The Hand that Trembles (19 page)

Sven-Arne knew he was liked. He did not hurt a fly, was attentive and polite, but perhaps he was also not someone they would miss. By way of his careful silence he received respect but an Indian also wanted to see a little drama, and of this Sven-Arne had nothing to add.

Should he have become more involved? He had followed the debate about the development of Indian agriculture, seen how the multinational companies had taken over more and more with their genetically modified seeds and their custom-designed pesticides. The past few years the conflict about water and water resources had raged in the media as well as on the ground. Dams had been constructed that laid waste to half districts and forced people to flee, factories had continued to destroy both surface and groundwater, and along the coast the mangrove swamps were decimated. All of this was clearly evident and deeply unjust, painful for all those who worked with plants, earth, and water. They had often spoken of this at Lal Bagh.

He knew that Bangalore, and all of modern India, was partly built on the sweat and meagre existence of poor farmers.

Even locally there were reasons for activism. There was rubbish collection, the appalling street maintenance, or the renovations of homes by the canal.

He should perhaps have got involved, but he also knew his hands were tied. The police would have been happy to single out the foreigner who was making his voice heard, make a sensation of him residing illegally in the country and deport him, perhaps even throw him in prison first.

In Sweden he did not want to be a public figure and in India he couldn’t.

Sven-Arne stroked his smooth cheeks, waved one last time to Ismael, picked up his bag that felt as if it had grown heavier, and continued his march to the bus stop.

 Bultudden Point lay by the sea like its own nation, connected to the mainland by only a narrow strip of land, an electric cable, and a telephone line. Beyond the point there was an archipelago with windswept skerries and rocks and thereafter the Sea of Åland.

Ann Lindell stood at the outermost tip of the point, facing south, and summed up what she had gleaned from her two days. Not that it was much.

The wind was bearing down from the east and whipped the water into waves that crashed against the cliffs. There was snow in the air. She scanned the horizon, eager to perhaps catch sight of an eagle, a sign of life in the wilderness. It would serve as a confirmation that she was not here for nothing. But there was nothing in the sky. Not even a seagull.

She had spoken with Torsten Andersson’s cousin and her husband. Margit Paulsson was short and scrawny, Kalle some thirty centimetres taller and broad chested. She was born on the point, he came from the mainland from a village that ‘I have forgotten the name of.’ She was a talkative woman, full of ideas and activities, did not stay in one place for more than a couple seconds, while Kalle sat securely moored at the kitchen table – a place that he had likely staked out forty-five years ago – smiling quietly, sometimes chiming in with a soft hum, sometimes shaking his head at his wife’s harangues.

They were the same age to the day, both born on the morning of Christmas Eve sixty-seven years ago, a fact that they held up as a strong point.

He had worked in agriculture, in the forest, and as a carpenter. Like Edvard, Lindell had thought, and examined the giant at the table a little more closely. Margit had ‘stayed home.’ They had three sons. Kalle had nodded and a benign expression had come over him as Margit told her about Rustan, Kurt, and Torbjörn.

‘Who severs a foot?’ Margit had asked, and thereby echoed her cousin.

Lindell had come no closer to the answer other than eliminating Margit and Kalle as suspects. She had also eliminated the two other couples on the point: Ulla and Magnus Olsson in house number four, and Doris Utman and her husband Oskar – who had suffered a stroke and was bedridden – in house number five.

All four were in the same age bracket as Margit and Kalle and no likely candidates as axe murderers.

And then there was Lisen Morell, of course, who Lindell did not believe could lift as much as a screwdriver, even less a saw. She literally swayed on her feet, trying to regain order in her life.

At first Lindell had thought she was intoxicated but found that she was merely befuddled – perhaps from prescription medicine – and had trouble with her balance, to the point of finding it hard to stay upright. She had difficulties with everything. She slurred her speech and substantial portions of her speech were incoherent. Her mouth appeared to have dried out.

‘I have no appetite anymore,’ she complained, and displayed her bony arms.

