The Root of Evil

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘Fresh air and comradeship?’

  ‘Exactly. A decent pension if you happen to get prematurely shot.’

  ‘But were you right then? About being more mobile, I mean.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti took a drink from his bottle of Loka mineral water and thought about it.

  ‘Well, there’s a fair amount of moving from chair to chair.’

  She laughed and stretched her feet up towards the leafy crown of the oak. She wiggled her toes pleasurably. ‘You could do what I do,’ she suggested.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Take away the chairs. I spend nearly all day on my feet.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘And you knew you wanted to be a midwife before you even left upper secondary, you say?’

  ‘Earlier than that,’ Marianne corrected him. ‘We had a midwife from the hospital come to tell us about her job. I made up my mind the very same day.’

  ‘And you’ve never regretted it?’

  ‘Sometimes, when things go wrong. But it passes, and we know it’s all part of the deal. No, I’ve never had serious regrets. It feels such a privilege to be there when life starts, and it never feels routine. They generally let me off the abortions, I’m glad to say. They’re the hardest thing.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti clasped his hands behind his neck. ‘If a police officer had come to my school and told us what the job entailed, I’d definitely have chosen something else instead,’ he declared. ‘But you’re right about it being a good thing that questions of life and death never become routine.’

  ‘So what would you really like to do, then?’

  He lay there for a while, listening to the drone of the bees. Gave the question due consideration.

  ‘Don’t know. I suspect I’m too old to train for anything else. So they’ll have to put up with me. Though I could imagine myself as a country bus driver in these parts.’

  ‘Bus driver?’

  ‘Yes. In my very own yellow country bus with about eleven passengers a day on average. One morning service and one in the afternoon. Coffee from a thermos flask at the end of the route, in a ditch full of meadow flowers . . . well, something along those lines.’

  Marianne stroked his cheek with her fingertips. ‘You poor, worn-out middle-aged man,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you ought to apprentice yourself to Hagmund for a few days?’

  ‘Not a bad idea,’ mumbled Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘Do you know if they need a farm hand?’

  He was suddenly aware of how tired he actually felt. All at once it was virtually impossible to keep his eyes open; the deep green foliage of the oak, whispering in the light breeze, was clearly trying to lull him to sleep.

  And Marianne’s hand, which had now come to rest on his chest, was encouraging him gently but relentlessly in the same direction. He had not had much sleep last night, he realized, so it wasn’t . . . it really wasn’t anything to do with middle age, just to make that quite clear before he dozed off.

  ‘That letter,’ was the last thing he heard her say. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s rather horrible? Are you asleep?’

  He dreamt about Chief Inspector Asunander.

  As far as he could recall, he had never done that before, and he didn’t really see why he was doing so now. Asunander looked exactly the same as usual. His eyes were close-set, he was small, dapper and bloody-minded, and the only slightly odd thing was that he had a riding crop in one hand and a torch in the other. He was angry, too, and walking round inside a big house, which at times seemed utterly strange to Barbarotti, at others entirely familiar – and in the latter case bore more than a passing resemblance to the police headquarters at Kymlinge. At any event, Asunander was clearly searching for something; there were plenty of dark nooks and crannies, which must be why he was equipped with the torch. It cast thin beams of light at distorted angles in the corridors that echoed to his footsteps, up grotesquely winding spiral staircases and through basement culverts dripping with moisture. Wasn’t I lying under an oak tree in Gotland just now? The question ran through Barbarotti’s head, and at that very instant he realized he was on his back in the dream, too, not in a peaceful country churchyard but under a bed in a dark room, a creaky old tubular metal bed with a horsehair mattress, and he . . . he was the one the chief inspector was hunting down. If he held his breath and strained his ears, he could hear the characteristic click of Asunander’s dentures; he was very close now and Barbarotti knew the reason he himself was lurking under the bed was that he was guilty of gross neglect, having evaded his responsibilities, to put it simply, and now it was time for him to be held to account. Bloody hell, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, may the old git keel over with a blood clot or burn in . . . but then he changed tactics and sent up a hasty existence prayer to the other authority instead.

  He was in the habit of doing this, though normally when he was awake. He had a so-called deal with Our Lord, in which Our Lord had to show his existence by heeding at least a reasonable proportion of the prayers his humble servant, Detective Inspector Barbarotti, sent up to him. Then points were awarded: plus points for Our Lord if Barbarotti’s prayers were answered, minus if they were not. Just now, in this dream, at this moment beneath an oak in a Gotland churchyard in July 2007, God’s existence was assured by an eleven-point margin, and that was the why and wherefore of the sudden offer of two points for not on any account letting the chief inspector discover his trembling subordinate under the bed, or under the oak, or wherever reality was currently being played out.

  Dear God, it was only a little letter and I am on holiday, he quickly formulated his entreaty. After all, it can’t really be that serious . . .

  ‘I once knew a boy called Erik Bergman, in fact. It’s coming back to me now.’

  ‘What?’

