Frozen Moment

by Camilla Ceder

  'I'm going outside, Karin. Don't go away.'

  Tell took the lift downstairs and rang Beckman back from outside the hospital. It seemed as though she had regained her composure.

  'Sorry. I don't know what's the matter with me. There's just been so much going on recently. I've left Goran. For good this time. At least I think it's for good.'

  Tell realised that he was holding his breath as he waited for her to continue. 'You don't have to apologise,' he said when nothing further was forthcoming. There was a silence between them, a pleasant healing silence.

  'Well,' she said eventually, 'sometimes you do have to apologise. I can be too bloody honest sometimes. It takes it out of all of us, this business of dealing with death all the time. Not just you. Me as well.' She blew her nose noisily. 'I just want to say that I value our conversations. I know that I can sometimes make it seem as if they're just to help you, but I need them as well.'

  'It's fine, Karin,' he said.

  Snowflakes began falling hesitantly on the car park.

  'It's good for us to be there for each other.' Under normal circumstances he would have reproached himself for sounding inane, but he realised he really meant what he said. 'And listen,' he went on. 'You said Ostergren only went in a couple of hours ago? In which case it's hardly surprising if you can't get hold of anyone. It's terrible, Karin, but there's nothing you can do at the moment. You're going to have to wait until tomorrow, whatever happens.'

  'But what if she doesn't make it?'

  'You still won't be able to do anything other than wait.'

  She laughed and sobbed at the same time.

  'You mean, "Karin, you can't be in control right now. Not of death, anyway.'"

  'Something like that, yes.'

  For a moment he thought she'd hung up, but she continued in a brighter tone: 'By the way, Björkman called about something they found in Bart's house. Hidden letters from his sister. Apparently she was trying to blackmail him.'

  'With what? No, let me guess: she was threatening to reveal what she knew about him and the bikers' club?'

  'Exactly. It seems she thought he'd got his hands on money that was hers at some point, and this was her way of trying to get it back.'

  'Shit. Well, there you go.'

  He searched his pockets for the slip of paper with Seja's room number. It was probably best to leave now, before it started snowing properly, to avoid getting stuck on the motorway. But he didn't want to hang up before he was sure Beckman was all right. It was very rare for her to lower her guard. If she could understand that it was possible, that it might even do her good, she would do it more readily the next time.

  Instead, she was the one who ended the call.

  'Go back to Seja,' she said. 'I'm sure she's waiting for you.'

  Tell couldn't think of a reply. He stood there in confusion, holding his car keys a centimetre from the lock. He was tired. His head was whirring with so many thoughts, so many questions, but he realised that these were unlikely to be resolved here in the snow that was falling more and more resolutely, covering the tarmac like a soft blanket. He turned uncertainly and surveyed the half-full car park.

  Almost every window of the hospital was lit up, with the odd forgotten Advent candlesticks dotted here and there. People inside those walls are fighting for their lives.

  Dropping the keys in his pocket, he went back through the revolving doors. He didn't take off his coat because he wasn't intending to stay long. But he would at least tell Seja that he was going. And that he would be coming back.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  Christian Tell looked around the glassed-in veranda, typical of the single-storey brown-brick house to which it was attached. There were plants everywhere, some of which he recognised from his childhood. The rosary vine, for example - perhaps because its name and appearance were so well matched. Pelargoniums, of course. Just below the ceiling dark green tendrils twisted and twined, so overgrown that it was difficult to see which came from which pot.

  It can't possibly be Ostergren who has such green fingers, thought Tell; he could picture her office with its empty windowsills.

  He could see that the back garden wasn't as neatly kept. The grass had been cut, but the trees hadn't been pruned. The shrubs had been allowed to go wild, and the cypresses grew unchecked. Beyond the lawn he could see the beginning of a grove or a small wood, with Askimsviken somewhere below it.

