Bad Blood: A Crime Novel Page 8

  And so it went, uninteresting through and through.

  Chavez became more and more virtual; Söderstedt drove around in his Audi, personally investigating Americans staying in lodgings fit for both princes and paupers; and Hultin endured long, chaotic crisis meetings with Mörner and the national police commissioner, during which he entertained himself by thinking about what sort of wrenches the young Communist Mörner could conceivably have thrown into the works of the KGB.

  Kerstin Holm worked intensively with the material from the FBI, but the descriptions of the victims from the 1970s had faded considerably, and the KGB hypothesis seemed less plausible. She noted with some interest that Hjelm was in her presence a bit more often than usual. They reasoned back and forth but never got further than they had in that single associative minute when they helped each other deliver a joint hypothesis that no one really believed.

  Without his virtual office mate, Hjelm turned to Kerstin, and to his surprise, the very fact that he and Cilla were doing better than they had for a long time made him draw closer to Kerstin. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, but all that came out were indirect insinuations, such as when he played the tape of the interviews with Lars-Erik Hassel’s two exes. First the ex-wife:

  “You were together during his more political period, right?”

  “Political … hmm …”

  “He did take an active interest in the weaker members of society …”

  “Well … I don’t know …”

  “An active, genuine interest.”

  “Yes … well … um … What are you getting at?”

  “And then his interest in literature. Incredibly strong.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  It had been a catastrophe, and he very much deserved the stern side-glance he received from Kerstin. Then he fast-forwarded the tape to the other ex, the young woman who had left Hassel before he had time to meet his second son:

  “Has he seen his son since?”

  “Yes … well … um …”

  “Has he ever met him at all?”

  “I don’t think you could say he has. I’m not one hundred percent sure that he knew he existed.”

  Rewind, and back to the first:

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  “Well, there are enemies and then there are enemies … You can’t be a critic for that long without attracting someone’s hatred, that’s for sure.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “Throughout the years there have been a few, three of them. And more recently I’m quite sure he received a steady stream of hate e-mails, all from the same nut job.”

  “Hate e-mails?”

  “Hate letters via e-mail.”

  “How do you know that? Did you still see each other?”

  “Laban told me. They saw each other once or twice a month.”

  “Your son?”

  “Yes. There was some kind of crazy person who sent him e-mail. That’s all I know.”

  Then fast-forward again to the younger woman.

  “How old is your son now?”

  “Six. His name is Conny.”

  “Why did you leave him? It happened so quickly, after all. He didn’t even have time to see his son.”

  “He had absolutely no desire to see him. My water broke as he was packing to go to the book fair in Gothenburg. He called for two taxis, one to Arlanda for himself, one to Karolinska for me. Gallant, huh? Then he fucked around like a madman down there, while his son was being born. Maybe he had time to fertilize another one before the first one came out. Always a bun in the oven.”

  “How do you know that? That he—was so sexually active in Gothenburg?”

  “One of his colleagues called me, actually. A woman. I don’t remember her name.”

  “She called you? At the hospital? To tell you your husband was fucking around? So tasteful.”

  “Yes. No, not very—tasteful.”

  “Didn’t you think it was a bit strange?”

  “Yes, actually. But she sounded convincing, and besides, I could see when he left that it was over. He thought one kid was enough. Conny was an accident, but I didn’t want to have an abortion.”

  “Can you remember what this colleague’s name was?”

  “I’m pretty sure her first name was Elisabeth. After that, I don’t know. Bengtsson? Berntsson? Baklava? Biskopsnäsa?”

  And rewinding again. Kerstin watched him rewind with raised eyebrows.

  “Do you know if these hate e-mails are still on the computer?”

  “No. The only thing I know is that Laban said that they upset Lars-Erik. I can’t really picture it, but that’s what he said.”

  “How old is Laban?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Does he live at home?”

  “He has an apartment on Kungsklippan, if you want to verify my statement, or whatever it’s called. Laban Jeremias Hassel.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Now don’t laugh. [Pause.] He studies literature.”

  Hjelm pressed stop again and was just about to fast-forward when Kerstin pressed his very own stop button; it seemed necessary. “That’s enough.”

  He stared at her strangely, as though from another world, then stopped reluctantly and returned to the present. He sank down into the chair across from her and scanned the room. It was the office that Kerstin shared with Gunnar Nyberg, the choir room. A serene but chilly autumn light streamed in through its always-half-open windows. Sometimes they sat here and practiced scales and sang in harmony, a cappella, he with his strong bass, she with her husky alto. Hjelm compared it to his own office, where Chavez surfed the Internet full time and where the conversation these days mostly seemed to involve soccer. He felt short of breath. He needed a little John Coltrane. And maybe he would be brave enough to return to Kafka, even though the worth of literature had been drastically devalued during the last few days.

  But most of all he needed to tell Kerstin something.

  He wondered what it was.

  “Can’t you give me a summary instead?” she said.

