Inertia, page 30
Malin sits silently for a while, then says: ‘We’ll get him today.’
I nod but don’t answer, I know from experience that it isn’t over until the lady who is as fat as me sings.
And as we know she is in the habit of being late.
The road winds between lush fields and dusty paddocks. Red cottages are strewn out like Lego bricks across the greenery. A lone cloud floats on the clear blue sky.
‘Why did he go by “Bullen” anyway?’ I ask, slowing down behind a horse trailer pulling out from a farm.
‘Olle Berg? No idea. But I can check.’
‘No rush,’ I say. ‘We can deal with that later.’
But Malin has already got her phone out.
‘No worries,’ she says. ‘I have the number for Berg’s old girlfriend on my mobile, I’ll text her.’
‘The girlfriend he beat black and blue?’ I ask.
Malin doesn’t answer. She simply taps at the phone with her slim fingers and then puts it back in her pocket.
We pass an inlet on the sea.
The sun is shining on the glimmering waves; a few sails peak out on the horizon, like sharp teeth protruding from the ocean.
Right before Stuvskär the van takes a right and Malin glances at the map.
‘Here,’ she says. ‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed that he hasn’t disappeared.’
I slowly follow the grey van onto a narrow gravel road and then stop on the hard shoulder.
The men from the task force jump out of the van, followed by Letit.
They’re all dressed in leisurewear, like campers. Or, if we’re being honest, like the police’s idea of how campers dress, which is apparently Bermuda shorts and polo shirts.
A couple of hundred yards further down the road I can see the campsite spread out along the beach. Caravans and RVs are neatly lined up. Colourful tents and collapsible furniture can be seen here and there. A Swedish flag is flying in the wind next to the entrance.
I park and open the front door. The scent of hay hits me. The wind has picked up and I squint so as not to get dust in my eyes.
Malin’s phone buzzes and she takes it out of her pocket. Positions herself with the sun at her back and looks at the screen. Then she turns her head and looks at me.
‘“Bullen” is short for “The Bulldog”,’ she says.
‘So why do they call him “The Bulldog”?’
Malin shrugs.
‘I’ll ask,’ she says briefly and writes something.
We begin walking across a field with stubby grass, towards the group of men in silly knee-length shorts and colourful shirts standing around Letit. The ground between the tufts of grass is bone dry and each time we take a step a small cloud of dust is stirred up.
‘OK,’ says Letit, who seems to be done with his briefing. ‘You can assume your positions now. Let’s go in ten. Questions?’
The men shake their heads, then disappear in different directions.
I watch Letit’s squat figure disappear across the field in front of us and I look at Malin who is standing still with her arms folded across her chest.
And in that instant I feel it, that familiar sense of discomfort – the hairs going up at the back of my neck and my mouth going dry.
Something is wrong.
I just know.
There’s no way for me to explain how I know, because it is as if the knowledge is in my bones. In my muscle fibres, in my arteries, in the sensitive skin at the tips of my fingers.
The body knows.
The body knows long before the brain understands, and the brain realises and accepts that the body has an advantage. It doesn’t jump to conclusions, it doesn’t try to convince.
Instead it patiently awaits the body’s conclusion.
I follow the colleagues from the task force with my eyes. They have left the car park and fanned out across the field surrounding the campsite. Two of them are walking towards the water with a confident air, carrying fishing rods. One is talking on his phone, yet another is jogging toward the water, dressed in active wear.
In a few minutes they will be by Olle Berg’s tent. They will arrest him without any major problems since that is what they do best.
But something is wrong.
I look at Malin again. She squints at the sun, wipes the sweat off her forehead and raises her eyebrows inquisitively.
‘What?’ she says.
‘Something is wrong.’
She laughs uncertainly, shaking her head.
‘What do you mean, wrong?’ she asks, looking at Letit who is doing his best to keep up with one of the very fit police officers carrying fishing rods.
Then she looks at her watch and says: ‘Five minutes.’
I walk round and around in the dry grass, trying to sort out my thoughts. Kick a tuft, making the dirt fly around the bone-dry straws.
‘One minute,’ Malin says.
Sweat streams down my forehead and in under the collar of my shirt. Insects buzz above my head and seagulls cry.
Malin puts her phone in her left hand and digs around for something in her pocket with her right. The phone buzzes and when she tries to open the message with her left hand, she drops it in the grass.
When she tries to open the message with the wrong hand she drops it in the grass.
And suddenly I know.
Suddenly I recall the images of Berg from the surveillance camera in the shop at the campsite. How he stood bent over the counter writing his signature on the receipt. And Letit’s comment that something wasn’t right about the pictures.
‘Letit was right,’ I say. ‘The guy in the surveillance footage hesitated. He hesitated because he wasn’t sure what to do when writing Berg’s name.’
‘What are you talking about?’ says Malin, still looking for her phone on the ground.
‘And when he did sign he wrote with his right hand. But Olle Berg is left-handed.’
Malin freezes mid-movement.
‘That’s not Berg in the pictures,’ I say. ‘Berg is left-handed.’
