The Friend Read online

  JOAKIM ZANDER was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Growing up, he lived in Syria and Israel. He has worked for the European Parliament and the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, before coming back to Sweden, where he now lives. His first novel, The Swimmer, was sold to 30 countries around the world. His second, The Brother, was shortlisted for Sweden’s Crime Novel of the Year award.

  ELIZABETH CLARK WESSEL is a poet, translator and small press editor based in Stockholm, Sweden.

  Also by Joakim Zander

  The Swimmer

  The Brother

  THE FRIEND

  Joakim Zander

  TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY ELIZABETH CLARK WESSEL

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published as Vännen in Sweden in 2018 by Wahlström & Widstrand

  First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd. Published by agreement with the Ahlander Agency

  Copyright © Joakim Zander, 2018 Translation copyright © Elizabeth Clark Wessel, 2019

  The moral right of Joakim Zander to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781788547055

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781788547062

  ISBN (E): 9781788546850

  Typeset by Divaddict Publishing Solutions Ltd.

  Images: Shutterstock

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  Contents

  Also by Joakim Zander

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part: 1

  5 August: Beirut

  21 November: Sankt Anna

  5 August: Beirut

  21 November: Sankt Anna

  5 August: Beirut

  21 November: Sankt Anna

  12 August: Beirut

  21 November: Sankt Anna

  14 August: Beirut

  21 November: Sankt Anna

  17–22 August: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  24 August: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  7 September–16 October: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  16 October: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  20 October: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  20 October–13 November: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  13–14 November: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  14 November: Beirut

  22 November: Stockholm

  14 November: Beirut

  23 November: Stockholm

  14 November: Beirut

  Part: 2

  23 November: Brussels

  14 November: Beirut

  23 November: Brussels

  14–15 November: Beirut

  23 November: Brussels

  15 November: Beirut

  23–24 November: Brussels

  15 November: Beirut

  24 November: Brussels

  15–21 November: Beirut

  24 November: Brussels

  21 November: Beirut/Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  23 November: Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  23 November: Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  24 November: Brussels

  Part: 3

  24 November: Belgium/Germany

  24 November: Duisburg

  24 November: Duisburg

  24 November: Duisburg

  25 November: Malmö

  25 November: Malmö

  25 November: Malmö

  25 November: Bergort

  25 November: Malmö

  25 November: Bergort

  25 November: Malmö

  25 November: Bergort

  25 November: Malmö

  25 November: Bergort

  25 November: Bergort

  25 November: Bergort

  25 November: Bromma Airport

  25 November: Bromma Airport

  25 November: Bromma Airport

  25 November: Bromma Airport

  26 November: Stockholm

  26 November: Stockholm

  26–28 November: Stockholm/Eskilstuna

  Acknowledgements

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  To Lukas and Milla, always

  do

  not ever

  be afraid to tell me

  who you are.

  i am going to find

  out

  eventually

  Nayyirah Waheed

  1

  5 August

  Beirut

  Some things happen so fast. Jacob Seger lands in Beirut, confused. He slept on the plane, so perhaps he’s still half asleep as he follows a stream of travellers headed to border control, to the heavily armed policemen or soldiers or whatever they are, who ask him why he’s visiting Beirut, how long he plans to stay, why he doesn’t have diplomatic status if he’s going to be working at the Swedish embassy.

  ‘Intern,’ he says. ‘I’m just an intern. Not a diplomat.’

  Not yet, he wants to add, slowly starting to wake up. I’m not a diplomat yet. This is just the first step. This and getting his degree in political science at Uppsala. All he has to do is pass that gruelling statistics exam and complete this internship, then write his thesis. After that he’ll get a real job at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. That’s his goal. He’s been dreaming about it for the four years he’s been in Uppsala, buying The Economist, studying up on heads of state in obscure Asian countries, Swedish exports and Nobel laureates so he can pass the Foreign Service entrance exam. A blue diplomatic passport and a calfskin leather briefcase, that’s the goal. He just needs to get a handle on his French and Arabic. A tiny, familiar squirt of anxiety shoots through him there at the counter, while a man in uniform with a tired, neutral expression looks him over. Languages are his Achilles heel, and unfortunately they’re key in a diplomatic career. He tenses up at just the thought of sitting in a classroom, memorizing vocabulary. It doesn’t even help that his Arabic teacher Hassan Rahamin, an Iraqi man in his sixties with thick grey hair and a knitted tie, has offered to give him private lessons at his apartment outside Stockholm.

  ‘I can see how much you want to learn, Jacob,’ Hassan often tells him, patiently, after class. ‘But you have to practise at home, too. You’re welcome to come to my home once a week, and we’ll work on it together if you like?’

