Life Deluxe (72 page)

She saw Adam’s car: an Audi.

A man came walking toward her from the other side of the car.

Natalie stared into his eyes.

A broad face. Gray eyes. Light-brown hair.

Effortless self-confidence. A calm, relaxed gaze.

It was Semjon Averin.

He was holding something. Natalie didn’t have time to see what it was.

Then: all hell broke loose around them.

She saw rapid movements out of the corner of her eye.

Heard screaming, “This is the police! Get down on the ground!”

She saw Adam stare, wide-eyed.

She saw Semjon Averin raise his arm.

The pain was gone now. The cold on his face, gone.

Jorge was lying flat on the ground.

He knew so many things.

He knew nothing.

He: shot in the back.

He: on his way somewhere.

He drifted off again.

You are me and I am you. My blood cleanses us all from sin
.

Moments in the present once again. Too tired to open his eyes.

He heard strange noises. Faint, fuzzy sounds.

Paola oughta’ve made it, inside the car.

And Jorgito?

Sálvame
.

He didn’t know.

Couldn’t take it.

He should’ve said good-bye to Mom.

He should’ve told Javier.

A life.

His life.

A life deluxe.

It felt as though he was bleeding from the mouth.

Didn’t matter.

He felt calm now.

Relaxed.

(Four Months Later)

Hägerström was lying in his bed. It was firm, hard. He looked up at the wall.

Two photos of Pravat, secured with tape. He had taken one of them himself, in Humlegården a year ago. It was a close-up of Pravat’s face, with the park in the background. Pravat had sent him the second one. At the center of the photo was a large Lego fortress with figures standing atop the wall. Pravat was posing behind the castle—proud of his fine creation.

Hägerström looked out. The prison yard was gravelly and bleak.

His trial had lasted four days, ending two weeks ago. He had been in jail until then. Now he was here, in Kumla. Compared every single detail to the Salberga Penitentiary, where he had worked. Back then he had thought things like freshly painted walls, clean showers, and a working television set were just baloney. Now he longed for a single surface that didn’t feel dirty.

He hadn’t fought the charges. The evidence was robust. The prison transport guards were able to identify him, and they had found gunpowder on his jacket. Still, his lawyer did a good job. The prosecutor wanted to get Hägerström convicted for attempted murder. Four shots fired with an assault rifle at the tires of a transport vehicle belonging to the Department of Corrections on the seventeenth of October last year. According to the prosecutor, fortuitous circumstance was the only thing that had prevented the loss of life. But Hägerström had been a coastal ranger, he knew how to handle assault rifles. The lawyer was able to prove that there had never been any real risk to the transport guards’ lives.

He was convicted of attempted aggravated assault instead. Three years in prison.

The day after Hägerström was arrested at the Radisson Blu Arlandia Hotel, Torsfjäll had visited him in the jail cell.

The inspector had entered the cell alone. Only detectives on the case and his lawyer were actually permitted to see him, but Torsfjäll apparently had his ways.

“Good afternoon.”

Hägerström greeted him. “Hi. Great that you managed to get in.”

Torsfjäll remained standing. There were no chairs in the cell. Only a simple mattress on the floor.

The inspector shook Hägerström’s hand. “Have they interrogated you yet?”

“Just superficially. But I haven’t said anything about Operation Tide. I was waiting for you.”

“Good, because there’s nothing to say.”

Hägerström stared at the inspector. His teeth didn’t look as white as they used to.

“What the fuck made you think you could shoot at a prison transport vehicle?”

Hägerström’s thoughts came to a halt. Torsfjäll was speaking in a completely different tone than usual.

“It was part of the job.”

“Committing crimes like you did—that is never part of the job.”

“Okay, well. What do you mean there’s nothing to say about my role as a UC operative?”

“Because you’ve never been one. You were fired from the police force. You’ve been a civilian all this time.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about what we talked about the entire time—that you were fired from the police force. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s not what we said. I was fired formally. But I’ve still been on the force informally.”

Torsfjäll’s eyes were dead. He didn’t even try to meet Hägerström’s gaze.

“There is no such distinction within the police force.”

Hägerström could hear his own breathing.

“That was part of the agreement, was it not?” Torsfjäll said. “You’ve taken risks. I’m grateful for that. But you knew what you were getting yourself into. Really, you should just be damn happy you haven’t been convicted of more. Just think about it: engaging in unlawful monetary
transactions, aggravated assault, harboring a fugitive. You could’ve gotten many more years for everything you’ve done.”

Hägerström said, “That’s highfalutin bullshit.”

The inspector set a voice recorder on the table. Pressed the “play” button.

