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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: Inspector Ann Lindell
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
Uppsala, Sweden. Inspector Ann Lindell has little time to enjoy her new relationship with journalist Anders Brant before he leaves on an assignment, and she is called upon to investigate the disappearance of a young woman, Klara Lovisa Bolinder. When Lindell's colleagues discover the body of a murdered homeless man the evidence suggests that Brant could be involved. Lindell is forced to battle her fears about her relationship if she is to discover what happened to Klara and as the Uppsala Police Department unearth more information about the homeless man, they fear they may be looking for a serial killer . . .
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BLACK LIES, RED BLOOD
KJELL ERIKSSON
Translated from the Swedish by Paul Norlen
Contents
BLACK LIES, RED BLOOD
ONE
‘You’re different,’ said Ann Lindell.
A tired phrase, a worn-out expression, but there was no other way to put it.
‘Is that a good thing?’
Anders Brant was lying with his eyes closed, one hand on his belly, the other behind his neck. She observed him: the dark, sweaty hair by his temples, the trembling eyelids, given a violet-red hue by the first morning light, and the beard stubble – ‘my scourge,’ he said, as he always had to shave – which had scratched her.
He was not a powerful man, not much taller than she was, with a boyish body that made him look younger than almost forty-four. From his navel down to his pubic hair a dark, curly strand ran that resembled an exclamation point.
His face was thin and lacked strong lines, although when he smiled it came to life. Maybe it was his casual manner that first aroused her interest. Later, when she got to know him better, the picture got more complicated. He was just different in that way, often carefree and a little roguish, but with an inner fervour that was sometimes seen in his eyes and his gesturing hands. Then he was anything but carefree. As she observed his relaxed facial features, it occurred to her that his attitude reminded her of Sammy Nilsson, the one colleague she could confide in and discuss things other than the trivialities of work.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, in a tone more ominous than she intended, now feeling even more banal.
But perhaps he understood: She was in love. Until now neither of them had hinted at anything like that.
And was that good? He was different in every conceivable way from the men she’d been with. There weren’t many really, two somewhat longer relationships – Rolf and Edvard – and a few short-lived ones, but the few weeks with Anders Brant had really shaken her up.
For the first time in a very long while she felt desired. He made no secret of his longing for her. He might call her at work and whisper things on the phone that left her speechless, and then when they met he drew her to him; despite his slender body his hands felt powerful. Sometimes she warded him off, afraid that Erik would surprise them, and also afraid of the rush she felt in her body, as if they were doing something forbidden.
‘Hugging won’t hurt you,’ he would say. ‘Relax.’
He courted her, and he talked; never had Ann’s flat been filled with so many words. Talk, but never about before and later, always about the present. Unwilling to offer details about his past, not a word about his plans or dreams.
Ann knew absolutely nothing about his family, other than that he was the oldest of four children, and that his mother lived somewhere in south Sweden. His father had left early on; it was unclear whether he was alive. When she asked he simply mumbled something about ‘the old man was too damn gloomy.’
Few things surprised him. He noted her own biographical details without showing any great interest, and did not connect her experiences to scenes from his own life.
He showed the greatest interest and engagement when they were watching the evening news together. Then he sometimes got agitated, or cynically scornful. Journalist colleagues that he thought were not doing their job gave rise to derisive, in some cases spiteful, comments.
Despite this singular apathy with regards to the private sphere, he was present; she never felt bored or overlooked. He glided into her life without a lot of fuss. She liked that. She thought the contrast to her life, so heavily scheduled for so long, would have been too great if he broke out in impassioned declarations of love and constructed romantic castles in the air.
It was as if he took it for granted that they would be together.
Sometimes she noticed a certain restlessness in him. He would fall silent, lose focus, and almost be dismissive, even if he did not verbalise his irritation. On a few occasions he left her on the couch or at the kitchen table and went out on the balcony. Those were the only times she saw him smoke, slender cigarillos that he enjoyed with eyes closed, leaning back in the wicker chair she once got as a present from Edvard. Then he wanted to be alone, she realised that.
After smoking his cigarillo he always brushed his teeth, which she also appreciated.
‘I have to leave,’ he said, abruptly interrupting her thoughts. ‘I may be gone a week or two.’
He got up from the bed, hurriedly dressed, and left.
TWO
The place was just as miserable as the dead man’s life must have been. An unnecessary place – cold, windy, and hard – without beauty or the slightest finesse. The plants that had worked their way up out of the coarse gravel radiated chlorophyll-deficient impoverishment and misery. It was a place of exile, a Guantanamo for plants.
Ola Haver even thought that the workers who laid the foundations – reinforced, poured, and graveled – forgot they had ever been there. There was no pride over the surroundings.
His father had once expressed such a thought, as they drove past a viaduct and an intersection along a highway. His father put on the brakes for no reason and stopped by the side of the road.
‘What a shitty place,’ he exclaimed, while he inspected the slopes of crushed gravel with a look of disdain.
He explained that many years before he had been involved in building the viaduct, but then totally forgot this non-place. It was the first time Ola Haver heard him say anything negative about a work site. Otherwise he had the habit of proudly pointing out all the buildings and installations he had worked on.
A non-place where the woeful, soiled figure at Haver’s feet had been killed. He was lying on his stomach with a cracked skull and arms outstretched, as if he had been thrown out of an aeroplane into the sea of air and immediately, brutally struck the ground. A failed parachute jumper.
That was what Ola Haver saw and thought. Why here? When and how? He read the dead man: the grip of his hands on the gravel; the battered knuckles; the greasy hair, carelessly trimmed at the neck; the heavy boots, sloppily tied with colourful laces; the stained pants; and, not least, the desperation written on the half of his face that was turned upward in a peculiar way. Haver got the idea that the unnatural angle was because at the moment of death the man tried to twist his head to look towards the sky one last time. Was he a believer? That was the policeman’s completely irrational thought, and even if it seemed unlikely, he wished that had been the case. He got to see the sky. Because even if the dead man had been an incorrigible sinner, God would show mercy on a man who died in such an ignominious way, Haver was sure of that.
