The Blinded Man aka Misterioso

4

Detective Superintendent Erik Bruun must have pressed a green button somewhere on his desk, because accompanied by a buzzing sound a green light lit up his nameplate on the doorframe out in the hallway. Paul Hjelm, in turn, pressed down on the handle to the perpetually locked door and went in.

This was the police station, whose peculiar geographic coordinates were something like this: located in Fittja, with mailing address in Norsborg, in Botkyrka municipality, Huddinge police authority. If you wanted to avoid using the name Fittja, because of its obscene and derogatory association with the Swedish word for pussy, you could always say Botkyrka, which, in addition to providing the location for the church, encompassed quite lovely areas such as Vårsta and Grödinge; or you could say Norsborg, the hometown of the table tennis genius J-O Waldner and the Balrog floorball team; or you could use the name Huddinge, even if it sounded like a bedroom suburb. Hjelm lived in a row house in Norsborg, just a few doors from Waldner’s birthplace. But he could never really specify which district he lived in, least of all now.

The place that God forgot, he thought fatefully as he stepped into Bruun’s room. The wallpaper was changed at least once a year, nevertheless it would turn brown within a matter of days. Erik Bruun always inaugurated his new wallpaper by allowing his black cigars and equally black lungs to puff clouds of smoke over the walls. Hjelm had never visited Bruun in his bachelor apartment in Eriksberg; the place had acquired a reputation of mythic proportions, but he could imagine how the walls must look. Hjelm was a nonsmoker, although he did inhale an occasional cigarette to avoid becoming a slave to virtue, as a wise man once expressed it.

Today Hjelm had already smoked six, and he knew that there would be more. The nicotine was swirling around in his head, and for once he sensed no immediate shock upon stepping into Bruun’s inner sanctum, which the authorities had designated a serious health hazard. An overly zealous official had once taped a skull and crossbones to the door, and Hjelm and Ernstsson had spent three hours of valuable work time scraping it off.

Erik Bruun was not alone in the room. He was sitting behind his cluttered desk, puffing on an enormous Russian cigar. On the sofa below the row of windows sat two well-dressed gentlemen. They were about Hjelm’s age, somewhere in their forties. But no one would ever think of calling Hjelm a gentleman; in their case, it seemed natural. He didn’t know these gentlemen, but he recognized the stern set of their expressions.

Oh well. This was pretty much what he’d been expecting.

Bruun raised his substantial body to a standing position and came forward to meet him; such an attempt at a jogging workout was rare for him. He shook hands with Hjelm and scratched his grayish-red beard.

“My congratulations,” he said, putting obvious stress on the word my. “Excellent job. How do you feel? Have you talked to Cecilia?”

“Thanks,” said Hjelm, glancing at the gentlemen on the sofa. “I haven’t been able to get hold of her yet. I assume she’ll probably hear about it some other way.”

Bruun nodded several times and returned to his favorite chair.

“As I said, you have the congratulations and support of everyone here at the station. But you didn’t answer my question about how you’re feeling.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Hjelm, and sat down on the chair in front of the desk.

Bruun nodded several times again, in the same knowing manner.

“I understand,” he said, sucking on his cigar. “This is Niklas Grundström and Ulf Mårtensson, from Internal Affairs. Whether they intend to offer you their congratulations is an open question at the moment.”

Since Bruun’s little tirade sounded like he was on the verge of leaving, both gentlemen got up from the sofa. Then came a moment of doubt as the superintendent remained where he was and continued puffing on his black cigar. This display of a hint of uncertainty was what both of them would have given anything to avoid. Hjelm thanked Bruun with a seemingly neutral expression and received the same look in return.

The superintendent took one last puff and sluggishly got to his feet. “The ombudsman for department safety has determined that I’m not allowed to leave my office holding a cigar,” he apologized, stubbing the butt into an ashtray. Then he left the office swathed in a cloud of cigar fumes.

