The Demon of Dakar

by Kjell Eriksson

  Manuel spent the whole night there before he dared leave his hiding place. When he came down to the square the following day the demonstration had been dispersed and only a torn poster bore witness to the small-farmers’ monthlong protest.

  Now there were no police in sight and no sound of dogs. He swung out onto the street from his parking spot and made a U-turn. As he passed Dakar, some customers were stepping onto the street. They were noisy, laughing, and sauntered away. It was a good sign and Manuel grew calm. If the police were inside Dakar, the guests would probably have stayed inside from curiosity.

  He rolled slowly to the place where he had left Patricio.

  Fifty-Five

  Manuel was awakened by bird song, or rather, a violent screeching outside the tent. After a second or so, when he became conscious of the previous evening’s events, he threw back the blanket and sat up. Patricio was gone. They had fallen asleep next to each other, like they used to when they slept in the mountains, and in the darkness Patricio had asked Manuel to tell him about the village.

  Manuel crawled out of the tent and looked around before he crawled up the slope. From the top he anxiously scanned the riverbank area. He worried that Patricio had run away yet again, but then he saw him. His brother was sitting some hundred meters downstream, up close to the river. Perhaps he even had his legs and feet in the water.

  Manuel walked over to him slowly, following the edge of the field, plucking a couple of grass stalks and trying to figure out what time it was. The sun was still low in the sky.

  Patricio turned when Manuel came down the riverbank with running steps. They smiled at each other.

  “It was worth the escape just for this moment,” Patricio said. “Now I could go back to prison.”

  Manuel sat down at his brother’s side.

  “You are going home,” he said.

  “How can I do that?” Patricio asked after a while.

  Manuel told him what he had been thinking. Patricio was speechless.

  “It won’t work,” he said when Manuel had finished explaining his plan. “The police will take me.”

  “Maybe,” Manuel said, “but it is worth a try.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll manage,” Manuel said, but did not sound completely convinced. “You have to get home.”

  “But that costs money.”

  “That I have,” Manuel said. “I have a lot of money.”

  Patricio did not ask where his brother had acquired these funds. Maybe his time in prison had taught him not to be too curious.

  While the sun rose and slowly moved across the sky they went through all the details and what could go wrong. Manuel was surprised that Patricio was being so compliant. He raised no objections as he usually did. Instead he listened and repeated what Manuel said.

  “Should we take a dip?”

  “The river is full of plants,” Patricio said.

  “I know a good place.”

  While they undressed, Manuel teased Patricio about his potbelly. He only laughed, patted his stomach, and jumped in the water. They splashed and played like children, spraying each other and diving in the muddy water.

  If only Angel were with us, Manuel thought suddenly, and was overcome with the grieving thoughts that had dominated his mind the past six months. But he did not want to ruin Patricio’s joy, and therefore he said nothing.

  What if his plan to get Patricio out of the country failed? His brother still deserved whatever few moments of freedom he could snatch. He knew that their nighttime talks in the tent and their swim in this foreign river would forever appear among of the happiest moments in their lives. One day, if they got to be together in the future, they would think back on this day and remember it with gratitude.

  Nothing could be allowed to muddy this brief moment of shared joy.

  When they had put their clothes back on, Manuel took the bag out of the hiding place and showed Patricio the money. He said nothing, asked nothing, but Manuel felt obliged to tell him how he had come to be in possession of such a fortune. If Patricio had his own views or was critical of his brother’s actions, he did not say it, simply fingered the bunched bills a little absently.

  Manuel put the money back in its place. Patricio appeared lost in thought. It was as if the sight of all the dollars depressed him. Perhaps the bills reminded him of Angel?

  After a couple of hours Manuel decided to go up to the arts and crafts village for provisions. He had seen a small cafe there. If only they could get a little bread, they would be fine. They could take water from the river.

  They had agreed to stay by the river until the police reinforcements in connection with the escape had thinned out some. The likelihood was that the highways around Uppsala had roadblocks.

  If Eva had called the police and told them about Manuel, they would also be looking out for him and his plan would fail. But he did not think Eva had said anything, even though she had reacted so harshly and unsympathetically. That reaction was harder to bear than if she had gone to the police. But Manuel knew he only had himself to blame. He had lied to her, and she felt betrayed. He tried not to think of her, but it was difficult. There was something about the woman that was incredibly attractive to him. Was it her generosity and openness? Maybe it was only that he had been flattered by her eager questions about his life, or else it was simply that he was dazzled by her breasts under the form-fitting blouse, her smile, and blond hair?

  In the tent, he had dreamed that they bathed together in the river. Now he had to stop dreaming. Eva was a memory.

  He bought sandwiches and soda at the cafe. He did not think anyone paid attention to him. The parking lot was full of cars and groups of tourists and young families wandered between the cottages. Manuel saw a man painting something that Manuel imagined was going to be a large toy. He stopped and watched the craftsman slowly brush yellow paint onto the broad planks and realized it was going to be a small house. He was amazed that one would put so much effort into a pretend house.

