‘What are you doing here at this… time of day?’
‘I was just going home. I’ve been through all the material and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t fit together. What are you doing?’
Hultin was completely still. He ran his hand along the edge of the desk. Yes, he thought, this is reality. This is something I can feel. Space isn’t time. I’m here, in time, in a different way to the way that I’m here, in this room. I’m here and I am now. To hell with the rest. He turned towards the fax machine. One last krrr-krrr-krrr-prritt and the pile was complete. He grabbed it, straightened the sheets against the desk and said, firmly: ‘Gravitational time dilation. You should try it sometime. Gives you perspective on existence.’
Hjelm’s jaw dropped. It was all very entertaining.
‘Where’s the phone from the metro station case?’ Hultin asked sharply.
‘In my room,’ Hjelm answered quietly.
‘What’s it doing there? Why don’t the technicians have it?’
‘I borrowed it when they went home for the weekend. I wanted to have a closer look at it.’
‘Great,’ said Hultin. ‘Go and get it.’
‘No fingerprints other than Hamid al-Jabiri’s, apparently. How can you not leave fingerprints on your own mobile phone?’
‘Go and get it,’ Hultin repeated.
Once Hjelm had disappeared, he glanced quickly through the enormous pile of paper the fax machine had spurted out. He immediately found what he knew he would find.
Hjelm came back with the phone.
‘Put it on the desk,’ Hultin said with his own phone in his hand. He dialled a number.
The mobile phone on the desk started ringing.
It didn’t feel like a surprise.
‘Now,’ said Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin, ‘this is a case.’
10
IT WAS THE weekend. The Special Unit for Violent Crimes of an International Nature was off work. The whole gang. Fortunately, the rain had moved away from the Stockholm area, meaning that all the usual weekend activities were possible.
Jan-Olov Hultin entered the woods outside his cabin on the shore of Lake Ravalen, walking straight through the garden’s awful collection of weeds, more wood-like than the woods themselves, and peered up at the returning migratory birds through his binoculars. It was as though space-time had split into segments.
Gunnar Nyberg was up with his son Tommy in Östhammar. He had taken his running shoes with him and managed one jog, despite his grandson Benny relentlessly clinging on to his grandfather. He had hung from his neck for five kilometres, really adding to his workout.
Viggo Norlander was in bed with his partner Astrid almost all of Saturday. Their daughter, little Charlotte, was there too, unceasingly trying to walk by shuffling along the side of the bed. Not for a moment did she stop to think about her elderly parents’ peculiar activities in bed above her.
Kerstin Holm was taking part in a big concert with an orchestra in Jakobs Kyrka, where she sang alto in the church choir. During the Kyrie’s dense golden minutes in Mozart’s Requiem she felt her paper-thin skull vibrating, putting her in direct contact with the cosmos. Kyrie, eleison. Christe, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. That was the whole text. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
The married couple, Jorge Chavez and Sara Svenhagen, took a long walk around the Vasastan area of town, ending up in Vasaparken where they sat down on a park bench and began, initially at least, to soberly discuss the pros and cons of starting a family. It ended with them screaming abuse at one another. When an old woman with a cock-eyed wig called the police right in front of them, they went home to their newly bought apartment in Birkastan and made love uninhibitedly and wordlessly.
Despite all that, it wasn’t any old weekend. None of them, not even Viggo Norlander, managed to go an hour without thinking about an utterly peculiar case.
That applied not least to Paul Hjelm. He and his family were out at the summer house in Dalarö. It had been a few years since they first came across the ramshackle old house with a fantastic little beach and its own tumbledown jetty tucked away behind it. The owner was an extremely lively but wheelchair-bound lady who happened to have been Sweden’s first female boxer. Hjelm had never quite been able to work out whether she deliberately ignored the all-embracing rules of the market or whether the market simply hadn’t found its way out there yet. If that was the case, the cabin was the last blank spot on the map. Maja – that was the former boxer’s name – could have easily asked for three or four million, just for the plot. Instead, she rented it to the Hjelm family for seven thousand a year, choosing to stay in her little two-room flat in the centre of Handen. Once a year, she came to visit, spending the night in her old bedroom. As a rule, she usually went out to Dalarö the first weekend in May, before it got – to quote Maja – ‘much too sweaty in the knickers’.
Now she was sitting on the porch, taking deep breaths of the chilly sea air and saying: ‘It really wasn’t easy being a lesbian back then.’
Since every visit involved a new surprise, Paul and Cilla simply glanced at her and waited for her to continue. She did.
‘Yep,’ she said, throwing her strong, crooked arms around the married couple. ‘This is a proper little hotbed of scandal you’re renting here, my children. My, my, my, the orgies we had. Not a bloke as far as the eye could see. Just a horde of skinny-dipping nymphets. The neighbours’ wives were hysterical, though the men didn’t protest too strongly, I can tell you that.’
‘A few of the neighbours’ wives are still alive, I think,’ Paul Hjelm said.
Maja gave a roar of laughter and punched him on the arm. He instinctively knew it would leave a bruise.
‘I always forget you’re a detective,’ she laughed. ‘You don’t look like a detective, Paulus.’
‘I think he does,’ Cilla said in an icy tone.
‘Now now,’ Maja barked, ‘you can save your marital bickering for later. You’ve got guests. I’d love another Dry Martini, by the way. A bit drier this time, if you can.’
‘We’ll have to distil our own then,’ Paul Hjelm said, glaring furtively at Cilla.
He stood up and poured yet another neat Beefeater for Maja, who was roaring with laughter.
‘You’re right, of course,’ she said, slightly more composed now that the drink had been served. ‘Those women seduced the gentlefolk, settled down on their golden estates – and ended up with a group of water nymphs as neighbours. Slightly unexpected when you’ve married into society and have been expecting a traditional family life. As long as any of them are still living, I’m not going to sell. And don’t worry, my children, those old dears are hardy.’
Cilla stood up and started fiddling about with something which absolutely didn’t need fiddling about with. Her back to the table, she said: ‘I’ll tell you why he looks like a detective. It’s because he’s always thinking about a case. He’s never really present.’
‘Sorry for existing,’ Paul said maturely.
‘A case?’ Maja exclaimed blissfully. ‘So exciting! Tell us more, Paulus.’
‘Paulus,’ squawked a faltering voice from inside the cottage.
‘Are the kids here?’ Maja asked in surprise. ‘I thought you said you’d left them in town.’
‘Left them in town,’ the half-stifled voice harped.
Paul Hjelm sighed. ‘I live with a parrot,’ he said, casting a glance at Cilla.
She was still standing with her back to him and mumbled: ‘It must just have woken up.’
‘A real parrot?’ Maja said with distaste. ‘So disgusting.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Paul said weakly.
‘I don’t like animals,’ the old woman continued, slurping her gin like a real sea dog. ‘Something from my childhood. People who’re afraid of animals do exist. Not afraid of snakes or spiders or cows, I mean a general fear of animals – people who panic at the slightest contact with the animal kingdom. It’s quite hard work.’