Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

  She walked around in the apartment, looking at the bed where she had lain the night before. She sat down in the living room and went through what had happened. Anna had now been missing for three days, if she really was missing.

  Linda shook her head angrily and walked back into the bedroom. She apologized to the air and started looking through the diary again. She flipped back about thirty days. Nothing. The most notable occurrence was a toothache on August 7 and 8 and a resulting appointment with Dr. Sivertsson. Linda remembered those days and furrowed her brow. On August 8, she, Zeba, and Anna had taken a long walk out at Kåseberga. They had taken Anna’s car. Zeba’s boy was cooperative for once, and they had all taken turns carrying him when he was too tired to walk.

  But a toothache?

  Linda again had the feeling that there was a strange kind of double-language in Anna’s diary, perhaps a code. But why? And what could an entry about a toothache possibly signify?

  She kept reading and looked closely at the handwriting itself. Anna frequently changed her pen, even in the middle of a sentence. Perhaps she was interrupted by the phone and couldn’t find the same pen when she was done. Linda put the journal down and went to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

  When she turned the next page she drew a breath. At first she was sure she was getting it confused. But no, there it was: on August 13, Anna had written Letter from Birgitta Medberg.

  Linda read it again, this time by the window with the sun on the page. Birgitta Medberg was not a common name. She put the diary down on the windowsill and picked up the phone book. It only took her a few minutes to confirm that there was only one Birgitta Medberg in this area of southern Sweden. She called information and asked about Birgitta Medbergs in the rest of the country; there were only a few other individuals with that name. And there was only one who was listed as a cultural geographer in Skåne.

  Linda returned to the journal and read the rest of the text with impatience. She finally reached the strange message at the end: myth fear, myth fear. But there was no other reference to Birgitta Medberg.

  Anna disappears, she thought. A few weeks earlier she receives a letter from Birgitta Medberg, who has also gone missing. In the middle of all this is Anna’s father, whom she thinks has just reappeared on a street in Malmö after a twenty-four-year absence.

  Linda looked through the apartment for Birgitta Medberg’s letter. She no longer felt guilty for violating Anna’s privacy. She found a number of letters over the next three hours. Unfortunately, the letter from Medberg wasn’t one of them.

  Linda left the apartment with Anna’s car keys. She drove herself down to the Harbor Café and had a sandwich and a cup of tea. A man her own age in oil-spattered overalls smiled at her as she was getting ready to leave. It took her a while to recognize him as a classmate from high school. She stopped and they said hello. Linda struggled in vain to remember his name. He stretched out his hand after first wiping it clean.

  “I’m sailing,” he said. “I have an old boat with a dud motor. That’s why I’m covered in grease.”

  “I’ve only just moved back to town,” Linda said.

  “What do you do?”

  Linda hesitated without even knowing why.

  “I’ve just graduated from the police academy.”

  His name suddenly came back to her: Torbjörn. He smiled at her again.

  “I thought you were into old furniture.”

  “I was, but I changed my mind.”

  He stretched out his hand again.

  “Ystad is pretty small. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  Linda hurried up to the car, parked behind the old theater. I wonder what they’ll think, she thought. I wonder if they’ll be surprised that Linda became a cop.

  She drove out to Skurup, parked on the main square, and then walked over to the house where Birgitta Medberg lived. There was a strong smell of cooking in the stairwell. She rang the doorbell; there was no answer. She listened, then called through the mail slot. When she was sure no one was there, she took out her pass keys and opened the door. I’m starting my career in law enforcement by breaking and entering, she thought. She was sweating and her heart was thumping. Alert for any noise, she carefully made her way through the whole apartment, constantly afraid that someone would come in. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for here, just something that would confirm the connection between Anna and Birgitta Medberg.

  She was about to give up when she found a paper under the green writing pad on the desk. It was a photocopy of an old surveyor’s map on which the lines and words were hard to make out.

  Linda turned on the desk lamp and was finally able to make out the writing on the bottom of the page: Rannesholm Estate. She recognized the name, but where was it exactly? She had seen a map of southern Sweden in the bookcase. She took it out and managed to find Rannesholm, which only lay a few miles north of Skurup. Linda looked at the older map again. Even though it was a poor copy, she thought she could see the outlines of some notes and arrows. She tucked both maps into her coat, turned off the light, and checked for noise through the mail slot before leaving.

  It was four o’clock by the time she reached a public parking lot by the nature reserve at Rannesholm. What am I doing here? she asked herself. Am I just playing a game to pass the time? She locked the car and walked down to the lake. A pair of swans were out in the middle of the lake where the wind sent ripples across the surface of the water. It looked like rain clouds were moving in from the west. She zipped up her jacket. It was still summer, but there was the unmistakable feeling of fall in the air. She looked back at the parking lot. It was empty except for Anna’s car. She tossed a few pebbles into the lake. There is a connection between Medberg and Anna, she thought. But what could they have in common? She threw another stone into the water. The only thing I can think of that links them is the fact that both of them have disappeared. The police are investigating one case, but not the other.

