‘How are you feeling?’ asked Barbarotti.
‘As I deserve to,’ said Eva Backman. ‘But we haven’t got time to discuss our private lives, I’m afraid.’
‘Why’s that?’ said Barbarotti.
She gave a sort of shrug and looked at the clock.
‘We have a date with Asunander in five minutes.’
‘With Asunander? Again? Has anything happened?’
‘You could say that,’ said Eva Backman. ‘The son called in half an hour ago.’
‘The son?’ said Barbarotti. ‘Do you think you could clarify just slightly?’
‘Sure thing,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Greger Roos called us, here, this morning. It was Toivonen who took the call, but he passed it to me after a minute. Our man’s down there, evidently.’
‘Hang on,’ said Barbarotti. ‘You’re saying that Greger Roos, who I assume to be Valdemar Roos’s son, rang here? Remind me where he lives again?’
‘Maardam,’ said Backman. ‘He’s lived in Maardam for fifteen years, works at a bank or something.’
‘I didn’t think they were in touch with each other,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But never mind that, what did he want?’
‘He wanted to tell us he’d had a visit from his father.’
‘His father?’ said Barbarotti. ‘So . . . so we’ve got him, then.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Backman. ‘He apparently just dropped by and then went away again.’
‘Fuck.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Did he have the girl with him?’
‘No, he didn’t. But he left a letter.’
‘A letter?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what does it say?’
‘We don’t know. His son hasn’t opened it. But it’s addressed to us, it seems.’
‘What the hell are you saying?’ said Barbarotti, and groaned. ‘Valdemar Roos went to see his son down in Maardam, left a letter for us and pushed off?’
‘Correct on every point,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Shall we go in to Asunander now? We might as well continue with this in there.’
‘Pass me my crutches,’ said Barbarotti.
Asunander looked like the cat who, even if he hadn’t quite eaten the canary yet, had bitten off its wings and trapped it in a corner.
Not entirely displeased, in other words.
And we are the canary, thought Barbarotti. They sat down and Inspector Backman opened her notepad.
‘How is it,’ said the chief inspector with studied slowness, ‘how is it that we haven’t looked into this aspect any sooner?’
‘Er, I’m sure we—’ ventured Gunnar Barbarotti, but Asunander held up his hand and cut off what might have followed. Just as well, thought Barbarotti. Seeing as I hadn’t anything to finish the sentence with.
‘You,’ said Asunander, ‘are a graffiti investigator. I would prefer to hear DI Backman’s account of this.’
‘Of course,’ said Eva Backman, and cleared her throat before continuing. ‘But I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Chief Inspector. I contacted Greger Roos the day after we found the body out at Lograna. My note of the conversation is included in the report I wrote the same day. I have it here, if you’d like to refresh your memory.’
That woman, thought Barbarotti, biting the inside of his cheek so as not to smile.
‘What?’ demanded Asunander. ‘I mean . . . really? Well then, why didn’t we follow it up?’
‘Because there was no need,’ explained Eva Backman. ‘Valdemar Roos has no contact at all with his son. The last time they saw each other was at a funeral, ten years ago.’
‘Whose funeral?’ asked Asunander.
‘Valdemar’s first wife. The boy’s mother. It was in Berlin, and father and son only spent four hours together, all told.’
‘That wasn’t long,’ said Asunander.
‘The bare minimum, if you ask me,’ said Backman. ‘So, as I say, there was no reason to expect Greger Roos was going to have any involvement in this. But he promised to call if he thought of even the slightest bit of information to pass on. And now he has.’
DCI Asunander leant back in his chair and let this sink in for five seconds.
‘Three questions,’ he said.
‘Shoot,’ said Eva Backman.
‘First: where is Valdemar Roos as we speak? Second: where’s the girl? And third: what the hell does that letter say?’
‘Those are precisely the questions I’ve got written on my notepad,’ declared DI Backman. ‘Plus one more: shall we call him and ask him to read it out to us?’
Asunander frowned as he pondered. ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘Obviously that would be the quickest way . . . but just to be clear, we haven’t had confirmation yet that they were the ones behind the petrol station business, have we?’
‘No,’ said Backman. ‘We haven’t. And there’s no news on the condition of the police officer, either. I think the doctors are keeping him in a medically induced coma – you’d expect that in these circumstances. It’s to do with swelling round the brain, from what I understand.’
‘I’m aware of similar cases’, Asunander concurred. ‘But be that as it may, we need to decide whether—’
He was interrupted by the ringing of one of the telephones on his desk. He scowled at it, but lifted the receiver and answered. A few seconds later his eyebrows rocketed upwards, but he made no clear comment on what was being said at the other end. He just mumbled the occasional ‘yes’, a ‘no’ or two and then a ‘really?’ shortly before he hung up.
He clasped his hands in front of him and his eyes moved back and forth between Barbarotti and Backman.
‘We can cross out question number two,’ he said. ‘The girl has been found. She’s in the Gemejnte Hospital in Maardam.’
‘What?’ said Backman.
‘What?’ said Barbarotti.
‘Exactly what I said,’ muttered the chief inspector. ‘She was admitted yesterday afternoon, apparently. She’s in quite a bad way.’
‘A bad way?’ said Barbarotti. ‘What does that mean, in a bad way?’
‘I didn’t get any details,’ said Asunander. ‘But I’ve just decided how we’re going to find out.’
‘How?’ said Backman.
‘You two,’ said Asunander, leaning forward over his desk. ‘You’re to fly down pronto and look into this. Not just the girl. The letter and this damned Roos as well. I want his head on a plate; don’t come home without him.’
‘Right . . .’ said Barbarotti. ‘But—’
‘Is there anything you’re not clear about?’ asked Asunander.
‘No, nothing,’ declared DI Backman. ‘It’s all as clear as a bell.’
In the car on the way to Gothenburg’s Landvetter airport, she thought of yet another question.
‘How come he let you tag along?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were on special graffiti duties? He’s gone on about nothing else lately.’
DI Barbarotti gave a modest little cough. ‘Hrrm, I think it might be because that case is solved,’ he said. ‘Might be, at any rate.’
‘You’ve solved it?’ exclaimed Eva Backman. ‘You know who PIZ and ZIP are, then?’
‘I’m not certain,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But my solution is on Asunander’s desk, so you might say the ball’s in his court now.’
‘What the heck are you on about?’ asked Backman.
‘Maybe we can leave that until we get back,’ suggested Barbarotti. ‘I think we ought to concentrate on what’s happened down in Maardam.’
‘All right,’ sighed Eva Backman. ‘Oh bollocks!’
‘What is it?’ said Barbarotti.
‘Our family pow-wow,’ she groaned, scrabbling for her mobile. ‘I completely forgot to call it off. Pipe down for a minute, I must get hold of Ville and tell him what’s happened. If they cancel their training session and I don’t show up, I shall lose custody and the house and the whole shebang.’
‘Never a dull moment working with you,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Hardly ever, anyway.’
‘Shut up,’ said DI Backman.