Read Online Another Time, Another Life by Leif G. W. Persson - Free Book Online

It was only him that I heard. Not theother one … although they must have been fighting. What is it the lawyers always say—it’s in the nature of things—although that was what was so strange.” Mrs. Westergren shook her head.
    What was it that had been strange?
    What was so strange was that he had not sounded afraid. Angry, furious, crazy with rage, but not afraid. Their witness had become noticeably paler as she spoke, but at the same time it was very clear that she was truly exerting herself to remember what she had heard.
    “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not afraid, he sounded more like he was angry … or furious … He just bellowed in rage … although I didn’t hear what he was screaming.”
    “And you’re certain that it was your neighbor you heard? Not the one who was visiting him?”
    “Yes. It was Eriksson who screamed. He sounded completely insane actually. The other one I didn’t hear. He was quiet, I guess.”
    But it was only when the neighbor’s bellowing had ceased that she had phoned the police. By then she had heard him moaning loudly, and it sounded as though he was crawling around on the floor in the apartment. It was then that she made her first call to the police.
    “It never stopped. It felt like an eternity. It sounded as if he was dying in there … and he was too.
    “You never came,” she said, and for some reason it was Jarnebring and not his colleague she was looking at when she said that.
    Had she noticed anything else? Anything about Eriksson that struck her? Some observation that she had made? Any speculations she’d had?
    Anything at all, thought Jarnebring. Give us anything at all because we’re not picky. Just give us a little piece of thread that we can start pulling on.
    “No,” said Mrs. Westergren, suddenly looking guarded. “Like what?”
    She’s hiding something, thought Jarnebring, feeling the familiar scent in his nostrils, but before he managed to ask the question, his colleague got there first.
    “Let me put it like this, Mrs. Westergren,” she said with a friendly smile. “In my job the people we encounter are rarely completely black or completely white … in a moral sense that is. It’s more complicatedthan that. I’m thinking about what you’ve told me and my colleague. Everything you’ve said indicates that it was someone who knew Eriksson who attacked him. Why? Eriksson doesn’t appear to have associated with any crazy people. What was it about Eriksson that might provoke someone he knew to the degree that he—”
    “Murdered him.” Mrs. Westergren looked pale as she finished the sentence.
    “What I mean is … what was it about him that could have caused someone to do that?”
    Well done, thought Jarnebring. She has not said “murder” the whole time. She was really good-looking too. Although maybe a little thin?
    “I don’t really know,” said Mrs. Westergren. “I have no idea what it could have been.”
    His female colleague just nodded without saying anything, simply looking at the older woman who sat across from her. Friendly, cautious, encouraging. Now then …
    “I had the feeling,” said Mrs. Westergren hesitantly, “that he had started to drink a great deal recently. That something was worrying him. It’s not like I saw him drunk or anything … but there was something. The last few times I saw him … he seemed really nervous.” Mrs. Westergren nodded in confirmation, and looked almost relieved herself.
    Well, well, well, thought Jarnebring. Then we’ll have to find out what sort of thing it was, and then the prosecutor can take over.
    When the door knocking was finally finished it was almost midnight and they had gathered in the victim’s apartment for a first go-through. The corpse had already been carted away, leaving only the impressions of his upper body and head on the blood-covered parquet floor where he had been lying. It was clear that effort had been devoted to searching for