  The painter looked up and gave Manuel a hasty but friendly glance. Manuel felt irritated and realized that envy was the source. Everything looked so harmonious, everyone appeared well-nourished and well-dressed. There were no poor people selling trinkets or begging. The craftspeople appeared carefree and pleased with their work. Everything was so different from Mexico.

  Back in the village children played with scraps. If they in fact had any spare time to play, they had to make their own toys. No one built special houses for them.

  Manuel continued on, passing trees laden with apples and families who had spread blankets in the grass. They ate and drank. Some of them were playing a game with wooden sticks that they swung through the air in order to strike down the wooden sticks of their opponent.

  A young couple was walking in front of him. The man had his hand on one of the woman’s buttocks. They stopped and kissed. Manuel walked past them and tried to avoid staring at them.

  When he got back to the tent, Patricio was sleeping. Manuel sat down on the side of the bank. He thought about Gabriella in the village and from there it was not a great leap to Eva. His brother snored and turned. Some birds flew up from the water.

  The sight of the man’s hand on the woman’s buttock had excited him. He thought of Eva. It was as if his thoughts automatically returned to her.

  Manuel stretched out in the grass and was asleep within a couple of minutes.

  Fifty-Six

  The morning started with an unusually short case review. Ann Lindell had taken Erik to Görel’s so that she could drop him off at day care. Görel had not commented on their dinner, had in fact not been particularly communicative.

  While her colleagues were filing in—some cheerful, others reticent and glum with fatigue—Lindell tried to repress her friend’s coldness. Once this case was over and Lindell could gather her thoughts, they could have a talk and sort out this misunderstanding. Everything later, that was how she experienced her life. The fault lay with
her, she had combined her work with her personal life and it was clear that Görel had felt pushed aside. Lindell decided to call and apologize.

  Fredriksson, Sammy Nilsson, Beatrice, Barbro Liljendahl, Ottosson, and a handful of other police officers were present, among them three men from the drug unit and two superior officers from patrol. The head of the criminal information service, Morenius, accompanied by district attorney Fritzén, came sauntering in when everyone else was already seated.

  Ottosson began the meeting and briefly sketched an outline of the situation. The circumstances regarding Konrad Rosenberg’s abrupt end had created a flurry of speculations, and Ottosson emphasized very strongly that they were not interested in Rosenberg even though his case involved drugs and sudden death.

  Their focus was on Slobodan Andersson, his potential involvement in the cocaine wave that had washed over the city, and the question of how Armas’s murder could be plugged into this context.

  “Mexico,” Lindell said when the lecture was over.

  “I’ve been reading up on this,” Sammy Nilsson said. “Everyone is still at large. The hostages are, as you know, unharmed. They were left bound in a locked car that was found around eleven o’clock last night. A guy who has a logging harvester was bringing some diesel up and he discovered the abandoned van. He is planning to start harvesting timber in the area. But as I said, there is not a trace of this gang of four. The whole thing seems professionally planned and executed.”

  “I saw Bodström on TV last night,” Fredriksson said. “He could hardly contain himself.”

  Sammy Nilsson cast an angry glance at him before he went on. He hated to be interrupted.

  “One of the four is Mexican. His name is Patricio Alavez and he was serving an eight-year sentence for drug smuggling. A bungled job at Arlanda. It seems like the drugs are now finding other ways to enter the country, isn’t that true, Olsson?”

  “Smaller airports and the Öresund bridge appear to be more popular these days,” the drug detective answered drily.

  “Alavez is a peaceful man, according to Norrtälje,” Sammy Nilsson said. “It is most likely that he did not partake in the preparations. Apparently he was roped in during the excitement. But how can we really know? It may have been an act. During the investigation and trial he refused to say on whose behalf he had traveled to Sweden. According to his ticket he was traveling from Bilbao, and two days before that had come directly from Mexico. He may have contacts outside prison who are willing to help him, especially in view of the fact that he did not rat on anyone.”

  “Both Slobodan and Armas were in Mexico two years ago,” Lindell interrupted.

  “You mean that they recruited this peaceful Mexican at that time?” Morenius asked.

  “It’s possible,” Lindell said. “We’ve determined that Slobodan returned with money. The drug trade is as good a guess as a lottery win.”

  “We’ll go into Dakar, Alhambra, and his apartment at the same time,” Ottosson said and glanced at the district attorney, who did not appear to be fully awake yet and did not appear to have any comments.

  “We believe Slobodan Andersson is currently at home. The lights were on in his apartment at half past eleven last night. The guys from surveillance thought they saw Andersson in the window, but we cannot be sure, and we also do not know if he is alone. No one has left the apartment, at any rate.”

  Ann Lindell was looking forward to the raid. The look on the face of the arrogant restauranteur alone would be worth it. This time they had a little more to show for themselves, in part about Mexico, but also surrounding Slobodan’s connections with Rosenberg. He had some explaining to do and simpy the knowledge that they were going through his apartment and his two restaurants with a fine-toothed comb would make him extra nervous. He was shaken, Lindell was sure about that. Behind the self-assured mask, there was genuine concern.

