The Savage Altar (10 page)

And evening came and morning came, the second day

I
nspector Anna-Maria Mella is sleeping restlessly in the darkest hour of the night. Clouds cover the sky, and the room is pitch-black. It is as if God himself has cupped His hand over the town, just as a child places his hand over a scuttling insect. No one who has joined the game shall escape.

Anna-Maria tosses her head from side to side to escape the voices and faces from yesterday that have occupied her sleep. The child kicks angrily in her stomach.

In her dream Prosecutor Carl von Post pushes his face toward Sanna Strandgård and tries to force answers from her that she cannot give. He presses her and threatens to interrogate her daughters if she cannot answer. And the more he asks, the more she closes down. In the end she appears to remember nothing.

“What were you doing in the church in the middle of the night? What made you go there? You must remember something, surely? Did you see anyone else there? Do you remember calling the police? Were you angry with your brother?”

Sanna hides her face in her hands.

“I don’t remember. I don’t know. He came to me in the night. Suddenly Viktor was standing by my bed. He looked sad. When he just dissolved I knew something had happened….”

“He dissolved?”

The prosecutor looks as if he doesn’t know whether to laugh or give her a slap.

“Hang on, so you were visited by a ghost and you realized something had happened to your brother?”

Anna-Maria whimpers so much that Robert wakes up. He raises himself on his elbow and strokes her hair.

“Ssh, Mia-Mia,” he soothes her. He says her name over and over again, stroking her straw-colored hair until suddenly she gives a deep sigh and relaxes. Her face softens and the whimpering stops. When her breathing is calm and even once more, he goes back to sleep.

T
hose who know Carl von Post probably believe he is sleeping well tonight. That he has eaten his fill of attention and golden dreams of what the future holds in her glorious lap. He should be sleeping in his bed with a contented smile on his face.

But Carl von Post is tossing and turning as well. His jaws are clamped together so that the surfaces of his teeth grind impotently against one another. He always sleeps like this. The events of the day have not saved him.

A
nd Rebecka Martinsson. She is in a deep sleep on the sofa bed in the kitchen of her grandparents’ house. Her breathing is calm and regular. Virku has kindly come to lie beside her, and Rebecka is sleeping with her arm around the dog’s warm body, her nose buried in the black woolly coat. There is not a sound from the outside world. No cars and no planes. No loud late-night revelers and no winter rain hammering against the windowpanes. In the bedroom Lova mumbles in her sleep, and presses closer to Sanna. The house itself creaks and groans a little, as if it were turning over in its long winter sleep.

Tuesday, February 18

J
ust before six o’clock Virku woke Rebecka by pushing her nose into Rebecka’s face.

“Hello, you,” whispered Rebecka. “What do you want? Time for a pee?”

She fumbled for the lamp by the bed and switched it on. The dog scampered toward the door, gave a little whimper, turned back to Rebecka and nudged her face with her nose again.

“I know, I know.”

She sat up on the edge of the bed, but kept the blanket wound around her. It was cold in the kitchen.

Everything in here is my grandmother, she thought. It’s as if I’ve been sleeping beside her in the kitchen sofa bed, allowed to stay in the warm bed while she lit the stove and put the coffee on.

She could see Theresia Martinsson sitting at the table rolling her morning cigarette. Her grandmother used newspaper instead of the expensive cigarette papers you could buy. She would tear the margin carefully down one page of the previous day’s
Norbottenskuriren
. It was wide and free from print, ideal for her purpose. She scattered a few strands of tobacco over it and rolled a thin cigarette between her thumb and forefinger. Her silvery hair was well tucked in under a head scarf, and she was wearing her blue-and-black-checked nylon overall. Out in the barn the cows were calling to her. “Hello,
pikku-piika,
” she used to say with a smile. “Are you awake?”

Pikku-piika.
Little maid.

Virku yelped impatiently.

“Yes, in a minute,” answered Rebecka. “I’m just going to light the stove.”

She had slept in woolen socks, and with the blanket still wrapped around her she went over to the old kitchen stove and opened the door. Virku sat down patiently and waited. From time to time she gave a tentative little whine, just to make sure she wasn’t forgotten.

Rebecka took a sharp Mora knife and with a practiced hand shaved sticks from one of the logs by the stove. She laid two logs on top of some birch bark and the sticks, and lit them. The fire quickly took hold. She pushed in a birch log that would burn a little longer than the pine, and closed the door.

I should spend more time thinking about my grandmother, she thought. Who was it who decided it was better to concentrate on the present? There are many places in my memory where grandmother lives. But I don’t spend any time there with her. And what does the present have to offer?

