The Blood Spilt (22 page)

He was a man who commanded respect. Strong upper arms, broad hands. Something in his face and bearing bore witness to years of dealing with most things, human misery, fired-up troublemakers. And he found pleasure in being ruled by a cat.

But this morning it wasn’t Manne who’d woken him. He woke up anyway. Out of habit. Maybe because he was missing that stripy young man who constantly terrorized him with his demands and whims.

He sat up heavily on the edge of the bed. He wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. This was the fourth night the bloody cat had been missing. He’d gone missing before for one night, occasionally two. That was nothing to worry about. But four.

He went downstairs and opened the outside door. The night was like gray wool, on the way toward the day. He gave a long whistle, went into the kitchen, fetched a tin of cat food and stood on the steps banging the tin with a spoon. No cat. In the end he had to give up, he was getting cold in just his underpants.

That’s the way it is, he thought. That’s the price of freedom. The risk of getting run over or taken by the fox. Sooner or later.

He spooned coffee into the percolator.

Still, it’s better that way, he thought. Better than Manne getting weak and ill, and having to be taken to the vet. That would have been bloody awful.

The percolator got going with a gurgle, and Sven-Erik went up to the bedroom to get dressed.

Maybe Manne had made himself at home somewhere else. That had happened before. He’d come home after two or three days and hadn’t been the least bit hungry. Obviously well fed and well rested. It was probably some old dear who’d felt sorry for him and taken him in. Some pensioner who had nothing else to do but cook him salmon and give him the cream off the top of the milk.

Sven-Erik was suddenly filled with an unreasoning anger against this unknown individual who took in and adopted a cat that didn’t belong to the person in question. Didn’t this person realize that there was somebody worrying and wondering where the cat had gone? You could tell Manne wasn’t homeless, with his shiny coat and affectionate ways. He’d get him a collar. Should have done it a long time ago. It was just that he was afraid he’d get caught up somewhere. That’s what had stopped him, the thought of Manne caught in some undergrowth starving to death, or hanging in a tree.

He ate a good breakfast. The first few years after Hjördis had left him, breakfast had usually consisted of a cup of coffee, drunk standing up. But he’d mended his ways since then. He shoveled down spoonfuls of low fat yogurt and muesli without really tasting it. The percolator had fallen silent, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the kitchen.

He’d taken over Manne from his daughter when she moved to Luleå. He should never have done it. He realized that now. It was nothing but bloody trouble, that’s all it was, bloody trouble.

* * *

Anna-Maria Mella was sitting at the kitchen table with her morning coffee. It was seven o’clock. Jenny, Petter and Marcus were still asleep. Gustav was awake. He was bouncing around in the bedroom upstairs, clambering all over Robert.

In front of her on the table lay a copy of the horrific drawing of the hanged Mildred. Rebecka Martinsson had made copies of a number of papers as well, but Anna-Maria didn’t understand a bloody word. She hated numbers and maths and that sort of thing.

“Morning!”

Her son Marcus ambled into the kitchen. Dressed! He opened the door of the refrigerator. Marcus was sixteen.

“So,” said Anna-Maria, looking at the clock. “Is there a fire upstairs, or something?”

He grinned. Picked up milk and cereal and sat down opposite Anna-Maria.

“I’ve got an exam,” he said, spooning down milk and cornflakes. “You can’t just jump out of bed and dash in at the last minute. You have to prime your body.”

“Who are you?” said Anna-Maria. “And what have you done with my son?”

It’s Hanna, she thought. God bless her.

Hanna was Marcus’ girlfriend. Her keen attitude toward schoolwork was catching.

“Cool,” said Marcus, sliding the drawing of Mildred toward him. “What’s this?”

“Nothing,” answered Anna-Maria, taking the drawing off him and turning it upside down.

“No, seriously. Let me have a look!”

He took the picture back.

“What does this mean?” he said, pointing at the grave mound visible behind the dangling body.

“Well, maybe that she’s going to die and be buried.”

“Yes, but what does it mean? Can’t you see it?”

Anna-Maria looked at the picture.

“No.”

“It’s a symbol,” said Marcus.

“It’s a grave mound with a cross on top.”

“Look! The outlines are twice as thick as in the rest of the picture. And the cross carries on down into the ground and ends in a hook.”

