The clock in the living room struck one. Soon Bernt would come, he was taking off early to visit the construction industry health office later in the afternoon. They would have scalloped potatoes and fried pork loin. She would tell about Bosse’s death. Bernt would not ask many questions. She understood that deep inside he would be relieved, perhaps even happy. He was jealous that someone else had been so significant in her life, before she and Bernt met, a kind of retroactive jealousy that she never understood. Bernt had also been married before and talked freely and easily about his former wife.
He would not want to see her tears or listen to her stories. And she would try to please him. Cry now, not later, she thought. And she cried, cried over a wasted life. Bosse’s. And perhaps her own, she wasn’t sure. Her demands on existence had never been all that great, but she sensed that there was another way to live.
From the oven came the aroma of the casserole. She took out the pork and started cutting it up into slices. He liked them thin and only lightly fried. Suddenly her movements stopped. The police wanted her to come to the morgue and identify her former husband.
“You are the next of kin, from what we understand,” the female police officer had said.
So it was, she thought, I was and am his next of kin. The police would pick her up at three o’clock.
How many slices will he want? The sight of the pork nauseated her. She set the knife aside. How did he die? It had not occurred to her to ask about that. What if they’d made a mistake and the dead man was someone else?
* * *
After the visit with Gunilla Lange, Ola Haver and Beatrice Andersson decided to look up the other woman on the list, for the simple reason that she was the only one with a permanent address, on Sköldungagatan in Tunabackar.
Ingegerd Melander was drunk, not conspicuously, but enough to make Haver feel uncomfortable. It was still only the middle of the day. He was immediately seized with antipathy, studied the woman’s slightly worn features, the wrinkles that ran like half-moons on her cheeks, and which deepened when she screwed up her face to conceal her intoxication. This had the opposite effect.
Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, which still made her look a bit girlish. Behind the ravaged face Haver could sense a woman who had once been really attractive.
“I’m going to the store,” she said for no reason when they introduced themselves.
“We’re here for Bosse Gränsberg,” said Ola Haver.
Beatrice glanced furtively at him.
“May we come in and talk a little?”
Ingegerd Melander shook her head lightly and her noticeable confusion increased, but she stepped to one side to let them in.
They sat down at the kitchen table. Beatrice did not say anything about curtains, because there weren’t any. The kitchen was otherwise strangely clinically clean. Not a gadget to be seen on the kitchen counter, the table, or other surfaces; no potted plants adorned the windowsill. The only thing that suggested any human activity was a wall calendar from Kjell Pettersson’s Body Shop. Ola Haver noted that yesterday’s date was circled in red.
“I have some bad news,” Beatrice Andersson began.
“It always is where Bosse is concerned,” said the woman.
“But you haven’t had a visit from us before on his account, have you?”
The woman shook her head.
“What’s he done?”
“Nothing, as far as we know,” said Ola Haver. “He’s dead.”
At that moment he loathed himself and his work. The impulse to get up and rush out of the apartment was almost too much for him.
The woman’s body contracted as if she had been given an electric shock, and she collapsed across the kitchen table, as if she were an inflatable doll someone had stuck a pin in. Just then the outside door opened, and they heard someone calling, “Hello in there!”
Beatrice leaned over the kitchen table and placed her hand on the woman’s trembling shoulder. Ola Haver stood up. A man came into the kitchen whom Ola Haver immediately thought he recognized.
“What the hell are you doing here?” said the man.
In his eyes there was a mixture of surprise, suspicion, and fury.
“My name is Ola Haver and I’m a police officer.”
“I can see that!”
“We have some bad news.”
“You always do,” said the man.
He glanced over Haver’s shoulder.
“What have you done to Ingegerd?”
“Bosse Gränsberg is dead,” said Haver.
“Huh?”
The man swallowed.
“Dead?”
Haver nodded.
“What the hell! Why’s that? Did he kill himself?”
“No, someone else killed him.”
Ola Haver saw the scene before him: Bo Gränsberg lying in the gravel.
Ingegerd Melander suddenly sat up, raised herself halfway, one hand resting heavily on the kitchen table while the other pointed at the man. Her hand was shaking. Her whole body was shaking.
A string of saliva ran from the corner of her mouth. Her face was beet red and her cheeks wet with tears. Hate, thought Ola Haver. That’s what hate looks like. She wanted to scream something but there was only sound somewhere far down in her throat, and she lowered her hand.
“That was why,” she mumbled.
“What do you mean why?”
“I turned forty.”
Ola Haver glanced at the calendar. She sank down on the chair. Haver signaled with his hand that the man should follow him into the living room.
“What the hell is this?”
“Murder,” said Ola Haver. “Bosse was murdered.”
“I don’t understand a thing,” said the man.
“What’s your name?”
“Johnny Andersson. Why?”
What a nutcase, thought Haver. He recognized the name from the list they got from Camilla Olofsson at “The Grotto.”
