Women were good at keeping track of the dead as well as the living and there was always the chance that someone would turn up when the two murder victims were buried. Ann decided to attend the funeral services. She did not expect they would be very large.
If there was a connection between the two murders she was not yet able to see it. But she was convinced the connection lay in their lives, perhaps far back in time. Two farmers are not murdered by accident within two days of each other, not in Ann Lindell’s book.
She did not feel optimistic but still more confident than before. Perhaps it was the chat with Sund or the fact that she had now poured herself her second glass of wine that meant the outlook appeared brighter.
She studied the bottle’s label that showed a hilly landscape dotted with grapevines snaking up the slopes. In the background there was a castle with turrets and spires.
“From shed to castle,” she muttered.
When Ann Lindell crawled into bed she was slightly dizzy. Two glasses of wine were enough. The pillow felt like a dear friend and the warm blanket like a desired lover.
Thirteen
It was reading hour at the Homicide Division, something both funny and frightening.
Upsala Nya Tidning had headlined their first page with the news of the second murder in as many days. They had managed to interview the nearest neighbor who described Jan-Elis Andersson as an “honorable man.”
“It’s an ‘honor’ killing,” Ola Haver said.
Expressen did its bit by dubbing this the work of the “Country Butcher.” They had even managed to get a statement from the Federation of Swedish Farmers’ chairman, who was not, however, particularly concerned. Apart from that the papers were full of bloodthirstiness and “revelations.”
“She lives more than a thousand kilometers from here,” Berglund said and pointed at a photograph of the head of the farmers’ association. “Of course she’s not particularly worried.”
“A chairman of the Federation lives at least a thousand kilometers from all farmers,” Sammy Nilsson said. “Especially from guys like Blomgren and Andersson.”
Aftonbladet had also jumped on the theory about a serial killer. A well-known criminologist had expounded in its pages with customary verbosity and gave an account of experiences from the United States. What this had to do with Uppsala was not clear. Dagens Nyheter had managed to mix up the pictures of Blomgren and Andersson’s houses.
“That one,” Ottosson said bitterly. He had bumped into the expert and had formed his opinion. Ann Lindell walked in with the chief of the crime information service, stepping right into the charged feeling that the assembled daily papers managed to create in the morning. They chatted almost cheerily. The rest looked up. Sammy Nilsson grinned.
“Have you been to the movies again?” he asked Lindell, who ignored him. She knew that was often the best tack.
Ola Haver pushed the stack of papers away.
“Should we get going?”
Ottosson started as usual with a brief overview of the situation in the city and also dutifully came with a report of the Tierp area. This consisted of a violent perpetrator who had smashed a couple of cars and then taken off in his own vehicle in a southerly direction, most likely under the influence of some kind of pills. According to their colleagues in Tierp the man was considered dangerous.
Berglund sighed. Ottosson glanced up from his papers.
“Okay,” he said, “now we leave all dangerous Tierpians. Question number one: do we believe in a connection?”
“Yes,” Lindell said firmly and argued according to the thoughts she had had the night before. “We have to bore back through time,” she said in conclusion and looked at Sammy Nilsson.
“The country division,” Berglund said, when Sammy didn’t react.
“Nada,” Sammy said. “Both of them are former farmers. Blomgren on a smaller scale, back in the day he was a dairy farmer with a small stock of animals, de-registered as a supplier of animals at the end of the seventies, continued to cultivate grain for livestock feed but then stopped completely. Worked a lot on the side. Fredriksson knows more about this. Jan-Elis Andersson’s farm was a little bigger, about sixty hectares, most of it grazing for his and others’ animals. Dairy cows but also in later years beef cattle and even horses. He rented out stalls and supplied the feed.”
“Does he still have any animals?” the head of KUT, the Criminal Information Service, asked.
“Only a cat. The neighbor is taking care of it. Both of them sold their land. Andersson was in fairly good financial shape with close to half a million in the bank plus a few shares and bonds.”
“Who stands to inherit?”
“A niece, Lovisa Sundberg, in Umeå. Married to an architect.”
“Have we made contact with her?”
The KUT director’s questions rolled out like a string of pearls and created a song of harmonious alternating parts between him and Sammy Nilsson.
“Sure, the Umeå colleagues have talked to her. She’s in shock, but collected, they say. She was still up north as of yesterday.”
“And the architect?”
“On a business trip to Stockholm. I’m sorry but he was sitting in a meeting from eight thirty in an office on Kungsholmen.”
“When do farmers eat breakfast?” Berglund asked quietly.
Sammy Nilsson chuckled.
“That depends,” he said. “Now, Andersson had no animals to take care of so it could have been any time, but in his case probably on the early side.”
“Can the architect have killed him and then driven to his meeting?”
“He had breakfast at Hotell Tegnér at seven. I’ve talked to the staff.”
“Good,” Lindell said with emphasis and Sammy gave her a quick look before going on.
“It also turns out he’s confined to a wheelchair.”
Allan Fredriksson continued the proceedings by giving an account of Petrus Blomgren’s various jobs and earnings. The farm had initially been the center of his finances but its importance had gradually diminished. It appeared that he had not at first realized that a farm of thirty hectares isn’t a particularly good affair. His last years as an active farmer were the most meager. Since he started working at Nylander’s Construction and took extra jobs in the forest the picture changed dramatically, or so Blomgren must have felt, Fredriksson conjectured.
“He doubled his taxable income in a couple of years. The deposits to his savings account increased. He had money to spare. I have tried to map out his professional life to see if there was anything out of the ordinary but I can’t find anything. Blomgren kept on going, living a retiring and calm existence, no trouble with the authorities.”
Fredriksson flipped through his notes. Ottosson glanced at Lindell and smiled. Subdued meetings and proceedings were the chief’s specialty. In this territory he moved with a lightness that came as a surprise to the occasional outsider. Ottosson had a rare ability to create comfort and an unforced feeling of unpretentiousness.
“His time as a carpenter does not leave any visible tracks,” Fredriksson continued when he had found the right paper, “except for an injury in the fall of ’ninety-one. He falls from a scaffold and splits his spleen.”
Berglund sighed.
“I’ve talked with two men who used to work with him. They describe Blomgren as being extremely timid. Except for being very punctual and hardworking he didn’t make much of an impression. He claimed to only have been drunk once in his life. He had spent a week in Spain-Mallorca, the men thought it was.”