I was prepared to be followed after I left the police station. I kept my eye out for agents, peering from a window on the second floor, a window in the same abandoned office where I’d met my married friend. Agents in American films have black suits, ties, and dark sunglasses. Not in Sweden. Here they sport what we call leisure wear in English. Light gray jackets, brown pants, black shoes with rubber soles. Perhaps a water-repellant hunter’s cap with a small brim — you know, those hats you can fold up and put in your pocket in case you need to slightly change your appearance. For the same reason, the jackets could be worn inside out. Their clumsy shoes, for larger-than-average feet, always gave away who they were. At Galleri Karlsson, we had called them “Säpo’s Art Club.”
At first they didn’t scare me. But one evening at twilight, as I went through the floors of my building, I found about ten kerosene cans behind a stack of empty cardboard boxes. I’d lived in other places that had kerosene heat, but kerosene was not used in Drottninggatan 37. This very building, where I stood with my flashlight, had no kerosene furnaces. It had had water circulating in a central heating system before it was all cut off. No utilities in the building were functional. I had a moment of clarity. The Three Wise Men! The increase of arson! That’s how the final destruction of historic buildings would be handled.
A bad night. I tossed and turned constantly. My broken sleep was then interrupted by a thundering sound. I got up, fully dressed as always because of the chill. Smoke was seeping into Wahlberg’s studio, the second time this week. Definitely not a coincidence. I was coughing as I ran to my emergency exit — the door I’d found hidden in the closet, the one leading to the building next door. I could hear screaming from the floors below. I stumbled in the darkness, tripping over all kinds of garbage. I found myself in the decaying attic of Drottninggatan 35 before I had any time to think. I’d left my camera case behind. My Hasselblad, the ping-pong table — all gone. Like the paddles and ping-pong balls. Just like before.
Perhaps those skulking men committed murder. Perhaps not. In extreme situations, certain emotions, like empathy and indignation, disappear. Those screams from below, they came back to me afterward, much later, as an extra-horrible detail in my memory. I should have acted differently. I should have opened the door to the stairway and found the others, shown them the way out. Mr. Frost, with his weatherworn face and his silence, comes to me sometimes at night. I’d heard his screams before, in my car. Did I hear them then? A few minutes have been erased from my memory. In a smoking world, a person can become a robot on autopilot.
The building was later rebuilt with a poured-cement façade to imitate its original wooden one. Behind this façade, there’s a modern office building. On the ground floor, there’s an elegant shoe store.
I still feel, even after such a long time, that nobody takes me seriously.
Nineteen Pieces
by Carl-Michael Edenborg
Translated by Caroline Åberg
Slakthusområdet
19
— No more now, miss. That’s enough.
My swollen face in the mirror stares back at me. My mouth speaks without intention. My pupils are pistol muzzles, my forehead beaded with sweat, jaws working. There are furrows in my brow that go so deep the ice-cold restroom lighting doesn’t reach the bottom of them.
My dry lips part again.
— Just a little more.
I shake my head, take the wallet from my purse; with trembling hands I manage to open the zipper, take out the stamp-sized paper envelope, stick my finger in it, lick off the bitter, putrid powder, rub the last of it into my gums.
— Keep it together, Bengtsson!
I clench my teeth. My lips pucker. A denture sends a sharp pain into my jaw. I clear my throat, put the wallet back in my purse, and leave the restroom. My half-finished beer is there on the counter. Branco looks at me with lazy eyes as I swallow the last of it, washing away the acrid with the bitter.
— What do I owe you?
It’s a running joke of ours. He snorts. A few free beers is a good price for a friend at the CID.
— News?
— Someone sent me a piece of flesh at work yesterday.
— Human?
— I hope not. Would make a nice Sunday roast. Three kilos.
— Three kilos. Big roast. Bring it here and I’ll give it to the chef.
I button my coat and use my cop voice, joking in yet another familiar way
— What’s going on here?
— Nothing much, Branco laughs, his fat head rolling on top of his shoulders.
I leave Tucken and step out onto Götgatan, get in my Ford, and head off, through the rain, to work. My jaws are tense. I pop a couple pieces of chewing gum in my mouth. The alcohol warms me up from the inside; the speed cools me down from the outside.
A thick, low blanket of clouds has been pushing down on the city for weeks. The light never makes it through. I pull out a cigarette and open the window, but change my mind as the raw air slaps me in the face; I roll it up and keep going through the fog.
18
Holmén meets me in the hallway outside my office, his face even more red than usual, one of the many drunks on force.
— You’re late, he says.
— I’ve been on a stakeout.
— There’s another package.
— For me?
— Pretty disgusting.
— Define disgusting.
— Intestines, a liver, kidneys. It’s all been sent down to Linköping.
I close my eyes and shake my head slightly.
— What kind of sick bastard is this?
— Maybe you should find out.
— Of course.
I open my eyes and stare at the tall, thin man.
— I’ll do it for the meat. I want to know where he gets meat so cheap he gives it away.
Lame joke.
Lame laughter from Holmén.
17
The news reaches me around three in the afternoon the next day. I’m close to solving the crossword puzzle in Expressen when I hear shouting in the hallway. I finish my bathroom business and go out to see what it’s all about.
Holmén, redder than usual, babbles.
— Linköping says human, no doubt about it.
Two older men yawn, a younger talent opens his eyes wide:
— Dismemberment!
Holmén continues:
— And the murderer sends it all to Inspector Bengtsson! The third package contains parts of the back muscles and the left arm.
I march over to them. My boot heels click on the dull linoleum floor. Holmén cackles:
— Who do you think’s been murdered, Bengtsson? And who’s the murderer?
— Your mom. Both of them.
The two pale ones giggle with a hissing sound. Holmén turns even redder, lowers his voice:
— The boss wants to talk to you.
— I’ve heard that one before.
When I enter Superintendent Gunnarsson’s office he’s looking fresh in a black suit and tie, with his bare feet up on the desk and a pained look on his blurred face. I close the door behind me.
— Your feet hurt, darling?
— You can’t imagine, Aggan. Sit down.
He lowers his feet, straightens up in his chair, turns his computer so I can see the screen. On it there are photos of the three packages, my name clearly visible in print, and as a colorful detaiclass="underline" their insides — red, white, and grayish.