Table of Contents 17 страница

Jim nodded. She turned around and disappeared for a while, then came back without the boxes and without the pistol. From behind her, someone exclaimed, “That isn’t a Hawaiian! ” and someone else laughed: “You don’t know a damn thing about Hawaiians! ” Laughed. Then came the sound of idle chatter between strangers who were no longer quite that. It’s probably hard to say precisely what would be normal in a hostage drama, but this certainly wasn’t it. Jim looked intently at the bank robber.

“Can I ask, how did you get caught up in all this? ”

The bank robber, now unarmed, took such a deep breath that she doubled in size, then she became smaller than ever.

“I don’t know where to start. ”

Then Jim did something deeply unprofessional. He reached out his hand and wiped a tear from the bank robber’s cheek.

“My wife had a joke she used to like. How do you eat an elephant? ”

“I don’t know. ”

“A bit at a time. ”

She smiled.

“My kids would have liked that. They have a terrible sense of humor. ”

Jim put his hands in his pockets and sat down heavily on the landing next to the door. The bank robber hesitated for a moment, then sat down with her legs crossed. Jim smiled.

“My wife had a terrible sense of humor as well. She liked laughing and causing trouble. The older she got, the more trouble she was. She always told me I was too nice. That’s a terrible thing to be told by a priest, isn’t it? ”

The bank robber laughed quietly. Then nodded.

“Who did she used to cause trouble with? ”

“Everyone. The church, the parish, politicians, people who believed in God, people who didn’t believe in God… she made it her job to defend the weakest: the homeless, migrants, even criminals. Because somewhere in the Bible Jesus says something like: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was homeless and you looked after me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison and you visited me. ’ And then He says something like, what we do for the weakest among us, we also do for Him. And she took everything so damn literally, my wife. That’s why she kept causing trouble. ”

“Has she passed away? ”

“Yes. ”

“I’m sorry. ”

He nodded gratefully. It’s so odd, he thought, that still, after all this time, it feels so incomprehensible that she isn’t here. That his heart hasn’t gotten used to the fact that no giggling idiot is going to stick her finger in his mouth when he yawns, or pour flour in his pillowcase just as he’s about to go to bed. No one to argue with him. Love him. There’s no getting used to the grammar of it all. He smiled sadly and said: “Now your turn. ”

“At what? ” the bank robber said.

“Telling your story. About how you ended up here. ”

“How long a story do you want? ”

“As long as you like. One bit at a time. ”

Which was a nice thing to say. So the bank robber told him.

“My husband left me. Well, he kicked me out, actually. He’d been having an affair with my boss. They fell in love. They moved in together, in our apartment, because it was only in his name. Everything happened so quickly, and I didn’t want to make a fuss or cause… chaos. For the children’s sake. ”

Jim nodded slowly. He looked at her ring and toyed with his own. There’s nothing harder to remove.

“Girls or boys? ”

“Girls. ”

“I’ve got one of each. ”

“I… someone needs to… I don’t want them to…”

“Where are they now? ”

“With their dad. I was supposed to pick them up tonight. We were going to celebrate New Year together. But now… I…”

She trailed off. Jim nodded thoughtfully.

“What did you need the money from the bank robbery for? ”

The desperation on her face revealed the chaos in her heart as she said: “To pay the rent. I needed six thousand five hundred. My husband’s lawyer was threatening to take the girls away from me if I didn’t have anywhere to live. ”

Jim held on to the handrail to stop himself collapsing as his heart broke. Empathy is like vertigo. Six thousand five hundred, because she thought she’d lose her children otherwise. Her children.

“There are rules, legislation, no one can just take your children away from you simply because…, ” he began, then thought better of it and said: “But now they can… now you’ve held up a bank and…” His voice almost gave out as he whispered: “You poor child, what have you got yourself mixed up in? ”

The woman had to force her tongue to move, her lips to open, as her smallest muscles seemed to have almost given up.

