Red Snow

by Will Dean

  ‘Oh, they wanted to,’ says Cici. ‘Turns out the chimney isn’t as good as a steel mast anyway, so they wanted to. But Gustav talked them out of it, he was smart like that. He renegotiated the deal and they’re still up there transmitting inane conversations all around Gavrik Kommun. We’re the beacon, the central messaging station. If your bus is running late or you want your daughter to pick up potatoes at the supermarket or your friend just got killed, then that message will be relayed via our chimney stack.’

  29

  I’m driving past ICA Maxi on my way to Holmqvist’s house. I explained I have my leaving drinks at eight so he told me he’ll provide a light pre-supper and a non-alcoholic cocktail, a mocktail, one of his own invention.

  The snowfall’s light but when I look up through the windscreen the low sky looks as though it’s holding a whole winter’s worth of snow right above my truck. My tyres work okay but I drive slower than I would in my Hilux and I take corners as incrementally as a cargo ship.

  I call the cop shop and Thord picks up.

  ‘You have two leads,’ I say. ‘Let me help.’

  ‘No comment,’ he says.

  ‘Bullshit,’ I say.

  ‘Listen. One lead. One. A dark blue or black 4x4 vehicle seen driving away the day of the murder. Witness – I ain’t saying who and it don’t matter – he reckons a guy walked out from the arch and he had a hat pulled down and he had his collar pulled up.’

  ‘The lawyer,’ I say. ‘Hellbom has a Mercedes 4x4.’

  ‘Hellbom’s got a cast-iron alibi. Chief checked it out.’

  ‘What alibi?’ I say.

  ‘If you want to help us then put the 4x4 information in your next paper. And if you see a dark SUV acting suspicious, photograph the plates for me, but keep yourself safe. And if someone says something to you, anything, you bring it to me before you take it to your editor, you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you.’

  Was Facelift at the scene of the crime? Or was it any one of a hundred other Gavrik residents who drives a dark 4x4?

  There are white rectangular lights visible through windows. SAD lamps. Plumbers and nurses and pulp-mill engineers, all desperate for a quick serotonin fix. I pull into the gas station before I drive under the motorway. I buy snow chains, just one set for the rear tyres, a hit to my overdraft but there’s no way I can be trapped deep inside Utgard forest when it’s snowing. They’re a necessity, not a luxury.

  My wipers are inadequate. They scrape back wet snow but then it builds on the edges of the glass and by the time I pass the digger yard near Utgard forest my field of vision has narrowed like I’m peering through a telescope. It’s pitch black and my headlights are cheap torches.

  A few hours with Holmqvist and then rum and hugs and goodbyes. I can do that. Utgard forest is a glacier on my right hand side, the overgrown pines blasted with snow, and the only green visible in my headlights as I turn onto the rough gravel track is the undersides of drooping branches, each tree laden with tons of snowflakes, the cold green needles almost black. I pass Viggo’s red cottage and the construction project in his garden looks like some kind of garage. One of those flimsy half-permanent ones with a corrugated, Perspex roof and a concrete base. The whole structure’s covered with tarpaulins against the snow. I get flashbacks to the time he parked in the digger yard and locked me in his car. Nothing happened, I know, but he locked me inside and played a song and lit a tea-light candle for God’s sake. I haven’t been inside a taxi since.

  My body tenses as I approach the big hill. I want to rev but not too much, some speed, but controlled, it’s a fine balance in this two-wheel rust bucket. At the top my wheels skid and if I was doing more than twenty kph I’d probably be in a ditch or face-planting a seventy year old spruce trunk right now.

  The track is narrow here, no passing places, no orange plastic poles to mark the ditches like they have on public roads. I keep slow and central and pray for no oncoming traffic. I drive past the wood-carving sisters’ open-fronted workshop. Empty. There’s a brace of stiff, dead pheasants hanging by their front door. Who needs a fridge? The fire in the stove’s still glowing red. The smell of it doesn’t seem so weird now because everywhere I go in Gavrik Kommun I smell woodsmoke. When it gets down below minus twenty like it did a week ago, people need old-fashioned fires to top-up their underfloor heating. When the cold beats the warm, people return to the simple ways: they light actual fires inside their actual houses. Fires. Indoors. I know it’s normal but as I grew up in an apartment in Stockholm with no fireplace I still find it unsettling that people set intentional indoor fires.

