The Falling Detective (7 page)

Two coffees later, I'm sitting in my room with Heber's field notes. As I read, I try to piece together something more than an outline of Heber, but the dead sociologist remains a shadow for me. To begin with, his notes are tentative and cautious, and most of them concern leads for the field work. Heber lists and discusses concepts I've never come across.

He starts the fieldwork in January, going via contacts he made during his time in the anarchist movement. He doesn't give any more detail than that.

The first interviewee is, for some reason, referred to as 1580, the second as 1581, the third as 1582, and so on and so on. He conducts the interviews quite intensively, sometimes several subjects per day. He himself writes that he doesn't really have a direction in mind. Later, in March, 1599 appears in the notes for the first time:

13/3

After our interview at Cairo I ask 1598 if he knows of anyone else I ought to talk to. He suggests a member of
RAF
. He doesn't give me any contact details, says there aren't any, but that if I ask around I should get hold of the person. I'll get started on it — hopefully this is 1599 — as soon as I've marked the students' exam papers.

Contact details that don't exist. 1599 must be a specific person, so it shouldn't be impossible to track him or her down using their network of contacts. Then again, that's not always the problem — it's all about asking the right people. That's harder than it sounds. A couple of days later, Heber succeeds:

16/3

I've been in touch with 1599. Finding her took a while, these last few days I've basically done nothing but look for her. 1599 has no fixed abode, no job, nothing. There's something liberating about that that appeals to me. I wonder if she might be hiding from someone, but I doubt it. I think she just likes living like that. 1599 agreed to take part in the study, we're going to meet tomorrow.

So it's a woman. There's no entry for the following day. Heber doesn't mention their meeting until the eighteenth, and then only in a short note:

18/3

Interviewed 1599 yesterday. It ended up being late, but very rewarding. It gave me a few new ideas, as well as confirming what the other interviewees said. We'll have to meet again — I think 1599 has more to say.

After that, she's not mentioned in the notes for quite some time — six months, in fact. At least not explicitly. In spite of this, the notes seem to have a different tone after their meeting. Heber is more focused, more driven. He concentrates on his research, but other things get a passing mention. He concludes one entry by writing that he is going to ‘stop thinking about the research project for today' and go out and eat with his colleagues. He attends meetings, goes to debates, and gives talks to students, politicians, and activists. These activities give him new ideas that he can use in his work, yet he sometimes seems frustrated that others are unable to let go of his past as readily as he did himself:

15/6

Twelve years since the Gothenburg riots. I gave a lecture for Stockholm City Council, about what we might be able to learn from them. None of the questions were about my research, all of them were about my time with
AFA
It's nearly always the way with students, politicians, and bureaucrats. Fucking
AFA
. Will I ever get away from it? I wonder if it matters, whether I should take it into account when I'm working. I wonder what my interviewees would say about it. What would 1599 say?

I can picture Heber now, standing there, gazing out onto a busy street somewhere, with hazy sunshine behind him. Maybe Birger Jarlsgatan or Vasagatan, where the buildings are all edifices of glass and steel. It is summer, it's warm, and the cars are relentlessly swishing past him, one at a time. When he turns to face the sun, his face is finally there, no longer a silhouette but a person. Everybody is missed by someone.

It's November before she gets mentioned again:

25/11

There is a lot that I ought to be writing down here so that I don't forget any of it, but there's a lot of things that I don't want to be written down. Then again it's not good that I don't have any of it anywhere other than in my head.

She got in touch with me, 1599. I've been keeping my distance (wonder if she noticed) so that it won't carry on. It's so risky. I don't know, there's something about 1599 that I find fascinating. She asked why I hadn't been in touch, as I'd promised, and I didn't have a decent answer so I just apologised.

‘We need to meet up,' she said.

‘Okay,' I said, ‘Why's that?'

‘You'll see,' she said.

Then she hung up.

The subsequent entries do not reveal whatever it was that 1599 wanted to tell Heber. I flip through several entries to make sure. She turns up again a week or so later, and is referred to obliquely:

5/12

I'm torn by what 1599 told me. Can I even trust her? My gut feeling says I can, but I'm not sure. If it's true, this is insane. She says I should talk to H. I'm going to try and get hold of him.

I've almost finished reading, but up until Heber makes that last entry, just before his meeting with 1599, she is mentioned only a few times:

7/12

1599. Maybe I should go to the police, even though that breaks every ethical guideline in the book. I've tried to contact H without success.

That same day, however, something happens that puzzles Heber almost as much as it puzzles me:

7/12 (later)

Something strange happened during my interview after lunch, with 1601. He wouldn't let me record the interview, so I made notes. Halfway through the interview he asked me if I had heard the rumour. No, I said, I haven't. I knew about what 1599 had said, but this was about something else. Our conversation went more or less like this (I don't have my interview notes with me, so I'm not completely sure):

Me: ‘You mean that someone would go after —?'

1601: ‘Yes.'

Me: ‘Why?'

1601: ‘Isn't hate enough? The feeling of having been betrayed? How many reasons do you want?'

Me: ‘Well, okay. But it still seems incredibly drastic.'

1601: ‘I suppose you're entitled to your opinion.'

