The lead group of the Stockholm Marathon had just passed by when they reached the blue-and-white plastic barrier. Whenever anyone grumbled about them forcing their way through, they found a police ID shoved in their face. Nyberg knew that people had been suspended for showing their ID when they were off duty, and had let the apparently not-too-scrupulous Hellberg clear the path.
The marathon route became more crowded. About a hundred people had passed when Nyberg shouted: ‘How will we spot him?’
‘You’ll see!’ Sara laughed.
And he had seen, you couldn’t have missed it.
Ludvig Johnsson had passed them with a blue flashing light on his head. He was running incredibly fast and waved cheerfully to the happily cheering paedophile hunters.
Superintendent Ragnar Hellberg had ducked under the blue-and-white plastic tape and slipped through a small gap in the string of marathon runners. The group followed behind him. Party-Ragge had been openly waving his ID at the rapidly approaching stewards, who stopped dead in their tracks and allowed the group of police officers to go past on important business. They jogged up Polhelmsgatan.
‘What’s going on now?’ Gunnar Nyberg had panted, his body not exactly made for jogging.
‘Now he’ll be bloody surprised to see us again, up on Fleminggatan,’ Sara had replied.
They had got there just in time to see the unmistakable blue light approaching. Sure enough, Ludvig Johnsson had laughed in surprise, pointed at the blue light and looked accusatively at them.
‘That damned light weighs a couple of kilos,’ Hellberg had laughed sadistically once Johnsson had disappeared out of view.
Then they could relax and have another coffee, before it was time to catch Johnsson down on the other side of the shipyard on Norrmälarstrand. That time, he hadn’t looked quite so fresh, and when they saw him for a second time on Fleminggatan, the blue light had disappeared. They never did find out where it had come off.
The whole group had then jumped into a police car which, blue lights flashing, had set off for Stockholm Stadium, where they stood on the running track, all with blue flashing lights on their heads, cheering home their exhausted marathon hero.
Gunnar Nyberg had felt strange with the flashing light strapped to his head. It was almost five o’clock, and he had been doing his best to join in, to have just as much fun as the others seemed to be having, to avoid thinking that it was for this he had given up his weekend with his grandson Benny in Östhammar.
And when he saw his stick-thin old friend receive the fabulous Sara Svenhagen’s heartfelt hug there in Stockholm Stadium, in the shadow of its fine old clock tower, he had felt like he could almost reconcile himself with it. Her golden hair wonderfully glossy in the gleaming late-afternoon sun.
That was then.
Now it was gone. Sara Svenhagen had chopped it all off. She looked like a different person. Just as appealing, of course, but in a completely different way. More interesting, maybe. Less of a luminary and more of a person. With everything that entailed.
‘What got into your head?’ said Nyberg, straight off.
Ludvig Johnsson didn’t really seem to understand, sitting stick-thin in the café by the police station, wolfing down his third Danish pastry of the day. But Sara understood. She smiled slightly.
‘A fresh start,’ was all she said.
Gunnar Nyberg stared down into his untouched cup of black coffee and had nothing to say. For his part, he’d had enough fresh starts for a while.
Though there was that thing with women, of course…
Ludvig Johnsson shifted in his creaky chair on the narrow pavement outside the pleasantly named Annika’s Café & Restaurant by the police station on Kungsholmsgatan.
‘Still going with your ascetic’s coffee breaks, Gunnar?’ he asked.
Johnsson looked almost too fit, with his wiry body and neat bald patch just above his monk-like band of black hair. He was wearing a thin, pale linen suit, a greenish tie and a beige shirt, and he looked at least ten years younger than Nyberg, despite them being the same age, just under fifty. It always grieved him so much to see such a fit and healthy man gobbling down unhealthy food so often.
On the whole, it had been a strange experience to meet Ludvig Johnsson again. They had been very close for a short time twenty-five years ago. Gone through Police College together, virtually lived on top of one another, day in and day out. The division had been clear even then: Gunnar spent most of his time in the weights room, Ludvig running amok down on the track. Gunnar became Mr Sweden and an ugly Norrmalm policeman with a baseball bat. Ludvig went out to the provinces and became a friendly local policeman in Vänersborg. And now they had been reunited. As paedophile police, as an evening paper had carelessly called them. And surprisingly little had changed. They had both lost their families, in completely different ways, and on the other side of the abyss, they had found each other once more. Again, more a result of differences than similarities. Ludvig was nimble, supple, elegant, European. Gunnar was big, strong, a fighter; out-and-out Swedish.
‘I have to do it,’ said Gunnar Nyberg. ‘I’ve still got twelve kilos to go before I’m down to being Sweden’s Second Biggest Policeman.’
Ludvig Johnsson laughed. ‘Yeah, I read that story. Did they talk to you first?’
‘Someone rang and asked if I still weighed a hundred and thirty-nine kilos. I said no, a hundred and forty-six. The entire story’s built on that conversation. Sweden’s Biggest Policeman.’
‘Well, listen,’ Ludvig Johnsson said abruptly, slapping his marathon-runner knees. ‘It’s bloody well time for Midsummer. One day to go. May the country’s paedophiles rest easy, at least for a couple of days. What’re you all doing?’
‘I’m going to see my grandson,’ said Nyberg without hesitation. ‘Dance around the Midsummer pole in Östhammar.’
‘I’m just going to relax,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘Unwind. There’s been a lot on for a bit too long now.’
‘I’m going to renew myself,’ said Ludvig Johnsson cryptically.
Suddenly, a familiar voice could be heard on Kungsholmsgatan.
‘Well, well! If it isn’t Sweden’s Very Biggest Policeman!’
A short-haired, medium-blond man dressed in a red T-shirt, jeans and sandals, a red pimple on his cheek, had appeared in sharp relief against the greyish facade of the police station. Nyberg allowed himself the trouble of standing up and spreading his arms. The two men hugged. When Nyberg let go, the other man looked as though he had just been embraced by an anaconda.
‘Distinguished paedophile hunters,’ said Nyberg jovially, ‘meet the hero of Hällunda. The pride of the police force, Paul Hjelm. Ludvig Johnsson and Sara Svenhagen.’
‘Hullo,’ said Johnsson.
‘Hi,’ said Svenhagen.
‘Hi,’ Hjelm panted, regaining his breath. ‘Congratulations on your latest crackdown, it seems to have gone really well.’
‘Thanks,’ said Svenhagen. ‘Yeah, it was a little reward for our efforts.’
‘Finally, we should add,’ said Johnsson.
‘What’re you busy with nowadays?’ asked Nyberg, patting Hjelm on the shoulder. ‘Where did you end up? Local CID?’
‘In the mundane, you could say, yeah. Right now it’s the Kvarnen Killer, if you’ve heard about that criminal mastermind.’
‘Pub brawl?’ Nyberg said thoughtlessly. ‘Aren’t you a bit… overqualified?’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Hjelm. ‘It’s shaping up to be something really interesting. We’ll see. I’m working with Kerstin by the way, Gunnar.’
‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Nyberg. ‘My old room-mate. She was meant to be going back home. So you ended up together? Good fit.’