  Between the sisters’ place and the ghostwriter’s place the snow is deep and the grooves are starting to harden. I have no thermometer but I’d guess we’re at minus five and the snow’s coming down hard now. It’s not movie snow, big individual flakes falling slowly, almost floating down; this is a white-out, a blizzard, a frozen sandstorm. I have less than a kilometre more to drive and I can’t see a damn thing. If I wasn’t in this forest I’d probably just stop and, I don’t know, walk? But not here, not with dozens of wild elk out there, desperate, tall as rhinos, and the foxes so hungry they’re almost dead; not with wolves and bears outside.

  So I drive at about five kilometres per hour, my senses on high alert, nerves sparking, my hand gripping the condensation wiper, a plastic stick with a pivoting piece of material, wiping the inside of my screen, fridge-cold water dripping on my face.

  I remember the turns up here, the hard left and then slow, uphill right. I’m close now. My eyes are straining in their sockets and I’m desperate to see his house, desperate for ‘safe harbour’ as Cici calls it, and then I laugh because six months ago who’d have thought that I’d ever consider David Holmqvist’s house a safe anything.

  It’s his car that I see first. I pull in and turn around so I can leave quickly later if I need to. There are wires leading from his bonnet to the wooden post with the weather-proof plug socket. At least I know I’ll be able to recharge if necessary. I know I’ll be able to make it to Ronnie’s Bar on time.

  I open the truck door and an icy gust blows me back in. Struggling out, wet snow intruding down the back of my neck, I take my lever-arch file of notes titled, ‘Grimberg research’ and then I pull up my hood to protect my aids and walk over to the front door. That brief thaw was misleading. Tricked us. I haven’t walked through deep fresh snow like this for days. David hasn’t shovelled or gritted his property; no use when it’s coming down this hard. I step like a children’s entertainer, like a short cat, like a puppet on a string: lifting my feet up to knee level and then sinking them back down into the white depths. Ghostwriter’s house is well lit, security lights beaming out from the veranda posts.

  ‘Didn’t know if you’d make it,’ says Holmqvist, opening his front door. ‘Please do come inside.’

  He’s wearing a black roll-neck sweater and grey flannel trousers and he looks like a geography teacher on a first date. I can smell some eighties fragrance. His socks are cashmere.

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to this,’ he says. ‘What state is the road in?’

  ‘Bad,’ I say. ‘Getting very bad. That hill’s a struggle. When will the ploughs come?’

  ‘Tomorrow if required,’ he says. ‘When the Carlssons managed the road maintenance and the hole-filling, Hannes might have called in one of the local farmers tonight to get it clear, those tractors can get though anything. But I’m afraid our means have been diminished what with one fifth of the village no longer living here.’

  ‘The Kommun won’t help?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, goodness me, no. Private road,’ he says, taking my coat and hanging it up and showing me exactly where to place my boots. The circular rug absorbs most of the slush. ‘The Carlssons paid the maintenance bill of around, I think it was almost two-hundred-thousand kronor last year, but the four remaining householders can’t quite match that. I hope to chip in some more from next year assuming the Grimberg book sells.’

>   ‘I thought you already had a deal?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s just an advance, you see. The rest is paid out as royalties depending on sales success. If it’s a big enough hit I may well move myself to the Dordogne or perhaps a little place in the Loire valley. Somewhere I’ll be free from harassment and gossip. Change my name to something French and escape all this.’

  We step inside and he hands me a red drink in a glass filled with crushed ice and a straw and one of those little plastic mixer sticks.

  ‘Spritz,’ he says. ‘Summer drink, but I thought we needed something bright on a dull February day. Aperol, prosecco, sparkling water.’

  ‘I’ll drink a third,’ I say. ‘Have to drive to my leaving party at half seven.’

  ‘I mixed yours weak,’ he says, pointing at my huge glass with his hirsute index finger; his knuckles are tufty. ‘Yours is ninety per cent San Pellegrino. Are you hungry?’

