The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [73]
The Rastafarian locksmith worked on the lock for about thirty seconds. He whistled as he worked and Fredriksson asked him to be quiet.
“Cool,” he said. “Are you Sweden’s answer to Carella?”
Fredriksson had no idea what he was talking about, but nodded. Slättbrant, famous among his colleagues for his implacability, opened the door.
“Police!” he shouted before going in. “Anyone home?”
Silence.
“Torsten Slättbrant from the police. I’m coming in.”
He forced the door all the way open and stepped into the apartment, his gun in his left hand. He took another step while looking at what Fredriksson assumed was the kitchen door. Then he stood quietly for ten seconds, as if testing the air like a hunting dog.
Slättbrant looked back and shook his head.
“Is anyone home?” he shouted again, and Fredriksson felt impatient.
“Heavy, man,” said the Rastafarian, and Fredriksson gestured for him to stay back.
“You’re no Carella,” the young man said again and walked down half a flight of stairs.
“There’s a woman under the bed in the bedroom,” said Göthe, the other officer. Fredriksson nodded as if he already knew this.
“Strangled, I think,” said Göthe. The young locksmith appeared behind him and craned his head forward.
“Get lost!” Fredriksson shouted.
“Can we strike Hahn from the Little John case?” Ottosson’s question hung in the air among the assembled officers for a few seconds. One of the overhead fluorescent lights was flickering and underscored the anxious atmosphere.
“Can’t we have that light fixed?” Sammy Nilsson asked.
“I, for one, don’t believe in the connection for a second,” Fredriksson said. “Hahn’s profile is totally different. You’ve seen his correspondence, a misanthrope with a twisted worldview. I read one letter he wrote to the transit authorities where he proposed a special immigrant bus so that ethnic Swedes wouldn’t have to associate with foreign scum, as he put it. I think his being John’s former classmate is pure coincidence.”
“I’m not so sure,” Sammy said. “We can drop the question of motive here. This guy is a nut case and simply did something on impulse. Maybe he bumped into John, recognized him from their school days. Maybe something had happened between them a long time ago and it led to a confrontation.”
“But where would such a confrontation have taken place?” Morenius said. “On Vaksalagatan downtown where John waited for the bus? Where did the murder, not to mention the torture, actually occur, and how did Hahn transport the body to Libro?”
Morenius shook his head.
“We know very little about Hahn,” Sammy said. “Maybe he had access to another apartment, maybe even to a car. We haven’t actually met a single person yet who knew him and could tell us how he spends his days.”
Ottosson scratched his head.
“I think we can disregard Hahn for now,” he said, but he did not sound entirely convinced.
“Little John’s killer is one of these poker players or someone else who keeps to society’s fringes,” Berglund said.
“We have to proceed with open minds,” Ottosson said. “Not lose the tempo. It’s very easy to lose one’s focus, even unintentionally.”
“Okay,” Haver said. “Eight guys, excluding John, were there that night. Ljusnemark gave us all the names. Four of them, plus Ljusnemark, have been questioned today. That leaves three remaining. One of them is abroad, possibly in Holland. His mother lives there. One has disappeared from the face of the earth, and the third is Mossa, the Iranian, whom we all know and who appears to be out of town for the moment. We have talked to his brother and mother, who live here.”
“Who is the one in Holland?”
“Dick Lindström.”
“The one with the teeth?”
Haver nodded.
“And who is the person who has disappeared from the face of the earth, as you put it?”
“One Allan Gustav Rosengren. He has the nickname The Lip. He’s been convicted twice of trafficking in stolen goods. The last time was five years ago. He has no permanent address. The last one is in Mälarhöjden two years ago when he was renting a room from an old