Authors: Hakan Ostlundh
“Did you go in through the window?” asked Fredrik.
“No,” said Bergvall, sounding a little amused. “No, no, I have a key. They leave a key with me in case anything comes up.”
“I understand.”
“Nothing seemed to be missing, but someone had lit a fire in the stove, there were ashes and soot spilled out on the floor in front of the stove, and in the kitchen there were several bowls pulled out. I went in there and thought about putting things away, just so that the things wouldn’t be in the way when they come down next time, and then I saw that there were some strands of hair in the kitchen.”
Fredrik reached for a pen.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know if I’m letting my imagination run wild, but I thought about those murders on Fårö. That was last Friday and I thought that maybe the one who did it hid here and cut off or dyed their hair. Well, in order not to be recognized.”
“I understand.”
“It’s a bit unusual to break in someplace and dye your hair. If you don’t have a good reason, I mean.”
“When last Friday did you see that someone was there?”
“It was pretty late. Sometime after ten o’clock.”
“Exactly what was it you saw?”
“I saw a car. I didn’t recognize it, but they fly down sometimes on the weekends—the Larssons, that is—and then they rent a car from that Micke’s Car Rental; he rents used cars.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“It was a Volvo. A station wagon. The Larssons have a Volvo, too, but this was as I said an older model. Larssons’ is new.”
“Do you remember what color?”
“It was pretty dark, so it was hard to see. But some dark color anyway.”
“Was that all you saw?”
“Yes, that was all,” said Bergvall.
He coughed away a trembling in his vocal cords.
“It was late, so I didn’t want to disturb anyone. Then I went past on Saturday, too, thought I would go in and say hello, but then there was no one there.”
“But you didn’t notice then that the window was broken?”
“No, I didn’t go onto the property. That was only today. I thought it was strange that someone had been there for just one night. And then I’ve been following these murders. You get a little worried and suspicious.”
“I think it’s best that we drive down and look a little more closely at that cottage. Where is it?”
“It’s right by the water. You drive past Vamlingbo church, then turn left toward Nore and continue as far as you can toward the water, and then to the right.”
“Then I know exactly.”
All too well, thought Fredrik.
“Can you meet me there—”
He took a quick glance at the clock on the computer.
“At twelve thirty?”
“Sure,” said Markus Bergvall.
“But don’t go in again. Not even on the property.”
“No, I see.”
“No one may go in. Not even Larsson himself if he happens to show up.”
“No, of course.”
* * *
Fredrik went over to Göran and briefly summarized what he had just found out.
“Worth checking,” said Göran. “Older Volvo. Wasn’t that what Holt on the Fårö ferry had seen?”
“Two older Volvos, a red Mazda sports car, and a smaller white car of unknown make.”
“That works out with the time, too. Damn. If this tallies, that rules out both Stina Hansson and the sisters on Fårö.”
“I know, one step forward and two steps backward. But that remains to be seen.”
“The sooner we know, the better. Drive down with Eva so she can go through the cottage properly. You can take her car.”
“I’ll probably take my own,” said Fredrik. “You never know how long she needs to stay.”
There was the limit. To Nore in the same car as Eva Karlén.
“Yes, I won’t get involved in that, it was just a suggestion,” said Göran.
The hell it was, thought Fredrik.
Sara walked down to the hotel. She took the route through Österport and along Hästgatan. The Kränku tea shop still attracted aimless Visby strollers who stopped to inspect the cans of tea inside the shop. The summer season was not quite over yet.
Sara turned left onto St. Hansgatan. Maybe she should have driven anyway. She had hoped that a quick walk would energize her, but the damp, gray weather made her mostly tired and a little dull. It felt like her soul was shriveling up.
The hotel where Henrik Kjellander, Maria Andersson, and Ellen were quartered was halfway up the cliff above the ferry terminal. They were staying next door to the old prison, which had been renovated into a hostel. She wondered whether they felt safe there with a police officer on guard outside the door or if, on the contrary, they felt a little like they were in prison. Locked in, watched. If they even thought along those lines at all. Perhaps the shock and sorrow overshadowed everything else.
