Until Thy Wrath Be Past (36 page)

Martinsson reads the label. Much too fine. Wasted on her.

“I’m O.K.,” she says.

She has no feelings about what has happened. No thoughts. What was it like, being in that hole in the ice? Being dragged under the ice? Awful, of course. But it is all over now. She can feel that Måns is worried. That he thinks she is going to have a relapse. His voice is gentle, too gentle.

There is some kind of barrier between them. She longed so much for him to come up and give her a hug, but now that he is here she is hiding herself away in her tiredness and her bruises.

And there is something she cannot stop thinking about. When Tore Krekula came towards her on the snow scooter and she thought her number was up. When she almost drowned under the ice. At no time did she think of Måns. She thought about her
farmor
and her father. But not about Måns. She did not think of him until Mella handed her the mobile.

They hear a car pull up outside. Martinsson walks over to the kitchen window. It is Krister Eriksson. He gets out of the car and walks towards her front door, stooping noticeably. She taps on the window pane, points at him and then points upwards, making a come-on-up gesture with her other hand.

Then he is standing in the kitchen doorway. Wenngren gets up.

“Forgive me,” Eriksson says. “I didn’t know . . . I should have rung first . . .”

“No, no, it’s O.K.,” Martinsson says.

She introduces the two men. Wenngren puts out his hand.

“Just a moment,” Eriksson says. “I’ll just . . .”

He unzips his jacket.

Inside it is a puppy. Small and snub-nosed. Having fallen asleep in the warmth of the jacket, it sniffs and starts treading with its paws when Eriksson opens the zip.

“If you can hold it, Måns and I can shake hands,” he says to Martinsson, handing over the puppy.

The delighted look on her face makes him laugh.

The puppy wakes up. It is still blind. So little that she can hold it in one hand.

“Oh God,” she says.

It is so soft, warm and helpless. It smells of puppy.

Vera comes over and fusses at Martinsson’s feet.

“You can say hello another time,” Martinsson says.

“Is it Tintin’s?” she says while the men are shaking hands. Wenngren has pulled himself up to his full height and tucked in his stomach. Gives Eriksson’s face an inquisitive look, but is careful not to stare.

“Yes,” Eriksson says. “It came a bit early, but everything went well. It’s yours if you’d like it.”

“You can’t be serious,” she says. “A puppy of Tintin’s, it must be worth . . .”

“I’ve heard what you did,” Eriksson says, looking right at her.

He ignores the fact that her boyfriend is there. All the men in the world can be there if they want. He looks into her eyes, fixing her with his gaze.

She looks back.

“You certainly can’t have a dog,” Wenngren says to Martinsson. “You’ve said yourself that you don’t know what you’re going to do with Vera. You work so hard. And when you move in with me in Stockholm . . . Dogs shouldn’t live in cities.”

He takes hold of Martinsson’s neck playfully but firmly. The gesture is aimed at Eriksson. She is mine, it means.

Then he asks Eriksson if he would like a glass of wine. Eriksson replies that he is driving, unfortunately . . . Martinsson looks at the puppy.

“What’s happened to Kerttu Krekula?” Eriksson says.

“She hasn’t been interrogated yet,” Martinsson mumbles, her lips and nose pressed against the puppy. “She says that she and Tore tried to stop Hjalmar. We’ve let her go. There’s no proof apart from Hjalmar’s statement, and that’s not enough to charge her.”

Eriksson closes his eyes briefly. Tries to imagine Kerttu Krekula isolated in her home in the village, with only Isak Krekula for company.

“She had an opportunity,” he says. “But she’s condemned herself to a tougher punishment than a court would have done.

“I’ll have to go,” he says eventually. “I can’t keep her away from Tintin for too long. She’s at home with the other three.”

He wants to feast his eyes on Martinsson for just a little while longer.

“You don’t need to make your mind up now,” he says. “Think it over. She’ll become a lovely dog.”

“Do you think I don’t realize that?” Martinsson says. “I don’t know what to say.”

“How about ‘thank you’?” he says with a smile.

“Thank you,” she says, and smiles back.

She hands over the puppy. Their hands touch as Eriksson takes it from her. Wenngren coughs impatiently.

