The Quarry

41

Jerry and Marika were standing motionless in the hospital corridor, staring at one another.

Per was standing beside them, but he really wanted to be somewhere else. On the other side of the sound, perhaps, out for a long run with Vendela Larsson. But now he was here.

He and Jerry had stepped out of the lift five minutes earlier, and his ex-wife had been waiting.

‘Hello, Jerry,’ Marika said quietly. ‘How are you?’

Marika had met Jerry only once before, but that was a long time ago, the year before the twins were born. She had met Per’s mother Anita several times by that stage and things had gone very well, and she insisted on meeting his father as well. So one weekend when they weren’t far from Kristianstad, Per had driven into the centre and rung the doorbell of Jerry’s apartment.

He had been hoping that no one would be at home.

But Jerry had opened the door dressed in a dark-blue silk dressing gown and leopard-print underpants, and had invited them in for lunch: toast with whitefish roe. Plenty of sparkling wine as well, of course. When they left he had given them the latest issues of Babylon and Gomorrah as a present — just to destroy the romance.

After that, Marika hadn’t wanted to see Jerry again.

And now, fourteen years later, they were standing here face to face. Per wasn’t sure if Jerry actually recognized his ex-wife. He was just staring at Marika, but then that was what he did with everybody these days.

‘Jerry doesn’t say much any more,’ said Per. ‘But apart from that he’s doing pretty well. Aren’t you, Jerry?’

His father merely nodded, still staring at Marika.

‘Have you been in to see Nilla?’ Per asked.

‘Yes... she’s feeling quite cheerful today. I have to go — the doctor wants to see me. Will you come with me?’

Per shook his head. He was frightened of hearing any news about Nilla. ‘Not today.’

‘It might be important,’ said Marika.

‘Every meeting about Nilla is important,’ Per said quickly. ‘I’ll be back soon, but there’s something Jerry and I have to do right now. That’s important, too.’

‘Can’t you put it off?’

‘No... We’ve got to go to a meeting.’

He didn’t want to say it involved the police. Marika nodded, but she didn’t look pleased.

‘See you later,’ said Per, heading into the ward.

Nilla was sitting cross-legged on her bed, drinking something out of a glass; she was dressed in her pyjamas, and her back was straight. She nodded at her father as he came in, but carried on drinking. Per looked at the strange, orange liquid in the glass and asked her, ‘What are you drinking?’

‘Carrot juice.’

‘Did you buy it yourself?’

She took another swig and shook her head. ‘Emil gave it to me... His mum makes it for him, and she adds all kinds of vitamins that are supposed to make him better. But he doesn’t like it.’

‘But you do?’

‘It’s OK... and at least it means he doesn’t have to drink it.’

From outside they heard the sharp tone of a nurse as she asked a patient what he was doing in the corridor. The response was a barely audible mumble.

‘I see. In that case we’ll try a bed-pan,’ said the nurse, and her footsteps tapped away down the corridor.

‘Are you staying?’ asked Nilla. ‘Mum will be back soon, she’s just gone to a meeting.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t, Granddad’s waiting for me.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘We’re... we’re just going for a bit of a drive around Kalmar.’

He was lying to his daughter, just as he had lied to Marika.

Marika had gone when Per got back to the lifts. Jerry was sitting on a chair with his mobile to his ear. He ended the call before Per reached him.

‘Who were you talking to?’ Per asked on the way down in the lift. ‘Did somebody ring you?’

Jerry peered out of the window. ‘Bremer,’ he said.

‘He’s dead, Jerry.’

‘Bremer wanted to talk.’

‘Did he?’

Per twisted Jerry’s phone around and looked at the display: NUMBER WITHHELD again.

They went back to the car; Per sat down next to his father and started the engine. ‘Do me a favour, Jerry,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell the police Hans Bremer rang you. They might get the wrong idea about you.’

Jerry didn’t reply. He remained silent for a little while as they drove through Kalmar, but as they were passing a little games shop with the windows painted over, he followed it with his eyes. Then he opened his mouth and said two words Per didn’t quite catch.

‘What? What did you say, Jerry?’

‘Moleng Noar.’

‘Moleng... What’s that?’

Jerry smiled to himself. ‘Malmö.’

‘Moleng Noar in Malmö?’

Jerry nodded.

‘It sounds like a Chinese restaurant,’ said Per. ‘Or is it a person... a Chinese person you knew in Malmö?’

Jerry shook his head.

