Stefan's Day: A Wallander Fanfic

[ingebjorg9]

This is the first fanfic I wrote based on the Swedish Mankell's Wallander TV series.  I wanted to get inside Stefan's head, so I wrote about a working day from his perspective.


The moment the alarm goes off I know it’s going to be one of those days.  I flail at it to shut it up, and roll on my back with a long, discontented groan.  It can’t be that time already.

 Unfortunately, a glance at the clock says that yup, it is, and it has come round even quicker than usual as I have only managed half a night’s sleep.  The bust last night kept us all away from our beds for far too long.  I eventually got home 3:30 this morning and who knows when Kurt got back to his place.  However, it was worth it.  We nailed those scumbags, caught them bang to rights.  The thought sends an adrenaline jolt right through me.

 

But I still have to get out of bed.  I plant my feet on the cold floor thinking I should just have slept on the couch: it would have been easier, and it’s not as if there was anyone waiting for me to come to bed, was there?

In the bathroom I stand under a hot shower for a long, long time, trying to wake up properly.  It makes up for the wintry coldness of the house.  Towelling myself off I catch sight of myself in the mirror.  Hell.  I look like a wreck, with bags under my eyes and three days’ growth of beard.  Screw it; I don’t have time to shave.  They’ll have to take me rough and ready as I am.  Kurt will probably look rougher than me anyway.  This brings a small smirk to my face as I get dressed, pull on the warmest coat I can find and leave the house.

Truth be told, I’m quite glad to get out.  The house still seems quiet since Linda left.  Too quiet.  I still miss her more than I want to admit to anyone, even myself.  I don’t talk to Kurt about it, ever.  I guess he’d side with Linda anyway, and I don’t need to screw up my relationship with my boss because of my lousy love life.  I don’t talk to my friends about it either – it’s not what men do.  I wish I could have talked to Linda about it, but the two of us; we just didn’t seem to be able to communicate about things like that.  I still worry about her every day, which annoys me: she was the one who left, after all.

Still, I’m not angry with her any more: she’s the reason I’m still here, after all.  I’m just – I don’t know – disappointed that I can’t be the man she wanted me to be.  I never will be.

Sighing, I start the car, which starts first time.  Good.  I’m not in the mood to spend ten minutes scraping ice off the thing, then trying to persuade the engine to start.  I run the heating on full blast to clear the windows, then slam the car into gear and make the drive to the station.

It’s much the same as usual – you would never guess there’d been a major operation last night.  And now, today, the mopping up has to be done.  Might as well get it out of the way.

Svartman and Nyberg are hanging around outside in the dawn light.  They both say hello as I pass – I reply as civilly as I can, but they’re both far too cheerful for this time of day.

Kurt is in his office, as usual.  I was right, he looks completely haggard.

Ebba calls after me: “Morning Stefan!  There was a call for you.  The young lady left a message!”

A phone call?  A “young lady”?

I turn on my heel and pace back to her desk, where she is smiling and holding out a piece of paper to me.  I take the note and read it.  Angela.  Checking that I’m still on for tonight’s dinner.  I’d forgotten all about that (of course) but being reminded of it makes me just a bit happier to be here now.

Ebba’s twinkling her eyes at me.  Oh great.  No doubt the whole damn station will have heard about my dinner plans by the end of the day.

“So, you’ve got a date?” she says, sounding pleased.

“Not really a date,” I sigh.  “We’re friends, and we’re going out for dinner tonight.”

“Ah, that’s nice!  You deserve it, and Angela’s a lovely girl, although for a while we all thought she was going to be Kurt’s girlfriend!”

And you teased him plenty about it, I’m thinking, but she’s still twinkling at me and I’m not going to get her to let this go, am I?  I nod politely, then hurry away on the pretext of speaking to Kurt.

Still, I’m looking forward to tonight.  I have to get out and do something, and Angela’s a fun person.  Just what I need right now.

Kurt looks up as I walk into his office.

“You look happy,” he comments.

“Do I?”

“Yes, you’re smiling.”

“No I’m not.  I was just thinking about something, that was all.”

