Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

  “I don’t know, but it scares me.”

  “What scares you?”

  “The thought that someone might try to kill Zeba. And that Anna is somehow involved.”

  Something in Henrietta’s face changed. Linda couldn’t say exactly what it was, but it flickered there for a moment. She decided she wasn’t going to get any further and bent down to pick up her jacket from the floor. There was a mirror next to the table. She threw a quick glance at it as she bent over, and she saw Henrietta’s face. She was looking past Linda.

  Linda grabbed her jacket and sat up. She realized what Henrietta had been looking at: the open window.

  She started putting on her jacket and stood up, turning around. There was no one outside, but Linda knew someone had been there. She froze. Henrietta’s loud voice, the window that was opened for no reason, her repetitions of the names Linda had given her, and her vehement objections to the accusations. Linda finished putting on her jacket. She didn’t dare turn around and look Henrietta in the eye, since she was afraid her realization was spelled out on her face.

  Linda quickly made her way to the front door and bent down to pet the dog. Henrietta followed her out.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help to you.”

  “You could have,” Linda said. “But you chose not to.”

  Linda opened the door and walked out. When she reached the end of the path, she turned and looked around. I don’t see anyone, she thought, but someone can see me. Someone watched me in the house and—more to the point—heard what we said. Henrietta repeated my questions and the person outside now knows what I know and what I believe and fear.

  She hurried over to the car. She was scared, but she also berated herself for making a mistake. The point at which she was petting the dog and getting ready to leave was the point at which she should have started her questions in earnest. But she had chosen to leave.

  Linda kept checking the rearview mirror as she drove away.

  46

  As Linda walked into the police station, she tripped and split her lip on the hard floor. For a moment she was dizzy, and then she managed to get up and wave away the receptionist, who was on her way over to help her. When she saw blood on her hand she walked to the restroom, wiped off her face with cold water, and waited for the bleeding to stop. When she stepped back out into the reception area she saw Lindman, who was on his way in through the front doors. He looked at her with an amused expression.

  “You make quite a pair,” he said. “Your father claims he walked into a door. What about you? That pesky door been making trouble for you as well? Maybe we should call you Black Eye and Fat Lip, to save ourselves the trouble of the two of you having the same name.”

  Linda laughed, which caused the wound to reopen and bleed. She went back into the restroom and got more tissues. Together they walked down the corridor.

  “It wasn’t a door. I threw an ashtray at him.”

  They stopped outside Wallander’s office.

  “Did you find Anna?’

  “No, she seems to have disappeared again.”

  Lindman knocked on the door.

  “You’d better go in and tell him.”

  Wallander had his feet on the desk and was chewing on a pencil. He raised his eyebrows at her.

  “I thought you were bringing Anna.”

  “I thought so too, but I can’t find her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean? She’s not at home.”

  Wallander didn’t manage to conceal his impatience. Linda prepared for the onslaught, but then he noticed her swollen lip.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I tripped.”

  He shook his head, then started to laugh. Although Linda appreciated this turn in his mood, she found his laugh hard to take. It sounded like the neigh of a horse and was far too high-pitched. If they were ever out together and he started to laugh, people would actually turn around to see who could possibly be responsible for those sounds.

  Wallander threw his pencil down and took his feet off the desk.

  “Have you called her place in Lund? Her friends? She has to be somewhere.”

  “Nowhere that we can reach her, I think.”

  “You’ve called her cell phone, at least?”

  “She doesn’t have one.”

  He was immediately interested in this piece of information.

  “Why not?”

  “She doesn’t want one.”

  “Is there any other reason?”

  Linda knew that there was a thought process behind these questions, not simply idle curiosity.

  “Everyone has a cell phone these days, especially you young folk. But not Anna Westin. How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t. According to Henrietta, she doesn’t want to be reachable at all times.”

  Wallander thought about this.

  “Are you sure she’s told you everything? Could she have a phone that she hasn’t told you about?”

  “How could I know that?”

  “Exactly.”

  Wallander pulled his phone over and dialed Höglund’s extension. She came into the office shortly thereafter, looking both tired and scruffy. Linda saw that her hair was messy and her blouse slightly soiled. She was reminded of Vanya Jorner, Medberg’s daughter. The only difference between them that she could see was that Höglund was not as fat.

  Linda heard her father ask Höglund to see if any cell phone was registered under Anna’s name. Linda was irritated that she hadn’t thought of it herself.

  Before leaving the room, Höglund gave Linda a smile that was more like a forced grimace.

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “If my memory doesn’t fail me, you don’t care much for her either. It all evens itself out in the end. Even in a small police station like this, people don’t always get along.”

  He stood up.

  “Coffee?”

  They walked out to the lunchroom, where Wallander was immediately pulled into an evidently exasperating exchange with Nyberg. Linda didn’t understand what they were arguing about. Martinsson came in waving a piece of paper.

  “Ulrik Larsen,” he said. “The one who tried to mug you in Copenhagen.”

