The Night of the Fire: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  Victims were necessary, he understood that, but the thought of that little boy on Peppartorget ground in his head. He drank his coffee. He ought to eat, but felt no hunger. The isolation in the cabin made him increasingly restless. He lay down on the old kitchen sofa. The closet with the gun was in his field of vision. The desire to test fire it became increasingly insistent. He shouldn’t, but it was several kilometers to the nearest neighbor, now that the cheerful fisherman had gone home.

  Loneliness. He thought about his father, whose name was also Erland. He’d looked up what the name meant, and it was a little embarrassing—“foreign” or “unfamiliar”—but it was the male name in the family that had persisted since the nineteenth century, and he had not hesitated to give his son the same name. The meaning could just as well have been “lonely,” because that had marked his father and grandfather, and now himself. Whether his great-grandfather had been lonely he didn’t know, but there was much to suggest it, it seemed to be the family curse. Because it was a curse! Being surrounded by people, but still solo. It was a condition that was invisible, and could often be concealed, but the aches were there.

  You could only speculate on how it would go for Li’l Erland. Erland observed him and sometimes wondered, but he seemed quite normal. He had plenty of playmates, both at day care and in the neighborhood where they lived.

  His father had died alone, suffocated by his own vomit in a cell. Can there be a more wretched death? His grandfather hanged himself two years later. In that action you are always alone.

  How would he himself die? He got up from the sofa. There was still radiant sun. He ought to go out. He knew that it was that cursed glade, which no longer was a glade, that haunted him. It had been during a happy period, his father had been sober for a year or so, and he loved the forest, picking mushrooms and berries. There he was in his right element. If he was happy, the whole family was happy.

  Erland went into the living room and up to the closet. He shouldn’t, but what the hell, no one needed to know anything.

  * * *

  There was an ideal place a hundred meters or so into the forest. It was an old sandpit that the former crofters had made. Through the years they had dug their way into a low ridge, and in that way created a natural backstop. Erland had test fired his pistol there. The ridge, which surrounded the place, created an arched noise barrier that to some degree dampened the sound.

  The distance was short, perhaps only fifteen meters, but that didn’t matter much. It was the feeling that counted. He raised an old pallet on end and set a rusty bucket on it, and slowly walked back. He unfolded the buttstock and put in a magazine, nowadays transparent plastic. He thought it felt a little shoddy, but it was clearly more practical and certainly cheaper. Thirty shots, 5.56 mm. Steel tip. The gun had open sights, no telescopic sight, but that wasn’t anything Erland missed.

  He laughed to himself. The feeling of loneliness had been blown away. He wished that Li’l Erland had been along so he could see his father so alive. He got ready, breathed in and out, the calm came over him, the bucket in the sight, and he squeezed off in the firm certainty that he would live a long time. He would not die in a jail cell, or hang himself in a dilapidated garage. No, he would die in a bed surrounded by love.

  The recoil was mild. The bucket flew away with a bang, rolled a few times, gave up, and lay still. The shots echoed between the sand walls. A short salvo was enough, it was stupid to challenge fate. He stood there a few seconds, however, with the carbine resting against his shoulder, felt its weight, rocked with his knees. Everything felt good.

  * * *

  A snapping movement, as if a branch was broken off, made Erland instinctively crouch down. He ran over to the sand wall, curled up behind some brush, listened, peered. In his hand he held the AK-5. Was it an animal? Could it be a moose? Probably not, they didn’t thrive in this terrain. The low ridge was surrounded by dense spruce forest. He thought about wild boars, which he’d seen traces of, moss that had been torn up, but that was by the boom where there were some damp areas.

  Then the spruce curtain was parted by a movement. The happy fisherman came walking, dressed like the day before with a rod in hand and equipment on his back. He came from the east, he must have visited the tarn, and was walking in the direction of the logging road he’d mentioned, where he parked. He strode at a fast pace, not looking to the side. Erland was perhaps thirty meters away, partly hidden, but if the fisherman were to look in his direction the risk of discovery was great.

  Hell, he was supposed to work today. Erland tried to remember what the fisherman had said the day before, didn’t he say that it was his last day on sick leave? He was immediately swallowed up by new spruce trees. Erland remained seated. Had the fisherman heard? The tarn was not far away. Had he understood what it was? Not a given. He seemed to be the carefree type, who perhaps didn’t reflect on the fact that there was a little shooting in the forest. Had he said anything about hunting? No, he had only talked about fishing.

  After a couple of minutes Erland stood up and walked back to the cabin. He looked around constantly. The euphoria over the test shooting had been replaced by worry. He was seized by the thought of running after the fisherman, Lasse was his name, and silencing him for good, but obviously that was an idiotic idea. The fisherman would soon be missed, and the area around the summer cabin was probably the first place they would search for him.

