Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

  The smell was what triggered the memory. Mounds of garbage were burned at night in Morocco. But no one burns their trash in Ystad, she thought. Then she heard the fire trucks and police sirens. There was a fire in the center of town somewhere. She started to run.

  The fire was still raging when she arrived, panting like a house-bound old woman. When had she gotten this out of shape? She saw tall flames leap up through the roof. The families that lived in the upper stories had been evacuated. A badly damaged baby carriage had been abandoned in front. Firefighters were busy securing the surrounding buildings. Linda made her way up to the police tape.

  Her father was quarreling with Svartman about a witness who had not been interviewed thoroughly, and to top it off had been allowed to disappear.

  “We’ll never get this madman if we can’t even follow the simplest of routines.”

  “Martinsson was in charge of it.”

  “And he’s told me twice that he delegated it to you. Now you’ll have to track down the witness somehow.”

  Svartman left, clearly feeling wronged. They’re like angry bulls, Linda thought. All this time and energy spent marking their territory.

  A fire truck that was backing up toward the rescue operation knocked a hose loose, which started whipping around, spraying water. Wallander jumped to the side, and caught sight of Linda at the same time.

  “What happened here?” she asked.

  “One or more firebombs in the store. Torched animals, same as the swans and the calf.”

  “Any clues?”

  “One witness, but no one seems to know where the person went.”

  Wallander was so furious he was shaking. This is how he’ll die, Linda thought suddenly. Exhausted, outraged by an oversight in a pressing criminal investigation.

  “We have to get these bastards,” he said, interrupting her train of thought.

  “I think this is different.”

  “What is it?”

  He looked at her as if she knew the answer.

  “I don’t know. It’s as if it were really about something else.”

  Höglund called out to Wallander.

  Linda watched him walk away, a large man with his head pulled down into his shoulders, stepping carefully over the hoses and the smoking remains of what had once been a pet store. Linda’s gaze fell on a teary-eyed young woman watching the blaze. The owner, she mused. Or simply someone who loves animals. There were a number of spectators, all silent. Burning buildings always inspire dread, she thought. A house on fire is a reminder that our own home could one day burn to the ground.

  “Why aren’t they asking me questions? I don’t get it.”

  Linda turned around and saw a woman in her twenties pressed up against a nearby wall. She was talking to a friend. A waft of smoke made them both pull back even farther.

  “Why don’t you just go over and tell them what you saw?” her friend said.

  “I’m not going to go out of my way for the police.”

  The witness, Linda thought and took a step closer.

  “What did you see?” she asked.

  The woman eyed her suspiciously and Linda saw that she was slightly walleyed.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Linda Wallander. I’m a police officer.”

  Well, it’s almost true, she thought.

  “How could someone kill all those animals? And I heard there was a horse in there too. Is that true?”

  “No,” Linda said. “What did you see?”

  “A man.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He started the fire that burned all those animals. I was walking from the direction of the theater. I was going to mail some letters, which I do several times a week. When I was about halfway to the post office, about a block from the pet store, I noticed someone walking behind me. I was startled because he had been walking almost soundlessly. I let him pass me. Then I started following him, trying to walk as quietly as he did, I don’t know why. But after a few feet I realized I had left a letter in the car so I turned around and went back for it.”

  Linda lifted her hand.

  “How long did it take you to go back and get the letter?”

  “Three or four minutes. The car was parked by the delivery entrance to the theater.”

  “What happened when you started back for the post office? Did you see the man again?”

  “No.”

  “And when you walked past the pet store, what did you do?”

  “I glanced at the window—but I’m not so interested in hamsters and turtles.”

  “What did you see?”

  “A blue light inside the store. It’s always on. It’s some kind of heat lamp, I think.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I mailed my letters and started walking back to the car. It took another three minutes or so.”

  “And then?”

  “Then the store exploded, or it felt that way. I had just walked past it. There was a sharp light all around me. I threw myself down onto the street. Then I saw that the store was in flames. An animal must have gotten loose, and it ran past me with its fur on fire. It was horrible.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “It all happened so fast. But I saw a man standing on the other side of the street. The light was so strong that I was positive; it was the man who had overtaken me on the street. He was carrying a bag in his hand.”

  “Had he been carrying it before?”

  “Yes. I forgot to mention it. A black bag, like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag.”

  Linda knew what they looked like.

  “What did you do?”

  “I called out to him to help me.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  “I thought so. It was such a loud bang and then that terrible light.”

  “Did he help you?”

  “No, he just looked at me and walked away.”

  “In what direction?”

  “Up toward the main square.”

  “Had you ever seen him before?”

  “Never.”

  “How would you describe him?”