  At exactly eight o’clock—Sammy Nilsson read the time from his thirty-year-old Certina—Slobodan Andersson’s apartment was pierced by the ringing of his doorbell.

  The sound of coughing and dragging footsteps approaching the front door were heard from inside.

  “Who is it?”

  “Sammy Nilsson from the police.”

  A new cough and thereafter the rustle of a chain and then the door opened several inches.

  “Good morning,” Sammy Nilsson said and gave Slobodan Andersson a wide grin.

  “What do you want? It’s the middle of the night, damn it!”

  “Open up and I’ll explain.”

  Slobodan Andersson sighed, opened the door, and started at the sight of five officers standing in the hallway.

  Fifteen minutes later he left the apartment in the company of Sammy Nilsson and Barbro Liljendahl.

  The first thing Slobodan Andersson was asked to do at the police station was to have his fingerprints taken. He did this without protest but then refused to utter a word until his lawyer arrived.

  During this time the police embarked on their search of his apartment and the two restaurants. They had collected the keys to Alhambra and Dakar from a groggy Oskar Hammer, the head chef at Alhambra, who for the past few years had been waiting for exactly this, that one day the police would be standing outside his door. A technician was dispatched to each restaurant. The head of forensics, the semiretired Eskil Ryde, took care of the apartment.

  The canine unit consisting of officer Sven Knorring and the Jessica the Labrador went through the apartment first but found nothing. Not a single indication of drugs anywhere.

  At Dakar, an expectant Ann Lindell followed Jessica’s sniffing at tables and chairs, through the kitchen, cold storage, and staff areas.

  “Clinically clean,” Knorring summed up.

  Lindell was about to ask if the dog was one hundred percent reliable but stopped herself at the last second. They decided to walk to Alhambra. Downtown stores were opening, people were starting to fill the streets, and those who recognized Ann Lindell—and they were quite a few after the last murder investigation and the blaze that had almost cost her her life—followed her stroll with the accompanying canine unit with interest.

  Alhambra was lit up. Charles Morgansson came to meet them and took on the role of maître d’.

  “Have you made a reservation?” he inquired politely, and scratched Jessica’s ear. But the dog paid no attention to the technician, pulling on her leash, straining to go in deeper.

  Lindell noticed a change in the officer’s expression as well. It was as if he and the dog were one. Jessica whimpered pleadingly and Sven Knorring nodded to Lindell and let the dog go. She immediately took off through the dining room.

  Knorring followed. Morgansson and Lindell followed them with their eyes. There was total silence. Only the click of the Labrador’s claws against the lacquered wood floor could be heard.

  The lawyer Simone Motander-Banks was a vision. Sammy Nilsson could not help staring at the woman who swept into the questioning chamber as if it were a cocktail party. She was dressed in a tight skirt, a light-colored jacket, and high heels. A wide gold bracelet dangled on one wrist. She smiled tightly, ignored the foolishly staring Sammy Nilsson and the bewildered Barbro Liljendahl and turned to the restaurant owner.

  “You have definitely lost weight,” she said. “It suits you.”

  “Simone,” Slobodan Andersson said, “wonderful to see you.”

  For a few moments he appeared to have regained his self-assurance, stood up and kissed her on the cheek. Sammy Nilsson observed that Slobodan Andersson for a moment studied her remarkable earring. He then suavely engaged the lawyer in conversation, completely ignoring the two detectives.

  “I’m glad you were able to come down on such short notice,” Sammy Nilsson said, taking advantage of a pause in the bright chatter.

  The lawyer had all of the characteristics Sammy Nilsson found hardest to bear: arrogance and pretentiousness, complemented by a disdain for the police, as if they were a lower order of beings engaged in a filthy professi
on which they practiced with a halfhearted sloppiness. He had heard one of the city’s more renowned attorneys refer to the police as “farm hands.”

  The lawyer and Slobodan sat down. Simone was cool, with crossed legs and her hands demurely clasped in her lap, the restaurant owner sweaty, heavy, and somewhat out of breath.

  “Well, now,” Sammy Nilsson began, after first recording the particulars of the questioning session on the tape recorder, “we have some things to sort out here. First Mexico. What were you and Armas doing there?”

  “Vacation,” Slobodan answered quickly.

  “No acquaintances there? No deals? Business connections?”

  “No.”

  “You have spoken with my colleague Ann Lindell about this.”

  “Exactly,” Slobodan Andersson replied, then added, “I don’t know why we have to go on about Mexico. Are there laws against going there?”

  “Of course not. Perhaps I or one of my colleagues will be fortunate enough to have reason to go there. We simply want to get to the bottom of why Armas got his tattoo. We now know where it happened. We also know that you were present. The tattoo artist, Sammy Ramiréz, remembers you very well. But why did the symbol that Armas chose for his tattoo come to play a role at his death?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “We believe that the person who slit your partner’s throat had a motive that was grounded in Mexico. Therefore the tattoo played a role.”