Malin pulls the mobile up from between two shaggy tufts of grass. At the same moment her phone rings.
Arduously she straightens out. Puts one hand on the small of her back and makes a face. Then she gives me a long, inquisitive look and answers her phone.
‘Yes. OK.’
Then she is quiet. Strokes her big belly with her hand and looks up at the sky.
‘Eighteen? How the hell . . .?’
Malin turns toward the car, leaning on her elbows against the body, as if all strength drained out of her in an instant and she can no longer stand upright.
‘That’s fucked up,’ she snaps. ‘So where did he find it?’
And then: ‘OK, see you later.’
I look at her as she hangs up.
‘I cannot fucking believe this,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t him. This guy is eighteen. But he had used Berg’s credit card. Says he found it and Berg’s passport in a bin in Stuvskär. Well, that doesn’t sound very likely, so they’re bringing him in.’
She sighs, resting the entire weight of her body against the car.
She looks so young, despite the big belly. So young and so distraught that I have the impulse to hold her in my arms and comfort her.
‘You were right,’ she adds.
‘That’s not much help now.’
‘One more thing,’ she says. ‘That book Igor Ivanov wrote.’
‘Yes?’
‘Malik just texted me. We got our hands on a copy.’
‘And?’ I say.
Malin shakes her head slowly.
‘There are only two words in the book. Lorem ipsum. Page after page, the same thing.’
I consider this, the words sound familiar.
‘Lorem ipsum, isn’t that . . .?’
‘Yes, those are the words typically found at the start of sample texts for print production. If you want to show what something with a text will look like, but you don’t have the actual text yet.’
Malin slides down along the car and ends up seated on a tuft of grass.
‘Money laundering,’ she says, answering the question I haven’t had time to pose. ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century. Forget money laundering through takeaway pizza, or winning bets on horses. Everything is digital now; that’s where it’s at. And this is a pretty creative example. Books are put up for sale online. Books that sometimes completely lack content. And the price is set sky-high, Igor’s book for instance cost 900 kronor. Then you get bots – that is to say computer programs – to place orders for them and pay for them with dirty money.’
‘And then you make a healthy profit that you can put on your tax return?’
‘Exactly, the money becomes as clean as a whistle. And one gets to call oneself an author.’
Malin lets out a loud sigh.
‘Igor has nothing to do with our poem,’ I say.
Malin’s phone buzzes again and she reads the message. Seconds later she is furrowing her brow.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘It’s Olle Berg’s old girlfriend,’ she begins. ‘Olle was called “The Bulldog” because he . . .’
She looks at me and shakes her head in disbelief. The she goes on:
‘Because he had weird teeth,’ she says. ‘Like a bulldog. He had a crossbite. Just like . . .’
‘. . . victim number three,’ I fill in. ‘Bloody hell. Bloody hell! Victim number three is Olle Berg.’
Malin looks at me and her eyes darken.
‘But if Berg is dead, then who is our killer?’
Samuel
I
’ve been in the cave for a long time now, so long that the light is just a distant memory, a whisper from a past that has long since faded and lost its relevance.
So when the light tugs at me, pulls me out of the ground, I am surprised at first and then a bit scared, because I have begun to feel comfortable in the cave. My wings have got stronger, my eyes sharper and better accustomed to the dark. I need nobody, and nobody needs me.
In many ways it is perfect.
But the light tugs at me. Pulls me upwards, through the ground and almost up to the surface. I’m not in my body, but I’m not in the cave either. I am floating helplessly somewhere in between, as if I am stuck between two dimensions – it is a bit like standing between two train carriages and being able to look in through the windows to both, but not open the door to either one of them.
Finally I land in my body even though I don’t want to. I immediately feel every cell and every cubic inch of flesh and blood.
And what I feel is pain.
But in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the pain, there is also the everyday; the fly intrepidly bouncing against the windowpane, the slight scent of detergent from the sheets and the scent of the freshly picked rose in the vase on the bedside table.
I hear noises too – somebody is moving in the room – but I don’t have the energy to open my eyelids; they seem to weigh at least a hundred pounds.
The panic starts up and a scream wants to form in my chest, but the sound gets stuck somewhere in my throat, like a piece of potato lodged there.
‘Jonas?’
It is Rachel’s voice, but it sounds different, as if I’m lying under water in a bathtub listening to her.
A hand strokes my hair, soft lips press against my cheek.
‘Darling Jonas!’
I turn around and give her a hard slap.
But only in my mind because my body is as immobile as a Sunday steak in the refrigerated counter in the supermarket.
‘My poor darling,’ she whispers. ‘Now you are in the belly of the whale.’ She is crazy, I think, with detached interest, I have the sensation of watching a movie – a really messed-up movie, but still just a movie.
‘I will take care of you,’ she continues.
She puts her warm hand over mine and continues in a slightly harsher tone of voice.
‘But first I need to make sure that you don’t do that again, Jonas. It was a very stupid thing to do. You aren’t strong enough to go out yet. Anything could have happened. You could have tripped on a rock and hurt yourself, or fallen into the sea or . . .’
