by Will Dean
‘I customise and sew and knit and add a little this and slice a little that until I’m happy.’
‘How come I’ve never seen you around?’ I ask.
‘All dressed-up and nowhere to go, darling. I like it up here and since Ludvig died, almost twenty years ago, I’ve spent most of my time in these attics. Oh, don’t feel sorry for me, don’t you dare. I love it. And I estimate I walk in excess of six miles a day up here so that keeps me young. I’ve been watching you, you know.’
‘You said.’
‘I watch everybody.’
A chill runs down my back and I look around the room, trying to check behind the racks of clothes and the peeling mannequins. It seems like we’re the only people up here but it’s such a disorderly space a half dozen killers could be hiding in the shadows.
She leads me by the hand to a window facing Storgatan.
‘Look down there.’
I look.
‘That’s my theatre set.’ She takes a pair of opera glasses from the wall. ‘I name the people I don’t recognise and I follow them every day for years on end. I tell them where to go, what to do. Sometimes they obey me and sometimes they don’t. You were Elizabeth when you first arrived.’
‘Elizabeth?’
She shrugs.
‘If you look close enough you can work out many, many things. I keep an eye out for old Puss, my grandson’s cat, I worry about him getting too close to the road.’ She rests her opera glasses against the dimpled glass. ‘I even have a friend down there I see from time to time, which is rather nice. Just a silly old ghoul.’
‘Ghoul?’ I say.
‘Just a silly old fool. And I’ve seen you go into your newspaper office and over to the police station, and driving around in that big wagon, so I knew you were a reporter even before that dreadful business.’
‘Medusa?’
‘Worst thing to happen to this town since the couple who drowned in their bed.’
‘What couple?’ I ask.
She adjusts the bendy straw in her hair, hangs her opera glasses back up on the wall.
‘You must have heard the tale, the old people who drowned when they built the reservoir outside town.’
Ah, okay.
‘Yes, I did hear something, but that was in the sixties or something?’
‘Seventy-six,’ she says. ‘When they flooded the village they made sure and double-sure all the houses were empty. But Sven and Petra Kristersson, they snuck back into their house; they had it all planned, had help, and they weighed down their bed with bricks, put stones on top of their blankets, lead weights, and they strapped themselves in tight together, and they perished right there under all that water.’
‘How awful.’
‘Well, you say that,’ she says. ‘But he was in a bad way with his bowels and she was so arthritic her hands looked like seagull claws, poor thing, so really they made a joint decision and although it was sad for their family, I know all about that, at least they made that call together and there’s a sad romance in that, don’t you think?’
We sit down and she pours tea into two china cups and passes me one and it really is very, very sweet. I can see puppets in the far distance, elaborate antique puppets with rosy cheeks, and their strings are dangling from wooden crosses hanging from the rafters.
‘To be helped to die can be a Godsend,’ she says.
‘I’m sorry about your son,’ I say.
‘Me too,’ she says, her eyes a little older now. ‘But it wasn’t his fault. I don’t blame him one iota.’
She pulls out a pendant from beneath her other necklaces. It’s a white rabbit-foot. She caresses it with her manicured finger and looks over her shoulder toward the slanted window and St Olov’s.
‘I don’t blame him,’ she says again.
The clouds part and sunlight pours through the attic windows and through the silks and chemises of all colours and makes the kind of patterns on the bleached wood floorboards that stained-glass windows make in a church.
‘Do you have any theories about Per Gunnarsson? Did you notice anything unusual through your opera glasses?’
She scratches her chin and mouths ‘drugs’ and then she says, ‘What can you do?’
‘Any theories?’ I try again.
She laughs. ‘Little old me? Well, now you mention it. There was one time about five years ago when I saw Gunnarsson outside arguing with your friend, the one who works from the hot-food caravan. I saw her push him away.’
‘Tammy? You saw Tammy Yamnim push Gunnarsson?’
‘I did,’ she says. ‘And now I think it’s time for my nap.’