  Forty-Five

  Before Bodin and Sammy went into the interview room, they had a discussion about the fact that Omid Hayatullah had declined any assistance from an interpreter or representation by an attorney. That wasn’t good, Sammy thought, but Bodin seemed indifferent. They went into the room with divided understandings.

  “You’re a Shia Muslim, from what I understand,” Bodin said after the introductory formalities and condolences that Omid had lost his cousin. The Hazara nodded. “You have to speak up, so that it gets on tape,” said Bodin, pointing at the recording equipment.

  “Yes,” said Omid. “I’m Shia, like almost all Hazaras.”

  “That’s good. You’re a minority, in other words,” Bodin observed.

  Is that good or bad? Sammy wondered, who was poorly informed on that subject.

  Omid smiled. “Often,” he said.

  “In the cellar at Sam’s parents’ there was canned meat, do you eat that kind of food?”

  Omid shook his head. “Maybe Sam thought so.”

  “Can you tell what happened when the smithy at Hamra farm burned down?”

  Sammy’s question came a little too soon, they had agreed to start cautiously, but from what he’d seen of Omid he thought that the Afghan could take it.

  “I don’t know,” said Omid.

  “You were there,” said Bodin.

  “I slept that night. At home with my friend Sam.”

  Sammy wondered whether he should resort to a lie, to the effect that Sam Rothe had suggested something else, all to wear down Omid’s resistance, but decided that was a bad idea. Omid would surely see through the trick.

  “You stayed with Bertil Efraimsson from the tenth of March until the day before the fire at Hamra. Why did you run away?”

  “Bertil was nice, but perhaps he wanted to be left alone.”

  “You didn’t tell him anything, that you would disappear?”

  “No. He would have said stop.”

  “How did you find the way to Sam Rothe?”

  “He told me.”

  “When you were staying in his parents’ house?”

  “Yes.”

  “You recognized Daniel Mattsson, is that right? You saw him from the top floor at Bertil’s house.”

  “Yes, I saw.”

  “And Bertil told you where he lived?”

  “Yes.”

  “You believed he was one of those who set fire to the school?”

  “I know,” said Omid, who did not seem nervous at all.

  “You saw him outside the school, you say?”

  �
��I saw, together with two others. They had set the fire, looked really happy. One had a gas can in his hand. They were drunk, all three of them.”

  Sammy took out the pictures he had previously shown to Omid, but he had supplemented them with another handful of photos.

  Omid leaned forward. His dark hair had a peculiar whirl at the top of his head. He had recently had a haircut that was not particularly professionally executed. Sammy guessed that it was Rothe’s work.

  “Him,” Omid said immediately, pointing at the photo of Daniel Mattsson. “And him.” It was Stefan Sanberg. Omid looked up, as if he had to decide to continue or not, before he returned to the pictures on the table. He swept his eyes over the three rows with seven pictures in each. “And him too,” he said at last, striking one picture with his index finger.

  “Omid Hayatullah points out three pictures of individuals that he thinks set the fire at the school in Tilltorp the night of New Year’s Eve between 2017 and 2018,” Sammy said. “The pictures depict Daniel Mattsson, Stefan Sanberg, both from Tilltorp, and Rasmus Rönn, registered in Rasbo.” Sammy illustrated by pointing out the three in order and at the same time saying out loud what he was doing. “Is that correct?”

  “It’s true,” said Omid. “I saw them.”

  “And when you found out from Bertil Efraimsson where Daniel Mattsson lived, you decided to set fire to his house,” Bodin said.

  “No” was Omid’s curt response.

  “But it is correct that Bertil told you that the smithy was Daniel’s residence?” Sammy asked.

  “Yes, he pointed at it.”

  “What did Sam Rothe say about the idea of visiting Daniel?”

  Bodin’s question was presumptuous, but Omid showed no irritation.

  “Did he go with you to Hamra?”

  Omid did not answer, but Sammy saw something in his eyes. Bodin was on the trail of something.

  “Sam Rothe would never let you go out alone at night. He likes you.”

  “He’s nice.”

  “Sam has a moped. Have you driven it?”

  “I have.”

  “From Sam Rothe’s place to Hamra it’s not far. There’s a path through the forest, isn’t there?”

  For the first time Omid turned toward Bodin. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “We believe that you set the fire, but that you didn’t know Daniel was at home. Bertil probably said that he was gone that night, is that right?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You didn’t know either that there was a woman in the house,” said Bodin.

  For the first time during the interview Omid reacted. He gave Sammy a quick glance before he looked down, rubbing his palms against his pant legs.

  “You didn’t know, right? Sam hasn’t told you that a young woman died in that fire.”

  “No, I didn’t know that a woman was dead.”

  In the way Omid said that, Sammy was convinced of his guilt.

  “It was Sam’s sister.”

