To the Top of the Mountain (2 page)

Pseudo-terminology finding its way into his language in order to distance himself from reality. The witness. The victim. The perpetrator.

‘With the handle of the beer mug in his hand?’ asked Holm.

‘Yeah,’ said Per Karlsson.

‘This one?’ asked Hjelm, holding up a plastic bag containing the handle of a beer mug. The blood was smeared and clotted over the inside of the bag.

Per Karlsson wrinkled his nose and nodded.

‘We found it a short distance away on Folkungagatan. That means he must’ve run round the corner, past the Malmen hotel and past the entrance to Medborgarplatsen metro station. His fingerprints aren’t in the database, so it’s of the utmost importance that you can help us to identify . . . the perpetrator. You didn’t hear them say anything about where he might have gone?’

‘No,’ said Per Karlsson.

‘Let’s go back a few steps,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘How many sneaked out before the doormen blocked the door? Ten or so Hammarby fans, you said, but also a number of others?’

‘I think so. Some of the people who’d been sitting at the table next to the door disappeared, and a few others, too.’

‘As you can imagine, we’re looking for impartial witnesses who disappeared. The people sitting at the table next to the door weren’t Hammarby fans?’

‘No, they were already there before it happened, when the game was still on. But there were a few tables between the one where I was sitting and theirs, and they filled up pretty quickly. There were five men. Now that I think about it, one of them stayed behind, a guy with a shaved head and light-coloured moustache.’

‘But the others disappeared after . . . the killing?’

‘I think so.’

‘What did they look like? A group of workmates?’

‘Maybe. I didn’t look too closely. They weren’t exactly talking to one another.’

‘Weren’t talking? What, were they reading Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
?’

‘Lay off! Look, one of them stayed behind, didn’t he? The one with the shaved head. Talk to him.’

‘OK. Who else? You were sitting at the table second from the window, second from the right-hand wall, as seen from the bar. This group was sitting on the far left, on the other side of the aisle. What about the tables in between?’

‘Like I said, they filled up before the Hammarby fans came in. As far as I remember, there weren’t any seats left for the Hammarby fans, except next to me. A bunch of them sat down at my table. A few of them managed to leave after it happened.’

‘And over by the window out onto Tjärhovsgatan? You were facing that way, weren’t you?’

‘A group of girls. They were taking up both tables over in the corner. A hen party, I think, having a last few drinks. They were pretty drunk – and pretty damn shocked afterwards. None of them left, they could hardly bloody walk.’

‘Right next to you? Against the right-hand wall?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t remember.’

‘You can’t remember? You seem to remember quite well otherwise.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. There might’ve been some people sitting there, but I never looked in that direction.’

‘Fine. Behind you, then? Towards the bar? You said you turned round a few times?’

‘At one table there was a man by himself, staring at me. Closest to the bar. Really tall, in his fifties. Gay, I’d guess. But you have his name, he stayed behind. He must’ve been closest to it. I don’t remember the rest of the tables too well. A group of amateur musician types who stayed behind. Two middle-aged couples. I’ve got no idea about the tables further in.’

Per Karlsson fell silent. Hjelm and Holm fell silent. Eventually, Holm said: ‘Shall we sum up, then? We’ll draw a little sketch. The crime scene, the bar, is set back in the room, against the wall on the other side to the door. In a straight line from the bar, there are a number of tables at the rear. You don’t know anything about them, you were sitting too far away. The periphery looks like this, as seen from the bar. Straight ahead, the window out onto Tjärhovsgatan. To the left, the door. Next to the door, one table, running longways. Then the aisle, then three rows of three big tables, with you sitting at the right-hand side of the middle one, facing the window. Before the Hammarby fans poured in just after nine, the following people were present. On the row of tables along the window, the hen party group were sitting at the two to the right. Then, at the window table nearest the door . . .?’

‘I don’t know. There was a group sitting there, but I’ve got no idea who they were. They were there afterwards, in any case.’

‘The middle row, then, the row of tables you were sitting at?’

‘I don’t know about the table on the far right, like I said. Then me, and after a while seven or eight Hammarby fans. There was a group of students sitting at the table to the left of mine, I think.’

‘And the row nearest to the bar?’

‘Christ, OK. At the first table, furthest to the right, nearest the bar: those two couples and the tall gay guy who was staring at me. Second table: the musician types, four of them. The third table: no idea. Then the single table by the door: the group of five men. Four of them disappeared.’

