The Andalucian Friend (9 page)

Jens’s pulse was racing. He watched as Leszek quickly slung his gun on his back and scampered nimbly down and disappeared. Suddenly there were two more shots. They came from inside the bridge, it sounded like a pistol. He saw the door open and the man named Mikhail came out with a large automatic pistol in his hand. He shouted something to the man below him. They exchanged some short sentences in Russian. Mikhail came down the steps, didn’t appear to be in any hurry. Then they both disappeared along the length of the ship toward the stern. Jens crawled quickly over to the dead man, lifted his jacket, removed his submachine gun, and then slid backward down the steps into the hold, hurrying into the cover of darkness.

The hold was large, cold, and damp, with packing crates and freezers strapped tightly together. Farther in, the larger containers were stacked on top of one another, seven in total, one of them hanging in the air above him. The cranes and all work on the quayside had stopped when the firing began. He found a safe place, breathing hard, trying to think, trying to pull himself together. No matter how he thought it through, he always came to the same conclusion: neither of the two factions who were shooting at each other — the Mikhail group or the Leszek group — knew who he was, so it was more than likely that they would take him for an enemy. He looked at the weapon he was holding in his hand, it was a Bizon. A Russian submachine gun.

He suddenly felt horribly alone, and fiddled unconsciously with the safety catch with his right thumb. It was making a clicking sound, and he realized that the sound must be carrying a long way and stopped doing it. No further shots had rung out up on deck. Jens stood up quietly and began to make his way through the crates.

The noise came out of nowhere. A hail of bullets slammed into packing crates close to him. He threw himself to the ground, then without thinking he stood up just as quickly, held out the gun, and pulled the trigger. The weapon clicked, nothing happened. He crouched down again, swore at himself and changed the position of the safety catch that he had been fiddling with earlier. He took a deep breath, realized that he had used up his only chance and that the gunman knew his position now. He got to his feet and ran a few yards across an open space until he reached the rear part of the hold, then kept going, throwing himself behind the shelter of a freezer. His breathing was quick and shallow, and Jens was listening so hard that after a while he thought he could hear things that weren’t really there. He glanced out, saw nothing, and was about to get up and move when a voice whispered in English behind him.

“Drop your gun.”

He hesitated and the man repeated the words, and Jens put the Bizon on the floor.

“How many of you are there?” the voice asked quickly.

“Just me.”

“Who are you?”

“A passenger.”

“Why are you armed?”

“I took the gun from the dead man up on deck.”

“Did you see the men who came onboard?”

“Yes.”

“How many of them were there?”

“Three. One got shot. One went up to the bridge, the third one joined forces with him. I think they headed back toward the stern.”

Jens swore to himself in Swedish, then said to the man in English: “Were you the one shooting at me?”

Now the man addressed him in Swedish: “No, it wasn’t me, it was the others shooting at you, not us.”

At first Jens thought he must have misheard.

There were noises from the open section of the cargo hold. Jens tried to look, then turned to face the man. He was gone. Jens picked up his gun once more.

Anders Ask was the name
of the man Gunilla had told Lars to call. Anders turned out to be a cheerful soul, more cheerful than Lars could handle. He had picked him up in the city center and they had driven out to Stocksund.

Anders was sitting comfortably in the passenger seat, going through the microphones in his lap.

“So, who’s Lars, then?”

Lars glanced quickly at Anders. “Oh, well, what can I say, nothing special.”

Anders held up a microphone to the light, examining it for a moment.

“God, they’re tiny.” he whispered to himself. He smiled at this, then tucked the microphone back in the foam rubber. “What were you doing before?”

“Western District,” Lars said.

“Crime?”

Lars cast a quick look at Anders. “No …”

Anders waited for more, then laughed. “No?”

Lars shifted in his seat, a small frown on his brow.

“Law and order,” he said quietly.

Anders smiled broadly. “A beat cop. Fucking hell. I’m in a car with a beat cop! That doesn’t happen every day. What the hell did you do to get a job with Gunilla?”

“She called and asked.”

“You’re kidding me,” Anders said theatrically.

Lars shook his head, unsettled by Anders’s attitude, which he was finding very hard to get to grips with. Anders put the box of microphones on the dashboard in front of Lars. Lars took it down and put it in his lap.

“What about you? Who are you?” Lars countered.

“I’m Anders.”

“Who’s Anders?”

Anders Ask looked out through the window.

“None of your damn business.”

It was just
after one in the afternoon when Lars Vinge was standing on the terrace at the back of Sophie’s house, watching as Anders had picked the lock, and he wasn’t the whispering type.

“Terrace doors are like fat girls,” Anders said, smiling at his own analogy.

The door slid open. Lars was nervous. Anders was too loud, too fearless. Anders saw how nervous he was.

