MemoRandom

But it’s the dark patch at the back of the sleeping man’s head that catches the young man’s interest. A little hole, full of black ice crystals, each one just a millimetre across, forming a thin pattern of pearls over the stubble at the back of his neck.

The sound of the rotors is deafening, echoing between the buildings and rising to a howl as the helicopter passes straight over them.

‘Shit …’ the young man says, for the third time, without anyone hearing him. Then he takes a long step backward and starts to fumble for his cell phone.

David Sarac isn’t aware of any of the rescue effort going on around him. Not the agitated voices. Not the firemen drenching the car with foam and struggling intently with their hydraulic tools for almost a quarter of an hour before they manage to free him. Not the paramedics who use a curved piece of apparatus to force an oxygen tube into his throat and stop his lungs from collapsing at the last minute. Where Sarac is, there is no pain, no anxiety, no fear. Instead he feels an immense sense of peace.

His body is nothing more than a number of carefully bonded molecules, a temporary union that – like all other solid matter – is on its way toward its inevitable dissolution.

He can hear sounds around him, machines making warning signals, the focused discussions of the rescue team. An unpleasant gurgling sound that he gradually realizes is his own breathing.

But he isn’t scared. Not the slightest. Because he understands this is the universe’s plan. His time to be transformed. To reconnect with the universal stream.

Not until someone lifts one of his eyelids, calls his name, and shines a light directly into his brain does he get scared. Not because of the bright light or the voice calling out to him. What frightens him is the shadowy figure in the corner of his eye. A dark, threatening silhouette on the edge of his field of vision. Sarac tries to keep track of it, but the silhouette keeps evading him. He manages to see a leather jacket, a pulled-up hood whose shadow transforms the silhouette’s face into a black hole.

‘… need to get out of here now. The helicopter’s just arrived,’ someone says, presumably one of the paramedics.

But the silhouette doesn’t move, it just hovers at the corner of Sarac’s eye. Somewhere a cell phone rings. Once, then again.

The sound only exacerbates his fear. It grips Sarac’s rib cage, making his heart race and setting off a painful fusillade of fireworks in his head. Then the paramedic lets his eyelid fall and he slips back into the merciful darkness.

Friday, October 18

Jesper Stenberg flushed the condom down the toilet, showered carefully, and then dried himself with one of the thick towels in the bathroom. He inspected his appearance briefly in the bathroom mirror, checking as he always did that there were no telltale signs on his body or face. Then he quickly put his clothes back on before returning to the main bedroom.

It was 9:32 p.m.; his parents-in-law were looking after the children and Karolina had gone out to dinner with her girlfriends. She had offered to postpone it, but he had persuaded her to go. They could celebrate properly tomorrow. His father-in-law had already arranged everything. Dinner at his favorite restaurant, champagne, cognac, expensive wine. And of course his father-in-law would foot the bill and would go on about the future, and the possibilities that lay ahead of them, as long as they played their cards right.

She wasn’t lying in bed as he had been expecting. Instead she had poured herself a drink and was sitting on the sofa in the living room. She was still naked, and he couldn’t help admiring her body. Small, firm breasts, long, lithe legs, porcelain-white skin, and a toned stomach that suggested diets and an exercise regime he could barely imagine. He was going to miss her body. And the things she let him do with it …

But times were changing. From now on everything was going to be different.

‘So, Jesper, you’ve been asked the question,’ she said.

He went over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a stiff whiskey in one of the heavy crystal glasses. He shouldn’t really have any more to drink if he was going to drive. But he needed a drink; he realized that the moment she opened her mouth.

For a moment he got it into his head that she had already realized. That this wasn’t going to be as hard as he imagined. But her tone of voice instantly dashed any hopes of that nature. Obviously he should have realized she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Sophie Thorning never made things easy for anyone. In that respect she was just like her father.

‘Everyone’s got what they wanted. You’ve got your big chance, John gets to pull the strings, and your ambitious little wife and her power-crazed family have finally got themselves a new launchpad.’ She laughed, a low, mocking laugh that he didn’t like.

