The Night of the Fire: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s just a feeling.”

  “Okay, I won’t disturb you. We’ll be in touch!”

  She knew better than to babble on and they ended the call. Lindell remained standing with the phone in one hand and the plastic bag in the other. She knew Sammy well enough that she accepted his conclusion. Feeling? How many times had she acted on a feeling herself? But what could have happened in the Friman home? Was there a connection with the two fires? The questions were obvious but almost unbearable to ask, because she wanted to investigate! With due respect to cheese, a crime scene beats most everything. Her curiosity was bubbling inside her. Then came the thought of a glass of wine.

  She left the house, went to the back side to look for anything interesting, stopped, and peered out toward the meadow that bordered her lot. It was possible to sneak up there between junipers and blackthorn thicket, but there was always the risk of discovery. Who? She’d spoken with the old men, with Astrid, and at work. She’d been outside the smithy, and perhaps had been seen by some of the curiosity seekers who gathered that night. Talk went around, that cop Lindell was snooping around, asking questions, that sort of thing spread quickly in a village like Tilltorp. When had it happened? She’d been at work the whole day.

  “Doesn’t matter!” she exclaimed, but still walked along the fence to see if there were any traces of the intruder.

  After that she had a glass of wine in the hammock. Now she only drank Portuguese wine, preferably from the Alentejo if it was red, from the north if it was white. It was still spring, an enchantingly beautiful day where the sun still warmed, and all sorts of insects, spiders, and birds were in motion. Now was when it should happen, building materials gathered, holes drilled in the ground and rotten trunks dug out, stumps and fallen logs ground down to powder, webs spun, eggs laid, hatched. The flirting and the courting. The eating. Reproduction. There was simply a lot of creeping and buzzing.

  The thoughts of Lovisa Friman, fires and murder, and not least the piece of wood on the living room floor, slowly receded. The sensational aspects of life seized her. That called for another glass, the second and absolute last one for the day, but first the leftovers from the plates of delicacies should be taken out. She did it properly, as if Edvard were actually present, sliced, plated, and then solemnly carried it all out on Grandmother’s enamel tray.

  “Now you can come,” she said out loud. And he came. A few minutes later he was standing there, as if conjured by a fairy.

  And best of all, he did not make any silly comment about her arrangement on a late-spring afternoon, did not say anything about the wineglass, simply nodded and looked genuinely happy, and sat down on the other side of the garden table. He was not dressed for work, that was the first thing she thought. His hands were scrubbed clean.

  “Short hair suits you,” she said.

  “I’ve been in Uppsala and I’m on my way to Gräsön.”

  “Nice that you stopped by.”

  She went to get a low-alcohol beer. “Don’t you have anything stronger?” he said. She returned to the kitchen and came back with a different beer, a brand she knew he liked. She never drank beer herself. Beer makes you fat.

  “One can won’t be a problem.”

  “I have more,” she said, feeling how spring was rushing through her body. He opened the can, pouring the beer into the glass so that it foamed.

  She told him about the board and that she had no idea who might have done it.

  “How big is the window?”

  Ann measured with her hands.

  Edvard got up and walked away, rounded the corner of the house, and came back after a few seconds.

  “I happen to have window glass in the car. I can fix it.”

  Ann did not doubt that for a moment. Say what he can’t fix, where practical things are concerned, she thought.

  “But we’ll have a few appetizers first.” Ann dug in, while Edvard picked a little carefully from the plates.

  “What were you doing in Uppsala?”

  “Buying window glass,” said Edvard, “and a few other things. I can probably have one more beer.”

  Why does he come here? Ann felt a kind of panic when she left the table to get more beer. Should she bring the wine bottle with her? Did he want to spend the night? She observed him through the kitchen window where he was leaning back in one of her new chairs with thick cushions. A little too comfortable, he’d laughingly commented. He had one hand around the beer glass and the other resting on the back of her chair, as if he was practicing to put his arm around her shoulders. Don’t be so silly! Relax!