  But Jacob feels ill just thinking about studying at home. He can’t stand the thought of hours spent on a train and a subway getting to and from Hassan’s suburban apartment. He doesn’t have the energy for that struggle. He just wants to be able to do it. Like in The Matrix: I know Kung Fu.

  He shakes off the thought. It doesn’t matter. He’ll take care of French and Arabic later. He surely can’t be
stopped by that; it would be too unfair. He’s meant for this life, meant for airports and important missions.

  His spirits lift again when the police officer or soldier or whoever he is hands him back his passport, his anticipation increasing as he passes by border control and follows the green signs towards the exit.

  The arrival hall is full of a stifling Mediterranean humidity, automobile exhaust, cigarette smoke, and taxi drivers holding handwritten signs in Arabic, which Jacob should be able to read after his half-year course in Arabic, but dejectedly realizes he can’t make out. His pulse starts to race again. Will they test him on his Arabic at the embassy? He got this internship by claiming Upper Intermediate proficiency in Arabic. Was that a lie? He decides to consider it a question of definition. Travellers push and jostle their way out towards the parking lots and taxi queues, while Jacob stops and looks around.

  Someone was supposed to meet him here. Someone from the embassy. He was expecting to see a sign for ‘Seger’ there among the taxi drivers, and he scans them again with the same distressing result. He’d hoped a black Mercedes or a Volvo would be waiting for him, the embassy’s second in command sitting in the back seat with a briefing on Jacob’s first mission. Some negotiation or a meeting with the Lebanese government, or maybe he’d be sent out directly on a fact-finding mission to a refugee camp or straight to a cocktail party at the French embassy. Childish, of course: he knew it wouldn’t be like that right away, not on the first day, but he’d expected something, some indication. A task. The opportunity to show them he was a man with a future ahead of him. Someone to remember. Somebody to bet on.

  But no one is here. Nobody has his name on a sign. No stressed-out European is scanning the arrival hall. Jacob takes out his phone. He made sure his cell phone would work here, just one small detail in his preparation. It’s expensive to call, he knows that, and if there’s one thing he doesn’t have, it’s money. But he fishes his phone out of his pocket and looks up the number he received a few weeks ago for an Agneta Adelheim.

  It’s important to show you’re quick-witted, resourceful. Never end up the victim of circumstances; you have to take control of the situation and handle it. It makes him happy to see the Adelheim name again. Not just some boring old Andersson. He even looked it up, and it is indeed aristocratic. That feels good. That’s where he’s headed, a world of diplomats with aristocratic last names. A small rush of satisfaction tingles up his spine as he pushes on her name in his contacts list, and the phone starts to ring.

  But Agneta doesn’t answer, and his call isn’t forwarded to an answering machine. After fifteen rings, he stops trying, closes his eyes, and leans back on the bench. The concrete is cool against the short blonde hair of his neck. He’s sitting in the airport in Beirut. His first time in the Middle East. His first time outside of Europe. For a moment it feels like he’s drowning; he gasps for breath, opens his eyes wide.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he says out loud to himself.

  He calms himself down. Time to be resourceful.

  He calls Agneta Adelheim again. When she answers on the second ring, relief washes over him.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she says when Jacob introduces himself. ‘I’m so sorry. I was sure it was next week you were coming. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  Jacob hangs up and stands, shaking off his disappointment. They forgot about him. It’s a setback, but things like that happen. They have a lot on their plate. Of course things fall through the cracks. You can’t keep track of every little detail. It doesn’t mean he won’t be able to amaze them.

  He pulls a copy of Dagens Nyheter out of his newly purchased brown leather briefcase. He’s been carrying the newspaper since boarding the flight in Stockholm, but only now does he open it. Might as well get up to speed on the latest news, he thinks, skimming the front page. He’s mainly looking for anything related to Beirut. He read online about the demonstrations taking place at the government headquarters. About garbage not being picked up, filling the streets with stench and disease because the government is so corrupt and dysfunctional. But none of that is in this newspaper. Instead, there is some Säpo scandal breaking in Sweden. He remembers hearing about it on the news yesterday, but he was too preoccupied to make much sense of it.

  Now he has time. A half hour at least, and as he unfolds the newspaper, he sees a photo of a red-haired woman in her thirties, dressed professionally, taking up half the first page. Green eyes and a resolute expression, she’s standing at some kind of press conference.

  The headline reads: ‘Russia Behind Riots in the Suburbs.’

  Jacob devours the article in just a few minutes, then reads the editorial and all of the follow-up articles. Apparently, a Russian company with direct links to the Kremlin paid a Swedish professor to write a report for the EU Council of Ministers to persuade them to increase the privatization of European police forces. In the meantime, that same company helped to organize riots in several suburbs to coincide with the presentation of that report to the EU ministers during a meeting in Stockholm last week. Their goal was to destabilize the police and increase opportunities for private companies with Russian ties to take over some policing duties. And Säpo, the Swedish Security Service, knew about the whole plot and allowed it to happen.