  From the kitchen he could hear Gustav Ostergren mildly reproaching his wife for doing too much. She dismissed his concerns with some irritation, only to apologise a second later. Tell smiled sadly. Relationships weren't easy when life was suddenly turned upside down.

  She had seemed pleased to see him. They hadn't talked for a while, not since she had been signed off work indefinitely. And not for a while before that either. Tell still felt uncomfortable; his first impulse on seeing the house had been to drive straight past. He hadn't phoned to say that he was coming. It was early. She might still be asleep.

  'I can't stay long,' had been his ridiculous greeting as a surprised Ostergren opened the door. He had pointed at his watch with embarrassment. 'You know how it is.'

  She had stood there motionless at first, looking as if she didn't recognise him in such a different context. Then she said his name and burst into almost exhilarated laughter. This made him happy.

  'I just wanted to see how things were.'

  'If you'd like to go and see how things are on the patio, I'll make us a cup of coffee.'

  He was wearing a new suit, light grey instead of the usual dark shade. He picked a thread distractedly from his trouser leg, got out a tin of snuff - which was also new - and took a pinch with an unpractised hand.

  Seja had given him an incentive: one cigarette-free month and she would take him away on holiday. She hadn't specified the destination, just 'somewhere hot'. She had no idea how long a month could be. And it was ridiculous for her to even consider paying for them both, given the state of her finances. But he did want to go away with her, he really did. That alone would make this torture worthwhile.

  Gustav Ostergren came out with a pot of coffee and set it on the table, brushing fallen leaves off the cloth.

  'Can I do anything to help?' Tell asked, like a child visiting an • elderly relative, and for the first time he was aware of the age gap. Ostergren wasn't that much older, but the house betrayed that she was of his parents' generation: the 6os hairstyle in her wedding photo, the imitation-grass flooring in the veranda, the fluffy cushions, the pine coasters.

  The whole thing made him feel confused, as if the person he had worked with on a daily basis for so many years had suddenly become a stranger. He had never thought of his boss as being any particular age, neither old nor young, neither a woman nor a person with thoughts and emotions outside work.

  He suddenly wondered what it had been like for her to be so remote. If she had deliberately created that facade or if he, like others, had chosen to acknowledge only certain aspects of her.

  'Anki, can you bring the sugar?'

  When Ostergren had mentioned her husband in passing during their most recent conversation, Tell had been surprised that she was married. He had immediately created a picture of the man in question.

  It transpired that Gustav Ostergren was not the tall elegant retired lawyer or businessman Tell had imagined. It also transpired that Tell had actually met him several years before, at a Horticultural Society Christmas party. Tell remembered that Carina had been delighted with this unassuming man, who resembled a friendly goblin with his wild hair and salt-and-pepper beard, his sparkling friendly eyes, shirt hanging loose and jeans tucked inside his socks. He perched his glasses on his nose to read the date on the milk carton before pouring it into a jug.

  Ann-Christine came out with the sugar bowl. It occurred to Tell that he had never seen her move slowly before and he wondered if she was in pain.

  'I hope you won't be offended if I go off into the garage for a while,'
said Gustav Ostergren. 'It's just I'm working on a little project. I'm making a violin, although there's no guarantee it will ever be finished. You're welcome to come and have a look later on, if you like.'

  He slipped on a pair of wooden clogs and went out through the veranda door.

  Ann-Christine smiled gently. 'He just wants to leave us in peace.'

  'That's impressive, making a violin,' Tell replied.

  She nodded. 'It's always been his dream. And now he's retired - he took his pension a couple of years early so that he could be at home with me - he suddenly has the time to do it.'

  They were both silent for a while. A magpie landed on the decking outside the window.

  'We miss you at work,' said Tell eventually.

