The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (71 page)

‘What did they look like?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘They had … masks on.’

‘Who is she?’ Broncks asked Rydén.

‘We picked her up on an unmade road near the summer houses on the way to Sala,’ he answered, careful to turn his back to the interview room and lower his voice. ‘The robbers hijacked her rental car. She was running around confused in the middle of a snowstorm, we almost ran over her.’

Hijacked her car? This group didn’t use escape cars they hadn’t procured themselves. They chose them carefully and hid them where a pursuer wouldn’t think to look. Broncks wanted to go back into the interview room to talk to her himself. He’d do that soon.

A map hung across most of the wall, with Heby at the centre. Rydén ran his gloved hand northward along a road that led from the grey squares representing the town centre and the bank, turned several kilometres later at a junction, then walked his fingertips along a small road westward.

‘Here, on the edge of the forest, she was wandering. They’d forced her to stop the car, let them in and then drive. She was scared, and it was slippery. We found her car in the ditch, full of abandoned Christmas gifts. And from the car, we observed clear tracks in the snow. Three pairs. Straight into the forest. Easy to follow.’

‘And the first getaway car?’

‘We’re still searching.’

Broncks still wanted to go in and interrupt the questioning.

‘They forced her to drive?’

‘Yes.’

‘A rental car? Full of Christmas presents?’

‘She was on her way to see her family.’

‘Whose name was it rented in? And what was inside those Christmas presents?’

Rydén opened the door to the next room. A colleague was interviewing an elderly couple who had been pushing a shopping trolley across the
square when the robbers’ vehicle reversed outside the bank. He went in, interrupted the conversation, and returned to Broncks.

‘We’ll know in ten minutes.’

John Broncks turned to the interview room where the woman sat.

‘Is it OK if I listen in?’

The butt of the gun smashed right through the brittle window of the door. A hand and an arm reached between the sharp fragments of glass to the lock inside the door. The door banged against the gable as Leo opened it and the wind snatched it from his grip.

A cold hallway. Windless. And no snow.

The power switch stood on the wall under the hat rack. But the ceiling light remained off.

‘Dad? The main fuse.’

A simple kitchen. A sofa, a dining table, two chairs. Crowded, but with room for four. A wood-burning cast iron stove and next to it a birch basket filled with old newspapers, pieces of wood and boxes of matches.

‘Jasper, there was a phone line out there. Find the socket and the phone.’

Two small rooms next to the kitchen, a living room, a bedroom. Jasper searched through cupboards, drawers and small baskets on the floor, while Leo opened the wood-burner’s black iron door, placing strips of newsprint and thin needles at the bottom and filling it with two logs.

A thumping sound came from the hall. His father had found the fuse box and the main fuse. Electricity rushed through the old wires, and the ceiling light came on.

Newsprint flared up, wood chips crackled.

His father handed him a pair of work trousers and a tracksuit he’d found in the hall and sat down at the old pine table, moved the dish of mummified autumn pears and replaced it with a packet of thin cigarette papers and the last of his tobacco. Two rolls left, no more. And he usually smoked twenty a day. He needed it now more than ever, if he wasn’t going to open the things that stood on the tile shelf between the stove and sink. Four bottles. Swedish vodka and Canadian whisky, a bottle of wine from South Africa and another one from Greece, something sweet and brown that he’d drunk before.

‘Leo, you need to take your boots off. Dry them before we go any further.’

‘We had ninety minutes. Total. We can only spend half that here.’

‘You have time to dry them. You’ll freeze otherwise! Gangrene. Then they have to amputate, I saw it when I lived … there. It starts with your toes, then your fucking foot turns black and begins to rot and then … death spreads upwards if you don’t cut it off, Leo.’

He did as his father said, untied both boots and placed them in the middle of the black cast iron stove top that was getting hot, then changed into the two pairs of trousers from the hallway, both too short and too tight.

Ivan put his shoes on each side of Leo’s, lit a newly rolled cigarette, inhaled deeply and let out a swirling, meandering cloud of smoke while he grabbed one of the still unopened bottles …

‘Dad, fucking hell! Do you think that’s a good idea?’

… and handed it to Leo.

‘Vodka. Take a sip, it’s good for you, it gets the blood flowing.’

Leo drank straight from the bottle and knew his dad was watching him the whole time. He’d done that the whole evening, and it had felt strange, as if he were being judged, as if he were a kid and an adult was assessing him, approving.

‘What the hell are you up to?’ asked Leo.

‘Nothing.’

‘Bullshit, you’re looking at me like that!’

‘How?’

‘Like that.’

Ivan looked away, past his son, so as not to disturb him.

‘Leo, we … you … might need to reconsider.’

‘Reconsider?’

