“There are lots of things I’d like to tell you, but we don’t have time,” she said at last. “It would be too long a story.”
“The story of your life?”
Lindell nodded again. She was on the verge of tears.
Sammy Nilsson again made a move to get up and at the same time dropped the bundle of papers, which flew out like a fan across the floor. He swore, got down on his knees to sort the printouts and pick them up in the right order.
Lindell sensed he was doing this out of consideration for her situation; he wanted to give her time to collect herself.
“How’s it going for you and Melander on the stairs?”
“It’s mostly Bea who’s working on that,” said Sammy Nilsson from the floor, with his back toward her. “I’m working on the bandy crew. I’ve talked with all of them except two.”
“Is that producing anything?”
“Not much, but it feels good to be dealing with them. The picture of Gränsberg is getting filled out a little more too.”
He got up, tidied the bundle, and smiled at Lindell, who smiled back.
She felt relief. Someone knew her secret anyway. Now it was a matter of gathering even more courage and telling Ottosson.
“One thing is peculiar. In the trash bag there was a kitchen towel with Melander’s blood on it. One theory is that during the evening she got a smack from Johnny, wiped it off and put the towel in the trash, and later went out to throw away the bag. But how credible does that seem? Get a beating and then clean up?”
“You know how people are,” said Lindell. “There’s no logic, or there is, it just looks different. She obviously had no intention of throwing the guy out, calling us or the women’s crisis center, she just wanted to tidy up. And this is an injury that isn’t possible to distinguish from the injuries she got in the fall, you think?”
“The doctor can’t see anything that links Johnny to an assault. She evidently tumbled several turns on the stairs, even ruptured her spleen. Johnny admits he threw a chair, but that it didn’t hit Melander, just the bedroom wall.”
“Question him again,” Lindell said.
“We will, but no one really knows where he is. Maybe it was stupid to release him so soon, but we don’t really have anything on him. His buddies maintain that he has a lair somewhere but no one knows where it is, or else they don’t want to snitch on him. In my opinion Johnny’s a bit of a petty thief and maybe a fence.”
“What a mess,” said Lindell, sighing.
“It reeks,” said Sammy Nilsson, leaning over and giving her a pat on the cheek, before he left the office.
Twenty-five
He read the new SMS with growing disbelief. What were u doing w Bo Gränsberg? Where & when was the murder, who?? Contact me now, return to Sweden! Don’t u see how bad this looks for u otherwise? & me! So far I’ve kept quiet about us. Do u have something to hide? I don’t want to believe that. Ann.
It exuded desperation and confusion. How did she know about his collaboration with Gränsberg? Had he done something crazy and tried to get out of it by putting the blame on someone else? But that was not like him.
Brant had been on good terms with Bosse ever since their bandy days. There were those who found him a bit too reserved, but Brant discovered that when the taciturn Gränsberg finally expressed an opinion, it was often well thought out. He reminded him more than a little of a man Brant had worked with in the Africa Groups of Sweden; besides being a man of few words and a construction worker, like Gränsberg he possessed an unfailing capacity to see through rhetoric. Perhaps this was because they were listeners more than talkers, they didn’t fill time and space with unfiltered chatter, didn’t drown in their own words, but focused instead on assessing the speechifying of others.
This was a quality in short supply in the various solidarity groups in which Anders Brant had been active, and he envied Gränsberg his sparse but precise comments about the verbal pirouettes of politicians and corporate leaders. There was no dissimulation with Gränsberg. He was a leftist in an unaffected way-that too was in short supply-a perception that Brant understood had its background in Gränsberg’s upbringing and experiences from the world of work.
Brant was then living with a woman, Gunilla Tidlund, who worked with Bosse’s wife. The two Gunillas were good friends and they socialized a fair amount.
One summer in the early 1990s they rented a house together in the archipelago for a few weeks. This was the time of the banking crisis, wage freezes, the rampages of the Laser Man, and not least the growth of New Democracy, the anti-immigrant party that won seats in Parliament under the leadership of an aristocrat and a pop music impresario.
Bosse figuratively disrobed the party leaders, and, after a couple of drinks on the veranda facing Kanholmsfjärden, could also do a clever imitation of Ian and Bert, both their body language and the racist spewing they so tactlessly provided the world of politics.
When their sports days were over, and Brant’s travels really took off with long stays abroad, the contact between them diminished. They might run into each other in town, exchange a few words, but no more than that.
When they came in contact again over the past winter Gränsberg was in poor condition, basically living day to day and usually on the street. The scattered under-the-table jobs he could get were not enough to reestablish his self-esteem or build up his finances and an acceptable life in a lasting way.
For a few months Brant had used Gränsberg as an informant. The former scaffolder was now more talkative, and his analysis was no longer as sharp and penetrating. He communicated his experience of life as a homeless person with barely concealed bitterness.
Brant could not really take his idea of a construction services firm seriously, and even less so after Bosse presented his plan for financing it, a proposal for “mutual benefit.” Brant had to smile when he heard him lay out his plan and entice him with a diplomatic phrase that sounded foreign in the context, as if he was talking about an audacious but completely innocent business deal.
Brant had been tempted by the idea, but rejected it almost immediately. But that moment while he considered the proposal, the brief hesitation that arose most likely because it came so unexpectedly, had been enough for Gränsberg. He continued to be in touch, nagging about how foolproof the arrangement was.
At last Brant had to put his foot down. The last time they met was in Gränsberg’s temporary home, which he chose to call the job site trailer. Once again he took out the documents and tried to convince him. Brant then made it clear that he had never paid for information and would not do so this time either. Gränsberg evidently realized that this was the last word and gathered up the papers, carelessly pushed them together, and stowed them away again.
Then he started crying, uncontrollable weeping that made his body shake, and the sweat that broke out on his forehead underscored the impression of a fever attack.
Brant thought it was strange to watch the burly construction worker fall apart so completely before his eyes; it was as though he became several sizes smaller.
Brant was embarrassed, a little ashamed on Gränsberg’s behalf, but tried to calm him down, even went around the table and placed his arm around his shoulders, but Gränsberg was inconsolable. This unexpected reaction shook Brant; the former teammate had always seemed solid. Now he was crying like an abandoned child.
Finally Brant had to leave. By then Gränsberg had calmed down somewhat, but sat silently with a hollow gaze and his arms stretched across the table.
He felt like a deserter, even though he did not doubt the rightness of his decision for a second. During the drive home he thought about other ways to support the unfortunate man, who clearly had pinned such great hopes on their renewed contact. But he had no solutions, and to be honest, he firmly doubted the project Gränsberg so enthusiastically sketched and attached such hopes to. “This means my life,” he repeated several times.