The Hand that Trembles (45 page)

‘Let’s drop it,’ Sven-Arne said.

Ante opened his eyes. Sven-Arne saw that he was touched. It occurred to him that he had never seen him cry.

‘There’s one thing,’ Ante said. ‘I’m going to die soon. I’m living on borrowed time, as they say, and I have lived an eventful life, but there is one thing that has pained me for seventy years.’

‘And that is?’ Sven-Arne prompted after a long pause, waiting for the continuation.

‘Do you remember the Brush?’

‘The Bulgarian who blew himself up?’

‘He was a giant.’

Sven-Arne nodded. He had understood as much. The Brush had always popped up in Ante’s stories. The miner was the very image of courage and principled action.

‘He died a miserable death,’ Ante said.

Now he was crying openly. Tears searched their way down the wrinkled cheeks and the wiry whiskers on his chin. Sven-Arne nodded, but could not manage to say anything.

‘I betrayed him,’ Ante sobbed.

‘What are you talking about? You couldn’t help—’

‘I gave them his name! The story about blowing himself up was pure fabrication. I created that story to be able to live. I made it true.’

Sven-Arne leant over and put his hand on Ante’s knee.

‘What happened?’

Ante held up his left hand.

‘This is what Nils Dufva did! He made me terrified. I didn’t want to die. Not then. That man took everything from me, my honour and peace. I could not resist him. There were others who did, but I gave way.

‘Every time I used my shovel, every time I worked a load on a construction site, every time I put on my shirt, every single minute of the day I am reminded of my betrayal. You carry your hand with you. It can’t be stuffed into a drawer. You see, two fingers is what the Brush was worth.’

Ante stared at his own hand as if it was an unfamiliar and frightening figure.

‘By a coincidence I discovered that Dufva lived in this town. It was many years ago and I should have looked him up right away and sunk the knife in his Fascist heart. But I didn’t have the guts. And then it was too late. I didn’t even manage that much, and now I’m going to die.’

Bultudden was embedded in snow. The bay between the mainland and the point had started to ice over.

Thomas B. Sunesson had helped Doris Utman put up lights in the rowan tree in front of her house.

‘It looks pretty,’ Lindell said. ‘Like a winter fairyland.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Doris had said, but Lindell could tell she was pleased at her words.

Doris had waved at Lindell as she drove by on her way to Lisen Morell and Lindell had pulled over. They had talked about what had happened. Doris was the person in Bultudden that Lindell found the easiest to talk to. She felt that Doris had nothing to hide and thereby nothing to defend.

‘Don’t judge Torsten too harshly,’ Doris had said. ‘He was very fond of the boys, above all Lasse Malm. He liked them because they stayed out here.’

Lindell had stopped at Torsten Andersson’s house to tell him the results of the forensic investigation of Malm’s house. There had been many traces of Patima. In a closet on the second floor they had also located a grease-stained cloth that the technicians could determine the old seal rifle had been wrapped in.  

Torsten was full of regret. Lindell knew he was accusing himself of not having acted in time. He had known about Patima’s existence since the day she had moved in with Tobias Frisk and also about her departure. According to Torsten, Frisk had tried to convince her to stay but she had left his house after a quarrel one night in May and had wandered around in the forest only to meet Lasse Malm the following morning as he was leaving for work. He had let Patima stay in his house and promised to help her get a return ticket back to Thailand.

‘But he fell in love at once and then he didn’t want to let her go. It went completely wrong, but I am convinced that Lasse had no intention to kill her.’ That was how Torsten summarised the chain of events.

It didn’t matter to Lindell one way or another what his intentions had been. He had killed Patima and violated her body.

That Malm thereafter had shot Tobias Frisk and arranged it as a suicide was something that Torsten Andersson steadfastly refused to believe. But Lindell was completely convinced of it.

‘I should get going,’ Lindell said.

Doris stretched out her hand.

‘Give my regards to Lisen,’ she said. ‘Will she stay over the winter?’

‘It seems like it,’ Lindell said. ‘She’s planning to paint.’

‘That’s good,’ Doris said. ‘Now that two houses are empty we need all the people we can get here in Bultudden.’

Lindell left Doris and went back to the car. She knew it was probably the last time she would be driving on the Avenue. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen to Bultudden over the next few years.

There was nothing romantic about the area any longer. Putting up lights didn’t help. Bultudden would always be connected in her mind with Pranee Kaew Patima’s tragic fate.

‘Loneliness,’ Lindell murmured, and backed out of Utman’s driveway.

K
JELL
E
RIKSSON
is the author of the internationally acclaimed Ann Lindell series, which includes
The Princess of Burundi
and
The Hand that Trembles
. His series debut won Best First Novel from the Swedish Crime Academy, an accomplishment he later followed up by winning Best Swedish Crime Novel for
The Princess of Burundi
. He lives in Sweden.

The Hand that Trembles

The Princess of Burundi

 

 

 

 

If you enjoyed
The Hand that Trembles,
you can meet
Ann Lindell again in
The Princess of Burundi
…

 

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Winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime
Novel, The Princess of Burundi is a thrilling work by author
Kjell Eriksson, a fast-rising international sensation.

Libro, Sweden. A mutilated body is found lying in the snow. Husband, father and reformed troublemaker John Jonsson leaves behind a devastated family and friends to struggle on without him. Who would want him tortured and murdered? His body is not the only sinister discovery. Inspector Ann Lindell cuts short her maternity leave to join homicide detective Ola Haver to work the case. Determined to catch this savage killer, Lindell is drawn into a twisted game of cat and mouse which terrorises an entire town.

 

‘Stunning … haunting … can chill you to the bone’
Marilyn Stasio,
New York Times