Christian Carlander studied Spanish between six and eight o’clock each Tuesday evening, but since nothing seemed to stick he started again in the beginners’ class each autumn. El perro está bajo la mesa. The dog is under the table. Ever since Carlander had learned to remember what that sentence meant, he had wondered what it was doing there.
Every now and then, on Saturdays, it was Premier League with the boys at O’Learys. An inconsistent tradition. Most recently, only Christian himself and the manager of lost property had shown up. The company was boring and the match ended nil-nil.
Sundays were for sports on TV: alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, or biathlon, if the season allowed. He was, after all, Swedish.
Aside from Swedish lady skiers, most things in life had been better before, if you asked Carlander. Before the kids moved out. Before his wife left him because he worked too much. Before he got sick of his job and started working as little as possible.
Police inspector certainly sounded nice. He’d been one of the top dogs in criminal investigations. But it had been a long time since anything exciting had happened. People didn’t even rob banks anymore. These days it was mostly homicide, and nine times out of ten the murdered could have been the murderer if only he’d acted faster. Or else it was cybercrime, and that was more than he could stand. Who left fingerprints or footprints behind online?
On one occasion he’d accidentally said this out loud during a coffee break at the station. His young colleagues protested; it was just that modern-day prints looked different. Before the break was over, they had labelled him a has-been. And rightly so. Carlander had come to terms with it.
Now he was just counting the days to retirement. From Monday to Friday he arrived at work a little after nine, had coffee between ten and eleven, and took an early, long lunch – but made sure to get back in time for the afternoon break. He went home around three: walked a few hundred metres to the metro, one station, change trains, three stations, and up to his one-bedroom flat in Södermalm where no one was waiting for him.
Now and then he had stopped off at a pub along the way. An afternoon beer, two at the most, a couple of evening papers and whatever book he was carrying around. Right now, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Carlander had picked it for the title.
On this ill-fated day, the inspector had been a little extra bored, so he left his empty desk even earlier than usual. He decided it was a beer-and-book day. He chose the bar at Nordic Light Hotel, which was within walking distance of the Centralen metro station and three short stops to Mariatorget and his hundred-year solitude back at home.
Suddenly, he was roused from his reading. There was a racket in the hotel lobby. A woman raised her voice, mentioning the word ‘police’.
Fourteen days from retirement. Carlander knew exactly what awaited him in the form of paperwork and other unnecessary tasks if he got involved. So he stuck with his beer and his book.
But the racket kept going, now involving both ‘help!’ and ‘save me!’ The inspector sighed. He guessed that there was a tipsy CEO demanding a larger room. He should go break things up before his colleagues had to respond. After all, God help him, he was a police officer for a little while longer. And besides, he was – to be perfectly honest – still on duty.
It was an unusual sight. The tipsy CEO was wearing neither suit nor tie. He was wrapped in a red-and-black checked cloth, was wearing sandals without socks, and held a wooden club in his hand. Many signs indicated that he wasn’t even a CEO.
Inspector Carlander held up his badge, announced himself, and asked what was going on. He spoke in English, without quite knowing why. There was something international about the man in front of him.
Ole Mbatian was pleased. Now he would receive help with this difficult woman. Not that they needed to arrest her; a proper reprimand would suffice.
‘Thank you, kind officer, for arriving so quickly,’ he said, trying – as tradition dictated – to give him a kiss on each cheek and one on his forehead.
But Carlander didn’t want any kisses. He shoved the Maasai off and appeared to be preparing himself to grab him somehow. Arresting Ole when the woman at the reception desk was the ridiculous one? The medicine man had no choice but to wallop the officer over the head with his club.
‘Ouch, dammit,’ said Inspector Carlander, falling onto his bum.
He scrambled back up but was so woozy that he had to sit down on a chair.
Now more officers were coming through the door, a man and a woman.
‘What’s going on?’ asked the woman.
‘Assault on a public official?’ Inspector Carlander suggested from where he sat with one hand on his forehead.
By the time Ole had finished wondering about the advisability of using the club on the woman as well, she had wrestled him to the floor.