“I… I’m an idiot. I know, I know, I know. I didn’t want to cause any trouble with my husband, I didn’t want to expose the girls to that, I thought I might be able to sort it all out for myself. But all I’ve done is create chaos. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault. I’m ready to give up now, I’ll let all the hostages go, I promise, the pistol’s still in there, it isn’t even real…”

Jim couldn’t help thinking that was one hell of a reason to rob a bank: because you’re scared of conflict. He tried to see her as a criminal, tried to look at her without seeing his daughter, and failed at both.

“Even if you release the hostages and give up, you’ll still end up in prison. Even if the pistol isn’t real, ” he said mournfully, and of course he’d been a police officer long enough to have seen that it was. He knew she wouldn’t stand a chance, no matter how sympathetic any decent person might feel about her situation. You’re not allowed to rob banks, you’re not allowed to run around with firearms, and we can’t let criminals like that go unpunished if we catch them. So Jim concluded there and then that the only way she wouldn’t get punished was not to do that. Not to catch her.

He looked around in the stairwell. On the door of the apartment behind the bank robber was a real estate agent’s sign bearing the text: For sale! HOUSE TRICKS Real Estate Agency! HOW’S TRICKS? Jim stared at it for a while, ransacking his memory.

“That’s odd, ” he finally said.

“What is? ” the bank robber wondered.

“House Tricks Real Estate Agency. That’s a fairly… silly name. ”

“Maybe, ” the bank robber nodded, not having given it much thought before then.

Jim rubbed his nose.

“It might just be a coincidence, but I spoke to the couple who own the neighboring apartment on the phone a little while ago. They’re splitting up. Because one of them likes coriander, and the other also likes coriander, but not quite as much, but apparently that’s enough of a reason if you’re young and are on the Internet. ”

The corners of the bank robber’s mouth tried to form a smile.

“No one wants to be bored anymore. ”

She was thinking that the worst thing of all, the most impossible thing to reconcile herself to emotionally, was the fact that she still loved her husband. Every blood vessel felt like it was exploding every time that realization struck her. That she couldn’t stop loving him, not even after everything he’d done, not even then could she stop herself wondering if it had all been her fault. Maybe she wasn’t enough fun—maybe it’s unreasonable to expect someone to stay with you if you’re not fun.

“No, that’s just it! Everything has to be like the first flush of infatuation for youngsters, nothing can be mundane, they’ve got the attention span of a kitten with a glittery rubber ball, ” Jim agreed, suddenly excited, and went on: “So they’re separating and selling the apartment. One of them couldn’t remember what the real estate agent’s name was, just that it was a silly name. And you know what? House Tricks Real Estate Agency—that’s a really silly name! ”

He pointed at the sign on the door of the apartment where the real estate agent was. Then at the door opposite. It was too small a town to have many estate agencies with silly names. It wasn’t even big enough to have more than one hairdressing salon called The Upper Cut.

“Sorry, I don’t understand the significance, ” the bank robber said.

Jim scratched his stubble.

“I was just thinking… is the real estate agent in there with you? ”

The bank robber nodded.

“Yes, she’s driving everyone mad. When I went in with the pizzas just now she was making Roger stand near the balcony, then she went and stood at the other end of the apartment, then she threw her keys to him so he could see how far you could throw something because it’s all open plan. ”

“How did that go? ”

“Roger ducked. The window very nearly broke, ” the bank robber smiled. It was a friendly smile, Jim thought. Not the sort that wants to hurt anyone. He looked at the sign again.

“I don’t know… this might be… but if it is the same real estate agent who’s going to sell the neighboring apartment, then maybe she’s got the keys to that one with her, and then…”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

“What do you mean? ” the bank robber said.

Jim pulled himself together, stood up, and cleared his throat.

“What I mean is that if the real estate agent is also selling the next apartment, and if she’s got the keys with her, then perhaps you could hide in there. When the other police officers come up here, they won’t break open all the doors to the other apartments to look for you, not right away, at least. ”

“Why not? ”

Jim shrugged. “Because we’re not that good. Everyone will be concentrating on getting the hostages out first, and if you tell them to close the door behind them, then everyone will assume that the bank robber… you… are still in the apartment. This apartment. Then, once we’ve smashed the door in and discovered you’re not there, we can’t just smash the other doors in willy-nilly, that would cause a huge stink. Bureaucracy, you know. We’ll have to take the hostages to the station first and get witness statements from them and, I don’t know… you might be able to come up with a way of getting out. And you know what? If anyone were to find you in the other apartment, you can always pretend you live there! We’ve been assuming that the bank robber is a man right from the start. ”

The bank robber was still wide-eyed and uncomprehending.

