He almost ran through the door, through the crappy waiting room, past the Finn and the two gypsy slags and the old buggers. They all looked up at him, didn’t speak, sat in silence, hunched up. He shouted at them, fucking losers, and something else that it was impossible to make out in passing, his shrieking voice breaking up and mixing with the blood dripping from his nose, which marked a trail down the stairs, out through the main door and all the way along Östgöta Street, towards Skanstull.
Not much of a summer.
Windy, rarely above seventy degrees except the odd morning with fleeting sunshine, otherwise the rain fell steadily on the rooftops and barbecue covers.
Ewert Grens had held her hand for as long as she let him, but after a while she became restless, the way she did when she had laughed enough and her babbling was done and the saliva no longer dribbled down her chin. So he had hugged her, kissed her forehead and said he’d be back in a week, always in a week’s time.
If only you had managed to hold on just a bit longer.
Then he got into the car and drove back across Lidingö Bridge on his way to see Bengt Nordwall, who now lived in Eriksberg, some twenty-odd kilometres south of the city. Ewert was driving far too fast and suddenly saw himself, as he often did, behind the wheel of another kind of car. The police van he had been in charge of twenty-five years ago.
He had spotted Lang on the pavement, just ahead of the van; he knew that he was wanted, so he did what they had done so many times before, drove up alongside the running man while Bengt pulled the door back and Anni, who was sitting nearest the door, grabbed hold of Lang and shouted that he was under arrest, as she was supposed to do.
She was sitting in that seat, nearest the door.
That was why Jochum Lang had been able to drag her out.
Ewert blinked and swung off the road for a moment, away from the queue of stressed morning commuters. He switched off the engine and sat very still until the pictures faded from his mind. In recent years, the same thing happened every time he visited her, the memory pounding inside his head, making it hard to breathe. He stayed where he was for a while, ignoring the idiots with their horns, just waited until he was ready.
A quarter of an hour later he pulled up outside his friend’s home.
They met in the narrow suburban street, stood together and got wet while staring up at the sky.
Neither of them smiled very often; it could be their age, or maybe they had always been the kind who rarely smile. But the impenetrable greyness and the wind and the pouring rain were too much; you had to smile because there was nothing else you could do.
‘What do you think about all this, then?’
‘Think? That I can’t be bothered to let it get to me any more.’
They both shrugged and sat down on the rain-sodden cushions on the garden sofa.
Their friendship had begun thirty-two years earlier. They had been young back then, and the years had passed quickly; they had less than half of their lives left.
Ewert looked at his old friend. The only one he had really, the only person he talked to outside work, the only one he could bear to be with.
Bengt was still in good shape, slim, lots of hair. They were roughly the same age, but Bengt looked much younger. Maybe that was the effect of having young children. They forced you to stay young, as it were.
Ewert had no children and he had no hair and his body had grown heavy. He had a limp, while Bengt walked with a light step. They were both policemen and shared past and present in the Stockholm city force. Both had been given a finite gift of time, but Ewert had used up his faster.
Bengt let out an exasperated sigh.
‘It’s so bloody wet. I can’t even get the kids out of the house any more.’
Ewert was never sure why the family asked him over for breakfast, whether it was because they thought it would be nice or whether it was out of duty. Maybe they felt sorry for him, so lonely, so naked outside the four walls of the police headquarters. Whenever they asked, he went and never regretted it, but still he could not help wondering.
‘She seemed well today. Sent her regards. At least, I’m sure she would have.’
‘And what about you, Ewert? Are you all right?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I don’t know. It’s maybe just that you look… heavier these days. No, more burdened. Especially when you talk about Anni.’
Ewert heard him say this, but didn’t reply. He looked around and observed with disinterest the suburban life that he could not understand. The small villa was actually quite nice. Very normal. Brick walls, a bit of lawn, a bunch of neatly trimmed shrubs. Sun-bleached plastic toys scattered here and there. If it hadn’t been raining, the two children would’ve been running about in the garden, playing whatever kids of that age played. Bengt had had children rather late in life, when he was nearly fifty. Lena, who was twenty years his junior, had given him another chance. Ewert had no idea what a pretty, clever young woman like Lena saw in a middle-aged policeman, but he was pleased for Bengt, of course, even if he didn’t understand.
Their clothes were soaking and started to hang heavily. They didn’t notice any more and forgot about the weather.
Ewert leaned forward.
‘Look, Bengt.’
‘What is it?’
‘Jochum Lang gets out today.’
Bengt shook his head. ‘Ewert, you’re going to have to let go of that one day.’
‘Easy for you to say. You weren’t driving.’
‘And I wasn’t in love with her, you mean. Never mind, you must let go. Leave the past behind you, Ewert. It was twenty-five years ago.’
He had turned to look back.
He had seen her reach out and grab the fleeing body.
He sighed, rubbed his wet scalp, felt the old anger rise inside him.
Jochum reacted to the hand holding him back and half turned, still running. He grabbed her and pulled hard, and Bengt, who was sitting next to her, had not been able to hang on to her.
He sighed and rubbed his head again.
In that moment, as she fell and the rear wheel bumped over her head, he had realised the rest of their life together was no more.
Lang had laughed as he ran away. And he laughed when he was later sentenced to a few lousy months for grievous bodily harm.
Ewert hated him.
Bengt undid the top button of his shirt and tried to make eye contact with his old friend.
‘Ewert?’
‘Yes?’
‘Lost you for a moment, there.’
Ewert stared at the sodden lawn, at the tulips drooping in the neat border.
He felt tired.
‘I’ll nail that bastard.’
Bengt put his arm round his shoulder. Ewert pulled back. He wasn’t used to it.
‘Ewert, let it go.’
It wasn’t long since he had held her hand; she had laughed like a child. Her hand had been cool, limp. Absent. And he remembered what it had once been like, warm and firm and very much present.
‘From today he’ll be walking the streets. Don’t you understand? Lang is walking, laughing.’
‘But Ewert, whose fault was it? Was it Lang’s? Or mine? I couldn’t hold on to her. Maybe it’s me you should hate. Maybe it’s me you should nail.’
The wind was back, catching the rain and whipping it into their faces. The terrace door opened behind them. A woman came out holding an umbrella and smiling, her long hair tied back.
‘What are you two doing there? You’re crazy!’
They turned round and Bengt smiled back.
‘Once you’re wet, it doesn’t matter any more.’
‘Well, I want you indoors. Breakfast time.’
‘What, now?’
‘Now, Bengt. The kids are hungry.’
They got up. Their clothes stuck to their skin.