“What kind of work do you do?”
“Air traffic controller.”
“You’re used to details,” said Lindell, and smiled back. “You can’t miss anything.”
“That’s how it is. For me the human factor doesn’t exist.”
“It was nice to meet you,” said Lindell, extending her hand. “Although the circumstances could have been better.”
“It doesn’t feel good, I mean this,” he said, taking her hand in a slightly awkward motion and throwing out his other arm.
After a period of silence Ynvge Sandman tried to smile again, but it was more like a grimace.
Lindell sensed that he was a man without great pretensions, a man who did not let himself be surprised, whose equanimity would not be disturbed too easily. She sensed the equanimity was acquired, perhaps even forced. For behind his tinkering and berry picking she sensed a very lonely person.
And now that balance had been disturbed. A girl’s disappearance worried him, that was clear, but what exactly was going on in the man’s mind she obviously did not know.
They separated, walking to their cars. Lindell raised her hand as she drove away. He remained standing outside his car, peering along the road, and did not appear to see her greeting.
Stone dead for centuries, thought Lindell, and then comes a whole swarm of men. He had hit on her, it was quite clear: single, children moved out, a hint of solid finances, and an honorable job. And then a comment about the windmill that showed a romantic side. Yngve Sandman was no tough guy; he maintained a hideous windmill for sentimental reasons.
But he was right, if their procedures functioned then perhaps the disappearance would have been solved. If it really was Klara Lovisa he had seen. And Ann Lindell was becoming more and more convinced of that as she drove at a slow pace back toward the city.
In line with Berthåga she got an impulse to turn and drive to the home of Klara Lovisa’s parents. Her mother was probably home. She had been on sick leave from her job at the Swedish Medicines Agency since the disappearance.
But she continued toward the city. Before she visited them again she should refresh her memory, go through some of the many interviews that were filed in binders piled in her office.
Over 150 interviews had been conducted during April and May to try to chart the girl’s life, contact points, and movements during the time before she disappeared.
Perhaps in the binders there would be a single sheet of paper that might tell about a blond, young man wearing jeans and a dark-blue jacket with a hood. A man who made Klara Lovisa abandon the thought of buying a spring jacket and instead lured her out of town.
Six
Beatrice Andersson had never seen a T-shirt that stained. It had once been white but was now covered with spots. She could not keep from staring. A dark whirl of hair stuck out at the chest. When he took hold of the T-shirt and pulled it away from his substantial stomach to study the variety of colors for himself, she observed that the man also had hair on the back of his hand and fingers.
Göran Bergman laughed.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “If you’re selling laundry detergent you’ve come to the right place. Solvent would be even better.”
There was a pungent odor coming from the apartment, mixed with the smell of coffee.
She introduced herself and asked if he had time for a brief conversation.
“Sure,” he said. “It’s time for a coffee break anyway.”
He stepped to the side and let her into the apartment. On the floor below the coat rack, which held only two garments, was a wastebasket, a bucket of kitchen scraps, three pairs of shoes, all heavy work shoes, and a pair of sandals.
He pushed the wastebasket to the side.
“I’m in the middle of painting,” he said with his back to her, disappearing into the kitchen just to the right. “You don’t need to take off your shoes!”
Beatrice Andersson followed. The kitchen was small and dominated by an easel. The half-finished painting depicted a forest glade.
“Okay, and what does the police department want with someone like me?” he said, taking out two mugs and pouring coffee without ceremony.
“Fresh brewed,” he said. “Sit yourself down! Is this about the car? Has someone burned up my car?”
“You haven’t read the newspaper?”
Göran Bergman shook his head.
“It got too expensive, and there’s just a lot of crap in it anyway.”
She took a sip of coffee and waited until he sat down across from her.
“I don’t have good news. Your friend Bo Gränsberg was found dead yesterday. I’m sorry.”
Bergman slowly lowered the mug and stared at her.
“I see, he couldn’t take it anymore,” said Bergman.
“He didn’t die by his own hand,” said Beatrice.
“Someone killed him?”
“Yes, it’s that bad.”
Beatrice told how and where Bo Gränsberg was found.
“How did you find me?”
“His ex-wife said that you and Bo got together.”
Göran Bergman nodded. He fixed his eyes on the painting.
“He liked that, although it’s ugly as sin. I thought about giving it to him.”
“Where would he hang it up?” Beatrice asked.
Bergman gave her a look of surprise.
“You worked together?”
“Yes, for many years. He was the best. We were the best, that’s how it was! Damn it, we were the fastest and the safest scaffolders in town.”
“But then he injured himself?”
“Yes, so fucking stupid. And here I sit with damaged legs. Did you ever hear the like, I’m forty-eight and my knees are shot.”
“What were the two of you up to?”
“I see, Gunilla gossiped,” said Bergman with a crooked smile, and started to tell her.
The idea was that the two old workmates would start a company, scaffolding construction, of course, but other things too. What the “other things” might include was not clear from Bergman’s exposition. He thought they had the know-how and the contacts, plus a solid reputation, even though Bosse’s was somewhat tarnished, but no one could take from him the almost twenty years he had worked in construction and on building facades.
They could no longer perform the purely physical aspect, erecting the scaffolding, but Bergman thought-and Beatrice had no reason to doubt him-they could organize the work like nobody else. They knew all the tricks, they had a good sense of people and a realistic picture of what the job involved.
How much of a problem do I have with construction workers, wondered Beatrice. When she dropped off Haver at the police building and said she was thinking about visiting Bergman alone, he asked how much she knew about construction workers. As if he was an expert, simply because his father had been in the industry. She was well aware of his father’s reputation and above all his early, unpleasant death, and for that reason she did not say anything. Everyone on the squad knew that this was a sensitive chapter in their associate’s life, something he was still wrestling with after all these years. There was no reason to add to his burden, but she felt a certain sense of triumph in having gotten Bergman to talk so freely.
Because Bergman was talking away. It seemed as if he had repressed the thought of his friend’s death, and everything sounded to Beatrice very intelligent and thought out. They had done what many others who were going to start a new business did not have the sense to do, that is, market research. Bergman had called around and personally visited thirty or so “actors on the market,” as he put it, the majority of them, if not acquaintances, known from before anyway.
“Capital,” Beatrice interrupted the torrent of words.
Bergman abruptly fell silent, but recovered fairly quickly.
“Exactly,” he said with emphasis. “Cash is required, not enormous amounts, but still.”