They disappeared.
Paul Hjelm disappeared, too. Into the vague half-world of daydreams. Per Karlsson. Born twenty years ago in Danderyd. Born in the affluent suburb of Danderyd, but hadn’t even stayed on at school. Unemployed, but sat in the most well-known and notorious of Södermalm’s pubs, reading the classics. What had happened? It was impossible to guess. An outsider at school? Thrown out of his father’s firm? Made to feel small, but on the way up? Rebellion against his father? Generally obstinate? Former addict? Dim-witted?
No.
Maybe the others, but not that. Not dim-witted. That much Paul Hjelm had seen, even though he felt, well… dim-witted.
Demoted to the dreary limbo of pub brawls.
Paradise lost.
No, not dim-witted. On the contrary, Per was unusually observant. But now Hjelm had to forget him. Now they had to plough on through more miserable interrogations with hungover witnesses, and Per Karlsson needed to be on someone else’s mind. Only his evidence could remain.
Hjelm yawned, his thoughts trundling on. The months spent with the local police. The violent crimes division of Stockholm’s City district. Police headquarters on Bergsgatan. The utterly temporary office which, equally temporarily, he had been liberated from. The office actually belonged to Gunnarlöv, a policeman on sick leave, whose telephone he always answered with: ‘Gunnar Löv’s telephone, Paul Hjelm speaking.’ It was only when an old colleague of Gunnarlöv, now stationed in Härnösand, came in and asked after ‘Nils-Egg’ that he understand why there was always a pause on the other end of the line when he answered. People were simply recovering from his strange pronunciation of Gunnarlöv. His jaw dropped when he looked up the name in the internal telephone catalogue and saw it there in black and white: it wasn’t ‘Gunnar Löv’ at all, but ‘Nils-Egil Gunnarlöv’. Shortened to Nils-Egg.
Were people really allowed to be called such things? Weren’t there laws? Wasn’t it the same as naming your child Heroin, like a family in Gnesta had tried to do a while ago, Heroin Lindgren? They had been turned down and written a whole series of letters to the local press where they went on the offensive against the nanny state.
In any case, Gunnarlöv was on sick leave because he had, while on duty, found himself in the Stureplan branch of Föreningssparbank when a hysterical female bank robber aged around fourteen rushed in with a staple gun at the ready, demanding ‘all your high-yield shares, ready to go’. Don’t staple guns need to be plugged in? Gunnarlöv had thought to himself, going over to the robber to calmly point out that fact and receiving, to his surprise, no fewer than thirty-four staples peppered across his face. Miraculously enough, none of them hit his eyes. The first thing he said on waking from unconsciousness was: ‘Don’t staple guns run on electricity?’ His wife stared at his bandage-covered head, her eyes swollen and red with crying, and answered: ‘There are ones that run on batteries.’
The adventures of Nils-Egil Gunnarlöv.
Nils-Egg in Wonderland.
Still, Paul Hjelm’s own story wasn’t all that much more entertaining. Quite the opposite, in fact, since the story of Nils-Egg actually had its bizarre moments.
Kerstin Holm came back, leafing through a notepad.
‘Welcome to reality,’ Paul Hjelm said gruffly.
‘It’s not much different in Gothenburg.’
‘Sweden’s shithole.’
‘What’re you getting at?’ exclaimed Kerstin Holm in her good-natured Gothenburg accent.
‘Ah, sorry. No, well, it was just something that was being bandied about in the media a few weeks ago. The Black Army, you know, the AIK supporters’ club, it was on their answering machine before the team’s cup final against IFK Göteborg, in Ullevi Stadium. Stockholm arrogance and tribal football hate in an unhealthy union.’
‘Yeah, and now we’ve got it again. Stockholm arrogance and tribal football hate, only a more serious type. Did you see him?’
‘Anders Lundström from Kalmar? Yeah. Really nasty. His head was a terrible mess. To think a beer mug can do so much damage!’
‘Why? How do we explain it?’
Paul Hjelm looked at Kerstin Holm. They had a shared past which meant that no glance was entirely innocent.
‘Are you serious?’ he asked, half serious himself.
‘Yes. Yes, I am, I really am. Why’s the violence getting worse?’
He sighed. ‘Well, at least now we’ve been able to see it up close. For just over six months. The grey, everyday violence in the city. It doesn’t exactly do much to encourage your philanthropic tendencies. Are you back for good now, Kerstin?’
‘I was on loan. You know what it’s like with footballers who’re on loan, there’s something wrong with them. Now I’m not on loan any more.’
‘For good, though? How was being home in Gothenburg?’
‘This is home now, that much I’ve figured out. That’s probably all, though.’
‘But life is OK?’
‘Exactly. OK. No more, no less. Under control. Could wish for a little more…’
‘Sure, same here. I think I’m beginning to have a little midlife crisis. Is this all there is? Isn’t there more to it? You know.’
‘I think so.’
‘You’ve just got to make the best of the situation. We’re back together again, and now we’re going to smoothly wrap up what the media are already calling the Kvarnen Killing. Right?’
Kerstin Holm chuckled slightly and slipped a sachet of snus tobacco under her upper lip.
‘What’s this, then?’ said Hjelm, pointing.
‘A fresh start,’ said Kerstin Holm without batting an eyelid. She changed to another subject, one from the past. ‘How are the others? I’ve kept in touch with Gunnar the whole time, things are going well for him.’
‘Yeah. Ah yes, our friend Gunnar Nyberg… He was the only one who stayed with national CID, actually. A reward for refusing to take part in the final phase of the hunt for the Kentucky Killer. He ended up in the middle of the paedophile busts. The so-called Paedo University.’
‘I can just see him,’ Kerstin Holm smiled, leafing through her little notepad. ‘He’s just re-established contact with his kids and his one-year-old grandchild, and then he finds himself thrown head first into the world of Internet paedophiles. Like a steamroller.’
‘You’re right there.’
An image emerged in both their minds, doubtless almost identical. A snorting giant with a bandage around his head, hunting paedophiles with a blowtorch.
‘Yep,’ said Hjelm gloomily, ‘the rest of us got our little punishments. Bad blood always comes back round.’
‘We should never say that again.’
‘You’re right, never again.’
‘And the others?’
‘I haven’t had that much contact with them since the A-Unit split. I ended up on that God-awful loan to the local police. “Gunnar Löv’s telephone.” Punishment. Deep down, I think they held me responsible for the cock-up with the Kentucky Killer, but Jan-Olov was the scapegoat.’
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘No, he just disappeared. Involuntary retirement. Retired Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin. I think he even stopped playing football. That’s the end of the saga of Wooden Leg Hultin. Söderstedt and Norlander ended up with local CID’s violent crimes squad, and Chavez has been doing more training.’
‘At the Police College?’
‘Yep. Career plans rumbling on. Are there still superintendent courses? It’s something like that he’s doing if there are.’
‘There you go. And our room? The “Supreme Command Centre”?’
‘I think they’ve got admin staff in there now.’
They sat in silence for a while, observing one another. All they had experienced together… For a short moment, their hands met, pressing together. That was enough. A lot of work lay ahead of them. Kerstin Holm glanced through her notepad, Paul Hjelm leafed through the mediocre notes from the brief interrogations carried out by the night staff. Together, they looked at the little sketch of the Kvarnen bar.