“Poor little Lasse?” he sang from the old song. He gestured with his hand that Lars could go in. “Welcome home, darling,” he whispered.

They were wearing disposable shoe covers and latex gloves. Lars stood in the living room, his stomach simultaneously clenching and churning. He wanted to get out, and his nervousness wasn’t helped by the fact that Anders was not only calmness personified but also had the bad habit of whistling loudly as he worked.

“Stay away from the windows,” Anders said, opening his bag and rooting around in the bottom. “Have you got the mikes?”

Lars didn’t like this. He pulled the little wooden box from his jacket pocket and gave it to Anders, who wandered off, inserting an earpiece and switching on a receiver, then testing the little microphones.

Lars looked around. The living room, large and airy, bigger than he had imagined when he had been sitting some distance away looking in. It was open-plan, leading into the kitchen at the far end. A wide step running the whole width of the room separated the two spaces.

He took out his digital camera and took a series of pictures of the room. The furnishing was a mixture of styles, in a way that he’d never seen before. But everything fit together. A low, old pink armchair next to the large sofa. Colorful cushions on the sofa … then an antique wooden chair with a light-brown seat. They ought to clash, but somehow didn’t. The wall behind the sofa was covered with pictures. Their subjects were varied but the overall result was … wonderful. There were flowers and healthy-looking potted plants here and there. The room had been furnished tastefully, intelligently, and thoughtfully … in spite of the variety. The colors and shapes made the house feel warm, made you feel you wanted to be there, to stay … One shelf was full of framed photographs. He could see Albert, her son, from a happy little boy to the unfair face of puberty. To the right was a black-and-white portrait of a man, a solid fellow from the look of him. Lars thought he could detect a similarity to Sophie in his brow and eyes, it was probably her father. Lars glanced at several other pictures, one smaller photograph of a man in his thirties, Sophie’s husband David, standing behind a small boy, Albert. Then a picture of the whole family, David, Sophie, little Albert, and a dog, a golden Labrador. They were standing close together, smiling at the camera.

Behind him Anders was pulling a length of tape from a roll over by the sofa. Lars kept on looking. Sophie laughing on a white garden chair, the picture looked fairly recent, from the last year or so. She was wrapped in a blanket and her knees were pulled up. Her smile was infectious, as if it were aimed at him. He stood like that for a moment.

Lars set his camera to macro mode, put the lens close to the photograph of Sophie, and took a series of shots.

Anders called to get Lars’s attention, and pointed to a lamp by the sofa, then at his ear. Anders got up and headed toward the kitchen, still humming “Little Lasse.”

Lars stared out over the living room. He wished that Sara had the same taste, the same sense of what went well together, not that bohemian style where everything for some reason always had to be Indian, cheap, and … irregular.

There was a blanket folded over the sofa. Lars picked it up and felt it. It was soft. And without thinking he held it up to his face and smelled it.

“Are you a pervert as well?”

Anders was looking at Lars as he stood in the middle of the living room. Lars put the blanket back on the sofa.

“What do you want?” Lars said, trying to look angry.

Anders laughed. His laughter turned into a crooked smile, a smile that was evidence of his distaste.

“Oh, little Lasse, you seem completely daft.” Anders whispered.

Lars watched him go as he tramped up the creaking wooden staircase. Then he left the living room and went down the step into the kitchen. That too was clean and tidy. He noticed a large vase of cut flowers in the window, the high, rough island unit in the middle of the kitchen … and the dark green door to the little pantry. Dark green in a way he didn’t know existed, didn’t know it was permissible to have anything so beautiful in a kitchen. Someone with the flair and understanding to decorate a room like this probably understood a few other things. All of Lars’s senses came alive, as a thousand thoughts and feelings raced through him. There was a lot about life that Lars Vinge didn’t understand. He realized that now. He wanted to know. He wanted the woman who lived here to tell him. …

He went upstairs, trying not to make it creak beneath his feet. Anders was crouching next to a bedside table in her bedroom. Lars leaned against the doorpost.

“Can we go?” Lars whispered.

“Have you always been this irritating?”

Anders checked his work, stood up and play-tackled Lars on the way out with one shoulder before disappearing back downstairs with far-too-heavy steps.

Lars stayed where he was in the doorway, looked into the bedroom. A large double bed, covered with a bedspread. There was a beautiful iron lamp on the bedside table where Anders had just attached a microphone. The floor was covered in wall-to-wall carpet, and the walls were pale, with just a few pictures, most of them in dark frames. Mixed subjects: a single large butterfly, a woman’s body in charcoal on light brown paper, one unframed picture, with just a deep red color to make you aware of something that wasn’t there. Then an oil-painting of a large, leafy tree. It all worked. Lars tried to understand.

