The Demon Of Dakar Part 18

Like his people, he was good at this. It felt as if they had been waiting for five hundred years. Zapotecos, mixes, mixtes, triguis Zapotecos, mixes, mixtes, triguis, and all the other people in Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, yes, everywhere in the land that was called Mexico. They all waited. Standing like severed trees, captured by the storm and cracked, whittled away by the weather and wind, seasoned and hardened. Nothing to be reckoned with, without value, without an ability to reproduce itself. But in the stony barrenness of the terrain, in the green valleys and on the wind-whipped plains of the high country there were seeds, in whose center all the old ways were preserved in code.

That was his conviction. His hope.

Then he heard a car start and through the trees he saw the Mercedes with the two men bouncing along the dirt road with a cloud of dust whirling up behind them. start and through the trees he saw the Mercedes with the two men bouncing along the dirt road with a cloud of dust whirling up behind them.

Once again, Manuel made his way up to the cottage. He could hear nothing from the neighbor, perhaps they were not home. He felt more secure now and sneaked over to the shed, unhooking the door that was not locked. In the dim light within he could make out a lawn mower, a few old garden chairs, and a work counter with various tools. He picked up a crowbar and a container of gasoline and left the shed with a newfound feeling of power.

He chose the window on the corner that was out of the neighbor's line of sight. After about a minute he had it open, and he crawled into the cottage.

A faint smell of sweat still lingered in the main room. A few dirty rag rugs were rolled into sausages on the floor, as if ashamed of their pale fronds. The furniture was simple and worn. A single painting hung on the wall. It depicted an alpine landscape. The exaggeratedly pointed mountaintops were dusted with a grayish cap that was supposed to represent snow, and in the valley below there was a log cabin that was supposed to function as the romantic center of the composition, but only looked like a deserted ghost house whose inhabitants had long ago abandoned the area.

The dusty isolation depressed Manuel but he also found it natural.

They were isolated men, Slobodan, Armas, and the short one. Men who came down from the mountains with a single purpose: to make money. It struck him that they were doing violence to the very idea of a human being. They lived alone, loved no one but themselves, and hardly that. No, they were unable to love, perverted by greed, surrounded only by betrayal and joyless successes.

Without women, Manuel continued his train of thought, how could a man live without a woman?

How could one live without closeness to the soil? Without a faith in G.o.d? He made the sign of the cross and sat down on a chair.

Now he, Manuel Alavez, had a.s.sumed the role of G.o.d. No, he was only a tool. These isolated men only did evil. The world would be better if they were done away with. This was not only a matter of personal revenge, about Angel and Patricio. He was staining himself with the blood of others. He was sacrificing his own soul. So it was, he would suffer all the torments of h.e.l.l, but it was for a good cause.

Calmed by his conclusions, he lifted the bag from the bench and carefully lowered it out the window, found some matches on a shelf in the kitchen, and poured gasoline over all the furnis.h.i.+ngs.

Twenty-Six.

The paralysis did not ease up until Eva sat down at the kitchen table. The phone rang and she was sure it was Helen, who had very likely seen her and Patrik come home. But Eva did not pick up, she didn't want to hear her friend's busybody comments or have to listen to her good advice. up until Eva sat down at the kitchen table. The phone rang and she was sure it was Helen, who had very likely seen her and Patrik come home. But Eva did not pick up, she didn't want to hear her friend's busybody comments or have to listen to her good advice.

Patrik immediately went to his room. She knew he wanted to be alone. The relief he had shown after speaking with Barbro Liljendahl was obvious. He had been almost exhilarated on the bus on the way home, but this state also did battle with the feeling of an unexpected and shoddy betrayal that made him fall silent and stare out the bus window with a penetrating, searching gaze, as if he was trying to look into the future.

And the future for Patrik consisted of the next day, the next week, perhaps a month, at most the end of the semester. He measured everything against the present, Zero and the others' immediate reactions, and therefore his action had been heroic. Eva imagined that he now regretted having spoken so freely with the police, and she understood intuitively that she had to give him time.

She was proud of him. This was her dominant feeling. Fear and anger had fallen away and made room for grat.i.tude at her son's maturity, which bore traces of a child's forthrightness and a wish to be understood and forgiven. He was not yet hardened, encapsulated by his own and the gang's distorted image of the world.

