He Who Kills the Dragon

43.

While the majority of his colleagues were going door-to-door, Detective Inspector Alm was sitting in his office, worrying about all the red herrings that had suddenly popped up in a murder case. Deep in thought, and behind a closed door for safety’s sake.

Unusually, he had taken out a pen and paper and had started sketching out a number of hypothetical chains of events, all of them based on the idea that Danielsson’s childhood friends were the perpetrators. One, two, or more of them, although he deeply and fundamentally despised such novelties as profiling and motive analysis.

The results of his interviews with Söderman and Grimaldi were deeply unsatisfactory. The former had simply refused to answer his questions, and the latter couldn’t remember what he was doing. Based on a medical condition that in practical terms couldn’t be corroborated. At least not by Alm.

He had spoke to one of his older colleagues who knew Grimaldi and had received a broad smile and a wink in response.

‘I saw him a couple weeks ago when I took my wife to that new pizza place up in Frösunda, the one everyone says belongs to him even though he’s not on any of the official papers. It didn’t look like there was anything wrong with his appetite, if you know what I mean.’

‘What do you mean?’ Alm asked.

‘Well, he was sat there holding hands with a blonde, and if I say she was half his age I wouldn’t be exaggerating much.’

We who built Sweden, Alm thought. Wasn’t that what those old boys who threatened to bomb the government called themselves? If you could do that, presumably you could beat to death an old friend no matter what the crime statistics have to say about it, he thought.

What complicated the equation was the murder of Akofeli, hence the need for paper and pen.

One of Danielsson’s old friends beats him to death. Takes the case with all the money. Even Roly Stålhammar couldn’t be ruled out of this, with his shaky alibi. It all hung on a witness who hated him and who would doubtless have sworn the exact opposite if he knew the way things really were. Anything in his eagerness to get rid of a noisy neighbor.

Nor could they rule out the possibility that there had been more than one perpetrator. That Kalle Danielsson had acted as a black-market banker for Grimaldi, for instance. That he hadn’t played it straight. That Grimaldi and his pal Halfy Söderman had paid a home visit, beaten him to death, and taken the briefcase containing all the money.

If only it weren’t for Akofeli.

Akofeli finds Danielsson murdered. His old friends, who beat him to death, missed the briefcase with the money. They work it out, go back, discover that Akofeli took the case, go round to his, kill him, dump the body in Ulvsundasjön.

Are you kidding? Alm thought, aiming the remark at himself. Then he drew a thick black line through this latest hypothesis.

Akofeli kills Danielsson and takes the case with the money. Danielsson’s old friends find this out, go round to Akofeli’s, kill him, reclaim the case, and dump the body.

Why? Alm thought. Why would Akofeli kill Danielsson? And how the hell would his old friends find out that it was Akofeli who killed him?

The plot thickens, Alm thought, with a deep sigh, drawing another thick black line over the paper.

Then he had gone home to his beloved wife. Lamb chops with garlic butter, salad, and baked potatoes. Since it was almost the weekend, or Thursday at least, they had celebrated quietly by sharing a bottle of wine.