The Root of Evil

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘What are you doing there?”

  ‘Haven’t you read the papers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Don’t. I love you.’

  In some peculiar way he had managed to suppress the fact that it was Saturday. That Saturday. I’m clearly losing it, thought Barbarotti. How could I have forgotten? I’ve got a goldfish brain, not a human one.

  But he recalled the situation as soon as he was reminded of it. At least that was something.

  ‘Do you want to marry me?’ he asked.

  She laughed. He awarded Our Lord a point out of sheer delight. For there was something in her laugh that told him . . . what exactly?

  Well, that it was all going to turn out right in the end. Quite simply, he could hear it in her voice. It was going to be him and Marianne, come rain, come sleet or snow, or however the damn thing went. Suddenly it was as if all hesitation had blown away over the edge of the world, and he could not fathom why he had ever doubted.

  This insight, crystal clear, came to him within a second. As her brief laugh was still caressing him down the phone.

  ‘I’d like to see you, at any rate,’ she said. ‘I was wondering about next weekend. How are you fixed?’

  ‘I’m free,’ he said. ‘For you, I’m always free.’

  ‘And the letter murderer?’

  ‘I shall have solved the case by next weekend,’ Barbarotti promised. ‘Do you want me to come down to you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d come and see you, this time. If that’s all right? The children are going to be with their dad in Gothenburg, so I can drop them off and pick them up on the way.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Barbarotti. ‘We’ll have lobster – I’ve got a good recipe. Friday evening, then?’

  ‘Friday evening. Gunnar?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, and I think I love you. I forgot to mention that.’

  He was still smiling as he made his way down to the breakfast buffet.

  ‘Are you drunk or have you solved the case? asked Eva Backman.

  ‘Neither, unfortunately,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘He’s probably been out swimming again,’ suggested Astor Nilsson, nodding out towards the Svartån. He himself looked as though he had spent the whole night trying to mate with a reluctant she-bear. ‘Jesus, I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. This case is going to do for me.’

  ‘Right, let’s get three cups of black coffee and bite the bullet,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Here comes Schwerin, by the way.’

  The chief inspector looked as bland and relaxed as he had in the farmer’s field the day before. ‘I thought I could just talk things through with you before we go to the police station,’ he explained. ‘Before it all kicks off, so to speak. Don’t you think we’ve got a lovely castle?’

  ‘Sweden’s second loveliest,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Yes, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to go over things.’

  ‘Have you seen Nerikes Allehanda?’ asked Schwerin, passing over one of his copies of the paper.

  Barbarotti looked at the front page. DEATH’S HARVEST, it said, in letters three centimetres high, above a picture of the stranded, flash-lit combine harvester and a group of dark figures in the background. It looked ominously suggestive, more like a film poster than anything else, thought Barbarotti.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Do they give his name and everything?’

  ‘No,’ said Schwerin. ‘His parents are coming to identify him this morning. They live in Kramfors. We’ve taken him to ÖUH, and we’ll be sending him on to Gothenburg as agreed.’

  ‘ÖUH?’ queried Backman.

  ‘Örebro University Hospital,’ said Schwerin.

  ‘Right then,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘Let’s have this breakfast.’

  They went to the table where the three of them had sat for their evening beer. There was much silent leafing through a couple of copies of Nerikes Allehanda, which provided an eloquent account of the macabre discovery in the field outside Kumla – and also made the link with the earlier high-profile murders in west Sweden. After a few minutes, Chief Inspector Schwerin cleared his throat tentatively.

  ‘So if I might ask, are you actively pursuing anyone, that is to say, how far have you actually got with the investigation?’

  Astor Nilsson stopped chewing and momentarily went cross-eyed.

  ‘Things are gradually moving forward,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘The reason I’m asking is the press conference,’ clarified Schwerin. ‘It’s at three o’clock. We’re expecting a lot of people, and it would be good if you could join us.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Barbarotti. ‘DI Backman and I can cover that while Chief Inspector Nilsson here takes his afternoon nap.’

