LITMIR.BIZ

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      Atif leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. In spite of the snow and cold outside, the air in the windowless little room felt stuffy. The smell of burned coffee, various bodily excretions, and general hopelessness was very familiar. You could probably find the same thing in police stations all over the world.

      He was hungry, and his neck and shoulders were stiff after the long journey. He hated flying, hated putting his life in other people’s hands.

      ‘Name?’ the policeman sitting opposite him asked.

      ‘It says in there.’ Atif nodded toward the red passport on the table between them. The policeman, a fleshy little man in his sixties with thinning hair, who had introduced himself as Bengtsson, didn’t reply. In fact he didn’t even look up, just went on leafing through the folder he had in his lap.

      Atif sighed.

      ‘Atif Mohammed Kassab,’ he said.

      ‘Age?’

      ‘I’m forty-six, born June nineteenth. Midsummer’s Eve …’ He wasn’t really sure why he added this last remark. But the policeman looked up at last.

      ‘What?’

      ‘June nineteenth,’ Atif said. It had been several years since he had last spoken Swedish. The words felt clumsy, his pronunciation seemed out of synch, like all the dubbed films on television back home. ‘Once every seven years it’s Midsummer’s Eve.’

      The policeman stared at him through his small reading glasses. The smell of polyester, sweat, and coffee breath was slowly creeping across the table. Atif sighed again.

      ‘Okay, Bengtsson, it’s been over an hour since you stopped me at passport control. I flew in from Iraq so you suspect my passport is fake, or that it’s genuine but not mine.’

      He paused, thinking how much he’d like a hamburger right now. The look on the policeman’s face remained impassive.

      ‘I’m tired and hungry, so maybe we could do the quick version?’ Atif went on. His voice felt less out of synch already, the words coming more easily.

      ‘My name is Atif Kassab, and I was born in Iraq. My dad died when I was little and my mum brought me to Sweden. She got married again, to a relative. When I was twelve he went off to the USA, leaving me, Mum, and my newborn younger brother. But by then at least we were Swedish citizens so we didn’t get thrown out.’

      ‘So you say.’ The policeman was looking down at his file again. ‘According to the National ID database, Atif Mohammed Kassab has emigrated.’

      ‘That’s right. About seven years ago,’ Atif said.

      ‘And since then you’ve been living …?’ Bengtsson raised his eyebrows slightly.

      ‘In Iraq.’

      ‘Where in Iraq?’

      Atif frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

      The policeman slowly raised one hand and took off his glasses.

      ‘Because the Atif Mohammed Kassab who you claim to be has a pretty impressive criminal record.’ He gestured toward the file with his glasses.

      ‘And?’ Atif shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘Well, if you really are Atif Mohammed Kassab, it’s in the interests of the police to find out a bit more about you. Where you’ve been living, what you’ve been doing, whom you’ve spent time with.’

      ‘I’ve got a Swedish passport, I’m a Swedish citizen. I’m not obliged to say a fu—’ Atif interrupted himself midsentence and pinched the top of his nose. It was almost eleven o’clock in the evening now. Almost ten hours since he last had any proper food.

      ‘If we suspect that there’s anything funny going on, we can put you on the next plane back to Iraq. There’s a flight first thing tomorrow morning.’

      The fat little policeman clasped his hands together behind his neck and slowly stretched. The sweat stains under his arms were clearly visible on his shirt.

      ‘Or we could lock you in a cell for a few days,’ he went on. ‘While we compare your fingerprints with the database. That sort of thing can take a while, obviously.’ The policeman grinned.

      Atif was on the point of saying something but thought better of it. That last threat was probably a bluff. Even if the fat little cop still doubted that his passport was genuine, he must have realized by now that Atif wasn’t trying to sneak into the country illegally. But, on the other hand, he had no wish to end up in a cell. Besides, he had an appointment to keep.

      Atif took a deep breath. This whole contest in who could piss farthest was actually pretty pointless. He had nothing to lose by cooperating. Being awkward was mostly just a reflex. But things were different now. He was older, wiser. Besides, he really wanted that hamburger. A supersize meal with loads of fries and a large Coke with ice.

      ‘Najaf,’ he said. ‘It’s in western Iraq. That’s where my family’s from. Mum got sick and wanted to move back home. I went as well, to help her, and then I stayed on.’ He shrugged slightly and decided to stop at that. The policeman nodded almost imperceptibly and jotted something down in his file.

      ‘And what has someone like you been doing with his time down there …?’

      Atif paused a couple of seconds, thought about lying but changed his mind. Someone like you … He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket and waited until the policeman looked up.

      ‘I’m a police officer,’ he said as he opened the leather wallet containing his ID card and little metal badge and put it on the table.

      For once, Detective Inspector Kenneth Bengtsson wasn’t sure what to think. His colleague at the passport desk had sounded one hundred percent certain when he handed the case over. A fake passport, well made, probably a real one with the photograph replaced. The fact that the passport’s original owner turned out to be a real troublemaker seemed to support

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