Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

  He yawned and let his hands fall onto the table.

  “Time for bed.”

  “No, let’s stay here a few more minutes.”

  He looked at her intently.

  “You still think something happened to your friend?”

  “No, I’m sure you’re right.”

  They sat quietly at the kitchen table. A gust of wind sent a branch scraping against the window.

  “I’ve been dreaming a lot recently,” he said. “Maybe because you’re always waking me up in the middle of the night. That means I remember my dreams. Yesterday I had the strangest dream. I was walking around a cemetery. Suddenly I found myself in front of a row of headstones where I started recognizing the names. Stefan Fredman’s name was among them.”

  Linda shivered.

  “I remember that case. Didn’t he break into this apartment?”

  “I think so, but we were never able to prove it. He never told us.”

  “You went to his funeral. What happened?”

  “He was sent to a psychiatric institution. One day he put on his war paint, climbed up on the roof, and threw himself off.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Eighteen or nineteen.”

  The branch scraped against the window again.

  “Who were the others? I mean on the headstones.”

  “A woman called Yvonne Ander. I even think the date on the stone was right, though it happened a long time ago.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Do you remember that time when Ann-Britt Höglund was shot?”

  “How could I forget? You left for Denmark after that happened and almost drank yourself to death.”

  “That’s an extreme way of putting it.”

  “On the contrary, I think that’s hitting the nail on the head. Anyway, I don’t remember Yvonne Ander.”

  “She specialized in killing rapists, wife-beaters, men who had been abusive to women.”

  “That rings a bell.”

  “We found her in the end. Everyone thought she was a monster. But I thought she was one of the sanest people I had ever met.”

  “Is that one of the dangers of the profession?”

  “What?”

  “Do policemen fall in love with the female criminals they’re hunting?”

  He waved her insinuations away.

  “Don’t be stupid. I talked to her after she was brought in. She wrote me a letter before she committed suicide. What she told me was she thought the justice system was like a fishnet where the holes were too big. We don’t catch, or choose not to catch, the perpetrators who really deserve to be caught.”

  “Who was she referring to specifically? The police?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. Everyone. The laws we live by are supposed to reflect the opinions of society at large. But Yvonne Ander had a point. I’ll never forget her.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Five, six years.”

  The phone rang.

  Wallander jumped and he and Linda exchanged glances. It was four o’clock in the morning. Wallander stretched his hand out for the kitchen phone. Linda worried for a moment that it was one of her friends, someone who didn’t know she was staying with her dad. Linda tried to interpret who it could be from her father’s terse questions. She decided it had to be from the station. Perhaps Martinsson, or even Höglund. Something had happened in the vicinity of Rydsgård. Wallander signaled for her to get him something to write with and she handed him the pencil and pad of paper lying on the windowsill. He made some notes with the phone pressed into the crook of his neck. She peered over his shoulder. Rydsgård, turn off to Charlottenlund, Vik’s farm. That was close to the house on the hill they had looked at, the one her father wasn’t going to buy. He wrote something else: burned calf. Åkerblom. Then a phone number. He hung up. Linda sat back down across from him.

  “A burned calf? What’s happened?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  He got up.

  “I have to go out there.”

  “What about me?”

  He hesitated.

  “You can come along if you like.”

  “You were there for the start of this thing,” he said as they got in the car. “You might as well come along for the rest.”

  “The start of what?”

  “The report about burning swans.”

  “It’s happened again?”

  “Yes and no. Some bastard let a calf out of the barn, sprayed it with gasoline, and set it on fire. The farmer was the one who called the station. A patrol car was dispatched but I’d left instructions to be contacted if anything along these lines happened again. It sounds like a sadistic pervert.”

  Linda knew there was more.

  “You’re not telling me what you really think.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He broke off the conversation. Linda started wondering why he had let her come along.

  They turned off from the main highway and drove through the deserted village of Rydsgård, then south toward the sea. A patrol car was waiting at the entrance to the farm. Together the two cars made their way toward the main buildings at Vik’s farm.

  “Who am I?” Linda asked quickly.

  “My daughter. No one will care. As long as you don’t start pretending to be anything else—like a police officer, for instance.”

  They got out. The two officers from the other car came over and said hello. One was called Wahlberg, the other Ekman. Wahlberg had a bad cold and Linda wished she didn’t have to shake his hand. Ekman smiled and leaned toward her as if he were shortsighted.

  “I thought you were starting in a couple of weeks.”

  “She’s just keeping me company,” Wallander said. “What’s happened out here?”

  They walked down behind the farmhouse to a new-looking barn. The farmer was kneeling next to the burned animal. He was a young man close to Linda’s age. Farmers should be old, she thought. In my world there’s no place for a farmer my own age.

  Wallander stretched out his hand and introduced himself.

  “Tomas Åkerblom,” the farmer said.

  “This is my daughter. She happened to be with me.”

  As Tomas Åkerblom looked over at Linda, a light from the barn illuminated his face. She saw that his eyes were wet with tears.

