The princess of Burundi

by Kjell Eriksson

  “Is anyone home?” he shouted again, and Fredriksson felt impatient.

  “Heavy, man,” said the Rastafarian, and Fredriksson gestured for him to stay back.

  “You’re no Carella,” the young man said again and walked down half a flight of stairs.

  “There’s a woman under the bed in the bedroom,” said Göthe, the other officer. Fredriksson nodded as if he already knew this.

  “Strangled, I think,” said Göthe. The young locksmith appeared behind him and craned his head forward.

  “Get lost!” Fredriksson shouted.

  “Can we strike Hahn from the Little John case?” Ottosson’s question hung in the air among the assembled officers for a few seconds. One of the overhead fluorescent lights was flickering and underscored the anxious atmosphere.

  “Can’t we have that light fixed?” Sammy Nilsson asked.

  “I, for one, don’t believe in the connection for a second,” Fredriksson said. “Hahn’s profile is totally different. You’ve seen his correspondence, a misanthrope with a twisted worldview. I read one letter he wrote to the transit authorities where he proposed a special immigrant bus so that ethnic Swedes wouldn’t have to associate with foreign scum, as he put it. I think his being John’s former classmate is pure coincidence.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Sammy said. “We can drop the question of motive here. This guy is a nut case and simply did something on impulse. Maybe he bumped into John, recognized him from their school days. Maybe something had happened between them a long time ago and it led to a confrontation.”

  “But where would such a confrontation have taken place?” Morenius said. “On Vaksalagatan downtown where John waited for the bus? Where did the murder, not to mention the torture, actually occur, and how did Hahn transport the body to Libro?”

  Morenius shook his head.

  “We know very little about Hahn,” Sammy said. “Maybe he had access to another apartment, maybe even to a car. We haven’t actually met a single person yet who knew him and could tell us how he spends his days.”

  Ottosson scratched his head.

  “I think we can disregard Hahn for now,” he said, but he did not sound entirely convinced.

  “Little John’s killer is one of these poker players or someone else who keeps to society’s fringes,” Berglund said.

  “We have to proceed with open minds,” Ottosson said. “Not lose the tempo. It’s very easy to lose one’s focus, even unintentionally.”

  “Okay,” Haver said. “Eight guys, excluding John, were there that night. Ljusnemark gave us all the names. Four of them, plus Ljusnemark, have been questioned today. That leaves three remaining. One of them is abroad, possibly in Holland. His mother lives there. One has disappeared from the face of the earth, and the third is Mossa, the Iranian, whom we all know and who appears to be out of town for the moment. We have talked to his brother and mother, who live here.”

  “Who is the one in Holland?”

  “Dick Lindström.”

  “The one with the teeth?”

  Haver nodded.

  “And who is the person who has disappeared from the face of the earth, as you put it?”

  “One Allan Gustav Rosengren. He has the nickname The Lip. He’s been convicted twice of trafficking in stolen goods. The last time was five years ago. He has no permanent address. The last one is in Mälarhöjden two years ago when he was renting a room from an old lady. He moved out and since then he has disappeared from all sources.”

  “One with teeth, and one with a lip,” Riis said.

  “Can we rule out Ljusnemark?” Morenius asked.

  “I think so,” Haver said. “Too much of a coward. I can’t see him cutting off a finger.”

  “You’re assuming the motive is money?”

  “Gambling debts don’t seem likely to me,” said Haver. “Everyone so far corroborates the fact that John won. The alleged amounts have varied somewhat but seem to cluster around two hundred thousand. If John had had an outstanding debt he would have paid up.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to?”

  “Well, that’s a possibility.”

  “Maybe it whet his appetite and he went on to play more games in which he accumulated debt?”

  “Even more possible,” Haver said. “The game took place sometime at the end of October. There was a lot of time for poker between then and the murder.”

  “I don’t agree,” Ottosson said. “Little John was smart and cautious by nature. He would never have risked losing so much money.”

  “But to win in the first place he must already have had a lot. Many of these guys say he was betting freely, almost wildly. No one had seen him play this way before.”

  “Maybe that’s why he won. Everyone was taken by surprise,” Fredriksson said.

  “Can someone simply have been ticked off?” Morenius asked. He always had a question.

  “Not enough to commit murder,” Haver said.

  He wanted someone to think of something new. Everything that had come out so far were things he had already mulled over in his mind, but at the same time he knew the discussion had to proceed in this way in order to eventually construct a likely scenario.

  “If we return to Hahn,” Ryde, the forensic expert, said. “It’s clear that Vivan Molin was strangled sometime this morning. Hahn had spent the night, we have recovered samples of his hair from the bed in the room he most likely would have used. Today’s paper had been crumpled up and shoved to the bottom of the trash, as if he had tried to hide it from her. The phone cord has been torn from the wall. He may have been trying to prevent her from calling, or else it was something he grabbed when he wanted to strangle her. In some way, we think, she found out that he had attacked Karlsson in Sävja.”

  “Radio or TV,” Fredriksson said. “There was a radio in the kitchen.”

