The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [154]
The questioning of the two failed bank robbers, Brügger and Björnsson, had not yielded anything. They claimed they had no idea where the other two had gone. Björnsson had maintained that the Mexican, whose name he could not even remember, or so he said, had not been involved in planning the escape.
The police in Norrtälje, and the National Crime Division, who had immediately become involved, were working with the theory that Franco and Alavez had joined forces and were perhaps still together. They had systematically worked through the Spaniard’s network of contacts and most recent known addresses and haunts, without results. José Franco appeared to have been swallowed up by the earth.
A tip from a Tierp resident who claimed to have seen Patricio Alavez get on the train to Uppsala was deemed to be not very credible. In part because the witness was clearly intoxicated, not only when he called the police, but he had also, as he himself put it, been somewhat “in his cups” at the time he claimed to have noticed the Mexican on the platform in Tierp.
This tip never reached the Uppsala police.
The sessions with Slobodan Andersson stalled. He kept stubbornly to the story that he had received the bag from a stranger who had asked him to look after it for a day. The stranger was then going to pick it up from the restaurant.
More difficult for the restauranteur was the fact that the police had found Konrad Rosenberg’s fingerprints on the plastic surrounding the cocaine packets. When Slobodan Andersson was asked to explain how this happened, he stopped talking for good.
Even his haughty lawyer looked stricken. Sammy Nilsson noted with satisfaction how impossible the situation was for Slobodan Andersson and how the lawyer gradually abandoned her somewhat intimate attitude toward him. When he subsequently held his tongue throughout the next attempted round of questioning she openly showed her irritation.
Information on the brothers Alavez came back from Mexico with unexpected speed. Neither of them was known to the narcotics division. The elder of the two, Manuel, had been arrested for “disturbance of the peace” charges but had been freed after five days. What this actually meant was not spelled out in the e-mail from Comisario Adolfo Sanchez at the Policía Criminal in Oaxaca.
A group with representatives from both the Norrtälje and Uppsala authorities had been formed. The Uppsala team included Inge Werner from the criminal information service, Sammy Nilsson from violent crimes, and Jan-Erik Rundgren from narcotics.
They were trying to connect the murder of Armas, the cocaine seized at Alhambra, and the escape from the Norrtälje prison. They had met twice in Uppsala but had not experienced much progress. Now the updates were conducted by telephone and mail.
Ann Lindell had conferred with her colleague Lindman from Västerås and discussed the arguments in favor of bringing in Lorenzo Wader for questioning. There were reasons for this. He had been observed at Dakar together with Konrad Rosenberg and together with Olaf González at Pub 19. The waitstaff at both Dakar and Alhambra had also seen how Slobodan Andersson had conversed on several occasions with someone whom they knew as “Lorenzo.”
But Lindman was hesitant and resisted. Maybe a meeting would make Wader clam up. Lindman’s view was that Wader was not to be disturbed and that the investigation that he and the tax authorities in Stockholm had been pursuing for six months could be jeopardized.
Ann Lindell discussed the matter with Ottosson, who said that Lorenzo Wader should definitely be brought in. However, when Lindell and Ola Haver sought him out at Hotel Linné, they learned that he had checked out the day before.
When Lindell relayed this information to Lindman, he chuckled into the phone.
“He’s as slippery as an eel,” Lindman said with evident satisfaction, a reaction that so irritated Lindell that she immediately flagged Lorenzo Wader