Box 21 aka The Vault

‘I need some cash.’

Her eyes met his; she didn’t say anything, just waited for more. He was on her books, filed away. She knew everything about him. Oldйus was just like the rest. No father, not much of a mother, a couple of older sisters who had done what they could. He was very bright, very confused, very lost. Alcohol at thirteen, cannabis at fifteen. By now, he was on the fast track. Smoked heroin, then started to inject. First prison sentence at seventeen. Now, at twenty-eight, he had been inside ten times in eleven years, mostly for burglary and a couple of times for dealing in stolen goods. He was a petty criminal, the kind who had waved a bread knife at the assistant in the late-night corner store and then hung around outside the shop for the first dealer to come along, bought some kit and mainlined in the nearest doorway and couldn’t understand it when someone in the shop pointed him out to the police when they turned up. He still didn’t get it when the police bundled him into the back seat of a patrol car and sped off towards the station.

‘You know the answer. No money.’

He twitched nervously in his chair, rocking backwards and forwards, nearly losing his balance.

‘But I’m just out. For fuck’s sake!’

She looked at him. He shouted, he scratched his nose and then the sore started to bleed.

‘I’m sorry. You’re not registered. As unemployed, or as a job-seeker.’

He got up.

‘You fat cunt! I’m fucking skint. Fuck’s sake. I’m hungry!’

‘I understand that you need money for food. But you aren’t registered so I can’t give you any money.’

The blood dripped from his nose on to the floor. It was flowing fast and the yellow lino was soon covered in red. He hurled abuse, of course, threatened her as well, but never any more, it never got worse than that. He was bleeding, but didn’t fight; he didn’t have it in him and she knew it. It didn’t even occur to her to call for support.

He slammed his fist on the top of the bookshelf.

‘I don’t give a fuck about your fucking rules!’

‘Whatever you say. You still won’t get any money. All I can do for you is give you two days’ worth of food vouchers.’

A lorry rumbled past outside the window, the sound pushing its way up between the solid buildings that lined the narrow street. Hilding didn’t hear it. In fact, he heard absolutely nothing. The stupid old slag in front of him had been banging on about food vouchers. And since when could you get fucking kit with food vouchers? He stared across the desk at the fat woman, glaring at her big droopy tits and fucking pathetic necklace of big round wooden beads. He burst out laughing, then shouted and knocked over the chair, kicked it into the wall.

‘I don’t give a toss about your fucking tickets! I’ll have to find the fucking cash myself then! Fucking cunt!’

He almost ran through the door, through the crappy waiting room, past the Finn and the two gypsy slags and the old buggers. They all looked up at him, didn’t speak, sat in silence, hunched up. He shouted at them, fucking losers, and something else that it was impossible to make out in passing, his shrieking voice breaking up and mixing with the blood dripping from his nose, which marked a trail down the stairs, out through the main door and all the way along Ostgota Street, towards Skanstull.

Not much of a summer.

Windy, rarely above seventy degrees except the odd morning with fleeting sunshine, otherwise the rain fell steadily on the rooftops and barbecue covers.

Ewert Grens had held her hand for as long as she let him, but after a while she became restless, the way she did when she had laughed enough and her babbling was done and the saliva no longer dribbled down her chin. So he had hugged her, kissed her forehead and said he’d be back in a week, always in a week’s time.

If only you had managed to hold on just a bit longer.

Then he got into the car and drove back across Lidingo Bridge on his way to see Bengt Nordwall, who now lived in Eriksberg, some twenty-odd kilometres south of the city. Ewert was driving far too fast and suddenly saw himself, as he often did, behind the wheel of another kind of car. The police van he had been in charge of twenty- five years ago.

He had spotted Lang on the pavement, just ahead of the van; he knew that he was wanted, so he did what they had done so many times before, drove up alongside the running man while Bengt pulled the door back and Anni, who was sitting nearest the door, grabbed hold of Lang and shouted that he was under arrest, as she was supposed to do.

She was sitting in that seat, nearest the door.

That was why Jochum Lang had been able to drag her out.

Ewert blinked and swung off the road for a moment, away from the queue of stressed morning commuters. He switched off the engine and sat very still until the pictures faded from his mind. In recent years, the same thing happened every time he visited her, the memory pounding inside his head, making it hard to breathe. He stayed where he was for a while, ignoring the idiots with their horns, just waited until he was ready.

A quarter of an hour later he pulled up outside his friend’s home.

They met in the narrow suburban street, stood together and got wet while staring up at the sky.

Neither of them smiled very often; it could be their age, or maybe they had always been the kind who rarely smile. But the impenetrable greyness and the wind and the pouring rain were too much; you had to smile because there was nothing else you could do.

‘What do you think about all this, then?’

‘Think? That I can’t be bothered to let it get to me any more.’

They both shrugged and sat down on the rain-sodden cushions on the garden sofa.

Their friendship had begun thirty-two years earlier. They had been young back then, and the years had passed quickly; they had less than half of their lives left.

Ewert looked at his old friend. The only one he had really, the only person he talked to outside work, the only one he could bear to be with.

Bengt was still in good shape, slim, lots of hair. They were roughly the same age, but Bengt looked much younger. Maybe that was the effect of having young children. They forced you to stay young, as it were.

Ewert had no children and he had no hair and his body had grown heavy. He had a limp, while Bengt walked with a light step. They were both policemen and shared past and present in the Stockholm city force. Both had been given a finite gift of time, but Ewert had used up his faster.

Bengt let out an exasperated sigh.

‘It’s so bloody wet. I can’t even get the kids out of the house any more.’

Ewert was never sure why the family asked him over for breakfast, whether it was because they thought it would be nice or whether it was out of duty. Maybe they felt sorry for him, so lonely, so naked outside the four walls of the police headquarters. Whenever they asked, he went and never regretted it, but still he could not help wondering.

‘She seemed well today. Sent her regards. At least, I’m sure she would have.’

‘And what about you, Ewert? Are you all right?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t know. It’s maybe just that you look… heavier these days. No, more burdened. Especially when you talk about Anni.’

Ewert heard him say this, but didn’t reply. He looked around and observed with disinterest the suburban life that he could not understand. The small villa was actually quite nice. Very normal. Brick walls, a bit of lawn, a bunch of neatly trimmed shrubs. Sun-bleached plastic toys scattered here and there. If it hadn’t been raining, the two children would’ve been running about in the garden, playing whatever kids of that age played. Bengt had had children rather late in life, when he was nearly fifty. Lena, who was twenty years his junior, had given him another chance. Ewert had no idea what a pretty, clever young woman like Lena saw in a middle-aged policeman, but he was pleased for Bengt, of course, even if he didn’t understand.

Their clothes were soaking and started to hang heavily. They didn’t notice any more and forgot about the weather.

Ewert leaned forward.

‘Look, Bengt.’