The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [60]
This is my day off, she thought suddenly and her anger flared up again.
“You know someone by the name of Zero, don’t you?”
Patrik nodded.
“We have had our eye on him for a while. As you know he is a bit… restless.”
“We played soccer together,” Patrik volunteered. “Before. He was …”
“Yes, what?”
“Nothing.”
Barbro Liljendahl gazed at him for a while before she went on.
“We think he is involved in drugs. Do you know anything about that?
“Cocaine and Ecstasy,” she added after a long period of ominous silence.
Eva turned and glared at her son.
“Did you know about this?” she asked sharply.
Patrik shook his head.
“You’re lying!” Eva screamed.
Patrik looked up. His expression betrayed fear and astonishment. Eva rarely raised her voice.
“I don’t know anything,” he said quietly. But Eva could see by his face that he would soon begin to talk.
“Perhaps you should leave us for a while,” Barbro Liljendahl said, and at first Eva thought the policewoman meant Patrik, then she realized this was directed at her.
She looked at Patrik, who nodded faintly. Eva stood up, full of contradictory feelings, and left the room without a word.
Twenty-Four
On another floor of the station, the brain squad, as Ottosson called the unit, was assembled. The group consisted of Ann Lindell, almost forty years old, who after a series of publicized cases was perhaps the most well known among the police officers in the room; Ola Haver, same age, a doubter, sometimes happily married to Rebecka, at other times paralyzed by indecision as to how best to organize his life;
Berglund, whose first name had been forgotten long ago, the veteran whom everyone privately admired for his wisdom; Allan Fredriksson, the gambler and birdwatcher, a skilled investigator who remained somewhat too disorganized to be truly top-notch; Beatrice Andersson, perhaps the most eminent psychologist among them, hard as flint, according to the male chauvinists in the building; and then Ottosson, the boss, who was referred to as “Liljeholmen”—as in the candle manufacturer—by someone on the drug squad because he liked to make things cozy by lighting candles.
Ottosson poured the coffee and Beatrice heaped mazarin cakes on a plate. Lindell chuckled.
“You are too much, Otto,” she said.
Ottosson patted his stomach.
“A little sugar never hurt anyone,” he said.
Berglund leaned over and nabbed one of the frosted marzipan cakes.
“Should we begin?” Fredriksson said, for once the person who initiated the discussion.
“Sure, sure,” Ottosson said. “Jump right in. Why don’t you go first, Allan, and tell us about the apartment.”
“Almost clinically clean, you could say. There were three sets of fingerprints. Apart from Armas’s own prints, there were some from Slobodan and a third person. Slobodan’s prints were located in a variety of places, in the bathroom, kitchen, and a marble windowsill. The unknown set of prints was found on a videocassette lying on top of the television.”
“What was the tape?”
“Porn,” Allan said.
“So Armas was watching porn with a lady friend?” Ottosson asked.
“I think it was a man,” Allan replied. “It was a homo flick.”
Lindell smiled to herself. She could hear exactly how disgusting Allan thought it was.
“I’ll be damned,” Haver said. “So Armas—”
“If you’ll let me finish, we can delve into speculation later,” Fredriksson interrupted. “Apart from this, the place was, as I said, clean. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing hidden. No weapons, cash, papers, or anything like that. I examined an address book and it contained nothing sensational from what I can tell. Some thirty names, most of them with connections to the restaurant world. The examination has not been completed yet, but I don’t expect we’ll find anything remarkable there.”
Fredriksson turned a page in his notebook before he went on.
“Regarding videotapes: there were about a hundred. Schönell is checking them out right now. It’s conceivable that there is a private tape among them. He will