The Root of Evil

by Håkan Nesser

  The latter part of Kallwrangel’s presentation was devoted to how the knife had penetrated the various areas of Bergman’s body and to a rough approximation of how this knife might look. A single blade, between fifteen and eighteen centimetres long, barely three and a half centimetres wide at its broadest point.

  ‘Like a kitchen knife?’ asked Astor Nilsson.

  ‘Like that,’ said Kallwrangel, and as nobody had any other questions, he handed over to the head of the forensic team, whose name still was Carlsson, though with a ‘C’.

  Carlsson began by telling them about the murder scene. The results were very negative, he explained. They had not been able to secure any evidence to provide clues to the identity of the perpetrator; the overgrown bushes growing right beside the crime scene showed signs of having been trampled in a few places, possibly while the murderer had hidden there to wait for his victim, but that was all they could say for now. Nor had they secured any foreign particles from Bergman’s clothes – a pair of shorts and a T-shirt bearing the logo of his computer company Informatex – and it could pretty much be assumed that whoever took Erik Bergman’s life had not even needed to touch him. Except with the knife blade, that is. Five times.

  Then Carlsson moved on to the two letters. They were currently at the National Forensic Centre in Linköping for further analysis, but he still had a few things to say about them. No fingerprints had been secured, either on the envelope or on the letter inside, nor had the letter writer needed to use his own saliva to stick on the stamp, which was one of the modern, self-adhesive kind. Inside the envelope they had found a very small particle that could possibly have been a cat’s hair. Or rather, a tiny length of a cat’s hair, but hopefully there would be more information about that in the report from Linköping when it came through.

  ‘Cat?’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.

  ‘Hrrm, yes,’ said Lillieskog. ‘It’s not unusual for this kind of perpetrator to keep a pet.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Go on.’

  Superintendent Carlsson went on. The paper and envelope used by the murderer were of the most common type, at least in Sweden. The pen was probably a Pilot with a nib size of 0.7mm, as they had already guessed. As for where the letter was posted, it was not entirely unlikely to be Gothenburg. In both cases.

  ‘Not entirely unlikely?’ queried Astor Nilsson.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Carlsson. ‘Linköping will make its judgement on that, too.’

  ‘We’ll see, then,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Anything else from your technicians?’

  There wasn’t. Instead they moved on to what had been gleaned from interviews with Erik Bergman’s acquaintances, relatives and neighbours. They had conducted thirty-six interviews, and in order to provide some kind of intelligible overview Inspector Gerald Borgsen, alias Sorrysen, had taken it upon himself to listen to all the recordings and read all the notes. How he had found time for this was a mystery, but Sorrysen had a reputation for being something of a mystery altogether. Quiet, understated, a little reserved and, as his nickname implied, a touch mournful.

  It took almost an hour and they possibly had a slightly clearer picture of Erik Bergman by the end. Even his closest circle of friends – three or four other single men with whom he would go drinking – had not found it easy to get close to him. Something of a recluse, they suggested, despite living a fair chunk of his life in the pub. Even when he got drunk, as he occasionally did, he would not open up. To illustrate this, Sorrysen quoted one Rasmus Palmgren, who had known Bergman ever since they started school together. ‘You kind of never knew where you were with him. He always gave the impression he’d rather be somewhere else. You could never really tell what he was thinking.’ Erik Bergman was not tightfisted, and if Sorrysen had to hazard a guess, this was the quality that had done most to oil the wheels of his social life. He always had plenty of money and the drinks were often on him, many informants had told them. As regards possible enemies – the sort who might have decided to stick a knife into him five times or more – no one had any tip-offs to offer them. Erik had never been known for picking quarrels; if it ever came to a scuffle or voices were raised, he preferred to keep out of it. He was not much of a ladies’ man either. He wasn’t interested in women, this Palmgren had told them, and women weren’t interested in him. Was he homosexual? Various of the interviewees had been asked this, but none of them had given a clear-cut answer. On the other hand, they had not completely ruled it out. The conclusion was that Erik Bergman had been as discreet about his sex life – assuming he had one – as he was about everything else.

  ‘The man without qualities?’ suggested Astor Nilsson.

  ‘In a way,’ said Sorrysen, and Gunnar Barbarotti could have sworn the inspector’s face flushed slightly. It was an epithet that could in many respects be applied to him, too. And it was very apparent that he was aware of it.

  They had not managed to get hold of the woman Erik Bergman had lived with for a few months ten years ago, Sorrysen told them. Her name was Ulrika Sigridsdotter, and according to some of the interviewees she had moved abroad, soon after she and Erik separated.

  Sorrysen took another twenty minutes to conclude his summary, and it was at this stage Gunnar Barbarotti started finding it hard to concentrate.

  What if the murderer had simply chosen him at random after all, he thought. After all, Lillieskog saw it as a plausible alternative. What point is there in us trying to analyse the dead man?

  If there was no logical link between the murderer and the victim.

  If it could just as well have been someone else who got stabbed.

