The Demon of Dakar

by Kjell Eriksson

  Sammy Nilsson nodded. He circled the car and looked in through the windows but saw nothing of interest.

  “When was it left here?” he asked.

  “Late last night or this morning, if I have to guess,” Persson said. “I walked by here around seven o’clock last night and I don’t think it was here then.”

  “Okay,” Nilsson said. “We’ll ask around. It’s possible someone saw something.”

  He nodded at the small grocery store directly across the street.

  “I’ll start there,” he said. “Ola, can you take the kiosk over there?”

  One hour later, Nilsson and Haver decided to head back. A tow truck had already loaded up the Opel onto the flatbed for transport to Uppsala.

  The door-to-door efforts in the neighborhood had already yielded results. It was the manager of the small grocery who, shortly before seven that morning, had observed a light-haired man next to the car. He had noticed that the man was wearing sunglasses even though it was not a sunny morning. As the grocer was setting up an advertisement on the sidewalk, he had seen the man walk toward the commuter train station.

  That was all.

  “Light-haired,” Sammy Nilsson said as they overtook the towtruck on the motorway. “Can it have been an accomplice?”

  “If he had something to do with the car,” Ola Haver said. “We don’t know if he was the one who parked it there.”

  “It’s thin,” Sammy Nilsson agreed. “But if the car really was left there early in the morning then it could work. Alavez parks the car, because he doesn’t want the car to be sighted near Arlanda, gets himself to the airport somehow, sees something that makes him suspicious, and skips the flight.”

  “It doesn’t add up,” Haver objected.

  “What?”

  “It just doesn’t add up,” Haver maintained, without explaining what he meant.

  “No, I know,” Sammy Nilsson said with resignation.

  When they reached the police station there was a certain commotion in the division. Fredriksson and Bea were in Ottosson’s office.

  “Has something happened?” Sammy asked, reading the excitement in their eyes.

  “A guy who claims to be Armas’s son has just turned up,” Ottosson said. “Lindell is talking to him right now.”

  “Did he seek us out of his own accord?” Haver asked.

  “Is he blond?” Sammy wondered.

  “No, he has a shaved head, and he came here on his own,” Ottosson replied.

  “What did he say?”

  “That he wanted to talk to someone who was investigating the murder of his father.”

  “Does he speak Swedish?”

  “English,” Ottosson said. “We’ll have to wait for Lindell’s report.”

  Sammy Nilsson told him about the Opel in Rotebro and how little they had managed to find out. Maybe, just maybe, a blond man with sunglasses could be tied to the car.

  “An accomplice,” Fredriksson said and Sammy sighed heavily.

  Lindell came back ten minutes later. She shook her head as soon as she saw her colleagues gathered in the lunchroom.

  “I need something strong,” she said and sat down.

  “What did he say?”

  Lindell told them that Armas’s son was thirty-two years old and named Anthony Wild. He was born in England. His mother was English, and missing for many years. Her son thought she was living in Southeast Asia. Armas and Anthony had never lived under the same roof. Armas left when the mother was pregnant, but they had intermittent contact. The last time was about a year ago. Anthony had been in Sweden once before. That was over twenty years ago when he had visited his father who lived in Copenhagen. They had taken the ferry across to Malmö for the day.

  “Did you ask about the video?” Fredriksson interrupted.

  Lindell smiled. Yes, Anthony had been an “actor” for several years. He admitted to having participated in porn films and did not seem particularly embarrassed about it. In fact, he had bragged that he was one of the more successful ones in the business.

  “What does he want?” Ottosson asked.

  “To claim his inheritance, I’d say, even if he did also seem genuinely griefstruck. He returned several times to the question of how Armas had died. And then he wanted to talk to Slobodan. They had never met but Anthony knew that Armas and Slobodan had worked together for many years. Maybe he thought Armas owned part of the restaurants, what do I know?”

  “Has he been to Mexico?”

  Lindell felt as if she was at a press conference, where the questions came from all directions. This time it was Bea.

  “Several times. He said that if you live in southern California you often travel down to what he called ‘Basha.’”

  “Ba-ha,” Haver corrected.

  “Ba-ha,” Lindell repeated in an exaggerated way, and then went on. “Wild had never been to Guadalajara or our friend the tattoo artist, and he did not know that Armas and Slobodan had been to Mexico.”

  “How did he find out Armas was dead?”

  “Through the film company. We made several inquiries with them and then we mentioned Armas’s death in order to create more urgency for them to give us a name.”

  “Is he trustworthy?” Ottosson asked.

  “He appeared honest to me. A little flaky, maybe. Not a wholesome person, as you would put it, Otto, but …”

  “He’s an actor,” Sammy Nilsson reminded them.

  “Does it make your mouth water?” Fredriksson asked.

  Everyone looked at him in astonishment. It was a Sammy-comment that he had made and nothing that one would expect of someone normally so rigid about moral topics, and predictably enough he blushed deeply at his own spontaneous remark.

  “Sure,” Sammy said, “with a delicious morsel like that around, of course I get a little peckish.”