“Why? ” she asked again.

“Because women don’t normally do… this sort of thing, ” Jim said, as diplomatically as he could.

She shook her head.

“No, I mean, why? Why are you doing this for me? You’re a police officer! I mean, you’re not supposed to do this sort of thing for me! ”

Jim nodded feebly. He rubbed his hands on his pants, then his wrists across his brow.

“My wife used to quote some guy who said… what was it? He said that even if he knew that the world was going to hell tomorrow, he’d plant an apple tree today. ”

“That’s lovely, ” the bank robber whispered.

Jim nodded. He wiped the back of his hand over his eyes.

“I don’t want to… catch you. I know you’ve made a big mistake here, but… that sort of thing happens. ”

“Thank you. ”

“You need to go in and ask the real estate agent if she’s got the keys to the other apartment. Because it won’t be long before my son loses patience and comes storming in here, and then…”

The bank robber blinked several times.

“Sorry? Your son? ”

“He’s a police officer, too. He’ll be the first one through the door. ”

The bank robber felt her throat tighten and her voice faltered.

“He sounds brave. ”

“He had a brave mom. She would have robbed banks for his sake, if she’d had to. I didn’t even believe in God when we met. She was beautiful, I wasn’t. She could dance, I could barely stay on my feet. Back when we first met, the way we thought about our work was probably all we had in common. The fact that we save those we can. ”

“I don’t know if I deserve to be saved, ” the bank robber whispered.

Jim just nodded, looked her in the eye, an honest, decent man about to do something that went against the principles of a profession he’s belonged to all his adult life.

“Come and find me in ten years’ time and tell me if I was wrong. ”

He turned to go. She hesitated, swallowed hard, then called: “Wait! ”

“Yes? ”

“Can I… Is it too late to make a demand in exchange for releasing the hostages? ”

“What the hell…? ”

He raised his eyebrows, then frowned, at first taken aback, then almost annoyed. The bank robber was trying to make her mind up.

“Fireworks, ” she eventually said. “There’s an old lady in here who always used to watch the fireworks with her husband. He’s dead now. I’ve been holding her hostage all day. I’d like to give her some fireworks. ”

Jim grinned. Nodded.

Then he went downstairs and lied to his son.

The bank robber went back inside the apartment. There was blood on the floor, but the fire was crackling in the hearth. Ro was sitting on the sofa eating pizza and making Julia laugh. Roger and the real estate agent were arguing about the measurements on the plan, not because Roger was thinking about buying the apartment anymore, but because “it’s pretty damn important that you’re given the correct information. ” Zara and Lennart were standing by the window. Zara was eating a slice of pizza, and Lennart was having fun watching the expression of disgust on her face. It didn’t look as if she liked him, it really didn’t, but she didn’t seem to hate him, either. He in turn seemed to think she was wonderful.

Anna-Lena was standing on her own, holding a plate in one hand, but the pizza on it was untouched and going cold. Naturally it was Julia who spotted her and got up from the sofa. She went over and asked: “Are you okay, Anna-Lena? ”

Anna-Lena looked over at Roger. They still hadn’t talked since the rabbit emerged from the bathroom.

“Yes, ” she lied.

Julia took hold of her arm, encouragingly rather than to comfort her.

“I don’t exactly know what you think you’ve done wrong, but the fact that you hired Lennart all those times so that Roger would feel like a winner is one of the daftest, weirdest, most romantic things I’ve ever heard! ”

Anna-Lena prodded the pizza on her plate tentatively.

