Anders Roslund - Box 21 aka The Vault

The rest of our life together.

Ewert had thought exactly that, said it too.

A wind had started to blow. He buttoned his jacket while they walked. I’ve got them here, he thought. In my inside pocket – the photographs we got from the Lithuanian police.

Lena, I have that bloody video too. The one that will soon disappear. There’s so much that you must never know.

‘I have a photo.’

‘A photo?’

‘Yes.’

He unbuttoned enough to get the envelope out and handed over a black-and-white photograph of a girl.

The girl was smiling. Her long blonde hair was pulled back and held with a ribbon tied into a bow.

‘That’s her. Lydia Grajauskas. She was twenty. From Klaipeda. The picture was taken about three years ago. She disappeared soon afterwards.’

Lena stood very still, fingering the photo, touching the face as if seeking something she could recognise.

‘She’s pretty.’

Lena wanted to say more, he could sense it, but she only looked at the picture of the girl who had killed the most important person in her life.

She said nothing.

Sven had got home late last night.

Anita had been waiting for him in the kitchen when he arrived a little before midnight, just as she said she would. He held her tight and then went to fetch a silver candelabra they were both very fond of. He lit the white candles and they looked at each other. They drank wine and ate half the birthday cake by candlelight, celebrating the start of his forty-second year.

Later he went upstairs to see Jonas, kissed him on the forehead and instantly regretted it when the boy woke and seemed confused, mumbling something inaudible. Sven stayed by his bedside, gently caressing his cheek, until Jonas fell asleep again. He found Anita in the bathroom and told her how lovely she was. He held her hand hard when they went to bed. She was naked, and afterwards they went to sleep in each other’s arms.

He had woken early.

Their little house was very quiet when he left.

He realised he was being a bit keen – they had a photo identification after all – but as soon as he got to his office he had contacted Lisa Öhrström and asked her to come in for an identity parade that morning. He was aware that it would be seen as unprofessional to put a witness through two identifications, but the pressure was on and he wanted to make sure. They needed all they could get to persuade the prosecutor, Еgestam, that he must not let Lang go free, not this time.

Which was why he was furious when he left Dr Öhrström by the one-way window that separated her from the ten men who were lined up with numbers on their chests. He tried not to show it, because he knew in his heart of hearts that she was not to blame. If anything, she was a victim too, terrified by the death threats. But he didn’t manage to control himself. He became sarcastic and condescending.

He hurried out, made his way to the Kronoberg interview room.

Lang would not be released.

Roadworks somewhere between Skдrholmen and Fruдngen made Ewert bang the dashboard and shout out loud. He was in a hurry to get back, would pass by Kronoberg and the City Police Building to run a quick errand, then walk over to the St Erik’s Street restaurant where he had just arranged to meet Sven for lunch.

He knew he wasn’t any good. He had stood with his arm around Lena and tried to say the kind of things he felt he ought to say, all the while feeling useless. He wasn’t any good at hugging or comforting people; he never had been. While the wind blew across the fields, Lena had stood with the photo of the Lithuanian girl clutched in her hand, until he gently made her give it back.

Why had he gone to see her? All he had done was intrude into her grief. Was it because he missed Bengt? Because there was nobody else for her just now? Or because he himself had nobody?

The cars crawled ahead, three lanes merged into one. The minutes dripped off his forehead. He would be late. He had no choice.

He had to get to the office electronics store before lunch.

Sven would have to wait.

The interview room was as bleak as ever.

When Sven got there he was out of breath, his anger had propelled him through the building at an unnecessary speed. Lang was sitting at the table. He was smoking and didn’t even look up.

Sven Sundkvist, interview leader (IL): You visited Hilding Oldйus, who was in one of the medical wards at the Söder Hospital, immediately before he died from the injuries inflicted on him.

Jochum Lang (JL): That’s what you say.

IL: We have a witness.

JL: Really, Sundkvist? That’s good news. You could bring them here and set up an identity parade.

IL: The witness showed you to the ward where Oldйus was.

JL: You know what I mean, don’t you? Like, they come along and look at me and nine other blokes through a one-way window. Fucking brilliant. You do it, Sundkvist.

Sven was raging inside. The man opposite him was trying to make him lose control and was close to succeeding. Must keep calm, must ask my questions and no matter what he says, just keep asking until I get what I want.

He saw that Jochum Lang was smiling. His lawyer would already have informed him that the parade had been a washout. Lawyers were quick off the mark with that kind of thing. Never mind, no way was this ruthless thug going to leave, not yet.

He was going to answer the questions again and sooner or later he would say more than he wanted to, enough to satisfy Еgestam that he should keep the suspect locked up and carry on with his preliminary investigation.

IL: We picked you up in a BMW that was parked illegally at the hospital entrance.

JL: Busy man, aren’t you? No idea you did parking fines as well.

IL: Why were you sitting in the passenger seat of a car left inside the cordoned-off area?

JL: I can sit wherever I fucking like.

IL: We won’t let you go this time.

JL: Sundkvist, get off my back. You’d better return me to the fucking cells! Or else I might do something that I could be charged for.

It was ten minutes past twelve when Ewert parked outside the police building. Sven was probably waiting impatiently in the restaurant by now.

He hurried inside, down the corridor leading to his room, and stopped near the coffee machine. Not for a coffee, though; he went into the storeroom, which was next to it, just where Hermansson had said.

Brown cardboard boxes containing blank videocassettes were stacked on shelves at the back of the stale-smelling little room. He took one out, tore off the plastic cover and checked that it looked exactly like all other videotapes. Then he went to his office, picked up Grajauskas’s carrier bag and placed the new video in it.

Lena’s shame? Or hers?

Lena was alive. She was dead .

Grajauskas’s true story did not exist any more. Well, it did, deep down in the water off Slagsta beach, where he had stopped on the way back from Eriksberg. The burden of shame is so much heavier when you’re alive.

Ewert yawned and swung the carrier bag with the new videotape in it a couple of times. Then he put it back in the box with the rest of her belongings.

Ewert found a table in one of the furthest, darkest corners, where he was unlikely to be seen by someone who had just stepped inside for a look. What a dump, he thought, this small restaurant on the busy corner of St Erik’s Street and Fleming Street, quite a walk from Kronoberg. Too bad. He had no choice. Reporters had been chasing him all over the Kungsholmen area and knew where he usually went for lunch. He had been on his way there when he spotted a few hacks already buzzing about outside.

He wouldn’t give them any answers. He’d give them nothing. The police press officers could work for their wages, they could explain as little as possible at one of those press conferences where everybody shouted at the same time.