Chapter seventeen, paragraph one of the Swedish Criminal Code clearly states that a person who threatens or practises violence against a police officer should be sentenced to prison for a maximum of four years or, if the crime is minor, to fines or prison for a maximum of six months.
The uniformed officers recognized the formerly competent criminal investigator and asked if he intended to press charges against the apprehended party. Carlander wasn’t feeling very well after his blow to the head and said he mostly just wanted to go back to his book and his beer and that he would consider their question in the meantime. For the moment, couldn’t they just bring the man in?
Ole Mbatian was naturally charming when he wanted to be. And he had been relieved of his club. He explained to the young female officer that this was all a misunderstanding. When Ole went to embrace her colleague out of gratefulness, his throwing club had happened to bump into the colleague’s forehead. The whole situation was amplified by the woman behind the reception desk losing her mind when Ole wished simply to discuss price and currency.
Sergeant Appelgren was indeed young, but she was sufficiently good at her job to bend the rules a bit when reality came knocking. She could have guessed from miles away that this incident was a direct result of culture clash. But that didn’t mean that she could ignore the fact that a respected colleague had been struck down.
She informed the Maasai that he would be released from the handcuffs she’d placed on him, given that he promised not to embrace her out of gratefulness as well, that he remained calm all the way to the detention centre, and that he stopped calling her ‘Young Miss Officer’. She was a sergeant and her name was Sofia.
Ole didn’t know what a detention centre was, but he was satisfied with the explanation that if you happened to scuffle with a police officer you might end up there and be given a bed and some food as punishment. The medicine man nodded in approval. That wasn’t quite how people were punished on the savanna.
‘My name is Ole Mbatian the Younger. In this sort of context, where we have achieved an almost familiar atmosphere, it will do to call me simply Ole Mbatian.’
Sofia asked what sort of business Ole Mbatian had in Sweden and learned that he was looking for his son Kevin, the first-rate Maasai warrior. At least among those who had never actually graduated.
There was no time for any further discussion in the back seat of the patrol car. It wasn’t a long trip.
Kronoberg Remand Prison has spent over a century being where it is, on Kungsholmen in Stockholm. On average, about twenty-five worrying elements are checked in there each day, every day of the year; a few more than average on Christmas Eve and a few fewer on a Tuesday evening in November. Somewhere in between on a day like this one, mid-week in February. Anyone who has worked as a prison guard for long enough will have soon seen and experienced everything. Truly, everything.
Except for a Maasai warrior-slash-medicine man.
‘Private room,’ Ole Mbatian observed. ‘Why thank you.’
The guard had rules to follow, for instance the one dictating that every delinquent must exchange their own clothes for the detention centre’s green trousers and shirt. But this particular specimen refused so emphatically that it was heard all the way down the corridor and reached the ears of Sergeant Sofia. She spoke with the guard, said that the Maasai appeared to be a most peaceful sort, and – above all – the shúkà he wore was so thin and almost transparent that there could be no room inside it to conceal objects. The prison guard sighed and acquiesced to the sergeant and the medicine man. He had already argued with his wife earlier that day; further arguments were more than he could handle at the moment.
Dinner was served in the room. Macaroni with sausage and juice. After he had eaten, Ole summoned the guard to tell him that he didn’t want to be disturbed unless it was urgent – he intended to recover from his long journey and wasn’t planning to leave until the next day.
‘I understand,’ said the guard, although in fact he kind of didn’t.
Ole Mbatian enjoyed a good, long sleep in his cell. When he woke up, he was hungry again. He asked the guard if a bit more food might be arranged before he went on his way.
Breakfast was already laid out in the common room; the guard on duty felt it would save time if the medicine man were welcome to visit it. He went off to check the peculiar man’s status in respect to restrictions. On the way he ran into Inspector Carlander, who had just spoken with the prosecutor. The Maasai could take his morning meal wherever he preferred.
