Anders Brant had heard this kind of story many times, in Brazil and in other countries. The details might differ, but the tragedy was the same.
People from near and far made their way to Salvador, hoping that the city would live up to its name, and save them from poverty and misery. The city grew beyond its limits, new favelas shot up like mushrooms from the ground, the misery was the same, but also the new arrivals’ hope for a better life.
“One day we found this place in the alley, an abandoned building, and we moved in. It was good, we had a roof over our heads. I even planted a tree on the slope outside. Maybe you’ve seen it, it’s five meters tall now. The only sad thing was that Arlindo started living a bad life. He brought a woman here, Luiza. She got pregnant and had a son, but he was born premature and died. He hit his woman. Maybe that was why the child left us. I was a grandfather for thirteen days.”
Brant refilled the beer glasses. The same procedure was repeated, when the foam had settled Ivaldo gulped down the beer, nodded, and continued his story.
“He did drugs and for a while he got his little brother and his cousin involved, but at last they got strength from God to say no.”
The old man fell silent. Anders Brant studied his facial features, marked by poverty and hard work, a person in this multimillion anthill, dark skinned, the descendant of slaves, born poor, without great demands on life. A man who had lost a son.
Anders Brant had an impulse to put his pale hand over Ivaldo’s dark one, but resisted it.
“Now my hope is with you,” said Ivaldo.
“How is that?”
“Vincente was reported. We thought you were the one who called the police, but it was a woman in the building on the other side. I recognize her, she always sits in the window and glares, and that’s what she was doing that evening too. She saw Vincente push his cousin, my son Arlindo, over the wall.”
“What should I do?” asked Anders Brant.
He sensed what the answer would be.
“You have to give false testimony,” said Ivaldo.
“And let Vincente go free?”
Ivaldo nodded.
“I won’t do it. I can’t lie about a thing like that. For a while I thought I was seeing things, but I saw what I saw. I chose not to tell, but don’t ask me to lie.”
“Were you afraid?”
Brant nodded.
“You don’t need to be. Arlindo cannot take revenge. And God understands.”
“This is not about God,” said Brant.
“It’s not?”
Anders Brant did not know how to get himself out of this dilemma. Discussing a conceivable God’s possible understanding was totally foreign to him, and starting to talk about laws and justice was almost tragicomic to a man who had never experienced any justice.
“Don’t you believe in God?”
Brant shook his head.
“Not in God, and not in paradise,” he said. “I am struggling for paradise here on earth.”
“The day after tomorrow you’re going to believe in hell anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re going to make an excursão, you and I,” said Ivaldo.
Brant was uncertain what the man meant by that word. He would translate it as “outing,” but did not understand the context, and it was so clearly marked on his face that Ivaldo thought it best to immediately tell him what this excursão would involve.
Thirty
She remembered how he brushed a strand of hair away from her face and then leaned over to give her a kiss on the forehead. And the aftershave, that he got from the children on his birthday.
That was the last thing, the touch and the smell. She could not remember whether he said anything; sometimes he did, before anyway, a few words to the effect that she could sleep awhile longer, that he would be back soon, or something more affectionate.
That was what she told the police too, that she was barely awake, but realized that he was leaving. It sounded so paltry. She would have preferred saying something else, above all more, a more rounded recollection, that they had made love, had breakfast together, that he was happy his trip would be short, perhaps something about the future, who they really were, what they could have been.
Then she took them out to the street, to the fence, and pointed at the knothole.
“This is how tall he is!”
They did not understand.
“The Russian!” she screamed. “He’s Russian! I know he’s a Russian. The whole thing is Oleg’s fault! The gas, that damn gas!”
Her voice was cutting. She struck the fence with her clenched fists as if to eradicate the figure who had been standing there twelve hours earlier. Beatrice put her hand on her shoulder.
Suddenly Henrietta caught a glimpse of Malin in the kitchen window. A rational thought broke through her confusion for a moment-thank the good Lord I did not tell her yesterday evening-and she freed herself from the female police officer who was trying to calm her, and ran into the house.
“That’s the daughter, we’ll give them a couple minutes,” said Beatrice. “And Fredriksson is in there.”
“Who is it that’s this tall?”
Sammy Nilsson did not like this. Standing on a street and not understanding a thing. They would soon have an answer to the question of who Henrietta Kumlin meant as she desperately struck her hand against the fence, he was sure of that. But all the other questions?
“It’s vacation time, damn it!” he exclaimed.
He would be spending a week kayaking with his crazy sister, who had barricaded herself in a little village in the inland of Västerbotten. No one understood why, but that’s where she wanted to live. The only way to see her was to go up there. And sitting in the isolated cabin, with barely enough space for one person, was inconceivable to Sammy; he got cabin fever at the mere thought of it. So they, or rather Sammy, decided they would spend a few days in a canoe, and his sister had unwillingly gone along with the arrangement.
“Do you have any idea how awkward it will be?”
Beatrice Andersson had been listening to his complaints without comment. In principle she was grateful that he was not taking advantage of the fact that his survey of the so-called bandy gang would now perhaps prove meaningful. There was probably a connection between Gränsberg, Brant, and now Jeremias Kumlin, not only as a lineup of team members on a twenty-year-old photo. It would be strange if this were only a coincidence.
“We don’t know yet,” she said anyway.
Sammy Nilsson stared at her uncomprehendingly, shook his head, and then stomped back to the garage, where Eskil Ryde and Johannesson had just stepped in.
Beatrice Andersson understood that her colleague was tired, worn out; he really needed a week in the wilderness. She also understood what he meant by “awkward.” It would be complicated. Vacations would be lost, plans would have to be rearranged. Her own vacation was not planned to start for a month, but yet another case, with a probable connection to a previous homicide, an unfortunate ride down a staircase, and a journalist’s mysterious disappearance, all that combined would create chaos in the schedule.
Her own fatigue also made it hard to think, but there was no turning back because she understood that Henrietta Kumlin would be her assignment. This talk about Russians-and gas-was confusing to say the least, and she returned to the house to start unraveling.
Jeremias Kumlin was lying flat on his face, with his arms stretched out over the hood of his BMW, as if during the final seconds of his life he wanted to embrace the symbol of his success.