Grass can crunch under your feet.
Did you know that, Tove? Standing over there by the door screaming.
Calm down, now.
A life has ended. What has happened has already happened, what you’re seeing is nothing to be frightened of, and I know you can handle far worse and still retain your hope and friendly outlook.
I got to know you. To be your friend for a short while. To listen, and be listened to.
I talked about many things, but never the grass.
During properly hot summers a certain type of grass gets so dry that it crunches when you walk on it. As a boy I used to run barefoot across the meadow back home in Tjällmo, and the grass would crunch beneath my feet and I would be sweating and wishing that there was some sort of breeze.
I swam in dark forest lakes. Sneaked there on my own, and when I walked out into the warm water the air felt cool against my skin.
That was after the war winters. Cold, dark, white winters when I would sit in Mother’s lap at home on the farm watching Father push through the snow to give the cows hay in the barn.
The image of Father surrounded by clouds of snow.
My first memories of him. I have more, but not many. Am I going to see him at last now?
He can’t have felt anything. It must have happened quickly, and I heard Mother’s scream through the forest.
Of course she screamed.
Her words like a gust of wind straight into my soul.
Or was I the one who found him?
It’s so long ago now.
I can’t feel anything on my skin now.
Am I going to see you as well, my beloved Sara? Are we going to be together, with our Josefina? She went too early, just like you.
I’ve missed you both so much, but haven’t allowed myself to feel that loss.
It was time for me to stop feeling bodily pain. And now I can feel with my soul. I dare to.
So don’t be frightened, you who are looking at what was once me.
Calm down, Tove.
9
Calm down, Tove, calm down.
Catch your breath, still your heart, don’t fall, breathe.
She hears her own voice, unless it’s Konrad Karlsson’s voice, like a mantra within her, and she wants to stop screaming.
‘No, no, NO!’
Is that what she’s screaming? Or is she just thinking it?
Tove takes a deep breath, forcing the air into her lungs, and she hears the sound of her own voice, but it’s getting quieter, and she realises that she’s stopped screaming.
She breathes.
Tries to look, tries to persuade her legs to bear her.
What am I seeing?
She does what she always does, tries to be logical, measuring and weighing emotions and details.
Konrad’s room.
The worn Chesterfield armchair. The reproductions of Öyvind Fahlström’s paintings. The Moroccan carpet. The Finnish table with the heavy wooden top. The laptop computer, closed, on the bedside table; the mobile phone.
Konrad’s things. Carefully chosen. Things he had told her about.
And the bed, and can I hear the others now? Footsteps heading in this direction?
But no one comes, and I am alone.
Shouldn’t be alone here. Not now.
The bed.
I have to go over to it. Konrad Karlsson’s blue face. His lifeless body in a white nightshirt. His head is hanging in a noose formed out of the cable of the alarm button, and the cable has slipped up his neck towards his ears. He isn’t breathing.
She’s reached the bed now. Wants to lift Konrad down from the noose, but something inside her is yelling: Don’t touch him! Yet she still has to touch him. Stroke his blue cheeks, close his eyelids over his bloodshot eyes, give him some sort of peace. Give this moment some sort of dignity.
Why, Konrad?
You were so happy yesterday when we were talking about Neal Cassady. You said he was the sort of man you always wanted to be, but that you had ended up being his opposite. And then you said with a smile: ‘But you could be a Neal Cassady,’ and I replied: ‘I don’t know what I want.’
But you must have been tired of this?
Of struggling.
Of being tormented.
Of having a body that was paralysed down one side.
‘Konrad, Konrad, Konrad,’ she whispers, feeling her eyes fill with tears. She rubs her eyes, and the walls of the room crowd in on her and her legs give way, but she doesn’t fall, just sits down on the bed next to Konrad, and they are alone here, in the loneliest room of her life.
‘Come on, then!’ she shouts. ‘For God’s sake, where is everyone?’
And Tove stands up, walks around the bed and sinks on to the armchair. Outside the window a swirl of wind is tugging some leaves from the top of a birch tree, and the leaves fly up into the sky, high, high up until they disappear from view.
A cry reaches up from the volleyball courts: ‘Fuck! Fucking bastard hell!’
Tove feels arms around her shoulders.
They’re shaking her, firmly, carefully.
‘Tove.’
She recognises the voice. It belongs to Hilda. She sounds upset, but she’s clearly trying to stay calm and controlled, and now Tove opens her eyes and finds herself looking straight into the woman’s horror-stricken eyes.
‘It’s OK, Tove,’ she says. ‘This sort of thing happens occasionally. Not often. But occasionally.’
Konrad is lying on the bed, with the grey cable of the alarm button around his neck, his face the same colour as the desolate polar ice at night.
‘Nothing’s OK!’ Tove says. ‘How can you say that?’
And Hilda looks like she’s trying to find some platitude, as if she’s about to say: ‘Konrad’s in a better place now.’ But then she seems to change her mind and says nothing, and turns to look at Konrad.
‘I’ve told them the alarms shouldn’t have cables,’ she says. ‘Lisbeth has called the police. They’ll be here soon. And the duty doctor as well. The police and their medical officer will take care of everything.’
