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.Mink sat on the floor with his back leaning against the door.Olivia glanced around the inside of the caravan.‘Does he live here?’‘Evidently.’‘You don’t know? You don’t know him?’‘I know him, he lives a bit here and a bit there, just now he’s living here.’‘Were you the one who found him?’‘Yes.’‘Are you homeless too?’‘No, definitely not.I live in Kärrtorp, a studio flat, I own it, it must be worth at least five million today.’‘Oh, right, are you an artist?’‘A tightrope-walking artist!’‘What does that mean?’‘It means I’m involved in all sorts of things.Capital, derivatives, in and out, and in between I do a lot with art, Picasso, Chagall, Dickens.’‘Wasn’t Dickens an author?’‘Mainly, absolutely, but he did some etchings when he was young, heavyweight stuff, not well known, but good!’At this point Stilton opened his eyes slightly and glared at Mink for a moment.‘I’ve got to go out into the bushes for a moment.’Mink disappeared.When he shut the door behind him, Stilton opened his eyes properly.Olivia looked at him.‘Is that a mate of yours? Mink?’‘He’s an old snitch.Soon you’ll hear how he solved the Palme murder.Why did you come here?’Olivia didn’t really know what to say.The first-aid kit? But that was just an excuse.‘I don’t really know.Do you want me to leave?’Stilton didn’t answer.‘Do you want me to?’‘I want to be left in peace.From the beach case.You phoned and wondered if I worked on the Jill case.I did, and I found links to Jackie Berglund.Jill worked for her, in Red Velvet, and bearing in mind the murder and Jill’s pregnancy I looked into the beach case again.It didn’t lead anywhere.Are we done with each other now?’Olivia looked at Stilton.She realised that she ought to leave.But there was something she wanted to tell him and this might be the last opportunity.‘I was on Nordkoster a week or so ago, up by the Hasslevikarna coves, and met a very strange man.On the beach.Can I tell you about it?’Stilton looked at Olivia.Outside the caravan Mink stood in the dark and inhaled something that broadened his mind.He was always ready to rethink his options.There had been a period when he had a private pipeline from Colombia straight into his nose, but when the doctors had to replace the cartilage in his nose with some fancy laminate, he understood that it was time cut down his consumption and he turned to less potent habits.He looked up at the oval window out of the corner of his eye, into the caravan, and saw Olivia talking for all she was worth.Pretty girl, he thought.Wonder how those two know each other?The pretty girl had poured out another glass of water for Stilton.She had finished her story.Stilton hadn’t said a word.She handed over the glass while putting her hand on the wall of the caravan again.‘Is this where Vera Larsson lived?’‘Yes.’‘Is this where she was…’‘Drop it.’Again.Then Mink came in, with a totally unmotivated but very characteristic smile which he flashed at Stilton on the bunk.‘Feeling better?’‘Are you?’Mink gave a little laugh.Caught out a bit there, but so what? Hadn’t he helped the former cop in an extremely precarious situation?‘I’m feeling tip-top!’‘Good.Can you leave now?’ said Stilton.He closed his eyes again.Side by side, they walked away from the caravan.A thoughtful Olivia next to a short, spaced-out snitch whose facial expressions seem to stretch in every direction.‘Yes, you know, got my finger in lots of pies, you have to spread your…’‘Have you known Stilton a long time?’‘Yonks.I mean, he was a cop before and we were a bit of a team for many a year.I can tell you that without me he wouldn’t have collected nearly as many scalps, in fact a lot of them would still be on their original heads, if you get my meaning.You always need somebody who can hammer in that final nail in the coffin and that’s me in a nutshell.Incidentally, I solved the Palme murder.’‘Oh yes?’Olivia steeled herself.Every metre that separated her from her car felt like having to traverse a bog.Until it finally occurred to her that he would of course ask for a lift.How the hell could she get out of that? In the middle of the Ingenting forest.‘Yes, you know, I served it up on a plate to the murder squad.But did they act? No.I mean it was so fucking crystal clear that the man’s wife shot him! He’d been having a lot on the side, and she had got fed up with it and BANG! Nobody saw the shots! Did they?’And now they had reached the Mustang.The crucial point.Mink just stared at the car.‘Is that yours?’‘Yes.’‘Wow, that’s a fancy machine! What… hell, it’s a Thunderbird!’‘Mustang.’‘Yeah, right.You’ll give me a ride, right? You know we can go past Kärrtorp and I can stock up on some stuff, there’s a bed waiting and, well, Mink is well hung!’That was the last straw for Olivia.She looked down at him.He was a head shorter than her, had a wide smile and no shoulders.She stepped closer to him
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