You’re right there, Irene thought, but instead she asked again, “So what do we do?”
“I have no idea,” Anna said helplessly after a brief silence.
“Would you like me to keep him for the time being? Until you come up with something?”
Irene was surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth; that wasn’t what she had intended to say at all. She should have informed Anna Hallin that Egon would be taken to a short-term care facility for three weeks, then they would decide what was to be done with him. If no one wanted him, in the worst-case scenario he would be put down. That was the normal routine, but Irene didn’t want to move him to a new environment again. He had spent at least twenty-four hours in the apartment with his dead owner. He had been crying by the door, frightened and alone, without food or water. Both Irene and Krister liked him, and wanted to give him the warmth and security he so badly needed. Decision made. Fortunately Anna was happy to go along with Irene’s suggestion. They agreed to speak in a couple of weeks, when Anna was feeling a little better and had had time to think things over.
17.
Niklas Johansson’s appearance fit pretty well with the facial composite. He was thirty-one years old and “seeking work.” He had a police record because he had stabbed a man during a fight four years prior, causing serious injuries. The victim had hovered between life and death for a long time. His condition had been stabilized after several months, and the doctors had stated that he would survive, but with long-term disabilities. Niklas Johansson had been convicted of attempted manslaughter, and had been sentenced to three and a half years in jail. The relatively lenient sentence was handed down because witnesses had testified that both parties had been extremely drunk, but it was Niklas who had been holding the knife. His opponent had grabbed a bottle to use as a weapon, but had dropped it during the fracas after smashing Johansson across the face and breaking his nose. His mug shot therefore showed him with the fractured nose in plaster, but the pale eyes gazed expressionlessly into the camera, and it was possible to see the rounded cheeks and the full lips.
“The picture is four years old, and he’s done jail time since then. We don’t know what he looks like today,” Jonny said.
“Then let’s find out,” Irene suggested.
She hid a smile as he got up with a groan. Jonny wasn’t too keen on good old-fashioned foot slog.
•••
Niklas Johansson lived on Smyckegatan in Tynnered. Before they left the station Irene checked the address; over the past few months there had been several complaints from neighbors about disturbances in the apartment.
Jonny rang the bell. From the other side of the door came the deafening sound of hard rock.
“There’s no chance of him hearing the bell,” Jonny said, pushing down the handle. A searing guitar riff hit them like a tidal wave.
A man in his thirties with a haggard appearance came into the hallway. He had changed a great deal since the mug shot was taken four years ago, but Irene recognized those pale eyes. He blinked at the two cops in the doorway and yelled:
“Get the hell out of here! Or shall I help you on your way? Is that what you want?”
As he was speaking he came toward them, fists clenched. Jonny showed his police ID.
“Calm down. Police. We’d like a word.”
The man was standing right next to them now. He was shorter than Jonny, but was staring him straight in the eye. “Fuck off!” he shouted.
At such close quarters Irene could smell not only booze but also his unwashed body. His clothes were dirty and stank of piss and something else. The pale eyes were terrifyingly empty and expressionless. So far he was a good match for Marie Carlsson’s description of Cod Eyes, but the body didn’t fit at all. Niklas was skinny, little more than skin and bone. Only loose pouches remained of those cherubic cheeks. His movements were jerky and uncoordinated. Both Irene and Jonny had seen this many times before: Johansson was under the influence of narcotics.
Jonny gave Niklas a gentle push. The thin body wobbled, and he staggered back a few paces. He tripped over a sneaker and fell flat on his back.
“Oops-a-daisy. There you go, we have to come in now—make sure you haven’t hurt yourself,” Jonny said in a deceptively friendly tone.
“You’re . . . you’re trespassing,” Niklas gasped without any real conviction.
“So report us.”
Jonny went over and helped Niklas to his feet. All the fight had gone out of him; he was as limp as a rag doll, and he allowed himself to be led into the living room.
Irene closed the front door and followed them. Quickly she took in all the details: the dirt, the stench, the mess, the few shabby pieces of furniture, the cigarette smoke, the young man lying on his back on the floor. At first she thought he looked as if he was dead, but on closer inspection she could see that his chest was moving up and down. Drugged up to the eyeballs, she concluded. He was wearing nothing more than a pair of scruffy jeans. She picked up a grubby blanket from the sagging sofa and placed it over him.
“Don’t you fucking worry, I will fucking report you . . .”
Niklas was trying to work himself up into a frenzy again, but Jonny interrupted him.
“I don’t think so. You are a person of interest in a homicide investigation. Refusing to answer questions under the circumstances would be regarded as suspicious behavior, which means you would have to come down to the station. You would be questioned, over and over again. Until you talk. That can take quite a while, and you would be held in a very, very, very small cell. Tiny, in fact. For a very, very, very long time. But of course you know all this already,” Jonny said with a false smile.
Any courage that Niklas had managed to summon up disappeared in a second. His slack face became even paler, if that were possible.
“What homicide investigation? I don’t know anything about any fucking homicide,” he croaked.