Virku was whimpering and doing a little pirouette by the door. Rebecka pulled on her clothes. They were ice cold, and made her movements rapid and jerky. She pushed her feet into a pair of Lapp boots that were standing in the hallway.

“You’ll have to be quick,” she said to Virku.

On her way out she switched on the lights outside the house and the barn.

It had turned a little milder. The thermometer was showing minus fifteen, and the sky was pressing down, shutting out the light of the stars. Virku squatted down a short way off and Rebecka looked around. The ground had been cleared of snow right up to the barn. Around the house the snow had been shoveled up against the walls to provide insulation against the cold.

Who’s done the shoveling? Rebecka wondered. Could it be Sivving Fjällborg? Is he still clearing the snow for Grandmother, even though she’s gone? He must be around seventy now.

She tried to peer through the darkness at Sivving’s house on the opposite side of the road. When it was lighter she would look to see if it still said “Fjällborg” on the mailbox.

She wandered along beside the wall of the barn. The outside light glittered on the roses of rime frost on the barred windows. At the other end was her grandmother’s greenhouse. Several broken panes stared hollow-eyed and accusing at Rebecka.

You ought to be here, they said. You ought to look after the house and the garden. Look how the putty has given up. Just imagine what the roof tiles must look like under the snow. They’ve cracked and come loose. And your grandmother was so particular. So hardworking.

As if Virku could read her gloomy thoughts, she came scampering across the garden behind Rebecka through the darkness and barked happily.

“Hush,” laughed Rebecka. “You’ll wake up the whole village.”

Immediately a couple of answering barks came from far away. The black dog listened carefully.

"Don’t even think about it," warned Rebecka.

Maybe she should have brought a lead.

Virku looked at her happily and decided Rebecka would do very well as a companion for a dog in the mood for a game. She burrowed playfully down into the feather-light snow with her nose, came back up again and shook her head. Then she invited Rebecka to join in by plonking her front paws on the ground and sticking her bottom up in the air.

Come on, then, said her shiny black eyes.

“Right, then!” shouted Rebecka cheerfully, and lunged at the dog.

She immediately fell over. Virku flew at her like an arrow, jumped over her like a performing dog in a circus, spun around and half a second later was standing in front of Rebecka, her pink tongue lolling out of her laughing mouth and demanding that Rebecka get up and try again. Rebecka laughed and set off after the dog again. Virku hurtled over the piled-up snow and Rebecka clambered after her. They both sank into the untouched snow behind, a meter deep.

“I give up,” panted Rebecka after ten minutes.

She was sitting on her bottom in a snowdrift. Her cheeks were glowing red, and she was covered in snow.

When they got back in, Sanna was up and had put the coffee on. Rebecka pulled off her clothes. The outer layers soon got wet from the melting snow, and the clothes nearest her skin were already soaked in sweat. She found a Helly Hansen T-shirt and a pair of Uncle Affe’s long johns in a drawer.

“Nice outfit,” sniggered Sanna. “It’s good to see you’ve adapted to the classic look up here so quickly.”

“The baggy Gällivare look suits any figure,” replied Rebecka, wiggling her bottom so that the loose seat of the long johns flapped about.

“God, you’re thin,” exclaimed Sanna.

Rebecka straightened up at once and poured herself a cup of coffee in silence, her back toward Sanna.

“And you look so sort of dried-up,” Sanna went on. “You ought to take more care what you eat and drink.”

Her voice was gentle and concerned.

“Still,” she sighed when Rebecka didn’t respond, “it’s lucky for the rest of us that most men like a girl with something to get hold of. Although of course I think it’s really attractive to be flat-chested like you.”

Well, lucky me, thought Rebecka sarcastically. At least you think I look good.

Her silence made Sanna babble nervously.

“Just listen to me,” she said. “I sound like a real mother hen. I’ll be asking you next if you’re getting your vitamins.”

“Do you mind if I put the news on?” asked Rebecka.

Without waiting for a reply she went over to the television and switched it on. The picture was grainy. There was probably snow on the aerial.

An item about the embezzlement of some EU funds was followed by the murder of Viktor Strandgård. The voice of the reporter explained that the police were following the usual procedures in their hunt for the murderer, and as yet there was no obvious suspect. Pictures followed one another in rapid succession. Police and dogs searching the area outside the Crystal Church as they looked for the murder weapon. Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl von Post talking about door-to-door inquiries, interviews with members of the church and those attending the service. Then Rebecka’s red Audi appeared on the screen.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Sanna, crashing her coffee cup down on the table.