“Roger should have had a chance at being promoted. I always thought, next year it’ll be his turn. But time goes faster than you think, all those years all at once. Sometimes I think that when you live together for a very long time, and have children together, life is a bit like climbing trees. Up and down, up and down, you try to cope with everything, be good, you climb and climb and climb, and you hardly ever see each other along the way. You don’t notice that when you’re young, but everything changes when you have children, and sometimes it feels like you hardly ever see the person you married anymore. You’re parents and teammates, first and foremost, and being married slips down the list of priorities. But you… well, you keep climbing trees, and see each other along the way. I always thought that was just the way it is, life, the way it has to be. We just had to get through everything, I thought. And I kept telling myself that the important thing was that we kept climbing the same tree. Because then I thought that sooner or later… and this sounds so pretentious… but I thought that sooner or later we’d end up on the same branch. And then we could sit there holding hands and looking at the view. That’s what I thought we’d be doing when we got old. But time goes quicker than you think. And it never did get to be Roger’s turn. ”

Julia was still holding her arm. Less in encouragement, more to comfort her.

“My mom always says I should never apologize for myself. Never say sorry for being good at something. ”

Anna-Lena took a dubious bite of her pizza, then said with her mouth full: “Wise mom. ”

They stood there in silence.

And then there was a loud bang.

Once. Twice. A few seconds later came the whistling and explosions, so many and so close together that you couldn’t count them. Lennart was standing closest to the window, so he was the one who exclaimed: “Look! Fireworks! ”

Jim had sent a young officer from the station to buy them. He was setting them off from down by the bridge. Lennart, Zara, Julia, Ro, Anna-Lena, Roger, and the real estate agent went out onto the balcony. They stood there watching in amazement. They weren’t pathetic little bangers, either, they were the real thing, different colors, the sort that look like rain, the whole deal. Because, as luck would have it, Jim liked fireworks, too.

The bank robber and Estelle watched them from the kitchen window, arm in arm.

“Knut would have liked this, ” Estelle nodded.

“I hope you like it, too, ” the bank robber managed to say.

“Very much, you sweet child, very much indeed. Thank you! ”

“I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done to you all, ” the bank robber sniffed.

Estelle pouted her lips unhappily.

“Perhaps we could explain everything to the police? Tell them it was all a mistake? ”

“No, I don’t think so. ”

“Perhaps you could escape somehow? Hide somewhere? ”

Estelle smelled of wine. Her pupils were ever so slightly unfocused. The bank robber was about to reply, then realized that the less Estelle knew, the better. Then the old woman wouldn’t have to lie for the bank robber’s sake when she was questioned by the police. So she said: “No, I don’t think that would work. ”

Estelle held her hand. There wasn’t much else she could do. The fireworks were beautiful, Knut would have loved them.

When they were finished the bank robber went into the living room, and the others all came back in from the balcony. The bank robber tried to signal discreetly that she wanted to talk to the real estate agent, but sadly that was impossible given that the real estate agent was busy arguing with Roger about the price Julia and Ro ought to pay for the apartment if they bought it.

“Okay, then! Okay! ” the real estate agent finally snapped. “I can go a bit lower, but only because I have to put the other apartment up for sale in two weeks’ time, and I don’t want that competing with this one! ”

Roger, Julia, and Ro all tilted their heads in such a way that they bumped into one another.

“Which… other apartment? ” Roger asked.

The real estate agent harrumphed, annoyed with herself for having let that slip out.

“The apartment opposite, on the other side of the elevator. I haven’t even put it up on my website yet, because if you sell two apartments at the same time, you get less for both, all good real estate agents know that. The other apartment looks just the same as this one, only with a slightly smaller closet, but for some reason it has excellent mobile reception and that seems to be ridiculously important for people these days. The couple who own it are splitting up, they had a terrible row in my office, they’ve removed all the furniture from the apartment, the only thing left in there is a juicer. And I can quite see why neither of them would want it, because it’s a truly terrible color…”

The real estate agent went on babbling for a long time, but no one was really listening anymore. Roger and Julia looked at each other, then at the bank robber, then at the real estate agent.

“Hang on, you’re saying you’re going to be selling the neighboring apartment as well? The one on the other side of the elevator? And… there’s no one living there at the moment? ” Julia asked, just to be sure.

The real estate agent stopped babbling and started to nod instead. Julia looked at the bank robber, and of course they were both thinking exactly the same thing, a possible solution to all this.

