The Demon of Dakar

by Kjell Eriksson

  “Full of police?” he repeated.

  Eva nodded.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “Armas. Did you …?”

  “He tried to shoot me,” Manuel said. “I defended myself. Believe me! I am not an evil person.”

  The whites of her eyes glowed in the dark as she studied him. Manuel felt that she was trying to decide what she should believe.

  “You do have to go now,” she said finally.

  “In the sock there is a note with my address. The phone number of a neighbor. He is nice and speaks a little English.”

  Eva laughed unexpectedly.

  “The neighbor is nice,” she repeated.

  Manuel reached out his hand and nudged her cheek. She flinched but did not pull away. Manuel leaned over and briefly kissed her on the mouth before he left. She thought he resembled a cat as he slunk out of the yard.

  Manuel had parked the car behind a Dumpster in the alley. He was trembling with emotion and had trouble getting the key in the ignition. He hastily drew in air through his nose in order to experience her scent one last time.

  He nonetheless drove calmly onto the street, past Dakar and out of the city. He found his way easily. He had studied the map all afternoon and memorized the route. Traffic was sparse and after several minutes he was out on highway 272, heading north.

  Despite what Eva had said about the police, he was relieved. He had managed to make his way to Dakar and back. He had been lucky that Eva was working and above all he was overjoyed that she had spoken with him.

  It was almost midnight when he got back to the house in the forest. He drove the car into the garage. A thin sliver of light could be seen under the door to the shed.

  Patricio was sitting in bed. A candle was perched on a stool. He looked ghostlike in the flickering light.

  “Did it go well?”

  Manuel nodded and pulled the door shut behind him.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” Manuel said, although in reality his belly was screaming for food.

  He sat down on a chair in the middle of the room. It was only now, that he was looking at his brother, that he fully took in the significance of what Eva had said. Up to this point he had been preoccupied with his thoughts of her.

  “We have to find another way to leave Sweden,” he said. “You can’t use my ticket. The police will take you right away if you try.”

  Patricio stared quizzically at him.

  “Who told you this?”

  “Eva,” Manuel said curtly and then sighed deeply.

  As the sound of her name, his despair welled out. He suddenly saw their predicament in a different light. It was as if someone from above was looking down at their primitive dwelling, surrounded by the darkness of the night, and the deep forest, the flickering light on the stool, and Patricio and himself as two figures who were trying in vain to escape a nightmare. He saw two strangers, two Zapotecs, in enemy territory, who, like soldiers cut off from their command, found themselves in an impossible situation. Now nothing remained but capitulation or a desperate breakout attempt.

  Manuel’s energy and creativity were at an end.

  “I’m sorry,” he sighed.

  Patricio stood up and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, much like an illusionist setting up for a magic trick.

  “Here is a telephone number,” Patricio said and held out the slip of paper.

  “What do you mean?”

  “José gave it to me, the Spaniard who was part of the escape. If I ran into big problems I should call this number. The one who answers is also a Spaniard. But it should only be in case of big problems. He said the number was secure. I should just call. Don’t we have big problems now?”

  Manuel stared at Patricio and then at the wrinkled note.

  “We should call a another crook?” he asked.

  “You have another fifty?”

  Manuel got up and turned his back on his brother. The painstakingly stacked firewood on the opposite wall reminded him of the open hearth at home in the village and how his mother would insert the sticks and get the fire going. How she silently kneaded and baked a stack of tortillas that she wrapped in a cloth, took out the chili, and boiled water for coffee. It was almost as if he could hear the crackling in the wood and how Gerardo’s cock impatiently crowed again and again. Manuel used to joke with his neighbor that the cock had taken after its master both in temperament and productiveness. Never did their poverty appear as extreme as these early mornings when their night-stiff bodies shook with cold. Never was the warmth as welcome, and the togetherness as strong,as when they approached the fire, mumbling to each other as they drank their coffee and greeted a new day.

  “We’ll call,” Manuel said abruptly. “There is a telephone in the house.”

  Sixty-Three

  It was a northerly wind and it gave Eva a boost across the fields. In spite of this, she wished she had taken the bus. It had driven past her by Lilla Ultuna. Seeing Manuel had frightened her. Not because she was afraid of him but because she had been reminded that there was a dark side to Uppsala, where murder and drugs were everyday things.

  She biked with a frenzy that meant she was over the fields in a matter of minutes and arrived, damp with sweat, at Kuggebro, where she was forced to reduce her speed somewhat. Then the trip went uphill, at first a tough slope up past Vilan and then a decidedly steeper one the last stretch before she home.

  She had called home at ten o’clock. Hugo had answered. Eva had asked to speak to Patrik to make sure that he was home as well. Now she only had one thought in her mind: to see them both in bed.

  She was greeted by a thermos of tea on the kitchen table, a plate of crackers, and a note that Hugo had written wishing her good night.

  They were asleep. Patrik lay on his back snoring a little, while Hugo was turned on his stomach, arms outstretched.

  Eva returned to the kitchen, draped her jacket on a chair, drank a cup of tea, and munched on a cracker. The encounter with Manuel had stirred up her mind. Her feelings had gone from surprise to anger and from there to sadness. His touch on her cheek and brief kiss had paralyzed her.

