Before the Frost (45 page)

“Try me.”

“Torgeir Langaas disappeared from Norway nineteen years ago.”

They looked at each other. Linda felt as if the room itself was holding its breath. She saw her dad sit up in his chair as if readying himself to charge.

“Another disappearance,” he said. “Somehow all of this is about disappearances.”

“And reappearance,” Lindman said.

“Or a resurrection,” Wallander said.

Martinsson kept reading, slowly, picking his way through the text as if there were land mines hidden between the words: “Torgeir Langaas was the heir of a shipping magnate. His disappearance was unexpected and sudden. No crime was suspected, since he left a letter to his mother, Maigrim Langaas, in which he assured her he was not depressed and had no intentions of committing suicide. He left because he—and I quote—‘couldn't stand it any longer.' ”

“What was it he couldn't stand?”

It was Wallander who interrupted him again. To Linda it seemed as if his impatience and worry came out of his nostrils like invisible smoke.

“It's not clear from this report, but he left, with quite a stockpile of cash. Several bank accounts. His parents thought he would tire of his rebellion after a while. His parents didn't go to the police until two years had passed. The reason they gave, it says here in the report from January 12, 1984, was that he had stopped writing letters, that they hadn't had any signs of life from him for four
months, and that he had emptied all his bank accounts. Since then no one has heard from him.”

Martinsson let the page fall to the table.

“There's more, but those are the main points.”

Wallander raised his hand.

“Does it say where the last letter was mailed from? And when the bank accounts were emptied?”

Martinsson looked through the papers for these answers, but without success. Wallander picked up the phone.

“What's the number?”

He dialed the number that Martinsson read out. The Norwegian officer's name was Hovard Midstuen. Once they were connected, Wallander asked his two questions, gave him his phone number, and hung up.

“He said it would only take a few minutes,” Wallander said. “We'll wait.”

Midstuen called back after nineteen minutes. During that time no one had said a word. When the phone rang, Wallander pounced on the receiver, then scrawled a few notes as he listened. He thanked his Norwegian colleague and slammed the phone down triumphantly.

“This might be starting to hang together.”

He read from his notes: the last letter Langaas had sent was posted from Cleveland, Ohio. It was also from there that the accounts were emptied and closed.

Not everyone made the connection, but Linda saw what he was getting at.

“The woman who was found dead in Frennestad Church came from Tulsa,” he said. “But she was born in Cleveland, Ohio.”

Everyone was quiet.

“I still don't understand what's happening,” he said. “But there's one thing I know, and that's that Linda's friend Zeba is in danger. It may also be that Linda's other friend Anna Westin is also in danger.”

He paused.

“It may also be that Anna Westin is part of this. That's why we need to concentrate on these two and nothing else for the moment.”

It was three o'clock in the afternoon and Linda was scared. All she could think about was Zeba and Anna. A fleeting thought passed through her mind: she would start her real work as a police officer in three days. But how would she feel about that if something happened to either of her friends? She didn't know the answer to that question.

47

When Anna recognized the scream as Zeba's, Westin knew that God was testing him in the same way he had tested Abraham. He perceived all of her reactions even though she had merely flinched and then carefully composed her features to hide her emotions. A moment of doubt, a series of questions—was that some animal or, in fact, a human scream? Could it be Zeba? She was searching for an answer that would satisfy her, and at the same time she was waiting to hear the scream again. What Westin didn't understand was why she didn't simply ask him about it. In a way it was just as well that Zeba had made her presence known. Now there was no turning back. He would soon see if Anna was worthy of being called his daughter. What would he do if it turned out she did not possess the strength he expected of her? It had taken him many years to travel down the road his inner voices had told him to follow. He had to be prepared to sacrifice even that which was most precious to him, and it would be up to God whether Westin too would be granted a stay at the last minute.

I won't talk to her,
he thought.
I must preach to her, as I preach to my disciples.
She broke in during a pause. He let her speak, because he knew he could best interpret a person's state of mind at such a moment of vulnerability.

“Once upon a time you were my father. You lived a simple life.”

“I had to follow my calling.”

“You abandoned me, your daughter.”

“I had to. But I never left you in my heart. And I came back to you.”

She was tense, he could see that, but still her sudden loss of control surprised him. Her voice rose to a shriek.

“That screaming I heard was Zeba! She's here somewhere below us. What is she doing here? She hasn't done anything.”

“You know what she has done. It was you who told me.”

“I wish I'd never told you!”

“She who commits a sin and takes the life of another must bear the wrath of God. This is justice, and the word of the Lord.”

“Zeba didn't kill anyone. She was only fifteen years old. How could she have cared for a child at that age?”

“She should never have allowed it to happen.”

Westin could not manage to calm her, and he felt a wave of impatience.
This is Henrietta,
he thought.
She's too much like her.

He decided to exert more force.

“Nothing is going to happen to Zeba,” he said.

“Then what is she doing in the basement?”

“She is waiting for you to make up your mind. To decide.”

This confused her, and Westin smiled inwardly. He had spent many years in Cleveland poring over books about the art of warfare. That work was paying off now. Suddenly she was the one on the defensive.

“I don't understand what you mean. I'm scared.”

