‘Why are we doing this?’ I asked.
Majken placed her hand on my arm.
‘Because it’s fun,’ she said. ‘No other reason. Come on.’
We went back to the car and drove away from the tip; neither of us spoke for a while. My legs were cold, my entire body was cold now, and I took the blanket from the back seat, wrapped it around me and closed my eyes. The gentle metallic rattle of the car was soothing and I must have nodded off for a while, because when I opened my eyes we were back in the city centre.
‘Shall I drive you home?’ Majken asked.
I saw her profile sharply delineated in the light from the side window. Individual strands of hair glowed bright orange. I suppose she could feel me looking at her, and when she smiled a deep dimple appeared in her cheek.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’d rather not.’
She nodded and drove out towards Djurgården. I leaned against the window, watched the exclusive shops along Strandvägen filing past. Hopeless. Hopeless. I suddenly thought of something: ‘Why weren’t the others with us? At the tip, I mean.’
We crawled across the bridge and Majken turned to face me for a moment before looking back at the road.
‘This was just for you,’ she said.
I can’t say I ever managed to work Majken out.
It’s a shame; I would have liked to get to know her better. Or maybe we just weren’t meant to get really close.
The only thing I don’t understand is why I survived.
How many more died, do you know?
Yes, yes. Later, later.
Always later.
You’ll have to forgive me, those days are all mixed up in my head. I’m not senile, I haven’t got dementia or anything, but as soon as I try to think about those two days with Majken, everything kind of…dissolves. The only thing I remember really clearly is the conversation we had out at Djurgården.
We were sitting in the café by the canal, do you know the one I mean? I think it used to be a boathouse once upon a time. We were drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream. We were both coffee drinkers really, but chocolate with whipped cream seemed appropriate after our expedition to…Malsta, that’s what it’s called. The Malsta tip. Perhaps because the whole thing felt a bit like a game.
‘Are you happy?’ Majken asked when I had scooped the first spoonfuls of whipped cream off my chocolate.
‘Do you mean right now? Or in general?’
‘In general.’
‘No, not at all. Quite the reverse. What about you?’
She shook her head. ‘Too much has disappeared,’ she said. ‘Things you thought were going to happen, but they never did.’
‘Yes.’
We took a few sips in silence. There were quite a lot of people in the café, it was the lunchtime rush, but we had found ourselves a corner where nobody came. A big red bus drove past on the street outside. For a second I saw myself lying beneath its wheels, and I burst out, ‘Do you want to die?’
Majken looked at me with a strange expression on her face. She had a bit of cream on her upper lip.
‘I see you’re just as direct as I am.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. But wanting to die isn’t enough, or so I’ve heard.’
‘No. They say a plastic bag and sleeping pills are the best method.’
‘If you want to be considerate, yes. If that’s what you want.’
‘What do you mean?’
Majken wiped her mouth with a serviette, took a bite of her Danish pastry. I looked out of the window. I’ve never been very keen on watching people chew.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘the only reason for using that method is because you want to spare the people who find you. You don’t look as terrible as you would with the classical methods. Or so I’ve heard.’
‘The classical methods,’ I said. ‘The ones the Greeks used.’
She laughed.
‘Yes. The death of Socrates, that’s exactly what they do in Holland.’
We talked about euthanasia; we were both in favour. Majken looked at her watch. ‘Don’t you have to get home? To your husband?’
I shook my head. ‘That’s over.’
When I said it I realised it was that simple: it was over. I’d had enough. We drank our hot chocolate, ate our Danish pastries and looked at a solitary swan as he came walking along outside the window, in the middle of the path. I’ve never seen a swan doing that before. I interpreted it as a sign, without knowing what it meant.
Everything was sparkling white when we left the café. A couple of ice-skaters whizzed past on the Djurgård Canal. The people standing waiting in the bus shelter looked anonymous, like names in the phone book.
‘In fact,’ I said, taking in the world around me, ‘in fact we are absolutely free.’
‘If we don’t have any consideration for other people, yes,’ said Majken.
‘And why should we? Who’s shown any consideration for us?’
Majken shrugged. ‘Not many people.’
We stood with our hands in our coat pockets, looking around as if we were standing at a crossroads and had to choose between right and left. I extricated my hands, and Majken did the same. We took each other’s hands. I can’t say for sure who reached for the other first. For a second I had the dizzying feeling that I was looking in a mirror. I mixed my own face up with Majken’s.
‘Shall we do exactly what we want?’ I asked. ‘And forget about consideration?’
Majken pressed my hands.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s do that.’
Hand in hand we walked past the bus stop towards the car. The people were shop dummies with clothes on.
As I said, it’s difficult to sort out the rest.
But now I’d like to ask you something.
Do you remember the duck press, the Christmas present of the year for twelve thousand? You said before that you didn’t know what it was. And yet it’s your job to protect and defend the people who buy duck presses, or bottles of perfume this small for two thousand.
How can you do that? How can you?
