Black Lies, Red Blood: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  * * *

  After the meeting Lindell returned to her office. She sensed that her colleagues were starting to notice her self-imposed isolation more and more. She withdrew, she no longer took part in coffee breaks, instead she hid out by herself.

  From hope to despair; the contrast was almost too much for Ann Lindell. For a few weeks she had lived in a rush, overwhelmed to start with and in a state of surprise at experiencing something like that, so courted and desired, perhaps even loved. Anders Brant had taken her on a journey she had never been on before, or thought she would ever experience.

  The love story with Edvard was one thing, it had been amazing in many ways. She had truly loved that man, more than she realized when they were caught up in the relationship.

  Then came the night with a strange man she met at the bar, and from having too much to drink, but also to satisfy a vague need for intimacy and mutually explicit lust, they staggered home to her bed. He was a man she would never see again, married besides. She had been his fling, and afterward it just felt wrong and messy. Improbably enough she got pregnant, but kept the father uninformed, and the relationship with Edvard fell apart.

  Edvard had been good, but he was too melancholy, sometimes hard to reach and convince that life did not only have to mean hard work. She liked his seriousness but with the years had realized that it was best for both of them to go their separate ways.

  With Anders Brant it was different, he was more easygoing. He was relaxed, didn’t make things more complicated than they were. When it came to sex he was exceptional, she had to admit. Never before had she experienced such rapture. He was alternately tender and intense. Perhaps it was a game, but it was a lovely game.

  What surprised her was that she knew so little about him. He had mentioned a few things about his work; he preferred to write about social movements, he said, whatever that meant. Perhaps he noticed her uncertainty and for that reason had not expounded on that topic. She understood enough to know that he was not a sensationalist who took his job lightly. He sometimes showed indignation, which made him verbose. Then he talked about justice. A bit vaguely, she thought, and when she jokingly said something to the effect that she too worked in the service of justice he fell silent for a moment. Judging by his expression he was prepared to make an objection, but at the next moment said something in the same easy tone as hers about “the best justice money can buy.” She had heard that phrase before and was not particularly impressed.

  “You mean that I just work for the wealthy?”

  “No, not at all,” he answered. “It’s just an expression.”

  Exactly, she thought, it’s just an expression, but what does it express? But she didn’t say anything.

  It was one of the few times they talked about her work. He showed surprisingly little interest. Normally people she came in contact with asked her to talk about it, wanted to hear a few cases described, wondered whether it was a nasty chore to be a police officer, and if she was afraid. More than a few would offer drastic examples of their own and others’ encounters with crime.

  On another occasion he asked her what the penalty for blackmail was. I guess it depends on the circumstances, she answered a little vaguely, uncertain what the penalty scale looked like. The fact was that she had never worked with any cases like that. When she asked why he was asking, the answer was that he was just curious in general and then said that he had read a book about the Italian mafia. Then he dropped that subject.

  * * *

  But she was sold. And she started to hope. She started dreaming and looked at Erik and wondered to herself whether he would want a stepfather. Brant had no children of his own and for her it was too late to think about another.

  The train had not left for her. “You’re on the track,” as Görel preached to the point of nagging when she tried to get Ann to become more active and involved.

  Now she was active and involved, and with a man who had disappeared and left lots of question marks behind him, both professionally and personally.

  She must get hold of him, that was the dominant thought in her mind. It was meaningless to try the cell phone again. He had it turned off during the trip, she was sure of that; perhaps he turned it on when he wanted to make a call.

  E-mail remained, and she was sure that Brant delivered his articles electronically. She called information, got the number to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and asked to be connected.

  She asked the switchboard for the editor of their magazine and immediately got to speak with a man with the bizarre name Gunnar Göök, or did he say Höök? She explained who she was and that in an investigation she had to make contact with one of the magazine’s contributors, who was traveling and could only be reached by e-mail.

  Göök was hesitant, gave roundabout answers, asked who this concerned, expressed doubt about the correctness of giving out an e-mail address to just anyone, started talking about protecting sources.

  “I’m not just anyone, and you are definitely not disclosing any sources,” said Lindell. “I suggest that we hang up and you call the Uppsala police switchboard and ask to speak with Ann Lindell, so you know I’m a police officer.”

  “As if that would change anything,” said Göök.

  “This is a murder investigation,” Lindell explained. “Does that possibly change the situation? Brant is in no way suspected of a crime but may be in possession of very essential information. Hang up now and call!”

  To her surprise Göök obeyed and a few minutes later the phone rang and she got what she wanted without further discussion. She thanked him for the help and hung up.

  She stared at the hastily scribbled Telia address. He probably checks his e-mail on the Internet, she thought. If he really is in Spain then that’s no problem.

  Her message was brief. Call me immediately! Important! Repeat: Call me immediately! Ann. Then she sent an SMS with a similar message, but with even more exclamation points.

  No cooing, no questions about how he was doing or where he was. There was no room for that, and she was doubtful whether she could formulate anything personal without feeling even more mendacious than she already did where Brant was concerned.

