“What do we know? Through the fisherman, the car, and fingerprints, Edman is linked to the cabin, and we know that he was a champion at making his way through the forest on a bike, but that doesn’t link him to Rönn or to the bombing in Hökarängen.”
“No,” said Briis, who’d had the same thought. “But he lied to his wife, claimed that he was at a job in Skåne. Why?”
“Maybe he’s tired of her.”
“That may be, but you don’t usually need an automatic weapon for that.”
“We have to find the motorcycle!” Bodin exclaimed. Many of their colleagues looked up. A few smiled, and they were the ones who could identify a policeman who cared. According to Bodin, that was no longer a given.
Fifty-One
He knew where he was. He’d been to a wedding in Morkarla. It felt like long ago, even though it was only three or four years ago. The couple who had promised each other eternal fidelity, the bridegroom was a cousin of Mirjam and the bride from Thailand, had already separated.
To the north, Österbybruk was not far away, but that was not a good alternative, and south the road went to Ramhäll, the old mining community, and farther down toward Lyan and Route 288. He didn’t want to go there either. He had a feeling that he should be able to work his way up to Route 290 by way of side roads. Didn’t the cousin live in some place called Flymyra or right near there anyway? He took a chance, drove south and then turned west on an insignificant gravel road. It had to lead somewhere, he figured.
The Saab coughed occasionally, but even so ran admirably well. It must be at least twenty-five years old. The camper egg hung on. The tension had eased somewhat. He was on his way. The vehicle was a good camouflage. Who would believe that a cop killer fled with an aged Saab and an antique camper?
When he got to Flymyra he felt a bit triumphant. Now he had a chance to get away. Just north of Kungstomt he came out on the highway and drove south without hesitating. After about five kilometers he met the first police car. There would be more.
Erland understood that roadblocks were being set up.
* * *
It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon before Ann Lindell called Bodin. If she’d been a reporter it would be possible to refuse, she thought, with reference to source protection. Bodin waited, she heard his breathing and the noise in the background. She could easily picture the situation at her old job, and was once again struck by the thought of how good she had it, before she gave Bodin the name he wanted: Justus Jonsson.
“I have the phone turned off at work.”
“So you say,” said Bodin.
“It’s a benefit we have in the dairy industry,” said Ann. Bodin clicked off. She could not be angry. He was in a terrible spot. The pressure on the agency had probably never been greater.
Even so she wanted to be there, in the midst of the mess, and yet not; in the midst of the decisive spurt, as it’s called in middle-distance running, and yet not. The police occupation was like alcohol. A hellish poison, which knocked you out, paralyzed, but also often refreshing and good, alleviating and conciliatory. After that came the aches, the anxiety.
In the evenings she drank ginger tea. She was the ICA store’s biggest customer of the shapeless roots, which she cut a piece from every evening and peeled, sometimes with a smile on her lips, sometimes more dogged. She pretended that it helped. Her stomach at least became harmonious like never before.
“Sammy,” she said out loud and smiled. If he were to show up in the evening anything at all might happen, she understood that. That thought made her happy in an unfortunate way. Happy, because she was still a woman that Sammy, as a man, could desire, that lovely word. She didn’t need to feel guilty about her lust, as she had before. One reason was probably the police environment, so infantile and toxically male, so oppressive. She remembered Beatrice, her old colleague at Violent Crimes, how she struggled. Impudent, many thought; excessive, others said, but no doubt she’d been right.
She didn’t need to be ashamed of her body, as she had been before, as she stretched her hand across her thigh, belly, and breasts, assessed, compared.
“It’s the cheese,” she mumbled. That was what had liberated her. The 528-step method, it worked! She laughed at her craziness, which was the truest and wisest thing she’d experienced in years and years.
She called Erik. “It will be Dubrovnik,” she said as soon as he answered. He started to laugh. Then it struck her, that was how his father had laughed, that one night. After that Erik had been conceived, who in flight had taken with him that good laugh. What else had he inherited? She didn’t know.
They talked awhile. He must have noticed something in her mood, because gradually his voice wilted.
“I haven’t been drinking, I just got home from work,” she said. “I’m just happy. That’s why I called you, do you understand?”
“Got it,” he said.
“What are you doing? Have you…”
“Mom, go to Dubrovnik, promise me that.”
Ann took a breath, suppressed a sob, and promised.
Fifty-Two
The moment Justus got out of the car on Molngatan the phone vibrated in his pocket. Unknown number. Worries, he just knew it, and stared at the display until the phone fell silent. Probably the cop. Otherwise there weren’t many who called, it was often about work, or Berit who needed help with something, sometimes an old buddy from the Aquarium Association who wanted advice or tips. Justus had partly taken over his father’s role as expert on tropical fish. It wasn’t strange, having grown up in front of an aquarium. Cichlids were what bound him with Little John, then and for always. It wasn’t a role he strove for, or even wanted, but now he was established and in demand and didn’t think he could refuse people, some of them old friends of his father, when they got in touch.
