by Håkan Nesser
‘Insinuating?’ suggested Barbarotti.
‘That’s it. Don’t just sit there inseminating! Catch the man who killed my Anna, that’s what we pay our taxes for, inspector.’
‘Hrrm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘That’s exactly why I’m here. To see if you’ve got any little lead that might help us. My colleagues in Kymlinge are busy talking to the people your daughter knew, all those we’ve been able to get hold of, and—’
‘I’ll tell you what sort he is, the one you ought to be looking for,’ she cut in angrily, the heavy array of bangles on her left wrist clattering against the tabletop. ‘You want to look for one of those immigrant types. A foreigner. They can’t get women, so then they take them any way they can. It’s bound to be some fucking Arab nigger who’s done away with my Anna, so just get out there and find him. They’re not like us, they don’t smell like us and I don’t see what they’re doing in our country.’
‘Oh I think that’s going a bit—’
‘I shall say what I like,’ yelled Viveka Hall Eriksson. ‘This is my home.’
When he came out of the house he felt an urge to pick up a stone from the street and hurl it through the kitchen window. He restrained himself and swore at some length through gritted teeth instead.
People like that, he thought. How was it possible to be so vulgar? A sixty-four-year-old mother of nine?
Of course he was used to coming across a bit of everything in his line of work but today – on this sunny morning in high summer – he hadn’t been expecting it. Not in this smart house in this kempt and well-heeled neighbourhood.
A mother who had just lost her daughter.
Mindless closet racism, thought Gunnar Barbarotti. Hand in hand with extreme self-satisfaction and stupidity. Christ, what a woman.
And not so closet, in fact. She’d made no attempt to hide her views, that was one thing she couldn’t be accused of.
And she’s multiplied her ignorance genes ninefold, he thought grimly as he got into his car. And if all her kids also bred . . .
Well, eightfold, he corrected himself. The way things had turned out. Anna Eriksson of Skolgatan in Kymlinge had not found time, as far as they had ascertained so far, to bring any children into this world, although she was a little over thirty, so . . .
No, I’m on dangerous ground here, he interrupted himself, and turned the key in the ignition. Calm down, inspector. Democracy is the best solution in the long run and not everyone in this land is called Viveka Hall Eriksson.
He decided to postpone his call to Sara until that evening or the next day. He was keeping a lid on his indignation, but it was still lurking there. When he spoke to his daughter, he wanted to be calm and attentive, not agitated and misanthropic.
So he called Inspector Backman’s number instead, to ask her how that morning’s efforts on the home front had gone.
Backman sounded annoyed.
‘It’s chaos here,’ she said.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Barbarotti.
‘Well amongst other things, several pages of coverage in today’s paper. Crowds flocking to the murder scenes, apparently. Both of them. A neighbour of Anna Eriksson’s claims he saw a man he didn’t recognize on the stairs up to her flat on the Tuesday evening, and the joke is, he gave an interview to a journalist before we were able to interview him. And Asunander’s going round looking like a beaver with a twisted bowel. He’s on about calling in extra people, I assume he means the National CID. We’ve got a meeting with him and the prosecutor at two. You’ll be back by then I suppose?’
Gunnar Barbarotti automatically slowed the car and checked the time. ‘I’m not quite sure. I’ll join you as soon as I get back . . . Has the pathologist given you a time of death?’
‘He says Tuesday afternoon isn’t impossible.’
‘But it could be Wednesday?’
‘Could be Wednesday. Though Tuesday’s more likely.’
‘Any leads in the flat?’
‘We’ll know in a week’s time. But there ought to be something. He must have killed her in there.’
‘Nothing obvious though?’
‘If you mean the murder weapon, constable, then no, he appears to have taken it with him.’
‘I see,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘And this witness, the one who saw a stranger . . . is he reliable?’
