Black Ice

by Ian Giles

  “Which woods?” Jeanette asked.

  “Somewhere down south. Garde.”

  “But it was ages ago,” said Kat.

  “Ages ago?” Jeanette repeated, who did not feel at all relieved by that information.

  She sought out more answers in Lubbi’s eyes, and something must have been going on in her own, because suddenly his face changed.

  “Let’s drop it,” he said apologetically.

  “No, why?” said Kat, whose ability to read the mood left something to be desired. “I think it’s pretty fucking exciting. What if it’s him!”

  “Him?” said Jeanette, swallowing. “Do they know who it is?”

  “Kat, let’s change the subject,” Lubbi said, looking unhappily at Jeanette.

  “They suspect it’s a guy who went missing ages ago,” Kat continued, a glint in her eye. “And that he was murdered.”

  Now Lubbi took Jeanette’s hand and squeezed it hard.

  “No, Kat,” he said sternly. “The journalist speculated that might be the case. The police haven’t said anything like that—they’re waiting for the man’s autopsy so they can identify him.”

  This was a final, desperate attempt to silence her, but the damage had already been done. Jeanette wanted to hear what Kat had to say, even though Kat just had a craving for sensation, and even though the conversation was making Jeanette’s stomach do somersaults.

  “Of course it’s him,” said Kat. “Has anyone else on the island gone missing?”

  “Who?” said Jeanette in a faint voice.

  Lubbi screwed his eyes shut and looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him up. But he didn’t let go of her hand, so she was still able to cling on to it tightly.

  “The forty-one-year-old,” Kat said triumphantly. “Don’t you remember? He was in all the papers.”

  “Do you know what, Kat?” said Lubbi. “Jen knew him, so she probably won’t be thrilled to hear this coming from you like that.”

  “Well, sorry,” said Kat with a shrug of her shoulders. “But it’s in the paper, you know. So it’s not like I came up with it all by myself or anything.”

  Then she got up and slouched away with a slight look of being wronged. Her seat was taken by Nanna, who had appeared from nowhere behind the bench. Lubbi pulled Jeanette close and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. Without really being able to explain it, tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Sorry, Jen,” he said. “I should have told you, one way or another. I didn’t put two and two together with it and that story of yours. Until it was, you know, too late. Sorry.”

  Jeanette said nothing, absorbed in her own confused thoughts with her head against Lubbi’s shoulder. She was unable to make head or tail of any of it. She had no idea how she was supposed to react to this news. How it affected her—did it even affect her at all?

  “Did you hear that, Nanna?” Lubbi asked shamefacedly.

  “Yes, I heard,” Nanna confirmed, and gently stroked Jeanette’s cheek.

  “What an idiot I am,” Lubbi said with a sigh.

  “There’s no need to drown our sorrows in advance,” Nanna suggested. “Let’s agree to postpone our grief until we know there’s something to grieve about.”

  That sounded more or less doable, and the respite gave Jeanette a few days to prepare herself for the worst. Even if she did so with sinking hopes and a growing sense of panic.

  40

  Sandra

  IT WAS THE morning of Midsummer’s Eve, and ahead of the day’s festivities they had spent the night at her parents’. Erik and his grandparents were already well under way with preparations ahead of the invasion of guests, while Sandra was still sitting outside enjoying her breakfast and the chance to read the newspaper from cover to cover without any interruptions.

  Of course she had heard about the case, but it was only now that her interest was properly piqued about this man in early middle age who had been missing without a trace for more than four years. He had been found by a member of the public in southern Gotland, in a wooded area with few people around, which wasn’t remarkable in itself, given that he had been buried, and buried corpses weren’t usually left in places where just any old person would find them. That was the whole point of burying a body—to make sure it wasn’t found for the foreseeable future.

  The fact that a crime had been committed was clear beyond all reasonable doubt—corpses hardly buried themselves. The cause of death was blunt trauma to the head, and the murder weapon was in the grave beside the body: the spade that it had to be assumed had been used to dig the grave.

  To Sandra’s ears, it sounded like an execution—had the victim dug his own grave? Peter Norling was his name and prior to his disappearance he had never “been of interest to the police,” as they put it. That didn’t surprise Sandra. He looked nice in the photo—if you could judge a dog by its breed, which you usually could in the case of mafia-style executions, whether you were evaluating the victim or the executioner.

  Norling owned a company that repaired cars. His own car—a company car—had been abandoned outside his place of work, where he had last been seen. It was featured in one of the photos in the article, and looked a bit tragic—almost rejected out there in the car park in the slush and grey, surrounded by police tape and with a big gap between it and all the other cars. The company logo was blurry in the photo—almost unreadable. But to her surprise, Sandra could picture the design of the logo and the name of the company. Why? she asked herself. She had never had any dealings with the company, and didn’t even know where their garage was. And it didn’t say where anywhere in the article either.

  It was a terrible story. After spending the morning at the garage, he had popped out at lunchtime, never to be seen again. He left behind his wife and children, house and debts, but no life insurance policy had paid out since there was nothing to suggest he was dead. Or alive, for that matter—but the insurance companies were more inclined towards the former. The disappearance had been in early February 2014, so the family had lived with the uncertainty of what had happened to their father and husband for more than four years.

