Before the Frost (44 page)

It hit the mark. Beads of sweat broke out on Henrietta's forehead.

“Are you saying that I lied to you? If that is the case, I want you
to leave right now. I will not be called a liar in my own home. You are poisoning me. I cannot work, the music is dying.”

“I
am
saying you lied, and I won't leave until you answer my questions. I have to know where Zeba is because I think she's in danger. Anna is mixed up in this somehow, maybe you are too. One thing is for sure: you know a lot more than you're telling me.”

“Go away! I don't know anything!” Henrietta yelled. The dog got up and started to bark.

Henrietta walked over to a window, absently opening it, then closing it, then pushing it slightly ajar. Linda didn't know how to continue, but knew she couldn't let go. Henrietta seemed to have calmed down. She turned around.

“I'm sorry I lost my temper, but I don't like being accused of lying. I don't know where Zeba is, and I have no idea why you seem to think Anna is involved.”

Her indignation seemed genuine, or else she was a better actress than Linda imagined. She was still speaking with a raised voice, and she had not sat down again, still standing by the window.

“That night I got caught in the trap,” Linda said. “Who were you talking to?”

“Were you spying on me?”

“Call it what you like. Why else would I have been here? I wanted to know why you didn't tell me the truth when I came to ask you about Anna.”

“The man who was here had come to talk to me about a composition we are planning together.”

“No,” Linda said, forcing her voice to remain steady. “It was someone else.”

“Are you accusing me of lying again?”

“I know you are.”

“I always tell the truth,” Henrietta said. “But I prefer not to reveal any part of my private life.”

“You lied, Henrietta. I know who was here.”

“You know who was here?”

Henrietta's voice was high and shrill again.

“Either it was a man by the name of Torgeir Langaas, or it was Anna's father.”

Henrietta flinched.

“Torgeir Langaas,” she almost screamed. “I don't know anyone called Torgeir Langaas. And Anna's father has been gone for years. He's dead. Anna is in Lund and I have no idea where Zeba might be.”

She went out into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. She moved some cassette tapes out of the way and sat down on a chair next to Linda, who had to turn her body to look at her. Henrietta smiled. When she spoke again her voice was soft, almost careful.

“I didn't mean to get so carried away.”

Linda looked at her, and somewhere inside her head a warning light came on. There was something she should be seeing, but she couldn't think of what it was. She realized that the conversation had been a failure. The only thing she had achieved was to put Henrietta even more on her guard.
An experienced officer should have been in charge of this questioning,
she thought. Now it would be even harder for her father, or whoever it would fall to, to get Henrietta to reveal whatever it was she was hiding.

“Is there anything else you think I've been lying about?”

“I don't think I believe almost anything you say, but I can't force you to stop lying. I just want you to know that I'm asking these questions because I'm worried about Zeba.”

“What could possibly have happened to her?”

Linda drew a deep breath.

“I think someone, perhaps more than one person, is killing women who have had abortions. Zeba has had an abortion. So had the woman who was found dead in that church. You've heard about that?”

Henrietta sat absolutely still, which Linda took as a yes.

“What has Anna got to do with all this?”

“I don't know, but it scares me.”

“What scares you?”

“The thought that someone might try to kill Zeba. And that Anna is somehow involved.”

Something in Henrietta's face changed. Linda couldn't say exactly what it was, but it flickered there for a moment. She decided she wasn't going to get any further and bent down to pick up her
jacket from the floor. There was a mirror next to the table. She threw a quick glance at it as she bent over, and she saw Henrietta's face. She was looking past Linda.

Linda grabbed her jacket and sat up. She realized what Henrietta had been looking at: the open window.

She started putting on her jacket and stood up, turning around. There was no one outside, but Linda knew someone had been there. She froze. Henrietta's loud voice, the window that was opened for no reason, her repetitions of the names Linda had given her, and her vehement objections to the accusations. Linda finished putting on her jacket. She didn't dare turn around and look Henrietta in the eye, since she was afraid her realization was spelled out on her face.

Linda quickly made her way to the front door and bent down to pet the dog. Henrietta followed her out.

“I'm sorry I couldn't be of help to you.”

“You could have,” Linda said. “But you chose not to.”

Linda opened the door and walked out. When she reached the end of the path, she turned and looked around.
I don't see anyone,
she thought,
but someone can see me. Someone watched me in the house and—more to the point—heard what we said. Henrietta repeated my questions and the person outside now knows what I know and what I believe and fear.

She hurried over to the car. She was scared, but she also berated herself for making a mistake. The point at which she was petting the dog and getting ready to leave was the point at which she should have started her questions in earnest. But she had chosen to leave.

 

Linda kept checking the rearview mirror as she drove away.

46

As Linda walked into the police station, she tripped and split her lip on the hard floor. For a moment she was dizzy, and then she managed to get up and wave away the receptionist, who was on her way over to help her. When she saw blood on her hand she walked to the restroom, wiped off her face with cold water, and waited for the bleeding to stop. When she stepped back out into the reception area she saw Lindman, who was on his way in through the front doors. He looked at her with an amused expression.

“You make quite a pair,” he said. “Your father claims he walked into a door. What about you? That pesky door been making trouble for you as well? Maybe we should call you Black Eye and Fat Lip, to save ourselves the trouble of the two of you having the same name.”

Linda laughed, which caused the wound to reopen and bleed. She went back into the restroom and got more tissues. Together they walked down the corridor.