  “He was tall and strong-looking. Maybe bald, or with very short hair. He had a dark blue coat, dark pants. His shoes I had looked at when he walked past and I wondered how he could walk so quietly. They were brown and had thick rubber soles, but they weren’t running shoes.”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  “He shouted something.”

  “Who was he talking to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was there anyone else there?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It sounded like ‘The Lord’s will be done.‘”

  “‘The Lord’s will be done’?”

  “I’m sure of the word ‘Lord,’ but the word ‘will’ sounded like it was pronounced in a foreign language. Danish, maybe. Or Norwegian, more like it. Yes, that’s it. The guy sounded like he was speaking Norwegian.”

  Linda’s heart beat a little faster. It has to be the same guy, she thought. Unless there’s a Norwegian conspiracy at work. But that seems a little far-fetched.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Amy Lindberg.”

  Linda fished a pen out of her pocket and wrote down Amy’s phone number on her wrist.

  They shook hands.

  “Thanks for listening to me,” Amy Lindberg said, and she turned to rejoin her friend.

  The mysterious Torgeir Langaas, Linda mused. He keeps cropping up in my life when I least expect it.

  She could see that the firefighting operation had reached a new stage. Workers were moving more slowly, a sign that the blaze would soon be contained. She saw her dad talking to the fire chief. When his head turned in her direction she pulled herself back even farther, although it was impossible for him to see her in the shadows. Stefan Lindman walke
d by with the young woman she had seen earlier, who had cried as she watched the fire. It suits him to comfort crying women, she thought. I, on the other hand, almost never cry. I stopped all that when I was still little. She watched Lindman lead the woman over to a patrol car. They said a few words to each other, then he opened the door for her and she climbed in.

  The conversation with Amy Lindberg kept coming back to her. The Lord’s will be done. But what exactly did this god want? That a pet store burn to the ground, that some helpless animals die in unimaginable terror and pain? First it was swans, she thought. Then the calf: singled out, charred, dead. And now a whole store full of pets. It was clearly the work of the same man, one who had calmly regarded his work and said: The Lord’s will be done.

  Linda walked over to Lindman, who looked at her with surprise.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just a curious onlooker. But I need to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “The fire.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I have to go home and eat something anyway,” he said. “You can come along.”

  Stefan’s apartment was located in one of three high-rises scattered arbitrarily across an area dotted with a few single-family homes and a paper-recycling center.

  His was the middle building. The glass in the front door had been smashed and replaced by a piece of cardboard in which someone had also kicked a hole. Linda saw a message scribbled on the wall: LIFE IS FOR SALE. SPREAD THE WORD.

  “I read that every day,” Stefan said. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  He unlocked the apartment and handed her a hanger for her coat. They walked into the living room, which was furnished with a few simple pieces, randomly scattered around the room.

  “I don’t have anything to offer you except water or beer,” he said. “This is just a place for me to camp out.”

  “Where are you moving? You said something about Knickarp.”

  “I’m renovating a house out there. It has a large garden. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I’m still at my dad’s,” Linda said. “I’m counting the days until I get out of there.”

  “You have a good father.”

  She was taken aback.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that. You have a good father. I didn’t.”

  Some newspapers were lying on a side table. She pulled over a copy of the Borås Daily.

  “I’m not nostalgic,” he said. “I subscribe to it because I enjoy reading about everything I’ve managed to escape.”

  “It was that awful?”

  “I knew I had to leave when it was clear I was going to survive the cancer.”

  He fell silent. Linda wasn’t sure how to change the subject. Then he stood up.

  “I’ll get the beer and some sandwiches.”

  He came back with two glasses. Linda declined the sandwich.

  She told him how she had overheard the conversation between Amy Lindberg and her friend and subsequently asked her some questions. Stefan listened attentively. She continued to talk, going back to the incident when Anna thought she saw her father in the street in Malmö. The shadowy figure of a Norwegian, who was perhaps named Torgeir Langaas, kept appearing in her account.

  “Someone is killing animals,” she said in conclusion. “Someone has also killed a person, cut her up into pieces. And Anna has disappeared.”

  “I understand your concern,” Stefan said. “Not only because of the vaguely disturbing possibility of a return by Anna’s father. We also have the menacing presence of an unknown person, someone who says ‘The Lord’s will be done’. Perhaps not aloud, but the intent is there in all his actions. You’ve also learned that your friend Anna is religious. These random facts are starting to look like pieces of a grotesque puzzle, not least the morbid detail of allowing two severed hands to go on pleading for mercy after death. From everything you’ve said and from what I already know of the case, it’s clear that there’s a religious dimension to all of this that we haven’t taken as seriously as we perhaps should have.”

  He drank the last of his beer. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance.

  “It’s out over Bornholm,” Linda said. “There are often thunder-storms out there.”

