The Root of Evil

by Håkan Nesser

  The murderer, on the other hand, was working alone. Say what you liked about him, he was certainly keeping a policeman or two fully occupied.

  Including a few who no longer had the appetite for it.

  So there.

  Since Monday there had been various changes in the leadership of the investigation, just as Asunander had predicted. Besides Astor Nilsson they were now hosting two gentlemen from the National CID. A Superintendent Jonnerblad and a Chief Inspector Tallin. Gunnar Barbarotti had not yet formed any firm opinion of them, but he assumed they were capable detectives. They hadn’t come barging in like a couple of cocky know-it-alls, at any rate, and he had already admitted to himself that the less personal responsibility he had, the happier he would be. So there were currently six of them in what was known as the lead group; apart from the imported officers it comprised him, Eva Backman and Gerald Borgsen, commonly known as Sorrysen on account of his mournful air. Chief Inspector Asunander was part of it too, presumably, but he stayed in the background as usual, sucked his teeth, glowered and waited for his pension. Profiler Lillieskog came and went – but with nothing new having emerged about the perpetrator in the past few days, he was finding it hard to refine his profile. The fact that the murderer had used a different MO for each murder was unusual, everyone agreed; there seemed to be some sort of general consensus about the psychological make-up of a murderer with a knife – as indeed there was about how a perpetrator who preferred blunt instruments ought to be constructed – but an individual who opted for one method one day and the other the next was very hard to get clear in your mind.

  So the general view went. Both murders had had a lot of coverage in a wide range of media, the victims had been named, their photos published, but in consultation with prosecutor Sylvenius, the lead group had decided not to say anything publicly about the murderer’s absurd habit of writing letters to the police to warn them beforehand. They might have cause for a rethink later on; it was initially a question of balancing the potential usefulness of so-called Detective Public against the panic that would presumably be unleashed and the criticism they would face when the letters came to general attention at a much later stage.

  And so, while they waited for a third letter – and a third victim – they kept their counsel.

  But a few hours ago, it had arrived.

  The letter, that is – there was no victim so far. Or at any rate, none that they had found. Barbarotti had followed the prescribed procedure and dropped in at home to check the day’s post after lunch but, having automatically assumed the murderer would use the same sort of envelope on the potential third occasion, he came close to missing it.

  The handwriting was the same, however. Likewise the paper on which the brief message was written; not the commonest in Sweden, but not that uncommon either, and presumably impossible to trace. The postmark was clearer this time, and the letter had evidently been posted in Borås.

  The message was shorter than usual.

  NUMBER THREE WILL BE HANS ANDERSSON.

  There were twenty-nine people by the name of Hans Andersson registered in the urban district of Kymlinge. One of them lived in the house outside which Gunnar Barbarotti was currently sitting in his car on surveillance duty. This was the strategy they had hastily agreed on – for now. All twenty-nine were to be informed that there was a threat scenario involving them, or rather, involving someone called Hans Andersson, and that the police would provide some level of surveillance. In the course of the afternoon, they had been able to contact twenty-seven of the twenty-nine; six were away but had promised to inform the police as soon as they returned.

  Of the two men they had failed to contact, one was in either Guatemala or Costa Rica, while the other was believed to be in town but was apparently notoriously hard to pin down. He was a poet and painter, a loner without a telephone, who had announced in the local paper about a month earlier that he didn’t want any bloody fuss or gifts on his eighty-fifth birthday.

  That was the present state of play. The Hans Andersson whom Barbarotti was currently monitoring lived with his wife and three children at 4 Framstegsgatan, a detached house in the residential district of Norrby. The whole family was at home that evening, and it seemed pretty unlikely to Barbarotti that a murderer would choose to enter such a well-lit house. But if he did, then it would mean they were suddenly dealing with a stupidly reckless individual – or a perpetrator who was doing his best to be caught – and there had been no indication of that hitherto. None at all.

