Jens Lapidus - Never Fuck Up

Hägertröm squeezed his eyes shut. Looked pained. He probably knew that Thomas was right. Still he said, “But come on, Andrén. We’ve been doing this on the side long enough. We have to get back on the formal route now. Do the right things in the right way. Or else it could all go to shit. Right?”

Thomas looked at him for a moment. “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t think too highly of cops who work against other cops. People like that aren’t real cops in my eyes.”

Hägerström stared back at him.

Thomas went on, “What’s more, you’re a little know-it-all who thinks a bit too highly of yourself. You bitch about irrelevant stuff, you don’t have any sense of comradeship, and I’m not sure you could even handle a SIG Sauer.”

Hägerström continued to stare back at him.

“But, on the other hand,” Thomas made a dramatic pause, “you’re the best, sharpest, quickest cop I’ve ever met. You’ve been loyal to this private investigation we’re running. You’ve been loyal to me despite everything that’s happened. You’re funny, I laugh at every joke you make. You’re thoughtful and brave. I can’t help it—I like you a lot.”

Continued silence.

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Thomas said. “You have significantly more to lose than I do. I’ve already put myself outside the system. I just have myself to blame while you might lose your job. And practically speaking, there’s one other thing. You’d never be let in there, at that party. But I might be. I’m going to finish this thing. Tonight. With or without you.”

Hägerström rose. Didn’t say anything. Thomas tried to read his facial expression. Hägerström walked toward the hallway. Turned around. “Well, this is what I was thinking. My night is going to consist of me going home and changing, then going to the Half Way Inn and hanging out there for the rest of the night. Drinking lots of beer and maybe a few glasses of champagne. At around two o’clock, I’ll probably be so drunk that I’ll already have forgotten about midnight, ringing in the New Year, all that. What do I have to lose? That’s not a New Year’s Eve worth remembering. I’ll come with you. You’re not doing anything without me.”

They were driving on the road out to Dalarö, each in his own car. Hardly any traffic. Almost felt cozy. The warm air and the heating in the seat. The sound of the car’s engine was like a blanket of security in the background. The light from the headlights was reflected in the snowdrifts that edged the road like high banks. Hägerström was in front; he’d entered the address into his GPS. Thomas didn’t think they had the same things on their minds.

He’d called Åsa again and told her he had to work all night. She became sadder this time, started crying, questioned how it was all going to work when Sander came. Would Thomas take his role as a parent seriously? Did he understand what it meant to have a family? What did he value in life? He didn’t have any answers. He couldn’t tell her anything about what was happening right now.

Who was he, really? A mix of police mentality and self-righteousness was deeply rooted in him. At the same time, he’d changed over the last few months. Seen, close up, the people he usually worked to nail. Felt a kind of kinship with them. There was a life, a moral code, on the shady side of society, too. They were people he could become close to. They made choices based on what was the right thing to do in their situations. Thomas’d crossed the line. The step he’d taken—a cardinal sin. But there, in the valley of death, among the people he used to call the dregs, the rabble, he’d found people who felt like friends. And if they could be his friends and if their choices were the right choices—then who was he, as a police officer?

He tried to dismiss the thoughts. Concluded to himself: Tonight, it was different.

Forty minutes later, Hägerström’s car stopped by a dark forest road out on Smådalarö. Thomas parked behind him. Remained sitting in the car and called Hägerström. They decided that Hägerström would park his car on the forest road. Thomas would try to make his way in. They put all their chips on this one hand.

He drove slowly along the road until he saw the driveway. There was a full moon. A black metal gate. He stopped the car ten yards from the sign. Waited. Next to the gate was a camera and a large sign: PRIVATE PROPERTY. PROTECTED BY G4S.

Fifteen minutes later, a car pulled up. Not just any car: a limousine. Felt weird: a stretch limo à la Las Vegas on a winter road in the countryside. The car pulled up to the gate. Thomas couldn’t see exactly what was happening. After thirty seconds, the gates slid open. The car rolled through.

Thomas thought about the man outside his house and the guy who’d attacked him in the garage. Maybe it was the same person. He thought about Cederholm alias Rantzell, Ballénius, and Ballénius’s daughter. The cops who used to feel like his friends: Ljunggren and Hannu Lindberg. In his mind’s eye he saw Adamsson, the forensic pathologist Bengt Gantz, Jonas Nilsson. It’d been a long journey leading up to the situation he was facing now. Still, it almost felt like everything’d been going according to some predetermined plan.

He put the car in first gear. Drove slowly up to the gate. The car’s exhaust billowed out behind him like a minor heating plant. He stopped. Rolled down the window. Looked into the surveillance camera. A voice from the speakers: “Good evening. How may we help you?”

“My name is Thomas Andrén, let me in please.”

A faint buzz on the other end of the line.

“Tell Ratko, Bogdan, or whoever else you’ve got in there right now that I’m supposed to work tonight.”

A rustling sound in the microphone, then a different voice. “Hey there, Thomas. I didn’t know you were working. No one informed me.” It was Bogdan, a guy who usually helped out at the club.

The gates opened.

He drove through.

Outdoor lights were hidden in the bushes along the road and illuminated the snow on the branches of the trees. A hundred or so yards, maybe, then the forest opened up. An enormous three-story house, big windows, pillars by the entrance. Probably twenty cars parked outside. The limousine was turning around. A few of the rooms were lit up. He could hear faint sounds. Thomas parked next to a black Audi Q7. Walked up to the house. Thought, What is this insane thing I’ve gotten myself into?

He didn’t have time to ring the doorbell. The door slid open. A guy he recognized but didn’t know the name of opened it. Huge Yugo. Had been down at the club with Ratko once or twice. Smiled. “Hey there, copper. I didn’t know you were working tonight. Ratko and Bogdan are around here somewhere. Do you need to talk to them?”

Thomas responded politely that he was there to work. He didn’t need to see Ratko or Bogdan. He knew the drill.

He walked in. A hallway. There was a real Persian carpet on the floor. Yards and yards of sconces, paintings, and tapestries along the walls. The room was bigger than the entire downstairs of his and Åsa’s house in Tallkrogen. At the other end of the entrance hall: a number of men—they must’ve come in limousines. They were all dressed in tuxes. Loud, hungry for a ho-down. In front of them—it looked like a cloakroom. Coats were hanging in rows. A girl was in the process of taking them. Thomas should’ve been able to guess what this would all be like, but he was still surprised. Mini-mini-miniskirt, the lower part of her ass cheeks visible. Thigh-high stockings that ended in an edge of lace a ways up on her leg, a provocative show of skin, taut corset, black high-heeled shoes. Her top didn’t look cheap, but it was low cut enough for her breasts to be a perfect target for the men’s eyes. Like the strippers at the club, but even more spruced up somehow.