Breakfast didn’t look like it did back home, but Ole Mbatian was satisfied. There was bread, he recognized that, and cow’s milk in a pitcher, there was no mistaking it even if it did look oddly thin. Next to the milk was a bowl of what looked like small, withered, pale brown leaves from the baobab tree. What could that be? And jam. Why, hard-boiled eggs as well.
Ole studied the establishment’s only other guest, hoping to watch and learn. The guest filled a bowl with the pale brown leaves, poured milk over them, and added a dollop of jam. It looked funny – some of the leaves bobbed on the surface, while others sank.
‘Excuse me, my friend, these brown leaves you just poured milk over – is that something you intend to eat?’
The addressed party didn’t bother to respond. Partly due to the fact that he was angry because he had been arrested the day before in his art gallery and accused of a variety of crimes of which he was innocent. And partly because the person asking was both foreign and black. Victor Alderheim was of the opinion that foreigners in general, blacks in particular, and also feminists, liberals, Green Party members, Social Democrats and homosexuals posed a threat to the nation he wanted to save.
He couldn’t think of a single reason to speak to the native in the room. Who was speaking English, to boot.
‘Learn Swedish if you want something from me.’
Snubbing, after all, was not the same as conversing.
Ole Mbatian didn’t give up. He finally had someone to talk to besides the smith’s sister and folks who had nothing to teach him, and he wasn’t about to be deterred by a simple snub.
‘Please excuse me, but you remind me of one of my wives in your morning mood.’
With that, the conversation had begun.
‘One of your wives? Do you have two?’
Victor immediately regretted saying anything, but it was impossible to hide his curiosity.
‘I had planned on a third as well, since the first two only gave me daughters. But One and Two disabused me of that notion, you might say. It all worked out in the end, though, for God sent me a son. He came straight from heaven. Now, I see you are eating these leaves – I thought as much. May I have a taste?’
Ole took a seat across from Victor Alderheim, who, for a moment, was speechless with surprise.
‘Why the hell would I let you taste my cornflakes?’
‘Oh, is that what they’re called. Well, that’s how it works back home. Everyone shares everything; it makes no difference.’
Enough was enough. Victor Alderheim announced that he didn’t speak to black people unless it was absolutely necessary, and he didn’t expect it was in this instance.
‘So shut your mouth, if you please.’
Ole Mbatian burst out laughing.
‘Where I’m from, a man who doesn’t speak to black people won’t be able to say much.’
But sure, he could keep his mouth shut if the angry man wanted him to. Ole Mbatian knew few people who were as good at being quiet as he was. One time he didn’t say a word for four months in a row. Of course, this was due to the fact that he had no one to talk to; he had been out on a terribly long walk to search for a heart medicine that was said to bloom next to the big lake called Nyanza, the one the uneducated referred to as Victoria. The lake, that is. Not the flower. That was called something else. Pink flowers. Half a man high, more or less. He never found it.
During the harangue that was meant to serve as proof Ole Mbatian could be quiet, the art dealer had an opportunity to take in this troublesome person’s attire. He was wearing the same red-and-black checked cloth Victor had seen the natives wearing as they walked along the road in the hour before he dumped Kevin. Did everyone dress the same down there?
‘Could you pass me the jam?’ said Ole Mbatian. ‘I’m sorry, I just said something again.’
He had prepared his own bowl of what was called cornflakes as he was going on about how quiet he could be. Now all that was missing was the preserved red berries.
‘Are you from Africa?’ Victor Alderheim asked, as he handed over the lingonberries.
‘No, Maasai Mara. But as long as we’re speaking even though we weren’t supposed to, may I ask what sort of business you have here? For my part I have been getting some rest and warming up my body. Soon I’m going to set off to look for my son, Kevin. The one from the sky. I don’t suppose luck would have it that you know where he is?’
It seemed quite unlikely, of course. The city was far too big. But Ole Mbatian couldn’t think of a better plan than querying his way forward. Plus, it kept the conversation going.
Victor was startled. Kevin. A coincidence. After all, his Kevin had been dead and eaten up for ages.
Stupid question, incidentally.
He said he didn’t know any Kevins.
