The picture of the missing man, Ante Valdemar Roos, was published in the Thursday edition of the local paper, and at ten thirty that morning they received their first call from that doughty detective, the Swedish public.
It came from a woman called Yolanda Wessén; she worked in an ICA supermarket in Rimmersdal and claimed that the man in the photo in the paper had made purchases at her checkout a number of times recently. He had also introduced himself as Valdemar.
But he hadn’t been in the shop for a while. If she remembered correctly, it was a week since she last saw him. Maybe even ten days.
‘Rimmersdal?’ said Eva Backman when she got a chance to speak to the woman on the phone. ‘Out towards Vreten, isn’t it?’
Yolanda Wessén confirmed that Rimmersdal was five kilometres from Vreten and added that she had a good memory for faces. She liked talking to her customers, even though she was always at the checkout and had to confine herself to a few words about the weather.
Backman asked her when she had seen Valdemar Roos for the first time. Yolanda Wessén said it must have been about a month ago, and that was when Backman decided to go out to Rimmersdal to ask some more detailed questions.
Meanwhile – that is to say, between eleven and half past on that Thursday morning – Inspector Barbarotti tackled Gordon Faringer, the psychiatrist acquaintance of the Ekman-Roos family, who had had a chat with Valdemar a couple of weeks before about his general mental well-being and possible depression.
Gordon Faringer was a rangy man of fifty-five. Barbarotti registered that he looked tanned and healthy and was confidently sporting a violet-coloured handkerchief in his breast pocket, but his greatest asset in patient consultations must surely be his voice.
It was deep and melodious, rather like the tone of a cello, and made every word he uttered sound reasoned and wise. Barbarotti found it was far from easy to doubt anything he said, however hard one tried. ‘Of course I only talked to Valdemar about his emotional state on one occasion,’ he explained, for example. ‘It wasn’t an official consultation, but I nonetheless formed the judgement that he could not be termed depressed in the classic sense.’
‘I see,’ chimed in Barbarotti.
‘He’s never been a particularly enthusiastic person; we are all pitched differently in that regard. But no, I don’t believe his going missing stems from any sort of mental instability.’
‘He quit his job five weeks ago,’ Barbarotti pointed out. ‘Without telling his wife.’
‘Yes, I am aware of that,’ said Faringer. ‘Alice rang me yesterday and we had a long talk. It’s as incomprehensible to me as to everyone else.’
‘So his wife didn’t say anything about the possibility of another woman in the frame?’
Gordon Faringer nodded with a troubled look and lightly massaged his right temple, an unconscious (or perhaps highly conscious) signal that he was thinking. He coughed and adjusted his glasses.
‘Well yes,’ he said, ‘she told me that, too. Evidently a friend of hers had observed something to indicate it. Remarkable, I must say. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Valdemar an asexual person, but the notion of his being unfaithful to Alice with some young woman seems so unlikely that we can hardly imagine it . . . When I say “we”, I mean my wife and I.’
‘Hmm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But his leaving Wrigman’s is an indisputable fact. Perhaps it’s time for a complete re-evaluation of Valdemar Roos, if you see what I mean?’
‘I see very well what you mean,’ said Gordon Faringer with the briefest of smiles. ‘And every individual definitely has aspects that remain hidden to those around them. Often we are not even aware of them ourselves.’
‘Too true,’ said Barbarotti. ‘So a particular situation could prompt all those unknown aspects to surface and result in . . . unexpected actions?’
Faringer’s hand brushed his temple again. ‘That’s a fair description,’ he said. ‘One could perhaps add that it normally takes some kind of trigger. A catalyst.’
‘And that could be the case with Valdemar?’
‘One can’t rule it out,’ said Gordon Faringer. ‘Although I naturally have no idea what the catalyst could have been.’
Barbarotti thought for a moment.
‘Would you say you know Valdemar Roos well?’
‘Not at all,’ Gordon Faringer replied instantly. ‘I’m actually better acquainted with his wife. We’ve known one another for at least twenty years. Valdemar only came into her life about ten years ago, you know. But we don’t meet up that often socially; we get together over dinner a couple of times a year, that’s all.’
‘I see,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Incidentally, how do you interpret her reaction, keeping quiet about his disappearance for so long before she told anybody?’
Faringer gave a shrug. ‘It’s a fairly standard human reaction,’ he said. ‘There’s a good deal of shame involved if your husband walks out without a word.’
‘If that’s the real state of affairs,’ said Barbarotti.
