The Princess of Burundi

Twenty-three

The search for Vincent Hahn intensified in the early morning hours. His temporary home on Bergslagsresan had quickly been found and Fredriksson had gone in with four men. As expected, it was empty.

The apartment, a one-bedroom, gave an abandoned impression. There were no curtains, only a few pieces of furniture, and very few personal belongings. The phone was not hooked up. There was no computer.

“The most remarkable thing we found,” Fredriksson said at the morning meeting, “was a mannequin. It was lying in Hahn’s bed dressed in a pair of black panties.” Fredriksson blushed slightly as he described the somewhat soiled doll.

“No address book, letters, or anything?” Beatrice asked, hoping to jog her colleague along.

“Well,” Fredriksson said, pinching his nose, “there were three binders filled with letters that Hahn has written over the past few years. These were addressed to the local district authorities, to the Uppsala transit authorities, Swedish Public Radio, and God knows who else. He seems to have devoted his time to writing letters of complaint about everything and everyone. He archived their replies. As far as I can tell, most of them were brief and dismissive.”

“He must have made quite a name for himself,” Ottosson said.

“The question is where he is now,” Sammy said.

“We know he was picked up by a car at the train crossing in Bergsbrunna. The driver, a technician from the waterworks, called in this morning when he had read the news. He dropped him off at the ER.”

“When was that?”

“Some thirty minutes after the attack,” Fredriksson said. “We checked, but no Vincent Hahn was admitted to the hospital yesterday. They’ll let us know if he turns up.”

“How serious were his wounds?”

“He was bleeding profusely, but it’s hard to say how deep the wound was. The man from the waterworks said he had blood all over his face but that he seemed coherent. He was able to walk unassisted.”

“Is he German? With a name like Hahn, I mean.”

“No, he’s a Swedish citizen. His parents have been dead for many years. There was a brother, Wolfgang, but he emigrated to Israel fifteen years ago.”

“Is he Jewish?” Lundin asked.

“On his mother’s side. His mother came here after the war. This is all according to public records.”

Fredriksson stopped talking and looked down at his papers.

“Okay,” Ottosson said. “Good work. We will continue surveillance in Sävja, both the apartment and Gunilla Karlsson’s place. Fredriksson, you’ll continue to look into the matter of whether Hahn has any relatives or friends in the area. He must have gone somewhere. It’s unlikely he would have left town, at least not on public transport. With that head wound he has he would only draw attention to himself.”

“Does he have a car?” Sammy asked.

“Not even a driver’s license,” Fredriksson said.

“Okay,” Ottosson said again. “Let’s hear the part about the knife and the youngster. Sammy, you’re up.”

“Mattias Andersson was arrested after a fight downtown. He was found to be armed with a knife. Bohlin, from the youth patrol, had heard about Little John’s murder, so when he saw the knife he took a closer look at it. It had stains that have been confirmed consistent with Little John’s blood.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Beatrice said. “How old is he?”

“Fifteen.”

The door opened and Berglund stepped in, with the district attorney in tow. They sat down and the briefing continued.

“He claims he pocketed the knife at the Akademiska Hospital parking garage earlier that same day. We’ve checked, but no car break-ins have been reported. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because Mattias claims he swiped it from an unlocked pickup truck. Apparently he walked around testing car doors, and when this one opened he found this knife in a black bucket in the back of the truck.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Maybe,” Sammy said. “The guy’s scared shitless. He’s been crying mostly. His mother’s doing the same thing. The tears are just pouring out of her.”

“Did you talk to the security guards?”

“Yes,” Sammy said. “They had no incidents that day, no reports of theft or damage. Normally this happens almost daily. We took Mattias down there last night so he could point out the place for us. The guard thought he recognized him but couldn’t remember a pickup truck in that spot. It’s not unlikely the guard could recognize him, because he regularly patrols the garage.”

“A pickup,” Ottosson said thoughtfully. “What color, and make?”

“Red,” Sammy said, “possibly with a white hood. It could be a Toyota, but he is extremely unsure on this point.”

“If we’re going to take this story at all seriously we’ll have to show this boy some pictures of different models,” Beatrice said.

“Does he have an alibi for the evening John was murdered?” Morenius asked. He was surprised that no one else had thought of this.

“It’s doubtful,” Sammy said. “He says he was hanging out with his friends downtown. We’ve tried to pinpoint where they were and when, but the friends are all vague. ‘That’s years ago, man,’ as one of them put it. Some of them even think it’s cool that Mattias was found with a murder weapon in his possession.”

“Last but not least, I can say that Ann made a guest appearance here yesterday,” Ottosson said. “She sat in on the questioning of Mattias, and helped calm his mother afterward. I even think they had a cup of coffee together.”

“How are things with her?” Beatrice asked.

“She’s bored,” Sammy said. “She’s thinking of selling the baby.”

“Give me a break.”

“She’s already looking through the Yellow Pages,” Sammy said and smiled at Beatrice.

