The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

by Mari Jungstedt

  She does, in fact, look like an old lady, thought Knutas as she sat there in her worn-old bathrobe with her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She was deeply immersed in reading about personal relationships in the special inside section of Dagens Nyheter. She wasn’t especially interested in the news or politics. Her attention was most often caught by someone’s tragic fate, people’s relationship problems, or the diseases they were suffering from. The sort of thing that Knutas found unbelievably upsetting. Absentmindedly she reached for her tea cup, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the newspaper. She had eaten only an egg, a slice of ham, and a tomato for breakfast. Every once in a while Lina would go through a weight-loss craze, but it never lasted more than a couple of weeks. During that time she would completely change her diet and start working out. She had tried everything, from power-walking to African dancing, but she never stayed with any programme consistently. During their entire marriage, Lina had always been about 10 kilos overweight, and she periodically managed to lose a few of them. At the moment she didn’t seem to care. It had never bothered Knutas. He thought she looked great with her plump curves, her soft white skin, and her freckled arms and legs. She gave a big yawn, without covering her mouth.

  Lately they hadn’t found as much to talk about. They were each so busy with their own jobs. Lina seldom told him about her work any more. In the past she had enthusiastically talked about everything, until it almost became too much for Knutas. Sometimes he would shut her voice out, letting her talk while he settled into his own thoughts and stopped listening. Suddenly it occurred to him that he had no idea how his wife spent her time these days when she wasn’t at work.

  ‘I’ve got to go into the office for a while this morning. What are you going to do today?’ he asked.

  ‘What did you say?’ she murmured distractedly.

  He repeated his question.

  ‘You know very well what I’m doing. I’m taking the eleven o’clock flight to Stockholm.’

  Knutas raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I didn’t know about that. Why are you going there?’

  Lina looked up from the newspaper with a reproachful expression.

  ‘I told you a long time ago. I’m going to see Maria.’

  ‘Maria?’

  ‘Maria Karlsson. The photographer. I’m going to help her with that documentary book about childbirth in various parts of the world. We need to discuss the contents and how to divide up the work.’

  In a far corner of his mind Knutas recalled Lina once mentioning this trip to him.

  ‘Oh, right. Of course.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you? I’m going to be gone all weekend. Did you forget about that?’

  ‘No, no. Of course I remember. Now that you mention it.’

  ‘Good.’

  Lina went back to her article. An uncomfortable silence settled over them. Knutas got up and cleared the table.

  He thought about the conversation that he’d had yesterday with his contact at Interpol, who had told him that they’d had some reliable tips that the double murderer Vera Petrov and her husband were in the Dominican Republic. A Swedish tourist had contacted the Dominican police, claiming that he thought he’d recognized the couple in a restaurant in the town of Puerto Plata. The local police were investigating. Knutas could only hope that the witness was right. The man had managed to photograph the pair, and sometime today the photo would be sent to Sweden.

  Knutas really didn’t have time to ponder his marital problems. He just wanted to get to the office.

  EVERYONE HAD HIGH expectations of the bus tour that would take them in Bergman’s footsteps. At ten o’clock on Saturday morning, a motley group had assembled outside Fårö’s former school, which now served as the information centre during the Bergman festival week. The group consisted primarily of people with ties to the film industry or the cultural world. Stina recognized Jan Troell and his wife, Jörn Donner with a well-known TV newsreader, the cultural director for the Gotland district, a Swedish author, several actors and a cinema owner from Visby. The bus tour was led by Gotland’s own film consultant, a colourful and beautiful woman. With great enthusiasm she told them about the filming that Bergman had done on Fårö and the various locations that he had used.

  Andrea and Stina ended up sitting next to each other. Beata landed next to Sam, and way at the back sat Håkan and John. The bus jolted along the gravel roads, through flocks of sheep, and headed towards the wide expanse of the sea. Film clips were shown on the TV monitor before they arrived at each of the locations where the movies were shot.

  ‘Bergman made a total of four feature films on Fårö – Through a Glass Darkly, Persona, Shame and The Passion of Anna – as well as two documentaries,’ the guide told them. ‘According to some film critics, the windswept and barren landscape here on Fårö supposedly symbolizes the inner life of the main characters. Bergman himself said that the natural setting here suited him perfectly, and it inspired him tremendously.’

  Everyone was listening attentively to the guide’s lively account.

  ‘Ingmar Bergman came to Fårö for the first time on a stormy April day in the early 1960s. He came here only reluctantly, looking for a location for Through a Glass Darkly. In reality, Bergman wanted to shoot the film on the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, but those plans were too expensive for the Swedish film company. The cinematographer Sven Nykvist had shot newsreels on Gotland and Fårö during the war, so he was able to tell his colleague about the barren landscape. Bergman instantly fell in love with the island, built a house here, and became a resident in 1967. He has meant a great deal to the people who live here. He donated money for various construction projects and filmed documentaries about the lives of the islanders. He put Fårö on the world map. That’s why the local people, for all these years, have been so loyal to him. No islander would ever tell a visitor where he lived, and in all this time they have respected Bergman’s well-known need for solitude.’