  Barbarotti checked the time. It was quarter to nine. Seventy-five minutes until his watch would end. He spat his chewing gum out of the side window and poured a cup of coffee from his Thermos instead.

  Who are you? he thought for the hundredth time since reading the letter.

  What are the motives behind your evil deeds and why are you writing to me, of all people?

  Good questions. But sadly he was nowhere near answering any of them.

  Inspector Backman rang just as he was on his way out of Norrby, heading for two hot dogs from the Statoil petrol station by the sports ground.

  ‘There’s something I’d like you to take a look at,’ she said.

  ‘Now?’ queried Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘It’s nearly half past ten.’

  ‘Now,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘Um . . . I’m a bit hungry. Are you still in the office, then?’

  ‘You guessed it,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’ve got half a pizza left from this afternoon. You can have it; it’s here on my desk.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Barbarotti. ‘How could I refuse? What is it I’m to look at?’

  ‘A photograph.’

  ‘A photograph?’

  ‘Yes. You’ll be here in five minutes, then?’

  ‘What’s it of?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘What’s in the photo?’

  ‘Sorry, I’m a bit tired. Actually, that’s what you’ve got to decide when you get here.’

  ‘All right,’ sighed Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I’m on my way. But I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you shove the pizza in the microwave for a couple of minutes?’

  ‘It’s too far to the microwave,’ declared Inspector Backman. ‘But I can hang it on the radiator for a while.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.

  ‘Well, what do you reckon?’

  He stared at the picture. It was a standard colour print, ten by fifteen centimetres. And showed two people sitting on a bench. A man and a woman. Not in sharp focus, and it looked like evening or late afternoon, but there was no sun.

  Both were in summer clothes. They were sitting about half a metre apart. The man was in a dark-blue, short-sleeved shirt, pale chinos and sandals, the woman in a thin, beige dress, bare-shouldered. She was barefoot, too, but there was a pair of flip-flops on the ground, beside a reddish-coloured paper carrier bag. The woman was looking unsmilingly into the camera while the man had his head turned to one side and didn’t seem aware that he was being photographed.

  It took a while to dawn on him, but once it did he was in no doubt at all. The woman in the picture was Anna Eriksson. She had a different hairstyle and colour, but it was definitely her.

  ‘It’s Anna Eriksson,’ he said.

  ‘We’re in agreement there,’ said Backman. ‘And the man?’

  ‘And the man?’ Barbarotti repeated mechanically, and took a bite of room-temperature pizza. He moved the photograph into the light of the desk lamp and tilted it first one way and then the other, to see if he could make it out more clearly.

  ‘He’s pretty fuzzy,’ he said. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Look sharp, then it’ll seem less fuzzy,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Here’s me treating you to freshly cooked pizza, so you could at least show a bit—’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I see what you’re driving at. You think it might be Erik Bergman?’

  Backman said nothing. He held the photo about twenty centimetres from his eye
s and focused as hard as he could on the man on the bench. He tried to recall what Erik Bergman had looked like, obliged to rely mainly on his memory of the photograph published in the papers – but he couldn’t get the two images to mesh with one another. Backman passed over a copy of Aftonbladet with the very photo he was trying to conjure up in his mind. He laid the two pictures alongside each other and compared them. Backman waited in silence.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Barbarotti in the end. ‘Could be him, of course, but it could just as well be somebody else. Where did you get the picture?’

  ‘One of her photo albums. Göransson and Malm found it down in her basement storage area a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘Her basement storage area?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And why has it taken us this long to go through her storage area?’

  Eva Backman sighed. ‘She had two. We didn’t know.’

  ‘Uh huh?’ said Barbarotti. ‘And this was all there was?’

  ‘You’re wondering if there were any other photos of anyone who could possibly have been Bergman?’

  ‘Yes, I assume that’s what I mean,’ said Barbarotti, and took another bite of the pizza.

