‘It had snowed the night before, and there was a ferocious wind. For a while we weren’t sure it would even be possible to get to the church. The council snowplough hadn’t got round to clearing the road. But your grandfather got the neighbours to pitch in with their tractors.’ He shakes his head.
‘You must have been frozen?’ She clings on to the subject.
‘Like you wouldn’t believe! I managed fairly well in my suit. Magdalena was wearing her mother’s wedding dress, thin silk, so she must have been absolutely frozen. Her hands were ice-cold. But she didn’t complain, not once.’
‘Where did you have the reception?’
‘At your grandparents’. There weren’t that many guests, mostly family. Hold on . . .’
He stands up and goes into the study, and she hears him looking for something.
‘Here, take a look at this.’
He puts a black and white photograph down in front of her. She’s seen their wedding pictures before, but not this one. Not that she can remember, anyway.
It’s a family photograph, taken in her maternal grandparents’ best parlour at Ängsgården. The bridal couple are in the centre, with the bride’s family on one side and the bridegroom’s on the other. They’re surrounded by vases of flowers.
Grandfather Assar looks stern and uptight standing there just behind Mum. The resemblance between him and Uncle Harald, who’s standing on the far right, was already striking even then. The same deepset eyes, pronounced brow and sharp nose. Grandmother’s features were rather softer. She’s smiling stiffly at the camera, her high cheekbones just like Mum’s. And hers.
Her father’s parents look much happier. The Nilsson family are a typical, good-natured farming family from Skåne, who all look like they were raised on goose and spettekaka, and the contrast with the tall, stiff and rather haughty Aronssons is striking.
Dad has a broad smile on his face and the happiness in his eyes is so obvious that it’s still infectious, and makes Veronica smile.
Mum is also smiling in the picture, but there’s something about the expression on her face that doesn’t seem quite right. It takes Veronica a while to realise what it is. It isn’t a very big photograph, and Mum’s eyes are smaller than half the head of a pin. But when Veronica leans over and looks really closely, she still thinks she recognises the look in her eyes. She’s seen it in her own reflection, and knows what it means. And what it means isn’t good.
‘She could have picked anyone,’ Dad murmurs, and Veronica can’t work out if he’s talking to her or himself. ‘But she chose me.’
*
By the time she leaves everything is almost back to normal. She hugs her dad, kisses him on the cheek. Promises to drive carefully and to call him when she gets home. A warm southerly wind has got up, making the giants’ great blades spin in farewell as she leaves the plain behind.
Her old car doesn’t cope with the heat very well, and after four hours driving she has to stop at a petrol station to put more water in the radiator. Dad gave her some food for the journey – neatly made sandwiches with cheese and ham, and a flask of coffee – so she takes a short break.
She’s been hoping that the car journey will give her a chance to think, to make sense of everything that’s happened over the past few days. She also needs to decide what she thinks about the man who says his name is Isak. Is he really Billy? When she drove down she was almost convinced that he was. Now she isn’t so sure. The feeling she had as she made her way up towards Askedalen has faded a little, but the questions are still there.
She realises that she’s been very lucky to keep her job. She’s missed the grief therapy sessions, misses the kick, so the sensible thing would be to concentrate on doing her job perfectly while she waits for Isak to show up again and give her more to go on.
That sounds like a reasonable strategy, and she finishes her coffee and decides that the break is over. When she picks the flask up she discovers a little piece of masking tape stuck to its base. Property of the Nilsson family, in Mum’s ornate handwriting. The edges of the tape have come loose, and she wonders about pulling it off but decides to leave it. Mum taught her how to write the old-fashioned way, beautifully shaped letters that – unlike the writing she uses during group therapy sessions – aren’t for sucking up other people’s feelings. She thinks about Leon again, and all the words she wrote to him and which she now regrets. Words she thought would help, but which actually did the exact opposite.
Maybe Tommy Rooth was thinking something similar when he sent that postcard from Rotterdam? Mattias said there was nothing on it apart from the address. No message, no explanation, not even any excuses for abandoning them. Did Tommy Rooth understand what she herself had refused to see? That sometimes there aren’t any words that can help.
