The Disciple (44 page)

‘I see.’

‘Do you live around here?’ Billy asked, straightening up. The dog was starting to show a bit too much of an interest in his hands, licking them like mad. Lack of salt, presumably.

‘I live there.’ The woman pointed to the red house on the crossroads.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Carina Torstensson.’

‘I’m Billy Rosén. Do you know anything about it?’

‘The car?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘It ended up here at some point between ten o’clock yesterday morning and . . .’ Billy broke off. They didn’t actually know when the car had been driven to the gravel pit. It was cold, so that excluded the last ten hours, but otherwise it could have been dumped at any time. He shrugged. ‘. . . Some time during the night. You didn’t see anything unusual during that period?’

Carina was already shaking her head.

Billy gave it one last try. ‘Perhaps when you were out with the dog . . . Did you notice another car? Someone who didn’t really seem to belong here?’

‘I met a man when I was out picking mushrooms.’ The head shaking was replaced by a pensive nodding. ‘That was yesterday.’

Billy took a deep breath. At last! Somebody who had seen something. So far he had been like a bloody ghost, but Carina Torstensson had seen someone.

When she was out picking mushrooms.

In the heat of high summer.

In July . . .

Carina noticed his doubtful expression.

‘The chanterelles have started to come through. It’s a bit dry at the moment, but the late spring was quite wet, so there are a few . . .’ She looked up at the clear blue sky. ‘But of course a little more rain wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘This man you met . . .’ Billy decided not to write her off just yet, and led her back to the matter at hand.

‘He came from up there.’ She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb.

‘From the gravel pit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember what he looked like?’ Billy dug out a pen and a notepad, and opened it at a clean page.

‘Tall. Not dressed for the forest. Leather jacket. Long hair in a ponytail. A big scar over one eye.’

Billy stopped writing. A big scar. Like Roland Johansson.

‘Was it his left eye? Running down over his cheek?’ Billy used the pen to show her what he meant on his own face. The woman nodded. Billy made a note.

‘Did you see where he went after that? Did someone pick him up?’

‘No, he got on the bus.’

‘Which bus?’

‘The 557. To Kungsängen. It goes from over there.’ She pointed down the main road and Billy saw a bus stop about fifty metres from Carina’s house.

‘Do you remember what time this was?’ He was almost holding his breath. If they could get a time they could find the bus, the bus driver, and a possible destination. Carina thought about it.

‘Quarter past, twenty past twelve. He must have caught the twelve twenty-six.’

‘Thank you!’ Billy had to suppress the impulse to give her a hug. ‘Thank you!’ He put away his notepad and broke into a run.

He didn’t have to run far. After only a few hundred metres he met Vanja in the car. She slowed down beside him and wound down the window as he caught his breath.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Ursula’s fine on her own back there; we’re not doing anything useful.’

‘Okay . . .’ Billy got in, fastening his seatbelt as Vanja moved off. ‘Roland Johansson has been here.’

Vanja glanced over at him, and Billy felt the car slow as she instinctively lowered her speed. Surprised.

‘The guy who was in Lövhaga at the same time as Hinde?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I met a woman who lives just by the crossroads.’ He pointed out the red house, which they were about to drive past. ‘She saw him here. Yesterday.’

‘Did you go off to interview witnesses?’

Billy was lost for words. He had expected a whole lot of questions from Vanja. About the case. About Johansson, about the witness. Instead she was wondering why he had left the gravel pit, with a hint of criticism in her voice.

‘No, I went to check out the track, and I bumped into her.’

‘And you asked her about the car?’

Billy sighed. The information he had was good news.

Big news.

Possibly crucial news.

Get your priorities straight, he thought.

‘No, I was just walking along the road.’ Billy did his best to keep the irritation at bay, but he could hear the exaggerated care in his explanation. ‘She was out with her dog and she asked me what we were doing here and I told her and then she said she’d seen a man with a bloody great big scar who was coming from the direction of the gravel pit at the right time. What was I supposed to do? Ask her to keep quiet until you were there to hear it as well?’

‘Oh no, you seem to be doing your own thing these days anyway.’

Vanja turned left onto the main road and put her foot down. More criticism. For what, exactly? For the life of him he couldn’t work out what he had done wrong. He had refused to help her with a search, but that was all. He was ambitious; he wanted to develop. To change. He decided to tackle the issue head on.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

Vanja didn’t answer; instead she gave every appearance of concentrating on the road.

‘As soon as I don’t do exactly what you say, or do something on my own initiative, you go crazy,’ Billy persisted. ‘Do you feel threatened?’

‘By what?’ A touch of amusement in her tone. As if she had suppressed a little laugh at a ridiculous idea.

Billy straightened up in his seat. ‘By me,’ he said sharply. ‘Are you scared I’ll turn out to be better than you, or what?’

This time she didn’t bother to suppress it; she let out a short, harsh laugh. ‘Oh yes. Absolutely. Got it in one.’

Her gaze was still fixed on the road. Billy thought he detected a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth, but he wasn’t sure. There was, however, no doubt about the irony in her response.

‘What do you mean by that?’ This time he didn’t try to hide his annoyance. Why should he? He was furious.

‘By what?’

‘By that tone of voice and “Oh yes. Absolutely. Got it in one”.’

Vanja didn’t answer immediately. There were a number of options. She could keep quiet, ignore his question. She could brush him off, apologise if she had sounded unkind, say that hadn’t been her intention.

Or she could tell the truth.

‘I meant that I’m not scared you’ll turn out to be better than me.’

‘And why not?’

‘Because that will never happen.’

