The Demon of Dakar aka The Demon from Dakar

Sixty-Three

It was a northerly wind and it gave Eva a boost across the fields. In spite of this, she wished she had taken the bus. It had driven past her by Lilla Ultuna. Seeing Manuel had frightened her. Not because she was afraid of him but because she had been reminded that there was a dark side to Uppsala, where murder and drugs were everyday things.

She biked with a frenzy that meant she was over the fields in a matter of minutes and arrived, damp with sweat, at Kuggebro, where she was forced to reduce her speed somewhat. Then the trip went uphill, at first a tough slope up past Vilan and then a decidedly steeper one the last stretch before she home.

She had called home at ten o’clock. Hugo had answered. Eva had asked to speak to Patrik to make sure that he was home as well. Now she only had one thought in her mind: to see them both in bed.

She was greeted by a thermos of tea on the kitchen table, a plate of crackers, and a note that Hugo had written wishing her good night.

They were asleep. Patrik lay on his back snoring a little, while Hugo was turned on his stomach, arms outstretched.

Eva returned to the kitchen, draped her jacket on a chair, drank a cup of tea, and munched on a cracker. The encounter with Manuel had stirred up her mind. Her feelings had gone from surprise to anger and from there to sadness. His touch on her cheek and brief kiss had paralyzed her.

She remembered his present, took the sock from her pocket and shook out the contents. It was a hard roll of bills wrapped in a wrinkled note.

She unfurled a bill, one hundred dollars, and then quickly counted the rest. There were fifty one-hundred-dollar notes. She did not know exactly how much a dollar was worth, but realized she had been given tens of thousands of kronor.

She stared at the note with Manuel’s home address and the neighbor’s telephone number. The nice neighbor.

Before Eva went to bed she counted the money one last time, tucked the bills into an old envelope from the social insurance administration, and hid it in the very back of the utility closet.

Even though she was completely exhausted she couldn’t sleep.

“Manuel,” she ventured in a whisper into the darkness. In a way she now regretted having warned him. If he had gone to Arlanda and been arrested by the police he would have received a trial and perhaps been found not guilty of the murder accusation. It wasn’t inconceivable that Armas… Of course, his brother would wind up back in prison, but Manuel would… If he were found to have committed voluntary manslaughter or whatever it was called.

“Stop it,” she said out loud, tormented by her own loose thoughts, threads that she could not manage to bind together into a satisfying conclusion. She both wanted and did not want him to get caught. The horrifying thing was that she understood him so well. He had lost one brother and the other had received a long prison sentence. Of course Manuel was trying to get him out of the country. How would she have reacted if Hugo or Patrik were in jail in Mexico? Wouldn’t she have done everything in her power to free them, regardless of what they were accused?

After having tried and failed at all the old tricks to conjure sleep, Eva got up and went out to the kitchen. The clock on the wall read half past two. She took out milk and heated a cup in the microwave. Her eyes were constantly drawn to the utility closet. Never before in her life had she had so much cash. She would be able to go wherever she wanted. It would make Helen so curious and not a little envious. But could she keep the money? Where had he got hold of five thousand dollars?

She drank the last of the milk, which had cooled down, got up and walked over to the calendar on the wall. When did the kids have their fall break? It was around All Saints, but was it the week before or the week after? Her gaze went to December. They were off for three weeks then. Wouldn’t it say in the paper how much a dollar was worth?

She quickly leafed through both sections of Upsala Nya Tidning and finally found a whole page of stock and currency exchange and other numbers she had never paid any attention to. Over seven kronor for one dollar, and she had five thousand! Thirty-five thousand kronor in the utility closet.

She pushed the paper away and sat back down. What if the police caught Manuel and he told them that he had given her money?

“No way,” she said, as if to convince herself of the unlikelihood of this.

“What are you doing?”

Eva twirled around in the chair. A groggy Hugo was standing in the hall.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Eva said. “Go pee and go back to bed.”

“Was it fun at work?”

“It was great,” Eva said, knowing the question concealed a considerable concern. The children had heard and read about what had happened. Maybe Zero had filled them in.

“Go back to bed. I’m going to take a painkiller and do the same.”

Hugo turned back toward his room and gave her a final glance.

“Thanks for the tea and your nice note,” Eva said.

He smiled a little and then closed the door behind him.