Free CELL 8 by Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström

it.”
    Grens listened.
    “I called the Canadian embassy. I’m on my way over there now. You see, Ewert, the passport number, that’s genuine enough .”
    Hermansson held up her hand.
    “And it was issued for a man by the name of John Schwarz.”
    The heavy breathing, forcing its way up.
    “And even though both the photo and the stamp have been manipulated, which we’ve just had confirmed, it’s never been reported stolen .”
    She waved the passport she was holding between her fingers.
    “Ewert, there’s something that’s not right.”

    THE DOOR TO THE HOLDING CELL IN KRONOBERG DETENTION CENTER WAS still open. John Schwarz was sitting on the bunk with his head in his hands, just as he’d been sitting the evening before, just as he’d been sitting all through the night. He counted each breath, terrified that he would suddenly stop, have to make sure that I get air, that it goes down my throat and reaches my lungs, don’t dare to sleep, can’t sleep, sleeping means not knowing whether I’m breathing or not and not breathing means I’m dead.
    Now .
    The officer beside him had taken over from his colleague a couple of minutes earlier. He’d tried to talk to the suspect, say hello to him, but the bent head hadn’t heard, hadn’t seen, he was somewhere deep, deep inside himself.
    I’m going to die now.
    Twice during the night he’d got up and banged his forehead hard against the bars until two arms had dragged him away. He’d shouted something incomprehensible, not so much words as a cry, a sound.
    I’m dead now.
    It was a long time since someone had demanded so much space in the holding cell. He wasn’t violent, it wasn’t that, but the guards on duty had called for the doctor and reinforcements, and there was a tangible feeling that something was about to go badly wrong, this man, he’s going to go to pieces in front of our very eyes.
    Dawn had brightened into morning, and it was now daylight.
    It was probably around half past nine. Or just after. And John Schwarz suddenly got up, looked at the two guards, and spoke coherently for the first time since he came there.
    “I smell.”
    The officer beside him in the cell had also stood up.
    “You smell?”
    “The smell, I have to get rid of it.”
    The officer turned to his colleague who was standing just outside the door, the silver-haired one who had come back for the next day’s shift.
    The older man nodded.
    “You can have a shower. But we’ll sit with you.”
    “I want to be alone.”
    “Under normal circumstances, we lock the door and the guard sits outside. But not in this case. We don’t have time for assault suspects who commit suicide in our showers. So you shower. In our company.”
    He sat down on the wet drain, his knees pulled up, back against the wall that was hard. Elizabeth’s eyes, they laugh so. The water pummeled his body, he increased the pressure and turned up the heat, hot drops on his skin. Their hate, I don’t understand it. Face up, he closed his eyes, it burned, he tried to suppress the thoughts that refused to back down. Dad crying, he’s holding me, I’ve never seen him cry before. He sat there for thirty minutes, didn’t pay any attention to the officer who was sitting far too close. The water, the heat had helped him to be resilient, at least for a while.
    John Schwarz now knew.
    He had to get away from there.
    He couldn’t face dying again.

    HERMANSSON HAD JUST LEFT EWERT GRENS, BUT EVEN BEFORE SHE turned out of the corridor she heard the music again, just as loud as a short while ago. She smiled. He had his own style. She liked people who had their own style.
    In her hand she was holding a passport, one that didn’t exist.
    She still hadn’t fully recognized that this was just the start of something that would become so much more, but she had a feeling. Schwarz had been with her for more than twenty-four hours now, refusing to leave her thoughts. So she hurried along Bergsgatan, Scheelegatan,