He suspected what the call was about. His old friend Erland was in a really bad way, the bombing in Hökarängen and the raid in the Gimo forests, and the subsequent hunt for one of the “terrorist bombers” had been the major topic of discussion at work. Not just there, the whole nation was following the development of events. The tragicomic element was that the previously withdrawn, not to say insignificant, Erland “Smulan” Edman was at the center of attention. A few at work recognized him from before, one had been a coworker with Erland at a job in Björklinge, and could testify to an extremely reserved mason.
During the day Justus had thought about calling Ann Lindell, which she had encouraged him to do if he found out anything new. He hadn’t really, but he was curious. He wondered where Erland had gone just as much as everyone else.
The phone vibrated again. This time he answered, and said exactly that, that he didn’t know anything.
“No, Erland hasn’t contacted me.”
Justus regretted having sought out Ann before, because now the crowd of cops came running again, just what Uncle Lennart had warned him about once upon a time: “If they get a hold, they never stop.” And Lennart knew, he was one of those the cops always went after if anything happened, a car theft or a silly break-in at a store.
“I’ve been at work the whole day,” Justus said with a sigh.
He walked slowly toward the entry. The tiredness struck him doubly.
“Yes, you’re welcome to check, if you want to get the gossip started at work.”
He clicked off the call. Inside the entry to the stairwell two men were standing. Cops, he understood that immediately. He knew that he would never get rid of the connection to the bomb in Hökarängen. There would be talk at work and the neighbors would look at him suspiciously. No smoke without fire, it was called.
“You all should have checked up on him then, when I called,” he said. The men didn’t say anything, but instead followed him up the stairs.
He opened the door, aware that there was no point in arguing. Both policemen pulled out their guns, pushed Justus aside, gave a sign that he should stay in the hall, and slipped into the apartment. Justus shut the front door behi
nd him. At the same moment the phone vibrated again. This time it was a known number. He quickly clicked off the call.
The policemen came back. “If he gets in touch, you have to call us. Understood?”
Justus nodded. “He’s not going to be in touch.”
The older policeman observed him. There was no friendliness in his gaze. Justus understood that he knew about his family background, perhaps he’d even been involved in the investigation of the murder of Little John, maybe he’d put Uncle Lennart away some time.
“We haven’t seen each other for a long time. Why should he contact me?”
* * *
When they left the apartment he took out the phone again. Did he have any choice? He opened a can of beer and sat down in the kitchen, wondered what he could do, must do. Actually, being passive was also an alternative. He stared at the number. Where are you, Smulan? It was unforgivable to blow people up, if he really had been involved, but at the same time Justus could feel for his old friend who was now being hunted by everyone.
As long as he didn’t answer, or call back, he himself went free. No one could accuse him of anything. The phone was set on silent. It could be his explanation if the cops started snooping in call lists. He threw the phone on the kitchen counter.
Fifty-Three
“Cable tie, it can be traces of a cable tie,” Wikman said. He stood with the report from the medical examiner in his hand, read the final comments, and set the papers aside.
“What in the name of hell,” Sammy said, but weakly, more like a prayer for an end to all the infernality that was pouring in across his desk.
“And a few bruises on both arms, right under the elbows, as if he’d been tied up from behind.”
“The rabbit man was no thug,” said Sammy, who could easily imagine how Roth was overpowered and tied up without any great difficulty.
“His wrist was broken,” said Wikman.
That decided it. They looked at each other, the technician and Sammy, reading each other’s thoughts and mood. Wikman pushed his glasses up on his forehead and shook his head.
“I felt sorry for the boy,” Sammy summarized.
“And even more now. Imagine being hanged.”
“Can we be completely sure?”
“Hard to believe that he would have his hands tied behind his back in any other context,” Holm, the other technician, said unexpectedly. Wikman was usually the one who did the talking. “In theory you can hang yourself with a broken wrist, but…”
“The medical examiner seems to be quite certain,” said Wikman.
“Who?”
“Hjortsberger.”
Sammy nodded. Fredrik Hjortsberg was levelheaded and reasonable. The two technicians left his office. Their work was over and the medical examiner and pathologist had had their say. Now this concerned a homicide and then the case ended up on Sammy’s lap.
He picked up the report, exemplarily concise and specific, and read through it before he started thinking about a motive. In reality there was probably only one. Someone, or more than one, was afraid that Rothe would start talking about things he’d seen or heard. The risk was probably even more imminent after he’d gotten word that he had to move from the farm. After that there were no bonds of loyalty whatsoever to the village and its inhabitants.
“Let’s take another look,” said Wikman, who had come back into the office. Sammy looked up, partly absent in his own thoughts. “Now that it’s murder.” The technician carefully shut the door behind him.