  “Who would do anything like this?” he asked in a shaky voice.

  He stepped aside to let them see, as if displaying a macabre art installation. Linda had already picked up the smell of burned flesh. Now she saw the blackened body of the calf lying on its side in front of her. The eye socket closest to her was completely charred. Smoke still rose from the singed skin. The fumes were starting to make her nauseated and she took a step back. Wallander looked at her. She shook her head to indicate that she wasn’t about to faint. He nodded and looked around at the others.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Åkerblom started talking. He still sounded on the verge of tears.

  “I had just gone to bed when I heard a sound. At first I thought I must have cried out in my sleep—that happens sometimes when I have a bad dream. Then I realized it came from the barn. The animals were braying and one of them sounded bad. I pulled the curtains away and saw fire. It was Apple—of course I couldn’t identify him immediately, just that it was one of the calves. He ran straight into the wall of the barn. His whole body and head were consumed by flames. I couldn’t really take it in. I pulled on a pair of old boots and ran down there. He had already collapsed when I reached him. His legs were twitching. I grabbed an old piece of tarp and tried to put out the rest of the fire, but he was already dead. It was horrible. I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.’ Who would do something like this?”

  “Did you see anything else?” Wallander asked.

  “No, just what I told you.”

  “You said, ‘Who would do something like this?’ Why? Is th
ere no way it could have been an accident?”

  “You think a calf poured gasoline over his own head and lit a match? How likely is that?”

  “Let’s assume it was a deliberate attack. Did you see anyone when you pulled the curtain away from the window?”

  Åkerblom thought hard before answering. Linda tried to anticipate her father’s next question.

  “I only saw the burning animal.”

  “What kind of person do you imagine did this?”

  “An insane . . . a fucking lunatic.”

  Wallander nodded.

  “That’s all for now,” he said. “Leave the animal as it is. Someone will be sent out in the morning to take pictures of it and the area.”

  They returned to their cars.

  “What kind of crazy lunatic bastard ...” Åkerblom muttered.

  Wallander didn’t answer him. Linda saw how tired he was. His forehead was deeply furrowed and he looked old. He’s worried, she realized. First there’s the report about the swans, and then a young calf named Apple is burned alive.

  It was as if he read her mind. Wallander let his hand rest on the car door handle and turned to Åkerblom.

  “Apple,” he said. “That’s an unusual name for an animal.”

  “I played table tennis when I was younger. I often name my animals after great Swedish champions. I have an ox by the name of Waldner.”

  Wallander nodded. Linda could see he was smiling. She knew he appreciated originality.

  They drove back to Ystad.

  “What do you think this is about?” Linda asked.

  “The best-case scenario is a pervert who gets a kick out of hurting animals.”

  “And that’s the best-case scenario?”

  He hesitated.

  “The worst case would be someone who won’t stop at animals,” he said.

  8

  When Linda woke up the next morning she was alone in the apartment. It was half past seven. The sound of her father slamming the front door must have woken her up. He does that on purpose, she thought and stretched out in bed. He doesn’t like me sleeping in.

  She got up and opened the window. It was a clear day, and the nice weather looked like it would continue. She thought about the events of the night, the still-smoking carcass and her father looking suddenly old and worn-out. It’s the anxiety, she thought. He can hide a lot from me, but not his anxiety.

  She ate breakfast and put on her clothes from yesterday, then changed her mind and tried on two other outfits before deciding what to wear. She called Anna. The answering machine picked up after five rings and she simply asked Anna to answer the phone if she was there. No reply. Linda walked out into the hall and looked at herself in the mirror. Was she still worried about Anna? No, she said to herself, I’m not worried. Anna has her reasons. She’s most likely chasing down that man she saw on the street, a man she thinks is her long-lost father.

  Linda went out for a walk and picked up a newspaper from a bench. She turned to the automobile section and looked at the ads for used cars. There was a Saab for 19,000. Her father had already promised to chip in 10,000, and she knew she wanted a car. But a Saab for 19,000? How long would it last?

  She tucked the newspaper into her pocket and walked over to Anna’s apartment. No one answered the door. After picking the lock again and letting herself in, she was suddenly struck by the feeling that someone had been there since she had left the place the night before. She froze and looked all around the hall—the coats hanging in their place, the shoes all in a row. Was anything different? She couldn’t put her finger on it but was convinced there was something.

  She continued into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Dad would tell me to look for the impressions people have left behind in this room, of themselves and their dramatic interactions. But I see nothing, only the fact that Anna isn’t here.

  After combing through the apartment twice, she convinced herself that Anna had not been home during the night. Nor anyone else, for that matter. The only things she saw were tiny, near-invisible traces she herself had left behind.

  She went into Anna’s bedroom and sat down at the little desk. She hesitated at first, but her curiosity got the better of her. She knew that Anna kept a diary—she had done so since she was little. Linda remembered an incident from middle school when Anna had been sitting in a corner writing in her journal. A boy pulled it out of her hands as a joke but she was so furious that she bit him on the shoulder, and everyone knew to leave the journal alone after that.

