The Andalucian Friend (44 page)

Zivkovic shook his head.

“Go back and tell him what happened here, in detail. Make him understand that we’re never going to leave him alone, nor you either … Remember that, Håkan Zivkovic.”

Hector let go of Zivkovic, who stood up and left the apartment without looking at his dead friend.

Håkan Zivkovic came
out the front door and went off along Själagårdsgatan at a half-run. He was pale, his nose was bleeding … He was on his own and had been roughed up.

Anders called Gunilla and told her what he had just witnessed. There was silence on the line.

“On his own?” she said, as if the question would give her more time to think.

“Yes.”

“So maybe your plan worked?”

Anders didn’t answer.

“And the other one’s still up there?”

“I’d rather not think about what state he’s in.”

“OK … then it’s high time. Isn’t it, Anders?”

“I’d have to agree with that.”

The German had woken up half an hour ago,
causing a great commotion on the ward.

The doctor’s name was Patrik Bergkvist. He had curly hair, was thirty-eight years old, and wore a helmet when he cycled to work. Dr. Bergkvist was sitting on the edge of the bed looking into Klaus’s eyes with a small flashlight he kept in the top pocket of his white coat. Klaus looked back as a nurse hovered in the background. Patrik was trying out his schoolboy German.

“Do you remember your name?”

Klaus looked irritated.

“Yes.”

“What’s your name, then?”

“None of your business.”

Patrik tried to keep his composure.

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“None of your business.”

Patrik wasn’t prepared for that response. His patients usually treated him with respect, and he didn’t like losing face when there were nurses present. He switched off the flashlight.

“We’ve removed the bullet. You were lucky, it didn’t cause any permanent damage to your internal organs. You’ll have some discomfort for a while, though.”

“Danke,”
Klaus said quietly.

Patrik nodded.

“The police want to talk to you. Do you feel up to that?”

“No.”

“I’m going to call them anyway, I think you’re up to it.”

Dr. Bergkvist left the room, went into the little office that was squeezed between two hospital rooms, and found the number that the police had left. He called it and someone named Gunilla Strandberg answered. She turned out to be a very pleasant woman.

“How bad is he?” she asked.

Patrik Bergkvist rambled on with his expert doctor’s talk. She interrupted him when she decided he was just showing off.

Klaus was sitting up in bed
leafing through a Swedish gossip magazine. He looked at pictures of King Carl Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Carl Philip, and Madeleine, all standing on a lawn in front of a white palace somewhere, waving. Victoria and her husband weren’t there. Maybe they were away on some trip. He recognized all of them. Rudiger, his boyfriend, was crazy about the royal families of Europe.

The door opened. Anders nodded slightly as they walked into the room. Klaus looked him up and down. Then looked in disgust at the porcine Berglund following closely behind.

“Are you feeling OK?”

Anders’s German was good. He pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Who are you?” Klaus asked.

Hasse pulled out his police ID.

“You were shot?” Anders asked.

Klaus carried on through the magazine. Kikki Danielsson was sitting at a pine kitchen table in her lovely home.

“What’s your name?”

Klaus looked up, showed no intention of answering.

“We can help you, that’s why we’re here.”

Anders was demonstrating great patience as Klaus turned another page. Someone named Christer, with a very big head, was holding his tiny little wife. Christer was evidently very fond of Elvis Presley and liked to spice up the usual dismal Swedish décor with shiny gold bathroom taps. Anders leaned forward and gently took the magazine from Klaus’s hands.

“I’ve got some other things for you to look at.”

Anders put the magazine aside and pulled a folded A4 envelope from inside his jacket. He opened it and looked through a number of photographs. Klaus waited, glancing quickly at Hasse, who was standing over by the window. Anders pulled out a picture of Hector and held it up in front of Klaus.

“Do you recognize this man?”

Anders looked at Klaus who was looking at Hector. Klaus shook his head.

“No …”

He held up a picture of Aron Geisler, Klaus shook his head. Anders held up a picture of Sophie Brinkmann, Klaus shook his head. Anders held up a picture of a random criminal from the police archive. A reaction from Klaus, as if he had spent a microsecond too long searching his memory. Klaus shook his head.

“He knows,” Anders said to Hasse.

Anders reverted to German again.

“You’re lying there with a gunshot wound. We know you were driven here by someone. Who?”

Klaus shrugged his shoulders.

“Who shot you?”

Klaus didn’t answer.

Anders changed tack.

“Let’s start again. Who dropped you off here at the hospital?”

Klaus glared blankly at him.

“If you tell us how you got here, what you know about Hector Guzman, we’ll let you go, in return for possibly having to testify at some point.”

Klaus let out a big, relaxing yawn, reached for the gossip magazine beside Anders, and started to look through it again. Then he looked up and smiled at Anders.

“OK, as soon as the doctor says you’re well enough, we’ll lock you up in prison until you decide to talk.”

Klaus was still smiling when Anders and Hasse left him.

Anders and Hasse
walked down the corridor. The door at the far end opened. A large man came walking toward them with a sort of rolling gait. The corridor looked like it was one size too small for him.

They met halfway. The big man didn’t so much as glance at them, just marched past purposefully.