That’s no answer. You’re not helping anyone, apart from those who despise you as they despise me. It’s hardly surprising if we lose it eventually.
By the way, what’s the actual charge?
Arson?
That’s quite…lenient, I have to say. How many people died in there?
Now you’re lying. You’re lying. To cheer me up. But it won’t work. It doesn’t matter.
It was somewhere in Hammarbyhamnen, the same man, the one who bought stuff from Majken when necessary. She spoke to him and he came out with a box, about this big.
This was the following day, I think. The day after we’d been to… what was the name of the tip again? Malsta, that’s it. This was the day after Malsta, I think. Yesterday, in fact.
I stayed the night at Majken’s. An apartment with lots of flowers. We sat and talked all evening, all night. I think we came up with a kind of…balance sheet. For and against.
That’s the end of your tape, I think. Aren’t you going to change it or turn it over or whatever it is you do?
I see. I thought this was what you would be most interested in. Where we got hold of the explosive, who sold it to us, why we did it. I would hope you know why, after everything I’ve told you. I don’t remember the rest. It was in Hammarbyhamnen.
But why am I still alive?
I saw everything burning around me, I saw it with my own eyes. The whole of NK. What’s happened to the store? It must be closed, at least.
Yes. That’s what I thought. How long will it be closed?
Is that all? But I thought…I thought the whole building would collapse. It was plastic explosive. A big white lump. Like when you make bread.
You can’t make people invisible. Eventually they will demand to be seen, and then everything explodes—do you understand?
Right.
But aren’t you going to…lock me up?
Where else would I go? Majken no
longer exists, and…did you give me back the key, is it in my pocket? Oh yes. In that case I’ll go home. Straightaway.
I thought I’d be sent to prison for life, and you’re just letting me go. How does that work? Yes. I’ll go home.
I expect the home care service will bring Börje back, ha ha. ‘Thank you for the loan,’ they’ll say.
Yes, right. Goodbye.
The woman they had just interviewed was led out of the room by one of the new custody officers; Lennart could never remember his name. Something Arabic. Mattias was sitting at the opposite side of the desk, looking at him with an enquiring expression.
Lennart tore off the top page of his notepad—where he had written, among other things, Konsum customer services, Majken, silver Beetle, Malsta—and threw it in the waste paper basket.
‘Why did you let her go?’ asked Mattias. ‘Suspected arson, normally we’d—’
‘Normally, yes. What do you want to do? Lock her up in a cell?’ Lennart sighed, took the tape out of the machine and added it to the collection. ‘Social services will take over when she gets home.’
‘But arson?’ Mattias shook his head. ‘No, I don’t get it.’
Lennart sorted out his things on the desk. It was a mess after the long interview, because he was in the habit of fiddling with pens, paper clips, bits of paper and so on while the suspect was talking. Particularly when it was virtually a monologue, as in this case.
He looked at the young man opposite. Mattias might turn out to be good in time. Or he might turn out to be the very worst kind of pedant. At the moment things were definitely tending towards the latter.
When Lennart went out to make some phone calls, Mattias had taken over the questioning. If you listened to the tape you would probably hear that the suspect’s narrative became fragmented and disjointed at that point. Mattias immediately started asking questions. Lennart’s method was to gather as much information as possible before he started to pick holes in it. But in this case it wasn’t necessary.
‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘We can agree that she didn’t try to blow up NK, can’t we?’
Mattias nodded sulkily.
‘She poured ethanol onto a rug and set fire to it. OK, there was a certain amount of smoke damage and so on. But they’re probably losing ten times more through having to close the store than the actual cost of the damage. No one was even slightly injured, apart from Dolores. And she hasn’t got any money. She will be charged. But I don’t see any reason to hold her in custody.’
‘But what about this Majken?’ asked Mattias. ‘Why didn’t we try to find out where she is, how she—’
Lennart held up his hand.
‘I rang Konsum customer services. There are only two people working there. Neither of them is called Majken. They’re both men. They’ve never heard of any Majken.’
Mattias snorted. ‘That’s nothing to go on though, is it? I mean, she could have…made that bit up. To protect Majken.’
‘Yes,’ said Lennart. ‘That’s possible. But I don’t think so. I rang the home care service as well.’
‘And?’
‘The thing is, the detail of her story is true, but…’ Lennart sighed and leaned back on his chair. ‘She said something about the fact that she hadn’t been able to grieve, hadn’t been able to accept things, do you remember?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, she said…’ Lennart looked at the younger man’s closed expression and waved away what he had intended to say. There was no point. Mattias would have to go on a course, empathy training or something. But suddenly he thought he could see something different in Mattias’ eyes. Something…supercilious, Oh yes, you’ve got your ideas, but you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Lennart felt a sudden rush of fury, leaned across the desk and said, ‘Listen to me. There’s something about interviewing suspects that you will hopefully understand in time. Maybe. A person has committed a crime, but insists he or she is innocent. OK. This person is not going to confess. What they might let slip, however, is an admission of a trait within their character that could theoretically lead to the crime being committed. We don’t force that out. Sometimes it just comes out, in passing, while the person is talking about something else. If the person is cunning, it won’t come out at all. But most people aren’t that smart. And there we have the little thread that we can begin to pull until the whole thing unravels. Do you understand?’