‘Sometimes you just have to accept things.’

He’d just finished drinking and screwed on the cap. Now he twisted it off again and put the bottle down on the table between the tobacco and his father’s trembling hands.

‘What the hell are you talking about? I never give up! That’s you, Dad! What exactly do you want to do? Is that why you wanted to come to this fucking cabin! Drink then, damn it! Drink!’

Jasper was in the doorway with a telephone under his arm.

‘I found it,’ he said, interrupting. ‘It was on a shelf in the bathroom. And the socket’s in the corner by the radio.’

The boots on the stove were not completely dry, but they were drier. The bottle stood in front of his dad, open until coarse and shaking hands chose to screw the cap shut.

While Leo went into the living room, to the telephone socket.

Broncks was in the interview room listening to the woman with a blanket over her shoulders struggle to answer each new question. After just a few minutes it was clear that she wasn’t confused, she was pretending to be. And she wasn’t doing it particularly well.

‘I have a couple of questions,’ he said. ‘What do you say, can I jump in?’

His younger colleague shrugged and Broncks assumed that meant
do what you want, I want to go home and eat some Christmas ham
. He sat down on the only empty chair and introduced himself.

‘Broncks, City Police, Stockholm.’

Her hand was cold, thin.

‘Anneli.’

‘I’ve been listening for a while. You say you were on your way to your relatives’, and that you always drive there along this road. Then suddenly they were standing there. Masked robbers in the middle of the road. They wanted your car. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they threatened you?’

They never use unknown getaway cars.

‘Yes.’

‘With weapons?’

They choose them carefully and leave them in position themselves.

‘Yes.’

‘And they wanted you to give them a ride?’

And they would never let a driver this fragile, scared and stressed, be the key to an escape plan. Unless I’ve succeeded. Unless I’ve finally forced Big Brother to the point of desperation, taking risks, making mistakes.

‘Yes.’

John Broncks held her cold and lifeless hand a second time. Then he went out and started searching for a free room. But the police station, which looked small from the outside, seemed even smaller inside. With both temporary interview rooms occupied by witnesses, and the few offices
equally busy with conscripted personnel, only the kitchenette was left. Broncks closed the door in order to speak confidentially; while the call was going through, he picked up some leftover crackers from a dish on the Christmas snack table.

He heard those happy songs before his boss put the phone to his mouth.

‘John?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s still Christmas Eve tomorrow.’

‘I’m in Heby.’

‘Do you know how to make a real Christmas
mumma
, John? A classic Christmas
mumma
. Do you know?’

‘Three minutes. Closing time. Military weapons. Shots fired.’

‘You take some cold ginger beer and—’

‘That’s what I knew when I headed here.’

‘—two bottles of beer and—’

‘Now I’ve picked up the shot-up cameras, looked at the cartridge cases from military weapons, talked to witnesses.’

‘—a bottle of porter. Then you mix them together.’

‘And –
I’ve seen them
. On the surveillance tape. The two inside the bank. Big Brother. And the Soldier.’

‘I think you should go home and try it, John. If you don’t know where to go and need a reason to feel part of something, there’s nothing I can do about it. But I can command you to
not
use your badge.’

Broncks couldn’t remember ever raising his voice to his boss, it wasn’t his way of arguing, just as it wasn’t Karlström’s way. So when he did it, screaming inside this enclosed pantry, they were both taken by surprise.

‘You and I have sat next to each other, watching them on the surveillance tapes from nine other robberies! I’ve lived with them for over a year! I know it’s them! And now, Karlström, they’ve shot at us, the police, for the first time. They’re under pressure, we’re close … and these people, I’ve said it before –
they use guns like they’re the tools of their fucking trade
– if we get any closer without backup … there’ll be hell to pay!’

He screamed until his throat hurt. His last words were hoarse and strained his vocal cords, he’d forgotten that he could feel like this.

‘Wait a second.’

Broncks heard Karlström put down the phone and cross the carpet to the music, which got louder then died completely. Then he heard him
continue up the stairs and into his office, with its view over the bay of Stockholm.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. It’s them. Armed with automatic weapons that they will use – have used. I don’t want the Heby police and the Sala police running in there. I don’t want to see dead colleagues. I want the national SWAT team.’

It was quiet. That fucking music was gone. Just Karlström breathing.

‘I’ll contact the police chief with your request.’

‘I’ve already done that.’

‘You’ve … already done it?’

‘When I was driving here. Because every minute that passes is the difference between life and death. So they’re on their way. I just wanted you to come to the same conclusion. It doesn’t look good for a detective to take that kind of initiative without his superior’s permission. And I said I had it.’

They’d drunk almost all of Vincent’s Christmas present. A few hellish minutes had stretched into a hellish half-hour.