  He looked at her. She didn’t turn away. Neither of them understood the other’s look.

  “Three things,” he said professionally. “One: pay a visit to the twenty-three-year-old literature-student son, Laban Hassel. Two: find out more about the colleague Elisabeth Biskopsnäsa, the one who called the hospital and tattled. Three: check whether those threatening e-mails are still on the computer, either at home or at the newspaper office.”

  “Have you been to Hassel’s home at all?”

  “I swung by. No obvious KGB signs fluttering around like vampires. A tasteful, large Kungsholm apartment with a few bachelor touches. And exercise equipment. Do you want to take a peek?”

  She shook her head. “There’s something I have to check on. Try to get Jorge out into the sunlight.”

  He nodded, hesitated at the door for a second, and cast a quick glance at the tape player. Then he left it with her.

  She regarded it for a while. She looked at the closed door, then back at the tape player.

  She fast-forwarded to a point in between the passages that Hjelm had so frantically toggled. Paul had asked the ex-wife:

  “Who is your new husband?”

  “Surely that has nothing to do with this.”

  “I just want to know what you’ve got instead of Hassel. What you looked for instead. The differences. It might tell me a few things about him.”

  “I live with a man who works in the travel industry. We do well together. He works hard but leaves work at work and devotes his time to me when we’re home. We have a normal life together. Was that the answer you were looking for?”

  “I think so.”

  Kerstin Holm looked at the closed door.

  For a long time.

  Hjelm did get Chavez out into the sunlight. At a moment when his desk mate complained about increasing bum sweat, he jumped at the opportunity, and the two former Pow
er Murder heroes left police headquarters to the hands of more permanently accomplished medalists like Waldemar Mörner. They hadn’t been able to find out exactly what had happened with the complaint from the news reporter, who had received, quote, “massive lip injuries” when Mörner shoved the microphone into his mouth. Presumably the complaint had been considerably easier to digest.

  Out on the street, yet another sparklingly clear late-summer afternoon offered up its free services. Autumn had arrived in Arlanda, but it was delaying its appearance in Stockholm. The somewhat tired symbolism could hardly escape anyone.

  Chavez could still comfortably wear his old linen jacket, which needed washing more than its camouflaging gray color cared to admit. He stretched his compact Latin body intensely as they walked along Kungsholmsgatan and crossed Scheelegatan.

  “The Internet,” he said dreamily. “Endless possibilities. And endless amounts of shit.”

  “Like life,” Hjelm said philosophically.

  They turned onto Pipersgatan, trudged up the hill, and started up the steep steps toward Kungsklippan, where the rows of houses tried to eclipse one another’s views of Stockholm. Some stared out over City Hall and police headquarters—they were hardly the most attractive ones—while others cast covetous glances past Kungholms Church to Norr Mälarstrand and Riddarfjärden; still others peered a bit disdainfully out over the muddle of the city and beyond, to upper Östermalm. Lars-Erik Hassel’s son from his first marriage lived in one of these last.

  They rang the doorbell. After a while a young man with a thin goatee, a sleeveless T-shirt, and baggy pants appeared.

  “The cops,” he said expressionlessly.

  “Yes indeed,” said the cops in unison, above their IDs. “May we come in?”

  “I guess it would be shooting myself in the foot to say no,” said Hassel Junior, admitting the two ex-heroes.

  It was a little studio with a kitchen nook. A frayed navy blue window shade kept the late-summer sun at bay. A computer spread a bluish flicker across the walls closest to the desk; otherwise the apartment was coal black.

  Chavez pulled the cord, and the window shade flew up with a squeak that was strongly reminiscent of the one Mörner had produced when Robert E. Norton kicked him in the rear. “This isn’t opened very often,” Chavez observed. “With a view like this, maybe you should look outside once in a while.” Beyond the window, Kungsklippan plunged down toward the junction between island and mainland.

  “Were you working?” Hjelm asked. “Your mom said you study literature.”

  Laban Jeremias Hassel squinted at the apparently violently attacking sun and smiled with indoor pallor. “The irony of fate …”

  “In what way?” Hjelm lifted an upside-down coffee mug from the tiny counter. He shouldn’t have done it—a whiff of the moldy fumes nearly flung him across the apartment.

  “My father was one of Sweden’s leading literary critics,” said Laban Jeremias, observing Hjelm’s actions indifferently. “The irony is that I was born with a literary silver spoon in my mouth. But really, my interest in literature is a rebellion against my father. I don’t know if it’s possible to understand,” he added quietly, lowering himself onto a thready, 1960s-style lavender sofa.

  The furniture in the little apartment was both sparse and slovenly. Here lived a person without much interest in the outside world—that much was clear.

  “I think I understand,” said Hjelm, even if he couldn’t really reconcile Laban’s trendy appearance with the inner chaos that seemed to rule him. “Your view of literature is the exact opposite of your father’s.”