  Ryde nodded. Only Fredriksson could interrupt him without getting a caustic remark.

  “True. We’ll have to check if the Sävja incident was reported in the morning news. There’s no trace of a third person, even if we can’t rule it out. Murder, unclear motive, either uncontrolled impulse or to keep someone quiet.”

  “Excellent,” Ottosson said and smiled, a smile that bore witness to great fatigue. He was running a fever and several of them had already suggested he go home to bed, not least Lundin, who refused to get anywhere near him.

  “How did he get from Akademiska Hospital to Johannesbäck?” Berglund asked. “He must have had access to a car.”

  “It’s not very likely that he took a bus,” Fredriksson agreed. “We’ll have to check with the taxi companies.”

  “The only thing we can do is try to find any acquaintances of Hahn and continue patrolling the areas. Ottosson asserts there’s a high probability he’ll be drifting around the city. He’s the type. Allan, you’ll have to research where Hahn would hang out.”

  “Thanks,” Fredriksson said and pinched the top of his nose.

  “How will we proceed with John?” Morenius asked.

  “We’ll grill the poker guys, check their alibis, and find Dick Lindström, ‘The Lip’ Rosengren, and Mossa,” Haver said. “There isn’t much else to do. Then there’s a thing I’ve been thinking about. Many individuals have asserted that John was planning something big. What could that have been?”

  “An aquarium store, I think,” Berglund said. “Pettersson, whom I talked to, said John had alluded to something like that.”

  “It wouldn’t necessarily have had to be a store,” Sammy said. “It could have been something big with poker.”

  “Have we checked with John’s wife about the poker playing?”

  “Beatrice is there right now,” Ottosson said.

  They sat in the kitchen, like last time. Justus had lingered outside the doorway but then had gone to his room. The rap music carried all the way to the kitchen.

  “I know it’s too loud,” Berit said, more factually than apologetically, “but I don’t have the heart to ask him to turn i
t down.”

  “How has it been going for him?” Beatrice asked.

  “He doesn’t say much. He hasn’t been going to school. Mostly he sits in front of the fish tank.”

  “Were they close?”

  Berit nodded.

  “Very,” she said after a while. “They were always together. If there was anyone who could get John to change his mind, it was Justus.”

  “How were things financially? You’ve said before there were hard times.”

  Berit looked out the window.

  “We had a good life,” she said.

  “And lately?”

  “I know where you’re going with this. You think John was involved in something illicit, but you’re wrong. He was quiet and sometimes unreachable, but he wasn’t stupid.”

  “I’m not implying he was. But I’ll get to the point: it seems John won a great deal of money this fall.”

  “What do you mean ‘won’? Horse racing?”

  “No, a card game. Poker.”

  “Well, I know he played cards sometimes, but it was never for high stakes.”

  “What about two hundred thousand,” Beatrice said.

  “What? That’s not possible.”

  Berit’s surprise seemed genuine. She swallowed and stared at Beatrice in bafflement.

  “Not only is it possible, it seems almost certain. We have several witnesses.”

  Berit lowered her head and hunched over. One hand fumbled along the tablecloth, fingering the embroidery, in this case a sleigh-riding Santa. The music from Justus’s room had stopped and the apartment was quiet.

  “Why didn’t he say anything? Two hundred thousand? That’s a fortune! There has to be some mistake. Who says he won that much?”

  “Among others, four people who lost a lot of money that night.”

  “And now they’re angry at John and trying to pin this on him.”

  “You can choose to see it like that, but I think they’re telling the truth. It’s not to their benefit to lie about being involved in a high-stakes poker game, but they feel pressured now and they’re choosing to come clean. Many of them even have trouble accounting for the money they were betting that night.”

  “Was he murdered for the money, then?”

  “That’s starting to look like a possibility.”

  “Where is the money now?”

  “We’ve wondered about that. It may have been stolen in conjunction with the murder or it’s in a bank account somewhere, or else…”

  “Somewhere around here,” Berit finished. “But we have no money in this apartment.”

  “Have you checked?”

  “Checked—well, no, not exactly. But I’ve been putting John’s things away and you and your colleagues have turned the place upside down.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to do that one more time.”

  “It’ll be Christmas soon. I’m thinking of Justus. He’s going to need some peace and quiet.”

  They kept talking. Beatrice tried to get Berit to reflect back on the fall again, now that she knew he had won so much money. Had he been different in any way? But Berit claimed he had been his usual self.

  Beatrice showed her pictures of the men who had participated in the poker game. Berit studied each one carefully but didn’t recognize any of them.

  “One of these men could be John’s killer,” she said. Beatrice didn’t reply, just gathered up the pictures.

  “Do you mind if I have a word with Justus?” she asked.

  “I can’t stop you,” Berit said quietly. “Are you going to show him the pictures as well?”

  “Maybe not, but I also want to ask him if he noticed anything different about John in the fall.”

  “They mostly talked about their fish.”

  Beatrice stood up.

  “Do you think he’ll talk to me?”

