The Night of the Fire: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  He got up, but remained standing in front of the table, as if he was giving a speech. “You, the hunter,” he said, turning to Bodin. “You know. That feeling on an early autumn morning, there is silence, no birds are in motion, most of them have flown away or are busy fattening up, the morning chill is nothing because you’re dressed to meet the mist over the clearing, and you have coffee in your thermos. Maybe you’ve had a shot, but only one. Everything is familiar, I mean, you recognize everything so well. It’s home. Nothing more is needed. You don’t need anything else.”

  “Did the two of you hunt together?” Bodin asked.

  “He was at his best in the woods. He was no driver or machinery operator, if I’m going to be honest.”

  “Was he an arsonist?” Sammy asked. “I have to ask, because there can be a motive, whether or not the rumors in the village are right. Someone may have gotten the idea to take revenge.”

  Waldemar Mattsson sank down on the chair but his expression did not change. They sat silently a good while before he brushed his hand across the tabletop. “Pollen,” he said with a sigh. Is that how you think it happened? Someone sets fire to the smithy, Daniel manages to get out, the arsonist runs into the forest, Daniel runs after and catches up, and is beaten to death.”

  “It could have happened like that, right?” said Bodin.

  “He was no fighter,” the farmer said.

  “He was convicted of an assault in Gimo, I’m sure you remember that?”

  “That black tried to cut in line, and what business does a Muslim have at a sausage stand?”

  “There are vegetarian alternatives,” said Sammy.

  “Have you ever been in Gimo?”

  The farmer observed him with a contemptuous gaze, as if Sammy were an inferior person you didn’t have to take seriously.

  “And Andreas?” said Bodin.

  Mattsson took his eyes off Sammy and turned his head.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “His brother dies and he’s driving gravel for Peab.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “I want to solve a crime,” Bodin said calmly.

  “I have to go in to Wendela. Her sister has to go home to her husband, the professor who can’t even tie his shoelaces.” He stood up and walked away, stopped after a few steps, turned around and looked at the two policemen with an expression that was hard to decipher. “She despises me and she’ll gladly tell you why. The sister that is, but don’t believe everything she says.”

  “Okay,” said Sammy.

  “One thing,” said the farmer. “My wife is a little … She forgets things, she can answer a little wrong sometimes, but that’s nothing to worry about, in any case not for you. You don’t have to treat her disrespectfully.”

  “Why would we?” said Bodin.

  “As I said, she can say crazy things sometimes.”

  * * *

  Waldemar Mattsson disappeared through the doorway. No Winchester, no victory gesture this time. A few minutes later a woman came out, headed for her car without giving them a glance, but changed her mind and made a ninety-degree turn. If Wendela stood out as pale and shaky, her sister gave a completely different impression. Sammy thought she was between forty-five and fifty years old, but she moved like a young woman, and walked quickly toward the garden chairs where they were sitting, stopped a few steps away from them and inspected first Bodin, then Sammy Nilsson.

  “How are you going to solve this?”

  “With honorable and careful police work,” said Bodin, and Sammy could not help smiling.

  “You haven’t exactly distinguished yourselves before.”

  “Do you live in the village too?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ananda Frykholm.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  She looked around. “Daniel ended up in bad company.”

  “How bad?”

  “He’s dead,” she said quickly, as if that was an answer to the question. “He was a good kid. For a long time he was quite wonderful.”

  “Was Daniel an organized Nazi or something like that?”

  Bodin’s question would worry anyone, but Ananda Frykholm did not bat an eye.

  “He wanted to be a forester, but Mattsson flatly refused. He thought that Daniel didn’t have any aptitude for study, and maybe that’s right, but he would have managed it. Then everything would have been different. Instead he had to drive dump trucks and machinery. He felt inferior, always in the shadow of Mattsson.”

  “By Mattsson do you mean Waldemar?”

  “There’s only one Mattsson.”