“We’ll see,” Jonny said curtly.
He paused for effect, his eyes boring into Niklas.
“How often do you visit the mall at Frölunda torg?”
“Frölunda torg . . . is that where the homicide . . .”
“I’m asking the questions!” Jonny snapped.
He was outstanding when it came to playing the bad cop. So far Irene couldn’t see any reason to interrupt; her job was to gather impressions and try to spot any clues. She could see little plastic bags and scraps of aluminum foil all over the floor. Some of the bags were on top of the box that served as a coffee table and appeared to contain different-colored pills. In one corner of the room there was a small fortune in empty bottles that hadn’t been returned. There were greasy, smelly pizza delivery boxes everywhere. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes and the remains of unidentifiable substances. The man on the floor hadn’t moved.
“How often do you visit the mall at Frölunda torg?” Jonny repeated.
“Once a week . . . maybe.”
“How about several times a week?”
Jonny’s tone of voice was almost paternal now. This made Niklas nervous: his eyes were darting all over the place.
“Maybe.”
“Do you sometimes shop at the ICA Maxi store?”
“No—why the hell would I do that?”
The surprise in Niklas’s voice sounded genuine.
“We all shop for food and other stuff. How often do you go to the ICA Maxi store?”
“Never,” Niklas said firmly.
“But surely you . . .”
“I don’t cook.”
“But surely you must buy . . .”
“I buy fast food. Hot dogs, burgers, pizza.”
•••
“It’s not him,” Irene said as they were walking back to the car.
“I agree. Although just to tidy things up, tell me if there’s anything in particular that
makes you think he’s not our perp,” Jonny said.
“He’s a complete wreck thanks to the drugs. He’s weak and emaciated. Doesn’t fit the description. Even if a junkie can be as strong as a bear when he’s taken something, I don’t think Niklas would be able to overcome Marie or the other two women. Both Marie and Elisabeth were used to working out. And Niklas’s main interest in life isn’t stalking women. The only thing that matters to him is making sure of his next fix. He doesn’t care what it is, as long as it does the job. Which is probably when he heads for Frölunda torg.”
“You’re right. Shit!”
The last word slipped out as they reached the unmarked police car. Someone had smashed the rear side window.
“Nice of them to go for that one so we don’t get broken glass in our asses on the way back,” Jonny said through gritted teeth.
When they pushed open the door of the unit they both stopped in their tracks. They could hear Egon yapping with delight, and a voice saying:
“There’s a good dog! Fetch your ball—go on, fetch it! Good boy!”
Irene and Jonny exchanged a look of mutual understanding. They tiptoed along the corridor and peered around the corner. They had heard correctly, and they had drawn the right conclusion.
“I see the boss of doggy day care is exercising her little charge,” Jonny said.
Efva Thylqvist spun around, caught in the act. Egon raced past her with the blue ball in his mouth.
“He was whimpering, so I thought maybe he needed to go out . . . but when I opened the door he ran past me. He took the ball with him,” she said apologetically. Then she straightened up and added, “This really isn’t a suitable environment for a dog. And as I said, this is not doggy day care.”
She gave Jonny a poisonous glance. Maybe referring to her as “the boss of doggy day care” wasn’t all that smart, Irene thought.
“I’ll take him for a walk,” she said, heading for her office to fetch his leash. She had trouble hiding a smile as she passed Thylqvist. It was the first time in two years that Irene had seen any indication that the superintendent cared about anyone else’s feelings. Okay, so it was only a dog, but it had to be regarded as a major step forward.
The last person on Jonny and Irene’s list was Daniel Börjesson, a single thirty-three-year-old park operative living on Basungatan.
They had been given his name over the phone by a young woman who wanted to remain anonymous. From past experience the police knew this could be a question of revenge on the part of an ex-girlfriend or a wannabe girlfriend. According to the colleague who had taken the call, she had given Daniel Börjesson’s name and address in a clear, steady voice. Then she had paused for a little while before going on, her voice shaky now: “He won’t . . . he won’t be able to find out who . . . you’re not going to trace my number, are you?” When the officer had reassured her, she said: “He’s just so strange. It’s his eyes. He never says anything weird, it’s not that—but there’s something . . . wrong.” Then she had ended the call.
Just a few hours later the owner of a convenience store in the area where Daniel Börjesson lived had called; he had also been struck by Daniel’s resemblance to the picture in the paper.
“Two calls about the same person. Interesting,” Jonny said.
“Yes—or he just happens to look like the facial composite,” Irene replied.
They started by talking to the store owner the following morning. It was pretty small—more of a well-stocked kiosk, really. It also had a terminal for placing bets on harness racing, and the line of customers was long. The girl at the register was working at full speed.
Jonny nodded to the cashier and said to Irene, “Everyone dreams of easy money, but the only winners are the state and the betting companies.”
The owner introduced himself as Theo Papadopoulos. He was a short, stout man in his sixties who spoke almost perfect Swedish with a Göteborg accent, from which Irene concluded that he must have been born in the city. This turned out to be incorrect.