‘And the reason I’m here is because someone is screwing with me! As if I would make counterfeit paintings or fuck goats!’
Ole Mbatian said he was sorry that the man had been accused of things he hadn’t done. That might explain why he was so angry. The part with the goat sounded extra unfortunate. The smith’s sister back home had certain similarities with a goat, mostly appearance-wise, but that wasn’t the same thing at all.
The medicine man liked the mixture of leaves, milk and jam. He helped himself to another bowl. He’d always had a healthy appetite.
‘By the way, what kind of paintings is it you don’t counterfeit? I have a couple of fine paintings myself, from a dreadfully long time ago. Or had, rather. Kevin, that scoundrel, took them with him when he came here. He didn’t want to be circumcised. Which is understandable, in retrospect.’
Victor Alderheim had the vague sense that the number of coincidences was getting to be excessive. The man appeared to come from the region where Victor had left Kevin to die. And God had sent him a son by that very name, one who later stole paintings from his father, paintings, of all the things Victor knew one could steal from one’s parents. Not alcohol, not money, not his Social-Democrat father’s gold watch. Paintings.
‘Hope he didn’t throw them away, because they’re very fine, did I mention that? Yet they soon will have been rolled up for almost a whole lifetime. Back home, paintings aren’t suitable to hang on the walls, because they’re made of cow dung and will burn a hole right through just about anything, given the chance.’
‘The paintings are made of cow dung?’
Victor Alderheim was finding it difficult to follow the native’s chatter. From circumcision to dung in the span of a few seconds.
‘No, the walls are. The paintings were made of paint by a woman who visited the village when I was just a wee little fellow.’
The medicine man chuckled again. He had completely forgotten to introduce himself.
‘Ole Mbatian the Younger. Medicine man by trade. Village champion in club-throwing. Two wives, eight daughters, and one son, Kevin, but I already told you that. I’m here to look for him. Oh, never mind, I already told you that too. Not here here, but in the country of Sweden.’
The art dealer was done with his cornflakes and turned to preparing an open-faced sandwich with slices of hard-boiled egg and a pink string of something on top, whatever that was.
What was about to occur was Ole Mbatian’s very first encounter with Sweden’s national open-faced sandwich topping: caviar in a tube, brand name Kalles Kaviar. No self-respecting Iranian would ever even think of calling Kalles caviar, but it has been a Swedish tradition since 1954. Half cod roe, the other half sugar, salt, tomato puree, potato flakes and preservatives. Into the tube and out onto the sandwiches of tens of thousands of Swedes each morning. Preferably in the company of a hard-boiled egg, as the art dealer was preparing right before the Maasai’s eyes.
‘If I know you, there’s no point in asking for a bite of what you’re holding in your hand, is there?’ said Ole Mbatian.
It was worth a shot.
Victor Alderheim had far too much to process to say no this time. Circumstances were on their way to becoming extraordinary.
‘By all means,’ he said, passing his untouched sandwich across the table.
The Maasai, as pleased as he was surprised, took a bite of the Hönö bread, egg and Kalles as Alderheim continued to mull.
In an initial interrogation with the police, he had been shown photographs of what they’d confiscated from the cellar. Besides the goat, the fake drugs and the sex toys there were two paintings with African motifs. A woman under a parasol and a boy by a stream. And hadn’t the boy been wearing a red-and-black checked cloth?
Alderheim tested the waters.
‘They’re saying I counterfeited Irma Stern. Is that a name you …’
‘Dear, sweet, Auntie Irma. You’re counterfeiting her? No, that was what you said you didn’t do. Oh my, this sandwich is delicious.’
The art dealer’s heart may have stopped for a second.
‘You’ve met?’
Something big was happening. But what?
‘It was many years ago. She came to the village, got sick, recovered, thanked Dad, made portraits of me and Mum – and left.’
Many years ago. Well, anything else would have been out of the question. Portraits …?
‘Were you by any chance sitting by a stream when she painted you? Was your mother under a parasol?’
Ole chuckled a third time. He’d never heard such a lucky guess. Or two.