How old was he? About forty-five, at a guess. They had not found a wallet in the man’s pockets or any document that might reveal his age or identity.
And why here? Because his life had looked just like this. Perhaps the man lived in the vicinity? A hundred metres away there was a derelict job-site trailer, perhaps that was his home.
When? He suspected it had been a while since the murder occurred, perhaps a full day. In due course there would be papers about that.
Like a dark shadow his father’s apparition hovered over the scene. Often, far too often in his opinion, thoughts of his dad and his unexpected death came up. He seldom if ever talked about it, but the realisation that he had now lived longer than his father tormented him.
In the background he heard the technicians talking. Morgansson was the one doing all the talking. Johannesson was taciturn as usual. Haver was standing too far away to hear what they were saying.
Allan Fredriksson was poking around in his seemingly aimless way. I guess he’s looking for unusual plants, thought Haver, not without bitterness. His colleague’s passion for nature showed no limits. Even at the scene of a murder he was assessing, registering, and systematising, coming out with eccentric comments for the context about plant and animal life. Indoors, in furnished rooms or in public spaces, he looked lost. Fredriksson was in his element outdoors, even if it was at a place condemned by humans. It made no difference for plants and insects. For them there was always something to feed on, and the same was true for the Boy Scout Fredriksson too.
More and more Ola Haver had come to loathe Fredriksson’s capacity to brush aside the deeply inhumane aspects of the violent crimes they were there to investigate in favour of quiet observations of nature. It was undignified. Death to Ola Haver was such an awful event that nothing was allowed to disturb his focus. Every time he stood before a lifeless body he thought about his father. Fredriksson on the other hand talked about sprouting life, woodpeckers, strange insects, or whatever caught his eye. Haver was struck by thoughts of meaninglessness, while if anything, Fredriksson became exhilarated.
Maybe I’m just envious, thought Haver, as he observed Fredriksson’s forward-leaning figure. His colleague’s thin coat was unbuttoned and fluttered around his skinny body when the wind picked up between the concrete pillars.
Was it perhaps a hopeful sign that Fredriksson could perceive life and a future in the most miserable environments? Haver felt a sting of bad conscience. Who am I to have interpretative preference? Fredriksson is neither a worse nor a better policeman than any one of us, so why judge his enthusiasm for nature? Maybe it’s his way of processing reality, making it comprehensible and bearable.
In the corner of his eye he noticed Johannesson approaching. The technician, who had only been on the unit for six months, walked slowly, as if he was hesitating. Ola Haver trembled unconsciously, made a vehement motion with his shoulders as if he was shaking off something unpleasant.
‘How’s it going?’ Johannesson asked.
Haver chose to overlook the question.
‘What have you found?’
The technician made a vague gesture.
‘I think this is the murder scene,’ he said. ‘Two blows and that’s it. The old guy fell down immediately after the first blow and then took one more on the back of the head. But I guess the doctor will have more to say about that.’
The old guy, thought Haver; the murdered man might be younger than him.
‘A slip of paper in his back pocket,’ said Johannesson.
‘A slip of paper?’
‘That’s all we found.’
Out with it, thought Haver. In the background Fredriksson coughed. He had complained that morning about feeling lousy.
‘A telephone number,’ said Johannesson at last.
Haver stared at the cars on the road below the place where they had found the murder victim. The traffic was heavier. They don’t know a thing, he thought. All these people going to work now, happily unaware of how close death is.
‘A telephone number?’
The technician held up a plastic bag with a slip of paper in it.
‘I think it’s a phone number anyway. Do you want to write it down?’
Haver nodded and produced paper and pen. Six digits, three of which were fours. Always something, he thought, three fours, that beats two pairs. Who called you? Who were you going to call?
Fredriksson approached. Johannesson smiled at him unexpectedly.
‘I’m going up to the trailer,’ said Haver and pointed.
From the road the bellowing honk of a lorry was heard. Johannesson twisted his head and studied the intense stream of vehicles, and if he intended to say anything, he quickly changed his mind and went back to the dead man with an expressionless face.
Haver set off before Fredriksson reached him.
You died in a place with a view, thought Haver, looking out over the scene of a crime that in the tabloids would surely be described as the ‘homeless murder’ or something like that.
The trailer had flat tyres, but was otherwise in reasonable shape. The hitch looked new. It was a yellow, smaller-model Valla trailer, with sitting room for four, Haver guessed. It was squeezed in between a pair of sizeable spruce trees, representatives of what not that long ago could be characterised as countryside, or perhaps the borderland between city and country. Now the expanding city had eaten its way in, chewed up and spat out the former forest and replaced it with roads and interchanges.
The door was closed. Haver pulled on a thin glove and pushed down the handle with one finger; the door opened easily on its own. To the left was what had once been a changing room but all the lockers were now removed. Against the one wall stood a camp bed without sheets, with a grey blanket in a pile at the foot. On the opposite side were several large plastic crates with covers and an enormous toolbox. A helmet was hanging on a nail. He could have used that, thought Haver.
He pulled on his shoe protectors and stepped just inside the door to get an overview. This was soon done, with a floor surface of perhaps ten square metres.
The trailer had probably been the dead man’s home. If not, there was a connection here. It was a homeless person’s temporary refuge.
In the space to the right was a table attached to the floor and four chairs. The tabletop was covered with various pieces of rubbish, a roll of steel wire, a packet of hard tack, a pile of used paper plates, but no bottles or beer cans, Haver noted with some surprise.
He left the trailer and went back to the technicians.
‘You can look at the trailer too.’
Morgansson nodded.
Fredriksson was still strolling around, but when he saw that Haver had come back, he came closer.
Haver looked at the dead man one last time, turned on his heels, and went towards his car. He was seething with bitterness. No one, especially not Fredriksson, was allowed to say anything! Then he might get furious and blurt out things that he would always regret. It was bad enough that he left his colleague in the lurch.
Before him his father, the burly construction laborer, dropped down without a word, his hand fumbling over his throat, choking to death from a wasp sting.