‘Cindy,’ he mumbled all of a sudden. ‘Suzie, Christy, Debbie...’

‘Was it a place where you used to meet girls in Malmö?’

His father merely nodded and smiled to himself; he didn’t speak again as they drove through the town.

The police station in Kalmar was a large, yellow-brick building with narrow windows. It was just north of the town centre, and occupied half a block.

Jerry looked at the sign that said POLICE outside the entrance, and gave a start. He refused to move.

‘It’s fine,’ Per said quietly. ‘They just want to talk to us.’

He gave their names to the woman on reception and sat down with Jerry on a plastic-covered sofa. In front of them was a poster on the dangers of selling alcohol to those under-age, featuring the sorrowful eyes of a young girl and the words DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR DAUGHTER’S DOING TONIGHT?

Yes, I do, thought Per.

Lars Marklund, the inspector he had spoken to on the phone, came out after a few minutes. He was casually dressed in jeans and grey polo-neck sweater.

‘Welcome,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘We thought we’d have a chat with you on your own first, Per. Then we’ll bring Gerhard in later.’ He glanced at Jerry. ‘You can wait here for the time being, Gerhard.’

Jerry suddenly looked anxious. He tried to get up, but Per bent down to him. ‘You just stay here, Jerry, it’ll be fine... I’ll be back soon.’

His father seemed to consider this, then he nodded.

Marklund led Per to a small, bare room containing nothing but a desk covered in various folders, and two chairs. ‘Take a seat... So you’re from Öland?’

Per sat down opposite him. ‘That’s right.’

‘It’s a beautiful place... I’ve always fancied a house on Öland. Is it expensive?’

‘I should think it might be... I don’t really know. I inherited my cottage.’

‘Lucky you.’ Marklund picked up a pen and looked at Per. ‘OK... Can you just tell me in your own words exactly what you saw both outside and inside the house that day? Every detail is important.’

‘About the fire, you mean?’

Per glanced down at the desk, and saw that Marklund was resting his elbow on some kind of technical report, and a sketch of the ground floor of Jerry’s house. He could see arrows and crosses on the drawing, and the words FIRE STARTED DELIBERATELY IN FIVE PLACES! written in pencil.

‘Absolutely, tell me all you can about the fire,’ said Marklund. ‘How you discovered it, when you made that discovery, exactly where you were in the house, whether you noticed any damage before the fire, and how you think the fire spread.’

Per took a deep breath, then started to explain how he had gone to Jerry’s house to pick up his father, only to discover that he had been attacked with a knife. He told Marklund he had gone back into the house, up the stairs and into the smoke-filled room where the bed was on fire. He thought he had seen a man’s body there, then heard a woman screaming from another room. And then the fire suddenly seemed to be getting closer from several different directions, and he had to jump out of the window.

The truth and nothing but the truth, as far as he could remember. It took about quarter of an hour.

‘That’s all I know,’ he said when he had finished. ‘I was inside the house, but I had nothing to do with starting the fire.’

‘Nobody said you did,’ said Marklund, making a note on his pad.

Per leaned forward. ‘But what have you found out? It must have been carefully set up, surely?’

Marklund didn’t respond at first.

‘Normally we wouldn’t comment, but you did see a can of petrol with holes punched in it, and a car battery — what does that indicate?’

‘Planning,’ said Per.

Marklund nodded. ‘The forensic team found remnants of paper near the places where the fires started... remnants of documents.’

Per thought about the open door to Jerry’s apartment. ‘They might have been contracts,’ he said. ‘For people who appeared in Jerry and Bremer’s films and magazines. Have you spoken to any of them?’

‘They’re not that easy to find,’ said Marklund. ‘We haven’t had much success so far.’

‘No, they didn’t use their real names,’ said Per. ‘Do you need any help? I could have a look for—’

The detective quickly shook his head. ‘That’s our job.’

Per raised his eyes wearily to the ceiling. Ungrateful sod.

‘But we believe the dead woman was a former model,’ said Marklund.

Per looked at him. ‘Oh? What was her name?’

‘We’re not prepared to reveal her name at this stage.’ Marklund made a note, then went on, ‘Tell me about your father... How long has he been involved in this particular profession? And what did he do before that?’

