‘A break-in,’ said the Swede. ‘I’m going to walk to Santa Teresa.’
Abbas knew about the third man. He knew that the third man was somewhere out there in the dark behind him, or he assumed he was anyway. He also knew that it was a long walk on what was now a very dark and empty road in to Santa Teresa. He assumed that the third man had understood what had happened with the first and the second. Not least after Garcia had rushed out, pulled out his mobile and with an almost falsetto voice, informed half the police force on Nicoya.
‘Mal Pais!’
The third man must have heard that too.
Abbas was extremely focused as he walked along. With his back to the third man. Metre after metre, through silent dark curves, towards a distant light from Santa Teresa. He knew that he risked getting a bullet in his back. No black knives would help against that. At the same time, it seemed that the third man had been on some sort of mission, together with the throat and the other guy. They weren’t robbers. Why should three robbers enter a house that from the gate signalled nada? When there were considerably more interesting houses on the surrounding slopes? More hidden by rainforest, more affluent?
The trio was after something specific.
In the murdered Nils Wendt’s house.
What?
The bar was called Good Vibrations Bar. A copyright rip-off that The Beach Boys would just have to put up with. California was quite some way away. But the American surfers here perhaps felt nostalgic when they slipped into the decidedly shabby drinking den in Santa Teresa.
Abbas sat at one end of a long smoky bar counter. Alone, with a GT in front of him. This time only. An alcoholic drink. He had walked in the dark with muscles and senses on full alert and small movements on his body where the knives were hidden. And he’d got this far. Without a bullet in the back. Now he felt like a drink. Against better judgement, said a little corner of his brain. But the rest said it was OK.
He assumed that the third guy was out there.
In the dark.
Abbas sipped his drink. Igeno, the bartender, had mixed it to perfection. Abbas turned round and looked at the other people drinking in the bar. Tanned and even more tanned and some badly sunburned men with torsos that were a major part of their identity. And women. Local women and tourists. Some of them presumably guides, some surfing enthusiasts, all in conversation with one torso or another. Abbas’ gaze wandered away from the bar room and in across the counter and ended up on the wall opposite. A couple of really long shelves with bottles, more or less flavoured liquor, all with a single purpose.
That was when he saw it.
The cockroach.
A great big one. With long antennae and strong yellow-brown wings folded over its body. It was crawling across an opening in the bottle shelf. A plank wall that was covered with pinned-up tourist photos and picture postcards. Suddenly, Igeno caught sight of it too, and of Abbas’ gaze that followed it. With a little smile he crushed the cockroach with the palm of his hand. Right over a photo. A photo in which Nils Wendt had his arm around a young woman.
Abbas put his drink down with a slight crash on the counter. He pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket and tried to compare the picture on it with the photo under the crushed cockroach.
‘Can you take that away?’
Abbas pointed at the cockroach. Igeno swept it away from the wall.
‘Don’t you like cockroaches?’
‘No, they spoil the view.’
Igeno smiled. Abbas did not. He quickly noted that the young woman that Nils Wendt was holding was identical to the victim on Nordkoster. The woman who had been drowned in the Hasslevikarna coves. He finished his drink. ‘See if you can find any connection between Wendt and the woman who was murdered on Nordkoster,’ Stilton had said.
And there was.
‘Another one?’
Igeno was beside Abbas again.
‘No thank you. Do you know who the people are in that photo there?’
Abbas pointed and Igeno turned round and pointed too.
‘That’s the big Swede, Dan Nilsson, the woman there I don’t know who she is.’
‘Do you know anybody who might know?’
‘No, hang on, perhaps Bosques…’
‘Who’s that?’
‘He used to own the bar, he was the guy who put those up.’ Igeno nodded towards the photos on the wall.
‘Where can I get hold of Bosques?’
‘In his house. He never leaves his house.’
‘And where is that?’
‘In Cabuya.’
‘Is that far away?’
Igeno pulled out a small map and pointed out the village where Bosques had his house. At this point, Abbas considered going back to Mal Pais and asking Garcia to drive him to the village. Two things caused him to choose another alternative. The first was the third, the man who presumably was hiding somewhere outside the bar. The second was the police. It was likely that Wendt’s house was now crawling with local police patrols by now. Some of them might want to ask some questions that Abbas didn’t want to answer.
So he looked at Igeno who was smiling a little.
‘You want to go to Cabuya?’
‘Yes.’
Igeno made a phone call and a couple of minutes later one of his sons turned up outside the bar with a quad. Abbas asked if he could borrow the photo on the wall. He could. He went out and sat behind the son on his quad and let his faceted eyes scour the area. Although it was fairly dark and there wasn’t much light from the bar, he saw the shadow. Or a glimpse of it. Behind a fairly large palm some way away.
The third man.
‘OK, let’s go.’
Abbas patted Igeno’s son on his shoulder and the quad set off. When Abbas turned his head he saw that the third man was moving back towards Mal Pais with surprising speed. To fetch a car, Abbas assumed. He realised that it wouldn’t take very long to catch up with the quad considering that there was only one road. In one direction.