She grabs a long multi-coloured pashmina and we head back downstairs. She ties it loosely around my face and leads me through the Grand Room. Stained-glass effect again, except this time right in front of my eyes; the fabric almost grazes my corneas. The ventilation system screams faintly in the background. We get to the door leading to the Receiving Room and she removes the scarf and pushes me through.
18
There’s a note in the Receiving Room from Anna-Britta, apologising for missing our meeting and saying she’ll make it up tomorrow. She reminds me to meet truck number one for a guided drive so I can interview her oldest and most knowledgeable delivery driver. I walk outside and hear voices. From the office: two women arguing in hushed tones. I tiptoe closer to the door. Talk of delayed orders and HR problems. I can’t make out many of the words but there’s a blame-game deluxe in mid-session.
I dial.
‘Tam,’ I say.
‘Hej,’ she says.
‘Did you ever have an argument, a fight in the street, with Per Gunnarsson?’
There’s a pause on the line. ‘Hardly even met him. He’s ordered once or twice but wasn’t a regular. Why?’
‘Never mind.’
The sun’s going down. We’ll have two more hours of dim insipid cloud-light and then the dark freeze will return and a long lonely night will once again shroud the town. I need a drink. I head over to my office and Lars is in so he raises his bifocals to his balding head and says, ‘Hej, hej.’
‘Hej, hej,’ I say, slipping off my gear.
I call Thord and ask about Gunnarsson’s post-mortem results but he says they’re not ready yet. I’m not in the mood for that double cheeseburger now, so I pull open the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet and retrieve a plastic cup of dry noodles, extra-spicy flavour, even though that’s not even a flavour, and head to the kitchen.
‘Your last week,’ says Nils, leaning back in his one hundred per cent authentic man-made luxury leather PVC armchair. ‘Your last week and all this happens.’
‘Yep.’
‘At least we’ll sell copies,’ he says. ‘Sorry I can’t make your drinks on Thursday. Won’t be the same without me.’
‘You’re right about that.’
I pour boiling water from the scaly kettle into my instant noodles cup and stir with a plastic spoon.
‘Let me buy you a beer later before I fly off to the Canaries. For old times’ sake.’
I look back, spicy MSG steam tickling my nostrils and making my eyes water.
‘Okay.’
I eat, slurping, flicking through online apartment ads, watching Lars’s annoyance from the corner of my eye. Lars hates anything scented or smoky, he reckons he has a perfumer’s nose or some bullshit.
The apartments down south are at least double the monthly cost of my Gavrik place for the same square meterage. I’m moving to another small town, but this one’s close to a decent-sized city. Big difference. I shut down the website and slurp the last few noodles and bin the whole thing.
I write for the print, my last print. I take what I need from the latest police statement and integrate it into my story. I focus on Gunnarsson’s life. I use what details and quotes I’ve gathered from colleagues and one I got from his neighbour. My Google alerts flash. Police have released a new piece of information relating to Gunnarsson’s injuries. There was blunt trauma
to his head from a hammer or a baton or similar. I call Thord.
‘Gavrik police. Noora speaking.’
‘Is Thord there, please? It’s Tuva from the Posten.’
She covers the earpiece with her sleeve and the next voice I hear is his.
‘Thought you’d call.’
‘Blunt trauma?’ I ask. ‘Thanks for the tip-off. Any weapons recovered? Any suspects?’
‘Nothing I can talk about,’ he says.
‘Come on.’
‘You have anything for me?’ he asks. ‘Two-way street.’
‘Rumours of drug problems. Bills not settled. Talk of a dealer in Munkfors sending a message.’
‘Anything I don’t already know?’ he asks. ‘Anything true?’
‘You checked his school records? I heard Per Gunnarsson was a bully back in the day.’
‘We know,’ he says.
‘I’ll call you if I sniff something,’ I say. ‘I promise. Now, what have you got for me?’
He sighs. ‘You’ll hear soon enough but keep it to yourself for the time being. The cut to Gunnarsson’s throat was from an extraordinarily sharp blade: a medical scalpel or similar. They can tell by the tissue damage.’
