Cop Killer (21 page)

'Good morning, good morning, good morning, dear friends and colleagues out on the highways and byways. We have a few little tidbits for you. A domestic disturbance on Björkgatan in Sofielund. Complaints about the noise, probably a drunken party. Closest patrol please check it out. What? Yes, music and singing. Björkgatan twenty-three. Suspicious hot-rod outside an empty villa in Ljunghusen. Two-tone blue Chrysler, an A-reg plate with three sixes in the number. Closest patrol will investigate. The address is Ùstersjövägen thirty-six. May be connected with a suspected burglary. A young man and two girls seen in the car. Routine check.'

'That's right nearby,' Hector said.

'What?' said Elofsson.

Borglund's only reaction was a slightly indignant snore.

'You fellows in the area might have a care,' said the voice. 'Usual procedure. Take no chances. Check out the vehicle if it shows up. Direction of travel unknown. Try not to attract attention. Take it a little easy if you spot this item. Ordinary routine checkout Nothing more at the moment. Good morning, all.'

'That's right nearby,' Hector repeated.

Elofsson slurped some coffee from the mug of his Thermos but didn't say anything. Borglund turned in his sleep.

'Right in this neighbourhood,' Hector said.

'Don't bust a gut, boy,' Elofsson said, rooting around in his bag of biscuits.

He sank his teeth into a cinnamon twirl.

'Right close by,' Hector said. 'Let's go.'

'Easy, boy. It's probably nothing at all. And if it is something, we're not the only cops in the world.'

Hector flushed.

'What do you mean?' he said. 'I don't get it' Elofsson went on chewing.

Borglund sighed deeply in his sleep and whimpered. Perhaps he was dreaming about the National Commissioner.

They were no more than sixty feet from the junction when the light-green Chevvy swung on to the road ahead of them.

'There's the little bastards now,' Hector said.

'Maybe,' Elofsson said.

The word was muffled by a mouthful of food. 'Let's take 'em,' Hector said.

He put the car in gear and stepped on the accelerator. The patrol car leaped forward. ‘What?' said Borglund groggily. 'Burglars,' Hector said. 'Maybe,' Elofsson said.

'What?' said Borglund, still half asleep. 'What's going on?'

The youths in the green car didn't discover the patrol car until it was already beside them, and then it was too late.

Hector accelerated, cut in front, and jammed on the brakes. The police car skidded on the damp pavement. The green car was forced to the right and came to a stop with its front wheel three inches from the edge of the ditch. The driver didn't have much choice.

Hector was the first one out on the road. He had already unbuttoned his holster and drawn his 7.65 mm Walther. Elofsson got out on the other side. Borglund was last, disoriented and breathing hard. 'What's going on here?' he said.

'No headlights,' said Hector in a shrill voice. 'That's a violation. Out of the car, you little shits.'

He had his pistol in his right hand.

'And when I say "Now" I don't mean tomorrow, by God. Move!' 'Take it easy,' Elofsson said. 'No tricks,' Hector said.

The people in the green car climbed out on opposite sides. Their faces were white patches in the fog.

'Just a little routine chat,' Elofsson said.

He was closer to them than the others but still hadn't touched his revolver.

'Just take it easy,' he said.

Hector was standing behind him to one side, his revolver in his hand and his finger on the trigger. 'We haven't done anything.'

The voice sounded young. It could have come from a girl or from a boy whose voice was breaking.

'That's what they all say,' Hector said. 'Unlawful lighting, for example. What about that? Have a look in their car, Emil.'

From where he was standing, only a few yards away, Elofsson could see that the suspects were two young men. They were both wearing leather jackets, jeans, and tennis shoes, but the similarity ended there. One of them was big and dark, with a crew cut The other was below normal height and had billowing, shoulder-length blond hair. Neither one of them looked to be more than twenty years old.

Elofsson walked towards the taller of the two youths, fingering his holster but not opening it. Instead, he moved his hand, took out his torch, and shone it into the back seat. Then he put it away again.

'Mmm,' he said.

