Until Thy Wrath Be Past (22 page)

“Father,” he says. “Wait a minute. Father.”

But Isak tells him to hold his tongue. He is not interested in explanations.

They are down at the jetty now. By the hole in the ice from which Hjalmar extracted a few buckets of water less than an hour ago.

Isak pulls off his son’s woolly hat and throws it onto the shore. Hjalmar struggles, but the grip on his coat collar has grown tighter. His father forces him down onto his knees at the edge of the hole, and the next thing he knows, his head is underwater.

He struggles with his arms. The cold threatens to explode his head. He is strong, and manages to raise himself up and gasp for air, but his father soon subdues him again.

I’m going to die now, he thinks.

And he does. Sunshine flows into his head. It is a warm summer’s day. He is walking barefoot through the forest; cones and needles stick into his feet, but his soles are hardened. His task is to bring home the horses from their summer pasture. There they are, in among the pine trees, rubbing their necks against each other. Flicking away troublesome flies with their tails. There is a smell of wild rosemary and soil warmed by the sun. Bark, moss, resin. Ants are marching across the path in front of him. The horses whinny a greeting when they see him.

When he comes to his senses, he is lying on the floor of the dressing room in the sauna. The fire is burning in the grate. He raises himself on all fours and sicks up the lake water. Then he lies down on his back.

Isak Krekula is standing over him, smoking a cigarette.

“In our family we stick together,” he says. “Remember that next time.”

Rebecka Martinsson opened the heavy doors of the town hall. She enjoyed the feel of the attractive handles, carved in the shape of shamans’ drums.

Once inside she admired the spacious hall with its high ceiling, its beautiful brick walls and the
Sun Drum
tapestry, resplendent in the colours of summer and autumn.

She reported to the reception desk.

“I need to consult the town archives,” she said to the young duty officer.

She was asked to wait a moment. After a while a man appeared, dressed in black jeans and a black jacket. His shoes were highly polished brown leather. His hair dark and combed back from his face.

“Jan Viinikainen. I’m in charge of the archives,” he said, shaking hands Swedish-style. “What can I do to be of assistance to the police?”

Martinsson raised an eyebrow.

“Oh,” Viinikainen said, “you’re a celebrity here in Kiruna. There was a lot written about you when you killed those pastors. Self-defence, I know.”

Martinsson overcame her instinct to turn on her heel and leave.

He doesn’t understand, she thought. People don’t understand; they think they can say whatever they like without hurting my feelings.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking for,” she said hesitantly. “I want to know everything about an old firm in Piilijärvi, Krekula’s Haulage Contractors.”

Viinikainen shrugged, stretching out his hands in a gesture suggesting helplessness.

“How old?” he said.

“They started in the ’40s or thereabouts. I need everything you’ve got.”

Viinikainen stood there and thought for a while. Then he beckoned to Martinsson to follow him. Descending a spiral staircase to the basement, they passed what must have been Viinikainen’s office just outside the white-painted wrought-iron gate into the archives. Unlocking the entrance to the holy of holies and making a sweeping gesture, he invited Martinsson to precede him through the gate.

They passed by row after row of archive shelves made of grey steel. Wherever Martinsson looked there were files of different shapes and sizes with cloth, plastic or metal binding. Paperback books, hard-bound books, old manuscripts neatly and prettily packaged using string and wax seals which hung down over the edges of the shelves. On top of heavy oak document cupboards were old-fashioned typewriters made by Triumph and Facit. Card-index files were crammed alongside archival boxes made of brown cardboard. Here and there were paper scrolls in every imaginable size. In one of the interior rooms there were sliding archive shelves made of steel. Viinikainen switched on the mechanism that controlled their movements.

“You can slide the shelves apart like this,” he said, pulling at a long black lever with a knob on the end and making the shelf he was standing by slide slowly to one side. “If I were you I’d start with the trade register, or possibly the
Swedish Commercial Directory
. You’ll find material from the Kiruna Technical Office over there.”

Martinsson took off her coat and hung it up. Viinikainen withdrew to his desk.

Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack, she thought. I’ve no idea what I’m after. She wandered around, examining the shelves, glancing at the articles on phrenology from the ’30s and ’40s, payment records from Jukkasjärvi’s Poor Relief Board, handicraft diaries from the Kiruna School Archives.