By leaving he was protecting his father, who was murdered by an insect. He was protecting himself, clenched one hand around his heart, to prevent an inner explosion.
Once at the car he changed his mind, but turned the key in the ignition anyway, put it in gear, and drove off. Fredriksson could do what he wanted, he can ride back with the technicians, he thought shamelessly.
THREE
She suddenly remembered the sting. Did he spank her? Shamelessly she had thrust up her buttocks. It was as if his hands were still resting heavily around her hips.
She drew in air, deeply, and breathed out, lowered her gaze and let it rest, carefully turned her head, and sniffed. He had licked her armpit. To start with it felt strange, bordering on unpleasant, but suddenly wellbeing took over. That was how it started, with his tongue.
‘… two blows to the head … the injuries …’
Allan Fredriksson’s voice in the background broke through her hazy thoughts for a moment and she raised her head and observed her colleague on the other side of the table. He met her eyes and the flow of words ceased for a moment before he continued.
‘… the place where the discovery was made is probably identical with the scene of the murder.’
Ottosson sniffled and took out a gigantic handkerchief. The violent nose-blowing made Fredriksson look up from his notes.
‘Try echinacea,’ he said.
Ottosson shook his head while he carefully folded up the handkerchief.
‘Rövballar.’ Why had he used that dialect word? Was he from Skane? Probably not. She seemed to recall him saying disparaging things about people from Skane, that they were provincial and lethargic, which no one could accuse Anders Brant of.
Anders was smart. She realised that right away, and he quickly understood connections. But now it was his penis she was thinking about. Smart or not, he was the most all-around best lover she had encountered. He made her feel beautiful and desirable. He saw lines in her body like no one before. I’m over forty, she protested, but he just smiled, and caressed her across her back and down over the rounding of her rear. ‘Dead man’s curve,’ he said, letting his hand continue towards her stomach and she had lightheartedly parted her legs, but his hand made its way across her thigh towards the hollow of her knee.
He was slow but sometimes heated as well, and he sometimes talked about Tantric sex, which she’d never heard of. Always attentive to her mood and desires, he was, in short, a ‘keeper’ as Görel would put it.
For three weeks they had been seeing each other, but only at her place. It was the most practical, he thought, saying that his place was cramped and that he didn’t like to clean. She thought it was a good arrangement, as she avoided having to get a babysitter. Erik had not taken any great notice of the man who came and went. Anders was always gone before Erik woke up in the morning, and Ann was not sure whether he knew that Anders slept over. One evening they played computer games together, and the next morning Erik asked where the ‘old man’ had gone.
They had made love three times in the past twelve hours – that was more than she had done the last two years before meeting Anders. She glanced at the clock; it was only an hour since he had slipped out of her.
She felt her belly contract. He had licked her like no one else, along her spine down towards the tailbone, and further, parted her cheeks and let his warm tongue run. Carefully he had drawn patterns with the tip of his tongue.
‘… that’s what I think.’
Fredriksson fell silent.
Lindell reached for the pen that was on the table in front of her.
‘Do you have a fever too?’ asked Fredriksson.
‘No,’ Lindell assured him.
‘You look a little warm.’
She laughed. She heard how wrong it sounded, girlish and nervous. Her colleagues around the table observed her: Haver with a look of admiration, Beatrice mildly indulgent, and Ottosson with that unbelievable furrow between his eyes. Fredriksson looked completely uncomprehending while Sammy Nilsson smiled and made the V sign.
‘I’m just a little—’
‘A little what?’ said Ola Haver.
He knows, thought Lindell. Their eyes met before she looked away. With a mental exertion of will she tried to gather her freely floating limbs and thoughts, and return them to her body.
It only struck her now that she had declined an invitation from Ola Haver and his wife Rebecka the evening before. Every summer they organised a barbecue. She had been there the past few years but this year she stayed away. No doubt they had discussed her absence.
Ann Lindell looked at Fredriksson.
‘What do we know about his circle of acquaintances?’
‘Have you had a stroke, Ann? Allan was just telling us that we don’t have an identity.’
Sammy Nilsson’s words made her look down at the table top.
‘I was somewhere else for a while,’ she said quietly.
‘Where were you?’ asked Beatrice Andersson.
He licked my armpit, she thought, and smiled and raised her eyes.
‘I was in a place you’ve never been, Beatrice,’ she answered after a few seconds, still smiling. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to make an urgent call.’
She got up and grabbed the notebook and pen. It shows, she thought as she left the room, well aware of their looks.
‘Urgent,’ she mumbled quietly to herself outside the door, and grinned.
After her panicky flight from the morning meeting, Ann Lindell barricaded herself in her office, unplugged the phone, and sat down, not at her desk, but in the visitor’s chair that was pushed up against the wall between a pair of gigantic file cabinets. The office was so small that the chair was always in the way when it was in front of the desk. If anyone were to crack open the door and look in, they would think she was out. She also felt like she needed to be somewhere else.
Little by little the satisfaction of the early morning had turned into a feeling of vague worry.
She was sore, but above all confused. She had to stick to what had happened. It had been a long time since she needed to handle emotions like passion and hope. Regret and longing she had been able to parry with pretty good success. But this? Should she make a comparison to Rolf or Edvard, two past lives? Can you start from zero, she asked herself, and immediately knew the answer.
They had met a couple of months ago at Görel’s and sure, she had been interested even then, and she sensed it had also been Görel’s intention to bring them together. She had tried earlier without any results and jokingly complained about Ann’s lack of involvement.
He had an open face and she liked that, got the idea that it corresponded to what was inside him. She needed a man like that, a man who talked about what he liked and thought, without reservation. She longed for painful honesty. No obstacles, no unspoken reservations, no point-taking.
Then she had not heard a word from him, even though he had said something about calling, but as the days and weeks passed she had resigned herself.