Billy leaned back in his seat. He could have carried on asking “why?” and “why not?” for a while longer, but what would be the point? Vanja had made it perfectly clear what she thought of him as a police officer. There was nothing more to be said. Vanja was obviously of the same opinion.

They drove on in silence.

As he pulled out onto the motorway and put his foot down, Haraldsson realised he was going to be seriously late for work. Although it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have to clock in, after all. He was the boss. It was July. He could use a bit of flexi-time. In advance, so to speak.

The alarm clock had gone off at the usual time, but Jenny had rolled sleepily over to his side of the bed and snuggled in under the covers. Tucked her head in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, wrapped her arm around him. Her pregnancy wasn’t showing much, but Haraldsson thought he could feel the slight roundness of her stomach against his body. There was a life inside her. Their child. Half him, half her. Though he hoped the child would be more like Jenny: 70/30, perhaps. She was so beautiful. In every way. Warm, thoughtful, wise, funny. She was everything that was good. Sometimes he just couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have her. He loved her so much.

He had told her that. This morning. She had responded by hugging him even more tightly. One thing had led to another. They had made love. Afterwards he said it again.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I’ve got a surprise for tomorrow.’

‘Shh . . .’ She had put her finger to his lips. ‘Don’t say any more. I don’t want to know.’

Tomorrow would be their fifth wedding anniversary. He had the whole day planned. First of all he would give her breakfast in bed: tea, toast with raspberry jam and cheese, scrambled eggs and crispy bacon, melon with strawberries dipped in chocolate. He would be late for work tomorrow as well, he realised. Later in the day, when Jenny was at work, she would be picked up by car and taken to a luxury spa for a range of treatments. At the same time some men were coming round to plant an apple tree in the garden. An Ingrid Marie. Jenny liked apples that were slightly sharp, and at the nursery they had said an Ingrid Marie would be perfect. And it was a pretty name, too. If they had a daughter, they could call her Ingrid Marie. Ingrid Marie Haraldsson. He was really excited about tomorrow.

Five years.

Wood.

And she was getting a tree. A tree from which they could pick apples in the years to come. It would blossom every spring, and every autumn they could rake up the leaves together before the first snow. Ingrid Marie and her brothers and sisters would be able to climb it. Being careful, of course. In his mind’s eye Haraldsson could see himself and Jenny sitting in the shade of the apple tree when they were older. Old. The children and grandchildren visiting. Taking bags of fruit home with them to make jam and juice. Unless of course they had already taken cuttings from the tree to plant in their own gardens. This was a gift that would bring them both benefits and joy for the rest of their lives together. A gift of love. Jenny would be thrilled.

But that wasn’t the end of it. In the evening a chef was coming round. He would serve them a three-course menu with wine, and then clear up the kitchen afterwards. All Jenny and Haraldsson had to do was relax. Think about each other.

Nothing could go wrong.

His mobile rang. Abba. ‘Ring Ring’. He glanced at the display before he answered. Work. What now?

‘Haraldsson.’

‘Where are you?’ Annika. His PA. He made a mental note to have a little chat with her. Something appeared to have gone slightly wrong with their relationship. He thought he had been encouraging, praising her initiative. That business of fetching his coffee from the dining room, for example. He had made a point of mentioning it and suggesting that she might like to carry on doing that.

‘I’m on my way. Did you want something?’

‘You have the monthly meeting with the psychologists.’

Shit, he’d forgotten that. The governor and the medical staff had a meeting on the last Wednesday of every month. Haraldsson had intended to postpone it, which was why he hadn’t put it in his diary. He wanted to be a bit more familiar with things before they met for the first time, but he hadn’t quite got around to moving the meeting. Now it was too late presumably.

‘Where is it?’

‘Here. In twenty minutes.’

Haraldsson glanced at his watch. He wouldn’t be there for at least half an hour.

‘In that case I’ll be there in plenty of time,’ he said, ending the call. Annika would tell everyone he was on his way and that he would be on time. He had half an hour to come up with a reason for his late arrival. Something to do with the traffic, that was probably the easiest. Road works, perhaps. One lane closed. Long queues. He would apologise, but of course it was impossible to plan for these things. Nobody would bother to check. He turned up the radio and put his foot down.

Billy and Vanja were sitting in the canteen at the bus depot waiting for Mahmoud Kazemi, who had been driving the bus in question the previous day. The woman they had spoken to on reception had told them he would be back in less than ten minutes, and that he then had a fifteen-minute break. Billy had asked what happened if they needed to speak to him for longer than fifteen minutes, and had been informed that they would need to travel with him on the bus if that were the case. The bus couldn’t be late, and there was no possibility of arranging a swap or a substitute driver at this stage. Billy decided the interview wouldn’t take longer than quarter of an hour. He had no idea what Vanja thought. They hadn’t spoken since their conversation in the car.

The woman on reception showed them into the canteen. A functional space. Not all that shabby, not all that new. Sit down, have a break, eat. Nothing to tempt the employees to a longer break than necessary. A mixture of sweat and the smell of fried food in the air.

Billy sat down at one of the tables as Vanja went over to the coffee machine.

‘Do you want one?’

‘No thanks.’

Vanja shrugged and waited with her back to him as the machine filled a paper cup. Then she came and sat down next to him, presumably because it would look very odd if they were sitting at separate tables when Mahmoud arrived. She drank her coffee in silence, and Billy said nothing.

A man in his forties appeared in the doorway. Height perhaps a hundred and eighty-five centimetres. Dark hair, moustache, brown eyes looking at them rather nervously.

‘They said you wanted to speak to me.’ Mahmoud jerked his thumb in a vague backward movement to indicate who ‘they’ were. Vanja guessed he meant the woman on reception.