“It wasn't a door. I threw an ashtray at him.”

They stopped outside Wallander's office.

“Did you find Anna?'

“No, she seems to have disappeared again.”

Lindman knocked on the door.

“You'd better go in and tell him.”

Wallander had his feet on the desk and was chewing on a pencil. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“I thought you were bringing Anna.”

“I thought so too, but I can't find her.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? She's not at home.”

Wallander didn't manage to conceal his impatience. Linda prepared for the onslaught, but then he noticed her swollen lip.

“What happened to you?”

“I tripped.”

He shook his head, then started to laugh. Although Linda appreciated this turn in his mood, she found his laugh hard to take. It sounded like the neigh of a horse and was far too high-pitched. If they were ever out together and he started to laugh, people would actually turn around to see who could possibly be responsible for those sounds.

Wallander threw his pencil down and took his feet off the desk.

“Have you called her place in Lund? Her friends? She has to be somewhere.”

“Nowhere that we can reach her, I think.”

“You've called her cell phone, at least?”

“She doesn't have one.”

He was immediately interested in this piece of information.

“Why not?”

“She doesn't want one.”

“Is there any other reason?”

Linda knew that there was a thought process behind these questions, not simply idle curiosity.

“Everyone has a cell phone these days, especially you young folk. But not Anna Westin. How do you explain that?”

“I can't. According to Henrietta, she doesn't want to be reachable at all times.”

Wallander thought about this.

“Are you sure she's told you everything? Could she have a phone that she hasn't told you about?”

“How could I know that?”

“Exactly.”

Wallander pulled his phone over and dialed Höglund's extension. She came into the office shortly thereafter, looking both tired and scruffy. Linda saw that her hair was messy and her blouse slightly soiled. She was reminded of Vanya Jorner, Medberg's daughter. The only difference between them that she could see was that Höglund was not as fat.

Linda heard her father ask Höglund to see if any cell phone was registered under Anna's name. Linda was irritated that she hadn't thought of it herself.

Before leaving the room, Höglund gave Linda a smile that was more like a forced grimace.

“She doesn't like me.”

“If my memory doesn't fail me, you don't care much for her either. It all evens itself out in the end. Even in a small police station like this, people don't always get along.”

He stood up.

“Coffee?”

They walked out to the lunchroom, where Wallander was immediately pulled into an evidently exasperating exchange with Nyberg. Linda didn't understand what they were arguing about. Martinsson came in waving a piece of paper.

“Ulrik Larsen,” he said. “The one who tried to mug you in Copenhagen.”

“Not mug me,” Linda said sharply. “The one who threatened me and told me to stop asking questions about a man named Torgeir Langaas.”

“That's exactly what I was going to talk to you about,” Martinsson said. “Ulrik Larsen has withdrawn his story. The only problem is, he doesn't have a new version. He continues to deny that he threatened you, and he maintains he doesn't know anyone by the name of Langaas. Our Danish colleagues are convinced he's lying, but they can't get him to tell the truth.”

“Is that it?”

“Not completely. But I want Kurre to hear the rest.”

“Don't call him that,” Linda warned. “He hates the nickname ‘Kurre.' ”

“Tell me about it,” Martinsson said. “He likes it about as much as I like being called ‘Marta.'”

“Who calls you that?”

“My wife. When she's in a bad mood.”

Wallander and Nyberg finished discussing whatever it was that they disagreed about, and Martinsson recounted the information about Ulrik Larsen.

“There's one more thing,” he added, “which is the most significant. Our Danish colleagues have naturally run a background check on Larsen, and it turns out that he has no previous criminal record. In fact, it turns out that in all other respects he's a model citizen: thirty-seven years old, married, three children, and with an occupation that doesn't normally lead its practitioners to criminal activity.”

“What is it?” Wallander asked.

“He's a minister.”

Everyone stared at Martinsson.

“What do you mean, he's a minister?” Lindman asked. “I thought he was a drug addict.”

Martinsson looked through his papers.

“Apparently he played the role of a drug addict, but he's a minister in the Danish State church, with a parish in Gentofte. There have been all kinds of headlines over there about the fact that a minister of the church has been accused of assault and robbery.”

The room fell quiet.

“It turns up again, then,” Wallander said softly. “Religion, the church. This Larsen is important. Someone has to go over and assist our colleagues in their investigation. I want to know how he fits in.”

“If he fits in,” Lindman said.

“He does,” Wallander said. “We just need to know how. Ask Höglund to do it.”

Martinsson's telephone rang. He listened and then finished his cup of coffee.

“The Norwegians are stirring,” he said. “We've received some information about Torgeir Langaas.”

“Let's see it.”

Martinsson went to get the faxes. There was a fuzzy version of a photograph.

“This was taken more than twenty years ago,” Martinsson said. “He's tall. Over one hundred and ninety centimeters.”

They studied the snapshot.
Have I seen this man before?
Linda wondered. But she wasn't sure.

“What do they say?” Wallander asked.

Linda noticed that he was getting more and more impatient.
Just like me,
she thought.
The anxiety and impatience go hand in hand.

“They found our man Langaas as soon as they started to look. It would have come through sooner if the officer in charge hadn't misdirected our urgent query. In other words, the Oslo office is plagued by the same problems we are. Here tapes from the archives go missing, there requests from other stations. But it all got sorted out in the end, and Torgeir Langaas is involved in an old missing-persons case, as it turns out.”

“In what way?” Wallander asked.

“You won't believe me when I tell you.”