  “Is he domineering?” Bodin asked.

  “Have you studied psychology?”

  Bodin explained that it was his major interest, right after glider flying. At first Ananda Frykholm looked startled, but then she smiled.

  “Daniel compensated, he became loudmouthed, wanted to show off. It didn’t always work out that well.”

  “His brother then, Andreas. What’s he like?”

  “He’s … different, of course. You’ll have to form your own impression.”

  “Are you and your sister close?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “She’s going to be, Alzheimer’s or something. But she’s always been a bit feeble and confused.”

  “But you have a good memory, I understand.”

  Ananda Frykholm overlooked the comment. “She was that way already as a child. Now she’s collapsed.”

  “Daniel set fire to the school, people say,” said Sammy Nilsson, making it sound as if it were a general understanding, an obvious truth.

  “That may be, but where he is now there are no prisons.”

  “What did he say to you, about the school, I mean?” Bodin added.

  “Why would he talk with me about the fire?”

  “You were close to each other,” said Bodin, who actually was interested in glider flying and psychology.

  For the first time a breach could be glimpsed in Ananda Frykholm’s facade. She turned toward the farmhouse. “I have to leave,” she said.

  * * *

  “Okay,” said Bodin when the car started. “A one-and-only Mattsson, a confused Mrs. Mattsson, and a cocky sister-in-law who felt sorry for her nephew.”

  “It was wrong to let Wendela see the body,” Sammy said, studying the cloud of dust that hovered over the driveway from the farm.

  Bodin showed his agreement by humming, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “There was someone who was extremely angry,” he continued. “He was thoroughly beaten to death.”

  “Why does someone kill?”

  “Passion, money, or revenge,” said Bodin in a mechanical voice, as if the answer was programmed in.

  “Confusion and obsession,” Sammy added.

  “Is religion a sign of confusion or an obsession?”

  They were chatting, Sammy felt, but they were both occupied by Ananda Frykholm.

  “Strange that she has a man’s name.”

  “I think it’s lovely,” said Sammy.

  “Ananda was Buddha’s assistant, known for his good memory.”

  “Historian of religion, really?”

  “My wife’s fault,” said Bodin, but did not explain further. Sammy thought that perhaps it would come out later. His colleague liked to release information a little at a time. Sammy nonetheless felt satisfied. Bodin could gladly be his permanent squire. Their dialogue reminded him of what he’d had with Lindell.

  “There is only one Mattsson,” he said.

  * * *

  One of the CSIs was approaching. He and two colleagues had spent the whole day around the smithy, which was now also considered the murder scene, and a gang of uniformed colleagues had fine-combed the surroundings without finding anything sensational. A pair of shoe prints had been secured on a road a few hundred meters from the smithy, but no one could say whether it had anything to do with
the murder. Some thirty objects had been collected, including a picnic basket, a gym shoe, and an empty Marlboro cigarette pack. In other words it was as usual, many impressions and conjectures, but no certain results.

  Journalists and photographers had flocked around the farm and the surrounding area since before noon, and despite the barricades by the highway some had made their way up to the smithy. Blowflies, the otherwise balanced Bodin had scolded them in an outburst, which Sammy believed was caused by the strain. Bodin did not want to let on, but it was obvious that he was not feeling well.

  “Should we give them anything?”

  “Let Westin take care of that,” said Bodin. Westin was the police spokesperson. A bore, some thought; others said efficient and factual.

  “I’ll give them basic facts, then he can take the rest tomorrow, okay? If they’re going to have time for anything sensible for tomorrow, it has to come out now.”

  Bodin shrugged. Sammy went up to the group of journalists, two of which he recognized, and introduced himself.

  “Fire last night,” he started without any ceremony. “A young man lost his life a hundred meters from the scene of the fire. He’s been identified.” It undeniably sounded dry and factual, but the message could not be conveyed in that many ways.

  “Is it arson?”

  “Too soon to say.”

