The Andalucian Friend (29 page)

“It’s a misunderstanding …”

Erik wiped his eyes and scratched himself on the forehead. He seemed tired and overworked.

“Evidently he attacked a girl.”

“No, he didn’t,” she said. “I want to see him now.”

Erik cleared his throat.

“You can see him shortly.”

“Now, or do you want me to get a lawyer?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

She didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“Like I say, that won’t be necessary.”

“What?”

“Calling a lawyer.”

“Then I want to see him.”

He raised his hand slightly from his leg.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. Nothing’s set in stone. Let’s just have a little chat first, OK?”

She looked at him, his beard hid all his facial expressions.

“Maybe it’s like you say,” Erik began. “That Albert hasn’t done anything. I just don’t think you should see everything in black or white. Your son has been in here … We’re police officers, we know what we’re doing.”

She tried to understand what he meant.

“Here, read this … That ought to give you an idea of the situation.”

He handed her the plastic folder. She took it and opened it, then leafed through its contents. It contained witness statements, three in total. She read the accounts of what Albert had done that evening.

“Of course, it’s a terrible thing for such a young lad, and it’s probably like you say, but … Well, he’s here now, and we’ve got these witness statements. This is a serious matter.”

Erik stood up from the bench and stretched his heavy frame, and a bone cracked somewhere. He looked toward both ends of the corridor, they were still alone.

“The boy can go home with you now,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t mention this to anyone, it would only cause more trouble for you and your son.

Erik walked away. Her eyes were glued to the big man as he left her. Beyond her inability to understand what was going on, a scenario was beginning to emerge, a scenario based on lies, betrayal, threats, and manipulation. She was interrupted by footsteps farther along the corridor, and she saw Albert walking toward her, unaccompanied by any police officers. Alone and confused, he made his way down the empty corridor. She stood up and he hurried to reach her. His whole being seemed to be trembling with fear and despair.

Erik Strandberg had had a good day.
He had stood and stared at Albert behind the one-way mirror in one of the interview rooms, watching as the boy tried to find a comfortable position on his chair. Imagine, such a young boy, unable to understand why he was there. Terrified, panic-stricken. It was almost fascinating.

It had all gone like clockwork. Little Albert had come close to shitting himself. His mom the nurse was white as a fucking sheet. That whole fear thing was so weird, he thought as he walked along Vasagatan. Some people just seem to drown in it.

Erik found a kebab shop and slipped in and ordered a blowout. The Turk behind the counter wanted to talk football scores and weather. Erik didn’t answer. The man got the hint and piled up the meat in silence. He sat down on a high stool by a narrow counter facing the street, sighed, and unfolded the evening paper that he’d stolen from the staff room in Norrmalm Police Station. He leafed through a few pages, some celebrity he didn’t recognize had evidently gone gay. Erik had an almost permanent feeling that he understood less and less of the world he lived in.

“Albert?”

She looked over to him as she leaned against the kitchen worktop. Albert was sitting there staring at the table, refusing to look up.

Unable to help herself, she went over to him and slapped his right cheek with her hand. The slap was so hard that it scared her, and she took a shocked step back, then came to her senses and went up to him with her arms open. He stood up to meet her. They stood there hugging as she stroked his hair.

“I haven’t done anything,” he said in a hoarse voice.

She heard the child in him, the terror of the innocent.

“I know,” she whispered.

“So what was all that about, then?”

She thought about his question, believed she had an answer, but she wasn’t about to tell him.

“Nothing … It’s over now, they made a mistake. …”

She could hear how she was repeating herself, and thought about the microphones picking up her words and presumably carrying them straight to Gunilla Strandberg.

“But they had witnesses?! Rape? What kind of …”

She hushed him.

“Try to forget it now, sometimes it just happens. Everyone makes mistakes, even the police.”

She patted him on the head.

“He hit me,” Albert said quietly.

Sophie blinked as if she had been struck. She forced herself to stay calm, went on patting his head.

“What did you say?”

“The policeman in the car, he hit me in the face.”

