The Falling Detective (13 page)

S
am. There's something about her — something indefinable, huge. It's as though the molecular structure of the air changes as she walks into the restaurant. She has one hand, the one that now only has four fingers, in the pocket of her jacket, while the other one sways in time with her footsteps. Her nails are unpainted, and her skin is pale. When she finds me, sitting hunched at a table far from the entrance, half-hidden behind a thick pillar, she smiles, and it's that smile Sam gives people if she's not sure whether she knows them.

I brush aside thoughts of the dead sociologist, his missing Dictaphone, and 1599 — the case that is no longer ours — and straighten up. Outside Mäster Anders, darkness has fallen over Pipersgatan, and you can just hear the music coming from the speakers at low volume, someone singing
Sometimes I feel very sad
, again and again.

‘Hi,' she says. ‘I'm sorry I'm late.'

‘You're not.'

‘I know,' Sam says with a giggle, one hand winding her scarf from around her neck. ‘Why do you say that? “Sorry I'm late,” when you're not even late?'

‘Because you've kept someone waiting?'

‘Yes,' she says. ‘It might be that. Sorry to have kept you waiting.'

‘It's fine. You had no way of knowing I was going to be early.'

‘No, exactly.'

Jesus. We're talking about nothing, and even that is excruciating. It's been like this since that day, in late summer, when Grim stood between us and nearly killed us both. It pulled Sam away from Ricky, her partner at the time, but it didn't bring her closer to me. She's lonely now, and you can tell. Her eyes are jumpy and quick, as though she's forgotten how to behave when out among people. Her eyes are green, but cloudy. The clarity they once had is gone, and their spark is missing.

At first she was just happy to be alive. Then she moved on, and blamed me for everything. She can't work as a tattooist anymore. Every time she looked at her hand, she was reminded of what I'd done to her, even though it was actually Grim who did it. I used to be the one ringing her, when I was high and alone and couldn't help telling her that I still missed her, still needed her. Recently, it's been Sam: the phone rings in the darkness, and it's her on the other end, sometimes screaming and crying, but mostly just silent. She was on medication in the beginning — strong drugs, the kind I wish I could get my hands on. After a while she stopped. She didn't want to be dependent on them just to function, she said. She's not that kind of person. She is, on the other hand, seeing a therapist, and she'll probably need to do that for some time to come.

I wonder if she knows that I can't cope without Serax. Maybe. I wonder what she'd say if I told her I'd thrown up at a crime scene the day before yesterday.

I drink from my glass, and Sam takes off her coat. Her other hand glides out of her pocket, and from the corner of my eye I spot the gap where her index finger used to be. But I don't look, more for my sake than hers.

‘How are things?' she asks as she sits down. As she does so, a faint whiff of her perfume brushes past me, a scent that makes me remember the way things used to be.

‘Good,' I answer, realising that I have nothing else to say. ‘How about you?'

‘Good,' she says, opening the menu with one hand and continues, without looking up, ‘Have you met him today?'

‘Who?'

‘You know who I mean.'

‘Ah-ha. No.'

‘Does he still contact you?'

‘Every day, pretty much. He always manages to get a message to me. He even sends texts — he's got hold of a phone.'

‘Did you answer?'

‘No,' I say, opening my own menu. ‘I rang St Göran's, and got them to take the phone off him.'

This makes Sam laugh, a genuine laugh that reaches her eyes, making the skin around them crease lightly.

‘Good,' she says.

Neither of us want it to be like last time, for it to end the way it did then. We're finding a way to make it work, but it's still very fragile. Whenever we're in each other's company, I'm only ever a sentence, perhaps just a word, away from losing her. At least that's how it feels. For the likes of us, the past is dangerous.

I want to touch her hand.

We order. Both of us drink water. Me because I mustn't mix with alcohol with Serax, and Sam because she's stopped drinking. On the road outside, between the dark outlines of buildings, a car passes, and its headlights illuminate an estate car parked outside the restaurant. Inside is a figure, sitting there in the darkness. That's as much as I can process before the first car passes by and the stationary one is in darkness once more. Well, that and the fact that the driver's face is looking at us, staring straight at me and Sam, as we're sitting there at our window table by the big pillar. It could be the car that pulled up at St Göran's.