A month later he called. They decided to have dinner, the most civilised act two people can do together, as he put it. He suggested an Italian restaurant far up on St. Olofsgatan and she said yes. She arranged for Erik to sleep over with a playmate from preschool. Anders Brant would pick her up and arrived half an hour early. She was still in her underwear, peeked through the peephole in the door, wrapped a stained bathrobe around herself, and opened the door.
They never made it to the restaurant. Ten minutes after he had stepped into her flat they were in her bed.
This had been going on for three weeks. Violent fucking, there was no other word for it. He was loving. Unaccustomed to all this attention, these hands and this tongue, this cock, made her confused to start with, and sometimes she thought it was too good, too much of a good thing.
This morning he got out of bed, drew his hand over his sex, which in all likelihood was sore too, and said that he had to go away for a week, maybe two. She asked where he was going but did not get a reasonable answer. That’s how much of an investigator she was! I got caught with my pants down, she thought gloomily, still intoxicated and tired.
A shiver of fear passed through her. Would he come back? She tried to calm herself by thinking: Why wouldn’t he come back? He seemed happy with her. He came of his own free will, seemingly gladly and often to her home and bed.
After an hour there was a careful knock on the door. She knew it was Ottosson. The door was opened slowly by the unit chief who peeked in, and discovered Lindell between the massive cabinets.
‘How are you? You look a bit tired out,’ he began unusually directly, without commenting on her placement in the office.
She could tell that Ottosson was exerting himself to sound relaxed, despite the furrow between his eyebrows.
Lindell pulled the chair out into the office, patted him on the arm, and sat down behind the desk. Ottosson took a seat in the visitor’s chair.
‘Warmed up,’ he said, and it took a second before Lindell understood that he meant the chair.
‘I’ve been thinking about something,’ she said. ‘Ask around at “The Grotto”, they might have some idea who he is.’
‘Ola and Beatrice are on their way there,’ he said with a smile.
‘The Grotto’ was the fixed point in existence for many of the homeless. The operation was run as a non-profit by a few activists and got some municipal backing and private sponsorship. There the mournful existences that no one really wanted to take responsibility for or even know about, could get a meal, some clothes, and consideration.
Lindell nodded and smiled back. Ottosson’s wrinkle smoothed out somewhat.
‘How was the barbecue last night?’ she asked.
‘Ola postponed it, so you’ll get another chance.’
She realised he was wondering what she’d been doing the night before, what was so important that she chose it over the traditional barbecue. Perhaps he thought it was a demonstration on her part, a way of communicating that she was not in sync with the others at the unit.
‘That’s nice,’ she said without any great enthusiasm.
Ottosson was drumming his fingers on the armrest.
‘So, what do you think?’ she asked.
Ottosson leant back in the chair. His fingers became quiet.
‘The usual,’ he said. ‘A wino has too much to drink and kills another wino.’
‘But there was no alcohol in his body, was there?’
Lindell’s face suddenly turned red. What if I misunderstood that too?
‘No, but maybe the murderer had a little under his belt.’
‘And the phone number on the scrap of paper?’
‘No one answers. Berglund is checking on that.’
‘Whose account is it?’
‘His name is Anders Brant, some kind of journalist.’
Ann Lindell stared at Ottosson. Her mouth opened, but not a word came across her lips. Unconsciously she raised one hand as if to say: Hold up, repeat that!
‘You know him?’
In the midst of her confusion she marvelled at how easily her boss read her.
‘Tell me,’ Ottosson continued. ‘Has he interviewed you?’
Lindell shook her head.
‘No, we’ve just met casually,’ she said.
‘What’s he like?’
‘I don’t really know,’ she said.
Ottosson observed her.
‘What connection do you think there is between the murdered man and Brant?’
‘Not a clue,’ said Lindell.
‘But if you know him.’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘But something—’
‘Don’t you hear what I’m saying? I don’t know him!’
She braced her feet in the chair as if to get up but sank back with a sigh.
Ottosson put his hands up in a defensive gesture. This had happened before, these moments of collapse in their otherwise familiar relationship. No powerful collisions, and their quarrels never dragged on and seriously poisoned their collaboration. It would not happen this time either, Lindell was clear about that.
Ottosson smiled at her. The wrinkle of worry was gone. It was as if he strove to lure her over a boundary, to get her to expose herself, say something that might explain. He knew her so well. Ottosson was conflict averse but also wise enough to understand that out of anger something might come loose from his otherwise reserved colleague. The iceberg Lindell might calve a piece out of, sailing into the sea, a frozen clump that would drift away leisurely and slowly melt. She knew his tactics and her own weakness with respect to him.
This time you won’t get any confidences, she thought gloomily, but she braced herself and let out a short laugh, a gesture and a grimace that might indicate resignation, not due to Ottosson, but rather a kind of excuse, evidence of self-insight: Yes, this is me, Otto, and you’ll have to put up with it.
‘I do have my cold case,’ she said, and he took her hint.
‘Okay,’ said Ottosson. ‘You don’t know him, but soon enough we will. Sammy’s going to check up on this Brant. And how’s it going with the girl?’
‘I can’t make heads or tails of it.’
In April a sixteen-year-old girl had disappeared from her home in Berthåga. Lindell had expended considerable effort trying to figure out what happened, but had not found anything, or anyone, who could explain why Klara Lovisa Bolinder was as if swallowed up by the earth.
Every year a number of Swedes disappeared from their homes; the majority ran away of their own free will from their everyday lives, their jobs, and their families. For understandable reasons, the investigating police occasionally thought.
Klara Lovisa’s disappearance on the other hand was a mystery. Lindell had stared at photographs of the young girl, the best one taken only a week or so before she disappeared. It depicted a blonde, laughing girl, with long, straight hair parted in the middle, blue eyes, and a classical nose that hinted at Roman blood in her veins. She was smiling into the camera. Her eyes were confident, she trusted the photographer.
It was a girl you noticed. Lindell sensed that from the first moment, which was also confirmed by her family and friends. Even more peculiar was that absolutely no one had noticed Klara Lovisa after she left home on April 28, 2007, to go into the city and shop for a spring jacket.
‘I want to find her,’ said Lindell quietly.
