“What does he want?” Ottosson asked.
“To claim his inheritance, I’d say, even if he did also seem genuinely griefstruck. He returned several times to the question of how Armas had died. And then he wanted to talk to Slobodan. They had never met but Anthony knew that Armas and Slobodan had worked together for many years. Maybe he thought Armas owned part of the restaurants, what do I know?”
“Has he been to Mexico?”
Lindell felt as if she was at a press conference, where the questions came from all directions. This time it was Bea.
“Several times. He said that if you live in southern California you often travel down to what he called ‘Basha.’”
“Ba-ha,” Haver corrected.
“Ba-ha,” Lindell repeated in an exaggerated way, and then went on. “Wild had never been to Guadalajara or our friend the tattoo artist, and he did not know that Armas and Slobodan had been to Mexico.”
“How did he find out Armas was dead?”
“Through the film company. We made several inquiries with them and then we mentioned Armas’s death in order to create more urgency for them to give us a name.”
“Is he trustworthy?” Ottosson asked.
“He appeared honest to me. A little flaky, maybe. Not a wholesome person, as you would put it, Otto, but…”
“He’s an actor,” Sammy Nilsson reminded them.
“Does it make your mouth water?” Fredriksson asked.
Everyone looked at him in astonishment. It was a Sammy-comment that he had made and nothing that one would expect of someone normally so rigid about moral topics, and predictably enough he blushed deeply at his own spontaneous remark.
“Sure,” Sammy said, “with a delicious morsel like that around, of course I get a little peckish.”
Everyone laughed except Bea.
They continued to talk for a while longer. Naturally they would question Anthony Wild several more times. He was planning to remain in town for at least a week in order to go through Armas’s apartment and take care of the legal aspects of the inheritance. He was also going to visit Dakar and Alhambra to see the places where his father had worked. In addition, he had requested to visit the scene where his father had been killed.
They did not know if he would obtain permission to meet Slobodan, but Ottosson could not see any obstacles. There was a legitimate and reasonable interest on the part of the son to speak with the murdered father’s best friend, even if the latter was being held under arrest for a drug crime.
Ann Lindell withdrew to her office. The conversation with Armas’s son had at first made her hopeful and then increasingly disappointed. Anthony Wild’s tactfully formulated and yet clearly stated critical comment about the murderer still remaining at large had struck her with unexpected force. All technical evidence, DNA, fingerprints, and tire marks were there. They had skillfully unraveled the question of the tattoo’s removal and clarified the Mexican connection. With the Mexican’s existence revealed, and now also documented on the Norrtälje prison’s videotape, she had assumed that Manuel Alavez would quickly be caught.
He had all the odds against him, and yet he was still at large. It contradicted all logic. Manuel Alavez was a statistical abnormality, a relationship that was strengthened when Patricio Alavez escaped and most likely joined forces with his brother.
Lindell had difficulties evaluating the find of the car in Rotebro. It was natural to dump the car that Alavez most likely understood was hot, but how were they getting around now? Assuming they even had any plans, what were they? To leave the country? But how and when? Patricio had no passport and both brothers were wanted in all of Europe.
Her chain of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Yes!” she called out, more loudly and harshly than she had intended.
Ottosson opened the door a crack.
“The operation was a success,” he said.
It took a while until she realized he meant Berglund.
“Come in!”
Ottosson stepped inside, sat down, and told her that Berglund’s brain tumor had turned out to be benign and easy to remove. Berglund’s wife had called from the hospital.
“Thank God!” Lindell exclaimed. “Finally some good news.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Ottosson said, who had grown teary by his own words.
Sixty-Six
Manuel and Patricio were awakened by a thud and they sat up at the same moment, as if synchronized.
“What was it?”
“I don’t know,” Manuel said.
Outside the narrow window just under the ceiling, they heard shouting and angry voices. Manuel got up.
“It’s the police,” Patricio cried.
“Keep quiet!”
Manuel fetched the only chair in the room and placed it under the window that was covered with a black piece of fabric. He climbed up and started to pick away at the tape at the edge of the cloth.
“No,” Patricio said, terrified, “they’ll shoot you.”
“I have to see what it is,” Manuel said, lifting a corner and trying to peer through the dusty glass.
“I see some legs,” he whispered.
“Are they in uniform?”
“Don’t think so.”
At that moment the window was struck by a projectile and the glass shattered. Manuel instinctively dived onto the floor. Tear gas was his first thought. The voices outside died down. A piece of glass that had caught on the fabric trembled before it fell to the floor with a clinking sound.
Patricio and Manuel stared bewitched at the window. The cloth fluttered in a sudden breeze.
What were they waiting for? Manuel wondered. No gas was spreading in the basement, the voices outside were quiet and no sounds were heard from the other side of the door.
Manuel pulled over his bag and took out the pistol he had taken from Armas’s lifeless hand. Patricio stared at the weapon.
“You’re armed?”
“Keep quiet,” Manuel barked.
Suddenly they heard a laugh and someone screamed in a high voice. Manuel climbed back up on the chair and moved the fabric aside.
“They will shoot you,” Patricio repeated.
A soccer ball was wedged in the window frame. Manuel quickly refastened the tape, slipped rather than climbed down from the chair, and collapsed on the mattress.
“A soccer ball,” Patricio said and burst into hysterical laughter.
“Quiet! We have to be quiet.”
Patricio stared at his brother who had stood up and was leaning over him.
“Where did you get the gun?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Manuel said, but then told him what had happened, how he had been forced to kill the tall one and afterward had taken his weapon.
Patricio stared sorrowfully at his brother. Manuel avoided his gaze.
“So the tall one is dead,” Patricio said flatly at the end.
Manuel nodded.
The silence and inactivity was complete until they heard a key turn in the lock and Ramon swiftly snuck in and closed the door behind him.
“Hello, my Chilean friends,” he said in greeting. “What has happened? You look a little somber.”
“A soccer ball hit the window so the glass shattered,” Manuel explained. “We thought it was the police.”
Ramon grinned.
“It scared you?”
“Guess,” Manuel said, surprised at how lightly the Spaniard was taking it.
“We’ll have to fix it later,” Ramon said and took two passports out of his coat pocket. “Right now we’re in a hurry. You are going on a flight.”
“Fly?”
Ramon told them what he had planned. Twenty minutes to ten this same evening there was a plane to London.
“The airport is a little south of Stockholm and you can buy the tickets there. If there are no seats you will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Then you can sleep in the forest.”
“But why London?” Patricio asked.