Had she said that, felt like that? It seemed to be characteristic of the furious harangues involved in their marital squabbles: the lack of constructive clarity. Over and over again they went off the point, lost their focus in a struggle that, in the end, was all about breaking the other person, scoring points in a kind of verbal combat.
During the shock at being left alone, she ascribed all her pain to this one upsetting fact: that the break-up had been so unexpected. They'd just bought a house, just made a new start; everything was going so well… As if change should be thought of in terms of children or perhaps marriage. The fact that he had let her down and with that one action destroyed what they had begun to build together was completely impossible to grasp at first. And the idea that time heals all wounds felt like complete nonsense.
However, she had to admit that, as time passed, the ability to have some kind of overview had grown. The pain was still there, but it was fading. In moments of clarity she could look at the failed relationship in a more sober light, remember days like the shopping trip and add to them other, similar days: early evenings in smoky bars with drunken strangers and an array of different beers, Seja waiting crossly by the door with her coat on while Martin struggled with his separation anxiety - just one more large strong one, just one more. But it wasn't really about the booze for Martin. It was more the fear of missing out: those smoky bars with drunken strangers and all those different beers, so much more attractive than the greyness of everyday life and the frightening emptiness of being just the two of them.
She checked the thermometer. It was a little milder, so she decided to let Lukas out for a while. She slipped the halter over his head and led him out on to the grass. Outside the stable lay rolls of fencing she had intended to use to make an alleyway leading to the exercise area, so that Lukas could move in and out as he wished, depending on the weather. A project that had come to nothing when Martin disappeared - like everything else.
'You don't really need me,' he'd said.
Yes I do, she wanted to say. I bloody do need you. But she had said nothing. Instead she had cried for a week.
She cried in the mornings on the way to pick up the newspaper from the mailbox. Åke Melkersson had tilted his head to one side, had even been so bold as to offer her the use of their bathroom if she needed it - the message had come from Kristina. And she only had to say the word if she needed help. A girl like you shouldn't be living in these conditions, all alone in the forest. He seemed genuinely worried. And certainly not in old man Gren's cottage. Isn't it cold at night? When Kristina had instructed Åke to ask Seja at their daily meeting whether she wouldn't like to rent a room in their modern, fully equipped bungalow, Seja had politely but firmly declined. She would cope. Time would heal the wounds. And after all, she had Lukas.
But since Åke had taken her to the place where the man was murdered, she had needed to keep her distance. It was to do with her own conflicting emotions. A sense of unease had taken over, despite the eagerness with which she had begun to describe the scene of the crime; when she got home after being interviewed by the police, she had sat down at the computer straight away. The dead man's eyes still came back to her in unguarded moments, and in her nightmares she was the one lying there on the gravel. But something else was wrong. Part of her was drawn to the place where it had happened. She needed more time. To absorb the atmosphere. Take photographs. She felt a morbid pull towards the junction where one of the roads led to Thomas Edell's workshop. Thomas Edell.
She had tried to deceive that inspector, and she was certain he wasn't going to forget it. Yet she felt guilty of something far more serious than lying. It was the motive behind the lie she was unable to defend or explain. Something had made her want to stay, to see the dead man at close quarters, to immortalise him in her mind. It wasn't only her journalistic ambition; it had something to do with an event that had happened a long time ago, in a completely different reality.
We will contact you again in order to complete your statement, he had said, the detective with the crooked front tooth. And the strong hands.
She had intended to spend the day writing. Her article about dedicated individuals working in various clubs and organisations had ground to a halt, despite the fact that she had chosen the topic herself, albeit with the ulterior motive of perhaps selling it to one of the newsletters produced by local organisations. The work she had put in at the beginning of her training, building up contacts with people who might possibly give her work at a later stage, had to a certain extent paid off. From time to time, although it didn't happen all that often, she was asked to report on the opening of a sports hall, for example. There was fierce competition for even the most trivial jobs, and she hadn't even finished her training yet.
Seja had realised at an early stage that she would need sharp elbows to succeed in a profession where the idea of a permanent post seemed Utopian. Sometimes she wondered if she had made the right choice, if a safe position in a boring job wasn't better than a lifelong struggle to do something you enjoyed. When she sat there editing a piece about broken windows in a lighting shop or the result of an enquiry into domestic services, the idea that this was her passion was difficult to sustain. Sometimes she was afraid the urge to write that had been part of her since she was a child - letters, diaries, stories - would simply dry up and eventually disappear amid the constant stress and the need to compromise.
However, any assumptions about her future professional life were no more than speculation; she knew nothing yet, after all. She had embarked on a particular course, and in order to see the consequences of her choice she would have to travel to the end of the line.
The cat rubbed against her shins and Seja was brought back to earth with a bump; she threw the last shovelful of dirty straw into the wheelbarrow and took it round the back of the stable to the manure heap. She decided to leave the horse outside as long as it was daylight; the rain had definitely chased away the worst of the cold and the air felt mild against her skin.