  “He never understood the importance of improving oneself,” Laban Hassel mumbled, contemplating a birch table that actually seemed to have rotted through. “Literature was and remained a decadent bourgeois phenomenon for my father. So he felt no need to learn about it. Just tear it apart. And that continued long after he himself had become the most bourgeois of the bourgeois.”

  “He didn’t like literature.” Hjelm nodded.

  Laban lifted his eyes to him for a moment with surprise. “I do,” he whispered. “Without it, I’d be dead.”

  “Your childhood wasn’t happy,” Hjelm continued in the same balanced, calm, certain tone. A father’s tone, he thought.

  Or a mediocre psychologist’s.

  “He disappeared so soon,” Laban said, indicating that the situation wasn’t new for him. Many hours of therapy, it seemed, were behind him. He started over. “He disappeared so soon. Left us. And so he became a hero to me, a personal myth of this great, well-known, unapproachable thinker. And as I began to read books, he became more and more interesting, with absolutely no participation on his part. I decided to wait to read his works until I felt ready. Then I would read them, and everything would be revealed.”

  “And was it?”

  “Yes. But in the exact opposite way from what I had imagined. His whole cultural veneer was exposed.”

  “And yet you kept in touch up until the end?”

  Laban shrugged and seemed to fall into a trance. Then it came out. “I waited and waited for him to reveal something important, something crucial from the past. But it never came. He always managed to keep up a raw-but-warm tone between us. It felt like stepping right into the AIK locker room. Disgusting guy talk. No chinks in the armor. I waited for them in vain. Maybe they were there at the moment of his death.”

  “If I understand you correctly, your contact was extremely superficial.”

  “To say the least.”

  “And still he confided in you that he had received threatening e-mails.”

  Laban Hassel kept his eyes on the rotting table. He seemed broken. He said, short and to the point: “Yes.”

  “Tell us everything you know.”

  “I know just what he said—that there was someone terrorizing him.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. That was all. He just tossed it out in passing.”

  “And yet you found it worth telling your mom?”

  Laban looked at him in earnest for the first time. It wasn’t a look to mess with. It held a bottomless intensity that was rare among twenty-three-year-olds. That look set the unemployed but ready-for-action detective inside Hjelm into motion.

  “My mother and I have a very good relationship,” Laban Hassel said.

  Hjelm didn’t push him any further; he would need a new angle of attack before he returned. Because he would return. He and Chavez thanked the young man and left.

  In the stairwell, Chavez said, “What the fuck did you bring me along for?”

  “Kerstin thought you needed to get out in the sun,” Hjelm said heartily.

  “Not much sun in there.”

  “To be honest, I needed a sounding board, someone without any preconceived notions about Lars-Erik Hassel at all. So?”

  They wandered down the stairs to Pipersgatan. The sun got caught up in some stubborn bits of cloud and cast the northern half of City Hall in shadow. The result was a strange optical double exposure.

  “Right or left?” Chavez asked.

  “Left,” said Hjelm. “We’re going to Marieberg.”

  They walked quietly down Pipersgatan. Down at Hantverkargatan they turned right, wandered past Kungsholmstorg, and stopped at the bus stop.

  “Well,” Chavez returned to conversing, “I wonder how Laban’s literature studies are going.”

  “Check,” Hjelm said.

  The bus had almost made it to Marieberg before Chavez, calling on his cell, managed to get past the switchboard at Stockholm University and reach the department of literature, whose telephone-answering hours were of the irregular variety. Hjelm followed the phone-call spectacle from a distance, like a director laughing covertly at the efforts of the actors. They were crammed into different parts of the overcrowded bus, Hjelm in the aisle in back, Chavez in the middle, leaning over a baby carriage that was cutting into his diaphragm. Every time he half-yelled into his phone, the baby in the carriage screamed ba
ck three times as loud, accompanied by the equally crammed-in mother’s increasingly acid remarks. By the time Chavez stepped off the bus at Västerbroplan, he had a vague idea of what hell was like.

  “Well?” Hjelm said again.

  “You are an evil person,” Chavez hissed.

  “It’s a difficult line of business,” said Hjelm.

  “Laban Hassel was registered for basic studies in literature three years ago. There are no results listed in the register today. No courses at all.”

  Hjelm nodded. They had arrived at the same conclusion from different directions. He was pleased with the synchronicity.

  They reached the newspaper building. This time the elevator worked. They walked into the arts and leisure offices purposefully. If everything went well, this whole thing would be solved before the A-Unit’s evening meeting.

  Erik Bertilsson was leaning over a jammed fax machine. Hjelm cleared his throat half an inch from the man’s red-mottled scalp. Bertilsson gave a start, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. Which, Hjelm thought, wasn’t far from the truth.

  “We could use a little help,” Hjelm said with a neutrality that would have given Hultin’s a run for its money. “Can you get us into Hassel’s e-mail inbox? If it still exists.”