“But the girls liked him?”
“Some,” said Elina, and now her voice had lost all its previous certainty and eagerness.
“Thanks, Elina, you have been super nice for letting me take up your time.”
“It’s just cool,” said the girl.
So cool it is, Lindell thought, when they ended the call.
In between checking her e-mail, if Brant were to decide to respond, she called the two numbers she got from Elina, with meager result. Håkan Malmberg had voicemail anyway and Lindell left a message.
Where Freddy Johansson was concerned, the answer signal sounded like that number was no longer current or that Elina had given her a wrong number.
She also searched on their names and did not find a single notation. Pure as snow.
Suddenly the cell phone beeped. She grabbed it and stared at the display: Message received. It was Charles Morgansson reporting that fingerprints from the murdered Bo Gränsberg had been found in Anders Brant’s Toyota.
Lindell knew she had to do something. And Klara Lovisa’s disappearance was something. Otherwise she would only obsess about Brant.
She left the police station, got in the car, and drove north on Svartbäcksgatan. An hour later she was there.
Eleven
It started like a play with comic elements and ended as a tragedy.
By late afternoon the exchange of words had already escalated. Powerful explosions, outbursts of fireworks, interleaved the quarrel, which played out over several hours, coming in waves, temporarily subsiding, then suddenly picking up again with renewed energy and intensity.
The curtain that was gradually lowered by the setting sun made no difference. The men seemed inexhaustible. What was the quarrel about? Impossible to say. Anders Brant could only sporadically make out what was being said, and perhaps it was long-term accumulated enmity about a number of unrelated things that now exploded; when one conflict was thrashed out, the next one began.
Alcohol was surely fueling the flames. At one point Anders Brant saw one of the men disappear down the street and return a short time later with a bottle of Mulata Boa. He recognized the label at a distance: a seductive mulatto in a bikini strutting and holding up a bottle.
The bottle was passed around. In that respect no distinction was made between the different parties; everyone got their allotted share of the devastatingly strong liquor.
It was like a staged play, with actors who were only periodically visible on the stage. A stage which once had been a floor and now nothing more than a concrete surface, exposed to sun and heavy downpours, covered with miscellaneous junk: some rusty tin cans with plants, a stack of iron pipe, broken lounge chairs, a parasol without canvas, a cracked toilet seat, and much more which in other countries would have gone to the dump.
He had been drawn to the window by the furious shouting, went back to the computer, but then returned to his lookout point. There was something engaging about the whole thing, as if it wasn’t serious, as if they were just performing a stage play, and only for him. It would not look good if the only available audience left.
During the entire performance three younger men acted, going in and out of the part of the building that was still somewhat intact. An older man sat in a discarded beach chair placed against a wall. He did not take part in the exchange of words, but followed it attentively, twisting his head as if he was watching a tennis match. And then the woman, the one who was now screaming in agony. During the quarrel she had tried to mediate at first, but was finally drawn into the dispute. It was hard for him to determine which party she favored. Perhaps her loyalty shifted?
When the fireworks were at their most intense the parties took a break. One of the men, perhaps the one now stretched out in the alley, laughed at one point and said something to the old man in the beach chair, who joined in the laughter and did a thumbs up, a gesture that could mean anything in this country-a greeting, general approval, or a positive response to a direct question.
Now he was no longer laughing. His neck was broken, you didn’t need to be medically trained to realize that. The old man got up from the beach chair and stared uncomprehendingly at the spot where the young man had stood before.
It was murder. Anders Brant had seen the hand. Or was no one there?
“He was pushed!” he called out in Swedish, without thinking about it. The old man heard the scream and raised his eyes.
Or what had he seen? He glanced at the sky as if to check whether this might involve some kind of weather phenomenon. There was a full moon and perhaps some clouds had quickly moved past and placed a temporary curtain over the moon, and in doing so created this shadow-like, reptilian movement. But no, the sky was clear and innocent, the moon a secure cheese-yellow.
True, the light from the street was faint and only cast a pale glow over the remains of the building, but from his outlook, a window perhaps six meters right above the alley and a few meters above the level from which the man fell down, he had the best imaginable view. It was not a mirage!
Perhaps it was not a premeditated act, with an intent to kill, but the hand had pushed mercilessly. It must have made contact somewhere between the shoulder blades. So if not homicide, then it was manslaughter.
No muscular strength was required, as the man who gyrated down and broke his neck against the stone of the alley had been leaning over the low wall with his center of gravity past the top, which perhaps reached his thigh. A little tap, then it was done.
The perpetrator had been hidden behind a higher section of wall, what had once held up a roof, and not all that long ago.
So easy to kill, it struck him, as he observed the commotion in the alley. It was an old truth, a blow that goes wrong, an antagonist who takes a bad fall, then it’s over.
He was strangely calm, even though a human being had just died before his eyes. He registered it all with ice-cold precision: the old woman who came running; the excited children-where did they come from, so many, so quickly?-loudly babbling and gesticulating; the crowd at the bus stop at the corner where the alley came out at the main street, curious, their necks craned, but not wanting to miss the bus; the woman who stood leaning over the wall and screamed uncontrollably; and then the man, the one who stepped out of the darkness, placed his hand on the woman’s shoulder and said something. Was it him? Was that the hand, which now consoled, but which half a minute ago was an instrument of death?
Out of the dead man’s mouth and ears blood was running over the uneven cobblestones, blood mixed with the white paint that had spilled the night before and stained the pavement.
Anders Brant happened to think of peppermint sticks. Then he raised his eyes and looked at the man again. He was still standing quite passively, with his hand on the woman’s shoulder. The question was whether he had looked over the edge of the wall at all. Suddenly he removed his hand from the woman’s shoulder and made a gesture that could mean anything at all. He threw out his arms and lowered his head as in prayer; he looked almost dejected.
Then he raised his head and met the gringo’s eyes for a few moments, before he unexpectedly smiled, turned on his heels and in a shuffling gait disappeared into the ruins, as if he was completely exhausted.
He was part of the multitude of homeless, one of many in this country. Was he a killer? Who was the man in the alley? Were they related to each other?
Anders Brant forced himself to look down at the corpse once again, which someone had now turned on his back. Brant could see the whites of his eyes shining. His hands were resting against the surface, with the palms open and fingers extended. Perhaps they were brothers; there was a certain resemblance.