Stone Coffin Part 31

Lindell felt a rising excitement. For each hour that they spent in Mlaga, she was becoming more and more convinced that Gabriella Mark had been right: Sven-Erik Cederen had not killed his family, nor had he committed suicide.

"For what it's worth, Olivares is a small-time crook who doesn't appear in connection with any more substantial violent crimes, but in Urbano's company, anything can happen," Moya went on. "We have been searching for Urbano for a while, but no one seems to have seen him for several weeks. We know that he received a large sum of money in the middle of June. This is confirmed by several independent sources: a drug dealer whom Urbano owed money and also a prost.i.tute for whom he was a regular."

"How did you manage to gather all of this information in so short a time?" Haver asked.

He was tucking into the octopus with gusto. Lindell wished he would use his napkin on his greasy mouth.

"We've had our eye on Urbano for a while," Moya said. "Or rather, we've been looking for him."

He put down his knife and fork, rested his chin on his hand, and gazed up at the cathedral.

"He is a cop killer," he said darkly.

Moya took a sip of his wine, put his gla.s.s down, and let the words sink in. Lindell glanced at Haver. That's why he had struck with such force, she thought. He had already uncovered a connection between Urbano and UNA Medico, and when we came to him with our questions, it fit perfectly into his plan to take a torch to the company.

"What worries me is how Urbano has been able to travel in and out of the country under his own name without us discovering it," Moya said.

"Do you want to tell us what happened?" Haver asked.

Moya nodded and poured himself some more wine before he started. Lindell was done eating and waited for him to continue.

"It was in the beginning of May. A colleague from the local police had pulled over a car to the north of the city. We don't know why, but he guided the car to the side of the road. It was a white Honda, according to the only witness-a young car mechanic who was waiting for a bus some fifty meters away."

A car went by at high speed and Moya made a face.

"The witness saw the driver step out of the car and take something out of his pocket-it turned out to be a pistol-and immediately opened fire on the police officer. The officer had only just made it out of the car when he was struck by four shots, of which one should have killed him immediately. But he lived for a couple of minutes."

Moya looked down and paused.

"The whole thing went very quickly," he said. "The driver of the Honda calmly got back in his car and drove away. It was as if he had stopped only to aid an animal that he had struck on the road and put it out of its misery. He smiled as he drove past the witness, who then ran straight to the scene of the crime. Our colleague had time to say a few words to the witness before he died. He gave us the name Jaime Urbano. We know that he recognized Urbano from before. Why he stopped Urbano, we have no idea. It was admittedly a foolish thing for him to do on his own, but the punishment should not have been death."

"And you have been searching for Urbano since then?" Haver asked.

"Day and night. We quickly found out that he had been in contact with UNA Medico. This surprised us. The company had a good reputation and had never previously been involved in illegal activities. Not as far as we know, at least. We did not know the nature of the connection, but when Urbano is involved, it is not a regular business agreement."

"So you began to take a closer look at UNA Medico," Lindell said, seeing clearly the parallels to her own investigation.

Moya told them about the efforts that both the national and local police had made to locate the police killer. The name Olivares had turned up early. The intensified police efforts had roiled up Mlaga's underworld, and there had been widespread gossip about the two men. Many pa.s.sed this information along to the police, perhaps to secure some peace and calm for themselves.

"We received a tip that Urbano and Olivares had been spotted in Ronda, which is a town some distance up into the mountains. That was a week ago."

In some way Lindell knew what was about to follow.

"Olivares is dead, isn't he?" she said.

If Moya was taken aback by this statement, he did not show it.

"You are a good detective," he said and smiled. "Yes, he is dead. A half hour before we arrived here, our colleagues in Ronda called and said that a body had been recovered in a ravine outside of the town. It was Olivares. He had taken three shots, one behind the ear."

"What will you do now?" Haver asked. Between the questions, he was still chewing his octopus.

