The secret life of mr ro.., p.41
The Secret Life of Mr Roos,
p.41
‘Sara?’
‘Yes, she’s in the same class as one of the brothers, and we happened to be talking about it at home one evening. And then she came out with the fact he was a real bad apple at school, that Jimmy.’
Eva Backman burst out laughing. ‘So you’re telling me . . . you’re telling me the sons see to it that their dad doesn’t go out of business? They do the graffiti and he cleans it up. It’s bloody brilliant!’
‘That’s debatable,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘Asunander certainly didn’t use quite those words, but I think . . . well I’m not entirely sure about this, of course.’
‘About what?’ said Backman.
‘I thought I detected a smile as I put my solution to him.’
‘Asunander? A smile?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ said Eva Backman.
‘And there’s another intriguing connection,’ said Barbarotti.
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, this Kent Blomgren – Mr Cerberus, that is – was a classmate of Lars-Lennart Brahmin of local paper fame. Thirty-five to forty years ago. The front of his apartment building has come off worse in the graffiti attacks than anywhere else in town. There’s something simmering away there, clearly – upper-class versus lower-class and probably more besides. But it’s as old as the hills and I haven’t looked into it properly.’
Eva Backman nodded with interest.
‘Some long-held grudge,’ she said. ‘It sounds a bit sick, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes. And then there’s another problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They deny it point blank.’
‘Aha?’ said Backman. ‘All three?’
‘All three. And we’re on dodgy ground when it comes to evidence. If the sons are the ones committing these crimes, their dad has effectively erased all traces.’
‘Incredible,’ snorted Eva Backman. She had been on the point of drinking some more wine but was obliged to put the glass back down on the table. ‘And Sturegård spent almost a year working on this?’
‘Yes,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But I’m not casting any aspersions on her. It was just Sara’s flash of genius, and as I say, we’ve no firm evidence.’
‘So what’s the next step?’ asked Backman.
Barbarotti wiped something out of the corner of his eye with his serviette before he answered. Backman waited patiently.
‘Third degree,’ he said. ‘Asunander’s going to interrogate all three of them. I suppose the idea is to reach some sort of . . . deal.’
‘A deal?’
Barbarotti nodded. ‘On the quiet, yes. Asunander scares the whole family shitless, the graffiti stops. No perpetrators are apprehended, but the problem goes away.’
‘And everything in the garden’s rosy?’
‘Everything in the garden’s rosy,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Though Cerberus might be for the chop. Let’s drink to that.’
‘Cheers,’ said Backman.
They drank, and their food arrived. They ate in silence for a while. The pianist moved on from ‘Take the “A” Train’ to ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. Then Eva Backman put down her knife and fork.
‘You know what?’ she said. ‘And I’m straying into my private life now. It’s been three whole days since I told my husband I didn’t want to live with him any more. Since then I’ve spoken to him just once, when I rang to postpone our family council – don’t you thing it’s a bit strange? He hasn’t tried to ring me even once.’
Barbarotti nodded. ‘Perhaps he’s struck dumb with grief?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Eva Backman. ‘It’s more likely they’re out training or watching the TV sport round the clock, now they’ve got the chance.’
For a moment he saw a touch of bitterness in her face. It was the first time, if so.
The very first time in all those years.
‘What is it with you men?’ she said. ‘Valdemar Roos. My husband. Johan Johansson . . . and Cerberus. You get what I’m talking about?’
‘I think so,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti cautiously. ‘But I haven’t got a good answer. Perhaps . . . no . . .’
‘Please go on,’ said Eva Backman.
‘It’s as if we were born with a hole.’
‘A hole? I had the idea it was us women who—’
‘A different kind of hole,’ said Barbarotti.
‘Explain,’ said Backman.
‘Well, it’s a kind of imperfection or vacuum that has to be compensated for. Or at any rate some kind of built-in defect that you women don’t have. A question mark . . . Some of us simply try to iron it out through sport, because there’s nothing as uncomplicated as sport . . . No, it’s no good, I’m not making any kind of job of expressing this.’
He lapsed into silence and looked at Eva Backman, who was watching him from the other side of the table with an ambiguous smile on her lips. ‘You’ve thought about this before,’ she said.
‘Only since I was thirteen,’ admitted Barbarotti. ‘Anyway, there’s a kind of gender flaw we all have in common, you’re quite right about that. A lot of us are able to cope with it, but not all.’
