The Invisible Man from Salem (16 page)

Julia Grimberg's necklace was in Rebecca Salomonsson's hand. They couldn't have known each other. It must have been put there by whoever killed her.

AND, AS IF
I'm being watched, my phone buzzes.

not going to have a guess?
writes the anonymous sender.

guess what?
I write, looking over my shoulder, looking around for anyone who might be sticking out from the crowd.

guess who i am
, comes the reply.

are you the one who killed her?

no it wasn't me

do you know who did it?

maybe

who was it?

I can see you, Leo

XII

I light a cigarette, standing near the underground station, and write:
what am i doing right now

Cars roll past; people walk by. My phone soon buzzes again.

you're smoking on the street

It could be anyone. The apartment windows that make up Kungsholmsgatan's façades are dark — no lights on. You can't tell whether there's anyone standing there. The smells of exhausts and deep fat fryers surround me; the air feels thick, like just before rain. I look at the text on my phone and realise that I'm scared, for the first time in ages.

who killed her?
I repeat, and stare at the phone, aware that I'm holding my breath. Nothing happens; no message arrives.

I take out the little note with the number that Levin had written down during our conversation yesterday — the number I was to ring if I wasn't getting anywhere. I stare at the people walking past me, thinking that one of them is the anonymous texter, and that he or she wants to harm me; that somebody is going to appear and rush at me with a knife in their hand. I need to sit down. I need a strong drink, alone.

I wonder who I'm calling. The only thing Levin revealed was that the number belonged to someone he knows well. I turn around, and look at the hulk of the police headquarters behind me. I pop a Serax on my tongue and click my neck, feel the pill bouncing down my throat before it disappears inside me; I realise that the number probably belongs to someone at HQ. Two boys are standing on the pavement: one has dark skin and fuzzy hair; the other one has pale skin, and a posture that gives the impression he's embarrassed about something. The dark-skinned boy is playing guitar, and the other is staring at the road, singing about finding love in a hopeless place, again and again in a light, clear voice while people pass by without stopping.

‘Alice here,' someone answers in my ear.

‘Hi, it, I … where have I called?'

‘Who is this?'

‘My name is Leo Junker. Charles Levin gave me your number.'

‘He mentioned you.'

‘Are you at HQ?' I ask.

‘That's right.'

‘And this is a secure line?'

‘This is a secure line.'

She sounds measured but distant, as though she's doing something else at the same time, something that has most of her attention.

‘Who are you?' I ask.

‘Alice. I work for Charles.'

‘You're his secretary, right?'

‘That's right.'

‘I think I need your help.'

‘Go on.'

‘John Grimberg. I need to meet someone called John Grimberg. I have no idea where he is, or even if he's alive.'

‘Okay,' she says, sceptical. That's the first and only emotion she reveals.

‘I haven't seen him in over fifteen years,' I say, for some reason feeling the need to explain myself.

‘Born?'

‘Seventy-nine. But check seventy-eight, too, just to make sure.'

‘He was born in two different years?' she asks, puzzled.

‘I don't know,' I say. ‘Seventy-eight may be false.'

‘Born in Stockholm?'

‘Greater Stockholm — Salem.'

I hear the tapping of keys in the background. I head down underground now, step onto the escalator, and try to work out if anyone's following me.

‘I have a John Grimberg, born seventy-nine; first address is Salem,' I hear Alice say. ‘Long criminal record; first offence was ninety-seven. Mother born fifty-six, died ninety-nine; father born fifty-four, died three weeks ago.'

‘Only three weeks?'

‘That's what it says here.'

‘Do you have an address? For John, I mean.'

‘No. I, oh … wait.' She sounds confused, and judging by her sudden interest, it's quite unusual for something to confuse Alice. ‘The last entry I have is an address in Hagsätra. From ten years ago.'

She gives me the address, and I try to memorise it.

‘You mean he's dead?'

‘No, and he hasn't left the country either. At least not as far as I can see. He is on the Whereabouts Unknown register, though.'

‘Whereabouts Unknown register?'

‘I can't see any more than that, just that Revenue and Customs have recorded him there. I can contact them and ask for more details, but even if it's given priority it will still take a few hours.'

The Whereabouts Unknown register — made up of individuals who, for one reason or another, the authorities have not been able to contact. People with shady pasts, but also people who just don't want to be found. Those with secret identities, those who've been given new identities, have their old details entered into the register. The same goes for people who've been missing from the electoral roll for two years or more. The register is never updated, so even if you're impossibly old, your details remain on file there. The only updates occur when the person is certified dead, if it is discovered that the person has left the country, if they have somehow started using their original identity again, or if they reappear on the electoral roll. It doesn't take much for one of those last three to happen — just paying by card somewhere, crossing the border, or talking to an estate agent about a property. John Grimberg hasn't done any of those things, since he's still on the register. As though he's just disappeared.

‘I assume that this is important,' Alice says now, and I am down on the platform, watching a blue-and-silver train pulling out from the mouth of the tunnel.

‘Yes,' I say. ‘It is. It's about his sister.'

‘Julia,' I hear her read on the screen. ‘Julia Grimberg?'

‘That's right.'

‘Died in August ninety-seven.'

I swallow hard, and when I blink, the necklace flashes before my eyes.

