The Hand that Trembles

by Kjell Eriksson

  Her first ‘loner’ lived a couple of hundred metres up. She drove into the yard. A line ran from a shed to the main house. She guessed it was a dog run. She couldn’t see a dog but still parked her car at a safe distance.

  Thomas B. Sunesson walked out onto his front step the moment she opened her car door.

  ‘There’s no dog,’ was the first thing he said. ‘I saw you wondering where to put the car.’

  ‘You never know,’ Lindell said, holding out her hand. His grin was in no way unfriendly.

  ‘Before we go on, there’s something I have to know: What does the B stand for?’

  The grin grew wider.

  ‘Bertram. Like Dad and his dad and his dad before him, all the way back.’

  She returned his smile. Thomas B. Sunesson spoke with the broadest Roslagen dialect one could imagine. Yet another Edvard, she thought; and the fact was that Sunesson reminded her of him. The same open face, the at some moments almost childlike features, an impression reduced somewhat by its angular masculinity. This fateful combination that Lindell had found so attractive.

  ‘His name was Bronco. The dog, I mean,’ Sunesson added when he saw Lindell’s bewilderment. ‘A greyhound. An angry bugger.’

  So you were forced to get rid of it, Lindell thought.

  ‘He became fourteen years old.’

  The man looked over to the shed. Lindell followed his gaze and discovered the dog house.

  ‘But he was my friend, the bastard.’

  The melancholy tendency also underscored the resemblance to Edvard.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’

  He nodded and walked to the door without further ado, kicking off his clogs in the vestibule and disappearing inside.

  They sat down in the kitchen. She got the impression that he had cleaned for her visit. A pile of newspapers were neatly stacked on the table, the countertop was wiped down, no dirty dishes were out, and a clean dishtowel was hanging from a hook.

  He offered Lindell coffee but she said no, having already drunk two cups that morning.

  ‘You’re involved in a manhunt,’ he said.

  News about the foot had spread, even if the macabre find on the other side of the bay had surprisingly not been made much of in the media.

  She launched into her usual spiel about questioning any people in the area who may have observed something. As she talked he watched her intently, as if he did not want to miss a single word. She assessed his age as around forty. There was a small but marked scar above one eyebrow. He was noticeably tanned, or rather, weather-beaten.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary,’ he said when she stopped. ‘There’s not much that happens around here, and if against all odds someone did turn up we would notice. Especially if it was a woman,’ he added, and smiled imperceptibly.

  ‘No unknown cars have driven by?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Well, maybe last summer; there are always confused Stockholmers who come by. They’re either looking for summer houses, or else they are just lost. Sometimes they stop and ask if you know anything that’s for sale.’

  ‘Anyone in particular that you remember?’

  ‘No, they all look the same. There was one,’ Sunesson said, and chuckled, ‘who wanted to buy this old dump. He offered me a million on the spot. When I said no, he raised it by half a million. Bronco was barking like crazy. He doesn’t like city slickers.’

  ‘How much do you want for it?’

  His smile widened. ‘Interested?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I’m not selling,’ he said, suddenly serious.

  ‘Any red cars drive by here lately?’

  ‘Frisk has a red car. He lives at the end of the street, as we say. And of course then we have the magpie in the fishing cabin.’

  ‘You mean Lisen Morell?’

  ‘Not the sharpest tack, if you ask me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She calls herself an artist, but she can’t paint, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You call her the Magpie.’

  ‘She’s always dressed in black and white.’

  Lindell dropped Morell. ‘So Tobias Frisk has a red car?’

  He nodded. ‘Are you looking for a red car?’

  ‘We have a witness who saw a red, unfamiliar car on the other side of the bay. That’s all.’

  ‘But Frisk isn’t unfamiliar.’

  ‘Maybe on the other side.’

  Sunesson snorted. ‘In other words, you don’t have much.’

  Lindell acknowledged as much.

  ‘Do you have a saw?’

  He looked taken aback. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘A chainsaw?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘I’m not following any of this.’

  ‘Maybe you even have a bandsaw?’

  ‘That too. And a wood cutter, and a skidsteer, and a trailer and a—’

  ‘Thanks, that’s enough,’ Lindell interrupted.

  The chainsaw was a Stihl.

  ‘No, don’t touch it!’

  Sunesson quickly pulled his hand back.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to take that with me,’ Lindell said, and fished a pair of gloves out of her coat pocket. She donned the right-hand glove and lifted the power tool down from the workbench.

  ‘Now I get it, you think I severed that foot.’

  He stared at her with suspicion and disapproval, as if she had revealed she was the bearer of an infectious disease.

  ‘We have to check it out,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t believe anything. It is simply a routine check. Where is your cordwood saw?’

  She got him to remove the blade and treated it as carefully as the chainsaw, wrapping it in a rubbish bag she had in the car.

  Sunesson observed the whole process in silence. There was no trace of innocence left in his face when she left the house.

