Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

  Then he read an interview with a woman named Mary-Sue Legrande in the Houston Chronicle. There was a photo of her: a woman in her forties with dark hair and a thin, almost pointed face. She talked about Jim Jones and claimed to know his secrets. In the interview she presented herself as a distant spiritual relative of Jim. She had known him at the time he had the series of visions that would later lead him to found his church, the People’s Temple.

  I know Jim’s secrets, said Mary-Sue Legrande. But what were they? She didn’t say. He stared at the photograph. Mary-Sue seemed to be looking right back at him. She was divorced with a grown son and now owned a small mail-order company in Cleveland. Her company sold something called “manuals for self-actualization.”

  He put the newspaper back on the shelf, nodding to the friendly librarian before walking out onto the street. It was an unusually mild day in December, shortly before Christmas. He stopped in the shade of a tree. If Mary-Sue Legrande can tell me Jim Jones’s secrets I will understand why I was taken in by him. Then I will never suffer this same weakness again.

  He stepped off the train in Cleveland on Christmas Eve. His trip had taken more than thirty hours. He found a cheap hotel close to the railway station and ate some dinner at a Chinese restaurant before he went back to his room. There was a green plastic Christmas tree with flashing lights in the lobby of the hotel. He lay down on the bed in the dark hotel room. Right now I’m nothing more than the person who is registered for this hotel room, he thought. If I were to die now, or disappear, no one would miss me. They would find enough money in my sock to cover the costs of this room and a funeral—that is, unless someone stole the money and they had to dump me in a pauper’s grave. Perhaps someone would discover that I was not John Clifton. But the case would probably be put on the back burner, like a piece of paper you save without knowing why. That would be the extent of it. Right now I’m nothing more than a guest in a hotel room, and I can’t even remember the name of the hotel.

  Snow fell over the city of Cleveland on Christmas Day. He ate warm noodles, fried vegetables, and rice at the Chinese restaurant and then returned to lie motionless on his bed. The following day, December 26, the snowy weather had passed. A thin white powder had dusted the streets and sidewalks and it was three degrees below zero Celsius. There was no wind, and the water on Lake Erie was calm. He had located Mary-Sue Legrande with the help of a phone book and a map. She lived in a neighborhood in southwestern Cleveland. He thought it was God’s intention that he meet her this day. He washed carefully, shaved, and put on the clothes he had bought in a secondhand store in Laredo. What will she see when she opens her door and sees my face? he thought. A man who hasn’t given up, a man who has suffered greatly. He shook his head at his reflection in the mirror. I don’t inspire fear, he thought. Perhaps pity.

  He left his hotel and took a bus along the lakeshore. Mary-Sue Legrande lived on 1024 Madison, in a stone house partially hidden behind tall trees. He hesitated before he walked up the path and rang the doorbell. Mary-Sue Legrande looked exactly like her photograph in the Houston Chronicle, except that she was even thinner. She looked suspiciously at him, ready to slam the door in his face.

  “I survived,” he said. “Not everyone died in Guyana. I survived. I’ve come because I want to know Jim Jones’s secrets. I want to know why he betrayed us.”

  She looked at him for a long time before answering. When she did, she didn’t show any sign of surprise, or of any emotion whatsoever.

  “I knew it,” she said finally. “I knew someone would come.”

  She opened the door wide and stepped aside. He followed her in and stayed in her house for almost twenty years. It was with her help that he got to know the real Jim Jones, the man he had not been able to see through. Mary-Sue told him in her mild voice about Jim Jones’s dark secret. He was not the messenger of God he had given himself out to be; he had taken God’s place. Mary-Sue claimed that Jim Jones knew deep down that his vanity would one day be the destruction of everything he had built. But he had never been able to overcome his flaw and change course.

  “Was he insane?” he had asked.

  No, Mary-Sue insisted, far from it. Jim Jones had meant well; he had genuinely wanted to start a Christian awakening around the world. It was his vanity and pride that had prevented him from succeeding, that had turned his love into hate. But someone needed to take up where he left off, she told him. Someone who was strong enough to resist the pitfall of pride but could also be merciless when needed. The Christian awakening would only come to pass through bloodshed.

  He stayed and helped her run the mail-order business she called God’s Keys. She had written all the self-help manuals herself, with their blend of vague suggestions and inaccurate Bible quotations, and he soon realized that she understood Jim Jones so well because she was a kind of charlatan herself. But he stayed with her, since she let him. He needed time to plan what would become his life’s mission. He was going to be the one to take over where Jim Jones had gone astray. He would sidestep the pitfalls of pride and vanity but never forget that the Christian rebirth would demand sacrifice and blood.

  The mail-order company did well, especially with a product she called “The Aching Heart Package” priced at forty-nine dollars without tax and shipping. They started to get rich, and left the house on Madison for a large house in Middleburg Heights. Mary-Sue’s son Richard returned after completing his studies in Minneapolis and settled in a house nearby. He was a loner but always friendly when they saw each other. It was as if he was relieved not to have to take on his mother’s loneliness.