  'Thank you. Actually, I'm not missing the job very much. Not as much as I thought I would, anyway. Everything's relative, after all. I suppose I didn't think I'd be able to cope if I didn't have the job to hang on to. In some peculiar way I thought as long as I was working, I'd stay alive. If I went home it would be like giving up, giving in to the cancer. Waiting for death, I suppose. I couldn't bear that thought. It just got bigger and bigger. You know how it is. You have your work, and that means you know who you are. At work I might not have been the best in the world, but I was competent. At home I'm nothing special. I don't do anything special. Although I have started reading again.'

  She brightened up.

  'When I was younger I used to read all the time. Nothing deep - crime novels, biographies. You know. I've just finished reading a biography of Frida Kahlo, the artist. Fascinating woman. Fascinating life.'

  'They've made a film about her,' said Tell. 'With Penelope Cruz. She's a fascinating woman as well. And she doesn't look too bad either.'

  Ostergren laughed. The smile still lingered around the corners of her mouth as she said, 'And how are things going otherwise?'

  'Well, what can I say? Same old, same old. Bärneflod's wife got it into her head that she should invite the team round for dinner, which Bengt isn't all that thrilled about. He's going round saying it clearly isn't enough, putting up with us from Monday to Friday; now he's expected to have us in his house on a Saturday night and supply us with drink.'

  Ostergren laughed again and shook her head. Tell thought he hadn't seen her looking this happy for a long time. He took a biscuit and continued his update.

  'Gonzales brought in a lad for that rape in Vasa Park, the one where the girl died. The semen matched. And three other girls who've reported rapes over the past year have identified him as their attacker. Once it was clear that we'd got him, he told us that his cousin had been involved as well.'

  'Horrible.'

  'Yes, but at least both of them are out of action now. Beckman and Karlberg went off on that course last Monday, the one they should have gone on at Christmas if the Jeep case hadn't got in the way.'

  Ostergren took a bite from a cinnamon bun. She brushed the crumbs off her turquoise jumper carefully. The movement made Tell realise that was another departure; she always used to wear black.

  'And that's all sorted now, by the way,' he went on, despite a vague feeling that she was only half-listening. 'The knife that was found inside the door panel of Selander's car had been wiped, but forensics found traces of Molin's blood on the handle. She confessed when she realised the game was up. Evidently Sebastian Granith and Caroline Selander didn't exactly plan the murders together, not in so many words, but they egged each other on in their mutual desire for revenge: the mother, the brother and the lover. They seem to have had some kind of insane three-way pact. Solveig Granith hasn't been in a fit state to be interviewed so far; she's still in Lillhagen.'

  'The question is, why did they wait twelve years to murder someone?'

  Tell shrugged his shoulders. 'There's a awful lot that doesn't add up. I'm no expert, but I've actually been giving some thought to that very question.'

  'And what did you come up with?'

  'I think that separately, however disturbed they were, they weren't capable of murder. Well, Selander has a long history of violence, including the attempted murder of her father. But I think that somehow these three individuals found each other - through their mutual loss - and came to be dependent on each other in different ways. They lived together year after year, getting in deeper and deeper, and that triggered something in each other. Like a secret club of hate, a pact where the dead girl became a symbol for what was missing in their lives. At the end of his interrogation Sebastian Granith said that he had assuaged his guilt. He was satisfied. It seemed as though he had assumed some kind of responsibility for what had happened to Maya - don't ask me how or why - but that the murders were some form of penance. A way of impressing the other two, or perhaps being accepted by them. Over the years he had been driven to a point where murder seemed the only possible course of action.' The furrow between his eyebrows disappeared, and he added with a hint of embarrassment, 'I don't really know what I'm talking about; Beckman is better at this psychology stuff. I suppose we might never know the answer to some things.'

  Ostergren protested and said it was interesting, which he took as an indication that she wanted him to go on.

  Anyway, when she realised we had proof that she was the one who killed Molin, Caroline Selander confessed that Sebastian Granith had sent her a text just after we arrested him. "Two down - one to go," something along those lines. He must have pre-programmed his mobile in case he got caught, because he was never left unsupervised. We found the mobile later, after she'd confessed. It had been trodden into the ground where we were standing. It was a bit embarrassing, actually.'

