Couldn’t be more Swedish. Only to be expected, given the kind of place it was.
‘Do you spot anybody familiar, Sven?’
‘No.’
‘They don’t exactly put it on show.’
‘You?’
‘No idea.’
Pretty poor lift, narrow with a folding grid gate, room for three, no more than 225 kilos. A uniformed policeman stood guard, an older man whom Ewert hadn’t seen around for a long time.
I always forget how many idiots there are in the force, he thought. Like this one. If you don’t clap eyes on them day in and day out, these sad bastards fade from your mind.
He smiled grimly while he observed the man.
Legs well apart, the stance of a cop on the telly, a cop with an important mission, keeping an eye on things as the music builds up, with lots of long notes from the string section. He might even click his heels if you asked him a question, and he’d almost certainly spell words aloud when working on a report. In short, the sort who should be allowed to guard lifts, but not much else. That sort.
The constable didn’t return Ewert’s smile, because he sensed the contempt. He deliberately addressed Sven when he started on his account.
‘We were called about an hour ago, sir. An extremely drunk pimp. And a badly beaten prostitute.’
‘That so?’
‘Yes. Some neighbours phoned the police, but by then he’d already beaten her black and blue. She’s unconscious. She needs to go to hospital. And there’s one more in there. Another prostitute, by the look of her.’
‘Beaten up too?’
‘Don’t think so. He didn’t get round to her, I suppose.’
Ewert listened in silence while Sven talked to the idiot guarding the lift, but eventually he couldn’t take it any more.
‘Alerted an hour ago! Exactly what are you waiting for?’
‘We aren’t allowed in. Apparently it’s Lithuanian…er, territory.’
‘What? When someone is being physically abused, you go straight in!’
Five bloody flights. Ewert had a problem breathing, every step cost him. He should have used the lift, but his temper had flared up and he had run past that flaming imbecile on guard duty. He heard voices discussing the case above him, getting louder as he climbed. Two ambulance men and a paramedic seemed to be conducting a case conference on the fourth-floor landing. They exchanged brief nods as he passed them. Only one more flight.
He was gasping for breath and out of the corner of his eye he saw that Sven was catching up with light steps. Ewert couldn’t give up now and forced his legs to move. They didn’t want to. He could hardly feel them.
There were four doors on the top-floor landing. One of them had a gaping hole in the panel and was guarded by three uniformed men. He didn’t recognise any of them, but further back he saw the familiar face of Bengt Nordwall, in civvies like himself and Sven. Barely twenty-four hours had passed since Ewert and Bengt had met on that rain-sodden morning outside the happy family home where Ewert had been given breakfast and caring attention. It was rare for their paths to cross at work, and Ewert stared at his friend, feeling almost let down.
They shook hands briefly, as was their habit.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ewert asked.
‘Russian. The guy in there doesn’t speak anything else.’
Bengt Nordwall was one of a handful in the force who could speak Russian. He went on to explain a little more.
‘A pimp was beating the shit out of one of his whores and she kept screaming to high heaven. When the police arrived they broke the door down and came face to face with that lowlife you can see over there.’
Bengt pointed at a man just inside the doorway, apparently standing watch over the badly damaged door. He was in his forties, short and fat and flabby. His shiny grey suit looked expensive, but didn’t suit him and didn’t fit him either.
‘Then he waves his diplomatic passport at the lads and claims that the flat is Lithuanian territory and that the Swedish police have no right of entry. He won’t hand over the woman and refuses to admit our medic. Or any other doctor, except one from the Lithuanian embassy. The victim seems to be well beyond saying anything, but the other woman in there has shouted abuse at the pimp, calling him “Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp” in Russian. He doesn’t like it one bit, but for as long as we’re around, he doesn’t dare do anything except shout back at her.’
Sven had stopped a few steps down, by the rubbish chute between floors four and five. He was just finishing a call on his mobile and waved at Ewert to catch his attention. He closed his phone, came up the remaining steps, looking at Ewert as he spoke.
‘I’ve just been talking to the housing association that’s responsible for this place. The flat belongs to a Hans Johansson, which fits with the board downstairs. It’s not a regular sublet.’
Ewert Grens turned to look at the man in the shiny suit, who claimed that his diplomatic status gave him the right to beat up women, and at the same time held out a hand towards the three uniformed men behind Bengt.
‘One of you lot, hand over a truncheon. Right, Mr Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp, try waving your diplomatic credentials this time.’
As he approached the door, the smartly suited man demonstrated that he intended to block the way by taking a few steps back and holding both his arms out to the side. Ewert walked on until he was close enough to ram the tip of the truncheon into a vulnerable gap in the unbuttoned jacket, which made the body standing in his way double up. The Lithuanian representative hissed something in Russian and collapsed, clutching his belly with both hands. Ewert called out to the doctor and the ambulance men on the floor below, then waved at the officers to follow him and marched on, through a long hall and an empty sitting room.
At first he couldn’t quite take in what he saw in the next room.
The bedspread was red and a woman was lying on it naked, with her back towards the door, but there seemed to be no difference between her body and the top of the bed, the red colours blending.
He had not seen anyone so badly beaten for a very long time.
The light is always the same in the Söder Hospital casualty department.
Early morning and late, lunchtime and afternoon, evening and night, the light stays on and on.
A young doctor, tall and thin, let his tired eyes follow the string of lamps in the corridor ceiling as he accompanied a patient trolley. He was trying to focus and listen properly to what the nurse was saying. This must be the last patient on his shift, then he could go out into the other light, the kind that changed with time.
‘Unconscious female, almost certainly subjected to a beating. Head injuries, a broken arm and probably internal haemorrhaging. Laboured breathing. I’ll call the trauma team and ITU.’
The young doctor stared at her. He had had enough, didn’t want to hear any more about how people went about exterminating each other.
‘She needs an airway.’
He nodded, but stayed by the woman on the trolley for a moment, just a few more seconds, on his own. It had been a long day, and for some reason he had seen more young people than usual, his own age or younger. He had mended their damaged bodies as best he could, knowing that none of them would carry on living as they had until now. They would always carry today inside them, wouldn’t be able to let go, regardless of what showed externally.
He studied her face. Somehow she didn’t look Swedish. From somewhere not very far away, though. She was blonde and probably pretty. She reminded him of someone, but he didn’t know whom. The ambulance staff had jotted down some details and he pulled the notes out of the plastic pocket. He learned that her name was Lydia Grajauskas, or at least that was what another woman had stated, the one who was in the flat where the abuse had taken place.