The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [94]
“Great,” Lindell said, but she was irritated by her colleague’s enthusiasm and the information that there was a Janne. She found her out-of-breath and agitated voice disconcerting, almost repellant.
“I just wanted to hear about Rosenberg,” she resumed.
“He was furious about his Mercedes. Someone has amused himself by scraping the paint job. He claimed that it was gambling wins that had paid for the car.”
“And the contact with Sidström?”
“They were just friends he said, but he was clearly shaken when I told him that his friend had been stabbed and admitted to Akademiska.”
“What’s your hunch?” Lindell asked.
“Drugs,” Liljendahl said. “There is something here. I think it would pay to put Rosenberg under surveillance.”
“Good luck,” Lindell said, convinced that there would not be enough resources for that and happy that her colleague did not appear to want to draw her further into the stabbing incident in Sävja.
“One more thing,” Liljendahl said. “Rosenberg smoked like a chimney and the matchbox he used was from Dakar. Isn’t that the restaurant where Armas worked?”
“Yes,” Lindell said.
“I was wondering if you should circulate a snapshot of Rosenberg among the restaurant staff.”
Lindell heard how pleased Liljendahl sounded and realized she had held back the information in order to drop it in like this as if in passing.
“Maybe,” Lindell said.
She was on the verge of saying something laudatory, but refrained.
They ended the conversation and Lindell took out her pad of paper and started to draw circles and arrows.
In the large circle she wrote “Dakar” and lines extended from it in all directions with names of places and people who had figured in the investigation thus far. She stared at her attempt to create an oversight before adding “Mexico?” in the left-hand corner and drawing a line to “Armas.”
Then she called Ola Haver and told him about the tattoo and the matchbox at Rosenberg’s and asked him to retrieve all the files on the old drug user, as well as print out a photo.
She leaned back, slipped her shoes off, put her feet up on the desk, and whistled several bars of a song by Simon and Garfunkel off-key.
Forty
Eva Willman spotted him from a distance. He was unmistakable: the broad back, the swollen neck, and the bald spot on the back of his head. Slobodan proceeded along the sidewalk like a bull, with head lowered and shoulders hunched, forcing the pedestrians he encountered to step aside.
He’s going to die of a heart attack, Eva thought, and rested her feet on the pedals, slowly rolling forward, passing the restaurant owner who did not notice her, and then speeding up again. She cycled up to the Old Square at high speed, then took a rest.
The ride from Sävja had done her good. She checked her watch and saw that she had beat her personal best. Slobodan approached on the other side of the street and Eva turned to the river, leaned over the railing, and stared down into the water where she could see the outline of a bicycle among the stones at the bottom.
Watching the current made her dizzy and she lifted her head, looked up at the sky, and smiled to herself. Despite the problems with Patrik she felt happy. I am worth it, she thought. Just biking the eight or nine kilometers into town imbued her with a feeling of strength. She usually looked down at her thighs as she pedaled across the Ultunagärdet, registering how her muscles tensed under the fabric of her pants, count to twenty pushes on the pedals before she looked up.
Sometimes she closed her eyes for a few moments, allowed the wind to caress her face, and listen to the high-pitched whine of the tires on the asphalt.
She had discovered that it was the same people who biked to the city every day. She had already started to nod in recognition to some. An older man in a helmet and bicycle bags had even shouted something to her when they met at Little Ultuna. She did not hear what he said but noted his friendly gaze.
The restaurant owner