A Darker Shade of Sweden (37 page)

Lovisa Granath drinks her tea in small sips and meets the searching eyes of her guest. All at once the whole thing comes rushing back to Charlotta.

December 1981, the night of Lucia Day, Kungsport Avenue in central Gothenburg. Trouble and racket, kids in tinsel glitter and noisily drunk. Vomit at every street corner. For once snow, perhaps that's why there were so many people about, so much rowdiness.

Charlotta Lugn was a police assistant and, at least now, when glimpsed in the rearview mirror, as green as a newly sprung spring leaf.

Erik Granath was the high school kid found beaten to death on Geijer Street, a stone's throw from the revelers on the always crowded Kungsportsavenyn. People all around but no witnesses. Newly fallen snow, but no decent tracks of the murderer. A nineteen-year-old boy, already dead and gone.

Most indicated a drunken brawl gone too far, or a robbery. That Erik Granath was a victim of pointless street violence, something then a fairly new phrase as well as a new phenomenon. As if violence and murder weren't always pointless.

Drunkenness, many teenagers in the streets, no wallet and proximity to the entertainment area all supported the assumption, as did the absence of anyone who had seen anything of value. Not even back then, in the 1980s, did anyone care about two youths fighting in an alley.

But there was one thing both puzzling and pointing in another direction.

Erik Granath had worn a gold crucifix around his neck, a piece of jewelry he wore every day since his confirmation. It had been torn loose from its chain and was missing.

But it hadn't been stolen along with his wallet and money. During the autopsy, it had been discovered—forced deep down his throat. The throat which had shown dark lilac marks from the unknown killer who had strangled the young party-dressed man and left his body to be covered in silent snow.

Given that symbolic message from the murderer, the investigation spun off on a religious tangent, parallel to the robbery theory.

Additionally, the boy's family was deeply devout as well as active in a free church congregation. They were socially prominent, the boy's father a businessman linked not only to the free churches but also to Lions Clubs and Rotary International.

The question that had confounded the police at the time seemed simple but was impossible to answer: why had Erik Granath been killed? Was the motive related to his religion?

Many of Erik's friends were also Christians, friends from the youth seminars at his Pentecostal congregation as well as the children of his parents' friends from church. Charlotta Lugn particularly remembered how quickly they had discovered that the seemingly pious and devout teenagers drank and partied just like most others of the same age. But it had been almost more difficult to get them to talk about their drinking habits and sex life than to get them to share their suspicions about who might have wanted to see Erik Granath dead. The congregation had in many respects been a closed world, as difficult to penetrate and understand as the various criminal gangs she had encountered over the years.

Erik had had no girlfriend at the time of his death. No enemies, no known quarrels. An up-front guy, nice to the point of being dull. In spite of a large circle of acquaintances it seemed as if most of his friends hadn't known Erik Granath particularly well. Not deep down.

None of their leads turned out to get them anywhere. The feeling that there was some motive they were unable to see was inescapable, but in spite of that it remained possible that it was just a robbery that had turned bad. A perpetrator who had left a strange message entirely without meaning, done it in sheer panic and without any ulterior purpose. Such things had happened.

What tips they were given also petered out, and after eight months of futile investigations the case was shelved. Occasionally over the years it had been brought up from the archives, the tabloids had written about it, a new tip gave rise to a few news stories a couple of years ago.

But nothing new came to light and Erik's killer was still unknown, still at large.

And now. Christmas Eve. Twenty-five years had passed. So obvious. The statute of limitations had just ended. Charlotta Lugn smiles at Erik Granath's mother, but inside she is cursing the hag. All this time you've stayed silent. Who is it you've been protecting?

And how has she been able to keep quiet? After all, it's all about her own son. Her murdered son.

But Charlotta's lips display only a small smile. Her face neutral, she looks at Lovisa Granath with eyes concealing nothing. Tell me. Trust me. Charlotta knows how to conduct an interrogation. Nowadays.