  “Not mug me,” Linda said sharply. “The one who threatened me and told me to stop asking questions about a man named Torgeir Langaas.”

  “That’s exactly what I was going to talk to you about,” Martinsson said. “Ulrik Larsen has withdrawn his story. The only problem is, he doesn’t have a new version. He continues to deny that he threatened you, and he maintains he doesn’t know anyone by the name of Langaas. Our Danish colleagues are convinced he’s lying, but they can’t get him to tell the truth.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Not completely. But I want Kurre to hear the rest.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Linda warned. “He hates the nickname ‘Kurre.’ ”

  “Tell me about it,” Martinsson said. “He likes it about as much as I like being called ‘Marta.’”

  “Who calls you that?”

  “My wife. When she’s in a bad mood.”

  Wallander and Nyberg finished discussing whatever it was that they disagreed about, and Martinsson recounted the information about Ulrik Larsen.

  “There’s one more thing,” he added, “which is the most significant. Our Danish colleagues have naturally run a background check on Larsen, and it turns out that he has no previous criminal record. In fact, it turns out that in all other respects he’s a model citizen: thirty-seven years old, married, three children, and with an occupation that doesn’t normally lead its practitioners to criminal activity.”

  “What is it?” Wallander asked.

  “He’s a minister.”

  Everyone stared at Martinsson.

  “What do you mean, he’s a minister?” Lindman asked. “I thought he was a drug addict.”

  Martinsson looked through his papers.

  “Apparen
tly he played the role of a drug addict, but he’s a minister in the Danish State church, with a parish in Gentofte. There have been all kinds of headlines over there about the fact that a minister of the church has been accused of assault and robbery.”

  The room fell quiet.

  “It turns up again, then,” Wallander said softly. “Religion, the church. This Larsen is important. Someone has to go over and assist our colleagues in their investigation. I want to know how he fits in.”

  “If he fits in,” Lindman said.

  “He does,” Wallander said. “We just need to know how. Ask Höglund to do it.”

  Martinsson’s telephone rang. He listened and then finished his cup of coffee.

  “The Norwegians are stirring,” he said. “We’ve received some information about Torgeir Langaas.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  Martinsson went to get the faxes. There was a fuzzy version of a photograph.

  “This was taken more than twenty years ago,” Martinsson said. “He’s tall. Over one hundred and ninety centimeters.”

  They studied the snapshot. Have I seen this man before? Linda wondered. But she wasn’t sure.

  “What do they say?” Wallander asked.

  Linda noticed that he was getting more and more impatient. Just like me, she thought. The anxiety and impatience go hand in hand.

  “They found our man Langaas as soon as they started to look. It would have come through sooner if the officer in charge hadn’t misdirected our urgent query. In other words, the Oslo office is plagued by the same problems we are. Here tapes from the archives go missing, there requests from other stations. But it all got sorted out in the end, and Torgeir Langaas is involved in an old missing-persons case, as it turns out.”

  “In what way?” Wallander asked.

  “You won’t believe me when I tell you.”

  “Try me.”

  “Torgeir Langaas disappeared from Norway nineteen years ago.”

  They looked at each other. Linda felt as if the room itself was holding its breath. She saw her dad sit up in his chair as if readying himself to charge.

  “Another disappearance,” he said. “Somehow all of this is about disappearances.”

  “And reappearance,” Lindman said.

  “Or a resurrection,” Wallander said.

  Martinsson kept reading, slowly, picking his way through the text as if there were land mines hidden between the words: “Torgeir Langaas was the heir of a shipping magnate. His disappearance was unexpected and sudden. No crime was suspected, since he left a letter to his mother, Maigrim Langaas, in which he assured her he was not depressed and had no intentions of committing suicide. He left because he—and I quote—‘couldn’t stand it any longer.’ ”

  “What was it he couldn’t stand?”

  It was Wallander who interrupted him again. To Linda it seemed as if his impatience and worry came out of his nostrils like invisible smoke.

  “It’s not clear from this report, but he left, with quite a stockpile of cash. Several bank accounts. His parents thought he would tire of his rebellion after a while. His parents didn’t go to the police until two years had passed. The reason they gave, it says here in the report from January 12, 1984, was that he had stopped writing letters, that they hadn’t had any signs of life from him for four months, and that he had emptied all his bank accounts. Since then no one has heard from him.”

  Martinsson let the page fall to the table.

  “There’s more, but those are the main points.”

  Wallander raised his hand.

  “Does it say where the last letter was mailed from? And when the bank accounts were emptied?”

  Martinsson looked through the papers for these answers, but without success. Wallander picked up the phone.

  “What’s the number?”

  He dialed the number that Martinsson read out. The Norwegian officer’s name was Hovard Midstuen. Once they were connected, Wallander asked his two questions, gave him his phone number, and hung up.

  “He said it would only take a few minutes,” Wallander said. “We’ll wait.”

