Sail of Stone

25

Aneta Djanali rang the doorbell. They couldn’t kick in the door. It wasn’t ringing in there. Aneta didn’t remember the doorbell being broken. She heard steps inside; it sounded like steps. Was it the thieves? The ones who said they were father and son? The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.

“Don’t stand right in front of the door,” said Halders.

He knocked, or banged.

The shuffling inside stopped. Halders banged on the door again.

They heard steps again.

“Who is it?”

Aneta recognized the voice.

“Police,” said Halders.

They heard the voice again, but no distinguishable words.

The door opened.

“So we meet again,” said Aneta.

“What are you doing here?” asked Halders.

“I thought Anette was here,” said Sigge Lindsten.

“She said that she had spoken with you tonight.”

“Have you spoken to Anette?”

“Just now,” said Aneta, “at Forsblad’s sister’s house.”

“I was already on my way here then,” said Lindsten.

“Why would she come here?” asked Halders.

“If she wasn’t at home or with us down in Vallda, well, where else could she be? This was the only place I could think of.”

“What about Susanne Marke’s?”

“No,” said Lindsten.

“No, what?”

“I didn’t think she’d be there.”

“Why not?”

“Not after… what happened.”

“Where could Forsblad be now?” said Aneta.

“Not at his sister’s, then?” said Lindsten.

“No.”

“He could have been here,” said Halders.

“He doesn’t have a key,” said Lindsten.

Is he that naïve? thought Aneta. Forsblad could have made any number of keys he wanted to.

“I was just about to go,” said Lindsten.

“What is that smell?” said Halders.

“I don’t smell anything here.”

Halders pushed past Lindsten before he had time to say anything more. Aneta saw Halders turn into the kitchen on the left side of the hall.

She heard Halders’s voice: “Coffee. Brewed pretty recently.”

Aneta looked at Sigge Lindsten.

“I felt like a cup.”

“Food in the fridge,” Halders’s voice said.

“Were you hungry too?” asked Aneta.

Lindsten threw a glance over toward the hall and the kitchen.

“It’s for Anette’s sake,” said Lindsten.

“Sorry?”

“If she has to come here. Suddenly. If something else happened.”

“Isn’t this the last place she would choose?”

Lindsten didn’t answer.

Halders came out into the hall again and walked into the bedroom on the other side and came back.

“Are the air mattress and sleeping bag in there for her sake too?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently you think of everything,” said Halders.

“It’s still my apartment,” said Lindsten. “I can do what I want here.”

“When is Anette coming home again?” asked Aneta. “Home to the house in Fredriksdal?”

“Tonight, I assume.”

“Is your wife there now?”

“Yes.”

“I would like the two of you to check whether anything has been stolen from your house,” said Aneta.

“Been stolen? But Anette told me that she happened to trip and break the window. Didn’t she tell you that too?”

They didn’t answer.

“Didn’t she tell you?” repeated Lindsten.

“She did,” said Aneta.

“Someone could have come in after that,” said Halders.

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

Halders looked around.

“What will happen to this apartment now?”

“Nothing,” said Lindsten.

Bergenhem drove north. He passed Olskroken, Gamlestaden. He was driving aimlessly. He stopped for streetcars. They seemed to be running empty. They had had a problem with a streetcar driver last Christmas. “Problem” was not the word. It wasn’t even the first syllable. Where would it end? Your wall’s too high, sang John Kay inside the car. I can’t see, can’t seem to reach you, can’t set you free.

There was a rumbling out there somewhere. Could be thunder, could be cannons, could be fireworks. He passed the SKF factory. The façade looked threatening, like a black memory. People have good memories from there, he thought. All the Italians who came here in the sixties and built welfare for the Swedes. The record years. Now there are no more records left to break except this one: most trips around the city in one week, one month, one year. John Kay sang “Born to Be Wild.” No choppers passed him. Otherwise, he was in Chopperland. There were different laws here, chopper laws. Biker laws. That was the rumbling; he heard it again. Harleys in the courtyards among buildings that had been blown into the air, or would be. The sound of motors would remain, cylinders, wheels, gears. Though SKF wouldn’t remain, not here. They would be relocated to South America, maybe southern Italy. The residents of Kortedala would have to move to Calabria and produce new welfare for others. New record years.

Born to be wiiiiiiiiild. Bergenhem sang along; he had to do something. He passed giant buildings. Something strange had happened to Aneta in one of those. Brazen scoundrels who had pretended to be someone else, right in the face of the law. Stole a whole apartment right in the face of a detective. Gothenburg’s Finest. It could have been him. It could have been here. He drove more slowly, read the street signs, saw the building that grew up out of the darkness and covered the whole sky, saw the lighting of the stairwell, the numbers. It was here. Sure as shit, it was here.

