Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

“I have a tendency to make things more complicated than they are,” Anna said. “I just want her there for support, that’s all.”

  Höglund shrugged and looked at Linda.

  “You’ll have to ask your father if it’s OK,” she said. “You know where his office is. He’s waiting in the small conference room two doors down from there.”

  Höglund left them and marched off.

  “Is this where you’ll be working?” Anna asked.

  “Hardly. I’ll be spending time in the garage and in the front seat of patrol cars.”

  The door to the small conference room was half open. Wallander was leaning back in his chair, a cup of coffee in his hand. He’s going to break that chair, Linda thought. Do cops have to get so fat? I’ll have to take early retirement. She pushed the door open. Wallander didn’t seem particularly surprised to see her with Anna. He shook Anna’s hand.

  “I would like Linda to stay,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  Wallander threw a glance behind them into the corridor.

  “Where’s Höglund?”

  “I don’t think she wanted to come along,” Linda said, seating herself as far away from her father as possible.

  That day Linda learned something important about police work from both Anna and her father. Wallander impressed her by steering the conversation with imperceptible yet total control. He never confronted Anna directly; he approached her from the side, listening to her answers, encouraging her even when she contradicted herself. He gave the impression of having all the time in the world, but never let her off the hook.

  What Anna taught her was through her lies. She appeared to be trying to keep her lies to a minimum, but without success. Once, when Anna bent down to pick up a pencil that had rolled off the table, Linda and her father exchanged a look.

  When it was over and Anna had gone home, Linda sat down at the kitchen table at home and tried to write down the conversation exactly as it had progressed, like a screenplay. What was it Anna had said? Linda started to write, and the exchange slowly reproduced itself on paper.

  KW: Thanks for coming. I’m glad that nothing serious happened to you. Linda was very worried, and I was too.

  AW: I guess I don’t need to tell you about the person I thought I saw in Malmö.

  KW: No, you don’t. Would you like something to drink?

  AW: Juice, please.

  KW: I’m afraid we don’t have any. There’s coffee, tea, or plain water.

  AW: I’ll pass.

  Slowly, but surely, Linda thought. He has all the time in the world.

  KW: How much do you know about what happened to Birgitta Med- berg?

  AW: Linda told me she was killed. It’s horrible. Incomprehensible. I also know you saw her name in my journal.

  KW: Not us. Linda was the one who saw it when she was trying to fig ure out what had happened to you.

  AW: I don’t like people reading my journal.

  KW: Of course not. But Birgitta’s name was there, wasn’t it?

  AW: Yes.

  KW: We’re trying to contact all the people she may have known. The conversation we’re having is identical to those my colleagues are having with others all around us.

  AW: We rode a pair of Norwegian Fjord horses together. They’re owned by a man called Jörlander. He lives on a small farm near Charlot

  tenlund. He was a juggler in an earlier life. He has something wrong with his leg and can’t ride anymore. We exercised the horses for him.

  KW: When did you first meet Birgitta?

  AW: Seven years and three months ago.

  KW: How come you remember it so precisely?

  AW: Because I’ve thought about it. I knew you would ask me that.

  KW: Where did you first meet?

  AW: In the stables. She had also heard that Jörlander needed volun teers. We rode two or three times a week. We always talked about the horses, that was all.

  KW: You never met each other outside of riding?

  AW: I thought she was boring, to be perfectly honest. Except for the butterflies.

  KW: Which butterflies? What do you mean?

  AW: One day when we were riding, we realized we both had a passion for butterflies. Then we had a new topic of conversation.

  KW: Did you ever hear her express any fears?

  AW: She always seemed nervous when we had to take the horses across a busy road; I remember that.

  KW: And apart from that?

  AW: No.

  KW: Did she ever have anyone with her?

  AW: No, she would always come alone on her little Vespa.

  KW: So you had no other contact with each other?

  AW: No. Just a letter she wrote to me once. Nothing else.

  A slight hesitation, Linda thought as she wrote. An imperceptible tremor at times, but here she actually stumbled. What was she hiding? Linda thought about what she had seen in the hut and broke out into a sweat.

  KW: When did you last see Birgitta?

  AW: Two weeks ago.

  KW: In what context was that?

  AW: For heaven’s sake, how many times do I have to repeat myself? Riding.

  KW: This is the last time, I assure you. I just want to make sure I have all the facts straight. What happened in Malmö, by the way? When you were looking for your father?

  AW: How do you mean?

  KW: I mean, who rode the horses for you? Who filled in for you and Birgitta?

  AW: Jörlander has some reserves, young girls mostly. He doesn’t like to use them because of their age but he must have had to. You can ask him.

  KW: We will. Do you remember if there was anything different the last time you met?

  AW: Who? The young girls?

  KW: No, I was thinking of Birgitta.

  AW: She was her usual self.

  KW: Do you remember what you talked about?

  AW: I’ve told you several times now that we didn’t talk very much. A little about horses, the weather, butterflies. That was about it.