  The very thought that the whole thing could be purely arbitrary brought with it a queasy feeling he found extremely uncomfortable. Because that solution contained . . . well, what? An incontrovertible truth about life and its inherent fragility? The fact that you could be snatched away at any time. In the midst of life we are in death, and the distance between being alive and no longer being alive could be measured in millimetres and fractions of a second; you could make prognoses and calculate probabilities to almost a hundred per cent, but when you were lying there in the twilight zone, it was likely to mean that one of your computations had gone awry. Wasn’t that so? Even if the number of murder victims in the country stayed fairly constant from year to year, it didn’t signify that the individual victim, Erik Bergman for example, was the product of any kind of active principle. Death was the only certainty, yet it always came as a surprise. Almost always, at any rate.

  I can’t definitely know, for example, that Marianne is alive at this moment, he thought with a sudden, crawling sense of panic – and then it struck him that this was Thursday, the day her children were arriving on Gotland with a mobile phone. At virtually the same second, he realized he didn’t know which number to call. Maybe it was one of the teenagers’ phones, not Marianne’s? Though he would start with her number, of course he would, there was no harm in trying; and he would make sure to keep his phone switched on and be within reach of it all day, so as not to miss her first call. Actually, he felt like popping out of the meeting right now to give it a try, in case they had come over on the early morning ferry. If there was such a thing.

  I wonder how my life will look, exactly five years from now? Will I be married to Marianne? And where will I be living, if so? I can’t expect her to move to Kymlinge, can I? Though on the other hand, what is there to keep me here, really? Nothing. My children have moved out and I’m as free as a bird to settle wherever in the world I like.

  And then – as Sorrysen talked on – his thoughts gathered momentum like a snowball rolling downhill.

  Will I even still be a policeman in five years’ time? Why not give law another go instead, having certainly been exposed to enough of the reverse side . . . though being a prosecutor doesn’t seem that much fun, either. Just look at Dopy Ramundsen or Sylvenius, you’d be hard put to find gloomier individuals, though in fact who says I’ll even still be alive, five years from now .
. . wasn’t that just what I was brooding about, a few minutes ago? Wonder whether I had a little stroke while Carlsson was talking, they can be very slight, and nobody should imagine they’re immune just because they haven’t turned fifty yet.

  When Sorrysen finally rounded off his account by explaining there were still a few important interviews to be done, and all the reports would be available in the usual files, the mental activity in Gunnar Barbarotti’s brain was hovering around zero. Or possibly just below; he was having great difficulty keeping his eyes open and the only thing he fully appreciated was that he must be suffering some kind of jetlag after the journey home from Gotland.

  Plus the fact that, for now, he was probably not the most efficiently functioning detective in the world.

  9

  ‘Something’s gone wrong in my head. I can’t cope with briefings any more.’

  Eva Backman looked at him with a sad smile. ‘I agree that you’re wrong in the head. But the fact that you can’t cope with a three-hour briefing isn’t a sign of that.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Barbarotti. ‘Well if you say so, inspector. How did you get on with the Annas?’

  ‘I may be able to catch wind of one of them this afternoon,’ Backman told him. ‘The one in Grimstalundsvägen. Apparently it’s possible she’s holed up with a secret lover in Värmland. Somewhere near Grums.’

  ‘Hang on, said Barbarotti. ‘Wasn’t she fifty-six and single? Why would she need a secret . . . ?’

  ‘You’re just prejudiced,’ said Backman. ‘Besides, the secrecy adds a bit of spice, even somebody wrong in the head ought to know that. But in this case it might also be because the lover’s married elsewhere.’

  ‘Far away from Grums?’

  ‘Far away from Grums.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti leant back in his chair and pondered this. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Just think what interesting lives people lead, who would have thought it . . . at that sort of age, I mean. You do learn things in this job sometimes.’

  Inspector Backman sighed.

  ‘If we could possibly concentrate for a minute,’ she suggested, ‘I ought to have her location confirmed in a couple of hours’ time. Perhaps even get to talk to her. But not much luck with the other Anna.’

  ‘Not much luck?’

  ‘Well, none, in fact. I talked to a couple of neighbours – she lives in Skolgatan, one of those middle-class neighbourhoods, they all seem to know each other each quite well round there . . . and to a girlfriend of hers, and that’s what’s making me nervous.’

  ‘Why?’ said Barbarotti, taking out his pen and a pad and starting to make notes. ‘Why are you nervous?’

  ‘Because Anna and her friend had semi-arranged to go to Gotland together this Friday – tomorrrow, that is – but she hasn’t been in touch all week. Not since last Sunday.’

  ‘Gotland?’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘You’re not the only one who goes to Gotland in the summer, you know,’ Backman informed him patiently. ‘Anyway, this friend thought it was odd that she hadn’t been able to get through to her. When I asked her how she accounted for it, she said she supposed it was that bloody Conny, of course.’

  ‘Conny?’

  ‘You realize you keep repeating one of the words I’ve said and putting a question mark at the end of it?’

  ‘No I don’t,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But I’m a bit tired. So who’s this Conny?’

