A Darker Shade of Sweden (13 page)

“Is there really any point at all to teach class on December thirteenth?” Maria asks her husband in the kitchen once the Lucia train has left them to haunt other victims among their teachers.

“Someone has to look after them. Lots of things happen on Lucia nights that need daylight soul-searching and emotional processing. Conflicts become open, love turns sour, they have fights and get drunk. It's a busy day for teachers. As for cops, I suppose. I suspect you'll have your hands full today,” Krister says and caresses her cheek.

“I wouldn't be surprised.”

Maria helps her children dress while tidying the living room. She gathers a whole pile of forgotten items—a sweater, a CD, a bag of chips and a lot of tangerine peel. Emil is to be dressed as a gingerbread man and Linda will be a Lucia. At the day care center all the girls get to be Lucia. Linda's wire crown is a little too big. When she pushes it to the back of her head she looks more like a deer or an elk than a queen of light. Emil has a battery candle. When he puts it in his cheek it glows red through his skin. Linda tries to do the same with her crown, gets one of the candles down her throat and throws up on her white, newly ironed gown. Quickly and despite her loud objections she is turned into a Santa. Maria puts together the flower arrangement she is giving the day care staff, puts it on the washer, feeds the cats, and turns on the dishwasher, and they finally leave, still in darkness.

Detective Captain Hartman passes around the plate of saffron buns and gingerbread. It's been a reasonably calm night. No traffic accidents. A drunkard smoking in bed has been hospitalized with burns. Two teenagers are sobering up in the drunk tank. Their parents have been contacted. Bredström's jewelery has suffered a broken shop window, but nothing's been stolen. On the whole a calm Lucia night. Ek throws himself onto the staff room couch; the surge of the cushion almost makes Maria drop her coffee cup. He looks a bit hungover. No doubt the night has been personally rewarding.

“What did Ellen Borg's apartment look like?” Maria asks and puts down her coffee cup at a safe distance from Ek.

“Ordered and clean. A hell of a lot of knickknacks. A couch full of embroidered cushions, you know. She had a telescope mounted in her bedroom, pointed at the bedroom window of the apartment opposite hers. Want to bet if she knew everything there was to know about her neighbors? Then we found money. She had cash hidden away everywhere in her apartment, in the most unbelievable places. All in all, close to a hundred thousand.”

“Her son says she was living at the edge of starvation. Are the forensics guys done out in Bäckalund?” Maria asks.

“Yes.” Hartman holds the thermos in his hands. “Are you going back to her cottage?”

“Yes, right now.”

The forest road is black and cheerless. Huge drifts of snow have fallen overnight, but here and there the branches of the trees have caught the snow and the ground is bare. The contrasts create a feeling of mystery. Maria steps out of her car and shades her eyes against the rising sun in the east. Why did Ellen Borg suddenly start going to her cottage on Monday nights, in the middle of October? Did she go here to see someone? According to Sara Skoglund, Ellen didn't have many friends, but this was where she was born and grew up. Perhaps there was someone here her friends in town didn't know about. She's a little odd, Sara had said. She doesn't get along at all with her daughter-in-law. Ludvig always comes to see her alone. How does it feel to leave an active life at the post office, where you know most things about most people, to become a pensioner? To sit in a one-room apartment with your newspaper and see very few people?

Maria is just about to step over the police tape when she catches a movement behind the curtains in the neighboring cottage. It's the one Ludvig pointed out, the one belonging to the grocer, a larger log cabin with a porch. A woman's bike is leaning against the gatepost. Maria walks over and knocks on the door. The ice crystals of the snow crust glitter in the sunlight. Snow crunches under her feet. The door is opened by an attractive blonde, at a guess just over twenty-five. She is enveloped by warmth. Maria hears crackling from the woodstove.

“Maria Wern. I'm with the police. Could I ask you some questions?”

“Lovisa Gren. I'm a school nurse.” The woman's handshake is firm. “It's cold outside today. Please come in. I suppose it's about that awful thing that happened to Auntie Ellen.”

“You're right.”