“Have you got the keys to the other apartment? ” Julia asked with a hopeful smile, convinced that this would be a perfect end to the whole thing.

Unfortunately the real estate agent looked back at Julia as if that were a ridiculous question. “Why would I? I’m not even going to start trying to sell it for another two weeks, and do you think I carry people’s keys around just for the fun of it? What sort of real estate agent do you take me for? ”

Roger sighed. Julia sighed, more deeply. The bank robber wasn’t even breathing, just tumbling headlong into the hopelessness inside her.

“I had an affair once! ” Estelle said cheerfully from the other end of the apartment, because she’d found another bottle of wine in the kitchen.

“Not now, Estelle, ” Julia said, but the old woman was insistent. She was slightly drunk, that can’t be denied, because the closet had already provided quite a lot of wine for an elderly lady.

“I had an affair once! ” she repeated, with her eyes fixed on the bank robber’s, and the bank robber suddenly felt nervous about the possible details that might slip out in a story that started like that. Estelle waved the wine bottle and went on: “He loved books, and so did I, but my husband didn’t. Knut liked music. I suppose music’s all right, but it’s not the same, is it? ”

The bank robber shook her head politely.

“No. I like books, too. ”

“I thought as much from looking at you! As if you understand that people need fairy tales as well, not just narrative. I’ve liked you from the moment you came in here, you know. You messed things up a bit, with the pistol and all that, but who hasn’t messed things up at one time or another? All interesting people have done something really stupid at least once! For instance, I had an affair, behind Knut’s back, with a man who loved books, just like me. Whenever I read anything now I think of the pair of them, because he gave me a key, and I never told Knut that I kept it. ”

“Please, Estelle, we’re trying to…, ” Julia said, but Estelle ignored her. She ran one hand along the bookcase. One of the last times she met her neighbor in the elevator he gave her a very thick book, written by a man. He had underlined one sentence, several hundred pages in: We are asleep until we fall in love. Estelle gave him a book in exchange, one written by a woman, so it didn’t need hundreds of pages to say things. Close to the start Estelle had underlined: Love is wanting you to exist.

Her fingers traced the spines of the books on the shelf, as if she were dreaming, not as if she were looking. A book fell out from the middle of a row, not as if it had done so on purpose, but simply because her fingernails happened to touch its spine. It landed on the floor and fell open a few pages in. The key that fell out bounced off the pages, then landed on the parquet floor with a tinkling sound.

Estelle’s chest was rising and falling breathlessly and her voice may have been slurred but her eyes were crystal clear when she said: “When Knut fell ill we signed the apartment over to our daughter. I thought she might want to move in here with her children, but that was obviously a silly idea. They didn’t want to live here. They’ve got their own lives, in a place of their own. Since then there’s only been me here, and… well, you can see… it’s too big for me. This isn’t a sensible apartment for a single person. So in the end my daughter said we ought to sell it and buy something smaller for me, something easier to look after, she said. So I called several different real estate agents and obviously they all said that it wasn’t usual to hold a viewing so close to New Year, but I wanted… well, I thought it would be nice to have a bit of company at this time of year. So I went out before the real estate agent arrived, then I came back up once the viewing had started and pretended to be a prospective buyer. Because I didn’t want to sell the apartment without knowing who was going to be buying it. This isn’t just an apartment, it’s my home, I don’t want to hand it over to someone who’s just going to be passing through, to make money from it. I want someone who’s going to love living here, like I have. Maybe that’s hard for a young person to understand. ”

That wasn’t true. There wasn’t a single person in the apartment who didn’t understand perfectly. But the real estate agent cleared her throat.

“So… when your daughter commissioned me, I wasn’t the first person she’d called? ”

“Oh, no, she called all the other real estate agents before she felt obliged to ring you. But just look how it’s all turned out! ” Estelle smiled.

The real estate agent brushed the dust off her jacket and her ego.

“So this is the key to…, ” the bank robber began, staring at it but still not quite able to believe it.

Estelle nodded.

