* * *

They were evicted from their apartment the following February, and the bank robber swore never to become a parent, and, when the bank robber ended up becoming a parent anyway, swore never to become a chaotic parent. The sort who can’t cope with being an adult, the sort who can’t pay bills and has nowhere to live with their kids.

* * *

And God laughed.

* * *

The man on the bridge wrote a letter to the woman at the bank who had told him about moral hazard. He wrote down exactly what he wanted her to hear. Then he jumped. The woman at the bank has been carrying that letter in her handbag for ten years. Then she met the bank robber.

19

Jim and Jack were the first police officers to arrive on the scene outside the building. That wasn’t so much an indication of their competence as a sign of the size of the town: there just weren’t that many police officers around, especially not the day before New Year’s Eve.

The journalists were already there, of course. Or maybe they were just locals and curious onlookers, it can be hard to tell these days when everyone films, photographs, and documents their whole life as if every individual were their own television channel. They all looked expectantly at Jim and Jack, as if the police ought to know exactly what was going to happen next. They didn’t. People simply didn’t take other people hostage in this town, and people didn’t rob banks here, either, especially now that they’d gone cashless.

“What do you think we should do?” Jack wondered.

“Me? I don’t know, I really don’t, you’re the one who usually knows,” Jim replied bluntly.

Jack looked at him despondently.

“I’ve never been involved in a hostage drama.”

“Me neither, son. But you went on that course, didn’t you? That listening thing?”

“Active listening,” Jack muttered. Sure enough, he’d been on the course, but precisely what use that might be to him now was hard to imagine.

“Well, didn’t that teach you how to talk to hostage takers?” Jim said, nodding encouragingly.

“Sure, but in order to be able to listen, there has to be someone talking. How are we going to contact the bank robber?” Jack said, because they hadn’t received any kind of message, no ransom demand. Nothing. Besides, he couldn’t help thinking that if that course on active listening was as good as the tutor claimed, then surely Jack ought to have a girlfriend by now.

“I don’t know, I really don’t,” Jim admitted.

Jack sighed.

“You’ve been in the police your whole life, Dad, you must have some experience of this sort of thing?”

Naturally, Jim did his best to act like he definitely had experience, seeing as dads like teaching their sons things, because the moment we can no longer do that is when they stop being our responsibility and we become theirs. So the father cleared his throat and turned away as he took out his phone. He stood there for a good while, hoping he wasn’t going to be asked what he was doing. He was, of course.

“Dad…,” Jack said over his shoulder.

“Mmm,” Jim said.

“Are you seriously googling ‘what should you do in a hostage situation’?”

“I might be.”

* * *

Jack groaned and leaned over with his palms on his knees. He was growling silently to himself because he knew what his bosses, and his bosses’ bosses, would say when they called him in the very near future. The worst words Jack knew. “Perhaps we should call Stockholm and ask for help?” Sure, Jack thought, because how would it look if we actually managed to do something for ourselves in this town? He glanced up at the balcony of the apartment where the bank robber was holed up. Swore under his breath. He just needed a starting point, some way of establishing contact.

“Dad?” he eventually sighed.

“Yes, lad?”

“What does it say on Google?”

* * *

Jim read out loud that you have to start by finding out who the hostage taker is. And what he wants.

20

Okay. A bank robber robs a bank. Think about that for a moment.

* * *

Obviously, it has nothing to do with you. Just as little as a man jumping off a bridge. Because you’re a normal, decent person, so you would never have robbed a bank. There are simply some things that all normal people understand that you must never under any circumstances do. You mustn’t tell lies, you mustn’t steal, you mustn’t kill, and you mustn’t throw stones at birds. We all agree on that.

Except maybe swans, because swans can actually be passive-aggressive little bastards. But apart from swans, you mustn’t throw stones at birds. And you mustn’t tell lies. Unless… well, sometimes you have to, of course, like when your children ask: “Why does it smell like chocolate in here? ARE YOU EATING CHOCOLATE?” But you definitely mustn’t steal or kill, we can agree on that.

Well, you mustn’t kill people, anyway. And most of the time you mustn’t even kill swans, even if they are bastards, but you’re allowed to kill animals if they’ve got horns and are standing in the forest. Or if they’re bacon. But you must never kill people.

Well, unless they’re Hitler. You’re allowed to kill Hitler, if you’ve got a time machine and an opportunity to do it. Because you must be allowed to kill one person to save several million others and avoid a world war, anyone can understand that. But how many people do you have to save in order to be allowed to kill someone? One million? A hundred and fifty? Two? Just one? None at all? Obviously, you won’t have an exact answer to that, because no one does.

Let’s take a much simpler example, then: Are you allowed to steal? No, you mustn’t steal. We agree on that. Except when you steal someone’s heart, because that’s romantic. Or if you steal harmonicas from guys who play the harmonica at parties, because that’s being public spirited. Or if you steal something small because you really have to. That’s probably okay. But does that mean it’s okay to steal something a bit bigger? And who decides how much bigger? If you really have to steal, how much do you have to have to do it in order for it to be reasonable to steal something really serious? For instance, if you feel that you really have to and that no one will get hurt: Is it okay to rob a bank then?

No, it probably isn’t really okay, even then. You’re probably right about that. Because you’d never rob a bank, so you haven’t got anything in common with this bank robber.

Except fear, possibly. Because maybe you’ve been really frightened at some time, and so was the bank robber. Possibly because the bank robber had small children and had therefore had a lot of practice being afraid. Perhaps you, too, have children, in which case you’ll know that you’re frightened the whole time, frightened of not knowing everything and of not having the energy to do everything and of not coping with everything. In the end we actually get so used to the feeling of failure that every time we don’t disappoint our children it leaves us feeling secretly shocked. It’s possible that some children realize this. So every so often they do tiny, tiny things at the most peculiar times, to buoy us up a little. Just enough to stop us from drowning.