Sail of Stone

15

Aneta Djanali opened two drawers in the kitchen. There was nothing there. She saw herself sitting at the kitchen table that wasn’t there now, on a chair that existed somewhere, but not there. Drinking coffee made by a stranger. Good God.

“What happens now?” said Sigge Lindsten.

“Report of theft,” she said.

He let out a gruff laugh.

“How will you find the people who did it?”

“I remember their faces,” she said.

“And their names,” said Lindsten, and she heard a few bars of the gruff laugh again.

“You seem to think this is funnier than I do,” she said.

“Well, there is something comical about it.”

“Does Anette think so too?”

“We don’t know, because we haven’t asked her, have we?” Lindsten remained standing in the doorway. “She doesn’t know that it’s happened, does she?”

“I don’t think she’ll laugh when she finds out.”

“Don’t say that, don’t say that.”

Aneta looked at him.

“New start,” he said. “This way there are no reminders of him.”

“Him? Forsblad?”

“Who else?”

“That might be where they are,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“At Forsblad’s house. That might be where the stolen goods are. The furniture. Her things.”

“The question is just where that devil is himself,” said Lindsten. “Do you have an address for him?”

Aneta shook her head.

“Lots of unknowns here,” said Lindsten.

“What kind of work do you do, Mr. Lindsten?”

“Excuse me?”

“What is your job?”

“Does it matter?”

“Don’t you want to answer the question?”

“Answer… of course I can answer.” He stepped into the kitchen, the naked kitchen. Their voices were loud in that particular way of rooms without furniture, carpets, lamps, pictures, decorations, household things, knickknacks, food, fruit bowls, radios, TVs, appliances, clothes, shoes, pets.

Everything was naked.

It is extra naked here, she thought. I have been inside a lot of empty places, but never one like this, never this way.

“Traveling,” said Lindsten.

After a few seconds she got it.

“What does that involve?”

“Traveling? That you travel and sell things.” His words echoed in the kitchen, which had ugly marks on the walls from things that had hung there.

Marks like bullet holes. She had been inside homes where she’d known what kind of holes they were. Others had been there, on their way in or out. Some of them alive, some not. Family affairs. Most often they were family affairs. There was no refuge among the near and dear. She must never forget that. All police knew it. Always start with the nearest, the innermost circle. Often that was enough. Unfortunately, that was enough. It was good for preliminary investigations, but it wasn’t good if you looked at it in a different way.

You shouldn’t do that. How could you work if you did?

Sigge Lindsten traveled and sold things. She would ask him what he sold, but not right now.

“Forsblad must have a job, anyway,” she said.

“Yes. He has a job, but no address. That’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?”

Aneta stopped Hans Forsblad in the hall. He was carrying three binders. He had company.

“Do you have a minute?”

He looked at his watch as though he were starting a countdown. He looked at his companion, a woman.

“It’s already been ten seconds,” he said. The woman beside him smiled but looked uncertain. She looked at Aneta. Aneta had the urge to knock the binders out of Forsblad’s hands.

“Is there somewhere we can go?” she asked calmly.

He seemed to consider this; he looked at his companion again and then gestured toward one of the doors far along the left side of the hall.

They walked over the marble tiles.

“I don’t have much more than this one minute,” he said.

He showed her into a conference room that didn’t have windows. That must be so the decisions are made quickly, she thought. No one can stand being in a room without windows.

He showed her to a chair, but she preferred to stand.

“When did you last speak with Anette?” she asked.

“No idea.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I don’t remember.”

“Try to think back.”

He looked like he was thinking back. The binders were on the table now. There was nothing written on their spines.

“A while ago,” he said, taking a step closer; she recoiled, an automatic movement.

“God, take it easy,” he said.

“What did you talk about, then?”

“Oh, the usual.”

“And that was…?”

“Oh, that it wasn’t working out.”

