Open Grave: A Mystery (34 page)

Authors: Kjell Eriksson

Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #International Mystery & Crime, #Police Procedurals

South Africa. Sammy rooted in the brochures that were in the plastic sleeve. There was nothing about any hotel or other special activities such as a safari or the like. He took out his cell phone, called the travel agency that was listed as seller of the ticket, and was met by the message that many were calling right now but that his call would be answered as soon as possible.

Lindell on the other hand answered immediately and he asked her to assign some trainee to check out the hospitals. Perhaps Haller had been in an accident?

They ended the call. He checked around the apartment one more time, trying to see something that deviated from the dreary, unimaginatively furnished apartment. On the table in the living room were several notebooks. He opened one of the books but realized that it was also a kind of diary but of a different type than Haller’s workbooks. Here were no lines with the number of hours worked, no list of various materials.

On the cover page the year 1942 was given. The style was old-fashioned and shaky but completely legible. It was about cleaning. He browsed ahead: preparations for a dinner in May. All the courses were noted.

He picked up the next book, January 1, 1943, was at the top of the first page. After a few pages about the weather the entry described the aftermath of a New Year’s celebration. Here was a more personal text. The woman, because he assumed that it was a woman’s diary, commented on the guests who had been at the New Year’s dinner the day before. A certain building contractor D had evidently “declaimed,” ended up in a quarrel with P about the “awful war,” and left the company in anger.

Sammy Nilsson closed the notebook. Almost-seventy-year-old diaries could not give any explanation for why Karsten Haller was missing.

He remained standing in the room. Should he continue? It was definitely not his area to ferret out missing persons, but it was a situation that bordered on the unsolved mystery of his own grandfather.

On his way to the car Lindell called. No Haller had been admitted to a hospital. Sammy told about the ticket to South Africa. He heard from her voice that she was becoming more interested. She’s bored and needs a mystery too, he thought, smiling to himself.

“Shall I pick you up?”

Lindell laughed. He took that as a yes.

* * *

They had been in his
tower before. That time the associate professor had been enthusiastic; now he looked worried, almost tormented.

“You see,” he said, pointing.

“What?” asked Sammy.

“You see those small green plants, those are wintergreen. They don’t sit in formation, zigzag if I may say so. It’s so amateurish that I don’t think Haller would have planted that way. Unless he was in a really big hurry … but no … an experienced landscaper will still plant zigzag. You do it automatically. Do you understand what I mean?”

Sammy nodded. Lindell looked the most thoughtful.

“It’s not the homeowner who—”

“I asked,” the associate professor interrupted, shaking his head, “but he hasn’t touched the flower beds. He didn’t even understand the question.”

“And Haller’s bicycle is still there,” Sammy noted.

They stood quietly, pondering the fact that the landscaper seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

“So if it’s not Haller or the homeowner—”

“Then it’s someone else!” the associate professor exclaimed.

Sammy saw how irritated Lindell was at having been interrupted a second time.

“Did he say anything about Africa to you, that he was going to travel?”

The associate professor looked completely uncomprehending and shook his head.

“So many strange things are happening here now,” he said.

“I saw the article you wrote,” said Sammy. “That was brave. Criticizing an old colleague and neighbor can’t be easy.”

“Of course,” was the associate professor’s curt reply.

“What other strange things have happened?” asked Lindell.

“Well, the housekeeper at the professor’s has quit. That alone. She has worked there for however many years. And quitting now when he’ll get the Nobel Prize … I mean … and then this thing with Haller. He seemed so unbalanced … you understand, he was the one who threw that stone at Ohler’s house. I shouldn’t reveal that, but this feels so strange.”

Sammy and Lindell gave each other a look. Lindell nodded.
What was that I said?
she seemed to want to say.

“Did he talk about why?”

“No, not really,” said the associate professor.

“Was he the one who put the skull by Ohler’s gate too?”

The associate professor’s face suddenly turned bright red.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” said Lindell.

The associate professor nodded.

“A silly prank, I admit that, but it’s an old doctor’s joke. I was subjected to it myself in the fifties. Now in retrospect I admit that perhaps it wasn’t so well-advised.”

“So Ohler understood that it was someone in his field, so to speak?”

“I would presume so,” said the associate professor.

Sammy Nilsson grinned.

“Did he know it was you?”

“No, he doesn’t think I have the courage. I did it more for my own amusement. To prove something, not sure what. I am an old man but not without…”

He hesitated but shook his head when Lindell suggested the word “passion.”

“That’s too strong a word,” he said with a cautious smile, which more expressed sorrow than anything else. “Am I going to be charged?”

“No,” Sammy Nilsson decided. “Do you know whether Ohler is at home?”

The associate professor nodded.

“And his daughter too, and her … girlfriend. They seem to be living there now.”

* * *

The two police officers left
the associate professor. If it weren’t for the gloomy background and Haller’s disappearance, Sammy would have made fun of the whole situation. But now there was something heavy and ominous about it all. They recognized it: discomfort. They felt it as a scent. Without commenting on the visit with the associate professor they walked toward Professor von Ohler’s house.