  ‘Is the location of his house still a secret, even after his death?’ asked Stina.

  ‘Yes. You won’t get any of the locals to tell you where it is,’ explained the guide with a smile. ‘Not even me.’

  The tour continued. They found out that Bergman always drove his car down the middle of the road, that the islanders mostly viewed him as a nice man who drove to the shops and bought the newspaper every day, and as someone who was good at finding work for them – many Fårö residents were extras in his films.

  While the guide was talking, Andrea poked Stina in the side.

  ‘Look how she’s carrying on,’ she hissed, motioning behind them. Stina discreetly turned around. Beata was on the other side of the aisle in the row behind them, sitting close to Sam and talking nonstop. She had one hand on his thigh, and he didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘What does she think she’s doing? Is she out of her mind?’ Andrea whispered to Stina. ‘She’s acting worse than ever. I’m going to say something to her.’

  ‘Wait,’ Stina told her. ‘Take it easy. You know how she is. Besides, he’s moving her hand away.’

  Andrea took a quick look back. Beata’s hand was gone now, and she could tell that Sam was feeling uncomfortable. He pressed closer to the window. She turned back to Stina.

  ‘I don’t understand why she acts like that. Last night she was bloody annoying.’

  ‘She drank too much,’ said Stina drily. ‘We all do sometimes, don’t we?’

  Andrea was irritated by Stina’s apparent reluctance to bad-mouth a friend. That definitely didn’t improve her mood. She wished this damn tour would be over soon so they could go to the beach. She glanced at her watch; they’d been out for an hour and a half. The sun was blazing through the dusty windows, and it was getting hotter with every minute that passed. Sweat ran down her back, and to make matters worse, the bus had no air conditioning.

  ‘I’ve got a slight hangover myself,’ she went on. ‘But I noticed you didn’t drink much last night.’

  Stin
a smiled.

  ‘No, but that’s because I’m on call, you know. They could tell me to come in to work at any time. I didn’t want to run the risk of getting drunk. But it looks like there are others suffering from a hangover.’

  She motioned towards Håkan and John, who had both fallen asleep at the back of the bus.

  Andrea again glanced to the side and gave Beata an angry look.

  ‘On the other hand, she looks quite alert. At the next stop I’m going to change places with her. And that’s that.’

  The tour ended in Hammars, and everyone realized that they must be very close to Bergman’s home. It was common knowledge that Bergman lived somewhere in Hammars.

  ‘In Through a Glass Darkly four people come up from the sea at that very spot,’ the guide told them, pointing at the shoreline north of Hammars. ‘And in the movie there’s a slender little tree on a cliff. Most people are very surprised when they see the same tree now, forty years later. It’s not so little any more. Persona was also shot right here.’

  They all got off the bus and clips from the actual shooting of the film were shown on a large movie screen. It was easy to imagine Bergman clambering among the limestone rocks and along the shore, pointing and gesturing as he conversed with the actors. Moving back and forth to get just the right shot with the right light; working with Sven Nykvist, who was always the cinematographer for his films.

  They ambled over the rocks, enjoying the view. They noticed that a short distance away, Jörn Donner and the TV newsreader were walking on ahead. They seemed to have a specific destination in mind. They stopped in front of a fence that ran across the middle of the rocks. The field on the other side was nothing more than a wide expanse of stone-covered ground before the lowlying woods began. It seemed completely desolate.

  Jörn Donner raised his hand and pointed, but they couldn’t hear what he was saying. They could only guess.

  THE TOUR ENDED with a luncheon, and by the time the group returned to the inn, it was already two in the afternoon. She declined to accompany the others to the beach and instead set off on a bicycle ride. She had already decided where to go, but she didn’t tell anyone what her plans were. She was going to try to find Bergman’s house. She glanced at her watch. She had four hours until she had to be back for the evening film showing. It was at least worth a try. She suspected that they had been very close to his house during the bus tour. She didn’t actually remember which way they had gone to get there, but she did know that he had lived somewhere in Hammars.

  She decided to take a detour via the ferry dock at Broa in order to get some real exercise. She would bike around the promontory at Ryssudden and then go to the little village of Dämba. From there she would head to Hammars. She set off pedalling towards Fårö church, passed the turnoff for the rauk area called Langhammars, and continued down to the ferry dock. Just before reaching the strait between Fårö and Gotland, she turned on to a narrow, asphalt road and went past several limestone farmhouses that sold Fårö potatoes, strawberries and vegetables. What an idyllic country scene, she thought. On one side was the beautiful view of the sea and the houses situated on the shore of Fårösund. On the other side of her were the farms, windmills and small feed barns with high, thatched roofs typical of Fårö. She also saw flocks of sheep and windswept heaths where the trees were bent crooked by the wind, never growing taller than a metre high.

  As the road meandered upwards, the landscape opened up: flat plains with stone walls in the middle of the barren landscape, juniper bushes, the skeletons of dead trees with white branches, and even more sheep, grazing undisturbed in the poor soil. She kept up a good pace, and it wasn’t long before she was drenched with sweat. She enjoyed the exertion and breathed air deep into her lungs. She passed a man standing at the edge of a ditch, staring at her. Without changing expression, he raised his hand in greeting. Otherwise the road was deserted. Most people had probably gone to the beach on such a beautiful day. Fårö had plenty of long sandy beaches.