‘Well, then,’ said Hjelm. ‘Time for the perpetrator.’

He felt pleased at being able to say the word without having to pause first.

‘It’s mostly the Hammarby scarves that I remember, actually,’ said Per Karlsson. ‘One of them had a banner, too; rolled up, green and white squares. The perpetrator had medium-long, pretty blond, pretty dirty hair. I almost only saw him from behind. I think he had a little moustache, too. I don’t know, he looked like a mechanic or something, if you get what I mean. I was born and raised in Danderyd, and out there, he was one of those people you’d immediately assume was from the southern suburbs. A Farsta type.’

Hjelm and Holm stared at him.

‘Judgemental, I know,’ he said. ‘I live in the south myself now. Unemployed and uneducated, living in the southern suburbs. Judgemental, but it’s the best I can do.’

‘No, one more thing,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘Come with me to the police artist. He does it all on computers now, so it won’t take long.’

She stood up. Per Karlsson stood up. She was taller than he was, Hjelm noticed irrelevantly.

‘You don’t have anything else to add, Per?’ he asked.

Per Karlsson shook his head and gave him a furtive glance. That peculiar, paradoxical clarity in his eyes.

‘Well, thanks for your help.’

They disappeared.

Paul Hjelm disappeared, too. Into the vague half-world of daydreams. Per Karlsson. Born twenty years ago in Danderyd. Born in the affluent suburb of Danderyd, but hadn’t even stayed on at school. Unemployed, but sat in the most well-known and notorious of Södermalm’s pubs, reading the classics. What had happened? It was impossible to guess. An outsider at school? Thrown out of his father’s firm? Made to feel small, but on the way up? Rebellion against his father? Generally obstinate? Former addict? Dim-witted?

No.

Maybe the others, but not that. Not dim-witted. That much Paul Hjelm had seen, even though he felt, well . . . dim-witted.

Demoted to the dreary limbo of pub brawls.

Paradise lost.

No, not dim-witted. On the contrary, Per was unusually observant. But now Hjelm had to forget him. Now they had to plough on through more miserable interrogations with hungover witnesses, and Per Karlsson needed to be on someone else’s mind. Only his evidence could remain.

Hjelm yawned, his thoughts trundling on. The months spent with the local police. The violent crimes division of Stockholm’s City district. Police headquarters on Bergsgatan. The utterly temporary office which, equally temporarily, he had been liberated from. The office actually belonged to Gunnarlöv, a policeman on sick leave, whose telephone he always answered with: ‘Gunnar Löv’s telephone, Paul Hjelm speaking.’ It was only when an old colleague of Gunnarlöv, now stationed in Härnösand, came in and asked after ‘Nils-Egg’ that he understand why there was always a pause on the other end of the line when he answered. People were simply recovering from his strange pronunciation of Gunnarlöv. His jaw dropped when he looked up the name in the internal telephone catalogue and saw it there in black and white: it wasn’t ‘Gunnar Löv’ at all, but ‘Nils-Egil Gunnarlöv’. Shortened to Nils-Egg.

Were people really allowed to be called such things? Weren’t there laws? Wasn’t it the same as naming your child Heroin, like a family in Gnesta had tried to do a while ago, Heroin Lindgren? They had been turned down and written a whole series of letters to the local press where they went on the offensive against the nanny state.

In any case, Gunnarlöv was on sick leave because he had, while on duty, found himself in the Stureplan branch of Föreningssparbank when a hysterical female bank robber aged around fourteen rushed in with a staple gun at the ready, demanding ‘all your high-yield shares, ready to go’. Don’t staple guns need to be plugged in? Gunnarlöv had thought to himself, going over to the robber to calmly point out that fact and receiving, to his surprise, no fewer than thirty-four staples peppered across his face. Miraculously enough, none of them hit his eyes. The first thing he said on waking from unconsciousness was: ‘Don’t staple guns run on electricity?’ His wife stared at his bandage-covered head, her eyes swollen and red with crying, and answered: ‘There are ones that run on batteries.’

The adventures of Nils-Egil Gunnarlöv.

Nils-Egg in Wonderland.

Still, Paul Hjelm’s own story wasn’t all that much more entertaining. Quite the opposite, in fact, since the story of Nils-Egg actually had its bizarre moments.

