A Darker Shade of Sweden (15 page)

But for the moment, the cell in the corner of the room was empty and Björnfot closed his log and thought of his wife, who was waiting for him at home.

Kajsa rose from the carpet and barked. A second later, there was a knock at the door and Erik Bäckström, the hauler, stepped in. He didn't even take the time to say hello.

“I've got postman Johansson and Oskar Lindmark in my sled,” he said. “They're as dead as can be, both of them.”

Parked in the courtyard were the mail sled and Bäckström's sled. Bäckström's assistant had draped blankets over the horses. Johansson lay in the mail sled and young Oskar Lindmark in Bäckström's sled.

Spett swept away a few curious passersby who had stopped at the opening to the courtyard.

“There's nothing to see here,” he roared. “Keep moving, before I lose my temper!”

“. . . so when we found Oskar Lindmark lying in the snow we realized that something must have happened to Johansson,” Bäckström said. “We put Oskar on the sled and turned around and caught up with Johansson. His horse was just trotting along. Of course it knew the way from earlier trips. Good Lord, when we halted it and saw that Johansson was shot . . .”

He shook his head. Looked at his assistant who stood a few steps away, pale as paper and holding Lintu's reins. She exhaled calmingly on him, as if he were her half-grown colt. Don't be frightened, my boy.

“So we tied the mail horse to our sled,” Bäckström finished. “And came here at once.”

Sheriff Björnfot climbed up on the mail sled and took a good look at Johansson. Turned him over.

“Shot in the back,” he said thoughtfully. “And you found him sitting up.”

“Yes.”

“And young Lindmark on the ground?”

“Yes. With his face in the snow.”

Björnfot felt in Johansson's pockets. Looked around in the sled.

“Where is his pistol?” he asked. “I'm not saying he wasn't a peaceful man, but he must have been armed when he was traveling on duty.”

Bäckström shrugged his shoulders.

“We didn't see any gun,” he said.

“And the letter box is broken,” sheriff Björnfot went on. “So it was a robbery. But it seems strange to think that someone would shoot him with his own gun.”

He switched sleds and examined the wound on young Oskar Lindmark's head. He leaned down over the boy, holding his lantern very close to his face.

“It's snowing,” he said. “Was it possible to see any tracks?”

“No,” replied hauler Bäckström. “But of course it was dark. And we were upset.”

“Come here and take a look,” Björnfot said to Spett.

Spett came closer.

“Now this looks like frozen tears,” Björnfot said, touching Oskar Lindmark's face with his finger. “And look at his muffler. Given the light clothes he has on, he should have used it to cover his face.”

“So?” Spett said.

“What I'm thinking,” Björnfot said, “is this. Perhaps the killer shot Johansson, and the boy ran. Crying. And pulled his muffler away from his face to be able to breathe more freely while he ran.”

“Maybe so,” Spett said thoughtfully. “But why wasn't he shot as well?”

Björnfot pulled his hand over his face in a gesture that meant that he was thinking. His hand passed over his large mustache and down over his mouth. His fingers and his thumb followed the opposite sides of his jaw until they met at the tip of his chin.

“We have to talk to the postmaster,” he said. “Ask what kind of mail they had to deliver. And then we have to tell Johansson's widow. And Oskar Lindmark's parents.”

Spett regarded him silently. Kajsa also quit her sniffing around the runners of the sleds, sat down in the snow and gazed at him. Her tail struck a pleading rhythm against the ground. Björnfot knew what their looks meant. They didn't want to bring mournful tidings to crying widows. They wanted to follow the trail of blood.

“Yes, yes,” Björnfot sighed, turned to Kajsa. “You talk to the postmaster, I'll talk to the families.”

At that, Kajsa gave a happy bark. She rose on all four and ran to the archway. When she was out in the street, she turned and gave her master a summoning glance. Her pointed ears were turned forward.

Come on, she seemed to be saying. We have a job to do.

Hauler Bäckström had to smile despite the harrowing events of the evening.

“Look at that,” he said to Spett. “Before you know it, she'll be ironing your shirts.”

