The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [89]
Lindell watched him clench his hands.
“I’m his brother and if anyone can sort this out it’s me, and damn if she isn’t keeping something from me.”
He looked up quickly and met Lindell’s gaze.
“But she’s the widow, probably cries all the time, and you treat her with kid gloves, isn’t that right?”
“I’m sure she’s been questioned just like anyone else,” Lindell said. “And even if you are John’s brother, Berit is the one who should be able to give us the most information about John’s movements during his last few days. Why would she need to keep something secret, as you were suggesting?”
“She’s always…,” Lennart began, then stopped. “You can’t trust broads.” Lindell had trouble determining if he was making a little joke or if there was some substance behind the half-articulated accusations against his sister-in-law.
“I’ll get it out of her, whatever it is,” he said, his teeth clenched. “I’m going to get the guy who killed my brother and if it takes her down too I couldn’t care less. She asked for it.”
Lindell sat down again.
“Who hit you?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s blood on the kitchen floor,” Lindell said.
“I started bleeding again after I came home.”
“In the kitchen?”
“Is it against the law?”
His raised voice woke Erik, who started whimpering in the stroller. Lindell walked over and reassured him, rocking the stroller.
“I think you had a visitor,” she said after the whimpering stopped.
“So what?”
“If you want to help us catch your brother’s killer you’d better play with open cards.”
“You’re just like Sammy Nilsson,” Lennart said and got to his feet. The sheet trailed on the floor as he walked into the bedroom.
Lindell heard him moving around and assumed he was putting clothes on. She saw that she was right when he came back wearing pants and a T-shirt. The piece of tape on his lip had come off.
“You should have someone look that over,” she said. “I think you need stitches.”
“I thought you had left already.”
Lennart watched her cross the street with the stroller, aiming for the bus stop.
“Fucking bitch,” he mumbled.
It was only now that Mossa’s final comment fully penetrated his mind. Mossa had used the word whore, and that was a strong statement coming from him. He was a tough guy but one who chose his words with care. If he used the word whore he meant it, not like how some guys just tossed it out when they were talking about women. Everyone who knew Mossa knew that he was respectful of women, that he worshipped his mother, and that he was always conscientious about sending his greetings to his friends’ sisters and wives.
He had called Berit a whore. That could only mean one thing: she had been unfaithful. “Talk to his whore for a wife,” he had said. The meaning of the words hit Lennart with an almost physical violence. Had she really had someone else?
His tiredness was gone. He put on socks, boots, and outerwear, and was out on the street within minutes. The route he chose was identical to the one he had walked the night he found out that John had died. Instead of tears this time, he was filled with anger and unanswered questions throbbing in his head as he half ran, half walked.
The snow was as deep as it had been that night. There was no snowplow on Brantings square but instead a group of drunk youngsters singing Christmas carols. He stopped and watched them. He had also been here, making noise in the same way, thrown out of the Brantings community center and a drug-free Christmas party, drunk out of his mind on beer, fourteen years old and already an outsider, literally and figuratively, something that still ached in his body, a mixture of shame and hate. God, how he had hated, breaking a window of the public library and throwing bicycles around. The police had arrested him and Albin had had to pay for the damages.
He walked over to the youngsters.
“Anyone have a cell phone?”
They stared at him.
“I need to make a call.”
“Get your own, mister.”
“I need one now.”
“There’s a pay phone over there.”
Lennart grabbed one of the boys.
“Give me a phone or I swear I’ll fucking smash your