The crushed butt continued to emit brown smoke. Grundström pushed aside the ashtray as if it were a month-old latrine bucket and sat, with some reluctance, in Bruun’s smoke-saturated executive desk chair. Mårtensson sat back down on the sofa. Grundström set his briefcase on the desk and pulled out a pair of glasses with almost perfectly round lenses, which he ceremoniously placed on the bridge of his nose. Then he took out a large brown envelope and an evening newspaper. He set the briefcase on the floor and held up the front page of Expressen. In big letters the headline screamed: EXTRA. HERO IN FITTJA. POLICE HERO IN HOSTAGE DRAMA. Under the headline was a photograph, almost ten years old, of Paul Hjelm, who had been a police sergeant when it was taken.

“The media have assigned the roles,” Niklas Grundström said in a clear, educated voice, tossing the newspaper aside. He fixed his gaze on Hjelm. “Things certainly move fast these days, don’t they? Imagine, they got the story into the evening edition. The pen moves faster than the brain.”

“An old proverb,” Hjelm said without thinking. He bit his tongue.

Grundström regarded him without expression. He leaned down and pulled a little tape recorder from his briefcase. “I was hoping to avoid this,” he said, pressing the start button. “Interrogation with Detective Inspector Paul Hjelm, born February 18, 1957, conducted by Grundström and Mårtensson at the Huddinge police station on March thirtieth at seventeen-oh-sixhours.”

“Interrogation?” said Hjelm.

“Interrogation,” said Grundström. “It was your choice.”

Hjelm bit his tongue again. Don’t give them anything.

Then it came. “Are you now or have you ever been a member of any anti-immigrant organization?”

“No,” replied Hjelm, trying to stay perfectly calm.

“What is your attitude toward immigrants?”

“Neither good nor bad.”

Grundström rummaged through the big brown envelope, took out something that looked like a report, and began reading. “Of all your arrests made during your time in this district, forty-two percent were of individuals of foreign origin. And in the past year that figure increased to fifty-seven percent.”

Hjelm cleared his throat and paused to gather his thoughts. “According to the latest figures, in all of Botkyrka municipality, thirty-two percent of the population are of foreign origin, and twenty percent are foreign-born citizens. Up here in the north, in Alby, Fittja, Hallunda, and Norsborg, the figures are even higher, well over fifty percent and fifty-seven percent. A forty-two percent arrest rate of immigrants actually indicates that there is a greater propensity to commit a crime among Swedish-born individuals in the area. The figures demonstrate no basis whatsoever for racism, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Hjelm was quite pleased with his reply.

Grundström was not. “Why the hell did you think you could go in there like some sort of Dirty Harry and shoot that man?”

“That man, as you call him, is named Dritëro Frakulla, and he belongs to the Albanian minority in the province of Kosovo in southern Serbia, and I’m sure you’re aware of the situation there. Nearly all the Kosovar Albanians that we’ve had anything to do with here, people who have become acclimated and learned Swedish and who have children in the Swedish school system-nearly all of them are now going to be deported. But it’s not going to happen without resistance.”

“All the more reason not to go in and shoot him down. The hostage team of the National Criminal Police was on its way. Specialists, experts. Why in holy hell did you go in alone?”

Hjelm could no longer keep silent. “To save his life, goddamn it!”

It was approaching eight P.M. Hjelm and Bruun were sitting in Bruun’s office, the superintendent in his armchair and Hjelm in a semi-reclining position on the sofa. In front of them on the desk stood a large cassette recorder. The tape was playing. They heard: “To save his life, goddamn it!”

Bruun practically swallowed his cigar. He hit the stop button with a swift chop.

“You, sir,” he said, pointing at Hjelm with the same abrupt movement, “are a very foolhardy person.”

“It was stupid, I know…,” said Hjelm from the sofa. “Just as stupid as secretly taping an Internal Affairs interrogation.”

Bruun shrugged and started the tape again. First a brief pause, then Hjelm’s voice resumed:

“That unit specializes in one thing, and you know that as well as I do: their directive is to render the perpetrator harmless without injuring the hostages. Render harmless, meaning eliminate, meaning kill.”

