CELL 8 (6 page)

Fourteen minutes across town and seventy miles per hour over Lidingö Bridge.

He asked to get out of the car a short walk away from the big building. He needed to gather his thoughts. She was waiting for him.

He had been well and truly battered. First had to get rid of the man who had slurred in Finnish. Blood running out of his ear
. A whole morning had passed and Grens hadn’t been able to dislodge the image of the person lying on one of the police station sofas.
Mottled eyes, one pupil small, one pupil dilated.

Aggravated assault. That wasn’t enough. It was more than that.

Attempted murder.

He got out his mobile phone, rang Sven Sundkvist, the only person he could actually tolerate in the building where he’d worked all his adult life. He asked him to stop what he was doing, he wanted the identity of the person who kicked other people’s heads in, then he wanted him brought in for questioning, because that sort of behavior should cost him time behind bars.

Slowly walked the last hundred yards to the nursing home.

He’d been coming here for twenty-five years, at least once a week, to the only person he’d ever really cared about, the only person who’d ever really cared about him.

He was about to walk into her room again. He would do it with dignity.

They’d had their whole lives ahead of them.

Until he had driven over her.

He had long since realized that the images from that day would never stop crowding his mind. Every thought, every moment, he could relive those seconds.

The big fucking tires.

He didn’t make it.

He didn’t make it!

The wind was blowing in off the water, freezing Baltic temperatures straight in the face. He kept his eyes on the ground—the gravel path was partially covered in ice and he knew that the excessive weight on his good leg made it difficult to hold his balance; he had nearly gone head over heels a couple of times now and cursed the pointless seasons and poorly maintained path loudly.

He had felt the van lurch when it hit her body.

Grens crossed the large parking lot at the front of the building, found the window where she normally sat, looking out into thin air.

He couldn’t see her. He was late. She trusted him.

He hurried up the steps, nine in all, carefully salted. A woman of his own age was sitting at the slightly oversized reception desk, one of the ones who had been there when they first came in one of the police transport vans; he’d arranged it all, she had to feel safe.

“She’s sitting in there.”

“I didn’t see her at the window.”

“She’s there. She’s waiting. We’ve saved her lunch.”

“I’m late.”

“She knows you’re coming.”

He glanced in the mirror that hung outside the restrooms between reception and the patients’ rooms. His hair, face, eyes, he was old, looked tired, sweaty from his skating on ice. He held back a short while, until his breathing had steadied.

He had sat with her bleeding head in his lap.

Grens walked the short distance down the corridor, past the closed doors, stopping in front of number fourteen, the numbers in red above her name on a sign by the handle.

She was sitting in the middle of the room. She looked at him.

“Anni.”

She smiled. At the voice. Maybe the sound of the door opening. Or the light in the room, that now came from two sources.

“I’m late. Sorry.”

She laughed. It was a high, bubbling laugh. He went over to her, kissed her on the forehead, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped dry the saliva that was running down her chin.

A red dress with light stripes.

He was certain that he’d never seen it before.

“You look lovely. New dress. It makes you look so young.”

She hadn’t aged, not like him. Her cheeks were still smooth, her hair as thick as before. He was losing his energy out there, with every day that passed. She seemed to be conserving hers, days in a wheelchair in front of a window, it was as if she still had everything.

The bright blood just didn’t stop running from her ears, nose, and mouth.

His hand on her cheek, he released the brake that locked one of the back wheels, rolled her out through the door, down the corridor to the empty dining room. He moved one of the chairs by the table nearest the large window with a view down over the water, and positioned her there, then got cutlery and a glass and a hard plastic bib; the food was standing in the fridge, some sort of meat stew with rice.

They sat opposite each other.

Grens knew that he should tell her. Only he had no idea how.

It didn’t change anything.

He fed her at the same speed that he ate himself; the homemade stew had been reduced to a suitable brown and green and white mash on her plate. She ate well, she had a good appetite, she always had. He was sure that that was why she stayed so well, all these years in a wheelchair, far removed from other people’s conversations, as long as she ate and got energy, she would be there, wanting to live and keep on living.

He was nervous. He had to tell her.

She swallowed and something got caught in her throat; a severe coughing fit, he got up, held her until her breathing was regular again. He sat down and took her hand.

“I’ve employed a woman.”

It was hard to meet her eyes.

“A young woman, like you, back then. She’s smart. I think that she’ll be good.”

He wondered if she understood. He wanted to know. He wished it were possible to know if she was listening, if she was really listening.

“It won’t affect us. Not like that. She could have been our daughter.”

She wanted more food. A couple more spoonfuls of the brown stuff, one of the white.

“I just wanted you to know.”

By the time he was back out on the veranda by the entrance, it was blowing a mixture of snow and rain. He tied his scarf, buttoned his coat all the way up. He was down the steps and had started to walk across the parking lot when his mobile phone started to ring.

Sven Sundkvist.

“Ewert?”

“Yes?”

“We’ve found him.”

“Bring him in for questioning.”

“A foreigner.”

“He kicked a person in the head.”

“Canadian passport.”

“I want you to bring him in.”

The rain intensified, the drops mixed with snow seemed ever bigger, ever heavier.

Ewert Grens knew that it wouldn’t help in the slightest, but he looked up at the sky and cursed the endless winter, damning it to hell.

IT WOULD SOON BE LIGHT IN THE SMALL TOWN IN SOUTHERN OHIO THAT
was dominated by the huge prison with high concrete walls. It was cold out, snow falling as it did throughout the winter, and the inhabitants of Marcusville would start their day by clearing the driveways to their houses.

Vernon Eriksen did his last round through the corridors of locked-up people.

