The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [120]
“It’s those damned butchers at Akademiska,” Sagander said. “Butchers.”
“I think you have an infection,” Gunnel Sagander said in a firmer voice. “You should go in.”
“And be stuck there over Christmas? Not if I can help it.”
“If it’s an infection they’ll give you antibiotics,” she said. “Would you like some coffee?” she said, changing the topic and turning to Lindell.
“Thanks, that would be nice,” she said. Mrs. Sagander left the room. Her husband gazed after her thoughtfully.
“The shop has burned to the ground,” Haver said ruthlessly. “It’s a fucking wasteland.” He seemed to have adjusted his language to Sagander’s own.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Are you upset?” Lindell asked.
“Upset? What the hell kind of question is that?”
“We think someone put a match to it,” Berglund said.
“Can’t you sit down? From down here it feels as if you’ve come to pay your final respects.”
The three officers sat down. Lindell felt like she was paying a visit to a sick, bad-tempered relative.
“Put a match to it,” Sagander said. “Who would do that?”
“Are you on bad terms with anyone?”
“That would be the tax authorities, but I don’t think they resort to arson. Hardly Ringholm, minister of finance, either, that yellow-bellied sap.”
“We’ve been thinking,” Haver said and leaned forward. “Recently one of your former employees was murdered and now your shop has burned down. Is there a connection?”
Sagander shook his head.
“What did you do on the seventeenth of December?” Berglund asked.
Sagander looked at him for a second before answering. Lindell thought she saw a brief look of disappointment on his face, as if Sagander thought that Berglund was letting down a fellow hunter.
“I can tell you that. That was the day I lay under the knife,” he said and gestured to his back.
“You recovered quickly,” Haver said. “When I met you in your office on the nineteenth you seemed very fit.”
“I was operated on for a slipped disk and they send you home as quick as the devil.”
“When did you come home?”
“The afternoon of the eighteenth, my birthday.”
“What kind of car do you drive?” Berglund asked.
“The Volvo out there,” Sagander said quickly. It was obvious that he was in pain and that he hated it, not for the pain itself, Lindell sensed, but because of the inactivity it imposed.
“How did you get home?”
“My wife picked me up.”
“In the Volvo?”
“Yes, how else? In a limousine?”
Mrs. Sagander came into the room with a tray covered with cups and plates, buns and cakes.
“Let’s see,” she said and turned to Lindell. “Maybe you could push those newspapers aside?”
The cups rattled. Lindell helped to set them out.
“This is beautiful china,” she said, and Gunnel Sagander looked at her as if she were drowning at sea and was being thrown a lifesaver.
“I hope you aren’t sick of gingerbread yet,” she said.
I would be enjoying this if it weren’t for Agne Sagander, Lindell thought.
“The coffee is brewing,” Mrs. Sagander said.
“I saw some pretty copper pots in your kitchen on the way in. Do you mind letting me have a closer look?”
“Of course not. Come with me.”
They walked out to the kitchen and Lindell felt Agne Sagander’s eyes in her back.
“He gets a little brusque,” Mrs. Sagander said when they were in the kitchen. “It’s the pain.”
“I can see that,” Lindell said. “He seems like the kind of person who thrives on being up and about.”
Together they viewed the pans and pots. Gunnel told her that she had inherited most of it but also bought some things at auctions.
“He goes crazy when I come home with more stuff, but then he thinks I make the house look nice.”
“That’s so like a man,” Lindell said. “You picked him up at the hospital, I heard.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Gunnel said, and her eyes lost some of their spark.
“That was the eighteenth?”
“Yes; it was his birthday, but there wasn’t much in the way of a celebration. He was in a bad mood mostly and wanted to get back to work.”
“I can’t believe they send people home so soon. He had been operated on the day before.”
“It must be the budget cuts, but he wanted to come home.