At the back of the bedroom was an ivory-colored double-door over in one corner, smaller than a normal door. He stepped into the room, his feet sinking into the soft carpet, and went over to check them, letting them swing out slowly. A large closet, almost like a little room. He stepped inside and found the light switch. Soft, warm light lit up the room.

Blouses and other clothes hanging in rows from wooden hangers. Below them were drawers, new drawers made of oak. He opened one and found jewelry and watches. He opened the drawer beneath, folded scarves and more jewelry. He bent down, the third contained underwear, panties, and bras. He closed it quickly, then opened it again at once, looking down into the drawer, with an awareness that he had long since broken all his ethical rules, so he may as well carry on now.

Lars reached out his hand and felt the underwear. Silk … soft, he couldn’t stop touching them, stroking them with his fingers, felt suddenly aroused, hard. He wanted to take a pair with him — keep them in his pocket so he could touch them whenever he felt like it. Noises from downstairs snapped him out of it. He closed the drawer, left the closet and the bedroom.

Outside the room he took several deep breaths. He headed toward Albert’s room, pushed the door open with his fingers, looked in. It was a boy’s room, furnished as if the boy didn’t know if he was grown up or still a child. Grown-up pictures on the walls, and a yellow and black AIK football banner with the slogan “We Are Everywhere.” An electric guitar with only three strings leaning against the desk, an empty candy bag on the floor. The bed made yet still unmade, but at least the bedspread was straight. Under the bed an old telescope but no stand. He knelt down, saw some books and a black guitar case farther in.

Lars took a few pictures, then looked at his watch, the time had gone quicker than he had thought. He left the room, heading for the stairs. He didn’t pause outside Sophie’s room, just acted on impulse. Into the bedroom again, open the closet, open the third drawer, take a pair of panties, stuff them in his pocket. Close the drawer, close the closet, out again.

Anders was sitting behind a computer in what looked like an office.

“Time’s getting on,” Lars said from the doorway.

“Shut up,” Anders said, his eyes on the screen.

Anders went on typing on the computer.

“Anders!”

Anders looked up. “I said shut up! Have a look ’round, do whatever the hell you like, just leave me alone.”

He returned to tapping at the keyboard. Lars felt like saying something else, thought better of it, and walked out.

He wandered about, went into the kitchen, looked at the floor to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. Everything looked the way it should, and he backed away toward the terrace door where they had come in, then retraced his steps. He could feel that he was breathing shallowly, high in his throat, and his forehead was wet with sweat. Anders came out of the office.

“I just need to go to the toilet. Then we can go.”

“No, please,” Lars begged quietly.

Anders smiled at Lars’s anxiety, picked up a newspaper from a sideboard, and padded off toward the bathroom. Anders took his time, whistling the theme from
Bonanza
.

Lars hid in the hall next to the kitchen door. No one would see him there from the outside. He stood next to a row of coats and jackets, taking deep breaths, then leaned his forehead against the wall, closed his eyes, and tried to rediscover a sense of calm. He tried to take deep breaths, they were only reaching the top half of his chest. He tried breathing through his nose, the same thing there — just half breaths. He felt taut as a string on a violin. His heartbeat was thudding in his ears, his stomach felt tight, his hands were cold, his mouth dry … A sound outside, footsteps on the other side of the door … A key inserted into the lock. Lars turned around and stared at the door, frozen to the spot. Nothing in his body made any attempt to react and run away. He just stood there immobile, scared as a small child, incapable of action, and struck with such an overwhelming sense of panic that for a moment he seriously believed he was going to die just from the emotions raging inside him.

The lock clicked, the handle was pushed down, the door was pulled open. Lars shut his eyes, the door closed, he opened his eyes. In front of him was a short, unfamiliar woman in her sixties; she put a handbag down on the floor and started to unbutton her coat. He looked sideways at her; she met his gaze and jumped with fright, put a hand to her chest, muttered something in some Eastern European language, and her fear was replaced by something calmer. She laughed, then gabbled something in Swedish about not knowing that there was going to be anyone at home.

She held out her hand and introduced herself as Dorota. Lars, from the vacuum-filled universe of bewilderment, took her hand.

“Lars.”

He heard a thunderous burst of laughter behind him and turned around. Anders was shaking with laughter, one hand over his face. “You really do take the prize!”

Dorota looked at the two men with half a smile, suddenly unsure about who they were.

Anders went up to her, grabbed her arm, picked up her bag from the floor, pulled her into the kitchen, and sat her down on a chair. He turned and looked at Lars. “What now?”

Dorota was scared.

“We’ll just go. Come on,” he said.

Anders stared at Lars with a look of contempt on his face.

“Great idea. We’ll just go.” He turned to Dorota. “Who are you?”

She glanced between the men. “I’m the cleaner.”

“You’re the cleaner?”

Dorota nodded. He tossed her handbag into her lap.

“Give me your wallet.”