Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

  Then she realized that they had found Birgitta Medberg.

  Or, more precisely, what remained of her.

  PART II

  the void

  16

  What Linda saw through the open door, that which had caused her father to flinch and stumble backward, resembled something she had once seen as a child. The image flickered to life in her mind; she had seen it in a book Mona had inherited from her mother, the other grandmother Linda had never met. It was a large book with old-fashioned type, a book of Bible stories. She remembered the full-page illustrations, protected by a translucent sheet of tissue paper. One of the pictures depicted the scene she was now witnessing firsthand, with only one difference. In the book the picture had shown a man’s head with closed eyes, placed on a gleaming tray, a woman dancing in the background. Salome with her veils. That picture had made an almost unbearably strong impression on her.

  Perhaps it was only now, when the picture had escaped from the page, the memory resurrected in the guise of a woman, that the moment of childhood horror was fully replaced. Linda stared at Birgitta Medberg’s severed head on the earth floor. Her clasped hands lay close by, but that was all. The rest of her body was missing. Linda heard her father groan in the background, then she felt his hands on her back as he dragged her away.

  “Don’t look!” he shouted. “You shouldn’t see this. Turn back.”

  He slammed the door shut. Linda was so scared she was shaking. She scuttled back up the side of the ravine, ripping her pants in the process. Her father was at her heels. They ran until they reached the main path.

  “What is going on?” she heard him mutter under his breath. “What’s happened?”

  He called the station and gave the alarm, using code words that she knew were meant to slip under the noses of journalists and curious amateurs listening in on police radio communications. Then they returned to the parking lot and waited. Fourteen minutes went by until they heard the first sirens in the distance. They had said nothing to each other during their wait. Linda was shaken and wanted to be with her father but he turned his back and took a few steps away. Linda had trouble making sense of what she had seen. At the same time another fear was mounting, a fear that this was somehow connected with Anna. What if there is a connection, she thought despairingly. And now one of them is dead, butchered. She interrupted her train of thought and crouched down on the ground, suddenly faint. Her father looked over at her and started to walk over. She forced herself to stand and shook her head at him as if to say it was nothing, a momentary weakness.

  Now she was the one who turned her back to him. She tried to think clearly—slowly, deliberately, but above all clearly. An officer who can’t think clearly can’t do her job. She had written this statement on a piece of paper and pinned it to the wall next to her bed. She knew she always had to keep her cool, but how was she supposed to do that when right now she felt like bursting into tears? There was no trace of calm in her mind, only terrible flashes of the severed head and clasped hands. And even worse, the question of what had happened to Anna. She couldn’t keep new images from forming in her mind: Anna’s head, Anna’s hands. John the Baptist’s head on a plate and Anna’s hands, Anna’s head and Birgitta Medberg’s hands.

  The rain had started again. Linda ran over to her father and showered his chest with blows.

  “Now do you believe me? Don’t you realize something must have happened to Anna?”

  Wallander grabbed her shoulders, trying to keep her at arm’s length.

  “Calm down. That was Birgitta Medberg in there, not Anna.”

  “But Anna wrote in her diary that she knew her. And now Anna is gone. Don’t you get it?”

  “You have to calm down. That’s all.”

  Linda slowly regained control of herself, or rather, felt a paralysis settle over her. Three, then four police cars came slipping and sliding into the muddy parking lot. The police officers got out and gathered around Wallander after quickly having thrown on the rain gear that they all seemed to keep stashed in the backs of their cars. Linda stood outside the circle, but no one tried to stop her when she eventually joined them. Martinsson was the only one who acknowledged her, with a nod, but even he never asked her what she was doing there. At that moment, in the rainy parking lot by Rannesholm Manor, Linda cut the cord to her life at the police academy. She fell in line behind the others and followed them in their long train into the forest. When a crime scene technician dropped a light stand, she picked it up and carried it for him.

  She stayed there while day turned into dusk and finally evening. Rain clouds came and went, the ground was saturated with moisture, the lights erected around the site cast strong shadows. The crime scene technicians painstakingly marked out a working path to the hut. Linda took care not to get in their way, and she never put her foot down without placing it in someone else’s footprint. Sometimes her father met her gaze, but it was as if he could not really see her. Ann-Britt Höglund was always at his side. Linda had bumped into her from time to time since she came back to Ystad, but Linda had never liked her. In fact, she felt her father would do best to stay away from her. Höglund had barely greeted her today, and Linda sensed she would not be an easy person to work with, if that ever became the case. Of course, Höglund was a full-fledged detective inspector, while Linda was a rookie who hadn’t even started working yet and who would be busy breaking up street fights before she even had the opportunity to apply for a more specialized line of work.

  She watched her future colleagues go about their business, noting the order and discipline that always seemed to be on the verge of giving way to sheer chaos. From time to time someone raised his voice, especially the irritable Nyberg, who often swore at his team for not watching where they put their feet. Three hours after they had arrived the human remains were removed from the scene, enclosed in thick plastic. Everyone stopped working as they were carried away. Linda could see the contours of Birgitta Medberg’s head and hands through the plastic casing.

