'I'm afraid we can't comment on that at the moment, for technical reasons. But we do need your help, in view of the fact that you live nearby and might have seen something.'
She shrugged her shoulders.
'I don't know about nearby. I mean, I don't keep a check on everybody who drives past; I can't even see the road all that clearly from the window. But I know a number of cars went past that evening. I think there was an open viewing of a house a couple of kilometres away. Not that people are exactly rushing to view houses around here at the moment, but this was a manor house from the nineteenth century. I know that because the agent, a young girl, got her car stuck in the ditch when she met somebody coming the other way up by Sankan and Bo, my husband, helped her out.'
Fru Rappe started telling them about an occasion in her youth when she had visited this particular manor house, but then she heard a noise from the room next door and broke off. She stood up, raised her huge voice again and bellowed for Bo.
Gonzales thought quietly to himself that these people from the country were a bloody sight odder than the Chileans and Yugoslavs who lived on his street. He turned back to the woman. By this stage she had polluted the air so thoroughly with her cigarettes that his eyes were watering.
'Do you know Lise-Lott Edell and Lars Waltz?'
'Well no, I wouldn't say that I know them. Waltz hasn't been living here all that long. I've bumped into Lise-Lott from time to time, as you do in a small place. My husband knew Lise-Lott's former husband's father; they used to hunt with the same club. Lise-Lott married into the farm but perhaps you already know that. Her first husband, Thomas, died of natural causes. I think it was his heart. Not that he was very old, but I suppose it was in his genes. His father died of heart problems too. And I think Thomas was fond of a drink, just like his father. He didn't take a lot of water with it, if you know what I mean. That's the way life is for some people. And Lise-Lott had plenty to console herself with - the farm is quite substantial. Reino wasn't too pleased, of course.'
'Reino?'
Beckman noticed that Gonzales was scribbling feverishly and wished she had brought the tape recorder along. Sitting in the kitchen with a dyed-in-the-wool gossip, you were bound to find out all kinds of interesting things. Perhaps even the odd motive for murder.
'Reino. Gosta and Barbro's son. Thomas's brother.'
'Right.'
'I mean, you can understand it. It's one thing for your father's inheritance to go to the older brother, but quite another to watch his widow drive the business into the ground. Because she's not much of a farmer, Lise-Lott, you certainly couldn't call her that. It would be just as well if she packed her bags and moved somewhere else, to a nice little house - at least I suspect that's what Reino thinks. Not that I've ever been particularly fond of Reino, but I can understand how he feels. I don't think things are very easy for him on Gertrud's farm. It's too small to make a profit, really.'
She leaned back in her chair, running her fingers over the edges of a plastic tray.
'You should know when you don't have what it takes. Lise-Lott ought to know. I mean, we did.'
She gave a wry smile, revealing a row of yellowing teeth.
'Did what?'
'We moved to this nice little house. Bo had a bad back, and he couldn't cope with running the Rappe farm - it's the first house after the main road, the yellow one. It was in his family for four generations. Our son and his wife have taken it over. You have to step aside for those who have the ability. And we got this house for a good price. Anna-Maria's mother, Anna-Maria is our daughter-in-law, she-'
'Thank you.'
Beckman broke in by holding up both hands, smiling at the same time to compensate for the sharpness in her voice.
'That's fine for the moment. If you happen to think of anything else that might be of interest with regard to Lars Waltz, please do get in touch.'
She placed her card on the table in front of fru Rappe.
'Wouldn't it have been better to let her carry on talking? She seems to know plenty about the people around here. We might have found out something interesting,' said Gonzales. They had established that fru Rappe's next-door neighbours were not at home and were walking back to the car.
'I don't know, but I'm sure you're right. I was actually thinking the same when she was going on, but she just lost me. Who was Anna- Maria?'
'Their daughter-in-law. But more importantly, who's this Reino? It seems he had a motive for killing Waltz.'
'But why? It's Lise-Lott he should be getting rid of, surely?'
'Maybe he doesn't want to murder a woman, so he takes the man instead. He thinks she'll be broken by grief, and she'll move away so she doesn't have to live with all the memories.'
'Do me a favour,' Beckman said and pulled out on to the road. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 'We've only got three more places to visit. That's the advantage of investigating a murder in the middle of nowhere.'
Gonzales cackled.
'True. But there are one or two disadvantages as well. These farmers, for a start. If I was in their shoes, regardless of whether I had anything to do with the murder or not, and if I wasn't mentally subnormal, I certainly wouldn't have behaved as suspiciously as most of the ones we've met so far.'
'If you weren't mentally subnormal, you say…'
* * *
Chapter 13
1993
As time went by, Maya began to settle at the school.
The actual work was no problem, in fact it turned out to be a source of pleasure. She had dropped out of grammar school in a fit of existential questioning and had caught the commuter train into Gothenburg every morning to hang out in the Northern Station cafe with a gang of other kids on the loose. They would meet in the morning, scrape together enough for a cup of tea each, preferably Twinings Söders Höjder; then they would sit there with the same infiiser, and by the afternoon would always end up drinking 'silver tea' - a mixture of hot water and sugar. They wrote on serviettes and in visitors' books, and smoked roll-ups.