Towards Cabuya.
Igeno’s son wondered if he should wait, but Abbas sent him off. This could take some time. Just making his way to Bosques’ house took time. There was a lot you had to climb over and past before you reached the veranda.
Bosques sat there. In his white clothes, half-shaved, on a chair by the wall. With a glass of rum in his hand and a naked light bulb hanging some way away. Not turned on. The concert of the crickets in the jungle around them didn’t disturb his ears. Nor did the weak rush that could be heard from a small waterfall in among the greenery. He observed a very small insect that was making its way along his brown hand.
Then he looked at Abbas.
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Abbas el Fassi, I’m from Sweden.’
‘Do you know the big Swede?’
‘Yes. Can I come up?’
Bosques looked at Abbas who was standing somewhat below the veranda. He didn’t look like a Swede. Or a Scandinavian. He didn’t look a bit like the big Swede.
‘What do you want?’
‘To talk to you, Bosques, about life.’
‘Come on up.’
Abbas climbed up onto the veranda and Bosques kicked a stool in his direction. Abbas sat down on the stool.
‘Is it Dan Nilsson you call the big Swede?’ Abbas asked.
‘Yes. Have you met him?’
‘No. He’s dead.’
Bosques expression was not easy to interpret in the dark by the wall. What Abbas did see was that he took a gulp from his glass and that the glass was not exactly steady on its way down.
‘When did he die?’
‘A few days ago. He was murdered.’
‘By you?’
Bit of a strange question, Abbas thought. But he was on the other side of the world in some pit of a village in a rainforest with a man whom he didn’t know. He also didn’t know what sort of relation he had to Nils Wendt. The big Swede, as Bosques called him.
‘No. I work for the Swedish pol
ice.’
‘Have you got any ID?’
Bosques had been around a few years.
‘No.’
‘So why should I believe you?’
Yes, why should he? Abbas thought.
‘Have you got a computer?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you get online?’
Bosques looked at Abbas with cold eyes. So cold that they pierced the dark. He got up and went inside. Abbas remained where he was. After a minute or two, Bosques came out with a laptop and sat down on his chair again. He carefully pushed his mobile modem into the computer socket and opened it.
‘Search for Nils Wendt, murder, Stockholm.’
‘Who is Nils Wendt?’
‘That’s Dan Nilsson’s real name. It’s spelt with a W and DT at the end.
The blue glow from the laptop reflected from Bosques’ face. His fingers played on the keyboard. Then he waited, and looked at the screen, and even though he couldn’t understand a word of what stood there, he did recognise the picture on the front of a newspaper. The picture of Dan Nilsson, the big Swede. A twenty-seven-year-old picture. Roughly what Nilsson looked like when he turned up in Mal Pais the first time.
Under the photo it said: ‘Nils Wendt’.
‘Murdered?’
‘Yes.’
Bosques closed the computer and put it on the wooden floor in front of him. He fished out a half-full bottle of rum from the dark and poured some into his glass. Quite a lot.
‘It’s rum. Do you want some?’
‘No,’ said Abbas.
Bosques emptied the glass in one gulp, lowered it to his lap and wiped his eyes with his other hand.
‘He was a friend.’
Abbas nodded. He gestured with his hand as a token of sympathy. Murdered friends demand respect.
‘How long had you known him?’ he asked.
‘A long time.’
A rather vague measure of time. Abbas was after something more precise. A time that he could link to the picture of the woman from the photo in the bar.
‘Can you turn that on?’
Abbas pointed to the light bulb across the room. Bosques twisted round a little and reached an old black Bakelite switch on the wall. The light almost blinded Abbas for a couple of seconds. Then he pulled out the picture.
‘I borrowed a photo in Santa Teresa, Nilsson’s standing with a woman on the… here.’
Abbas handed over the photo. Bosques took it.
‘Do you know who she is?’
‘Adelita.’
A name! At last!
‘Just Adelita, or…?’
‘Adelita Rivera. From Mexico.’
At this point, Abbas weighed it up. Should he also tell that Adelita Rivera had been murdered too? Drowned on a beach in Sweden. She might have been a friend of Bosques too? Two murdered friends and almost no rum left.
He refrained.
‘How well did Dan Nilsson know this Adelita Rivera?’
‘She was pregnant with his child.’
Abbas kept his gaze fixed on Bosques’ eyes. A lot of the situation built upon it. That neither of them fell to one side. But inwardly he knew what this would mean at home. For Tom. Nils Wendt was the father of the victim’s child!
‘Can you tell me a little about Adelita,’ Abbas wondered.
‘She was a very beautiful woman?’
And then Bosques told of what he knew about Adelita and Abbas tried to memorise every single detail. He knew what it would be worth to Tom.
‘Then she went away,’ said Bosques.
‘When was that?’
‘Many years ago. I don’t know where she went. She never came back. The big Swede became sad. He drove down to Mexico to look for her but she had disappeared. Then he went home to Sweden.’
‘But that was very recently, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. Was he murdered in your home country?’