Krister Eriksson carries the puppy down the stairs inside his jacket. He holds tightly on to the banister rail – he certainly doesn’t want to fall with the little chap.

He gets into the car. The puppy is wrapped up cosily in his jacket on the passenger seat.

He turns the ignition key. Purses his lips. Looks at the puppy, which has fallen asleep again. Thinks about how Wenngren held Martinsson by her neck. Imagines them kissing back there in the house. Hears Wenngren saying, “He’s very fond of you, that police officer.”

When Eriksson gets home, he hands the puppy back to Tintin, who licks it thoroughly.

He strokes Tintin’s head. She has lain down on her side so that the puppy and its siblings can feed. The blinds are drawn. It is dark in the room, although outside the spring evening is light.

What did I expect? Eriksson asks himself. That she would throw her arms round my neck?

He thinks about her lying in the hole in the ice, and managing to rescue his dog. Imagines her being dragged under the ice. He tries to convince himself that love is about giving, not taking. It should be O.K. simply to be a giver. To love without expecting anything in return. But he finds that difficult. He wants her. He wants her for himself.

“I think I love her,” he says to Tintin. “How the hell did that happen?”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dead people crop up in all of my books. I very much hope that this life is not the only one allotted to us, even if it is big enough in itself.

A lot of what happens in this story is true. For instance, the German army really did have large depots in Luleå. Other things besides soldiers going on and returning from leave were transported by Swedish Railways. Swedish drivers and lorries were rented out to the German army to transport supplies to the Eastern front. Walther Zindel actually existed. A lot of German ships were never recorded officially in the harbour ledgers of Luleå.

But most of the plot is made up. I have done what I always do when I write my stories: I borrow incidents, people, places that I have experienced myself or heard about, and combine them with my own inventions. Once upon a time, for instance, two young boys really did get lost in the forest near Piilijärvi, and one of them did not find his way back home until a week later. But they were not brothers. And they did not fall out: the younger boy grew tired, and the elder one went to fetch help. I heard about the incident, and my mind immediately began to turn it into part of a plot.

I have read about the war, of course. I should mention especially
Slaget om Nordkalotten
(
The Battle for Arctic Scandinavia
), by Lars Gyllenhaal and James F. Gebhardt;
Spelaren Christian Günther
(
Christian Günther the Gambler
), by Henrik Arnstad; and
Svenskarna som stred för Hitler
(
The Swedes Who Fought for Hitler
) and
Där järnkorsen växer
(
Where the Iron Crosses Grow
), both by Bosse Schön.

Many people have given me valuable assistance, and I would like to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to some of them: Dr Lennart Edström, who helps me to understand what happens when people go over the edge; Dr Jan Lindberg, who helps me bring the dead to life; Dr Marie Allen, a senior lecturer who can explain the genetic make-up of watery life so lucidly that I almost understand what she is saying; Cecilia Bergman, a prosecutor; Pelle Hansson, a diver; Jan Viinikainen of the Kiruna municipal archives; and Göran Guné, who knows about aeroplanes. Many thanks to all of you. If there are mistakes in the book, they are not of your making.

Special thanks also to my editor Rachel Åkerstedt and my publisher Eva Bonnier, who give me encouragement or bring me down to earth in the correct amount at the right time. All the lovely people at my publisher who work on my books in various ways. The intelligent, helpful staff of the Bonnier Group Agency. And Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin and John Eyre for the original dust cover.

And thanks to my mother for her perpetual “Come on, get on with it, I want to know what happens next – I’ve been thinking about Hjalmar all week.” Thank you for your patience when I have been out of sorts and my head has dropped onto my desk. Thanks to my father and to Mona, who read my texts, check Kiruna facts, help me with Tornedalen Finnish and a thousand other things. Many thanks to Perra Winberg and Lena Andersson and Thomas Karlsén Andersson.

Life is totally unpredictable, but pretty good even so. Thank you, Per. This book is almost our third child, after all. There are a thousand things I would like to thank you for, but you know about them already. And thank you, Christer, for your love and for putting up with me when all I had time for was the book, the book, the book, and everything else was of no interest whatsoever.

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