For the first time, a hint of surprise crept into the doctor’s face. ‘What else could it be?’ he asked.
‘You said yourself that you found it hard to believe there was another woman,’ said Barbarotti.
‘Yes I did,’ said Gordon Faringer, and allowed himself another fleeting smile. ‘But I didn’t claim it would take another woman to make Valdemar leave Alice.’
Barbarotti pondered this.
‘Are you saying it wouldn’t surprise you if Valdemar Roos is sitting in Malaga enjoying a sangria at this very moment?’
‘Or a Singha beer in Phuket,’ suggested Gordon Faringer with a glance at his watch. ‘Yes, I reckon I could stake a hundred kronor on that version of events. If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting at the hospital in fifteen minutes. Would you mind if I . . .?’
‘Feel free,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I may get in touch again, if the need arises.’
‘You’re most welcome to do so,’ said Dr Faringer.
He stood up, shook hands with Barbarotti and left the room.
Once he was alone, Barbarotti gingerly lifted his plastered foot onto the desk, leant back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. He sat like that for at least ten minutes, trying to piece together a clear picture of Ante Valdemar Roos in his mind.
He noted first that the descriptions he had received so far – from the man’s wife, from Red Cow and from Gordon Faringer – were pretty consistent.
Weren’t they? Valdemar Roos was dreary, withdrawn, uncomfortable in social settings and not much liked. A slow, dull and predictable fellow who never raised anyone’s spirits and from whom no one expected anything extra or surprising.
Yes, that was roughly the shape of it. But just think, Gunnar Barbarotti challenged himself, just think if Valdemar Roos was in fact a much more complicated individual than those around him gave him credit for. What did Alice Ekman-Roos know, for instance, about the deeper layers of her husband’s personality? Dreams and yearnings and motives. What did Red Cow know? Or Gordon Faringer?
Surely no one could have an interior to match the exterior that Ante Valdemar Ross’s acquaintances had sketched out? Surely everyone had a right to their own world view and attitude to the big questions in life? Surface was surface, but depth was depth, and many people simply preferred not to admit just anybody to their most private spheres. For varying but maybe wholly legitimate reasons. Who was to say Roos wasn’t an interesting and multi-faceted person, just because he didn’t make a song and dance of his innermost thoughts?
Barbarotti leant even further back in his chair and looked out of the window.
And what am I trying to achieve with this pseudo-reasoning? he thought. Why can’t I just accept that dull is dull, and that’s all there is to it?
Because it’s more exciting if they have a secret? Why do I always want life to be constructed that way?
Life has to be a story, otherwise it’s meaningless. And consequently unendurable. That’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
There was a knock at the door and Asunander stuck his head into the room.
‘How are you getting on with the graffiti? Any solution in sight?’
Barbarotti slammed on the brakes of all trains of thought about Valdemar Roos and the essence of life, and attempted to haul himself upright in his chair while still keeping his leg on the desk. It sent a twinge of pain through his back.
‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector, it’s going very well. I’m just trying to evaluate a couple of leads.’
‘Really?’ said Asunander, not bothering to come into the room. ‘What sort of leads?’
‘It’s a bit complicated,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I was going to come in and give you an update tomorrow . . . or Monday.’
‘Good,’ said Asunander. ‘I’ll look forward to it. But I want no more bullshit from you and no more files either, thank you very much. I want that infernal joker stopped and I’m expecting you to get results.’
‘Of course,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I see it as just a matter of time.’
‘You’re right to do that,’ said Asunander, and closed the door.
The problem, thought Inspector Barbarotti, the real problem, is that I’m not remotely interested in that graffiti merchant. Now what was I just thinking about Valdemar Roos?
‘Listen to this,’ said Eva Backman. ‘It’s really interesting.’
Barbarotti nodded and glanced at his watch. It was half past four. He had promised to pick up Marianne at quarter past five for the big weekly shop at the Co-op superstore in Billundsberg. It was their standard Thursday routine. If there was one thing in the world Barbarotti didn’t enjoy, apart from graffiti artists, rap music and tabloid journalism, it was the big shop. But he was well aware that with a family of eight to ten people, it had to be part of life. Even if certain family members were on crutches.
‘I’ve got to be home in good time,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t have come in a bit sooner?’
‘I tried to get hold of Karin Wissman while I was at it,’ Backman explained. ‘The witness at the restaurant. But she must still be away at her conference in Helsinki. I thought she was due back today, but apparently she won’t be home until Saturday.’