He looked at his binders as he spoke and reached for one of them. There’s something that works, she thought. Papers in binders always work. This is a courthouse, and binders are useful here. This man is some sort of lawyer, and he is about to depart.

“She has things that are mine, and I need them,” he said. “As a matter of fact.” He picked up his binders. “Not even you can keep me from them.”

I’ll explain and then we’ll see what happens, thought Aneta.

“There’s someone else who has kept you from them,” she said.

“Uh, what? What do you mean?”

She told him about the empty apartment. She hadn’t said anything about the theft when they were standing in the empty rooms. She didn’t tell him that she had met the people who cleaned it out.

“Oh, my,” said Forsblad.

“We’re grateful for any help,” said Aneta.

“Of course. But what can I do?”

“You can start by telling me where you live now.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She didn’t answer. He had put down the binders again. Maybe I should look inside them. He might have an inventory of everything that was taken from Anette’s apartment.

“Oh, come on! Would I have stolen my own furniture?” He smiled, that peculiar smile that made her feel afraid. “Come on!”

“I asked for your address,” she said.

“I don’t have an address,” he said.

“Are you sleeping under bridges?” She looked at his suit. If he’d slept in it, it must have been in a pants press. The wrinkles were gone. No stones were that smooth.

He smiled again.

“I don’t need to give you my address,” he said.

“You just said you don’t have one.”

“And that’s why I can’t give you one.”

“This is a preliminary investigation,” she said. “You know very well that the general public is obligated to cooperate with the police. You of all people should know that.”

“Preliminary investigation of what?” he asked.

“If you play dumb one more time, we’ll have to continue this conversation in a different room,” she said.

“That was a threat.”

Aneta sighed, barely audibly, and took her phone out of the inner pocket of her light jacket.

“Okay, okay, I’m living with a girl.” He licked his lips. She saw that his lower lip had split at one corner. “At the moment, I mean. But it has-”

“The address,” she said.

“There’s no one there now.”

He smiled again, the frightening smile.

Give me strength, she thought. One of the gods from home.

Hans Forsblad was still smiling, or maybe it was her imagination.

“For the last time,” she said.

“There was no one there,” she said. “But the doorknob was still warm.”

Fredrik Halders laughed out loud.

“I think it’s your sense of humor I appreciate the most,” he said.

“And aside from that? What do you like about me aside from that?”

He looked around.

“The children can hear,” he said.

“They’re at your house, Fredrik. It’s on the other side of the city.”

He removed his feet from the edge of the sofa and heaved himself up. He drank some beer from his glass. He looked at her over the edge of the glass.

“We could be sitting there now,” he said.

“But then the children would have heard, right, Fredrik?”

“I would have watched what I said in that case,” he said.

“Mmhmm.”

“What does that mean, Mmhmm? What is that supposed to mean?”

“I was just imagining the combination of Fredrik Halders and watching what you say,” she said, smiling.

He was quiet and took another drink, as though he were thinking about what words he would choose.

“You know what I mean, Aneta.”

“Fredrik.”

“You know what I want. What I think.”

“I know,” she said gently.

He shook the beer can. He got up.

“Do you want more wine?”

She shook her head.

“I’m going to get another beer.”

“All joking aside,” said Halders, “you have to drop it.”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t see anything under the blanket, but she could hear his voice from the other side. The voice from the other side. She giggled, to some extent because of the wine; she’d had another glass.

“It could be dangerous,” he said. She felt him pull the blanket off her head. “Are you listening, Aneta? Are you listening?”

She felt the light from the lamp on the nightstand in her eyes; she blinked. She saw his face, which was black against the light, black like a black African’s. Someone who didn’t know him might think he was dangerous. Some who did know him still thought he was. That hadn’t always been good.

“You don’t exactly have anything to work with, and a guy like Forsblad can be trouble in that case.”

“What do you mean?”

