The Savage Altar

by Unknown

  “Here,” said Robert with laughter in his voice.

  He was lying naked on his back underneath her, his hands caressing her enormous stomach and tracing a path toward her breasts.

  “We were just here,” he said, his fingers circling the brown nipples. “Just here.”

  Rebecka Martinsson was standing in the yard outside her grandmother’s house brushing snow off the car with a broom. It had snowed heavily during the night, and clearing the car was hard work. She was sweating under her hat. It was still dark, and the snow was whirling down. There was a thick layer of fresh snow on the road, and zero vision. Driving into town wasn’t going to be much fun. That’s if she could actually get the car out. Sara and Lova were sitting at the kitchen window looking down at her. There was no point in letting them stand outside to get covered in snow, or sit in the car and freeze. Virku had raced off around the side of the house and was nowhere to be seen. Her cell phone rang; she pushed in her earpiece and answered impatiently:

  “Rebecka.”

  It was Maria Taube.

  “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “You’re answering the phone, then. I thought I’d be talking to your voice mail.”

  “I’ve just rung my neighbor and asked him to help me get the car out of the yard,” panted Rebecka. “I’ve got to get the kids to nursery and school, and it’s snowing like mad. I can’t get the car out.”

  “ ‘I’ve got to get the kids to nursery,’ ” mimicked Maria. “Am I really talking to Rebecka Martinsson? It sounds more like a worn-out working mother to me. One foot in the nursery, the other at work, and thank God it’s nearly Friday so you can collapse with a packet of chips and a glass of wine in front of the TV.”

  Rebecka laughed. Virku and Bella came hurtling toward her, snow spraying up all around them. Bella was in the lead. The deep snow was more of a handicap for Virku, who had shorter legs. Sivving must be on his way.

  “I’ve got the information you wanted about the church,” said Maria. “And I promised Johan Dahlström a dinner to say thank you, so you owe me a night out or something. I could do with going to the Sturehof and getting a little bit of male attention.”

  “Sounds like you’re coming out of this pretty well,” puffed Rebecka as she swept the bonnet of the car. “First of all, your Johan is bound to insist on paying for this thank-you-for-your-help dinner, and then I treat you to a night out so you can kick your heels up.”

  “He isn’t ‘my’ Johan. Nice and grateful now, otherwise you won’t find out a thing.”

  “I am nice and grateful,” said Rebecka meekly. “Tell me.”

  “Okay, he said the church had only ticked the box to indicate that it’s a nonprofit-making organization.”

  “Damn,” said Rebecka.

  “I’ve never had anything to do with nonprofit-making organizations and foundations and that sort of stuff. What does it mean?” asked Maria.

  “It means it’s a nonprofit-making organization that exists for the public good, so it isn’t liable for income or capital tax. So it doesn’t have to submit a tax declaration, nor a statement of accounts. It’s impossible to get any kind of access to its affairs.”

  “With regard to Viktor Strandgård, he had a very modest salary from the church. Johan checked back two years. No other income. No capital. No property, and no shares.”

  Sivving was coming across the yard. His fur hat was pulled well down over his eyes, and he was dragging a snow rake behind him. The dogs raced to meet him and scampered playfully around his feet. Rebecka waved, but he had his eyes fixed on the ground and didn’t see her.

  “The pastors take forty-five thousand kronor a month.”

  “That’s a damn good salary for a pastor,” said Rebecka.

  “Thomas Söderberg has quite a large share portfolio, about half a million. And he owns some land out on Värmdö.”

  “Värmdö Stockholm?” asked Rebecka.

  “Yes, value for tax purposes four hundred and twenty. But it could be worth just about anything. The taxation value of Vesa Larsson’s house is one point two million. It’s quite new. The value was set last year in a specific property taxation arrangement. He’s got a loan of a million. Presumably on the house.”

  “What about Gunnar Isaksson?” asked Rebecka.

  “Nothing special. A few bonds, some savings in the bank.”