Then he turned abruptly to the tall youth, grabbed for his . clothing, and got a grip on the lapels of his jacket.

'All right, you little bastards,’ said Hector from behind him.

'What's going on here?' Borglund said.

And that was apparently the remark that set things going.

Elofsson was following normal procedure. He had grabbed the boy's jacket with both hands. The next step was to pull the victim closer and drive his right knee into the man's groin. And that would take care of that. The same way he had done it so many times before. Without firearms.

But Emil Elofsson had kneed his last arrestee. The young man with the crew cut had other ideas. He had his right hand at his belt and his left hand in his pocket. There was a revolver stuck in the waistband of his jeans, and he obviously had no doubts about what it was for. He pulled it and started shooting.

The revolver was a weapon constructed for short range, a nickel-plated Colt Cobra .32 calibre with six shots in the chambered cylinder. The first two shots struck Elofsson in the diaphragm, and the third and fourth passed under his left arm. Both of these bullets hit Hector in the left hip and sent him reeling backwards across the tarmac where he fell on his back with his head resting on a low wire fence that ran along the edge of the road.

Shots numbers five and six rang out. They were presumably meant for Borglund, but he had a very human fear of guns and at the very first shot had thrown himself headlong into the ditch on the north side of the road. The ditch was deep and damp, and his large body bounced heavily to the bottom. He wound up on his stomach in the mud, not daring to lift his face, and almost at once he felt a cruel, stinging pain on the right side of his neck.

Elofsson had already pushed off with his foot, and his knee was an inch or so in the air when the bullets struck his body. He clung tightly to the leather jacket and only let go when the man with the gun took several steps back and opened the cylinder to reload.

He fell forward and landed on his side, where he lay with one cheek against the pavement and his right arm trapped helplessly under his body, along with his pistol, still buttoned in its holster.

In spite of the uncertain light, he could see the young man distinctly as he stepped back and loaded new cartridges, which he apparently had loose in his jacket pocket

Elofsson was in great pain, and the front of his uniform was already soaked and smeared with blood. He could neither talk nor move, only observe. And still he was more dumbfounded than afraid. How could this have happened? For twenty years he'd been driving around shouting and swearing, pushing, kicking, hitting people with his truncheon, or slapping them with the flat side of his sabre. He had always been the stronger, had always had the advantage of arms and might and justice against people who were weaponless and powerless and had no rights.

And now here he lay on the pavement

The man with the revolver was twenty steps away. It had grown lighter, and Elofsson saw him turn his head and heard five words,

'Get in the car, Caspar!'

Then the man raised his left elbow, rested the barrel on the crook of his arm and sighted carefully. At what?

The question was superfluous. A ricochet glanced off the pavement less than a foot from Elofsson's face. At the same time, he heard a shot behind him. Was the other bastard shooting at him too? Or was it Borglund? He dismissed that idea. If Borglund wasn't dead already, he was lying somewhere pretending to be.

The man with the revolver was standing still. Legs apart. Aiming.

Elofsson closed his eyes. He felt the blood pulsing out of his body. He didn't see his life pass before his eyes. He merely thought: Now I'm going to die.

Hector hadn't dropped his pistol when he fell. He was lying on

his back with his head propped up on the fence, and he too could

see the figure with the .revolver and the short black hair, though

less distinctly and from a greater distance. What's more, Elofsson

lay right in his line of fire, but pressed so tightly to the road that

there was a free range above him, 

In contrast to his colleague, Hector was not especially surprised. He was young, and this was roughly what his fervid imagination had always expected of this job. His right arm was still functioning, but there was something wrong with the left, and he had a hard time getting his hand on the housing of his pistol to cock it. And that had to be done, for in accordance with police regulations, he actually did not have a cartridge in the chamber. (Elofsson and Borglund did have, on the other hand, for all the good it did them.) He didn't succeed until the other man had fired the first shot of his second series.

Hector was in agony. The pain in his left arm and his whole left side was excruciating, and his vision was blurred. He fired his first shot carelessly and mechanically, and it went high.

