The young Smålander looked up again.
‘Exactly like that,’ he said.
Hjelm sighed and put the drawing down.
‘How drunk were you?’
‘Pretty,’ was all Johan Larsson said.
‘And you didn’t see anything else noteworthy in the pub?’
Kerstin studied Paul once again. He studied her back. When they returned their attentions to the young man, they saw that he had been studying them. It was getting a bit tedious.
‘I only saw one thing worth mentioning,’ he said clearly.
They let him go.
Glancing at one another, they opened the plastic bags containing the sandwiches.
‘The IT types,’ snorted Hjelm, muffled by mozzarella and Parma ham.
‘I did them while you were gone, it was quick. They didn’t see anything. And they were stockbrokers, not IT types. They were sitting nearest the door and saw absolutely bloody nothing. Apart from one thing: the hen party. I got the impression they were after some kind of complicated gang bang with the bride-to-be and her blind-drunk friends.’
‘And this hen party had absolutely nothing to add, I can tell you that. As far as I could see, a complicated gang bang wouldn’t have been completely out of the question for them. So that means that the whole row over by the window, a table of stockbrokers and two tables of hens, are useless witnesses?’
‘The best the stockbrokers had to offer was: “A whole load of people rushed past right when the girls started yelling.” Both groups were just a bit too horny and drunk, simple as that. Just like that “pair of pairs” who’d gone to Kvarnen for a partner swap. They’d never met before, just exchanged erotic emails where they indulged in shared fantasies about partner swapping and group sex. Their plans probably wouldn’t have come to much, considering how drunk they were. Too horny and too drunk, all of them – even though it was only twenty to ten. Hen party, stockbrokers and the pair of pairs.’
‘Then let’s go for the people who should have been least horny and drunk.’
‘But also the busiest.’
‘The staff. The waitresses or those thugs on the door?’
‘The doormen, you mean. Which deserve to wait the longest?’
‘Let’s get the waitresses in.’
They pressed a button on the intercom. A short conversation with the receptionist, and in trudged a group of slightly haggard-looking beauties. Five of them. They sat down and started to complain in unison. It sounded like the monkey house at the zoo.
‘Naturally, we’re very sorry that you’ve had to wait,’ said Hjelm courteously, not quite blinded by all their feminine splendour. ‘There are a lot of people to interview, and none of you are missing work, since it’s only ten past two and Kvarnen hasn’t reopened yet.’
‘Are we allowed to open, then?’ said the oldest-looking one. ‘Isn’t it a crime scene?’
‘We’ve secured everything that needs securing, so it’s just a matter of going on as normal. Business as usual. It’ll probably be full – lots of free publicity in the press. The same way that Tony Olsson can write a book and get any publisher he likes to print it.’
‘Tony Olsson?’ the waitresses said in unison.
‘The police killer who came home from Costa Rica a few days ago,’ Hjelm explained. ‘And announced that he was innocent.’
‘What’s he got to do with us?’ exclaimed one of the women.
‘Nothing,’ Hjelm sighed. ‘Which of you was behind the bar when it happened?’
‘Me,’ said a small, dark woman in her thirties. ‘Karin Lindbeck,’ she added automatically.
‘How much did you see of what happened?’
‘Not much. I was at the other end of the bar taking payment for a big order. It was crowded so it took a while.’
‘Care to tell us, just to be on the safe side?’ Kerstin Holm put in.
‘All right,’ said Karin Lindbeck, with a gesture of acknowledgement.
‘So, did you feel the atmosphere was threatening?’ asked Hjelm.
‘You could say so… There was something in the air.’
‘And you’d served the perpetrator earlier?’
‘Probably. But he was standing towards the back of that macho gang, and a bit shorter than the others, I think. A background figure. Not especially memorable.’
‘One of these three?’ asked Hjelm, spreading the three drawings on the table.
The bartender Karin Lindbeck looked through them. With a quick, practised eye. Used to keeping track of faces.
‘Hardly,’ was all she said.
‘No likeness at all?’
‘Only the hair and the moustache.’
‘Can you produce anything better?’
‘I think so.’
‘And you’ve never seen him before?’
‘I might’ve seen some of that gang before, but not him. Not that I remember.’
‘You can help us with a couple of drawings later, Karin. Do you remember anything else?’
‘The Smålanders. A shy group who realised pretty quickly that they’d ended up in the worst place they could’ve. Too late. The one that died seemed nice, he was the one who ordered.’
‘OK, thanks. So the rest of you were waitresses? You’re divided up, aren’t you? By tables?’
‘Yeah,’ the oldest waitress replied, a fake blonde of around forty-five. ‘I had the window. The hen party and the brokers. They were flirting with each other non-stop. And drinking a lot. I was working flat out to get them served. Also, I was having a break when it happened. He was already dead when I came out.’
‘More?’
‘I was in the corner,’ said another. ‘Saw nothing, heard nothing.’
‘Very concise, but maybe not complete.’
‘I was further in. Not much happened there. Business as usual.’
‘More.’
‘I had the middle row,’ explained the young Asian woman. ‘A group of students were sitting nearest to the door, they were talking about a social anthropology exam, I think. Then there was the guy pretending to read, sitting alone, and a group of southern Europeans who had a Swede with them. They were speaking English.’
‘You didn’t happen to hear what they were talking about?’
‘I try not to eavesdrop.’
‘Like on the social anthropology students?’
She looked slightly embarrassed.
‘Come on,’ said Hjelm. ‘You heard something.’
‘They were negotiating about something. They weren’t friends. The opposite, I think. Distrust. They were trying to agree on something.’
‘On what? Try to remember.’
‘Weren’t we meant to be talking about the murder? I didn’t see that at all. I had my back to it.’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘No, I don’t know. A meeting place, maybe. I don’t know.’
‘But they left right away when the fight started? The whole gang? Did they go without paying?’
‘If you’re just drinking, you pay straight away. There wasn’t any bill to pay, everything had already been paid. But yeah, they disappeared pretty quickly.’
Hjelm thought. Something fuzzy was shifting in his mind.
‘No bill? No, it’s bloody obvious. No bill to pay.’
The waitresses regarded his curious little outburst suspiciously.
‘Who had the table by the door? Along the wall by the door, I mean.’
‘Me,’ said the youngest of the waitresses, a short-haired, sturdily built girl.
‘Who was sitting there, and what happened?’
‘Five really serious, quiet types.’
‘Salesmen?’
‘Not exactly, no, I don’t think so. I guess you could say that you’d expect them to be the rowdy kind but they weren’t at all. The opposite, they hardly said a word to one another. Just sat there, staring on the sly.’
‘Five macho gay men, staring at a kid who’s sitting there reading,’ Hjelm said clearly.
‘It wasn’t him they were staring at, it was further away.’
‘Were they listening to music?’
‘Hardly. One of them had a little earphone, but it looked more like… a hearing aid.’