  “I brought a little wine with me too,” she said when she came back. He removed his arm from her chair.

  “Does it feel good?”

  He nodded.

  “You don’t need to fix the window.”

  Twenty-Two

  The name of Lovisa Friman’s half brother turned out to be Sam Rothe. “Some people call me Sammy,” he said, which evidently amused Bodin. He was short in stature, spindly, some would say. Sammy thought he was a living illustration of all the deficiency diseases he knew of.

  “This here ain’t cool, that is since Lovisa moved in. She’s gonna wreck the whole house. You should see. She loves to wreck things. I’m the one who has to take the shit when they come home. Always me. She wants. Everything. But never does anything good. She and her friends were at my place and stole animals that they were gonna grill.”

  “Did they take any?”

  Sam Rothe laughed. Sammy thought it reminded him of a jungle bird’s call, shrill and nervous.

  “We think that Lovisa has been the victim of a crime,” Bodin said. That was probably more than enough of a euphemism, thought Sammy.

  “Robbery?”

  “No,” said Bodin, sneaking a glance at Sammy, who demonstrated his most effective stone face. “Do you read the newspapers? There was something about Hamra farm here in Tilltorp, a smithy that burned down.”

  Sam Rothe stared uncomprehending at the police. “What do you mean?”

  “We think that she died in the fire.”

  “Lovisa?”

  Bodin nodded. Sam Rothe turned toward Sammy. “What’s he saying?”

  “That your half sister is probably dead, that she died in the fire,” said Sammy.

  The half brother stared toward the house. “Burned down,” he said meekly. The two policemen looked at each other.

  Rothe had come on a moped, which was probably the same age as him, around thirty. Now he dropped the helmet on the ground, took a few steps toward the house, turned around. “Is she dead?”

  “We fear that,” said Bodin.

  “Do you know if she had any tattoos?”

  “Lovisa?”

  Sammy nodded.

  “Yes, on her neck, one of those Hitler crosses.”

  “Sorry,” said Bodin.

  “You live a few kilometers from here, I understand.”

  “Five kilometers if you take the usual way around. Or you can ride through the forest, that goes faster. But it’s impossible in the winter of course.”

  “Have you stayed here in the house at all recently?”

  “I’m not allowed to.”

  “In the cellar?”

  “Why is that?”

  “I’ll go down in the cellar and look. Bodin, my colleague, can talk with you in the meantime. There are a few things to think about.”

  Sammy did not await any response, but instead quickly stomped off. He had a hard time with his namesake, even though he should feel sorry for him.

  The air had eased up somewhat, but it was still a struggle to even go into the cellar corridor. Two doors to the right, two to the left. The first one to the left led to a boiler room, which was probably no longer used other than to store random junk: a pair of old loungers, blue IKEA bags with newspapers, and so on that the indecisive or unenterprising failed to discard.

  To the right was an old-fashioned laundry room, with
washtubs and the same type of centrifuge that Sammy recalled was in his grandmother’s cellar. There was also a reasonably modern washing machine. He opened the door and the compartment for detergent, unsure why, but it felt essential to examine all the spaces.

  The other door to the right was ajar. He pushed it open completely with his foot. There was a space of perhaps three square meters with a mattress on the floor, made with dirty sheets and a shapeless pillow in a dingy pillowcase. A carefully folded blanket was at the foot. On an old dresser paper plates were heaped in a considerable pile, and on the top were a knife and fork, still with dried scraps of food. On the floor below was a spoon. Along the wall were rows of opened cans. Sammy read the labels: Red cabbage, wieners, pea soup, and white beans dominated.

  Someone had been eating and sleeping here, and for a longer period at that. And shitting. Sammy had drawn that conclusion after having peeked in the last space. There was a barrel with a lid, identical to the one that was in the corridor. He did not want to raise the lid.