Victor’s mind was reeling. Kevin and Kevin had to be the same person. The fake Irma Stern paintings were authentic. The police thought Victor owned them, even as he was sitting here feeding the real owner.
Feeding him Kalles Kaviar.
‘And now you’ve come to Sweden to find your paintings?’
‘Not at all! I’m looking for my son.’
‘So … the paintings aren’t important?’
Ole considered the question. As he recalled, Auntie Irma had been a comfy sort of lady. She often patted him on the head, in a motherly fashion. Had a nice smile. And made beautiful paintings.
Her creations had stayed rolled up in Ole Mbatian the Elder’s third hut, the one on the hill, for as long as he lived. When Ole Junior took over, he brought out the artworks for the fire festival every year. As extra decoration. That was it. The villagers had got it into their heads that he was the artist, and why not let them think so? A medicine man had to protect his reputation as being something special.
But then Kevin took the paintings with him when he fled circumcision. It was unclear why, but the reason didn’t matter. Nothing was of any importance besides Kevin himself. One could only hope they ended up on a proper wall eventually. That they could bring happiness to a few more viewers and a little more often. Ole had no concerns beyond this.
‘No, they’re not important,’ he said.
‘Then perhaps I could purchase them? I’m an art dealer and I love the cheap and simple. A hundred dollars for the pair, what do you say?’
How much was a hundred dollars in livestock again? The suggestion reminded Ole Mbatian of the chief’s stubborn refusal ever to do anything new. And how many cards would it be? One of the many things he’d observed up to this point on his journey was the small plastic cards. It was a form of payment, and yet it wasn’t. The buyer always seemed to keep the card, but the seller never got upset about it.
It remained to be seen how exactly this worked, but even the crazy receptionist at the hotel had refused not only livestock on credit, but also cash – that is, dollars. Perhaps Ole could demand a card or two for the paintings, to be on the safe side. One or two, in that case?
No, the medicine man knew how many chickens equalled a goat and how many goats equalled a cow. If he gave it some thought, he could probably manage to translate all of that into dollars as well, but that was where he drew the line. And anyway, the method of payment wasn’t the problem right now. Kevin had taken the paintings with him. And he was missing. There were no paintings to sell.
The medicine man got an idea.
‘If you help me find my son, you can have the paintings.’
Now things were shaping up to be as fantastic for Victor as they were problematic. There was no way it would end well if he and the native tracked down Kevin together. The kid must have put the paintings in the cellar to frame him. That goddamn brat. What had Victor ever done to him?
There was no reasonable way Kevin could have grasped what he was doing when he did it. Now Victor would have to take over ownership of the paintings before the little brat and the native were reunited.
Victor held out the sandwich once more.
‘Have another bite, Mr Mb … Mbth … Mr Africa. And please tell me more about Irma Stern.’
The second bite was almost better than the first. Ole swallowed and gave an account of his meeting with Auntie Irma when he was a child. She had been treated by Ole’s father, Ole Mbatian the Elder, and stayed for several months until she was well again. She left the two fine pieces of art behind as a gift.
‘Would you like to see pictures of Irma and me?’ said Ole Mbatian.
‘What?’ said Victor.
‘No, how silly of me. Why, the photographs and the letters are in the hut, and that’s not here.’
While Ole prattled on, Victor Alderheim managed to catch up with himself. The deal must be closed here and now, or else it would be too late.
‘Fantastic that you want to donate your Irma Sterns to a poor lover of art, but I simply can’t go along with that. And I’m afraid they won’t let me out of here for a long time yet, so I don’t know how I can be of any help in your search for … Kevin, was it?’
The medicine man understood. On the other hand, it seemed like dollars no longer cut it, at least not at the hotel.
‘May I ask what that pink stuff is that comes out of the blue and yellow tube? It certainly elevated the flavour of both egg and bread.’
‘You know what?’ Victor Alderheim had a brainwave. ‘You can have my whole Kalles Kaviar sandwich with egg as payment for the paintings!’
The native had already eaten up a third of it; two million-dollar paintings for the last two-thirds seemed fair.