‘Is that a fact?’ said Barbarotti. ‘But what’s so interesting?’
‘Yolanda Wessén,’ said Eva Backman. ‘The woman at the ICA store in Rimmersdal who rang in this morning. I went there and we talked for an hour and a half. It was extremely revealing, and not just on the subject of Valdemar Roos.’
‘Woman to woman?’ asked Barbarotti.
‘If you will insist on bringing it down to the level of your own understanding,’ retorted Backman.
‘Sorry. What did she have to say about Valdemar Roos, then?’
Eva Backman opened her notepad. ‘Well, this exceptionally nice woman, Yolanda Wessén – or Yolanda Pavlovic, as she was called before she arrived in our wonderful country and married a bad-tempered baker called Wessén – says Valdemar Roos shopped there on at least five occasions in the past month. With the exception of the week just gone, when she didn’t see him at all.’
‘Hang on,’ said Barbarotti. ‘This shop’s in Rimmersdal, right, which is something like thirty or forty kilometres from town?’
‘Thirty-five,’ said Backman. ‘Out towards Vreten. My brother lives around there.’
‘And we’re talking about a small local supermarket?’
‘Correct.’
‘What did he buy?’
‘All the staples,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Milk, bread, coffee, eggs. The essentials, basically.’
‘And what does that tell us?’ said Barbarotti.
‘What do you think?’ countered Backman.
Barbarotti considered the matter.
‘We don’t want to go leaping to conclusions,’ he said.
‘Goodness, no,’ said Eva Backman.
‘It’s easy to get carried away.’
‘Goodness, yes.’
‘Maybe he took his groceries home to Fanjunkargatan.’
‘Every chance of it,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’m sure you’ve hit the nail on the head. He gets in the car every morning, drives thirty-five kilometers west, stops at nice little ICA shop and buys all the essentials. Then he takes them back home. A round trip of seventy kilometres.’
‘Exactly,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Completely normal behaviour for a Swedish man of his calibre.’
‘So?’ said Backman.
‘So he’s got another place,’ said Barbarotti, ‘where he goes.’
‘I’d decided that too,’ said Backman.
‘Good,’ said Barbarotti.
‘Perhaps to see his mistress?’
‘Could be. Though I find it hard to believe in this mistress.’
‘Me too,’ said Backman. ‘But in any case, it must be somewhere thereabouts. The area around Rimmersdal. Mustn’t it?’
‘Sounds very much like it,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Did you learn anything else from Yolanda Wessén? He introduced himself to her, didn’t you say?’
‘That’s right,’ said Backman.
‘Do you generally introduce yourself to the checkout staff when you go shopping?’
‘No,’ said Backman. ‘To be honest, I keep my name to myself.’
‘Same here,’ said Barbarotti.
‘But Yolanda said he was very pleasant and polite, and seemed rather keen to chat. And then . . . well then she seemed to confirm it.’
‘Confirm what?’ asked Barbarotti.
Backman rubbed at her hair and frowned. ‘She thinks he once said something along those lines. That he’d be coming in quite often, because he’d just moved to the area.’
‘Moved to the area?’ said Barbarotti. ‘He said that? Then there’s no doubt, is there?’
‘Er, well,’ said Backman, ‘she can’t remember if he actually said it in so many words. It was more, um, an impression she got. And when he started showing up a couple of times a week, the impression stuck.’
‘But she can’t remember if he actually said he’d got a place round there.’
‘No, she can’t swear to it. Could be she just assumed.’
‘Hm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Well, this is certainly interesting. Anything else?’
‘Not much,’ sighed Backman. ‘Unfortunately. What do you think we ought to do next?’
Barbarotti scratched his plaster and was silent for about ten seconds.
‘Think,’ he said. ‘Sit ourselves down and think hard about what the hell this means. And interview that witness of course . . . when did you say? Saturday?’
‘Saturday evening,’ confirmed Backman. ‘So we’ve got two full days for pure unadulterated thinking. Assuming that’s what we want. This is just some dry old stick who’s gone missing, after all.’
Barbarotti nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand why I care so much about this piece of human furniture, either.’
Eva Backman seemed to be searching for an answer, but clearly failed to find one, because she closed her notepad and gazed out of the window.
‘Looks like rain,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Anyway, I’m fiendishly good at pure unadulterated thinking. But I don’t need to tell you that.’
Eva Backman rolled her eyes and then looked at the clock. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be off shopping with your beloved?’
‘Christ, yes,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Where are my crutches?’