“There was something you wanted to trust me with. I'm here now. I'm listening.”

“I'd like to start by telling you why I phoned you personally. It suddenly felt so . . . Why I finally decided to reveal it all. But only to you.”

Charlotta wrinkles her brow but tries not to let her feelings show.

Lovisa Granath bends toward the little side table to wrap her fingers around the wafer-thin teacup. Her little finger straight out, she carefully sips the hot brew. Smells the fragrance of the tea and seems to enjoy its taste. Charlotta Lugn is getting irritated with the woman's long-winded and slightly superior manner. She bites her tongue to keep from urging her on.

Lovisa Granath remains silent and Charlotta Lugn starts to look at the room around her. She notices a little porcelain statue on a side table. She truly doesn't appreciate that kind of knickknack, but there is something attractive about the fragile little girl in her bonnet and wide skirts. Without thinking she reaches out to take the figurine. It feels surprisingly cold in her hand.

“I would appreciate it if you didn't touch that.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Is it valuable? It's exquisite.”

“No, not particularly. But she is my favorite. I don't want her dirtied.”

A strange choice of words. Charlotta Lugn doesn't like the undertone of what Lovisa Granath says. But she holds her tongue. She's good at that. She wants to hear what the woman called her here to tell her.

Lovisa Granath puts her teacup down.

“Actually I don't understand why you couldn't see what it was all about already back then. You were . . . I haven't forgotten you in all these years. Sometimes I've thought that if I'll ever tell someone, it must be you. Because if anyone would understand, it would be you. I really think that you did realize what it was all about. But you were too inexperienced. Not stupid, but afraid to trust you own intuition.”

Charlotta Lugn suddenly realizes that she must look like an idiot. Her open look has been transformed to a dropped jaw. What is she talking about?

“I don't quite understand. You must know that I wasn't in charge of the investigation, I was just . . .”

“I know. But you were close to something nobody else even had a hint of. You put all the right questions, but never quite seemed to really listen to the answers you got. Do you remember when you came to our home, to the house we lived in then? The day after Erik died?”

Charlotta nods. And remembers. Erik's father, Lennart Granath, had greeted them at the door of their house in Örgryte, fully decorated for Christmas and cocooned in lovely snow. Icy cold inside as well as outside.

She remembers that he kept clearing his throat, particularly when Lovisa was talking. It was horribly irritating, but who will tell a father who's just lost his son to stop sniveling? She interpreted it to mean that Lennart Granath suffered from a severe case of macho ideals and would do anything to stop himself from bursting into revealing tears.

But it spoiled the whole interview. Both Charlotta Lugn and her much more experienced colleagues were repeatedly put off balance and lost their thread of thought by that wet hawking. It sounded as if Lennart Granath was trying to draw a huge wad of phlegm from his throat, and even now Charlotta shudders at the memory of the disgusting sound.

“Where is he, by the way?”

“He?”

“Your husband. Lennart.”

“He's . . . He went to buy a newspaper. He'll be back soon.”

It sounds silly, verging on the ridiculous on this particular day. As if the man at any moment might appear at the door dressed as Santa. It also doesn't sound very likely. Is Lovisa Granath lying to her?

Charlotta lets it rest. She wants to know more about the leads she should have seen twenty-five years ago.

“Please go on. What did you mean when you said that if anyone had understood, it should have been me?”

“What was the first question you asked?”

“Back then? I'm sorry, but I can't possibly remember that. It's more than twenty-five years ago.”

“Try. The first question you yourself asked, not your colleagues. What did you ask?”

Charlotta Lugn closes her eyes for a second and suddenly that moment returns to her. How she leaned forward, almost interrupting her partner. Actually she had put two questions to them, or perhaps asked the same thing in two different ways. Was he at home the night before the day he was murdered? Do you know where he slept?

Neither Lovisa nor Lennart Granath had answered. Lennart coughed and hawked, and Lovisa sat staring down at her lap. Charlotta suddenly sees the scene in front of her, as if it all happened yesterday. Why didn't she react to the fact that they didn't reply?

