The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [32]
“What?”
“For him, I mean. With Berit.”
“Berit’s all right.”
“I’m sure she is, but how were things between the two of them?”
“Who’s been saying stuff?”
“No one.”
“Glad to hear it,” Lennart said.
The way Sammy saw it, Lennart had armed himself with nonchalance and arrogance. Sammy Nilsson knew he was likely to collapse without it, but nonetheless it irritated him.
“I’m trying to solve your brother’s murder,” he said.
“No shit.”
Sammy left the apartment, hurried down the stairs, and just outside the front door happened to kick an empty can into a flower bed. It landed in a heap of paper trash.
He called Ottosson from the car in order to see if anything new had turned up, but the chief didn’t have much to report. Sixten Wende had started charting movements at the snow dump in Libro. Now they had a preliminary list of all the drivers who usually trucked snow in. More names would probably be added. Wende had taken on the task of calling every last one of them.
Peter Lundin had checked into the tire-track patterns that had been recovered in Libro. So far they had not matched them to a car belonging to a county official. Andreas Lundemark, the only official who had any business at the dump, drove a Volvo with completely different tire prints.
“But it could be anybody, for that matter,” Ottosson said. “Someone out with their dog or on a romantic assignation.”
Sammy heard someone talking to Ottosson in the background.
“I’ll give you a call later,” Sammy said hastily. “I need to check into a few things.”
Ten
Haver stood by the car. He decided not to think about all the interrogations and background checks that had to be done, but to concentrate on the matter at hand. He had felt this before, the sense that the quantity of things to be done overshadowed the most obvious.
Take a systematic approach, he told himself, but immediately became unsure about how he should proceed.
Sagander’s Mechanical Workshop was located between a tire company and a business specializing in the installation of aluminum doors. It was the kind of building you didn’t notice unless you worked in the area.
A fence about two meters in height ran the perimeter of the yard, in which Haver picked out a couple of containers, a few pallets filled with metal scraps, and a flatbed truck piled high with scrapped pipes. A couple of bathtubs were propped up against the wall.
Haver noted that there were three cars parked in front of the building: a Mazda, an old rusty VW Golf, and a fairly new Volvo.
As he walked into the yard the clouds parted and the sun peeked out unexpectedly. Haver looked up. A crane on a nearby lot swung around and lowered its load. The crane operator paused and watched the men working below. One of them used his arm to signal to the operator, who was barely visible in the small cabin about ten meters off the ground. The crane swung around a few meters. The man made a new sign and shouted something to his colleague, who laughed and shouted something in return.
Haver’s father had been a construction worker and sometimes as a boy Haver had accompanied his father to work. This was most often on small jobs, but sometimes it had been on big residential sites swarming with people, materials, machines, and sounds.
He watched the construction workers and carpenters at work with a tug of longing, envy, even. But above all he felt a warmth well up inside him, both from the sun and from watching the workers in their coordinated efforts. Even their work clothes—jackets lined in loud colors—brought a silly smile to his face.
One of the workers caught sight of him and Haver raised his hand. The man copied his movement and continued to work.
A screeching noise from inside the workshop broke the spell. Haver returned to reality—the black asphalt breaking through the dirty snow, a mess of scrap, wood shavings, rust, loose pieces of cardboard, and the depressing aluminum facade with its windows completely covered in dust.
He sighed heavily and avoided the muckiest areas of the yard. The metal door was unlocked. Haver stepped inside