The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [6]
Haver now felt as if the routines at work were mirrored by a kind of somnambulism at home. There was a time when he had felt a physical joy at the thought of coming home, a longing for Rebecka, just to be close to her.
Was she the only one who had changed? Haver had thought about this. Sammy “Rasbo” Nilsson, a colleague in the Homicide Division, said it was a sign of his age.
“The two of you have entered into a middle-age crisis, the time when couples realize that life isn’t going to get any better,” he had said, smiling.
“Bullshit,” Haver had cut him off. Now he wasn’t so sure. He loved Rebecka, had done so from the very first. Did she love him? He had discovered a new, critical expression on her face, as if she were looking at him with new eyes. Sure, he worked a lot more now that Ann Lindell was on maternity leave, but there had been times when he had worked at least as much and back then it had never bothered her.
The cell phone rang.
“Hello, it’s me,” said Chief Ottosson. “You can forget about target practice today. We have a body.”
Haver froze. Josefsson’s poodle barked in the distance. It had probably met up with the female Labrador from apartment 5.
“Where?”
“In Libro. A jogger found it.”
“A jogger?”
The sun was barely peeking over the horizon. Were there really people up and running this early, in this weather?
“Forensics is on its way,” said Ottosson.
He sounded tired and distant, as if he were almost bored, as if a jogger coming across a dead body were a routine occurrence.
“Homicide?”
“Most likely,” said Ottosson, but he corrected himself immediately. “Definitely. The body is mutilated.” Haver now heard the note of hopelessness in the chief’s voice.
It was not tiredness but despair at the human capacity for evil that made the thoroughly nice Ottosson sound so distracted.
“Where is Libro?”
“Right where you drive out of town, on the right-hand side after the county storage facility.”
Haver thought hard as he was unlocking the car door, trying to recall what the rest of Börjegatan looked like.
“The car-inspection facility?”
“Farther. It’s where the county dumps its snow.”
“Okay, I know where that is. Who else?”
“Fredriksson and Bea.”
They finished the conversation. He had told Rebecka he would be late and he would be, for sure, but now for a completely different reason from the one he had imagined fifteen minutes ago. The local police-union meeting would be replaced with a strategy session at work or some such business. The union would have to wait, as would his scheduled practice session at the shooting range.
John Harald Jonsson had bled copiously. The originally light-colored jacket was now deeply stained with blood. Death had probably come as a relief. He was missing three fingers from his right hand, severed at the second joint. Burn marks and blue-black contusions on his neck and face bore witness to his suffering.
Forensic technician Eskil Ryde was standing a few meters from the body, staring in a northerly direction. Haver thought he looked like Sean Connery with his stern features, stubble, and receding hairline. He was gazing out over the Uppsala plains as if expecting to find answers out there. Actually he was watching a Viggen fighter jet.
Beatrice and Fredriksson were crouched down. The wind was blowing from the west. A colleague in uniform was putting up police tape. There was an indefinably sweet smell in the air that made Haver turn around.
Fredriksson looked up and nodded at Haver.
“Little John,” he said.
Haver had also recognized the murdered man immediately. A few years ago he had cross-examined him in a case involving his brother, Lennart, who had named John as his alibi witness. A