The gang, he thought when he looked over the list, the ones that law-abiding folk went out of their way to avoid on the street, that they pretended not to see.
He was going to stay sober and clear-minded. He would have all the time in the world to drink himself to death later.
Lennart opened a beer but had only a few sips before he left it on the table and walked into the living room. He had a one-bedroom apartment. He was proud of the fact that he had managed to keep his crib all these years. Sure, the neighbors had complained from time to time, and sometimes the rental agreement hung in the balance.
There were some photographs on a shelf. He took down one of them and looked at it for a long time. Uncle Eugene, John, and himself on a fishing trip. He couldn’t remember who had taken the picture. John held up a pike and looked happy, while he himself was serious. Not unhappy, but serious. Eugene looked content as always.
More fun than a barrel of monkeys, Aina had said about her brother. Lennart would remember that Saturday for a long time, his mother with one hand on Eugene’s neck and the other on Albin’s. They were sitting at the kitchen table. She had put out some cold cuts, Eugene was talking away in his usual manner, and she was on her way to the pantry when she paused and touched the two men she loved most. Her hands rested there for maybe ten seconds while she made that comment after something her brother had said. Lennart remembered looking at his father, who appeared relaxed like he always did after a shot and a beer. He seemed not to notice her hand, at least he didn’t remark on it, pull away, or look embarrassed.
How old had he himself been when the picture was taken? Maybe fourteen. It was about then that things had changed. No more fishing trips. Lennart felt as if there were a tug-of-war inside him all the time. From time to time he could feel happy and at peace, like when they were up on the roof, he, John, and Teodor, after they had finished with the snow. Or when he was with Albin at the metalwork shop, the few times he was allowed there. There, Albin’s stutter was of no consequence. Nor was his tiredness. When Lennart was little he thought his father was tired from the stuttering, it looked so exhausting when the words wouldn’t come. But that tiredness was gone at the shop. He moved in a different way.
Lennart suddenly remembered how Albin’s face would sometimes contract as if suffering from a cramp. Was it pain or exhaustion? Was that why he fell? They had told him it was icy. Or had he jumped headfirst? No, his colleague had seen him slip, heard the cry or scream. Was he stuttering then as he fell helplessly? Was it a stuttering cry that echoed against the massive brick walls of the cathedral?
He must have screamed so loudly that it reached the archbishop. The top dog had to be notified so he would have time to prepare a place for Albin high above the roofs and spires he had clambered on. He must be welding something up there in heaven, Lennart thought. What else would he be doing? He needed to have something to do with his hands, hated being idle. Golden rooftops up there, or copper at the very least.
He suddenly missed the old man, as if his grief for John pulled the one for his father along with it.
“Only a little while longer,” he said aloud and struggled with his emotions.
He sat in the dark apartment, one hour, two, maybe three, nursing his grief. His lips and cheeks grew stiff and his back ached. He stayed up and seemed to relive the good times with John.
He pushed all the bad times away. Sure, he had wondered about the connections, been asked questions in school, at the child psychologist’s, at the police, in jail, at social services, at the unemployment center. They had all asked him about stuff. He had tried to find the threads. Now they converged at a snow dump in Libro, a place no one had ever thought about.
He knew there were no clear-cut answers. Life was a mixture of coincidence and hopes that often ran out in the sand. He had stopped wondering about it all a long time ago. He had chosen his path. And if he was the one who was in sole control of this decision—he had stopped asking himself about that a long time ago. That it had all gone wrong, gone to hell, too many times, he knew that. He didn’t blame anyone or anything anymore. Life was what it was.
The other life, the righteous life, was there like a reflector that gleamed momentarily as it caught the light. Of course he had tried. There was a time during the eighties when he had worked for a construction company. He had shoveled gravel and mulch, packed lunches, and developed muscles like never before in his life.
He had met people who had known Albin and slowly he developed another image of his father. Old construction workers talked admiringly of the knowledgeable old roofer, praise that Lennart absorbed. The collective memories of Albin’s great skill seemed to extend to his son a little.
Sure, there had been good times. And then John. His little bro. Dead. Murdered.
Berit cracked the door for the third time in half an hour, looking at Justus’s ruffled hair and the naked face that still bore traces of tears.
She closed the door but remained standing there with her hand on the doorknob. How is this going to go? she asked herself. The feeling of unreality lay like a mask over her face. Her legs were as heavy as if they were set in plaster casts and her arms felt like foreign outcroppings on a body that was hers and yet not. She moved, talked, and experienced her surroundings with full possession of all her senses but as if at a great distance from herself.
Justus had broken down. For several hours he had been shaking and crying and screaming. She had forced herself to be calm. Then he had eventually calmed down and, as if with the wave of a hand, sunk down into a corner of the sofa. Something strange came over his young face.
They had immediately become very hungry. Berit quickly cooked some macaroni, which they ate with cold Falu sausage and ketchup.
“Does it hurt to die?” That had been one of his questions.