“She's too smart for that,” Björnfot commented, watching his younger colleague disappear into the street, following his dog.

When Björnfot arrived home shortly after eleven that night, the lights had been turned off and the sheriff's house was dark. He found his wife sitting at the kitchen table.

“Hello,” he said, carefully. “Are you sitting in the dark?”

He immediately felt stupid. Of course he could see that she was sitting in the dark. She often did. Said it saved them expensive kerosene. Now she slowly turned towards him. Smiled, but only as though her polite upbringing compelled her to.

Björnfot thought of Spett and Kajsa. How simple that bachelor life seemed. He lit the kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling as well as the one on the table.

She didn't reply. Instead she asked:

“Would you like something to eat?”

She got out bread and something to put on his sandwiches. Set a fire in the stove as well. That disturbed him. It was as if she was telling him that there was no need for a fire just for her sake. He asked about the girls. She told him that they were asleep.

“What's that?” Björnfot asked, nodding to a parcel on the sideboard.

“Sheet music from my mother,” she replied without looking at it.

“Aren't you going to open it?”

“I don't have anywhere to play,” she said without emphasis. “I can't understand why she would send them to me. Will three sandwiches do?”

He nodded without finding anything to say. He wanted to remind her that she was welcome to use the piano at the community center whenever she felt like it. As well as the piano at the company school. But what good would it do? She had answers to everything and he was tired of hearing them. One of the pianos was too out of tune for her to stand it. The other was guarded jealously by the headmistress of the company school, who always found it convenient to appear just as Mrs. Björnfot sat down on the piano stool. And since it was the headmistress who played at commencements and gave lessons, her interest in the keyboard took precedence. Always.

“You could at least open it, take a look,” he tried. “Wouldn't it be nice to see what it is? And I'm sure your mother has written you a letter.”

“Open it if you want to,” she said, still in the same light tone. Thin as autumn ice on cold, black water.

Björnfot looked at the parcel. Would it lie there all through Christmas, spreading malaise? He was seized by a longing to throw it in the fire.

Instead, he chewed his sandwiches dejectedly. His wife watched him with vacant eyes. Not in an unfriendly way, but he still felt that he was being punished. He just didn't know for what.

He thought of Elis Johansson's widow, whom he had visited. Her silent reaction when he had delivered the news of her husband's death. Six children in a two-room apartment. The ones old enough to understand had gathered around her. Stared at him, dressed in dark fabrics, as the Laestadians usually dressed themselves and their children. Eyes like deep wells when he told them. Mrs. Johansson had stood there before him, she also simply dressed in a long, gray skirt, a kerchief and a simple cardigan. Nothing ostentatious. No frills. Their home had also been simple, no curtains, no pictures on the walls. She hadn't cried. But he had seen her mouth and the wings of her nose widen in fear.

What will become of her now, he thought. Will she be able to support the children on her own? Will she have to give up some of them? Of course they wouldn't be able to stay on in the apartment, since it belonged to the Postal Administration. She had asked if he wanted some coffee, but he had declined. Her frightened eyes were more than he could stand. And the sobs of Oskar Lindmark's parents were still ringing in his ears.

He had longed for home, for Emilia and the girls.

Now he wished he had returned home earlier. So that the girls had been awake. They enlivened things.

Why can't you be happy? he wanted to ask.

The girls were healthy. They had food on the table. Dresses of bought fabrics. She had recently purchased new lace curtains. How could she feel that everything was so miserable all the same? When the Female Lecture Association had courted her and offered her membership, she had declined on some pretext he could no longer remember.

“I'm not the pioneering sort,” she had said at some point.

You don't know what a pioneer settlement is, he had wanted to answer. In this mining town we have streetlights, shops. A public bath! But he had kept quiet. The words between them were growing more and more scarce.

After they had gone to bed, he lay awake for a long time. Stared up at the darkness under the roof and thought about Oskar Lindmark's crushed head. About postman Johansson's widow. He longed to touch his wife, but refrained for fear of being rejected.

“Are you asleep?” he asked.

She didn't reply. But he could tell from her breathing that she was awake.