‘That's right.'

THE SUN IS SHINING
over Hagsätra, and a group of kids are standing on the square, kicking a ball around. They are tanned, and speak to each other in a language I don't understand. Grim's last known address is here, right by the square. The light-coloured tower blocks and their small windows remind me of Salem. The door to the lobby is open, and I climb the stairs to the second floor, then knock on the first of three doors. No answer. The other two doors are open, and I introduce myself as a friend of John Grimberg's, but neither of them has ever heard of him. They got their flats through the council lists. I wonder which of the three he lived in, get the urge to ask if I can come in and have a look — mainly to get an idea how he might have lived — but I think better of it. It wouldn't be of any use. I thank them for their help, and leave.

I call Felix, who doesn't answer. After that, I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find any trace of John Grimberg via the contacts I usually use, but none of them have any useful information. I even go to the tax office on Södermalm and sit down at one of their terminals, to check the public records, but there's nothing there. It's as though Grim erased his own existence ten years ago.

I start to doubt myself. No one knows better than I do that there can be a heavy price paid for withholding information during an investigation, and by late evening I'm standing in my flat, ready to call Gabriel Birck and tell him everything, when the phone starts vibrating in my hand. It's Sam.

On Chapmansgatan, the incident tape is still in place. I look at it flapping in the wind, and see passers-by still stopping and trying to picture what has happened. There are cars parked along the street. I think there is someone sitting in one of them, but I can't be sure.

‘Hello?'

‘It's Sam.'

‘Hi, Sam.'

‘I, er … am I interrupting something?'

‘No. No, don't worry.'

‘I just thought … after you were here earlier …'

‘Yes?' I say, and push the phone harder to my ear. ‘Yes, thanks for making time.'

‘A customer came in later. I think you know who he is — they call him Viggo.'

I know who he is. He's one of Felix's dealers. He was one of the people I met today, after I left Hagsätra. He confirmed that he'd heard a rumour about someone robbing a whore near Kronoberg Park, but he hadn't made the connection with the rumour about Rebecca Salomonsson's death.

‘I met him today,' I tell her. ‘No help.'

‘He told me. Because he knows that you and I … well, he mentioned that you'd met, and that you'd asked about someone called Grim.'

‘John Grimberg,' I say, and my whole body goes stiff. ‘That's right.'

‘You didn't tell me that, when we met. You never mentioned his name, that it was him you were looking for.'

I recognise that tone in her voice only too well: Sam sounds hurt.

‘At that point I wasn't,' I say, apologetically. ‘That emerged later.'

‘I think … I don't know who John Grimberg is, but “Grim” rang a bell.'

On the street below, someone starts a car. I go over to the window again, apprehensive. The inside of the car is illuminated by the light from a mobile phone. I can just about make out a silhouette in there, but nothing more.

‘Where are you right now?' I ask.

‘Why?'

‘We have to meet.'

‘Leo, I don't think that's a good idea, we can't …'

‘It's not about that.'

‘What is it about then?'

I take a deep breath and wonder who's sitting in the car down on the street. Wonder if I'm paranoid, and how this might sound:

‘I think this phone is being tapped.'

XIII

Evening. I walk through the streets of Kungsholmen, heading for
BAR
. It's a stupid place to meet Sam, but it's the only neutral ground I can think of. On the way, I make countless attempts to establish whether or not I'm being followed; I take several diversions, but it's difficult. The neighbourhood is full of small streets and alleys that become deep and impenetrable. It seems to me there are nooks and crannies in this town that, if you were ever to enter, you would never get back out of. Beyond the neon signs and the streetlamps, an unnaturally thick darkness awaits — the kind of darkness that almost materialises, that you can taste on your tongue if you open your mouth.

The car that had been waiting on the street is gone. I haven't seen it since I started walking. My phone is silent. Rebecca Salomonsson is dead, with Julia's necklace in her hand, with my prints on it. Someone put it there — and I need to find Grim. We haven't seen each other for fifteen years; that's almost half my life. Almost half of his. But he might be able to give me an answer. There might be witnesses who can make Birck understand that it wasn't me, that I had nothing to do with her death. The problem with witnesses is that they're unreliable. They're like indicators, like indirect clues as to what has actually happened. No police officer trusts other people, and if any other evidence points to me, I'm in trouble.

His mother died early, while he was still young. I didn't know that; I wonder how it happened. Maybe suicide. Probably suicide. And the father. I try to recall what Alice said on the phone. Three weeks, she said. His father died three weeks ago. Wherever and whoever he is now, he's an orphan.

I'm thinking about Rebecca Salomonsson — what she had wanted to be when she grew up, how she never got to experience how life panned out. Everything had probably been going downhill for some time, and her future was probably not that bright. For women like her, it rarely is, and I think to myself that it might have been for the best that it ended as it did, her life. That thought, that it might be just as well that it ended as it did, is quite abhorrent, but often it is simply the truth.

ANNA IS STANDING
at one end of the bar, pouring a drink from a black bottle of Jim Beam. She looks up as I'm standing in the doorway, smiles weakly, and drinks from her glass.

‘I thought you were going to call,' she says.

‘I haven't …' I walk over to the bar, acutely aware of the sound that my shoes make on the floor. ‘Are you alone?'