Kerstin Holm came back, leafing through a notepad.

‘Welcome to reality,’ Paul Hjelm said gruffly.

‘It’s not much different in Gothenburg.’

‘Sweden’s shithole.’

‘What’re you getting at?’ exclaimed Kerstin Holm in her good-natured Gothenburg accent.

‘Ah, sorry. No, well, it was just something that was being bandied about in the media a few weeks ago. The Black Army, you know, the AIK supporters’ club, it was on their answering machine before the team’s cup final against IFK Göteborg, in Ullevi Stadium. Stockholm arrogance and tribal football hate in an unhealthy union.’

‘Yeah, and now we’ve got it again. Stockholm arrogance and tribal football hate, only a more serious type. Did you see him?’

‘Anders Lundström from Kalmar? Yeah. Really nasty. His head was a terrible mess. To think a beer mug can do so much damage!’

‘Why? How do we explain it?’

Paul Hjelm looked at Kerstin Holm. They had a shared past which meant that no glance was entirely innocent.

‘Are you serious?’ he asked, half serious himself.

‘Yes. Yes, I am, I really am. Why’s the violence getting worse?’

He sighed. ‘Well, at least now we’ve been able to see it up close. For just over six months. The grey, everyday violence in the city. It doesn’t exactly do much to encourage your philanthropic tendencies. Are you back for good now, Kerstin?’

‘I was on loan. You know what it’s like with footballers who’re on loan, there’s something wrong with them. Now I’m not on loan any more.’

‘For good, though? How was being home in Gothenburg?’

‘This is home now, that much I’ve figured out. That’s probably all, though.’

‘But life is OK?’

‘Exactly. OK. No more, no less. Under control. Could wish for a little more . . .’

‘Sure, same here. I think I’m beginning to have a little midlife crisis. Is this all there is? Isn’t there more to it? You know.’

‘I think so.’

‘You’ve just got to make the best of the situation. We’re back together again, and now we’re going to smoothly wrap up what the media are already calling the Kvarnen Killing. Right?’

Kerstin Holm chuckled slightly and slipped a sachet of snus tobacco under her upper lip.

‘What’s this, then?’ said Hjelm, pointing.

‘A fresh start,’ said Kerstin Holm without batting an eyelid. She changed to another subject, one from the past. ‘How are the others? I’ve kept in touch with Gunnar the whole time, things are going well for him.’

‘Yeah. Ah yes, our friend Gunnar Nyberg . . . He was the only one who stayed with national CID, actually. A reward for refusing to take part in the final phase of the hunt for the Kentucky Killer. He ended up in the middle of the paedophile busts. The so-called Paedo University.’

‘I can just see him,’ Kerstin Holm smiled, leafing through her little notepad. ‘He’s just re-established contact with his kids and his one-year-old grandchild, and then he finds himself thrown head first into the world of Internet paedophiles. Like a steamroller.’

‘You’re right there.’

An image emerged in both their minds, doubtless almost identical. A snorting giant with a bandage around his head, hunting paedophiles with a blowtorch.

‘Yep,’ said Hjelm gloomily, ‘the rest of us got our little punishments. Bad blood always comes back round.’

‘We should never say that again.’

‘You’re right, never again.’

‘And the others?’

‘I haven’t had that much contact with them since the A-Unit split. I ended up on that God-awful loan to the local police. “Gunnar Löv’s telephone.” Punishment. Deep down, I think they held me responsible for the cock-up with the Kentucky Killer, but Jan-Olov was the scapegoat.’

‘Have you heard from him?’

‘No, he just disappeared. Involuntary retirement. Retired Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin. I think he even stopped playing football. That’s the end of the saga of Wooden Leg Hultin. Söderstedt and Norlander ended up with local CID’s violent crimes squad, and Chavez has been doing more training.’

‘At the Police College?’

‘Yep. Career plans rumbling on. Are there still superintendent courses? It’s something like that he’s doing if there are.’

‘There you go. And our room? The “Supreme Command Centre”?’

‘I think they’ve got admin staff in there now.’

They sat in silence for a while, observing one another. All they had experienced together . . . For a short moment, their hands met, pressing together. That was enough. A lot of work lay ahead of them. Kerstin Holm glanced through her notepad, Paul Hjelm leafed through the mediocre notes from the brief interrogations carried out by the night staff. Together, they looked at the little sketch of the Kvarnen bar.