  Astor Nilsson grinned and carried on chewing.

  ‘What’s the schedule for the day apart from that?’ asked Backman.

  Schwerin took out a black notebook. ‘Four officers will tackle the neighbours in Hallsberg,’ he said. ‘That’s already underway, in fact, and the idea is for us to have a preliminary report from them in time for the press conference. We’ve a general meeting at two. By then we should have been able to speak to farmers round Örsta . . . maybe you could . . . ?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘We’ll drive round the farms and make some enquiries.’

  ‘Good. And I daresay we’ll get various nuggets of information coming in on the public hotline, which we’ll have to assess and act on. I shall try to keep an overview of that with Ström, who you’ve already met, and another DI. Well that’s how I planned it, anyway, but perhaps you’ve got your own ideas?’

  ‘That sounds great,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Astor Nilsson.

  Backman’s mobile rang. It was Jonnerblad, asking whether he and Tallin should come up to Örebro. Backman said there was no need, and promised to keep him informed of developments as the day progressed.

  ‘It would probably be just as well to have a word with Mr Mattsson, too,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Ask him if he noticed any part of his crop looking at all trampled . . . if we can establish the route the murderer took across the field, it isn’t entirely impossible that we’ll find a footprint or two. Öhrnberg must have weighed a good seventy-five kilos, surely?’

  ‘That means the murderer isn’t some frail little woman,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘But I guess we knew that already?’

  ‘There were loads of people trampling about out there last night,’ said Backman. ‘But of course we ought not to pass up the chance.’

  ‘Can we take a forensic technician with us to Örsta?’ asked Barbarotti.

  ‘By all means,’ said Schwerin. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘We’ll have to see what turns up as we go along,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘But briefing at police HQ at two o’clock, right?’

  ‘Two o’clock,’ confirmed Schwerin.

  ‘There doesn’t happen to be a jeweller’s anywhere near this hotel, does there?’ asked Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I need to buy a watch.’

  ‘Just across the street,’ said Schwerin. ‘But I’m pretty sure they don’t open until ten.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Barbarotti. ‘It can wait.’

  30

  Chief Inspector Schwerin opened the meeting by asking whether any of those present had read Finnish writer Mika Waltari’s Sinuhe the Egyptian.

  They hadn’t. Schwerin then told them that the book was largely about an Egyptian brain surgeon living more than a thousand years before Christ – and about how people viewed things at that time. Brain operations, for example; if all the correct procedures had been undertaken and everything had gone as it should, the operation was considered a success. Even if the patient died. The chief inspector was inclined to draw a parallel with that morning and afternoon’s police operations: everything had gone according to plan and everyone had done their best, but unfortunately it didn’t help – there had been no sign of any murderer.

 
Interesting comparison, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, exchanging glances with Eva Backman, who looked half amused, half uneasy, he thought.

  Though of course it was too early for any evaluation and all the reports were strictly preliminary, Schwerin was at pains to stress. They had spoken to fifty-two people in all, a complete pack of cards, thirty in Hallsberg – mainly neighbours and colleagues of Öhrnberg’s – and seventeen in and around Örsta, outside Kumla, plus a handful of acquaintances in Örebro. They had all declared themselves shocked, to varying degrees. None of them – at least as far as initial assessments indicated – had anything substantive and relevant to contribute. The person who had last seen the murder victim alive, apart from the perpetrator, was apparently a woman who worked in the convenience store fifty metres from Öhrnberg’s flat in Tulpangatan. He had been in to buy yogurt, fruit juice and bread just before half past nine on Tuesday evening.

  Tuesday, 7 August, reflected Barbarotti. A week before he got the letter. Thanks very much, he thought again.

  The special police hotline had so far (the time was 13.50) received a stream of calls amounting to about a hundred. They were a very mixed bag. Four of the callers had been asked in for interviews but only one of these had so far taken place, and it did not seem to have yielded anything of value. But it had been recorded and a transcript would be made in the course of the afternoon.