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ said Backman. ‘Just this. There were only three albums, altogether. There are no other shots in which she’s wearing the same outfit as in this photo, either, so presumably someone else took it and gave it to her. With the rest of the photos, it’s easy to see which of them come from the same roll of film.’

  ‘I see,’ said Barbarotti. ‘And what about Erik Bergman’s photos? He had some too, I assume?’

  ‘We didn’t find any, oddly enough.’

  ‘You didn’t? Could mean . . .’

  ‘That the murderer removed his albums, yes. But not everybody takes photos, you know. We’ll have to ask his friends about that, but we’ve only just started thinking along these lines. A lot of people store them digitally these days, as well. On their computers and so on.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Oh well, better late than never I suppose. And Hans Andersson? I mean in terms of photos.’

  ‘I know,’ sighed Backman. ‘We’ll have to try getting pictures from the whole lot of them, and see whether any of them turn up in Anna Eriksson’s album. And vice versa, possibly.’

  ‘You mean we ought to keep an eye out for Eriksson and Bergman in their albums? Or computers?’

  Eva Backman gave a shrug and looked worn out. Barbarotti pondered. ‘When?’ he asked, looking at the clock. It was five to eleven.

  ‘Jonnerblad and Tallin decided we’d start on it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Gives us something to do tomorrow. By the way, do you think it’s a coincidence that he’s chosen a guy called Hans Andersson?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean the names could scarcely be any commoner. Anna Eriksson and Hans Andersson? Is he just picking them out because he knows it’ll be harder for us to identify the right one?’

  ‘Well, we only had five Erik Bergmans.’

  ‘Correct, but at that point we didn’t know if it was serious or not.’

  Eva Backman nodded. ‘Yes, you’ve got a point there. Well, I suppose there’s a chance it’s as simple as that . . . and what’s more, it could be he hasn’t decided which of them he’s going to kill. Perhaps he just picks one we’re not keeping a very good eye on. In which case . . .’

  ‘In which case,’ supplied Barbarotti, ‘we’re dealing with a complete lunatic. No, I cling to the hope that there’s some sort of connection. At least it makes it a bit more comprehensible . . . if there really is some reason behind it.’

  He looked at the photograph again. ‘Where do you think it’s taken?’ he asked. ‘Something tells me this isn’t Sweden.’

  ‘I thought the same thing,’ said Eva Backman. ‘There’s something about this bench and this litter bin. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t taken in this country.’

  ‘Great,’ said Barbarotti. ‘That just leaves us the rest of the planet to investigate.’

  Eva Backman crumpled up the pizza box and forced it into the wastepaper basket. ‘I bet you a hundred it’s Bergman,’ she said, pulling her shoulders back. ‘Are we on?’

  ‘Suppose so,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But I doubt we’ll ever find out which of us was right.’

  ‘The trouble with you is that you’re way too pessimistic,’ noted Inspector Backman.

  But as she said it, he couldn’t detect much optimism in her face, either. Just the same fatigue he felt overwhelmed by himself. ‘Can I give you a lift home?’ he asked. ‘I happen to have the car with me.’

  Eva Backman hesitated for a moment.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’d more or less decided to crash out here, there’s no one at home anyway. But a shower and a proper bed might be nice.’

  Three years ago, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, I’d have invited her in for a beer at my place in a situation like this.

  But that was three years ago.

  13

  ‘We’d better go through all the letter stuff one more time,’ said Superintendent Jonnerblad. ‘Tallin and I were talking it over yesterday and we’re thinking along roughly the same lines.’

  They were in the third-floor room that had been put at the disposal of the two National CID detectives. Located next door to Chief Inspector Asunander’s office, it was a space that was also intended for high-level meetings – primarily involving Lindweden, the district police commissioner, Asunander and other prominent officials. As far as Barbarotti was aware, it got used at least once a year, when Lindweden invited his fellow Rotarians to a Christmas glögg party. It was done out very smartly: light, delicately grained birchwood, chairs with claret-coloured leather seats, and pictures on the walls. Reproductions, admittedly, just pine forests, storms at sea and that sort of thing, but even so. There was a coffee machine, and a small fridge humming in the corner. A whiteboard, a television set with a DVD player and video.