She packs the flask away and gets ready to set off again. She sits for a few moments with the engine in neutral. The Östgöta Plain lies ahead of her. A flat agricultural landscape, almost like home. Krister Månsson’s home territory. Krister Månsson, with the kind eyes and odd way of talking.
She switches the engine off. Wonders if the roadside café has a telephone book. Then she gets out of the car to find out.
Chapter 47
K
rister Månsson has just poured the batter into the tin when he hears Bella pad towards the door. Her claws clatter on the parquet floor, then an eager bark just before the doorbell rings. He and Bella are always on their own on Monday evenings. Malin’s at her book group with her friends, and rather than watch television while he waits for her to get home he usually makes a cake for her to take to the staffroom the next day. He likes it when she comes home with an empty container and tells him how much everyone enjoyed his baking. Rhubarb sponge is a favourite, so he makes that one at least every third week.
Bella is still barking by the front door. Månsson hangs his apron over one of the kitchen chairs and goes out into the hall. He can make out a fuzzy figure through the patterned glass in the door.
‘Quiet, Bella,’ he says, but as usual the little terrier doesn’t obey him, so he pushes her out of the way with his foot before opening the door.
‘Hello!’ The strawberry-blonde woman outside is in her thirties. In the light of the outside lamp he’s initially convinced she’s one of Malin’s work colleagues. Bella carries on barking, and he’s on the point of saying that Malin won’t be home for another hour or so when he realises that there’s something familiar about the woman. The moment she holds out a pink sachet of restaurant sugar towards him, he understands who she is.
‘Do you still collect these?’ she says.
*
They sit down at the small pine table in the kitchen. Bella settles down beside his chair, tilts her head and lets out the occasional whimper, and as usual Månsson gives her a treat even though Malin doesn’t like him feeding the dog at the table. The cake is warm in the middle and melts on the tongue. Even so, Månsson has trouble swallowing it.
He tries to tell himself that it’s good to see Vera Nilsson after all these years, and even if he doesn’t quite succeed, he’s genuinely pleased that things seem to have turned out OK for her. The only question is: what is she doing here, in his home, and why now?
To get time to think, he tells the story of how he and his family moved back up here in 1984. As usual, he blames the fact that Malin was offered a good job and the boys wanted to move back home, which admittedly was perfectly true. He doesn’t mention the fact that Johan and Jakob were being bullied at school. That the other children kept teasing them about their dad being a bad policeman. Then he tells her about the bowel cancer diagnosis in 1986, and his treatment and recovery. His decision to change his lifestyle and career.
‘So you’re no longer in the police?’ she says, looking at him intently. He recognises that look instantly, even though it’s been many years since he last saw her.
‘No. I got a job as a recreation manager here in Mjölby. It’s a good job, very worthwhile.’
He reaches for another slice of cake, mostly to avoid meeting her gaze. Bella’s tail swishes across the floor.
‘I took early retirement last year, so now I’m a househusband. I pick the grandchildren up from preschool twice a week, make a fuss of Malin when she gets home from work. We like playing golf.’
He takes a large bite of the cake. Feels his stomach protest before he’s even swallowed it.
‘How about you, Vera?’
‘Veronica,’ she corrects. ‘I changed my name when I moved away from home.’
Månsson listens as she tells him about her work and studies abroad, and how she lives in Stockholm now, and has qualified as a therapist. He listens carefully, nodding and murmuring in all the right places. But the whole time he’s struck by how much she looks like her mother.
They don’t get round to Billy’s disappearance before the cake has cooled down and Bella has padded off to her basket. By then he’s had time to prepare for it. He’s dug out the stock replies he usually uses when reporters still get in touch occasionally: that the case is regarded as solved from a police perspective, that of course he’s sorry they couldn’t get a guilty conviction of the perpetrator, but that he put the whole thing behind him a long time ago.