  That was the death blow to the defense that Omid had decided on. He closed his eyes and let out a barely audible sound.

  “I set the fire,” he whispered. “I alone.”

  “You have to say it out loud,” said Bodin, and Omid repeated the words that would give him a prison term for many years.

  Sammy perceived the silence that settled in the interview room as a devotion. He was eternally grateful to Bodin that he had the sense to keep quiet. After a confession it was easy to get carried away in the euphoria. Sammy had experienced that himself so many times, but here there was no reason. True, an innocent woman had died in the fire, and as a result of it a presumably less innocent young man had died, but it was part of a series of incidents. It was a tragedy that could not be placed in an ordinary sequence where violence and brutal, serious crimes occurred. Sammy would never admit it, perhaps could not even explain it, because it would surely appear as if he wanted to relativize what had happened. Lovisa had been a full-blooded Nazi, and she had died what was surely a painful death in the flames. Daniel had been a racist and arsonist, and was beaten to death like a brute animal in the forest. Perhaps there were those who would maintain that justice was served. Sammy was not one of them.

  “What happened with Daniel?” he asked at last.

  Omid did not answer at first. The presence he had demonstrated until now was gone. He moved restlessly. The whirl on his head was joined by several more, as he pulled his hand through his hair. Perhaps they ought to take a break to give him the opportunity to recover, but that would amount to dereliction of duty. It would give Omid the possibility to collect himself and build a new line of defense, with silence and new lies or half-truths.

  “What do you mean?” said Omid.

  “What happened with Daniel?”

  Omid looked completely perplexed.

  “Did he run after you?” said Bodin.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Daniel, did he run after you? Did you knock him down?” Bodin illustrated with his arm and clenched fist, as if he was aiming a blow.

  Omid looked even more confused.

  “He wasn’t there.”

  “Let’s take a break,” Sammy decided. “Perhaps you want to take a shower?”

  A strangely metallic smell of sweat had spread in the interview room.

  * * *

  The two policemen went to Sammy’s office, while two jail guards took care of Omid. They would arrange food and a shower, and after a couple of hours lead the Hazara back to the interview room.

  “What should we believe?” said Sammy.

  For the first time Bodin looked reflective, and did not answer right away. That pleased Sammy, who was happy to wait out his colleague.

  “The little bastard didn’t know that Lovisa died in the smithy,” Bodin said at last. “And Daniel ‘wasn’t there,’ what does that mean?”

  “He doesn’t seem to be the type who lies so flippantly.”

  “We’ll have to go out and bring the rabbit man in too,” said Bodin.

  Forty-Six

  Erland Edman loathed uncertainty. The feeling of being exposed, or not, was frustrating. It paralyzed him, made him incapable of doing anything. Had Lasse the fisherman heard the shot, perhaps even seen him fire the salvo? He’d been restrained, even though he wanted to use up the whole magazine. The question tormented Erland, making him pace around in the cabin like a ghost. The cabin was no longer a sanctuary. On the contrary, he was caught in a trap.

  The feedback in his thoughts was interrupted by the phone, the one with a prepaid card, vibrating on the table. There were only two people who might call, and one of them was locked up at the police station in Uppsala. Erland understood that this meant problems. Give would never call to hear about how things were in general.

  “Now it’s time to step out of your baby shoes and put your best foot forward,” the resistance cell’s leader began with a limping metaphor. That could mean just about anything, but the tone confirmed that it surely meant trouble. Erland went out on the porch and peered, thought he heard the sound of a car.

  “You were talking about a place in Uppsala,” Give continued. “That’s where it’s going to happen, the next date.”

  It took a moment before Erland understood. “Have you changed your mind? But it won’t work! There’s a hell of a lot of people there on a Saturday.”

  “I’m sure it will work as good as anything, if you just take care of yourself. They’re coming up to the Cape this afternoon.”

  There was no doubt about who he meant.

  “I’ve been discovered,” said Erland, aware that this would trigger a landslide. “A fisherman came past.”

  “A fisherman! That’s in the middle of the damned forest!”

  “There are lakes, and tarns,” said Erland, and it was the word “tarn” that triggered an inner stream of associations and memories. He sank down on a bench. Get me away from here, he had time to think before Give exploded.

  Between th
e verbal assaults from Hökarängen, Erland had to explain as best he could. He even told Give about the test shooting, although he had decided not to say a word about it. Perhaps it was unconscious, in order to underscore that it was not a good idea for Olsson and Nyström to show up, that the Cape was ruined as a hiding place, that an attack in Uppsala was out of the question.

  “Did the fisherman see anything?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Did he hear?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We’re going,” Frank Give decided after a few seconds of reflection. “You have a buddy in Uppsala, right? Someone we can trust. Does he live alone?”

  “Yes,” Erland answered, cursing his loose tongue, that he had babbled about his only friend.