  The rain came sooner than she had expected. Linda ducked under a tall oak tree next to the parking lot. Raindrops started to fall all around her and suddenly the whole situation seemed completely idiotic. She was about to brace herself for a run through the rain to the car when she saw something glittering between the wet branches of a nearby bush. At first she thought it was a discarded beer can. She poked at one of the branches and saw a black tire. She started pulling the branches away with both hands and her heart beat faster. Then she ran to the car and grabbed her phone. For once her dad had his cell phone with him and turned on.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  His voice was unusually gentle. She could tell he was still trying to make up for the morning.

  “I’m at Rannesholm Manor,” she said. “In the parking lot.”

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “Dad, there’s something you need to see.”

  “I can’t. We’re about to have a meeting about crazy new directives from Stockholm.”

  “Skip it. Just get over here—I’ve found something.”

  “What?”

  “Birgitta Medberg’s Vespa.”

  She heard her father’s sharp intake of breath on the other end.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did this happen?”

  “I’ll tell you everything when you get here.”

  There was a noise on the line and the connection was broken, but Linda didn’t bother calling him again. She knew he was on his way.

  15

  It was raining even harder now. Linda saw something flashing through the windshield and turned on the wipers. It was her father’s car. He parked, ducked out, and jumped into the passenger seat next to her. He was impatient, clearly in a hurry.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  His impatience made her nervous.

  “Do you have the journal with you?” he interrupted.

  “No. Why? I’ve given you the text word for word.”

&nb
sp; He had no more questions and she continued her account. When she had finished, he sat and stared out into the rain.

  “A strange story,” he said.

  “You always say to watch for the unexpected.”

  He nodded, then looked her over.

  “Did you bring a raincoat?”

  “No.”

  “I have one you can borrow.”

  He popped the door open and ran back to his car. Linda was amazed to see her large, heavyset dad move so quickly, with such agility. She followed him out into the rain. He stood at the back of the car putting on his gear. When he saw her he handed her a raincoat that fell all the way down to her feet. Then he fished out a baseball cap with the logo of a local car-repair shop and pushed it down over her head. He stared up at the sky. The rain poured down over his face.

  “It’s Noah and the flood all over again,” he said. “I don’t remember rain like this since I was a child.”

  “It rained a lot when I was young,” Linda said.

  He nudged her on and she led the way over to the oak tree and pushed the bushes away so he could see. Wallander took out his cell phone and she heard him call the police station. He grumbled when they didn’t pick up right away. Wallander read out the license-plate number and waited for confirmaton. It was her Vespa. Wallander put the phone back in his pocket.

  The rain stopped at that exact moment. It happened so fast it took them a while to register what had happened. It was like rain on a movie set being turned off after the take.

  “God has decided to take pity on us,” Wallander said. “You’ve found Birgitta Medberg’s Vespa.”

  He looked around.

  “But no Birgitta Medberg.”

  Linda hesitated, then pulled out the photocopy of the old map that she had found in Birgitta Medberg’s apartment. She regretted it as soon as she had taken it out, but it was too late.

  “What’s that?”

  “A map of the area.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Here on the ground.”

  He took the dry piece of paper from her and gave her a searching look. Here comes the question I won’t be able to answer, she thought.

  But he didn’t ask. Instead he studied the map, looked down to the lake and the road, at the parking lot and the various paths that branched out from it.

  “She came here,” he said. “But this is a big park.”

  He studied the area right around the Vespa. Linda watched him, trying to read his mind.

  Suddenly he looked at her.

  “What’s the first question we should be asking?”

  “If she hid the Vespa deliberately, or was only trying to protect it from being stolen.”

  He nodded.

  “There’s a third alternative, of course.”

  Linda understood what he was getting at. She should have thought of it right away.

  “That someone else hid it.”

  “Exactly.”

  A dog came running out from one of the paths. It was white with little black spots; Linda couldn’t remember what that kind was called. Then another and finally a third dog appeared out of the forest, followed by a woman dressed in rain gear from head to toe. She was walking briskly and put all three of the dogs on leashes when she caught sight of Linda and Wallander. She was in her forties, tall, blond, and attractive. Linda saw her father react instinctively to the presence of a good-looking woman: he stood up straight, pulled up his head to make his throat appear less wrinkled, and held in his stomach.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “My name is Wallander and I’m with the Ystad police.”

  The woman looked at him skeptically.

  “May I see your identification?”