  Even if she was taking a risk, because others might read her e-mail and SMS, she now felt better. She had done something anyway and not just sat there like a fool, waiting for the roof to crash down on her.

  Eight

  The building manager let the two police officers in without apparent excitement.

  “What’d he do?” he asked again.

  “Nothing,” said Sammy Nilsson flatly, for the third time.

  “But something?”

  “Yes, something for sure, but nothing we know about!” Morgansson responded. “Now you can go. We’ll shut the door behind us when we leave.”

  Anders Brant’s apartment consisted of two rooms, a kitchen, and a minimal bathroom. Sammy Nilsson and Morgansson remained standing a moment in the hall, apparently indecisive, before they pulled on their protective clothing and gloves.

  “I guess I’ll try to secure a print to start with,” said Morgansson, entering the kitchen with his bag.

  Sammy Nilsson started in the combination bedroom/office. There was a bed in the middle of the room, made with the spread neatly on top. The walls were covered with books from floor to ceiling, except the one long wall, in front of the window facing the courtyard, where a board was mounted on a pair of sawhorses.

  There was not much on the makeshift desk: an old-fashioned file holder next to some piles of books, a jar with various pens, a notepad, and a mug with remnants of dried coffee. No computer, but a router with blinking green lights.

  There were two file cabinets under the desk. Sammy pulled out a drawer full of papers and plastic folders in various colors with a sticker in the right corner. The one on top was labeled Agrofuel.

  He pulled out drawer after drawer. Mostly computer printouts and newspaper clippings, but the bottom drawer to the right was full
of office supplies—a hole punch, a stapler, a box of paper clips, and other things you would expect to find in a home office.

  Sammy Nilsson did not feel inclined to go through all the papers, even if he realized he would have to do a quick browse. But he left the desk for the time being and took a look at the bookshelves. Quite a lot of fiction, Sammy noticed some titles he had too. The National Encyclopedia and various other reference works and dictionaries took up an entire section. There was also what Sammy assessed as “political literature,” a lot about environmental issues and globalization, strikingly many in English.

  A thinker, Sammy decided, and left the room. The living room was easy to survey. A lounge suite consisting of a 1960s-era leather couch and two armchairs that were certainly trendy but looked needlessly uncomfortable, a teak coffee table decorated with some tea lights on a ceramic plate, a TV and DVD player on an IKEA shelf, a tall floor lamp with a brass base and three lampshades—Sammy’s parents had one like it—a storage unit that housed a BW brand stereo system, and a collection of CDs, mostly blues and classical music. A pair of speakers were mounted on the wall.

  That was all. Borderline impersonal, Sammy thought. Easily taken care of was his next thought, and that granted him some consolation, considering all the papers in the other room.

  “Find anything?” he yelled toward the kitchen.

  “Just one print so far, and I assume it’s Brant’s,” Morgansson answered.

  Sammy Nilsson sat down in an armchair and had his prejudices confirmed.

  If Brant really had visited Bosse Gränsberg’s trailer on Monday, the same day Gränsberg was killed, he was in a bad way. But what motive could there be?

  Sammy’s thought process was interrupted by the technician, who was standing in the doorway. In his hand he was holding the new prints.

  “It’s him,” he said curtly.

  “Are you dead sure?”

  Morgansson did not answer, but looked at Sammy with a blank face and turned on his heels. A new Ryde, thought Sammy. Eskil Ryde was the former head of the tech squad, now retired. He had always been dead sure.

  Sammy got up with effort from the clearly defectively designed armchair and returned to the bedroom, positioned himself to stare at the bed, and carefully raised the spread. He folded back the blanket just as carefully and viewed the sheets below.

  On the nightstand, with a small drawer that he only noticed now, was a book by Samir Amin. God, what a serious guy, thought Sammy Nilsson, pulling out the drawer. Inside was a half-empty package of a foreign brand of chewing gum—Sammy had an impulse to sample it—and an open package of condoms.

  Originally it had contained twenty condoms; four remained. Otherwise in the drawer there was a subway ticket—Sammy Nilsson guessed New York—some pens and a small pocket calendar for 2006, which he quickly browsed through. It was jotted full of tiny but completely legible text, about meetings and conferences, dental appointments, and other trivia that fills a person’s everyday life. Exactly to the day one year ago Anders Brant had made a call to a woman. In any event there was a reminder there with three exclamation points: Call Rose!!! Sammy looked around for a phone and found it stuffed into the bookshelf.

  He peeked at the sheets again; the sight made an almost too intimate impression. It bothered him that now they were violating a person’s integrity. Then he turned his attention to the desk. He shuddered at the thought of the piles of papers, but started with what seemed most current, the files on the desk.

  Everything was neatly labeled, apparently research material, perhaps the basis for articles. A mixture of computer printouts, handwritten notes, and newspaper clippings.

  The first folder contained a number of texts in Russian and was marked Putin the second file simply MST, it too filled with texts in a foreign language, probably Spanish. Under it was a file with an abbreviation equally unknown to Sammy, and whose contents were surprisingly like the others. Once again in the same language.

