He walked toward the sun, toward the south, hoping that the bus station was in that direction, aware that he had carried out the most reprehensible of all actions: treachery against a person who loved him and trusted him. He had never before hated himself the way he did at that moment.
After a few blocks a feeling of relief came over him. It was done! He tapped his hand over the money belt. The letter he would tear to pieces.
Suddenly he stopped. A feeling of ambivalence came over him. He looked around, peered along the street. Perhaps she was standing there, hoping that he would change his mind, that she might call him back, that her love had overcome the icy cold and the unconcealed contempt of a humiliated person she had shown.
He spotted a few children at the ice cream seller’s canopied wagon, but no white dress, no Vanessa. He sensed that she and her mother were now united in a hateful, perhaps tearful, verbal thrashing of the faithless gringo.
Tears welled up in his eyes, seized as he was by the tragic element, by his own sentimentality, but also struck by a dash of self-pity for the deeply unjust judgments that were now being pronounced and which would mark their recollection of him for all time. He had tried! He was not malicious. His intentions had been good. He thought he loved her, that they would be together.
And how strong really was her own conviction? Hadn’t she also played a game, where hindsight had caught up with spontaneous passion? That alternative could not be overlooked. Her ice-cold contempt and immediate reaction-aloofness, no attempt to convince, no pleas, no tears-what was that a sign of?
For a few seconds he stood there irresolutely, took a few steps, stopped again, turned around, looked, took a few steps, a ridiculous dance of self-betrayal, when deep inside he knew that there was no way back.
Brant put up his hand and hailed a motorcycle taxi. He got a helmet from the driver and experienced a liberating sense of anonymity as he put it on. He straddled the motorcycle and was seized by the impulse to lean his head against the driver’s back, which was decorated with the name Kaka and the number eight.
The conveyance took off over the cobbled streets. It moved quickly. Brant fumbled with his hand behind his back and took hold of a bracket.
In ten minutes they were at the bus station and when he saw the ugly building just as a bus turned around the corner, he knew he had done the only right thing.
On my way, he thought. Never again Itaberaba. Never again Vanessa. He paid the motorcycle driver and gave him twice what he asked for the ride. Now I can be generous, he thought bitterly.
Although he was convinced he had made the right decision, anxiety pricked him like angry mosquitoes. Another bus came roaring, black smoke welled out of the tailpipe and the chassis rattled. He stood there in the sun. It was over 30 degrees Celsius in the shade.
“Who am I really?” he mumbled.
A car passed with music booming out of the open trunk. He saw women and men, playing children; he saw vendors of caju and ice cream, he heard shouts and laughter; he saw Brazil, and the ambivalence tormented his body, increasingly exhausted by the sun and the alcohol.
“I am a piece of shit,” he continued his monologue.
Angry and friendly honking marked buses that arrived and departed in a steady stream, stinking and rattling highway ships that careened around the building, and gear boxes clattered and scraped their bearings as they took off.
He realized now that he was a scared gringo. A gringo who would never be anything else either. He was scared, scared of losing something, perhaps a comfortable existence, the freedom of the vagabond, perhaps also the myth of Anders Brant, world traveler, the world’s conscience, the fighter for good.
The insight came suddenly, like an unforeseen smack to his solar plexus, and he was forced to support himself against the wall and take a deep breath.
He leaned forward, supported his hands against his knees and vomited. A cascade of beer splattered against the stone pavement on a small square under the scorching sun of Bahia.
Eighteen
Finally, thought Urban Fredlund, the last building!
Soon he would be lying on the couch, with a cup of tea on the coffee table and a double toasted ham, cheese, and pepper sauce sandwich, his specialty every Sunday morning for the past twelve years.
Urban Fredlund did not have many pleasures in life, even less so since the woman he was living with left him ten years ago and Mirjam died a short time later. He was not sure which of the two losses he took the hardest. He had gotten Mirjam from an animal-lover and butcher, a Swede-Finn who spent his days butchering animals on a conveyor belt, and then went home to a menagerie.
That cat was special, just like his Sunday morning specialty.
In the C entry, the last one, he realized that this particular Sunday his specialty would have to wait.
5:45 A.M. A lifeless body in a stairwell in Tunabackar, female, middle-aged. Probably stone dead. Wounds on the face and back of the head. Found by a newspaper carrier. Ambulance and patrol car were on their way.
That was what Sammy Nilsson found out when he got the call. The clock on the night stand showed 5:49. Angelika was turning restlessly by his side. Perhaps she had noticed the phone ringing, but Sammy Nilsson was sure that in a few minutes she would be sound asleep again.
He would have to drag himself out of bed and take off. Along with Beatrice, he was on call over the weekend, which to this point had been surprisingly quiet. Now the calm was over.
Of course he could not know who the woman was, but he could guess. He remembered the address from the board where they had written down Bosse Gränsberg’s acquaintances. But it could also be a neighbor lady or acquaintance of Ingegerd Melander or a visitor to someone else in the building. No point in speculating, he thought, while he took a quick shower. In fifteen minutes he would find out. The dead woman was not going anywhere.
A patrol officer was standing by the entry. He held his nose demonstratively while Sammy Nilsson parked next to an ambulance and got out of the car, but the gesture was not directed at Nilsson or detectives in general.
“The paper carrier puked,” said the uniformed colleague, whose name Sammy recalled just at that moment.
“Hey, Bruno!”
His colleague nodded good-naturedly, noticeably pleased at being addressed by his first name.
Sammy did not hurry, but instead looked around. The building was a typical 1950s construction, yellow plastered, with three entries, four floors, a gravel yard with a number of abused trees and bushes shaped into balls, overflowing bike racks, a misplaced trash room that had been added in later years, and a grilling area where a grouping of chairs had been set out.
Could they have planned it to be any less inviting, wondered Sammy Nilsson.
“She’s stone dead, and clearly has been awhile,” said Bruno.
“Has the doctor arrived?”
That was a pious hope at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.
“We were first on the scene, besides them,” said Bruno, nodding toward the ambulance.
“I guess I’ll go take a look,” Sammy said. “Are you the one who propped open the door?”
“It smelled really awful.”
“And the paper carrier?”
“Sitting with an old lady on the second floor. Says ‘Melkersson’ on the door.”
“Is he shook up?”
“Yeah, you know,” Bruno replied.
Sammy Nilsson knew.
“And your partner?”
“Ortman is guarding the lady.”