Box 21 aka The Vault

‘Yes?’

Lang’s mouth pursed for a kiss.

‘So-o sad, Grens, about your old mate. I heard about the shoot-out in the mortuary. He isn’t with us any more, is he? Out cold on the floor? What a shame. You two got on so well. Just like you used to with that uniformed chick of yours. Life is tough, don’t you think? Eh, Grens?’

More smacking noises, little kisses in the air.

Ewert Grens stood very still, controlled his breathing, then turned on his heel and left.

It took them less than twenty-five minutes to reach Eriksberg, the suburb where Ewert had been only two days earlier. They were silent for the whole journey. Sven was sitting beside him, driving. He had phoned Anita and Jonas first to say he’d be even later than he had thought, so maybe they should have the birthday cake tomorrow instead. Ludwig Errfors was sitting in the back, as Ewert had asked him to bring tranquillisers and to be there, just in case. People react so differently when death knocks on their door.

Mentally, Ewert had still not left the police surgery. Lang had stood there naked and scornful, his mocking movements and all the rest taking him one step closer to a life sentence than before. Lang didn’t realise that if he continued behaving like all the other bloody thugs, that as long as he remained silent, and played the predictable interrogation game – denying everything or saying nothing whatsoever, lying – as long as he didn’t admit that he had at least roughed up Oldйus, he would be up for a murder as well. The bastard didn’t know that there was a witness who dared to speak up, threats or no threats. Ewert Grens was struck by how ironic it was that, right now, when they had finally found someone who was courageous enough to stand witness against Lang in connection with his violent crimes, he was on his way to tell Bengt’s wife about the death of her husband; another meaningless killing in the same building where Lang had been careless enough to be seen by the wrong person.

Anything. He would give anything not to be on his way to this person, who still didn’t know.

Ewert wasn’t really that close to her.

He had sat in their garden and their sitting room, talked and drunk coffee in their company once a week since they moved in, ever since Lena married his best friend. She had always been warm and friendly and he had responded in his way, as best he could, but they had never become close. It could be the age difference, or that they were simply too unlike one another. But they had both cared for Bengt, and shared love was perhaps enough.

When they pulled up outside Ewert sat in the car for a while and looked at the front of the house. Lights on in the kitchen and the hall, but the upstairs rooms were dark. She was probably downstairs then, waiting for her husband. Ewert knew that they usually had a late supper.

I can’t bear this.

Lena is in there and she knows nothing.

He is alive and well as far as she’s concerned.

As long as she doesn’t know, he’s still alive. He dies only when I tell her.

He knocked on the door. There were young children in the house and they might be asleep; with any luck they would be. When did children go to sleep? He waited on the gravel path, with Sven and Ludwig close behind him. She was slow in answering. He knocked again, a little harder, more persistently, heard her quick footsteps, saw her take a look through the kitchen window before coming to unlock the front door. He had been a messenger of death many times before, but never to someone he actually cared about.

I shouldn’t have to stand here.

If you were alive, I wouldn’t be standing here at your door, with your death in my hands.

He didn’t have to say anything. He just stood there and held her in his arms, on the steps, with the door wide open. He had no idea for how long. Until she stopped crying.

Then they all went to the kitchen and she made some coffee while he told her everything he thought she might want to know. She didn’t say a word, nothing at all, until the first cup of coffee, when she asked him to repeat everything in detail. Who the woman was, how Bengt’s execution had been set up, what he had looked like and what the woman had really wanted.

Ewert did as she asked, describing the events blow by blow until she couldn’t take any more. He knew it was the only thing he could do, talk to her, tell her again and again, until she finally started to understand.

Lena wept for a long time, now and then looking up at him, Sven and Errfors.

Later she edged close to him, grabbed his arm and asked him how he thought she should tell the children. Ewert, what do you want me to tell the children?

Ewert’s cheek was burning.

They were back in the car, going along the almost empty E4 towards the city centre. The street lamps would come on soon.

She had hit him hard.

He hadn’t expected it. They were just about to leave, out in the long hall, when she rushed over to him, shouting, You can’t say things like that and slapped him. He was baffled at first, but had had time to think that she had the right to hit out before she raised her arm again, screaming, You can’t say things like that. He stopped. What else could he do? He couldn’t do any of the usual things he did when people threatened to hit him. When her voice rose to a shriek, Sven grabbed her arm and led her firmly to the kitchen.

He looked at Sven now, sitting beside him. He was driving back to town a little too slowly in the middle lane, lost in thought.

Ewert rubbed his cheek. It felt numb; her hand had hit the bone.

He didn’t blame her.

He was the bringer of death.

It was past ten o’clock, but a light summer’s night, quite beautiful now that the incessant rain had actually stopped. Sven had dropped him off at the police headquarters. They had been just as silent on the way back, as they had on the way there. Lena’s despair had lingered, more powerful than words.

Ewert Grens went into his office. His desk was laden with yellow and green Post-it notes, informing him about journalists who had tried to contact him and would call again. He binned all the messages. He would arrange more press conferences as far away from here as possible and get the PR pros to field the questions he didn’t want to hear. Sitting at his desk, he spun on his chair a couple of times, stopped and listened to the silence, spun round again, stopped. He couldn’t really think, tried to go through the events of the last hours in his mind. Bengt’s death and Grajauskas’s death. The unharmed hostages. Bengt, unseeing, on the floor. Lena holding his arm and wanting him to tell her every detail, one at a time. It was hopeless. He couldn’t do it. They weren’t his thoughts, so he sat there, spinning around and around, without pursuing anything.

One and a half hours alone, spinning on his chair without a single thought.

The cleaner, a smiling young man who spoke decent Swedish, knocked and Ewert let him in. His presence broke the monotony. For a few minutes there was someone who emptied the waste-paper basket and pushed a mop around. Better than the thoughts he could not think.

Anni, help me.

Sometimes he missed having people, sometimes loneliness was just ugly.

He dialled the number he knew by heart. It was late, but he knew she would be awake. When life is one long half-sleep, maybe rest matters less.

One of the young care assistants answered. He knew who she was. She had worked extra in the evenings for a few years now, to top up her student loan, to make life a little easier.

‘Good evening. Ewert Grens speaking.’

‘Hello, Mr Grens.’

‘I’d like to talk to her.’

A pause. She was probably looking at the clock in reception.

‘It’s a little late.’

‘I know. Sorry to trouble you, but this is important.’

He heard the young care assistant get up and walk down the corridor. A few minutes later her voice came back.

‘She’s awake. I told her that you’re waiting to talk to her on the phone and asked someone to help her with the