Ottosson nodded. He leant forward and placed his hand on Lindell’s. They both knew that in principle the odds of finding Klara Lovisa alive were practically zero.
FOUR
The visit to ‘The Grotto’ had produced an identity, an ex-wife, and a handful of names that might be characterised as Bo Gränsberg’s friends, or at least acquaintances.
The manager of the refuge for the homeless, Camilla Olofsson, looked at the photograph of the dead man for a long time.
‘Bosse was a considerate man,’ she said at last, but neither Ola Haver or Beatrice Andersson took her words at face value. It was a common reaction; very few people wanted to say anything bad about a dead person. Instead their positive qualities would usually be emphasised.
‘He was considerate,’ the manager repeated. ‘He helped out. He was handy too. Nothing was left undone. I remember when we were going to … it doesn’t matter.’
Ola Haver stepped aside. Beatrice took a step closer.
‘No one deserves to die like that,’ she said.
Camilla Olofsson nodded resolutely.
‘Can you help us? We need a list of names, persons who maybe can tell us about Bosse, what he did, who he associated with, what plans he had.’
‘Plans,’ the manager said flatly, fixing her gaze somewhere far away. ‘He was happier recently,’ she said at last. ‘It seemed more positive, life, I mean. He came here a couple years ago, when he was really bad off. Then it went up and down.’
‘But now he was happier,’ Beatrice observed. ‘Did he say anything that explained—’
‘No, nothing. Bosse didn’t talk much. He kept most of it inside. He was trying, you could see that, but it was a struggle. He never recovered after the divorce. And then the injury, of course.’
‘What injury?’
‘I don’t really know how it happened, but he fell on the job, he was a construction worker. He broke his one arm and shoulder. Sometimes I could see that he was in pain.’
‘Do you know the name of his ex?’
‘Gunilla Lange. I think she lives in Svartbäcken. I have a brother who lives up there and I’ve seen Gunilla around there a few times. She’s been here a few times, dropped off clothes and that sort of thing. I liked her. I think she cared about Bosse too. She asked how he was doing. Maybe he was too proud to take any help from her, so she donated clothes here instead. Maybe they were his old clothes, what do I know?’
‘He never talked about a job or flat, or anything like that?’
Camilla Olofsson looked at the police officer.
‘Job and flat,’ she sniffed. ‘You don’t know what life is like for these men and women.’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Beatrice. ‘But you do. That’s why I’m talking with you.’
‘Why the hell does he have to die for all of you to get interested?’ said Camilla.
Besides Gunilla Lange’s name, they also got a list of a few names – five men and a woman. According to Camilla Olofsson it was likely that the men on the list would show up at ‘The Grotto’ later in the day.
Beatrice Andersson phoned Berglund, who promised to spend a few hours of the afternoon at ‘The Grotto’, to possibly make contact with a few people who could provide information about Bosse’s recent doings.
Am I grieving for him? She had repeated the question silently to herself since the police left her. They must have talked at least a couple of hours, then shook hands and said goodbye. The female police officer was sweet, complimented her on the curtains, asked whether she had sewn them herself. Not everyone noticed such things. The other one’s gaze had wandered, as if he was ashamed or afraid of her.
Yes, I’m grieving, she decided. I am grieving the life we could have had. For sixteen years they had been married, for two periods, like a football match. A long first half, which lasted twelve years, was good. Then came the accident.
They had no children. She mourned for that. Maybe him too. Of course that’s how it was. He loved kids. During all those years they had barely talked about it. They were both responsible for their childlessness, so why should they gab about it? She knew, purely rationally, that it was idiotic, but after the abortion, when she was nineteen, an intervention that he had supported, she saw childlessness as a punishment. She – they – had a chance, and they blew it.
Would things have been different with a child? Doubtful. Children were love, but not life, she had heard a girlfriend say once, and that phrase had etched itself into her awareness.
Their lives, mainly Bosse’s, had developed along a path that no one could have foreseen. He had always been a proud man, and that would become his great torment. Pride was easy to bear as long as he had something to be proud of, but then what?
She told the police about his work, about the years when he came home sober, full of life, and just proud. He worked hard and made good money. And then: a single nerve in his body that was torn apart and made him useless as a scaffolder. Unable to raise his arm. The pain. Being useless, looking up at the facades and knowing.
‘How did it happen?’ the male police officer asked, the first time he had shown any deeper interest in Bosse’s fate.
She told them about the accident and how it had upset Bosse’s life forever, and along with it their life together. He could not blame anyone, it was his own mistake, his eagerness to get it done quickly, that doomed him to idleness. He cursed his own clumsiness, called himself an ‘amateur.’
Like so many others he chose liquor. He said ‘booze’, never alcohol or more specifically vodka, gin, or whiskey. Booze it would be. She thought it sounded crude, but that was probably the point. There was nothing sophisticated, nothing enjoyable in Bosse’s drinking habits. Booze was oblivion. Booze was hate. Booze was separation from life.
She got up, went over to the window, and looked out over the yard. In the background was a glimpse of the newly constructed police building. They didn’t have far to go to convey their message. How could anyone work as a police officer? A high-rise full of crime, hate, lies, guilt, and sorrow. She should have asked how they put up with it, but suspected there was no good answer.
The clock in the living room struck one. Soon Bernt would come, he was taking off early to visit the construction industry health office later in the afternoon. They would have scalloped potatoes and fried pork loin. She would tell him about Bosse’s death. Bernt would not ask many questions. She understood that deep inside he would be relieved, perhaps even happy. He was jealous that someone else had been so significant in her life, before she and Bernt met, a kind of retroactive jealousy that she never understood. Bernt had also been married before and talked freely and easily about his former wife.
He would not want to see her tears or listen to her stories. And she would try to please him. Cry now, not later, she thought. And she cried, cried over a wasted life. Bosse’s. And perhaps her own, she wasn’t sure. Her demands on existence had never been all that great, but she sensed that there was another way to live.