  Four years and four months to be exact. Almost exactly the same amount of time she had lived in ignorance about who the father of her son actually was. But that was a deeply unfair comparison. Sandra’s life had got better—she had got happier. The Norling family’s lives had been smashed to pieces. Back then, when it had happened, and now again. It was inhuman. The rape was something she had got over. All that lingered was the contempt for the perpetrator.

  As happened often, her thoughts ended up back in that Audi. His voice droning on about this and that, the scent of an expensive car, leather mixed with the smell of booze from lunchtime, black ice forming on the road and the speed of the car that seemed to increase in step with her knuckles turning white. His borderline sadistic approach to driving, which she knew was a direct response to her fear. How instead of slowing down he sped up when they reached the bend before the ravine. If they had met an oncoming car there, it could have been Sandra who had been trapped in a wrecked car covered in snow for four days. But they hadn’t—in fact, they were fortunate enough not to meet a single car during the final miles of their crazed journey.

  Actually, wait a minute . . . Just before the bend after the ravine—hadn’t there been a car parked up in the woods? Yes, she remembered now: there had been a car in among the trees. And hadn’t a question flickered through her head at the time—what on earth was it doing there? In the middle of winter, in that awful weather—no cars ever drove up there and the road led nowhere. But she hadn’t had time to bring the thought to a conclusion, given that she had been fully occupied with fearing for her life, concerned about what they would encounter around the next bend. And now she could see it clearly—it must have been the grainy photo in the newspaper that had crystallised her thoughts. It was that car. The yellow company car featured in the newspaper, with its illegible logo—but at the ravine the logo had been fully visibl
e. PN Auto. Her memory had stashed it away somewhere at the back of her mind, enabling her to retrieve it at some point in the future when she needed it.

  Now.

  Was that what had happened when Kerstin’s husband had come round the corner before the ravine? Had Peter Norling decided to pull out onto the road in his company car at that very moment? Had he been careless, thoughtless, maybe lost control of his vehicle and forced the oncoming car off the road and down the precipice? Had he then reversed back onto the forest track to avoid being as visible, photographed the blue Audi that had passed by shortly after and stopped and then left the scene, before then climbing down to the wreck and photographing it and leaving without raising the alarm? Whereupon he had sent the photos to Kerstin to direct suspicion in a different direction.

  That must have been what had happened. Hallin was innocent, at least when it came to the hit-and-run. That was why he was able to ignore the blackmail attempt without any scruples. Peter Norling had caused the catastrophe.

  Two weeks later he had been dead—murdered. The question was why, but it seemed likely it was connected to the accident. Which in turn suggested that Kerstin was responsible for the murder. But it seemed highly unlikely, given that nothing in their nightly calls had hinted that Kerstin had known enough at the time of Norling’s disappearance to undertake such drastic measures. She couldn’t reasonably have known about Peter Norling’s role in the whole thing. And Kerstin simply didn’t seem to be a brutal person—quite the opposite, in fact.

  MIDSUMMER LUNCH WAS served in her parents’ garden with friends and family invited. After plates had been cleared of herring and new potatoes, and beers and schnapps drained, they cycled in a pack to Fridhem where the traditional celebrations were being held. There was dancing around the maypole, childish games, and fishing for the little ones.

  The rather large party had spread out their blankets on the edge of the site, right beside a copse of trees. Late in the afternoon, just before they were due to cycle home again and prepare the evening barbecue, Erik wandered off into the woods with a couple of the older children. Sebastian and Fredrika were both nine years old, and they promised to keep an eye on Erik.

  They returned twenty minutes later, each one of them carrying a bouquet of flowers assembled with childlike artlessness. Large, sprouting weeds drowning out the flowers that ought to have been the gems in each bouquet. Nevertheless, there were seven different kinds of flowers to place under their pillows on Midsummer’s night, just as the tradition dictated. The purpose of this was to ensure that one’s dreams provided a premonition of one’s future life partner—something that seemed pretty far-fetched for the three-year-old and nine-year-olds alike. A distant prospect, at any rate. But the kids were exhilarated, and that was the main thing.

  Like the other adults, Sandra showed only a passing interest in the children’s bouquets. She barely looked at them, wrapped up as she was in a conversation with one of her cousins and his wife. It was only a few minutes later when they began to prepare to leave and packed up their picnic baskets that she actually saw Erik’s bouquet. Among the thistles, chicory, and dandelions with long roots, there were also a white lily and a black calla lily hiding.

  She quickly got up and scanned the thinning crowd, looking towards the woods. Nowhere was there anyone who might be Hallin, and in among the trees there wasn’t a soul to be seen. She swept her gaze across the meadow and its surroundings once more, but if he was there he was staying well concealed. He had presumably slunk away as soon as he had completed his task.

  But what sort of nonsense was this—a grown man behaving like some kind of bloody psychopath in a horror movie? It must have been by chance—a lucky coincidence—that Erik had ended up being drawn to one side, and while picking flowers at that. But if it hadn’t happened today then it would probably have happened some other day, by some other means.