‘Jerry’s never said much about it,’ said Per. ‘But I know his father was a vicar, and Jerry left home pretty early on and became a car dealer at the beginning of the fifties. I’m sure he was good at it... And a few years later he bought a postcard company and started printing erotic pictures. They sold well. Then in the sixties he launched his first magazine, Babylon; it was printed in Denmark and smuggled into Sweden aboard small motorboats.’ He stopped, then added, ‘But then porn became legal in Sweden at the beginning of the seventies. He formed a limited company and started employing people, and sold magazines all over Europe.’

‘So that was the start of your father’s glory days, if I can put it that way?’ Marklund made another note before looking up. ‘And the people he employed — what do you know about them?’

‘Nothing. One guy who was around a lot was called Markus Lukas, but that sounds made up as well.’

‘And Bremer? What do you know about Hans Bremer?’

‘Not much.’

‘Have you ever met him?’

Per shook his head. ‘I only know bits and pieces that my father has mentioned over the years... they started working together at the end of the seventies, and Bremer lived in Malmö. Jerry said he was a fast, efficient worker, and he was very pleased with him.’

Marklund wrote this down, then said, ‘We probably know a little bit more about Bremer than you do.’

‘Like what?’

‘I can’t go into detail, but Bremer was involved in various things down in Malmö. The film business was just one of his many interests... We’re busy looking into everything else at the moment.’

‘So he was a gangster?’

‘I didn’t say that. So they got on well, your father and Bremer?’

‘I think so, I mean they worked together for many years. And Jerry had gone to the house to meet Bremer before it caught fire.’

Marklund looked through his papers. ‘But they’d quarrelled that day, hadn’t they?’

‘So Jerry says. He insists it was Bremer who cut him with the knife, if I’ve understood him correctly... but if Bremer was tied up and locked in, it must have been somebody else.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’

Per hesitated. Markus Lukas, he thought. Who else could it be?

‘I don’t know... I thought I saw someone running off into the trees at the edge of the forest, just after the fire had broken out. There’s a track, and tyre marks on the ground... I think.’ He hesitated again, but went on, ‘I got the idea that Bremer’s car had been parked in the forest and someone drove off in it once the house was on fire.’

‘Oh?’ Marklund looked at his notes again. ‘What makes you think Hans Bremer had a car?’

Per looked at him. ‘He did, didn’t he? He used to give my father a lift sometimes. Bremer must have picked him up at the bus station before the fire... By the way, have you found all his keys?’

Marklund checked his notes once more. ‘His keys? Would he have had a lot of keys?’

‘I don’t know... But someone went into my father’s apartment in Kristianstad while he was on Öland and broke into a chest of drawers. They were obviously looking for something. They’d been rifling through all Jerry’s papers. We discovered it over Easter, and my father said that Bremer had a set of keys to his apartment. I did report it to the police.’

‘A break-in?’ Marklund made a note. ‘I’d better check up on that.’

‘Good,’ said Per.

There was a brief silence. Marklund looked at the clock and said, ‘Is there anything you’d like to add?’

Per thought about it. Part of him wanted to carry on talking, to tell Marklund he could still hear the woman’s screams reverberating in his head, mingled with Regina’s cries in the forest. But this wasn’t a therapy session.

Then something occurred to him.

‘One thing, perhaps... My father and I have had some strange phone calls since the fire.’

‘From whom?’

‘I don’t know. They were anonymous calls.’

‘OK, but sometimes it’s possible to get the number anyway... We’ll give it a try.’

Marklund made a few more notes, then nodded. ‘Right, I think we’re done here.’ He looked at Per. ‘Many thanks. Would you like to go and bring Gerhard in now?’

Per stood up. He thought about Nilla, and asked, ‘How long will it take?’

‘Not long... Twenty minutes, maybe?’

‘OK... but Jerry doesn’t talk much, as I told you.’

As he left the room he looked at his watch and discovered that the interview had gone on for a good half-hour. Jerry had no doubt fallen asleep.

But when he got to reception his father was not fast asleep on the sofa; in fact, he wasn’t there at all. The sofa was empty.

Per stared at it for a few seconds, then checked the toilets in the little cloakroom. They were also empty.

The woman on reception looked up as Per went over to her. ‘The old man?’ she replied. ‘He left.’

‘Left?’

‘I think he spotted someone out in the street, and he went off.’

‘When?’

‘Not long ago. I’m not sure... maybe quarter of an hour ago?’

Per turned and was out of the police station in three strides.

He stood on the pavement looking around, blinking in the sunshine. A few cars went whizzing by along the street to his right, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

Jerry had disappeared.