She went inside and changed into jeans and a sweater that didn't smell of the stable, and hid her hair in a scarf. Once again she was lost in thoughts: memories of the dead man tempted her, insisted on attention, were treacherous when she lowered her guard. She was therefore unprepared when fear took her unawares, when it suddenly flooded her body and made her wish that she had never gone along with Åke to the garage. That she had put the phone down instead and gone back to sleep.
Perhaps she ought to drive to the university library to take out some books in preparation for her next assessment, but as soon as she got in the car she realised it was going to be difficult to drive past that junction. Printouts of her fuzzy pictures from the murder scene lay, tucked between the pages of her pad of file paper. She had sat with them in front of her for most of the night, thinking about events that had lain hidden for so many years and about possible punishments for compromising a murder investigation. About possibly stealing a march on Tell and getting more information about what had happened. About other ways of finding things out.
A disturbing heat spread up through her body to her head as she once again allowed the scene of the crime to pass before her mind's eye, excitement and embarrassment alternating with one another. She almost managed to push away the memory of the inspector's expression when he established that she had lied.
She had lied, had already embarked on a particular course. In order to see the consequences of her choice she would have to travel to the end of the line.
She considered going back to the farm, however insane that might be.
The blood was coursing through her body, faster, hotter. More palpable than for a long time.
* * *
Chapter 11
'Bloody kids,' he muttered between gritted teeth as he slammed the door of the tack room shut. Out in the corridor the noticeboard was plastered with angry messages like a laundry room in a block of flats: ' When you sweep the stable passageway, do NOT tip the muck into the well. It gets blocked!!!! Whoe
ver stole a bucket of silage from me the other day, put it back by Saturday at the LATEST, or else I'll be talking to Reino about it!!!'
Reino sighed from the bottom of his lungs. When he decided to do up the stable block on the farm and rent out stables to girls in the area who owned their own horses, he thought it would be an easy way to get a bit of extra income. The building was just standing there, after all. And since his daughter Sara had been nagging him about getting a horse for years, he got the job done, combining business with pleasure, so to speak.
However, he was finding it hard to remember exactly where the pleasure lay in this particular enterprise. Especially since Sara had rapidly grown tired of her horse and had turned her attention to mopeds and the opposite sex. And as far as the extra income was concerned, it certainly wasn't easy money. He had never had to work so hard for such a small amount of money.
The obvious duties of a landlord, for example fixing a leaky roof or a broken fence, were nothing compared with the abundance of additional needs he was expected to meet. And worst of all were the endless conflicts. He had lost count of the number of times he had sat at the kitchen table, squirming uncomfortably opposite yet another sobbing teenage girl.
It was a hell of an effort, a hell of a struggle, but he had spent 70,000 on doing up the stable block, and shutting down the business would be like throwing the money away. Besides which, they needed all the extra income they could get, even if it was only a small amount. Financially, they were on their knees. Gertrud had a bad back and could no longer cope with her job as a child minder, which meant that more than a third of their monthly income had disappeared. And these days farming didn't bring in much money.
Sometimes he thought the only way out would be to move. Then it was the rage that made him carry on working. The rage, and the thought of the little apartment and the unemployment that would be their fate.
And the thought of Sara. He nourished the hope that one day she would have the opportunity to make the same choice he had: to go in for agriculture, even if it was financially impossible to live as a farmer in today's society. If you don't want to live on subsidies, that is.
The rage. That was what gave him the strength to keep going. Not that he was all that old, and he was still as strong as an ox when he needed to be. On those mornings when he could hardly summon the energy to swing himself up on to the tractor, he was fighting against a different kind of tiredness. A feebleness on a completely different level, which neither rest nor a visit to the doctor could cure.
The slamming of the tack room door, obligatory whenever he visited the stable block these days, usually fell on deaf ears, but he had learned that it was necessary now and then to loosen the pressure valve on the brooding, clanking machinery in his stomach, to let out a little burst of rage in the form of a slammed door or screeching of tyres as he pulled away from the stables. The past few years had certainly been bloody difficult.
As Reino slumped on to the seat he met his own eyes in the rear- view mirror - a little bit red-rimmed. He ran his hand thoughtfully over his stubble before he turned the key in the ignition and drove off. As he sped alongside the pasture the noise made the horses shy away from the fence.
Through force of habit he gathered the strength to drive past Lise- Lott's house and the workshop, because no horse-mad girl - or even EU regulations, for that matter - had the ability to put him in such a bad mood as the sight of that bitch. Not to mention her new husband, running around like some big girl photographing old buildings or half-rotten trees and weeds.
On one occasion Reino had actually gone over to have a chat with Waltz because every attempt he had made to talk to that stupid bitch had ended up in a row. He had been well prepared, and had even taken a small bottle of whisky to show that he came with the best of intentions. He was willing to resolve the situation in the best possible way for all concerned. After all, his own situation was not financially viable in the long term, and Waltz was in the same position, if you thought about it. As far as Reino understood, Waltz hadn't known much about cars when he got the workshop as part of the package that came with Lise-Lott, so to speak, and didn't know anything at all about farming. If Reino understood correctly, Waltz wasn't even intending to make use of the land that belonged to Thomas's and Reino's parents' farm.