And now she asks the same question again.

“Where did Erik sleep on the night before the day he was murdered?”

“I truly don't know. But we had our suspicions . . . Lennart said . . .”

She falls silent again. Sips her tea and draws a loud breath.

“I made my mind up almost a year ago. That's when I decided to tell you. Finally. When I read about you in the newspaper. I hadn't understood before that you were . . . well, that you were . . . well . . . I mean you were such a nice and pretty girl—how could I have even thought that you needed to be with other women?”

Charlotta knows all too well what Lovisa Granath is talking about. At the beginning of the year, the morning daily
Göteborgs-Posten
had published a major profile of her. With a provocative heading and an intrusive photo. “Lady, Law Enforcer, Lesbian.”

When Charlotta Lugn assumed her new position, her sexual orientation suddenly became highly interesting. Despite her having been open about it for fifteen years. Despite her hardly being the only lesbian on the force. But she was the first lesbian detective captain. To her, it doesn't feel like some major thing, but on the other hand she didn't shy away from the attention it gave her. If she can help someone else to step out of the closet, or even just to feel a little less weird, she'll be happy to do so.

But she doesn't understand what Lovisa Granath is after. What does this have to do with the murder of Erik Granath?

“I don't understand. What . . . ?”

“You realized. You were asking about motive. You understood what it was all about. Really about. And I suppose you have to be . . . well . . . You were asking so insistently about Erik's girlfriends, if he'd had any romances that might have made him enemies, about where he'd slept the night before . . . It took someone like you to realize . . .”

Someone like you.

Charlotta turns a blind eye at the hidden insult, it doesn't stick to her. She's used to it, even if it always stings. Curiosity dominates and the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together. Homosexual. Someone like you.

It takes one to know one.

“Was Erik . . . ?”

“Are you asking me if my son was a faggot?”

She asks her return question in a hard voice and her small, tight mouth spits out the last word. Lovisa Granath holds her teacup in her hand and Charlotta can see that her hand trembles slightly.

“Was he a homosexual?”

“Of course he was. That you never realized that! The way you were snooping among his friends, the way you were digging and prying. Didn't it tell you something that you could never find any girlfriends, that a good-looking boy like him never . . . Didn't you understand? And you . . . who are also . . . and you were right there, poking around, getting so close with those questions. But Lennart . . .”

“Lennart?”

Lovisa Granath goes silent again. Her gaze drifts to the window and for a moment she doesn't just look tired, but entirely absent. Her eyes fixed on something far away. The Gothia Towers Hotel high-rise downtown, the rain whipping the windowpane, or perhaps some inner image reflected in the black glass.

She smacks her mouth loudly, and it feels uncouth and almost obscene coming from the finely dressed and strict woman. Her mouth seems dry; she sips her tea and finally meets Charlotta's eyes again. Is she drunk? Her gaze isn't as sharp as a moment ago. Her eyes are rimmed in red, but there are no tears.

It is obvious that this is hard on her, that her story is stuck deep inside her. That the words both want out and remain hidden in the dusk of secrecy.

“Would you be kind enough to put some more music on? The record seems to have ended. It feels a little easier to talk when the music . . .”

Lovisa Granath doesn't finish her sentence, just points to a stereo on a side table against the wall. The Christmas tunes greeting Charlotta on her arrival felt like such an ordinary backdrop that she didn't even notice the music stopping.

“Of course. Will the same record do?”

Her unaccustomed fingers grip the pickup. How strange that CD players have already made the gramophone feel like an ancient phenomenon. When her hand touches the black vinyl record she feels nostalgia for the pop records of long-gone days. Mahalia Jackson. “O Holy Night.” Not a particularly timely choice for a Christmas record, but perhaps not unexpected in the Granath family.

First a scratching sound, then a second of silence, then the music begins. The organ roars and Mahalia's powerful voice fills the room with Adam's Christmas song.