The Demon of Dakar aka The Demon from Dakar

Thirty-Six

Barbro Liljendahl parked on the street and the first thing she noticed was the Mercedes. Lindell had told her about Konrad Rosenberg’s car purchase. She also saw the scrape along the side that almost looked like a racing stripe.

Therefore she was not all too surprised by Rosenberg’s opening remark when she introduced herself as from the police.

“I’m grateful that you could come down here so quickly. You saw the car, didn’t you?”

“Someone else will have to take care of that,” Liljendahl said. “We have something else to talk about.”

The air in his apartment was smoky and stale, but it was surprisingly neat. They sat down in the kitchen. Konrad Rosenberg had a veteran criminal’s gaze. He pretended to be relaxed but avoided looking her in the eye.

“Maybe we should talk a little about the Mercedes, after all,” Liljendahl said.

Konrad looked up and she noticed a glint of hope in his worn face. For a moment she could identify with him.

“It must be some kids,” he said and lit a cigarette.

“May I ask how you can afford such an expensive car?”

“I won on a race in Solvalla. And I’ve only ever driven junk cars before so I thought…”

“How much did you win?”

“A couple of hundred thousand,” Konrad said and coughed at same time, as if the amount caught in his throat.

“Do you gamble on a regular basis?”

“Every week. I am the best client at the gambling station, and sometimes I go down to Solvalla and sometimes up to Gävle. Do you bet on horses?”

Liljendahl shook her head and smiled at Rosenberg.

“Are you acquainted with Olle Sidström?”

Here Rosenberg displayed great finesse. He took a final drag of his cigarette and then carefully extinguished it in the overflowing ashtray.

“Yes, he’s come out with me a few times, but that was more in the old days. He gets so overbearing when he wins. You need to be discreet when you play.”

“Right now he’s not doing any gambling,” Liljendahl said. “He’s in the hospital.” “Oh?”

“Stabbed.”

Now Rosenberg’s defenses crumbled. Liljendahl watched as his wall came tumbling down, how his jaw slackened and how terror established its grip on him.

Attack, Liljendahl thought, nonetheless she held back and allowed time for Rosenberg’s bewilderment to take hold before she told him about Sidström’s condition. She described in detail what his chest looked like, the way his fear had manifested itself, and what an urgent need he had to talk to the police.

“What does this have to do with me?” Rosenberg tossed out and lit yet another cigarette. Liljendahl, who had encountered this question many times, smiled, but said nothing.

“If he says that I owe him money then he’s bluffing” was Rosenberg’s next tack. “He’s always been full of shit.”

“I am not here as an advocate for Sidström,” Liljendahl said. “I am investigating an attempted homicide and drug trafficking. I thought that, as an old addict, you would maybe have something to tell me.”

Rosenberg shook his head.

“I am a law-abiding citizen,” he said.

Liljendahl could not repress a look of merriment.

“And you have nothing to add,” she said.

“No, nothing.”

Before Barbro Liljendahl left Tunabackar she stopped by the magazine store on Torbjörns Square and confirmed that Rosenberg was a heavy gambler and spent “a thousand or so” on horse bets and lottery tickets.

According to the manager, Rosenberg did “fairly well” and won small to “decent” amounts from time to time.

Liljendahl realized that she had to uncover something concrete in order to break Sidström and possibly confirm a link to Rosenberg. She felt very strongly that Rosenberg was hiding something. The nervousness he had displayed was not the usual stress all criminals showed in their confrontation with law enforcement. She had managed to unsettle him and it would be a good idea to pay another visit to Rosenberg in a day or two, keep the pressure on and maybe get him to make a mistake. He would never start to talk of his own accord. Only new information would bring this about, and lead to him selling information in order to save his own skin.

She also knew that the weak link in this chain was Zero. He was the one who had to start talking.