‘Basically, yes. Though the description he gave us is so vague it fits half the population of Sweden. Only saw him from behind on the stairs. Male individual between twenty-five and fifty, light-coloured shirt, medium-blonde hair . . . and there’s absolutely nothing to indicate he’s our perpetrator. Though tomorrow’s papers will claim there is, you can bet on that.’
‘And nobody else has come forward with any sightings?’
‘No, but we’ve still got tons of people to talk to. How was the mother?’
He cast about for a simple way of putting it.
‘White trash,’ he said. ‘In spite of her elegant house.’
‘White trash?’ said Eva Backman. ‘Thought they only existed in America, but that’s . . . clearly a misconception. Anyway, I’ve got a couple of the girlfriends sitting here waiting to give me their thoughts. See you at two, then?’
‘If I make it in time,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.
When he got to Kymlinge police station it was already quarter to three, and the meeting with Asunander and prosecutor Sylvenius was over. Inspector Backman chose not to comment on how long it had taken him to drive from Jönköping, and he could see by her look that she would have done the same.
‘Looks as though this investigation will be in other hands from tomorrow,’ she let drop casually. ‘Asunander’s in negotiations with National CID and Gothenburg. It’ll be good to have a few people with real balls here to tell us what to do.’
‘Dead right,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But Astor Nilsson’s already here, isn’t he?’
She nodded. ‘He’s interviewing an interesting sort of guy. Julius Bengtsson. How can anyone be called Julius Bengtsson in this day and age? Sounds like a con man in some old slapstick film.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Former fiancé of the latest victim. He’s got some exciting information to impart, evidently. Do you want to listen in?’
Barbarotti gave a shrug. ‘Why not?’
They sat down at the table outside the interview room and the one-way tinted glass, and Backman turned up the sound. Barbarotti observed the two parties sitting opposite one another across the table in the bare room. He was looking at their profiles, Astor Nilsson’s left and Julius Bengtsson’s right. Bengtsson was a man of about thirty-five, Barbarotti estimated, with Tintin hair, dyed blonde, and a pointy little beard in the same shade. An orange T-shirt revealing a tattooed snake on his powerful upper arm. A little gold ring in his earlobe. Slightly overweight.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Astor Nilsson.
‘And then she threw all my clothes out in the garden,’ said Julius Bengtsson indignantly. ‘Had to go out and get ’em without a stitch on. Total basket case that one, if you ask me.’
‘I see,’ said Astor Nilsson.
‘Another time she threw me in the river. We’d had a few beers out Rimminge way, it was summer and we were just ambling home, peaceful like. So I stopped for a leak and then she tackled me and sent me arse over tit into the water. Split her sides laughing as well, bloody cow.’
‘How long were you together?’ asked Astor Nilsson.
‘Oh, ages,’ said Julius Bengtsson. ‘At least three months, no, more . . . it could even have been six fucking months. But, you know, a bit off and on.’
Astor Nilsson handed him a photograph.
‘Do you know who this is?’
Julius took his time, studying the photograph carefully. Then he handed it back.
‘Haven’t got a clue.’
‘Erik Bergman. Does that name say anything to you?’
‘Wasn’t it him who was knifed this week?’
‘Correct. Did you know him?
’
‘No I fucking didn’t.’
‘All right. How long is it since you and Anna Eriksson broke up?’
Julius Bengtsson considered the matter.
‘Two years maybe . . . two and a half.’
‘Did you live together?’
‘No way. I avoid that sort of thing like the plague.’
‘Oh? And when did you last see her?’
‘Last week. Or it could have been the week before that?’
‘In what context?’
‘Eh?’
‘Where?’
‘In town. Said hello but the sour bitch just looked away as if I was made of fresh air. She’s like that . . . was like that, I guess we should say.’
Gunnar Barbarotti signalled to Eva Backman to turn down the volume, and she did so.
‘That’ll do me, I reckon,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t exactly seem principal witness material.’
‘Hopefully it won’t come to that,’ said Eva Backman. ‘We’ve got two more former boyfriends lined up, by the way. And a quartet of girlfriends.’