Anders stopped after a few steps, and looked back at him.

“Anders?” Hasse asked.

He turned toward Hasse as if he was still stuck in a thought, a memory.

“What is it, Anders?”

Anders turned around again and looked at Mikhail, who was opening the door to Klaus’s room.

“It’s him. …”

“Who?”

“The big guy, that’s his partner, the one I saw going into Trasten.”

“Are you sure?”

“No …”

“But?”

“But what the hell …”

Anders drew his pistol and walked back toward Klaus’s room. Hasse drew his, and followed him with long strides.

Mikhail had opened
the door of the cupboard, pulled out Klaus’s clothes, and tossed them on the bed. The door flew open behind him. He turned around, saw a man, saw an arm, saw a raised pistol. Mikhail reacted instinctively. He shot out his hand, grabbed Anders’s arm, and pulled it toward him. A shot went off. Klaus screamed. From the corner of his eye, another man with a drawn gun, he was still working on instinct. He twisted Anders around, still with his hand on the pistol, pulled it free, and aimed the barrel at Hasse, his finger squeezing the trigger.

“Mikhail!” Klaus shouted. “They’re police!”

Mikhail eased his grip on the trigger.

“Drop it,” was all he said to the fat one.

Hasse didn’t hesitate, dropped his gun to the floor. Mikhail threw Anders across the room, and gestured to Hasse to go and sit beside him.

“The bastard shot me,” Klaus said, holding his shoulder, as blood pumped out steadily.

Mikhail looked at the chaos in the room, weighing up his options, then tossed the pistol to Klaus, who picked it up in his left hand. Mikhail picked up Hasse’s gun from the floor and left the room.

He marched down the corridor as some nurses tried to take cover behind a trolley, and searched through every room and cupboard. In one office, beneath a desk, Patrik Bergkvist sat huddled up. Mikhail bent over, felt with his hand, grabbed his curly hair, and pulled him out.

“I need tranquilizers or narcotics. I need bandages, needle and thread, and equipment for removing a bullet from someone’s arm.

Patrik Bergkvist nodded to everything. Mikhail took the man by the neck. They headed toward a storeroom.

Klaus was covering
Hasse and Anders with the pistol. The door opened. Mikhail pushed Patrik Bergkvist inside, and he went straight over to Anders Ask.

“No, not him. Him!”

Mikhail pointed at Klaus and his bleeding arm. Patrik hurried over and started to examine the wound. Mikhail opened a flimsy blue garbage bag he had in his hand. He took out a glass bottle of thiopental and loaded two syringes. He drove one into Anders’s thigh and injected the drug. Anders started swearing angrily before he slumped to the floor. Mikhail did the same with Hasse, who whimpered as the needle drove into his flesh. Within a minute they were both sleeping soundly.

Patrik Bergkvist had temporarily stemmed the flow of blood with a tight ligature around the wound.

“This man needs to be operated on at once.”

“How fast can you do it?”

“One hour.”

“Forget it.”

Mikhail filled the syringe. Patrik Bergkvist shouted
no
over and over as Mikhail took his arm and squeezed the narcotics into his system. The doctor was slurring hysterically, trying to say he needed to be supervised by an anesthesiologist, that he needed oxygen. Then he fell to the floor, arms by his sides, hitting his cheek hard and slipping into unconsciousness.

Mikhail helped Klaus out of the bed and supported him as they hurried out of the hospital.

They got into the rental car outside the main entrance. Mikhail headed into the city.

“Where are you going? We have to get to the airport!” Klaus said.

“Not like this, you’ll die.”

Mikhail dialed a Stockholm number on his cell.

The telephone rang. He recognized the voice
at the other end. Mikhail sounded stressed, and was offering a deal. Which was worthless, of course. Pretty much: do me a favor now, and I’ll owe you one. Jens said no. But Mikhail didn’t give up, and pleaded in a way that surprised Jens. The man sounded almost humble. But this was Mikhail, there was no way. …

“Sorry, that’s impossible.”

Silence down the line.

“I’m begging you … You’re the only person who can help us. My friend’s dying here. …”

Was that something human he could hear in Mikhail’s voice? Someone was dying. Could he coldly hang up and never think about what he could have done differently? Could he just say no and go on with his life? He looked at Sophie, who was sitting on the sofa.
Hell
.

He gave Mikhail his address and hung up, bitterly regretting his decision. Ten minutes later someone banged on the door. They both recognized the bleeding Klaus as Mikhail carried him into the living room.

“What happened?” she asked.

“He’s been shot in the shoulder,” Mikhail replied.

Klaus lay on the sofa.

“Quick, Jens, get me some warm water and towels, and anything you’ve got in the way of medicine.”

Jens disappeared from the room. Mikhail emptied the contents of the plastic bag on the coffee table. Syringes, needle and thread, thiopental, antiseptics, bandages. He was about to take the bandage off when Sophie stopped him.

“Hang on, I’ve got this,” she said, sitting down beside Klaus, removing the temporary bandage around his upper arm and looking at the wound in his flesh.

“I need tweezers, or a narrow pair of pliers or something,” she called to Jens.

She felt Klaus’s pulse, it was shallow and fast.