There is a long drawn-out sob, and Rachel’s hand disappears as she moves towards the foot of the bed.
‘I can’t handle losing you again, do you understand?’
There is a sound of metal against metal. As if she is rattling coins in a tin can. Then there are duller sounds. Also from metal but these sounds are from larger, heavier objects.
Maybe tools of some kind.
The blanket disappears from over my legs. Cool air whispers against my shins.
‘I know you can hear me,’ she says. ‘And I know that you can’t move. I’m not a monster but I can’t let you run away. This is for your own good.’
There is a hand on my foot and I can feel something sharp against my heel. Then I hear a bang and my heel explodes into unfathomable pain. My whole leg is on fire and even though I am numbed and not really entirely in my body, I scream in pain and kick with both my legs, sending her flying into the wall.
But only in my mind.
Because in the real reality I am lying still in Jonas’s bed while she strikes and strikes and strikes and the pain explodes inside of me, over and over.
When the darkness pulls me down I am thankful.
I don’t want to be in the light anymore, I don’t want to be in my body.
Before I sink through the bed I still manage to analyse what happened and formulate a hypothesis. But it seems so sick, so fucking messed-up, that I can hardly believe it.
Did she really do that?
Did she drive a nail into my heel?
Manfred
I
get home late.
The disappointment over Olle Berg not being our killer has drained me of energy and I feel depressed and despondent.
Yes, I know.
Berg can still be the lion, he could still have killed Rachel’s son, if we are to believe the poem. But he could hardly have killed Ahonen and Carlgren because his body was in the water considerably longer than theirs.
No, either the lion isn’t Olle Berg, or the lion is not involved in the deaths of Ahonen and Carlberg.
When I get into the hall I carefully close the door so as not to wake Afsaneh, but she comes from the kitchen to meet me. Wraps her arms around my neck and gives me a light kiss. Then she announces that she has made my favourite dish – chicken with saffron rice – and decided to stay awake and wait for me.
We eat and make small talk about our days.
I don’t tell her about Olle Berg. I don’t have the energy to dwell more on that today.
We talk about silly, shallow things for the first time in forever. We open a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine, that we really should be saving for a special occasion, and quickly drain the bottle.
Then we make love, tipsy on the living-room floor. As if we were clueless teenagers without responsibilities.
As if our daughter had never fallen onto the hard tarmac.
Afterwards I take a shower.
I let the hot water stream across my body. Wash away the frustration lingering in the dust from the campsite. Head off the thoughts of Igor’s so-called book, the one that only contains two words – Lorem ipsum – the only purpose of which is to launder drug money.
When I come out of the bathroom Afsaneh is standing outside, naked.
‘I think I need one too,’ she says and squeezes past me into the bathroom.
I go into the bedroom and sit on the bed. Glance out through the window, where the sky is getting dark behind the sheer curtain.
Afsaneh’s computer is open next to her pillow. My eyes fall on a photo of a young man in a bed. The picture is both scary and beautiful at the same time and I can’t help but look.
I reach for the laptop and pull it closer. The headline is written in blue, old-fashioned cursive: STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. My gaze moves further down, I let it slide across the page.
It catches on a stanza of a poem at the beginning of the latest post.
I cried myself a sea of tears
and lay down to die
on the soft tuft of grief
But the lion emerged anew
and in his giant maw he held
an untarnished dove
My body freezes and my heart skips a beat.
It isn’t possible.
It is not bloody possible.
Afsaneh comes in with a towel wrapped around her hips.
‘What’s this?’ I ask and turn the laptop so that she can see the screen.
She wrinkles her eyebrows.
‘A blog, why?’
‘Who wrote it?’
Afsaneh takes her towel off and hangs it over the back of a chair. Then she puts on one of my old T-shirts.
‘Not a clue. She has a brain-damaged son. That’s all I know. And she is quite active on the forum too. Posts a lot of stuff.’
Afsaneh sits on the bed and strokes my cheek.
‘I’m tired,’ she says, yawning.
I don’t answer. I pull the laptop back towards myself. Scroll down the page.
Photos of the guy in the bed flicker past. There are close-ups of a hand, a face that is turned away, and a lone rose in a vase with drops of dew on its petals. And pictures of nature where one can see the ocean, smooth rocks and a lighthouse.
There is no face to be found anywhere, but in a few places I can see a side-view of a woman’s face. The pictures are blurry and the long hair fluttering in the wind partially obscures her features.
‘Is she big?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean, big?’
Afsaneh crawls into bed next to me.
‘Can we turn out the lights?’ she mumbles sleepily and puts her hand on my thigh.
‘Do a lot of people read her blog?’ I clarify.
‘A hundred thousand at least. You can see for yourself how many comments the posts get. Honey, I am sorry, but I have to get some sleep.’
‘Can I borrow your computer?’
‘Sure,’ she says, turning off the light.
I sit in the living room reading the blog for a long time, despite my head aching with tiredness and my body crying for sleep. The posts deal with everything from the grief over her son’s accident, to the daily trials and tribulations involved in caring for a brain-damaged person in the home.