“Do you really want us to believe that you shot him in order to save his life?”

“Believe whatever the hell you like.”

Bruun glanced at Hjelm, shaking his head sternly; now it was Hjelm’s turn to shrug.

“That’s precisely what we’re not allowed to do.” Grundström had spoken in his normal voice; the last couple of things he said had sounded different. “We’re here to determine right from wrong, to ensure that you haven’t committed any dereliction of duty, and then clear your name without issuing any reprimands. That’s how the justice system becomes undermined. If necessary, we may have to censure you. This has nothing to do with our personal beliefs.”

“For the record”-Hjelm-“the shooting took place at eight forty-seven A.M., the special unit arrived at nine thirty-eight. Were we supposed to just sit there taking cover outside, and wait for almost an hour, with a desperate gunman, terrified hostages, and a paralyzed Hallunda shopping center on our hands?”

“Okay, for the moment let’s drop the question of why and take a look at what you de facto did.”

Pause. Grundström and Mårtensson had switched places then, while Hjelm pondered what sort of person says de facto.

The sharp voice was replaced by one that was significantly coarser. “All right then. So far we’ve just skimmed the surface. Now let’s get down to brass tacks.”

With a frown, Bruun switched off the tape recorder and turned to Hjelm with genuine surprise.

“Do you mean to tell me that they in all seriousness tried to pull that good-cop-bad-cop routine on you? When you’re an experienced interrogator?”

Hjelm shrugged as fatigue overtook him. An already long day wasn’t going to get any shorter. When Mårtensson spoke again, his voice merged with words and images from all the other layers of Hjelm’s mind. For a brief moment as he hovered between wakefulness and sleep, these layers fought for dominance. Then he fell asleep.

“Okay, one step at a time. First, you shouted through the door without any warning; that alone could have caused a disaster. Second, you claimed to be unarmed even though your gun was sticking out of your waistband. All he had to do was ask you to turn around, which would also have been a disaster. Third, you lied to the perpetrator. If he’d been aware of certain facts, again, disaster would have ensued. Fourth, when you fired, you aimed at a spot that was not according to regulations; that also could have led to disaster.”

“How is he?” Hjelm’s voice.

“What?” Mårtensson’s.

“How is he?”

“Who the hell do you mean?”

“Dritëro Frakulla.”

“What the fuck is that? The name of some kind of orange? A Transylvanian count? Just focus on the facts, for fuck’s sake!”

“It is a fact. That is a fact.”

The pause went on so long that Bruun fidgeted, wondering if it was over. Hjelm was sound asleep. Then Grundström’s voice piped up from the background.

“He’s in the Huddinge clinic, under around-the-clock guard. His condition is stable. I can’t say the same about your situation. We’ll continue tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. Thanks for your time today, Hjelm.”

Sounds of chairs scraping, a tape recorder being switched off, papers shuffled, a briefcase snapped closed, a door shutting.

Superintendent Erik Bruun lit another pitch-black cigar that had been unevenly rolled and listened. Then came what he’d been waiting for. It was Grundström.

“He’s incredibly cunning. Why the hell did you let him off so easy? ‘A Transylvanian count’? Damn it, Uffe! We can’t let this guy slip through our fingers. A Dirty Harry who knows how to use the system and come out unscathed opens the door to hundreds of others all over Sweden, all of them more or less racist.”

Mårtensson mumbled something, Grundström sighed, chairs clattered, a door opened and closed.

Bruun stopped the tape and for a moment didn’t move.

Outside the police station the bright spring day had dissolved into pitch darkness. Slowly and laboriously he got up from his chair and went over to Hjelm, still in a deep sleep. Before taking in a big breath and blowing smoke right in his face, Bruun studied his subordinate and gently shook his head.

I won’t be able to keep him here much longer, he thought. One way or another, he’s going to disappear.

Hjelm coughed himself awake. His eyes were running, and the first thing he saw through the cloud of smoke was the combination of a reddish-gray beard and a double chin.