‘Yes. And we don’t know why or who did it. I’m here to see if I can find anything that can help us,’ said Abbas.
‘Find the murderer?’
‘Yes, and a motive for the murder.’
‘He left a bag with me when he went off.’
‘He did?’
Abbas had all his senses on full alert.
‘What was in it?’
‘I don’t know. If he didn’t come back before the 1st of July I was to give it to the police.’
‘I am the police.’
‘You don’t have any ID.’
‘It’s not necessary.’
Before Bosques could blink with his thin eyelids, a long black knife struck the electric wire on the wall. After a few seconds of spluttering, the light bulb in the ceiling went out. Abbas looked at Bosques in the dark.
‘I’ve got one more.’
‘OK.’
Bosques got up and went inside again. Quicker than last time he came out with a leather bag in his hand and lifted it across to Abbas.
The third man had parked his dark van at a safe distance from Bosques’ house and then sneaked up as close as he dared. Not close enough to see with the naked eye, but with the help of his green infra binoculars he had no difficulty seeing what Abbas lifted up out of the little bag on the veranda.
A little envelope, a plastic folder and a cassette tape.
Abbas put the objects back in again. He immediately realised that it was the bag that the gorillas were after in Wendt’s house in Mal Pais. He wasn’t going to go through the bag’s contents now. Besides, he had himself extinguished the only light on the veranda. He raised the bag a little.
‘I will have to take this with me.’
‘I understand.’
The black knife had increased Bosques’ understanding remarkably.
‘Do you have a toilet?’
Abbas got up and Bosques pointed to a door a bit inside the other room. Abbas loosened his knife from the wall and disappeared into the toilet with the bag in his hand. He wasn’t going to let go of that. Bosques remained sitting in his chair. The world is a strange place, he thought. And the big Swede is dead.
He fished out a small bottle from his trouser pocket and started to put some clear nail polish on his nails in the dark.
Abbas came out again and took his farewell of Bosques, who wished him good luck. Somewhat reluctantly, Abbas received a hug, unexpectedly. Then Bosques went back inside.
Abbas went down towards the road and started to walk. His mind was filled with thoughts. He had got a name for the woman that Tom had been trying to find for more than twenty years. Adelita Rivera. A Mexican. Who was pregnant with the child of the murdered Nils Wendt.
Strange.
A hundred or so metres away from Bosques’ house, where the road was at its narrowest, and the moonlight at its faintest, he suddenly got a pistol against his neck. Far too close for him to be able to use the knives. The third man, he thought. That same moment, the bag was wrenched from his grip. When he twisted round he met with a powerful blow to the back of his head. He lost his balance and fell into the greenery at the side of the road. He lay there and saw a big black van roar out of the forest and vanish down the road.
Then he too vanished somewhere.
The van continued to roar through Cabuya and right across half of the Nicoya peninsula. Not far from the airport in Tambur, it stopped at the roadside. The third man turned on the ceiling light in the driver’s compartment and opened the leather bag.
It was full of toilet paper.
Abbas came to his senses by the side of the road. He put his hand on his head and felt quite a large lump up there. It was very tender too. But it was worth it. He had given the third man what he wanted. The leather bag.
What had been in the bag was however inside Abbas’ sweater.
He was going to keep it there until he reached Sweden.
The third man was still sitting in his van. He had struggled with himself and had had a mental block for quite a while. Now he realised that there wasn’t much he could do. He h
ad been tricked, and by now the knifeman would certainly have got back to the police in Mal Pais. He pulled out his mobile, clicked his way to the photo he had taken through the window of Wendt’s house, wrote a short text under it and sent off a picture message.
It reached K. Sedovic in Sweden, who immediately forwarded the message to a man who was sitting on a very roomy veranda not far from the Stocksund Bridge. His wife was inside the house, taking a shower. He read the short text on the mobile, which described the contents of the bag that was later filled with toilet paper: a little envelope, a plastic folder and a cassette tape. An original tape, he thought. With a recorded conversation which made all the difference to Bertil Magnuson.
He looked at the accompanying photo.
At the knifeman Abbas el Fassi.
The croupier?
From the Casino Cosmopol?
What was he doing in Costa Rica?
And what the hell did he want the original tape for?
17
Olivia had slept badly.
She had been out on Tynningö Island over the midsummer holiday. With her mother and a couple of her acquaintances. Of course she could have been celebrating out on Möja with Lenni and a gang of mates, but she chose Tynningö. The sorrow after Elvis swept over her in waves and she had a need to be on her own. Or rather to be with people who would not expect her to be in a festive mood. Yesterday, her mum and she had been there on their own and had painted half of the side of the house that caught the full sun. So that Arne wouldn’t have to be ashamed, as Maria had said. Then they had shared perhaps a little too much wine. And she paid for that during the night. She had woken at about three and not been able to get back to sleep until seven. Half an hour before the alarm clock was to go off.
Now she had gobbled down a couple of rice cakes and was on her way to the shower in her dressing gown when the doorbell rang.
She opened. Stilton stood there on the landing in a black overcoat that was a bit too short.
‘Hello,’ he said.
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