  She remembered his present, took the sock from her pocket and shook out the contents. It was a hard roll of bills wrapped in a wrinkled note.

  She unfurled a bill, one hundred dollars, and then quickly counted the rest. There were fifty one-hundred-dollar notes. She did not know exactly how much a dollar was worth, but realized she had been given tens of thousands of kronor.

  She stared at the note with Manuel’s home address and the neighbor’s telephone number. The nice neighbor.

  Before Eva went to bed she counted the money one last time, tucked the bills into an old envelope from the social insurance administration, and hid it in the very back of the utility closet.

  Even though she was completely exhausted she couldn’t sleep.

  “Manuel,” she ventured in a whisper into the darkness. In a way she now regretted having warned him. If he had gone to Arlanda and been arrested by the police he would have received a trial and perhaps been found not guilty of the murder accusation. It wasn’t inconceivable that Armas … Of course, his brother would wind up back in prison, but Manuel would … If he were found to have committed voluntary manslaughter or whatever it was called.

  “Stop it,” she said out loud, tormented by her own loose thoughts, threads that she could not manage to bind together into a satisfying conclusion. She both wanted and did not want him to get caught. The horrifying thing was that she understood him so well. He had lost one brother and the other had received a long prison sentence. Of course Manuel was trying to get him out of the country. How would she have reacted if Hugo or Patrik were in jail in Mexico? Wouldn’t she have done everything in her power to free them, regardless of what they were accused?

  After having tried and failed at all the old tricks to conjure sleep, Eva got up and went out to the kitchen. The clock on the wall read half past two. She too
k out milk and heated a cup in the microwave. Her eyes were constantly drawn to the utility closet. Never before in her life had she had so much cash. She would be able to go wherever she wanted. It would make Helen so curious and not a little envious. But could she keep the money? Where had he got hold of five thousand dollars?

  She drank the last of the milk, which had cooled down, got up and walked over to the calendar on the wall. When did the kids have their fall break? It was around All Saints, but was it the week before or the week after? Her gaze went to December. They were off for three weeks then. Wouldn’t it say in the paper how much a dollar was worth?

  She quickly leafed through both sections of Upsala Nya Tidning and finally found a whole page of stock and currency exchange and other numbers she had never paid any attention to. Over seven kronor for one dollar, and she had five thousand! Thirty-five thousand kronor in the utility closet.

  She pushed the paper away and sat back down. What if the police caught Manuel and he told them that he had given her money?

  “No way,” she said, as if to convince herself of the unlikelihood of this.

  “What are you doing?”

  Eva twirled around in the chair. A groggy Hugo was standing in the hall.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Eva said. “Go pee and go back to bed.”

  “Was it fun at work?”

  “It was great,” Eva said, knowing the question concealed a considerable concern. The children had heard and read about what had happened. Maybe Zero had filled them in.

  “Go back to bed. I’m going to take a painkiller and do the same.”

  Hugo turned back toward his room and gave her a final glance.

  “Thanks for the tea and your nice note,” Eva said.

  He smiled a little and then closed the door behind him.

  Sixty-Four

  He called himself Ramon, but they did not think this was his real name. It didn’t matter. There was no question that he was Spanish, nor that he was a real professional.

  During the night, Patricio and Manuel had made their way to the small town of Märsta, with the help of Manuel’s map. They had taken a small road that snaked through the darkened landscape, encountered at most ten cars, and once they reached Märsta, they parked outside the grocery store that Ramon had picked as their meeting place. They had waited for half an hour until the Spaniard turned up.

  He had taken them to a basement room in an apartment building.

  “If you get caught, we expect you not to say a single word about our meeting.”

  He did not explain who the “we” referred to. Perhaps he meant José Franco.

  “Of course,” Patricio said.

  “I hear you can keep quiet,” Ramon said and smiled.

  “How is José?”

  “Very good,” Ramon said and his smile widened. “He sends his greetings.”

  “Send our greetings back and thank him for all his help,” Patricio said.

  Despite the early hour—it was not even six yet—Ramon appeared energetic and focused. He took out some photographic equipment, a couple of lamps, and a screen. He took a dozen photographs each of Manuel and Patricio. The whole thing was over in minutes.

  Manuel held out the agree-upon sum without a word. Ramon licked one thumb, then quickly flipped through the pile of bills and stretched out his hand for a handshake.

  “Who will we be?”

  “Two Chileans. I have a lot of those passports.”

  “When and how will we get them?”

  “One of you drives to Rotebro and leaves the car there, that is not so far away. I can show you the road. Take the train back here. Someone waits here until I turn up. That will be tonight.”

  “But taking the train seems dangerous,” Manuel said. “Someone might recognize—”

  “We’ll take care of that,” Ramon said and left them for a moment.

  They heard him looking around for something in the next room, and when he returned, he smilingly held up a wig.

  “This is how you become a blond,” the Spaniard grinned. “This and the glasses will be good. Which one of you is going to Rotebro?”

  “That would be me,” Manuel said.