‘The police?’
Tove sees her mum’s face before her. Her steady detective’s gaze. Yes, something like this would be a police matter, an old person committing suicide.
Tove looks at Konrad Karlsson. Life has left him, he himself has left his flesh, and in the dead man’s face there is no fear, no emotion at all. She stands up.
‘The police,’ Hilda says. ‘We ought to get out of the room for the time being.’
But Tove doesn’t want to leave Konrad on his own. Someone ought to be with him, even though he is no longer there.
‘He’s gone, Tove,’ Hilda says, but his stubble has grown overnight and is still growing now. Tove shaved him yesterday, wants to shave him again, and his catheter bag needs changing, it’s time for new sheets, and what did he say about Neal Cassady?
Words, gone for ever.
‘FUCK!’ she hears from the volleyball courts.
‘No,’ Tove says softly. ‘I don’t suppose he’s here.’
‘Wherever he is, he isn’t here.’
Mum, Tove thinks. Maybe Mum will come. She wonders where Lisbeth, Kent, and Stina are, and as if Hilda can read her mind she says: ‘The others have got work to do, the routines need to be kept up. We mustn’t upset the old folk.’
‘What about me? What do I do?’
‘Go to the staffroom. Wait there, and someone will come along for you to talk to.’
Someone to talk to?
Tove remembers all the psychologists she’s seen, and how they couldn’t do a damn thing to help her.
‘I don’t need to talk to anyone. I’ve been through worse. I’ll go and help the others.’
But have I been through anything worse? Tove thinks.
Konrad was my friend.
What really happened here?
10
Tove stops in the corridor, she can hear Lisbeth talking to a reside
nt in one of the rooms.
For the first time since she started work at the Cherub she notices that the corridors are painted a very pale pink, and the day feels even warmer now, far too hot. She stands still, and behind her she hears Hilda leave Konrad Karlsson’s room, and Tove wonders: Who’s going to watch over him?
She can feel her mobile in her pocket, heavy, and she takes it out, thinking: Must phone Mum, must phone her.
‘Tove. Tove? Are you there? Try to calm down.’
Malin has just emerged from an uneventful morning meeting, and now she is walking towards the open-plan office in the police station, attempting to understand what her upset daughter is trying to tell her.
Malin can hear her fear through the phone, and whispers: ‘Just calm down,’ and Tove calms down, tells her what has happened, and concludes with the words: ‘I’m standing next to his bed, Mum. Can I take him down from the noose, it looks like it hurts?’ and Malin wishes she were with her daughter, knows how fond she was of Konrad. She wants to help Tove release his head from the noose, hold her, tell her that everything will be all right, because it always is.
‘You mustn’t touch him,’ Malin says. ‘Don’t touch him. We need to take a look first.’
She wonders if anyone has contacted the police, but before she has time to ask, one of the uniforms passes her a note:
Suicide at the Cherub old people’s home. Can you take it?
She nods, and hears Tove’s voice on the other end of the line: ‘What do you need to take a look at?’
‘We need to confirm the cause of death in cases like this. You know that.’
Tove sniffs, and Malin hears her breathing get quicker. A hand appears on her shoulder, it must be Zeke, and Malin turns around.
Three minutes, Malin gestures with her free hand just as she reaches her very tidy desk.
What happened to all the mess?
‘I’m on my way, Tove. I’m on my way. Don’t touch anything.’
‘OK. Come right away. Promise.’
Silence on the phone.
Tove has ended the call. And Malin feels like ringing her back, but stops herself and turns toward Zeke: ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Zeke says, and judging by the look on his face he knows what this is about. Malin wonders briefly if Elin Sand ought to go with her instead, but there’s no sign of her.
Elin could learn something, Malin thinks. But on the other hand: Can I handle having her with me?
Her phone rings again.
Tove.
Malin ignores Zeke and begins to walk towards reception.
‘He didn’t have a reason, Mum, not really. He was happy yesterday.’
‘Happy can be sad, Tove,’ and as Malin walks out through the door she repeats to herself: ‘Happy can be sad.’ Silence on the line once more, and she realises that Tove has hung up again.
Zeke appears by her side.
‘That’s where Tove works, isn’t it? The Cherub?’
Malin nods. And they walk towards the car, parked at the far end of the car park in the shade of the old birch trees, a long way from the old barracks in which the station is located.
‘It was Tove who found him,’ she says.
‘Sod’s bloody law.’
Ten minutes later Malin and Zeke walk in through the front door of the care home. They take the lift up to the third floor, to room number seven, or flat seven, as the receptionist says.
The receptionist doesn’t seem to know what’s happened, Malin thinks, and when they step out of the lift Tove is standing just a few metres away. She forms a dark silhouette as she stands there backlit by the window at the end of the corridor.
What have you seen?
Far too much.
Malin has been on similar calls twice before.
Once to the old geriatric hospital in Valla. Closed down now. A woman had hung herself from a radiator using a pair of stockings. She had somehow thrown herself out of her wheelchair with enough weight and height to strangle herself.
