Anders Roslund - Box 21 aka The Vault

He turned to face Grens again.

‘What you’re telling me is… nothing. I don’t know what it is, I can’t put my finger on it, Ewert – I think that’s the first time I’ve called you that, Ewert – but what are you doing? I am aware that you’re investigating the murder of your best friend and understand that it must be hard for you, maybe too hard. I can’t help wondering if it is a good idea. Your grief… you’re grieving, I’m sure, it must hurt.’

Еgestam took a deep breath and jumped in.

‘What I’m trying to say is… do you want to be replaced?’

Ewert Grens rose quickly.

‘You sit here behind your desk with your precious documents, you ambitious little penpusher, but you’d better get this. I was investigating crimes, flesh-and-blood crimes, before your daddy got into your mummy’s knickers. And I’ve not stopped.’

Grens half turned, pointing at the door.

‘Now I’m going off to do exactly that: investigate crimes, that is. Back down there, with the hard men and the whores. Unless there was something else you wanted?’

Lars Еgestam shook his head and watched as the other man left.

Then he sighed. Detective Superintendent Grens seldom failed. It was well known. He simply didn’t make silly mistakes. That was fact, regardless of what you thought about his social skills or ability to communicate.

He trusted Ewert Grens.

He decided to carry on trusting him.

The evening had patiently dislodged those who spent hours of their lives commuting between their suburban homes and city-centre jobs. Stockholm Central Station was quiet now, preparing for the following morning when the commuters would be back, scurrying from one platform to the next.

Sven Sundkvist sat on a seat in the main hall, pointlessly staring at the electronic Departures and Arrivals board. Half an hour earlier he had gone in search of the downstairs storage boxes. He knew of them, of course, lock-ups intended as a service for visitors, but mostly used by the homeless and criminals in need of somewhere to stash belongings, drugs, stolen goods, weapons.

He had located box 21 and then stood in front of it considering what he should do. Would it not be best if he were to forget about having checked the hostages’ statements? No one else would read through them again.

Then he could go home to Anita and Jonas.

Nobody would give it another thought.

Home sweet home. No more of this shit.

As he hovered, he felt the rage come back, the pains in his stomach; it was more than just a feeling now. He remembered the talk with Krantz earlier and how certain the elderly technician had been. He had recorded the find of a used videotape with a broken safety tab.

Now, it was nowhere.

You’re risking thirty-three years of service in the force. I don’t understand you.

That’s why I’m here, standing in front of a locker door in Stockholm Central Station. I have no idea what I will find, what it was Lydia Grajauskas wanted to tell us, only that it will be something I’d rather not know.

It had taken him the best part of a quarter of an hour to persuade the woman inside the cramped left-luggage office that he really was a detective inspector with Homicide and needed her help to examine the contents of one of the boxes.

She had kept shaking her head until he got fed up with arguing and raised his voice to emphasise that it was within his rights to order her to open the locker. When he had added a reminder that it was her duty as a citizen to assist the police, she had reluctantly contacted the station security officer, who held spare keys to the boxes.

When Sven Sundkvist saw the green uniform in the main station entrance, he went to meet the man. He identified himself and they walked together to the lock-ups.

In the heavy bunch of keys, number 21 was indistinguishable.

The door opened easily and the security officer stepped aside to let Sven Sundkvist come closer. Sven peered inside the narrow dark space, divided by two shelves.

There wasn’t much to see.

Two dresses in a plastic bag. A photo album with black-and-white studio photographs of relatives wearing their nicest clothes and nervous smiles. A cigar box full of Swedish paper money in one- or five-hundred kronor notes. He counted quickly. Forty thousand kronor.

The estate of Lydia Grajauskas.

He held on to the metal door. It struck him that her life had been stored in this box, what little past she still had, as well as her stake in the future, her hope, her escape, her sense of existing somewhere other than in that flat, in a real place.

Sven Sundkvist put the things he had found into his briefcase.

Then he reached up to the top shelf and took down a video with a label on the back in Cyrillic script.

She had run after him, across the courtyard, through the hallway and out on to Högalid Street. He stopped there, barefoot and tearful. She loved him and hugged him close and carried him home in her arms, saying his name over and over again. He was Jonathan, her nephew, and what she felt for him must surely be what you feel for your own child.

Lisa Öhrström stroked his hair; she had to go soon. It was late and dark, as dark as it could be a few weeks before midsummer; darkness was gently edging into what had been daylight until now. She kissed his cheek. Sanna had already gone to bed. Ylva was there and she met her sister’s eyes before closing the door behind her.

There were so few of them left. Their father was gone, and now Hilding. She had seen it coming, of course, and now there it was, the enveloping loneliness.

She decided to walk. She had been there before and knew the way, across Vдster Bridge, along Norr Mдlarstrand, then through side streets to the City Police building. It would take half an hour or so, not long on a summer’s night. She knew that he usually worked late, he had said so, and he was that sort, one of those who didn’t have anything else. He would sit hunched over the investigation that had to be completed, just as the week before there had been an investigation to complete and next week would bring another one to serve as a reason for not leaving the office.

She phoned to tell him that she was coming. He replied quickly, sounded as if he was expecting her, possibly even certain that she would come.

He met her at the main entrance and led the way along a dark, stale-smelling corridor, his uneven steps slapping and resounding against the walls. Christ, how grim it was. How strange that anyone should choose to work in surroundings like these. She looked at him from behind, broad and overweight, a bald patch on the back of his head, his limping, slightly bent body. How odd that he should seem strong, but he did; at least in this shabby place he radiated the kind of strength that gives a sense of security, the result of having made a choice. Which was what he had done, he had actually chosen to work in this place.

Ewert Grens ushered her into his office and offered her a seat in his visitor’s chair. She looked around and thought it a bleak room. The only things with a personality setting them apart from the dull, mass-produced office furniture were an ancient monster of a ghetto-blaster and a sofa, ugly and sagging, which she felt sure he often slept on.

‘Coffee?’

He didn’t really mean it, but knew that he should ask.

‘No thank you. I’m not here to drink coffee.’

‘I guessed not. Anyway.’

He raised a plastic cup half full of what looked like black coffee from a machine and drank the lot.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘You don’t seem surprised. To see me.’

‘I’m not surprised. But I am pleased.’

Lisa Öhrström realised that what had come over her, what was tugging at her mind, was tiredness. She had been so tense. Now she relaxed as much as she dared to and the recent past weighed heavily on her.