The Princess of Burundi

Eight

Justus Jonsson got up out of his bed at twenty to four in the morning. He had woken up with a start, driven by a single thought. His dad’s voice: You know what you have to do, boy.

Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He tiptoed to the door, opened it, and saw the light on in the hall. He listened, but the apartment was quiet. The door to his parents’ bedroom was slightly ajar. He peeked in and saw to his surprise that the bed was empty. He was confused for a few seconds-had she left? But then he saw that the covers were missing and then he understood.

She was sleeping on the sofa. He walked over and stood so close that he could hear her breathing and then, reassured, returned to the bedroom. The closet door squeaked softly as he opened it. With the most careful movements he could muster he carried a chair over so that he could reach the top shelf, all the way at the back.

That’s where John had kept the boxes of aquarium equipment, spare parts to the pumps, filters, a jar of pebbles, plastic bags, and the like. Behind all this Justus located what he was looking for and carefully teased out the box. His mother coughed and he stopped, waiting for half a minute before he dared to get down, put the box on the bed, put the chair back, and gently shut the closet door.

The box was heavier than he had expected. He tucked it under one arm, looked out into the hall, and listened. He was sweating. The floor was cold. The clock out in the living room struck four.

Justus had saved his father. That’s how he felt. A wave of warmth pulsed through him. It’s our secret, he thought. No one will find out, I promise.

He crept in under the covers, pulled his legs up, and put his hands together. He prayed that John would see him, hear him, touch him. One last time. He would have given anything to feel the touch of his father’s hand again.

On the other side of the city, Ola Haver was getting up. Was it the headache that had woken him or one of the kids? Rebecka was sleeping heavily. She always woke up at the slightest sound from the little ones, so he suspected it was the pain behind his brow that had cut his sleep short.

He took a couple of painkillers, washed them down with a glass of milk, and remained standing at the kitchen counter. I should be sleeping, he thought. He looked at the time: half past four. Had the paper arrived? At that moment he heard the door to the apartment building slam shut and he took that as a sign.

He waited at the front door and picked the paper up when it was pushed through the mail slot. It struck him that he had never seen the delivery person, but he sensed it was a man. That’s what the steps in the stairwell sounded like. A person who serves us every morning and whom we would sorely miss if he stayed home one day. No face, just a pair of feet and a hand to push the paper through the mail slot.

Haver unfolded the newspaper and turned on the kitchen lamp. The picture from Libro was the first thing he saw. The story had not changed. Liselotte Rask, the public relations manager, confirmed the facts of the brutal murder and added that the police had recovered certain traces at the site. Haver smiled. Yes, he thought, my shoe prints, Ottosson’s, and Bea’s.

The picture of the victim didn’t do him justice, but in comparison to how his body had looked it was a glamour shot. People just can’t imagine, Haver thought. They don’t know what we have to see. Not even Rebecka understands-but how could she?

Haver pushed the paper aside. He thought about how he should organize the day. He took a look at the list of tasks he had assigned himself the night before.

Bea was going to search John’s apartment in Gränby. Sammy would maybe accompany her. He was good with kids. And Haver thought John’s son would probably like dealing with a male police officer.

John’s brother had to be questioned, and they would have to question the wife again. Bea hadn’t managed to get much out of her during their conversation yesterday.

According to Berit Jonsson, her husband had taken the bus downtown. Which bus? They could probably find the driver. He or she would perhaps recall at which stop John had gotten off. The pet-store line of inquiry also had to be pursued to see if he had bought a pump and in that case where and when. They had to do everything possible to try to re-create John’s steps on his last afternoon.

Haver dismissed all thoughts of the murder investigation, pulled the paper back over, and read it thoroughly. He had plenty of time and his headache was getting better. He assuaged his hunger with a banana and some yogurt.

He wasn’t tired exactly, but tense in preparation for the day’s activities. If they could establish the movements of John’s last days relatively quickly, their chances of solving the case increased dramatically.

It was no accident, nor was it a murder committed in haste, he was convinced of that. The murderer or murderers would be found in John’s circle of acquaintances. It shouldn’t be too hard to establish a cast of characters.

The motive? Money, Bea had said. Drugs, was Riis’s suggestion, although Ottosson had dismissed this, saying that John Jonsson had never been a dealer. The chief had gone as far as to claim that John had hated drugs.

Haver leaned toward the theory that it was money. An old debt that had not been repaid, a lender who went out of control, who perhaps had been provoked. He would ask Sammy to compile a list of known lenders. Haver knew of some already, above all Sundin from Gävle, who sometimes made guest appearances in Uppsala, also the brothers Häll and the “Gym Coach,” a bodybuilder who had a background in karate. Were there others? Sammy would know.

Debt. It must have been a substantial sum to motivate murder, Haver mused. What exactly constitutes a “substantial sum”? One hundred thousand? Half a million?

It struck him suddenly that the murderer was perhaps also reading the morning paper at this precise moment. In contrast to the newspaper reporters and the police, the killer knew the whole story. Consumed by this thought, Haver got up and walked to the window. It was snowing. The lights were on in a couple of windows on the other side of the street. Perhaps he was there, in one of the apartments on the other side?

Haver snorted at these musings but couldn’t rid himself of the thought that the murderer was also awake right now. The thought both appealed to him and appalled him. He liked it, because it meant that the murderer was unable to sleep in peace, did not feel secure, and was worried by the words that the police “had recovered certain clues.” He was thinking, probably for the hundredth time, of how he had transported the dead or dying man to Libro. Had he dropped something or left tracks? There was perhaps some small detail that he had missed, a mistake that he sensed, that was now depriving him of sleep in the wee hours. But he disliked thinking of how the murderer was free to read the paper, drink his coffee and wander out into the morning, sit in the car or perhaps even board a plane, only to disappear from reach.

“Stay where you are,” Haver mumbled.

“Did you say something?”

Rebecka appeared in the doorway. He hadn’t heard her get up. She had the green nightgown on. Her hair was messy and she looked tired. He guessed that she had been up nursing the little one.

“I was just talking to myself,” he said. “I’m reading about the murder.”

Rebecka yawned and went to the bathroom. Haver cleared his things up in the kitchen, refilled the coffeemaker and switched it on. He felt torn again. The peace and quiet of the morning was over and so was the possibility of quiet reflection, but at the same time he loved having her there with him, not least in the early morning.

It was something left over from childhood. In his home, the mornings had always been unusually peaceful, a pleasurable time for family members to be together. They had been an unusual family in that they had all been morning people, almost to the point where they tried to compete over who could appear the most cheerful and friendly.

Haver had tried to re-create this with Rebecka, even though she often bordered on a state of complete exhaustion in the mornings. He would make her coffee, toast, and, before she had gotten pregnant, a boiled egg and roe spread. Now she couldn’t stand the smell of either egg or roe.

He ate his eggs with a feeling of guilt, but he couldn’t bring himself to completely exclude them from his morning ritual.

Rebecka returned from the bathroom. She smiled and ruffled his hair.

“You’re a mess,” she said.

He grabbed her, pulling her close, and hugged her, with his nose pressed against her stomach. He knew she was reading the paper over his head, but he drew in her smell and for a short while forgot all about the black headlines.