The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [93]
Justus stared down into the bed.
“He’s confused, Justus. He’s heard some rumors and he’s looking for someone to blame. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“As if we don’t have enough to deal with,” she said with a sigh and sat down at his desk. “I have never been unfaithful or as much as looked at another man. Your father was enough for me, do you understand? We had a good relationship. People are surprised that we stuck together for so many years, but for John and me there was nobody else.”
“But there was something,” Justus said and gave her a hasty look.
“No, nothing,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Then why did Lennart say that stuff?”
Again she tried to explain to him that Lennart was living in another world, one in which there was nothing other than John’s death.
“You and I can talk about him, remember him together, and we have each other. Lennart has nothing.”
“Daddy liked Lennart,” Justus said very quietly. “Why did you say those things to him?”
He didn’t say anything else, but in his eyes she saw something she had never seen before. Grief and hate, which aged his face, as if the hate didn’t have enough place in his youthfulness. She damned her brother-in-law. She stood up, wanted to say something else, but sighed and left him, walking out into the hall. She heard him close the door behind her.
His words about John having wanted to move worried her. They had talked about it before, but never seriously. They had both been born in Uppsala, and for her part she couldn’t see herself living anywhere else. Shit hole, he had said to Justus.
She felt let down by the fact that he had talked to Justus—not to her, just the boy. What else had they talked about that she didn’t know about?
Ann Lindell looked at the building in front of her. The yellow brick house reminded her of something, probably a building involved in a case from the past. Now she was out on her own, which felt strange. Normally she would have been here as part of a team, with a defined strategy and a definite goal. And although she had had to improvise somewhat before, she now had to question her every step. It was a feeling of freedom mixed with a bad conscience.
She had called Information and received Berit Jonsson’s phone number and address. She lived in one of these brightly lit apartments. She took out her cell phone, put it back, and then looked up at the building again. She should call Haver, but it was late and perhaps this impulse was ill-founded. If she had been working she wouldn’t have hesitated for a second, but now she would be obliged to explain to Haver why she was out on her own. She sighed heavily, dialed his number, and after a few more seconds of hesitation pressed the Talk button. Rebecka Haver answered after the first ring. Lindell heard in the way she answered that she expected it to be her husband.
“May I speak to Ola Haver?” Lindell asked without introducing herself.
There was a second’s pause on the other end before Rebecka answered.
“He’s at work,” she said.
Silence.
“Who is this?”
“Thank you, I’ll call back,” Lindell said and hung up. You idiot, she thought to herself. They must have caller ID.
She was overcome with shame and she cursed her clumsiness. He was at work. She could reach him there but now it felt as if it would simply compound her mistake.
The phone rang and Berit lifted the receiver as if she was expecting news of another death. But the caller was a woman she had read about in the paper and heard John talk about: Ann Lindell, with the police. What surprised Berit was that she sounded so tired, and that even though it was late she wanted to come by and have a few words with her.
Ann Lindell came in a few minutes later. She was carrying a little baby in her arms.
“This is Erik,” she said.
“You bring your children to work with you?”
“I’m not officially on duty right now,” Lindell said. “But I’m still helping out a little.”
“Helping out a little,” Berit repeated. “And there’s no one else to look after the baby?”
“I’m a single mom,” Lindell said and carefully laid Erik on the sofa. He had