The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [94]
“What do you want?”
There was a note of impatience in her voice, as well as something that Lindell judged to be fear.
“I’m genuinely sorry for what has happened,” Lindell said. “John was a good man.” She unconsciously used Ottosson’s words.
“Yes,” Berit said.
“I think he was murdered for money, and I think you’re sitting on that money right now.”
“Me, sitting on the money?”
Berit shook her head. There were too many questions, impressions. First Lennart, then Justus, and now this off-duty officer.
“It means you may be in danger,” Lindell said.
Berit looked at her and tried to understand the full implication of her words.
“Quite honestly I don’t care about the money,” Lindell said. “It was John’s and now it’s yours, but a lot of money always brings risk with it.”
It was a stab in the dark from Lindell’s side. She didn’t know for sure if the motive was money or if Berit knew where it was. She wasn’t able to judge Berit’s expression to determine if she had known about John’s poker winnings or not.
“If we assume he won all this money, did he have some friend that he would tell?”
“No,” Berit said immediately. She thought about Micke, and Lennart’s words came back to her.
“What about Micke?” Lindell said, as if she had been reading her thoughts.
“What do you want?” Berit asked. “It’s late, you have a baby with you, you ask a lot of questions but you’re not on duty. Who do you think you are?”
Lindell shook her head and glanced at Erik, who was sleeping peacefully.
“I just had an idea,” she said. “I was talking with a colleague of mine today and I had the idea to…well, I don’t know exactly.”
She looked at Berit. She had heard her described as beautiful and Lindell could see her beauty, though most of it was gone. The fatigue, grief, and tension had carved into her skin like knives, and her carriage bore witness to enormous emotional and physical exhaustion.
“How is your son?” Lindell asked.
Berit heaved a sob. She stood in front of Lindell with no pretense, looked her in the eyes, and cried. Lindell had seen a great deal, but Berit expressed the deepest despair she had ever seen. Perhaps it was the quiet way in which she was crying that amplified it? A scream of pain, grief, and a collapsed life would have been easier to take, but Berit’s steady gaze and quiet tears touched Lindell deeply. Erik shifted uneasily and Lindell felt close to tears herself.
“I think I should go,” she said and rubbed her cheek. “It was silly of me to come here. I just had a strange feeling, almost a physical compunction to come by.”
Berit nodded. Lindell picked up the baby.
“You can stay longer if you want,” Berit said.
“I can’t,” Lindell said.
Erik’s warmth and his tiny movements inside the snowsuit made her determined to leave Berit and the whole case behind. It wasn’t her investigation. She was on maternity leave and in a few days her parents would be coming up from Ödeshög.
“Yes, you can,” Berit said, and Lindell marveled at her metamorphosis. “I don’t know what made you come here, but whatever it was it must have been important.”
“I don’t know,” Lindell said. “It was pretty dumb and unprofessional, actually.”
Berit made a gesture as if to say it didn’t matter, unprofessional or not, she was here now.
“I’ll stay a little longer if I can have something to drink. I’m so thirsty.”
While Berit went to get a bottle of Christmas mead, Lindell laid Erik down again, unzipping his snowsuit and pushing his pacifier back in. He slept. She turned to the aquarium. It was certainly enormous. She followed the movement of the fish with fascination.
“They have their own territories,” Berit said when she came back. “John was so proud of that. He had created an African lake in miniature.”
“Did he ever visit Africa?”
“No, how would we have been able to