  “Okay,” said Rebecka. “Anything else as far as the church goes? Does it own any companies or anything?”

  Sivving appeared behind Rebecka.

  “Hello there!” he boomed. “Talking to yourself?”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Rebecka to Maria.

  She turned to Sivving. Only a tiny part of his face was visible above his scarf. A little snowdrift had already formed on the top of his cap.

  “I’m on the phone,” she said, pointing at the wire to her earpiece. “I can’t get the car out. The wheels were just spinning around when I tried to start it.”

  “You’re on the phone on that wire thing?” he asked. “Good Lord, soon they’ll be operating to put a telephone inside your head the second you’re born. You carry on, I’ll start clearing.”

  He started dragging the rake across the ground in front of the car.

  “Hi,” said Rebecka into the phone.

  “I’m still here,” replied Maria. “The church owns nothing, but I checked out the pastors and their families. The wives are part owners in a trading company. Victory Print.”

  “Did you check it out?”

  “No, but its tax records are in the public domain, so you can call the local tax office. I didn’t want to ask Johan again. He wasn’t that keen on asking for information from another tax authority’s transaction network.”

  “Thanks a million,” said Rebecka. “I’ve got to give Sivving a hand now. I’ll call you.”

  “Be careful,” said Maria, and hung up.

  Slowly the night abandoned Sanna Strandgård. Slipped away. Out through the reinforced window and the heavy steel door, leaving room for the unforgiving day. It would be a while before it grew light outside. A faint glow from the street lamps outside pushed its way in through the window and hovered like a shadow beneath the ceiling. Sanna lay motionless on her bunk.

  Just a little bit longer, she prayed, but merciful sleep was gone.

  She felt as if her face was completely numb. Her hand crept out from under the blanket and she caressed her lips. Pretended her hand was Sara’s soft hair. Let her nose remember the scent of Lova. She still smelled like a child, although she was turning into a big girl. Her body relaxed and sank into her memories. The bedroom at home in the flat. All four of them in the bed. Lova, with her arms around Sanna’s neck. Sara, curled up behind her back. And Virku lying on Sara’s feet. The little black paws, galloping in her sleep. Every single thing was tattooed on her skin, imprinted on the insides of her hands and her lips. Whatever happened, her body would remember.

  Rebecka, she thought. I won’t lose them. Rebecka will fix it. I won’t cry. There’s no point.

  An hour later the cell door was tentatively pushed open a fraction. Light poured in through the gap, and someone whispered:

  “Are you awake?”

  It was Anna-Maria Mella. The policewoman with the long plait and the huge stomach.

  Sanna answered, and Anna-Maria’s face appeared in the doorway.

  “I just thought I’d see if you wanted some breakfast. Tea and a sandwich?”

  Sanna said yes, and Anna-Maria disappeared. She left the cell door slightly ajar.

  From the corridor Sanna heard the guard’s resigned voice:

  “For God’s sake, Mella!”

  Then she heard Anna-Maria’s reply:

  “Oh, come on. What do you think she’s going to do? Come out here and blast her way through the security door?”

  I’ll bet she’s a good mother, thought Sanna. The sort who leaves the door open a bit so the children can hear her moving about in the kitchen. The sort who leaves a light on by the bed if th
ey’re scared of the dark.

  After a while Anna-Maria Mella came back with two gherkin sandwiches in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. She had a file clamped under one arm, and pushed the door shut with her foot. The mug was chipped, and once upon a time had belonged to “The Best Grandmother in the World.”

  “Wow,” said Sanna gratefully, sitting up. “I thought it was just bread and water in jail.”

  “This is bread and water,” laughed Anna-Maria. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  Sanna gestured invitingly toward the foot of the bunk, and Anna-Maria sat down. She placed the file on the floor.

  “It’s dropped,” said Sanna between mouthfuls of tea, nodding at Anna-Maria’s stomach. “It’s nearly time.”

