“Tell me about John,” he said. “What kind of person was he?”
“He was quiet, just like his dad. His dad stuttered badly, but not John. He was a good friend. He didn’t have a lot of friends at school. It was just me and a couple of other guys. He’d always been interested in fish. I don’t know where that came from. Maybe it was his uncle, Eugene, who started the whole thing. We used to go fishing with him. He had a cabin out towards Faringe.”
Mikael paused. Fredriksson sensed that he was trying to go back ten, twenty years in time.
“He was happy there, in the dinghy,” he continued. “It was a little lake. A cold bastard of a lake, with the forest growing right down to the shoreline.”
“What did you catch?”
“Perch and pike, mostly. John sometimes talked about going back there again, but we never did, like with so many things. When we sat in the boat it was like being kids again. We could row from shore to shore without effort. The only break in the forest was the clearing where Eugene’s house was. It was a converted shed with a storage locker made out of sugar crates fastened together. The lake was like a sealed room. John oftened talked about those trips. In late winter Eugene would take us wood-grousing. We walked in the darkness over the swaying ice until we came to a felling area where he had made a shelter out of twigs and branches. We curled up in there. John always liked little places like that. The small lake and the tiny shelter.”
“He also worked for a small company,” Fredriksson added.
Mikael nodded.
“He wasn’t really a troublemaker, not even when he was younger. As long as we stuck to Ymer and Frodegatan, everything was fine. When we were little you could get almost anything in Almtuna, our suburb. There were five grocery stores within ten minutes’ walk. Now there isn’t even a place called Almtuna. Have you seen that sign, over by the Vaksala school?”
Fredriksson shook his head.
“It says ‘Fålhagen.’ All the old names are disappearing. I don’t know who makes those decisions, that no place should retain the old names. Eriksdal and Erikslund are also gone. Even Stabby is called ‘Outer Luthagen.’”
“I’ve moved here recently,” said Fredriksson, who was not familiar with all the old areas and districts of Uppsala.
“I think they do it to confuse us.”
“‘Luthagen’ probably sounds better than ‘Stabby’ in the real estate ads.”
“Maybe,” Mikael said, “it’s about the money, then. I think about the old days more now. Must be age.”
“And what do you see?” said Fredriksson, who found he was enjoying the discussion.
“The yards. Kids. There were a lot of us. John and Lennart and others.” Mikael stopped and his face took on a sad and starved expression.
“It was a long time ago, but it feels so close,” he said. “When did it all go to hell?”
“For John and Lennart, you mean?”
“Not only them. You know their old man worked on the railroad. His dad too. He helped build Port Arthur, which was supposed to be employee housing for rail folk. But we lived up on Frodegatan. I felt a real connection with them back then—not anymore. That’s what gets me. I take a walk through the old neighborhoods sometimes. For John and Lennart I think it all started back when Lennart was twelve and me and John were nine. We had been playing bandy in Fålhagen. There was a big field out there that was hosed down every winter. Lennart had swiped a wallet in the dressing room from a guy named Håkan. I sometimes ran into him downtown. Lennart took out the wallet as we were teetering home on our skates. Nineteen kronor. We were scared shitless, but Lennart just laughed.”
“It was the needle that became a bowl of silver,” Fredriksson injected, referring to the old folk tale.
Mikael nodded and continued. Fredriksson leaned over and checked to make sure the miniature tape recorder on his desk was still going.
“Nineteen kronor. I didn’t want any of it, I was too scared, so Lennart and John divvied it up between them. Lennart was always fair with his brother. That was the problem for John—having a big brother who always shared. Did it start then? I don’t know.”
“Lennart and John were close?”
Mikael nodded.
“Did Lennart drag John into something?”
“It sounds plausible, of course, but I don’t think so. Lennart always protected his brother.”
“Maybe he involved him in something without being aware of it.”
Mikael looked doubtful.
“What could it have been, though? Lennart was a small-time guy.”
“Maybe he was on to something big this time,” Fredriksson said. “But okay, let’s leave it. I also wanted to ask you what you thought of John and Berit’s relationship. Were they happy together?”
Mikael snorted.
“Happiness?” he said. “That’s quite a word, but all right, I guess it applies to them.”
“No hanky-panky on the side?”
“Not in John’s case, I wouldn’t think. You know, they met when they were sixteen. I was actually there the first time they met; it was at a pool hall in Sivia. We hung out there almost all the time. One day Berit came by with a girlfriend. She fell for him immediately. He wasn’t like the rest of us, loud and all that. John was quiet, thoughtful. He could throw anyone off their stride, he was so quiet.”
“So you’re saying John and Berit have been faithful to each other for over twenty years.”
“When you put it like that it sounds crazy, but that’s how I saw it. I never heard him talk about other broads, and we talked about most things.”
There was a careful knock at the door and it opened. Riis looked in.
“I have a note for you, Allan,” he said, while looking the visitor up and down.
Fredriksson leaned over the desk and took the folded note, opened it, and read the short message from his colleague.