  He left the cellar. There were others who could inspect more closely, and he needed fresh air.

  * * *

  “I don’t know anything.”

  Bodin was standing with his head bowed, as if he were trying to get energy from the ground with a prayer. Three times Sam had repeated his denial that he was aware of what had gone on in the cellar.

  “When did Lovisa come back from Dalarna?” Sammy asked.

  “On my birthday.”

  “And when is that?”

  “Huh?”

  “When is your birthday?”

  “March tenth.”

  “Until then you were here to look after the house.”

  Sam Rothe nodded. He looked more and more scared, as if the two policemen were trying to get him to say something that could be used against him.

  “How often?”

  “Not every day.”

  “Every week?”

  “Not that often,” said Sam Rothe. “There was a lot of snow and no plows came here.”

  “And you saw nothing, no footprints in the snow or such?”

  “Nah, nothing.”

  “You didn’t hear anything, notice any unusual odors in the house?”

  Rothe shook his head.

  “You don’t know anyone who may have gotten the idea to stay in the cellar?”

  Another shake of the head. “They aren’t going to be happy when they come home.”

  “You can count on that,” said Bodin in a voice dripping with contempt. “Their daughter is dead.”

  Sam Rothe looked up. For the first time a hint of defiance was seen in his eyes. “She was a bitch!” Sammy was forced to hide a smile. It was clear that the word was foreign in Rothe’s mouth, as if he’d practiced pronouncing it, but that he thought it sounded good, that it gave his otherwise spineless appearance an illusion of toughness.

  “In what way was she a bitch?”

  “She always wanted attention, always be seen and heard! Lovisa this, Lovisa that! But what about me?”

  “And now she’s dead, do you understand that?” Bodin asked.

  “I have to go home. I have animals to take care of.”

  “What kind of animals?”

  “Rabbits mostly. Hamsters too.”

  “Are you an AIK supporter?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it,” said Bodin. “Just give us the key to the house, then you can go home to your gnawers.”

  * * *

  It took them an hour to go through the house. They padded around in shoe protectors and with plastic gloves, avoided touching things. The only connection between house and cellar was a can of sausages in the pantry.

  In the meantime the CSIs had shown up. It was Olle Wikman and his most trusted colleague, Holm.

  “Have you contaminated everything?”

  “Yep,” said Sammy, but did not get involved in any discussion. It was just the usual whining. “What we suspect is that the woman in the smithy has stayed here. Most everything suggests that it was her, primarily the tattoo on her neck, but we need DNA. If we can link Daniel Mattsson here, even better. There may be traces of Lovisa’s half brother.”

  “In the cellar there is shit, literally,” Bodin added. “Someone has been living there, unknown who.”

  “Could it be the Afghan?” Wikman suggested. “The one who disappeared after the school fire?”

  Sammy had had the same speculation.

  “We have DNA from his cousin who froze to death in the car,” said Holm.

  “We’ve had worse situations,” said Sammy.

  The four policemen stood silently for a moment.

  “Kabul,” said Bodin.

  Wikman left them and set off, but a few meters before he would disappear into the vegetation the technician stopped abruptly and stayed there.

  “He does that sometimes,” said Holm. “Probably needs to get away.”

  Maybe so, thought Sammy, but it could just as well be the other way around, that he needs to come in somewhere. He decided to test his theory, and walked down to the edge of the forest.

  “How’s it going?” Sammy asked, feeling as if he was stepping out on slippery ice. The two had met at many crime scenes, and respected one another, but they had never talked about personal matters. Sammy actually knew nothing about Wikman’s life. For that reason he was surprised when the technician started talking.

  “It’s hardest at this time of year. You hear them, right?”

  “Who?”

  “The stock doves, the way they sound, like a short refrain that they repeat endlessly.”

  “The doves and spring,” said Sammy.