Anna started to sob, her body shook. He felt a lump in his throat, remembering how he had comforted her as a child when she cried. But he forced the feeling away and asked her to stop.

“What are you scared of?”

“Of you.”

“You know I love you. I love Zeba. I have come to join the earthly and the divine in transcendent love.”

“I don't understand you when you talk like that!”

Before he had a chance to say anything else, there was a new cry for help from the basement and Anna flew from her chair.

“I'm coming!” she cried, but he grabbed her before she could leave the verandah. She struggled but he was too strong for her. When she continued to struggle, he hit her with an open hand. Once, then again, and finally a third time. She fell to the floor after the third blow, her nose bleeding. Langaas appeared at the French windows, and Westin motioned for him to go down into the basement. Langaas understood and left. Westin pulled Anna up onto a chair and felt her forehead with his fingertips. Her pulse was racing.
His own was only somewhat accelerated. He sat down across from her and waited. Soon he would break her will. These were the last set of defenses. He had surrounded her and was attacking from all sides. He waited.

“I didn't want to do that,” he said after a while. “I only do what is necessary. We are about to embark on a war against emptiness, soullessness. It is a war in which it is not always possible to be gentle, nor merciful. I am joined by people who are prepared to give their lives for this cause. I myself may have to give my life.”

She didn't say anything.

“Nothing will happen to Zeba,” he repeated. “But nothing in this life comes to us for free. Everything has a price.”

Now she looked at him with a mixture of fear and anger. The bleeding from her nose had almost stopped. He explained what it was he wanted her to do. She stared at him with wide eyes. He shifted his chair closer to hers and placed his hand over hers. She flinched, but did not pull it away.

“I will give you one hour,” he said. “No door will be locked, no guards will watch over you. Think about what I have said, and come to your own decision. I know that if you let God into your heart and mind, you will do what is right. Do not forget that I love you very much.”

He stood up, traced a cross on her brow with his finger, and left without a sound.

 

Langaas was waiting in the hallway.

“She settled down when she saw me. I don't think she'll do it again.”

They walked through the garden to an outbuilding that had been used for storing fishing equipment. They stopped outside the door.

“Has everything been prepared?”

“Everything has been prepared,” Langaas said.

He pointed to four tents that had been erected next to the shed, then pulled open the flap to one of them. Westin looked in. There were the boxes, piled one on top of the other. He nodded. Langaas pulled the tent flap shut.

“The cars?”

“The ones that will drive the greatest distance are waiting up on the road. The others have been stationed in the positions we discussed.”

Erik Westin looked down at his watch. The many, often difficult years he had spent laying the groundwork had seemed endless. Now time was suddenly going too fast. From now on, everything had to work exactly as it should.

“It's time to start the countdown,” he said.

He glanced at the sky. Whenever he had thought forward to this moment in the past, he had always imagined that the heavens would mirror its dramatic import, but in Sandhammaren on this day, September 7, 2001, there were no clouds and almost no breeze.

“What is the temperature?” he asked.

Langaas looked at his watch, which had a built-in thermometer, as well as a pedometer and a compass.

“Eight degrees,” he said.

They walked into the shed, which still smelled pungently of tar. Those who were waiting for him sat in a semicircle on low wooden benches. Westin had planned to perform the ceremony with the white masks, but now he decided to wait. He still didn't know if the next sacrifice would be Zeba or the policeman's daughter. They would do the ceremony then. Now they only had time for a shorter ritual; God would not accept anyone who arrived late for their appointed task. Not to be mindful of one's time was like denying that even time was a gift of the Lord. Those who needed to travel to their destinations would have to leave shortly. They had calculated how much time was needed for each leg of their journey, and had followed the checklists in the carefully prepared manuals. In short, they had done everything in their power, but there was always the possibility that the dark forces would prevent them from achieving their goals.

 

When the cars with the three groups who had to travel had left, and the others had returned to their hideouts, Westin remained in the shed. He sat motionless in the dark with the necklace in his hand—the golden sandal that was now as important to him as the
cross. Did he have any regrets? That would be blasphemy. He was only an instrument, but one equipped with a free will to comprehend and then dedicate himself to the path of the chosen. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of tar. He had spent a summer on the island of Öland as a child visiting a relative who was a fisherman. The memories of that summer, one of the happiest of his childhood, were nestled in the scent of tar. He remembered how he snuck out in the light summer night and ran down to the boat shed in order to draw the smell more deeply into his lungs.

Westin opened his eyes. He was past the point of no return. The time had come. He left the shed and took a circuitous route to the front of the house. He looked out at the verandah from the cover of a large tree. Anna was sitting in the same chair. He tried to interpret her decision from the way she was sitting, but he was too far away.

Suddenly there was a rustling sound behind him. He flinched. It was Langaas. Westin was furious.

“Why are you sneaking around?”

“I didn't mean to.”

Westin struck him hard in the face, right below the eye. Langaas accepted the blow and lowered his head. Then Westin stroked his head lightly and they walked over to the house. He made his way soundlessly to the verandah until he was right behind her. She only noticed his presence when he bent over and she felt his breath on the nape of her neck. He sat down across from her, pulling her chair closer until their knees touched.