  Sandra wasn’t afraid; she was angry. But she kept her calm, firmly determined to keep her parents and everyone else out of this. Seemingly unaffected, she crouched in front of Erik and spoke to him in a kind voice.

  “Aren’t these lovely flowers that you’ve picked, sweetheart? Where did you find them?”

  “In the woods over there,” Erik said, pointing.

  “Including these ones?” Sandra asked, prodding the clearly shop-bought flowers in the bouquet.

  “Yep!”

  Erik’s face lit up like the sun.

  “Were they really growing in the ground like the other flowers?” Sandra coaxed him.

  “Yes, they were. But not as hard!”

  “No, because you can see that someone had cut the stalk here, and you’ve not got a knife, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Erik looked troubled and seemed to feel that he wasn’t being believed.

  “You weren’t given them by anyone then?”

  “No, I picked them all by myself.”

  “You did a really good job, Erik. They’re beautiful. Did you meet anyone in the woods, or was it just you and Fredrika and Sebastian there?”

  “There were other people, but we didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “No one that you particularly remember?”

  “No, we didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “Okay,” said Sandra, ruffling his hair. “You’re going to have sweet dreams tonight!”

  Erik laughed and scooted away to the other kids.

  Sandra remained standing there, watching him, lost in her own thoughts. She could understand that Hallin wasn’t all that keen on coughing up half a million in child support for a kid he didn’t want to acknowledge. She knew that. It was enough that he had stated it. And it didn’t even need saying; she understood it anyway. But this—what was this supposed to mean? A veiled threat in the form of funeral flowers—it was just downright stupid. And this was the second time—the first lot hadn’t had any impact.

  But there was one significant difference: Erik had been personally involved. Was the subtext that a three-year-old boy was going to die and be buried? Because Hallin, despite having the means, had no desire to pay child support? It was horrible.

  However, the step from sending flowers to killing was a big one, and Sandra had no intention of being scared off from pursuing the matter further. Her convictions were only strengthened: Jan Hallin was tearing towards his own demise in leaps and bounds. And Sandra had every intention of helping him along.

  Time was tight; she needed some time alone at the computer. She couldn’t get her parents or anyone else involved—people who would be guaranteed to object and probably bring the whole enterprise tumbling down. And she needed to get back in touch with Kerstin. Really soon.

  41

  Jeanette

  TO BEGIN WITH, she had followed Nanna’s recommendation to the best of her abilities, and had prepared as much as she could. She had turned herself inside out in an attempt to decide how she saw Peter after everything that had happened, and how that would change if it turned out that it was his body that had been found in the Alskogen woods. But it was draining rooting through a past that she preferred to forget, and placing it into some sort of future perspective that didn’t exactly look promising.

  Just as usual, one thing led to another. Despite her friends’ support, she felt incredibly lonely in this endeavour, and the only cure she knew for the all-too-familiar anxiety was alcohol. In copious amounts. Which left her numb in a way that partly suppressed the issue, but the result was that she wasn’t especially well prepared when the news came.

  That happened on Midsummer’s Eve itself. Jeanette was still in bed when she found out from a news site on her mobile. The body that had been found close to Digerrojr was that of the forty-one-year-old who had been missing since 4 February 2014: Peter Norling. He left behind a wife and two children.

  Instead of breaking down immediately, which was what she had hazily expected she would do, she managed in some strange way to push all emotions to one side. This left space for a relative
ly clear-headed analysis.

  Was Jeanette grieving?

  If this news had arrived at the beginning of February 2014, she would without hesitation have considered herself to be grieving. At the time, she hadn’t yet realised the extent of the presumed betrayal, and if she had, then she would in all probability have reconsidered. She would have realised she had got the wrong end of the stick, and that the feelings he had said he had for her had probably been genuine. Peter’s death would have finished her off in her state of mind at the time, but then so had what she had mistaken for betrayal—so it made little difference.

  But now? Was she in shock? Was she experiencing grief now that news had reached her of her lover’s death?

  It had been a long time since he had been her lover. On the other hand, it had been just as long since he’d been a father or husband, but they were grieving—of course they were, aside from what it said in the newspaper. Consequently, Jeanette was grieving too. When Peter had died, Jeanette had been his lover. He had loved her, she had loved him unhesitatingly. The natural thing to do now—in light of what had happened—would be to transport herself back to the situation she had been in then. To forget all the erroneous blame she had cast over his memory, to erase those four years of hatred and bitterness and forgive him. To quite simply resume her original position.

  But it probably couldn’t be done. Grief is grief—perhaps she had finished grieving for him.

  Murdered, she thought to herself. Peter hadn’t just died—someone had taken his life. Smashed his head with something solid and heavy, before chucking him in a grave so deep that he hadn’t turned up until more than four years later, when the foxes had caught wind of his remains.

  It was dreadful. Someone had done that to the man she loved. But why? How had he managed to fall out with someone to such an extent that it resulted in his death? Peter? It was incomprehensible.