Never Fuck Up: A Novel (74 page)

Another shot rang out in the room.

Mahmud saw Niklas. Like in slow motion. He collapsed like a rag.

On the left side of his head: the skull was busted.

Someone’d shot him again.

Khara. KHARA.

Niklas on the floor. They had to get out.

“Come on, man. Can you get up?”

Niklas tried to say something.

Gurgled.

Babak howled in the background.

Mahmud ran.

The second shot was bad.

Niklas dropped the Beretta.

But he was still holding the detonator in his hand.

Tight grip.

He felt the blood over his cheek and chin. Didn’t feel the blood. Didn’t feel anything.

He saw images. So many people, stories, faces.

Mom on the couch at home. The men in the mosque they’d torched down there. Collin.

The faces drifted past as if he were seeing them in a mirror.

Jamila. Benjamin. The cop who’d interrogated him.

He didn’t see anything anymore.

No johns, no old guys.

He saw a crystal chandelier swing above him.

Swing.

All the men who’d beaten and abused.

Mats Strömberg, Roger Jonsson, Patric Ngono.

Claes. Remembered him. All the punches.

Remembered Bolinder.

Niklas gripped.

Squeezed.

So still.

The detonator.

Everything was so still.

Thomas was sitting in the squad car with Ljunggren. They were both staring at the new radio system. Rantzell, that’s what it was called. Now dispatch could keep track of where all cars were situated at all times. Serious drawbacks: they couldn’t pull their usual excuses and evasive maneuvers. They would be forced to take the crap calls that the cadets should really be dealing with. But there was an advantage. Thomas and Ljunggren’d been given a new topic of conversation that would last for several days—whining about management that didn’t trust them. And there was maybe an even greater advantage: no downtime on the job. Less time to think. To bury yourself in guesswork. To brood. Have regrets.

Two months’d passed.

At first, Thomas’d been given a complete leave of absence from the force. To rest up, as they put it. What they were actually doing was investigating him again. Fuck, he couldn’t handle more investigations. But it was perfect timing. Sander’d arrived. He was the most fantastic little person Thomas’d ever met. He already loved the boy more than anything. It was beautiful and felt so good.

Niklas Brogren’d detonated the bomb that he’d strapped on Bolinder. The walls, the crystal chandeliers, the johns, the whores: smeared in oldman matter. Thomas’d rushed into the room, tried to do CPR on the man. But it was too late. What was left of Bolinder couldn’t be saved.

Thomas went over to Niklas. The guy looked up, but there was no life in his eyes. He was wheezing. Gurgling. He’d taken Bolinder with him to the other side.

The
blatte
boys’d disappeared.

The men and the hookers were in shock. People were whimpering, weeping, screaming. He was used to that kind of thing.

He hadn’t meant to shoot Niklas in the head. He’d aimed at his chest. But when that other
blatte
surprised him by coming into the room and pulling on Niklas, it’d messed up his aim. Niklas’s body was pulled down. Enough for a disastrous miss. A bad hit.

Maybe he never should’ve stepped into that room to save Bolinder. Maybe he should’ve split just like the immigrant guys. After a minute or so, he walked out of the room. Into the hall. Saw the blue lights. Heard the sounds of police in the house.

Hägerström stormed in, followed by ten or so men.

Their entire case seemed to go up in smoke, just like a New Year’s firecracker.

Two weeks after the incident, Stig H. Ronander, the detective inspector who’d taken over the Rantzell case after Hägerström, called.

The guy had a nasal voice.

“Good morning. This is Inspector Stig H. Ronander.”

Thomas’s first thought: What a douche to say his own rank like that. I know very well who he is.

“I want to talk to you about the incident on Smådalarö.”

That someone would call was expected, but Thomas didn’t know what to expect from Ronander, of all people. He was actually in charge of the other investigation.

“Yeah, you call that an incident?”

Ronander didn’t bother responding.

“We have to meet up.”

Two hours later, Thomas was sitting across from Ronander in the inspector’s office. He noted: framed photos of Ronander’s wife and some young children in overly cutesy clothes. They had to be grandchildren. Thomas thought about Sander. Longed to go home.

“Okay, Andrén, I’ll be brief.”

Thomas was tense as hell, ready for anything.

“What happened out there was a tad too much for little old Sweden.”

Thomas maintained his calm.

“Above all, it was a tad too much for you.”

One of the grandchildren in the photos looked like Sander.

“If it ever comes out that you were there in connection with some rogue investigation, or that you were the one who killed that crazy hostage-taker Brogren, you won’t be allowed to keep your job, not
even part-time. And you’ll be charged with gross professional misconduct or something else bad.”

Thomas continued to sit in silence.

“You’ll be kicked out. Hägerström will be kicked out. A lot of other fucking good police officers will risk getting kicked out. You understand that, of course.”

Thomas leaned forward in his chair. “You don’t have to tell me things I already know. And there’s nothing that can be done about it, right?”

Ronander smiled. “There might be. I have a little suggestion. Why don’t we forget about the fact that you fired the shots? Most of the men who were out there are going to be very tight-lipped about what was going on, it was tumultuous, and no one actually saw you shoot, if I’ve understood things correctly. What’s more, two unknown perps were able to get away. So it can be arranged. We’ve arranged things like this before. And you’ll be the one gaining from it. You’ll get to keep your job. Not just that, we’ll make sure you get back to the Southern District, to your regular position. Hägerström will be happy too—he’ll stay at his job.”