Backman raised her glass. ‘I like that phrase,’ she said. ‘Gender flaw. We’re getting into some pretty deep things here, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But we’ve hit the bottom now, at least where I’m concerned. There are more words than there are thoughts, too, and that’s another problem . . . though that’s true of both sexes, when I come to think about it.’
Eva Backman laughed. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s a shame you sold your flat, to move on to the next subject.’
‘Why?’ said Barbarotti.
‘I could have bought it,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Now I’m going to be a single-person household. I liked that balcony.’
‘So did I,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But I’m pretty sure there are other balconies in town.’
‘You reckon?’ said Eva Backman.
‘I’d swear to it,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.
But before the evening was over they returned once more to Ante Valdemar Roos. It was when they were each sitting over an espresso and a small cognac.
Gunnar Barbarotti was aware of being pleasantly inebriated and he thought that this was one of those moments he would be very happy to sustain for a little while. Lie at anchor and just float there in the stream of time. He was about to put that thought into words, too, when Eva Backman said:
‘What would be the best ending to this business, do you think? Valdemar Roos, I mean.’
‘I’m not sure I understand the question,’ said Barbarotti.
‘We’ve agreed that he’s dead,’ said Eva Backman. ‘But it grieves you a bit, doesn’t it? Admit it.’
Gunnar Barbarotti raised his glass and took a sniff at the splendid spirit.
‘Did you know,’ he said, ‘that cognac is the only drink enjoyed to best advantage through the nose?’
‘Now you’re just playing for time,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Well, it grieves you that you never got to meet boring old Valdemar, I know that. Marianne’s quite right; you’ve got a screw missing there.’
‘Hm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Maybe. But if he’s written a fake suicide note, I have to say he’ll sink in my estimation. Are you with me on that?’
‘Of course,’ said Backman. ‘So what would be the best ending, then? That was my question.’
Gunnar Barbarotti savoured a small amount of cognac – through his mouth – before he answered.
‘The best ending is that we never find out,’ he said. ‘Regardless of whether he actually took his own life or not, we never find out. He can lie at the bottom of a lake from now until judgement day, or die a natural death in Barcelona in twenty-five years’ time – it makes no odds, the important thing is that I don’t find out which.’
‘Do you really mean that?’ said Eva Backman.
‘Yes,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I really mean it.’
Backman pondered this for a while, and then smiled.
‘You’re right, Gunnar,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame I’m drunk, because I think you said something unusually wise there. If I were sober I would be able to elaborate on it, absolutely I would.’
And Gunnar Barbarotti smiled too, as he allowed himself to be slowly filled with the present – the jazz piano, the drop of cognac still trembling in the bottom of his glass, Eva Backman’s familiar laugh lines and the diminutive birthmark above her right eyebrow, the slumbering but ever-present thoughts of Marianne, of the children, of the state of harmony and fulfilled needs that had arrived in his life without warning, the quiet, civilized murmur beneath the vaulted ceiling in this foreign town – and the singular inner satisfaction a blind chicken feels when she finally thinks she has found a grain of corn.
THE SECRET LIFE OF MR ROOS
Håkan Nesser is one of Sweden’s most popular crime writers, receiving numerous awards for his novels featuring Inspector Van Veeteren, including the European Crime Fiction Star Award (Ripper Award) 2010/11, the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Prize (three times) and Scandinavia’s Glass Key Award. His books have been published in over twenty-five countries and have sold over fifteen million copies worldwide. Håkan Nesser lives in Gotland with his wife, and spends part of each year in the UK.
Also by Håkan Nesser
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD IN WINSFORD
The Barbarotti Series
THE DARKEST DAY
THE ROOT OF EVIL
The Van Veeteren series
THE MIND’S EYE
BORKMANN’S POINT
THE RETURN
WOMAN WITH A BIRTHMARK
THE INSPECTOR AND SILENCE
THE UNLUCKY LOTTERY
HOUR OF THE WOLF
THE WEEPING GIRL
THE STRANGLER’S HONEYMOON
THE G FILE
First published 2020 by Mantle
This electronic edition first published 2020 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5098-9226-6
Copyright © Håkan Nesser 2008
English translation copyright © Sarah Death 2020
Photographs: Sandra Cunningham/Trevillion, Cover design: Ami Smithson, Pan Macmillan art department
The right of Håkan Nesser to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Håkan Nesser, The Secret Life of Mr Roos
