That morning he had bathed in the river, scrubbing himself thoroughly, and relished it despite the cold temperature. He had swum back and forth, caressed by waterlilies and reeds, and thereafter dried in the sunshine back on shore.
He was a short, wiry man and there were those who misjudged his slight build. But he knew his own strength. Like all Zapotecs, schooled in farm labor, he was capable of working long and hard. He could carry a hundred kilos on his shoulders, clear the land with his hoe or machete for hours without tiring, take a break, eat some beans and posol only to resume his work, walk for miles up and down through valleys and over mountain passes.
He was the kind of man Mexico relied on, trusted. He would support himself, his family, and also take part and help add to other peoples’ riches and excess. He had erected all churches and monuments, put in roads along steep mountain ridges, cultivated corn, beans, and coffee, so why could he not be allowed to rest for a few minutes at an unfamiliar river, stretch out and let the sun dry his limbs?
Nonetheless his anxiety was there and he sensed its source: he had lost his ability to rest, to feel happy for the moment, to take pleasure in the small things and nurse his hope for the future. It was the “man from the mountain” who had taken from him these attributes so necessary for a Zapotec.
He despised himself, aware that his ládxi—his heart and soul—were lost. He had become exactly like them.
When he reached his car, he tried to shake off the sombre mood of the morning, because it made his movements plodding and his thoughts dull. He needed all the sharpness he could muster. This foreign country was placing great demands on him, there were no resting places here, whether in time or space.
After a glance at the map he started the car, turned onto the main road, crossed a bridge, and drove toward Uppsala. The landscape was varied, with fields of wheat, newly harvested with the golden brown stubble that reached toward the horizon, and gracious mounds, shaped like women’s breasts, where the grazing cattle, fat and healthy, looked up unconcerned as he passed. His mood immediately improved.
On the horizon he could see the cathedral with the towers pointing up into the clear blue sky. Up in that sea of air, thousands of black birds were struggling in billowing formations against the blustery southeasterly wind. They, like Manuel, were on their way into town.
Right before he entered Uppsala from the north, he stopped and checked the map for the best way to “K. Rosenberg,” the name that he had seen on the short man’s door.
He parked the car outside a small mall, crossed the street, and took the final stretch to the building on foot.
Thirty-Three
Since his childhood, Konrad Rosenberg always woke early. His inner clock started to ring as early as six. He didn’t like it, had never liked it, but it was the inheritance from Karl-Åke Rosenberg making itself felt. His father had gotten up at five every morning and started fussing, making coffee and rustling the newspapers. Since Konrad was the youngest, he slept in a pull-out sofa in the kitchen, so he had no choice but to be woken up.
The power of habit is great, and so even this morning he woke up early. It was half past five when he opened his eyes. He had to pee, and he had a pounding headache. He lay in bed a while longer and tried to fall back to sleep, then realized it was hopeless. At exactly six o’clock he got up and went to the bathroom.
The night before he had boozed it up, as thoroughly as in the good old days, but with the difference that this time he had drunk completely alone. This had perhaps contributed to the amount of alcohol he had managed to consume.
It was an unaccustomed feeling, almost solemn, to pour the first drink and raise his glass by himself. After the third one there was no solemnity left, only determined drinking. After the fourth one, Konrad started a long, embittered monolog about the “fat devil-chef” who believed he could lord it over Konrad Rosenberg.
Konrad had received a letter, not by ordinary mail but stuck in his mailbox. It was printed by machine and lacked a signature, but the content convinced Konrad of the identity of the writer. He assumed that Slobodan had hired someone to deliver the letter. He was simply too scared to show himself in Tunabackar.
Slobodan wrote that they could have absolutely no contact, no telephone calls, and could not allow themselves to be seen together. Slobodan instructed Konrad to stay at home: “only go to the store and then straight home,” he wrote, as if Konrad were a child. He was not to place himself in “risky situations,” not to spend his evenings out, not to “get in touch with any of our shared associates” or engage in anything that could awaken the interest of “persons unknown to us who we do not wish to know better,” which Konrad assumed meant the police.
At first he thought it felt ridiculous and was actually tempted to defy the instructions and call Slobodan, but realized it was wiser to keep a low profile until the whole thing had died down. The fire was a real blow, but not a complete catastrophe. Konrad trusted completely in the fact that his brother would not say a word about Konrad using the house. His brother simply wanted to get the insurance money.
He turned on the radio but turned it off immediately. Normally he would have gone down to the newsstand and checked the program for the week’s harness-racing results, maybe gone downtown and frittered away a few hours. He considered calling Åke to see if he had heard anything more about the fire, but then concluded it would only make him nervous.
It was a little after eleven when the doorbell rang. Konrad jumped as if he had been struck in the back with a whip. He tiptoed over to the door and listened, at a complete loss as to who it could be.
His old drinking buddies, who were liable to turn up at any hours, had not shown themselves for months and no one else ever came to see him.
He put his ear to the door and thought he heard panting but decided it was his imagination. No one could breathe so loudly, but when he opened the mail slot with extreme care he heard the hissing sound more clearly.