“So you knew Bosse too,” he said. “What do you think happened?”
“Me? How should I know?”
“When did you last see him?”
Johnny Andersson suddenly looked scared.
“You don’t think…”
“Answer the question,” said Haver, not able to hold back his fatigue and irritation. From the kitchen loud sobbing was heard.
“A couple days ago,” said Johnny sullenly. “You can’t just storm in here like the fucking Gestapo—”
“Where and when?”
“We met in town. It was last Sunday, maybe.”
“What time?”
“In the morning.”
“What were you doing?”
“We just ran into each other. You know, down at S:t Per.”
Haver nodded. The little square in the middle of downtown where he and Rebecka used to meet when they were going to do something together. “See you by the fountain,” she always said.
“How was he?”
“Well, same as usual. We talked a little. He was like he usually was … what should I say? A little bent.”
“Bent?”
“It’s like he curled himself up, made himself smaller than he was.”
“He was a hundred eighty-six centimeters,” said Haver for no reason.
“Right, that tall.”
The man seemed to ponder the fact that there was at least ten centimeters difference between the dead man and himself.
“He didn’t seem worried, agitated, or depressed, or anything?”
“Where that’s concerned, was concerned, Bosse made you guess.”
“One thing,” said Haver, lowering his voice. “Did Bosse and”—he made a movement with his head toward the kitchen—“did they have a relationship?”
Johnny Andersson looked to the side. Now he’s going to lie, thought Haver.
“Yes, before.”
“When was before?”
“A month or two ago, maybe.”
“They broke up then?”
&
nbsp; Johnny nodded. Haver was not equally convinced that he had been served a lie, perhaps mostly because that lie would crack easily. He sensed that Johnny was interested in the woman in the kitchen. There was something in his attitude, but maybe mostly the tone he used in the cheerful call when, so free and easy, without ringing the doorbell, he stepped into the apartment.
“Who ended that relationship?”
“Ingegerd.”
“In other words, Bosse was unhappy. Was there a rival?”
Johnny shook his head.
“Not as far as I know,” he said.
There was the lie, thought Haver.
* * *
When the two police officers left Sköldungagatan they felt dejected. The mood did not lighten until they came to the crossing with Luthagsleden.
“Sometimes it’s better when there are two of us,” said Beatrice Andersson at last.
Haver nodded. Beatrice turned right.
“Bosse and Ingegerd had a relationship previously,” said Haver.
“Yes, she told me that. She thought that he would congratulate her on her birthday anyway.”
“Why did she break up with him?”
“Too much partying, she maintained. The strange thing, or Ingegerd thought it was strange, was that Bosse had stayed sober since the day she broke off the relationship. Stone sober.”
“He wanted to become a better person and make everything all right,” said Haver, catching himself using a careless, almost belittling tone.
Beatrice squinted at him.
“How are things at home?” she asked mercilessly.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want to become a better person and make everything all right too?”
Haver looked at her and the fury made him clench his fists.
“Admit it,” said Beatrice. “I have eyes and ears. You’re feeling terrible. You’re not doing well.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“It affects your job.”
When the light turned green at Sysslomansgatan she gunned the engine and took off long before the other motorists.
“And mine,” she added.
“Up yours,” said Ola Haver.
Beatrice made a quick left turn onto Rackarbergsgatan and slammed on the brakes so that Haver was thrown forward and caught by the safety belt.
“Listen,” she said, turning toward her colleague. “You need to cool down! We work together. We depend on each other. I can take a lot, but when I see that it’s affecting people we meet in our work, then it’s gone too far. Right now you are not a good policeman, do you see that?”
Haver stared straight ahead. More than anything he wanted to get out of the car.
“We know each other well, we’ve worked together for many years, so I can be frank. You’re not a trainee, you’re an experienced, capable detective. So act like one.”
Shut up, he thought, but said nothing. Beatrice did not let herself be silenced by his stone face.
“Take sick leave if you’re feeling shitty. Go somewhere. Do something you think is fun. In the worst case, get a divorce!”
She pushed forward the gear shift and the car rolled off up the hill. They had intended to check on an address in Stenhagen, where a former coworker of Bosse Gränsberg lived. A man whom Gunilla Lange knew was on long-term disability and whom Bosse often talked about. According to his ex-wife, they had seen each other several times during the last month.
But as if by unspoken agreement they returned, in icy silence, to the police building.
Five
As soon as Ottosson left, Lindell took out the phone book and looked up Anders Brant’s number.
With increasing agitation she punched in the numbers. She wished he would pick up the phone and explain how it all fit together, but after a half-dozen rings an answering machine came on: “Hi, you’ve reached Anders Brant. I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.” Anders Brant, the man who made her feel pleasure like never before, the man who made her feel hopeful. When she heard his voice the thrill from the morning returned, the satisfaction and excitement. He didn’t say he wasn’t at home, just that he couldn’t come to the phone.