“My affair. He lived in the neighboring apartment, on the other side of the elevator. That’s where he died. I was standing in front of the bookcase when the apartment was put up for sale, and I wondered what would have happened if I’d met him first, before Knut. You can let yourself do that when you get old, go for a little stroll in your imagination. A young couple bought the apartment. They never changed the lock. ”

Julia cleared her throat, rather taken aback.

“How… sorry, Estelle, but how do you know that? ”

Estelle gave her an embarrassed little smile.

“Every so often I… well, I’ve never actually opened the door, of course, I’m not a criminal, but I… sometimes I check to see if the key still fits. It does. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re splitting up, that young couple, it really doesn’t, because I often used to hear them arguing when I was smoking in the closet. The walls are rather thin in there. You get to hear all sorts of things. Some of it would shock even Stockholmers, I can tell you. ”

The bank robber put the book back on the shelf. Clutched the key tightly. Then she turned to the others and whispered: “I don’t know what to say. ”

“Don’t say anything at all. Go and hide in the other apartment until this is all over. Then you can go home to your daughters, ” Estelle said.

The key was dancing in the bank robber’s palm when she unclenched her fist, she couldn’t hold it still.

“I haven’t got a home to go back to. I can’t pay the rent. And I can’t ask any of you to lie for my sake when you talk to the police. They’re going to ask who I am and if you know where I’m hiding, and I don’t want you to lie for me! ”

“Of course we’re going to lie for you, ” Ro exclaimed.

“Don’t worry about us, ” Julia cajoled.

“We don’t actually have to lie, any of us, ” Roger said. “We just need to play dumb. ”

“Yes, well, there’s no problem, then, is there? Because that’s hardly going to be a challenge for any of you! ” Zara declared. For once, it wasn’t actually meant as an insult, it just sounded like it.

Anna-Lena nodded thoughtfully at the bank robber.

“Roger’s right. We just have to play dumb. We can say you never took the mask off, so we can’t give a description. ”

The bank robber tried to protest. They didn’t give her a chance. Then there was a knock at the door, and Roger went into the hall and peered through the spyhole, and saw Jim standing outside. That was when Roger realized what the real problem was.

“Damn. That policeman’s out in the stairwell, how are you going to get past him into the other apartment without him seeing you? We didn’t think of that! ” he exclaimed.

“Perhaps we could distract him? ” Julia suggested.

“I could squirt lime juice in his eyes! ” Ro nodded.

“Perhaps we could just try reasoning with him? ” Estelle said hopefully.

“Unless we all run out at once so he gets confused! ” Anna-Lena said, thinking out loud.

“Naked! People always get more confused when you’re naked! ” Lennart informed them, in his capacity as an expert.

Zara was standing next to him, and he was probably expecting her to tell him he was a damn idiot, but instead she said: “Perhaps we could bribe him. The policeman. Most men can be bought. ”

Lennart of course noticed that she could have said “most people, ” she didn’t have to say “most men, ” but he couldn’t help thinking it was a nice gesture on her part to try to be part of the group.

The bank robber stood in front of them for a long while with the key in her hand, on the brink of telling them about Jim, but instead she said thoughtfully: “No. If I tell you how I’m going to escape, you’d have to lie when the police question you. But if you just walk out of here now and go downstairs, you can tell the truth: when you closed the door behind you, I was still in here. You don’t know what happened to me after that. ”

They looked like they wanted to protest (all except Zara), but eventually nodded in response (even Zara). Estelle put some clingwrap over the remains of the pizza and put it in the fridge. She wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper, put it in the bank robber’s pocket, and whispered: “Send me a text when you’re safe, otherwise I’ll worry. ” The bank robber promised. Then all the hostages walked out of the apartment. Roger went last, and carefully closed the door behind him until he heard the latch click. Jim directed them to walk down the stairs, where Jack was waiting to escort them into the police cars that would drive them to the station to be questioned.

Jim was left alone in the stairwell for a while, and waited until Jack came up the stairs.

“Is the bank robber still in there now? Are you sure, Dad? ” Jack asked.

“One hundred percent, ” Jim said.

⇐ Предыдущая 10 11 12 13 14 15 161718 19 Следующая ⇒