The Night of the Fire: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  Forty-Nine

  Many years ago he’d driven the Novemberkåsan motorcycle race in Rasbo. It had been pouring rain for over a day and it was a few degrees above freezing, in the forest it was muddy up to the hub, and treacherously slippery stones and roots were sticking up everywhere. He wasn’t among the leaders, but he made it through the course. It was a feat, something to tell Li’l Erland, when he could understand such an effort.

  So it would be a hell of a thing if he couldn’t make his way out of this goddam stick forest! There were no cops chasing after him. He heard a dog barking at a distance. But none of that actually worried him. He drove ahead, filled with adrenaline he whipped himself farther, had to get off the bike at one point and walk it over a V-shaped ditch that cut straight through the spruce plantation, but otherwise he was a winner who drove on. He was soon at the forest road. He stopped indecisively, trying to picture the map that was nailed on the wall in the cabin. He should have taken it with him! There were three directions: to the right, which led out of the forest to populated areas, that is, police; due north, which involved denser forest, certainly more impassable but on the other hand a completely unexpected choice; and then left, perhaps not as surprising but enough that he could gain time. But where did it lead? Could he come out in the direction of Morkarla? In that case maybe he could steal a car and make his way out of the area, either on Route 290 toward Uppsala or on side roads southwest toward Alunda.

  He chose the latter alternative, for several reasons, mainly because of the risk of roadblocks toward Gimo, but also for the uncertainty of how long the gas in the tank would last. He told himself to drive calmly, not least to make as little noise as possible. The road was in reasonably good condition, the weather had been dry a long time. He kept looking toward the sky, a helicopter would be the primary threat, it could search considerable areas in a short time.

  After a kilometer or two the road ended in a turnaround. A little timber of poor quality was lying there, perhaps an abandoned surplus. An opening in the forest, which now resembled a forest with a more varied appearance, suggested a path. He took it, content that the stately spruce gave him some protection from being seen from above, and he relaxed a little. Had he hit that fat policeman with the megaphone? He probably had. Frank Give had always nagged that Erland would really like to shoot a cop. Now it was done, and it was actually not anything that worried him. If he went to prison it wouldn’t matter when a sentence was pronounced. And wasn’t that his right? Li’l Erland’s grandfather had died because of the nonchalant carelessness of the police. Now they were even. He would explain that to the boy one day.

  He cruised ahead daringly, at times on difficult stony ground. All his skill and dependability had to be put to use. It was like a reprise from the practice of his teenage years.

  Gradually the landscape opened up, small meadows of partly overgrown hayfields came more often, scattered drying sheds appeared, a rotted fence ran parallel with the path. These were remnants of the peripheral fields of smallholdings he saw. Here there were moose in the fields and certainly mushrooms in the fall, he thought.

  In the distance he saw a farm, grazing horses, and a tractor that plodded ahead pulling a wagon. Everything seemed peaceful. He scanned the sky. No helicopter. How long had it been since he left the cabin? Maybe twenty minutes. Before too long every road would be crawling with cops, both on 288 and on the road between Uppsala and Österbybruk. It would take a while for them to come out from Uppsala. He didn’t think there would be cops any closer. The small police stations were shut down or unmanned.

  He drove on, now on a winding gravel road. There were scattered houses. He passed an apparently abandoned chapel and came up to an old workshop, where decades of scrap had collected on the yard in front. A rack for pipes, ventilation drums neatly arranged in declining size resembling a gigantic organ, steel plates leaned against the wall, and an old Saab 95 that was parked for good. He turned as if on impulse behind a rusty container, left the motorcycle, and started looking around. Behind the dusty, stained windows of the large entry something large and white was visible. The door was closed, but on the back side was a door that with some difficulty he could force open. It was as he thought, the building was used as a storage space for campers and recreational boats.

  Most important, however, was a Saab 95, the same shade of blue and the same model as the one outside, but in considerably better condition. It was parked in front of the entry and looked drivable. Erland searched on a board above the extended workbench, where keys were hanging in rows. This is truly the boonies, he thought, when he found the key to the Saab.

  It started right away, purring like a cat, obviously happy to be put to use. He checked the fuel gauge, half a tank, let the engine idle and continued his inspection. The key to the entry was in the lock. The Saab could in other words be driven out. He got an idea, after having determined that the car was equipped with a tow bar. The oldest of the campers was a so-called egg, probably from the early sixties. The hitch looked sturdy. He released the brake, prized the camper forward, and hooked it up on the tow bar.

  In a space that functioned as a combined break room and changing room he found an overall, worn and gray, ideal in other words, and a cap hanging on a nail. In a washroom there was a yellow, single-use razor stuck in a dirty glass, and with that and some soap he peeled away the mustache he’d had a long time. He quickly outfitted himself in overall and cap, and went out to the motorcycle, which he managed to prize up into the container and cover with a little scrap metal. It looked as if it had been lying there a long time. Back in the workshop he dirtied his hands with a little oil and put a stripe on his left cheek too. The smell triggered a vague memory of the past and he stopped for a moment.

  After listening and taking one last look around, he drove the vehicles out of the building and onto the road.