The doorbell rang again. Konrad felt the sweat start to trickle down his back. His curiosity won out and he straightened his back.
“Who is it?” he called out.
“Mr. Rosenberg, something has happened to your car,” he heard a high-pitched voice say from the other side of the door.
He opened the door and there was an older man who Konrad thought lived in the building next door.
“Excuse me for disturbing you, but I saw—”
“My car?”
“Yes, isn’t it your Mercedes on the street? Someone has vandalized it.”
“Vandalized?” Konrad echoed stupidly, before slipping his shoes on.
As he ran down the stairs, leaving the asthmatic man behind, it struck him that it could be a trap and so he slowed down. But concern for his Merc drove him to a run.
Someone had pulled a sharp object along the full length of the car, from the hood all the way to the brake lights. Konrad stared at the almost completely level scratch, and when he circled the car he saw that the other side had suffered identical damage.
The neighbor arrived out of breath and explained that he discovered the whole thing when he came back from the store.
Konrad stood as if paralyzed, could not even manage a curse. His car, his Mercedes, vandalized by a couple of young hooligans.
“It’s terrible what they get up to these days,” the neighbor said. “They can’t even leave a beautiful car alone.”
Suddenly it struck Konrad that perhaps it was not the work of hooligans. He looked around. “That bastard is laughing somewhere,” he thought, and asked the neighbor if he had noticed anything suspicious on his way to the store. Yet another neighbor came up to them and in some way Konrad felt honored by the attention. He recalled that the first neighbor had referred to him as “Mr. Rosenberg.” Also, it felt good to have company, even if their average combined age was high.
“Call the police,” the neighbor said. “Even if they don’t do anything, you have to report it. I remember when someone drove into m
y Amazon, it was parked in the lot of Lagerquist’s hardware store. What I went through. There were papers to fill out, reports to file.”
Konrad listened with half an ear. The word police made him nervous and then increasingly infuriated.
“I wonder what it costs to have it repainted,” one neighbor speculated and Konrad’s anger increased further.
“I’m going up to make a call,” he said and left the two men on the sidewalk.
He sensed that this was not a normal prank, but a calling card left by an unknown man who was apparently capable of anything. As he walked slowly up the stairs his anger diminished and instead his anxiety grew. What kind of forces were at work? That Armas was murdered could be explained. Konrad and Slobodan had discussed various possible motives, but to burn down a house and above all to damage a car … it was so illogical that it was frightening.
Thirty-Four
There are moments in the career of a police officer when the red carpet is rolled out. That was how Barbro Liljendahl felt. Its length testified to a row of unforeseen experiences and discoveries, but also consisted of routine matters, as well as large amounts of work—hours, days, and weeks of labor—but that must be the reward, she thought.
Ever since the stabbing incident in Sävja she had had the feeling that the case involved a number of hidden connections. One thread had loosened and now she could start the unraveling process.
After hanging up the phone she sat lost in thought for a long time. What occupied her mind, and that which demanded a great deal of skill and finesse, was the fact that the young boy Zero had demanded that he not be accused of stabbing Sidström.
Otherwise he would not talk. Barbro Liljendahl knew she had to tread carefully. If he were to be charged with the deed and convicted—something of which one could not be sure—then the end of the thread would break off after only one revolution. The ball of thread would remain almost intact.
Sidström would never admit to knowing Zero from before, he would have no reason to try to seek any kind of justice and would prefer silence. As long as Zero, who had sliced open his abdomen, kept quiet, Sidström would be satisfied. He would heal, maybe receive some compensation from the Crime Victims Fund, and return to his work, while Zero, if he were convicted, would meet a decidedly bleaker fate.
Barbro Liljendahl had seen enough of youth crime to realize that he would most likely reappear in future cases. The boy could be saved, but only if he could avoid the charges. Then it would hopefully serve as a useful lesson and for her part Barbro Liljendahl would be free to keep unraveling.
She decided to look up Ann Lindell. One reason was the fact that they had discussed the case when they bumped into each other at the hospital. But it was also with a measure of calculation that she got in touch with her colleague.
Barbro Liljendahl worked in the intelligence unit, often together with Harry Andersson. He was a decent enough policeman, but could, on and off, be a real pain. In a deliberate way, he went about diminishing her efforts, often accompanied by an obnoxiously macho comment that was perhaps intended to be funny but always sounded offensive. He laughed away her protests and told her she was oversensitive.
She wanted to leave intelligence and join violent crimes. Lindell could perhaps put in a good word for her. Barbro liked what she had seen of Lindell. She already knew Beatrice Andersson from the Police Academy, and finally, Barbro had heard that Ottosson, the chief in violent crimes was a timid and kindly soul.
“It’s a stab in the dark,” Lindell said when Barbro completed her account. Barbro smiled at the unintended pun.
“If we can make this self-defense,” Lindell went on, “then perhaps the DA can approach the whole thing from a different perspective. Fritzén is reasonable, but the new one—you know, the one with the earrings—I don’t know, she seems so … what should I say … rigid.”