My parents' home, Thomas's parents' home. He sucked on every syllable, but Waltz had pretended not to understand, had just gone on and on about his photography and how the landscape around the farm appealed to him. How happy he was to be living in this particular spot, thanks to the fact that he had met Lise-Lott. Reino had just wanted to punch him, and had laid it on the line so the fool could understand.
'Thomas is gone, and in my capacity as his brother it's my duty to take over the family farm, to carry on with the work - that's the way it should be. I mean, somebody has to do it, and my own place is just too small. It doesn't bring anything in. Lise-Lott knows nothing about farming, and watching her try to keep the car workshop open has been a complete joke. A woman!'
It took all his strength to restrain himself.
'Listen. I grew up here; my father ploughed these fields. As long as Thomas was alive and he and Lise-Lott were running the farm, I had my own projects, but now Thomas is dead I have a right to my father's land. It's obvious. In fact, Lise-Lott had been planning to hand over the farm just before you came on the scene. For a symbolic amount, of course, perhaps in exchange for our place. I mean, what's she going to do with all that extra land - it's nothing but a headache.'
He thought his argument was quite well put; he was even generous enough to offer to let Waltz and the bitch carry on living in the house. Theoretically he wouldn't need it anyway; he was quite comfortable in the larger house that was Gertrud's childhood home.
But that skinny wimp Waltz had suddenly turned nasty and refused to listen. In his opinion the person who had a right to the farm according to Swedish law was Thomas Edell's widow, namely Lise- Lott, and therefore it was entirely up to Lise-Lott to make any decisions regarding the house and the land. If Reino wished to discuss her late husband's inheritance, then he would have to conduct that discussion with Lise-Lott herself.
'Besides, I did a bit of work on cars during my military service. I wasn't completely useless.'
With that salvo Waltz had turned on his heel and stalked up the stone steps that Reino's father had made because his mother wanted to feel more like a lady of the manor and less like a farmer's wife. The stone steps where Reino and his brother used to sit, dressed in their Sunday best, while they waited for their parents to get ready for church.
The fury had hit him like an explosion inside his head. He had had to exercise extreme self-control to avoid running after Waltz and knocking him to the ground, which wouldn't have been a good idea, bearing in mind that he was busy formulating a legal challenge to his brother's widow.
As usual he got hot under the collar even remembering that conversation with Waltz. But now everything had been turned upside down. When he reached the bend by Lise-Lott's place he slowed down as much as he dared without attracting attention, and drove slowly past the police tape flapping in the faint breeze. The machinery that had been grinding away in his stomach earlier had now fallen silent.
* * *
Chapter 12
Karin Beckman was looking at the chain distrustfully. Every time the muscular body of the dog launched an attack, the chain appeared to be yanked to breaking point. She didn't want to think about what would happen if it actually snapped.
'You look a bit pale, Beckman.' Gonzales laughed. 'You're not telling me you're frightened of this little chap?'
Beckman snorted. 'I don't see you going over to give him a cuddle.'
She fell silent as the door of the glassed-in veranda flew open with a crash.
'QUIET, SIMBA! QUIET!'
The woman was wearing a dressing gown over, jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was in rollers under a thin scarf. She jerked a cigarette out of the corner of h
er mouth. Gonzales nudged Beckman in the side.
'I'm more bloody frightened of her'.
The expression on the woman's face made them explain their business quickly. A little while later they had made it past the Rottweiler. Once it was off the chain, it turned out to be more interested in nuzzling them in the crotch.
They were sitting in a scruffy kitchen, each with a mug of instant coffee in front of them, despite the fact that they had both said no when the offer was made. The woman had taken off her dressing gown and turned down the volume of her powerful voice. The wall behind her was covered in framed photographs of small boys and girls in front of a sky-blue screen.
'Grandchildren,' she explained.
Since Beckman was fully occupied with rummaging in her bag, Gonzales nodded politely.
'They're very sweet. Now, if we can just get down to the matter in hand, fru Rappe. The evening of the nineteenth, the night of the nineteenth-twentieth and the morning of the twentieth of this month. We are interested in anything that might have seemed out of the ordinary during that period. For example, did you or your husband see anyone you didn't recognise?'
Fru Rappe stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray decorated with sea anemones and coughed asthmatically before she replied.
'I suppose this is about the Edells' place? I heard from the Molins that there were lots of cars in the drive and… Well, this is a small community, after all, and we do like to know what's going on. I noticed when I was driving past that the place had been cordoned off. Dagny thought there had been a break-in, but I'm not stupid enough to believe there would be such a fuss over a break-in. At least there wasn't when somebody nicked my jewellery box and our telly last autumn. No, Waltz has been murdered, hasn't he?'
The question hung in the air. She was making it crystal clear that she had absolutely no intention of carrying on until she got an answer. Gonzales squirmed uncomfortably. There was something about this woman that he found extremely demanding. His gaze was caught by an enormous Santa Claus on the lawn outside the kitchen window, complete with sleigh and reindeer covered in hundreds of tiny bulbs in all the colours of the rainbow.
Frozen Moment Page 7