  The next loner on the point, Lasse Malm, was perhaps two or three years younger than his neighbour. He was already out in the garden when Lindell found her way to his place. She parked behind Malm’s ancient pickup. There was a boat engine in the back of it.

  No one, not even the most enthusiastic Stockholmer, would offer one and a half million for his house. Lindell had the feeling one bad autumn storm could blow it on its side.

  The panelling was faded, the window frames spotted black with mould, the roof – where the tiles were in uproar – dipped alarmingly around a badly beaten-up chimney, and the front steps had settled at least ten centimetres, more on the right side.

  If the house was in terrible condition, its owner was just the opposite. Lindell estimated that he was close to six feet four inches in height, and his broad shoulders bore witness to strength. His handshake reinforced this impression of power. The almost sinister small eyes – the only thing diminutive about him – peered at her with curiosity and scrutiny. She pulled up the zipper on her jacket.

  He showed no inclination to ask her inside. Instead, he stood in front of the steps with his arms folded. Lindell thought of a bouncer at a nightclub.

  She plunged into her usual routine, as she had done half an hour earlier for Sunesson. He listened in silence and then gave basically the same – if not word for word – answers as his neighbour. No observations, no unfamiliar cars, nor had he seen a woman who could fit a foot with a shoe size of five.

  He told her that the only red car on the point belonged to Tobias Frisk.

  ‘Is he under suspicion?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Lindell said.

  Malm replied with something that Lindell didn’t catch.

  ‘Do you own a chainsaw?’

  In contrast to his neighbour, Malm immediately picked up on the implications of that question.

  ‘So that’s how it happened?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Lindell said truthfully.

  She was struck by the thought that they should have collected all the saws and blades in the
entire neighbourhood. She would suggest as much to Marksson.

  They walked together to the back of the house to a shed, which displayed the same measure of dilapidation and decay as the main house.

  This time it was a Jonsered, considerably more powerful than Sunesson’s. She wrapped it in a plastic bag, returned to the car, opened the trunk, and placed it next to the Stihl.

  ‘You have quite a collection,’ Lasse Malm observed with surprising joviality. ‘Do I get a receipt for it?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Lindell said, taking out her notepad and hastily writing out a couple of lines. Then she tore off the page and handed it to him.

  ‘Will that do?’

  He examined the paper. ‘You write better than my doctor, but only by a little.’

  He had no cordwood saw.

  ‘I’m not supposed to use the fireplace,’ he explained. ‘The chimney sweep said so.’

  Lindell understood this very well.

  ‘I do it anyway. There are so many regulations.’

  ‘One regulation is that your taxes on the car have to be paid. If you have one, paste a registration sticker on the Toyota. The one currently on it is about three years old.’

  He smiled at her.

  ‘It must be here somewhere.’

  He waved to her as she backed her car up onto the road.

  Men living alone, she thought as she continued along the road the natives apparently referred to as the ‘avenue.’ They tried to maintain a life but their entire beings cried out for a bit of warmth and care. Malm, this gigantic teddy bear, who really didn’t look half bad and seemed to have some basic sense, had a steady job as far as she could tell and should have no trouble finding a partner. If he ever dared invite a woman into the house, or if someone dared to go inside.

  Same thing with Sunesson, even if he on the other hand appeared overly pedantic, he should also not be an impossible card. But perhaps he was afraid that a woman would mess up his Handi Wipes.

  There remained Tobias Frisk, bakery assistant, and owner of a red car. Lindell couldn’t help but feel some anticipation. She tried to imagine what he looked like but realised the futility of the exercise. He had willingly called her and confirmed that he would be home, but had sounded noticeably shaken and asked if it was really necessary since he had no information to share.

  ‘I just do my thing,’ he said.

  As do I, she had been tempted to reply, but reassured him by saying it was only routine and that they had been speaking to hundreds of households around the bay.

  ‘At least I have plenty of treats on hand,’ he said, and now she was looking forward to a cup of coffee and slice of sticky Danish pastry.

  The house was situated on a small rise and she thought he probably had a sea view, at least from the upper story. The house was surprisingly large for one person, at least one hundred and fifty square metres, probably built for a large family. It reminded her of a house she had seen on Gräsö Island and fallen in love with; red, with many ornately carved details and a glass veranda in which the woodwork of the windows gleamed white. Edvard and she had even stopped for a little while. Both had surely been thinking ‘That’s the kind of house we could live in.’ It was in this period when they both – at the same time for once – envisioned a future together, maybe even on the island.

  Lindell parked her car in front of the veranda. There was no sign of life. No dog that barked, no smoke billowing out of the chimney or a quick movement behind a curtain.

  He left, she thought, and felt a streak of the fear that came over her sometimes ever since the time she was locked in the cellar and almost lost her life due to her own stupidity. She had been out investigating on her own that time, just like now.

  For a split second she considered calling in her location to headquarters, but decided to hold off.

  Out of the blue, she recalled a play on words from her childhood: ‘two rights and one left,’ and couldn’t help smiling to herself.