  Everyone laughed except Bea.

  They continued to talk for a while longer. Naturally they would question Anthony Wild several more times. He was planning to remain in town for at least a week in order to go through Armas’s apartment and take care of the legal aspects of the inheritance. He was also going to visit Dakar and Alhambra to see the places where his father had worked. In addition, he had requested to visit the scene where his father had been killed.

  They did not know if he would obtain permission to meet Slobodan, but Ottosson could not see any obstacles. There was a legitimate and reasonable interest on the part of the son to speak with the murdered father’s best friend, even if the latter was being held under arrest for a drug crime.

  Ann Lindell withdrew to her office. The conversation with Armas’s son had at first made her hopeful and then increasingly disappointed. Anthony Wild’s tactfully formulated and yet clearly stated critical comment about the murderer still remaining at large had struck her with unexpected force. All technical evidence, DNA, fingerprints, and tire marks were there. They had skillfully unraveled the question of the tattoo’s removal and clarified the Mexican connection. With the Mexican’s existence revealed, and now also documented on the Norrtälje prison’s videotape, she had assumed that Manuel Alavez would quickly be caught.

  He had all the odds against him, and yet he was still at large. It contradicted all logic. Manuel Alavez was a statistical abnormality, a relationship that was strengthened when Patricio Alavez escaped and most likely joined forces with his brother.

  Lindell had difficulties evaluating the find of the car in Rotebro. It was natural to dump the car that Alavez most likely understood was hot, but how were they getting around now? Assuming they even had any plans, what were they? To leave the country? But how and when? Patricio had no passport and both brothers were wanted in all of Europe.

  Her chain of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Yes!” she called out, more loudly and harshly than she had intended.

  Ottosson opened the door a crack.

  “The operation was a success,” he said.

  It took a while until she rea
lized he meant Berglund.

  “Come in!”

  Ottosson stepped inside, sat down, and told her that Berglund’s brain tumor had turned out to be benign and easy to remove. Berglund’s wife had called from the hospital.

  “Thank God!” Lindell exclaimed. “Finally some good news.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Ottosson said, who had grown teary by his own words.

  Sixty-Six

  Manuel and Patricio were awakened by a thud and they sat up at the same moment, as if synchronized.

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know,” Manuel said.

  Outside the narrow window just under the ceiling, they heard shouting and angry voices. Manuel got up.

  “It’s the police,” Patricio cried.

  “Keep quiet!”

  Manuel fetched the only chair in the room and placed it under the window that was covered with a black piece of fabric. He climbed up and started to pick away at the tape at the edge of the cloth.

  “No,” Patricio said, terrified, “they’ll shoot you.”

  “I have to see what it is,” Manuel said, lifting a corner and trying to peer through the dusty glass.

  “I see some legs,” he whispered.

  “Are they in uniform?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  At that moment the window was struck by a projectile and the glass shattered. Manuel instinctively dived onto the floor. Tear gas was his first thought. The voices outside died down. A piece of glass that had caught on the fabric trembled before it fell to the floor with a clinking sound.

  Patricio and Manuel stared bewitched at the window. The cloth fluttered in a sudden breeze.

  What were they waiting for? Manuel wondered. No gas was spreading in the basement, the voices outside were quiet and no sounds were heard from the other side of the door.

  Manuel pulled over his bag and took out the pistol he had taken from Armas’s lifeless hand. Patricio stared at the weapon.

  “You’re armed?”

  “Keep quiet,” Manuel barked.

  Suddenly they heard a laugh and someone screamed in a high voice. Manuel climbed back up on the chair and moved the fabric aside.

  “They will shoot you,” Patricio repeated.

  A soccer ball was wedged in the window frame. Manuel quickly refastened the tape, slipped rather than climbed down from the chair, and collapsed on the mattress.

  “A soccer ball,” Patricio said and burst into hysterical laughter.

  “Quiet! We have to be quiet.”

  Patricio stared at his brother who had stood up and was leaning over him.

  “Where did you get the gun?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Manuel said, but then told him what had happened, how he had been forced to kill the tall one and afterward had taken his weapon.

  Patricio stared sorrowfully at his brother. Manuel avoided his gaze.

  “So the tall one is dead,” Patricio said flatly at the end.

  Manuel nodded.

  The silence and inactivity was complete until they heard a key turn in the lock and Ramon swiftly snuck in and closed the door behind him.

  “Hello, my Chilean friends,” he said in greeting. “What has happened? You look a little somber.”

  “A soccer ball hit the window so the glass shattered,” Manuel explained. “We thought it was the police.”

  Ramon grinned.

  “It scared you?”

  “Guess,” Manuel said, surprised at how lightly the Spaniard was taking it.

  “We’ll have to fix it later,” Ramon said and took two passports out of his coat pocket. “Right now we’re in a hurry. You are going on a flight.”

  “Fly?”

  Ramon told them what he had planned. Twenty minutes to ten this same evening there was a plane to London.

  “The airport is a little south of Stockholm and you can buy the tickets there. If there are no seats you will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Then you can sleep in the forest.”