She was also cold. Light a fire or put on a jumper, Lindell thought uncharitably, disturbed by the sight of this woman who was her own age.

She offered to light the fire for her and make her some food. The woman stared at her, terrified.

Lindell left, convinced that Lisen Morell would soon die if she did not receive treatment.

The first specks of snow blew in from the sea, diabolically hard and almost painful as they struck her face.

Three houses remained. Three bachelors. Lindell had picked up some information from their neighbours but of course she had to meet them in person. It was as if Bultudden had to be gone through thoroughly in order for her to be able to rest. Maybe it was the absence of other ideas and tasks that she lingered on, maybe there were other reasons. She both did and didn’t want the riddle of the foot to find its solution on the point.

All three of the men were employed and could not be questioned during the day. She had no desire or really any realistic intention of calling them down to the police station in Östhammar. They would have to take time off work, and since they were only to be questioned for possible information in connection with the case it seemed beyond the call of duty.

She had instead left notes in their mailboxes urging them to contact her. Malm and Frisk had already called her mobile phone and they had agreed she would stop by to see them on Saturday. She had already arranged a babysitter for Erik. It was Thursday today. That suited her fine. She would get one day in Uppsala.

It was getting dark and the snowfall grew heavier, but she was finding it hard to leave her spot on the point. At last, when her feet were frozen solid and her jacket was completely wet, she walked through the woods to the turnaround where her car was parked.

‘Sweden, Sweden, my motherland,’ she said softly.

She faced four months of winter. Before her there would be at least four serious violent crimes, perhaps murders, before spring decided to return. She did not complain, not anymore; there was no point. She simply accepted it as fact. That was a victory.

She drove north on the by-now familiar route, waving to the Olssons, Utmans, and Paulssons, convinced they were watching her pass by. She got out at Torsten Andersson’s gate and before she had reached the house he had opened the door. He had a little bag in his hand. He had promised her a bit of fish.

‘Caught any criminals yet?’

He smiled and Lindell smiled back, shaking her head. She peeked into the bag. There were about a dozen small perch inside.

‘We should have the death penalty,’ Torsten Andersson said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘If I have a dog that’s mean and bites people then I should get rid of it, shouldn’t I?’

Lindell nodded, distressed at hearing this familiar rant, and especially because it came from a man she had taken an immediate liking to.

‘But a murderer just ends up in prison or hospital.’

‘You think we should lead murderers out into the woods and shoot them?’

Her voice curdled in the frigid easterly wind. The snow whirled in front of the cottage. He must be freezing, she thought. Torsten Andersson was in short sleeves.

He didn’t reply, simply shaking his head.

‘Something is wrong,’ he said after a pause.

‘Thanks for the fish,’ Lindell said, turning and walking back to the car.

‘It’s bullshit!’ he yelled after her.

As she drove through Hökhuvud and saw the houses along the road it struck her that she – if she had had the talent – would have been able to write the story of Sweden. Most of the people she encountered in her work were actually innocent, and even the guilty ones, the murderers and rapists, the manslaughterers, the thieves and dealers, were all a part of the story.

The sniper’s story is no worse than the hunting master’s.

In Gimo she pulled over at a petrol station, took the bag of fish out of the trunk and stuffed it into a litter bin, then went inside to buy the evening paper.

‘You’ve got some colour,’ Sammy Nilsson declared.

Ottosson was sorting through papers, but glanced up quickly. Ola Haver was filling a cup with coffee from the thermos.

‘I’m one of those nostalgic country police officers,’ Lindell said with a smile, and took the cup Haver held out to her.

‘Thanks, Ola, that’s sweet of you,’ she said with a warmth in her voice that must have surprised him.

She had had trouble falling asleep, tossed and turned, and woken up with period pain.

‘Hey there, Eagle,’ Sammy Nilsson said by way of greeting when Fredriksson sauntered in. ‘Lindell has just been telling us her ornithological adventures in the outer coastal area.’

‘It should have been a flamingo,’ she said.

