A stranger was sitting in the kitchen. Eva did not like the look of him. He reminded her of a gangster she had seen in an American movie that she and Helen had rented on videocassette. He looked up and glanced at her briefly. There was nothing to focus on in his expressionless eyes.
“Hello,” she said, and gave Feo a little shove.
“This is Manuel, but I call him Mano,” Feo said. “La mano, the hand, who will help us with the dishes.”
“Okay,” Eva said and nodded to the newcomer.
“You’ll have to speak Spanish or English. He’s from Venezuela.”
“Venezuela,” she said.
She thought of the article about sailing in the Caribbean and took a closer look at him. He also emanated a sense of sorrow. Not an outwardly lamented sorrow but a tightly compacted, almost cramplike, grief. The clenched hands resting in his lap and the watchful eyes gave the impression of a man who, at the least sign of concern or danger, would jump up and run out of the kitchen.
Eva suddenly felt ill at ease. What was he doing at Dakar? Was he an old friend of Feo’s?
“If Slobban agrees, that is,” Feo added.
Donald came in from the bar at that moment, a bottle of mineral water in his hand.
“I can hire him,” he said, “and that lying poodle can go fuck himself. We need more people, damn it, we’re drowning.”
“You have the job,” Feo said in Spanish, gave a triumphant smile, winked at Eva and shrugged.
Manuel stood up.
“Where should I work?”
“There,” Donald suddenly said in Spanish, and pointed. “Feo will show you how it works. Learn it now and then come back at half past six. Understand?”
Manuel nodded.
“So you speak Spanish,” Feo said. “I didn’t know.”
“I’ve worked in Majorca,” Donald answered.
Feo and Manuel went over to the dishwashing station. Eva looked at them. It was clear that Feo liked his role as adviser. The newcomer received the information attentively but without a word, nodding and then repeating mechanically what Feo said.
“He’ll do fine,” Feo said when he returned to the kitchen area.
Slobodan Andersson wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Damn, it’s hot,” he breathed.
No one had seen or heard him come in. He had simply materialized in the kitchen. He had entered Dakar through the staff entrance, the same way Manuel had left the restaurant some moments earlier.
Donald informed him that he had hired a dishwasher who would be able to jump in for a couple of hours every evening.
“It won’t work, otherwise. Tessie and Eva can’t run around like antelopes between the dining room and the dishes and the rest of us don’t have time, just so you know.”
Surprisingly, his boss had no objections.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it will be fine,” he said, and fingered a stack of plates. “Have the cops been here?”
“They’re clean,” Donald said.
Slobodan looked up, opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind and removed his hand from the china.
“If the cops return I want to be informed immediately,” he said.
“Have you heard anything new?” Feo asked.
“They make me damn nervous, those pigs,” Slobodan lashed out. “Why the hell can’t they leave me in peace!”
He stalked out of the kitchen and they heard him yell at Måns in the bar, who was often the one who bore the brunt of his temper.
Everyone was surprised at Slobodan’s lack of interest in the kitchen situation. Even if it had been Armas who made the final decision when it came to new hires, Slobodan had always wanted to have his say. But now it seemed that their boss did not have the curiosity or stamina to summon sufficient interest.
Forty-One
Lindell had chosen a black dress and a cropped white jacket.
“Let the sleuthing begin,” Görel said, when they met up on the main square.
Lindell had picked up Erik at day care and driven him directly to Görel’s sister’s house, where Erik was going to spend the night. Then she had driven home to change.
The rain came without warning. It poured down and splashed over the streets.
“Where did the clouds come from?” Görel said, perplexed.
Ann Lindell stared at the sky. They had taken shelter in a doorway on Svartbäcksgatan.
The shower stopped as abruptly as it had started. Uncertain as to whether they could trust in the powers above, they half-ran down the street.
As they drew closer to Dakar, and the sun peeked out from between the clouds, they slowed down and adopted a leisurely pace.
Lindell had said nothing to Görel about her reasons for the visit, but she was sure that her friend understood that there were hidden motives for Lindell’s generous proposition.
“I’m paying, just so you know,” Lindell repeated as they entered the restaurant.
“Sure,” Görel said. “I have no problem with that.”
The dining room was half full. A waitress approached them as soon as they came in and showed them to a table by the window. Lindell looked around.
“The sleuthing starts right away,” Görel observed.
At the very back of the room, partly concealed by a pillar, there was a man who immediately attracted Lindell’s interest. She let her gaze brush past him and then she pulled the menu that the waitress had provided toward her.
“I’m having lamb,” Görel said without prompting. “I have it so rarely.”
Lindell studied the menu and tried to recall where she had seen the man before. She knew that she had encountered him in the world of law enforcement but could not place the face.
“What are you going to have?”
“I don’t know,” Lindell said, not feeling particularly hungry. “Fish… maybe the Zander.”
The waitress returned and took their drink orders. Lindell kept herself to light beer, while Görel asked for a glass of white wine. She immediately took a long sip.
Lindell leaned forward. The man had leaned back and was now almost completely blocked by the pillar. Suddenly she got it. He was a fellow criminal investigator from Västerås: Axel Lindman, and they had met at a function at the Police Academy some six months or so ago.
“Have you zeroed in on someone?” Görel inquired, having noted Lindell’s distractedness.
“No, it’s just a colleague who tried to pick me up at a workshop.”
“You mean the guy in the dark blue suit and yellow tie, the one drinking red wine?” Görel asked.
Lindell gave Görel a quizzical look.
“He looks nice enough. He came on to you? And you froze up like an ice queen, of course. Is he married?” Görel watched the man discreetly, as she sipped a little more wine.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then there’s nothing to hold you back, is there?”
“He’s not my type.” Lindell did not like the turn their conversation had taken.
“Cheers,” she said and raised her glass.
Görel drank more wine, found that she had finished her glass, but continued unabashedly.
“And what exactly is your type? Don’t say Edvard, because I’ll throw up. Can’t you stop thinking about that country bumpkin once and for all?”
She had raised her voice and the couple at the next table looked up with interest.
“He’s lumbering around on Gräsö Island with a ninety-year-old crone,” Görel said, raising her glass as a signal to their waitress to bring another before she went on. “He is and always will be a boring old fart. It was amusing and charming several years ago, but you are living here and now. There are loads of great men, including that cutie over there for starters, but you’re clinging to the memory of a socially handicapped bumpkin. It’s pathetic!”