‘This isn’t like Mister Seven,’ he said. ‘Septimus, in other words. We call him Seven, since that’s what his name means in Latin,’ he explained, at the same time shaking his head to emphasize what he said. ‘He hasn’t missed a day since he started working here, and that’s eighteen months ago now.’
‘What’s he like as a person?’ Annika Carlsson asked, in spite of the promise she had made five minutes before.
‘Brilliant,’ his boss said. ‘Excellent cyclist, in great shape, always happy to take on a job, even if the roads are like a winter rally circuit out there. Honest, decent, good with customers. Loads of energy. Cares about the environment. That’s important here. We’re big on that. Everyone who works here has to care about the environment.’
‘So what do you think has happened?’ Felicia Pettersson asked. I’m the one asking the questions here, she thought.
‘It must have something to do with that damn murder. Maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have. At worst, someone might have wanted him out of the way. That’s what the talk round here is saying, anyway.’
‘Did he seem at all worried when he got here on Thursday?’
‘No. He didn’t really want to talk about it. Everyone kept asking him, of course. I mean, how often do you come across a body that’s just been murdered? It’s never happened to me, anyway,’ Jensa said, polishing his glasses agitatedly. ‘Nor to anyone else working here, or anyone I know. And then he just disappears. That’s got to be too much of a coincidence. In terms of the timing, I mean.’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Felicia said. ‘Who was his best friend here at work?’
‘Lawman,’ Jensa said. ‘Nisse Munck. A law student. His dad’s supposed to be some hotshot lawyer. He’s here now, by the way. Sitting down in the basement, polishing his own racing bike. He rides in races. Mind you, he isn’t exactly Girot or Touren, if you ask me,’ Jensa said, lowering his voice. ‘Would you like to talk to him?’
‘Please,’ Felicia said. ‘If he can spare the time out of the saddle.’
Lawman was remarkably similar to his boss, complete with glasses and all, and apart from his long, muscular legs, he didn’t look much like a professional racer.
‘Of course I asked,’ Lawman said. ‘Criminal law’s my thing. I’m going to set up my own practice doing that as soon as I’ve graduated. Criminal case lawyer, own firm,’ Lawman clarified.
‘What did he say, then?’ Felicia Pettersson asked.
‘Said he didn’t want to talk about it,’ Lawman said. ‘I can understand that. Can’t have been nice. I went online and looked as soon as I got home on Thursday — it sounds like a whole chainsaw-massacre thing. Well, they mentioned an ax in the article.’
‘But the two of you didn’t talk about what he’d been through?’ Annika Carlsson repeated.
‘I tried,’ Lawman said. ‘Mister Seven didn’t want to talk. Okay, okay. Work to do. New jobs all the time. And we don’t exactly ride tandems here, you know?’
‘That was all?’ Annika Carlsson nodded to him.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘He didn’t say anything else? Didn’t ask anything?’
‘Now that you come to mention it,’ Lawman said. ‘He did have one question. It was just before I went home. It was a bit of a weird question, but everyone here asks me stuff all the time.’
‘What, about legal matters?’ Felicia said.
‘Yes,’ Lawman said with a nod. ‘Never-ending unpaid consultations. Mostly family law. What happens if my girlfriend kicks me out into the street and my name’s not on the lease? What about the fridge we paid for together? That sort of thing. Even though I keep telling them that criminal law’s my thing.’
‘The weird question?’ Felicia reminded him.
‘He asked about the right of self-defense,’ Lawman said. ‘What it was like in Sweden if someone attacked you and you tried to defend yourself. How far you could go, basically.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘First I told him it was a fucking weird question. Then I asked if Seven had beaten the old guy to death because he attacked him for giving him the wrong paper or something. Some customers go a bit far sometimes. But that wasn’t it. Seven told me to lay off all that kind of thing. Nothing like that. No way,’ Lawman said.
‘Do you remember what his exact words were?’ Felicia persisted.
‘How far you have the right to go. Suppose someone tried to kill you. Did that give you the right to kill them? That was pretty much it.’
‘And what did you say in response?’ Annika Carlsson repeated.
‘Yes. And no. You should know this, shouldn’t you? The right to use the level of force motivated by the danger posed by the attack. Plus the extra force necessary to disarm your opponent. I told him he could forget doing anything else. Like that extra kick just for the hell of it when your attacker’s already on the ground.’
‘Did you get the impression that Seven was asking on his own account? That he had ever been the victim of an attack?’ Annika Carlsson asked.
‘Are you kidding?’ Lawman said. ‘Seven grew up in Somalia. The victim of an attack? Take a look at the Internet. Welcome to planet earth, officer.’
‘I mean here in Sweden,’ Annika Carlsson clarified. ‘Had he been the victim of an attack in Sweden?’
‘Yes, I asked him that,’ Lawman said. ‘He denied it categorically, as I’ve already said. Apart from all the racists that someone like Seven has to put up with, of course. Send idiots like that back to live in their cozy Nordic caves, if you want to know what I think.’
‘Did you get the impression that he was asking on someone else’s behalf?’ Felicia Pettersson asked.
‘I didn’t ask him that, actually,’ Lawman said. ‘Considering what he’d been through that morning, I suppose it wasn’t really that weird. The fact that I assumed he was talking about himself, I mean. That’s wasn’t weird, was it?’
‘No, definitely not,’ Felicia said with a smile.
After that they had left. Jensa had followed them onto the street and had thus given Annika Carlsson an unsought opportunity to live up to her reputation in the Solna police station.
‘Talking about caring about the environment,’ Carlsson said. ‘What do you think would happen if you tried to get past here on the pavement with a pushchair?’
‘Fixed, fixed, I’ll sort it,’ Jensa said, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘Good,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I’ll expect it to be next time we come by.’
‘How do we interpret this, then? That business of his question about self-defense?’ Felicia said. ‘The plot thickens, Detective Inspector. It’s high time to enlighten a younger colleague.’
‘The fact that Danielsson died the evening before Akofeli found him is quite clear,’ Annika Carlsson said.
‘The coroner,’ Felicia agreed with a nod.
‘Not just that,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I was there at seven o’clock, and Niemi and Chico hadn’t arrived by then, so I took the opportunity to touch him.’
‘Tut, tut,’ Felicia said, smiling broadly. ‘No looking with your fingers. My lecturer in forensics was always going on about that when I was training.’
‘Must have forgotten that,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘Anyway, I was wearing gloves.’
‘And?’
‘He was stiff as a board,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘So I have no quarrel with our medical friends at all. Not this time. We’re in complete agreement.’
‘Right, then,’ Felicia said. ‘What do you think about getting a bite to eat before heading out to Rinkeby? There’s a decent sushi bar in the Solna shopping center.’