Snowdrift

by Helene Tursten

  Olle raised an eyebrow, but quickly joined in.

  “Nine o’clock—on the dot.”

  They felt the draft as the door was slammed in their faces.

  After leaving the Andersson house they sat in the car, thinking about what had just happened. Eventually Embla broke the silence.

  “You said Mikaela Malm accused Ida Andersson of having killed Robin.”

  “That’s right. According to Mikaela, Ida wanted revenge because Robin had dumped her.”

  “So what if Mikaela’s right? Ida’s father seems determined to make sure that we . . . you don’t get the chance to talk to her.”

  “He made that crystal clear,” Olle replied.

  “Worth considering.”

  “Absolutely.”

  In pensive silence they set off to find the next person on Olle’s list: Anton Åkesson.

  The snow was piled a meter high along the sides of the road leading to the beautifully restored farmhouse. A large truck was parked in the yard; it was clearly in the process of being loaded, because the back doors were wide open and a loading ramp was in place. Diggers and snowplows could be seen inside a huge storage shed with a sign on the wall that said john’s diggers ltd. The truck was marked with a different name—åkesson’s transport. Embla knew that those who lived in rural communities often had to wear several different hats. Most of her relatives and friends in Dalsland had at least two—often more—enterprises going to make ends meet.

  Before they had time to get out of the car, the front door of the farmhouse opened and a woman emerged. She was trying to push her arms into a black padded jacket and close the door at the same time. Someone else who doesn’t want to let us in, Embla thought. The woman made her way cautiously down the steps, which had been swept. She was small and slim, and her medium-length blonde hair was tied back in a messy ponytail. She was wearing heavy boots, which weren’t laced up. Presumably she’d shoved her feet in the first pair she found; they were way too big for her. As she came closer they could see she’d been crying; her face was swollen and her eyes were bloodshot.

  “Good morning. Olle Tillman, Åmål police,” Olle said with a little too much enthusiasm. He gave her a warm smile.

  She recoiled as if he’d slapped her across the face, and tears sprang to her eyes once more.

  “We’d like a word with Anton,” he added quickly.

  “Do you have to? Really?”

  The words came out like a protracted sob. She gazed pleadingly at the two officers, her hands shaking as she pulled the coat around her. When she breathed in, they heard a whistling sound, as if she was having an asthma attack.

  “It’s not . . . possible,” she gasped.

  Not again, Embla thought.

  “Why not?” Olle asked in a calm, friendly tone.

  “He’s not here.”

  Déjà fucking vu.

  The woman, who was presumably fru Åkesson, looked away. It was obvious that she was either lying or hiding something, but they had no grounds for forcing their way into the house. They had to accept what she said, even if she was lying.

  “So where is he?”

  “He and John—his father—have gone . . . out. They’ve gone to fetch . . . something.”

  “Something? Could you be a little more specific?” Olle was losing patience.

  She merely shrugged; she still couldn’t look him in the eye. Talk about a crap liar. Embla almost felt sorry for her.

  “In that case, please tell Anton that he needs to be at home at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If he’s not here, he’ll be required to go to the Trollhättan police station for an interview—and I mean a formal interview, not just a chat,” Olle said sternly.

  Embla suppressed a smile. Trollhättan police station was a nice touch—it definitely sounded more alarming than Åmål.

  One look at Anton’s mother made her wonder what was actually going on. Every scrap of color had drained from the woman’s face, and her hands were shaking even more now. Was she having a stroke or a heart attack?

  “I’ll t-t-t-tell h-h-him,” she stammered.

  “Thank you,” Olle replied, turning away.

  Anton’s mother headed back to the warmth and safety of the house in her oversized boots; she looked like a penguin as she shuffled across the yard and up the steps. Embla hoped she realized she was anything but safe. We’re going to cling on like leeches! she thought. Then again, why “we”? This was Olle’s case. Of course she hoped that someone had seen something relevant to her investigation, but she was beginning to find it interesting that no one seemed willing to talk to the police about Robin’s murder. Strange, and pretty shocking, given that such a young man had been brutally stabbed. Presumably her instincts as a cop were kicking in, along with a generous portion of good old curiosity.

  Just as she and Olle were about to get in the car, Tore started whimpering.

  “He needs a comfort break,” Olle explained. He opened up the back door and the cage, and Tore was out in a flash. Olle grabbed his leash and shouted: “Tore! Here!”

  Suddenly the dog’s acute sense of hearing didn’t seem to be working. He raced up the bank of snow piled against the storage shed and released an impressive stream of urine against the wall. If Olle thought he would come trotting back obediently, he was mistaken. Tore disappeared around the corner of the building.

  “Tore! What the hell is wrong with you? Here! Now!”

  Both he and Embla ran after the dog.

  “Was it obedience training you were focusing on?” Embla couldn’t help asking.

  “Seek and find,” Olle informed her through gritted teeth.

  Tore still has a lot to learn, Embla thought, but wisely refrained from actually saying so.

  As if he’d read her mind, Olle said, “He’s only twenty-two months old. Right in the middle of puberty.”