The second time was a young man who had broken his back in a motorcycle accident and was left paralysed. He hanged himself in Ward 10 of the University Hospital, using the cable of the alarm button, just as Konrad Karlsson is supposed to have done.
But on those occasions Tove wasn’t involved.
Malin runs over to her daughter and hugs her tightly, and Tove hugs her back, whispering: ‘It was so horrible. Why would he have wanted to commit suicide? He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t.’
And Malin can feel Tove shaking, and she squeezes harder, wants to make the shaking stop.
From the corner of her eye she sees a woman introduce herself to Zeke, hears: ‘Hilda Jansson, manager,’ and Zeke and the woman disappear through a white plywood door.
Mother and daughter hug silently for a long time, and gradually Tove stops shaking. Then they let go slightly and hold on to each other gently. This moment needs to take time, demands time. Even so, Malin can’t help feeling impatient, wants to go into the room, feels that this is the first thing she has wanted for a very long time. But she stays where she is, holding on: I’m not going to leave you this time. In the end Tove pulls free and says: ‘Go in now, I can tell you want to. And I’ve got work to do,’ and before Malin has time to object, Tove has vanished down the stairs to the second floor.
Malin hesitates for a moment. Then goes into the room.
So what can I see? she wonders.
You can see me, Malin Fors.
Konrad Karlsson.
My body is free now. No more paralysis, no more pain.
I was just a little boy when my father was buried. In the cemetery in Borensberg, on a summer’s day as beautiful as this one. Mother kept hold of me. She was clenching her teeth, didn’t allow herself to cry. For her the truth was not allowed to exist. I remember that I didn’t cry either, that I didn’t dare.
My children will bury me now. Maybe they’d like to have done that a long time ago.
I’m moving about in my domain. Searching, looking for my loved ones.
Capricious winds pick up and die away in the pale greenery. Children are making a noise in the playground, the volleyball players are taking a break, and on the terrace two floors below us a few of the other old folk are sitting in the sun. They’ve been pushed out there in their wheelchairs, or have walked there themselves, slowly, using various types of walker.
I liked your daughter, Malin.
She’s got a good heart.
Protect Tove, make sure no harm comes to her.
Make sure what happened to me doesn’t happen to her.
11
The old man is frozen in an eternally wrong position.
His thin, pale arms stick out from his nightshirt, seem almost to have been placed on the yellow-and-white striped sheet by someone else. His hands are gnarled yet still slender. Electrician’s hands. Sensitive to the world while he was alive.
Malin looks at the catheter bag hanging full from a hook on the side of the bed facing the window. The height of the bed is adjustable.
Suicide.
Nothing to suggest otherwise.
He could, with a lot of practice and determination, have managed to tie the knot, raise the bed, pull the noose over his head, and then slowly slip down into darkness.
She’s seen stranger things.
The only thing that doesn’t make sense is what she’s heard about Konrad himself.
According to the manager, Hilda Jansson, he hadn’t been depressed. On the contrary, he was a fighter, and took pride in his efforts to get care for the elderly improved. And Tove made a point of saying how bright he seemed as recently as yesterday.
But eleven years in this place.
In this room, stuck in a bed or wheelchair, dependent on other people’s help.
She turns towards Hilda Jansson.
‘When were the night staff in here last?’
‘They’re supposed to do their last round at half past five, so some time t
hen.’
‘And he was alive then?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘As far as you know?’
‘Yes. Sometimes you skip patients you know sleep soundly. And Konrad hated being woken up.’
‘So he could have been dead at half past five. And when does the previous round take place?’
‘Just before one.’
‘Thank you,’ Malin says. ‘Useful to know. We’re going to need more precise details from the night staff.’
‘Maybe you could call them this afternoon, if it isn’t urgent? They’ll be asleep now.’
‘We’ll call this afternoon,’ Zeke says.
They’ve asked Karin Johannison, their forensics expert and medical officer, to come. Malin made the call, she knows that Zeke doesn’t like calling her about work unless he absolutely has to.
Even if there’s very little doubt in this case, Karin still needs to examine the room and the body, and conduct a post-mortem.
On Konrad Karlsson’s bedside table are a laptop computer and a mobile phone. A battered paperback of Kerouac’s On the Road. There are copies of Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet, both dated Monday, 9 August, and in the wastepaper bin are a Dime bar wrapper and three lottery scratch cards on top of several blue napkins.
‘Did he have any relatives?’ Zeke asks.
Hilda Jansson nods.
‘His wife’s dead, but he’s got two children. A son and a daughter, Yngve and Margaretha. They’re not here often, but his granddaughter Gabriella comes fairly regularly. She’s evidently the daughter of another daughter who died a long time ago.’
‘Have they been informed?’
‘No, not yet. I wanted to wait until you arrived. In theory they’re supposed to be told first, but there’s no manual for cases like this, it happens far too rarely, thank goodness. Can I call them now?’
‘Absolutely,’ Zeke says. ‘But be sure to point out that they can’t see him yet. Karin needs to do her work first.’
‘Karin?’
‘Our forensics expert,’ Malin says.
Souls of Air (Malin Fors 7) Page 4