Mattias shrugged his shoulders.
‘Anyway,’ Lennart went on. ‘The home care service confirmed that they went round two days ago, and that she wasn’t there. But her husband, Börje was at home, and he was dead.’
Mattias, who had folded his arms and adopted an even more sullen expression after Lennart’s lecture, came to life. ‘Dead?’ He looked at the door through which Dolly had disappeared and reached out as if to grab her. ‘But in that case she’s…I mean, that’s, what’s it called, neglect…’
Lennart shook his head. ‘He died of natural causes. Three or four days ago.’
This time Mattias had nothing to say. He sat there with his mouth open, seemed to be on the point of speaking, but closed his mouth instead.
‘Yes,’ said Lennart. ‘Everything she told us about looking after him, sitting with him. He was dead the whole time.’
When Mattias had nothing to add, Lennart went on, ‘If I were to make a guess, I’d say it was just after her husband died that she rang Majken. Who’s Majken? Could be anybody; she might not even exist. Maybe she didn’t phone anybody, maybe she just phoned the speaking clock. If this case was more important, we’d check her outgoing calls for that period, but I suspect she just picked up the phone and started talking.’
‘So you mean she just made the whole thing up?’ said Mattias.
‘Not all of it. She’s got a record for shoplifting. That’s what she did. Went shoplifting and looked after her husband. When he died, she made the shoplifting more important. Made it into her world. Amateur psychology maybe, but you’d be surprised how often it actually is that simple.’
‘But…what will happen to her now?’
‘I would have preferred it if they could have picked her up right away, but they didn’t have anyone available. They’ll go round to her apartment later. She can’t sit there all on her own.’
‘God, what a mess,’ said Mattias.
‘Yes.’ Lennart switched off the desk lamp and gathered up his things. He really wanted to get home to his wife. He had a feeling he would appreciate the mere fact of her existence more than usual this evening.
‘Of course I could be wrong,’ he said before leaving Mattias to his thoughts. ‘Completely wrong.’
Twilight had begun to fall when I got out onto the street. I didn’t know I’d spent so long with the two police officers. My hands were still smarting from the ethanol that had burned on them for a second before I managed to put out the flames. I scooped a little snow out of a drift to cool them down.
I had said all I intended to say. Now they knew what it was about.
Gently falling snow stippled the heat in my face. It was nice to be on the move after sitting still for such a long time. Ahead of me on the street a woman in her seventies was struggling along with a shopping trolley. She was stooped, bowed, as if she were dragging all the troubles of her life along behind her.
I brushed the snow off my hands, pushed them into my coat pockets and strode off around the corner.
After Lennart had gone, Mattias stayed in the interview room for a long time, pondering. He hadn’t been convinced by the woman’s story at all. It was incorrect, yes. They knew that. But Mattias had a nagging feeling that it wasn’t because she was mentally ill, but because she was…lying.
Lying.
He wound the tapes backwards and forwards for a while, listened carefully to certain sections and just became even more convinced that he was right. For example, if she had wanted to give the impression that her husband was alive during the period when he was in fact dead, she c
ould have simply said that she saw him get up and go to the bathroom, for example.
But she never said that. She said she sat with him, made up his bed on the sofa, that he stared at the wall. Of course. She didn’t lie, she just…left out the obvious. The best way of lying is to tell it exactly as it is, but to make little changes here and there.
He rang the telephone company and asked them to check the outgoing calls from Dolly’s number. It didn’t take long. On the day he was interested in, six days earlier, only one call had been made. The number was 020-83 33 33.
The anxious feeling in his stomach settled slightly. It was just the kind of number you might ring if you pressed the buttons at random. However, he still asked if it was a genuine number, and if so, the name of the subscriber.
It took only three seconds for the woman on the other end to come back to him: ‘ICA customer services.’
He heard a rushing sound like the beat of a huge wing pass by his head.
Small details…
His voice broke as he asked to be put through, and when a woman answered ‘ICA customer services’ he immediately asked, ‘Would it be possible to speak to Majken, please?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman. ‘She hasn’t been in for a couple of days. Is there anything I can help you with?’
‘No thanks, I…I’ll be in touch.’
He hung up, looked down at the desk. It was almost an hour since they had let the woman go. The best way of lying is to change small details. Or to tell it exactly as it is, but in the wrong order.
When the door of the interview room was flung open, he already knew what had happened.
The Beetle was illegally parked by the entrance to the carpark, but Majken was sitting in it. I brushed the snow off my coat and got in.
‘How did it go?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘They’ve closed the store, so there’s no one inside.’
‘And they know why?’
‘Yes. If they understood. I told them everything.’
‘Bravo,’ said Majken as she put the car in first gear and drove out of the carpark.