From the oven came the aroma of the casserole. She took out the pork and started cutting it up into slices. He liked them thin and only lightly fried. Suddenly her movements stopped. The police wanted her to come to the morgue and identify her former husband.
‘You are the next of kin, from what we understand,’ the female police officer had said.
So it was, she thought, I was and am his next of kin. The police would pick her up at three o’clock.
How many slices will he want? The sight of the pork nauseated her. She set the knife aside. How did he die? It had not occurred to her to ask about that. What if they’d made a mistake and the dead man was someone else?
After the visit with Gunilla Lange, Ola Haver and Beatrice Andersson decided to look up the other woman on the list, for the simple reason that she was the only one with a permanent address, on Sköldungagatan in Tunabackar.
Ingegerd Melander was drunk, not conspicuously, but enough to make Haver feel uncomfortable. It was still only the middle of the day. He was immediately seized with antipathy, studied the woman’s slightly worn features, the wrinkles that ran like half-moons on her cheeks, and which deepened when she screwed up her face to conceal her intoxication. This had the opposite effect.
Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, which still made her look a bit girlish. Behind the ravaged face Haver could sense a woman who had once been really attractive.
‘I’m going to the store,’ she said for no reason when they introduced themselves.
‘We’re here for Bosse Gränsberg,’ said Ola Haver.
Beatrice glanced furtively at him.
‘May we come in and talk a little?’
Ingegerd Melander shook her head lightly and her noticeable confusion increased, but she stepped to one side to let them in.
They sat down at the kitchen table. Beatrice did not say anything about curtains, because there weren’t any. The kitchen was otherwise strangely clinically clean. Not a gadget to be seen on the kitchen counter, the table, or other surfaces; no potted plants adorned the windowsill. The only thing that suggested any human activity was a wall calendar from Kjell Pettersson’s Body Shop. Ola Haver noted that yesterday’s date was circled in red.
‘I have some bad news,’ Beatrice Andersson began.
‘It always is where Bosse is concerned,’ said the woman.
‘But you haven’t had a visit from us before on his account, have you?’
The woman shook her head.
‘What’s he done?’
‘Nothing, as far as we know,’ said Ola Haver. ‘He’s dead.’
At that moment he loathed himself and his work. The impulse to get up and rush out of the flat was almost too much for him.
The woman’s body contracted as if she had been given an electric shock, and she collapsed across the kitchen table, as if she were an inflatable doll someone had stuck a pin in. Just then the outside door opened, and they heard someone calling, ‘Hello in there!’
Beatrice leant over the kitchen table and placed her hand on the woman’s trembling shoulder. Ola Haver stood up. A man came into the kitchen whom Ola Haver immediately thought he recognised.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ said the man.
In his eyes there was a mixture of surprise, suspicion, and fury.
‘My name is Ola Haver and I’m a police officer.’
‘I can see that!’
‘We have some bad news.’
‘You always do,’ said the man.
He glanced over Haver’s shoulder.
‘What have you done to Ingegerd?’
‘Bosse Gränsberg is dead,’ said Haver.
‘Huh?’
The man swallowed.
‘Dead?’
Haver nodded.
‘What the hell! Why’s that? Did he kill himself?’
‘No, someone else killed him.’
Ola Haver saw the scene before him: Bo Gränsberg lying in the gravel.
Ingegerd Melander suddenly sat up, raised herself halfway, one hand resting heavily on the kitchen table while the other pointed at the man. Her hand was shaking. Her whole body was shaking.
A string of saliva ran from the corner of her mouth. Her face was beet red and her cheeks wet with tears. Hate, thought Ola Haver. That’s what hate looks like. She wanted to scream something but there was only sound somewhere far down in her throat, and she lowered her hand.
‘That was why,’ she mumbled.
‘What do you mean why?’
‘I turned forty.’
Ola Haver glanced at the calendar. She sank down on the chair. Haver signalled with his hand that the man should follow him into the living room.
‘What the hell is this?’
‘Murder,’ said Ola Haver. ‘Bosse was murdered.’
‘I don’t understand a thing,’ said the man.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Johnny Andersson. Why?’
What a nutcase, thought Haver. He recognised the name from the list they got from Camilla Olofsson at ‘The Grotto.’
‘So you knew Bosse too,’ he said. ‘What do you think happened?’
‘Me? How should I know?’
‘When did you last see him?’
Johnny Andersson suddenly looked scared.
‘You don’t think …’
‘Answer the question,’ said Haver, not able to hold back his fatigue and irritation. From the kitchen loud sobbing was heard.
‘A couple days ago,’ said Johnny sullenly. ‘You can’t just storm in here like the fucking Gestapo—’
‘Where and when?’
‘We met in town. It was last Sunday, maybe.’
‘What time?’
‘In the morning.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘We just ran into each other. You know, down at St. Per.’
Haver nodded. The little square in the middle of downtown where he and Rebecka used to meet when they were going to do something together. ‘See you by the fountain,’ she always said.
‘How was he?’
‘Well, same as usual. We talked a little. He was like he usually was … what should I say? A little bent.’
‘Bent?’
‘It’s like he curled himself up, made himself smaller than he was.’
‘He was a hundred eighty-six centimetres,’ said Haver for no reason.
‘Right, that tall.’
The man seemed to ponder the fact that there was at least ten centimetres difference between the dead man and himself.
‘He didn’t seem worried, agitated, or depressed, or anything?’
‘Where that’s concerned, was concerned, Bosse made you guess.’
‘One thing,’ said Haver, lowering his voice. ‘Did Bosse and’ – he made a movement with his head towards the kitchen – ‘did they have a relationship?’
Johnny Andersson looked to the side. Now he’s going to lie, thought Haver.
‘Yes, before.’
‘When was before?’
‘A month or two ago, maybe.’
‘They broke up then?’
Johnny nodded. Haver was not equally convinced that he had been served a lie, perhaps mostly because that lie would crack easily. He sensed that Johnny was interested in the woman in the kitchen. There was something in his attitude, but maybe mostly the tone he used in the cheerful call when, so free and easy, without ringing the doorbell, he stepped into the flat.