“Ten-thirty,” said Bruun, packing up his ratty old briefcase. “You can sleep in. Try to be clear and concise tomorrow. Maybe a little better than today.”

Hjelm stumbled toward the door. He turned around. Bruun gave him a good-natured nod. It was his way of offering a hug.

What is it they usually say? Hjelm wondered as he opened the fridge and took out a beer. Middle-aged heterosexual men with full-time jobs and white complexions are the societal norm. It’s on that set of features that all assessments of what is normal are based. And health standards. Another phrase appeared in his mind: Being a woman is not a disease. But it is a deviation. Not to mention homosexuality and youth and old age and dark skin and speaking with an accent.

That was how his world looked: inside the boundaries were all those heterosexual, middle-aged white policemen; outside was everybody else. He looked at the deviants sitting on the sofa: his-how old was she now?-thirty-six-year-old wife, Cecilia, and his twelve-year-old daughter, Tova. Public Enemy was playing from the opposite direction, clearly audible.

“It’s on, Papa!” cried Tova. “It’s on now!”

He went into the living room, slurping the beer between his teeth. Cilla regarded this decades-old habit of his with a certain distaste but turned her attention back to the TV. The theme music of the evening news program was playing. The story was part of the headlines. Way out of proportion, he thought.

“A hostage drama was played out this morning at the Hallunda Immigration Office south of Stockholm. An armed man forced his way into the office just after it opened and threatened three staff members with a sawed-off shotgun. Fortunately, the drama had a happy ending.”

Happy, he thought. He said, “The Botkyrka Immigration Office. Located in Hallunda.”

The women in his family looked at him, trying to evaluate his statement, each in her own way. Tova thought, But that’s not the point. Cilla thought, You always have to make a point of your own dissatisfaction by finding little factual errors; emotions become thoughts; perceptions become facts.

The phone rang. Hjelm belched, then answered it.

“The Hallunda Immigration Office?” said Svante Ernstsson.

“Sawed-off shotgun?” said Paul Hjelm.

Laughter on both ends of the line, laughter only they shared. The Noble Art of Talking Shop Without Getting Noticed.

The requisite childishness.

The different types of laughter.

It’s possible to hear from the sound that it’s aimed only at somebody else.

It deepens if it’s aimed inward at the same time.

“How are things?” Ernstsson finally asked.

“So-so.”

“It’s on now,” said Cilla, Tova, and Svante in unison.

The weatherbeaten reporter was standing on Tomtbergavägen with Hallunda Square behind him. It was afternoon, in the dazzling spring sunshine. The square was swarming with people. Everything looked normal. A gang of soccer fans wearing AIK scarves stopped behind the enthusiastic figure of the reporter to make V signs.

“At eight-twenty this morning-” said the reporter.

“Eight twenty-eight,” said Hjelm.

“-a man of Albanian-Kosovar origin went into the immigration office in Hallunda, armed with a shotgun. Four staff members were present at the time, and the man took three of them hostage. The fourth managed to escape. The man forced the hostages up to the third floor and made them lie on the floor. After about twenty minutes, police officer Paul Hjelm from the Huddinge police department appeared…”

The ten-year-old photograph now filled the TV screen.

“Where did that come from?” said Hjelm.

“What a cutie,” said Ernstsson, over the phone.

“They came to the hospital,” said Cilla, glancing at him. “Apparently your picture wasn’t in any media archives. That’s the photo that I have in my wallet.”

“Have?”

“Had.”

“… and entered the building. He made his way, unobserved, up the stairs and managed to get inside the barricaded room…”

“Barricaded,” said Ernstsson on the phone.

“… and he shot the perpetrator in the right shoulder. According to the three staff members, Hjelm acted in an exemplary fashion. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to reach Paul Hjelm for his reaction. Nor would his boss at the Huddinge criminal investigation division, Superintendent Sven Bruun, offer any comment.”

“Good old Svempa,” said Ernstsson on the phone.

The reporter continued, “Bruun did tell us that the investigation is ongoing and confidential. But you, Arvid Svensson, you were one of the hostages. Tell us what happened.”