He backed up and read the street sign again.

Number five. He remembered number five. It was such a special story that he remembered the number. He drove forward again, a little bit. Number five. A car was parked where cars were not allowed to be. He thought he recognized the car. He stopped. It could be Halders’s unmarked police car.

He stood still twenty-five yards away. Steppenwolf was no longer singing. He could hear the streetcar passing far behind him; he saw its lights as a flash.

He saw another flash; a cigarette being lit in the front seat of a car that was parked ten yards behind Halders’s car, if it was in fact his.

Bergenhem took his binoculars out of the glove box. Yes. It was Halders’s car. He moved the binoculars. A man was sitting in the car behind it and the cigarette glowed as he took a drag. Now he was picking up a cell phone. Now he was putting it down. Now he was smoking again. Completely normal behavior. Now he was smoking again. He looked straight ahead, at door number five.

He’s waiting for someone, thought Bergenhem. Or he’s trying to decide whether to go in.

Or he’s waiting for someone to come out.

So he can go in.

Shit, I’m worse than Winter. Never letting it go. Seeing what might be happening when things aren’t as they should be. When they aren’t good. When there’s a reason to be suspicious.

Assume that everyone is a suspect. Act accordingly.

Assume that everyone is lying. Act accordingly.

Winter’s Law. And Halders’s Law, to be sure.

Now he was smoking in the car again.

Bergenhem got out his phone and called.

Halders’s breast pocket was ringing. They were on their way to the elevator. The door to the Lindstens’ apartment was closed behind them. Lindsten was just going to drink up the coffee, as he said. Café ooh la la, said Halders when they’d left.

Halders took out his phone, which sounded loud in the bare, graffitied brick hall that shone with silver and gold. Halders read the screen. Blocked number.

“Yes?”

“Bergenhem here. Where are you?”

“What the… I’m in a cozy little villa in Kortedala. Some season address, I don’t have the exact-”

“I’m standing outside.”

“Repeat,” said Halders, looking at Aneta and rolling his eyes.

“Listen up, Fredrik. I don’t know what it’s worth but I was driving by and remembered yours and Aneta’s gig and I stopped. I recognized your car. It’s right outside the door. There’s-”

“What are you getting at, Lars?” interrupted Halders.

The elevator came up. Bergenhem heard it, recognized the noise.

“Listen, for fuck’s sake, Fredrik. Wait a second when you come out of the elevator down there, and think. I’m sitting out here, and I’m sitting behind some character who might be keeping tabs on your car. Maybe he’s waiting for someone else. Maybe he’s been thrown out. I don’t know. I just had a hunch.”

“What kind of car is it?” asked Halders.

“A Volvo. V Forty. Might be black, but all cars are black in this light. Or dark.”

Bergenhem could hear Halders whistling, or maybe it was the elevator whistling itself down. Apparently it was possible to talk on a cell phone in the elevator. Or maybe it was a satellite. Aneta had said something about a satellite phone.

“Is he alone?” said Halders.

“Yes. If no one is lying on the floor in the backseat.”

“He’s watching us,” said Halders. “It’s Hanzi Fanzi.”

“Who?”

“Forsblad. Hans Forsb… oh, fuck it, is he still there?”

“He’s just lighting another cigarette. He’s sitting behind the wheel.”

Bergenhem heard the elevator doors glide open.

“This is what we’ll do,” said Halders.

When Halders and Aneta came hurtling out of number five, Bergenhem was standing behind the Volvo and he rushed up and yanked open the door before the driver had time to start the car.

Life is full of surprises, thought Bergenhem as he was driving back in the night. The city suddenly looked different. There was a different light over Gamlestaden, then Bagaregården, Redbergsplatsen, Olskroken. No local police here anymore. The territory went back to the enemy. The chopper gangs. Get your motor running.

He felt a freedom in his body, almost a happiness.

They got a room after waiting for fifteen minutes. They walked through corridors that looked about like the stairwell in the colossus in Kortedala, minus the graffiti. It’s only a matter of time, thought Halders. Soon those devils will be in here too. Maybe they’re already here among us.

“I’ve never seen the like,” said Hans Forsblad suddenly. “This is going to cost you.”

In the car he had been quiet. Aneta had thought she heard a giggle. Must have been a sob.

When they came up to his car he had sat without moving. Naturally, he had looked surprised.

And yet he hadn’t.

He had come along without Fredrik having to knock him out.

Forsblad knew. He knew the law, at least on paper.