How was she supposed to answer? She knew from that female police officer that John had been assaulted, but she didn’t want to hear any details. It hurts, Justus, she had thought, but in order to comfort him she told him that John had most likely not suffered.
He didn’t believe her. Why should he?
Her hand on the doorknob. Closed eyes.
“My John,” she whispered.
She had been sweating, but now she was cold and walked with stiff legs to the living room to get the blanket. She stood passively in the middle of the room, wrapped in the blanket, unable to do anything now that Justus had fallen asleep. Before, he had needed her. Now the minutes were ticking away and John became more and more dead. More distant.
She walked over to the window. The smell of the hyacinths almost choked her and she wanted to smash the window to get some air, fresh air.
It was snowing again. Suddenly she saw a movement. A man disappeared in between the buildings on the other side of the street. It was only a split second, but Berit was convinced that she had seen the figure before, the same dark green clothing and a cap. She stared down at the corner of the building where he had disappeared, but now all that could be seen were some footprints in the snow. She wondered if it was the same man she had seen while she was waiting for John. Then she had thought it was Harry’s brother who was helping him with the snow removal, but now she wasn’t sure.
Was it John appearing to her? Did he want to tell her something?
Ola Haver came home shortly before nine.
“I saw it on the news,” Rebecka said to him first thing.
She gave him a look over her shoulder. He hung his coat in the closet and felt the fatigue settle over him. From the kitchen he heard the continuous hacking of a knife against the cutting board.
He walked into the kitchen. Rebecka had her back to him and he felt drawn to her like metal shavings to a magnet.
“Hi,” he said and buried his face in her hair.
He felt her smile. She kept slicing and cutting.
“Do you know that in Spain women spend four hours working in the home a day and the men only forty-five minutes?”
“Have y
ou been talking to Monica?”
“No, I read it in the paper. I had time for that in between the vacuuming, breast-feeding, and laundry,” she said with a laugh.
“Should I do something?” he said and put his arms around her body, grabbing her hands so that she had to stop cutting.
“It was a study involving several European countries,” she said, freeing herself from his grasp.
“How did Sweden do?”
“Better,” she said curtly.
He knew she wanted him to leave her alone so she could finish the herring salad or whatever it was, but he had trouble letting go of her body. He wanted to press up against her back and bottom.
“Was it bad?”
“The usual. Hell, in other words, but Bea had the worst of it.”
“Informing the family members?”
“What else is going on? How are the kids?”
“Was he married?”
“Yes,” Haver said.
“Children?”
“A boy, fourteen.”
Rebecka tipped up the end of the cutting board, pulling the knife over the board to scrape the last pieces into the frying pan. He looked at the knife in her hand. The stone in her ring, the one he had bought in London, gleamed ruby red.
“I’m making something new,” she said, and he knew she was talking about the food.
He straightened up and went to shower off.
Eight
Justus Jonsson got up out of his bed at twenty to four in the morning. He had woken up with a start, driven by a single thought. His dad’s voice: You know what you have to do, boy.
Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He tiptoed to the door, opened it, and saw the light on in the hall. He listened, but the apartment was quiet. The door to his parents’ bedroom was slightly ajar. He peeked in and saw to his surprise that the bed was empty. He was confused for a few seconds—had she left? But then he saw that the covers were missing and then he understood.
She was sleeping on the sofa. He walked over and stood so close that he could hear her breathing and then, reassured, returned to the bedroom. The closet door squeaked softly as he opened it. With the most careful movements he could muster he carried a chair over so that he could reach the top shelf, all the way at the back.
That’s where John had kept the boxes of aquarium equipment, spare parts to the pumps, filters, a jar of pebbles, plastic bags, and the like. Behind all this Justus located what he was looking for and carefully teased out the box. His mother coughed and he stopped, waiting for half a minute before he dared to get down, put the box on the bed, put the chair back, and gently shut the closet door.
The box was heavier than he had expected. He tucked it under one arm, looked out into the hall, and listened. He was sweating. The floor was cold. The clock out in the living room struck four.
Justus had saved his father. That’s how he felt. A wave of warmth pulsed through him. It’s our secret, he thought. No one will find out, I promise.
He crept in under the covers, pulled his legs up, and put his hands together. He prayed that John would see him, hear him, touch him. One last time. He would have given anything to feel the touch of his father’s hand again.
On the other side of the city, Ola Haver was getting up. Was it the headache that had woken him or one of the kids? Rebecka was sleeping heavily. She always woke up at the slightest sound from the little ones, so he suspected it was the pain behind his brow that had cut his sleep short.
He took a couple of painkillers, washed them down with a glass of milk, and remained standing at the kitchen counter. I should be sleeping, he thought. He looked at the time: half past four. Had the paper arrived? At that moment he heard the door to the apartment building slam shut and he took that as a sign.
He waited at the front door and picked the paper up when it was pushed through the mail slot. It struck him that he had never seen the delivery person, but he sensed it was a man. That’s what the steps in the stairwell sounded like. A person who serves us every morning and whom we would sorely miss if he stayed home one day. No face, just a pair of feet and a hand to push the paper through the mail slot.