He says all that, and a bit more, making the words sound both genuine and convincing. At the same time he tries to read the expression on her face, looking for any sign of anger or accusation. To his relief he can’t see any evidence of anything like that. Veronica is smiling slightly, and even nods sympathetically several times, and Månsson is on the point of thinking that the danger is over, that he’s been worrying about nothing, that she isn’t here to get answers.
So the question she goes on to ask catches him completely by surprise.
‘Do you really believe that Tommy Rooth murdered my little brother?’ she says quietly, and that’s all it takes for him to be transported back in time, back to Skåne, to Reftinge, and that terrible summer.
Chapter 48
Summer 1983
H
e’s standing at the back of the police station. The streetlamps have come on, but the one above the compound is broken and the entrance to the custody unit is unlit. The air is sharp, there’s a storm approaching. He can already see lightning on the horizon.
Månsson is holding Rooth’s keyring in his hand, he’s put his finger through the ring and keeps spinning the keys. One of them is for the pump house, two to doors at the Rooths’ farm. The fourth is the key to Rooth’s red Volvo Amazon, which is parked over by the fence. There’s a small piece of deer horn attached to the keyring, Rooth has drilled two holes in it. It’s shiny, worn smooth by the keys and Rooth’s hard hands. At the end of the piece of horn hangs a fifth key, one for which Månsson and the detectives have failed to find a matching lock.
Månsson holds it up. A typical, anonymous-looking padlock key that could fit any lock, as Bure or Borg pointed out when he raised the subject. And, as they also said, people always keep keys, as they had discovered when they found a huge bunch of them out at the farm – Månsson was welcome to go through those, if he really wanted to focus on keys in the middle of a murder investigation.
He understood what they meant. But there’s still something about the unidentified key that troubles him. The other keys on the keyring are ones Rooth uses on a daily basis. Important keys that he’s chosen to take with him wherever he goes. And he had also fastened the padlock key to a little handcrafted ornament to make it stand out from the other keys. That ought to mean something. Must mean something, in fact.
The door of the custody unit opens and Tommy Rooth saunters out. He’s carrying a plastic bag containing his belongings, and fishes out a cigarette and sticks it in his mouth. Månsson watches him in silence. He’s pleased he managed to control himself earlier, that he didn’t give in to the impulse to beat the hell out of Rooth. Perhaps he isn’t a particularly good police officer, the detectives might be right about that, but he isn’t one of the really bad ones either.
Rooth lights the cigarette, stops beside Månsson and takes a deep drag. Then he blows the smoke out to the side. Månsson follows it with his eyes, and thinks he detects movement behind one of the windows of the police station. Probably a member of staff who can’t resist sneaking a look, to see if the unthinkable really is happening – that they’re letting a child killer go.
‘Here you go.’ Månsson hands him the bunch of keys, holding his arm out straight with the ring between his thumb and forefinger. When Rooth reaches out to take it he doesn’t let go.
‘What’s this key for?’
‘Nothing.’ Rooth shrugs. He sounds disinterested, as if the question doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Even so, Månsson is absolutely certain he’s lying.
Rooth seems to be making an effort to maintain eye contact, and smiles that crooked little smile people often use to try to make out that a lie is the truth. Månsson stares at the man, trying to think of something, anything, that will enable him to lead Rooth back to his cell. To avoid the defeat and derision that are staring him in the face.
The first raindrops start to patter on the tarmac around them. Rooth’s smile appears unshakeable.
‘Can I go, or what?’
Månsson reluctantly lets go of the keys.
‘You’re still our prime suspect, Tommy. Make sure you stay in the area, OK?’
Månsson stands and watches as Tommy jogs over to his car, then looks on as the red Amazon disappears through the gate with its windscreen-wipers flailing wildly. The rain forms little trickles down his temples and neck. He clutches his stomach, pinching the skin until the pain of that drowns out all other feeling.
There’s a rumble of thunder. A dull, threatening growl slowly rolling in over the village. A monster set loose.
