The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [162]
“What does he want?” Ottosson asked.
“To claim his inheritance, I’d say, even if he did also seem genuinely griefstruck. He returned several times to the question of how Armas had died. And then he wanted to talk to Slobodan. They had never met but Anthony knew that Armas and Slobodan had worked together for many years. Maybe he thought Armas owned part of the restaurants, what do I know?”
“Has he been to Mexico?”
Lindell felt as if she was at a press conference, where the questions came from all directions. This time it was Bea.
“Several times. He said that if you live in southern California you often travel down to what he called ‘Basha.’”
“Ba-ha,” Haver corrected.
“Ba-ha,” Lindell repeated in an exaggerated way, and then went on. “Wild had never been to Guadalajara or our friend the tattoo artist, and he did not know that Armas and Slobodan had been to Mexico.”
“How did he find out Armas was dead?”
“Through the film company. We made several inquiries with them and then we mentioned Armas’s death in order to create more urgency for them to give us a name.”
“Is he trustworthy?” Ottosson asked.
“He appeared honest to me. A little flaky, maybe. Not a wholesome person, as you would put it, Otto, but …”
“He’s an actor,” Sammy Nilsson reminded them.
“Does it make your mouth water?” Fredriksson asked.
Everyone looked at him in astonishment. It was a Sammy-comment that he had made and nothing that one would expect of someone normally so rigid about moral topics, and predictably enough he blushed deeply at his own spontaneous remark.
“Sure,” Sammy said, “with a delicious morsel like that around, of course I get a little peckish.”
Everyone laughed except Bea.
They continued to talk for a while longer. Naturally they would question Anthony Wild several more times. He was planning to remain in town for at least a week in order to go through Armas’s apartment and take care of the legal aspects of the inheritance. He was also going to visit Dakar and Alhambra to see the places where his father had worked. In addition, he had requested to visit the scene where his father had been killed.
They did not know if he would obtain permission to meet Slobodan, but Ottosson could not see any obstacles. There was a legitimate and reasonable interest on the part of the son to speak with the murdered father’s best friend, even if the latter was being held under arrest for a drug crime.
Ann Lindell withdrew to her office. The conversation with Armas’s son had at first made her hopeful and then increasingly disappointed. Anthony Wild’s tactfully formulated and yet clearly stated critical comment about the murderer still remaining at large had struck her with unexpected force. All technical evidence, DNA, fingerprints, and tire marks were there. They had skillfully unraveled the question of the tattoo’s removal and clarified the Mexican connection. With the Mexican’s existence revealed, and now also documented on the Norrtälje prison’s videotape, she had assumed that Manuel Alavez would quickly be caught.
He had all the odds against him, and yet he was still at large. It contradicted all logic. Manuel Alavez was a statistical abnormality, a relationship that was strengthened when Patricio Alavez escaped and most likely joined forces with his brother.
Lindell had difficulties evaluating the find of the car in Rotebro. It was natural to dump the car that Alavez most likely understood was hot, but how were they getting around now? Assuming they even had any plans, what were they? To leave the country? But how and when? Patricio had no passport and both brothers were wanted in all of Europe.
Her chain of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Yes!” she called out, more loudly and harshly than she had intended.
Ottosson opened the door a crack.
“The operation was a success,” he said.
It took a while until she