‘Who ended that relationship?’
‘Ingegerd.’
‘In other words, Bosse was unhappy. Was there a rival?’
Johnny shook his head.
‘Not as far as I know,’ he said.
There was the lie, thought Haver.
When the two police officers left Sköldungagatan they felt dejected. The mood did not lighten until they came to the crossing with Luthagsleden.
‘Sometimes it’s better when there are two of us,’ said Beatrice Andersson at last.
Haver nodded. Beatrice turned right.
‘Bosse and Ingegerd had a relationship previously,’ said Haver.
‘Yes, she told me that. She thought that he would congratulate her on her birthday anyway.’
‘Why did she break up with him?’
‘Too much partying, she maintained. The strange thing, or Ingegerd thought it was strange, was that Bosse had stayed sober since the day she broke off the relationship. Stone sober.’
‘He wanted to become a better person and make everything all right,’ said Haver, catching himself using a careless, almost belittling tone.
Beatrice squinted at him.
‘How are things at home?’ she asked mercilessly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you want to become a better person and make everything all right too?’
Haver looked at her and the fury made him clench his fists.
‘Admit it,’ said Beatrice. ‘I have eyes and ears. You’re feeling terrible. You’re not doing well.’
‘What does that have to do with you?’
‘It affects your job.’
When the light turned green at Sysslomansgatan she gunned the engine and took off long before the other motorists.
‘And mine,’ she added.
‘Up yours,’ said Ola Haver.
Beatrice made a quick left turn onto Rackarbergsgatan and slammed on the brakes so that Haver was thrown forward and caught by the safety belt.
‘Listen,’ she said, turning towards her colleague. ‘You need to cool down! We work together. We depend on each other. I can take a lot, but when I see that it’s affecting people we meet in our work, then it’s gone too far. Right now you are not a good policeman, do you see that?’
Haver stared straight ahead. More than anything he wanted to get out of the car.
‘We know each other well, we’ve worked together for many years, so I can be frank. You’re not a trainee, you’re an experienced, capable detective. So act like one.’
Shut up, he thought, but said nothing. Beatrice did not let herself be silenced by his stone face.
‘Take sick leave if you’re feeling shitty. Go somewhere. Do something you think is fun. In the worst case, get a divorce!’
She pushed forward the gear shift and the car rolled off up the hill. They had intended to check on an address in Stenhagen, where a former coworker of Bosse Gränsberg lived. A man whom Gunilla Lange knew was on long-term disability and whom Bosse often talked about. According to his ex-wife, they had seen each other several times during the last month.
But as if by unspoken agreement they returned, in icy silence, to the police building.
FIVE
As soon as Ottosson left, Lindell took out the phone book and looked up Anders Brant’s number.
With increasing agitation she punched in the numbers. She wished he would pick up the phone and explain how it all fit together, but after a half-dozen rings an answering machine came on: ‘Hi, you’ve reached Anders Brant. I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.’ Anders Brant, the man who made her feel pleasure like never before, the man who made her feel hopeful. When she heard his voice the thrill from the morning returned, the satisfaction and excitement. He didn’t say he wasn’t at home, just that he couldn’t come to the phone.
She had never called him before. She did not even have his mobile phone number. He was always the one who made contact, and until now she had not found that strange. Now it felt all the more peculiar.
Now he did not pick up the phone and what was worse, he was involved in a murder investigation. He had suddenly gone away. She called again, with the same result. For a moment she considered leaving a message, but decided not to.
Someone other than Anders Brant might listen to the message.
Who was he? A journalist, he said, freelancing now after resigning from a magazine she had never heard of, much less read. A cultural magazine, he explained, which in his taste had become a little too stuck-up. He mentioned something about a ‘battle-axe’ in the editorial office he didn’t get along with.
What did he write about? She didn’t know. Cultural articles was the most likely candidate. Here Ann felt that she was in foreign territory and no doubt that was also the reason she had not shown any great curiosity. She did not want to admit how ignorant she was in that area.
They had not talked that much really, mostly cuddled and made love, and Ann had not protested, starved as she was for skin and touch.
And now he had gone somewhere. She did not know where and she did not know how she could quickly and easily find that out. A week, maybe two, he had said. She guessed it had to do with work. Was he in Sweden or abroad? Perhaps Görel knew something? Ann had no idea where and when they had met. Görel was not someone you immediately associated with cultural magazines.
She went to the Eniro website and searched his mobile phone number. The phone was turned off and an automated message said something about a voicemail box.
All in all, Anders Brant was one big question mark. She guessed that the reason the murdered man had a slip of paper with a journalist’s phone number on it was purely professional. But what could Bo Gränsberg have to say to a cultural journalist? Perhaps they were acquaintances from before, perhaps even related?
There were too many questions. She decided to talk with Sammy Nilsson and then Görel, but that would have to wait until this evening. Reaching her at work was difficult and not greatly appreciated.
It struck her that her girlfriend had not called during the time Brant was tumbling around in Ann’s bed. Didn’t she know that they had met? She must be curious, but if Brant hadn’t said anything to her, then Görel must have guessed that her attempt at procurement had not succeeded. She usually called now and then, but the past few weeks there had been complete silence, and Ann had not thought about contacting her. I’ve had my hands full, she thought, and could not help smiling to herself, on some level very satisfied with the experiences of the past few weeks. And she did not want to believe that it was over. It couldn’t be over. But why this aching, unpleasant feeling, which also expressed itself physically, that the whole thing was over, that for a few weeks she had been able to look out over landscapes that were not her true domains. A temporary visit.
Ann Lindell got up with a heavy sigh. Never, she thought, it can never be really good, never uncomplicated.
Sammy Nilsson did not answer either. In Lindell’s experience, that could be due to two things; either he was talking with a ‘customer,’ as he insisted on saying, or he was exercising. Considering the circumstances she believed in the first alternative. She left a message and asked him to call her as soon as possible.
Then she sat down at the computer to do some research. She typed ‘Anders Brant’ in the search field and after a moment or two the screen was filled with information. There was a total of 2,522 hits, even if many of course came from the same source.