Thomas understood that there was something more. “What’s the catch?”

Ronander’s smile broadened. “The catch? I don’t want to call it that. It’s more of an agreement. The preliminary investigation into the murder of Rantzell has really already been completed. Niklas Brogren’s alibi for the night of the murder was a bluff. What’s more, now his mother’s given us some new information, that Brogren came home drunk and was babbling about Claes Rantzell on the night of the murder. And we’ve analyzed the films, the photos, and the other documentation that we found at his house. It’s completely clear that Brogren was the one who murdered those other men this fall—Mats Strömberg and Roger Jonsson. They were regular, honest family men. Innocent. And this maniac killed them. And do you know what he did in his previous life?”

Thomas shook his head.

“He was a mercenary soldier. Contracted by one of those American private military companies. But that might not be of much interest. Anyway, everything points to the fact that Niklas Brogren killed Claes Rantzell. On top of that, add Mats Strömberg, Roger Jonsson, and Sven Bolinder. Four ordinary Swedish men. So, to put it simply, the preliminary investigation would’ve led to a prosecution, which would’ve led to a guilty verdict—another Swedish serial killer. So there really isn’t a catch. You don’t need to dig any deeper, you don’t need to
continue your own little investigation. The case is closed. You get your job back and don’t have to face any consequences. Hägerström gets to keep his job. You stop poking around, because there’s nothing more to poke around in.”

There it was—the catch.

Back in the squad car. He tried to wrap his head around it all. Rantzell must’ve threatened to reveal the truth. That his testimony about the Palme murder weapon’d been a lie. That someone was behind it, someone who’d made sure he dreamed up that story about the weapon. Someone who now, many years later, had paid him hush money. But maybe Rantzell’d wanted more, or meddled in some other way. They were forced to get rid of him. The link was in the payment—and that was the one document he didn’t have. Possibly it’d been at Bolinder’s house. But Thomas was certain—it wasn’t there anymore. So, he’d accepted. Not right away, but after a few days. Not so much for his own sake as for Åsa’s and Hägerström’s. He needed his job in order to be happy, but he could’ve let it go all the same. He wasn’t going to say anything to Hägerström—he never had to know. What’s more, there was something to what Ronander’d said: everything did point to the fact that Niklas Brogren killed Rantzell. The thought settled after a few weeks—maybe there wasn’t a group behind it all, maybe there wasn’t any conspiracy.

That’s how it must be.

That was the logical answer. It was a relief.

Thomas looked at Ljunggren. Everything almost felt like normal.

He opened the door to his house. Heard Sander’s cooing from the living room. Felt joy. There was a letter on the doormat. He picked it up. Broke the seal with his finger. It was a picture of Sander. It looked like it’d been taken through one of the windows of their house. The boy was lying on a blanket on the floor. A huge smile on his face. Thomas turned the photo over. A short message on the back:
Stop poking around.

*  *  *

Beshar was in Mahmud’s apartment for the first time. Rays of sun danced on the table in the kitchen. Beshar was preparing coffee. He’d
brought the pot himself. With the coffee powder and lots of sugar. Stirred while it boiled. Always clockwise. Beshar always wanted to explain how he made coffee. Probably saw it as some sort of child-rearing principle.

He poured the coffee into the tiny cups.

“Wait, Mahmud. Always wait for the grounds to settle.”

There was a picture of Mom hanging on the wall.

Mahmud thought about the attack. Niklas’d gone berserk. Totally flipped out, started lining up the whores next to the johns. Then the first shot was fired. He didn’t have time to grasp what was happening. Babak started to pull Niklas down to the floor. Another shot rang out. Niklas crumpled. Mahmud and Babak ran. Through the house. Weird rooms. Paintings and carpets like in a fucking museum. He held the Glock tight. Hauled ass outta there. Heard the explosion. Hoped it wasn’t the man that Niklas’d strapped his bomb to.

Room after room. Paintings of fat ladies. Paintings of cities. Paintings that looked like nothing more than a few black streaks.

They reached the kitchen. The hole in the wall was black like the night outside. They could feel the cold wafting in. They stepped out. Niklas was still in there. It was his own fault.

Mahmud was panting like an idiot. His shoes felt like they were about to fall off.

The bulletproof vest weighed hundreds of tons.

He saw Babak four yards in front of him. Out in the snow. Back through his own tracks.

The hole in the fence. They crawled through. Mahmud was careful not to leave any evidence on the jagged wire.

Through the snow on the other side of the fence.

Down to the road.

Mahmud groped for the walkie-talkie in his pocket.

Got ahold of it.

Kept running.

He almost screamed to Robert and Javier. “It’s time to go. We’ve got the gear, but shit got crazy.”

Dad looked at him. “What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about how I could help Jamila buy the tanning salon. I’ve made some money lately.”

“I hope you did so legally.”

“No innocent people have suffered, Dad. I promise.”

Beshar said nothing. Just shook his head.

They were having a
fika,
as the Svens liked to say. Drinking coffee together. Mahmud thought the coffee was too sweet, but he didn’t say anything, Dad would take it personally. Beshar said that he’d been thinking about going to Iraq for a few weeks to visit family. Maybe Mahmud could come along. Just for a few weeks.