Suddenly she couldn’t see anything of the world outside, just something inside her, something beginning to glow. Like a little spark of color. The color started to make itself felt, started to burn, crackle, exert pressure … expand. And turned into a vast, colorful fury. Not the same fury that had grown out of her anxiety. This was a fiery rage that filled every cell of her body, spreading out and taking over, forcing out everything else. Strangely enough, it made her calm down, find her focus.

“We won’t tell anyone about this. Promise me that,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because I say so.”

Albert pulled out of the hug, a look of confusion on his face.

“Why not?” he repeated.

“Because this is different,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?”

Albert waited for an answer that never came. He grew uncomfortable, turned, and walked out of the kitchen.

The phone rang. Her mother, Yvonne, asking the usual how-are-you questions. Sophie replied with the usual fine-thanks answers.

“Are you coming on Sunday?”

Yvonne sounded like a martyr as she asked the question. Sophie tried to sound the way she usually did.

“Yes, at seven. The same time we always come.”

“Yes, but you usually come at half past seven. It doesn’t really matter, but if we’re going to eat — ”

Sophie interrupted her mother.

“We’ll be there at seven, or half past.”

She said good-bye and hung up. And cracked. Sophie threw the phone on the floor. When it didn’t break she picked it up and threw it again, then stomped on it. She clenched her jaws but didn’t get the cathartic feeling the release was supposed to give her. She just felt the same fury and impotence that had been there before the phone hit the floor.

Albert was staring at her from the living room. They looked at each other. Sophie bent down and picked up the pieces of the broken phone.

The windows were open, Jens was vacuuming
the apartment, pushing the head of the machine over floors and rugs. He was trying to find some calm, and it occasionally appeared when he did the cleaning. But not today, and besides, it was already clean, he had done the vacuuming the day before. The sound of things flying into the machine was appealing, the way they rattled through the tube into the bag. It made him feel a sort of satisfaction about the fact that what he was doing was fulfilling a purpose. But there were no such noises today. Just him and the vacuum cleaner going around the apartment like an old married couple.

He thought he could hear a noise over the music from the stereo and the roaring motor. He listened but heard nothing, and went on cleaning. The sound again. He switched the vacuum cleaner off with his foot and listened again — the doorbell was ringing out in the hall.

Sophie stood in
the kitchen. She was speaking clearly, concisely, and carefully. Explaining what had happened with Albert and the police. He was finding it incomprehensible.

“The police say there are witnesses, and that the girl’s fourteen,” she went on.

Jens could see how cut up she was. It colored her whole face. She looked older all of a sudden, thin … frightened.

An espresso maker on the stove started making noises, building to its crescendo. But he didn’t hear it, he was too busy trying to make sense of what Sophie had said. In the end it was Sophie who pointed it out to him. The hissing sound entered his head and dispelled his thoughts. He took the pot off the heat.

“Could it actually have happened?” he asked as he took two cups down from a shelf.

She shook her head as if his question were crazy.

“You’re quite sure?”

She flared up.

“For God’s sake, of course I’m sure!”

Jens looked at her, unabashed by her short outburst.

“But could anything similar have happened?”

Sophie was about to launch into him.

“No, hang on, Sophie. Could anything small, insignificant, something completely harmless have happened?”

Sophie wanted to say no, but she stopped and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know … ,” she said weakly.

Jens let her think for a few moments.

“Come on,” he said, taking the cups and heading toward the suite in one corner of the apartment.

He gestured to her to sit on the sofa, put the cups down on the coffee table, and sat down in the armchair opposite her.

“Could it be something as innocent as an approach from Albert to the girl, a bit of flirting?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What does Albert say?”

She looked up, then down again.

“That there was no girl like that there. He didn’t meet anyone, didn’t talk to anyone. That he’d gone to the party because another girl was supposed to be there.”

“Who?”

“His current girlfriend, her name’s Anna.”

“Could she provide an alibi?”

“No, my son wasn’t brave enough to go and talk to her.”

“And what does he think?”

“He thinks everything and nothing. His first thought was that some boy he’d fallen out with wanted to get him in trouble … But he also believes what I told him.”