The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [75]
“I know it’s too loud,” Berit said, more factually than apologetically, “but I don’t have the heart to ask him to turn it down.”
“How has it been going for him?” Beatrice asked.
“He doesn’t say much. He hasn’t been going to school. Mostly he sits in front of the fish tank.”
“Were they close?”
Berit nodded.
“Very,” she said after a while. “They were always together. If there was anyone who could get John to change his mind, it was Justus.”
“How were things financially? You’ve said before there were hard times.”
Berit looked out the window.
“We had a good life,” she said.
“And lately?”
“I know where you’re going with this. You think John was involved in something illicit, but you’re wrong. He was quiet and sometimes unreachable, but he wasn’t stupid.”
“I’m not implying he was. But I’ll get to the point: it seems John won a great deal of money this fall.”
“What do you mean ‘won’? Horse racing?”
“No, a card game. Poker.”
“Well, I know he played cards sometimes, but it was never for high stakes.”
“What about two hundred thousand,” Beatrice said.
“What? That’s not possible.”
Berit’s surprise seemed genuine. She swallowed and stared at Beatrice in bafflement.
“Not only is it possible, it seems almost certain. We have several witnesses.”
Berit lowered her head and hunched over. One hand fumbled along the tablecloth, fingering the embroidery, in this case a sleigh-riding Santa. The music from Justus’s room had stopped and the apartment was quiet.
“Why didn’t he say anything? Two hundred thousand? That’s a fortune! There has to be some mistake. Who says he won that much?”
“Among others, four people who lost a lot of money that night.”
“And now they’re angry at John and trying to pin this on him.”
“You can choose to see it like that, but I think they’re telling the truth. It’s not to their benefit to lie about being involved in a high-stakes poker game, but they feel pressured now and they’re choosing to come clean. Many of them even have trouble accounting for the money they were betting that night.”
“Was he murdered for the money, then?”
“That’s starting to look like a possibility.”
“Where is the money now?”
“We’ve wondered about that. It may have been stolen in conjunction with the murder or it’s in a bank account somewhere, or else…”
“Somewhere around here,” Berit finished. “But we have no money in this apartment.”
“Have you checked?”
“Checked—well, no, not exactly. But I’ve been putting John’s things away and you and your colleagues have turned the place upside down.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to do that one more time.”
“It’ll be Christmas soon. I’m thinking of Justus. He’s going to need some peace and quiet.”
They kept talking. Beatrice tried to get Berit to reflect back on the fall again, now that she knew he had won so much money. Had he been different in any way? But Berit claimed he had been his usual self.
Beatrice showed her pictures of the men who had participated in the poker game. Berit studied each one carefully but didn’t recognize any of them.
“One of these men could be John’s killer,” she said. Beatrice didn’t reply, just gathered up the pictures.
“Do you mind if I have a word with Justus?” she asked.
“I can’t stop you,” Berit said quietly. “Are you going to show him the pictures as well?”
“Maybe not, but I also want to ask him if he noticed anything different about John in the fall.”
“They mostly talked about their fish.”
Beatrice stood up.
“Do you think he’ll talk to me?”
“You’ll have to ask him yourself. One more thing: when did he win the money?”
“In the middle of October,” Beatrice said.
Beatrice knocked carefully and cracked open the bedroom door. Justus was sitting on his bed with his legs pulled up. A book lay open next to him.
“Are you reading?”
Justus didn’t answer; he closed the book and looked at her with an expression Beatrice didn’t quite know how to interpret. She saw distance, not to mention hostility, but also curiosity.
“Can