Barbro Liljendahl had skillfully tread the razor-sharp edge, showing him trust and respect, but also applying pressure when he threatened to slide away. She had won his confidence, otherwise he would never have allowed Eva to leave the room.

Eva looked at the time. In an hour Hugo would be home. She was hungry, but couldn't bear to think of eating.

The phone rang again and this time Eva picked up.

"How did it go?"

Eva pulled the kitchen door shut, amazed by her own feeling of grat.i.tude that Helen had called. She was the only one Eva could talk to, because in spite of her occasional impertinence she was the only one who cared.

"It went well," she said and summed up what Patrik had told her on the way home.

"You mean they're trying to get our kids to do drugs? Here in Savja?"

"Are you surprised?"

"No, perhaps not exactly, but ... I'm coming over!"

Helen hung up on Eva and several minutes later she was sitting in the kitchen.

"Ingemar is at some construction meeting," Helen said. "You know how he is and G.o.d knows when he'll be home. I wrote a note to the kids. Maybe we should have pizza together?"

Eva nodded and looked at her friend and knew what was coming. It was the garbage shed all over again.

"We have to do something," Helen fumed, and now she was hard to stop. She flooded over with indignation at the teachers, the county, the police, and any conceivable authority. Even the church and the local parish received a tongue-las.h.i.+ng.

But she didn't stop there, for that wouldn't be like Helen. Eva listened and nodded, inserting a comment from time to time, but basically Helen spoke without ceasing until the phone rang.

"That's probably Emil," she said.

Helen had two children. Emil, who was the same age as Hugo, and Therese, who was eighteen and in her final year at the Ekeby school. She was rarely home, preferring to spend the night with her boyfriend in Eriksberg.

It was Emil who was calling and he was hungry, just like Hugo, who came home just as Helen hung up the phone.

Patrik did not want to eat pizza, and Helen sensed why. Then someone had to go down to the pizzeria, and that would most likely be Patrik, who with his moped normally took on the task of delivering the pizza, and it was very likely that he would b.u.mp into friends in the process.

"Can't we have spagetti?" he said.

"I have ground beef," Helen said. "I'll call Emil and tell him to bring it with him."

After dinner the three boys retreated to Hugo's room. boys retreated to Hugo's room.

Helen put the dishes in the dishwasher while Eva made coffee. They sat down in the living room.

"Should we have a ...?"

"I think we should," Helen said.

After Eva had poured out the liqueur, Helen picked up where she had left off.

"What do we know about cocaine? Nothing. Hard alcohol we know something about, don't we? But drugs, nothing. Emil said something about has.h.i.+sh being harmless, or perhaps it was marijuana, he had heard someone at school say that. Do you understand? I lectured him for a whole evening but in the end I didn't know what to say. If he had said that vodka is harmless then I would have had a leg to stand on, you know how Emil's grandfather is, but what did I know about marijuana?"

"Schools should teach them about it," Eva said.

Helen snorted.

"Are you kidding? They just have free periods and a lot of programs that don't amount to anything. No, I think we have to do something ourselves. I should post flyers and hold a meeting, don't you think?"

"The garbage room," Eva grinned.

"Yes. Should we really just sit on our b.u.t.ts and watch these drug pushers destroy our children? Heavens, we should break their necks, line them up against a wall. There isn't punishment enough for the likes of them."

It was past ten before Helen and Emil went home. She had called her husband, but he didn't answer, not at home or on his cell phone.

Eva saw how Helen tried to conceal her pain. There was no concern any longer, just a tired certainty that he was being unfaithful.

"Throw him out," Eva said, regretting the words as soon as she said them.

Helen winced. Never before had Eva expressed herself so directly. Helen said nothing, called Emil's name, and they went out into the mild late-summer evening.

Eva watched them from the kitchen window. Helen walked with long strides while Emil shuffled across the yard.

"Throw him out," Eva repeated quietly to herself.

Twenty-Seven.

Three days after Armas's murder, Valdemar Husman called the police information line. He had found a note on his door in Lugnet urging him to contact the police. Valdemar Husman called the police information line. He had found a note on his door in Lugnet urging him to contact the police.