  He woke up. Opened his eyes and stared in surprise – and relief – at the shimmering green canopy of leaves. There was no Chief Inspector Asunander here. Just a midwife Marianne, lying there with her head on his chest. And the aforementioned oak, which was a distinct improvement. How long had he been asleep? Ten minutes? Or only one? Had she even noticed that he had dropped off ? It didn’t seem like it, she was still talking about that letter. No, perhaps he was just imagining he’d had a dream?

  ‘I said I once knew a boy called Erik Bergman. What if he’s the one who’s going to die?’

  Gunnar Barbarotti coughed to clear the sleep out of his throat and stretched his arms above his head.

  ‘Of course it isn’t. Was he a boyfriend of yours?’

  ‘No, but we were in the same form at upper secondary. Not that he’s at all likely to live in Kymlinge. That was it, wasn’t it . . . this person whose life is in danger lives in Kymlinge?’

  ‘Good grief, Marianne, how am I supposed to know? And nobody’s going to lose their life at all. Let’s not worry about this any more.’

  She did not reply.

  ‘It’s only some nutcase. I’ll go into Visby tomorrow and do my duty, but now I think my bum might fancy trying that saddle again. How about yours?’

  ‘Never better. D’you want to have a feel?’

  He glanced hastily round the churchyard, then did as invited. Just as she had said, it seemed to be in fine form. Phenomenally fine form, to be precise. It was enough to make a man lose his head.

  ‘Right then,’ she said, gently pushing away his hand. ‘Let’s go home and make some dinner.’

  There were five individuals in Kymlinge who went by the name of Erik Bergman.

  This could be seen from the list Gunnar Barbarotti received at the police station in Visby on the Thursday morning. The eldest of them was seventy-seven and the youngest three-and-a-half.

  An acceptable name in every possible generation, it seemed. As he sat on a bench at the south gate of the old city walls, waiting for Marianne to finish shopping for some fresh vegetables, he went through all the potential murder victims.

  The seventy-seven year old was a widower and lived at 6 Linderödsvägen. He had been a railway employ
ee all his working life and had lived at the same address for the last forty years. He had no police record.

  The second oldest was fifty-four and a relative newcomer to Kymlinge. He worked as a market analyst at Handelsbanken, and had been living at 10 Grenadjärsgatan with his second wife for the past two years. He had no criminal record either.

  Barbarotti wondered if it was the wife or the address that was two years old. It wasn’t entirely clear, but perhaps it was both.

  Number three was a thirty-six year old living at 11 Hedeniusgatan. A single man, he owned and ran his own computer business, and had no skeletons in his cupboard as far as one could tell. Born and bred in Kymlinge, he had been active in the Kymlinge Badminton Club for several seasons, until a knee injury forced him to stop playing ten years ago, almost to the day.

  Who the heck compiled this list, wondered Barbarotti. A ten-year-old knee injury? It must be Backman, having a laugh.

  Erik Bergman number four was thirty-two years old. Like number two, he had recently moved to the town. A father of three with an address in Lyckebogatan, and a job at Kymlingevik school as one of the leaders at the after-school club. He did actually feature in police records, a single entry – the offence being an attack on an officer on the occasion of a football international at Råsunda stadium in 1996. In a state of extreme inebriation, he had shoved a hot dog complete with mustard, ketchup and gherkin into a policeman’s face. He received a fine, which was only right.

  Which left Erik Bergman aged three-and-a-half. No profession yet and no criminal record, but living with his single mother at 15 Molngatan.

  Well there we have it, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, and yawned. So one of you is going to die, eh?

  He had had a five-minute phone conversation with Backman while he was at the police station, too. Asked if they had taken any precautions.

  Of course they had, Backman assured him. Asunander had taken the decision to have a radio patrol car drive past the various addresses twice a day to make sure there was no funny business going on. And incidentally, as far as they could gather, at least two of the Eriks were away on holiday. Numbers two and five.

  But no warnings to those potentially at risk, Barbarotti had wanted to know.

  No, Asunander had not judged it necessary. Just because you had a letter-writing numbskull to deal with, it didn’t mean the police had to conduct themselves like numbskulls, he had pointed out. The cost of round-the-clock police protection was well known.

  Once they had the actual letter in their hands, they would of course look into it more closely. And possibly arrive at a different judgement. Barbarotti had presumably put it in a plastic bag and sent it off as promised?

  Gunnar Barbarotti confirmed this, then wished Backman a good week’s work and hung up.

  He folded up the list. Put it in his back pocket and thought he would probably have reached the same conclusion. He would not have taken more comprehensive steps either, if it had been his decision to make.

  The fact that they were obliged to treat all threats as genuine was one thing. But it didn’t mean you constantly had to pour in resources. Of course not. It was considerably cheaper in the long run to take all developments seriously, as politicians and diplomats had done since time immemorial. Internally, though never officially, the justification for this was that twenty out of twenty threats were false. The problem was when you got to the twenty-first.

  That brought him to Marianne, the least and loveliest of all his problems. He hastily put all police matters out of his mind and went to meet her; it wasn’t quite the same seeing her come out of the ICA supermarket with carrier bags as it was being met by her down at the harbour at sunset – but it was good enough. He felt his heart beating a little faster in his breast as she came into view.