‘But what if I don’t find Kevin and the paintings? Then I’ll have nothing to offer and you will have paid for something you never received.’
Unlike Ole, Victor Alderheim knew that the paintings were somewhere in the police station.
‘Aw, well, if it happens it happens. Just the thought of owning them makes me happy.’
Now it was Ole Mbatian’s turn to mull. It would have been easy to simply give paintings to someone who would appreciate them. But to sell them? That was making a business deal out of it, and in business one must take no prisoners. A sandwich struck the Maasai as too cheap.
‘Well, there were two paintings,’ said Ole.
Victor Alderheim was quick to respond.
‘You’re absolutely right. I’m authorized to make another sandwich, exactly the same. Egg and caviar. You can have that too, okay?’
In just a few seconds, the offer had doubled. Ole Mbatian was pleased. As he munched on what was left of the first sandwich, Victor assembled the second.
‘Not as much butter underneath this time,’ Ole said with his mouth full. ‘And caviar all the way to the edges, please.’
Once the Maasai had eaten up the Irma Stern paintings, Victor wanted to get their agreement down on paper. While he tried to formulate the handover on a napkin, the medicine man told him more about how grateful Irma Stern had been after Ole Mbatian the Elder saved her life, and that was why she first painted his first wife under a parasol and then his son – that is, Ole – playing by a stream. Well, not exactly playing; she sat at her easel and asked him to stand as still as possible with a stick in his hand.
Alderheim needed to get a better grip on the native’s name.
‘How is Mb … Mbth …’
‘Mbatian,’ Ole said, as clearly as he could. ‘First an “m”, then a “b”, and then the rest is obvious. And what might you be called?’
‘Victor Alderheim,’ said Victor Alderheim.
The angry man was easier to remember. Although he wasn’t as angry by this point. That could change; Ole wanted to know more about his relationship with goats.
‘Back home we use goats as currency and for milk production. For sex and so forth, we prefer to stick to our women. And they to us. That’s just who we are. Do you have differing thoughts on the matter? Perhaps the goat is of a more accommodating nature?’
Victor Alderheim was too focused on what he was doing to become angry again. He had just finished with the napkin, upon which only the signature of the native was missing. Lord, let him know how to write. Victor didn’t know if they knew how, in Africa. Some of them, sure, but out there in the jungle?
‘Well, Mr Mbatian. In keeping with Swedish tradition, I thought we could both sign this little document as a way to remember today’s business deal.’
Ole said that where he came from, a man kept his word; if he didn’t, he seldom grew as old as he might have hoped. But sure, the medicine man could offer up a signature. He had practised it as recently as a few days ago, when he was getting his passport.
‘A passport is something you need if you’re going to travel a long way,’ he stated.
The men in the breakfast room at the remand prison were interrupted when a third man entered the room. It was Inspector Carlander. He had arrived at work earlier than he had in a long time, hoping to forestall a report on the assault of an official. He knew what sort of work such a report would mean, and – above all – how much glee his colleagues would exhibit during their coffee breaks if they learned that the experienced investigator had been struck down by a slightly aged Maasai medicine man.
Thirteen days until retirement. Now it was time for harm reduction and a smooth crossing of the finish line.
‘Why, look, it’s the police officer from yesterday. How’s the noggin? If only there were any left, you could have had a bite of my sandwich as a balm on top of the balm I see you have already put on your head. Egg with caviar from a tube.’
Before the inspector could say anything, Victor Alderheim stood up and rounded the table. His face was red; something about Carlander’s arrival had set him off.
He couldn’t let anyone intervene now. None of his alleged crimes mattered, as long as he could take possession of the paintings he had just purchased. He grabbed the Maasai’s arm, thrust the pen into his hand, and pointed at the napkin.
‘Sign!’
But too much was happening at once for Ole. The angry man appeared to be returning to his old self again. The medicine man paused, pen in hand.
In a loud voice directed at Carlander, Alderheim announced that he would plead guilty to everything if necessary, except some goddamn phone call in which he allegedly turned himself in. The goat was his, the flour was his, the sex toys were his – but above all, the two paintings were his!