‘Leo?'

‘Yes?'

‘What is it?'

‘Nothing.' I think I shake my head at this point, as though that might make the lie more convincing. ‘I was thinking about something.'

‘What were you thinking about?'

‘That I've missed this.'

‘Me too.'

She smiles, and looks away. When the food arrives and we're about to start eating, she fumbles with her knife, perhaps because of the finger that's no longer there. The knife falls to the floor.

‘I'll get it,' I say.

‘Don't worry,' Sam says as she bends down. ‘I'm getting used
to it.'

A car drives past the window, and this time I manage to read the letters on the parked car's number plate.
WHO
. Then the car is returned to darkness, the driver just a silhouette. It could be Goffman.

‘Have you been to Salem recently?' she asks.

‘Not for a while. I haven't had time.'

‘Mm hmm,' Sam says, her mouth full of food.

‘And,' I go on, ‘I just can't face it. Partly because of what happened in the summer. It's as though … everything comes flooding back. But partly … it's tough seeing Dad.'

‘He's not getting better?'

‘If you've got Alzheimer's, you don't get better.' I drink some more water, and wish it was something stronger. ‘So, no.'

‘Shit.'

‘My brother is there a lot. He probably can't really face it either, but he does it for my mum's sake. Micke always was mummy's boy. He was the oldest. I was my dad's instead. I think that might be why I'm finding it tougher, seeing him like that. Now he can't even remember how to change the batteries in a remote control.'

‘But he,' Sam says, hesitantly. ‘He does recognise you?'

‘For now, yes. Most of the time. Sometimes, especially when he's tired, he'll get me mixed up with Micke. But, then again, he always has.' I laugh.

Sam grasps her glass tightly and takes a swig.

‘Are you still in touch with, what's his name, Ricky?'

‘No.' Sam puts her glass down. ‘No, not at all.'

‘Do you miss him?'

She shakes her head.

‘Not like I missed you.' Then, as though realising she's just revealed something significant, she says she needs to go to the loo, and stands up. ‘Won't be a minute.'

Once she's gone, I pop a Serax out of the blister pack and spin it between my fingertips. It's comforting. After a few rotations, I put it back in my pocket. Outside the window, the car is still there. When it is lit up once again by a passing vehicle, this time a lorry, I manage to read the whole number plate:
WHO
327. I eat another mouthful, drink some water, and I write the registration number in my phone and then send it to Birck.

I adjust myself in the chair. It's not easy to act normally when you know you're being watched.

where's the car right now?
Birck sends back.

outside mäster anders,
SEPO
?

yes

you sure?

yes

Questions buzz around my head. If it's one of their bureaucratic pseudo-agents sitting in that car, it becomes, on one level at least, more understandable that they had us under surveillance even while Birck and I were still on the case. They are paranoid little sods, as everyone — including the general public — well knows. But now City have handed the case over, they should be happy with that. Is there a microphone, some kind of bugging device, close by? Have they been listening to my chat with Sam? I try to recall Goffman's movements in my office, strain to picture his hands and what they might have got up to. Did he plant something when he was there? My coat? I pat down my coat, which is hanging in the back of my chair, and search the pockets and under the collar. Nothing. I think.

That's the problem with
SEPO
. Their paranoia is contagious. I sigh, and my gaze falls on my phone again. Could
that
be …

‘Something important?' Sam asks as she eases back into the chair opposite me, making me look up.

I put the phone away.

‘No, work, sort of.'

‘You were on call the night before last, weren't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘I read about Döbelnsgatan in the paper.'

‘We're not on that case anymore.' My gaze slides back towards the road outside, involuntarily. ‘It's elsewhere in the building now.'

‘You're doing it again,' she says.

‘What?'