  Jacob flips back to the front page again, to the picture of the attractive red-haired woman. Gabriella Seichelmann. An attorney at one of Sweden’s most prestigious firms. She was the whistleblower on all of this. Apparently, there were other people involved, but she’s the public face. She’s the one who presented the witness statements and documentation to journalists, who were allowed to read them only if they promised not to publish anything classified. The documents were verified by the journalists, but Säpo is still refusing to comment.

  Jacob puts down the newspaper with his heart pounding in his chest. It’s like a spy movie. So exciting, and yet the more he reads about it, the more jealous he gets.

  That lawyer. She can’t be that much older than him? Five, six years at the most? He sighs deeply. Can you imagine being in the middle of something like that? Standing up to powerful people. Your face and name splashed across every newspaper. It makes him feel so small. His internship, his unfinished statistics exam. His inability to master the languages he needs for a career that still won’t be nearly as dazzling as what this Seichelmann has already achieved. Maybe he should have gone into law instead?

  His phone beeps. Maybe Agneta is finally here. But he takes it out, and it’s only Simon. Of course.

  ‘Have you landed yet, babe?’

  Babe. It annoys Jacob. How long is it going to take Simon to understand what they had this spring is over? They’ve barely seen each other all summer. Does Jacob really have to spell it out?

  Sure, it was exciting. And it meant a lot more to Jacob than he’d let on to Simon. And maybe there could have been something more, something that made the word babe seem like a good fit. If Jacob had given in and let go. If he’d abandoned himself to the whole thing. But it moved too fast. Simon started talking about moving in together after just three weeks. Jacob felt the urge to be together all the time too. Felt like he never wanted to leave their bed. But he forced himself, refused to give in to the flesh. That wasn’t what he’d gone to Uppsala for. It wasn’t part of the plan. Not at all. And pretty soon Simon started talking about meeting Jacob’s parents.

  ‘You could at least tell me about them,’ he’d said. ‘I bet your mother is so glamorous and your father so strict. I bet their sex life is hot.’

  That’s when Jacob couldn’t take any more. He couldn’t tell Simon about his parents. He’d left them far, far behind the person he’d become after leaving Eskilstuna, the small town where he grew up. They weren’t a part of who he was, who he was going to be. They didn’t fit into the Uppsala version of Jacob Seger. The diplomat version.

  ‘Jacob?’

  A voice startles him out of this line of thought, and when he looks up he sees a woman in her fifties with grey hair, we
aring a thin, navy blue dress, standing in front of him.

  ‘I’m Agneta Adelheim,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry to make you wait.’

  *

  Finally, Jacob is sitting in the back seat of a black Volvo, peering out the window as they drive through the suburbs on their way to central Beirut. At first it’s just highways and Hezbollah’s green flags, then slums and blindingly bright sun. As they get closer to the centre, he sees bullet holes and shining glass. Construction cranes rising out of history. In the inner city, it’s all traffic and rotting garbage on the corner of every street.

  They get out of the car, go through the front door, climb the stairs. Enter some kind of conference room. Agneta starts talking about the embassy, and how chaotic the situation is. They sit down among the blonde wood tables and steel chairs, which glide silently across the floor when Jacob adjusts his position. They sit across from each other, drinking lukewarm water from bottles with peeling labels.

  ‘You know this embassy is only temporary?’ she asks. ‘We had to move the Syrian embassy here when the situation in Damascus got too dangerous.’

  Jacob nods. He knows all about that, he read up.

  ‘And I don’t really know…’ Agneta continues. ‘I don’t really know what they were thinking sending an intern into the middle of all this. The situation isn’t normal right now. To say the least.’

  Jacob swallows. Is it his lack of Arabic skills? Is now when they’ll be exposed?

  ‘But what do I know?’ Agneta sighs. ‘I’m just an assistant here. It’s not my decision. Besides, we thought you were coming next week so I’m afraid we don’t have much for you to do right now. I managed to arrange an apartment in eastern Beirut for you. A colleague at the French embassy will be gone all through the autumn so we’re renting it for you. I suggest we get your documents in order and get you set up there. Then you start next week.’

  They go through a bunch of papers together, Jacob receives a security card to enter the embassy, and before he knows it they’re back in the Volvo again, headed east, crossing over the green line Jacob read about during his summer vacation. The one that divides Muslim Beirut from Christian Beirut, the area he’ll be living in. During the civil war it was the frontline. Now it’s a throughway, nothing more.