The Princess of Burundi

Ten

Haver stood by the car. He decided not to think about all the interrogations and background checks that had to be done, but to concentrate on the matter at hand. He had felt this before, the sense that the quantity of things to be done overshadowed the most obvious.

Take a systematic approach, he told himself, but immediately became unsure about how he should proceed.

Sagander’s Mechanical Workshop was located between a tire company and a business specializing in the installation of aluminum doors. It was the kind of building you didn’t notice unless you worked in the area.

A fence about two meters in height ran the perimeter of the yard, in which Haver picked out a couple of containers, a few pallets filled with metal scraps, and a flatbed truck piled high with scrapped pipes. A couple of bathtubs were propped up against the wall.

Haver noted that there were three cars parked in front of the building: a Mazda, an old rusty VW Golf, and a fairly new Volvo.

As he walked into the yard the clouds parted and the sun peeked out unexpectedly. Haver looked up. A crane on a nearby lot swung around and lowered its load. The crane operator paused and watched the men working below. One of them used his arm to signal to the operator, who was barely visible in the small cabin about ten meters off the ground. The crane swung around a few meters. The man made a new sign and shouted something to his colleague, who laughed and shouted something in return.

Haver’s father had been a construction worker and sometimes as a boy Haver had accompanied his father to work. This was most often on small jobs, but sometimes it had been on big residential sites swarming with people, materials, machines, and sounds.

He watched the construction workers and carpenters at work with a tug of longing, envy, even. But above all he felt a warmth well up inside him, both from the sun and from watching the workers in their coordinated efforts. Even their work clothes-jackets lined in loud colors-brought a silly smile to his face.

One of the workers caught sight of him and Haver raised his hand. The man copied his movement and continued to work.

A screeching noise from inside the workshop broke the spell. Haver returned to reality-the black asphalt breaking through the dirty snow, a mess of scrap, wood shavings, rust, loose pieces of cardboard, and the depressing aluminum facade with its windows completely covered in dust.

He sighed heavily and avoided the muckiest areas of the yard. The metal door was unlocked. Haver stepped inside and was greeted by the sound of metal, sparks from a welder, and welding smoke. An older man was carefully polishing a large stainless steel drum with an angle grinder. He took half a step back, pushed the safety glasses onto his forehead, and scrutinized his work.

He must have seen Haver out of the corner of his eye, but took no notice of him. A somewhat younger man, also dressed in blue overalls, looked up from his welding. The man with the angle grinder continued his work. Haver waited some three or four meters away, looking around and trying to imagine Little John at work.

Then he caught sight of a third figure in the dim, far end of the shop, where a man threw a metal pipe onto a workbench, pulled out a measuring stick, and somewhat carelessly measured the end of the pipe, shaking his head and finally tossing it aside. He was about fifty years of age, his hair gathered into a ponytail. He looked up, taking stock of Haver, then disappeared behind a pipe-storage unit.

In a small office tucked into one side of the room Haver saw an older man bent over a folder. Haver sensed that it was Sagander himself. He made his way over to the office, nodding to the angle grinder, meeting the young welder’s gaze, and then knocking on the glass door.

The man, who was not dressed in work clothes, pushed his glasses up onto his head and indicated for him to step inside, which Haver did. The office smelled of sweat. He introduced himself and made to take out his identification, but the man waved it away.

“I thought you’d come,” he said in a voice hoarse from whiskey. He pushed against the desk and rolled his chair out onto the floor.

“We read about Little John. Please have a seat.”

He was in his sixties, fairly short, perhaps 175 centimeters tall, with graying hair and ruddy skin. His eyes were spaced far apart and he had a big nose. Haver thought people with big noses looked strong-willed, and in Sagander’s case this was supported by his manner of speaking to and looking at his visitor.

He gave the impression of being a person who wanted results, fast.

“I understand John used to work here,” Haver said. “It must be terrible to read about it in the papers.”

“Not as terrible as it must have been for John,” the man said.

“Are you the boss?”

The man nodded.

“Agne Sagander,” he said quickly.

“How long did John work here?”

“Almost all his working life, short as it was. He wasn’t more than a boy when he started.”

“Why did he stop working here?”

“There wasn’t enough work to go around, that’s all.”

Haver sensed a streak of irritation, as if Haver wasn’t quick enough for him.

“Was he good at his job?”

“Yes, very.”

“But you let him go?”

“As I said, we have no control over the market.”

“Looks like it’s full steam ahead out there,” Haver said.

“Now is now. That’s not how things were back then.”

Haver was quiet. Sagander waited, but after a few seconds he rolled his chair over to the desk and closed the folder that lay open. Haver decided to plunge ahead.

“Who killed him?”

Sagander froze with his enormous hand suspended above the folder.

“How the hell would I know something like that?” he said. “Ask his good-for-nothing brother.”

“You know Lennart?”

Sagander made a noise that Haver interpreted as yes, but that also gave an idea of what he thought of John’s brother.

“Maybe he also worked for you?”

“Oh no,” Sagander said, and rolled out across the floor again.

“When did you last see John?”

Sagander put his hand up to his nose. He can’t keep still for a second, Haver thought.

“It’s been a while. Sometime last summer.”

“Did he come here?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“To talk, to visit.”

“Was there anything in particular?”

Sagander shook his head.

“Is there anything else you could say about John, apart from work? If you know anyone who knew him…” Haver didn’t know how he should put the question.

“Anyone who might have wanted to kill him, you mean?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“No. Can’t think of anyone. This is a workplace.”