  I hope I shall be married to her, two years from now, he suddenly thought, and he wondered if it really was a thought or if it was just one of those constellations of words that the brain generated when it happened to be in action and the weather was good.

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, splendidly,’ he said. ‘I’ve delegated the responsibility, so now I’m all yours.’

  ‘Hah,’ said Marianne. ‘Do you want to carry both bags or just one?’

  ‘Both, of course,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘Who do you take me for?’

  4

  ‘Are you reading the Bible?’

  ‘Oh. I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘I was. But when I sensed the bed was empty, I woke up.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Yes, I read the Bible now and then.’

  She closed the wine-coloured bible and put it down next to her teacup on the table. Leant back in her deckchair and squinted at him through half-closed eyes. It was Tuesday, the morning of the eighth day – that is, if you counted last Tuesday as the first day even though it was evening by the time they met up. But that was academic hair-splitting. Measuring time at Gustabo did not feel particularly important, thought Gunnar Barbarotti with a yawn, particularly time that had already passed.

  Now, however, it was morning. The sky had started to clear after overnight rain and a thunderstorm they had watched and admired from the living room window. It had lasted from just after midnight until quarter past one, just over an hour, and the flashes of lightning across the rape field had been spectacular.

  ‘So you . . . I mean, you believe there’s a God?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  She laughed. Slightly uncomfortably, he felt.

  ‘Well yes, I think of myself as a believer,’ she said. ‘But I don’t exactly advertise the fact.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because . . . because it embarrasses people. And I’m not a churchgoer. I don’t like churches at all . . . not the actual buildings, that is, but the organized element. For me it’s a private matter, if you see what I mean. A connection.’

  He sat down in the deckchair opposite her.

  ‘I understand. And I don’t find it particularly embarrassing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He thought about it.

  ‘Yes, I really am.’

  ‘But you don’t believe in a god, I assume?’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that.’

  It was momentarily on the tip of his tongue to tell her the precise nature of his own relationship with God, but he decided to keep it to himself. They had known each other for nearly a year now – he and Marianne, that is, whereas he and Our Lord went back much further than that – but the time did not seem ripe for that kind of confidence. He was pretty sure God felt the same. They had a kind of . . . well, a kind of gentleman’s agreement, to put it bluntly. A private matter, like she said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘What does what mean?’

  ‘You said, “I wouldn’t say that.” What did you mean?’

  ‘Just that I don’t know. But I think about it now and then.’

  She took off her sunglasses and gave him a look of slight concern.

  ‘You think about it from time to time?’

  ‘Hrrm, yes, that may not exactly sound . . . doesn’t matter, anyway. But what about your own faith, then? Is it something you grew up with?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Oh no. I’d probably have been kicked out of the house if I’d started on about religion. They were sort of Marxists, my parents, right into the eighties. My mother’s dead now of course, but I’m blessed if Dad doesn’t vote for the Left Party even now. Especially since Schyman bowed out, he rants on about her every time I see him.’

  ‘And your faith?’

  ‘Well, it kind of crept up on me, I suppose you could say. There’s an old Persian poem that goes, “The victorious God treads gently in soft sandals of donkey skin”, and that fits pretty well with my image of Him.’

  ‘Soft sandals of donkey skin . . . ?’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Yes. And it’s to do with my job, of course . .
. I need a centre of gravity. But it’s a matter between Him and me, you see. I don’t care about the facade, and sometimes I think . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sometimes I think it must be the Devil who invented religion, so it can put itself between human beings and God.’

  ‘Did you think of that yourself?’

  ‘No, I’m pretty sure I read it somewhere. But it doesn’t make any difference, does it?’

  ‘No. And the Quran and Buddha and Kabbalah?’

  ‘A rose by any other name . . . Are you sure it doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Doesn’t bother me in the slightest,’ Gunnar Barbarotti assured her. ‘I detect some preconceptions about the spiritual qualifications of the Swedish police force. Anyway, you certainly don’t need to read your Bible surreptitiously. I take the odd gander at it myself sometimes, too.’

  She laughed and stretched her hands into the air. Palms upward. ‘Take the odd gander at the Bible! Did you hear that, O Lord? What do You say to that?’

  ‘I’m sure of one thing, though,’ continued Barbarotti, in the grip of inspiration. ‘And it’s this: if He does exist, Our Lord, then he’s a gentleman with a fine sense of humour. Anything else is out of the question. And he isn’t all-powerful.’

  Marianne grew serious again. She gave him a look that made him feel unaccountably breathless. Am I fourteen again, or what, he asked himself.

  ‘You know something?’ she said. ‘When you say things like that, I almost think I love you.’

  ‘It . . . it’s a good job I’m sitting down,’ he managed to croak, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. ‘Otherwise . . . well, otherwise I’d faint.’

  At that moment they heard a cough and became aware of Hagmund Jonsson sauntering across the grass. He had a scythe over his shoulder and a dead rabbit in his hand.

  ‘It never occurred to me that you’d netted a detective, Marianne. Congratulations. I never understand why they don’t have the sense to jump out of the way of the scythe. Do you want it for your dinner?’

  He waved the bloody rabbit.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t think so,’ said Marianne, averting her eyes.