by Larsson, Åsa
The prosecutor continued wittering away. Måns poured himself a proper glass of whisky.
Von Post explained that the murderer had been having an affair with the victim. And a murder weapon found in the grounds of Häggroth’s house had traces of the victim’s blood on it.
So a suicide has lost all form of legal protection, has he? Måns thought. Von Post calls him a murderer, but he hasn’t been found guilty. What happened to the concept of being innocent until found guilty? I thought Sweden was still a country governed by law. I was evidently wrong.
Måns fiddled with his iPhone. He didn’t have the strength to listen any longer. It was just a load of crap.
He checked his text messages even though nothing on the display suggested that he had any. He checked his latest incoming calls, even though there was no indication that he had missed any. He checked his e-mails: nothing from Martinsson.
Then, without a second thought, he phoned Madelene, his first wife.
It occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea, and he ought to hang up. But she answered.
She didn’t sound as put-out as he had feared she might do.
The passing of time is making itself felt, he thought. She no longer has the strength to hate me for ever and a day.
“How are things?” he asked.
“Måns,” she said with more warmth than he deserved. “So you’re ringing me. What do you want?”
One of the trainees passed by his door. She was wearing an overcoat and carrying a heavy briefcase. She waved and mouthed bye for now.
He gestured with his finger that she should shut his door, which she duly did.
“What happened to us?” he asked. “Why did we split up?”
At the other end of the line Madelene took a deep breath.
“Can’t we just forget about that?” she said without rancour. “How are you?”
“I haven’t been drinking, it’s just …”
“Is it something to do with Rebecka? I saw that they had caught the murderer up there in the sticks, and that he had committed suicide. But it wasn’t her case, was it?”
“No, it was that idiot of a colleague of hers. Fancy having to work alongside halfwits like that.”
He contemplated his whisky. He didn’t want to pour himself another one while he was talking to Madelene. She would hear what was going on. Her ear was well practised.
“I’m serious about Rebecka,” he said. “I would like to marry her. I’ve never felt like that about anybody else but you. But it’s so bloody complicated. Why does it have to be like that?”
He heard her sigh as a sort of answer.
“You know,” he went on, “I don’t feel restless. I want her to move in with me here. I want us to grow old together and that she just …”
“What?” said his first wife patiently, and he noted with a degree of gratitude that she refrained from commenting on the fact that he and Martinsson could never grow old together because Martinsson was so much younger.
“Or else she can go to hell,” he said, in a sudden fit of anger.
“Yes, that’s how you usually react.”
“Forgive me,” he said without a trace of irony in his voice.
“Eh? Forgive you what?”
“Forgive me, Madde, for all that you had to put up with. And you were a fantastic mother all the time. If you hadn’t … well, I wouldn’t have had any contact at all with the children today.”
“No problem, Måns,” she said slowly.
“They’re doing fine, aren’t they? They’re living good lives.”
“They’re doing fine.”
“Excellent. Goodbye!” he said abruptly.
And hung up before she had an opportunity to answer.
*
Madelene Ekströmer, formerly Wenngren, put down her mobile.
Her ex-husband had concluded the call as usual. Rapidly and unexpectedly. It had taken her years to learn how to cope with the way he hung up.
Then she went in to her husband, who was sitting in the Howard sofa with a pre-dinner drink in his hand and the family’s fox terriers at his feet.
“Måns?” he asked without looking up from the television.
“Do you know what?” she said, kissing his forehead as a sign that this was where she was at home now. “He said sorry to me. He actually apologised. Am I awake? I think I need a drink.”
“Good God,” said her husband. “Has he got cancer or something?”
*
Mella endured the press conference at von Post’s side. She felt on edge, and had a nagging headache.
So this was the murder investigation for which she had sold her loyalty.
She ought to have told him to go to hell. Go to hell, you jumpedup prat of a prosecutor, she should have said when they stole the investigation from Martinsson.
Björnfot was standing right at the back of the room, looking grim. She tried to convince herself that it was his fault – he was the one who had made the decision.
But that did not alter the fact that she ought to have acted differently.
“A murderer has taken his own life.” Von Post managed to say that three times during his introductory address and the subsequent question-and-answer session. The words would appear in at least one headline the following morning.
And that poor duty doctor: they had already started hunting her down. Mella noted how many of the journalists present began tapping away at their mobiles when von Post insinuated that it was the hospital’s fault.
A feeling of hopelessness was looming over her. Their job was to hunt down criminals. To feel exhilarated when they nailed them. Doing that would compensate for all the unsolved crimes, for all those who got away with their evil deeds, for their lack of resources, for the shortage of time, for all the women who were beaten up by their husbands and for all the cases that were shelved, written off, filed away.
But what they ought not to do was to make them jump out of windows. That made her feel ashamed.
Now The Pest was holding forth again. She liked that – von Post was The Pest. The investigation had been conducted in a highly efficient and professional manner, he maintained. You don’t say, Mella thought. That’s news to me.
At the very back of the room, behind all the journalists and photographers, a door opened and in came Sonja from the switchboard. Her blue-framed spectacles were hanging from her neck on a red cord. Her hair was gathered in a large bun, and her blouse was impeccably ironed.
She whispered for quite a long time into Björnfot’s ear. As she did so, his eyebrows rose higher and higher. He muttered something by way of reply. Her shoulders rose up to the level of her ears, and she started whispering again. Then both of them stared at Mella.
Björnfot sat upright, then tilted his head diagonally backwards to indicate that she ought to come over to him.
Mella shook her head almost imperceptibly to indicate that she could not.
He nodded his head slowly, and gave her an I-mean-right-away-now look.
“Excuse me,” Mella mumbled as she left the platform.