“I see,” he said and looked at Mikael. “You said that John and Berit hadn’t been in such good shape financially.”
“The last little while, yes.”
“Was that why you deposited ten thousand kronor into his account on the third of October?”
Mikael flushed a deep red again. He cleared his throat and Fredriksson again glimpsed an expression of fear in his eyes. Perhaps not fear exactly, more like anxiety. He knew it didn’t mean anything. Most people, especially those sitting in front of a desk at the police station, reacted that way on the subject of money. They could talk calmly about any number of unpleasant things, but invariably they grew nervous at the mention of money.
“No, not really. Things weren’t so good for me back in September. John stepped in with the ten thousand and I was paying him back.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Like I said, I was short on cash and John offered to help out.”
“‘Help out.’ Ten thousand is pretty good for a man who’s unemployed.”
“I know, but he said it was no problem.”
“May I ask why you were short on cash? Were you in the habit of borrowing money from John?”
“It’s happened before, but not very often.”
“Why, then?”
“I’d been gambling. Roulette. That’s all.”
“And lost?”
“That’s how it goes, isn’t it?”
“Where was this?”
“A place called Baren Baren, if you know where that is.”
Fredriksson nodded.
“But then you got some money?”
“I was paid my salary. That was enough to take care of the loan. And then I lived cheap for the rest of October.”
“It was not the case, then, that you had borrowed more and the ten thousand was a first installment?”
“No, it wasn’t anything like that,” Mikael assured him.
“Did John say anything about how he was able to produce so much money without blinking an eye?”
“No.”
“It was not the case that you were sup
posed to perform a service for the money, but that you changed your mind and returned the cash?”
“No. What would that have been?”
“I don’t know,” Fredriksson said and carefully refolded the note. “When were you at Baren Baren?”
“I was there a lot.”
“John too?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he gamble?”
“Yes, but never large amounts.”
“You wouldn’t call him a gambler?”
“No, not really. He was pretty careful.”
Fredriksson was silent for a moment.
“I know how it sounds, but I swear I’m telling you the truth.”
“It’s pretty normal for a friend to help out a friend,” Fredriksson said quietly, “but as you can understand, the picture changes when one of the two is murdered.”
With that, he ended the session.
Mikael tried to look relaxed but the air of openness at the beginning of the conversation had dissipated. He followed Fredriksson out without saying a word, and when they reached the last door, which the police officer held open for him, Mikael again assured him that it had all happened exactly as he’d said.
Fredriksson believed him, or rather, wanted to.
Fourteen
At three thirty Vincent Hahn stepped out onto the street, an extra two hundred kronor in his pocket. As always, it was like stepping out into a new world. People were new. The street that ran from the railway station down to the river had changed its character during the few hours he had spent inside the bingo hall. It looked more dignified, like a stately boulevard in a foreign country. The people around him seemed different from the ones he had left for the bingo hall’s warm retreat.
The feeling stayed with him for a minute or two, then the hostile voices returned, the shoves, and the looks. The linden trees no longer lined the street like leafy pillars but terrifying statues, black and cold, suggestive of funerals and death. He knew where this feeling came from, but did everything to suppress it, to avoid images of the graveyard where his parents lay buried.
Vincent Hahn was a bad man, and he knew it. If his mother and father could be brought back to life they would be horrified to see that their youngest child had become a misanthrope, a person who was suspicious of everyone and everything and who—and this was the worst—saw it as his task to revenge himself on those around him for their wrongdoings.
There could not be punishment enough for them. Hadn’t he suffered? But who cared? Everything simply kept going as if he didn’t exist. I’m here! he wanted to shout out to everyone on Bangårdsgatan, but he didn’t, and no one even so much as slowed down to pass him as they hurried on their way.
Air, he thought, I’m nothing but air to you. But this air will poison you, my breath will annihilate you, envelop you in death. He had made his decision. Now there was no fear, no hesitation.
He laughed out loud, checked his watch, and knew that he would begin this very evening. It was wonderful to finally have a plan, a meaning. A couple of retirees emerged from the bingo hall. Vincent nodded to them. To him they symbolized defeat. He didn’t want to stay with this thought because it led to both his source of strength and his weakness. The thoughts, memories. Until now they had held him down as an insignificant creature. He nodded to the old couple, loyal companions from the solitary community of the bingo hall, victims like himself. In some way he was sure they would understand. Living, but dead.
His bingo win made him strong, almost overconfident. He decided to go to a café. It would have to be the Güntherska. He could maintain his sense of control from the sofa in the corner.
Fifteen
The photograph in the evening paper was of a young John Jonsson. Gunilla Karlsson recognized him immediately, as she would have even if they had used a recent picture of him. She had bumped into him just a few months ago, unexpectedly, at the grocery store. And on top of that she had had Justus in preschool. Actually not in her room, but he was a boy who stood out. It was mostly Berit who dropped him off and picked him up, but sometimes John turned up in the afternoon, straight from work. He had a nice smell. She had wondered what it was for a long time before she had the courage to ask. He had been completely at a loss until he realized she meant the smell of welding smoke. He had exused himself, looked extremely embarrassed, and mumbled something about not having had time to shower. Gunilla had been equally embarrassed and assured him that she liked the smell. There they were, with Justus between them busy putting on his warm things, both blushing furiously and looking at each other. Then they had burst into laughter.