A middle-aged woman answered the door. Sammy Nilsson immediately saw the resemblance. It must be the daughter, he thought, and introduced himself. Lindell stood passively by his side. That was the division they always used. One active and the other waiting, observing.

“We’re investigating a disappearance,” he continued. “There is a landscaper who has worked in the area and who now has disappeared without a trace.”

The woman stared at him. Her face expressed nothing. Passive, waiting for a continuation.

“Karsten Haller. Is the name familiar?”

She shook her head.

“You are Ohler’s daughter, I understand,” Sammy continued indefatigably.

“Why do you understand that?”

“You remind me of your father. Haller? Doesn’t ring any bells? He worked on the neighbor’s yard. I thought possibly that—”

“No, as I said, that’s not anyone I know. Was there anything else?”

“Perhaps your father knows Haller. Perhaps he’s done work here?”

“I would have known about that,” said the woman.

She was shaking.

“Perhaps we can continue to speak inside?” Sammy suggested.

“I don’t think so. I’m a little busy and as I said, we don’t know who this Haller is. No one in this house knows anything of interest.”

“We have reason to believe that he knows someone in the house.”

“My father is a public person.”

Sammy remembered when he and Haller met. Haller’s undisguised anger when he brought up Professor von Ohler. An anger that he did nothing to conceal.

“We believe that Haller has reason to feel a certain animosity toward your father. A feeling that does not seem to originate from any type of general indignation but rather seems to have a personal connection.”

The woman snorted.

“Well, we don’t seem to be getting any further,” said Sammy without showing anything he was feeling. On the contrary he extended his hand and looked sincerely friendly.

“Thank you, and I apologize for disturbing you.”

The Ohler daughter closed the door.

“Animosity,” said Lindell, sneering.

Sammy Nilsson shook his head.

“The bitch is lying,” he said.

“Yes, it’s obvious,” said Lindell.

They went out onto the street. When Sammy closed the gate behind him he turned around and looked up toward the house.

“If it had been a drunk woman we could have forced our way in,” he said. “Now we’re standing like two beggars on the stairs.”

“We had nothing.”

“Doesn’t matter. We could have forced our way in anyway. Or rather, a drunk woman would have taken for granted that we would run right in.”

They knew that they would drop the whole thing. A disappearance, which besides might very well have a natural explanation, was not their responsibility. Even if there were no formal obstacles to snooping further there were practical limitations. Ottosson would not give his approval. Even though at the present time it was calm at the squad, there were many old cases to sink their teeth into.

Epilogue

DECEMBER 10, 2008

It nauseated him, this false
pomp. He cursed himself for having turned on the TV. He already knew. He knew what it looked like. “There is no justice,” Ohler had said, and that was right. There are injustices here, illustrated by this sea of refined and decked-out persons, the elevated of society within academe, culture, and business, all weighed down by their own importance.

Why should he stare at the spectacle? The last thing he saw before the TV screen went black was the close-up of a face he recognized very well. It was an old colleague from the university in Lund whom the associate professor knew was very critical of Ohler. Now the professor was sitting there, taking part in the celebration, laughing along.

Gregor Johansson got up with great effort. The autumn had been difficult. It would get even worse. He was surrounded by darkness.

Besides, his body was starting to protest. Perhaps next year he wouldn’t be able to care for his garden properly?
Then I might as well die,
was a thought that constantly returned.

With even greater effort than before he made his way up into the tower. The garden was just as desolate and depressing as a closed-down amusement park during the winter. The snow that had fallen around the first Sunday in Advent had disappeared in an unfortunate thaw. He loathed these abrupt leaps between bitter cold and warmth, between deep snow and bare ground. Black frost was a word that meant the death of plants.

Suddenly he perceived a movement at Lundquist’s and had a d
é
j
à
-vu experience from the fall. It was not the landscaper this time but instead Winblad’s setter that was sniffing around. It was an uncommon sight. Willie, which was the dog’s name, was very disciplined and never left the yard, even though it always went around loose. The associate professor had also on some occasions praised Winblad for his good hand with the dog.

Now the setter was standing by Haller’s planting on the back side of Lundquist’s lot. The associate professor could see with the binoculars how Willie was wagging his tail and nosing at the magnolia. Don’t you dare lift your leg, the associate professor thought.

The dog went sniffing a turn around the flower bed, as if he was a critical inspector. Then he started digging in the dirt.

So that’s how it happened! It was Willie who had also rooted up the plants before. Winblad had discovered it and tried to put them back. The associate professor laughed. The mystery was solved.

The dog continued to dig, more and more eagerly.

About the Author

KJELL ERIKSSON
is the author of
The Princess of Burundi
,
The Cruel Stars of the Night
,
The Demon of Dakar
,
The Hand That Trembles
, and
Black Lies, Red Blood.
His series debut won Best First Novel by the Swedish Crime Academy, an accomplishment he later followed up by winning Best Swedish Crime Novel for
The Princess of Burundi
. This is his sixth novel to be published in the U.S. He lives in Sweden and France. You can sign up for email updates
here
.