‘Staring.' She looks at the street outside. ‘What is it?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You know I've forgiven you, don't you? For what happened. You don't need to feel … whatever it is you're feeling. If you are, you don't need to any longer. It's okay. But I need … I just need some time.'

‘That's great,' I say, cautiously. ‘I understand that you need time.'

‘You used to say that you would never make it without me. Is that still true?'

The question catches me off guard.

‘Yes.'

‘Same here.' She laughs. ‘At least we've got that in common,' she says, and something unspeakably heavy and tragic lands between us, and for a long time we are silent.

‘Do you really mean that?' I say. ‘That you can't make it without me?'

‘Yes.'

‘Speak soon,' she says once we've left the restaurant.

The snow's started falling again, and the wind is blowing. The last chime rings from a bell tower somewhere. It is ten o'clock, and I can't find the black car. It's disappeared.

‘Won't we?' Sam says.

‘Eh?'

‘Speak soon,' she says.

‘Yes, maybe tomorrow?'

‘Yes, maybe.' She bites her lip. ‘It won't have to be like this forever, you do know that? It's just that now it's …'

‘I understand,' I say, which probably isn't true, but me saying so makes her smile, again, and that feels good.

I walk her to the tube, hoping that the car might appear somewhere, but the only thing that comes is yet more snow, and when I slip on an icy patch it's Sam who helps me up, and that feels good, too.

As soon as I've said goodbye to her — a hug, nothing more — the tiredness crashes over me and I just need to get home, get home and get some sleep, I can't remember when I did that last. When something moves from the shadows along the streets of Kungsholmen, I shudder; I realise that I still can't tell what's real, and what's imagined.

Jonathan can't sleep. He's too jumpy; his nerves are too frayed. It might be down to tomorrow's demo. The alcohol won't have helped. Sometimes, when he's had a drink, it's as though his thoughts are spinning noisily round and round his head and he can't get them to stop, or make them quiet. They're not necessarily unpleasant or anxious thoughts, just ordinary everyday ones. He incessantly hops and dances between, from one to another, unable to slow down. Just like being on speed.

This time, though, his stomach churns.

As if that wasn't enough, the kitchen sofa he's lying on is so uncomfortable that the bare floor is beginning to look like a more attractive option. He can hear his leader snoring loudly in the bedroom, and despite that noise being steady and regular, it makes it impossible to sleep. He should have gone home anyway, like Christian, even though it is a long way from Enskede.

The kitchen table is next to the sofa, and the chief's MP3 player is lying on it, complete with little in-ear headphones. You can say what you like about the leader, but he certainly has good taste in music, and Jonathan has always found that listening to music helps you nod off. If nothing else, it should mask the sound of snoring if he plays it loud enough.

He leans on the armrest, pulls the player over and pops the earphones in, and presses ‘Play'. The songs have weird titles, no words, just four-digit numbers. Maybe they went wrong when he synched with the computer? He picks one, curious to see which band the top man's been listening to.

But Jonathan doesn't hear music. Instead, he hears voices, a man and a woman, which makes him sit upright in the darkness and squint at the little screen.

Her: ‘Hello.'

Him: ‘Hello.'

Her: ‘Have you got a fag?'

Him: ‘No, sorry.'

Her: ‘Shit. I'm all out.'

Him: ‘We can go and buy some in a bit?'

Her: ‘I'm … we shouldn't really be meeting like this.'

Him: ‘Why not?'

Her: ‘I have … I've been asking around, since we met last time, about what we talked about, and I think that some people think I've been a bit too curious, nosy. At times I've felt like I was being followed. It's not good for your research, what with all the confidentiality and all that, if we're seen together.'

Jonathan hasn't got a clue what they're talking about, but he keeps listening. Then the penny drops, and he realises what he's listening to, and suddenly he goes cold.

It's dark blue, the little player, and pretty worn. The blue has been worn off at the edges. He pulls out his phone and writes a text, just two sentences. He daren't write more.

by the swings at 8am. I've got something you need.

As soon as he's sent it, he leaves the flat. He can't stay — he needs to get out of there.