The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [141]
The painter looked up and gave Manuel a hasty but friendly glance. Manuel felt irritated and realized that envy was the source. Everything looked so harmonious, everyone appeared well-nourished and well-dressed. There were no poor people selling trinkets or begging. The craftspeople appeared carefree and pleased with their work. Everything was so different from Mexico.
Back in the village children played with scraps. If they in fact had any spare time to play, they had to make their own toys. No one built special houses for them.
Manuel continued on, passing trees laden with apples and families who had spread blankets in the grass. They ate and drank. Some of them were playing a game with wooden sticks that they swung through the air in order to strike down the wooden sticks of their opponent.
A young couple was walking in front of him. The man had his hand on one of the woman’s buttocks. They stopped and kissed. Manuel walked past them and tried to avoid staring at them.
When he got back to the tent, Patricio was sleeping. Manuel sat down on the side of the bank. He thought about Gabriella in the village and from there it was not a great leap to Eva. His brother snored and turned. Some birds flew up from the water.
The sight of the man’s hand on the woman’s buttock had excited him. He thought of Eva. It was as if his thoughts automatically returned to her.
Manuel stretched out in the grass and was asleep within a couple of minutes.
Fifty-Six
The morning started with an unusually short case review. Ann Lindell had taken Erik to Görel’s so that she could drop him off at day care. Görel had not commented on their dinner, had in fact not been particularly communicative.
While her colleagues were filing in—some cheerful, others reticent and glum with fatigue—Lindell tried to repress her friend’s coldness. Once this case was over and Lindell could gather her thoughts, they could have a talk and sort out this misunderstanding. Everything later, that was how she experienced her life. The fault lay with her, she had combined her work with her personal life and it was clear that Görel had felt pushed aside. Lindell decided to call and apologize.
Fredriksson, Sammy Nilsson, Beatrice, Barbro Liljendahl, Ottosson, and a handful of other police officers were present, among them three men from the drug unit and two superior officers from patrol. The head of the criminal information service, Morenius, accompanied by district attorney Fritzén, came sauntering in when everyone else was already seated.
Ottosson began the meeting and briefly sketched an outline of the situation. The circumstances regarding Konrad Rosenberg’s abrupt end had created a flurry of speculations, and Ottosson emphasized very strongly that they were not interested in Rosenberg even though his case involved drugs and sudden death.
Their focus was on Slobodan Andersson, his potential involvement in the cocaine wave that had washed over the city, and the question of how Armas’s murder could be plugged into this context.
“Mexico,” Lindell said when the lecture was over.
“I’ve been reading up on this,” Sammy Nilsson said. “Everyone is still at large. The hostages are, as you know, unharmed. They were left bound in a locked car that was found around eleven o’clock last night. A guy who has a logging harvester was bringing some diesel up and he discovered the abandoned van. He is planning to start harvesting timber in the area. But as I said, there is not a trace of this gang of four. The whole thing seems professionally planned and executed.”
“I saw Bodström on TV last night,” Fredriksson said. “He could hardly contain himself.”
Sammy Nilsson cast an angry glance at him before he went on. He hated to be interrupted.
“One of the four is Mexican. His name is Patricio Alavez and he was serving an eight-year sentence for drug smuggling. A bungled job at Arlanda. It seems like the drugs are now finding other ways to enter the country, isn