‘And now you want to break up with me, don’t you? Minimize the risks, re-establish control?’ She made a slight gesture toward the bedroom with her glass.

He still didn’t answer her, just turned away and looked out the window. Far below he could see the exit from the parking garage. In just a few minutes he would be down there. In the car, on his way home. Ready to put all this behind him.

‘Everyone’s got what they wanted. Everyone except me,’ Sophie went on. ‘I’m just expected to back down and act like the last few years never happened. Is that what you’re thinking, Jeppe?’

He turned around slowly. She knew he hated that nickname.

‘Jeppe on the mountain, like the old story.’ She leered. ‘An idiot who thinks he’s something special. That he’s suddenly someone to be reckoned with. But in actual fact he’s just a marionette, a puppet who jumps whenever anyone pulls his strings. Does that sound familiar?’

He opened his mouth to tell her to shut up, but stopped himself at the last moment. Sophie knew precisely which buttons to press. He mustn’t let himself be provoked.

‘Ooh, did that make you cross?’ She smiled. ‘You know what they say – the truth hurts. But you like pain, don’t you, Jeppe? Just like me. You get a real kick out of forbidden pleasures.’

She twisted around and crossed her long legs, slowly enough for him to get a good view of her hairless genitals.

‘I think we should go back to the bedroom to celebrate your success properly. I’ve got a few ideas that I’m sure you’d enjoy, things Karolina would never agree to.’

Stenberg emptied his glass and put it down slowly on the island unit between the living room and kitchen.

‘No, Sophie,’ he said. ‘This was the last time. I’m leaving now. From now on we’ll only see each other in the office, and any interaction between us will be strictly professional.’

He held up his hand before she had time to say anything.

‘No, no, I know how the game works. This is when you pull out your trump card, and threaten to tell Karolina or your dad. Maybe even both of them?’

She turned her head slightly and her face cracked into a mocking grimace.

‘But you don’t seem to have realized that the game has changed,’ he went on. ‘You’re quite right, other people have helped elevate me. I accepted that a long time ago, and realized it was the only way to get where I wanted to be. And now I’m there.’ He paused for a moment, collecting himself.

‘Sophie,’ he began, adjusting his tone of voice to show a hint of regret. ‘A few months ago you really could have spoiled everything. You could have ruined my life. But your trump card lost all its value the moment I was asked the Question.’

He gestured toward the telephone on the table.

‘Call Karolina if you want. She’d never leave me now, just as my father-in-law would never advise her to.’

Sophie’s smile had stiffened somewhat, but she still didn’t seem to have quite understood.

‘John,’ she said, ‘Daddy would—’

‘Come on, Sophie.’ His tone was perfect now, a cocktail made up of equal parts concern and condescension. ‘Do you seriously believe that John would sacrifice me for your sake? Now that his investment is finally about to pay off?’

He nodded toward the phone.

‘Please, call Daddy and cry on the phone to him. Tell him everything, be my guest.’ He smiled, copying her mocking grimace.

Sophie glanced at the phone. She licked her lips, once, then several more times. Then she looked down. Stenberg breathed out. The match was over, he had won. All of a sudden he felt almost sorry for her.

‘Smart decision, Sophie,’ he said. ‘It would have been a shame if you’d had to spend Christmas in the clinic again.’

He regretted saying it the moment he heard the words leave his mouth. Bloody hell! The glass missed his head by a whisker, hitting the wall behind him and sending a shower of crystal shards across the oak floor.

‘You fucking bastard!’ She took a couple of quick strides toward him, her fingernails reaching toward his face. Her knee missed his crotch by a matter of centimetres.

‘For God’s sake, Sophie.’ Stenberg twisted aside and grabbed hold of her wrists.

She went on trying to kick him, wriggling frantically in an effort to break free. He dumped her on the sofa, but Sophie bounced up instantly and attacked him again. She was growling like a dog, and her eyes were black. Her lips were pulled back, as if she were planning to bite him.

The blow was a purely instinctive reaction. Right-handed, with an open palm, but still hard enough to make her head snap back and her body crumple onto the sofa. Shit, he’d never hit a woman before. Not like that, anyway.

