CELL 8 (13 page)

Suddenly Ewert Grens was in a hurry.

STILL JUST AS COLD.

Vernon Eriksen stared in anger at the heater that hung dead on one of the institution’s concrete walls. He was freezing—he would give them to the end of the week, that was long enough, then the heating in the prison had to go back on. They weren’t animals, the inmates, even though the world out there sometimes expressed views that were to the contrary.

It was worst in the East Block that housed Death Row. The prisoners there froze like dogs at night and there was a damned racket in the cells because they couldn’t sleep—the Colombian who always made such a noise and the new guy in Cell 22 who was crying for the second night in a row was enough in itself, but now, with the damned cold, the others were worked up, even those who normally never made a sound.

Vernon looked over at the long row of metal cages.

Everyone who was in there knew.

They were counting down. What else could they do? They waited, sometimes asked for clemency, sometimes had their date postponed, but they got nowhere, they stayed where they were and waited; days, months, years.

He should have gone home. He’d clocked off four hours ago. Normally at this time of day he’d walked from the prison to Sofio’s for his blueberry pancakes, taken a detour along Mern Riffe Drive and as he passed looked into the kitchen, felt the warmth he always did when he caught a glimpse. In fact, by this time he would normally have reached his house on the outskirts of the town, maybe he’d already fallen asleep, at least gone to bed with the morning paper lying unread on the empty pillow beside him.

He was putting it off on purpose.

Soon.

He’d go soon.

He hadn’t been prepared when the warden had suddenly called him to his office. They seldom talked, although they knew each other well, but as long as everything was working they had no reason to meet.

That was how it felt, even when he first called.

That this was something else.

The warden’s voice had been tense and excessively clear, as if he was anxious and therefore had to hide it by pretending to be anything but.

The warden had smiled at him and shown him into his spacious office: leather sofas and a meeting table and a window twice the normal size that looked out to the main entrance. He had offered him fruit and after-dinner mints and not looked him in the eye, had managed to pull himself together and asked how long Vernon had actually worked as senior corrections officer at the prison in Marcusville, on Death Row.

Twenty-two years, Vernon had replied.

Twenty-two years, the warden had repeated, that’s a long time.

Yes, it sure is long.

Do you remember them all, Vernon?

Them all, who?

The people who’ve done time here. In your section.

Yes. I remember them.

The warden had played with a piece of paper that was lying in front of him on the desk. There was something written on it. The reason why he had asked Vernon to come. His fingers along the edge of the paper—Vernon had tried to see, but the letters were too small and impossible to read upside down.

More than a hundred in your time, Vernon. Some released, some executed, most just waiting. And you remember them all?

Yes.

Why?

Why?

I’m curious.

That piece of paper. Vernon had leaned forward, wanted to see but hadn’t managed, the warden’s arm had been in the way.

I remember them because I’m a corrections officer here. My job is to look after them and rehabilitate people. I care about them. I don’t have many others to care for.

The warden had offered him more fruit. Vernon had declined but took another mint, which he let melt in his mouth, and he started to realize, just then, after the fruit and the second mint, what the conversation was about.

He hadn’t been prepared.

Even though he should have been.

So, you remember . . . the warden had started . . . so you possibly remember an inmate called John Meyer Frey?

Vernon had perhaps gasped, he had perhaps changed position on the leather sofa, he wasn’t sure, the question had been so sudden and he had heard it and responded and tried to tackle it, and that was precisely why it had been so hard to see himself from the outside—with all that was going on inside, he had enough on his plate trying not to suffocate.

Of course. Clearly. I remember John Meyer Frey clearly.

Good.

Why?

Vernon, how many of the inmates have actually died here in prison
before
they were executed?

Not many. But it does happen. But not many.

John Meyer Frey. When he died—do you remember anything in particular from that time?

Anything in particular?

Anything.

While Vernon pretended to think, he had tried to use the pause to pull himself together, find the thoughts, the answers that he had practiced.

No. I don’t think so. Nothing in particular.

No?

Well, he was young, of course. There’s always something special about people who die young. But no more than that.

Nothing more?

No.

You see, Vernon, I think we have a slight problem here. I was talking to someone called Kevin Hutton a short while ago. He works for the FBI in Cincinnati. He had some questions.

Right.

He wondered, for example, who had declared Frey dead.

Why?

He also wondered where the records of Frey’s autopsy are.

Why?