Haver unfolded the newspaper and turned on the kitchen lamp. The picture from Libro was the first thing he saw. The story had not changed. Liselotte Rask, the public relations manager, confirmed the facts of the brutal murder and added that the police had recovered certain traces at the site. Haver smiled. Yes, he thought, my shoe prints, Ottosson’s, and Bea’s.
The picture of the victim didn’t do him justice, but in comparison to how his body had looked it was a glamour shot. People just can’t imagine, Haver thought. They don’t know what we have to see. Not even Rebecka understands—but how could she?
Haver pushed the paper aside. He thought about how he should organize the day. He took a look at the list of tasks he had assigned himself the night before.
Bea was going to search John’s apartment in Gränby. Sammy would maybe accompany her. He was good with kids. And Haver thought John’s son would probably like dealing with a male police officer.
John’s brother had to be questioned, and they would have to question the wife again. Bea hadn’t managed to get much out of her during their conversation yesterday.
According to Berit Jonsson, her husband had taken the bus downtown. Which bus? They could probably find the driver. He or she would perhaps recall at which stop John had gotten off. The pet-store line of inquiry also had to be pursued to see if he had bought a pump and in that case where and when. They had to do everything possible to try to re-create John’s steps on his last afternoon.
Haver dismissed all thoughts of the murder investigation, pulled the paper back over, and read it thoroughly. He had plenty of time and his headache was getting better. He assuaged his hunger with a banana and some yogurt.
He wasn’t tired exactly, but tense in preparation for the day’s activities. If they could establish the movements of John’s last days relatively quickly, their chances of solving the case increased dramatically.
It was no accident, nor was it a murder committed in haste, he was convinced of that. The murderer or murderers would be found in John’s circle of acquaintances. It shouldn’t be too hard to establish a cast of characters.
The motive? Money, Bea had said. Drugs, was Riis’s suggestion, although Ottosson had dismissed this, saying that John Jonsson had never been a dealer. The chief had gone as far as to claim that John had hated drugs.
Haver leaned toward the theory that it was money. An old debt that had not been repaid, a lender who went out of control, who perhaps had been provoked. He would ask Sammy to compile a list of known lenders. Haver knew of some already, above all Sundin from Gävle, who sometimes made guest appearances in Uppsala, also the brothers Häll and the “Gym Coach,” a bodybuilder who had a background in karate. Were there others? Sammy would know.
Debt. It must have been a substantial sum to motivate murder, Haver mused. What exactly constitutes a “substantial sum”? One hundred thousand? Half a million?
It struck him suddenly that the murderer was perhaps also reading the morning paper at this precise moment. In contrast to the newspaper reporters and the police, the killer knew the whole story. Consumed by this thought, Haver got up and walked to the window. It was snowing. The lights were on in a couple of windows on the other side of the street. Perhaps he was there, in one of the apartments on the other side?
Haver snorted at these musings but couldn’t rid himself of the thought that the murderer was also awake right now. The thought both appealed to him and appalled him. He liked it, because it meant that the murderer was unable to sleep in peace, did not feel secure, and was worried by the words that the police “had recovered certain clues.” He was thinking, probably for the hundredth time, of how he had transported the dead or dying man to Libro. Had he dropped something or left tracks? There was perhaps some small detail that he had missed, a mistake that he sensed, that was now depriving him of sleep in t
he wee hours. But he disliked thinking of how the murderer was free to read the paper, drink his coffee and wander out into the morning, sit in the car or perhaps even board a plane, only to disappear from reach.
“Stay where you are,” Haver mumbled.
“Did you say something?”
Rebecka appeared in the doorway. He hadn’t heard her get up. She had the green nightgown on. Her hair was messy and she looked tired. He guessed that she had been up nursing the little one.
“I was just talking to myself,” he said. “I’m reading about the murder.”
Rebecka yawned and went to the bathroom. Haver cleared his things up in the kitchen, refilled the coffeemaker and switched it on. He felt torn again. The peace and quiet of the morning was over and so was the possibility of quiet reflection, but at the same time he loved having her there with him, not least in the early morning.
It was something left over from childhood. In his home, the mornings had always been unusually peaceful, a pleasurable time for family members to be together. They had been an unusual family in that they had all been morning people, almost to the point where they tried to compete over who could appear the most cheerful and friendly.
Haver had tried to re-create this with Rebecka, even though she often bordered on a state of complete exhaustion in the mornings. He would make her coffee, toast, and, before she had gotten pregnant, a boiled egg and roe spread. Now she couldn’t stand the smell of either egg or roe.
He ate his eggs with a feeling of guilt, but he couldn’t bring himself to completely exclude them from his morning ritual.
Rebecka returned from the bathroom. She smiled and ruffled his hair.
“You’re a mess,” she said.
He grabbed her, pulling her close, and hugged her, with his nose pressed against her stomach. He knew she was reading the paper over his head, but he drew in her smell and for a short while forgot all about the black headlines.
The princess of Burundi Page 6