Open Grave: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  After a moment’s hesitation he dialed the number. It rang ten times before he hung up. He looked up the neighbor’s number. Lundquist answered after two rings. The associate professor told him how it was, that he was worried. There was no reason to beat around the bush. Lundquist did not seem to be the type who appreciated small talk.

  No, he had not seen Haller. Not heard from him either, no bill had come, but he was not particularly worried about that. He had determined that all the work ordered was done and was satisfied with it. He had not noticed Haller’s bicycle.

  The associate professor apologized for the trouble—certainly unnecessary—thanked him and hung up. But he was not relieved in any way; on the contrary, his worry increased. Something had happened to Haller, he was sure of it. Could he call the police again without seeming completely nuts? He stared at the direct number the woman had given him. He resorted to magic to decide. If the sum of the figures in the telephone number was an odd number he would call. He quickly added the six digits and the result was twenty-seven. He immediately picked up the phone before he had time to change his mind.

  Forty

  “Reported missing” was an ominous term, he had always thought that. It had to do with an experience in his childhood, he understood that very well. When he was thirteen years old his grandfather had disappeared. No one could explain how or why, neither then nor later. He was and remained missing, Fred Emanuel Nilsson. Suicide, it was said, but that was an explanation Sammy Nilsson never bought. The grownups put the lid on, never wanted to talk about what had happened, and were disturbed and at last angry at his constant speculations.

  Was that perhaps why he became a policeman? Fred had been Sammy’s favorite relative. A person like that would never kill himself, was his teenage thought. He was still convinced, more than thirty years later, that Fred had not disappeared voluntarily.

  Random harvest, he thought. He stared at the hastily jotted-down information and remembered the conversation he had had with the gardener. There can’t be that many Hallers. According to directory assistance there were two in Uppsala. One of them was Karsten. Sammy got no answer.

  He called the person who made the report, Gregor Johansson, and got a little more meat on the bones.

  He went to Lindell’s office. The door was open. She was studying the map hanging on the wall. Sammy studied her figure, noted that she had put on a few kilos.

  “I have someone who’s been swallowed up by the earth,” he said.

  Lindell turned around.

  “You and your missing persons,” said Lindell.

  She smiled at him. He knew that his fixation with missing persons was well-known in the building. Everyone in homicide knew that he regularly checked all reports that came in. It had become a habit. It had never had any significance for investigative work, but that did not matter. There were those who joked about it, but Lindell knew better than to tease him. She was also the only one who knew the background. He had talked with her about the Fred Nilsson mystery.

  “Yes,” he said, “you know how it is. But this is a person we’ve met recently.”

  He told about the associate professor’s report.

  “Strange,” said Lindell. “But it’s probably a coincidence.”

  Sammy looked at the notes again and nodded. They looked at each other. They both knew that he would check up on it. She grinned.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  * * *

  Sammy Nilsson immediately went to Artillerigatan. The building had three entries and Karsten Heller lived in the middle one on the third floor. Lind and Svensson were the names of his nearest neighbors. Sammy pressed on the doorbell and waited. After half a minute he crouched down and opened the mail slot. On the floor in the hall not unexpectedly was a drift of newspapers and mail.

  The air that streamed out through the mail slot was fresh, he could not detect any odor of the sort that bodies exude when they have been lying dead for several days in a warm apartment.

  He straightened up and remained standing indecisively in front of the door. There were several alternatives. One was to contact the management of the co-op apartment association and perhaps get someone to open the door. That could entail complications. If there were ordinary reasons that Haller was not at home, he might have opinions later about the police going into his apartment.

  Sammy decided to wait but in a final attempt to get clarity he rang the nearest neighbor’s door. A woman in her seventies opened almost immediately. Perhaps she had been watching him through the peephole in the door?

  He introduced himself and explained his business. The woman reacted immediately and unexpectedly strongly.

  “I knew that something had happened,” she said, and Sammy saw that she was on the verge of tears. “He would never go somewhere without telling me because I take care of his flowers when he’s away. I’m sure you saw how it looks?”

  “How does what look?”

  “In Karsten’s window. They’re drooping. Above all that fine flower from Africa. You should see the kind of plants he has.”

  “Yes, he does work with gardening,” said Sammy.

  “Exactly! He’s a good man. Never any problems. He helps me sometimes. I actually thought about going into his apartment today. Maybe he’s gone away for a few days and simply forgot to tell me.”

  “You have a key?”

  “Yes, how else would I go in and water?”

  “Do you think that Karsten Haller would take it amiss if I borrowed the key and went into the apartment?”

  “Perhaps he’s sick? Perhaps he’s lying in bed and can’t communicate?”

  “That might be.”

  The woman took down a ring with two keys that was hanging on a bulletin board right inside the door.

  “Go on in,” she encouraged him.

  He stepped over the mail and newspapers that formed a neat little pile inside the door, at the same time as he formed a picture of how the apartment was arranged: the kitchen to the left, living room straight ahead, bedroom to the right, and then the toilet.

