Part 28 (1/2)
”What are you going to have?”
”I don't know,” Lindell said, not feeling particularly hungry. ”Fish ... maybe the Zander.”
The waitress returned and took their drink orders. Lindell kept herself to light beer, while Gorel asked for a gla.s.s of white wine. She immediately took a long sip.
Lindell leaned forward. The man had leaned back and was now almost completely blocked by the pillar. Suddenly she got it. He was a fellow criminal investigator from Vasters: Axel Lindman, and they had met at a function at the Police Academy some six months or so ago.
”Have you zeroed in on someone?” Gorel inquired, having noted Lindell's distractedness.
”No, it's just a colleague who tried to pick me up at a workshop.”
”You mean the guy in the dark blue suit and yellow tie, the one drinking red wine?” Gorel asked.
Lindell gave Gorel a quizzical look.
”He looks nice enough. He came on to you? And you froze up like an ice queen, of course. Is he married?” Gorel watched the man discreetly, as she sipped a little more wine.
”I don't think so.”
”Then there's nothing to hold you back, is there?”
”He's not my type.” Lindell did not like the turn their conversation had taken.
”Cheers,” she said and raised her gla.s.s.
Gorel drank more wine, found that she had finished her gla.s.s, but continued unabashedly.
”And what exactly is your type? Don't say Edvard, because I'll throw up. Can't you stop thinking about that country b.u.mpkin once and for all?”
She had raised her voice and the couple at the next table looked up with interest.
”He's lumbering around on Graso Island with a ninety-year-old crone,” Gorel said, raising her gla.s.s as a signal to their waitress to bring another before she went on. ”He is and always will be a boring old fart. It was amusing and charming several years ago, but you are living here and now. There are loads of great men, including that cutie over there for starters, but you're clinging to the memory of a socially handicapped b.u.mpkin. It's pathetic!”
Lindell's first reaction was one of anger, but then she felt something more akin to embarra.s.sment, which she tried to conceal when she saw her friend's look of satisfaction. Her intended protest sputtered out as the waitress returned at that moment and placed a new gla.s.s of wine in front of Gorel.
”I'll have one as well,” Lindell said.
”Aren't I right?” Gorel picked up again after the waitress had gone. ”It's sick that you still feel guilty that you had Erik. If I'm going to be completely honest, I felt sorry for you at first, but now I don't know. You are good-looking and personable-no, don't start contradicting me-you have a job, a completely wonderful son, and you must be in good shape financially because you never splurge on anything. What are you waiting for? For Edvard to come riding in on his white steed? He never will.”
”He wanted to take me to Thailand a couple of years ago,” Lindell said.
”But then he picked someone else, didn't he?”
Lindell received her wine. The evening was not progressing as she had planned. She was at Dakar in order to establish a better sense of the restaurant and thereby of Slobodan Andersson, but now she was sitting here holding back the tears.
”It's easy for you to talk,” she said. ”You have everything you want. You've never been a single mom.”
”Erik is no barrier to meeting someone, when are you going to get that through your head? Hundreds of thousands of people are single parents and they meet new partners.”
Lindell looked around the room. More and more guests arrived and the bar area was crowded. She studied the backs of the men by the counter. They were standing there like a herd of animals at the watering hole, shoulder to shoulder, talking, laughing, and drinking.
”I got together with Charles,” she said.
”And left, after a while,” Gorel said.
She's going to have to control her drinking, Lindell thought. She decided to try to steer the conversation to something else. If Gorel were provoked, she would become increasingly aggressive, and Lindell could only guess at what kind of truths would start flying out of Gorel's mouth if she really got going. Lindell knew she meant well and that there was a great deal of truth to what she said, but at the same time she felt unjustly attacked.
”I'm here for professional reasons,” Lindell said quietly.
”Don't you think I realize that?”
At that moment the restaurant owner stepped into the establishment. He walked with rapid steps to the bar, taking advantage of a temporary opening in the herd in front of the bar, and sat down. The short, stocky legs dangled from the bar stool. The bartender immediately placed a beer in front of him.
He sat with his back to Lindell and Gorel. The latter gently turned her body and glanced toward the bar.
”Is that him?”
Lindell nodded and watched as Slobodan Andersson let his gaze wander around the room. Suddenly his gaze fixed on a booth near the Vasters detective's table. There were two men sitting there. One was Konrad Rosenberg, whose snapshot she carried in her purse and had briefly sighted in a questioning room several years ago. The other man was unknown, and sat with his back partly toward her. She estimated his age at around fifty. He had dark hair and was well dressed, especially in comparison to his dinner companion.
The men were intent in conversation and Lindell did not think they had noticed Slobodan, who quickly slid off his bar stool and left the room. His beer was left on the bar.
Lindell's gaze followed him as he left. Gorel sat with the gla.s.s of wine in her hand, watching the events.
”He left,” she commented unnecessarily. ”Should we follow him?”
Lindell chuckled and shook her head. She wondered who Konrad Rosenberg's companion was. Apparently they had a great deal to discuss.
”I have to go to the ladies' room,” she said and stood up.
In order to get there she had to pa.s.s the booth with Rosenberg and the unknown, as well as her colleague's table. She noticed his quick glance as she approached and how he subsequently stared down at the table. When she was a couple of meters away, he looked up and raised his hand as if he was engaged in a discussion.
”No, no, I don't know her,” he said in a loud voice, and looked at Lindell for a second with complete indifference and emphatically shook his head, before he looked back at his dinner companion, a woman of around thirty-five.
Lindell swept past the table and into the bathrooms, convinced that her colleague had not wanted her to make herself known. Her immediate reaction was one of surprise, before she pieced it together. She felt certain that Axel Lindman had recognized her but had not wanted to establish any contact. There could only be one reason: he was on a case. Because surely it couldn't be the case that her colleague was afraid that she would embarra.s.s him in front of his lady friend? No, Lindell decided that Axel Lindman must be undercover.
Was it Rosenberg who was the object of interest? Or the dark-haired man? Or perhaps someone completely different? Slobodan? For a second, she considered getting in touch with the crimes call center, having them call Vasters and see why Lindman was in Uppsala, but then she quickly realized that this information could not be produced by a simple phone call.
On her way back from the ladies' room she ignored him and instead focused on Rosenberg's partner, whom she could now see from the front. He was leaning forward and saying something to Rosenberg, and Lindell picked up a streak of irritation beneath his well-polished exterior. Her intuition told her that the unknown man was very agitated and exerting a great deal of control in order not to show it.
For a while they ate in silence. The fish fillet was done to a turn, the slightly sweet pepper sauce and the carefully sauteed rice, which Lindell at first thought was a fish stick, complemented the fish perfectly. There was much one could say about Slobodan Andersson, but the food at his restaurant was first cla.s.s. in silence. The fish fillet was done to a turn, the slightly sweet pepper sauce and the carefully sauteed rice, which Lindell at first thought was a fish stick, complemented the fish perfectly. There was much one could say about Slobodan Andersson, but the food at his restaurant was first cla.s.s.
She drank a dry white wine from the Loire with her fish. It had been recommended by the waitress, and she could easily have ordered another gla.s.s if it hadn't been for the difficulties that would create for her in maintaining her concentration.
She was having trouble focusing on Gorel's chatter, which jumped from her work to world politics with increasingly abrupt transitions.
Rosenberg and the unknown man continued their intense discussion. Axel Lindman and his companion had proceded to coffee. Lindell imagined that underneath his relaxed look, her colleague was attentive to every word and slightest s.h.i.+ft in atmosphere at the neighboring table, and she thought she could percieve the network of tension that stretched out into the dining room where three of the tables had become invisibly connected.