The youth centre, which was the only thing on offer to those who refused to study, was totally uninteresting. They were obliged to spend two days in a remedial class and three doing some crap job for no pay. Maya became aware of this after only a week, and not without a certain elitist attitude towards her classmates - boys with bum-fluff moustaches who nicked cars. None of this bothered her as much as the fact that they couldn't actually spell their own surnames. Nor did she feel any kind of affinity with their admiring girlfriends, all chewing gum and bleached blonde hair.
At the root of Maya's aversion to staying on at grammar school, and of her contempt for the unfortunate remedial kids, was a refusal to conform. School was classed as the most obvious form of oppression. And when it came to Maya's mother, she had not merely contented herself with trying to persuade her children to carry on studying by means of bribes, threats and guilt; in addition, she had limited their choice of study options to the subjects she herself would have liked to pursue but had not been allowed. As a general rule, Maya's mother had always found it difficult to distinguish where she ended and other people began.
Up to this point Maya had never realised that learning could be fun; it had certainly never struck her that she had a talent for absorbing knowledge. But it did now. She was praised for her writing in Swedish, lost herself in the study of literature and also, quite unexpectedly, science, which extended before her like an exotic country waiting to be explored. She flicked through university prospectuses and chose unashamedly among completely diverse professions: architect, biologist, psychologist, school teacher.
The social aspect of school life was considerably more difficult. A Maya she had not seen in daylight for several years came creeping out, the quiet and submissive girl who melted into the wallpaper. She was the only alternative to the truculent mask of the past few years. It was like starting afresh, sitting there in class and waiting in agony for the teacher you have had for six months to remem
ber your name.
The students at the school came from different social backgrounds and were all there for different reasons. Many simply wanted a break, to find some peace, or perhaps to find themselves. Some were there to get to know other people, to break out of their isolated existence. At seventeen Maya was the youngest, and she felt ignorant yet also weighed down by experiences she just couldn't share. There was a boy she vaguely recognised in one of the other classes - she thought his name was John. On one occasion he came up to her and asked if she was from Borås. She said no. She would rather be alone than mix the two worlds together - the Maya she had been had no place here.
She kept herself to herself, reading in her room or in the library. She went for walks around the lake. She didn't join the gang of younger students who hung out together in the evenings, sitting on the lawn, playing the guitar and singing, having parties in their rooms as they giggled and drank booze someone had smuggled in. No one was allowed to have alcohol in their rooms.
In fact she found it less painful to be alone than to be the one who was alone. She was perfectly happy on her own, but was almost ashamed when someone from class put their head around the door of the library to find her sitting there with her books: Are you sitting here all on your own? As if there were something seriously wrong with her.
Caroline was the one who made her feel just a little more interesting, at least Maya imagined that the others noticed them together. Caroline had an air of independence because of her position at the school; she could move in and out of groups as she pleased. Most of the students seemed to feel privileged to be in her company; only a few whispered that she was a bit odd. Unpleasant, somehow. That she was supposed to have those eyes.
Maya found herself reacting with primitive jealousy whenever she saw Caroline talking to one of the others - particularly if it was one of the outgoing, self-confident girls, and she saw them laughing together. Then she would feel inferior, like the seventeen-year-old she was.
That's what Caroline does to people, Maya wrote in her book. She makes the person she turns to feel chosen, while the person she turns her back on is left shivering in the cold.
* * *
Chapter 14
2006
At some point Melkersson had told Seja that in days gone by it was possible to reach the lake, lsjön, by following designated paths across what was now cleared land where the trees had been felled. As a young man he had had a sweetheart in Lerum and he used to go and visit her by walking through the forests. It wasn't all that far as the crow flies, according to him. Since then the tree-felling machines had churned up the ground, and the paths were unidentifiable. The few remaining trees had fallen victim to storms because of their exposed position, which gave the area an even more chaotic appearance.
The lake was situated quite high up, as was Stenaredsberget. These days local families made their way up by car, but had to take a detour down into the village and back up again via Stora Alsjovagen to the car park. From there they could walk with their blankets and picnic baskets to reach the communal swimming area, with its diving boards, trampoline and a small building where people could get changed.
She and Martin had spent the holiday among the crowds on the sandy beach over on the Olofstorp side. On the far side of the lake they could see the rocks leading down into the water on the Stenared side, which were wide and smooth with an oval-shaped inward curve that was just perfect for one or two sunbathing bodies. They had swum easily across the lake and lay down to dry off on the rock.
The water was deep there. You couldn't see the bottom; you could only sense it through the weed that extended slimy tentacles right up to the surface in some places.
'We ought to make our way home from here,' Seja had said. 'I mean, it can't be very far.'
Then she realised it wasn't very clever to leave their clothes and the car on the other side of the lake and to plough home through rough terrain in their swimsuits. Besides which, Martin was comfortable. And she never did get him to go out with the red paint and mark the track, although she had gone on and on about it. In the end, after he'd left, she did it herself. It took a day to find her way to the lake, and by the time she did she was covered in scratches and sweating. September was long gone so she hadn't intended to go for a swim, but she did. The ice-cold water flicked at her exhausted limbs.
