The Falling Detective (25 page)

He was seventeen, and it hurt when he breathed.

From his bed in his room, Christian could see the pictures on the television, how his friends clashed with a load of Reds on Medborgarplatsen. The police were there. In the background, Christian could see Michael throwing the knuckleduster in a bin and then disappearing. Christian himself couldn't take part. Pneumonia had laid him low, and that really pissed him off. He would have really loved to be there, standing by their side. He tried to get on with his homework instead, but he couldn't concentrate.

A couple of months later, it was summer, and it was warm. He and Michael went to the Youth Movement parties. They did Nazi salutes. They laughed, but not at that gesture.

That evening, Christian got his first ever blowjob. Her name was Olivia, and she had the kind of breasts you dream about when you're seventeen. She was wearing a glossy, khaki-green latex vest with a neckline that revealed her deep cleavage.

‘Wait,' she said, while they were standing there in the toilet.

She took a step backwards.

Olivia slowly undid the zip on the tight-fitting vest.

She smiled. She wasn't wearing a bra. As her cleavage opened, he saw it: the swastika that revealed itself on the skin between her breasts.

Christian and Michael kicked the fuck out of some nigger on the way home. His teeth smashed like glass.

That night, he lay on his bed in Hagsätra, and couldn't get to sleep. He was thinking, eyes closed. He felt a lump in his throat, and felt weird when he realised where this was going.

They went on torch-lit marches with shaved heads and heavy boots. They got spat at by red bastards and Swede-haters, who would shout that they didn't want Nazis on their streets. They really didn't get it, did they?

Christian and Michael were two of the youngest members of Sweden Democrat Youth. They were protected by the older ones, who were bigger and stronger. That's how brotherhood works.

He'd nearly died in Salem. His attackers were Turks. According to Michael, it was about more than the car. Michael said that those Turks had known that they were members of Sweden Democrat Youth. And, according to Michael, they hated Swedes.

Christian had started to change: he could feel it in his chest, in his hands, within himself, as though the essence of his being had altered.

In glossy shop windows, he could see his reflection and feel pride, belonging. As though he and his best friend had been allowed to join a group that had a secret in common, an insight. Who understood the problem and what the solution would have to be like.

And then, in a flash, came the disorientation and the fear.

‘I don't get it,' Michael said one evening in late autumn that same year. He still had the phone in his hand. ‘I don't get what the fuck just happened.'

‘Who was that?'

‘That was Nille.'

Nille, Niklas Persson, was a local hard man, leader of the group in south Stockholm.

‘Okay?' said Christian.

‘He's just been on the phone to the chairman.'

‘What, he has?'

Michael nodded stiffly.

A couple of months earlier, they'd got a new chairman, a hawk-eyed man from Sölvesborg. Those eyes shimmered with his vision of what Sweden Democrat Youth stood for and should stand for.

‘He's demanding that we fall into line,' Michael said now. ‘Exactly the kind of shit we were afraid of.'

The rumour had been circulating for a long time, but nothing had happened. Apparently, the chairman and a small band of loyalists had been charting the members' backgrounds — above all, their use of violence. Sweden Democrat Youth was the future of the party, and if the party proper was ever going to become a significant player in the political arena, it was going to be necessary for its members to be able to keep themselves in check. No trouble. No Nazi references. No uniforms at meetings or demos. Having a few members who could be trusted was far preferable to having an army, greater in size, but unpredictable and with an unfortunate habit of ending up on the front pages of the papers. And now the purge had started, for real.

‘What do you mean? Did you get kicked out?'

‘Yes. Indefinitely. And I'm not the only one.'

Something inside Christian vibrated.

‘Me too?'

‘No, I don't think so. He didn't say anything about anyone else — he just said I wasn't the only one. Wait and see if your phone rings.'

‘But I …' Christian tried to put his feelings into words. ‘I don't want to stay, either way.'

Michael smiled, feebly.

‘I admire your loyalty. But there's no fucking way you should leave just because I am.'

‘But I want to.'

He looked at Christian.

‘You sure?'

Christian looked away, down, at the phone his friend still had in his hand.

‘Yes.'

