Frozen Moment (55 page)

    He
had returned to the hotel room towards morning, expecting Lee to have packed
her bags and left. Admitted her mistake and gone home to Grandma, the kids and
the village he didn't know the name of. Or she might have gone back to the
agency to see if she could trick some other Westerner into providing her with
happiness and financial security. When he slipped his pass card into the door
he was prepared for the sight of the far too soft hotel bed, neatly made up
with its light brown throw and empty.

    Instead,
in the light seeping through the tasteless curtains, he saw the contours of her
body beneath the sheet. Something that could only be described as gratitude
came over him unexpectedly, bringing a lump to his throat. Not love, it was too
soon for that.
Loyalty
was the word that came into his mind as he stood
there in the doorway.

    And
a working marriage was built on loyalty.

    They
hired a car and drove out to pick up the two children. A boy and a girl, both
as quiet as mice, with skinny brown bodies and hair like shining helmets. As he
had expected, the house was tiny, poor and damp, and the old woman who was
Lee's grandmother served him tea but refused to look him in the eye. When they
were finally ready to leave, she took his hands between her wrinkled shaking
ones and let the tears flow.

    Incomprehensible
words came pouring out of her toothless mouth, and he would have liked the
woman he had just married to step in and spare his embarrassment. But she stood
there, unwilling to save him. He had pulled his hands away uncomfortably, and
went to sit in the car while Lee and the children took their leave of the old
woman. A gang of nameless individuals had gathered outside the hut. He had felt
a strong aversion to them, not because he was so clearly excluded from their
circle, but because he was aware of the reproach emanating from their eyes.
Sometimes he imagined he could see that same reproach in Lee's eyes.

    It
annoyed him, the fact that she hadn't learned to drive.

    'I'll
pay,' he'd said, time and again, 'I pay the car school,' in broken English. For
the first few months he had driven her and the kids around as if he had nothing
else to do. 'But you have to practise. I'll teach you.'

    The
resistance when he jokingly nudged her into the driver's seat and took the
handbrake off, that had annoyed him. He could see the fear that passed over her
face when the engine started, but decided she'd soon get over it.
As soon as she learned to manoeuvre the car.

    It
didn't happen. She really was hopeless when it came to driving. She lacked the
ability to do things simultaneously, as if she was completely ignorant of the
relationship between cause and effect. As if the car were
a
creature
acting entirely on its own impulses, completely independent of
what she did with her hands and feet. Above all she was afraid, and it didn't
improve matters when she went into the ditch outside Carlsson's garage. She
just let go of the wheel, put her arm over her eyes and screamed.

    Carlsson
had to pull them out with his tractor. Laughing, of course, but Sven didn't
find the situation remotely amusing.

    'Everybody
can learn to drive,' he had said. It was meant as encouragement, but he could
hear the acid in his own voice. 'Sixteen- year-old kids can
learn,
why can't you?'

    That
was the only time Lee had ever raised her voice. She had glared at him and
said, 'No more drive, understand' When he had opened his mouth to respond, her
expression grew fierce. She clamped her teeth together then firmly said once
more, 'Understan'?' And that was the end of the matter.

    From
then on nothing was said when she took the children on the long trek to the
nearest bus stop. She hauled bags of shopping along the dusty gravel track, or
pushed them on a little cart she had found in the barn. It really had been a
miserable sight, the three skinny strangers with their glossy hair, their
little red cart bumping over the frost-damaged track, their expressions
stoical. He had had to grit his teeth to avoid exploding.

    In
order to avoid pointed remarks from the neighbours, he had resumed driving Lee
to the supermarket twice a week.
Even if it did annoy him.

    Albert
stretched out his curly-haired body and spotty tummy for general admiration on
the slope. Sven crouched down to scratch him. The dog gave himself up to
pleasure and when Lee opened the back door of the house and walked across the
grass to the stand for beating the rugs, he paid her as little attention as he
would a fly on the kitchen floor. She was stooping beneath the weight of the
big rug from the living room, not much taller than the two children she had
just waved off.

    Sven
was always pleased when he and Lee were alone at home. Not that they talked to
each other much, or had sex in the living room or kitchen. Mostly they moved
around in parallel, silently engaged in their own activities - Lee indoors and
Sven outdoors. But it felt good. They were two adults who knew exactly what had
to be done. When they woke up in the morning, they already knew how the day
would look.

    By
this stage he should have grown used to the children. And yet they still made
him slightly nervous. Not that they were particularly unpredictable - they were
far too well brought up for that, and he had done up the attic for them so that
they could go up there to play and keep out of his way. It was more that there
was something about their self-control that made him uncomfortable. As if there
were thoughts and impulses they had to conceal behind those timid masks.
Sometimes he could hear them giggling behind the closed door of their bedroom
late at night. At those times he was sure they were laughing at him. On one
occasion he had flung the door open with such force that the strong draught had
made their fringes fly up in the air, exposing two high brown foreheads. He had
just stood there in the doorway, embarrassed. They had met his gaze with their
calm, questioning eyes.
Diminishing him.

    He
put the pails on the floor in front of him and forced himself to breathe more
slowly. He was a wreck. The only strategy he could employ to tackle his nerves
was to convince himself that nothing mattered. And in a way it was true. There
was a six-pack of beer right at the bottom of the fridge in the house. He
seriously considered not bothering to feed the mink and simply crashing out on
the sofa - because it was all going to come out, and if the worst came to the
worst, he was going to have to pay.