  “Who is the young man?”

  “We are waiting to release his identity.”

  “Is he a Swedish citizen?”

  Sammy nodded. He understood very well what the next question would be, and it was the young reporter from the Uppsala paper who asked it.

  “Does this fire have anything to do with the school fire last winter?”

  “We can’t see any connection. At the present time.”

  So it went for a few more minutes. He did not think he could say anything about the woman who died in the fire, not as long as she was not identified. The group of journalists wanted more, that was obvious. They had waited a long time for a few morsels and admittedly in an environment that was arrayed in spring garb, but it still felt unnecessarily rural.

  “Is the young man connected to Hamra farm?” The Uppsala reporter did not give up that easily.

  “What’s your name?” Sammy countered.

  “Jonas Fälldin,” the journalist said with a smile.

  “I read your reporting last winter.”

  “How nice.”

  Sammy felt inside that he shouldn’t go further, but did so anyway.

  “I liked your description and survey of how refugee facilities have a tendency to burn up.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “At the present time we are not releasing the identity. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.” Sammy made a gesture with his hands, which could be interpreted as resignation, to suggest that it wasn’t his decision to make.

  Jonas Fälldin did not look resigned, more the opposite, as if he’d received a suggestion for a new series of articles. Despite his youth he seemed to be the most experienced in the group. He closed the worn notepad he’d taken notes in. It surprised Sammy that journalists still used such an outmoded technology as paper and pen.

  The work was over, in any event at the scene. Bodin and Sammy would return to Uppsala after a long shift.

  “It’s my birthday today,” said Bodin when they got in the car.

  “Congratulations,” said Sammy. “I’ll drive you home directly so you can have cake. I’m going to stop by the office.”

  “That was nice, but the party is over.”

  Sammy sneaked a glance at his colleague to discern if there was possibly some double meaning in his laconic comment, but saw only an expressionless face.

  * * *

  He called home and told his wife that there was still a little to do. “Internal surveillance,” she said in a voice that dripped with acid.

  “Exactly. Ann gave me a few suggestions.”

  “Ann?”

  “Her son called in the alarm. They live out there, I’m sure you remember that.”

  That was his response to her poison. Angelika was no fan of Ann Lindell. It was childish, but he didn’t have the energy to once again defend and explain why he worked all day on a Sunday.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “At nine o’clock or so.”

  “I see,” said Angelika.

  Nothing more was said.

  Fourteen

  The beaters were in motion, round and round in the cheese vat, which held five hundred liters of cow’s milk. The thermometer showed thirty-three degrees Celsius. Everything was as it should be. But somehow not.

  The sounds on the other side of the glass wall disturbed her, where Matilda was talking with Anton about God knows what. How chatty that old man could be; Ann heard in Matilda’s voice that she was tired. The voices blended with the music from the loudspeaker on the shelf. Then came the news, P4 Uppland. The fire at Hamra farm was the lead item. The reporter sounded dissatisfied somehow. Lindell got the idea that he would like to say “suicide vest” or something like that, perhaps “Islamists” or “terror,” something alarming that measured up to the reports from the hot spots in the wider world. He recalled the school fire and speculated like everyone else about Saturday night’s fire as a revenge action, spoke about the rural idyll that had now been lost. “Is Tilltorp going to be a concept all over the country, more or less like Knutby?” he asked, and answered with an unhesitating “Yes.” “The area will always be associated with a changed Sweden. A new country is emerging, a country that many don’t recognize,” he continued in an attempt to sound ominous.

  “What an idiot!” Lindell exclaimed, so loud that Matilda looked up. Their eyes met through the glass wall that separated the rooms. Maybe she thought that Lindell meant Anton, because she gave a thumbs-up.

  She checked the clock: Half an hour until the rennet would work. There was time for a little coffee. She left the white-tiled room with the monotonous circular motion of the beaters.