  She passed a big lake. The light-coloured gravel road, dusty with limestone, wound its way onwards, and she saw a cluster of houses up ahead. The secluded village of Dämba consisted of a dozen or so houses, surrounded by low walls. There were also small farms. An old windmill with broken sails stood on a hill a short distance away. Somewhere she’d heard that it belonged to Bergman, and that he’d used it as a guesthouse for people who worked on his films.

  After a kilometre a sign appeared. Hammars. Her pulse quickened. She was now truly in Bergman country. A road, straight as an arrow, led east. On either side were meadows filled with flowers and hectares of oats billowing in the faint breeze. The sun was high overhead, and it had to be over 25 degrees centigrade. She passed pastures where well-nourished cows were grazing, and she caught glimpses of the sea. Here and there she saw a summer cottage. All of a sudden she found herself right outside a farm. Too late she discovered that it was private land, and a furious Doberman came rushing towards her as if shot out of a cannon, barking wildly. She froze in terror. The dog would reach her in a matter of seconds. She deeply regretted setting out at all. What business had she being here? At the very moment when she thought the dog was going to take a bite of her bare leg, she heard a sharp whistle. Like a remote-control robot, the dog stopped in mid-air and took off in another direction.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to stay here a second longer than necessary, so she pedalled as fast as she could, leaving behind the dog that didn’t like strangers. The owner shouted after her, but she pretended not to hear. The road became smaller and smaller, and she jolted over cattle grids, through patches of woodland, and along expanses of shoreline. Several times flocks of sheep blocked the road, but they moved aside, bleating protests as their matchstick legs carried them in all directions. She continued on, even though by this time she had begun to have serious doubts that she was going the right way. Who cares if I’m lost, she thought. At least it’s beautiful here.

  Suddenly the road split in two, and she ended up in front of a high gate with signs that said: ‘Private’, ‘Beware of the dog’, ‘Security’. Plus the name and phone number of the security company. Her mouth went dry. Was she in luck? Who else would have this kind of gate on Fårö?

  Hesitantly she got off the bicycle, unsure what to do next. She looked around. There was no one in sight. The only sounds were a faint roar from the sea, a few chirping birds in the bushes and her own footsteps on the gravel.

  Cautiously she pushed down on the gate’s handle. It gave a reluctant creak and seemed to resist, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. She stood on the gravel path, listening intently, but everything seemed calm. Slowly she moved forward, her steps uncertain. Someone might be here, since it was the Bergman festival week and all. But the place seemed completely dead. Desolate and abandoned. With each step, the roar from the sea grew louder.

  Then she stopped. Several cars were visible between the trees. Damn it, she thought. Somebody’s here after all.

  She glanced around, straining to distinguish other sounds besides the roar of the sea, the chirping of the birds, the rustling of the leaves in the trees and bushes. Her own breathing.

  She didn’t know whether she dared go any further. Frantically she thought about what to say if she got caught. Maybe it would be a good idea to speak English, pretend to be a lost tourist who didn’t understand a thing. Or maybe it would be best to tell the truth. Put her cards on the table and confess. ‘Yes, I was curious. Who could blame me?’ But presumably what she was in the process of doing right now was a punishable offence. Illegal entry.

  As she got closer, it became clear that the vehicles parked outside the house were anything but new. Red, dusty old Volvos that looked as if they were at least twenty years old. Probably cars that Bergman had used for his excursions around Fårö, she thought. They didn’t look as if they’d been driven in a long time. That gave her renewed courage, and she picked up her pace.

  Finally she reached th
e house itself. A long, narrow wooden structure painted grey with blue window frames. Actually quite modest-looking. To prevent anyone from looking in, a high stone wall ran along both sides of the house. Now she began to feel certain that no one was here. The place looked as if it was locked up.

  She paused for a moment to weigh up her next move. Should she make do with this and turn around? She had reached her goal; she had located the house and gone close enough to see it, although she couldn’t really make out many details of the property from here. The wall was in the way. It took another minute for her to make up her mind.

  KNUTAS SAT IN his office, thumbing through the photographs that had arrived from the Dominican police and that presumably showed the woman they were trying to find, along with her husband. But the photos were a big disappointment. They were too blurry to identify the people with any certainty. The techs at the lab had already done everything in their power to enhance the images. Damn it, he thought. Just when he was starting to feel a glimmer of hope. He doubted whether they would ever catch Vera Petrov, who, to the great embarrassment of the police, had managed to slip through their clutches a couple of years ago. With help from Karin, he thought bitterly. What a fine deputy superintendent she was. He gave a start when the object of his ill-humoured thoughts stuck her head in the door.

  ‘Hi. Are you working?’

  ‘Yes. Those photographs from the Dominican Republic came in. You know, the ones that supposedly show Petrov and her husband. But they’re totally worthless. See for yourself.’

  He handed her the photos.