that they had to pack their bags again as they were moving to another flat in Copenhagen, and all she wanted to do was die.
Ewert Grens had been driving aimlessly for almost two hours. He had started in the centre of the city, navigating the most heavily congested streets with their traffic lights and jaywalkers and imbeciles who punished their car horns. Later, he crossed to Sodermalm via Slussen, made his way along Horn Street and Got Street; the south side, which was supposed to be so damn bohemian, but to him this looked like any sad provincial dump.
Back to the northern side again and past the soulless facades in posh Ostermalm, a loop round the TV building at Gдrdet and then a run on Vдrta Road to the harbour, where large ships were arriving packed with Baltic whores. He yawned. Valhalla Road next, endless roundabouts as far as Roslag Junction.
All these people. All these people on their way somewhere.
Ewert Grens envied them. He had no idea where he going.
He was tired. Just a few minutes more.
He drove through the city centre to St Erik’s Square in the slowing evening traffic. After drifting on along the smaller streets for a while, he turned left, past the Bonnier building and into Atlas Street. Downhill, left again. He parked in front of the door, suddenly surprised at the thought that less than a week had passed since he had come here for the first time.
He turned the engine off. How silent it was, as silent as a big city can be when the working day is over. All those windows, all those fancy curtains and potted plants. Places where people lived.
He sat in the car and time passed. Maybe a minute. Or ten. Or sixty.
Her back had been torn and inflamed. She had lain naked and unconscious on the floor. Alena Sljusareva had been screaming in the next room, hurling abuse at the man she called Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp.
Bengt had been on the landing. He had been waiting there for almost an hour. Grens recalled the scene perfectly, where Bengt had stood.
Ewert Grens stayed where he was for a little longer. Not time to leave yet. Another minute, several minutes, whatever it took for him to calm down. He had to go to the place he still called home, although he often had no wish to be there.
Another couple of minutes.
Suddenly the heavy door opened.
Four people came out. He looked at them, recognised them.
Only a couple of days ago, he had taken Alena Sljusareva to the port to ensure that she boarded a ferry that would take her over the Baltic Sea, back to Lithuania and Klaipeda.
They had got off the ferry when it docked on Swedish soil. The man was wearing the same suit he had previously, another time in Volund Street. Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp. As soon as he had cleared passport control, he turned round and waited for two young women – girls, in fact, of sixteen or seventeen. He held out his hand and demanded to have their passports, their debt. A woman in a tracksuit, with the hood pulled up over her head, had come forward to meet them and kissed them lightly on each cheek, the way people from the Baltic states do.
Now, they filed out of the door in front of him: Dimitri first, followed by his two new girls with bags in hand, and the hooded woman.
Grens watched them walk away.
Then he phoned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was put through to the person he wanted and asked a few questions about Dimitri Simait.
God knows he had enough on his plate, but never mind. He wanted to know if that fucking pimp still had the right to claim diplomatic immunity and asked to find out who his female contact was.
A little additional information and then he’d have both of them in the bag.
When this was all over. When Lang was inside. When Bengt had been buried.
When he was certain that Lena was able to go on, without the lie.
The day had passed without him noticing.
He had woken up in a narrow hotel bed, in Klaipeda, then driven from Arlanda to Lena Nordwall, where she sat freezing in the hot sun, then on to his Kronoberg office and from there to the Prosecution Service building, where Еgestam had been waiting, nearly at the end of his patience.
Sven Sundkvist wanted to go home.
He was tired, but the day that was almost done had not quite finished with him yet. Instead it seemed its longest hours were waiting for him.
Lena Nordwall had run after him as he walked away from their futile talk in the garden, towards the hockey kids and his car. She had been short of breath when she grabbed his arm and asked if he knew about Anni. Sven had never heard the name before. He had known Ewert for ten years, had worked closely with him and come to regard him as a friend, but he had never heard the name before. Lena Nordwall told him about a time when Ewert had been in charge of a patrol van, a story about Anni and Bengt and Ewert and an arrest which had ended in tragedy.
He tried to stand still, but wasn’t able to stop trembling.
There was so much in life he didn’t understand.
He had no idea where Ewert lived. He had never, not once visited him. Somewhere in the centre of Stockholm, that was all he knew.
He laughed a little, but his face wasn’t smiling.
Strange, how one-sided their friendship had been.
He kept inviting and Ewert allowed himself to be invited. Sven believed in sharing, thoughts, emotions, strength, while Ewert hid behind his right to privacy.
He got Ewert’s home address from the police staff records. He lived on the fourth floor of quite a handsome block of flats in the middle of the city, on a busy stretch of Svea Road. Sven had been waiting outside for nearly two hours. He had tried to distract himself by scanning the rows of windows. Not that he got much out of it. From a distance they all looked identical, as if the same person inhabited all the flats.
Ewert arrived just after eight o’clock, his big body rolling on his stiff leg. He opened the door without looking round, and disappeared into the building. Sven Sundkvist waited for another ten minutes, feeling nervous and lonelier than he could ever remember.
He took a deep breath before pressing the intercom button. No reply. A longer ring this time.
The loudspeaker crackled as a heavy hand picked up the receiver on the fourth floor.
‘Yes?’ An irritated voice.
‘Ewert?’
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me, Sven.’
The silence was audible.
‘Hello, Ewert? It’s me, Sven Sundkvist.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’d like to come up.’
‘Come up here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
‘Why?’
‘We need to talk.’
‘We can talk tomorrow. Come to my office.’
‘It would be too late. We have to talk this evening. Open up, Ewert.’
Silence again. Sven stared at the still live intercom. A long time passed or, at least, it felt like that. Then the lock clicked and Ewert’s voice spoke, low and indistinct.
‘Fourth floor. Grens on the door.’
The pain in his stomach was bad now, as bad as when he’d watched that video. He had carried this pain for