  Then they all resumed their work. Nyberg and his technicians crawled around on hands and knees, someone was sawing off branches and clearing away the underbrush, others were setting up lamps or repairing generators. People came and went, phones rang, and in the middle of all this her father stood rooted to one spot as if restrained by invisible cords. Linda felt sorry for him; he looked so lonely standing there, always available to answer a steady stream of questions, making snap decisions so that the investigation could proceed smoothly. He’s walking a tightrope, Linda thought. That’s how I see him. A nervous tightrope walker who should go on a diet and address the issue of his loneliness once and for all.

  It was only much later that Wallander realized she was still there. He finished talking to someone on the phone, then turned to Nyberg, who was holding out an object for him to look at. He held it in the beam of one of the strong lights that attracted insects and burned them to death. Linda took a step closer to see what it was. Nyberg handed Wallander a pair of rubber gloves that he pulled onto his big hands with some difficulty.

  “What’s this?”

  “If you weren’t completely blind you would see it was a Bible.”

  Wallander didn’t seem to take any notice of Nyberg’s tone.

  “A Bible,” Nyberg repeated. “It was on the ground next to the hands. There are bloody fingerprints. But they could belong to someone else, of course.”

  “The murderer?”

  “Possibly. It’s a gory scene in there. The whole hut is spattered with blood. Whoever did this must have been completely drenched.”

  “No weapons?”

  “Nothing at this point. But this Bible is worth a closer look, even apart from the fingerprints.”

  Linda took yet another step closer as her father put on his glasses.

  “Open it to the Book of Revelation,” Nyberg said.

  “I don’t know my way around this thing. Just tell me what’s in there.”

  But Nyberg would not let
himself be hurried.

  “Who knows their Bible anymore? But the Book of Revelation is an important chapter, or whatever those parts are called.”

  He threw a hasty glance at Linda.

  “Do you know? In the Bible, is it called a chapter?”

  Linda gave a start.

  “No idea.”

  “You see, the young are no better than we. Whatever. The thing is that someone has written comments between the lines. See?”

  Nyberg pointed to a page. Wallander held it up closer to his eyes.

  “I see some gray smudges. Is that what you mean?”

  Nyberg called out to someone called Rosén. A man with mud up to his chest came clomping over with a magnifying glass. Wallander tried again.

  “Yes, someone has been writing between the lines. What does it say?”

  “I’ve made out two of the lines,” Nyberg said. “It seems as if whoever wrote in here wasn’t happy with the original. Someone has taken it upon themselves to improve on the word of God.”

  Wallander removed his glasses.

  “What does that mean, anyway, ‘the word of God’? Can you try to be more specific?”

  “I thought the Bible was the word of God. How much more specific do I have to be? I just think it’s interesting that someone should rewrite passages in the Bible. Is that something a normal person does? A person in basic possession of his or her senses?”

  “A lunatic, then. What is this hut, anyway? A place where someone was living, or a temporary hideout?”

  Nyberg shook his head.

  “Too early to say. But can’t they be the same thing for someone who wants to stay out of the public eye?”

  Nyberg gestured out to the forest, which was impenetrably dark beyond the spotlights.

  “We’ve had dogs search the area and I think they’re still out. The units claim the terrain is all but impassable. If you needed a hideout you couldn’t pick a better place.”

  “Any idea who it might belong to?”

  Nyberg shook his head.

  “There are no personal effects, no clothes. We can’t even determine if it was a man or a woman living here.”

  A dog started barking somewhere in the darkness as a light rain began to fall. Höglund, Martinsson, and Svartman emerged from various directions and gathered around Wallander. Linda hovered in the background, part participant, part spectator.

  “Give me a scenario,” Wallander said. “What happened here? We know a repulsive murder took place—but why? Who did it? Why did Medberg come here? Did she plan to meet someone? Was she even killed here? Where is the rest of the body? Tell me.”

  The rain continued to fall. Nyberg sneezed. One of the spotlights went out. Nyberg kicked the light over, then helped set it up again.

  “A picture of what happened,” Wallander said.

  “I’ve seen a lot of things that qualify as repulsive,” Martinsson said. “But nothing like this. Whoever did this was truly fucked up. Where’s the rest of the body? Who used this hut? We don’t know yet.”

  “Nyberg found a Bible,” Wallander said. “We’ll run prints on everything, of course, but it turns out someone’s written new text between the lines in the book. What does that tell us? We have to see if the Tademans ever visited this place. We may have to go door-to-door for answers. We’ll maintain an investigation with a broad front, working around the clock.”

  No one spoke.

  “We have to get this psycho,” Wallander said. “The sooner the better. I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m scared.”

  Linda stepped into the light. It was like stepping onto the stage without having learned your lines.

  “I’m scared too.”

  Wet, tired faces turned to her. Only her father looked tense. He’s going to explode, she thought. But she had to do this.

  “I’m scared too,” she repeated. And then she told them about Anna. She made a point of not looking at her father as she spoke. She tried to remember all the details—omitting the parts about her intuitive fears—and present all the facts.

  “We’ll look into it,” her father said when she had finished. His voice was ice-cold.