Anna-Maria looked. He was right.

She got up and shuffled the papers together. Resisted the urge to give her son a kiss, ruffled his hair instead.

“Good luck in the exam,” she said.

In the car she rang Sven-Erik.

“Yes,” he said when he’d fetched his copy of the picture. “It’s a cross that goes through a semicircle and ends in a hook.”

“We need to find out what it means. Who’ll know the answer to something like that?”

“What did they say at the lab?”

“They’ll probably get the picture today. If there are clear prints they’ll get them off this afternoon, otherwise it takes longer.”

“There must be some professor of religion who knows about the symbol,” said Sven-Erik thoughtfully.

“You’re a clever boy!” said Anna-Maria. “Fred Olsson can sort somebody out, then we can fax it to them. Go and get dressed and I’ll pick you up.”

“Oh yes?”

“You can come to Poikkijärvi with me. I want to talk to Rebecka Martinsson, if she’s still there.”

* * *

Anna-Maria pointed her light red Ford Escort in the direction of Poikkijärvi. Sven-Erik sat beside her, pushing his foot down to the floor in a reflex action. Why did she always have to drive like a boy racer?

“Rebecka Martinsson gave me copies too,” she said. “I don’t understand any of it. I mean, it’s something financial, but…”

“Shouldn’t we ask the economic crimes team to have a look at it?”

“They’re always so busy. You ask a question, and you get the answer a month later. It’s just as well to ask her. I mean, she’s already seen it. And she knows why she gave it to us.”

“Is this really a good idea?”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“But will she really want to get dragged into all this?”

Anna-Maria shook her plait impatiently.

“She was the one who gave me the copies and the letters! And she’s not going to get dragged into anything. How long can it take? Ten minutes of her holiday.”

Anna-Maria braked sharply and turned left on to Jukkasjärvivägen, accelerated up to ninety, braked again and turned right down toward Poikkijärvi. Sven-Erik clung to the door handle, thinking that maybe he should have taken a travel sickness pill; from there his thoughts turned spontaneously to the cat, who hated travelling by car.

“Manne’s disappeared,” he said, gazing out at the pine trees, sparkling in the sunshine as they swept by.

“Oh no,” said Anna-Maria. “How long’s he been gone?”

“Four days. He’s never been away this long.”

“He’ll come back,” she said. “It’s still warm out, it’s natural for him to want to be outside.”

“No,” said Sven-Erik firmly. “He’s been run over. I’ll never see that cat again.”

He longed for her to contradict him. To protest and reassure. He would stick to his conviction that the cat was gone for good. So he could express a little of his anxiety and sorrow. So she could give him a little hope and consolation. But she changed the subject.

“We won’t drive all the way up,” she said. “I don’t think she wants to attract attention.”

“What’s she actually doing here?” asked Sven-Erik.

“No idea.”

Anna-Maria was on the point of saying she didn’t think Rebecka was all that well, but she didn’t. Sven-Erik was bound to insist they cancel the visit. He was always softer than she was when it came to that sort of thing. Maybe it was because she had children living at home. Most of her protective instincts and consideration for others were used up at home.

R
ebecka Martinsson opened the door of her chalet. When she saw Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik, two deep grooves appeared between her eyebrows.

Anna-Maria was standing in front, something eager in her eyes, a setter who’d picked up a scent. Sven-Erik behind, Rebecka hadn’t seen him since she’d been in the hospital almost two years ago. The thick hair growing around his ears had turned from dark gray to silver. The moustache still like a dead rodent beneath his nose. He looked more embarrassed, seemed to realize they weren’t welcome.

Even if you did save my life, thought Rebecka.

Fleeting thoughts flowed through her mind. Like silk scarves through a magician’s hand. Sven-Erik by the side of her hospital bed: “We went into his apartment and realized we had to find you. The girls are okay.”

I remember best what happened before and after, thought Rebecka. Before and after. I ought to ask Sven-Erik really. What it looked like when they arrived at the cottage. He can tell me about the blood and the bodies.

You want him to tell you you did the right thing, said a voice inside her. That it was self-defense. That you had no choice. Just ask, he’s bound to say what you want to hear.

They sat down in the little cottage. Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria on Rebecka’s bed. Rebecka on the only chair. On the little radiator hung a T-shirt, a pair of tights and a pair of panties over the “ei saa peittää” sticker.