Stop whingeing, she told herself. Roll up your sleeves.

Seventy minutes later she found Krekula’s Haulage Contractors in a register of hauliers in Kiruna municipality, listing how many and what kind of vehicles they had, persons authorized to sign on the firm’s behalf, addresses and so on.

She searched assiduously, untied bundles that hadn’t been opened for sixty years, opened archival boxes that had been closed for just as long, turned up her nose when little clouds of dust wafted up from the documents. In the end she had a splitting headache from all the dust and cellulose she’d been breathing in.

Viinikainen appeared and asked how she was getting on.

“Quite well,” she said. “I’ve found a few things, at least.”

Vera was waiting in the car. She stood up in her cage, wagging her tail affectionately when Martinsson got in.

“Thank you for being patient,” Martinsson said. “Let’s go for a spin.”

She drove up Mt Luossavaara and let Vera out. The dog sat down immediately.

“I’m sorry, old girl,” Martinsson said guiltily.

“Bad conscience, eh?” a voice said behind her.

It was Krister Eriksson. He was in his jogging clothes. An orange windcheater clashed with the pink parchment-like texture of his face.

When he smiled at Martinsson, she noticed his teeth. They were white and even. The only aspect of his face that was not damaged by fire.

“Well, well, who’s this then?” he said, looking at Vera. “Tintin’s going to be jealous.”

“It’s Hjörleifur Arnarson’s dog. I had to take her on, otherwise she’d have been given a one-way ticket to canine heaven.”

Eriksson nodded solemnly.

“And you’ve taken over the investigation, I gather. Wilma Persson will be pleased.”

“I don’t believe in all that stuff,” Martinsson said embarrassed.

He shook his head and winked.

“Have you been out jogging?” she said, changing the subject.

“Yep. I generally exercise my back by running up the hill to the old pithead. I’ve just finished.”

Martinsson looked up at the abandoned structure at the top of the mountain, grey and hollow-eyed.

If buildings can be ghosts, then that one certainly is, she thought. No doubt it says boo to whoever dares to walk past it at night.

“Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Eriksson said, as if he had read her thoughts. “Would you like to take a closer look? I could do with a bit more exercise to ease my muscles. Hang on a minute. I’ll get my track suit from the car.”

He came back wearing a cheap mint-green track suit that looked at least twenty years old and a veteran of goodness knows how many sessions in the washing machine.

My God, Martinsson thought. But perhaps he feels he looks so hideous anyway that he couldn’t care less about the clothes he wears. It’s a pity, she thought as he walked up the mountain a few paces in front of her, teasing Vera.

He was thin and in pretty good shape: he would look good in practically any clothes he chose to wear. Though not a track suit that looked as if it had been discarded by an aerobics instructor circa 1989.

“What are you smiling at?” he said cheerfully.

“The view,” she lied impulsively. “I love this mountain. What a magnificent panorama!”

They stopped and looked down at Kiruna, spread out below them. The iron mine with its grey terraces forming the background to the town. The Ädnamvaara massif to the north-west, with its typical pyramid-shaped peaks. The wind generators on the site of the abandoned Viscaria copper mine. The church faced with spruce cladding painted Falun red, designed to evoke a Lappish hut. The town hall with its iconic black clock tower – an iron shell with protruding decorations. It always reminded Martinsson of mountain birches in winter, or a flock of reindeer horns. The horseshoe-shaped railway depot with its little red-painted workers’ cottages. The tower blocks in Gruvvägen and Högalidsgatan.

“Look at that! You can see the Kebnekaise massif today.”

He pointed to the light blue mountain range in the north-west.

“I can never work out which one is Keb,” he said. “I’m told it’s not the one that looks the highest.”

She pointed. He leaned towards her in order to see what she was pointing at.

“That’s Tuolpagorni,” she said. “The peak with the little crater. And the one next to it, to the right, is Kebne.”

He moved away from her.

“Please forgive me,” he said. “I’m leaning all over you, stinking of sweat.”

“No problem,” she said, and felt a wave of emotion surge through her body.

“The highest mountain in Sweden,” he said enthusiastically, screwing up his eyes and gazing at the massif.

