The Andalucian Friend (38 page)

Svante Carlgren was shaving
in front of the bathroom mirror when his new cell phone rang. He knew who it was, only one person had the number. He held the cell a little way from the shaving foam on his cheek.

“Carl Gustaf,” he answered.

“Håkan here …”

Svante took another stroke with the razor. “What’s on your mind?”

“I need more info about your guy.”

“What for?”

“Because I’ve used the usual channels, searched and checked with my sources, but haven’t come up with anything yet. We were hoping it would be someone we were already aware of, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“I’ve already paid you. And now you’re calling to say you haven’t got anything.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did.” Svante was shaving between his nose and top lip.

“I need a better description from you.”

“I’ve already told you what I can.”

“We need to meet, I want you to look at some pictures. Then we can put together a clearer profile of the man.”

Svante was sitting
in his car in the garage of Villa Källhagen. He had the window open, a few people were strolling between the inn and the Maritime History Museum. He was unconsciously drumming his fingers on the steering wheel — he hated waiting.

An SUV pulled in ahead of him. Håkan got out. Gray shirt, cropped hair on top, shaved at the sides. His eyes sat deep in his skull, as if they were permanently in shadow. A shorter man got out of the passenger side, same hairstyle, older.

“Shall we take a drive in my car?” Svante asked through the open window.

Håkan shook his head.

“We’re going to take a walk.”

Svante got out and held out his hand. Håkan seemed nervous, shook his hand briefly.

“This is my colleague, Leif Rydbäck,” he said with a gesture. Svante shook hands with the shorter man.

The trio began to walk from the garage toward the water.

The telephoto lens
captured clear pictures of the men. Anders took twenty or so photographs from the backseat of his car. He knew who the guy with cropped hair and the gray shirt was, and the smaller one as well, but … damn, he couldn’t remember their names. He’d seen them before. The tall one had been a bit of a gangster, but that was a long time ago now. Anders searched his memory. He had it on the tip of his tongue. Something to do with an investigation into the restaurant mafia and a load of suspected terrorist idiots, he’d had something to do with that. Not as one of the terrorists, but some shady figure who started making threats against a gang of Syrians who owned several restaurants around the city … What the hell was his name? And the little one? Anders thought and thought … the names wouldn’t come.

He called Reutersvärd, an old colleague from the Security Police.

“What the hell was his name?”

“Zivkovic, Håkan Zivkovic. Supposed to have gone straight. Runs his own security company, does surveillance jobs for various insurance firms, watches people, almost exclusively on the orders of jealous partners who want photographic evidence of their worst fears. He still has some of his old lowlife contacts, gives them little jobs every now and then. But always within the bounds of what we consider OK.”

“Which lowlifes?”

“Swedish. The ones we always checked but always knew were harmless. Conny Blomberg, Tony Ledin, Leif Rydbäck, and that ugly harelipped bastard, Calle Schewens …”

“Which one’s short, nose like a potato, cropped hair, about fifty?”

“Sounds like Rydbäck.”

“And Zivkovic still hangs out with them?”

“Don’t know about hanging out, but they do small jobs for him sometimes.”

“Any of them prone to gossip?”

“Yes, Rydbäck’s happy to talk for a bit of cash and other favor. Stay away from Ledin and Schewens, though, too aggressive, more likely to shoot a cop. I don’t know anything about Conny Blomberg except that he self-medicates his ADHD with hash and gets turned on by transvestites with tits.”

“OK, thanks, Reutersvärd. Speak soon.”

Reutersvärd didn’t want to hang up, wanted to do a bit of small talk, asking Anders inquisitive questions about what he was up to these days. Anders said he was on his way into a tunnel and cut the call off.

He watched the three men as they walked toward the Maritime History Museum. Looking at their backs, the way they behaved toward one another. Zivkovic was explaining something, Svante was keeping his distance but was listening, then it switched around — Svante explained something, Zivkovic listened and kept his distance. Leffe didn’t seem to be listening, he just stayed close to Zivkovic the whole time.

Anders pondered the scene in front of him — Svante Carlgren, Håkan Zivkovic, and Leffe Rydbäck taking a walk together on Djurgården? Why? Did Svante contact Håkan and Leffe after Aron Geisler went to see him? Were Aron and Svante Carlgren working together somehow? Did they know each other? So why Zivkovic and Rydbäck? Were they going to do a job?”

The men were getting farther away from Anders. He rubbed his stubble, against the grain, as his brain worked on theories.

Was Aron Geisler blackmailing Carlgren? It would have to be something really serious, or else Svante would have gone to Ericsson’s internal security division, or directly to the cops. But he hadn’t. So was Håkan Zivkovic going to help Svante track down Aron instead? Maybe … But that would never happen, Anders knew that.

He caught some of the short whiskers on his chin and tugged at them as he examined his theory. It was worth testing.