Sophie lay motionless on the sofa. Her arms and legs were hanging limp. Something wet was running down one of Stenberg’s earlobes and he felt his ear without really thinking about it. Not blood, as he suspected, but a golden-brown drop of whiskey that must have flown out of the glass.

‘Sophie,’ he said in a tremulous voice. She still wasn’t moving.

In the oppressive silence he could hear his own pulse thundering on his eardrums. He glanced quickly toward the elevator, then at the inert body. Sophie’s eyelids fluttered a couple of times and Stenberg breathed out.

He turned around and was about to go into the kitchen to get some water. But the floor was covered with broken glass. So he went to the bathroom instead and moistened a towel. On the way back he picked up her white toweling dressing gown from the floor.

She was sitting up when he got back, and he passed her both the towel and the dressing gown.

‘Sophie, I’m—’

‘Get out!’ She snatched the towel and pressed it to her cheek. He stood motionless for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. ‘Didn’t you hear me, get the fuck out of here!’ Sophie hissed, covering herself with the dressing gown.

He backed away a couple of steps and tried to think of something to say.

‘Sophie, I mean—’

Sudden pain interrupted him. A sliver of glass had cut into his left heel and he swore as he hopped on the other leg and tried to pull it out.

Her laughter was shrill and far too loud.

‘God, you’re so fucking pathetic, Jesper, can’t you see it? Pathetic …’

He straightened up, tossing the sliver of glass toward the sink. He gave her one last glance before limping toward the elevator, without saying another word.

‘I’ll do it!’ she screamed after him. ‘I’ll kill myself!’

He pressed the elevator button, resisting the impulse to turn around.

‘I’ll go to the media, do you hear me, little Jeppe!’ She carried on yelling as the elevator doors opened. ‘I’ll tell them everything! Everything, yeah? You’re finished, you’re whole fucking family’s finished! I’m going to—’

Her voice rose to a falsetto as the doors cut her off mid-sentence. He heard running footsteps, then the sound of her fists on the elevator doors. He pressed the button for the garage several times, but it wouldn’t light up. The hammering went on, growing louder and echoing off the metal walls of the elevator.

Boom, boom, boom, boom …

He kept jabbing at the button, until eventually the little light behind it came on. Then he covered his ears with his hands and the elevator slowly nudged its way down toward the basement.

Atif took a deep breath and then looked up. The night sky was so different here compared to Sweden. Higher, clearer somehow. Yet at the same time it also felt strangely closer. But of course that wasn’t true. Obviously the sky and the stars were exactly the same, it was just that he was looking at them from a different place. A distance of three and a half thousand kilometres had simply given him a different perspective on things. And now he was going to have to switch perspective again.

‘Something’s happened, Mum,’ he said, without looking away.

She didn’t answer; she hardly ever did. She just sat still in her wheelchair with a blanket over her thin legs as she looked at the stars. But Atif knew she was listening. She really ought to have gone to bed a long time ago. But on starry nights like this the nurses let her stay up. They knew it made her calmer.

He took a deep breath. Time to spit it out.

‘I have to go back to Sweden. It’s to do with Adnan,’ he went on. He tried to force his mouth to form the words. But to his surprise his mother spoke instead.

‘A-Adnan …’ Her voice was weak, thin, almost like a child’s. ‘Adnan isn’t home from school yet.’

Atif opened his mouth again. Say it, get it over and done with. Tell her what’s happened. But he hesitated a few seconds too long. One of the nurses was heading toward them across the cracked paving.

‘Adnan’s a good boy,’ his mother went on. ‘He’s got a good head for learning, he could be anything he likes. An engineer, or a doctor. You must help him, make sure he doesn’t end up like, like …’ She fell silent and looked up at the night sky. Atif bit his lip.

‘It’s time for bed now, Mum.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you from Sweden. Khalti will come and see you the day after tomorrow. She says she’ll bring some of those dates you like.’

His mother nodded distantly. Her gaze was fixed on the stars again. Atif straightened up and began to walk away. He’d tell her when he got back. That would have to do.