‘We looking for Doctor Death?’
‘You’re not looking for anyone. Björn’s still sore over your Medusa meddling.’
He tells me he has to go.
I want to focus solely on the murder but locals will still want the old couple-dead-in-a ditch story. Nobody here was close to Gunnarsson whereas the old couple had children and grandchildren and friends and neighbours. They were part of the complex Gavrik spiderweb. I download photos I took from their accident and crop and tidy them up and delete an image of that solitary purple glove and then I check the victims’ details online. They had one daughter: the woman they were driving up to meet in hospital. And one son: a firefighter from the local station. I search his contact details and stuff a plastic ICA carrier bag into my coat pocket and walk out to my truck.
Something’s perched on my bonnet.
By the wiper blades.
It looks like an innocent snowball but it’s not.
I check around and see one woman dragging her ICA weekly shop home in a kid’s sledge. I get alongside my front tyre and the snow skalle is facing my windscreen, facing my driver’s seat.
There’s no lingonberry blood on this one but somehow it’s worse. It has two liquorice eyes and it has a ball of what looks like chewed liquorice stuck in its mouth cavity. I can’t drive with this fist-sized skull on my bonnet. I can’t drive looking at those two black eyes. I want to punch it or smack it with a shovel like the janitor did in the factory lot. But I don’t. My gloved hand reaches out to it and I hold it gently. It’s firm. Icy. I pick it up off my Hilux and there’s a small, pointed tooth lodged in its base. My guts weigh heavy inside me and I feel like running away. Am I being watched right now? By Cici? By someone else? The tooth is animal, maybe from a large rat or a mink. Sharp. I think about taking it to Thord. I take out my phone to photograph it but then the white skull falls from my hands and disintegrates on the salted asphalt and its power disintegrates with it. I swivel and look up through a cloud of my own breath, up toward the offices and the Receiving Room and Cici’s attics, but there’s nobody there. Is this a threat? I watch as Janitor Andersson comes out of his troglodyte basement and nods to me without smiling and heads off, coughing, through the arch toward the root barns.
I start the engine, my heart thumping against my ribs. Just kids. They probably left snow skulls on all the bonnets in Storgatan.
The roads are busy with cyclists using spiked tyres, and cars with snow-mattresses resting on their roofs; thick slabs of powder that may stay there for weeks if we don’t get more sun, and if they don’t drive too fast on the E16.
I pull past the haberdashery, which used to be my sanctuary but is no more, and drive between McDonald’s and ICA Maxi; past the ice-hockey stands built from local pine, the floodlights advertising SPT Mills, and up round the back. My heart rate starts to normalise. I need to keep asking questions. I need to find out who killed Per Gunnarsson.
Firefighter Johan Linderberg lives near the two-truck fire station that employs him.
His front yard hasn’t been shovelled. Can’t blame him for that. Deep footprints scar the front garden and a cat, one of those fluffy special breeds, maybe a Maine Coon, is ballet dancing from one footprint to the next because its legs aren’t quite long enough. There are miniature snowballs stuck to its undercarriage; white pompoms crusting its fur.
I step in old bootprints just like the cat did, and ring the doorbell. Godawful tune. There’s a dead Christmas tree out here leaning against the wall and tiny threads of tinsel are still attached to some of the bare branches. I reach out to touch one and then a face appears at a window next to the door.
The door swings open.
‘Yes?’
Stubble rash on his neck. Broad shoulders. Red, barely-open eyes.
‘Hello Mr Linderberg, I’m Tuva Moodyson from the Gavrik Posten. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for your loss. I’m writing a piece in the paper to remember your parents and I wondered if you had anything you wanted to say in your own words.’
He blinks and looks me up and down.
‘I ain’t showered or nothing.’
‘That’s okay, neither have I,’ I lie. ‘That time of year, isn’t it?’
He nods and scratches his unshaven chin and opens his door wider wearing tracksuit pants and thick wool socks and a Christmas jumper with a big old moose face on the front. He has a craft knife in his hand.