  Linda pulled out the drawers in the desk. They were full of old diaries, thumbed, crammed with writing. The dates were written on the spines. Up until Anna was sixteen they were all red. After that they were all black.

  Linda closed the drawers and looked through some papers lying on the desk. She found the journal Anna was currently keeping. I’m only going to look at the last entry, she thought, telling herself it was justified since she was motivated only by her concern for Anna’s well-being. She opened the folder at the last entry, from the day that they were supposed to have met. Linda bent over the page; Anna’s handwriting was cramped, as if she were trying to hide the words. Linda read the short text twice, first without understanding it, then with a growing sense of bafflement. The words Anna had written made no sense: myth fear, myth fear, myth fear. Was it a code?

  Linda immediately broke her promise only to look at the last entry. She turned the page back and there she found regular text. Anna had written: The Saxhausen textbook is a pedagogical disaster. Completely impossible to read and understand. How can textbooks like this be allowed? Future doctors will be scared off and turn to research, where there is also more money.

  Further down the page she had noted: Had lowgrade fever this morning. Weather clear but windy—

  That part was true, Linda thought. She flipped the page to the last line and read it through again. She tried to imagine that she was Anna writing the words. There were no changes in the text, no words scratched out, no hesitations that she could tell. The handwriting looked even and firm.

  Myth fear, myth fear, myth fear. I see that I have signed up for nineteen laundry days so far this year. My dream—to the extent I even have one right now—would be to work as an anonymous suburban general practitioner. Do northern towns even have suburbs?

  That was where the entry ended. Not a word about the man she’d seen through the hotel window. Not a word or a hint. Nothing. But isn’t that exactly the kind of thing diaries are for? Linda wondered.

  She looked farther back in the book. From time to time her own name appeared. Linda is a true friend, she had written on July 20, in the middle of an entry about her mother. She and her mother had argued over nothing and later that evening she was planning to go to Malmö to see a Russian movie.

  Linda sat with the journal for almost an hour, struggling with her conscience. She looked for entries about herself. She found Linda can be so demanding on August 4. What did we do that day, Linda wondered. She couldn’t remember. It was a day like any other. Linda didn’t even have an organizer right now; she scribbled appointments on scraps of paper and wrote phone numbers on her hands.

  Finally she closed the diary. There was nothing there, just the strange words at the end. It’s not like her, Linda thought. The other entries are the work of a balanced mind. She doesn’t have more problems than most people. But the last day, the day she thinks she just saw her father turn up on a street in Malmö after twenty-four years, she repeatedly writes the words “myth fear, myth fear.” Why doesn’t she write about her father? Why does she write something that doesn’t make any sense?

  Linda felt her anxiety return. Had there perhaps been something to Anna’s talk about losing her mind? Linda walked over to the window where Anna often stood during their conversations. The sun was reflected from a window in the building directly opposite, and she had to squint in order to see anything. Could Anna have suffered a temporary derangement? She thought she had seen her long-lost f
ather—could this event have disconcerted her so violently that she lost her bearings and started behaving erratically?

  Linda gave a start. There, in the parking lot behind the building, was Anna’s car, the little red VW Golf. If she had left for a few days, the car should also be gone. Linda hurried down into the lot and felt the car doors. Locked. The car looked clean and shiny, which surprised her. Anna’s car tends to be dirty, she thought. Every time we go out her car is covered in dust. Now it’s squeaky clean—even the hubcaps have been polished.

  She went back up to the apartment, sat down in the kitchen, and tried to come up with a plausible explanation. The only thing she knew for sure was that Anna had not stayed home to meet with Linda as they had arranged. It wasn’t a misunderstanding; there was nothing wrong with Anna’s memory. She had chosen not to stay home that day. Something else had come up that was more important to her, something for which she didn’t need her car. Linda turned on the answering machine and listened to the messages but only heard her own bellowing of Anna’s name. She let her gaze wander to the front door. Someone rang the bell, she thought. Not me, not Zeba, not Henrietta. Who else was there? Anna had broken up with her boyfriend in April, a guy Linda had never met called Måns Persson. He was also a student in Lund, studying electromagnetics, and he had turned out to be less faithful than Anna would have liked. She had been deeply hurt by the breach in their relationship, and she had told Linda on several occasions that she was going to take her time before letting herself get that close to a man again.

  Linda had also recently had a Måns Persson experience, a man she kicked out of her life in March. His name had been Ludwig and he seemed uniquely suited to that name. His personality was part emperor and part impresario. He and Linda had met at a pub when Linda had been out drinking with some student colleagues. Ludwig had been with another group and they had simply ended up squeezed in next to each other due to the lack of space. Ludwig was in the sanitation business; he operated a garbage truck and made his pride in his work seem like the most natural thing in the world. Linda had been attracted by his huge laugh, his happy eyes, and the fact that he never interrupted her when she talked, actually straining to catch every word although the noise around them had been deafening.