The Cruel Stars of the Night

Thirty-nine

The red-haired nurse came walking down the hallway She was talking to herself, unaware of the fact that Ola Haver was looking at her. She placed one hand behind her neck, leaned her head back, and stretched.

“Are you sore?” Ola Haver asked.

She looked up, startled.

“Yes, I know, I kind of blend in with the walls,” Haver said.

“Maybe you’re the secret police,” she said and smiled.

Ola Haver immediately fell in love. This sometimes happened to him. It usually passed quickly but the feeling was equally pleasant every time. He saw it as a guarantee against boredom.

“You have to work hard,” he observed.

“Everyone does, don’t they?” the nurse said matter-of-factly “How is your colleague?”

“He mostly mumbles stuff about birds.”

“As long as there are policemen who are bird-watchers there’s hope,” the nurse said and fired off another smile.

“There are policemen for everything,” Haver said.

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” she said. “For everything.”

He got the impression she didn’t like policemen. In another context he would have asked her to elaborate.

“I’m a nice policeman,” he said and smiled.

“I’m a nice nurse,” she countered.

“What a pair we make!” Haver said with enthusiasm.

She laughed and that was what he wanted, to hear her laugh.

“What do you think?” he asked and inclined his head toward the hospital room where Allan Fredriksson was.

“They’ll probably operate tonight,” she said.

“That means he’ll definitely be gone for a couple of hours, won’t it?”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to get some coherent sentences out of him tomorrow morning.”

“Well, we’ve never managed that before,” Haver said. “That reminds me of the story of the patient who asks if he will be able to dance after his operation and when the doctor says there shouldn’t be any problems the patient lights up and says: Great! I could never do that before!”

The nurse laughed again.

“Yes, I know. It’s an old one,” Haver said.

“Very old.” She smiled and kept walking.

He returned to Fredriksson who was still sleeping. He went to the foot of the bed and studied his colleague’s face, the way one can’t do otherwise. Fredriksson’s relaxed features gave an air of great calm. Haver suddenly felt uncomfortable watching him and walked over to the window and looked out. Traffic on the thoroughfare outside the hospital had intensified. A veritable stream of cars went by, people came walking along or half ran to the bus stop, and staff members in white coats jaywalked with an utter disregard for death.

As always when Haver was in a hospital he experienced a slightly sentimental sense of gravity and gratitude. Inside these walls, behind the windows to all of the hospital rooms, a struggle was going on. An army of doctors, nurses, subnurses, technicians, cleaners, janitors, and God only knows, were struggling on behalf of life. Like that nurse in the corridor, the red-haired one, who with her smile had probably assuaged the suffering of multitudes.

What is it that human hands cannot accomplish? he thought, almost devoutly and moved against his will. He twirled around and looked at his colleague in the bed. Allan Fredriksson returned his gaze.

“You’re awake?”

Fredriksson nodded and his eyes were clear. Nothing remained of the earlier confusion.

“We were worried,” Haver said.

Fredriksson smiled but also looked serious.

“Hospitals always get me down,” he said.

“Still, you managed to get through this pretty well.”

“What time is it?”

“Half past three.”

Fredriksson shut his eyes and Haver sensed he was trying to remember what the time had been when he drove out to Alsike.

“Where did you find the pawn?”

“On a shelf in the hall. I saw it as soon as I came in. It’s strange we missed it.”

“We always miss something.”

“No prints?”

Haver shook his head.

“Has the machine been set in motion?”

“You can count on it,” Haver said. “You knew this would stir the pot, didn’t you? The highest level of response with the National Guard, bomb squads, and the whole shebang. Ottosson almost shit his pants.”

“What does Ann say? She was so grumpy about this whole chess thing.”

“She’s been swallowed up by the earth.”

“The Savoy,” Fredriksson said.

“I said that too, but she’s not there. Otto actually called them to check.”

“Have you checked with Blomgren and Palmblad?”

“Of course,” Haver said, “there are no chess pieces there. But why did you go out to Alsike?”

Fredriksson told him about the lost cell phone and how on the way back to Uppsala he had caught sight of the buzzard and lost control of the car.

“I think Ann is up to something,” he went on.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what she’s like. I talked to her this morning and she was being all cryptic. It was like she was having trouble talking to me, as if she was hiding something.”

“Like what?” Haver asked and sat down on a chair next to the bed. He trusted his colleague’s tracking instinct and could imagine how he had picked up on Lindell’s behavior. Haver also knew Lindell so well that he took her intuition seriously. It had brought success to many previous investigations.

“I don’t know what it was, but it was something,” Fredriksson said.

“Nothing concrete?”

“No, not at all, just hints.”

Ola Haver dropped the topic.

“I’m going to call Otto,” he said. “You’ll manage now, won’t you? They’re probably going to slice you open tonight.”

Fredriksson smiled faintly.

“Has Majsan been here?”

“She’s been here the whole time,” Haver said. “She’s having a cup of coffee in the cafeteria right now.”

Fredriksson shut his eyes as soon as Ola Haver had left the room.