  Morgansson came into the room.

  “Anything exciting?”

  Sammy turned and held up a plastic folder.

  “Working materials, presumably,” he said, holding out the thick bundle.

  The technician browsed a little.

  “Most of it’s in Portuguese,” he said, handing back the file.

  Are you sure, Sammy was about to say, but caught himself and nodded.

  “The kitchen?”

  “Nothing remarkable. Reasonably clean and tidy, everything washed, the refrigerator emptied as if he were just leaving on a trip, no waste bag. I’ve found two different prints, his own and one other, left on a vase and on the front of the stove.”

  “Where the hell is the guy?” said Sammy Nilsson. “I don’t like this.”

  Morgansson sneered.

  “I mean, we barge in on a completely unknown person. Think about it. Do we really have reason to trespass?”

  “We’ll have to see,” said the technician, showing no great enthusiasm to pick up the thread.

  “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” said Morgansson. “Now I’ll do the bed.”

  Sammy Nilsson nodded. From the courtyard outside the sound of a heavy truck was heard. He went over to the window. It was the tow truck that would bring in Brant’s car. Alongside him stood the building manager, who was saying something to Nyman. The trainee stretched, made a gesture as if to move Nilsson aside, waved with his other hand to the driver of the tow truck, as if he needed any assistance to back into a wide open area, thought Sammy Nilsson. The only thing that might get in the way was probably Nyman himself.

  Sammy Nilsson turned away. He could not shake his aversion. They were treating Brant as a possible suspect and on very flimsy grounds at that. It was now clear that he had visited Gränsberg’s trailer, and there was much that suggested he had done so the day the murder was committed. The fact that he travels abroad the following morning may be flight but just as easily a planned trip. That he booked it as long as a few days before departure meant nothing.

  A journalist, thought Sammy Nilsson, a politically oriented freelancer, would he kill a homeless former scaffolder? Well, unexpected things happen, he reasoned further, but the probability, how great was it?

  “Listen, do you think Brant is our guy?”

  Morgansson stopped, still leaning over, turned his head, and observed his colleague.

  “No,” he said, somewhat unexpectedly for Nilsson, but did not develop his viewpoint.

  “I’ll be in the living room,” said Sammy.

  Morgansson nodded and continued his work.

  Nilsson sat down in the other armchair with a vague hope that it might be somewhat more comfortable, and continued thinking. He could hear the tow truck leaving the parking area.

  Morgansson came into the living room a few minutes later and sat down in the other chair.

  “He hasn’t changed the sheets for a while,” the technician observed. “I’ve secured two different types of hair, one light and one very dark. There are stains besides, probably semen, on one of the pillows.”

  “My God,” said Sammy Nilsson.

  “Maybe she had a pillow under her ass,” said Morgansson.

  Then a few minutes of unforced silence followed. That was one good thing about the guy from northern Sweden, thought Nilsson, he knew the art of keeping quiet without making it feel strange. But it was Morgansson who broke the silence.

  “So, what do you think about Haver?”

  Sammy looked up with surprise.

  “What should I think about him?”

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed how difficult he’s been, mostly goes around sulking and snaps at everyone. I think Beatrice is really sick and tired of it.”

  “I guess he’s tired and worn out,” said Nilsson, feeling some discomfort.

  “We all are more or less,” said the technician. “This is different.”

  “He’ll probably get out of his slump,” said Nilsson.

  “I thin
k it’s on the home front,” Morgansson continued, who obviously did not want to let go of the topic.

  “With Rebecka, you mean?”

  Morgansson nodded.

  “We know nothing about that,” said Nilsson, and now his tone was plainly unsympathetic.

  “Maybe it’s something with Lindell?”

  “What?”

  “She hasn’t been herself either recently.”

  “You mean that Ola and Ann might be together?”

  “Depends on what you mean by together, I don’t know,” Morgansson retreated.

  “Well, you know her better than most,” said Nilsson.

  Morgansson’s cheeks immediately turned red. He’s jealous, that bastard, thought Nilsson. Lindell and the technician had had a brief affair, shortly after Morgansson moved there from Umeå.

  “She seems to be off her game,” said Morgansson. “Completely absent for long periods.”

  “It’s Klara Lovisa that’s haunting her.”

  Morgansson shook his head.

  “It’s love,” he said.

  “And the reason is Haver, you think? That those two would … and that Haver is thinking about divorce, is that what you’re thinking?”

  “Something like that,” said Morgansson.

  Sammy Nilsson shook his head.

  “Never,” he decided, getting up from the chair.

  Morgansson laughed awkwardly.

  “Nice chairs,” he said, patting the armrest.

  Nine

  Andreas Davidsson had a distinctive hair style; his head was shaved on the sides with a short Mohawk on top. In one earlobe he had an earring. He had adopted this style in an attempt to look tough, Lindell believed, but he only radiated fear.

  “You finished ninth grade last spring,” she noted.

  He nodded.

  “What will you be doing this fall?”

  “Graphic design at GUC,” he answered.

  “Is that good?”

  “Mm.”