The princess of Burundi (25 page)

“The questioning of the poker players should be regarded as finished,” Bea said. “‘The Lip’ was admitted to a rehab in November and he seems to have stayed put since then. Now Dick Lindström is the only one left. We’ve asked the Dutch authorities for help in locating him. There’s really nothing that binds any one of them to John. Everyone has an alibi for the evening John disappeared, even if these were difficult to extract in some cases.”

“It could have been a hired killer,” Fritzén said. “Murder by mail.”

“It’s possible,” Bea agreed, “but we have nothing to indicate anything like that right now.”

“Okay,” Ottosson said. “We’ll see what Vincent Hahn has to say. We have no problems placing him with Gunilla in Sävja and Vivan in Johannesbäck. It remains to see what he has to say about Little John.”

“Justice has been served,” Vincent Hahn said in a clear voice.

His firmness surprised Beatrice. She had expected the hesitant speech of a confused mind.

“I take it you realize that you have been arrested for two murders, unlawful entering, sexual harassment, and threat of violence?”

Vincent didn’t answer and Beatrice repeated her question.

“Yes,” he said at last.

“What do you mean by saying, ‘Justice has been served’?”

“You don’t understand? Now I can be at peace.”

“Did you know John Jonsson?”

“Yes.” The answer came quickly. “He belonged to the legion.”

“Which legion?”

“The legion of evildoers.”

“What do you have to say about his death?”

“It’s a good thing.”

Haver and Beatrice exchanged a look.

“Did you murder John Jonsson?”

“I stabbed him with a knife.”

Vincent made a stabbing motion with his hand, and a chill ran through both of the officers.

“Could you describe the knife?”

“A knife. A long knife. He did not get away. I stabbed him again and again.”

“Could you describe it in greater detail?”

“A knife that kills.”

“Do you still have it?”

Hahn fumbled in his right pants pocket.

“No,” he said. “I…It…”

“Did you throw it somewhere?”

“I don’t know. I had it in my coat.”

“Tell me how you met John.”

“I saw him on Vaksala torg, outside the school. He was close to me. I stabbed him.”

“Right there in the square?”

“I don’t know. Not that square.”

A note of insecurity sneaked into his voice again. He hesitated, looked away from the police officers, and rocked back and forth before continuing.

“He laughed, he laughed at me. He pointed. He was angry. Everyone was angry that day.”

“When was it?”

“It was…He was holding a Christmas tree.”

“A Christmas tree? He was buying a Christmas tree in Vaksala torg?”

“Did you talk?”

Beatrice’s and Haver’s questions overlapped.

“John never said anything to me. He was making fun of me.”

“You said you stabbed him with a knife. Where did you do this?”

“I stabbed him many times.”

“But where? On the square?”

“He chased me there once.”

“When you went to school, you mean?”

“He wasn’t a good man. The other one wasn’t good either.”

“Which other one?”

“The one with the cap. He was talking so loud. I don’t like it when people raise their voice.”

“Was he also there on the square?”

Hahn nodded.

“What did the man look like?”

Ola Haver was so impatient that he felt as if worms were crawling under his skin. Beatrice took a deep breath that afterward, when the tape was replayed, sounded like a desperate attempt to get air.

“He looked like a military man. I stood close to him in case John was going to make fun of him too.”

Here, Hahn paused.

“Could you describe his clothing?”

Silence.

“You wanted to protect him against John, is that what you mean?”

“Now I know I was right.”

“Right about what?”

“To take revenge. Justice.”

“What happened with the man and John?”

“They walked away with the Christmas tree.”

“Where?”

Hahn’s face now took on a pained expression. He slumped down in the chair and shut his eyes. Haver looked at the time. They had talked for fifteen minutes. How long would Hahn have the energy to keep going?

“Would you like some juice?”

“They walked up to the school, under the arch,” Hahn continued unexpectedly. “It echoed under there if you shouted.”

Haver had been to the Vaksala school to give a talk about drugs and had a clear memory of what it had looked like. The entrance to the school facing the square was a large archway leading to the school yard. On the other side was the cafeteria, which was being rebuilt.
Another construction site
, he thought, and the glimmer of something he had had felt during the meeting returned. There was something he had seen or heard. Was it all about construction sites? Construction at the hospital, and now construction at the school.

“Did you follow them through the arch?”

“Sometimes it smells like shit in there,” Hahn said. “Then I don’t like to go.”

“But this time you did?”

A new nod.

“John threw one at me.”

“A what?”

“A stink bomb.”

“But this time it didn’t smell, so you could walk through?”