‘She’s got eight siblings, too,’ Barbarotti reminded her. ‘Is there really nothing a bit more substantial to go on?’
Eva Backman thought for a moment.
‘The friend she was going to Gotland with didn’t have much to give us. At least not over the phone. I suppose we’ll have to see how she is face to face; she’s coming in tomorrow. She only got a day in Visby as it turned out.’
Barbarotti nodded but refrained from comment.
‘But actually, I reckon there could be more mileage in that childhood best friend in Torremolinos you talked to yesterday,’ Backman went on. ‘We’ll have to talk to her tomorrow, too . . . she at least seems to know the victim a bit better than the rest do, but we probably ought not to bank on her, either.’
‘Anything else?’ enquired Barbarotti.
‘Not much,’ said Backman. ‘Sorrysen’s at his desk trying to map out Tuesday. What she was doing in the time before her encounter with the murderer and so on. If we can make the assumption that that was when she died. The question is . . . well, the question is how much time he gave us when it came to it, the murderer.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that you quite possibly only received the letter the day he killed Anna Eriksson. Though it could have been delivered the day before, of course? On the Monday. Or sometime the previous week. You don’t happen to remember whether it was on top of the pile of post or anything?’
Barbarotti thought about it. ‘It was all more scattered than that. But I’m pretty sure this one didn’t have anything on top of it.’
‘Could have come on the Tuesday then?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Barbarotti.
‘But the first letter came a week in advance. I wonder . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I wonder if he dared take the risk of letting several days go by the second time round as well. I mean, giving us a name and a week to investigate . . . it sounds a bit risky, don’t you think?’
Barbarotti nodded. ‘Maybe he likes risks. I mean, nobody’s forcing him to write any letters at all, are they?’
‘No, you’re right of course,’ said Eva Backman, and a look he didn’t entirely recognize and couldn’t quite identify crossed her face. A shadow of something sombre, he might almost say melancholy. Ominous, he thought.
‘And yet he writes them,’ she added, as she slowly and with evident deliberation – as if it were some intricate piece of precision engineering – clasped her hands in front of her on the desk. ‘It all seems worrying to me, Gunnar, bloody worrying. Do you think . . . I mean, do you think there’ll be more?’
Gunnar Barbarotti was silent for a while, watching her interlaced fingers. ‘Don’t really know what to think,’ he said eventually. ‘If I’m honest, I . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘If I’m honest, I simply don’t get any of this.’
‘Me neither,’ said Eva Backman, putting her shoulders back and appearing to pull herself together. ‘Shall we divide up these interviews, then?’
‘Suppose we’d better,’ said Barbarotti.
THREE
NOTES FROM MOUSTERLIN
1–8 July 2002
I have spent the last few days out walking. Our house is right on the fringes of the Marais de Mousterlin polder, you just turn left out of our blue-painted gate and you’re there. Little gravel paths meander their way through lush marshland full of strange plants, birds and pools of stagnant water. I came across one or two other walkers and the occasional dog, but that was all; the curious and distinctive landscape runs all the way along behind the beach from Mousterlin to Beg-Meil; yesterday I also extended my walk beyond the lighthouse and followed the coastal path up to Cap-Coz. It feels good to be alone, I’ve found myself forgetting from time to time that this is my natural element: being left to walk undisturbed with my own thoughts and ideas. The vigorous growth surrounding me and accompanying my steps feels laden with mystery; eroticism and death are close allies in this torrid, luxuriant jungle. There must be many insects here whose whole lifespan only lasts a day: they are born in the morning, die in the evening and rot away during the night.
