“You do too, sometimes,” Lindell said. “For your information.”
Lennart smiled. With his lip taped up it looked like a grimace.
“So now you’re the private eye, huh?”
“Not at all. But you did pique my interest.”
“Why are the cops not spending any time on trying to catch my brother’s killer?”
“I think you’re wrong. From what I understand, this case is top priority.”
“The fuck it is. You think he’s some poor shit who doesn’t matter. If he had been a VIP, things would look a lot different.”
“All murder cases are treated with the same seriousness,” Lindell said calmly. “You know that.”
“So what have you found out? He stopped by Micke’s apartment and then he disappeared. Have you checked Micke’s alibi?”
“I take it for granted.”
“You take for granted-I don’t take shit for granted. Do you know John gambled?”
Lindell nodded.
“Have you checked with his gambling buddies? They’re probably a pack of rats.”
“I’m not officially on this case, but clearly every part of John’s life will be carefully scrutinized.”
“That means you don’t have anything. What happened to the money anyway?”
“What money?” Lindell said, aware of the fact that he meant the poker winnings.
“He won at poker, didn’t you know that?”
Lindell shook her head.
“You don’t fool me,” Lennart said evenly. He was used to cops doing this, playing dumb, and he wondered how he could get her to spill what she knew.
Lindell smiled, got up, and went over to the stroller.
“And what about Berit, the hypocritical cow,” he said. “She doesn’t say shit to me, just talks to Mom and Justus. I’m the one she should be talking to, but no, she’s too fucking good for that. She’s the one sitting on the money.”
Lindell watched him clench his hands.
“I’m his brother and if anyone can sort this out it’s me, and damn if she isn’t keeping something from me.”
He looked up quickly and met Lindell’s gaze.
“But she’s the widow, probably cries all the time, and you treat her with kid gloves, isn’t that right?”
“I’m sure she’s been questioned just like anyone else,” Lindell said. “And even if you are John’s brother, Berit is the one who should be able to give us the most information about John’s movements during his last few days. Why would she need to keep something secret, as you were suggesting?”
“She’s always…,” Lennart began, then stopped. “You can’t trust broads.” Lindell had trouble determining if he was making a little joke or if there was some substance behind the half-articulated accusations against his sister-in-law.
“I’ll get it out of her, whatever it is,” he said, his teeth clenched. “I’m going to get the guy who killed my brother and if it takes her down too I couldn’t care less. She asked for it.”
Lindell sat down again.
“Who hit you?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s blood on the kitchen floor,” Lindell said.
“I started bleeding again after I came home.”
“In the kitchen?”
“Is it against the law?”
His raised voice woke Erik, who started whimpering in the stroller. Lindell walked over and reassured him, rocking the stroller.
“I think you had a visitor,” she said after the whimpering stopped.
“So what?”
“If you want to help us catch your brother’s killer you’d better play with open cards.”
“You’re just like Sammy Nilsson,” Lennart said and got to his feet. The sheet trailed on the floor as he walked into the bedroom.
Lindell heard him moving around and assumed he was putting clothes on. She saw that she was right when he came back wearing pants and a T-shirt. The piece of tape on his lip had come off.
“You should have someone look that over,” she said. “I think you need stitches.”
“I thought you had left already.”
Lennart watched her cross the street with the stroller, aiming for the bus stop.
“Fucking bitch,” he mumbled.
It was only now that Mossa’s final comment fully penetrated his mind. Mossa had used the word whore, and that was a strong statement coming from him. He was a tough guy but one who chose his words with care. If he used the word whore he meant it, not like how some guys just tossed it out when they were talking about women. Everyone who knew Mossa knew that he was respectful of women, that he worshipped his mother, and that he was always conscientious about sending his greetings to his friends’ sisters and wives.
He had called Berit a whore. That could only mean one thing: she had been unfaithful. “Talk to his whore for a wife,” he had said. The meaning of the words hit Lennart with an almost physical violence. Had she really had someone else?
His tiredness was gone. He put on socks, boots, and outerwear, and was out on the street within minutes. The route he chose was identical to the one he had walked the night he found out that John had died. Instead of tears this time, he was filled with anger and unanswered questions throbbing in his head as he half ran, half walked.
The snow was as deep as it had been that night. There was no snowplow on Brantings square but instead a group of drunk youngsters singing Christmas carols. He stopped and watched them. He had also been here, making noise in the same way, thrown out of the Brantings community center and a drug-free Christmas party, drunk out of his mind on beer, fourteen years old and already an outsider, literally and figuratively, something that still ached in his body, a mixture of shame and hate. God, how he had hated, breaking a window of the public library and throwing bicycles around. The police had arrested him and Albin had had to pay for the damages.
He walked over to the youngsters.
“Anyone have a cell phone?”
They stared at him.
“I need to make a call.”
“Get your own, mister.”
“I need one now.”
“There’s a pay phone over there.”
Lennart grabbed one of the boys.
“Give me a phone or I swear I’ll fucking smash your head in,” he hissed at the terror-stricken boy.
“You can borrow mine,” said a girl and stretched it out to him.
“Thanks,” Lennart said and dropped the boy. “Two minutes,” he said and walked off to the side.
He called Micke, who had just fallen asleep on the sofa and answered incoherently. They talked for a few minutes. Lennart threw the cell phone into the snow and took off half running over Skomakarberget.
Berit had just turned off the TV. For some reason she had become more interested in the news since John’s death. Even Justus joined her in front of the television. Maybe it was to measure their misfortune against everything else happening in the world, to feel that they weren’t alone. Quite the opposite, as it turned out, violence was doubled and reprised many times over on the TV screen.
She threw the remote control onto the table and put her hand on Justus’s shoulder. He was about to get up, but she wanted him to stay on the couch with her a little while longer. He turned his head and looked at her.
“Sit a little longer,” she said, and to her surprise he sank back.
“What’s a Traveler?” he asked.
“The Travelers? Well,” Berit said. “Well, what to say? They were a kind of people who weren’t gypsies but not Swedish either. Dark. There were big Traveler families, or clans. Your father used to talk about them. ‘They’re Travelers,’ he might say about people. He said that explained a lot about a person. Why do you ask?”
“A kid I met outside said that.”
“About who?”
“About Dad,” Justus said and looked at her with that mercilessly direct gaze that would take no half-truths or evasions. “He said Dad was a Traveler.”
“That’s not true,” Berit said. “You know that. Your father was light-haired.”