  In the living room a drooping plant was seen on the windowsill, just as the neighbor pointed out. He called out a “hello.” It could actually be the case that Haller was in bed, severely ill.

  It only took a momentary glance to determine that the room was empty but to be on the safe side he crouched down and peeked under the bed. Dust and a shoe box.

  He opened the two closets, where there were strikingly few clothes. Sammy counted half a dozen shirts and a couple of jackets in one. In the other were piles of garbage bags.

  The living room gave a strange impression. Besides the many potted plants there was an armchair, an old teak table, and a TV on a bench. Against the one short wall stood a sparsely filled bookshelf but there were lots of notebooks of a kind that Sammy recognized well. They were of Chinese manufacture, with red spines and hard covers. He pulled out one of them and randomly opened to a page. Columns filled with figures: a workbook. Here was information about gravel, topsoil, and rented machinery. All neatly noted. He put the book back on the shelf.

  A bachelor apartment, Sammy noted a little jealously. Sparse furnishing was something he had always wanted, but then he would be forced to get a divorce, and that was the most unimaginable scenario he could think of.

  He went out into the kitchen. On the table was a passport and travel documents placed in a plastic sleeve. At the top a ticket issued to Karsten Haller. He was supposed to travel to Johannesburg a week earlier.

  He remembered the man in the garden. He had stood out as frank and open, made an almost garrulous impression. What had they talked about? Sammy did not remember, everyday things surely, after Haller assured them that he had not seen anything peculiar in the neighborhood. After that the change had come, when he commented on Professor von Ohler. Haller’s facial expression darkened, the good-natured look disappeared.

  South Africa. Sammy rooted in the brochures that were in the plastic sleeve. There was not
hing about any hotel or other special activities such as a safari or the like. He took out his cell phone, called the travel agency that was listed as seller of the ticket, and was met by the message that many were calling right now but that his call would be answered as soon as possible.

  Lindell on the other hand answered immediately and he asked her to assign some trainee to check out the hospitals. Perhaps Haller had been in an accident?

  They ended the call. He checked around the apartment one more time, trying to see something that deviated from the dreary, unimaginatively furnished apartment. On the table in the living room were several notebooks. He opened one of the books but realized that it was also a kind of diary but of a different type than Haller’s workbooks. Here were no lines with the number of hours worked, no list of various materials.

  On the cover page the year 1942 was given. The style was old-fashioned and shaky but completely legible. It was about cleaning. He browsed ahead: preparations for a dinner in May. All the courses were noted.

  He picked up the next book, January 1, 1943, was at the top of the first page. After a few pages about the weather the entry described the aftermath of a New Year’s celebration. Here was a more personal text. The woman, because he assumed that it was a woman’s diary, commented on the guests who had been at the New Year’s dinner the day before. A certain building contractor D had evidently “declaimed,” ended up in a quarrel with P about the “awful war,” and left the company in anger.

  Sammy Nilsson closed the notebook. Almost-seventy-year-old diaries could not give any explanation for why Karsten Haller was missing.

  He remained standing in the room. Should he continue? It was definitely not his area to ferret out missing persons, but it was a situation that bordered on the unsolved mystery of his own grandfather.

  On his way to the car Lindell called. No Haller had been admitted to a hospital. Sammy told about the ticket to South Africa. He heard from her voice that she was becoming more interested. She’s bored and needs a mystery too, he thought, smiling to himself.

  “Shall I pick you up?”

  Lindell laughed. He took that as a yes.

  * * *

  They had been in his tower before. That time the associate professor had been enthusiastic; now he looked worried, almost tormented.

  “You see,” he said, pointing.

  “What?” asked Sammy.

  “You see those small green plants, those are wintergreen. They don’t sit in formation, zigzag if I may say so. It’s so amateurish that I don’t think Haller would have planted that way. Unless he was in a really big hurry … but no … an experienced landscaper will still plant zigzag. You do it automatically. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Sammy nodded. Lindell looked the most thoughtful.

  “It’s not the homeowner who—”

  “I asked,” the associate professor interrupted, shaking his head, “but he hasn’t touched the flower beds. He didn’t even understand the question.”

  “And Haller’s bicycle is still there,” Sammy noted.

  They stood quietly, pondering the fact that the landscaper seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

  “So if it’s not Haller or the homeowner—”

  “Then it’s someone else!” the associate professor exclaimed.

  Sammy saw how irritated Lindell was at having been interrupted a second time.

  “Did he say anything about Africa to you, that he was going to travel?”

  The associate professor looked completely uncomprehending and shook his head.

  “So many strange things are happening here now,” he said.

  “I saw the article you wrote,” said Sammy. “That was brave. Criticizing an old colleague and neighbor can’t be easy.”

  “Of course,” was the associate professor’s curt reply.

  “What other strange things have happened?” asked Lindell.

