If they talked a while the network and connections would become clear. And surely they would find a number of shared acquaintances, experiences, and reference points, despite their fifteen-some years’ age difference.
Solving a crime was a matter of discerning a pattern, Berglund knew, and in that way this man and his context, his part of town, his expressions, gestures, and language were a part of the answer. It was as if nothing was impossible if one only had the ability to put the pieces of the puzzle, the puzzle of the town, together.
“Do you live nearby?”
The man gestured with his head.
“Marielundsgatan,” he said. “But right now I’m on my way to see my boy. He lives in Salabackar.”
“I’m going to stand here for another hour,” Berglund said. “But maybe you could come by later and we could have a cup a coffee together.”
The man nodded as if being stopped by a policeman and taken out to coffee was the most natural thing in the world.
“I need to flesh this thing out,” Berglund said.
“Yes, I see that,” the man said. “My name is Oskar Pettersson. I’m in the phone book so you can call me if you like. I’ll be home again around eight. I’m just taking herring and some other things to my boy.”
He picked up his bags and stepped on the bus that had just pulled up. Berglund saw him settle in a seat. He didn’t look out the window, but then why would he?
Berglund stayed the course until seven. A few passengers seemed to recognize John, but no one had any information to give, no one had seen him at the bus stop.
He walked back to the station. It was cold and he was freezing. He had called home and said he was working late, which had not come as a surprise to his wife.
Berglund did not feel like going into his office. Instead he got a snack from the vending machine and sank down in a worn armchair. A few colleagues in uniform came by. They talked about Christmas. Berglund took his coffee and went to the calling station. Nothing out of the ordinary had been reported, but when he had finished his cup and was about to leave, an emergency call came in. He lingered and heard patrol cars being ordered to Sävja and knew that it meant Fredriksson would be working late.
“Attack on a woman,” said the officer manning the phones.
Berglund walked out into the December night.
Oskar Pettersson lived in a two-bedroom apartment on Marielundsgatan, a short street in the Almtuna district. Berglund declined his offer of coffee. Pettersson took out a beer and two glasses and put them on the kitchen table. A radio was on in the background. Pettersson listened for a few seconds as if he heard something of interest to him, then turned it off with a thoughtful air.
“I only listen to the public radio station nowadays,” he said. “My ears can’t take anything else.”
Berglund poured out the beer, first his own glass and then Pettersson’s.
“I knew Albin well,” the latter said without further ado. “We were related, and then I’d see him on construction jobs from time to time. And back when we were young I’d see him out and about. The town was smaller back then.”
“You worked in construction?”
“Laid concrete mostly,” he said and then looked around the kitchen. “I’m a widower now.”
“How long?”
“It’ll be three years in March. Cancer.”
He took a sip of beer.
“It was really through Eugene-Aina’s brother, that is, John’s uncle-that I came to spend time socially with Albin and Aina. Eugene and I worked together for a long time. First with Quiet Kalle and then at Diös. He was a happy fellow. Aina was more careful. Albin too. But I think they liked each other. It seemed that way anyhow. You never heard them arguing or anything. Albin was one of the best metalworkers you ever saw. He died, you probably know that.”
Berglund nodded.
“I would bump into John in town after that, especially after he got his foot in the door at the workshop. I wonder sometimes what it is that makes a man. If it’s genetic, there’d be no reason for Lennart and John to get mixed up in crime.”
“Upstanding,” Berglund recalled Ottosson saying.
“And then there’s environment,” Pettersson continued in the gentle but forceful voice that Berglund had immediately responded to. “They grew up in this area. There were a few bad eggs of course but mostly responsible folk. Where are you from anyway?”
Berglund laughed at the rapid turn of conversation.
“Born in Eriksberg,” he said. “When it was still out in the country. My dad built a house there in the forties. He worked at Ekeby.”
Pettersson nodded.
“He handled the furnace out there, and Mom stayed home and took care of the kids. Dad worked a lot of nights and slept during the day.”
“There you go. Are you sure you don’t want any coffee?”
“No, thanks. Tell me more about John.”
“I think he was damned bitter about losing his job. He said something once, something about feeling worthless. It was kind of his thing, welding. He had inherited Albin’s attention to detail. A person has to find a place where they fit in, that’s all. Don’t you think?”
“That’s probably right,” Berglund said. “Did you see each other regularly?”
“Not really. Sometimes at Obs. I like to go down there and have a bite to eat and talk to the other guys. A few times we met up and had a coffee. I think he liked to talk to me. He liked to talk, period.”
That’s strange, Berglund thought. This is the first time I’ve heard someone describe John as talkative.
“But I could tell he was sitting on something.”
“What was it?”
“Well, he had those fish. You know about that. I got the impression he was cooking something up with those fish, so to speak. He was incredibly active in some kind of organization. Turns out there are organizations for anything you can think of.”
“And what can you cook up when it comes to fish? Start up a shop, is that what you mean?”
“I don’t know. Just something to do with that fish tank. He must have been nursing a dream.”
“But he didn’t say anything specifically about what that would be?”
“No, nothing straight out, nothing more than that something was going on.”
“When you met, did you ever talk about how things were at home?”
“Not a lot. He was close to the kid. Maybe you know someone called Sandberg who worked at Ekeby. He also worked the furnace, I think. A fat little guy, short-tempered.”
Berglund laughed.
“Everyone who worked the furnace was short-tempered. I thought that was part of the job description.”
Their eyes met and both men smiled.
“He must have been dead for forty years,” Pettersson said. “But he knew my dad.”
“What was the state of John’s finances?”
“I don’t think he was in dire straits. He was always well dressed, and so on.”
“Did he drink?”
Pettersson shook his head.
“What a way to go,” he said. “Everyone putting your life under the microscope. What if we paid that kind of attention to people while they were alive?”
Berglund stayed until shortly before ten. Pettersson followed him to the door but then turned as Berglund was putting his coat on and went back to the kitchen. Berglund heard the radio come on in the middle of a religious program, a brief evening meditation.
“I like to hear the news rundown before I go to bed.”
Pettersson came back out into the hall.
“Then I like to read a little,” he said while Berglund was doing up the laces of his boots.
“That’s serious footwear,” he said approvingly. “I’m a member of Association of Retired Persons and we meet once a month and talk about books.”
“What are you reading right now?”