Ottosson looked up, surprised. Sometimes it struck Lindell what an absence of imagination he had.

‘But then I would have had to go to west Africa,’ she added. Ottosson still looked nonplussed.

Lindell sighed and sat down at the table.

‘Today I have some old shit to tackle,’ she said, mainly to get a word in before anyone else. Beatrice Andersson and Riis – who was back from his last sick leave – were the last to get there.

‘A shooting in Vattholma,’ Ottosson said. ‘Someone firing away in the forest, unclear why. Most excitement is from yesterday evening and night, otherwise fairly calm. A couple of domestic disputes and a new case of car torching in Stenhagen.’

‘Not the right weather for chasing hooligans,’ Haver said.

‘If only they would torch my car,’ Sammy Nilsson said.

‘Well, then, how did things go in Östhammar?’

‘One more day. I’m going back tomorrow morning for three more interviews.’

‘What about Erik?’ Ottosson asked.

‘I’ve worked it out,’ Lindell said. ‘Then I’ll wrap it up.’

‘Can’t the real country policemen take care of it?’

‘No, they have enough going on, and I want to finish my work on Bultudden.’

‘Something up?’

‘It’s just a feeling,’ Lindell answered unassumingly, and smiled at Fredriksson.

She knew what it would mean for him if a breakthrough came as a result of his eagle theory.

Admittedly she did have a great deal of ‘old shit’ occupying her desk, but she had been planning to take it easy. In part because the ache in her back was hellish at times, and in part because she wanted time to visit Berglund again.

Listlessly, she checked her email and luckily there was nothing there that couldn’t wait.

She gulped down the rest of her coffee and stopped by Ottosson’s office.

‘Anything new from Berglund?’

‘Haver was up there yesterday. Everything seemed fine. Berglund has started taking walks on the hospital grounds. And he’s reading through the old case materials.’

‘I was thinking of looking in on him today.’

‘That will make him happy,’ Ottosson said kindly, rifling through his piles of paper, pulling one page out but tossing it aside and giving her a bewildered smile.

‘I don’t understand,’ he mumbled.

Lindell smiled. She knew that Ottosson was stressed, and nonetheless he managed to carry it off. Once again she was able to maintain that she had a good boss. He did not often complain about his work situation, despite often having just cause. He was rarely surly or arrogant, but did become distracted when there was too much on the go, and this morning was coloured by just such an air of distraction.

‘Was there anything else?’

‘No,’ Lindell said, although she would have liked to linger a while, maybe chat, but she decided to leave him in peace.

When she returned, there was a note on her desk with a hastily scrawled name. It was her own handwriting but at first she could not remember where, how, and why she had written down the name, before she realised that it was the name of the missing county commissioner’s relative, which she had been given by Elsa Persson’s neighbour.

Ante Persson – the one who had most likely made Elsa Persson so upset and distraught that she had walked out right in front of a lorry. Where was it the neighbour said that he lived? Wasn’t it Ramund? Elsa Persson had been run over at the corner of Sysslomansgatan and Luthagsleden. That could fit. If she had been coming from Ramund and was on her way downtown she would naturally cross Luthagsleden at that point.

But hadn’t she already been there and visited the old man at the time when she bumped into her neighbour? Perhaps she had been on her way back there, or was trying to leave?

Whichever it was, Lindell’s curiosity was piqued. If she went to see this Ante Persson – the name appealed to her somehow – then perhaps she would get her answer. And in addition it would give her something to tell Berglund.

The first thing she noticed was a bookcase, or rather, books in great quantities, many of them shoved on top of ones that were standing on the shelf. Thereafter she noticed a hand resting on a bed rail. The hand was missing two fingers.

‘What the hell is this?’

The clerk behind her back let out a giggle.

‘What did I tell you?’ she whispered to Lindell, who turned her head and stared at the woman. The latter was about to say something else but stopped, her mouth half open.

‘Thank you,’ Lindell said, turning her back. She heard the door glide shut.