She pulled down the blanket and wrapped herself in it. She heard the music Fredrik was putting on, James Carr, which he’d brought with him. “The Dark End of the Street,” forty-year-old soul from the South, at the dark end of the street, that’s where we always meet.

“The way you describe him, he sounds like a psychopath. If he gets it into his head that you’re after him for no reason, it could get nasty.”

“Sure, for him.”

“For you, Aneta.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? If he’s a psychopath, he’ll get it into his head that I’m after him whether he sees a reason or not, won’t he?”

Halders didn’t answer.

“Won’t he?” said Aneta.

“Don’t be so fucking smart, now,” he said. He ruffled her hair. “Listen to what I’m saying, even if I’m putting it more awkwardly than you can accept.”

She sat up straighter. The blanket fell. She put her arms around her shoulders and across her breasts, as though she were freezing.

“There’s something dangerous about him,” she said. “I can feel it. I can see it.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

“But don’t you understand? He’s dangerous to her. He’s going to go after her again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, yes I do.”

Halders got up and went over to the CD player, which had become silent. She heard him searching through the discs, ungraceful as always. She heard the rhythm and recognized it, of course, and the singer’s voice. It was her CD, after all. Gabin Dabiré. Afriki Djamana: Music from Burkina Faso. Afriki Djamana reminded him of her.

The music moved like a caravan through the desert, swaying, stepping and sinking. The song was called “Sénégal,” and it was about longing, maybe longing for the sea to the west.

“He’s not going to leave her alone,” said Aneta.

“What? Who?”

“Forsblad, of course. He can’t accept that she doesn’t want him.”

“But he’s already living with someone else.”

“Yeah, so he says.”

“Let him say so, then. Even if it’s not true, maybe it will help him.”

“How so?”

“I’m not a psychopath,” said Halders. “I don’t know how he thinks, but I can imagine-”

“It’s just more lies,” interrupted Aneta.

“I’m not a psychologist either, but if he’s creating a world for himself where he thinks that he’s with a new woman, maybe it’s a good thing.”

“A new woman he can beat?”

Halders didn’t answer.

“The guy is dangerous,” said Aneta. “We do happen to agree on that, you know.”

“Leave it,” said Halders. “Leave him and her and that entire family, whether it exists or not.”

She didn’t say anything.

“And the furniture.” Halders smiled.

“I haven’t even met Anette, not really,” mumbled Aneta, but Halders heard. “She hasn’t ever reported any assault herself,” she said, and she heard him sigh. “But the neighbors called. Several times. And the woman in the same stairwell saw injuries on her face.”

“Aneta. She doesn’t live there anymore. He doesn’t live there anymore. She lives at home, safe with her parents. He might be living with a new woman. Maybe he’s going after her, too, and in that case we’ll nab him right away. But now ca-”

“Do you know how many of these conversations you and I have had while there are new violent crimes happening?” she said. “Assault? While we, who are supposed to prevent crime, arrive at the conclusion that there’s no danger and hardly any reason to prevent this particular threat or crime, it happens. It happens again.”

“Do you want anything else to drink?”

“Are you listening to what I’m saying?”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, answer then, Fredrik.”

“I just don’t know what we can do in a situation like this,” he said, turning to her and reaching for her arm. “We actually can’t bring him in, not now.”

“We could keep him under surveillance.”

“Who would do that?” said Halders.

“Me.”

“Come off it. You’d be the last one.”

“Someone else, then. This isn’t personal, if that’s what you think.”

“Really?”

“Not personal in that way.”

“You know just as well as I do that Winter would never put people on something like this,” said Halders.

“It’s preventative. Erik is all for prevention.”

“He’s also for realism.”

“What is more realistic than a battered woman?”

“What do you want me to say to that, Aneta?”

“I don’t know, Fredrik.”

“And even if Winter gave the okay, Birgersson would say no.”

“Birgersson? Is he still around? I haven’t seen him in years.”

“That’s how he wants it,” said Halders.