  “Yes.” Anna-Maria smiled.

  There was a comfortable silence between them. Sanna took small bites of her sandwich. The gherkin crunched between her teeth. Anna-Maria gazed out of the window at the heavy snow.

  “The murder of your brother was so—how shall I put it—religious,” said Anna-Maria thoughtfully. “Ritualistic, somehow.”

  Sanna stopped chewing. The piece of sandwich stuck in her mouth like a huge lump.

  “The gouged-out eyes, the severed hands, all the stab wounds,” Anna-Maria went on. “The place where the body was lying. Right in the middle of the aisle, in front of the altar. And no sign of struggle or violence.”

  “Like a sacrificial lamb,” said Sanna quietly.

  “Exactly,” agreed Anna-Maria. “It made me think of a place in the Bible, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ ”

  “It’s in one of the Books of Moses,” said Sanna, reaching for her Bible, which was on the floor next to her bunk.

  She searched for a moment, then she read out loud:

  “ ‘And if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth…’ ”

  She paused and read silently to herself before continuing:

  “ ‘…hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’ ”

  “Who had a reason to take revenge on him?” asked Anna-Maria.

  Sanna didn’t reply, but flicked through the Bible, apparently aimlessly.

  “They often put out people’s eyes in the Old Testament,” she said. “The Philistines put out Samson’s eyes. The Ammonites offered the besieged people of Rabbah peace, on condition that they were allowed to put out the right eye of every single one.”

  She fell silent as the door was pushed wide open and the guard appeared with Rebecka Martinsson behind him. Rebecka’s hair was lying on her shoulders in wet clumps. Her mascara had run into two black circles under her eyes. Her nose was an angry red dripping tap.

  “Good morning,” she said, glaring at the two smiling women on the bunk. “Don’t ask!”

  The guard disappeared and Rebecka remained standing in the doorway.

  “What’s this, morning prayers?” she asked.

  “We were talking about eyes being put out in the Bible,” said Sanna.

  “ ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ for example,” added Anna-Maria.

  “Mmm,” said Rebecka. “And then there’s that place in one of the gospels: ‘if thine eye offend thee’ and so on—where was it?”

  Sanna flicked through the Bible.

  “It’s in Mark,” she said. “Here it is, Mark 9:43 onward. ‘And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’ ”

  “Good grief!” said Anna-Maria with feeling.

  “What made you start talking about this?” asked Rebecka, struggling out of her coat.

  Sanna put the Bible down.

  “Anna-Maria said she thought Viktor’s murder seemed so ritualistic,” she replied.

  A tense silence filled the little room. Rebecka looked grimly at Anna-Maria.

  “I don’t want you to talk to Sanna about the murder when I’m not present,” she said sharply.

  Anna-Maria leaned forward with difficulty and picked the file up off the floor. She stood up and looked steadily at Rebecka.

  “I hadn’t planned it,” she said. “It just happened. I’ll take you to a room where you can talk. Rebecka, can you ask the guard to take Sanna along to the shower when you’ve finished, then we’ll all meet in the interview room in forty minutes.”

  She held the file out to Rebecka.

  “Here,” she said with a conciliatory smile. “The copies of Viktor’s Bible you wanted. I really hope we can work well together.”

  No points to you, thought Rebecka as Anna-Maria walked ahead of them.

  When they were alone Rebecka sank down on a chair and looked resolutely at Sanna, who was standing by the window looking out at the falling snow.

  “Who could have put the murder weapon in your flat?” asked Rebecka.

  “I can’t think of anybody,” said Sanna. “I don’t know any more now than I did before. I was asleep. Viktor was standing by my bed. I put Lova in the sledge and took Sara by the hand and we went to the church. He was lying there.”

  They fell silent. Rebecka opened the file Anna-Maria had given her. The first sheet was a copy of the back of a postcard. There was no stamp. Rebecka stared at the handwriting. A chill went though her body. It was the same writing as the message on her car. Sprawling. As if the person who had written it had been wearing gloves, or had written it with the wrong hand. She read:

  What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God. I love you.