  “Well, the housekeeper at the professor’s has quit. That alone. She has worked there for however many years. And quitting now when he’ll get the Nobel Prize … I mean … and then this thing with Haller. He seemed so unbalanced … you understand, he was the one who threw that stone at Ohler’s house. I shouldn’t reveal that, but this feels so strange.”

  Sammy and Lindell gave each other a look. Lindell nodded. What was that I said? she seemed to want to say.

  “Did he talk about why?”

  “No, not really,” said the associate professor.

  “Was he the one who put the skull by Ohler’s gate too?”

  The associate professor’s face suddenly turned bright red.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” said Lindell.

  The associate professor nodded.

  “A silly prank, I admit that, but it’s an old doctor’s joke. I was subjected to it myself in the fifties. Now in retrospect I admit that perhaps it wasn’t so well-advised.”

  “So Ohler understood that it was someone in his field, so to speak?”

  “I would presume so,” said the associate professor.

  Sammy Nilsson grinned.

  “Did he know it was you?”

  “No, he doesn’t think I have the courage. I did it more for my own amusement. To prove something, not sure what. I am an old man but not without…”

  He hesitated but shook his head when Lindell suggested the word “passion.”

  “That’s too strong a word,” he said with a cautious smile, which more expressed sorrow than anything else. “Am I going to be charged?”

  “No,” Sammy Nilsson decided. “Do you know whether Ohler is at home?”

  The associate professor nodded.

  “And his daughter too, and her … girlfriend. They seem to be living there now.”

  * * *

  The two police officers left the associate professor. If it weren’t for the gloomy background and Haller’s disappearance, Sammy would have made fun of the whole situation. But now there was something heavy and ominous about it all. They recognized it: discomfort. They felt it as a scent. Without commenting on the visit with the associate professor they walked toward Professor von Ohler’s house.

  A middle-aged woman answered the door. Sammy Nilsson immediately saw the resemblance. It must be the daughter, he thought, and introduced himself. Lindell stood passively by his side. That was the division they always used. One active and the other waiting, observing.

  “We’re investigating a disappearance,” he continued. “There is a landscaper who has worked in the area and who now has disappeared without a trace.”

  The woman stared at him. Her face expressed nothing. Passive, waiting for a continuation.

  “Karsten Haller. Is the name familiar?”

  She shook her head.

  “You are Ohler’s daughter, I understand,” Sammy continued indefatigably.

  “Why do you understand that?”

  “You remind me of your father. Haller? Doesn’t ring any bells? He worked on the neighbor’s yard. I thought possibly that—”

  “No, as I said, that’s not anyone I know. Was there anything else?”

  “Perhaps your father knows Haller. Perhaps he’s done work here?”

  “I would have known about that,” said the woman.

  She was shaking.

  “Perhaps we can continue to speak inside?” Sammy suggested.

  “I don’t think so. I’m a little busy and as I said, we don’t know who this Haller is. No one in this house knows anything of interest.”

  “We have reason to believe that he knows someone in the house.”

  “My father is a public person.”

  Sammy remembered when he and Haller met. Haller’s undisguised anger when he brought up Professor von Ohler. An anger that he did nothing to conceal.

  “We believe that Haller has reason to feel a certain animosity toward your father. A feeling that does not seem to originate from any type of general indignation but rather seems to have a personal connection.”

  The woman snorted. />
  “Well, we don’t seem to be getting any further,” said Sammy without showing anything he was feeling. On the contrary he extended his hand and looked sincerely friendly.

  “Thank you, and I apologize for disturbing you.”

  The Ohler daughter closed the door.

  “Animosity,” said Lindell, sneering.

  Sammy Nilsson shook his head.

  “The bitch is lying,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s obvious,” said Lindell.

  They went out onto the street. When Sammy closed the gate behind him he turned around and looked up toward the house.

  “If it had been a drunk woman we could have forced our way in,” he said. “Now we’re standing like two beggars on the stairs.”

  “We had nothing.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We could have forced our way in anyway. Or rather, a drunk woman would have taken for granted that we would run right in.”

  They knew that they would drop the whole thing. A disappearance, which besides might very well have a natural explanation, was not their responsibility. Even if there were no formal obstacles to snooping further there were practical limitations. Ottosson would not give his approval. Even though at the present time it was calm at the squad, there were many old cases to sink their teeth into.

  Epilogue

  DECEMBER 10, 2008

  It nauseated him, this false pomp. He cursed himself for having turned on the TV. He already knew. He knew what it looked like. “There is no justice,” Ohler had said, and that was right. There are injustices here, illustrated by this sea of refined and decked-out persons, the elevated of society within academe, culture, and business, all weighed down by their own importance.

  Why should he stare at the spectacle? The last thing he saw before the TV screen went black was the close-up of a face he recognized very well. It was an old colleague from the university in Lund whom the associate professor knew was very critical of Ohler. Now the professor was sitting there, taking part in the celebration, laughing along.

  Gregor Johansson got up with great effort. The autumn had been difficult. It would get even worse. He was surrounded by darkness.