He started the Honda and swung around toward the city again. When he got stuck in traffic on Strandvägen he set about the laborious task of sticking his head in the underworld and trying to get hold of a phone number for Leffe Rydbäck without going through the usual channels. It took a long time and a hell of a lot of favor before he got anything. Leffe answered after a few rings with a short noise that Anders didn’t understand.

“Rydbäck?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Anders Ask here.”

A short silence.

“Don’t know any Anders … Ass.”

Anders heard Leffe getting into a car, probably with Zivkovic.

“Sure you do. I was with the Security Police when you messed up with the Syrians and their restaurants. I was one of the team that caught you and that idiot Håkan what’s-his-name.”

“I remember you, you were a cocky fucker … and ugly.”

“And you were a stupid fucker, Leffe. A kid could have done that better. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“What do you want?” Leffe muttered.

“This might be a shot in the dark, but I’ve got a question. Your answer might be worth some cash, interested?”

“No harm in asking.”

“Some clowns have shown up in the city trying to blackmail various business executives. Aron Geisler and Hector Guzman. Guzman’s some sort of publisher, works in Gamla stan. Do you know them?”

Anders heard Leffe put his hand over the phone and start whispering. The hand vanished from the microphone. Leffe was making an effort to sound calm and collected.

“No, I don’t think so. What did you say their names were again?”

“Hector Guzman: G-U-Z-M-A-N, a publisher in Gamla stan. The other one’s Aron Geisler.” Anders spelled out his surname as well, and could hear Leffe’s pen working hard against a piece of paper.

“Sorry, no idea … And, Ass?”

“Yes?”

“Go home and fuck your mother.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Leffe ended the call.

Erik was feeling sad. That happened sometimes.
Suddenly he would get quiet and introverted. Difficult to reach. Maybe it was a common way of handling sorrow at the approach of old age. But where Erik Strandberg was concerned, he had been sad like this ever since he was a child, since their parents died. He’d never really mourned them, probably hadn’t known how you did that. Gunilla hadn’t either, but she’d found something else to grab hold of. Something that kept her away from depression and other types of darkness. She didn’t know what it was, hadn’t felt any need to know either. She was strong, and that was the way she wanted things to stay.

Gunilla looked at her brother as he sat in the gloomiest corner of the living room. The sun was shining outside, but he had found the darkness.

She went out into the kitchen and prepared a light lunch that she knew he’d appreciate. Herring and potatoes, flatbread, dark beer, and a small schnapps straight from the freezer compartment. Then coffee and a slice of tart, and, when he was depressed like he was today, a newspaper for him to pretend to read so he didn’t feel obliged to make conversation with her. She buttered the bread carefully and patiently so that it didn’t break into smaller pieces. Erik liked the butter to cover the whole thing, right up to every edge and corner. She put the herring plate, glass of beer, flatbread, and the ice-cold, syrupy schnapps on a tray and carried it into the living room, where she put it down beside Erik’s armchair. Gunilla patted her brother on the cheek. He grunted something.

The phone rang. Anders gave her a clear and concise update of the meeting between Zivkovic, Rydbäck, and Svante Carlgren. And told her about his blackmail theory, and the fact that he had called Leffe Rydbäck and leaked Hector and Aron’s names, and their location.

“We’ll have to wait and see if I was right,” he said, and ended the call.

She told her brother the news. He didn’t answer, just went on crunching the flatbread. Gunilla went over to the window. The world outside was green.

“We need to get ready,” she said.

She looked out across the garden.

“I’m going to miss the plants, Erik. The peonies, the roses … the whole garden.”

He’d just picked up the misted-up schnapps glass in his right hand.

“We need to pin the nurse down,” he said in a hoarse voice, and downed the schnapps in one.

Her gaze was fixed on the roses over by the wooden fence.

“How?”

He put the glass down and answered gruffly.

“Make sure she doesn’t get any ideas, she needs to mind her own business until we’re completely ready to go …”

Gunilla heard what he was saying and absorbed the idea as she walked across the living-room floor and out through the terrace door.

The strength of the sun blinded her when she emerged onto the veranda.

Lars had shaved,
combed his hair, dressed properly. Everyday proper — neatly ironed and clean.

The microphone he had taken from Sophie’s living room was in a little sealed plastic bag. He put it carefully in his pocket, went into the bathroom, and loaded up with a perfect combination consisting of a powerful dose of morphine up the ass, a cocktail of benzo for his stomach, and Lyrica to swim through his nervous system. He was calm, cool, and clear. He leaned closer to his reflection, the coating on his teeth looked like recently shed snakeskin. He opened the bathroom cabinet, squeezed some toothpaste on his toothbrush, and started to brush as the cocktail started to kick in seriously. The brush felt like cotton balls on his teeth, it was wonderful, everything was wonderful. Nasty feelings and problems were somewhere on the other side of the universe. He rinsed with lukewarm water, everything was perfect. The jar of Hibernal was there in front of him in the cabinet. He picked it up, looked at it, and shook it slightly. It sounded like maracas. He shook it a bit more, maybe this was what Cuba sounded like? He put it back.