“Hmm.”  He clearly doesn’t believe me.  “Anyway, thank you, Stefan, for what you did last night.  Good job.”

“Thanks.  I’d do the same any time, you know that.”  He nods.

“Your work’s been vital in all of these operations.  And now we need to get statements from them all.”

Hell, yes.  They all need to be interviewed.  We already have enough anyway to send them down for the longest time possible, but procedures are procedures, as we are constantly being reminded.

Kurt picks up his jacket.

“I’ve had the first one put in an interview room.  We’ll go together.  And Stefan?  Keep your cool, hmm?”

“Yes, don’t worry…”

The creep is slumped in his seat, waiting for us. Without his henchmen and his weapons he’s no longer such big scary villain, just a regular bullying thug.  He’s apparently requested his advocate, and refuses to talk until he arrives.  We grill him a little anyway, just to loosen him up, until he loses his cool and threatens me with his fists.

“Watch it!” orders Kurt.  “Or do you also want to be charged with assaulting my officer?”

He sulks and we have to wait for his smarmy little lawyer to arrive.  I can't stand most lawyers and this guy isn’t much different.

It goes much the same with the rest of them, but eventually we get them all interviewed and they’re all banged up again, back where they belong.

By now it’s lunchtime and we’re both the worse for wear.

“Stefan,” says Kurt, “Go and get some sleep, yes?  You look done.”

“I’m fine.  No worse than you, anyway.”

He smiles at this, then yawns, then goes back to his office.  I think he will phone Linda, if he can get through to her.  I go for lunch.

As I bite into my cheeseburger in the sanctuary (ha!) of the lounge I can hear an ear-splitting disturbance out the front.  For pity’s sake.  I’m trying hard to ignore it, because I would like to eat my lunch, but before long Nordström barges in.

“Stefan, can you come out here?”

I look at her, then at my cheeseburger, then put it down with a sigh and follow her out.

“What the hell’s going on?” I yell above the noise.  This is getting irritating and I know my patience is even thinner than usual today.  Nordström looks apologetic.

“Sorry Stefan.  She won’t leave until she speaks to someone.”

The noise has apparently been coming from a small woman at the front desk, who has been having a go at Ebba, Svartman  and Nordström.  Especially brave of her, given that Nordström looks almost twice her size and is a black belt in karate.

I size her up – no pun intended; I hate puns.  She’s 40-ish and looks Indian.  Her Swedish has quite a strong accent.  I wonder what she wants, standing here making enough noise to wake the dead.

“Excuse me, is there a problem?”  I force myself between her and Ebba and she looks me in the eye.  I had expected to see rage, but instead her face is full of distress and she looks like she’s going to cry.

“My husband,” she chokes.  “They beat my husband.  He’s crippled already – they – he…”

“Who beat your husband?”

“Men…  Men smashed our windows.  Kicked our door down…  He’s covered in blood…  Glass…  And the children…”

She’s becoming incoherent.  At this point, Kurt appears.

“What’s going on?”

I try and recap what the woman has told me.  Kurt seems concerned.

“Where do you live?” he asks her.

“15 Gustafsgatan.  My husband’s still there.”

“You didn’t call an ambulance?”

“He told me not to.  He said he’d be all right.  He told me to come and get help so you can catch the men.”

Kurt nods to me.

“Stefan: take Svartman and get over there.  I’ll follow.  Nordström, let’s take care of Mrs, er…”

“Ghopal,” she inserts.

We head out to Gustafsgatan, putting in a call for an ambulance and some backup as we go.

I pull up outside number 15 and the door and windows are smashed, just as Mrs Ghopal said.

“Nasty,” says Svartman.

We climb out of the car and I knock on what’s left of the door.  No answer, as far as Svartman or I can tell.  I push the door open and call out.  We hear a groan from further inside the house.  Glancing at each other, we step inside.

The groaning is coming from the front room, where a man, presumably Mr Ghopal, is lying on the couch, covered in cuts and bruises.  He’s been beaten, all right, and the room has been smashed up at the same time.