‘I’ll confess to anything, as long as you give them back. They’re authentic! And they’re mine! Ask this native here! They’re mine!’
Victor Alderheim demanded to be released immediately; there was nothing illegal about having paintings in one’s own cellar. He was an art dealer, for Christ’s sake! But before anything else happened, this lunatic here had to put his name down on the napkin.
‘Just sign it, goddammit!’
Inspector Carlander had a headache from being hit in the head with a throwing club the day before, and it was only made worse when someone shouted and tried to boss him around.
He planted himself between the Maasai and the loudmouth.
‘I don’t care where you stick your dick in your own time, but in this building you will calm the hell down, is that clear? Otherwise I’ll go get the taser.’
He would not be doing the bidding of this goat-sex man.
Ole Mbatian dropped the napkin issue; his good word would have to suffice. He wanted to leave now. ‘If you will excuse me, Angry Man and Police Officer, I’m going to set out to look for my son. Could you please fetch me my club before I go? I promise not to hit anyone in the head with it, including this angry fellow, although I know that such things can cause a change of mood in anyone.’
The inspector could not comprehend how the Maasai knew he was free to go. That decision had only been made a few minutes earlier, when Carlander informed the prosecutor – whom he’d known for over thirty years – that he wasn’t going to file charges for violence against an official. The prosecutor said he understood.
‘Please come with me, Mr Mbatian. Your case has been terminated. But the throwing club shall remain in our care; it’s what we call “forfeit” around here.’
Now they had taken his knife, spear, and throwing club from him.
As Ole Mbatian and Inspector Carlander left the room, Alderheim continued his oration. The medicine man didn’t understand why. If he hadn’t done you know what with the goat, he had nothing to be upset about, and if he had, then really the goat was the one who had the right to complain.
On their way through the corridors, Inspector Carlander thought about what he had just experienced. Did the goat-fucker and the medicine man have something in common? Like the very paintings that had been confiscated along with the sex toys and the animal?
In a different time, before Inspector Carlander had mentally clocked out of his job, the case of the forged paintings in the art dealer’s cellar would have been right up his alley. His boss had made an attempt in this direction the previous morning, but Carlander claimed a dentist appointment. No one in his right mind would take on an investigation of this scope two weeks before retirement.
But now the situation had rather changed. Curiosity had sunk its claws into him. The break room had kept him up to speed.
‘Mr Mbatian, you will soon be perfectly free to go,’ he said. ‘But first I’d like to have a brief conversation with you, if you don’t mind?’
‘It’s hard to know that ahead of time,’ said Ole Mbatian.
Christian Carlander managed to surprise his boss along the way. He stuck his head in and said:
‘Hello, have you already put the goat-fucking case on someone else’s desk? If not, I can take it.’
‘You go ahead and take it, Carlander,’ said his boss.
In fact, it had been assigned to that idiot Gustavsson. Who had kicked things off by calling in sick. To think that Carlander, of all people, would come to the rescue. Would wonders never cease?
Inspector Carlander asked Ole Mbatian to have a seat on one side of the empty desk; he himself sat on the other side.
He began by saying that he was investigating a raid at the gallery of an art dealer suspect, which had taken place two days earlier. The thing was, there had initially been a rather lengthy list of actionable items against the man, but one by one they had fallen out of play.
Carlander really had no reason to be going into detail about this case in the presence of the Maasai warrior. But in brief, the fact was that the goat who had been discovered in the cellar, looking confused, did not appear at this juncture to have been subjected to sexual violence. Or even cruelty to animals in a more general sense; it had been supplied with both water and carrots to munch on if it liked. However peculiar it might be to keep goats in your cellar, there was no criminal charge to be applied in that matter. The confiscated heroin turned out to be nothing but flour, and it was certainly not illegal to have or wish to have exciting sex, so all that was left was the alleged art forgery. Which was, to be sure, damning enough. If it had in fact happened – this point suddenly seemed unclear.