  ‘Some guy she’s been hanging around with off and on, apparently. Her boyfriend, or whatever you want to call him. They’ve . . . well, they haven’t been getting on very well recently. It was a mystery why Anna would want to be with such an arse, the friend said.’

  ‘I see. And what has Conny the arse got to say about it?”

  ‘Haven’t been able to get hold of him,’ said Eva Backman with a fresh sigh. ‘Name of Conny Härnlind. Runs his own business, heating and air conditioning. The place is closed for the holidays. He’s got three phones, and we’ve left messages on all of them.’

  ‘Is there any link between Härnlind and Bergman?’

  ‘None that I’ve found yet.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Barbarotti. ‘All we’ve got to do is sit here and wait for him to ring, in other words?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Backman. ‘You don’t happen to have any nice board games we could play while we’re waiting?’

  Once Backman had left him – whether because he didn’t keep so much as a pack of cards in his office, or for other reasons – it was no more than a minute before Astor Nilsson came in with a sheet of paper.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, O esteemed colleague,’ he said. ‘But there’s a bit of new information on the case.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Fire away.’

  Astor Nilsson cleared his throat. ‘No less than two witnesses independently observed Erik Bergman when he was out on his run that fateful morning.’

  ‘Well there we are,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘One of them was a jogger, who met him at approximately 6.20 a.m., level with the bridge, the other is a jogger who met him by the water tower at 6.25 a.m. Neither of them noticed anything about Bergman to indicate he was about to be murdered.’

  ‘Excess speed reduces power of observation,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I know that from my own experience. Did they have anything else to say?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. It would have been interesting if they’d seen anybody else out on the track near the murder scene, but they didn’t. Neither of them.’

  ‘But they both ran past it?’

  ‘Yes, a quarter of an hour earlier in one case, ten minutes in the other.’

  ‘So the murderer could already have been lurking there?’

  ‘Well if not, he must at least have been on his way,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘But our early morning fitness fanatics didn’t see a damn thing. Shame, eh?’

  ‘Grab a chair,’ said Barbarotti. ‘How come you were lent to us? I mean . . . ?’

  ‘They’re always lending me out,’ explained Astor Nilsson genially, taking a seat. ‘That’s the way it’s been these past two years. I went against my boss in a case, and he can’t bear the fact that I was proved right. He can’t sack me, of course, but as soon as anyone needs reinforcements within a twenty thousand kilometre radius of Gothenburg, off I go. To be honest, I don’t mind. It’s good to get out and about.’

  ‘But you’re a chief inspector?’

  ‘Yes I am.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti studied him. The frustration Astor Nilsson had expressed after yesterday’s morning with Asunander seemed to have drained off him. He gave a pretty good-natured impression, sitting there in the visitors’ chair with one leg thrown casually over the other and his sockless, sandalled foot wagging up and down. Tanned, thinning hair cropped short, and a body weight of around a hundred kilos. But very far from fat. A harmonious battering ram, Barbarotti decided. A fifty-five year old who had gained a few insights into life.

  ‘What do you really think about this, then?’

  Astor Nilsson threw up his hands.

  ‘No bloody idea,’ he said. ‘But I don’t like it. Haven’t come across this kind of perpetrator before, in fact. Though I’ve seen a thing or two in my time.’

  Barbarotti nodded. ‘And what do you think of the way we’re handling this? Are we missing something?’

  Astor Nilsson shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘Don’t think so. I hate to admit it, but we’re just kind of waiting for the second victim. There ought to be a connection between this Bergman and one of the many Annas.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Barbarotti. ‘And if I understood Inspector Backman correctly, she’s homing in on the right one as we speak.’

  ‘The right Anna?’

  ‘Yes. She hasn’t been seen for a few days, so one has one’s suspicions.’

  ‘Well well,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘Efficient work in this place, I must say.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Sometimes, perhaps. But we’re far from certain we’re
on the right track here. It could just as well turn out to be one of the others.’

  ‘Or somebody from the wilds of Sweden or even Kuala Lumpur?’

  ‘Yes, even there. I don’t think we’ve many grounds for feeling optimistic.’

  The same could be said five hours later, noted Gunnar Barbarotti as he retrieved his bike from the rack in the police station yard. It was quarter to eight, and a beautiful summer’s evening, and no Anna Eriksson from Skolgatan had shown up as the afternoon dragged on. Nor had Conny the air-conditioning arse heeded police requests to get in touch, but that was not the worst of Inspector Barbarotti’s worries. He had heard nothing from Gotland.

  ‘You look glum,’ observed Eva Backman.

  ‘Life’s a bad joke,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘You pedal off home and ring Marianne,’ suggested Backman cheerily, ‘and you’ll soon feel your spirits rise, inspector.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘So you’re not starting your holiday on Monday, then?’

  She shook her head. ‘Put it back a week. Ville will have to take the kids to the cottage, and I’ll join them next Friday.’

  They set off on their bikes, side by side. She didn’t sound entirely unhappy with the arrangement, Barbarotti noted with slight surprise, and he was struck by the marked contrast between their respective situations in life. His and Eva Backman’s. And yet they were about the same age, both DIs and each had three children.