“I know you have a lot going on with the Fyris river murder, but should we question Sidström together? You could make a case for it by saying that there may be a connection.”
“It’s weak,” Lindell said.
“I know, but I feel sorry for the guy somehow,” Barbro said. “His whole family is insane. If he is charged, they will make his life a living Hell. They’ll say he’s shaming the entire family. And his father is already in prison in Turkey.”
Lindell reflected for a moment.
“You know how things end up for a guy like Zero,” Barbro Liljendahl added.
“Okay,” Lindell said finally, “but I have to talk to Ottosson first. Have you worked through the list of Sidström’s acquaintances?”
“Yes, I’ve talked to some of them. Three of them are doing time.”
“There was a name I reacted to and that is Rosenberg, have you questioned him?”
“No, he and three, four others are left,” Barbro Liljendahl said.
“Okay, let’s go to Akademiska and listen to what our punctured friend has to say.”
Lindell didn’t really know why she went along with all of this. She shouldn’t have done so and Ottosson had his reservations, but in a childish way he was flattered that she wanted his blessings.
She sensed that this had to do with Berglund. His comment about Rosenberg being in the money was the kind of information she heard almost daily, and if you listened to all loose chatter then every single investigation would grind to a halt.
Was she doing this to impress him? So she would later be able to say, Thanks for the tip, it led to … or was it Ola Haver’s superior remarks in the lunchroom?
Regardless of the reason, she entered the surgical wing accompanied by Liljendahl with a certain amount of anticipation. She was also curious to see how her colleague handled the situation.
Sidström was sitting slouched over in a chair. His head was leaning forward, his chin against his chest, his arms draped over the armrests and the emaciated, very sinewy hands twitched almost imperceptibly.
“I wonder what he’s dreaming about?” Lindell whispered.
He looked considerably older than his forty-two years. Lindell guessed at a long history of drug abuse behind the grayish cast of the skin, and she was convinced his arms and perhaps his legs were covered in scars from hypodermic needles.
According to Liljendahl he had been drug-free for a year, and Lindell wondered how he had reacted to the anesthesia and painkillers he must have received at the hospital. His last charges were three years back in time: burglary.
“Olle,” Liljendahl said.
The man reacted by jerking his head, but he did not wake up. Liljendahl shook his shoulder gently and Lindell felt an involuntary distaste, bordering on revulsion, at her colleague’s touch but also at the watery eyes that opened.
“What the hell?”
“Time to wake up,” Liljendahl said.
The man looked around in confusion, discovered who his visitors were, and quickly sat up in the chair.
“Fucking hell,” he said emphatically, and grimaced.
There was more to come once Liljendahl, after having introduced Ann Lindell, took out a small pocket tape recorder, recorded the facts of the questioning session, and proceeded with her first question about how much cocaine he had sold recently.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Turn that damn thing off.”
Liljendahl smiled. Lindell went and stood over by the window, diagonally behind Sidström.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Liljendahl said and Lindell couldn’t help smile, “and we would appreciate a little cooperation.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We know that you sell cocaine, we also know a great deal about your activities in general.”
“I am not telling you shit, or your—”
“There are others who talk,” Liljendahl said tiredly, and Lindell guessed how she was planning to approach the whole thing.
“Konrad Rosenberg, is that name familiar to you?”
It was Lindell who took the chance, and the man flinch
ed, grimaced again, then turned his body, and stared at her in terror. Lindell saw that her guess had hit the mark and she exchanged glances with Liljendahl.
“You can start talking now,” Lindell said and almost heard his body deflate. His facial features changed in one stroke and displayed all the signs of extreme fatigue and despondency. He shook his head lightly and audibly drew in all the mucus in the sinus cavities in his skull.
Sometimes it is almost too easy, Lindell thought, and leaned against the windowsill.
In the cafeteria half an hour later, when they were reviewing their session, Liljendahl was so excited that Lindell had to laugh.
“You did that well,” she said.
“Thanks for the help,” Liljendahl said. “That was so perfect!”
“What’s your partner going to say?”
Liljendahl’s expression fell immediately and Lindell was sorry she hadn’t given her happiness a few more minutes.
“He’ll be upset,” Liljendahl said. “But I don’t give a damn. If you only knew how sick and tired I am of his comments.”
Lindell nodded.
“Should we go look up Rosenberg right away?”
“It’s probably best for me to step down at this point,” Lindell said. “I mean, if Harry gets upset about something like this then it won’t be better if we just keep going. We don’t actually have that much on Rosenberg right now. Sidström did not expressly say that it was Rosenberg who was the supplier, only that they were in contact.”
“But you saw how he reacted,” Liljendahl said. “His body language spoke volumes.”
Lindell hated having to step down, but there was a chance this was going to go too far. If she followed along to Konrad Rosenberg and it took off from there, she would be drawn deeply into an investigation that, strictly speaking, she didn’t have anything to do with.
“You tackle Rosenberg on your own and then get in touch with me,” she said, and the disappointment in Liljendahl’s face was unmistakable.
The Demon of Dakar Page 20