I’ll explain, Vernon. In a minute. Once we have established who might have declared him dead and where the autopsy records might be today. Because the FBI can’t find that information anywhere.Vernon Eriksen should perhaps have taken another mint. He should perhaps have looked out of the large window for a while. But as soon as they were done, once the warden had explained the reason for the FBI’s interest, he had said a polite thank-you and asked if he could get back to him if he remembered anything else, and then slowly walked down the stairs to Death Row.

The row of metal bars was still there.

And at least he hadn’t let anything slip.

The cold air from the crappy heater that wasn’t working.

He looked at it in anger again, kicked it hard with his black boots. He would go home soon.

Just those few extra steps. Past Cell 8.

Do you remember them all, Vernon?

Them all, who?

The people who’ve done time here. In your section.

Yes. I remember them.

He stood facing the metal bars, as he often did, looked in at the empty bunk.

But he didn’t smile, not today.

IT WAS GOING TO BE A LONG NIGHT.

Ewert Grens had realized this somewhere in the middle of the patrol report by the American police officer. The feeling was just there, the feeling that he got a couple of times a year when yet another shitty routine investigation suddenly became something else; most recently last summer when a prostitute from Lithuania had taken hostages and tried to blow up a morgue, the summer before that when a father had taken the law into his own hands and shot and killed his daughter’s murderer.

Now he felt it again.

Because Schwarz’s background had a dark underside that he hadn’t registered at first.

And what until recently had been aggravated assault was suddenly, he was sure of it, going to mean a lot of fucking frustration, difficulties, for all of them.

Klövje had gotten back to him three times in the course of the evening at about thirty-minute intervals, with new reports from the fax each time.

Grens had been there far too long now, he had realized, and knew that he was preparing himself.

He would not be sleeping tonight.

Two plastic cups of coffee. The machine that was squeezed in between the newly acquired photocopier and an ancient fax machine spluttered as it occasionally did at night, irritated at not being allowed to get the rest that even a coffee machine needs. He drank one of them straightaway, the heat tearing at his chest, making his heart pound, as it sometimes did when it tried to escape the caffeine.

He picked up page after page from Klövje’s pile, which had grown considerably through the evening. Patrol reports, some more police officers with much the same story. The autopsy record, nearly absurd in its vocabulary and precision. The forensic team’s descriptions, details from the crime scene, a dead body on the floor.

Ewert Grens sat on his chair by the desk, the dark pressing in against his windows, and tried to understand.

He gripped the final document, the one from a prison called Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. In Marcusville. The town where the woman had been found dead.

Ewert Grens read it.

Again.

And again.

This, this, he realized, was the start of something that would make people cower far beyond the country’s borders. And therefore some idiot would soon put on the pressure and sound off and say that the matter should be moved from an investigator’s desk to a politician’s.

No fucking way.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number in Gustavsberg, on the south side of Stockholm. He knew that it was late. But he didn’t care.

No answer.

He let the phone ring until someone answered.

“Hello?”

“It’s Ewert.”

The sound of someone swallowing, clearing his throat, trying to wake his voice that had just been asleep.

“Ewert?”

“I want you here at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“But I was going to come in late tomorrow morning. You knew that. Jonas’s school, I—”

“Seven o’clock.”

Grens thought it sounded like Sven had sat up in bed.

“What’s it about, Ewert?”

He didn’t hear the yawning that filled Detective Inspector Sven Sundkvist’s bedroom, didn’t feel that he was freezing, naked on the edge of the bed.

“Schwarz.”

“Has something happened?”

“There’s going to be one hell of a noise. You put all other investigations to one side. The Schwarz case is now top priority.”

Sundkvist was whispering; he presumably had Anita beside him.

“Ewert, explain.”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’m awake now.”

“Seven o’clock.”

Grens didn’t say good night. He just put the phone down, then picked it up again as soon as he got a dial tone.

Hermansson was awake. It wasn’t easy to make out whether she was on her own or not; he hoped she wasn’t.

Ågestam was just about to go to bed. He sounded surprised—he knew what the detective superintendent thought of him and certainly didn’t expect to get a phone call from him at home.

They both asked what it was about, without getting an answer, but promised to be sitting in Ewert Grens’s office at seven o’clock sharp.

He read for a while longer.

Half an hour, then he stood up, the bulky body pacing back and forth across the room.

Half an hour more, then he lay down on the worn sofa, scoured the ceiling.

Suddenly he laughed.

Not surprising you were so fucking terrified.

Ewert Grens’s loud laugh was given free rein only here, alone. With other people, in other places, he couldn’t remember if he’d ever laughed.