Attack and Decay, page 25
I had the distinct feeling that Ida’s attempt to keep us out of that business had achieved very little. I altered the course of the conversation by saying, “You see the implications of that?”
“The implications of what?”
“Two attempts to do the ‘Fire’ song.”
“Yes.” The frown line deepened, causing me—very much to my surprise—to want to reach out and brush her forehead with my fingertips, and erase it, the way you’d wipe away a child’s cares. “The implications are: if a crime is attempted based on a song, and the crime fails…”
“The song goes back into rotation,” I said. “So to speak. Until it can be used again.”
“Yes,” said Eva Lizell. “It isn’t considered used up if the attempt was a failure.”
“Unfortunately,” I said.
“Very much unfortunately. The device at Bo Lugn’s establishment was attached to a timer that would have detonated it at noon. Lunchtime. There is every chance that a number of people would have been seriously hurt and there might well have been some fatalities. Not as many as would have occurred if it was set to go off later. But the later they left it, the greater the chance of the device being discovered.” She sighed. “So anyway, the song ‘Fire’ can be considered, to use your phrase, still in rotation. What else is in rotation?”
“‘Candle in the Wind’,” I said.
“Do we feel that either of those attempts at arson could actually be connected with that song?”
“Well,” I said, “as far as I know neither of them involved a candle or the wind.”
“All right, so we’ll assume that song is also still in rotation and that we have yet to see any attempt to use it.”
“Which leaves two others,” I said.
“Yes. There’s ‘Gallows Pole’…”
“And then there’s ‘Active Shooter’,” I said, because I couldn’t stand waiting for her to say it. “Which is also still in rotation. And even less promising.”
“Yes,” said Eva Lizell curtly. She was staring out the window at the tiny courtyard and I sensed that she was longing for a cigarette.
I said, “Have you…”
She turned angry brown eyes on me. “What?”
“Taken any measures…”
“Measures?”
“Made any preparations…” I said.
“What kind of preparations?”
“In case they try ‘Active Shooter’ again,” I said.
The anger in those eyes was now sardonic. “You think, perhaps, I should have a special tactical unit on standby ready to prevent mass fatalities as the result of someone going on the rampage with an automatic weapon?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you think that this unit should be available full time and ready at a moment’s notice when we have no idea of exactly when or where it might be needed? Or, indeed, if it will be needed?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do think that.”
Eva Lizell sighed again and her shoulders sagged. “Well, so do I. And I have made my thoughts known and made requests for exactly those kinds of resources. But I am afraid my superiors aren’t entirely convinced that they can justify the commitment of such resources on the basis of what they feel is a rather tenuous hypothesis.”
“Tenuous?” I said.
“They don’t fully believe in the connection between the killings and the songs.”
“Well, they’ve had three out of seven,” I said. “How many do you think they want?”
23: THE SHELF-FITTING PERSUASION
As I walked back from the café my phone rang. To my surprise it was Magnus. Without preamble, he said, “I am still awaiting payment from Owyn Wynter. When do you think I might expect it?”
I felt a spreading, rising warmth that was not solely to do with all the coffee I’d just drunk, and I said I’d get onto it right away. Then we bid each other goodbye, really quite civilly, and hung up. I was jubilant. It seemed the deal hadn’t gone south after all.
And I was as good as my word, I did get on it right away. I called Owyn.
“I know, I know,” he said. “As it happens, Jaunty has just given me the go-ahead, so I will send payment now. There. I’ve done it. Check with Magnus. He should have the money now.”
I did. And he had. As soon as I put my phone away, in a very good mood, it rang again. It was Nevada. I filled her in on my conversation with the Kriminalinspektör and then I told her about the deal. “I think Magnus came to his senses. He was furious because the band wants to do business with me instead of him. But then he realised the implications of this.”
“No more money coming in,” said Nevada.
“Exactly,” I said. “At least from this direction. At least for now. So that reminded him keenly he had a deal in place, one that guaranteed him a healthy payday. He couldn’t turn his nose up at that.”
“If he did,” said Nevada, “he would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. You notice how his nose keeps coming into this?”
“It’s not much of a nose,” I said.
“It isn’t,” she agreed. “Yours is much nicer. So the deal is going ahead?”
“It’s gone ahead.”
“Already?”
“Yes,” I said. “The money has been transferred and Magnus has received it.”
I could tell Nevada was doing something else for an instant. And then she said, “And so have we. Woohoo. I just checked and we’ve been paid our commission.”
Perhaps a little premature, I thought. I didn’t actually have this piece of vinyl in my hands yet. And I wouldn’t relax until I did. “I’ll collect the record from Magnus tomorrow,” I said.
“No, my love,” said Nevada. “We’ll collect the record from Magnus tomorrow. Are you coming back to the hotel now?”
“Yes, by way of the vattentorn, where I’m meeting Tinkler.”
“Ah, at the record shop. Of course. Don’t let him lead you astray.”
“When you say ‘lead me astray’, do you mean by helping me talk myself into buying expensive vinyl?”
“Chiefly that, yes.”
“I won’t.”
When I got to the record and book shop, Anders said, “Your friend was just here.”