Svartman goes to the man’s side and kneels next to him, trying to avoid the broken glass on the floor.

“Don’t worry sir, an ambulance is on its way,” he tells him.  Mr Ghopal looks back at us and groans again.

“Can you tell us what happened?” I ask, trying to keep a tide of anger down inside me.  What kind of jerk would do a thing like this to a man in his own home?

I recognise him now: he drives a taxi in Ystad.  I’ve ridden in it.

“First someone threw a brick through the window, then a man kicked our door down and tried to drag me outside,” he tries to sit up, and flinches.  It looks like some of his ribs might be broken, and he’s got a bleeding gash above his eye.  Svartman tries to get him to lie down again.  Mr Ghopal continues with the story.

“They kicked me and punched me…”  He trails off and coughs painfully.  I glance up and see that someone has scrawled a swastika on the wall above the fireplace.  A racist attack.  Neo-Nazis.  I damn their retched hides.

“Can you describe any of them?” I ask him urgently.  This could be important.  If these Nazi thugs have done this before their details might be on our database.

“I don’t know.  They all had things over their faces,” he gasps.  “One of them, I thought maybe he was English.”

“English?”

“English?” Svartman echoes.

The man is too exhausted to say anything else, so it’s just as well the ambulance arrives at this point.  Kurt’s car draws up soon after, with Mrs Ghopal inside.  She hurries to her husband’s side, in a great deal of distress.  I watch as they’re all bundled into the ambulance. Kurt joins me, shaking his head.

“Unpleasant one, this.”

“What are our chances of finding these creeps?”

“I don’t know.  We’ll have to see what Nyberg comes up with.”

After a short wait, Nyberg and some of his team turn up at the Ghopals’ house.  Nyberg is keen to get to work and get finished; I have the feeling we’ve dragged him away from something that he was in the middle of.  They start the painstaking operation of finding usable evidence, while Kurt and I speak to the neighbours.

Typically, no-one’s at home on one side, while on the other side a middle-aged woman answers the door, looking irritated and frightened all at once.  She looks suspiciously at us until Kurt shows his ID and explains who we are, then she lets rip.

“I don’t know what this neighbourhood’s coming to.  It used to be nice and quiet here, now we’ve got thugs going around shouting and kicking people’s doors down.  Any more of this and I’ll be forced to move to my sister’s place in Lund."

I don’t know how Kurt keeps his patience, but eventually he gets a word in and asks her some questions.  Yes, she heard a racket.  Yes, it did sound like the Ghopals’ door was being kicked in.  No, she didn’t see who did it; she was so alarmed that she hid upstairs.  Yes, she heard loud voices and screaming.  And yes, it did sound like one of the attackers was shouting in English.  Kurt and I glance at each other.  At least we’ve got something more or less definite to go on.

Some of our colleagues join us and we send them to do some door-to-door work to find out if any of the other neighbours have seen anything useful.  Höglund and Svartman will take this side of the street, Martinsson goes across the road.  Kurt and I discuss the English thug and decide that I’ll check the database for possible suspects.  As we’re talking, I can see someone watching us.  When I turn and look at him he dashes away.  I don’t need any encouragement to chase after him.  He’s fast, and has darted round the corner, but I’m faster and catch up with him in an alley behind the houses.  I pin him to the wall and check him for weapons.  I find a flick knife in his pocket and confiscate it, then I take a good look at the guy, who is squirming like a maggot.  He can’t be more than about 16. He’s skinny and spotty and looks as sulky as Hell.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me what it was about us that worried you so much?”  I shake him a bit for effect.  He wriggles.

“Let go!” he shrieks.

“Not until you tell me what you know about the mess in number 15.”

He looks at me sullenly.

“I can wait all day!” I add quietly, pushing my face up to his.

I hear panting behind me: Kurt has caught up.  He staggers over and I hand him the knife I took from the boy.  He looks at it, seemingly impressed, although whether this is because of the knife or me being able to get it from the boy, I don’t know.