“They put the tree in the car and I ran over to catch up.”

“And did you?”

Hahn raised his head and stared at Beatrice.

“Did you catch up to them?”

She was trying to sound friendly. He didn’t answer. The piercing gaze scared her.
That swine murdered one of my colleagues
, she thought. She repeated the word
swine
to herself again and again, steeled herself, and stared back.

Hahn’s head sank down.

“I want to go home,” he said.

Haver stood up, turned off the tape recorder, and nodded to the guard, who came over and grabbed Hahn’s arm. He let himself be led away. Haver put on the tape recorder again and quickly recorded a few words stating the end of the session.

“What do you think?” he asked Bea when he was done.

“I think he’s certifiably crazy, but I believe he really saw John in the square, maybe even on the day he was murdered. It could work. John leaves Micke Andersson, who lives right next to the square, decides to pick up a Christmas tree, or at least to look at them, bumps into someone who offers to drive him and the tree home. The car could very well have been parked in the school yard—is it possible to exit from the school yard in the evening?”

“I think so. There are exits both on Salagatan and Väderkvarnsgatan.”

“Who was the man who looked like he was in the military?”

“That’s the question. A military man, what does that mean? Was it his manner or his clothing, perhaps, that gave that impression?”

“What military presence is there in Uppsala?”

“We have the F-16 and F-20 Air Force squadrons,” Haver said. “But how many of them walk around in their uniforms when they’re off duty?”

“Maybe we should bring in some of their uniforms to show Hahn?”

“It could also be another kind of uniform, something that he thought was from the military.”

“Bus driver, parking police, there could be a number of uniforms he could have mistakenly identified as military.”

Haver rewound the tape and listened. Hahn’s voice sounded metallic on the tape, as if the recording had erased all emotion.

“What should we think?” Haver asked.

Beatrice stared at the wall. Haver was struck by the thought that for a short moment he felt like he was talking with Lindell. There was a discreet knock on the door. Fredriksson, Haver thought, but it was Sammy who gently pushed open the door and looked in.

“You’ve sent him back down,” he stated and walked in.

Haver played the tape one more time.

“It’s got to be him,” Sammy said when Haver turned it off.

“I’ll grant you a motive of sorts, but opportunity?” Haver said in a detached voice.

Beatrice glanced at him from the side.
He takes on too much
, she thought.
It’s as if he thinks the outcome of the whole case rests on him. Maybe it’s Hollman’s death that’s pressing him further into exhaustion.

“And transporting the body to Libro—how did he manage that?” Beatrice asked.

“Those severed fingers,” Sammy said. “That was done by a sicko like Hahn.”

“But the transport,” Beatrice repeated.

“If he stabbed Little John in the school yard—he did say something about not that square, and the school yard works as a kind of square—maybe he was aided by the military man.”

“You’re reaching,” Beatrice said. “Why would a witness to the murder help Hahn transport the body to Libro?”

“They may have known each other.”

Beatrice shook her head.

“Perhaps he was forced,” Haver said. “Maybe Hahn threatened him.”

“Exactly,” Sammy said and got up. “He was threatened.”

“Why…Do you mean he was also murdered?”

Sammy nodded.

“Yes. There’s another dead body out there somewhere.”

They sat quietly for a while, trying to think through this scenario. It did not strike any of them as completely implausible.

“We need to question him again,” Sammy said.

“Of course we do,” Haver snapped. “What did you think? I’ll go talk to Ottosson.” Haver left the room before his colleagues had a chance to react.

“What got into him?” Sammy asked.

“He’s completely exhausted,” Beatrice said.

“He misses Rebecka,” Sammy stated in a tone that Beatrice didn’t like.

“He’s been crying,” she said, then closed her notebook, and left the room without saying anything else.

Ann Lindell had just finished nursing Erik. She had gone about her morning routine in an apathetic way. Fat headlines in the morning paper had announced Jan-Erik Hollman’s murder. Stunned, she had read about yesterday’s events. She remembered him as one of the nice guys, a northerner, good at badminton and apparently a father of two.

Ann lingered at the kitchen window, ignoring the pot on the stove. Her mother had offered to cook the ham but Ann had refused. A faint scent of spices and broth rose from the pot. Her father was fond of dipping bread in the broth so she had to remember to buy the traditional herb bread.

She spread out the first page of the paper again. It carried a photograph of the dark pool of blood on Svartbäcksgatan, which reminded her of pictures that often accompanied articles about the murder of Prime Minister Olaf Palme. The same image of spilled blood in the street.