When he woke up it was still dark. It took him a while to realize what had awakened him. Someone was throwing snowballs at the window. The pocket watch on his nightstand showed a quarter past five.

Spett and Kajsa were waiting for him. They were accompanied by hauler Bäckström.

“Get dressed and come along,” Spett called. “Bäckström has something to show us.”

They walked together in the falling snow through the town. Kajsa was sometimes ahead of them, sometimes behind them. Plowing her pointed nose through the snow, which was light as down. Sometimes she snorted and took a small, joyful leap.

Björnfot felt frozen in spite of his winter uniform and coat. Even so, it wasn't as cold as it could be in December.

Lights were lit in many homes already. Women had risen to light fires. Now they were preparing breakfasts and lunch boxes for their husbands. After that, they had their own jobs to go to. The insides of the kitchen windows were fogged up.

When they arrived at Bäckström's property, the hauler led them into the carriage shed. They went up to one of the sleds inside.

“An hour ago, one of the mares arrived home alone dragging this sled. Someone had borrowed her without asking permission and then just left her somewhere. But she found her way home on her own. Stood outside the stable in the cold, waiting to be let in. And when I took a look at the sled . . .”

He finished his sentence by pointing at the floor of the sled.

An axe. Spett bent to pick it up. The blunt end of the axe blade was covered in blood and hair.

“Who is capable of doing something like that?” Bäckström wondered. “And besides, I also found these.” He held out his hand, showing little red pieces of a broken seal.

“Is that a mail seal?” Spett asked.

“We'll bring them to the station to have a closer look,” Björnfot said. “Did you speak to the postmaster?”

“Yes,” Spett said. “He said that Johansson had a very valuable delivery in his sled. It was insured for twenty-four thousand kronor. Probably worth twice that. And he was armed. The postmaster was certain of that.”

“Someone has driven this horse to the limit,” Bäckström said. “Her back has been beaten and she had sweat so much that a sheet of ice covered her coat of hair. My assistant has rubbed her off and covered her in blankets. I'll be glad if she doesn't fall ill and die on me.”

“Yes,” Björnfot said, thoughtfully. “The horses have been through quite a lot since yesterday. I wish they could speak.”

“That they can,” hauler Bäckström said. “Though perhaps not of such things.”

At that moment, the door to the carriage shed was opened and a boy poked his head in. He was around ten years old. Dressed in an oversized leather jacket. A running nose poked out of a knitted
gray scarf. Clumps of snow hung like grapes from his knitted mittens.

“There you are, sir,” he said to sheriff Björnfot and managed something that resembled a bow. “Your wife told me . . . I ran there first, then here . . . They've caught you a robber, Sheriff. They're waiting for you outside the police station.”

In the street outside the police station, four men were waiting for sheriff Björnfot and acting parish constable Spett. They were all around twenty years of age. Three of them wore heavy clothes against the cold. One was dressed only in pants and shirtsleeves. Two of the heavily dressed men were holding the thinly dressed one. One of them was twisting his arm up behind his back. The other had pulled his mitten off and was holding the lightly dressed man's neck in a firm grip.

The last one, who had both hands free, called out in greeting as soon as he caught sight of Björnfot and Spett.

“And here comes the police authority. We've brought you a present.”

The speaker was a big man, easily as large as the arriving servants of justice. He was blond. His eyes shone, blue as spring snow.

The man being held captive was delicate, almost spindly, with shoulders like a bottle. He had brown, greasy hair. His eyes were dark and full of terror—like swamp water in his pale, frozen face. His lip was swollen and split. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his nose was red and puffy. It seemed as if the man in his shirtsleeves had tried to stop his nose from bleeding, because the sleeve of his white shirtsleeve was stained red all the way up to his elbow.

“Here's your murderer,” the big man said, shaking hands. “My name is Per-Anders Niemi. I work at the post office. The postmaster told me what happened last night. So all I had to do was to think it over a little. Who knew about the valuable delivery? And when Edvin Pekkari didn't show up to work on time this morning, I though
. . .
well, why not surprise him with a visit?”