“Can you think of anything that happened that might appear in a different light, in hindsight? Something you might connect with the crime?”

“No.”

“Did he ever ask for an advance on his salary?”

“There’s a question for you. It happened, not very often. Now and then.”

“Was he irresponsible with money?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Drugs?”

“No luck there. A little vodka from time to time but nothing that interfered with his work. Maybe when he was younger, but that’s a common story.”

Sagander looked searchingly at Haver.

“You don’t have much, do you?”

“Would you mind if I talked with your men? They’ve probably worked with John.”

“All three, in fact. Of course. Talk as much as you’d like.”

Sagander had returned to his desk and reopened the folder by the time it took Haver to get up and leave the stuffy office. As Haver was closing the door the phone rang and Sagander grabbed the receiver with irritation.

“The shop,” Haver heard him say, as if there were only one metalwork shop in the whole town.

Erki Karjalainen, the man with the angle grinder, looked as if he had been waiting for Haver, because as soon as Haver stepped out of the office he signaled that he wanted to speak with him. Haver walked over to him.

“You’re from the police, aren’t you?” the man asked in a Swedish-Finnish dialect.

“That’s right. It must be written on my forehead.”

The Finn smiled.

“It’s a terrible thing,” he said, and Haver saw that he meant it. He discerned a mere suggestion of shakiness in the man’s face that betrayed his emotion.

“John was a good guy,” he continued, and his accent became more distinct. “A devil of a welder.”

These were the kind of men who beat the Russians, Haver thought.

“And nice.”

He looked over at the office.

“A good friend.”

Haver was touched by his simple words. He nodded. Karjalainen turned his head and looked at the welder. Is he as good as Little John was? Haver wondered.

“Kurre is good but John was better,” the Finn said, as if he had read Haver’s mind. “It’s a disgrace that he had to quit. There were still a few jobs and we knew things were going to get better.”

“Did they get along?”

A thoughtful expression came over Erki Karjalainen’s face, and when he spoke, his words no longer had the succinct assurance of his earlier answers.

“There was something that wasn’t right between them,” he said. “I think Sagge used the lack of work as an excuse to get rid of John.”

“What was wrong?”

Erki took out a pack of cigarettes. He smoked Chesterfields, something that surprised Haver. He thought they had gone out of business.

“Let’s step out,” Erki said. “Do you smoke?”

Haver shook his head and followed him out into the yard. The clouds had filled the patch of blue sky and the construction workers were taking a break.

“They’re building offices,” Erki said.

He inhaled a few times. Haver studied his face in the daylight. He had a narrow, lined face that was marked by hard work. His dark hair was slicked back. Bushy eyebrows and thin lips. Nicotine-stained teeth in poor condition. He reminded Haver of an out-of-work Italian actor from the 1950s. He sucked deeply on the cigarette and spoke with puffs of smoke punctuating his speech.

“Sagge’s a good guy, but sometimes he can be a hard-ass too. We have to put in a lot of overtime and John didn’t like that. He had a family, and the older his boy got, the less John liked to work late.”

“And Sagge took his revenge by firing him, you mean.”

“Revenge,” Erki repeated, as if testing the word. “Maybe that’s taking it a bit far. Sagge is a stubborn bastard, and stubborn bastards sometimes do crazy things, against their better judgment.”

“Like firing a good welder to make a point?”

“Yup. I think he regrets it, but he’d never say anything like that.”

“Did you ever see John after he stopped working here?”

Erki nodded and lit a new Chesterfield with the remains of the first.

“He came by sometimes but he never talked to Sagge.”

“But with you he did?”

“With me he did.”

The Finn smiled sorrowfully and looked even more like a character in a Fellini film.

Before Haver left the workshop he talked to the other two employees, Kurt Davidsson and Harry Mattzon. Neither of them was particularly talkative, but they strengthened the image of John as a skillful welder and pleasant colleague. They did not, however, appear to take his death as much to heart as Erki did.

The long-haired Mattzon said something that struck Haver as strange.

“I saw John on the street here last summer. It was the last week of my holiday. I was down here getting a car-roof box I keep at work. My brother was going to borrow it. When I swung out onto the street I saw John coming down this way.”

“In a car?”

“Of course.”

“He doesn’t own a car,” Haver said.

“I know. That’s why I remember it. I thought he had bought one.”

“What kind was it?”

“An old white Volvo 242 from the mid-seventies.”

Haver couldn’t help smiling.

“Was he alone?”

“I don’t know.”

“When was this?”

“Must have been the first week of August. Sunday, I think. My brother was going away and I had promised to get him the roof box, but had forgotten to take it home so I had to come down here on a Sunday.”

“Had he been here at the workshop?”

“It’s hard to say,” Mattzon said, taking a few steps to the door and putting his hand on the handle. Haver realized that the man had burned himself. There were bright red blisters on the knuckles of the left hand. A few blisters had burst and revealed the inflamed flesh beneath.

“Maybe he came down to meet someone here?”

“Like who? Everything was closed, shut down for the summer. Sagander was in Africa, on safari,” Mattzon said and opened the door.

“You should see to that hand,” Haver said. “It looks bad.”

Mattzon peeked into the workshop, then looked at Haver. He didn’t bother checking his hand.

“At least I’m alive,” he said and returned to his work.

Haver caught sight of Sagander in his office before the door shut. He took out his cell phone and called Sammy Nilsson but he didn’t answer. Haver looked down at his watch. Lunchtime.