Eva watched them from the kitchen window. Helen walked with long strides while Emil shuffled across the yard.
“Throw him out,” Eva repeated quietly to herself.
Twenty-Seven
Three days after Armas’s murder, Valdemar Husman called the police information line. He had found a note on his door in Lugnet urging him to contact the police.
He was immediately connected to Lindell. There were several others to choose from, but Gunnel Brodd in the call center and Ann Lindell knew each other well. They were both from the same region, Lindell from Ödeshög and Gunnel Brodd from Linköping. Sometimes they socialized. Like Lindell, Gunnel was a single mother, so they both belonged to a sisterhood that spanned both a longing for as well as the desire to circumvent the need for men.
“It’s about the murder, isn’t it?”
“I see,” Lindell said noncommittally, and her thoughts went to Viola in Gräsö. The man had a similar dialect.
“There was a note on the door when I got home, I imagine it has to do with the murder.”
“I see, in that case I understand, you live in the area. Yes, we wanted to get in touch with everyone who may have seen or heard anything.”
“Well, I don’t know,” the man said. “I have been away. I left the day before the murder. To my brother in Fagervik. I stay there when I service my clients.”
Valdemar Husman was a blacksmith with roots in northern Uppland who had moved to Uppsala a year ago.
“For love,” he said with a bittersweet chuckle.
He immersed himself in a discussion of how difficult it was to build up a new clientele. Lindell sensed he might have been more positive if his “love” had worked out better.
But he had been able to retain his clients in his former area and so three or four times a year he would “do the rounds” and spend the night at his brother’s house.
“Did you notice anything unusual before you traveled to north Uppland?” Lindell said, jumping into his tirade, sensing that there was something here.
“Some devil camped out below my house, but now when I went down there and checked, he was gone.”
After they finished the conversation, Lindell went to see Ola Haver, who was sitting in his office, busy consolidating all the alibis for the employees at Dakar and Alhambra.
“I’m glad you came by,” he said as she sat down across from him.
“You are driving up to Lugnet,” Lindell informed him.
She would have liked to do it herself but had decided to pay another visit to the hospital. She didn’t really want to, but knew that if she hesitated any longer she would never get around to it. Maybe they would send Viola home first.
She told him what Valdemar Husman had seen. It could turn out to be nothing more than a harmless tourist who wanted to avoid the camping fee, some teenagers taking advantage of the last warm spell of summer, or perhaps an infatuated couple seeking privacy, but this lead had to be followed up. It was actually the only thing so far of any substance.
“Take Morgansson or one of the other technicians with you.”
Haver looked up at the mention of Morgansson’s name, but Lindell pretended not to notice his gaze, continuing on without an outward sign. Morgansson was a completed chapter.
“Husman is at home. Get in touch with him and pick a time,” she said, completely unnecessarily in order to conceal her irritation.
This time she was not going to hesitate, she was going to march straight into Viola’s room and wake her up if need be.
But Ann Lindell never got that far. When the elevator door slid open in the 70 building of the Akademiska Hospital, Barbro Liljendahl walked out.
She had been to visit Olle Sidström, the man who had been stabbed in Sävja, and conducted follow-up questioning. He was not suspected of anything, or rather, Barbro Liljendahl could easily suspect him of a million crimes, but this time he happened to be the victim.
She looked quizzically at Ann Lindell.
“Are you also going to talk to Sidström?”
She couldn’t help but feel a sting of irritation.
“No,” Lindell explained, equally surprised to bump into someone from work, “I’m here to see a good friend. I had a couple of minutes to spare.”
Liljendahl nodded and then looked doubtfully at Lindell.
“I was thinking of something,” she said. “Sidström was stabbed and you have a stabbing homicide, don’t you? It was done with a knife, wasn’t it?”
Lindell nodded and understood where she was going with this.
“Could there be a connection?” Liljendahl continued.
Lindell hesitated for a split second.
“Do you have time? We could have a quick cup of coffee and talk about it.”
They sat down in a corner of the cafeteria on the ground level. Two tables away there was an older couple, the man wearing hospital clothing and the woman palpably concerned that he drink all his juice.
“You need liquids,” she said.
The man shook his head but picked up the glass and took a sip.
Both policewomen observed the couple for a while before they quietly began to talk.
Liljendahl told her about her case, how Sidström had been assaulted, without prior provocation, according to him. He had been in Sävja to take a look around, as he put it, because he was thinking of moving there. He was currently living in Svartbäcken.
He had only a diffuse memory of the events. He could not give a description or age of the person who stabbed him, he could also not recall if it had been one or more persons involved. This was not unheard of in these circumstances, but Liljendahl did not believe him.
“I think he knows the perp and does not want to reveal his identity,” she said. “He lies constantly and has done so his entire life. His list of priors is three pages long. Mostly drug-related offenses but even assault and exhortation. A little shit.
“On the other hand we have witnesses, primarily a couple who were barbecuing on their patio about fifty meters away, who saw three, perhaps four young men attack him. They appeared to have been involved in a loud discussion before the knife came out, but Sidström denies this.”
“Any suspects?”
“We have a very likely suspect, a young guy who goes by the name of Zero. He’s laying low but will probably turn up soon. His mother, and above all his brothers, are insanely angry. They have mobilized the entire clan in order to find him.
“They are Turkish or Kurdish,” she added when she saw Lindell’s expression.
“Do you have any reason to suspect that Sidström was in Sävja with criminal intent?” Lindell asked, and was struck by the officious tone of her own words.
“Drugs,” Liljendahl said simply. “Most likely cocaine. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but this town is swimming in cocaine. In the past, cocaine was a trendy drug that did not appear on the street. It gives a similar kick to an amphetamine but is more expensive. The usual drug users choose amphetamines. But now the tide appears to have turned. I think the supply has increased and driven down the price.”
“How much does it cost?” Lindell asked.
“A gram goes for around eight hundred kronor. That is enough for ten doses. Amphetamines cost around two hundred.”
“Isn’t cocaine what they chew in South Africa?”
“Yes, the leaves, but that’s mostly to be able to bear the work and the cold. Haven’t you seen those pictures of Bolivian miners?”
Lindell hadn’t, but she nodded anyway.
“And you believe there’s a possible connection with the homicide?”
“Knife and knife,” Liljendahl said.
Lindell sipped her coffee. The doughnut she had bought lay untouched. It probably wouldn’t taste as good as Ottosson’s. Of course, she thought, there was something to what her colleague was saying. Knives were not exactly unusual, but two incidents so close in time, perhaps…