A police constable with a crew cut and long legs was sitting on a chair outside the room looking bored.
“Maria really wants to go out and get some exercise. I thought we could take the opportunity while you’re here. If that’s okay with you, that is?” he asked.
“Sure, that will be fine,” said Sara.
He knocked on the door and opened from outside after he got a response from Henrik. That was the arrangement.
“Hi,” said Sara, shaking hands. “How are you doing?”
Henrik Kjellander shrugged his shoulders. There was a tray with three dirty plates on the narrow desk over by the window. A suitcase was open on the bed, the clothes in it in disarray.
“It is what it is,” he said. “What can I say?”
He took a couple of steps into the room. Sara followed.
A voice mumbled hello behind her back. She turned around in time to see Maria Andersson slink out the door. She turned back toward Henrik. An embarrassed smile twitched on his face.
“I see. How shall we do this?” he said.
Sara looked around the room.
“Is Ellen in there?” she asked, pointing toward the bedroom door.
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to check with Ellen, to see what she thinks.”
“Okay.”
Sara went up to the bedroom door, which was open but pushed shut. She opened it carefully, turned around, and saw that Henrik remained where he was.
“Are you coming?”
“Well,” said Henrik, “I thought…”
“You should be there, too.”
Sara continued into the room. Ellen sat on the made bed with a miniature game of Chinese checkers on her lap. The pieces were set out in all six homes. It seemed more like she was playing with the game than that she had been playing it with Maria.
“Hi, Ellen,” said Sara.
Ellen looked up from the board.
“Hi.”
“You remember me, don’t you?”
Ellen nodded with slow, exaggerated head movements.
“That’s good. I was thinking that you and me and your daddy could talk awhile.”
Ellen looked at Sara, perplexed.
“Shall we sit down in the other room, or do you want to stay in here?”
“Here,” said Ellen.
“Good, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Sara moved the only chair in the room over to the bed and sat down on it. Henrik sank down in a crouch a little ways from them.
“You can bring in a chair if you want,” said Sara to him.
“This is fine.”
He leaned back so that he could support himself against the wall.
“Is that your game of Chinese checkers?” Sara asked Ellen.
“It’s a fox-and-geese game,” said Ellen, squeezing along the edge of the playing area with her fingers.
“That’s true,” said Sara. “I saw wrong.”
She asked a little more about the fox-and-geese game, then they talked awhile about the ferries outside the windows before she guided the conversation to the day when the lady in the car had stopped outside the school and Ellen rode with her.
Ellen looked a little sulky.
“Could you tell about that?”
“What do you mean, tell?” said Ellen.
“What it was like. What you talked about.”
Ellen sighed.
“What do you mean, that I got gum, played on her DS, and then I had to walk the whole way back to school?” she said in a single exhalation while she rocked her head from side to side.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I would like to hear about.”
Ellen chattered her teeth in her closed mouth.
“She was going to buy a kitten, but then she didn’t find her way to the ferry.”
“A kitten from Fårö?”
Ellen kicked herself farther back up on the bed. She fingered the game. Some of the red and black pieces came loose and fell down on the bedspread.
“One time when I was on the ferry with Daddy he forgot his camera, so we had to drive back and get it. Daddy was really angry. He shouted really loud. Damn it! Goddamn it! That’s what he shouted.”
“What happened then?” said Sara neutrally.
“I got scared and started to cry,” said Ellen.
She looked furtively and appeared as if she didn’t really want to tell this. Then she suddenly brightened up and continued.
“But then Daddy stopped the car and said that I wasn’t the one he was angry at.”
Sara heard how Henrik changed position behind her.
“Then did it feel better?” asked Sara.
“Yes.”
“It’s easy to get scared when someone gets angry,” said Sara, smiling at Ellen. “It can seem a little scary.”
“Yes.”
“I get scared sometimes, too, when people get angry.”
Ellen giggled. “No,” she said. “Police officers don’t get scared, do they?”