  ‘No,’ I say, a little more abruptly than I’d intended, the thought of that ox tongue still fresh in my mind. ‘This will do me fine.’

  He lifts cling film from a large serving plate. ‘These are just crisps with sour cream and red onion and löjrom caviar, nothing special but I thought we might nibble as we work?’

  I love him for this. No tongues or brains or intestine soufflés, just crisps with salty red fish eggs.

  ‘They look great.’

  ‘Let’s take them up to my research room.’

  I follow him upstairs, his fuzzy cashmere socks at my eye level. Under my arm is my lever-arch file and I’m sipping my Aperol Spritz as I walk. It is delicious.

  ‘Come in,’ he opens the door to the first guest room. ‘You haven’t been up here before. This is my research library.’

  I have been up here before.

  There’s a trestle table, one of those thin pine things for wallpapering, and it’s covered with a tablecloth. I place down my file and take a walk around the room. Three shelved walls, each containing hundreds of identical white box-files. I pass San Francisco and Salt Liquorice and Sistine Chapel and Swedish industrialisation 1800–2000 and Soviet weaponry.

  ‘Amazing library,’ I say, sipping my spritz.

  He nods, his Adam’s apple catching on the fold of his roll neck, the mole on the apex sinking beneath the fabric and then emerging again.

  I pass Vertebrae and Virology and Vatican City and Vertigo. David’s organising his paper into piles. I sip and look at Pyramids and Pyromania and Papua New Guinea and Pablo Picasso. Mammoths and Mayan Empire and Medusa and Mexico City.

  ‘Let me begin.’ He offers me a crisp and it’s lost some of its crunch, what with all the sour cream but it is good. Partly because it’s a relief to eat anything normal here and partly because it just tastes savoury-fantastic. ‘As you know, over half of the book will be centred on the historical context of the family. I think people will find the dynasty compelling, what with their position in the community and their history. I have a few outstanding questions, and I thought perhaps you might have some answers.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I say, placing another crisp into my mouth, this one with too much of the red-orange caviar. Too salty.

  ‘Before we delve into the Grimbergs: anything new on this Ferryman business? Any arrests made?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ I say. ‘Lots of police around still.’

  ‘I hope this won’t stop you from finishing your research. I hope it won’t jeopardise the book.’

  ‘If anything people are talking more now than before. People open up when they’re afraid.’

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Well, first things first, the outside shareholder.’

  ‘Didn’t know there was one,’ I say.

  ‘Gustav mentioned it. I think it slipped out one time. The Grimbergs still own ninety per cent of the company as far as I can glean, but the outside investor owns ten per cent. It’s curious.’

  ‘Curious?’ I ask.

  ‘You can’t do a whole lot with ten per cent. It’s usually a gift or a strategic investment in a public company. But in Grimberg Liquorice, in a private firm, you wouldn’t be able to sell to outsiders, you wouldn’t be able to insist on dividends, you’d have very little say on how the company is run, and your money would be locked in. Potentially forever. Usually the only opportunity to cash out is if someone buys the entire company. So, you see, it’s curious as to why anyone would own ten per cent.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I say. ‘I can look into it?’

  ‘You mean, ask the Grimbergs?’

  ‘I can try. I can also investigate using tax returns and company files. I could dig.’

  ‘Please do,’ he says. ‘Next: the market share the Grimbergs enjoy has been in steady decline since 1979. All of their competitors have sold up to international firms or else merged together and moved into one modern unit and slashed the workforce and modernised. Have you heard from Anna-Britta? Does she have any plans to merge or sell?’

  ‘To be honest,’ I say. ‘I haven’t gotten very far with Anna-Britta.’

  He looks disappointed.

  ‘She’s been busy talking to police and increasing site security, and I get the impression she’s working herself ragged to keep the place going.’

  ‘She’s extremely ambitious,’ he says. ‘And she’s tougher than she looks. Gustav told me she’s always thought she could run the place better than any Grimberg. She even asked old man Ludvig for an executive position back in the day, a seat on the board. Apparently, he laughed and patted her head.’