  And right here he had suddenly sat up in his chair, Linda thought, a tactical maneuver telling Anna to be on her guard.

  KW: We have another name from your diary: Vigsten. He lives on Ned ergade in Copenhagen.

  Anna had looked over at Linda in surprise, then narrowed her eyes. There goes that friendship, Linda had thought at the time. If it wasn’t gone already, that is.

  AW: Clearly someone has read more of my journal than I realized.

  KW: That may be. Vigsten. What can you tell me about that name?

  AW: Why is this important?

  KW: I don’t know if it’s important.

  AW: Does he have anything to do with Birgitta?

  KW: Perhaps.

  AW: He’s a piano teacher. He was my teacher for a while, and we’ve kept in touch since then.

  KW: Is that it?

  AW: Yes.

  KW: When was he your teacher?

  AW: It was during the fall of 1997.

  KW: And only then?

  AW: Yes.

  KW: Dare I ask why you stopped going to him?

  AW: I wasn’t good enough.

  KW: Did he tell you that?

  AW: I did. Not to him, to myself.

  KW: It must have cost a great deal of money to have a piano teacher in Copenhagen, with all that travel.

  AW: It’s a matter of setting priorities.

  KW: You’re going to be a doctor, I understand.

  AW: Yes.

  KW: How is it going?

  AW: What do you mean?

  KW: Your studies.

  AW: Fine.

  At this point Wallander’s manner changed. He leaned toward Anna, still friendly, but now he clearly meant business.

  KW: Birgitta Medberg was murdered in Rannesholm in an unusually brutal way. Someone severed her head and hands. Can you think of anyone who could do such a thing?

  AW: No.

  Anna was very calm, Linda thought. Too calm. Calm in the way that only someone who knows wh
at’s coming can be. But then she retracted her conclusion. It was possible, but she shouldn’t make the leap prematurely.

  KW: Can you understand how anyone could do this to her?

  AW: No.

  Then came the abrupt finish. After her last answer his hands came down on the table.

  KW: Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.

  AW: But I haven’t actually been able to help you with anything.

  KW: Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Anna. Thank you again. You may hear more from us at some point.

  He had escorted them both back to the reception area. Linda noticed that Anna was tense. She must be wondering what she said without knowing. My dad is still questioning her, but he’s doing it inside her head, waiting to see what she’s going to say.

  Linda pushed the paper away and stretched her back. Then she called her father on his cell phone.

  “I don’t have time to talk. I hope you found it instructive.”

  “Absolutely. But I don’t think she was telling the truth.”

  “I think we can safely assume she wasn’t telling us the whole truth. But the question is why. Do you know what I think?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “I think her father has actually returned. But we can talk more about that tonight.”

  Wallander came back to the apartment just after seven o’clock. Linda had cooked dinner. They sat down at the kitchen table and he had just started discussing the grounds he had for thinking that Anna’s father had returned when the phone rang.

  She could tell from his face that it was something serious.

  36

  They had arranged to meet in a parking lot between Malmö and Ystad. Even a parking lot could become a cathedral if you chose to see it that way. The balmy September air rose from the ground like pillars for this towering yet invisible church.

  He had told them to be there at three, instructing them to wear normal clothes since they would be impersonating tourists from Poland on a shopping trip in Sweden. Alone or in small groups, they would arrive from different directions and receive their final instructions from Erik Westin, who would have Torgeir Langaas at his side.

  Westin had spent the last few weeks in a mobile home in a camping area in Höör. He had given up the apartment in Helsingborg and bought a cheap used mobile home in Svedala. His beat-up Volvo had transported it to the camping lot. Apart from his meetings with Langaas and the plans they had carried out together, he had spent all his time in the mobile home, praying and preparing for the task ahead. Every morning he looked into the little mirror on the wall and asked himself if he was staring into the eyes of a madman. No one could become a prophet without a great deal of inborn humility, he would think to himself. To be strong was to be able to ask oneself the hardest questions. Even if his commitment to the task God had assigned him never wavered, he still needed to be sure that he was not carried away with pride. But the eyes gazing steadily back at him from the mirror only confirmed what he already knew: that he was the anointed leader of the new age. There was nothing misguided about the great task that lay before them. Everything was already spelled out in the Holy Book. The Christian world had become mired in a bog of misconceptions and had tried God’s patience to the point that He had simply given up, waiting for the one who was prepared act as His true servant, to step in and set things right.

  “There is only one God,” Erik Westin said at the beginning of all his prayers. “One God and his only son, whom we crucified. This cross is the symbol of our only hope. The cross is plainly made—of wood, not gold or precious marble. The truth lies in poverty and simplicity. The emptiness we carry inside can only be filled by the Holy Ghost, not material goods or riches, however tempting they may appear to us.”