“Do you think police officers can’t be scared?”
“No. They’re brave.”
“Yes, you’re right about that,” said Sara. “Sometimes you have to be brave. But I think it’s good to be a little scared of things, too, sometimes. If you’re never scared, you can’t be brave. Have you thought about that? You’re brave if you do something, even though you think it’s a little scary.”
Ellen stretched her neck and leaned over toward Sara.
“Then I’ve been brave,” she said satisfied.
“When was that?”
“When I started school in Fårösund.”
“That was brave,” said Sara. “It’s usually a little scary when you’re going to do new things.”
Ellen thought about it with a sly expression.
“And when I blew bubbles at swimming lessons.”
“You see,” said Sara happily. “You’ve done lots of brave things.”
Ellen sank back and lowered her eyes toward the fox-and-geese game.
Something moved outside the window. A white wall of steel plate appeared out of the fog. The M/S
Gotland
came out of nowhere. From a distance the rumbling of the engines could be heard as the ferry maneuvered in toward the pier.
“At first she looked pretty, but not the whole time,” said Ellen.
Was she talking about the woman in the car now? thought Sara. Or about her teacher? Or a classmate?
“I thought at first that she was a girl, but then a lady.”
Sara waited. Ellen noticed one of the game pieces that had come loose, picked it up, and put it into place.
“It was kind of chapped here.”
She scratched on her cheek with her index finger.
“Chapped?” said Sara.
“Yes. Here.”
Ellen pressed with her finger against her cheek so that the skin turned white around the fingertip. Then she looked up toward the window and slid quickly down from the bed.
Chapped? Dry skin, a scab, or what?
“Now they’re opening for the cars,” said Ellen.
M/S
Gotland
’s bow ports slid up. Soon the load of cars and trucks would crawl along at a snail’s pace out of the innards of the ferry.
Sara understood that the moment was past.
Fredrik could see the equipment van in the rearview mirror. In front of the van, the light gravel road; behind it, the fog like a wall. They were in the middle of the pine forest south of Vamlingbo, would soon pass the house in Nore where he had lived during that period when he and Eva … He was unsure what he should call it. Dated? Had an affair? Slept with each other?
The big stone barn emerged first out of the fog, then the house. It was the first time he had driven past since that summer. He looked at the house and, instead of the feared surge of nostalgia, had a surprising experience of time as passed. He still remembered how burningly urgent it had been for him to be with Eva those months, urgent enough that he would turn his whole life upside down, but he could not feel it. What had been so important, so vibrantly strong, was now only a then. History.
He wondered what Eva would feel when she drove past.
* * *
Five minutes later, Fredrik caught sight of a man in boots, brown corduroy pants, and a thin black jacket. He was waiting along the narrow, rough road. Behind him, to the left in among pines and scrubby alders, a small cottage with black-painted wood panels and dark green corners was visible.
Fredrik stopped and rolled down the window.
“Markus Bergvall?”
“Yes.”
Fredrik got out of the car and shook hands. Bergvall had medium-blond hair and gray-blue eyes, a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses on a cord around his neck.
“Is this the house?” said Fredrik, pointing toward the cottage.
“Yes, that’s Larsson’s cottage.”
The house was practically on the beach. It was a small weekend cabin, one hundred and thirty square feet at most, and appeared to be built in the forties or fifties. To the left of the house was a brown-glazed garden shed of considerably later vintage. The location was unique. There were not many houses so close to the shoreline this far south.
“We’ll just wait for the technician,” said Fredrik.
The last stretch of road was barely passable. Eva had fallen behind. Or else it was Fredrik who drove away from her when he stepped on the gas a little more outside the house in Nore.
As soon as Eva had arrived and unpacked they went over to the cottage. The surf was indolent and subdued out in the fog. It was not possible to see more than a narrow strip of sea beyond the stony beach.
“Whose place is this?” asked Eva.
“A family from Stockholm,” Bergvall answered. “A woman from here in Vamlingbo owned it until a couple years ago, but she was alone and couldn’t keep it.”