The meeting finished an hour later. Ola Haver felt unusually dispirited. The mention of Ann Lindell made him long for Rebecka. He thought about sneaking home to her for an hour or two. He had done this on a few previous occasions, before the children had come along and when she had had a day off.

He smiled at the memory and opened the door to his office. At the same time, the telephone rang. He looked at it, let it ring a few times before answering.

“Hi, it’s Westrup. Are you right in the middle of something?” the voice said quickly, then continued, “You’re working on the Little John case, am I right? We received a tip this fall about a gambling ring and Little John’s name came up.”

“Damn,” Haver said, and all his low spirits were gone.

“We’re keeping our eye out for an Iranian called Mossa, a player, maybe he also deals drugs, what do I know. He’s allegedly part of a high-stakes poker ring.”

“How did you find this out?”

“One of the participants couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Åström took him in for questioning in connection with some forged business invoices. It’s a case of suspected money laundering: this guy was sitting on a lot of cash he had trouble explaining how he got his hands on. That’s when talk of this poker game came up. He probably exaggerated the whole thing, mostly to get Åström off his back about the invoices, but he dropped a few names.”

“Had John won or lost?”

“He won-a lot, as it turns out. There was talk of a couple of hundred thousand.”

“Let’s talk to this guy. What’s his name?”

Haver studied the name in front of him. It meant nothing to him. Ove Reinhold Ljusnemark, forty-six and trained as an airplane mechanic. He had been fired from Arlanda after reports of theft.

He had an in-care-of address out in Tunabackar. Haver immediately had the impression that he would dislike Ove Reinhold. Maybe because he was a snitch who tried to go free by burning his friends. Westrup, a colleague from Skåne who had joined the Uppsala police a year ago, had promised to bring Ljusnemark in.

When the ruddy Ljusnemark was led into Haver’s office an hour later, he had a sheepish smile on his face. Haver scrutinized him without saying a word. He gestured for Ljusnemark to sit down and nodded to Westrup. The latter remained in the doorway for a moment and smiled. This was something Haver appreciated in his colleague. His large frame, slightly slow gait, and then his smile. Not always transparent, but friendly.

Haver sat quietly at first. The visitor’s smile grew more stiff. Haver pretended to be looking for something, took out a thick binder that concerned a completely different investigation, opened it to a report that he spent a few seconds eyeing, and then gave the snitch a quick look.

“Impressive,” he said and closed the binder. “So what will it be? Cooperation or confrontation?”

Ove Reinhold Ljusnemark sat up a little in his chair. The smile had completely disappeared from his face and he cleared his throat. Haver wasn’t sure if he understood the words he had just used.

“You knew Little John. There are those who claim you had something to do with his murder.”

Ljusnemark swallowed.

“What the hell,” he said. “Says who?”

Haver laid his hand on the binder.

“Do you want to tell us, or do we do this the hard way?”

“It’s a fucking lie! I played with him a few times, that’s all.”

“Yes, let’s start there. Tell me about your games.”

Ljusnemark looked at him as if they were in the middle of a poker game.

“We played cards. I didn’t really know him. We were a group of guys who met from time to time. There were no big sums involved, but occasionally the stakes would get higher.”

“You’re on disability right now?”

Ljusnemark nodded.

“Forty-six years old and physically incapacitated,” Haver said.

“I have sciatica.”

“But you’re strong enough to stay up all night playing poker, it seems. Tell me how much money we’re talking about.”

“Lately, you mean? Well, we didn’t start big. It was small amounts.”

“Who was there?”

“People came and went because games went on for a while. The time goes so fast when you’re enjoying yourself. We would order pizza, that kind of thing.”

Ljusnemark paused and tried to smile.

“Cut to the chase.”

“It’s a little while ago. I don’t remember so well.”

“We have information that connects you to the murder weapon used in Little John’s case,” Haver said curtly.

“What?”

“Who were the people you played with? How much money was involved?”

“What kind of weapon? I’ve never had a weapon.”

Haver waited.

“Give me a break,” Ljusnemark said in English, and at that moment Haver was prepared to put him away on bread and water for twenty years. He opened the binder.

“It was me and Little John,” Ljusnemark started and then related the whole story with remarkable fluency, including a full account of all the participants. Haver recognized the names of a few of them.

“You lost?”

“Five or six thousand at most. I swear. I was forced to back out and Jerry took my place.”

“Jerry Martin?”

Ljusnemark nodded, squirming in his seat. Haver stared at him for a few seconds.

“You can go now,” he said.

Eight names. Haver sensed that the answer lay here somewhere. Money and passion, that’s where you looked for answers. People came to grief over money and unrequited love.

Haver leaned back in his chair. Was there any society in which money didn’t rule? He had heard of some tribe in Africa in which violence and theft almost never occurred and there was no concern over measuring time. He longed to join them, but assumed that the tribe was most likely already extinct, or had been driven into a shantytown where the members were dying from alcohol and AIDS.

Eight names. Haver took the list and went to find Ottosson.