It was half past five; one hour left, then he would finish his night shift, change into ordinary clothes, walk to Sofio’s on Main Street, a Mexican restaurant that did a decent breakfast, double blueberry pancakes and crispy fried bacon.

He’d left West Wing and was on his way to East Block, his footsteps echoing on the walls that he still thought of as new, even though they’d been there for more than thirty years now. He could clearly remember the building at the edge of town that was to become high walls and cells that would accommodate prisoners, and for that very reason divided the inhabitants of Marcusville into two camps as it slowly grew: those who saw it as new job opportunities and a second chance for a backwater town, and those who saw it as a fall in property prices and a constant worry about the criminal elements in their midst. He hadn’t thought about it much himself. He was nineteen and had applied for a job in the newly opened prison and had then just stayed there. He’d therefore never had reason to leave Marcusville; one of the leftovers, a bachelor who instead clung to the work that had become his everyday as the years passed and now, now that he was over fifty, it was too late to break out. He sometimes went to Columbus for a dance, occasionally ate dinner with a woman some miles south in Wheelersburg, but that’s where it stopped, nothing more, no intimacy, he always left before.

His life, it had somehow always been connected to death.

He mused on it every so often, that it had somehow always been present, right from the start.

It wasn’t that he was frightened of it, not at all; it was just that it had always been there, he’d lived with it, worked with it. As a child, he’d often sneaked down from their apartment upstairs and between the wooden banisters on the stairs watched his father receive clients in Marcusville’s only funeral parlor. Then, as a teenager, he’d become part of the family business, another pair of hands to help with the cleaning, arranging, and dressing of bodies that lacked life. He’d learned to give it back, if only for a while—the undertaker’s son knew that with makeup and a professional hand you could create the illusion of a living person, and the nearest and dearest, when they looked into the coffin, weeping, to say good-bye, that was what they wanted.

He looked around.

Walls that were more than thirty years old. The prison was starting to look worn.

Nearly fourteen hundred inmates who were to be punished, imprisoned, and occasionally freed. A little more than half as many employees, somewhere between seven and eight hundred. An operational budget of fifty-five million dollars, approximately forty thousand dollars in expenses per prisoner per year, one hundred and seven dollars and sixty-three cents per prisoner per day.

His world: he knew it, was secure in it.

Life, death, in here too, but in another way.

He passed central security and gave a brief nod to one of the new employees who’d been sitting reading some magazine but hastily put it to one side when Vernon approached, and now sat with a straight back studying the images on the various security cameras.

Vernon Eriksen opened the door to the corridor in East Block.

Death Row.

Twenty-two years as senior corrections officer among people who had been convicted and sentenced for capital murder, who were counting the days and would never live anywhere else.

There were one hundred and fifty-five prisoners in Ohio, sitting there waiting for death.

One hundred and fifty-four men and one woman.

Seventy-nine
African Americans
, sixty-nine
Caucasians
, four
Hispanics,
and three who until recently had a separate statistical column under
other
, but which now had been broken down into two
Arab Americans
and one
Native American
.

Sooner or later, most of them came here.

Either they were already serving their sentence in one of the cells along the corridor where he was standing, or they were transported here, with only twenty-four hours to live. It was here, in Marcusville, that those sentenced to death in Ohio were executed.

They’re here with me, he thought.

I know them all, every single one. My life, the family I never had, every day, like any other marriage.

Until death do us part.

Vernon stretched his long body. He was still slim, in relatively good shape, short fair hair, thin face with deep creases in the middle of his cheeks. He was tired. It had been a long night. Trouble with the Colombian, who made more noise than usual, and the new guy in Cell 22, who hadn’t been able to sleep, understandably, crying like a baby, like they usually did at the start. Then it had got cold. This damn winter was the hardest in south Ohio for many years and the radiators had never really gotten going before they broke down; the whole system was going to be replaced but the bureaucracy was slow, and, most important, it didn’t work here, therefore it wasn’t cold.

He walked slowly down the middle of the corridor. A kind of peace had fallen, regular breathing from some of the cells, deep sleep now just before the dark evaporated.

He passed cell after cell. A quick glance, left, right, quiet on both sides.

As he got closer, he moved away from the line that was painted down the center of the corridor and walked along the row of metal bars to the right, looked into Cell 12 and saw Brooks lying there on his back, into Cell 10 at Lewis with one arm under the pillow and his face right up against the wall.

Then he stopped.

Cell 8.

He looked in, as he had so many other times before.

Empty.

A prisoner had died there and they had chosen to keep it empty ever since. Superstition, really, that’s all it was. But prisoners were not supposed to die in their cells before their time; they were to be kept healthy and alive until they were executed.

Vernon Eriksen searched the emptiness.
For better or for worse.
The light on the ceiling that was always on, the bunk without bedclothes.

Until death do us part.
He rested his eyes on the dirty walls that no longer incarcerated anyone, heard sounds from the toilet that was no longer used.

He felt the energy return to his legs, his headache lifted.

He smiled.

HE HAD BEEN AT HOME ON HIS OWN AND SHOULD PERHAPS HAVE TIDIED
up and cleaned the place and he should have made supper and he should have collected Oscar from day care only two buildings away.

He had tried to sleep. All morning he’d lain on their bed and tossed and turned with a cushion over his face, but the light from the bedroom window had forced its way in through the blinds and bounced off the pale-colored walls, and his headache was now so intense that he felt sick.

John sat up, his feet on the soft rug by Helena’s side of the bed. He was sweating.
He had kicked him in the face.
He could feel his hands shaking, placed them firmly on his thighs and pressed his arms down, but they continued to shake, even when he increased the force.

Helena would be back any minute. She had sighed silently when he called and asked her to get Oscar, when he explained that he was tired, that it had been a long night and he needed a few hours’ sleep on his own.