This was not the time for wild shots, he could see that Hector was generally a decent marksman on the range, but at the moment it would take more than decent marksmanship to save his life. The figure standing in the mist eighty feet away had all the advantages, and his behaviour indicated that he wasn't about to go home until every policeman in sight was guaranteed stone dead.

Hector took a deep breath. The pain was so great he nearly lost consciousness. A bullet hit the fence, and the steel wires reverberated. The vibration passed oh through the back of his head, and for one instant, his vision became amazingly clear and concentrated. He raised the pistol and forced himself to hold his arm straight and his hand still. The target was indistinct, but he could see it

Hector squeezed off the shot. Then he lost consciousness, and the automatic fell from his hand.

Elofsson, however, was still conscious. Ten seconds earlier, he had opened his eyes again, and nothing had changed. The man with the revolver hadn't moved. Legs apart, the pistol barrel resting on his elbow, he was carefully and calmly taking aim.

He heard another shot from behind.

And, wonder of wonders, the man with the revolver gave a jerk and threw his arms up over his head. The weapon flew from his hand. And then, in a continuation of the same motion, he collapsed on the pavement and went utterly limp, as if there had been no skeleton in his body. He lay there in a heap. Not a sound crossed his lips.

It would be wrong to call it pure chance, for Hector, had aimed carefully and done his very best But it was an almost incredibly lucky shot. The bullet struck the man's shoulder and followed his collarbone directly to his spinal cord. The youth with the revolver died instantly, probably while he was still on his feet He didn't even have a chance to lie down and draw his final breath.

Elofsson heard a car peel out and speed away.

And that was followed by total silence, abstract and unnatural.

After what seemed like a very long time, someone moved nearby.

After another long wait, though it could not have been more than minutes or even seconds, Borglund came crawling over on all fours. He was moaning and looking about aimlessly with his torch. He stuck his hand in under Elofsson, flinched, and pulled it back. And stared at the blood.

'Jesus Christ, Emil,' he said.

And:

'For God's sake, what did you do?'

Elofsson felt all the strength leave his body, and he could not talk or move.

Borglund got to his feet with gasps and groans.

Elofsson heard him clump over to the patrol car and switch the radio to the emergency frequency.

'Emergency! Come in! Route 100 at Östersjövägen in Ljunghusen. Two men shot I'm hurt myself. Gunfire. Shooting. Help!?

From a great distance, Elofsson heard metallic voices responding over the radio. First the nearby divisions.

'Trelleborg here. We're coming.'

'Lund Division. We're on our way.'

Finally the despatcher in Malmö.

'Good morning. Help on its way. It'll take about fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most'

After a while, Borglund was back, fumbling with the first aid kit. He turned Elofsson over on his back, cut open his uniform, and started stuffing compresses in at random between his stomach and his blood-drenched underclothes. He kept up a steady, monotonous, thick-tongued babble.

'Jesus Christ, Emil. Jesus Christ'

Elofsson lay there in the damp. His blood mixed with the dew. He was cold. It hurt even more than it had. He was still dumbfounded.

A little later he heard other voices. The people in the house behind the wire fence had woken up and ventured out.

A young woman knelt down beside Elofsson and took his hand.

"There, there,' she said.

"There, there. They'll be here soon.'

He was more dumbfounded than ever. A person was holding his hand. A member of the general public. After a while she put his head on her lap, and put her hand on his forehead.

They were still in that position when the scream of many sirens began to reach them, first very soft but soon shrill and piercing.

Just then the sun broke through the mist and spread a shallow, pale-yellow light over the absurd scene.

All of this took place on the morning of 18 November 1973, in the furthest corner of Malmö Division. For that matter, in the furthest corner of Sweden. Several hundred yards away, long shiny waves surged in against a curving sand beach that seemed to be endless in the fog. The sea.

On the other side was the European continent.

Monday, 19 November. Clear, cold, and windy.

The day was called Elizabeth in the Swedish calendar, and it was Kollberg's turn to talk to Folke Bengtsson.

But a great many things were different this Monday morning. It was as if Anderslöv had suddenly vanished from the map. The mass media were interested in other things.