  “And the cowslips. It’s worst now,” said Wikman, and it seemed like an incantation that he did not direct particularly at Sammy, who now felt that they were starting to get off track. What did the technician mean? Was he completely exhausted?

  “Do you have spring depression?”

  “Today exactly thirty years ago a little girl was born who only lived a few minutes. She was born too soon, and probably never had a chance. I could hold my finger on her rib cage, just a couple of seconds, that was all, then I was pushed away by the nurses. It was the heart, they said. I’ve tried to imagine her little heart. We christened her … it doesn’t matter … I mean … she got a few minutes, but everyone must have a name, right?”

  Sammy stood as if paralyzed, immediately aware of the magnificence; the fingertip on the little one’s chest was such a strong image that he had to struggle to hold back the impulse to go up and hug his colleague.

  “Mari, that was my wife, never really recovered. We got a divorce later.”

  “You never had any other children?”

  “No, never, neither me nor Mari. She never really got well. Twenty years ago she swam right out into the sea. She was a competitive swimmer, there was talk of the national team when she was a teenager, but at Arholma the distance was too great.”

  “So the doves and the cowslips remind you?”

  Wikman nodded. “Always. Every year.” He listened with his head raised toward the forest.

  “Thanks for the confidence,” said Sammy, who only now noticed that Wikman was squeezing a bunch of cowslips in his hand.

  “What was her name?”

  “Lovisa. We christened her Lovisa,” said Wikman.

  * * *

  “It’ll be fine,” said Bodin, but didn’t look like it, because he appeared worn out. “I’ll ride with the technicians to Uppsala, so you can have a chat with Lindell, if you want. I want to look around a little, check.”

  Sammy observed his colleague. What was he going to check? Wikman and Holm wanted to work undisturbed, and would not gladly let Bodin into the house again. “There are going to be long days,” said Sammy. Bodin nodded, but turned away.

  Twenty-Three

  Sammy drove slowly up to the highway. He tried to understand how his colleague functioned. His moods were so changeable, sometimes he was relentlessly talkat
ive and then he would abruptly clam up, but he dropped it. Sammy’s necessary attitude was that if Bodin had problems he had to solve them on his own. He had neither time nor energy to be consumed by other people’s lives.

  There was a pickup in Ann’s driveway. Sammy recognized it and kept going, suddenly dissatisfied, as if he’d been robbed of candy. Was it jealousy? No, not really. It was something else, and he knew inside what it was: lack of friends, of friendship. He and Ann had not just been colleagues, but also confidants. Now he understood that the situation had changed. She appeared to be successfully cultivating the relationship with Edvard, and that was no doubt good for her.

  He crawled through the village, thought about talking with the carpenter, but changed his mind; that curmudgeon would not improve his mood. Instead he turned in to Bertil Efraimsson’s yard. He got out of the car, unsure of what he wanted, and looked around. The sign that said Workshop etc. was still on the wall of what had once been a small barn. From there came a cutting sound and then the clatter of sheet metal. He went up to the open doors and took in the odor of cut metal. It took a moment before he discovered the rangy Efraimsson, who was standing in front of a workbench at the back of the workshop. In his hands he was holding a hammer, which he set down on the bench next to a piece of sheet metal.

  “Visitor,” he observed, taking off his protective glasses and going up to the door.

  “Am I disturbing you? My name is Sammy Nilsson and—”

  “I know who you are. And you’re not disturbing me, I have all the time in the world.”

  Sammy extended a hand, but Efraimsson held his right hand up meaningfully, oily and dirty.

  “I like to say that it’s the only thing that separates me from a Negro. I’m white on my face, but black on the palm of my hand. In Africa it’s the opposite, there they have black faces but white palms.”

  He held up his open hands, marked by labor and very dirty.

  “That’s the only thing,” said Efraimsson. “That’s how you have to look at it.”

  “So it is,” said Sammy.

  “Jesus Christ was black.”

  “You’re a believer?”