The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [114]
“Yes, you have, I write down all the licencse plate numbers,” the man said and held up a notepad.
“Give me that! This is a punishable offense, do you understand that? You can be arrested for it. What’s your name?” Lindell said, her voice now icy cold as she took out her notebook. “I’m with the police,” she added.
The man ran away. Lindell stared after him with surprise.
“So you’ve run into Crazy Gudmund?”
Lindell turned around and there was Sivbritt Eriksson. Lindell knew at once it had to be her. Finally her luck seemed to have turned.
“Why is he called that?”
“It’s simple: his name is Gudmund and he is crazy. A couple of years ago he was hit in the head with a brick.”
Lindell started to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that kind of day today.”
The woman nodded.
“I know how it feels,” she said, with a tone that made Lindell believe her.
“You’re Sivbritt, aren’t you?”
“Alice,” Sivbritt said at once when Lindell showed her the snapshot she had found at Petrus Blomgren’s.
“I can’t remember her last name, but her first name was Alice. She died in an accident, fell down the basement stairs. Her husband disappeared this September and his daughter still lives in the house. She’s some kind of an economist, I believe. Hindersten, that’s what it was, I remember it now.”
“You are a gold mine,” Lindell said.
Sivbritt Eriksson looked noticeably pleased.
“What was Alice like?”
“A sweet woman, who didn’t have an easy time of it, if you’ll excuse me saying so. She always came in on Thursdays. That’s when our meat came in. She was very particular, but knew what she was talking about. A good customer.”
Lindell sized up the woman in front of her. About seventy, probably no taller than 155 centimeters, graying hair with a perm that was starting to grow out, a thin body, and that combination of reserve and complete frankness that Lindell had seen so many times in older people, perhaps above all in women.
Alice Hindersten may have been a good customer, but Sivbritt Eriksson was a good observer and judge of human character.
“Her place wasn’t in Kåbo. She didn’t really fit in. She knew how to behave, no question there, but she would have needed another kind of man, not one who buried himself in books.”
“How could you tell she didn’t fit in?”
“You can tell. When a woman has had to give up too much, well, then it . . . ” Sivbritt Eriksson hesitated, “. . . it’s not good. I mean, Alice liked to laugh but that man was like a walking migraine, all puffed up with his own importance. He kept people down, you could see it from a long way away. He didn’t even have to open his mouth.”
She stopped and Lindell was convinced she was thinking about her encounters with both Alice and Ulrik Hindersten.
“Alice was fond of veal,” she continued. “It was for some special dish, Italian I think. It’s hard to find good veal. Alice would rather pass if I didn’t have a good piece, and then I would feel a bit ashamed but she was always so kind and said it wasn’t my fault and of course she was right about that.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Lindell put in.
“She liked to take walks. I often saw her walk by. I think she went to the Botanical Gardens each and every day. She took the girl with her. She was already dark as a troll back then.”
“Are you talking about Laura?”
“They only have one. I remember Alice talking about new flowers that had bloomed. She was like a calendar. One day it was spring bulbs and the next day some primrose.”
“Was she happy?” Lindell asked even though she already knew the answer.
“She was happy in the garden. I have been alone for fifteen years but we had a good marriage. Alvar worked at Ekeby for a long time before they shut down. Then he received his sick pension. I have lived here for over fifty years. Here in this building, I mean.”
“When was this photo taken do you think?”
“Hard to say. Alice was a woman who didn’t change. May I be nosy?