“I fled to Sweden during the junta in the 1970s, and I’ve lived in Göteborg ever since. I fell in love and got married. The girl on the till is our youngest daughter. We have four children, but Melina is the only one who works here, along with my wife and me. We also have two general staff, young guys who work evenings and weekends. I don’t want Melina or my wife to do that,” Theo explained.
“Things seem to be going well,” Jonny said, nodding in the direction of the line.
“We get by,” Theo said with a smile.
Looking at Melina, Irene could see why the line consisted mainly of men. Her long, honey-blonde hair flowed down her back. She was beautiful, and every customer received a beaming smile as they paid.
On a TV screen above Melina’s head a commentator was starting to yell hysterically. Apparently it was a photo finish, so it wasn’t clear which horse had won. Irene decided it was time to get down to business.
“We’d like to talk to you about the call you made with regard to the picture in the papers,” she said.
Papadopoulos immediately became serious, and rubbed his hand several times over his balding head. He showed them into a room behind the counter, with four chairs around a worn Formica table.
“I’ve owned this place for thirty years, and Daniel has lived there all that time,” he began, pointing to the apartment block next door.
“Thirty years . . . so he must have been three,” Irene said after a quick calculation.
“I guess so. He lived with Signe, his grandmother. She was a regular customer right from the start. She liked a chat, and she often brought the boy with her. My eldest son and Daniel are about the same age, but Alexander never wanted to play with him. They tried it a few times, but it didn’t work. Alex thought the kid was strange.”
The anonymous young woman had used exactly the same word in her phone call. Strange.
“Strange in what way?” Irene asked.
“It was as if . . . as if he wasn’t quite there. He didn’t say much, and he seemed very slow. Sometimes he said weird things, but mostly he kept quiet.”
“So you live in the area?” Irene gestured vaguely in the direction of the nearby apartment blocks.
“Not far away—in Järnbrott. Rundradiogatan. We’ve been there ever since we got married.”
“So you’ve seen quite a lot of Daniel over the years. What else can you tell us?” Irene said encouragingly.
Theo got to his feet. “Could you excuse me for a moment while I go and help Melina? I won’t be long—help yourselves to coffee,” he said, pointing to a pot on the stove with a stack of paper cups beside it. Irene poured two cups, dropped two sugar cubes in one and passed it to Jonny. On the table there was a large tin of cookies. Without hesitation Jonny took off the lid and helped himself. Irene resisted for two reasons. Firstly she thought it was impolite to take one without asking, and secondly her jeans had started to feel a little tight around the waistband lately. She couldn’t step up her exercise regimen, she was already doing all she could, so her only option was to cut down on the sugary treats.
Theo came back and poured himself a coffee before sitting down.
“Daniel . . . He lived with his maternal grandparents. As I understood it, both his mother and father were dead. Which is unusual—for both of them to die at such a young age, I mean.”
His expression was pensive as he took a cookie and broke it into smaller pieces. Irene gave a start; her former chief, Superintendent Sven Andersson, used to do exactly the same thing. Efva Thylqvist didn’t eat cookies, of course. The thought of Thylqvist made Irene take a cookie out of sheer defiance.
“Daniel has always been . . . odd. I don’t think he has many friends today either. Not that I’ve noticed, anyway. And he’s never had much to say for himself, but he was always there for his grandmother. His grandfather passed away . . . It must be twe
nty years ago now, but Daniel stayed with his grandmother until her death.”
“And he still lives in her apartment?”
“Yes—it’s a rental property, but he was able to take over the contract. I think it was good for him. He was terribly upset when she died. He looked pretty rough for a while, but he’s back on his feet now. Back to normal. Well, as normal as Daniel can be.”
“Do you know if he takes drugs or drinks alcohol?” Irene asked.
“I’ve never seen him under the influence of anything. I don’t think he drinks or smokes. That’s certainly the way he was raised. Signe was a churchgoer, and she used to take the boy with her. She was kind to him, but I’ve got the feeling she was pretty strict, too, kept him in line. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t take drugs. There’s a lot of that around here.”
“Have you ever seen or heard of any violent behavior from Daniel?” Jonny asked.
“No, never. Although of course I don’t know him very well. I don’t think anyone does.”
“And you think he looks like the picture in the paper?” Jonny went on.
“Absolutely. It was Melina who saw it, and right away she said: ‘Look, it’s Daniel!’ ”
“Have you noticed whether he smells?” Irene asked.
Theo raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He thought for a moment before he answered.
“When he was little he used to smell of . . . piss now and again. He wet himself when he started school. The other kids gave him a hard time, but he didn’t seem to care.”
“I was thinking more of now, as an adult,” Irene clarified.
“He often comes in here in his work clothes, and they don’t smell too good. Melina has said several times that even if they are work clothes, surely he could wash them occasionally. But I can’t say whether he smells worse than anyone else. I’m a heavy smoker, and my wife says I’ve destroyed my sense of smell.” He grinned, showing them an uneven row of nicotine-stained teeth.
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