Rebecka glanced anxiously at the wet clothes. But what could she do? Bundle up the wet panties and chuck them under the bed? Or out through the window, maybe?

“Well?” she said tersely, couldn’t manage politeness.

“It’s about the photocopies you gave me,” Anna-Maria explained. “There are some things I don’t understand.”

Rebecka clasped her knees.

But why? she thought. Why do we have to remember? Wallow in it all, go over things over and over again? What do we gain from that? Who can guarantee that it will help? That we won’t just drown in the darkness?

“The thing is…” she said.

She spoke very quietly. Sven-Erik looked at her slender fingers around her knees.

“… I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she went on. “I gave you the photocopies and the letters. I got them by committing a crime. If that comes out, it’ll cost me my job. Besides which, people round here don’t know who I am. I mean, they know my name. But they don’t know I was involved in what happened out in Jiekajärvi.”

“Please,” begged Anna-Maria, staying where she was as if her bottom was welded to the bed, although Sven-Erik had made a move to get up. “A woman’s been murdered. If anybody asks what we were doing here, tell them we were looking for a missing dog.”

Rebecka looked at her.

“Good plan,” she said slowly. “Two plainclothes detectives looking for a missing dog. Time for the police authorities to look at how their resources are used.”

“It might be my dog,” said Anna-Maria, slightly abashed.

Nobody spoke for a little while. Sven-Erik felt as if he were about to die of embarrassment, perched on the edge of the bed.

“Let’s have a look, then,” said Rebecka in the end, reaching out for the folder.

“It’s this,” said Anna-Maria, taking a sheet of paper out of the folder and pointing.

“It’s an extract from somebody’s accounts,” said Rebecka. “This entry’s been marked with a highlighter pen.”

Rebecka pointed at a figure in a column headed 1930.

“Nineteen thirty is a current account, a check account. It’s been credited with one hundred and seventy-nine thousand kronor from account seventy-six ten. It’s down as additional staff costs. But here in the margin somebody’s written in pencil ‘Training?’ ”

Rebecka pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

“What about this, then?” asked Anna-Maria. “ ‘Ver,’ what does that mean?”

“Verified, authenticated. Could be an invoice or something else to show what the costs consisted of. It seems to me as if she was wondering about this particular cost, that’s why I took it.”

“What company is it, then?” Anna-Maria wondered.

Rebecka shrugged her shoulders. Then she pointed at the top right-hand corner of the page.

“The number of the organization begins with eighty-one. That means it must be a foundation.”

Sven-Erik shook his head.

“Jukkasjärvi church nature conservancy foundation,” said Anna-Maria after a second or two. “A foundation she set up.”

“She was wondering about that particular expenditure for training,” said Rebecka.

Silence fell once again. Sven-Erik swatted at a fly that kept wanting to land on him.

“She seems to have got on quite a lot of people’s nerves,” said Rebecka.

Anna-Maria smiled mirthlessly.

“I was talking to one of them yesterday,” she said. “He hated Mildred Nilsson because his ex-wife stayed at her house with the children after she’d left him.”

She told Rebecka about the decapitated kittens.

“And we can’t do a thing,” she concluded. “Those farm cats don’t have any financial value, so it isn’t criminal damage. Presumably they didn’t have time to suffer, so it isn’t cruelty to animals. You just feel so powerless. As if you might be more useful selling fruit and vegetables in the supermarket. I don’t know, do you feel like that as well?”

Rebecka smiled wryly.

“It’s very rare I have anything to do with criminal cases,” she said evasively. “And when I do, it’s financial crime. But yes, this business of being on the side of the suspect… Sometimes I do feel a sort of revulsion toward myself. When you’re representing somebody who really has no conscience whatsoever. You keep repeating ‘everybody is entitled to a defense’ like a kind of mantra against the…”

She didn’t actually say self-contempt, but allowed a shrug of her shoulders to finish the sentence.

Anna-Maria had noticed that Rebecka Martinsson often shrugged her shoulders. Shaking off unwelcome thoughts, perhaps, a way of interrupting a difficult train of thought. Or maybe she was like Marcus. His constant shrugs were a way of marking the distance between him and the rest of the world.