  Was that supposed to be an excuse? When Embla glanced back over her shoulder, she saw that Anton’s mother had reappeared and was standing on the top step, moving her feet up and down. She seemed terribly anxious.

  The realization made Embla speed up. She raced up the bank of snow and saw Tore bouncing around, yelping with excitement. She suddenly stopped, and Olle ran straight into her.

  “What the . . . !”

  Then he, too, stopped.

  The dog had found a car. The roof was badly dented, the windows smashed. It was bright red and looked like a sports model.

  “A Toyota,” Olle said.

  The yard had been cleared and the snow piled up after the car had been dumped here. Was it a deliberate attempt to hide it? Tore was sniffing eagerly around the broken window on the passenger side.

  “Tore! Come here! You might cut yourself . . . For fuck’s sake!”

  Olle set off toward the dog with determination. Suddenly Tore’s body language changed. He stiffened, his nose pointing at the window, ears forward as if he were listening. However, he wasn’t completely motionless; his muscles trembled with tension and his tail was slowly wagging. Then he began to scratch at the door, whimpering and yelping. His tail was going like a propeller now. His master’s attitude changed, too. Olle stopped and said quietly: “He’s found something.”

  He edged closer and clipped the leash onto Tore’s collar.

  “Good boy,” he said reassuringly.

  Tore ignored him and continued to mark, as he’d been taught. Olle handed the leash to Embla.

  “Can you hold on to him while I take a closer look?”

  He leaned forward and peered into the car.

  “There’s a lot of fresh blood—that’s what Tore was reacting to. Both airbags have deployed and—”

  “Hey, what are you doing up there? You’ve got no business poking around!” came fru Åkesson’s shaky voice.

  “The dog needed to pee, and he ran off when we l
et him out. We’ve found a car that’s clearly been in a crash,” Embla yelled back, even though she suspected that the woman was well aware of the car’s presence.

  Olle was still examining the vehicle, clicking away with the camera on his phone.

  “What’s it doing here?” Embla shouted to fru Åkesson. There was no answer at first; the eventual response was almost inaudible.

  “John’s going to take it to the scrapyard.”

  Embla handed the leash back to Olle; the dog had no intention of going anywhere. She followed her own footprints back down to the bottom of the bank of snow and stamped her feet.

  “Who does the car belong to?” she demanded.

  Fru Åkesson stared at her, eyes wide and filled with tears in a pale, sickly face. She swayed where she stood.

  “A . . . a customer. It’s . . . not fit to drive,” she whispered.

  This was an unnecessary piece of information for anyone who’d seen the vehicle, but Embla realized there was no point in upsetting her even more.

  “When was it brought here?” she asked in a gentler tone.

  Fru Åkesson merely shook her head. Olle slithered down the bank of snow with Tore, still excited but now on the leash.

  “Was anyone hurt in the accident?” Olle asked when he’d brushed the snow off himself and the dog.

  “Not . . . not as far as I know.” Her eyes darted from one officer to the other as if she were watching a game of table tennis.

  “And when did the accident happen?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

  With that she clamped her lips together, turned around, and shuffled back to the house as quickly as her oversized boots would allow. Embla and Olle exchanged a surprised glance, then shrugged. They knew where she was if they wanted to speak to her again.

  After they’d put Tore in his cage and got into the car, Olle’s phone rang. The look on his face told Embla exactly who it was before he answered. Just as before, she could hear most of what Chief Inspector Johnzén had to say.

  “Some old woman called—she claims she heard something around the time of the murder! Get over there and talk to her!”

  Some people speak as if there’s an exclamation point at the end of every sentence. Chief Inspector Johnzén was one of them. Tiresome! With an exclamation point.

  He gave Olle the woman’s contact details and ended the call. Olle sighed and started the car.

  “He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” Embla said.

  “He sure is.”

  Tore hadn’t settled, and started to whimper.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Embla asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Wait—what did you say you’d been concentrating on in his training?”

  “Seek and find.”

  “But what’s he supposed to find?”

  “Drugs, but we’ve also done some work on searching for people—”

  “Stop the car!”

  He looked at her in surprise, but braked immediately.

  “I just want to check something,” she said. Without further explanation she opened the door and jumped out. They hadn’t gone far, and she ran back to the bank of snow and took out her flashlight.

  The car was buried so deep that it was impossible to open the doors. Cautiously she reached in through the broken window and turned on the flashlight. As Olle had said, both airbags had deployed. There were large bloodstains on the seats and the dashboard; someone—more than one person?—had clearly lost a considerable amount of blood in the accident. There were bloody fingerprints on and around the door handles. Given the state of the vehicle, it was strange that no one had been seriously hurt, although of course they had only fru Åkesson’s word for that. She made a mental note to check it out, but right now Embla wasn’t really looking for bloodstains. Slowly she allowed the beam of the flashlight to play around the interior of the car.

  And there it was, on the floor.

  Could she reach it? Maybe, if she was careful and knocked out all the glass. She looked around for something she could use as a tool.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” came a deep voice from behind her.

