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my chest and stomach.
    Drunk as I am, at first I mistake the hammering, believing it to be Lundin nailing down the lid of yet another poor man’s coffin. But soon enough I realise that someone is thumping at the door.
    Goon knocking.

 
     
    Two men in black suits and sturdy overcoats are standing outside the door. The younger of them is a pale sod, with ginger tufts of hair sticking out from beneath his bowler hat, and a downy, sparse moustache. The older of them has tired brown eyes and a receding chin. A thickset type, he stands slightly behind his colleague. These are no normal goons, but they are still goons. I can smell it.
    ‘Harry Kvist?’ The elder of them holds up his silver badge. Number 26, Criminal Division.
    I stagger backwards into the cramped, dark hall. Narrow spaces are good if you get too many of them coming for you at the same time. They close in fast. I narrow one eye. My right punch flies through the gloom. I don’t know if it’s the drink or the older man’s lack of a chin, but I miss by a couple of millimetres. His stubble rasps against the top of my hand.
    The other goon hits me hard across the left knee with a wooden baton. The blow sends me reeling.
    ‘Too low!’ I drawl. ‘Too low, damn it!’
    The older one jabs at me with his right, but I duck and reappear on his starboard side. The baton comes flying from port. I hide my chin behind my shoulder and press my fist against my temple and ear. My hand shrieks as if it’s broken. It isn’t, it’s just full of old bits of bone.
    I fall backwards to the floor with both the goons on top of me. The younger of them straddles me at once. He lands his rightfist on my eye and immediately follows this up with a baton blow across the top of my head. A lovely, pure flash of pain cuts through my intoxication. I shake my head to see if I’m bleeding. I try to resist but my muscles won’t do as they’re told. I think I’m smiling. I can’t feel my legs.
    ‘The swine is drunk and all.’
    They heave me onto my side and clap my hands in irons behind my back before dragging me out of the flat and down the stairs, each goon firmly gripping one of my upper arms. They’ve hung my jacket over my shoulders and pressed down my hat on my head. My feet, thumping on every step, seem to wake some life into my legs again.
    The cracked leather seat in the back of the squad car is cold against my hands. The motor splutters and starts; we steer into Roslagsgatan. I am also spluttering.
    Outside, the dark city flickers by rapidly. I close one of my eyes. The dairy company’s new automated illuminations have been switched on. A man has loaded several long planks across the saddle and handlebars of his bicycle, and is sitting on these, pedalling with his knees pointing out. Droves of unemployed blokes are hanging about by Vasaparken.
    My breathing feels heavy. I make a wheezing sound and cough again. A group of dockers are hanging about outside Restaurant NORMA, close to the Atlas wall, the scene of a notorious murder of a whore in March. They gesticulate wildly, as if in dispute about something.
    I look at the two short-cropped necks in front of me. Something in the car smells of old sweat. In the middle of St Eriksplan, a cluster of street missionaries stand together, immersed in prayer and holding hands. The blue neon of the tobacconist’s shines like phosphorescence. Its glow envelops the members of thecongregation, their eyes closed, and transforms them into a sickly little bunch.
    The vehicle lurches all over the place, and I have difficulty staying upright in the bends. These goons are not the normal, beat-patrolling drunks with sabres, and they don’t take me to the Ninth District station house, which would have been the closest. The car banks hard to the left towards Kungsholmen, and I tumble into the door on the right. My hat falls off. The leather seat creaks as I fly around. There’s a thumping pain under my left eye, and I wonder if they’ve opened