The Man From Beijing (29 page)

The diaries. She went downstairs, laid them all out on the table and started looking. She found the passage she was searching for almost immediately.

It’s 1865. The railway is meandering eastward, every sleeper, every rail, is torture. The workers are struck down by illnesses. They’re dropping like flies. But the flood of replacement workers from the West means the work can continue at the high speed that is essential if the whole of the gigantic railway programme is not to be crippled by financial collapse. On one occasion, to be more precise on 9 November, JA hears that a Chinese slave ship is on its way from Canton. It’s an old sailing ship, only used now for shipping kidnapped Chinese to California. Trouble breaks out on board when food and water begin to run out as the vessel is becalmed for an unusually long period. In order to quash the revolt, the captain resorts to methods of unparalleled cruelty. Even JA, who doesn’t hesitate to use both fists and whips to make his labourers work harder, finds what he hears distressing. The captain seizes some of the leading troublemakers, kills them and ties them to other Chinese who are still alive, two at a time. Then they are forced to lie on deck, one of each pair slowly starving to death, the other decomposing. JA notes in his diary that ‘the punishment is excessive’.

Could there be a link? Perhaps one of them in Hesjövallen had been forced to lie with a dead body lashed to his or her own? For a whole hour perhaps, maybe less, maybe more? Before the final blow brought release?

I missed that, she thought. Did the Hudiksvall police miss it as well? They can’t have read the diaries all that carefully before I was allowed to borrow them.

But another question suggested itself, even if it seemed to be basically implausible. Did the murderer know about the events described in JA’s diary? Was there a remarkable link spanning both time and space?

Maybe Vivi Sundberg was more cunning than Roslin thought.

Perhaps Vivi Sundberg even appreciated her stubbornness. She was a woman who had probably experienced problems with her annoying male colleagues.

Birgitta Roslin slept until ten, got up and saw from Staffan’s schedule that he was due back in Helsingborg at about three o’clock. She was just about to sit down and make a call to Sundberg when there was a ring at the front door. When she answered it, she found a short Chinese man standing with a takeaway meal wrapped up in plastic in his hand.

‘I haven’t ordered anything,’ said Birgitta Roslin in surprise.

‘From Li in Hudiksvall,’ said the man with a smile. ‘It costs nothing. She wants you to call her. We are family business.’

‘The Shanghai Restaurant?’

The man smiled.

‘Restaurant Shanghai. Very good food.’

He bowed and handed over the package, then left through the gate. Birgitta unpacked the food, sniffed at it and enjoyed the aroma, and put it in the fridge. Then she called Li. This time it was the irritable man who answered. She assumed it was the temperamental father, who held sway in the kitchen. He shouted for Li, who came to the phone.

‘Thank you very much for the food,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘It was a lovely surprise.’

‘Have you tasted it?’

‘Not yet. I’m waiting until my husband comes home.’

‘He also likes Chinese food?’

‘Yes, he likes it a lot. You wanted me to call.’

‘I spoke to Mother about the lamp,’ she said. ‘And the red ribbon that is missing.’

‘I don’t think I’ve met her.’

‘She’s at home. Comes here to clean sometimes. But she notes down when she here. On twelfth of January she did cleaning. In morning before we opened.’

Birgitta Roslin held her breath.

‘She say that on this very day she dusted down all the paper lamps in this restaurant, and she was sure no ribbons were missing. She would have noticed.’

‘Could she have been mistaken?’

‘Not my mother. Is it important?’ Li asked.

‘It could very well be,’ said Birgitta. ‘Many thanks for telling me about it.’

She replaced the receiver. It rang again immediately. This time it was Lars Emanuelsson.

‘Don’t hang up,’ he said.

‘What do you want?’

‘Your opinion of what’s happened.’

‘I have nothing to say.’

‘Were you surprised?’

‘About what?’

‘That he turned up as a suspect? Lars-Erik Valfridsson?’