‘You’ve got a good son, to come and see you so often, Dalia,’ she heard the nurse say. ‘You must be very proud of him.’

Atif quickened his pace. And tried to convince himself that it was the distance that meant he couldn’t hear her reply.

Jesper Stenberg limped toward his car, got in, and then sat behind the wheel for a few moments. His hands were shaking, and his left shoe felt warm and wet.

Fucking psycho bitch. Why the hell hadn’t he stuck to the plan, said what he had to say and then left? Fucking her and then dumping her wasn’t a very smart thing to do. Not to mention that stupid remark about the private clinic in Switzerland, a subject he should have avoided at all costs. But, as usual, Sophie had managed to unsettle him. To get beneath the skin of his bespoke self-confident image.

Stenberg took a few deep breaths as he tried to pull himself together. It was only just ten o’clock. Karolina wouldn’t be home before two. Plenty of time to go home, patch himself up, then settle back on the sofa with a whiskey and do his best to forget this sordid little episode. He was pretty good at that. Forgetting, leaving things behind, and setting off toward new goals.

He started the engine and slid the car out of its parking space. The pain in his left foot had turned into a dull throb. At the exit he stopped at the barrier. His pass card was in one of the inside pockets of his wallet, an anonymous white plastic card, obviously not issued in his name. He put the gearshift in neutral and opened the window. The Eco-Drive function instantly shut off the big engine and everything went silent. In the distance he could hear the garage’s ventilation system. A dull, ominous sound that made him feel badly ill at ease. The feeling came out of nowhere, and for a few seconds it took over his whole being and made his hands shake.

He had to get out of there, right away!

Stenberg touched his wallet to the card reader. The machine made a vague clicking sound. But the barrier didn’t move.

Cannot read card.

He swore silently to himself and tried again. ‘Come on, come on …’

He thought he could hear a noise, something that sounded like a distant scream, and glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. Everything seemed okay behind him. The sound must have come from out in the street.

The barrier started to move, slowly and jerkily. Just a few centimetres at a time, as if it didn’t really want to let him go.

Stenberg turned the stereo on and tried to find something to lift his mood. The intro kicked in and the stereo began to count the seconds.

0.01.

0.02.

0.03.

As soon as the gap under the barrier was big enough he set the car rolling. Relief radiated through his body. He slowed down just before the ramp reached street level. His hands were still shaking, making it hard for him to fasten his seat belt.

The music stopped abruptly, making Stenberg raise his head. The timer had stopped but the play symbol was still illuminated. Odd. Something white fluttered at the corner of his eye, hovering in the air just above the hood of the car.

A plastic bag, he found himself thinking. But the object was far too large. The stereo was still silent, the time on the display static. And all of a sudden Stenberg realized what was happening. He realized where the car was, and what the large, white, fluttering object in the air actually was.

He shut his eyes, clutched the steering wheel, and felt an icy chill spread from his stomach and up through his chest. The timer on the stereo suddenly came back to life and the music carried on. It was only drowned out by the sound of Sophie Thorning’s body as it thudded into the hood of the car.

1

Atif leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. In spite of the snow and cold outside, the air in the windowless little room felt stuffy. The smell of burned coffee, various bodily excretions, and general hopelessness was very familiar. You could probably find the same thing in police stations all over the world.

He was hungry, and his neck and shoulders were stiff after the long journey. He hated flying, hated putting his life in other people’s hands.

‘Name?’ the policeman sitting opposite him asked.

‘It says in there.’ Atif nodded toward the red passport on the table between them. The policeman, a fleshy little man in his sixties with thinning hair, who had introduced himself as Bengtsson, didn’t reply. In fact he didn’t even look up, just went on leafing through the folder he had in his lap.

Atif sighed.

‘Atif Mohammed Kassab,’ he said.

‘Age?’

‘I’m forty-six, born June nineteenth. Midsummer’s Eve …’ He wasn’t really sure why he added this last remark. But the policeman looked up at last.

‘What?’

‘June nineteenth,’ Atif said. It had been several years since he had last spoken Swedish. The words felt clumsy, his pronunciation seemed out of synch, like all the dubbed films on television back home. ‘Once every seven years it’s Midsummer’s Eve.’