  Midstuen called back after nineteen minutes. During that time no one had said a word. When the phone rang, Wallander pounced on the receiver, then scrawled a few notes as he listened. He thanked his Norwegian colleague and slammed the phone down triumphantly.

  “This might be starting to hang together.”

  He read from his notes: the last letter Langaas had sent was posted from Cleveland, Ohio. It was also from there that the accounts were emptied and closed.

  Not everyone made the connection, but Linda saw what he was getting at.

  “The woman who was found dead in Frennestad Church came from Tulsa,” he said. “But she was born in Cleveland, Ohio.”

  Everyone was quiet.

  “I still don’t understand what’s happening,” he said. “But there’s one thing I know, and that’s that Linda’s friend Zeba is in danger. It may also be that Linda’s other friend Anna Westin is also in danger.”

  He paused.

  “It may also be that Anna Westin is part of this. That’s why we need to concentrate on these two and nothing else for the moment.”

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon and Linda was scared. All she could think about was Zeba and Anna. A fleeting thought passed through her mind: she would start her real work as a police officer in three days. But how would she feel about that if something happened to either of her friends? She didn’t know the answer to that question.

  47

  When Anna recognized the scream as Zeba’s, Westin knew that God was testing him in the same way he had tested Abraham. He perceived all of her reactions even though she had merely flinched and then carefully composed her features to hide her emotions. A moment of doubt, a series of questions—was that some animal or, in fact, a human scream? Could it be Zeba? She was searching for an answer that would satisfy her, and at the same time she was waiting to hear the scream again. What Westin didn’t understand was why she didn’t simply ask him about it. In a way it was just as well that Zeba had made her presence known. Now there was no turning back. He would soon see if Anna was worthy of being called his daughter. What would he do if it turned out she did not possess the strength he expected of her? It had taken him many years to travel down the road his inner voices had told him to follow. He had to be prepared to sacrifice even that which was most precious to him, and it would be up to God whether Westin too would be granted a stay at the last minute.

  I won’t talk to her, he thought. I must preach to her, as I preach to my disciples. She broke in during a pause. He let her speak, because he knew he could best interpret a person’s state of mind at such a moment of vulnerability.

  “Once upon a time you were my father. You lived a simple life.”

  “I had to follow my calling.”

  “You abandoned me, your daughter.”

  “I had to. But I never left you in my heart. And I came back to you.”

  She was tense, he could see that, but still her sudden loss of control surprised him. Her voice rose to a shriek.

  “That screaming I heard was Zeba! She’s here somewhere below us. What is she doing here? She hasn’t done anything.”

  “You know what she has done. It was you who told me.”

  “I wish I’d never told you!”

  “She who commits a sin and takes the life of another must bear the wrath of God. This is justice, and the word of the Lord.”

  “Zeba didn’t kill anyone. She was only fifteen years old. How could she have cared for a child at that age?”

  “She should never have allowed it to happen.”

  Westin could not manage to calm her, and he felt a wave of impatience. This is Henrietta, he thought. She’s too much like her.

  He decided to exert more force.

  “Nothing is going to happen to Zeba,” he said.

  “Then what is she doing in the basement?”

  “She is wait
ing for you to make up your mind. To decide.”

  This confused her, and Westin smiled inwardly. He had spent many years in Cleveland poring over books about the art of warfare. That work was paying off now. Suddenly she was the one on the defensive.

  “I don’t understand what you mean. I’m scared.”

  Anna started to sob, her body shook. He felt a lump in his throat, remembering how he had comforted her as a child when she cried. But he forced the feeling away and asked her to stop.

  “What are you scared of?”

  “Of you.”

  “You know I love you. I love Zeba. I have come to join the earthly and the divine in transcendent love.”

  “I don’t understand you when you talk like that!”

  Before he had a chance to say anything else, there was a new cry for help from the basement and Anna flew from her chair.

  “I’m coming!” she cried, but he grabbed her before she could leave the verandah. She struggled but he was too strong for her. When she continued to struggle, he hit her with an open hand. Once, then again, and finally a third time. She fell to the floor after the third blow, her nose bleeding. Langaas appeared at the French windows, and Westin motioned for him to go down into the basement. Langaas understood and left. Westin pulled Anna up onto a chair and felt her forehead with his fingertips. Her pulse was racing. His own was only somewhat accelerated. He sat down across from her and waited. Soon he would break her will. These were the last set of defenses. He had surrounded her and was attacking from all sides. He waited.

  “I didn’t want to do that,” he said after a while. “I only do what is necessary. We are about to embark on a war against emptiness, soullessness. It is a war in which it is not always possible to be gentle, nor merciful. I am joined by people who are prepared to give their lives for this cause. I myself may have to give my life.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Nothing will happen to Zeba,” he repeated. “But nothing in this life comes to us for free. Everything has a price.”

  Now she looked at him with a mixture of fear and anger. The bleeding from her nose had almost stopped. He explained what it was he wanted her to do. She stared at him with wide eyes. He shifted his chair closer to hers and placed his hand over hers. She flinched, but did not pull it away.