‘I know nothing about him apart from what I’ve read in the newspapers.’

‘But not everything is printed there.’

He was egging her on. She was curious.

‘He has ill-treated his two ex-wives,’ said Lars Emanuelsson. ‘The first one managed to run away. Then he found a lady from the Philippines and enticed her here through a mass of false pretences. Then he beat her up to within an inch of her life before some neighbours caught on and reported him, and he was duly sentenced. But he’s done worse things than that.’

‘What?’

‘Murder. As early as 1977. He was still young then. There was a fight over a moped. He hit the young man on the head with a large stone, killing him instantly. He was examined by a forensic psychiatrist who judged that Lars-Erik could well turn to violence again. He presumably belonged to that small group of people regarded as potentially dangerous to society. I expect the police and the prosecutor thought they’d found the right man.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘Time will tell. But you can gather the way I’m thinking. That should be enough of an answer to your question. I wonder what conclusions you’ve drawn. Do you agree with me?’

‘I’ve been paying no more attention to this case than any other member of the general public. Surely it must have dawned on you that I grew tired of your calls a long time ago.’

Lars Emanuelsson didn’t seem to hear what she said. ‘Tell me about the diaries. They must have something to do with this case.’

‘I don’t want to receive any more calls from you.’

She hung up. The phone rang again immediately. She ignored it. After five minutes of silence she called police HQ in Hudiksvall. It took ages before she got through to the operator, whose voice she recognised. She sounded both jittery and tired. Sundberg was not available. Birgitta Roslin left her name and telephone number.

‘I can’t promise anything,’ said the girl. ‘It’s chaos here.’

‘I can understand that. Please ask Vivi Sundberg to call me when she gets the chance.’

‘Is it important?’

‘She knows who I am. That’s a sufficient answer to your question.’

Vivi Sundberg called the following day. The news bulletins were dominated by the scandalous happenings in the Hudiksvall jail. The minister of justice had gone out of his way to promise an investigation into the circumstances and to find out who was responsible. Tobias Ludwig gave as good as he got in his sessions with journalists and television cameras. But the consensus was that the suicide should never have happened.

Sundberg sounded tired. Birgitta Roslin decided not to ask any questions about the latest developments. Instead, she explained about the red ribbon and spelled out the thoughts she had noted down in the margin of her notes.

Sundberg listened without comment. Birgitta could hear voices in the background and didn’t envy Sundberg the tension that must have police headquarters in its grip.

Birgitta ended by asking if the lights had been on in the rooms where the dead bodies had been found.

‘Your suspicions are in fact justified,’ said Vivi. ‘We’ve been wondering about that. All the lights were on. In all the rooms but one.’

‘The one with the dead boy?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Do you have an explanation?’

‘You must realise that I can’t discuss that with you over the telephone.’

‘Of course not. I beg your pardon.’

‘No problem. But I’d like to ask you to do something. Write down all you know and think about what happened in Hesjövallen. I’ll take it upon myself to look into the red ribbon business. But all the rest of it – write everything down, and send it to me.’

‘It wasn’t Lars-Erik Valfridsson who committed these murders,’ said Birgitta Roslin.

Those words came from nowhere. She was just as surprised as Vivi Sundberg must have been.

‘Write it down and send it to me,’ said Vivi Sundberg again. ‘Thank you for getting in touch.’

‘What about the diaries?’

‘I suppose you’d better send them back to us now.’

When the call was finished, Birgitta felt relieved. Despite everything, her efforts had not been in vain. Now she could hand everything over to somebody else. With luck the police would be able to track down the true murderer, whether he had acted alone or had accomplices. She would not be surprised in the least if a man from China had been involved.

The following day Birgitta Roslin went to see her doctor. It was a windy winter’s day with gusts blowing in from the sound. She felt impatient, couldn’t wait to get back to work.

She only had to wait for a few minutes before it was her turn. The doctor asked how she was, and she said she felt fully restored. A nurse took a blood sample, and Birgitta sat down in the waiting room once more.

