Sammy was standing in the half-open garage doorway. Two patrol officers had just finished cordoning off the lot and street, and Sammy and the field commander, Simlund, were discussing how they should arrange the door-to-door operation on the normally quiet street.
Ryde and Johannesson were working in silence. Sammy thought it was strange to see the “old man” at work once again, as if nothing would ever change. That thing about Ryde’s retirement was a joke, he had simply fooled them, and would outlive them all.
“How’s it look?”
Ryde looked up.
“He’s dead,” he said.
Sammy Nilsson nodded.
“Head bashed in.”
“I know, I saw him. Come on now!”
“You need to calm down.”
Sammy Nilsson knew that too.
“Don’t stand there stomping your feet!”
Sammy Nilsson left the garage door. A few neighbors farther down on the street were standing and talking, one of them in a bathrobe, although it was almost nine o’clock. A uniformed officer was on his way toward them and when they noticed the policeman they pulled back.
“Don’t let us disturb you,” Sammy Nilsson mumbled.
He walked restlessly down the street, a little fragment of an Uppsala he seldom or never visited. The well-adjusted, successful types lived here. So was there a connection between Gränsberg and Kumlin, more than the fact that both suffered a fatal skull fracture? He tried to recall what had been said during his and Kumlin’s brief phone conversation a few days ago. Nothing strange or startling he had thought then and could not, in light of what had now happened, come to any other conclusion. Kumlin had been surprised to be asked about an old photo, perhaps also a little irritated, but said nothing that aroused Sammy’s interest in the slightest and definitely nothing that would make anyone suspect that the businessman would meet such a fate.
Did the call trigger some activity on Kumlin’s part, perhaps a telephone call to someone else on the bandy team, which in turn led to his being murdered? Sammy Nilsson realized that he must have another discussion with the former teammates.
He stopped abruptly and raised one arm as if to keep a train of thought from disappearing. Had someone decided for some unfathomable reason to eradicate the whole bandy team, player by player? Was that why Anders Brant took off so hastily, that he realized he was in danger and fled the country? Or was it the case that Brant had returned from Madrid and was the one who bashed a pipe wrench into the back of Jeremias’s head?
Sammy Nilsson looked around as if the answers to his questions were to be found in the well-tended gardens in Sunnersta.
Suddenly a figure emerged from a bush only a few meters away and Sammy Nilsson instinctively reached for his gun which he wore in a shoulder holster-for once he was armed-but calmed himself immediately. A man stepped up to the fence toward the street.
“Birger Luthander,” he said.
They shook hands, Sammy Nilsson introduced himself and inspected the man. He was in his sixties, dressed only in a pair of Bermuda shorts; his upper body was bare and he had no shoes on.
“Something has happened, I understand. Is it the Kumlins?”
Sammy Nilsson hummed. He was a little irritated that his train of thought had been interrupted, perhaps a little embarrassed by his reaction.
“You looked so thoughtful, almost sad, if I may say so. Something terrible has happened, I thought right away. And I’m not surprised, I might add.”
“I see, what do you mean by that?”
“There’s been a little traffic on the street of a somewhat different nature than usual. Nothing good can come of this, I remember thinking.”
Do they have to talk like that, wondered Sammy.
“Traffic?”
“Yes, but I’m not referring to motor vehicles. I couldn’t help noticing, and I want to emphasize that I haven’t made any exertions. I’m not a curious person,” he quickly added. “But on several occasions, three to be exact, individuals have appeared on the street, individuals who do not belong to the customary picture of life in the area.”
“In brief: You’ve seen people who don’t live on the street.”
“Correct. The first occasion was maybe two weeks ago, and he also returned a few days later. And then yesterday, another visitor, this time it was a different man, but with an equally unfavorable appearance; I can’t say anything about his inner qualities. The fact was that it was my wife who brought my attention to the man; personally I was watching one of the many sports channels. Completely uninteresting. I definitely think it was some ball sport, you have no idea how quick Asians can be on their feet when it counts. I dismissed him as a peddler, mostly to calm my wife, who sometimes has a tendency to overreact, but the strange thing was that he stayed by Rosén’s fence-a not particularly esthetically pleasing construction, in my opinion-for at least two hours, without moving a muscle, in principle completely still, that alone a minor achievement. He was not Asian.”
“So what was he?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did he look like?”
“He might very well have been Swedish, but it would not surprise me if he had some foreign background. He was not dark-haired, but not blond either. I guess it’s called ash-blond. He was not wearing glasses.”
“Clothing?”
“Everyday, but to get details you’ll have to ask my wife. That’s her specialty.”
“Age?”
“Hard to determine, between forty and fifty.”
“Yes, that’s what we’re dealing with,” Sammy Nilsson murmured, thinking of the bandy team.
“Excuse me?”
“It was nothing. What makes you think that he might possibly come from abroad?”
“The whole impression,” said Birger firmly. “There was something vague about him, something old-fashioned, well, maybe it was the clothes? To the degree he moved it was also with a kind of uncertainty, maybe because he felt he didn’t belong here, which was also apparent.”
Birger Luthander, who behind all the verbosity proved to be an attentive and clear-sighted witness, except where clothing was concerned, could put words on the unknown man’s appearance and to some degree conduct. These were speculations, Sammy Nilsson realized, but it still gave him a good picture of the man who so stubbornly lingered by Rosén’s fence.
“If you want to speak with my wife, it’s fine to call her cell phone.”
Sammy Nilsson took out his phone. Luthander very slowly repeated the number digit by digit.
Mrs. Luthander, who introduced herself as Anita, could quite rightly account for the man’s dress: gym shoes, brown pants, and a green jacket that reached to his waist, and under that a dark shirt.
She added something too that Sammy Nilsson found interesting. Right before eight thirty the man disappeared, but Anita Luthander never saw him pass by their house. She thought that was peculiar as it was a dead-end street.
Otherwise she confirmed her husband’s understanding. A foreigner, she summarized her impression.
Sammy thanked her for her help and they ended the conversation. In the meantime Birger Luthander had retrieved his business card, which he handed to Sammy.
Publisher Birger Luthander, PhD, he read on the card.
“What do you publish?”
“Mostly bridge books. Do you play bridge? And then a few odds and ends about scientists who have been wrong but right anyway.”
“That’s an area I’m very familiar with,” said Sammy Nilsson, amused at having met this curious character, partly for the testimony, but also because he helped change his own state of mind for the better.
“That was a thought,” said Birger Luthander and nodded, obviously content, as if he’d gotten an impulse for new writings.
It was four thirty before an initial summary could be made. A group of noticeably restless, tired police officers had gathered. There was starting to be a shortage of prosecutors too, because even if the prosecutor’s office had been spared the stubborn summertime flu that struck the police, several were on vacation and those who were left in the building were all loaded with cases. It was the sanguine Åke Hällström who was assigned the Kumlin murder. And this balanced the gloomy atmosphere somewhat, because even though he too had a heavy workload and was a little confused at the moment, he was endowed with an unusually easygoing temperament for the building.