  “But why London?” Patricio asked.

  “You have to get out of the country as soon as possible. From London it will be easy for you to keep traveling.”

  “Okay,” Manuel said.

  For him the most important thing was to leave the basement.

  “I have brought two small suitcases for you to pack your belongings. Wash up quickly. It’s important that you look tidy. I will drive you there. That will cost a little. Do you have money?”

  “How much will it cost?”

  “Three thousand dollars.”

  Manuel nodded.

  “Is it so far?” Patricio asked.

  Ramon laughed.

  “No, but it is your only option. We have to pass Stockholm. You will have to sit in a closed van. It is the van of a paint company. Understood?”

  Manuel and Patricio looked at their new passports. Abel and Carlos Morales were the names that would get them out of Sweden.

  Manuel was a little unhappy that Ramon was charging so much to drive them to the airport but said nothing. He knew what the answer would be.

  They arrived at the airport a little before eight. Ramon dropped them off at the parking lot and gave the brothers final instructions on how they should act. Manuel took out his gun and handed it to Ramon without a word. The latter smiled a little and surprised the brothers by immediately taking out the ammunition, carefully cleaning off the weapon, and then disappeared for a minute or so into a nearby patch of woods.

  “I’m dropping you off here,” he said when he returned. “With a little luck you will be fine.”

  He looked at them almost tenderly and gave them each an unexpected hug good-bye, then jumped into the van and left the area.

  The airport was much smaller than they had imagined. It basically consisted of a hangarlike building with a cafe and a departure lounge that looked more like a bus terminal.

  At his brother’s question if they should split up and buy tickets separately, Manuel simply shook his head. He felt as if he were incapable of speaking.

  The flight with a departure time of 21:40 to London was fully booked, they were told at the ticket counter in the terminal. The woman behind the counter saw their disappointment and tried to comfort them with the fact that there was a flight the following morning. Could they wait until then?

  “Our brother in England is sick,” Manuel said. “There is no possibility that we can make it on this flight?”

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s full, but there are three seats left on the early flight tomorrow morning.”

  The brothers looked at each other. Manuel felt as if luck was deserting them. They had managed to get this far but no further. So close. He looked at the young woman behind the counter. Her eyes were so blue.

  “We’ll take two tickets,” he said finally.

  Sixty-Seven

  The first thing Ann Lindell did when she reached the police station at shortly after eight in the morning was to check if any tips had come in during the evening and night. The police had set up a special telephone number that the public could call with observations related to the escape of and search for the Alavez brothers.

  Twenty-eight calls had been received, of which three could be considered of interest. The first one that Lindell decided to follow up on had come in from an older couple, reporting a breaking and entering of their holiday cottage in Börje. The burglar was believed to have spent the night in their shed and had stolen some food items but had otherwise not caused any damage. The remarkable thing was that the burglar had chopped up a fallen apple tree and even taken the trouble to stack the wood. At first the man thought it was a nephew who had taken the trouble to do this. The nephew would often help the couple with practical tasks that they themselves could not or did not have the strength to do, but the nephew had known nothing about this when his uncle called.

  Lindell decided that Ola Haver and a technician should go to Börje and perform an initial examination.

  The second tip came from a wo
man who claimed to have seen “a dark-skinned man of suspicious appearance” behave strangely outside her home. Lindell looked up her address, checked the time and called up the woman.

  “Admittedly I am an old woman, but I am not blind.”

  “I’m sure you aren’t,” Lindell said.

  “He was all sweaty. At first I thought it was one of those who messes about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They scurry back and forth.”

  Her voice was sharp as a saw blade. Lindell smiled to herself.

  “The strange thing was he made the sign of the cross. One reads so much about religious fanatics. Do you know how old I am?”

  “No,” Lindell said.

  “Eighty-nine this fall. On Sibylla-day.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “No, I can’t believe it myself. My husband says I am like an antelope. He is a retired forester and knows such things.”

  “I believe it,” Lindell said, “but if we go back to the man that you saw. Why are you calling now, several days after you saw him?”

  “I saw it in the paper. He looked like the one in the picture. The one you are looking for. I told Carl-Ragnar I had to call.”

  “That was excellent,” Lindell said. “Could we possibly come by with some photographs for you to look at?”

  “You will do as you like. I am home until noon. Then I have to go to the hospital.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” Lindell said and immediately cursed her amateurishness.

  After the conversation, which had continued for several minutes with talk about the woman’s many female friends who were doing poorly, she dialed first Bea’s number then changed her mind and called Sammy Nilsson instead. She gave him the delicate task of compiling a collection of pictures and visiting a charming lady who lived in Slobodan Andersson’s neighborhood.

  The third tip had come in that morning regarding an observation made in the vicinity of the Fyris river. A man with the unusual surname Koort from Bälinge had seen two men camping not far from Ulva mill north of Uppsala. They were foreigners and according to the notes that had been made, the man had thought they worked in the nearby strawberry fields. But when he had bumped into the farmer yesterday by the river and mentioned the two men, the farmer had denied that any of his employees were camping.