  Superintendent Jonnerblad was in command; there was no formal difference of rank and precedence, but he was at least ten years older than Tallin, had thinner hair and a face that was significantly more lined. Generally forceful, so it seemed natural for him to take charge. Chief Inspector Tallin was somewhat shorter, a slighter figure of roughly Barbarotti’s own age. Quiet and thoughtful, one might almost say courteous, in an old-fashioned sort of way. He was vaguely reminiscent of a maths teacher Barbarotti had had in upper secondary, one of those characters who had endeared himself over time, with every sleepy double lesson, every test paper they ran through and every term that passed. They were very agreeable, people like that, thought Gunnar Barbarotti. The sort who weren’t perpetually trying to prove something to those around them, were well aware of their own abilities and failings and knew how to keep them in perspective.

  Not that there was really anything wrong with Jonnerblad, either, but his style was different. He had kept a fairly low profile at the start, but was gradually taking over more of the decision-making. Not counting Asunander, the lead group consisted of six people – but if we’d been a group of dogs, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, Jonnerblad would have been the one to eat first and to mate with the bitch on heat.

  Not that Eva Backman would ever in her life take it into her head to mate with the bitch on heat.

  ‘OK then,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘The letters?’

  ‘Hrrm,’ said Tallin. ‘The letters, yes. We’re thinking principally about the fact that they’re addressed to you, Barbarotti.’

  ‘That fact hadn’t escaped me, either,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Jonnerblad. ‘So our murderer chose to communicate with you from the outset. That must be significant, there must be some kind of link between you. I know you’ve been thinking about it already, but what we want, Tallin and I, is for you to do it in a more systematic way. Take your time. We think it could pay off.’

  Bar
barotti considered this for a moment.

  ‘What is it you want me to do?’ he asked. ‘More precisely.’

  ‘Well, it’s like this,’ said Jonnerblad, a vertical line creasing his forehead. ‘We assume the perpetrator has some reason for wanting to kill a number of people. He also wants to taunt the cops. But he doesn’t just do that in general terms, he turns to a specific cop. To you, Barbarotti. Why does he do that?’

  ‘Because . . .’

  ‘Because he knows who you are, yes. And if the murderer knows who you are, that ought to mean that you know the murderer, too. There must be some kind of link between you, as I said. It could be as old as the hills, it could be somebody you once stitched up, way back, it could even be someone you punched in the playground in Year 4. But the crucial thing is that he’s there. Somewhere in your past, Barbarotti, and what we want, Tallin and I, is for you to sit down and dig him out.’

  He sounds like a trailer for a bad Hollywood movie, thought Barbarotti. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong.

  ‘Maybe I should,’ he said. ‘Private brainstorming, as it were?’

  ‘Something a bit more systematic, we were thinking,’ Tallin put in.

  ‘This is what we’ll do today,’ said Jonnerblad, propping himself on his elbows and leaning across the oval table so Barbarotti could smell his breath. Coffee and eggs, if he wasn’t mistaken. A hint of smoked cod roe. ‘You’re released from the rest of the investigation. You’ll be in your office – or you can go home if you prefer – and you’ll go through your entire life. Write down the name of every single person you’ve met, who could conceivably – I say conceivably – be capable of coming up with this devilish scheme. You should have at least fifty by the time you’ve finished. Then you pick out the ten most likely ones and we all look through the lists tomorrow. Concentrate mainly on your police career, of course.’

  Well I’ll be damned, thought Barbarotti. He’s telling me . . . he’s actually telling me to go home, lie on my bed and think. In paid work time. For a whole day.

  ‘Not a bad idea,’ Barbarotti said, getting quickly to his feet. ‘Certainly worth a try. Er . . . I’ll be back tomorrow, then?’