"There is some information that Urbano may still be holed up in Ronda. It is a little town and the gossip travels quickly across the bridges. One of my old acquaintances-a check forger who now spends his time picking the tourists' pockets in his bar-often gives us tips about his old buddies. He saw both of the men as recently as yesterday."

Lindell felt a sense of grat.i.tude. All of her suspicions of a corrupt Spanish police had come to nothing.

"We have arranged a trip to Ronda early tomorrow morning," Moya said. "Perhaps you would like to join us?"

"Claro," Haver said, and Lindell had rarely seen him look so pleased.

They stood up from the table after having agreed that Lindell and Haver would be picked up at four-thirty in the morning. Lindell checked her watch and quickly calculated how much sleep they would get.

In spite of her tiredness she had trouble winding down.

"I'm going to walk a bit," she told Haver.

They parted ways. Haver walked toward the hotel and Lindell decided to visit the cathedral.

"I deserve to do a little sightseeing," she had said to Haver, but it was actually a desire to be alone that drew her to the church.

A pair of beggars slouched outside the door. One of them-an older man with gray hair-uttered a few unintelligible words as Lindell went by. She stopped, fumbled around in her shoulder bag, and pulled out five hundred pesetas, about as much as a beer had cost at the restaurant they had just left. She placed the coin in the man's hand and received a gurgling sound in thanks.

Inside the cathedral there were preparations for an evening ma.s.s. Some fifty people were sitting in the pews. A custodian was walking around and lighting the candles in front of the altar. He looked bored and his movements were lackadaisical. It irritated her because she herself was overcome by a feeling of awe. She was in no way a believer but still felt that the area inside a church was conducive to peace and reflection.

The candles on either side of the sanctuary were put out one after one. An older woman in nun's clothing stepped forward and tested the microphone by tapping on it with her finger. Lindell sat down. The nun launched into something that Lindell thought sounded like a hymn of praise. "Dios," she heard the nun sing with a clear voice. The congregation rose to its feet and Lindell felt compelled to follow their lead.

The priest and his a.s.sistant-whom she had mistaken for a custodian but who was now dressed in a long coat-walked in and the ma.s.s began.

The congregation inserted a few words in the priest's recitation. Why was I pulled into this? she wondered. She sat at the very front and did not feel that she could leave during the ceremony.

The nun burst into song again. She looked pleased, almost humorous, as if she did not take all this too seriously, but Lindell thought she was probably just happy to be able to express her unwavering faith.

The congregation sank down with a sigh, and Lindell sat gratefully. The priest took up where the nun left off and Lindell was captured by his voice, allowing herself to relax into a state of melancholy restfulness. She realized that what she was feeling was grief-a sense of sadness that she did not belong to any group with which she could share her beliefs. In a way, the police force was her safety net, but this did not get her very far when troubled thoughts overwhelmed her mind.

She wanted to leave the church while at the same time retain this feeling of wors.h.i.+p. Perhaps this is where I will make my decision, she thought, only to find herself in the next moment cursing her own volatile emotions.

She stood up quickly but took her time to leave the church, in order to show proper respect to the ma.s.s in progress. The nun's voice followed her, and as she came out onto the front steps, the beggar greeted her with a smile on his dried and cracked lips.

It was still very warm in the air-probably twenty-five degrees-and she walked slowly back to the hotel. She tried to think about the investigation and the more or less sensational turn that it had taken.

Twenty-four.

Edvard pulled up the boat with a jerk. A few fish scales that still adhered to the railing after the late spring herring fis.h.i.+ng caught on his hand. He picked them off with a thoughtful expression.

He knew that Ann was in Spain, but it didn't matter. She might as well be in Uppsala; the distance would feel as great. It had been two weeks since they last met. The joy he had felt at seeing her again and actually being reunited with her had been replaced by the old sense of doubt.

His uneasiness was in part due to his knee. It ached, and occasionally his leg would give way, producing a lot of pain. Viola had told him to see a doctor.