That had been her reward, along with the flask of coffee she drank on the hillside afterwards, wrapped up warmly in her old anorak. For the first time in ages she had felt a surge of happiness in her chest, like a light but unmistakable butterfly wing against her heart. To have the courage to be alone, she had thought. To have the courage. On the way home she had marked out her route by dabbing paint on selected tree trunks and rocks until she could glimpse her cottage through the trees.
She started to ride up to the lake almost every day, once she had sawn up and carried away tree trunks from the buried path. By this stage Lukas knew the way by heart, and when Seja relaxed the reins and leaned back in the saddle, she sank into a meditative state she had never experienced before. The track to the lake became her secret, symbolising her newly discovered and still fragile inner strength, this contradictory state. And God knows she needed it.
'You've changed so much,' Martin had said just before they split up. She knew he was referring to the fact that she had embraced life in the country and in the cottage without any hesitation. She had hardly dared to wonder herself what it was about living here that made her feel as if she had come home; she had lived in the city all her life. She had felt if not happy, then at least disposed towards happiness.
Happiness is possible here, she had painted, somewhat pretentiously, on the stable wall just above the saddle hook.
Only once had she visited the small village in northern Finland where her mother was born. She wasn't very old at the time, perhaps five or six, and the summer heat had still been embedded in the tarmac as the family climbed into the scruffy Saab and set off from Gothenburg. Seja was dressed for early autumn. When they were met by the frosty ground and the bitterly cold air, she had had to borrow clothes from Grandma Marja-Leena. That was the first and only time she met her grandmother. At first Seja had not wanted to accept the borrowed clothes, she had wanted to go around in a work-shirt with the sleeves rolled up like her father as if they both suspected that making concessions to the cold was a sign of weakness. Only when they went off into the forest to help with clearing the ground did he put on Grandpa's warm lined dungarees that hung on a nail in the barn.
Grandpa had died six months earlier. At night her mother talked quietly in the bedroom about how Grandma was going to manage with the farm and all the heavy work. And the forest, which would eventually be passed on to her only daughter. Much later Seja would come to realise that her mother had wanted to move back to Finland, but her father had refused. It was something that remained between them.
Now Marja-Leena was dead, and Seja's mother rented out the land. The house itself was falling into decay. Seja had only fleeting memories of her grandmother and the farm. A sinewy woman in an apron, her hair in a bun at the back of her neck. A grey house and a huge barn in the middle of nowhere. Snow in September. And the forest.
But she remembered other things. These days she would get a lump in her throat at the thought of how her mother had instantly changed as soon as her feet touched the frozen ground. As if the austerity of the earth quickly found its way through the soles of her shoes and established itself in her body, just as the cold had settled in Seja's grandmother's bones and become a part of her. It was obvious in every word, every gesture. Marja-Leena had nodded appreciatively when Seja was so thrilled at having learned to drive the tractor on her mother's knee. That was the only time Seja saw her smile.
Seja remembered the sudden reverence with which she regarded her mother, the practised way in which she went about the neglected tasks around the farm. How she would swing herself up on to the tractor, or drive the animals in front of her with c
alm assured calls and slaps. Like a cowgirl, absolutely in her element.
Seja's mother had lived in Sweden for thirty years, but still spoke Swedish as if she was constantly forcing her way past some obstacle at the front of her mouth. Weighing every single word so that it would come out right, and yet it was often wrong, poor and lacking in shades of meaning. You could see it on her face afterwards. That what she'd said hadn't turned out the way she'd intended. That she was prepared for misunderstandings.
Seja had never returned to Finland as an adult. No, wait, there was one time. A school trip to Helsinki with her sixth-form class. When Jarmo, the one person in the class who spoke Finnish better than she did, wasn't around, she had to translate all the signs and the menus at McDonald's.
Seja laughed as Lukas whinnied loudly at the sight of the stable. She let go of the reins and slipped her boots out of the stirrups. For a short while her heart felt light.
Then she caught sight of the roof. When the trees were bare of leaves and not weighed down with snow, Åke and Kristina Melkersson's recently completed red mock-tile roof glowed through the branches. She turned away, as if denying the uncomfortable feeling would make it disappear. By removing Melkersson from her mind she could pretend she had never been there on that day
It was unfair, but ever since she had seen the dead man sprawled on the gravel, the unpleasant sensation that had replaced the immediate shock had increased at the mere thought of her neighbour. All he had done was wake her up and take her to Thomas Edell's workshop and scrapyard, completely unsuspecting.
And there it was, the name. It aroused feelings of vulnerability and a vague guilt that she had never really acknowledged, a guilt that she had wiped from her mind with the excuse that she had been too young, had been suffering from a very human uncertainty. In fact, she was still uncertain about the whole thing. She didn't even recognise that face: scraped along the ground, distorted by pain and the fear of death.
Frozen Moment Page 8