  She turned and saw a man scrambling up the bank. He wasn’t particularly tall, but his physique was compact and solid. Presumably he’d rushed out of the house, because he was wearing only a checked flannel shirt and baggy jeans. His hair was cropped short, and there was stubble on his chin and cheeks. He plowed through the tracks left by Embla and her two- and four-footed companions. Tore might not be a police dog yet, but given what Embla had just found, he was going to be a very good one.

  The man who looked like a moving storm cloud must be John Åkesson. He was clenching and unclenching his fists in a way that didn’t bode well. “Furious” was the word that best described his expression.

  “Police work,” she replied tersely.

  “That car has nothing to do with fucking police work,” Åkesson yelled. His face was bright red and he was breathing heavily after his exertions.

  “I need to ask you to back off.” Embla adopted her most authoritative tone, and at the same time she took out her phone and called Olle. He answered right away.

  “Hi, Embla.”

  “Tore was right. Come up here.”

  A fraction of a second later she heard the sound of a car door closing, which made her feel a little better; Åkesson was unpleasant and aggressive. His eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaw so tightly that his puffy cheeks looked rock-hard.

  “You have no right to trespass on my land!” he hissed.

  “We’re investigating a homicide. We have the right to examine anything that might be connected to that investigation.”

  “Homicide! This has nothing to do with your fucking homicide!”

  Åkesson spat out the words, gesticulating toward the car. Embla could see Olle making his way up the bank of snow behind him, although Åkesson seemed unaware of his presence; all his attention was focused on Embla.

  When he suddenly clenched his fist and moved to attack her, she registered a brief flash of surprise before reacting reflexively. She leaned back so that he struck thin air, missing her by several centimeters. John Åkesson might be a tough guy, but he was slow and lacked technique. She hunched her shoulders to gather strength, then straightened up and delivered a series of hard jabs to his face; nose-eyebrow-nose-eyebrow. With a roar he raised his hands to protect himself, but Embla had already achieved her goal. Blood was pouring from his nose and from a cut in his eyebrow. There would be no lasting scars; his nose wasn’t broken, and eyebrows heal quickly. She knew this because she herself had weak brows; the left one had a slight zigzag shape due to all the times her opponents had split it open.

  Åkesson made a few clumsy swipes in midair before Olle reached him and grabbed his arms.

  “I’m going to fucking report you!”

  “Assaulting a police officer is a serious offense,” Olle informed him calmly as blood dripped onto the snow, staining it red.

  “Okay, let’s take it easy. If you behave yourself, we’ll come back to the house with you. And I’ll tape up that cut,” Embla offered.

  “So now you’re a fucking nurse as well, are you?” he snapped, glaring at her through the blood trickling down over his eye.

  “Actually, I’m a boxer. I’ve taped up my own eyebrow plenty of times.”

  “Shit,” he muttered, but the fight had gone out of him and he allowed himself to be led down to the yard. They set off toward the house; now that she was walking beside him, Embla could smell the booze on him.

  His wife was on the steps, anxiously shuffling her feet. Embla glanced down at Åkesson’s feet; he was wearing heavy Graninge boots. His little wife wouldn’t have gotten too far in those.

  “What’s happened? What . . . ?” she stammer
ed in horror when she saw that her husband was bleeding.

  “He slipped. It’s pretty treacherous up there,” Olle replied before Embla could speak. To her surprise, Åkesson didn’t protest.

  “I’ve promised to tape up his eyebrow,” Embla said with a reassuring smile. Fru Åkesson’s only response was a terrified glance before she turned to her husband.

  “The sooner we let the fuckers in, the sooner we’ll be rid of them,” he said wearily.

  Hesitantly, she opened the door, then stepped aside.

  The impression of excellent workmanship continued in the house, which was light and airy. The pale oak closet doors and wide oak floorboards made a good impression. The hallway led into a spacious living room, with the kitchen through a wide doorway on the left. It was the size of an old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen, but the décor was ultra-modern. The generous oak table with matching chairs looked new, and there was a Poul Henningsen lamp above. A fire was crackling away in a small soapstone stove in the corner; Nisse had one, too. He always said it was useful in case of a power outage since it provided both heat and a hot stone surface on which to cook. This was useful, because you never knew when the power would be restored out in the country.

  They sat John Åkesson on a kitchen chair.

  “Lilian, fetch me a bottle of vodka,” he ordered his wife.

  “But . . . I’ve got antiseptic . . .” she protested.

  “I’m not putting it ON my face!” he snapped. She cowered instinctively and looked at the two police officers. Embla came to her rescue.

  “I agree with you, Lilian. I think we’ll leave the vodka for now and start with the antiseptic. Do you have a first aid kit?”

  An expression of relief came over her thin face as she nodded. She went back into the hallway and returned with one. Embla gently wiped the split eyebrow with antiseptic, then instructed Olle to hold the edges together while she taped it up. The nosebleed had stopped, so all she had to do was clean up his face.

  “There you go. Leave the tape in place for at least four days before you change it—preferably a week.”

  The Åkessons nodded. Olle looked searchingly at Lilian.