The Lonely Ones by Håkan Nesser

The Lonely Ones by Håkan Nesser

Author:Håkan Nesser [Nesser, Håkan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Books


34

Assistant Detective Claes-Henrik Wennergren-Olofsson had the longest signature in Kymlinge police station, and as he also liked to add his title – before or after his actual name – it often took him half a minute and two lines to complete the job.

Alexander Tillgren, who had the same rank but a service record that was six months shorter, had good grounds for considering Wennergren-Olofsson an idiot. He thought they were good, anyway, but his colleague was bigger and stronger and, moreover, armed with a preening, if totally unjustified self-confidence, so Tillgren often chose to keep his views to himself.

Not that it was always easy. Wennergren-Olofsson liked to teach him things whenever the opportunity arose, and a two-hour car journey from Kymlinge to Strömstad indubitably provided the opportunity.

I’m going to puke, thought Tillgren, long before they were even halfway there. If he doesn’t shut up in a minute, I’m going to sock him on the jaw.

‘So I told him to watch himself bloody carefully,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson. ‘And do you know what the blighter did?’

‘No,’ said Tillgren. ‘What did the blighter do?’

‘He tried to hit me,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson.

Good, thought Tillgren. ‘He never did?’ he said.

‘Oh yes. But then he found he’d tousled with the wrong man.’

‘Tussled,’ said Tillgren. ‘Not tousled.’

‘Eh?’ said Wennergren-Olofsson.

‘Wrong word,’ said Tillgren. ‘But forget it. What do you think about this case then?’

Why am I even asking that? he wondered. I’m just as much of an idiot.

Wennergren-Olofsson seemed to ruminate on the vocabulary question for a moment, before giving up on it. ‘Complicated,’ he said, ‘but not impossible to solve. I have my theories.’

‘That sounds exciting,’ said Tillgren, prompting a suspicious glance from his colleague. It was sometimes hard to judge quite how much irony he could slip into his replies without getting caught out, and he liked to sail as close to the wind as he possibly could.

‘Yes, well,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson. ‘And what do you think? Have you combed through the whole case?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Tillgren. ‘But, I mean, it is pretty odd for two people to lose their lives at exactly the same spot with such a time interval.’

‘Pretty odd?’ snorted Wennergren-Olofsson. ‘Let me tell you that if I’d been in charge of those interviews, I would’ve had this sorted. From the very beginning, I mean. It’s important to be in on the ground floor, so to speak. It’s obviously one of them.’

‘Who did what?’ said Tillgren.

‘Who murdered them both, of course,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson. ‘This Sandlin who handled the case in ’75 knew that something didn’t add up, and that the Winckler babe was murdered. He just couldn’t prove it.’

‘Is that a fact?’ said Tillgren.

‘Yes,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson. ‘It is.’

‘Have you read Sandlin’s case notes?’

‘Skimmed them,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson.

‘So you think it was one of the group members who killed Maria Winckler and Germund Grooth?’

‘Yep,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson. ‘Make a note that it was me who said it.’

‘I will,’ said Tillgren. ‘But who, then? And why?’

Wennergren-Olofsson inserted some snus under his top lip and thought for a moment. ‘Damned if I know,’ he said.



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