“Are things all right here?” he asks.  I understand what it is he does at times like this.  He sees it as his job to put himself between me and possible trouble, like a buffer, to help me keep my cool.  Sometimes I laugh about it silently inside myself and sometimes it gets in my way, but in the end I’m always happy to know that he’s got my back.  I’d do the same for him.

I answer him.  “Our friend here was just about to tell me everything he knows about who smashed up number 15.  Weren’t you, mate?”  I hope I put enough of the right kind of menace into that.  He sighs, and spills.

“I went to see what was going on.  I heard there was a big bust-up and I needed to see what happened.”

“But why did you run away when we saw you?” asks Kurt.  If the boy had been completely innocent he wouldn’t have run.  It’s a guilty reaction.

The boy says nothing.

“You’ll have to come to the station,” says Kurt.  “We need to ask you more questions.”

“And you shouldn’t have been carrying a concealed weapon,” I add.  We’ll arrest him for that, if nothing else.

The boy is sent off to the station in a patrol car and Nyberg accosts us.  He didn’t find much out of the ordinary, but presents us with one unusual thing: a bit of broken jewellery, apparently ripped off one of the attackers by Mr Ghopal.  It’s a broken neck chain with a snake shaped pendant.  I’ve never seen anything like it and neither has Kurt.

Kurt sends me back to the station to check the database and catch up on my paperwork.  Back at my desk I realise that I’m still hungry and I never got to eat my lunch.  I wonder if the rest of the cheeseburger is still in the lounge.  I go to check and find that some scrounger has eaten it and left the wrapper!  I swear loudly and get some coffee instead.  Not only do my wonderful colleagues gossip about my love life, they also eat my food.  I could really do without this today.

Sighing, I run some checks through the database and come up with some possible matches for the English attacker.  Then I start with my paperwork.  After a while I get sleepy.  There’s no-one else around just now, so I put my head down for a rest.

I must have fallen asleep.  The next thing I know is Martinsson swatting the back of my head with his newspaper.  I sit up and look round to see him laughing at me.

“All right, Sleeping Beauty?” he smirks.  I give him a sarcastic smile and look at the clock: an hour has passed since I put my head down.  Kurt comes past and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s ok, Stefan.  Just this once I don’t blame you for napping.  Did you find anything on the system?”

I show him what I came up with and he nods.

“I’ve just been grilling that lad you caught.  It turns out his brother was one of the attackers.”

“I knew it.  He had to have been involved.  Just look at the way he ran off when we spotted him.”

Kurt goes back to his office.  Someone else is interrogating the boy now.  Nyberg is working on the broken necklace and the other pickings from the scene.  I feel all in, but have to finish my reports.

At about 4:30 pm, just when I want to wind down and get ready to leave, I get a report from Svartman.  Someone has stolen about a hundred shopping trolleys from one of the supermarkets in Ystad.

“What the hell?!” I sputter down the phone to Svartman.

“Weird, yes?” he laughs.  We joke about it for a minute, then he leaves me to think about who might want a hundred shopping trolleys.  Finally, my mind is boggled.  I know I shouldn’t bother Kurt with this, but I figure it might make him laugh for a minute.  I walk to his office.  He’s sitting half asleep, staring at some notes, but tries to look awake when I come in.

“Here, I thought you might want to see this.”  I put the report in front of him.  He picks it up and reads it.  I can see him read it through again just to make sure of what he’s read.  He shakes his head.

“Who on God’s green earth steals a hundred trolleys?” he snorts.

I shrug.  “A hundred tramps?”  Kurt laughs quietly and sighs.

“I don’t have much hope with this one.  I’ll send Martinsson down to talk to the supermarket manager.  And Stefan?”

“Yes?”

“Go home.  You need a rest.”

“Okay.”

I’m not going to argue with that.  I tidy my desk, shut down my computer and throw a stack of things in the car before driving home.  It’s a couple of hours till I have to meet Angela.  I pick up my phone and call her.  Her voice is soon on the other end, as cheerful as always.

“Hi, is that you Stefan?”

“Hey.  I got your message this morning.”

“Good!  You’re still okay to meet at 7?”

“Definitely.  Listen, I hope this restaurant is good.  My lunch got pinched today and I’m starving.”