Me: ‘Can you stop it happening?'

1601: ‘I wouldn't dare. I can't say any more about it, because no one knows where or when. I've already said too much. I've already … if anybody finds out …'

Me: ‘No one is going to find out.'

1601: (Long silence) ‘I know someone who will.'

Me: ‘Who?'

Then he gave me the name. I am going to contact him as soon as possible, but I daren't call or email him. I doubt he would even answer if he knew it was me.

Two days later, he writes another entry. It might be about the same thing, and the same person, but Heber's notes are vague:

9/12

Spoke to him, tried to persuade him to agree to an interview so that we can talk. He refused. I don't know what to do.

10/12

1599 tells me one thing, 1601 another. I don't know which one is right. Maybe they both are? There's no time for further investigations, and I don't know whether I should go to the police anyway. If I do I'll be breaking my word to 1599. I can't. I still haven't got hold of H.

11/12

I managed to get hold of H in the end, at Cairo. I just went and sat myself in a corner with a coffee and waited, hoping that he might turn up. I was in two minds, unsure what I was about to say and how much I was going to tell him. This is too big to carry alone, the consequences are too serious. I don't which of the scenarios is the right one, and I don't know how much anyone else knows.

After about an hour he showed up and I took him to one side and asked if he knew about it. On the subject of — I didn't tell him who was going to do it (I didn't dare to, out of ethical considerations), just what the target was. I wanted to see his reaction.

I could tell that he'd heard about what 1599 told me, but the fact that I knew caught him off guard. That was obvious. He refused to say any more. I asked if he could check the facts, and get back to me. I was worried, and ashamed for having broken 1601's confidentiality. I had promised not to tell anyone.

H didn't answer my question. He left Cairo.

12/12

Will meet 1599, to talk. Might tell them what I've heard. I don't know. We're meeting at our usual spot at 2230. I'm nervous and unsettled, hesitant. Haven't got much done today.

I find the list of interviewees and look up 1601. The other column contains abbreviations about the organisations the subjects belong to, yet 1601 has no code. He's not the only one. I stare at the list, trying to decipher it, to work out whether it is significant. It might be. Who or what is hidden by ‘—' ? And who is H? A regular at Café Cairo, but not one of his interviewees. In that case, he would have had a number. Could H be an initial?

There's a knock at the door, two sharp taps. Birck. He opens the door and strides in without waiting for a response, and I grab a ring-binder from the shelf behind me, place it on top of the notes, and pretend to be looking for something.

‘Busy?' says Birck.

‘On my way out, actually.'

‘Which is why you're checking …' Birck cocks his head to read the folder's spine.
‘
Recovering Evidence from Micro Computers. Renewed and revised.1980
.'

‘I was feeling nostalgic.'

‘Were you even born then?'

Birck pulls out a chair and sits down, his broad shoulders slumped underneath his dark jacket.

‘Olausson,' he says eventually, gazing at something invisible somewhere above my desk. ‘We need to talk about him.'

‘Okay.'

‘After the meeting, I went for a dump and the walls are pretty thin, for better or worse — mostly worse, I suppose. Anyway, I heard someone in the next cubicle, someone who was on the phone but left the taps running at the same time.'

‘Okay.'

‘I couldn't hear that much of what was being said, but I think I managed to pick up the end: “I just came from a meeting with them, one of them shouldn't be a problem, Bark, or whatever his name is. It's the other one I'm not sure about. But I think he's got an Achilles heel.” Then he put the phone down and turned off the taps.'

‘Bark,' I repeat, and notice an involuntary smirk tugging at my mouth. ‘Better than Birck.'

Birck doesn't seem particularly amused.

‘ “Shouldn't be a problem”?' I go on. ‘Is that what he said?'

‘That's what he said. But he doesn't seem so sure about you. And he thinks you've got a weak spot. You don't have to be terribly creative to work out what that might be.'

‘But I'm clean. Everything's fine.'

‘No, you're not.'

‘I am.'

Birck sighs.

‘We're his detectives,' I say, changing the subject. ‘How can we be a problem? And why aren't we getting more people?'

‘Fuck knows. Maybe he's already been told that either the Regional or National Crime Squad are going to take over, and he doesn't want to pull people off other cases. Or it might be that there simply aren't enough cops.'

Birck runs his hand through his hair and yawns silently, blinking a few times.

‘I thought you'd know,' he says. ‘But keep your eyes peeled. Something about Olausson just doesn't add up. Something about Heber's death doesn't add up either.' He stands up from the chair and gives it an angry glare, as though it had somehow insulted him. ‘Christ, that's an uncomfortable chair. If you find anything about 1599 in there,' he continues, nodding at
Recovering Evidence from Micro Computers,
‘then give me a call.'

I close the folder.

‘I think I'm going to go to Cairo. You know, the receipt we found yesterday, from the café? That place is also named in those papers I didn't take copies of.'

‘Good.'

I hesitate, contemplating the possible ramifications of appearing in the doorway at Café Cairo accompanied by a great wolf of a policeman.

‘Are you coming?'

‘Busy,' says Birck, waving his mobile phone. ‘Heber's autopsy.'

‘Well, come when you're free.'

‘Don't do anything stupid at Cairo.'