  She walked up the steps and onto the veranda. It was noticeably warmer there than outside. A row of pots had been placed along the wall. Geraniums, she guessed; one actually had a solitary flowering stalk. There was no doorbell so she knocked, but no figure appeared behind the translucent glass of the front door. She banged on it with some force. No response.

  She counted to ten and then pushed the door handle down. It did not surprise her that the door wasn’t locked. This was the country. Her repeated ‘hello’ echoed with a note of desolation.

  As she stepped into the hall she picked up a strange smell. The rug in the hall was dishevelled and lay like an accordion across the wooden floor. She had the impulse to straighten it, but stopped herself at the last minute. The kitchen was to the right. It was dominated by a handsome whitewashed fireplace. The kitchen was empty. But it would not have shocked her to see Tobias Frisk sitting at the kitchen table. She had seen stranger things.

  A sparsely furnished room lay straight ahead. There really was only one piece of furniture, an old-fashioned sofa that at one time had probably served as a bed for two or three people. She walked on and all at once realised what the smell was. She halted in the middle of the floor and drew a deep breath. The smell of gunpowder was unmistakable.

  Someone had fired a weapon in the house, that much was certain. Not recently, because there was only a trace of gunpowder in the air.

  There were two doors in this room with almost no furniture. She chose the one on the right. It was a large room, the drawing room, it might have been called. Not a soul. She walked back and opened the door on the left.

  Tobias Frisk was sitting on the couch. A shotgun had slid down on his left side, the barrel aimed almost directly at Lindell.

  She picked up the phone. It was time to call headquarters. I’ll get no coffee and no cake, it struck her, as she heard Erlandsson’s familiar voice.

  She told him what had happened and asked him to contact Marksson.

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ she added.

  After hanging up she left the room and searched the rest of the house. It was, as she had expected, empty.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Bo Marksson appeared after half an hour, the medical examiner only a few minutes later. He was Lindell’s age and they had met in a context that Lindell could not quite recall, though it was clear that he could.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ was his opening line. ‘That was a nice time, wasn’t it?’

  Lindell nodded. She had the impression that he was eager to keep talking about their for the moment unidentified shared experience but she sought Marksson’s gaze and quickly summed up the situation for him. They were still in the garden. A sudden gust came out of the woods to the south of the house and brought with it the scent of sea and pine.

  Her colleague from Östhammar looked uncharacteristically unfocused, was pacing around in the gravel, and kept pulling a hand through his hair.

  ‘Damn,’ he said, for the second time.

  ‘Did you know Tobias Frisk?’ Lindell asked.

  Marksson nodded.

  ‘We played football together,’ he said, and his trepidation was so strong she could almost smell it. Lindell sensed he wanted to be miles from Bultudden.

  ‘I know his mother, too.’

  So that’s it, she thought. He dreads that inevitable call.

  ‘Does she live in Östhammar?’

  A new nod. Marksson was staring off toward the trees. Lindell followed his gaze. She glimpsed something white at the edge of the forest.

  ‘What the hell,’ Marksson said. ‘What was that?’

  ‘It’s Lisen Morell,’ Lindell said, as a figure emerged from the vegetation. She identified her by her unsteady gait. She walked as if she were intoxicated. ‘She lives in a fishing cottage at the end of the point,’ Lindell added. ‘I should have talked to you about her. She needs help.’

  ‘That’s pretty clear,’ Marksson said. His pained expression lifted somewhat as they walked toward the woman.

 
‘I … the car didn’t want to go, I mean …’

  ‘You can’t start the car,’ Marksson said.

  Lisen Morell nodded. That was lucky, Lindell thought. Lisen Morell was dressed in black jeans and a white knitted jumper that was at least three sizes too big. She was wearing sandals on her feet.

  ‘What’s the doctor’s name?’ Lindell whispered.

  ‘Bergquist,’ Marksson said.

  ‘First name?’

  ‘Janne.’

  Lindell turned around. The physician was still standing outside.

  ‘Hey, Janne, over here!’ she yelled, before turning to Morell again. ‘He’s a doctor and can take you home. You need to get warm. I’ll be over later. Okay?’

  ‘It’ll be a while until the forensic team arrives,’ she said to Marksson, ‘so Bergquist can’t do anything anyway.’

  Bergquist steadied Morell by holding her under the arm, and they walked away. Lindell saw him lean toward her and ask something. She pointed toward a small opening between the trees, through which they left.

  ‘What do you think?’ Lindell asked. ‘Is this where the foot came from?’

  ‘Unfortunately it looks that way,’ Marksson said.

  I’ve got used to his voice, Lindell thought.

  ‘What was he like when you talked on the phone?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ Lindell said. ‘Maybe a little nervous. He just said that I was welcome to stop in. He called me back on his own.’

  ‘No ifs and buts?’

  ‘No, it was a completely normal conversation, it was over in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘And then he shoots his head off,’ Marksson said. ‘Frisk was a pretty happy guy. I remember him from the football league. He was a midfielder. Pretty quick on his feet. Up here too.’

  ‘A loner?’

  ‘You mean, living out here in the wilderness?’