The sight of the large ham she was cooking made her feel sick. That gray-white flesh and then the fat that rose to the surface. She skimmed some away with a ladle. This was the first ham she had cooked in a long time.
Meaningless,
she thought. The thought of her parents with their gestures of concern and worried expressions depressed her. A guilty conscience mixed with anger.

The meat thermometer showed barely forty degrees Celsius.
At least an hour left,
she thought. She turned the heat up but then immediately turned it back down. You couldn’t hurry a ham.

Ola had called but she hadn’t answered the phone. Maybe he wanted to talk about Hollman’s murder, maybe their brief interaction. An imperceptible shudder ran through her lower body. She felt desire for him and her self-disgust grew. Her attraction to him was so unexpected, so confusing. She hadn’t desired any man since Edvard. Well, maybe, but not in the same way. Ola was married. She would never allow herself to take another step in that direction. At first she had toyed with the idea that maybe they could flirt a little more, even start a secret and shameless affair. But then she had pushed these thoughts away, reproaching herself by focusing on the unrealistic and immoral aspects of such a relationship. How low had she sunk? Not only was he a married man, a father, he was a colleague she saw on an almost daily basis.

Berit Jonsson called at half past nine to say that Justus had disappeared. After breakfast he had packed his school backpack—full of she didn’t know exactly what, but it was an ample bag—and left. He hadn’t told her where he was going, but he rarely did.

It wasn’t the fact that he hadn’t said much that concerned her; it was his expression. He had eaten his yogurt and cereal grimly, cleaned up after himself, walked into his room, and emerged fifteen minutes later with his bag on his back, said good-bye, and left the apartment. It had been shortly after eight.

“He’s been sitting in there keeping to himself for days,” Berit said. “Then he suddenly takes off likes this. Something’s wrong.”

“Does he like to do any sports?” Lindell asked. “Maybe he had sports gear in the bag?”

“No.”

“He’ll turn up soon, you’ll see.”

“He didn’t feed the fish. He didn’t even look in their direction.”

“Has Lennart been in touch again?”

“No, thank goodness. If he tries I’ll throw him out on his ear.”

“Justus will turn up again. Try not to worry.”

Berit agreed to call her if Justus didn’t come home in the next few hours. Justus had the cell phone with him but didn’t pick up when Berit called.

Ann’s parents were coming in a few hours. The temperature of the ham had inched up to forty-eight degrees. Ann stared dully into the broth and watched a few peppercorns swirl around in circles, like the planets in their unchanging orbits.

She walked away from the stove, suddenly nauseated, reminded of the sensations she had felt when she first discovered she was pregnant. Katrin at the health clinic had told her the most likely reason for her pregnancy: she had been taking Saint-John’s-wort and this had neutralized the effect of the pill.

Why this feeling of self-contempt? Was it because she was cooking a ham solely for the benefit of her parents? She wouldn’t have bothered with Christmas otherwise, not hung any decorations. Her desire to see them again was deflated by this sense of duty to perform the role of good daughter and mother.

She feared her mother’s gaze and comments. Ann couldn’t remember her mother being this way while she was growing up. It was her father’s ill health and passivity that had set off a process where controlling her daughter became her dominating focus. Ann had been judged an unsatisfactory mother. It was as if she were fully incapable of taking care of Erik.
And perhaps I really can’t do it,
she thought.
Maybe I’m not fit to raise a son by myself
.

“Because I’m destined to stay single,” she said aloud.

She went into Erik’s room, stood by his bed, and looked at him. He was healthy and developmentally on track. Why was she a worse mother than anyone else? Ann knew it was her own insecurity and low self-esteem that was the source of all this self-doubt.

The phone buzzed. She had turned the ringer off so as not to disturb Erik. It was Berit.

“He’s cut up some of the fish,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s taken up some of the fish out of the tank and cut their heads off.”

Berit drew air into her lungs as if to stop a scream from escaping.

“This morning?”

“Yes. I thought he had ignored them and not fed them, which is true. But he took out all the Princesses and beheaded them. I don’t get it.”

“The Princesses?”

“That’s the name of the fish. The Princess of Burundi. The other ones are untouched.”

“Why these particular fish, do you think?”

Berit burst out into loud sobs that developed into desperate wails. Lindell tried to regain contact with her but had the impression that Berit had walked away from the phone, perhaps collapsing into a chair or onto the floor. Her crying became more distant.

“I’ll be right over,” Lindell said and hung up.

She looked at the time, ran into Erik’s room, put a cap on his head and wrapped him up in a blanket, and left the apartment.

The meat thermometer rose to sixty degrees.