Their calm conversation quickly became an enigmatic silence. Christian turned on his friend's PlayStation, gave him one of the controllers, and took the other one himself. They played ice hockey. Christian was Finland; Michael got to be Sweden. As they played, Michael got more and more agitated, even though Christian was letting him win. He gripped the controller so hard that the colour started to drain from his knuckles.

‘I need to go for a fucking walk or something,' Michael said in the middle of the third period, and slung the controller to the floor. ‘I can't just sit here. I'm too fucking angry for that.'

The streets were shiny from the rain, the sky was full of heavy clouds, blacker against the black sky, and they seemed to be pulsing above their heads. They walked side-by-side, hands in pockets, past Hagsätra precinct and away towards Lake Långsjön. They stopped by the tunnel and watched the commuter trains thundering past on the tracks above.

‘It's such fucking … hypocrisy.' Michael lit a cigarette. ‘Everyone who's still there, they believe exactly the same things we do. The only difference is that they're too chicken to show it. And how the fuck are we going to change Sweden? Do you want one?'

Christian took a cigarette from the pack, lit it, and inhaled deeply.

‘Yes,' he said after a while, having decided that he agreed. ‘They're hypocrites, the lot of them.'

‘The worst is that cunt from Sölvesborg. Who the fuck does he think he is anyway?'

Christian looked down at the ground, at shattered glass, crumpled cans, and a shredded carrier bag from ICA.

‘I'm going to call Jens,' said Michael. ‘He's going to be so fucking furious. You know he's been saying this all along, right? Ever since we got a new chairman, that this was going to happen?'

‘Yes.'

‘What's up with you?'

He looked up.

‘What do you mean what's up with me?'

‘You just seem … it's like this doesn't matter.'

Christian took a deep breath, watching the cigarette glow.

Then he said, ‘I'm just so fucking disappointed.'

And Christian's phone never rang. He got to stay. He left anyway, out of loyalty. He called Nille and told him. Nille said he understood.

To demonstrate that what had happened was nothing short of treason, Christian and Michael put the windows through at the local party office.

The chairman reported them to the police. They were sentenced to heavy fines. The hate in Michael's eyes grew. It spread out, spread into Christian. They were about to turn eighteen.

20/12

As the cab pulls up outside HQ, the morning sky is restless, in constant motion. The thermometer on the taxi's dashboard shows the temperature outside at minus twenty-two degrees. The biting cold stabs at your cheeks, your fingers, everywhere. The storm is gathering.

The cogs in my brain are moving slowly and jerkily thanks, to sleep deprivation. I could do with something strong to get them moving, but all I've got is coffee. I don't want to take my first Halcion here. Halcion scares me.

The door to my room is pushed open by two thick chair legs. Behind them comes Birck, his rough hands gripping the chair's back. He pushes my wobbly extra chair out of the way with his foot, and dumps the new one in its place.

‘There,' he says. ‘Merry Christmas.'

‘Thanks. But I'm getting quite fond of the old one.'

‘What the hell is wrong with you?' Birck sits himself down on the new chair. ‘Ah.'

Outside the window, a little way away, the dead trees are rustling.

‘Jesus, it's blowing a gale,' he says.

‘I know.'

Birck taps the armrest with the fingernail of his index finger.

‘No news about Antonsson or
RAF
?'

‘No,' I say. ‘Such as?'

‘I don't know. I can't get my head round it. Would they really kill him? Murder isn't covered by the statute of limitations. It just feels a bit clumsy.'

‘The whole thing is clumsy. And you heard what Goffman said — Antonsson is a big player.'

‘A little bird told me,' Birck says, distant, ‘he's a real paranoid sort, and apparently he's locked himself in his house out in Stocksund, with police protection. A good way to spend taxpayers' money. Not only that, but the Security Police are constantly pulling in members of
RAF
's inner circle, interrogating them as if they were terrorists.'

‘They might be.'

‘Yes.' Birck gets up from the chair. ‘Or they might be kids from tough estates who've listened to too much Rage Against the Machine. What are you up to?'

‘I'm working on the assault on Vasagatan.'

‘Ooh, how exciting.'