The policeman stared at him through his small reading glasses. The smell of polyester, sweat, and coffee breath was slowly creeping across the table. Atif sighed again.

‘Okay, Bengtsson, it’s been over an hour since you stopped me at passport control. I flew in from Iraq so you suspect my passport is fake, or that it’s genuine but not mine.’

He paused, thinking how much he’d like a hamburger right now. The look on the policeman’s face remained impassive.

‘I’m tired and hungry, so maybe we could do the quick version?’ Atif went on. His voice felt less out of synch already, the words coming more easily.

‘My name is Atif Kassab, and I was born in Iraq. My dad died when I was little and my mum brought me to Sweden. She got married again, to a relative. When I was twelve he went off to the USA, leaving me, Mum, and my newborn younger brother. But by then at least we were Swedish citizens so we didn’t get thrown out.’

‘So you say.’ The policeman was looking down at his file again. ‘According to the National ID database, Atif Mohammed Kassab has emigrated.’

‘That’s right. About seven years ago,’ Atif said.

‘And since then you’ve been living …?’ Bengtsson raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘In Iraq.’

‘Where in Iraq?’

Atif frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

The policeman slowly raised one hand and took off his glasses.

‘Because the Atif Mohammed Kassab who you claim to be has a pretty impressive criminal record.’ He gestured toward the file with his glasses.

‘And?’ Atif shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well, if you really are Atif Mohammed Kassab, it’s in the interests of the police to find out a bit more about you. Where you’ve been living, what you’ve been doing, whom you’ve spent time with.’

‘I’ve got a Swedish passport, I’m a Swedish citizen. I’m not obliged to say a fu—’ Atif interrupted himself midsentence and pinched the top of his nose. It was almost eleven o’clock in the evening now. Almost ten hours since he last had any proper food.

‘If we suspect that there’s anything funny going on, we can put you on the next plane back to Iraq. There’s a flight first thing tomorrow morning.’

The fat little policeman clasped his hands together behind his neck and slowly stretched. The sweat stains under his arms were clearly visible on his shirt.

‘Or we could lock you in a cell for a few days,’ he went on. ‘While we compare your fingerprints with the database. That sort of thing can take a while, obviously.’ The policeman grinned.

Atif was on the point of saying something but thought better of it. That last threat was probably a bluff. Even if the fat little cop still doubted that his passport was genuine, he must have realized by now that Atif wasn’t trying to sneak into the country illegally. But, on the other hand, he had no wish to end up in a cell. Besides, he had an appointment to keep.

Atif took a deep breath. This whole contest in who could piss farthest was actually pretty pointless. He had nothing to lose by cooperating. Being awkward was mostly just a reflex. But things were different now. He was older, wiser. Besides, he really wanted that hamburger. A supersize meal with loads of fries and a large Coke with ice.

‘Najaf,’ he said. ‘It’s in western Iraq. That’s where my family’s from. Mum got sick and wanted to move back home. I went as well, to help her, and then I stayed on.’ He shrugged slightly and decided to stop at that. The policeman nodded almost imperceptibly and jotted something down in his file.

‘And what has someone like you been doing with his time down there …?’

Atif paused a couple of seconds, thought about lying but changed his mind. Someone like you … He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket and waited until the policeman looked up.

‘I’m a police officer,’ he said as he opened the leather wallet containing his ID card and little metal badge and put it on the table.

For once, Detective Inspector Kenneth Bengtsson wasn’t sure what to think. His colleague at the passport desk had sounded one hundred percent certain when he handed the case over. A fake passport, well made, probably a real one with the photograph replaced. The fact that the passport’s original owner turned out to be a real troublemaker seemed to support the theory. A genuine Swedish passport was worth several thousand kronor if you had the right contacts. And all the information they had indicated that Atif Kassab had plenty of the right contacts.

But the man claiming to be Kassab wasn’t a typical illegal immigrant with the usual staccato sentences learned by rote. This man’s Swedish was as good as his. A bit rusty, maybe, as if he hadn’t used it for a while, but still.