  Barbarotti noticed that Astor Nilsson had dozed off. He was sitting to Barbarotti’s immediate right, leaning back with his arms folded and his chin down. He had put on dark glasses, too, so it might just go undetected. Barbarotti hoped he would keep his head upright and not start snoring. The room was full of ambitious young police officers and a member of the investigation team falling asleep wouldn’t look good at all.

  When Schwerin opened the floor for questions after about half an hour, there was only one. A spindly probationer shyly asked whether the body had been formally identified yet.

  ‘Apologies,’ said the chief inspector. ‘I forgot to mention that detail. Yes, our man is undoubtedly Gunnar Öhrnberg.’

  So now we know, thought Gunnar Barbarotti, giving Astor Nilsson a nudge in the side.

  When it came to the crunch, they realized it might be best to let slightly fewer people handle the press conference. Say two. Say Chief Inspector Schwerin and Inspector Backman.

  Barbarotti stood with his back pressed to the wall at the very rear of the packed room, and as he observed his two colleagues sitting up front at a table festooned with microphones, he could see it had been the right choice. The calm chief inspector to inspire confidence. And sharp, quick-witted Backman.

  An older man, a slightly younger woman, it wasn’t a new recipe.

  The number of journalists whose bosses had responded to the invitation was around fifty. They were sweating. Three video cameras were whirring. The venue looked as if it had been designed for about thirty people, and if it had any kind of ventilation system, it was clearly not in working order. The temperature was hovering around the thirty-degree mark; it was all tailor-made for encouraging people to get out of the place as soon as possible. Barbarotti wondered to himself whether the mild-mannered chief inspector really was that fiendish. It somehow wouldn’t surprise him.

  The questions were innumerable. About Öhrnberg. About the other murders. About progress on the investigation.

  ‘Are we dealing with a serial killer?’ asked a dark-haired man from TV4.

  ‘No,’ said Eva Backman. ‘We have reason to believe he’s finished killing now. It was these five individuals he was after, and unfortunately he succeeded in his intention.’

  ‘How do you know there won’t be more?’

  ‘We have indications that point in that direction.’

  ‘What indications are those?’

  ‘We can’t go into that at the moment, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is it because he’s said as much in his letters?’

  ‘Amongst other things.’

  And so on. Barbarotti looked round but couldn’t spot his old antagonist from Expressen anywhere. He realized, of course, that that question was bound to come up sooner or later. And so it did: after about fifteen minutes, a tall man got to his feet and introduced himself as Petersson from Agenda.

  ‘There was a police assault on a reporter at the start of the week. What’s your comment on that?’

  ‘None at all,’ said Eva Backman. ‘When the main conference is over, the police officer in question will take questions on that, if there are any.’

  She had persuaded him that he ought to. Not that it had been all that hard; he knew sticking your head in the sand didn’t work where reporters were concerned. The very phrase ‘No comment’ signalled guilt and shame from a mile away. But he felt a slight sense of unease as he took his seat at the microphones, forty-five sweat-drenched minutes later.

  ‘So it was you?’ came the opening question from a dark-haired woman in her fifties.

  ‘Who what?’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.

  ‘Who knocked down Persson from Expressen?

  ‘No,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I didn’t knock him down.’

  ‘Well an official complaint was made that you had,’ noted a beefy type in the first row.

  ‘Expressen withdrew its complaint after less than twenty-four hours,’ Barbarotti reminded him.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened?’ asked a voice with a Finnish accent from towards the back of the room.

  ‘Gladly,’ said Barbarotti. ‘It was nine o’clock at night. I was just sitting down for something to eat after working a twelve-hour shift. Then Persson turned up and tried to force his way into my flat.’

  ‘How did he do that?’ somebody asked.

