring name Hit Cab.’

‘And why didn’t you tell the police?’ asked Chavez.

Erik Bruun leaned forward and fixed his gaze on him.

‘I keep my distance these days,’ he said.

Hjelm could see that Chavez was reaching boiling point. Small smoke signals were rising from his ears. It would have been interesting to be able to interpret them.

‘He’s got one thing left, at least,’ said Hjelm.

‘What’s that?’ Chavez muttered.

‘The ability to rub people up the wrong way.’

Chavez mumbled something which, fortunately, was inaudible.

They were driving towards the Globe Arena. The enormous sphere was already towering up in the distance like a threatening ping-pong ball. ‘The Glob’. The great big lump of snot.

Hjelm was driving. Chavez was sulking next to him.

Soli, Soli, Hjelm thought, trying not to laugh.

They had managed to track down Hit Cab fairly quickly. It was run out of an office right next to the Globe. Hjelm called and Henry Blom had answered in shaky Swedish. Hjelm told him his name was Harrysson and that he was the chief accountant of ClamInvest AB, an organisation which made investments in the shellfish business. Harrysson claimed to be interested in using Hit Cab’s services on a regular basis. He asked whether Henry Blom would be in the office that day. He wouldn’t, but considering the potential size of the agreement, he would be willing to rearrange his schedule. Harrysson thought that sounded like a fantastic idea. He and his assistant (cue a grumpy look from Chavez) would stop by Hit Cab within the hour. Henry Blom gave Harrysson detailed directions and ended the call expectantly.

‘You’re a terrible human being,’ said Chavez.

‘Sometimes,’ said Hjelm.

And so Harrysson, chief accountant of ClamInvest, arrived along with his assistant at the Hit Cab office, right next to the World-Famous Glob.

Henry Blom was a bald man in his fifties who spoke terrible Swedish with a strong Finnish accent. He humbly greeted the two dignitaries, who sat down and were handed coffee by a girl who could hardly have been much out of high school. Henry Blom had already given the two dignitaries a couple of poorly assembled brochures when they suddenly held up their police IDs and said: ‘Olli Peltonen, I believe, the godfather of illegal taxis.’

He stared, fascinated, at the two men, who changed shape before his eyes.

‘I’m afraid we’ve got to destroy Hit Cab’s future,’ said Harrysson Hjelm. ‘Not just because you’ve been wanted for some time now in regard to illegal taxi rings, and not just because you started a business using a false name, but because you’re also employing girls who seem much too young to be employed.’

‘Child labour, that’s what they call it,’ said Assistant Chavez. ‘Really harsh sentences for that.’

‘But,’ Harrysson-also-known-as-Hjelm said, ‘there’s an alternative.’

Henry Blom or Olli Peltonen could sense that everything was about to come crashing down around him. It was clear that he had no escape plan.

‘What alternative?’ he stuttered.

‘You tell us about a man without a nose.’

With that, his mask finally came off. The man blinking profusely at them now was called Olli Peltonen and nothing else. Eventually he nodded, as though he had been gripped by an insight of some kind.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘And if I talk?’

‘We’ll think about that when it happens,’ Chavez answered tryingly. ‘Hopefully things will be looking much better by that point.’

‘What?’ said Peltonen.

‘You tell us, we look the other way.’

‘OK, OK. He was the one who got murdered, right?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Nineteen eighty… what was it… two?’

‘One,’ said Hjelm. ‘September 1981.’

‘I picked him up, that really is true. I remember him pretty well. It was horrible. He looked bloody awful. Weird injury.’

‘Where did you pick him up?’

‘Frihamnen. He must’ve arrived by boat.’

‘How did he get hold of you? You had no taxi sign?’

‘No. Unregistered taxis are taxis without signs.’

‘That’s what they call a euphemism. How did he get hold of you?’

‘I think I must’ve just been driving round down there. That’s how it still works, I think. I don’t know, I don’t have anything to do with that any more. You just ask people who look like they need a ride whether they need a ride.’

‘And when was this?’

‘I don’t remember the date.’

‘He was found on Sunday the sixth of September. It was a headline in the evening papers that Sunday so that must’ve been when you were sitting in the pub, shouting about how you’d driven him somewhere.’

‘Must’ve been the Friday then. Friday the fourth. In the evening. I mostly drove in the evenings, after seven.’

‘What else do you remember about him? How was he dressed? What impression did you have of him? What language was he speaking?’

‘He sat in the back. The only impression I had was that he didn’t have a nose – that pretty much takes the sting out of anything else. All he said was the address I should drive him to. Strong accent, I’m thinking. He was less Swedish than I am.’

‘And where did you drive him?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Come on, Ollipolli. Think.’

‘It’s not child labour anyway,’ Peltonen said suddenly. ‘She’s my granddaughter. She skives off school sometimes, and when she does, she comes to help out here. Rather that than her hanging out with all those drug addicts down in Högdalen.’

‘So it’s some kind of charity work then?’

‘She’s my granddaughter. I love her. You can’t send me down for child labour.’

‘We’re not planning to. Come on. Where did you drive the man without a nose? Where did he tell you he wanted to go?’

‘I need to know you’re not going to send me down. Can’t you write it down or something?’

‘Of course not. Are you guilty of any crimes under the name Henry Blom? Answer honestly and we’ll check later.’

‘No, no. Hit Cab was my way of returning to life. I was hiding for so long it got me down. It was unbearable. And then I realised I could find a new identity. It took time and it was hard work, but it was worth it. I’m honest now. I don’t earn much money and the big companies take most of the work. I protested against it at Arlanda.’

‘When did you change your identity?’

‘Three years ago.’

‘And you didn’t think that the period for prosecution would’ve expired by then?’

Olli Peltonen stared at them furiously.

‘It’s a bit ironic,’ said Chavez. ‘To get away from a crime that was no longer a crime, you committed a more serious one, and it’s the only crime we can send you down for. The fact that you call yourself Henry Blom.’

‘Please… is that true?’

‘Yeah,’ said Hjelm. ‘You were hidden for so long that the law stopped caring about you. But the law doesn’t turn a blind eye to murder. For that, the validity period is very, very long. So help us out now. Then you can be called Henry Blom for the rest of your life and no one will say a thing. You’ve got my word.’

Olli Peltonen was quiet, thinking about the irony of fate. Then he said: ‘South somewhere.’

That was all.

‘Come on,’ said Chavez. ‘You’re a taxi driver. You know every single street in the entire Stockholm area like the back of your hand. Where did you drive the man without a nose?’

Peltonen thought. He was forced to cross an enormous, terrible gap in time. He was balancing on the narrow plank, crossing the abyss. Step by step, swaying, he made his way across.

He made it to the other side.

‘Nytorp,’ he said, a strange tone in his voice.

‘What the hell’s Nytorp?’ said Chavez, who didn’t know every little street in the entire Stockholm area like the back of his hand.

‘Nytorp is in Tyresö,’ Peltonen said proudly.

Tyresö, thought Hjelm.

‘Do you remember the address?’ he asked. ‘The street?’

Peltonen racked his memory. It took its sweet time.

‘It was the name of a bird,’ he said.

Silence.

‘A common bird,’ he said. ‘A really ordinary Swedish bird.’

More silence.

‘Not the house sparrow,’ he said. ‘Not the great tit.’

He stood up and exclaimed: ‘Bofinksvägen!’

Chaffinch Street.

Paul Hjelm leaned back in his chair.

He had been there recently.

To the house of a son who had just lost his father.

Leonard Sheinkman had lived on Bofinksvägen in Tyresö.