  Fifty

  “Which side is the liver on?”

  Bodin did not reply. Maybe he hadn’t heard the question, maybe he didn’t care, or else he didn’t want to show his ignorance.

  “An injury in the liver and … you remember Anna Lindh? One stab and then she was on the floor. It can look ever so innocent, but when the doctors start poking around then there’s blood gushing, and you go into shock and all that.”

  “If you’re so fucking knowledgeable, then you should know which side the liver is on. And what the hell is ‘all that’? Bellyache?”

  Sammy did not respond. He knew that he was babbling.

  “He’ll survive,” Bodin said after a while.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, with that layer of fat.”

  “But he was bleeding heavily. And then those hits in the groin.”

  For over two hours they had waited, looking up every time the swinging door opened, but they’d stopped getting up and asking. They understood that they would get word when there was something to report.

  Sammy thought about grass, the odor he’d sensed so strongly as he was crawling forward outside the cabin in the woods. It was such an unexpected feeling and reaction, not only because the circumstances were special, that returned him to an existence so separate from what he was living in now. As if the grass wanted to remind him about life, but it was probably only children and people in love who drew in the healthy aroma of fresh grass and aromatic herbs, and in a state of undisturbed curiosity and happiness at that.

  He let out a deep sigh. Bodin looked up.

  “I didn’t know he was divorced,” said Sammy.

  “We’re the closest next of kin,” said Bodin.

  “There’s a son, he’s on his way.”

  “‘Closest,’ I said. Stolpe Junior lives in the marshes in the far north.”

  “It was Vidsel.”

  Another hour passed before word came: “Your colleague came in with life-threatening injuries in the abdomen and groin,” followed by the classic formulation: “His condition is stable but still very serious.”

  “Is he
going to survive?”

  “It’s too soon to say.”

  The doctor could say that much, before with an apology he disappeared just as quickly as he’d shown up. The two policemen sank down on the chairs again, but Bodin stood up again immediately.

  “You stay, the two of you have known each other for many years, right? I have to go and bring in Edman.”

  Sammy nodded, content to be left alone, even if it was in a kind of waiting room before the end of life with rows of impersonal chairs and institutional light fixtures that made it feel like a morgue.

  The door swung one last time after Bodin. Sammy stood up and took out his phone, turned it on. He always felt guilty using it in a hospital setting, as if all the sensitive apparatus would shut down, but he had to check missed calls and messages. There were quite a few, but nothing from Jutland. He called Lindell.

  She answered right away. “What’s going on?” she asked without any introductory small talk.

  “Have you heard? Stolpe had surgery, they don’t know how it’s going. I’m at the hospital waiting. If he wakes up I want someone to be here.”

  And even if he doesn’t, Sammy thought.

  “Is it Edman?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “I heard about the rabbit man. That’s so sad. Did he commit suicide?”

  It was Lindell in fine old form. No evasions. The emotions could come later.

  “He hanged himself.”

  “And how is it going with Edman?”

  “At large,” said Sammy, who felt some discomfort even though he wanted to talk, maybe because she was so on while he himself had settled into reflection.

  Lindell was silent, waiting him out, he understood that very well.

  “I’m thinking about resigning,” he found himself saying at last. “This thing with Angelika, and now Stolpe.” These were unspoken secrets, but Lindell caught on right away.

  “I understand,” she said. “You can come out here. It’s fine to sleep in Erik’s house. You need a little country air.”

  As if I haven’t been in Tilltorp enough, he thought, but mumbled something that could be understood as a weak affirmation.

  They ended the call. He got a crazy impulse to go to her directly, but naturally that was impossible, and he sank listlessly down on the chair. He turned off the phone.

  Just then the doors opened. It was the doctor. Sammy feared the worst.

  “We estimate that your buddy will wake up in an hour or so. You might as well go down and have some coffee for now, and come back later.”

  Sammy stood up, nodded in thanks, and left the depressing corridor. To get a little exercise and to avoid any other passengers on the elevator he took the stairs. The doctor had said “buddy” and not “colleague,” and that made Sammy stop on the third floor and take a deep breath, before he continued his clopping downward journey. Stolpe had been in the building, that was when they were still on Storgatan, when as a young, unnecessarily daring candidate Sammy started his employment. Sammy hadn’t thought about it that much, but Nisse Stolpe, no taller twenty-five years ago but at least twenty kilos lighter, had overlooked Sammy’s somewhat cocky attitude. Even though other colleagues had been offended by the newcomer’s conduct and treated him accordingly. So he and Stolpe were probably not just colleagues, but “buddies” too.

  * * *

  “I don’t understand, why would he…” Mirjam Edman twirled an index finger in her dark hair, which fell freely over her shoulders and framed a fine-boned face.

  Eva Briis observed a woman whose life had been smashed to pieces, and who also looked completely worn out, slouching and with her hands constantly searching for distraction. But then she got up quickly from the couch, went up to the window, turned her back on the policewoman, and looked out over a sun-drenched courtyard, where the lawn had already started to turn yellow. Briis waited, sensing that Mirjam had already started planning for a life without Erland.