‘What about you?'

‘An eighty-five-year-old man threatened a seventy-nine-year-old woman with a breadknife. The man is bedridden, has been for three years, and the woman is deaf. But he did threaten her — she's very specific about that, if you believe what the interpreter says. And you should, shouldn't you. Interpreters are good people.' He grasps the back of the chair. ‘Are you around for a while?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Are you going to St Göran's?'

‘No, I went the day before yesterday.'

‘Was it alright?'

‘Yes.'

Birck looks at me, unsure.

‘Be careful.'

‘You know I am.'

This makes Birck laugh. He lifts the chair off the ground, manages to open the door, and backs out of the room.

‘Right, I'm off, and I'm taking my comfortable chair with me. See you.'

After a while, I put the old chair back, and once it's in its place on the other side of the table, I have a sense that things are as they should be.

‘Have you heard?' Michael said down the phone.

‘Heard what?' said Christian.

He wasn't quite with it, having been dragged from his sleep by the ringtone.

He looked over at his alarm clock: seven minutes past eleven in the morning.

‘Daniel Wretström has been murdered down in Salem.'

‘Who is Daniel Wretström?'

‘One of ours.' Michael sounded devastated. ‘The drummer in
Vit Legion
(
White Legion
)
. Murdered by a bunch of niggers.'

Christian sat up in bed.

‘But he's not from Stockholm, is he? What the hell was he doing there? Were they doing a gig there?'

‘He was just visiting. I think he's got cousins here, or something.'

The drummer from Vit Legion, murdered. Impossible to take in.

It was the tenth of December. They had been members of Swedish Resistance for less than two weeks. Jens Malm was in charge of their initiation, and he'd introduced Christian and Michael to a handpicked group of their members.

It took a while to get it straight — who Jens Malm actually was. At a party, Christian had seen a photo of two men holding a wreath. The masked men were wearing black bomber jackets, black jeans, and tall boots. The statue: Gustav II Adolf in Gothenburg. The two men stood with their heads bowed, as if in mourning.

‘The seventh of November 1992,' Malm said as he appeared alongside Christian with a glass of beer in his hand. ‘The first time we were able to join the commemorations. I'm on the left there. I went down with my friend.'

He said it with pride. In the centre of the wreath was a symbol that Christian recognised: the Wolfsangel. It symbolises defence, and resistance.

‘Who's that?' Christian asked. ‘Your friend?'

‘His name was Linus,' Malm said. ‘He was murdered on the way home from the station three months later by a gang of niggers.'

Malm didn't say so, but Christian already knew. He'd been told: a week after that, Malm had put a knife in one of the attacker's throats. It had been in the papers — Christian had seen the clippings.

When Malm raised his glass to drink, Christian spotted the tattoo on the underside of his right arm: there it was again, The Wolfsangel. Discreet, but elegant.

‘Fancy getting one?' Malm said with a smile.

‘I can't get a WAR tattoo, but I might get a Swedish Resistance one.'

‘If you do, make sure that it's visible when you want it to be, but that you can hide it with a long-sleeved shirt or a high collar.'

Visible tattoos raised your status: you get stigmatised by the rest of society, but within the movement it's seen as concrete proof of your ideological conviction. It took three months until he and Michael had both done it: the slogan and symbol of the Swedish Resistance on their chests.

Malm nodded approvingly.

He was from Nyköping, but, beyond that, information about his background was hard to come by. He'd been a member of the Nordic Reich party, but left for
WAR
, the White Aryan Resistance. He led a large number of their attacks on refugee hostels, and advanced the movement's positions. After being convicted of manslaughter he was sentenced to jail, and when he was released a few years later he no longer had ties to
WAR
. No one knew why. From a distance, he observed the Sweden Democrats and their youth wing, watching as the party atrophied while he laid the foundations for what would become Swedish Resistance. Jens Malm's life story included plenty of the sort of anecdotes that were ideal for recounting while drinking beer and holding your right arm aloft. People said he'd once been attacked by two police dogs who mauled his legs while he stood, emotionless, with a pennant in one hand and his other, the right, raised in a sharp salute. That he had single-handedly chased five
AFA
activists away from a demo in Kungsträdgården. That he'd stolen weapons from the Hell's Angels to finance the struggle.

