“Is his name really Skam?”
“Yes, I think it’s a Norwegian name.”
“Thought so,” said Sammy.
“Olle Olsson,” said Berglund. “A little crazy and brooding, always carries a Bible with him. A plague according to many, when he gets going with his verses. Once he was a locomotive engineer and cracked up when he ran over a teenage girl at the crossing in Bergsbrunna. If you ask me we can rule him out, even if he can’t say what he was doing on Monday.”
Berglund took a breath.
“Nice work,” said Sammy.
“There are a few more,” said Berglund. “There are quite a few in town, I mean in those circles where Gränsberg was found. Some are full-time homeless, others come and go, maybe get a temporary nest for a while and then are out on the street again, or they crash with a friend for a month or two, then the buddy gets tired of it.”
“But these are the ones he hung out with?”
“The chief mourners,” Berglund confirmed.
“An odd little group, I mean Gränsberg seemed to be one with ambitions,” said Beatrice. “Why would he associate with these particular guys?”
“An odd group,” Berglund agreed, “and they all have ambitions, but the level changes.”
“Like at Homicide,” said Sammy, and was rewarded with a grin from Beatrice.
“It might very well be someone outside of this quartet. There are so many sketchy characters,” said Beatrice, unconsciously giving her interjection that lecturing tone that had irritated so many in the building over the years.
Berglund observed her in silence.
“He’s out there, that much we know,” he said, closing his folder. “Sit down for a day at ‘The Grotto’ and look at the old guys, those ‘sketchy characters.’ Among others you’ll meet a cousin of mine, a genuine Berglund. It might be him. Sure. It might be Sundin, once upon a time Uppsala’s most skillful carpet layer, or Foot-Nils, an incorrigible wife-beater who got run over by the Route 6 bus ten years ago, or in any case his right foot did, it might be him. Roger Gustavsson, raised on amphetamines since his first drop of breast milk, is crazy enough to kill half the city. It might even be a woman, Bella, who was raped as a seventeen year old and got epilepsy to boot, and over the years became a worthy heir to Knife-Emmy, who wreaked havoc in the city in the sixties. Do you want more names? Bertil Wall, known as the ‘Finance King,’ worked at a bank at one time. Now he collects cans. Kurt Johansson, who I played soccer with three decades ago, whose old lady ran off with the mailman of all people, went straight to the dogs. An incredibly nice guy, he was sentimental even as a teenager, but it’s obvious, one day maybe he’ll club someone down. We don’t know.”
This time Berglund didn’t need the support of notes. Sammy and Beatrice were convinced that he could continue his recital for a very long time. There was an unusual sharpness in his voice, but Beatrice was wise enough not to take all the blame for the verbal attack, but also wise enough to realize that she was the one who triggered it.
“Excuse me,” she said, “I didn’t mean to be impudent.”
“But you were,” said Berglund calmly, but unexpectedly.
He got up slowly.
“I’m tired,” he said.
Sammy gave Beatrice a quick look.
“Go home,” he said. “You’ve been slaving away with those old guys.”
He sensed that Berglund had run into his cousin at “The Grotto.”
“You’re only working part-time,” he added.
Berglund thoughtfully gathered up his papers. Sammy and Beatrice waited for some words of wisdom from the veteran who knew Uppsala inside and out, but the old man remained reserved, as if the long lecture on “brothers in misfortune” was his description of the situation in the investigation and perhaps not only that.
“See you,” he said, giving Beatrice a nod and Sammy a look, before leaving the room without further ado.
As Sammy Nilsson went past Lindell’s office the door was open, which was unusual enough that he noticed it. She was talking on the phone, but signaled with her hand that he should wait.
He leaned against the doorpost. He was still feeling the gloom that Berglund’s words, and above all attitude, summoned. The old man is starting to get up in years and they aren’t hatching that kind of cop anymore, he thought.
Lindell was talking away. She unconsciously stroked her hand over her hair where a few strands of gray were showing, but that in particular was not a good lead-in to a conversation with her, Sammy Nilsson assumed.
She was talking somewhat surprisingly about soccer and when she hung up, that was exactly what she wanted to talk about with him.
“Listen, Sammy, you coach young boys and that sort of thing, do you know a team called ‘The Best’?”
“Yes, maybe. Wasn’t that the team that allowed over a hundred goals last season? I think it was in the paper. A girl’s team. They’ve renamed the team ‘The Worst,’ I heard.”
“Klara Lovisa played with them until some time last fall,” said Lindell.
“Was that why she disappeared?”
“Stop your joking now. A dumb question: Is it common for guys to coach girls soccer?”
“Yes, it happens. Pretty often actually, maybe in the majority of clubs. There’s a shortage of female coaches. Do you have something going?”
Sammy Nilsson sensed what Lindell was looking for.
“Maybe,” she said. “Now I’ve talked with three of her teammates. They had a party on New Year’s Eve. A group of girls decided to celebrate the arrival of the new year-and then she just leaves, at eleven thirty after receiving an SMS. Strange, huh?”
“Well,” said Sammy, “not so strange perhaps.”
“On New Year’s Day she breaks up with her boyfriend, who she’s been with since seventh grade, a really sweet, nice guy.”
“And?”
“Lay off, you get it! She got an SMS from a guy and left. The thing is that none of her friends understands why she broke up with Andreas and no new guy showed up during the winter or spring. ‘She just got secretive,’ as one of her friends said.”
“You think she was dating someone in secret?”
Sammy Nilsson suddenly saw Lindell and Haver in his mind and could not keep from smiling.
“What are you laughing at? What is it that’s so incredibly entertaining?”
Nilsson’s smile got even broader when he heard how irritated she was and saw her cheeks turn red.
“Sneaking around,” he said. “That’s exciting.”
“Lay off!”
Nilsson put his hands up in a defensive gesture, but so high that it looked like he was protecting himself against a blow. Lindell observed him and shook her head before continuing.
“I also think that this is an older guy with a driver’s license. And I think that on April twenty-eighth he took Klara Lovisa on a trip to the country and that was the last thing she experienced in life.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Sammy Nilsson.
“And where does a fifteen-year-old girl meet an older guy? Not at school, but-”
“In so-called club activities,” Sammy Nilsson filled in. “You think it’s that young man who was seen in Skärfälten?”
“Yes, pretty much dead certain in fact,” said Lindell. “Now it’s just a matter of finding him.”
“And the ex-boyfriend?”
She shook her head.
“He was in Gävle visiting his grandmother at a home.”
“Who says so?”
“His mother.”
“Have you checked with the old lady at the home?”
“Yes, one of our colleagues up there visited her. The fact is that the grandfather was a superintendent on the detective squad. He’s dead now but the colleague had met the woman previously, at a party.”
“A confused police widow,” said Sammy Nilsson. “They’re reliable.”