  “It’s an easterly wind. That means it’s on its way here.”

  “What do you think about what I just told you?”

  “That it’s true. And that what you’ve told me will impact our investigation.”

  “Which investigation?”

  “Birgitta Medberg. Anna’s disappearance has not been a priority up to this point. I guess that will change now.”

  “Am I right to be scared?”

  He shook his head hesitantly.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to write down everything you’ve told me, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to do the same. I’ll let my colleagues know about this tomorrow.”

  Linda shivered.

  “Dad will be furious that I went to you first and not him.”

  “Why don’t you blame it on the fact that he was so busy with the arson?”

  “He keeps saying he’s never too busy when it comes to me.”

  Stefan helped her put on her coat. She thought again that she was genuinely attracted to him. His hands on her shoulders were gentle.

  She returned to Mariagatan. Her father was waiting for her at the kitchen table, and she could tell from his face that he was angry. You bastard, she thought. Couldn’t you at least have waited until I got home?

  She sat down across from him and braced herself.

  “If you’re just going to rant and rave I’m going to bed. No, I’ll leave. I’ll sleep in the car.”

  “You could at least have talked to me. This amounts to a breach of trust, Linda. A huge breach of trust.”

  “For Christ’s sake—you were in the middle of a pet massacre. A street was going up in flames.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken it upon yourself to talk to that girl. What gave you the right to do that? How many times do I have to tell you this is not your business? You haven’t even started working yet.”

  Linda pulled up her sleeve, and showed him Amy Lindberg’s phone number.

  “Will that do? I’m going to bed.”

  “I find it deeply disturbing that you don’t even have enough respect for me not to go behind my back.”

  Linda’s eyes widened.

  “Go behind your back? Who said anything about going behind your back?”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  Linda swept a salt shaker and a vase of withered roses to the floor. He had gone too far. She rushed out into the hallway, grabbed her coat, and slammed the front door behind her. I hate him, she thought, fumbling in her pocket for the car keys. I hate his endless nagging. I’m not spending another night in this place.

  She tried to calm herself when she reached the car. He expects me to feel guilty, she thought. He’s waiting for me to go back and tell him that little Linda Caroline had a moment of rebellion but takes it all back now.

  “Well, I’m not going back,” she said aloud. “I’ll stay with Zeba.” She was about to start the car when she changed her mind. Zeba would talk, ask questions, discuss the situation. Linda didn’t have the energy for that. She drove to Anna’s apartment instead. Her dad could sit at the kitchen table and wait until the end of the world as far as she was concerned.

  She put the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

  Anna was standing in the hall with a smile on her face.

  32

  Iknew it had to be you. No one else would drop by like this, like a thief in the night. You probably intuited I had come back and woke up. Isn’t that it?” Anna said cheerfully.

  Linda dropped her keys.

  “I don’t understand. Is it really you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”

  Anna frown
ed.

  “Why are you relieved?”

  “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  Anna lifted her hands in apology.

  “I’m guilty, I know. Do you want me to apologize or tell you what happened?”

  “You don’t have to do either right now. It’s enough that you’re here.”

  They went into the living room. Even though Linda was struggling to come to terms with the fact that Anna was back and sitting in her usual chair, she noticed that the framed blue butterfly was still missing.

  “I came over because I had a fight with my dad,” Linda said. “I thought I would sleep on your couch since you were away.”

  “You can still sleep here even though I’m back.”

  “He made me so mad. My dad and I are like two roosters fighting on a dung heap. The more we struggle, the more we get mired into the muck. We were arguing about you, actually.”

  “About me?”

  Linda stretched out her hand and brushed Anna’s arm with her fingertips. Anna was wearing a robe on which the sleeves had been cut off for some reason. Anna’s skin was cold. There was no doubt that it really was Anna who had come back and not an impostor. Anna’s skin was always cold. Linda could remember that from their childhood when they—with the tingling feeling of exploring forbidden territory—had played dead. The game had made Linda warm and sweaty, but Anna had been cold, so cold in fact that they stopped playing. It had scared them both.

  “I was so worried about you,” Linda said. “It’s not like you to disappear and not be home when we had agreed to meet.”

  “You have to remember my world was turned upside-down. I thought I had seen my father. I was convinced he had come back.”

  She paused and looked down at her hands.

  “What happened?” Linda asked.

  “I went to look for him,” she said. “I didn’t forget about our plans, but I thought you would understand. I had seen my father for a second and I had to find him again. I was so worked up I was shaking and couldn’t drive. I took the train down to Malmö and set out to look for him. It was an absolutely indescribable experience. I walked up and down the streets using all my senses, thinking there had to be a trace of him somewhere, a scent, a sound.