“Tinkler was just here?”
“Literally just standing right here. But he suddenly thought he might have missed you.”
“How could he have missed me?” I said.
Anders shrugged, continuing to go through an enormous box of paperbacks, pricing them. “He thought you might have gone up to Ida’s apartment.”
“Without walking past him standing right here?” I said.
“He thought you might have used the outside staircase. You see, they—Jordon and Ida—have a habit of leaving the door open up there, or at least unlocked. I have warned them about it on several occasions. I mean, I have warned Ida already and now I have warned Jordon, too. But they are incorrigible. They are both incorrigible. They both leave it unlocked or even open. I know categorically that on many occasions they have done so.”
“So Tinkler’s what…” I said. “Gone upstairs?”
“Yes, to meet up with you, he thought. You having gone upstairs by the outdoor staircase. As he surmised. Wrongly as it happens. But if you had gone up by the outdoor staircase, you probably would have had no problem getting into the apartment. They constantly leave it unlocked.”
This was clearly a bone of contention between the lovebirds and Anders, who now, however, shrugged a philosophical shrug and returned to his Sisyphean project of pricing paperbacks. “It’s perhaps not as much of a hazard as you may think. This is quite a peaceable town. Not much crime here, not much crime here at all.”
A trio of recent grisly murders might have put a dent in that statistic, I thought. But I did not feel compelled to say as much.
“Also,” said Anders, “it’s a long way up the steps to the apartment at the top of the tower. I don’t imagine many people would go all the way up all those steps purely speculatively.”
“Tinkler just did.”
“No, he used the indoor staircase.”
“Okay, well I will too. Use the indoor staircase. If you see him before I do, tell him I’ve gone upstairs.”
“I will.”
As I wound my way up the wooden spiral of the stairway, I began to detect the welcome smell of coffee drifting down from above. It grew steadily more tantalising as I progressed up the seemingly endless green-carpeted steps and finally through the circular trapdoor and onto the landing.
I noticed once again how cleverly crafted the trapdoor was—when open, the lid hinged back and lay flat in a neatly carved hollow in the floorboards, flush at floor level so you could walk across it. Indeed, I did walk across it, and past the thin slice of beautiful blue sky in the slit window in the stone wall.
Through that window you could see a splendid view of Trollesko spread below. A bird’s-eye view.
But I didn’t have time to admire it now. The door to Ida’s flat was open.
I called through it, “Tinkler.” I waited for a moment. There was silence except for the cold high whistle of the breeze blowing up through the tower. I went in.
The apartment seemed empty. I admired the shelf unit that had been recently fitted. It hadn’t fallen off the wall, and that was always commendable in any DIY project. And it was now full of books and magazines. Taking a closer look, I was surprised to see that it was Frank Zappa fan literature. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. It certainly explained Ida’s Lumpy Gravy T-shirt.
I would have to ask her if she had any Zappa on vinyl. The pre-digital stuff, of course.
I also took a look—a considerably closer look—at the floor under the shelf unit. The rawl plugs were gone, as was the electric screwdriver.
This interested me because I was wondering who had put up the shelf for Ida. Because it might have implications for Tinkler’s carnal idyl.
Just then Ida herself came trotting into view. She made a tragic face. “Tinkler was just here. He just went down the stairs, to look for you. Only just now.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said.
“Down the outside stairs.”
“Of course he did.” We walked into the small kitchen together, from which the convincingly coffee-like smell was drifting. Ida was minus her sneakers and her slouch hat, but otherwise was wearing the same ensemble as the last time I’d seen her. “Are you planning another burglary?” I said.
“No need,” she said. She proudly showed me a substantial black and silver appliance prominently displayed on the counter. I assumed it was the infamous juicer.
“You got it back?” I said.
“Bo returned it to me.”
“He returned it?”
“Yes. To thank me for saving the club from being firebombed.”
“Well… that was good of him.” I couldn’t believe that we’d finally got the fucking juicer back. Or that I was thinking of it in terms of “we”.
Ida smiled as she poured me a cup of coffee—commendably, without asking or being asked. “Regarding what I’m wearing, Tinkler just likes me dressing up like this. Do you call him Tinkler, not Jordon? Tinkler?”
“Mostly, yes.”
“It feels a little odd. Rude. I mean, it would for me. I think I will resume calling him Jordon and continue to call him Jordon.” She handed me the coffee. As I sipped it and reflected that it tasted almost as good as it smelled, Ida gave me a knowing smile. A caffeine-addict gotcha.
With her standing there, her body all soft contours in black, her face happy and open and smiling, we were close enough that I was glad of the open doors, and the cool breeze blowing away any treacherous body heat that might have been emanating from anyone in any direction.
Given all this, it might seem odd where my gaze had just fallen—the object on which it fell. The electric screwdriver. It was here on the counter, happily plugged into its docking unit, which I hadn’t spotted amongst the other kitchen tech on our first visit.
I was lavishly pleased to see it. Perhaps foolishly so.