  Matilda Wiik resembled a sweet champignon in her bonnet and white protective coat. She smiled, which she often did. She was the one who had initiated Lindell into the mysteries of cheese production. Her father had grown up in Burträsk and made Västerbotten cheese for decades. Matilda inherited much of his skill, but left her home region and married Anders Hedman, born in Skebo in Roslagen. They met at a course in Jämtland and made an immediate connection. Ann Lindell could see, with admiration and sometimes a bit enviously, how they still seemed newly in love.

  Anders could not imagine living in “Lapp hell,” and Matilda had given in, so they moved south. The idea was that they would start their own business. By chance they came across a property in Tilltorp, and there they started their creamery. That was ten years ago. Success came quickly, locally produced organic cheeses had started to be popular, and it did not take long before they were supplying cheese to shops and restaurants all over central Sweden.

  “What was Anton yacking about?”

  “He’s still mad as hell because he doesn’t get to come with us.”

  Ann was supposed to go with Matilda and Anders to a cheese fair in England at the end of September. Anton was not part of the plan. He was retired, they reasoned, and worked at the creamery mostly as therapy, a way to get out of the house, and Ann understood that Matilda had reminded him of that.

  Matilda suddenly looked serious. “What is happening?” she said. Until then the two of them had not had time to talk about the fire at Hamra.

  Ann told her what she knew, which wasn’t much. A relaxed silence arose between them, and that was something Ann appreciated in Matilda Wiik, that she had the ability to stay silent, without it feeling awkward.

  “Ask Bertil Efraimsson, I think he knows something,” she said at last.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “We belong to the same congregation.”

  Ann knew that her boss came from a deeply religious background, even if
she never talked about it.

  “He’s been worried all spring, convinced that the school fire was set.”

  “Did he see anything?”

  “Bertil is a man who keeps a lot inside. He’s a strong person, who doesn’t have that need to babble about everything and everyone.”

  “Like Anton?”

  Matilda looked serious. “Have you checked the time?” She nodded toward the cheese vat on the other side of the glass window.

  “I set the timer,” said Ann.

  Fifteen

  A country girl in the city, that’s how she felt. But that passed quickly. She was standing in Gotlandsparken, playing bird-watcher. The ducks looked like they too had spring plowing to do. Then she raised her eyes and looked toward Åkanten, the restaurant on the other side of the Fyris River, and immediately felt famished. It was crowded there on a Monday, but the sun was out and it was spring. She smiled and had good thoughts, because she wished them well, those who ate and drank, babbled and laughed, or simply soaked up sun. As long as they weren’t sticking knives in each other, or hitting their table companion over the head with a bottle, she was content with her fellow humans, in any case on a day like this. She took out her phone; new message. Maybe Justus had got cold feet and changed his mind, but it was Erik: “July 7: 10 days.” He had decided on Germany. Ten days, she thought, has he saved up that much money?

  She left the park, followed Sankt Olofsgatan to Svartbäcksgatan, and turned north. The pub that had been there for years was gone, now it was a restaurant. There too the guests crowded the sidewalk tables. She associated the street with her old job; how many times had she walked from the police station down toward the city center, and vice versa? Before the intersection with Linnégatan a police officer had been murdered, Ann recalled that Jan-Erik Hollman was his name. It was an act of insanity that happened at the same time as they were chasing the person who murdered Justus’s father.

  Outside the bakery café she saw a familiar face, but couldn’t recall from where and for that reason chose to look away and hurry ahead, even though she didn’t need to feel stressed. The garden was open. She walked right in, neglecting the sign about an entry fee. Parks should be free, she had always thought. There was a police memory here too, the city was stalking her! It must have been in the early 2000s, all investigations flowed together over the years into a single fog. A young mother and her daughter had been found run over by Uppsala-Näs church. The case led in many directions, even abroad, to the Caribbean and southern Spain, but the solution was found at last in the home district. During the investigation she had met an informant in the Linnaeus Garden who had important information.