The first entry was a short article published in the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation magazine, about biofuel, followed by some longer articles about Putin and Russia printed in a magazine she was not familiar with, followed by an opinion piece on the same subject published in Dagens Nyheter.
Lindell skimmed through the text. A different Anders Brant emerged than the one she knew. His tone was polemical, but quiet nonetheless. He formulated himself well, she thought, and felt a touch of pride in his ability. We were fucking that same day, she thought. Dagens Nyheter inserted his article on the editorial page and Anders inserted a different article in me, she thought, smiling in the midst of her confusion.
The phone rang and she saw that it was Sammy Nilsson.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m wondering about that Brant.’
‘I am too,’ said Sammy. ‘I’m actually at his residence.’
Lindell’s face turned red.
‘Where does he live?’
‘In Svartbäcken. No one’s home. I’ve talked with some of his neighbours and one of them saw him leave the house with a suitcase yesterday morning. He came home at eight in the morning in a taxi. It’s good to have old ladies around who keep an eye on things. But this time it was a man, Mr Nilsson, like Pippi Longstocking’s monkey.’
‘Suitcase,’ she said stupidly and could not hold back her disappointment, even though he said he was going away.
For a brief moment she considered telling him about her relationship with Brant. Sammy was someone who could take it without getting upset or criticising her. On the contrary, he would think it was exciting. He would congratulate her and say that there was nothing to worry about. Lie low, he would encourage her, you’re not working on the case. We’ll find Brant, question him, and remove him from the investigation.
Just as the words were on the tip of her tongue, ready to be spat out, because that was how she felt now, she had to spit Brant out, get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth, Sammy continued.
‘Well, sure, that messes everything up. He was only carrying a small suitcase, which the neighbour believed was a computer case.’
‘He’s a journalist,’ said Lindell.
Sammy laughed.
‘We know that,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Super!’ said Lindell.
It struck Lindell that Brant must have called for a taxi when he left her flat. Now he was Brant and not Anders.
‘Then he took off in another taxi half an hour later,’ Sammy continued.
‘Have you checked the fare?’
‘Will do. He took Uppsala Taxi. The monkey noticed that.’
Lindell took a deep breath, trying to think of something intelligent to say.
‘I see,’ she managed to say.
‘Why do you ask? Do you have anything new concerning our writer friend?’
‘No, no, I was just curious, I knew you would be checking up on him. Ottosson mentioned something about it.’
Sammy Nilsson did not say anything. Perhaps he was waiting for more? But why did he say ‘monkey’? Sammy’s last name was Nilsson too.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ said Lindell at last, when the silence became too tangible.
‘We’ll do that! Bye!’
After the call Lindell sat for a long time, brooding about whether she should go to see Ottosson and tell him what she had been unable to say to Sammy. But she decided to lie low. On the screen his name was shining and she shut down the computer.
‘Jerk,’ she said.
Listlessly she opened a folder that contained the latest about Klara Lovisa. At the top was the photograph and as usual Lindell studied it carefully before she browsed further and produced the hastily jotted down notes from yesterday.
A man in Skärfälten, just ten kilometres west of the city, had seen a young girl in the company of a man. The description tallied, and the witness had even specified the right colour of her jacket and trousers. They were walking together at a slow pace on the road towards Uppsala-Näs.
A day after the disappearance, when the media had reported on the case, the man, Yngve Sandman, called the police tip line, but since then no one had shown any interest in questioning him further.
Yesterday he had called, somewhat bitter but mostly surprised at the lack of action, and was forwarded to Lindell.
‘I have a daughter myself,’ he said.
Lindell could not explain why no one from the police had been in touch. Carelessness, she thought to herself, but obviously could not say that. Always with disappearances, especially when young women were concerned, there was an abundance of tips and observations. Mostly they led nowhere. The man’s call had no doubt drowned in the flood of calls.
Ann Lindell got his information again and promised to be in touch within a day or two. Now it had been exactly twenty-four hours and she made the call. They agreed that she would drive out to see him right away.
‘It was here,’ said Yngve Sandman, pointing. ‘I was on my moped and they were walking there, on the other side of the road.’
Lindell looked at him.
‘So they were walking on the wrong side,’ Lindell observed, as if that were significant. ‘You were on a moped?’
‘Yes, I collect mopeds and was out test driving an old Puch. It’s older than me. It doesn’t go fast and I was able to get a good look at them.’
‘Tell me how they were walking, what they looked like and that.’
‘She was walking closest to the road. They weren’t walking particularly fast, didn’t look stressed. But they didn’t seem to be talking with each other, not right when I encountered them anyway.’
‘How did the girl seem?’
Yngve Sandman shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, what should I say? I thought she was pretty, if you know what I mean.’
Lindell nodded.
‘Did you get the impression that they knew each other? She didn’t look scared or anything?’
‘Well, two friends out walking, that’s what it looked like. But actually you can be afraid of a friend too.’
‘How were they dressed?’
‘I’ve told you that, first in April and then yesterday to you.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘She had dark-green trousers, almost looked military with a couple of pockets in front on the hip, and a light-blue jacket. Pretty short, I thought, it was cold that day. I didn’t think about her shoes, if I had to guess they were black, some kind of boots.’
Mr Sandman guesses right, thought Lindell. Klara Lovisa had on a pair of short, black boots the day she disappeared.
‘And him?’
‘Blue jeans and a jacket with a hood, which he had pulled up. It was dark, maybe blue. Workout clothes, I think.’
‘What did he look like?’
Suddenly the sky darkened and they looked up. A dark cloud passed quickly and the sun was hidden for a few moments.
‘Around twenty-five, maybe younger,’ said Sandman, as the sun returned. ‘Light hair, but the hood concealed most of his head.’
‘Glasses?’
The man shook his head. He looked away along the road. ‘I got the sense that he was walking a little funny, but that may be because he was walking halfway in the ditch, if you know what I mean?’
‘Was he limping?’
