Ottosson lost himself in revery. Lindell had to laugh.
“I should have known,” she said.
“But I don’t associate Rosenberg with violence and definitely not with big business,” Ottosson resumed.
“Maybe it’s worth checking into anyway,” Lindell said and told him about Liljendahl’s observation that a knife was involved in both cases.
“Well,” Ottosson said, “I think that’s pushing it. We have a lot of conflicts where knives are involved.”
“I’m still going to have someone check up on Rosenberg. In any case, it would be amusing to find out what has made him so conspicuously rich. Have you heard anything about Haver’s excursion to the camping spot by the river?”
“He called and wanted you to call him back.”
“I had my phone turned off at the hospital. What did he say?”
“That the camper may have been our man.”
Lindell hurried to her office and dialed Haver’s number.
He sounded pleased, almost excited, and he had good reason to be. They had most likely located the scene of the crime, a small clearing perhaps some twenty square meters concealed behind a thicket and a large mound of rubble, not visible from the road, perhaps four hundred meters north of the place the body was found, and some one hundred meters from the river.
The technicians had almost immediately isolated samples from the ground of what they believed to be blood, and also traces of what most likely was urine.
Apparently one or more persons had occupied the site for several days. A rectangle of flattened grass suggested the presence of a tent. The surrounding area was trampled, there were broken twigs and the remains of a fire. A veritable feast for the forensic team.
Valdemar Husman, who had alerted the police, had nothing to say about the person or persons who might have been camping. He had only noticed something peeking out of the vegetation, and had assumed it was a tent. He explained that he had not approached it further so as not to appear curious, and not to get “dragged into anything.”
“What did he mean by that?” Lindell asked.
“I don’t know,” Haver answered. “He didn’t say.”
“I mean, did he have a suspicion that something illegal was going on? Did he hear or see anything that appeared suspicious?”
“Neither. He simply didn’t want to get involved.”
“A little more curiosity wouldn’t hurt,” Lindell said. “Will you be there for a while?”
“I don’t know, I don’t have much to do here. Morgansson and the rest are the ones who are busy. They’re thinking of erecting a tarp over the site in case it rains.”
“Okay, but can we hope for a little DNA?”
“Looks like it.”
“Then the question is, what was Armas doing there? Did he go willingly or was he forced?”
“I’ll let you figure that one out,” Haver said.
After she hung up, Ann Lindell sat absolutely still and stared into space.
“Who camps out?” she muttered.
Tourists or young people seemed most likely.
The site was private and probably chosen with care.
“Okay, you come to this city for murky business,” she said out loud. “You are careful not to be seen in a hotel or even at a public campsite. Instead, you camp in the forest, but you are so clumsy you leave a corpse and numerous traces behind.”
She shook her head. Something didn’t make sense.
She went over to Ottosson and recounted what Haver had told her, and added her own thoughts.
“Maybe the perp couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel,” Ottosson said.
“What kind of murderer is that?” Lindell exclaimed.
“Most people don’t stay in hotels,” Ottosson said with a grin.
The rest of the day was spent reviewing the material that had been collected. This had to be done, but above all Lindell felt a need to be alone. More and more she suffered an almost claustrophobic feeling in her dealings with people, whether at work, in meetings at Erik’s day care, or in situations where the room was small and the number of people large.
There were reports from questionings, an initial overview of Slobodan Andersson’s business dealings, and the autopsy report.
Armas’s personal history was still missing. Slobodan Andersson had contributed a part, but much of his early life was still unknown.
Lindell heard Ola Haver return, and could hear him and Fredriksson chatting in the corridor. Her thoughts went to Berglund. She decided to wait until the following day. If he didn’t come in to work she would call him at home.
Twenty-Eight
The call was received at two twenty-two in the afternoon. The fire-fighting unit at the Viktoria fire station, just east of the city, arrived on the scene seven minutes later, but at that point there was not much more to do other than keeping the fire from spreading into the adjacent areas.
The closest neighbor, who had discovered the fire when he returned from a mushroom-picking trip in the forest, had hauled his garden hose over, which did not reach more than halfway. If he pinched the nozzle, however, he was able to drizzle water onto the shed.
The firefighters thanked him for his efforts but then asked him to move out of the way.
“Do you know if there are people inside?” the fire chief asked him.
“I don’t think so,” the neighbor said.
The cottage, which had been constructed with sugar crates, burned down in about twenty minutes. The shed was saved but a shower of sparks lit a few fires at the edge of the woods. These were quickly extinguished.
“Just as well that piece of shit burns down,” the neighbor said and gathered up his hose, “but it’s lucky it didn’t explode. I think they have kerosene in there.”
The fire chief reacted immediately by ordering all onlookers to stand at least one hundred meters back. He physically shoved the neighbor away and did not let him collect his hose.
“How fucking stupid can you be?” he said to his coworker.
The patrol unit, which had arrived ten minutes after the firefighters, went around methodically questioning the onlookers who were gathered in a group on the road. No one turned out to have any useful information to contribute that could explain how the fire had started. No one had seen or heard anything. People rarely came out to the cottage. No one was sure who owned it.
“It must be one of the dynamiter’s sons,” an older man said. “The Rosenbergs, there are quite a number of them. Try Åke, I think he’s the oldest.”
“Have you seen him here lately?” the police officer asked.
“He came out when the chimney sweep was here, but that was at least a year ago. We exchanged a few words. He’s in the explosives business, just like his father.”
The fire chief walked up and took the police officer aside.
“It’s arson,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Fairly. The house isn’t wired so it can’t be electric. And we saw a ten-liter container in there. We haven’t checked it carefully yet because it has to cool down first. Apparently there’s a kerosene tank in there. That’s what the neighbor thought. But the container was the first thing we saw. It was located in full view on the metal plate in front of the woodstove.
“Could it be someone who simply wanted to start a fire in a hurry?”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” the chief said, “but why start a fire in this weather?”
“To put on a pot of coffee?”
“According to the neighbor they cooked on a kerosene stove.”
The officer nodded.
“I’ll call forensics,” he said. “Are you sure no one was left in there?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think so.”