  Linda instantly regretted what she had done. I didn’t want to, she thought. I did it for Anna’s sake, not to get back at you.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m going home now. There’s no reason for me to be here.”

  “You found the Vespa, didn’t you?” Martinsson asked. “Isn’t that right?”

  Wallander nodded and turned to Nyberg.

  “Can you spare someone who can escort Linda to her car?”

  “I’ll do it,” Nyberg said. “I have to use the bathroom up there anyway. Can’t do my business in the forest—the dogs’ noses are far too sensitive.”

  Linda clambered up out of the ravine, only now realizing how tired and hungry she was. Nyberg’s strong flashlight lit up the path for her. They ran into a canine unit on the way, the dog’s tail drooping behind him. Other lights glimmered among the trees. Night orienteering, Linda thought. Police officers hunting for clues in the dark. Nyberg muttered something unintelligible when they reached the parking lot, and then he was gone. Linda got into Anna’s car, someone lifted the yellow tape to let her past, and she was out on the main road. There were onlookers all along the road to the highway, people in parked cars waiting for something to happen, to see something. She felt as if her invisible uniform was back on. Go home! she thought. There’s a brutal murder to be solved and you’re getting in the way of our work. But then she shook the thoughts away. She wasn’t a policewoman, not quite yet.

  After a while she noticed she was driving too fast and slowed down. A hare sprang out onto the road. For a brief moment his eye was frozen in her headlights. She slammed on the brakes. Her heart was beating hard. She took a few deep breaths. Lights from other cars came at her and she decided to turn into a parking lot. She turned off the lights first, then the engine. Darkness settled in all around her. She got out her cell phone, but it rang before she had a chance to dial the number. It was her dad. He was furious.

  “Do you know what you did back there? You were telling me I didn’t know how to do my job.”

  “I didn’t say anything about you,” she said. “I’m just afraid that something’s happened to Anna.”

  “Don’t you ever do anything like that again. Ever. If you do, I’ll make sure your stint in Ystad is over before you know it.”

  She didn’t have a chance to answer. He hung up. He’s right, she thought. I didn’t think, I just started to talk. She was about to dial his number to apologize or at least explain herself, but then she realized there was no point. He was still angry and it would take a couple of hours before he’d be ready to hear her out.

  Linda needed to talk to someone and dialed Zeba’s number. The line was busy. She slowly counted to fifty and dialed again. Still busy. Without knowing why she dialed Anna’s number. Busy. Linda was startled and tried again. It was still busy. A huge wave of relief came over her. Anna’s back, she thought. She started the engine, turned on the headlights and swung back out onto the highway. Good God, she thought. I’ll have to tell her everything that happened just because she didn’t show up that night.

  17

  Linda got out of the car and stared up at the windows of Anna’s apartment. They were dark. Her fear returned; the phone had been busy. Linda called Zeba again. Zeba picked up right away as if she had been waiting by the phone. Linda talked in a hurry, stumbling over her words.

  “It’s me. Were you talking to Anna just now?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! Have you been trying to call? I was explaining to my brother why I’m not going to lend him any money. He’s a spendthrift. I have four thousand kronor in the bank and that’s the full extent of my fortune. He wants to borrow the whole thing to buy a share in a trucking venture involving cargo transports to Bulgaria. ...”

  “To hell with him,�
� Linda interrupted. “Anna’s disappeared. She’s never stood me up before.”

  “Well, sometime has to be the first.”

  “That’s what my dad says too, but I think something’s happened. Anna’s been away for three days.”

  “Maybe she’s in Lund.”

  “No. It doesn’t even matter where she is. It’s just not like her to be gone like this. Has she ever done this to you—not shown up on time or not been at home when she had invited you over?”

  Zeba thought it over.

  “Actually, no.”

  “See?”

  “Why are you so worked up over this?”

  Linda almost told her about the severed head and hands. But that would mean breaking her professional code of secrecy.

  “I don’t know. You’re right: I’m worked up over nothing.”

  “Come over.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “I think you’re going crazy with all this free time on your hands. But I have something for you, a mystery that needs solving.”

  “What is it?”

  “A door I can’t get to open.”

  “Can’t do it, sorry. Call the property manager.”

  “You need to slow down.”

  “I will. See you.”

  Linda rang the doorbell in the hopes that the windows were dark because Anna was asleep. But the apartment was still empty and the bed untouched. Linda looked at the phone. The receiver was in place and the message light wasn’t blinking. She sat down and thought about everything that had happened over the past couple of days. Every time an image of the severed head flashed through her mind she felt sick. Or were the hands even worse? What kind of a maniac would cut a person’s hands off? Cutting a person’s head off was a way to kill them. But their hands? She wondered if the forensic team would be able to determine if Birgitta Medberg’s hands had been cut off before or after she died. And where was the rest of the body? Suddenly her nausea got the better of her. She only just made it to the toilet before she threw up. Afterward she lay down on the bathroom floor. A little yellow rubber ducky was stuck under the bathtub. Linda stretched out her hand to touch it, remembering when Anna had gotten the duck.