He was immediately connected to Lindell. There were several others to choose from, but Gunnel Brodd in the call center and Ann Lindell knew each other well. They were both from the same region, Lindell from odeshog and Gunnel Brodd from Linkoping. Sometimes they socialized. Like Lindell, Gunnel was a single mother, so they both belonged to a sisterhood that spanned both a longing for as well as the desire to circ.u.mvent the need for men.

"It's about the murder, isn't it?"

"I see," Lindell said noncommittally, and her thoughts went to Viola in Graso. The man had a similar dialect.

"There was a note on the door when I got home, I imagine it has to do with the murder."

"I see, in that case I understand, you live in the area. Yes, we wanted to get in touch with everyone who may have seen or heard anything."

"Well, I don't know," the man said. "I have been away. I left the day before the murder. To my brother in f.a.gervik. I stay there when I service my clients."

Valdemar Husman was a blacksmith with roots in northern Uppland who had moved to Uppsala a year ago.

"For love," he said with a bittersweet chuckle.

He immersed himself in a discussion of how difficult it was to build up a new clientele. Lindell sensed he might have been more positive if his "love" had worked out better.

But he had been able to retain his clients in his former area and so three or four times a year he would "do the rounds" and spend the night at his brother's house.

"Did you notice anything unusual before you traveled to north Uppland?" Lindell said, jumping into his tirade, sensing that there was something here.

"Some devil camped out below my house, but now when I went down there and checked, he was gone."

After they finished the conversation, Lindell went to see Ola Haver, who was sitting in his office, busy consolidating all the alibis for the employees at Dakar and Alhambra. Lindell went to see Ola Haver, who was sitting in his office, busy consolidating all the alibis for the employees at Dakar and Alhambra.

"I'm glad you came by," he said as she sat down across from him.

"You are driving up to Lugnet," Lindell informed him.

She would have liked to do it herself but had decided to pay another visit to the hospital. She didn't really want to, but knew that if she hesitated any longer she would never get around to it. Maybe they would send Viola home first.

She told him what Valdemar Husman had seen. It could turn out to be nothing more than a harmless tourist who wanted to avoid the camping fee, some teenagers taking advantage of the last warm spell of summer, or perhaps an infatuated couple seeking privacy, but this lead had to be followed up. It was actually the only thing so far of any substance.

"Take Morgansson or one of the other technicians with you."

Haver looked up at the mention of Morgansson's name, but Lindell pretended not to notice his gaze, continuing on without an outward sign. Morgansson was a completed chapter.

"Husman is at home. Get in touch with him and pick a time," she said, completely unnecessarily in order to conceal her irritation.

This time she was not going to hesitate, she was going to march straight into Viola's room and wake her up if need be. going to hesitate, she was going to march straight into Viola's room and wake her up if need be.

But Ann Lindell never got that far. When the elevator door slid open in the 70 building of the Akademiska Hospital, Barbro Liljendahl walked out.

She had been to visit Olle Sidstrom, the man who had been stabbed in Savja, and conducted follow-up questioning. He was not suspected of anything, or rather, Barbro Liljendahl could easily suspect him of a million crimes, but this time he happened to be the victim.

She looked quizzically at Ann Lindell.

"Are you also going to talk to Sidstrom?"

She couldn't help but feel a sting of irritation.

"No," Lindell explained, equally surprised to b.u.mp into someone from work, "I'm here to see a good friend. I had a couple of minutes to spare."

Liljendahl nodded and then looked doubtfully at Lindell.

"I was thinking of something," she said. "Sidstrom was stabbed and you have a stabbing homicide, don't you? It was done with a knife, wasn't it?"

Lindell nodded and understood where she was going with this.

"Could there be a connection?" Liljendahl continued.

Lindell hesitated for a split second.

"Do you have time? We could have a quick cup of coffee and talk about it."

They sat down in a corner of the cafeteria on the ground level. Two tables away there was an older couple, the man wearing hospital clothing and the woman palpably concerned that he drink all his juice. corner of the cafeteria on the ground level. Two tables away there was an older couple, the man wearing hospital clothing and the woman palpably concerned that he drink all his juice.

"You need liquids," she said.

The man shook his head but picked up the gla.s.s and took a sip.

Both policewomen observed the couple for a while before they quietly began to talk.

Liljendahl told her about her case, how Sidstrom had been a.s.saulted, without prior provocation, according to him. He had been in Savja to take a look around, as he put it, because he was thinking of moving there. He was currently living in Svartbacken.