  ‘He rang on the doorbell. I opened my door. He wanted to come in and ask me questions. I said I hadn’t got time, and he had already questioned various other officers earlier in the day. I had given him a long interview myself, the day before.’

  ‘So you threw him out by force?’

  ‘No. He was blocking me from closing the door. I got tired of him in the end. Pushed him out onto the landing and locked the door.’

  ‘But he fell down the stairs?’ the first questioner came back.

  ‘I’ve no idea how he managed that,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But maybe nothing’s beyond Expressen.’

  A few people laughed.

  ‘Do you think you acted correctly?’

  ‘Presumably not,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But I chose the lesser of two evils. Naturally it was not my intention that he should hurt himself.’

  ‘What was the other evil?’

  Gunnar Barbarotti thought for a moment.

  ‘I know most of you are serious working journalists,’ he said. ‘I hope your esprit de corps doesn’t prevent you from applying some common sense to your take on this. Methods like Göran Persson’s only harm the reputation of the press in this country.’

  ‘Is Expressen represented in this room?’ somebody asked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied a fair-haired woman of around thirty.

  ‘Can you provide a comment on why your paper lodged an official complaint and then withdrew it?’

  ‘No,’ said the woman. ‘I’m afraid not. I was asked to step in today. I think Göran Persson’s on leave, actually.’

  ‘Checkmate,’ rumbled a deep male voice. ‘Now I say to hell with this, let’s get some fresh air.’

  The proposal met with unanimous approval. Gunnar Barbarotti downed half a bottle of mineral water and gave a sigh of relief.

  At five that afternoon they headed south-west once more. Astor Nilsson commandeered the back seat and was asleep before they passed the Kumla turn-off. Eva Backman was driving. Barbarotti had got out the seven photographs from Brittany and was staring at them again. Or at three of them, anyway. He was trying to squint at the Sixth Man and get a slightly clearer idea of what he looked like. It was no good. The fuzziness of his face in all three shots persisted.

  ‘People can never learn to use the focus pr
operly,’ he said.

  ‘And what do you say to our own focus?’ asked Eva Backman.

  ‘Not the sharpest,’ admitted Barbarotti. ‘What’s Jonnerblad decided about releasing these for publication?’

  They had been in contact with Kymlinge half a dozen times during the day. They had given an account of their conversations with various farmers around Kumla, of the futile search for footprints in Dead Man’s Field (it was only logical for Dead Man Gunnar to end his days in a field named after him, as the headline writers at Nerikes Allehanda had quickly appreciated) and the rest of their investigations around Närke. They had been supplied with at least one new detail from Jonnerblad in return: that the records showed the same unidentified mobile number had called both Anna Eriksson and Gunnar Öhrnberg. A pay-as-you-go phone, untraceable, and it appeared to have been used only twice. But the dates were interesting. The call to Anna Eriksson was made on Tuesday 31 July. At 10.36. Presumably the day of her death. The call to Öhrnberg was made almost exactly a week later: Tuesday 7 August, at 13.25. Both calls had lasted about a minute. Had the killer rung to make an appointment?

  The assumption did not seem entirely unreasonable. Why else get a pay-as-you-go card and only use it twice? Jonnerblad had wanted to know. Unless you were up to no good?

  But untraceable, that was the thing.

  ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ said Backman.

  ‘I asked if Jonnerblad and Tallin had finished their dithering yet,’ said Barbarotti. ‘If it wasn’t time to give this face to the media now?’ He tapped his pen irritably on the photographs.

  ‘I think he said Monday,’ said Backman. ‘So in the papers on Tuesday, in that case. Well, I suppose that’s the route we’ve got to go down?’

  ‘Do you think that’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know what I think,’ said Eva Backman, ‘But I know what’s going to happen when we do it. And I’m starting to feel a bit tired, you know. I think I might have to punch a journalist soon, to get a few days off.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about it,’ said Barbarotti.

  Astor Nilsson swore in his sleep on the back seat. ‘Fucking baker,’ it sounded like.