  Beside himself with fatigue and confused by Ramon’s precise instructions, Manuel tried to memorize everything. He felt a teary gratitude for the help they received. He had never imagined how quickly it would go.

  “I don’t know how we can thank you,” he said.

  Ramon slapped his hand across the pocket where he had tucked the money.

  “Now let’s get moving,” he said. “On with the wig!”

  The last thing Ramon did was to show them how they could make coffee, and where bread, butter, and soda was stored.

  The last thing he said before he and Manuel left the basement was a warning not to call anyone, not to leave the basement, and not to drink any alcohol.

  When Manuel returned to the basement, Patricio was sleeping on a mattress in the inner of the two rooms. He woke up but immediately fell asleep again. Manuel opened a bottle of soda and drank greedily. He had been thirsty ever since the night before.

  What is Eva doing now, he wondered sadly but immediately chastized himself. Why should he think of her? The important thing was to leave Sweden. Wasting thought on anything else was idiotic. He looked at Patricio who was muttering something in his sleep.

  Manuel lay down on the floor and stretched out his exhausted body. We should shave, was the last thing he thought before he fell asleep.

  Sixty-Five

  It was five o’clock in the morning when Sammy Nilsson and Ola Haver stepped into the Arlanda police headquarters. The combination of morning fatigue with the tension that had mounted the previous day meant that neither one of them was particularly talkative during the short ride to the airport.

  Now they were greeted by a shamelessly alert colleague. He introduced himself as Åke Holmdahl. Sammy Nilsson had a vague memory of having seen him before. Maybe they had been at school at the same time?

  “Hi there, Nilsson. So you’re still around.”“Got no choice.”

  “I see that the daily special is one or two Mexican delicacies. This should be a real pleasure. And your name is Haver? Gud som haver barnen kär,” Holmdahl quoted the well-known psalm “God who holds the children dear.” “But you must have heard that one before? Okay, let me tell you a little bit about how we’ve planned things out. We have people outside and in the hall, next to Avis as well as the check-in. Two officers have been stationed by the gate and two canine units are on call. All personnel have been briefed and instructed not to act until further orders. Maybe you saw them on the way in?”

  Sammy Nilsson shook his head.

  “Fantastic!” Holmdahl snorted. “But maybe you saw a car pulled over with engine troubles? That’s Olofsson. That’s usually his role. He will report to us if an Opel Zafira goes by. We have a couple of more cars in motion.”

  Ola Haver nodded.

  “Our Norrtälje colleagues are also in place. It’s their man, after all. If Alavez, number one or two, turn up we’ll nab him.”

  Sammy Nilsson’s mood was gradually improving. It was as if his colleague’s enthusiasm and confidence were catching.

  “Is there any coffee?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Holmdahl said, and Sammy Nilsson realized that even he had teenage children.

  “Come with me and we’ll get you some. Have you had breakfast?”

  Holmdahl led Nilsson and Haver to a small kitchen.

  “The plane leaves at a quarter past eight, isn’t that right?” Ola Haver asked.

  “BA to London and then on to Mexico City.”

  Ola Haver gave a big yawn.

  “I wish I had a ticket,” he said.

  At half past nine they concluded their failure. Manuel Alavez had neither returned the rental car nor checked in for the flight to London.

  Åke Holmdahl was muted. Sammy Nilsson and Ola Haver were grumpy. They felt duped.

  �
��We should have known,” Haver said. “He wouldn’t have been this stupid.”

  “We’ll have to try something else,” Holmdahl said.

  Sammy Nilsson suddenly remembered where he had seen him. The Arlanda colleague had worked in the patrol division at Uppsala for a brief period of time.

  Both of the Uppsala detectives took the motorway north. They had already called a disappointed Ann Lindell and told her they had come up with nothing.

  When they were just passed the exit to Knivsta, Lindell called back.

  Sammy Nilsson answered and then pulled over by the side of the road, looked around and started to back up to the exit.

  “What are you doing?” Haver said perplexed.

  “We missed him,” Sammy Nilsson said. “I’ll bet you anything that Alavez was at Arlanda, but somehow he spotted our welcoming committee. The rental car has turned up in Rotebro.”

  He reached the Knivsta exit, turned down, went under the E4, then drove up onto the motorway again, this time in a southerly direction.

  They arrived just after Tomas Ahlinder from forensics in Uppsala. The Opel was neatly parked not far from the commuter train station. Next to the car was a policeman in uniform and a man in civilian dress, whom Haver and Nilsson assumed was a colleague.

  The latter, who said his name was Persson, turned out to be the one who had noticed the car. He lived in Rotebro and every day he took the commuter train to his office in Kungsholmen, in Stockholm.

  “Sometimes my brain works,” he said with a laugh. “I happened to see the APB yesterday. I remember thinking that it was an unusual make for a rental car. And then today I catch sight of a Zafira with a somewhat odd license plate number.”

  Sammy Nilsson looked at the plates, on which three letters formed the word RAR.

  “What do you say, Ahlinder?”

  “I’ll do an initial search and then we’ll tow it to Uppsala. If that’s all right,” he added.

  “No problem for me,” the uniformed policeman said. “We’re just happy to be rid of it. Are there drugs in the car?”