A recording. Hägerström heard his own voice midsentence. Then he heard Torsfjäll’s voice:
“You are not a police officer anymore. You are a corrections officer with an assignment. You have to act on your own without immunity.”

The inspector switched off the recorder. “See, I told you you weren’t a police officer any longer.”

Hägerström just stared. He remembered that conversation. But at the time he had interpreted it completely differently.

“And you must understand too,” Torsfjäll went on, “that if I were to admit that I had ordered this, we would never be able to carry out similar operations again. And besides, if this came out, it would ruin my career. That would be a shame.”

The inspector was a sly fucker.

Hägerström had only one question left: “What happened to JW?”

Torsfjäll stood up.

“You fuck-up,” he said.

Back in his cell. Hägerström had been a fool.

Yet given that he had not been a member of the police force, he had gotten off light, just as Torsfjäll said.

Hägerström could have tried to convince the police investigators that he had been a UC operative, that he had believed he was employed by the police force the entire time and had acted only according to instructions from Inspector Lennart Torsfjäll. But what were the chances that they would believe him? It would be meaningless to try to dig up e-mails or texts from Torsfjäll since his computer and phone had been confiscated. He would have deleted anything important a long time ago.

He could at least have tried to get the police investigators to understand that he had been a civilian infiltrator. But same story there. How great were the chances that they would believe him?

And he had another, more important reason to not even try. If he were to say he’d been an infiltrator, he would be taking another risk: an
enormous price on his head. JW, Jorge, Javier, and the others would pay anything to see him cut down, snuffed out. Dead.

Without Torsfjäll’s support to get a secure hidden identity, he would be an easy target.

It was a fucking terrible choice to make. He could say he’d been an infiltrator and maybe get away with a shorter prison sentence but live under a death threat for the rest of his life. Or he could take on the role of a criminal and live with that reputation for the rest of his life.

He concluded that it was better to keep his mouth shut. Keep on pretending. Play the part.

So he never said anything to the police.

He never explained that his criminal record had been filled with fictitious incidents.

He never told anyone that he had met Mrado Slovovic, or about all his meetings with Torsfjäll in various apartments.

He didn’t even try to make them understand why he’d seen to it that those guys in the unit in Salberga were transferred, so that JW would be left alone.

He just did what Javier would have done. He squeezed his mouth shut and breathed through his nose. Didn’t answer any of the police’s questions.

He wondered why Torsfjäll had used and tricked him. He could come up with only one answer. The higher-ups in the force would never have greenlighted a project that used a police officer like that—so the only way to do it was to make Hägerström a civilian.

He would never be able to work as a police officer again. Nor as a corrections officer. The question was what kind of job he would be able to get. He would definitely not be granted increased custody of his son. Convicted of attempted aggravated assault—good luck.

He gazed up at the photos of Pravat again. Pravat, proud of his Lego fortress. That was all so far away right now. One day Hägerström would tell him what had really happened.

He picked up a newspaper from the table.

Unfolded it.

The centerfold was a picture of Javier, on his way into a courtroom. He was trying to hide his face with a state-issue towel.

The headline:
THE LAST DAY IN THE TOMTEBODA ROBBERY TRIAL
.

Hägerström didn’t know what Javier thought about it all—they hadn’t been able to talk. But he hoped Javier would end up in the
same prison. Maybe they could make their own little life on the inside, somehow.

Hägerström was grateful for his inherited money. But would he see any more of that? Lottie wasn’t happy. She was coming to visit him in two hours—he would learn more then.

Right now the minutes were dragging worse than during a hunting stand.

He tried not to wonder what his brother and sister must be thinking. Their brother, Martin, former police officer, former corrections officer, now a convicted felon. They might have been able to handle a conviction for aggravated drunk driving or some white-collar crime, but after this they would probably never speak to him again.

It was a miracle that Lottie was coming to visit at all.

An hour and forty-five minutes later: a knock on his door. A screw opened. Led him to the visiting room.

The walls were painted white. A couch with burgundy vinyl upholstery. A wooden table with two wooden chairs. A tray on the table. A couple plastic mugs, stacked inside one another, plastic spoons, a Thermos made of some kind of plastic material with hot water in it, a plastic jar of Nescafé, a box of Lipton tea bags. Nothing metal. Nothing that could be used to injure someone else, or injure the inmate himself. Standard.

The door opened.

His mother looked confused.

Lottie appeared older than when he had seen her last. Her hair was grayer, the wrinkles around her eyes deeper.

Hägerström said, “Come in.”

She was wearing tan slacks and a cashmere cardigan. She had a silk scarf tied around her neck. Hägerström recognized the pattern—Hermès, of course.