  “He doesn’t have any real friends, and actually no real acquaintances either,” she said without turning around. “Where will he go? He only has me and Li’l Erland. He had a dog when we met.” She told Briis about the collie, how it got sick and one night simply died. Briis, who felt like she was sitting on pins and needles, let her talk.

  “Does he have good contact with Li’l Erland?”

  “The boy is his great joy. Maybe his only love.”

  She turned around. Briis could see how anger was slowly building up. “Where is he? Why did he lie?”

  “Has he mentioned someone named Björn Rönn?”

  Mirjam shook her head.

  “Does he have any connection to Hökarängen outside Stockholm, acquaintances or relatives there?”

  “No, not as far as I know.”

  “Does he have someone else? Is that why he lied?”

  Mirjam took the question with unexpected calm. “I’ve had that thought but I don’t think so. Actually I’m sure he hasn’t met anyone else.”

  Briis went through the obvious questions, about his recent behavior, if he’d shown interest in firearms, if he had any phones other than the Samsung that Mirjam knew about, and anything else that might give an opening in the search for Erland Edman.

  After half an hour, when three officers simultaneously searched through the apartment once more, for the moment there was nothing to add. Mirjam had been ignorant of her husband’s activities, and that felt like a relief. Li’l Erland would not have both his parents under lock and key.

  “Where is the boy?”

  “With my sister.”

  * * *

  The mood was subdued, to say the least, in the command room for the search. It was now confirmed that it was Erland Edman. Henriksson the fisherman had pointed him out without hesitation on a picture from the portrait collection. Fingerprints also tallied between the cabin and his home, and his car was parked in the shed.

  So far it was probably good. You knew who you were hunting. It was worse that they had no idea where he was. He had slipped out of the net. Calculations were made on how long a full tank for that type of motorcycle might last. It was clarified that it was a lightweight; a policeman placed on the back side of the house was a former member of a speedway team, and he was sure of that. On the wall was a map with the cabin marked with a pin, surrounded by a circle of conceivable distance, assuming that the tank was not refilled. The area was a sizable piece of north Uppland.

  They also knew, through Mirjam Edman, that her husband was an experienced motorcycle driver, which had become clear to them when they saw him in action.

  According to Mirjam, as far as she knew he had no acquaintances in the area where he could conceivably hide. She could not name any really good friends whatsoever of Erland, any he could rely on under any circumstances. According to Briis he stood out as a loner.

  There was no immediate explanation for how and why he ended up in the forest cabin, other than that he obviously wanted to hide out, and that reinforced the suspicions that he was involved in the bombing in Hökarängen. In jail Björn Rönn had denied acquaintance with Edman. “Maybe I’ve seen him on a job, if he’s worked for NCC,” he’d said, noticeably uninterested in the question. He didn’t know the cabin and the surrounding area at all, and he hadn’t seen any automatic weapons “for years and years.”

  The owner of the cabin was identified but not reached. His name was Sven-Erik Andersson and he had moved abroad many years ago, according to a distant relative probably to the United States, but there was no address, not even a city. Who had access to the cabin, not least for upkeep and inspection, was unknown, but obviously someone had to take care of the ongoing maintenance. There were signs of recent repairs and improvements. Questioning of neighbors had not produced anything in that respect.

  In other words the forest cabin was an ideal place to stay hidden. A salvo fired from an automatic weapon with 5.56-caliber ammunition, and a recreational fisherman, had put a stop to that. That Lars Henriksson’s first workday in a
long time turned out to be a scheduled day off was the coincidence that created an opening in the investigation.

  “So much damn forest,” said Briis, who together with Bodin was staring at the map on the wall. “What do you think, is he camping out under a downed tree?”

  “He was heading for Uppsala,” Bodin decided. “Maybe he happens to have a buddy, even a like-minded Nazi lunatic, in the vicinity.”

  “Then it will be hard,” said Briis. “But I also think that he headed for Uppsala. He wants to be close to his son. I got the impression that he’s a very lonely person and the only thing that means anything is his kid. I actually got the feeling that his wife was jealous.”

  The barricades that were placed on routes 288 and 290, in both directions, had come up too late and produced zilch. A warning to the general public that an armed man was being searched for had gone out via the broadcast media and over the internet, and a photo of Erland Edman was shared frequently on the net. The phone lines were burning up at the police stations in Gimo, Tierp, Östhammar, and Uppsala.

  A press conference was planned, but few specifics could be reported.

  A man with no real friends and few acquaintances, and with no interests other than motor sports that he practiced in front of the TV, a man without fixed points, clubhouses, pubs, or restaurants that he often frequented.

  “But what the hell!” Bodin exclaimed. “How can we be so dense! Who gave us the tip about Edman to start with? It was that woman in Tilltorp, the former colleague.”

  “Lindell?”

  Bodin took out his phone and entered a speed-dial number. Sammy did not answer. Bodin left a voice message. He thought Sammy would have his phone turned off as long as he was at the recovery room where Stolpe was.

  Bodin knew that Ann Lindell couldn’t be searched for in open sources. He called “the grunt,” the trainee he got so much use out of.