When she was called into the examination room, the doctor took her blood pressure and came straight to the point.

‘You seem to be in good form, but your blood pressure is still way too high. We’ll have to keep on trying to pin down the cause. I’m going to put you on sick leave for two more weeks. And I’m also going to refer you to a specialist.’

It was only when she was back out on the street and hit by the freezing cold wind that the results really sunk in. She was very worried about the possibility of being seriously ill, despite her doctor’s assurances that this was not the case.

She stood in the middle of the square with the wind behind her. For the first time in many years, she felt helpless. While she was standing motionless, she felt her mobile phone vibrating in her overcoat pocket. It was Karin, who wanted to thank Birgitta for having visited her.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’m standing in a square,’ said Birgitta. ‘And at this very moment I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.’

She told Karin about her visit to the doctor. It was a frozen telephone call. She promised to call back before Karin left for China.

When she got home and opened her garden gate, it started snowing, and the wind increased.

21

That same day she went to the district court and spoke to Hans Mattsson, She could see that he was worried and dejected when she told him that she was still on sick leave.

He peered pensively at her over his glasses.

‘That doesn’t sound good. I’m starting to worry about you.’

‘You don’t need to, according to my doctor. The blood counts aren’t what they should be, and my blood pressure needs to be reduced. I’m being referred to a specialist. But I don’t feel ill, just a bit tired.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Hans Mattsson. ‘I’ve been feeling tired for the last thirty years. The biggest pleasure I have to look forward to nowadays is when I can sleep in.’

‘I’ll be off for another two weeks. Then we’ll just have to hope that it’s sorted itself out.’

‘Take as long as you need. I’ll speak to the National Courts Administration and see what they can do to help us out. As you know, you’re not the only one who’s away. Klas Hansson has leave of absence to chair an inquiry for the EU in Brussels. I doubt if he’ll ever come back. I’ve always suspected that he’s been tempted by grander things than presiding over a court of law.’

‘I’m sorry to cause you problems.’

‘You’re not causing me problems. It’s your blood pressure that’s doing that. Have a rest. Look after your roses and come back when you are healthy again.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t grow roses. I certainly don’t have a green thumb.’

‘That’s what my grandmother used to say. When you were told not to work so much, she thought you should concentrate on growing your imaginary roses. I think it’s a nice image. My grandmother was born in 1879. The same year as Strindberg published
The Red Room.
An odd thought. The only thing she ever did in her life, apart from giving birth to children, was darn socks.’

‘OK, I’ll do that,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘I’ll go home and look after my roses.’

The next day she posted the diaries and her notes to Hudiksvall. When she handed over the parcel and was given the receipt, she had the feeling she was closing a door on the happenings in Hesjövallen. She felt relieved, and committed herself to the preparations for Staffan’s birthday party.

Most of the family plus several friends were assembled when Staffan Roslin came home after being in charge of an afternoon train from Alvesta to Malmö and then travelling off-duty to Helsingborg. He stood in the doorway in his uniform plus a shaggy old fur hat, struck dumb, while the welcoming party sang ‘Happy Birthday to You’. It was a relief for Birgitta to see everyone sitting around the table. What had happened in Hälsingland, as well as her high blood pressure, seemed less important when she was able to drink in the feeling of calm that only her family could give her. Naturally, she wished Anna had been able to come home from Asia, but she had declined the invitation when Birgitta finally reached her via a noisy mobile phone connection in Thailand. It was very late by the time the guests had left and only family members remained. She had talkative children who loved to spend time together. She and her husband sat on the sofa, listening with amused interest to the conversations. She occasionally topped up everybody’s glass. The twins, Siv and Louise, were goingto sleep in the spare room, but David had booked himself into a hotel, despite Birgitta’s protests. It was four in the morning when the party broke up. Only the parents were left to clean up, fill the dishwasher and put the empty bottles in the garage.