Two Soldiers by Anders Roslund Page A

the teacups on Oscarsson’s desk—Sonny Steen, Pereira was sure it was him, even though it was a long time ago now and he’d aged in the way that only junkies do.
    “I’m looking for Leon.”
    José Pereira peered down the corridor, while they stood or sat and looked at him and didn’t answer. He closed his hand around the rectangular piece of plastic in his pocket, and felt what she felt, fear.
    “I’m looking for Leon Jensen.”
    But if you so much as showed it, they only got more aggressive.
    One of the guys who’d been throwing billiard balls up and down was maybe throwing faster and higher and the guy beside him had a cue in his hand now and was slicing it through the air, a swishing twitching sound, but nothing more than that for the moment.
    “Pereira.”
    The voice came from one of the open cells farther down the corridor.
    One of the first cells on the left.
    Cell 2. Or maybe Cell 4.
    “I don’t think you should be here. I think you must be lost.”
    It was him. Jensen. And Pereira came closer. Conscious of the faces watching his every step, the others listening to them through open cell doors.
    “I’m pretty sure that I’ve come to the right place.”
    José Pereira didn’t see the billiard ball, but he heard it.
    It passed only centimeters from his forehead and slammed into the corridor wall.
    “I’m sure that I’ve come to the right place, since it was you I wanted to talk to.”
    “And I don’t talk to pigs.”
    A civilian-clad policeman on his own in a place that policemen otherwise only visited in flocks, with protection. The billiard ball was just the start. They were standing there watching carefully, waiting for the man who showed no fear to do just that.
    “I’ve come to ask you to roll up the right leg of your pants. And as soon as you’ve done it, I’ll leave again.”
    That peculiar silence. Eyes that were watching. The four around the card table stood up almost simultaneously but stayed where they were when Jensen raised his hand.
    “You can see my ass if you want.”
    The door to the wardens’ office was closed. He had asked to be alone and they had done as he asked, retreated out of sight for a coffee.
    José Pereira gripped the rectangular piece of plastic in his pocket even harder, his thumb on the red button.
    “Right pant leg. Your choice. Either you roll it up now—or later in an examination room with your favorite guards and me watching.”
    Pereira looked Jensen in the eye. And he could see that he knew.
    That the policeman he’d known for as long as he could remember was standing in front of him and was not going to back down. That the staring faces around them were waiting for a show of power. That he couldn’t lose face.
    “Right?”
    Every step he’d taken. That fucking pig had been there.
    And he’d been a nuisance, been in the way with his reports and questions, his meetings with his mom.
    And then, the morning he turned fifteen, the pig bastard had rung the bell and his mom had opened the door and they had done all the things they couldn’t do earlier, taken his fingerprints, photo, DNA, and in a column for special features, a description of a tattoo drawn with soot and needles that was no longer there.
    And the pig just went at it. Knew what he wanted.
    “You can see the left.” Leon Jensen laughed out loud and looked at the others, who also laughed.
    Then he slowly and with a great flourish rolled up his left pant leg to the middle of his thigh. The large wound was infected, the scab was fresh.
    He didn’t lose face. But had answered the question.
    José Pereira met his eyes again, nodded, and left.

The car in the middle lane was careful to keep to the speed limit despite the fact that the warm August evening had emptied the wide highway of traffic. It came from the south, a light gray Mazda, stolen from a parking place in central Södertälje just over an hour before.
    It had passed Rönninge and Salem church and changed lane as it approached