But I’d been bracing myself, expecting to find evidence of someone else in Ida’s life, someone of the shelf-fitting persuasion. Someone who might ruin things for Tinkler. A knuckle-dragging boyfriend in the shape of a murderous biker would have been my top bet, if I’d been forced to make one.
But now it was looking like there was no such person. Plus full marks to Ida for keeping a power tool properly charged.
I looked at her, seeing her in a new and more positive light. But also not failing to notice, as perhaps I should have, the softly clinging black sweater that revealed every detail of what Nevada had called her ‘really nice body’.
Ida was looking me squarely in the eye, possibly reading every thought in my head. She leaned back, elbows on the counter and thereby probably not entirely coincidentally causing the sweater to grow more snug over her breasts and said, “You never told me what you thought of this outfit.”
“I’m with Jordon,” I said.
She laughed and then she gave me a shrewd, assessing look. “Tell me what you are thinking. At this moment. Exactly you are thinking. The truth, please.”
“I was thinking how impressed I am that you put up your own shelves,” I said.
She laughed again. And the thankful cool breeze kept blowing over us.
It was a constant in the building, and seemed to add to the atmosphere of ancient time that the place possessed. The breeze came from below, flowing up the tower, presumably entering through the open slit windows. It then rushed through the cleverly carpentered circular trapdoor, into this room then out again through the green fire exit—green was an odd choice for a fire exit, come to think of it—that led to the exterior staircase.
The latter was, as Anders had prophesied, wide open.
Just then the door to the landing also opened and Tinkler came in, looking exhausted but contented. He had about him what, on anyone else, I would have called the healthy glow of exercise. He heard Ida happily laughing and started happily laughing himself.
And so did I. It was good to see my old friend, debauched fool though he was. “Where the hell have you been, Tinkler?” I said, eventually.
“Well, I have to say it was worthy subject matter for a nursery rhyme. When you were upstairs, I was downstairs, and vice versa.”
“So you’ve been running up and down the staircase. Staircases, plural.”
“Yes. Inside and out. This is a really cool place. Those twin spiral staircases are almost like strands of DNA. Sort of.”
“Tinkler, are you stoned?”
“Of course.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake be careful you don’t have a heart attack, running up and down the stairs. The twin staircases.”
“I don’t think I will. I really don’t think I will.”
“I don’t think he will, either.” Ida went to him, they kissed and then she patted him on the ass as she might a healthy horse. Tinkler’s face was that of a man in rapture.
“Jordon has been losing fat and putting on muscle,” said Ida.
“I’ve been losing fat and putting on muscle,” said Tinkler. “She did say it that way around, didn’t she?”
By the time I eventually disentangled myself from the happy couple and concluded a quick survey of the vinyl in the shop below, Nevada had become worried enough to call me. “What’s going on?” she said.
“Jordon has been losing fat and putting on muscle.”
“He has, has he? Are you sure it’s not the other way around?”
“We went into that, and apparently not.”
“You must tell me more.”
I was crossing the road between the vattentorn and the hotel.
“Back home in a second,” I said.
“Well, be ready for a circus,” said Nevada.
24: CIRCUS
When I got back to the hotel, a circus was indeed in progress.
For a start, as soon as I stepped through the door, I found a young woman blocking me from going any further, equipped with an official-looking silver clipboard and an ingratiating grin. It was the grin as much as the red hair and freckles that made her name come immediately to mind. Alicia Foxcroft—known as Foxy.
“Hello, Alicia.” She was mostly known as Foxy behind her back.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “You can go right in. I don’t even need to check my clipboard.” She waved me in. As I went up the stairs, I met Nevada coming down, presumably to greet me, possibly to warn me.
“Why is Foxy Foxcroft brandishing a clipboard?” I said.
“She is ‘controlling the location’,” said Nevada, making gestures in the air to clarify that this was a direct quotation.
“The location for…”
“The filming,” said a voice from above us. We looked up to see Oskar Hafström’s smiling face. More of him emerged into view as we walked upstairs. He was wearing his black sweater but, as we were able to thankfully confirm when we reached the upper landing, not his kilt. Just a pair of fairly ordinary leather biker trousers. No boots this time.
Indeed, he seemed to be scampering around in a pair of white socks with yellow Simpsons characters on the ankles—presumably because this footwear option was quieter than boots.
His quest for silence didn’t prevent him greeting us loudly, however. “You were rather naughty,” he said, wagging a finger at us, a finger so covered with silver rings that only the tip of it was visible—a segment of pale digit tipped with glossy black nail varnish. “You guys were rather naughty, telling us that your friend Stinky Stanmer had leprosy.”
“He’s not our friend,” said Nevada. “And he does. Moral leprosy.”
“Ha-ha, yes. Very true. I know exactly what you mean. He is a slippery little shit. But nevertheless, he may prove useful to us.”
“Is he something to do with this filming that’s happening?” I said.
“Oh, yes.” Oskar nodded vigorously, setting the assorted jewellery around his neck in motion. “Very much so.” I realised that a viewfinder of the kind used by movie directors was swaying among the silver necklaces. “We—which is to say the Troopers—are giving him an exclusive interview on the understanding that we retain ownership of the footage and exercise full editorial control.”