“Really?  What’s the world coming to when a policeman can’t get his lunch?”  She giggles.  “Don’t worry, it’s a really good restaurant, you’ll like it.”

“Great, can’t wait.  I’ll see you soon!”

“Good!  Bye Stefan.”

I need a sleep, or some more coffee.  I go for both: half an hour’s sleep, then forcing myself to drink two cups of very strong coffee.

The house is cold.  I turn the heat up and tidy the living room and bedroom.  Well, you never know, do you?  The quietness in the house doesn’t matter for once.  Soon I’ll be out of here.

I change into slightly smarter clothes, then catch sight of myself in the mirror.  I’ve managed to dress entirely in black again.  I shake my head at the sight.  Angela will think I’m some kind of miserable Goth or something.  I shave.  I look all right now.  On the way out the door I remember the book I was going to lend Angela.

I’m early at the restaurant, so I wait in the car.  The weird thing is, I’m actually nervous.  It’s not as if it’s a blind date: I’ve known Angela for a while and I like her a lot.  Maybe it’s the liking her a lot bit that’s making me nervous.

There she is.  I get out and go and meet her.  She’s her usual friendly self and seems happy to see me.  We go inside and get a table, making the usual small talk about the weather and other stuff.  She asks me about my day, so I tell her.  She flinches at the part about Mr Ghopal and laughs about the stolen shopping trolleys.

“I can only imagine what Kurt said about that!”

“I don’t think he’s looking forward to having to find the person responsible.”

“No.  Difficult job.”

I ask her about her day.  It turns out she’s been asked to present a paper at some big conference in Copenhagen, as well as taking on some clients at the clinic attached to her office.  I start to tell her about my visits to the shrink.  She doesn’t ask too many questions, which is good.  I stop after a while.  I’ll tell her more later, when I feel okay with it.

The food is good and makes up for my stolen cheeseburger.  When we’re finished we talk about what to do now.

“Do you dance?” she asks me suddenly.

“What do you mean?  Going to clubs and stuff like that?  Not really my scene.”

“Well, any kind of dancing, really.  I go to a salsa club every week.  Just wondered if you wanted to try it?”

Me on a dance floor?  Hell.  What an idea.  But if she wants to go dancing I suppose I should go with her.

The salsa club is a couple of streets away.  It’s very different from the kind of place I normally hang out.  I feel self-conscious and worry about standing on Angela’s feet, but she shows me some moves and we make it round the floor a couple of times without hurting ourselves.  I guess it is fun, I just hope no-one from the station is here.  My colleagues would have a field-day if they knew about this.

Angela laughs up into my face: she’s having a good time.  Then it hits me.  I’ve got a beautiful girl in my arms.  She’s obviously happy that I’m here with her.  It’s a good night.  I laugh with her.  I can’t get enough of her smile.

After a couple of hours we stagger out of the place.  My feet are killing me, but it was worth it.

“You see?” she’s saying.  “You do make a good dancer.  You should do it more often.”

“Well, maybe,” I’m humouring her, but I did have a good time.  It’s nice not to have to be a policeman for once.

We drive down to the harbour and sit for a little while in the dark listening to the water lapping round the boats.  Angela tells me about the place she used to live in over on the Norwegian fjords.  I tell her about hunting trips when I was growing up.

“Can we do this again?”  The question is unexpected.

“What, sitting in the dark talking about our past?”

“No, I mean: can we go out again?”

I turn and look at her.  I can just see her smiling at me.  She means it.  She wants to see me again.

“Yes.  Yes, of course we can.  I’d love to!”  I have to stop myself grinning like an idiot.

We arrange to go for a drink in a few days, then I drive her home.  She kisses me for the first time.

“I had fun tonight,” she says.

“Me too.  I'll call you tomorrow, okay?”  She nods and says goodnight.  I drive home happy.

I go to bed alone again, but this time it doesn’t matter as much.  My last thoughts before I go to sleep are of catching the boy on Gustafsgatan, the stolen shopping trolleys and especially of the evening I’ve had.  I smile to myself.  It was one of those days.