  “You’ll have to ask him yourself. One more thing: when did he win the money?”

  “In the middle of October,” Beatrice said.

  Beatrice knocked carefully and cracked open the bedroom door. Justus was sitting on his bed with his legs pulled up. A book lay open next to him.

  “Are you reading?”

  Justus didn’t answer; he closed the book and looked at her with an expression Beatrice didn’t quite know how to interpret. She saw distance, not to mention hostility, but also curiosity.

  “Can I talk to you for a little bit?”

  He nodded and she sat down on his desk chair.

  “How are things?”

  Justus shrugged.

  “Do you know anything that could help to explain why your dad died?”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe he said something, something you didn’t think was important at the time but that could help explain all this. It could be something as little as the name of an acquaintance he thought was acting crazy.”

  “He never said anything like that.”

  “Sometimes grown-ups want to tell you something but they don’t manage to get it out, if you know what I mean.”

  Beatrice waited, giving him time. She got up and closed the door before she continued.

  “Did he ever give you money?”

  “A monthly allowance.”

  “How much is that?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “Is that enough? What do you buy?”

  “Clothes, records, sometimes a game.”

  “Did you ever get a little more?”

  “Yeah, if I needed something and they could spare it.”

  “Did you ever get extra money this fall? Did it seem like your dad had more money than usual?”

  “I know where you’re going with this. You think Dad stole some money, but he worked for it like everybody else.”

  “He was unemployed.”

  “I know. Sagge was the one who ruined everything. He didn’t get that Dad was the best welder he’d ever had.”

  “Did you sometimes visit him down in the shop?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you know how to weld?”

  “It’s really hard,” Justus said emphatically.

  “You tried it?”

  He nodded.

  “The part about Sagge ruining everything—how do you mean that?”

  “He made Dad unemployed.”

  “Did it make your father anxious?”

  “It made him…”

  “Angry?”

  Justus nodded.

  “What did you used to talk about?”

  “The fish.”

  “I know nothing about aquariums and fish—and I’ve never seen a tank as big as yours.”

  “It’s the biggest one in town. Dad was really good at it. He sold fish to other people and sometimes he was invited to give talks on cichlids.”

  “Where did he get invited?”

  “Meetings, miniconferences. There’s a national organization for people who have cichlids.”

  “Did he travel a lot?”

  “He was supposed to go to Malmö next year. Last spring he went to Gothenburg.”

  “Do you take care of the aquarium now?”

  “Dad showed me how to take care of it.”

  “You’re in eighth grade now. What do you plan on doing when you graduate?”

  Beatrice realized her mistake as soon as she had mentioned school, judging by Justus’s expression. He shrugged.

  “Maybe you can work with aquariums,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Didn’t your dad ever think about working full-time with the fish?”

  Justus didn’t answer. His initial grumpiness had been replaced by a kind of passive sadness. The thoughts about his father were like logs on their way downstream that were snagging and accumulating in a narrow passage. Beatrice wanted to coax him forward but didn’t want the dam to burst. In her experience, it only created more resistance down the line. Right now she wanted to establish a line of communication, establish trust, push those logs along one by one.

  �
�Is it all right if I come to you with questions about aquariums? In my line of work, and as a mom, I get asked a lot of questions. But there’s no way I can know everything about everything.”

  Justus gave her a knowing look that unsettled her as if he saw right through her.

  She got up and opened the door.

  “One more thing,” she said before she left. “You should know that everyone we’ve talked to had only good things to say about your dad.”

  His eyes met hers for a millisecond before she closed the door.

  Twenty-five

  Ola Haver left the station with a sinking feeling. On his way out he had read the police chief’s traditional Christmas message. Several other officers were gathered around the notice board. Some of them made bitter, sarcastic comments, others shrugged and kept walking, unreceptive to the latest whims of their superiors. All the phrases about another successful year, despite the serious challenges, rang more hollow than ever. One of the officers, who worked a beat, burst into laughter. Haver walked away. He didn’t want to listen to the criticism, even if it was warranted.

  Instead of going home he took a route past Ann Lindell’s apartment. He hadn’t visited her for several months, but suddenly he felt like talking to her. Maybe it was the meaningless Christmas message that had given him the idea, or else he wanted to discuss the Little John case. He didn’t think she would have anything against it. As far as he could tell she couldn’t wait to get back to work.

  She opened the door wearing an apron, with flour sprinkled on her chest and hands.

  “Come in, I’m in the middle of baking,” she said and didn’t seem at all surprised by his unannounced visit. “My parents are coming up for the holidays so now I have to prove my competence in the housewifely arts.”

  “Quite a sight, in other words,” Haver said, and immediately felt the warmth and ease that characterized his relations with Ann.

  He watched her while she finished kneading the dough. She had gained a little weight since having Erik, but not much. The extra kilos suited her. She placed a cloth over the bowl.

  “There. Now it has to rise for a while,” she said. “How are you doing?”

  She sat down across from him. He resisted an impulse to touch her, but it knocked him off-kilter.