A middle-aged man appeared next to the reporter. Hjelm recognized the staff member who had pressed the gun to the head of the unconscious Frakulla. He slurped the last of his beer through his teeth.

“I’ll call you back,” he told Ernstsson, then went into the bathroom.

He studied himself in the mirror. A neutral face. No distinguishing marks. A straight nose, narrow lips, dark blond hair cut short, wearing a T-shirt, a wedding ring. No signs of balding. Early middle age. Two children approaching puberty. No distinguishing marks.

No marks at all.

When he laughed, his laughter sounded hollow. The one-sided laughter of a fired, lower-level police officer.

Ulf Mårtensson said, “Two nasty bruises on the back of his head still haven’t been accounted for.”

Paul Hjelm said, “Haven’t you talked to the hostages?”

“We’ll take care of our job, and you take care of yours. Possibly. Although probably not. According to the medical examiner, the wounds on the skull were caused by the muzzle of the shotgun. Did you take the weapon away after you shot the man and use it to strike him on the head?”

“So you haven’t talked to the hostages.”

Mårtensson and Grundström were sitting next to each other in an ordinary, cold, sterile interrogation room. Maybe they’d got wind of Bruun’s maneuver yesterday with the tape recorder. Neither of them said a word as they waited for Hjelm to go on.

And he did. “When Frakulla went down, the gun landed on the floor near the staff member named Arvid Svensson. Svensson picked it up and pressed it to the man’s head.”

“And you let him do that?”

“I was fifteen feet away.”

“But you allowed this staff member to press a loaded shotgun with the safety off to the head of an unconscious man?”

“Nobody could know whether he was unconscious or not, so staff member Arvid Svensson did the right thing by taking the gun away from him. Although he shouldn’t have pressed it to his head. That’s why I yelled at him to stop it.”

“But you did nothing to stop him, took no physical action?”

“No. But after a moment he put down the gun.”

“After a moment… How long of a moment?”

“As long as it took me to throw up my whole fucking breakfast.”

A pause. Finally Mårtensson said slowly and maliciously, “So in the middle of your unfinished freelance operation, when you should have been waiting for the experts, you’re put out of commission by your own digestive system. What if Svensson had shot the perpetrator? What if the perp hadn’t been rendered harmless at all? What might have happened? You left a lot of loose ends hanging, without securing the situation.”

“Sounds redundant to me,” said Hjelm.

“What?” said Mårtensson.

“It was because the perp was rendered harmless that I threw up. Because for the first time in my life I’d shot someone. Surely you must have encountered this type of reaction before.”

“Of course. But not in the middle of such an important and unilaterally determined solo operation.”

Mårtensson leafed through the papers for a moment, then went on: “This is actually just a minor addition to an already long list of questionable actions. Taken together, it looks like this. One, you chose to go in alone, even though the special unit was on its way. Two, you shouted through the door without warning. Three, you claimed to be unarmed even though your gun was visibly sticking out of your waistband. Four, you lied to the perpetrator when you attempted to talk him down. Five, you fired a shot, aiming at a spot that was not according to regulations. Six, you failed to disarm the person you had shot. Seven, you allowed a desperate hostage to mistreat and almost shoot the perp. Are you starting to understand the dilemma that we’re facing here?”

Grundström cleared his throat. “In addition to this formal list, there are two more important elements that are worth taking a look at, pertaining to department policy and discipline. They have to do with discrediting the police department and with the immigrant question. Together they open the door to a freelance mentality, which has no place on the force. I’m not saying that you’re a racist, Hjelm, but your actions and the flood of praise for you in the media risk legitimizing attitudes that are latent in large sectors of the police force. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You want to set an example…”

“It’s not a matter of want: it’s something we have to do. The fact is that I think you’re one of the least corrupt members of the force. You speak your mind, and you’re a thinker, maybe even too much of a thinker. But our job is crystal clear. The point is not to get rid of individual rotten apples on the force. We have to ensure that any unpleasant attitudes that may exist in the force are not given official sanction. Because otherwise we’d be damned near approaching a police state.