After that time he often smiled at her. He told her about the body shop and offered their services in case the preschool needed any repairs. She had thanked him but said she didn’t think they needed to have anything welded. “But please feel free to stop by more often,” she had added, “we’re short on men around here.”
He had looked at her in the old way, which she remembered so well from their days at school, and felt warm inside. He liked her words—that’s what his look told her—but Gunilla also read something else there, a spark of attraction.
She would have wanted to kiss him, not passionately, just a peck on the cheek to draw in more of that welding smoke that had penetrated all his pores. It was a fleeting impulse that lasted no more than a second, but it returned to her every time they met.
They stood there for a short while, close to each other, and it was as if time had stopped. It occurred to her that John was one of the few people she saw regularly and who had met both her parents while they were still active. Now they were both in homes, unreachable.
She had also met John’s parents, the stuttering Albin and Aina, who used to leave terse notes in the communal laundry facilities urging her neighbors to clean up better after themselves.
A long time ago she had been in love with John. Back in junior high, maybe seventh grade. She had been part of the group that hung out on “the hill,” an empty lot next to Vaksala square. John and Lennart used to go there, as well as thirty or so other teenagers from Petterslund, Almtuna, and Kvarngärdet.
A builder who had gone bankrupt stored leftover lumber and parts at the top of the hill and the youngsters had arranged these in an ingenious series of tunnels and rooms. Gunilla had gone mostly for John’s sake and had been frightened by the heavy smell of paint thinner, trichloroethylene, and other chemicals that hung in the air.
The paint sniffing came and went in waves. At certain times no one was doing anything but then there would be an outbreak that would last for a few months or more. It was mainly a summer and fall activity. The police made occasional raids but no one really took the substance abuse seriously.
Gunilla had often thought about the number of brain cells that must have died on the hill. She was glad she had managed to break away from the group even though it meant she had lost contact with John.
And now he was dead. She read the article, but composed an internal text about his background and life. It struck her how little information there really was about John in the paper, even though the article was three pages long. The reporter had made things easy for himself, had dug out a list of John’s sins and also connected the murder with a crime that had taken place a few weeks earlier when a drug dealer was knifed down in central Uppsala. “A city of violence and terror,” she read. “The standard image of a sleepy, idyllic university town with its lively student life and dignified academic traditions is increasingly being replaced by images of violence. The popular children’s series of Pelle Svanslös and his innocuous feline adventures feels remote when we study the number of reported crimes and the unsettling realization of how many of these crimes remain unsolved. The police, plagued by internal conflicts and budget cuts, seem at a loss.”
“A sleepy, idyllic university town,” Gunilla sniffed. Uppsala had never been that, at least not for her. Even though she had been born and raised here she had never visited any one of the historic student organizat
ions or even watched the graduating class don their caps on the last day of April and listened to them singing spring songs on the slopes of the castle grounds. It had never been an idyll for her. Nor for John.
But what would John have had to do with a drug dealer? She knew he and his brother had been involved in their share of shady dealings but she doubted that it had ever involved drugs. John just wasn’t the type.
She pushed the newspaper away, stood up, and walked to the window. The snow had stopped falling but a strong westerly wind blew it onto the roof of the garages. Her closest neighbor was walking up to the building with bags of groceries.
She walked past the mirror in the hall, stopped, and looked at herself. She had gained weight. Again. While she stood there she suddenly thought of the rabbit. How could she have forgotten? She walked quickly to the patio door, opened it, and saw Ansgar hanging from the railing, just as she had left him this morning, but now his abdomen had been slit. The internal organs that spilled out had a grayish cast.
There was also something white in the cut. She walked closer and looked at the stiff corpse with disgust. The rabbit’s wide-open eyes seemed to be staring accusingly at her. It was a note. She drew it out carefully. It was bloodstained and she shivered as she unfolded the tiny piece of paper, no bigger than a bus ticket.
The handwriting was almost illegible and looked as if it had been done in haste: “Pets are not appropriate in densely populated areas.” No signature.
What a mean-spirited thing to do, she thought. How would she explain this to Malin, the girl next door? She looked back at the rabbit. Incredible, to kill a rabbit. It had to be a very sick person.
Should she notify the police again? Had they been here? Probably not. They had more pressing matters to attend to than a dead rabbit.
She thought of John again and started to cry. People could be so awful. Had the note been there this morning, or had the person who strangled Ansgar returned later? She looked around. The forest that encroached on the buildings was starting to grow dark. The light from the windows was reflected on the tall trunks of the pine trees. The wind sighed in the treetops. Granite boulders lay scattered about like large animals.
The princess of Burundi Page 10