  “What is it?” asked Sanna, terrified, as she watched the color drain from Rebecka’s face.

  I can’t say anything about the note on the car, thought Rebecka. She’ll go mad. She’ll be terrified something will happen to the girls.

  "Nothing," she replied, “but listen to this.”

  She read the postcard out loud.

  “Who loved him, Sanna?” she asked.

  Sanna looked down.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Loads of people.”

  “You really don’t know a thing,” said Rebecka crossly.

  She felt upset. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t work out what it was.

  “Had you fallen out with Viktor when he died?” she asked. “Why weren’t he and your parents allowed to pick up the girls?”

  "I’ve explained all that," said Sanna impatiently. "Viktor would just have given them to my parents."

  Rebecka didn’t speak, she just gazed out of the window. She was thinking about Patrik Mattsson. On the video from the church service he’d grabbed at Viktor’s hands. And Viktor had snatched them away.

  “I need to go for a shower now if I’m going to fit it in before the interview,” said Sanna.

  Rebecka nodded absently.

  I’ll talk to Patrik Mattsson, she thought.

  She was jerked back to the present by Sanna running her hand quickly over Rebecka’s hair.

  “I love you, Rebecka,” she said softly. “My dearest, dearest sister.”

  It’s just amazing how everybody loves me, thought Rebecka. They lie, deceive and eat you up for breakfast, all out of love.

  Rebecka and Sanna are sitting at the kitchen table. Sara is lying on a beanbag in the living room listening to Jojje Wadenius. It’s her morning routine. Porridge and Jojje on the beanbag. In the kitchen the radio is turned to P1. The orange Advent star is still hanging in the window, although it’s February. But you need to hang on to a little bit of Christmas, its decorations and its light, just to keep you going until the spring arrives. San
na is standing by the stove making sandwiches. The coffee percolator gurgles one last time, then falls silent. She pours two mugs and places them on the kitchen table.

  Nausea floods through Rebecka like an enormous wave. She jumps up from the table and rushes into the bathroom. She doesn’t even manage to lift the lid properly. Most of the vomit ends up all over the lid and the floor.

  Sanna follows her. She stands in the doorway in her tatty green fluffy dressing gown, looking at Rebecka with anxious eyes. Rebecka wipes away a strand of mucus and vomit from her mouth with the back of her hand. When she turns her face up toward Sanna, she can see that Sanna has realized.

  “Who?” asks Sanna. “Is it Viktor?”

  “He has the right to know,” says Sanna.

  They are sitting at the kitchen table again. The coffee has been thrown away.

  “Why?” says Rebecka harshly.

  She feels as if she is trapped inside thick glass. It’s been like this for a while now. Her body wakes long before she does in the mornings. Her mouth opens for the toothbrush. Her hands make the bed. Her legs make their way to the Hjalmar Lundbohm school. Sometimes she stops dead in the middle of the street, wondering whether it’s Saturday. If she has to go to school at all. But it’s remarkable. Her legs are always right. She arrives in the right room on the right day at the right time. Her body can manage perfectly well without her. She’s avoided going to church. Blamed schoolwork and the flu and gone to visit her grandmother in Kurravaara. And Thomas Söderberg hasn’t asked about her, or phoned.

  “Because it’s his child,” says Sanna. “He’s bound to realize, in any case. I mean, it’ll show in a few months.”

  “No,” says Rebecka tonelessly. “It won’t.”

  She sees how the meaning of what she has just said sinks in.

  “No, Rebecka,” says Sanna, shaking her head.

  Tears well up in her eyes and she reaches for Rebecka’s hand, but Rebecka gets up and puts on her shoes and padded jacket.

  “I love you, Rebecka,” pleads Sanna. “Don’t you understand that it’s a gift? I’ll help you to…”

  She stops speaking as Rebecka looks at her with contempt.