* * *
The exhaustion pulsated like waves through his body. First the hours at the hospital, and now this. There didn’t seem to be any end to the misery.
The brief conversation with Nils Stolpe, who was in a borderland between life and death, had sapped the juice out of Sammy. If you could even call it a conversation, Stolpe had mostly spluttered and raved; Sammy was not even sure that he recognized him. Stolpe would survive, Sammy had decided, but the doctors were not equally sure. “Things can happen,” one of them said, but did not explain what. His son, strikingly like his father, showed up later, and Sammy briefly explained what had happened. Your father is a harebrained cop who made a fool of himself, he could have summarized, but refrained from any emotional expressions and turned the baton over to the worried and stressed son.
* * *
Sam Rothe had always, in one way or another, taken beatings. His childhood could not have been fun, several people had hinted. That thought tormented Sammy Nilsson, as always when children and young people suffered. Had Rothe ever been in love, gotten to taste love; had anyone ever pressed his body next to theirs?
What did a lack of love do to people? Some turned violent, some developed more acceptable, albeit trying, methods to assert themselves and their worth, others became compliant to the point of erasure. Rothe had seemed that way, afraid of beatings and therefore a little slow-witted. He had certainly not been at the head of the class, but subordination had reinforced that slightly stupid characteristic, and then the hamster wheel was in motion. One thing led to another. His death, roped and hung like a brute animal at the slaughterhouse, was in a way a consistent end point to his life, but where the animal’s body had a value, Sam Rothe was worthless even in death.
Sammy felt nauseated, about to vomit, and that could not be blamed on the lousy coffee at the emergency room and the police station. He shuffled some papers listlessly on his desk, printouts of the interviews that had been held with a couple of the young men at the New Year’s party in Tilltorp. That was where it started, that was where the thought of fire and death took shape.
He decided to go there again. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d already done that, but now he was determined that something decisive had to happen.
Fifty-Four
“Where are you going?”
He answered with a truth and a lie: that he was going to the creamery to discuss goat’s milk. The destination was correct but the purpose a different one. He wasn’t sure that the “bitch cop,” as they called her, was working. He knew that she didn’t work every day, and he hadn’t seen her walk past, but he had to take a chance. Going to her house was not a good alternative, there was no good way to explain that.
* * *
It was a workday for Ann Lindell, more than usual. Matilda was “indisposed.” Ann thought she was pregnant. Matilda was known for being sensitive, often for no reason, but in this case Ann bought her absence. The creamery owners had wanted a child for several years, and it was understandable that she was worried about the slightest stomachache.
It was calm and pleasant in the creamery; she was the only one there. She stood awhile and observed the equipment in the cheese-making room. You could see your reflection in the stainless steel. Now it was the floor’s turn. She opened the faucet and let the water flow through the hose, seized the scrub brush and let it work. It was a job she liked, to get to splash without reserve across a floor where there were a couple of scuppers that greedily captured the water.
The melody sounded from the wireless box on the wall. Someone was at the door. Ann turned off the water, stepped out of her boots, and went to answer it. She was sure that it was a customer, someone who could not or did not want to understand the sign with the store hours.
She opened with a ready answer on her lips, but Sebastian Ottosson was standing outside the door. During her years as a police officer Ann had seen numerous physiognomies that demonstrated various signs of worry, anxiety, guilt, and shame, and Sebastian was expressing all of them at once.
“Come in,” she said, and he was not slow to slip in and pull the door closed behind him.
She took him to the break room.
“This isn’t about cheese, is it?”
“I walked here, thought maybe you were working.”
She nodded, understood what he meant. “Here we can speak freely.”
“Rasmus is with me. He’s hiding.”
“From the police?”
S
ebastian nodded.
“Why? Is it because his brother has been arrested?”
“That too.”
“Tell me what you know. Even if it’s hard. I understand that you want to talk, that you want to get rid of your worry, right?”
“There’s so much,” said Sebastian, and Ann thought for a moment that he would burst into tears.
“Start somewhere. Start with what hurts the most.”
“Then I can’t go home. Rasmus is going to figure out that I told. I have a hard time lying without it showing.”
This has gone well so far, thought Ann. “We can … I can call a couple of former colleagues who will pick him up. He’s wanted, after all. Then you can go home and work on the house and think about goats.”
Ann let the silence do its work, wondered whether she should call Uppsala directly, but there was probably no great rush. Rasmus probably didn’t have many places to flee to, and it amused her to play cop for a while.
“I believe you,” said Ann, “but you have to be honest.”
“There’s so much,” Sebastian said again. “They’re my friends. Some of them anyway.”
“They’ll go away,” Ann said immediately, perhaps a bit harshly, because Sebastian looked up.
“Daniel is dead.”
She waited patiently for him to continue.
“You didn’t come here to talk about the dead,” she said when he hesitated too long. “This is about those who are still alive, isn’t it?”
The Night of the Fire Page 33