“It’s the same with our whole society. The abyss is lurking inside us. We project our own failures, the voice of the people, the voice of simple solutions. But the skin of this societal body, so loosely held together, is law enforcement. We’re way out on the periphery, closest to the crimes, the most exposed of all. If the skin is cut open at the right place, the entrails of the societal body will come pouring out. Do you realize what you may have started with your little freelance action? I really want you to understand.”

Hjelm looked Grundström right in the eye. He wasn’t really sure what he saw there. Ambition and careerism at war with dedication and honesty, perhaps. Maybe even genuine concern about the attitudes that were doubtless simmering beneath the uniformed surface. Grundström could never be just another colleague; his role would always be special, outside. He wanted to be the superego of the police force. Only now did Hjelm understand what a top-level power they had sent after him. And maybe even why.

His eyes bored into the table as he said quietly, “All I wanted to do was resolve a difficult situation as quickly and simply as possible, in the best possible way.”

“There’s no such thing as a simple action.” Grundström sounded almost human. “Every act is always linked to a multitude of other actions.”

“I knew that I could save him.” Hjelm looked up. “That’s all I wanted to do.”

Grundström gave him a penetrating stare. “Is that really true? Look deep into your heart, Hjelm.”

They sat for a moment, studying each other. Time passed. Something happened, an exchange took place.

Finally Niklas Grundström got up with a sigh, and Ulf Mårtensson followed. As Grundström packed up his briefcase, Hjelm noticed how young he still looked, yet they were the same age.

“To start with, we’ll need your ID badge and your service weapon.” Mårtensson said. “Until further notice, you’re on suspension. But the interrogation will continue tomorrow. It’s not over yet, Hjelm.”

Hjelm placed his ID and service weapon on the table and left the interrogation room. He closed the door but left it slightly ajar, perfect for eavesdropping, and placed his ear to the narrow opening.

It was possible that he heard a voice say, “Now we’ve got him.”

It was possible that no one said a word.

He stood in the pitch dark taking a leak, for a very long time. Five late-night beers needed to be excreted in a single nightly piss. As he stood there and the stink of urine rose up from the toilet, the contours of the bathroom gradually emerged around him. There was just enough light for the dark to take shape. Thirty seconds earlier it had been so dark that the darkness didn’t exist. Only when he shook out the last drops did it seem real.

As he flushed the toilet, he thought about the fact that the only urine that didn’t stink was one’s own.

He looked in the mirror again, a vague rim of light encircling darkness. In that darkness, in the dark that was always himself, he saw Grundström, who was saying, “Look deep into your heart, Hjelm.” Then Mårtensson appeared: “It’s not over yet, Hjelm.” And Svante: “Wait, Pålle. Don’t do anything stupid.” And then Danne, his son, within the encircling light, stared with the horrified eyes of puberty straight at him. Now Frakulla was there, saying quietly, “I’m sacrificing myself for their sake.” And Cilla was there too, in the faceless darkness, saying, “Why the hell are you still disgusted by a woman’s bodily functions?”

“Look deep into your heart, Hjelm.”

So empty, so terribly empty.

Everything had fallen apart. Suspended, fired. No unemployment checks. On the dole. Who’d want to employ a used-up police officer?

He remembered the coffee room at the station, the hatred toward welfare recipients there, the epithets about dark-skinned immigrants. Of course he had participated, leveling scorn at those who accepted welfare, the riffraff living luxuriously on public support. Now he found himself in the same situation. There was no floor under his feet. He was floating in a dreadful emptiness.

Where were the police higher-ups? Everybody had abandoned him. He could kill them all.

Grundström: “Then we’d be damned near approaching a police state.”

The details of the bathroom had emerged from their dark haze, taken on depth, assumed their proper positions. The light was hauled forth from the night; his eyes had hauled it out. The features of his face should have also taken shape by now.

But they hadn’t. They were still cloaked in darkness.

A silhouette.

“Look deep into your heart, Hjelm.”