Maria enters and brushes snow from her feet. They sit down by the kitchen table next to the woodstove. It's an unpainted gateleg table, adorned by a pewter tankard full of dried rowanberry twigs. On the wall above is a hanging edged in blue. The artfully embroidered letters reproduce an old proverb:
A SMALL TUF
T
WILL OFTEN OVERTURN A BIG LOAD
.

“When did you last see Mrs. Borg?”

Lovisa leans her chin on her hands, thinking.

“I honestly don't know. Probably sometime last summer. Yes, it must have been on Midsummer's Eve.”

“When were you out here last?”

“At midsummer. Then I went abroad. Here it just rained all the time.”

“Does anyone other than you ever come to this cottage?”

“No, I would hope not. I rent it all year.”

Maria unbuttons her coat to let the heat reach her body. Her hands are red from the cold. It feels good to hold them out to the fire.

“How would you describe Ellen Borg? What kind of a person was she?” Maria asks.

“To me she mostly talked about illness. Sometimes I wished I had never told her I was a nurse.”

“I can imagine. And now you've come to your cottage?”

“Yes. I read about the murder in the paper and wanted to make sure nobody had broken in.”

“And all is as it should be?” Maria looks around with a friendly glance. Lets her glance take in the bedroom and the tousled bed.

“Yes. I slept here,” Lovisa says apologetically. “And I haven't made up the bed yet.”

“You're not easily scared. Have you ever met Mrs. Borg's son?”

“Ludvig. Yes, he was here last spring. He comes to plant potatoes for her. She hasn't been able to do it herself for a long time, but she did want fresh potatoes for midsummer.”

“So what did you think about him?”

“I don't really know.”

“You can tell me,” Maria says. “I couldn't miss that undertone.”

“I guess he's a bit of a show-off,” Lovisa says with a laugh. “You know, always the shiniest car. Wants you to know he's done well. He is some kind of financial wizard.”

Ellen Borg's little cabin is all tidiness and orderliness. The spice jars have handwritten labels and stand in perfect lines. The towels underneath the embroidered towel-rail cover have been ironed with perfect creases. The plastered brick hood above the fireplace is perfectly white, as if no fire had ever been set. Everything is in order, except for a single detail. There is a pair of binoculars on the kitchen table. The instrument lies at an angle to the tablecloth. Did the old woman spend her summer spying on her neighbors? Perhaps, but what could there have been to see in the middle of winter? Maria puts the binoculars to her eyes to check the definition. Through the kitchen window she can see clearly all the way to the main road. Not bad. Since Ellen Borg's cottage is the last one in the area, her kitchen window overlooks all the other houses. Maria walks through the cottage again, returns to the fireplace in the living room. Wouldn't she have used every source of warmth, given how cold it was outside? Maria gives in to a sudden impulse and puts her arm up inside the fireplace. Feels the bricks. One of them is loose and can be pulled out. She brings it along to the window. Underneath the brick, a black notebook is tied in place with string.

Fredrik hides his wet clothes under the bathtub, quietly so as not to wake his mother, who sleeps in the room next door. The blush of shame still burns his cheeks. Perhaps it's a burn he will have to carry all of his life. How will he ever be able to go back to school after this? Will they let you have home schooling if you've peed your pants? They ought to. There was a guy in third grade who had home schooling after breaking his leg. Peeing your pants is much worse. There is a great loneliness in that realization. Fredrik puts his hand in the pocket of his dry pants, feels the cold surface of the Ring against his fingertips. In a sense he is in an emergency. So he puts it on his finger. Evil doesn't overwhelm him all at once. He hardly even notices it creeping in as he thinks about what to do next. His thoughts veer off on a forbidden tangent, pull him in through the closed door of Leo's room. For a while he stands in the persistent deodorant smell, staring at the new poster that has appeared on the wall. A girl in string panties on a motorbike. Fredrik thinks it's a funny picture. She looks like a giant baby with a too-small diaper. She peers at him over her shoulder, her eyelids half shut and her lips open and pouting, as if someone has just grabbed her pacifier.

Leo's cell phone is on the aquarium. It has a tiger-striped shell. Fredrik takes it, weighs it in his hand and almost feels a little like a grown-up. Hello, this is Bengtsson speaking, Fredrik Bengtsson. In the contact list there are girls' names. Fredrik keeps punching and suddenly someone answers. It feels as in a horror movie. She can't see him. He is evil. Evil people pant in telephones to frighten girls. He's seen that on TV.