‘You want me to say things for you to write up in the paper?’
He looks confused. The TV’s muted and there are photo albums scattered all over the sofas.
‘If we can just chat about them and I can ask you some questions?’
‘I guess.’
He clears space on an armchair and a sofa and I get the strong impression that he’ll want to sit in the armchair, it’s dented into his shape, so I take the sofa.
‘You want coffee?’ he asks.
‘Please. Black, one sugar.’
He walks away to the kitchen and I pick up a photo album and flick through it. It’s from the ’80s or ’90s. I can see bad hairstyles and proud school-graduation days and an old guy having a birthday lunch with flowers in his hair. One of the girls looks familiar but I can’t place her.
‘There you go,’ he says putting the mug down on the same Ikea coffee table I have in my apartment.
I sip. It’s too hot. Kettle-hot.
‘They didn’t feel no pain whatsoever, that’s what the policewoman said.’
I nod.
‘No pain or nothing whatsoever.’
‘That must be a relief to hear.’
‘It is some.’
I sip the coffee but really it’s too hot to drink so I just let it warm my fingers.
‘Did you know they would be out driving the day of the accident?’
He doesn’t say anything, just stares at my head. I get this a lot. He’s staring at my ears but trying to look like he’s not staring.
‘I’m deaf but I can hear you fine,’ I say, pointing to my left aid.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says.
I get that a lot, too.
‘No need to be sorry, I’m fine. Your parents?’
‘They never been driving these past ten years, only local to the ICA Maxi store and even then not much. I did it for ’em or my sis did.’
I gesture for him to talk more.
‘That’s who they was driving to, she’s in the hospital in Dalarna with the bronchitis.’
‘They were driving to visit her?’
‘Like I said, but Mamma couldn’t see too good and Pappa’s always been a lousy winter driver, so why they didn’t just call me and ask me to drive ’em I’ll never know.’
‘Is there anything you’d like me to include in my piece?’
‘They could have
just called me. I’d have taken them.’
I nod.
He looks at me, his eyes glazed. ‘Just say that we’ll miss ’em and we loved ’em. And you can write we’re grateful to the factory for all they done.’
I smile and notice a stack of bag-in-box wine containers piled in the corner like kid’s building blocks.
‘They’re empty,’ he says, following my gaze. ‘For my niece. She makes, well she makes rocket fuel; I can’t stand the stuff – she calls it red vodka – but it’d burn my tonsils clean off if I still had any . . .’ He opens his mouth to show me. ‘She distils it all in her bathroom and she even does a liquorice one to order, Black Evil she calls it. Then sells it in them boxes.’ He smiles. ‘I ain’t much of a drinker.’
This is more common than you might think, especially in the dark months. Home brews, potato moonshine, nasty shit.
‘Did your parents used to work at the factory?’ I ask.
‘Mamma did forty-one years and Pappa done around ten. My sis wasn’t so lucky. She had a crappy supervisor, excuse my language.’
‘Your sister?’ I sip coffee and he switches off the TV and I stop accidentally lip-reading the people on screen.
‘Good stamper, one of the best. She was let go years ago and I don’t want to go into the details.’
‘Okay,’ I say, holding up my palms. ‘Awful about Mr Grimberg wasn’t it. And now Mr Gunnarsson found dead in the old factory. Been a very sad February for the town.’
‘Been a sad February for my family,’ he says, looking at the photo albums sprawled on the leather sofa with its faux-mahogany accents. ‘Real sad.’
‘Did you ever work at the factory?
He smiles. ‘I’m a fireman, was born to it. But my niece is a stamper up there following in her Mamma’s footsteps you might say.’
And then I realise where I recognised that face in the school graduation photo.
‘Does she have bright red hair?’
‘Like a goddam fire extinguisher,’ he says. ‘Excuse my language.’
‘I’ve met her,’ I say. ‘She mentioned something about her mum, your sister. That she’s had a hard time recently.’