‘Mr Mbatian,’ said Carlander. ‘What do you have to say about these two photographs?’
He placed them on the table; one depicted Woman with Parasol; the other, Boy by Stream.
‘What do you want me to say?’ said Ole Mbatian.
‘Do you recognize the paintings?’
‘I sure do. They were once mine. I just sold them to the man with the goat. Got a better deal than I first understood, because he’s probably still yelling and screaming if someone hasn’t made him stop.’
‘They’re yours?’
Imagine having such poor hearing.
‘No.’
What Carlander meant was that if the paintings had previously been under Mr Mbatian’s ownership, before he sold them, how could he prove this? And what connection did Mbatian have to Victor Alderheim?
Ole Mbatian said he had no connection at all to Victor Alder … something, and that this was probably just as well, considering the other sorts of relationships that man appeared interested in building.
‘But you were conversing during breakfast?’
‘Yes, a little. At first he didn’t want to talk to me because I’m black. He thought I should keep my mouth shut. At which point he became cheerful before becoming surly once again. One of the most trying people I’ve ever met. What was it you wanted to know?’
The inspector almost didn’t know anymore.
‘How you’re acquainted,’ he said.
‘But we’re not.’
Carlander went on:
‘He said those Irma Stern paintings were in his cellar and he didn’t know how they got there. Do you know?’
‘Not a clue. Ask my son, if you can find him. I’m going to look for him myself, as soon as you let me go.’
‘Your son? What’s his name?’
‘Kevin.’
‘Kevin Mbatian?’
‘Sure. Or just Kevin. He was sent to me from heaven.’
Interrogator Carlander had conducted strange interrogations before, but in every other instance the interrogated party had been high as a kite. What had he got himself into?
‘Where can I find Kevin?’
Ole Mbatian looked at Inspector Carlander without a word.
‘Oh, that’s right,’ the inspector corrected himself. ‘You intend to search for him. Do you have an address, Mr Mbatian?’
‘If I did, there would be no reason to search.’
The inspector regretted his question.
‘This Kevin – do you know his personal identity number?’
Personal identity number? Thought Ole Mbatian. What a strange phrase.
‘Nine,’ he said.
‘Nine?’
‘First, eight girls.’
‘It’s just that Swedish personal identity numbers consist of ten digits. Or twelve.’
‘By how many wives?’
Carlander felt it would be best to start again at the beginning.
‘What I’m interested in first and foremost is those paintings. I thought you said they were painted by Irma Stern. How do you know that?’
‘I was there when she painted them.’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘Why?’
Inspector Carlander didn’t quite know. The truth was, of course, that no one had claimed they were genuine; no one had tried to sell them as such. No one had tried to sell them at all. Alderheim himself denied any knowledge of anything, including the goat. He said he hadn’t called Bukowskis, he denied having bought any sex toys, he maintained he had not filled a dozen plastic bags with flour while wearing gloves. Now, though, he’d changed his tune on all points except the phone call. He was audible from all the way at the other end of the corridor, through double doors. He was standing in the common room and ranting about how he demanded to see first his paintings and thereafter a lawyer.
Meanwhile the Maasai had confirmed that the paintings had been his, prior to being sold to Victor Alderheim, even though the two men had never met before. The phone call to Bukowskis had not been recorded. Perhaps it would be possible to find out where the goat had come from, and it would almost certainly be possible to trace the sex toys. But why dig deeper into legal transactions? If only that bastard hadn’t changed his tune, they might have had something to take a closer look at. But now there hadn’t even been a break-in. A quick search in the databases for Kevin Mbatian brought up zero hits.
With that, Inspector Carlander’s sudden fervour for his job was over. The easiest thing for everyone would simply be to drop the case that perhaps had never been a case to start with. Especially easiest for Carlander himself.
‘Then I will take this opportunity to thank you, Mr Mbatian, for taking the time to answer my questions.’
‘By all means.’
Twelve and a half days left. And then Christian Carlander would be free. To reward himself for the day’s thorough investigative work, he decided to take the following day off.