  ‘Fool,’ I say.

  He gives a flat, almost pained smile, and then asks, ‘What about Cecilia and the young girl?’

  ‘Both more open, but I’m not sure they’re involved with the running of the company.’

  He nods and takes a crisp, letting it sit on his tongue for a while before closing his mouth and then his eyes. He chews slowly. He swallows. The mole grazes his sweater. He opens his eyes.

  ‘Have you seen Henrik Hellbom in there, the lawyer who owns half of the town?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Just tell me what you do know.’

  The snow outside is sticking to the window and the thermometer attached to the window frame reads minus nine. I open my lever-arch file to the contents page.

  ‘I start with Ludvig and Cecilia. Information about their travels and her perspective on Gavrik life back in the seventies. I touch on his death, it’s kind of a running theme, but I think we need to tread gently.’

  ‘Of course,’ he says.

  ‘Ludvig may have died by suicide. Poisoned himself. I suspect some sort of cover-up because of the stigma over suicide back then. Gustav took over at the age of twenty-two.’

  ‘Quite the responsibility,’ says Holmqvist.

  ‘And now Karin has quit, I think, or is considering quitting her sculpture course to move back to Gavrik. She’s worried about her mother. The pressure. The Ferryman.’

  He swallows. ‘The police will catch the culprit soon I imagine. Most criminals are idiots. Now. What’s the residence like?’ he leans in closer to me. ‘The Grand Room. Have you been past the door yet?’

  I nod and his eyes light up, his pupils growing smaller.

  ‘Pretty normal, quite Spartan really. Huge rooms.’

  ‘Huge?’ he asks.

  ‘Huge,’ I say.

  ‘Paintings, sculptures, fine furniture, things that can be auctioned off if necessary?’

  Suddenly I feel defensive of the Grimbergs’ privacy which is outrageous considering I’m being paid by Holmqvist to research them and I’m being paid by Lena, one last time, to write about them for this week’s issue.

  ‘I’m no expert,’ I say. ‘Some big pieces of furniture, smaller things would look ridiculous in that room.’

  He makes a little ‘huh’ noise and my right hearing aid hurts in my ear.

  ‘I’ve got material on lilla Ludo,’ I say. ‘And his leukaemia, poor kid. Then how many jobs would be on the line if they
ever closed down or moved. All three women refer to their duty and how it’s been drummed into them. Did you know Cecilia is a muse for herself, a living mannequin?’

  He squints. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She has an enormous clothes collection in the attic, nothing valuable, just interesting pieces she’s picked up here and on her travels. I don’t think she’s bought anything for years but she customises and alters and cuts and sews up there. It’s what keeps her going.’

  ‘That and superstitious nonsense.’

  I scratch my eyelid. ‘Some of that, too.’

  ‘How is the girl coping without her father?’ he asks.

  ‘As well as can be expected. I’ve kept her out of it as much as possible because she’s so young. I think we need to respect her privacy.’

  ‘There is no “we”,’ he says, the scar on his lip glowing in the glare from the table lamp. ‘This is my book and I’m paying you to research. Paying you well. I need everything and then I’ll decide what to exclude on grounds of privacy or sensitivity. That will be my decision.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I’m just the researcher.’

  He looks more relaxed now. Apologetic, even. I down the remainder of my watered-down Spritz, the crushed ice shards freeze-burning my throat on the way down.

  ‘Do they talk much of their old house?’ he asks. ‘The Herrgård manor house on Lake Vänern?’

  ‘Not much,’ I say. ‘Obliquely, they reference it. But not much.’

  ‘What about the wings?’

  ‘The wings?’ I ask.

  He looks at me. ‘The big fire.’

  30

  ‘The wings burnt down?’

  He walks toward the door. ‘Let me get you a top-up.’

  I follow him downstairs and notice the hair tufts at the back of his collar and dark shadows behind his ears. He turns suddenly and I feel like a peeping Tom.

  ‘How about that mocktail?’ he asks.

  ‘You said someone burnt the wings down?’

  He smiles and licks his lip from the centre scar to the left, then from the scar to the right.