  Wallander dug out his wallet, then presented his ID card, which she studied closely.

  “Has anything happened?”

  “No. Do you often walk your dogs in this area?”

  “Twice a day, actually.”

  “That must mean you know these paths very well.”

  “Yes, I would say I do. Why?”

  He ignored her last question.

  “Do you meet many people in the forest?”

  “Not during the fall. Spring and summer there are a fair number of people in the park, but soon it will only be dog owners who make the effort. That’s always a relief. Then I can let the dogs off the leash.”

  “But aren’t they supposed to stay on the leash year-round? That’s what the sign says.”

  He pointed at a sign a few feet away. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Is that why you’re here? To catch women who let their dogs run loose?”

  “No. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  The dogs strained impatiently on their leashes while Wallander lifted away some of the undergrowth to reveal the Vespa.

  “Have you ever seen this scooter before? It belongs to a woman in her sixties by the name of Birgitta Medberg.”

  The dogs immediately wanted to pull forward and sniff it, but they were firmly restrained by their owner. Her voice was steady and without hesitation.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve seen both the Vespa and the woman. Quite a few times.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  She thought about it.

  “Yesterday.”

  Wallander threw a quick glance at Linda, who was standing to one side, listening.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, not completely. But I think it was yesterday.”

  “Why can’t you be sure?”

  “I’ve seen her so often over the last few weeks.”

  “The last few weeks? Can you be more precise?”

  She thought about it again before answering.

  “I suppose all through July, perhaps the last week of June. That was when I first saw her. She was walking on a path on the other side of the lake and we stopped and chatted for a bit. She told me she was mapping old walking trails around Rannesholm. I saw her again from time to time after that. She had many interesting stories to tell. Neither I nor my husband had any idea that there were pilgrim trails on our property. We live in the manor,” she added, “My husband manages an investment fund. My name is Anita Tademan.”

  She looked at the Vespa again and her expression became anxious.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “We don’t know. I have one last question for you. When you last saw her, which path was she on?”

  Anita Tademan pointed back over her shoulder.

  “That one I was just on. It’s a good one when it rains because the canopy is so thick. She found a completely overgrown path in there that starts about five hundred meters into the forest next to a fallen beech tree. That was where I last saw her.”

  “Then I have no more questions for you,” Wallander said.

  “Can’t you tell me what this is all about?”

  “She may have disappeared. We’re still not sure.”

  “How awful. That nice woman.”

  “Was she always on her own?” Linda asked.

  The question flew out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop herself. Wallander looked over at her with surprise but did not look angry.

  “I never saw her with anyone,” Anita Tademan said. “And if that’s all your questions I must be on my way.”

  She let the dogs off their leashes and started walking up the road that led up to the castle. Linda and her father stood watching her for a while.

  “A beauty.”

  “Snobby and rich,” Linda said. “Hardly your type.”

  “Never say never,” he said. “I know how to behave in polite society. Both your mother and your aunt have taught me well.”

  He looked down at his watch and then up at the sky.

  “We’ll go five hundred meters and see if we find anything.”

  He started down the path at a quick pace. She followed him and was forced to half-run in order to keep up with him. A strong scent of wet earth rose up from the forest floo
r. The path wound around boulders and the exposed roots of old trees. They heard a pigeon fly up from a branch, and then another.

  Linda was the one who spotted it. Wallander was walking so fast he didn’t see where a thin path branched off to one side. She shouted out to him and he backtracked.

  “I was counting,” she said. “This is about four hundred fifty meters in.”

  “The woman said five hundred.”

  “If you don’t count every step, five hundred can feel like four or six hundred meters, depending.”

  “I know how to judge distances,” he said, irritated.

  They started following the new path that was only barely visible. But both of them noted soft imprints. One pair of boots, Linda thought. One person.

  The path led them deep into a part of the forest that looked untouched. They stopped at the edge of a shallow ravine that cut through the forest. Wallander crouched down and picked at the moss with his finger.

  They made their way carefully into the ravine. At one point Linda’s foot was caught in some roots and she fell. A branch broke and sounded like a gunshot. They heard birds fly up all around them although they couldn’t see them.

  “Are you all right?”

  Linda brushed the mud from her clothes.

  “I’m fine.”

  Wallander made his way through the brush and Linda followed closely. He parted a few of the branches in front of them and suddenly she saw a small hut. It was like something out of a fairy tale, the house of a witch, the shack leaned up against the rock face. A broken pail lay half-buried in the earth outside the door. Both of them listened attentively for sounds, but there were none. Only the occasional tap of a raindrop.

  “Wait here,” Wallander said and walked up to the door.

  Wallander opened the door and looked in, flinched, and stepped back. Linda caught up with him and pushed past him to peer inside. At first she didn’t know what she was looking at.