“Hello, is anyone there?” She actually sounds scared.

Fredrik pants heavily and shudders at his own awfulness. And there is a pleasure in frightening someone, a feeling of power. It makes you want more. When the first girl hangs up on him he goes on to the next and the next again until only his grandmother's number remains. Then he quits and puts the phone back on the aquarium without looking. Where he had thought would be glass is open water and the cell slowly spins down to the bottom like a hunting tiger shark. It looks cool. The doorbell rings.

Miss Viktorsson and Mom are in the kitchen and have closed the door. Fredrik looks at his watch. It's ten. Mom has slept for only two hours after her night shift. That's not good. He knows that from experience. She is speaking in her night voice, the soft, whispering voice they use at the hospital. His teacher, on the other hand, speaks loudly and clearly. She uses words like difficulties and concerned. Then she says ill and school nurse. Fredrik doesn't need to hear any more. What do you do at the school nurse's office? You have an injection or someone is counting your balls. Both are equally horrible. What if you did that to all the old men in parliament, had them line up alphabetically and . . . they'd be sure to write about that in the paper. Just as they did about murders. Fredrik doesn't want to think about the dead lady. Or about the bike. Or about who had come out of the earth cellar. The beast in his stomach moves again. It doesn't want to be disturbed by those kinds of thoughts. Sickness fills him so quickly that Fredrik can't get to the bathroom fast enough. He throws up on the blue hallway carpet. All that comes is some acid yellow water. Now the kitchen door is opening. He can't stay here. Quickly he grabs his jacket and steps into his boots.

“Fredrik. Freeeedrik!” His mother's voice echoes in the stairwell.

But he doesn't turn. His feet hardly even touch the asphalt while he flies away into the forest. Once he is hidden by its darkness he removes the Ring from his finger. It's cold. He didn't get his mittens, or his cap. It would have been simpler to walk on the forest road. But someone might find him there. It's better to move among the trees, where there are places to hide. His feet ache from cold in the thin rubber boots. Thin smoke is rising from one of the chimneys down in the old village, but he can't see anyone. A longing for warmth overpowers him. Fredrik runs down to the little cottage with the porch. The door is locked. But out here nobody is in the habit of locking for real; people just lock their doors to let visitors know if they're in or out. The key is under the juniper twigs on the stair. When he silently sneaks into the hallway, the heat envelops him. For a moment he stands immobile, his back to the wall, listening. Then he slides into the room. On a chair is a rolled-up sleeping bag. Fredrik takes it and makes himself a small nest on the floor under the bed.

Detective Captain Maria Wern pulls her long, blonde hair into a pony­tail and climbs into the patrol car. Hartman is already seated behind the wheel.

“So how do we proceed from here?” he says, eyes in the rear mirror. The Bäckalund school shrinks as the car accelerates, then disappears behind trees.

“We'll take two of the absent pupils. The two Bengtsson brothers. One of them is in high school, the other in first grade. The older has a cold and is at home, the other one disappeared during the Lucia pageant. His teacher thinks he had something wrong with his stomach. Do you know the way to Lingonstigen?”

“Yes, I do. Anything else new?”

“I talked to the forensics guy this morning. He found surprisingly little. No fingerprints. No murder weapon. The ground outside the earth cellar was frozen, and it didn't start snowing until the afternoon on December twelfth. So the only footprints to be found are Sara Skoglund's, and they fit in with what she told us. Time of death has been fixed at just after eight in the morning.”

“What about that notebook you found? Anything in it?”

“Numbers, just numbers. I suspect it might be time listings—dates, hours, minutes. None of the numbers are higher than fifty-nine. Then there are some kind of symbols. They look more or less like the ones used to indicate curses in Donald Duck comics, if you know what I mean.”

“Do you think any of the numbers relate to December ninth?”

“I think so. We'll have a full analysis in an hour or so. But Hartman, there's one detail that doesn't fit. Maybe it means nothing, but I just can't let go of it. Let's go to Bäckalund.”