Viola herself had not been completely well herself. Right after the Midsummer celebration she had contacted a severe cold with a high fever and a barking cough. Edvard could see that it had left its mark. She was still noticeably low and sluggish.

While they drank their morning coffee, the radio played songs from the fifties. Lily Berglund sang about "let a little sunlight in my mind." They had looked at each other and laughed.

The suns.h.i.+ne had mostly been absent this summer, but today it had broken out in the afternoon and Edvard had decided to set some nets in the evening. He would surely snare a perch or two.

He had decided not to turn on the engine and had rowed out into the bay instead. The sea gull that spent so much time on his dock had followed him. Now it was back on the dock.

Viola had been unusually irritable before he set off. Something was bothering her. Sometimes she saw signs and got notions about things. She had suggested that the wind might pick up and that he should be careful. When he told her that he was only going some hundred meters out, she had calmed down a little.

He took her concerns seriously. Many times her somewhat vague predictions about the weather turned out to be true, though today she had been wrong. The bay was almost completely still and Edvard lingered on the sh.o.r.e.

Ann was fis.h.i.+ng for bigger fish than he. She had told him very briefly why she was going to Spain. Was he jealous that she got to travel? Or simply jealous, period? He knew that she met many people in her work, and he felt more and more like the isolated islander that he had to look like in comparison to the other men she met.

What kind of life could he offer her? A feeling of helplessness overcame him. How could he leave Graso and establish a new life? If he did, he would have to feel certain that it was somewhere he could remain for a long time. He was no nomad, despite his longing for new horizons. This realization had come to him during his two years on the island. He was not going to run anymore. Either stay on the island and focus on his island life and bachelor existence or start a new family with Ann and perhaps have children with her.

The wind picked up somewhat. Had Viola been right after all? Sometimes a wind picked up in the evenings and it didn't die down again until morning. That was what Viola had worried about, he realized. She must have thought a little further ahead.

The gull took off, made anxious by the wind. Edvard walked indecisively up to the water's edge. Fredrik Stark, his old friend from the farm labor union days, was going to come up for the weekend. Edvard didn't know what to think about this. Of course it was nice to have company, but most of all he wanted to be here with Ann. He wasn't sure how long she was staying in Spain. Should he call her cell phone? A sense of longing mixed with his completely unfounded jealousy ached in him. He was unable to describe it in any other way. An ache in his knee and an ache in his heart. He smiled to himself.

Twenty-five.

The streets of Mlaga were deserted when Haver and Lindell climbed into the Toyota to drive to Ronda. Moya looked tired. Likely he had gone back to work after their dinner the night before.

They drove in silence. Moya told them nothing about what to expect. They drove inland, and after half an hour-when they had left the coast and arrived at the mountains-they could see the Mediterranean spreading out behind them. Blue and inviting. Lindell thought about another sea-the Sea of land, which Edvard looked out over.

After several hours they came to Ronda, which resembled a fortress on a cliff. An unmarked police car was waiting for them at the main road into town. Moya exchanged a few words with the officer in the car before they continued into the center.

"We have an address," Moya said and turned to Lindell. "According to our sources, Urbano is there."

He was interrupted by a call on his cell phone and listened for a few seconds.

"Our colleagues have prepared a strike. Unfortunately you cannot play an active role. You will have to follow the events from a distance."

They drove past the old bullfighting arena that Lindell had read about in the guidebook and entered an older residential area. The car slowed down and stopped at a street corner.

"On that street," Moya said tersely and pointed. "That's where Urbano is supposedly to be found. Stay here."

Lindell nodded. Moya left the car and disappeared around the corner while the driver remained in his location. She really wanted to tag along. Instead she tried to strike up a conversation with Haver, who seemed both tense and uninterested at the same time. She knew that he wasn't a morning person, but couldn't he have tried to put on a slightly happier face?