  'Oh dear.'

  'Exactly. Anyway, when she got the message she realised he'd murdered the first two. She then saw it as her duty to deal with the last one, and she just went off and did it. She realised it was urgent, that the police knew the background and it was only a matter of time before… Well, you get the picture. So she just went out and stabbed him, wiped the knife and took off in her van. They picked her up pretty quickly.'

  'The police in Ystad?'

  'Yes.'

  'And before that she'd attacked Seja Lundberg?'

  Tell swallowed. 'Seja Lundberg suspected Caroline Selander because of a conversation she'd had with a mutual acquaintance.'

  'So she was making her own enquiries, then.'

  'She was, yes. Selander panicked when she realised Seja was on her trail.'

  Ostergren looked thoughtful once again.

  'I read the piece she wrote. It was good. Perceptive.'

  She leaned over and placed her hand briefly on Tell's, as she reached for the milk.

  'But when I asked how things were going, I was really talking about you. How are you?'

  'What do you mean?'

  She shrugged impatiently. 'What do you think I mean? How are you feeling? Are things going well for you? How's your girlfriend?'

  He didn't know what to say. Didn't she know that it was all over between him and Carina, or had someone at work got there before him and told her about Seja?

  She sighed. 'Do you have to look so petrified? First of all, I'm more or less retired and therefore no longer your boss, so you can forget about any repercussions. And secondly, and much more importantly, I'm your friend. At least I thought I was. Perhaps I haven't always been as open as I might have been, but I've always felt that the two of us are pretty much alike. That we understand one another. I trusted you-'

  'Yes, but-' he protested.

  She raised a finger in the air. 'I trusted you to be able to make a judgement about any risks you might be taking as a result of your behaviour. You're perfectly capable of doing so even if you've been treading a very fine line in this case. That's why I was quite hurt that you didn't feel you could talk to me. Instead you avoided me. That was cowardly.'

  'Yes.'

  'And childish.'

  He didn't look up, but he sensed a smile playing around one corner of her mouth. For some reason this made him feel even m
ore vulnerable.

  'Absolutely. And since we're on the subject of my lack of backbone,

  I'd also like to apologise for the fact that I didn't want to see you, or be reminded of you or your illness. It wasn't just this business with Seja. I was just terrified at the thought…' He fell silent. A helpless gesture in Ostergren's direction said what he couldn't bear to say out loud.

  'That I'm going to die soon,' she said calmly. 'Apology accepted.' He could feel her gaze burning into his forehead. 'Why are you so angry?' She had raised her eyebrows so high that they had disappeared under her white curls. 'Why are you so angry, when I'm not?'

  She leaned forward and forced him to look her in the eye.

  'I'm going to ask you the same question I've been asking Gustav over these last few weeks. Why should you be angry, when I've stopped feeling that way? I've accepted that I have a year. I have a year to read all those books I'd intended to read when I retired. To sleep late in the mornings. I can use the sauna we built ten years ago and have hardly ever had time to use. Or I can go back to all those exciting conversations I had with Gustav when we were first married, the ones that got lost somewhere along the way as my career took over. I say to him, "You should be pleased, Gustav. After all, you're always complaining that I never see you.'"

  Tell, who thought he was about to laugh, realised to his surprise that there were tears prickling his eyelids.

  'And you, Christian, you ought to be happy for yourself sometimes. Be happy, as I am, that you've found somebody nice who can put up with you, and stop wallowing in those peculiar feelings of guilt. Stop letting fear dictate what you do. Stop asking whether you deserve what you get - and just live instead. Live and be happy!'

  She swept a pack of cards off the table as she waved her arms. They went everywhere.

  And when he thought about it, Tell realised he was happy. Happy that Seja might be in his apartment when he got home from work in the evening. He didn't dare take it for granted, but he thought she probably would be.