The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [126]
After a week, his curiosity had won over his desire not to be nosy, and when he had checked under the tarp, he had found a car.
“There’s something not right about it,” Algot Andersson said. “I thought I had better call in.”
“You did the right thing,” Lindell said, convinced that they had finally located Armas’s car.
Andersson had not made a note of the license plate number, but both the color and make corresponded.
The boat club dock was on the Fyris river, close to the southern industrial area and the area upstream from it where Armas had been found bobbing among the reeds.
“I’m still here and can check the license plate for you,” Algot Andersson offered. “Hang on!”
Lindell heard static on the line and imagined the man approaching the car with agile steps. She imagined him looking like an older version of Berglund.
“Hello,” he said, and quickly recited the number.
“I could kiss you,” she said.
She called Ryde at forensics, but it was Charles Morgansson who picked up.
“Eskil had to go to a funeral today,” he explained.
Lindell told him about the car find and the technician promised to go down to the Fyris river right away. Lindell, who had been planning to go down there herself but who definitely did not want to bump into her ex-lover, informed him that he would be working with Ola Haver.
“How is everything?” Morgansson asked.
She knew he didn’t mean work, but she still chose to tell him about the situation of the case. Morgansson took the hint and did not ask further questions.
Lindell called Haver, who was pleased to have a reason to leave the building. Thereafter she read Beatrice’s summary of Armas’s life. It had been lying on her desk for a day or so, but now she pulled herself together and read through the brief report.
Armas’s background was murky, to say the least. He was probably born to Armenian parents in Paris, but there was also information that suggested Trieste, Italy, as his birthplace.
He had claimed to have been born in 1951. He had come to Sweden eighteen years ago and immediately found work at the shipbuilding company Kockums in Malmö. In France he had apparently trained as a welder. After six months at the shipyard, he most likely left the country, but returned in 1970 and was hired at Club Malibu in Helsingborg.
Beatrice had put in a great deal of effort in tracing his career, but there were many gaps and questions. He was convicted of assault in the mid-seventies and was sentenced to eight months in prison. It was a matter of a fight in a nightclub. It was the only occasion on which he was seriously in trouble with the law.
After serving his sentence he again disappeared from view only to reemerge many years later when he moved to Uppsala at the same time as Slobodan Andersson.
His income the past several years had been even but not excessive. The most recent information indicated a taxable income of just two hundred thousand. He had been cited by the tax authority thirteen times, but all notations were in regards to small sums. Fourteen parking tickets and a speeding fine were also registered.
Lindell sighed. In spite of Bea’s efforts there was nothing to go on. Not a word of any son. No information that was useful in their current situation. Nothing.
Irritably, she tossed the report aside, took out her notebook, and flipped through her notes from the past few days but had no new ideas. And she knew why: her thoughts were at the Fyris river and Armas’s car. She should be there.
Given a lack of anything else to do, she called Barbro Liljendahl, who answered on the first signal.
“Great! I had been thinking of calling you. I’ve checked out Rosenberg. He is a regular at Dakar.”
This was not news to Lindell, who had seen him there in the company of Lorenzo Wader.
“How did you find out?”
“I talked to Måns Fredriksson. He works in the bar and is the son of my sister’s neighbor. I was over at my sister’s having a cup of coffee. She has a patio and the neighbor