It was a long wait. Lindell knew that the Spanish police were approaching Urbano's supposed location with great care. Perhaps they were working in conjunction with plainclothes officers who were going to perform duties such as garbage collection or something else that fit into the everyday picture. She tried to imagine the scene but had trouble because the environment was too foreign.

Half an hour went by without any change. She was starting to become impatient. The driver's cell phone rang, and he listened without saying anything to the caller, whom Lindell believed to be Moya. Then he hung up and started the engine.

"There's n.o.body there," he said.

They drove around the corner and then another hundred meters. The street was now full of police cars. Curious onlookers hung out the windows. Moya was standing in front of a building with a cracked facade. The closed shutters made it appear boarded up.

"The bird has flown the coop," he said as they stepped out.

Lindell glanced up at the building. Outside a door that had been painted green hung a small handwritten sign: Camas. She knew that this meant beds.

"This was a very simple hostel," Moya said.

A woman of about eighty was standing in the doorway. She was draped in black. Lindell's thoughts went to witches. The woman's tiny eyes in her wrinkled face glared with both fury and curiosity at Lindell. Behind her there were voices, and she turned and screamed something.

"Let's go in," Moya said.

Reluctantly, the woman let them pa.s.s. Lindell heard her muttering. The hall was dark, with only a naked bulb in the ceiling for lighting. A man of about fifty was standing at the foot of a staircase. He said something to Moya. He had a speech impediment and seemed extremely stupid. He smelled of the stable and was gesturing wildly with his large hands.

Moya turned to them to interpret what was being said. "He is the son of the house," he said. "He has been in his barn about a kilometer outside of town, milking the cows."

Lindell had seen a moped leaned up against a wall, with stainless steel containers in baskets on the back, and realized it was his.

"Mother and son rent out three rooms on the upper floor. We can go up," Moya said.

The son followed him and his speech impediment made Lindell s.h.i.+ver. He sounded agitated in an unpredictable way.

The first room, the door to which was open, was very simply furnished. A bed, a chair, and a wardrobe, that was all. Next to the bed there was a chamber pot. A man with sunken cheeks lay on the bed, his thin gray hair standing on end. He had a coughing fit and immediately spit into the chamber pot, which was filled with gray-green mucus. The man coughed again, spit, and seemed completely untroubled by the fact that Lindell was standing at the door.

"He has bad lungs," Moya said apologetically. Lindell had the impression that he was ashamed of this image of his country.

Lindell continued walking. A man on a bed occupied the next room as well. He was short, almost dwarf-like, and was missing part of his leg. It had been severed just below the knee.

"He sells lottery tickets," Moya said. Lindell was struck by a feeling of unreality at the sight of these human wrecks.

The man nodded at Lindell and reached for his prosthesis, which lay on the bedcovers.

Urbano's room was considerably larger than the rest.

"The suite," Lindell said to Haver.

The floor was tiled in black and white. A print of Jesus during his long-suffering journey to Calvary dominated one wall, and on the wall opposite this was a double door that stood open to the street. When she walked up to it and leaned out, she became dizzy even though they were only a couple of meters above the ground. She grabbed the wrought-iron railing and closed her eyes.

Some children were playing noisily in the street, and Lindell opened her eyes again. The dizzy spell pa.s.sed. On the other side of the street, in an equally dilapidated building, all of the windows were open. A woman was walking around in one of the rooms. What Lindell noticed most distinctly were the pink slippers she was wearing and her incredibly beautiful hair, which flowed all the way to her waist. A child of perhaps two was clinging to her robe. For some reason this was the image that she would remember. The woman, the child, the slippers, and the hair. This everyday scene in what to her was such a foreign land, plunked in the middle of a dramatic phase of this investigation, not to mention at a turning point in her life-this was what became etched in her mind's eye.

Moya pulled her back to the matter at hand by placing a hand on her shoulder.

"The woman claims that Urbano left the house very early this morning. The son, whom I have trouble understanding, claims that Urbano left a couple of minutes before he arrived. That is to say, at around five o'clock."