“Viktor Strandgård’s sister, who found the dead man at the scene of the crime, also arrived under somewhat dramatic circumstances to be interviewed at the police station last night.”

The whole incident was shown, but on the morning news almost all the sound had been removed, except for Rebecka’s stifled “Get out of the way.” It emerged that the reporter had reported the lawyer for assault, before the anchorman in the studio exchanged a few words with the weatherman about the forecast that would follow the break.

“But you couldn’t see how aggressive and horrible that reporter was!” said Sanna in amazement.

Rebecka felt a burning pain in her midriff.

“What is it?” asked Sanna.

What do I say? thought Rebecka, and slumped down on a chair by the kitchen table. That I’m afraid of losing my job. That they’ll freeze me out until I’m forced to resign. When she’s lost her brother. I ought to ask her about Viktor again. Ask if she wants to talk about it. I just don’t want to get drawn into her life and her problems again. I want to go home. I want to sit at the computer writing an analysis of income tax set against pension contributions.

“What do you think happened, Sanna?” she asked. “To Viktor. You said he’d been mutilated. Who could have done something like that?”

Sanna squirmed uncomfortably.

“I don’t know. That’s what I told the police. I really don’t know.”

"Weren’t you scared when you found him?"

“I wasn’t thinking like that.”

“What were you thinking, then?”

“I don’t know,” said Sanna, and put her hands on her head as if to console herself. “I think I screamed, but I’m not sure about that either.”

“You told the police Viktor woke you up, and that’s why you went there.”

Sanna lifted her eyes and looked straight at Rebecka.

“Do you really think that’s so strange? Have you started to believe that everything stops because your body no longer works? He was standing by my bed, Rebecka. He looked so sad. And I could see that it wasn’t him, not physically anyway. I knew something had happened.”

No, I don’t think it’s strange, thought Rebecka. She’s always seen more than the rest of us. A quarter of an hour before somebody came to visit completely unannounced, Sanna would put the coffee on. “Viktor’s on his way,” she’d sometimes say.

“But…” began Rebecka.

“Please,” begged Sanna, “I really don’t want to talk about it. I daren’t. Not yet. I’ve got to keep it together. For the girls’ sake. Thanks for coming up. Even though you’ve got your career to think about. You might think we’ve lost touch, but I think about you loads. It gives me strength just to know that you’re down there.”

Now Rebecka was squirming.

Stop it, she thought. We’re not friends. Her opinion of me used to mean so much. The fact that she said I was an important part of her life. But now… now it feels as if she’s spinning a web around my body.

Virku was the first to hear the sound of the snowmobile, interrupting them with a sharp bark. She pricked up her ears and looked out of the window.

“Is somebody coming?” asked Rebecka. She wasn’t sure where the noise came from, but thought it sounded as if the snowmobile was idling not far from the house. Sanna leaned her forehead against the windowpane and shaded her eyes with her hands so that she could see past her own reflection.

“Oh, no,” she exclaimed with a nervous laugh, “it’s Curt Bäckström. He was the one who gave us a lift out here. I think he’s got a bit of a thing about me. But he’s really good-looking. A bit like Elvis, somehow. Might suit you, Rebecka.”

“Stop right there,” said Rebecka firmly.

“What? What have I done?”

“You’ve been doing it for as long as I’ve known you. You attract endless brainless admirers, and then announce that they might suit me. Thanks but no, thanks.”

“I do apologize,” said Sanna in an offended voice. “I’m sorry if people I know and associate with aren’t good enough or smart enough for you. And how can you call him brainless? You don’t even know him.”

Rebecka went over to the window and looked out at the yard.

“He’s sitting on his snowmobile, it’s practically the middle of the night, and he’s staring at the house you’re staying in, instead of coming to the door,” she said. “I rest my case.”

“Besides, it’s not my fault if some men are attracted to me,” Sanna went on. “Or maybe you agree with Thomas and think I’m a whore.”

“No, but you can damn well stop making comments about my appearance or offering me your cast-off admirers.”

Rebecka grabbed her travel bag and rushed into the bathroom. She banged the door so hard that the little red wooden heart that said “Here It Is” swung violently.

“Ask him to come up,” she shouted out to the kitchen. “He can’t sit out there in the cold like an abandoned dog.”

God, she thought as she locked the door. Sanna’s witless admirers. Sanna’s loose way of dressing. It’s not my problem anymore. But it upset Thomas Söderberg. And at the time, when Sanna and I used to share an apartment, in some peculiar way it was my responsibility.