Aneta got up and walked across the room.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

Halders had made grilled sandwiches. She was still warm from the hot shower, relaxed, a bit comfortably numb after all of her thoughts earlier today. “I couldn’t find pineapple,” he said, “there was cheese and ham and mustard, but no pineapple.”

“You aren’t required to have pineapple on a warm sandwich, Fredrik.”

“Oh, really? Great. I was feeling like a failure there for a minute.”

“You’ve done well, Fredrik.”

“A cup of tea?” He held out the pot like the servant of a countess.

“You changed the disc,” she said, meaning the music.

“I will never cease to be amazed at all the guitars you collect,” he said, and she listened and understood what he meant when the guitar solo in “Comfortably Numb” arrived.

“I think he knows the people who stole that whole apartment,” she said.

“Oh, Aneta, please.”

“Who else would get the idea to do it? How did they get in?”

“Now drink your tea and relax for a minute.”

“Answer me. They just went in.”

“And then out.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t think he wants that crap,” said Halders.

“I think the exact opposite,” said Aneta. “If he can’t own her, he can at least own everything that is hers.”

Halders didn’t answer.

“You’re not answering.”

“I didn’t realize it was a question.”

“Come on, Fredrik!”

“That analysis seems, well, a little too homemade, if you want an honest opinion. And there’s another snag.”

“What?”

“Well, even if that crazy Forsblad guy is batshit insane, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the world is, does it? He had to convince those two characters you met that the apartment had to be emptied.”

“Like they needed a reason? Are you kidding? Do you mean that today, in this country, it’s difficult to get two criminal henchmen to empty an apartment? There are always people for sale who will do anything you need.”

“Can people really be so awful?” said Halders.

“Don’t joke away your naïveté, Fredrik.”

“Do you know what, Aneta,” said Halders, reaching for the teapot again. “There is no man born of a woman who can beat you in a debate.”

“Debate? Are we having a debate?”

Bergenhem walked across Sveaplan with a strong wind at his back. A sheet of newspaper flew in front of the neighborhood store.

The houses around the square looked black in the twilight. A streetcar passed to the right, a cold yellow light. Two magpies flapped up in front of him when he pushed the button next to the nameplate. He heard a distant answer.

It was just like last time.

But this time he wasn’t here on duty.

He didn’t know why he was standing here.

“I’m looking for Krister Peters. It’s Lars Bergenhem.”

“Who?”

“Lars Bergenhem. I was here last year, from the county CID.”

He didn’t get an answer, but the door buzzed and he opened it.

He went up the stairs. He rang the bell. The door was opened after the second ring. The man was Bergenhem’s age.

His dark hair hung down on his forehead just as it had last time. It looked as deliberate now as it had then. His face was unshaven now, as it had been then. Peters was wearing a white undershirt now, as he had then; it shone against his tanned and muscular body.

“Hi,” said Peters. “You came back.”

“I can have that whisky now,” said Bergenhem.

Bergenhem had worked on the investigation of a series of assaults. A friend of Krister Peters’s, Jens Book, had been attacked and seriously injured near Peters’s home.

Bergenhem had visited Peters and questioned him. Peters was innocent. Peters had offered him malt whisky. Bergenhem had declined.

“I’ll pass this time,” Bergenhem had said. “I have the car and I have to go right home when I’m done.”

“You’re missing a good Springbank,” Peters had said.

“Maybe there will be another time,” Bergenhem had said.

“Maybe,” Peters had said.

Peters turned his back to Bergenhem and went into the apartment. Bergenhem followed Peters, who sat down on his dark gray sofa. Magazines lay on a low glass table. Three glasses and a bottle stood to the right of the magazines. Bergenhem sat in an easy chair that had the same covering as the sofa.

“How are things?” said Peters.

“Not so good,” said Bergenhem.

“Do you feel like you need someone to talk to?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” said Peters.

“Everything is so confusing,” said Bergenhem.