    In
the silence a fly banged repeatedly against a filthy windowpane. He felt as if
his shoes were stuck fast in the cement, and sweat broke out beneath the brim
of his cap. With an enormous effort he lifted the pails. There was another way
of looking at it: on the brink of catastrophe, routine was the only thing left
to cling to.

    The
impacts of the carpet beater on the rug echoed off the metal walls like the
sound of gunshots. An unpleasant shiver ran down his spine. The noise died away
as Lee lowered her arm. She was so short that the beater reached the ground.
All at once she looked old, crippled with pain, like the toothless woman she
had introduced as her grandmother.

    Since
he had spoken to his father for the first time in months, the fear had become a
constant presence, a gnawing anxiety chewing its way through his nervous
system, sometimes turning into ice-cold terror. At the sight of Lee with the
carpet beater it leapt up to his Adam's apple, and for a bewildering moment he
thought he was going to burst into tears.

    She
was standing there looking at him, equally lost.

    
Please
God, don't let anything happen to her,
he thought suddenly, and his throat
constricted even more. And it was only then that he made his decision. There
was no turning back. Not if his life was dear to him.

    Strangely
enough, he had just realised that it was.

    The
offices of his colleagues were empty. However, every single door was open wide
and their computers were still on. They would be on overtime by now. Tell
followed the sound of voices. An area just off the kitchen served as a
staffroom for those who didn't enjoy sitting in the canteen. The doorway was
filled by Bärneflod's broad shoulders.

    'Nice
to see you,' said Beckman, who was perched on the draining board stirring a cup
of hot chocolate. Someone had opened a packet of biscuits and put it on the table.
Tell suddenly felt the hunger tearing at his stomach; he couldn't remember
eating anything since breakfast.

    Karlberg
cleared his throat. 'I tried to call you a while ago.'

    Tell
nodded, his mouth full. 'I think my mobile needs charging.'

    Or
it might have been turned off, he could have added, but he had no wish to
damage his reputation any more than he had done already. He poured himself a
cup of coffee.

    'I
thought maybe my colleagues wouldn't be here so late in the day,' said Tell
with forced lightness, 'but obviously I've underestimated your diligence. How
about going over where we're up to, since we're all here?'

    He
opened the window with the special movement that had been necessary ever since
all the windows and doors had been replaced by soundproof ones with a child
safety feature. Bärneflod said they weren't just child-proof, they were
people-proof.

    'You
criticised me earlier today, with good reason, because I didn't share with you
my thoughts on our Jeep case. So perhaps I can take the opportunity to do so
now. I've done a little more research into the unsolved case I mentioned
before, and-'

    'I've
just reported back on an interview with Susanne Jensen, Olof Bart's older
sister,' Beckman interrupted. 'That's why we were trying to get hold of you,
and Gonzales, but he's sitting on the Fredrikshamn ferry, so if he can't
persuade the captain to turn around, he probably won't get here.'

    'Fredrikshamn?'
exclaimed Bärneflod in mock horror. 'Didn't I say I wanted to know if anyone
was planning a booze cruise? I could have placed an order.'

    'There's
no point these days,' interjected Karlberg.

    'Enough!
Beckman?'

    'OK.
Susanne Jensen was sitting in reception earlier today,' Beckman went on. 'I was
just about to leave, but she'd asked for me. You remember
,
I met her at the Klara hostel the other day. At the time she didn't say a word,
but today she had evidently decided to talk. She told me that a few years ago
she and Olof had got very drunk together, and in the early hours he'd broken
down and told her about some incident he'd been involved in where a young girl
had been killed at some Hell's Angels hangout.
In Borås.
It was an accident, he said. Susanne didn't know if it was a rape or a mugging
that had gone wrong, because he was fairly incoherent and she didn't like the
idea of digging any deeper. I presume that's the unsolved case you were talking
about?'

    Tell
nodded eagerly. 'Go on.'

    'She
didn't say much more.
Except that she'd thought about the
incident when I asked her if she knew anyone who might have wanted to murder
her brother.
She felt she wanted to help, and it wouldn't matter now he
was dead.
Grassing him up.'

    'A
junkie with the unusual ability to think clearly,' commented Bärneflod.

    'She
didn't remember if he'd said anything about when this crime was supposed to
have taken place. She also didn't remember when exactly Olof had told her about
it, but they hadn't had any contact for five or six years. She said that since
Olof had moved to Kinna, she had only been to see him once, and that was when
he had opened up to her.' Beckman pushed her fringe out of her eyes, her
expression thoughtful.

    'She
says the same as everyone else: that Olof was hard work.
Taciturn,
a bit sullen.
And you could say the same about her. It's obvious she's
seen a lot of violence in her life… but I liked her.'

    'But
we know that already,' said Bärneflod with a peculiarly broad grin that exposed
his fillings. 'We know you like most users and whores and whatever else the cat
drags in. I mean, we have to feel sorry for them, don't we?'

    'Shut
it.' Tell was leaning over the table, both palms flat on the surface. He
couldn't conceal his excitement. 'So the question is-'

    'A,
was he alone? No, Bart was not alone,' Beckman interrupted once again. 'Susanne
had the impression there were three men involved. B, did he tell his sister the
names of the others? And C, does she remember them? The answer is again no, of
course. But I think as soon as we're done here I'm going to sit down and go
through every single unsolved murder or suspected murder of a young girl in the
Borås area between 1990 and 2000.'