She had never called him before. She did not even have his cell phone number. He was always the one who made contact, and until now she had not found that strange. Now it felt all the more peculiar.
Now he did not pick up the phone and what was worse, he was involved in a murder investigation. He had suddenly gone away. She called again, with the same result. For a moment she considered leaving a message, but decided not to.
Someone other than Anders Brant might listen to the message.
Who was he? A journalist, he said, freelancing now after resigning from a magazine she had never heard of, much less read. A cultural magazine, he explained, which in his taste had become a little too stuck-up. He mentioned something about a “battle-ax” in the editorial office he didn’t get along with.
What did he write about? She didn’t know. Cultural articles was the most likely candidate. Here Ann felt that she was in foreign territory and no doubt that was also the reason she had not shown any great curiosity. She did not want to admit how ignorant she was in that area.
They had not talked that much really, mostly cuddled and made love, and Ann had not protested, starved as she was for skin and touch.
And now he had gone somewhere. She did not know where and she did not know how she could quickly and easily find that out. A week, maybe two, he had said. She guessed it had to do with work. Was he in Sweden or abroad? Perhaps Görel knew something? Ann had no idea where and when they had met. Görel was not someone you immediately associated with cultural magazines.
She went to the Eniro website and searched his cell phone number. The phone was turned off and an automated message said something about a voice mailbox.
All in all, Anders Brant was one big question mark. She guessed that the reason the murdered man had a slip of paper with a journalist’s phone number on it was purely professional. But what could Bo Gränsberg have to say to a cultural journalist? Perhaps they were acquaintances from before, perhaps even related?
There were too many questions. She decided to talk with Sammy Nilsson and then Görel, but that would have to wait until this evening. Reaching her at work was difficult and not greatly appreciated.
It struck her that her girlfriend had not called during the time Brant was tumbling around in Ann’s bed. Didn’t she know that they had met? She must be curious, but if Brant hadn’t said anything to her, then Görel must have guessed that her attempt at procurement had not succeeded. She usually called now and then, but the past few weeks there had been complete silence, and Ann had not thought about contacting her. I’ve had my hands full, she thought, and could not help smiling to herself, on some level very satisfied with the experiences of the past few weeks. And she did not want to believe that it was over. It couldn’t be over. But why this aching, unpleasant feeling, which also expressed itself physically, that the whole thing was over, that for a few weeks she had been able to look out over landscapes that were not her true domains. A temporary visit.
Ann Lindell got up with a heavy sigh. Never, she thought, it can never be really good, never uncomplicated.
Sammy Nilsson did not answer either. In Lindell’s experience, that could be due to two things; either he was talking with a “customer,” as he insisted on saying, or he was exercising. Considering the circumstances she believed in the first alternative. She left a message and asked him to call her as soon as possible.
Then she sat down at the computer to do some research. She typed “Anders Brant” in the search field and after a moment or two the screen was filled with information. There was a total of 2,522 hits, even if many of course came from the same source.
The first entry was a short article published in the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation magazine, about biofuel, followed by some longer articles about Putin and
Russia printed in a magazine she was not familiar with, followed by an opinion piece on the same subject published in Dagens Nyheter.
Lindell skimmed through the text. A different Anders Brant emerged than the one she knew. His tone was polemical, but quiet nonetheless. He formulated himself well, she thought, and felt a touch of pride in his ability. We were fucking that same day, she thought. Dagens Nyheter inserted his article on the editorial page and Anders inserted a different article in me, she thought, smiling in the midst of her confusion.
The phone rang and she saw that it was Sammy Nilsson.
“Good,” she said. “I’m wondering about that Brant.”
“I am too,” said Sammy. “I’m actually at his residence.”
Lindell’s face turned red.
“Where does he live?”
“In Svartbäcken. No one’s home. I’ve talked with some of his neighbors and one of them saw him leave the house with a suitcase yesterday morning. He came home at eight in the morning in a taxi. It’s good to have old ladies around who keep an eye on things. But this time it was a guy, Mr. Nilsson, like Pippi Longstocking’s monkey.”
“Suitcase,” she said stupidly and could not hold back her disappointment, even though he said he was going away.
For a brief moment she considered telling about her relationship with Brant. Sammy was someone who could take it without getting upset or criticizing her. On the contrary, he would think it was exciting. He would congratulate her and say that there was nothing to worry about. Lie low, he would encourage her, you’re not working on the case. We’ll find Brant, question him, and remove him from the investigation.
Just as the words were on the tip of her tongue, ready to be spit out, because that was how she felt now, she had to spit Brant out, get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth, Sammy continued.
“Well, sure, that messes everything up. He was only carrying a small suitcase, which the neighbor believed was a computer case.”
“He’s a journalist,” said Lindell.
Sammy laughed.
“We know that,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Super!” said Lindell.
It struck Lindell that Brant must have called for a taxi when he left her apartment. Now he was Brant and not Anders.
Black Lies, Red Blood: A Mystery Page 3