  The end arrived quickly and unexpectedly. One day Mary-Sue came back from a trip into Cleveland and sat down across from him at his desk. He thought she had been running errands.

  “I have cancer and I’m going to die,” she announced. She said the words with a strange air of relief, as if telling the truth lifted a great burden from her shoulders.

  She died on the eighty-seventh day after she came back from the doctor with the news. It was in the spring of 1999. Richard inherited all her assets, since she had never remarried. They drove out to Lake Erie for a walk the evening after the funeral. Richard wanted him to stay. He suggested that they continue running the mail-order business and share the profits. But he had already made up his mind. The void in him had been assuaged by living with Mary-Sue, but he had a mission to complete. His thinking and his plans had matured over the years. He didn’t say any of this to Richard. He simply asked him for some money—only as much as Richard could comfortably part with. Then he would make his preparations. Richard asked no questions.

  He left Cleveland on May 19, 2001, flying to Copenhagen via New York. He arrived in Helsingborg on the south coast of Sweden late on the evening of the twenty-first. He paused for a moment after stepping onto Swedish soil. It was as if he had left all his memories of Jim Jones behind at last.

  22

  Wallander was looking for the number to the power company when the electricity came back on. A few seconds later they all gave a start as Henrietta and the dog walked in. The dog jumped up on Wallander with its muddy paws. Henrietta ordered him to his basket and he obeyed. She then threw his leash aside with fury and turned to Linda.

  “I don’t know what gives you the right to enter my house when I’m not home. I don’t like people sneaking around.”

  “If the power hadn’t gone out we would have walked right out again,” Wallander said. Linda could tell he was losing his temper.

  “That’s not an answer to my question,” Henrietta said. “Why did you enter in the first place?”

  “We just want to know where Anna is,” Linda jumped in.

  Henrietta didn’t seem to listen to her. She walked around the room, looking carefully at her things.

  “I hope you didn’t touch anything,”

  “We haven’t touched anything,” Wallander said. “We simply have a few questions to ask and then we’ll be on our way.”

  Henrietta stopped
and stared at him.

  “What is it you need to know? Please tell me.”

  “Should we sit down?”

  “No.”

  This is when he explodes, Linda thought and closed her eyes. But her father managed to control himself, perhaps because she was there.

  “We need to be in touch with Anna. She’s not in her apartment. Can you tell us where she is?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Is there anyone who would know?”

  “Linda is one of her friends; have you asked her? Or maybe she doesn’t have time to talk to you since she spends all her time spying on me.”

  This sent Wallander over the edge. He yelled so loudly even the dog sat up. I know all about that voice, Linda thought, the yelling. God knows, it’s one of the earliest memories I have.

  “You will answer my questions clearly and honestly. If you refuse to cooperate, we will bring you down to the station. We need to locate your daughter because she may have some information regarding Birgitta Medberg.”

  Wallander made a short pause before continuing.

  “We also need to assure ourselves that nothing has happened to her.”

  “And what could possibly have happened to her? Anna studies in Lund. Linda knows that. Why don’t you talk to her house-mates?”

  “We will. Is there anyplace else she could be, in your opinion?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll move on to the question of the man who was in your house last night.”

  “Peter Stigström?”

  “Could you describe his hair for us?”

  “I already have.”

  “We can call on Peter Stigström in person, but perhaps you could humor us.”

  “He has long hair, about shoulder-length. It’s dark brown, with some gray streaks. Will that do?”

  “Can you describe his neck?”

  “Good grief—if you have shoulder-length hair it covers your neck. How would I know what it looks like?”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Then I’ll thank you for your time.”

  He got up and left, slamming the door behind him. Lindman hurried out after him. Linda was confused. Why hadn’t he confronted Henrietta with the fact that she had seen a man with short hair? As she got ready to leave, Henrietta blocked her path.

  “I don’t want anyone coming in here when I’m gone. I don’t want to feel I have to lock the door every time I take the dog out. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  Henrietta turned her back to her.

  “How is your leg?”

  “Better, thanks.”

  “Maybe sometime you’ll tell me what you were doing out there.”

  Linda left the house. Now she understood why Henrietta wasn’t worried about Anna, even though a terrible murder had been committed that intersected in some way with her daughter’s life. Henrietta wasn’t worried because she knew very well where Anna was.

  Lindman and Wallander were waiting in the car.

  “What is it she does?” Lindman asked. “All that sheet music. Does she write popular stuff?”

  “She composes the kind of music no one wants to hear,” Wallander said.

  He turned to Linda.

  “Isn’t that right?”

  “Something like that.”

  A cell phone rang. They all clutched at their pockets. It was Wallander’s phone. He listened to the caller and checked his watch.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “We’re heading out to Rannesholm,” he said. “Apparently new information has come in about individuals sighted in the area over the past few days. We’ll take you home first.”

  Linda asked him why he hadn’t confronted Henrietta about the conflicting descriptions of Peter Stigström’s hair.

  “I decided to sit on it,” he said. “Sometimes these things need time to ripen.”

  Then they talked about Henrietta’s apparent lack of concern for her daughter’s safety.