I also have to remind myself every now and then where I fit into the wider context: who I am, in the final analysis. This afternoon they came back to me, those thoughts of Anna and her wet hair after the nocturnal swim, and I was obliged to stop in a sun-warmed glade to masturbate away her insistent presence. After that I clambered down to the little beach of Bot Canon and went into the water. I swam round in the bay for a good hour and in the process came to the decision that I would stay on for another four to five days. Until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. By then I shall have had enough of the present company; I suspect we shall be socializing with the Malmgrens and Gunnar and Anna in some way this weekend, and the prospect attracts me but also nauseates me slightly. I freely admit there’s a certain pleasure to be derived from time spent in a group where one does not remotely like any of the other people. Erotic suggestion aside.
I don’t know what Erik has been getting up to these past few days. Yesterday and today I left him straight after breakfast. This evening the two of us had moules marinières at Le Grand Large, but he said nothing about what he had been doing. I would guess he’s been sunbathing on the terrace or down on the beach, he’s tanned as brown as a birthmark, and presumably he’s spent some of the time with one or more members of the Swedish colony.
In fact I know for certain that he did, because he told me how plans were progressing for the boat trip to des Glénan. Not very far, in actual fact, but Gunnar, or possibly Henrik, has been in touch with an Englishman who apparently lives down here more or less permanently and is willing to rent out his boat for a day.
The idea seems to be for all six of us to go. Erik didn’t ask me whether I actually felt like coming along, but maybe that was his point in raising the matter at all. To give me a chance to say I didn’t want to – on the spot, there at Le Grand Large – and as I didn’t, the assumption is that I’m joining them and paying my share of the costs. And when I examine my thinking and motivation, I can’t really claim to have anything against the arrangement.
Why not?
Why? Why not? These two sterile and perpetual questions that resist answer and constantly plague me. There should be clearer signposts.
A summary of events, some twelve hours afterwards. What has happened has happened and time cannot be put into reverse.
I have showered, slept for four hours, showered again. Erik left the house early this morning and I assume he’s in conference with the others over at Gunnar and Anna’s. Or at the Malmgrens’. The rain has stopped, it’s Monday and the time is eleven thirty.
But back to Sunday morning. Yesterday, twenty-six hours before it all started; it is hard to appreciate that it hasn’t been longer than that, but I shall go back to twenty-four hours ago and take it from the beginning; my head i
s in a whirl and the chronology of it all offers impartiality and a simple memory aid. I am sure no one else is going to record what actually happened, in the proper order, on this most ghastly of days.
The morning is fine and the plan simple: the Englishman with the boat – I never caught his name – lives somewhere in Beg-Meil, and keeps the boat in a small marina on the east side. Gunnar and Henrik are going to fetch it around nine and the rest of us will assemble on the beach a little way beyond the point, just below the Malmgrens’ place. Picnic baskets and cool bags, swimming gear, bottles of wine; the women went into Quimper on Saturday and laid in all the supplies. Baguettes protruding from under red and white checked cloths, a gaudy sun umbrella, straw hats, making us look as if we were in a picture. They are in high spirits, talking of tanning oils and untouched sandy beaches. The weather is glorious: a cloudless sky, the temperature probably already up to the twenty-five degree mark. Yes, it’s a picture, a Skagen painting in another country and another time, but the same mood. And I can also sense, as clearly as if contemplating one of those rigid old idylls painted in oils, that this is a single, illusory second, set to vanish in the blink of an eye. How can I know this? The sea is calm, a couple of the Glénan islands are faintly visible on the horizon, or at least I assume that is what I can see, though I can’t be sure. The beach is still virtually empty of people; there are just a jogger or two, a couple of fishermen. Low tide, but it’s on the turn. Erik and I, two women. They belong to two other men, but an outside observer would doubtless assume we were two couples. I remember actually thinking that thought as we stand there waiting for Henrik and Gunnar to bring the boat. I also remember Erik helping Anna with the back strap of her bikini top, which had got twisted.
But before the boat arrives, Troaë shows up.
I wish she had not.
She was in the same red swimsuit as last time, but this morning with a pair of cut-off jeans on top. The same blue summer hat, the same rucksack. But no easel; catching sight of us, she beamed and set off towards us at a gallop, kicking up sand in all directions.