Chapter 49
‘I
stood there in the police compound and looked Rooth in the eye. Perhaps I thought I’d be able to see the evil in him. Unless I was hoping to see something else. A sign of regret, of guilt. A hint that it might all have been a mistake, a stupid, drunken idea that got out of hand.’ Månsson falls silent and looks down at his hands.
‘But you didn’t?’ Veronica says gently.
Månsson shakes his head and turns his wedding ring.
He’s thinner than she remembers. Less hair too, which is hardly surprising. He’s over sixty, after all. But his manner is much the same as before. Thoughtful, intuitive. A decent person.
She’s been using his grief ever since he opened the front door. It’s grown gradually over the coffee and cake, even though he’s done his best to persuade her that he put Billy’s case behind him a long time ago. Now that he’s finished telling her about the evening he was forced to let Tommy Rooth go, he seems to have lowered his guard. His grief is only making her feel dejected, just like her dad’s does. Perhaps that’s because they’re quite similar men, or because Månsson’s grief is too close to her own. Possibly both.
‘When you left the police,’ she says, and gets a slow nod in response, ‘you said it was because you’d been ill . . .’ She pauses and waits until he looks up. ‘There must have been other reasons, too?’
For a moment it looks like he’s going to disagree. So she raises one eyebrow to indicate that she wants the truth rather than another rehearsed explanation. She’s used that trick before, and is well aware that it doesn’t always work. But Månsson interprets her expression precisely as she hoped. He looks down again, still toying with his wedding ring.
‘I left because I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d let Billy’s killer go. I used to lie awake at night wondering over and over again if there was anything I could have done differently. Better.’ He looks up. There’s a hollow look in his eyes. ‘Malin used to say that Billy’s case was eating me up from inside, just like the cancer. And she was right.’
Veronica nods. She says nothing for a while, letting his sadness expand.
‘My bro
ther Mattias is a police officer in Reftinge now, did you know?’
He gives her a wry smile. ‘Yes, I heard.’
‘Mattias says he’s been through the investigation ten times or more. He says there was nothing wrong with the police work. That he would have done exactly the same as you if he’d been in charge of the investigation.’ She sees Månsson react, and waits for his face to relax again before getting to the real purpose of her visit.
‘What if it didn’t happen the way everyone thinks?’ she says. ‘What if Billy’s still alive?’
*
She tells Månsson the whole story, starting with how Isak turned up at her group therapy session, then her trip home, what Sailor told her, and what she found in Askedalen.
It feels good to talk to someone who knows everything yet is still an outsider. Someone who doesn’t immediately try to interrupt her, picking at details and shooting holes in her theories. Once Månsson has got over his surprise he listens intently, not least when she gets to the part about the chest, the tin box and the torn envelope corner.
She’s convinced that the key on Rooth’s keyring – the one Månsson has just mentioned – fitted the padlock she found next to the weapons chest. Månsson agrees, saying that would explain why Rooth had it on the keyring, and why he lied about it. The small piece of horn the key was attached to also seems to be the same sort of handicraft as the creepy windchime hanging from the shack.
But there’s one detail that doesn’t make sense. If Rooth headed up to Askedalen as soon as he was released to empty the chest of guns and the letter, why had the padlock been cut off? Did Tommy lock the empty chest after him, or had someone else already been there? Someone who knew where it was and what it contained, but who didn’t have a key? The only person she can think of in that case is Sailor.
Månsson doesn’t agree on that point.
‘Sailor’s a drunk who used to spend most of his time in the pub. Together with another idiot he even managed to capsize a boat in one of the marl pits when we were looking for Billy. I just don’t think Sailor would have been crafty enough to tidy up after Tommy Rooth, not on his own initiative, anyway. And Rooth was completely isolated in custody, so he couldn’t have asked Sailor to do anything.’ He rubs the back of his neck thoughtfully. ‘Besides, I’m having trouble believing that Rooth would have confided in Sailor. Tommy Rooth is intelligent, shrewd. Using Sailor to help out with poaching, or even when he shot your uncle’s windscreen, is one thing. But making him an accomplice to kidnapping is something else entirely. An unnecessary risk . . .’
End of Summer Page 23