  “She knows where Anna is,” Wallander said. “There’s no other way to account for it. Why she’s lying is a mystery, though I expect we’ll find the answer sooner or later if we keep trying. But it’s not a top priority for us at this point.”

  They drove on in silence. Linda wanted to ask about the investigation out at Rannesholm but felt it would be wiser to wait. They stopped outside the apartment on Mariagatan.

  “Could you turn off the engine for a minute?” Wallander turned around so he could see Linda. “Let me repeat what I just said. I’m satisfied that no harm has come to Anna. Her mother knows where she is and why she’s staying away. We don’t have the manpower to investigate this any further. But there is nothing to stop you from going to Lund and talking to her friends there. Just do me a favor and don’t pretend to be a police officer.”

  Linda got out and waved them off. It was only as she was opening the front door that she thought of something that Anna had said. Was it the last time before she disappeared? Linda scoured her memory but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

  The next day Linda got up early. The apartment was empty and her father had clearly not been home at all since the day before. She left shortly after eight. The sun was shining and it was unusually warm. Because she had plenty of time, she decided to take the coastal highway toward Trelleborg and turn up north to Lund once she got to Anderslöv. She listened to the news on the radio but there was nothing about Birgitta Medberg.

  Then her cell phone rang. It was her dad.

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way to Lund. Why are you calling?”

  “I just wanted to see if I needed to wake you up.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. By the way, I saw you never made it home last night.”

  “I slept a while at the manor. We’ve staked out a few rooms for the time being.”

  “How is it going?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Bye.”

  She put the phone back in her pocket. She found the right street in inner-city Lund, found a place to park the car, and bought herself an ice cream. Why had her father called? He’s trying to control me, she thought.

  The house Anna shared was a two-story wooden building with a small garden in front. The gate was rusty and about to fall off its hinges. Linda rang the doorbell, but no one answered. She rang again and strained her ears. She didn’t hear a ringing on the inside, so she started to knock loudly. Finally a shadow appeared on the other side of the glass inlay. The man who opened the door was in his twenties, his face covered in acne. He was wearing jeans, an undershirt, and a large brown robe with big holes. He reeked of sweat.

  “I’m looking for Anna Westin,” Linda said.

  “She’s not in.”

  “But she lives here?”

  The man stepped aside so Linda could enter. She felt his eyes on the back of her head when she walked past him.

  “She has the room behind the kitchen,” he said.

  They walked into the kitchen, which was a mess of dirty dishes and leftover food. How can she live in this shit? Linda thought.

  She reluctantly stretched out her hand to shake his, shuddering at his limp and clammy handshake.

  “Zacharias,” he said. “I don’t think her door’s locked, but she doesn’t like anyone to go in there.”

  “I’m one of her closest friends. If she hadn’t wanted me to go in, she would have locked the door.”

  “How am I supposed to know you’re her friend?”

  Linda felt like pushing him out of the kitchen, but pulled herself together.

  “When did you see her last?”

  He stepped back.

  “What is this—a cross-examination?”

  “Not at all. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her and she hasn’t gotten back to me.”

  Zacharias kept staring at her.

  “Let’s go into the living room,” he said.

  She followed him into a room fu
ll of shabby, mismatched furniture. A torn poster of Che Guevara’s face hung on one wall, a tapestry embroidered with some words about the joys of home on the other. Zacharias sat down at a table with a chess set. Linda sat across from him, which was as far away as she could get.

  “What do you study?” she asked.

  “I don’t. I play chess.”

  “And you make a living from that?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I can’t live any other way.”

  “I don’t even know how all the pieces move.”

  “I can show you, if you like.”

  Not a chance, Linda thought. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can.

  “How many of you live here?”

  “It depends. Right now there’s four of us: Margareta Olsson, who studies economics, me, Peter Engbom, who is supposed to be majoring in physics but is currently mired in the history of religion, and then Anna.”

  “Who is studying medicine,” Linda filled in.

  The facial movement was almost imperceptible, but she caught it. His face had registered surprise. At the same time she caught hold of the thought she had had the night before.

  “When did you see her last?”

  “I don’t have a good memory for these things. It may have been yesterday or a week ago. I’m in the middle of a study of Capablanca’s most accomplished endgames. Sometimes I think it should be possible to transcribe chess moves like music. In which case Capablanca’s games would be fugues or enormous masses.”

  Another nut interested in unplayable music, she thought.

  “That sounds interesting,” she said and got up. “Is anyone else home right now?”

  “No, just me.”

  Linda walked back to the kitchen, with Zacharias at her heels.

  “I’m going in now, whatever you say.”

  “Anna won’t like it.”

  “You can always try to stop me.”

  He watched her as she opened the door and walked in. Anna’s room must at one time have been a kitchen maid’s room. It was small and narrow. Linda sat down on the bed and looked around. Zacharias appeared in the doorway. Linda suddenly had the feeling he was going to throw himself on top of her. She got up and he took a step back but kept watching her. It was no use. She wanted to pull out the desk drawers but as long as he was watching she couldn’t bring herself to do it.