Jochum Lang was not asleep. The last night was always the worst.
It was the smell. When the key turned in the lock for the last time, it always hit him: the small cells all smelt the same. It didn’t matter which prison it was, even in the police cells, the walls and the bed and the cupboard and the table and the white ceiling smelt the same.
He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a fag. Even the air pressure in the cells felt the same. That sounded plain fucking stupid and he couldn’t tell anyone, but it was the truth that every cell in every prison and every jail had the same air pressure and it wasn’t like in any other room.
He felt like belling the security desk – he always belled on the last night inside – so he went over to the metal plate with the intercom and pressed the red Call button long and hard.
Fucking screw took his time.
The red lamp went on and the central security desk replied.
‘What’s up, Lang?’
Jochum bent forwards to speak close up into the pathetic microphone.
‘I want a shower. Get this fucking smell off.’
‘Forget it. You’re still locked up in here. Like the rest.’
Jochum hated the lot of them. He had done his time, but these little shits had to show who was on top to the bitter end.
He went back to the bed, sat down and looked around the cell. He would give them ten minutes and then try again. They usually gave in after the third or fourth try, came along to open up and stood aside just enough for him to push past. With only one night left, he obviously wouldn’t want to do anything out of order, but once outside they might meet him anywhere in town, and sometimes it was wise not to have too much shared history with inmates.
He got up, walked about. A couple of paces to the window, a few more back to the metal door.
He packed as slowly as he could, cramming two years and four months into a plastic carrier bag. Two books, four packets of fags, soap and toothbrush. Radio and the pile of letters. An unopened packet of tobacco. He put the bag on the table.
He belled again. The fucker still took his time. Irritated, he put his mouth close to the microphone and growled. His breath misted the metal surround.
‘I want my clothes.’
‘Seven o’clock, mate.’
‘I’ll wake the whole fucking wing.’
‘Whatever.’
Jochum banged on the door. Someone banged in response on a door on the other side of the corridor. Then another. Quite a noise. The screw was faster this time.
‘Lang, you’re creating a disturbance.’
‘That’s right. Like I said.’
The duty officer sighed.
‘So you did. Look, I’ll have you escorted to the sacks and the desk to check your stuff out. Then back you go. You won’t get out until seven.’
The corridor was empty.
No one was up and about. The others, with years to wait behind their locked doors, had fallen quiet again. Who had any use for the dawn? He walked through the unit, along a corridor with eight cells on each side, passed the kitchen, passed the room with a billiard table and a TV corner. The screw was right in front of him, a little runt with a thin back. He could easily do him over, ten minutes after he’d finished his time – he’d done it before.
The screw unlocked the main unit door and led the way through the long underground corridors where Jochum had walked so many times before. The store was located next to the central security desk, behind the wall with CCTV monitors. Being there meant getting out. Just wandering among the hundreds of hessian sacks that smelt of the cellar, then finding the right one – opening it, trying on the clothes. Too small, they were always too small. This time he had put on seven kilos, bigger than ever. He had worked out regularly and bloody hard. He looked around. No mirrors. Rows of cardboard boxes with name tags, the belongings of the lifers who had no digs outside and kept what they owned boxed up in a storeroom at Aspsеs prison.
He had taken the Karl Lagerfeld bottle back with him. The screw hadn’t noticed or else didn’t give a fuck either way. Jochum hadn’t smelt like a free man since they stripped him on Day One. No alcoholic fluids allowed in the unit. He undressed and, standing naked in the middle of his cell, emptied the aftershave over his shaved head, its contents flowing over his shoulders and torso and dripping down over his feet and on to the floor, the powerful scent stripping off his prison coating.
Ten to seven. The screw was punctual.
The cell door opened wide. Jochum grabbed his carrier bag, spat on the floor and walked out.
All he had to do now was change into the tight clothes he had just tried on, collect the release money, a pitiful three hundred kronor, and the one-way train ticket, tell the screw to go to hell as the gate slowly swung open, and walk out, bag in hand, giving the finger to the guard at the security camera. And turn sharp right, to the nearest stretch of wall, open his flies and piss against the concrete greyness.
The wind was blowing outside.
At the far end of the ground floor of the police headquarters, the dawn chorus was competing with Siw Malmkvist. As ever. Ewert Grens had served in the force for thirty-three years and had an office of his own for thirty. His cassette player, a present for his thirtieth birthday, had been around for almost as long. It was one of those large, lumpy things which combine a mono speaker and a tape deck. Every time he moved office he would carry it himself, cradled in his arms. Ewert only played Siw Malmkvist. A home-made rack held his collection of all her recordings, Siw’s entire repertoire, in different orders on different tapes.
This morning it was ‘Tunna skivor’ (1960), the Swedish version of ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’. He was always the first one in and turned the sound up as high as he liked. The odd bod might complain about the noise, but as long as he acted the sour old bugger they let him be, on the whole, left him to it. He kept life at bay behind his closed door, buried in his investigations while Siw belted out Sixties pop.
His mind was still caught up in yesterday. It had been good to see Anni in her crisply ironed dress, her hair neatly combed. She had looked at him more often than usual, almost made contact. As if, for a few moments, he was more than just a stranger sitting beside her and holding her hand.
And later that morning, Bengt’s nice home, so full of life. Breakfast with messy kids and kind looks. As always, he had been full of gratitude. As always, he had nodded and smiled, while Bengt and Lena and the kids treated him like a member of the family, just as they always did. Yet he had felt lonelier than ever and that bloody awful feeling was still hanging around him now.
He turned up the volume and started pacing up and down on the worn linoleum. He had to think about something else. Anything but that. No doubting today, not any more. He had made a decision, chosen this place, this job. If the working life of a policeman meant missing out on some of the good things in life, so be it. That was how things had panned out. One day followed the other, making it thirty-three years in the end. No woman and no children and no real friends, just his long, devoted service, due to end in less than ten years from now. When it ended, he would cease to be.
Ewert looked around the room. The room was his only for as long as he put in the hours. When he retired this would become someone else’s office. On he paced. Limping, his large, heavy body turning at the bookshelf and then at the window. He was not good-looking, he knew that, but he had been powerful, intense and brooding. Now he was just angry most of the time. He pulled his fingers through what had once been hair and now was grey, cropped tufts.
That song.
And so, for a while, he forgot. It was morning now and his mind turned to the piles of documents on his desk, reports to be read and investigations to be completed. He had to deal with them, come what may.
A knock on the door. He ignored it. Too early.
