However, the length of rope, barely fifty centimeters, could be directly connected with John. The pattern of the rope fit the marks left on his wrists, and furthermore-and this clinched it-some of John’s hairs had become entangled in the rope’s fibers. The rope, which could have been bought at any gas station or corner store, had been recovered three meters from the body.
They had found a number of tire tracks. Most of these belonged to heavy vehicles with wide tires. Trucks, according to Ryde’s personal opinion. Also tracks from another piece of machinery, probably the Cat that the county had brought in to clear the snow.
But one set of tracks was of greater interest. These belonged to a car and had been found close to John’s body. The prints had been somewhat unclear since the ceaseless snow had partially covered them, but because of the relatively sudden swing from mild to cold weather during the night of the murder, one part of the tracks had frozen and the technicians had been able to reconstruct the pattern and the width.
Ryde spread out a series of photocopies on the table.
“Two hundred twenty millimeters wide, a radial tire, with studs, probably from a van or jeep. This is no rusty Ascona,” he added drily.
“Could the car belong to a county official?” Fredriksson asked, touching one of the black photocopies as if he could feel the pattern with his fingers.
“Sure,” Ryde said. “I’m only giving you what we have. You draw the conclusions.”
“Excellent,” Ottosson repeated.
The meeting continued with Riis giving the results of his investigation into the Jonsson family finances. Much of this was preliminary, as all of the data was not yet in, but for Riis the picture was clear: A low-income family who could not afford much in the way of excesses.
John’s unemployment had hit them hard. There had been more purchases made with monthly payment arrangements and there had been three incidents of failure to make loan repayments during the past two years.
They did not currently receive any housing assistance. The mortgage payment on their condo was reasonable, in Riis’s opinion. There were no incidents recorded with the local housing authorities or from their neighbors.
They only had one credit card, an IKEA card with a balance of around seven thousand kronor. Neither Berit nor John had any private retirement savings or shares or other assets. John had an account with the Förenings-sparbanken, where his unemployment benefit was deposited. Berit received her salary in a private account at Nordbanken. She grossed approximately twelve thousand a month.
John had only one small life-insurance policy, through the trade union, and it was probably not worth very much, according to Riis, who concluded his report with a sigh.
“No excesses and worsening finances the past two years, in other words,” Haver summarized.
“There was one more thing,” Riis said. “In October, John received a deposit into his account of ten thousand kronor. It was an electronic deposit that I have not been able to follow up on yet. I’ll do so later this morning,” Riis added in a for-him unusually defensive tone, as if he was expecting to be criticized for not having all the facts at his disposal.
Haver considered the information; it was clearly the most interesting thing to have come to light so far.
“Ten thousand,” he said, looking like he was thinking about what he would do with ten thousand kronor. “We can only speculate at this point as to where it came from, but it sounds a little fishy.”
Fredriksson coughed slightly.
“Yes,” said Haver, who knew him well.
“We now know what John did late yesterday afternoon,” Fredriksson said casually. “He was stocking up on booze at the liqour store and then he dropped in on a friend, Mikael Andersson, who lives on Väderkvarnsgatan. He called last night and is coming to the station in half an hour.”
“What time was John there?”
“He dropped in around five and stayed for half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes.” Fredriksson went through the rest of Mikael Andersson’s account.
“Okay,” Haver said. “Now we can start tracing him. Mikael Andersson lives on Väderkvarnsgatan, which is a block or so from the main square. How would he get home?”
“Bus,” Bea said. “You don’t walk all the way up to Gränby when you have two big bags of bottles. I wouldn’t, at any rate.”
“I think the number three goes from Vaksalagatan,” said Lundin, whose contributions at morning meetings were getting increasingly sporadic. Haver sensed that his increasing germophobia and obsession with cleanliness were to blame.
“We’ll have to check in with the appropriate bus drivers,” Haver said.
“Maybe we should post a guy at the bus stop at around the time we think John took the bus and have him show people a picture of John and…”
“Good idea,” Haver said. “A lot of people take the same bus on a regular basis. Lundin?”
Lundin looked up with surprise.
“That time of day is tricky for me,” he said.
“I’ll do it,” Berglund said and gave Haver a dark look. He hated seeing Lundin’s pained and confused expressions.
“The brother-that’s where we should plunge the knife, isn’t it?” said Sammy, who had been quiet until now. He sat at the opposite end of the table, so Haver hadn’t even noticed him.
Ottosson drummed his fingers on the table.
“He is a bottom-feeder,” he said. “A particularly nasty bottom-feeder.”
In Ottosson’s world there were “decent people” and “bottom-feeders.” The latter had lost some of its force since so many bottom-feeders swam around the city. Many in schools, as Sammy pointed out repeatedly through his work on street violence.
Beatrice thought of John’s hobby and imagined his brother, Lennart, swimming around in the fish tank as a “particularly nasty bottom-feeder.”
“Me and Ann were the last ones to take him in,” Sammy said. “I wouldn’t have anything against reeling in this particular barracuda.”
Enough with the metaphors, Haver thought.
“We’ll have him in for questioning. It sounds reasonable to let you do the first round,” he said, nodding to Sammy Nilsson.
The meeting ended after another fifteen minutes of speculation and planning. Liselotte Rask remained behind with Ottosson and Haver to discuss how much information to release to the public.
Sammy Nilsson thought about Lennart Jonsson and tried to remember how he and Ann Lindell had dealt with him. For the most part it was Ann who had managed to connect with him. Lennart Jonsson was a professional. He didn’t get intimidated or tricked into saying too much. He gave them only the bare minimum. He was helpful when it suited him, and closed as a clam if need be.
Sammy recalled the mixed feelings that this notorious criminal had inspired in him. It had been a mixture of helplessness, anger, and fatigue. He had been forced to realize that while Lennart Jonsson most probably was guilty of everything he stood accused of, they had not been able to pin enough on him to get a conviction. The feeling of helplessness stemmed from knowing they could have broken down his defenses if they had had more time. And if they had managed that, Lennart would have cooperated. He knew enough to know when further resistance was futile. That was part of his professionalism, to acknowledge when the game was up and then be willing to cooperate with the police. Sammy had the feeling that Lennart Jonsson didn’t like to play games. If you got away with it, fine, if not, bad luck.