  He had carried on long conversations with God. He had also thought a great deal about Jim Jones, the false prophet, the fallen angel. He thought about the exodus from the United States to Guyana, the initial period of joy and then the terrible betrayal that had led to murder. In his thoughts and prayers there was always a place for those who had died in the jungle. One day they would be set free from the evil that Jim Jones had committed and would be uplifted to the highest realms, where God and the angels awaited them.

  During this last little while, he had also felt affirmed and accepted by those he had once left behind. They had not forgotten him. They understood why he had left and why he had now returned. One day when everything was over, he would withdraw from the world and take up the life he had left so long ago: sandal-making. He would have his daughter by his side and all would be fulfilled.

  The time had come at last. God had appeared to him in a vision. All sacrifice is made for the creation of life, he thought. No one knows if they have been chosen to live or to die. He had reinstituted the ritual sacrifices with their origins in the earliest days of Christianity. Life and death went hand in hand; God was both logical and wise. Killing in order to sustain life was an important practice in combating the emptiness that existed inside man. And now the moment was here.

  On the morning of the day that they were to meet in the parking lot, Erik Westin went down to the dark lake that still retained some of the summer’s heat. He washed himself thoroughly, clipped his nails, and shaved. He was alone in the remote camping area. After Langaas called, Westin threw his cell phone into the lake. Then he put on his clothes, taking his Bible and money with him to the car and driving a short distance up the road. Then there was only one thing left to take care of. He set fire to the mobile home, and drove away.

  Altogether there were twenty-six of them, seventeen men and nine women, and each had a cross tattooed on his or her chest above the heart. The men were from Uganda, France, England, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Italy, and the United States. The women were American and Canadian, with the exception of a British woman who had lived in Denmark for a long time. It had taken Erik four years to build the core group of the Christian army he planned to lead into battle.

  Now they were meeting each other for the first time. A light rain fell as they assembled in the parking lot. Westin had parked his car on a hill overlooking the lot. He kept an eye on the proceedings with the help of a telescope. Langaas was there to receive them. He had been instructed to say that he didn’t know where Westin was. Westin had often explained to him that secret agreements of this nature could strengthen people’s belief in the holy task that awaited them. Westin looked into the telescope. There they were, some in cars, some on foot, two on bikes, one on a motorcycle, and a few more who walked out from a small forested area next to the parking lot as if they had been camping there. Each one carried only a small backpack. Westin had been very strict on this point; no one was to have a large amount of luggage or wear unusual attire. Nothing that would attract attention to God’s undercover army.

  He trained the lens on Langaas’s face. Langaas was leaning against the sign posted on one side of the parking lot. It would not have been possible without him, Erik thought. If I hadn’t stumbled across him in that dirty Cleveland street and managed to transform him into an absolutely, ruthlessly devoted disciple, I would not yet be ready to give my army marching orders.

  Langaas turned his head in the direction they had agreed upon. Then he stroked his nose twice with his left index finger. All was ready. Westin packed up his telescope and started walking down to the parking lot. There was a dip beside the road that meant he could walk right up to them without being seen. That way he would seem to appear out of nowhere. When he walked among them everyone stopped what they were doing, but no one talked, as he had instructed.

  Langaas had arrived in a truck, into which they now loaded the bicycles and motorcycles, then let the people climb in after them. The cars would have to be left behind. Westin drove and Langaas sat up front with him. They turned off to the right and found their way to Mossby Beach, where they parked. Everyone walked down to the beach. Torgeir carried two large baskets with food. They sat closely pressed together among the sand dunes,
like a bunch of tourists who found the weather a little too cold.

  Before they started to eat, Westin said the necessary words:

  “God demands our presence. He decrees the battle.”

  They unpacked the baskets and ate. When the food was gone, Westin ordered them to rest. Langaas and Westin walked down to the water’s edge. They went through the plan one last time. A large cloudbank moved in, darkening the sky.

  “We’re getting just what we wanted,” Langaas said. “It would be a good night for catching eels.”

  “We are getting what we need, for we are the righteous and the just,” Westin said.

  They waited until it was evening, then climbed back into the truck. It was half past seven when Westin swung back onto the road and headed east. He turned north just past Svarte, passing the highway from Malmö to Ystad, and then continued on a road that went west, past Rannesholm Manor. Two kilometers past Hurup he drove onto a small dirt road, turning off the engine and the headlights. Langaas climbed out of the car. In the rearview mirror Erik could see two of the American men climbing off the truck: Peter Buchanan, a former hairdresser from New Jersey, and Edison Lambert, a jack-of-all-trades from Des Moines.

  Westin felt his pulse quicken. Was there anything that could go wrong? He regretted even thinking the question. I’m not crazy, he thought. I place my trust in God and his plan. He started the engine and pulled back out onto the road. One motorcycle overtook him, then another. He continued driving north, throwing a glance at Hurup Church where Langaas and the two Americans were headed. Half a mile north of Hurup he turned left toward Staffanstorp, then turned left again after stopping in front of an abandoned farm for ten minutes. He stepped out of the truck and motioned for those still in the back to follow him.