“The most beautiful building in Sweden, dating from 2001,” Martinsson said, pointing at the church.

“The most beautiful building in Sweden, dating from 1964,” Eriksson said, pointing at the town hall.

“The most beautiful town in Sweden,” she said with a laugh. “The municipal architect really tried his best to make the town a work of art. In those days they still designed towns so that a network of streets all led to the square and the town hall. But the streets of Kiruna were allowed to wander along the hillside as they pleased.”

“I can’t get my head round the fact that they’re talking about moving the whole town.”

“Nor can I. Haukivaara was such a perfect mountainside to build a town on.”

“But if the seam of iron ore turns out to run under the town . . .”

“. . . then the town has to move.”

“That’s what the authorities say,” Eriksson said. “I don’t come from Kiruna myself. But I have the impression that the locals aren’t too worried. When I ask them what they think about the town having to move, they just shrug their shoulders. My next-door neighbour is eighty, and she thinks that of course the town ought to move to the west because that way she’d be closer to the shops. I think it’s all very odd. The only person who seems to have a view is someone who’ll be dead and buried when the move actually takes place.”

“I think people are concerned,” Martinsson said hesitatingly. “But the people of Kiruna have always been aware that the only reason we’re here is that this is where the iron ore is. And if the mine isn’t profitable any more, then we’ve no income to live off. So if the company needs to move the mine, well, there’s nothing to argue about. So we accept the inevitable. But if we accept it, don’t be misled into thinking that we don’t care.”

“But one thing doesn’t exclude the other.”

“No, I know. But I think we need time before we understand what it’s really all about. Before we realize that although we have no choice, we can still regret that our town will never be the same again.”

“There ought to be farewell concerts in the buildings that will be demolished,” Eriksson said. “Weeping ceremonies. Music. Lectures. Story-telling.”

“I’ll be there,” Martinsson said with a smile.

She remembered what it had been like when she’d walked up Mt Luossavaara with Måns Wenngren. He had felt cold and uncomfortable. She would have liked to point out the sites to him and talk about them. As she was doing now.

Martinsson was sitting on the kitchen sofa in Sivving Fjällborg’s boiler room. She was wearing thick woollen socks and a knitted jumper that had once belonged to her father.

Fjällborg was standing over the cooker wearing one of Maj-Lis’s aprons Martinsson had not seen before. It had blue and white stripes with frills round the bottom and the armholes.

He was heating up some smoked pike in a cast-iron pan. One of Maj-Lis’s embroidered pot-holders was hanging from the handle. Almond potatoes were boiling in an aluminium saucepan.

“I need to make a phone call,” Martinsson said. “Is that O.K.?”

“Ten minutes,” Fjällborg said. “Then we’ll eat.”

Martinsson dialled Anna-Maria Mella’s number. Mella answered immediately. A child could be heard crying in the background.

“Sorry,” Martinsson said. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all,” Mella said with a sigh. “It’s Gustav. I locked myself into the loo, hoping to read the latest issue of
Luxury Living
in peace and quiet. Now he’s rattling the door handle and yelling hysterically. Hang on a minute.”

“Robert!” she bellowed. “Can you see to your son!”

Martinsson could hear a high-pitched male voice urging: “Gustav, Gustav, come to Daddy!”

“Come on, it’s obvious he’s not going to . . . Pick him up and get him away from the door!” Mella yelled. “Before I cut my throat!”

After a while Martinsson could hear that the screaming brat was being carried away from the bathroom door.

“That’s better,” Mella said. “Now we can talk.”

Martinsson summed up what she had heard from Johannes Svarvare about the aeroplane, and how he felt threatened by the Krekula brothers.

“I think you were right from the start,” Martinsson said. “It’s the brothers.”

Mella hummed in agreement to show that she was listening.

“I was at the archives this afternoon,” Martinsson said. “To dig out a bit of information about the haulage business.”

“And?”

“I found a register of haulage contractors in Kiruna municipality. You know the kind of thing – how many vehicles were owned by the firm and how many drivers they employed. In 1940 the Krekula Haulage Contractors had two lorries, by 1942 they had four, by 1943 eight and by 1944 eleven.”