He showed Christian and Michael an SS dagger that had once belonged to Reinhard Heydrich, the SS officer who founded the Sicherheitsdienst intelligence agency and who the Führer himself had described as a man of steel.

My God.

Christian got to touch it, even got to feel the weight of it in his hand. It was heavy. He felt filled with history, and with his own engagement: as though a part of him had always been hollow and the struggle they were fighting for had taken root inside him, and had made him whole.

Joining Swedish Resistance was a decision for life, not something that could be undone. Christian and Michael swore the oath:

I, as a free Aryan, do solemnly swear an irrevocable oath: to be joined in common cause with my brothers in the movement and I proclaim that from this point on I will have no fear of death, nor my enemy. The struggle requires more than words alone and I am duty-bound to do what is necessary to save our people, our borders and our culture, from the foreign threat. Duty-bound to bring absolute victory to the white race. We are in the midst of an all-out war, and we will not lay down our arms until the enemy is reduced to the last man. Through our struggle, we shape our children's future.

The words felt dangerous, malignant. Important.

Christian and Michael were given reading lists and
The Swedish Resistance Handbook
, and they learnt to follow the rules laid down by the organisation. Keep tabs on your alcohol intake. Avoid drugs during demonstrations and other actions. Never attack from a position of numerical weakness, only from a position of strength. If we are demonstrating and you have been given the honour of carrying the banner, concentrate solely on not dropping the banner, no matter what; it must always stand upright, as a symbol for the struggle.

They were instructed to conduct themselves calmly and carefully: the struggle would take time. According to Jens Malm, there were over a hundred of them altogether. Malm called the man from Sölvesborg a race-traitor and a hypocrite, telling them that the purging of Sweden Democrat Youth was part of a worrying broader trend in the nationalist movement, which was being beaten back by forces that hated Swedes, hated the white race.

Less than a week after Daniel Wretström's murder, they made a pilgrimage down to Salem. Everyone was there. They raised toasts to Daniel, and talked about how they'd meet again, in Valhalla. There was something vaguely comical about the whole thing, with all these pub-racists who happened to be there changing their tune to suit their audience, claiming to listen to Ultima Thule and to be part of the struggle, yet who moved politely to one side when they met mongrels on the underground. There were people who would stand alongside nationalists when it suited them, but who didn't dare stand up and be counted when it really mattered.

The solidarity struck a chord all the same. There were so many of them. When you hear the noise from a crowd like that, it's hard to remain unmoved.

They saw members of the Sweden Democrats. They saw Nille and others from Sweden Democrat Youth.

‘I hope they behave themselves,' Michael muttered. ‘Otherwise they'll get thrown out next.'

They listened to speeches, about sorrow and struggle and freedom. They raised toasts. Several were in tears, but not Christian. He was still caught up in the belonging, in the common cause, and he clenched his fists in simmering rage at the thought of what one of their number had been put through.

It was weird being back in Salem. It was the first time since the assault. Time doubled back on itself, and in an instant he was back in the car park, being chased by the dark shadows. But this time he didn't run away. This time he stood his ground, and showed resistance.

Afterwards they headed back to Bandhagen with Jens Malm, sitting in the very car that might have been the reason for everything that followed. It made a pleasant sound, and Jens was playing White Legion for Daniel. He was moved, and told them about the gigs he'd been to, what an accomplished drummer Daniel had been. They got to Bandhagen but kept going, on into the city centre. Malm just couldn't stop talking, reminiscing. Eventually, they turned back. Michael needed to get home.

Christian was in the back seat. Through the window, he looked out on the estates lining the route of the Metro's Green Line, as the small houses in Stureby gave way to the heavy, grey apartment blocks of Högdalen and Rågsved.

To the sound of White Legion, they rolled down Glanshammarsgatan, listening to a drummer who was the same age as them when his life was taken from him.

One year later, when Jens Malm appointed Michael as leader of the Stockholm chapter of Swedish Resistance, Christian stood by his side.

Big ideas need little people.

This was their time.