She could sense von Post’s eyes on her.
Go to hell, you jumpedup prat of a prosecutor, she thought, and slunk out of the room with Björnfot and Sonja.
“What’s this about?” Mella said.
“Well,” Sonja said in her sing-song Finland-Swedish, “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I thought this couldn’t wait.”
She opened the door to the interrogation room. Then she left Mella and Björnfot to their own devices.
Sitting on the table was a man of about thirty-five. He was wearing a loose-fitting quilted jacket over a hooded fleece, old-fashioned green army trousers and boots. On his head was a homemade knitted cap. His facial stubble was such that within a couple of days it would deserve to be called a beard. He contrasted startlingly with the austerely furnished room with its little conference table and the blue-upholstered chairs designed to seat the general public. His eyes were
as red as those of a white rabbit, and his face suggested that he was not unacquainted with an excess of alcohol.
Huh, Mella thought. A loony who wants to confess?
He looked at them with eyes that reminded Mella of all the occasions when, in the line of duty, she had been obliged to visit next of kin and inform them of the death of a relative.
“Are you police officers?” he said.
The moment he started talking it was clear to Mella that he was not an idiot. Just a drunk. She introduced herself, and Björnfot.
“I just got home not long ago and heard about what’s going on,” said the man. “My name is Mange Utsi. Jocke Häggroth is a mate of mine. Or was a mate of mine, perhaps I should say. And he didn’t kill Sol-Britt Uusitalo.”
“Really?” Mella said.
“I can’t understand what’s going on. I gather he must have confessed, and then … But it’s all bullshit. He can’t possibly have done it. He was with me the whole weekend.”
Von Post stood in front of Mange Utsi, legs wide apart and arms crossed, with a sceptical expression on his face. The press conference had gone as well as he could possibly have wished – and then this lunatic turned up. He eyed the bedraggled creature suspiciously.
“You’re lying!” he said, and there was almost a trace of a prayer in his voice.
“Any chance of a cup of coffee?” Utsi said.
He looked dejectedly at the other police officers in the room.
“Why should I lie? Jocke’s dead, for Christ’s sake.”
Mella, Olsson and Rantakyrö were leaning against the wall. Stålnacke was at home. When they rang from the hospital to say that Häggroth had jumped to his death, he had taken his coat and vanished without a word. He had now called in sick.
“Have you any witnesses?” von Post said.
“I thought I was supposed to be the witness,” Utsi sighed. “And a Coca-Cola as well,” he added as Rantakyrö left to fetch some coffee.
“He confessed,” von Post said. “Why should he confess to having done something he hadn’t?”
Utsi shrugged.
“Tell this man what you told me,” Mella said.
“We drove off on Saturday morning. To his brother’s cottage up in Abisko. And … well, we drank ourselves legless. You know how it is – sometimes you need to give your mind a good clean-out.”
The officers looked at each other. What could there possibly be to clean out inside that man’s head?
“Jocke drove back home on Sunday, late. And I’ve only just got back, and heard what had happened. I can promise you, we crept out of the sauna on our hands and knees on Saturday. He couldn’t have driven home then, even if he’d wanted to. The neighbour called in as well, so I’m not the only one who can testify where Jocke was at the weekend.”
“I have to ask you,” Mella said. “What about his wife? What was their relationship like?”
Utsi blinked as if he had sandpaper inside his eyelids. He shook his head and gave Mella a meaningful look, begging her to take pity on him.
“All I wanted to say was that he couldn’t have done it.”
“Everything will come out into the open,” Mella said calmly. “Tell us about it; it will make you feel better.”
Rantakyrö returned with the coffee and a coke. Utsi took them eagerly and emptied both the can and the mug in just a few swigs. He belched, excused himself, and after a brief pause said, “She used to beat him up.”
The police officers exchanged glances again.
“How often? How badly?” Mella said.
“I don’t know. He didn’t talk about it. We never discussed it. Sometimes when he had a black eye he would laugh it off by saying that she was bloody deadly with a frying pan.”
Utsi looked down at the floor and pulled a face.
“That kind of thing just doesn’t happen. You joke about it. But whenever you saw him with no clothes on … He was always covered in old bruises.”
“Do you know her?”
“Well, not really.”
“Did you know he was having an affair with Sol-Britt Uusitalo?”
“Yes, I was sometimes his alibi. But …”
“But what?”
“He always used to say he would never leave Jenny, even if he wanted to. For the sake of the children, and …”
“And what?”
“And because she would kill him. That’s what he said.”
Or kill Sol-Britt perhaps, Mella thought, and could see that the others were thinking the same.
“How do you think she would react if she found out he was having an affair with another woman?”
“She wouldn’t exactly be pleased,” Utsi said. “Not pleased at all.”
“Bring her in,” von Post said. “And if anybody squeals to the press, then …”
He ended the sentence by looking at all the others in the room, clenching his fist and crushing something invisible.
Bringing Jenny Häggroth in was like sticking an arm into a sack full of snakes.
A woman with eyes swollen from weeping answered the door and introduced herself as Jenny’s sister. She turned and shouted into the house for Jenny.
Is this a job? Mella thought, trying not to look at the wet children’s shoes and small quilted jackets hanging up in the hall. Turning children into orphans and collecting immigrant families when they are going to be ordered to leave the country. Bloody hell! I think I hate this job.
Olsson and Rantakyrö were standing behind Mella, ready to act if necessary. Nobody had spoken a word during the journey to Kurravaara.
Rantakyrö hopped from one foot to the other, raised his arms and put his hand over the back of his head. Then started scratching intensely.
Stand still, for God’s sake! she thought angrily.
Jenny appeared in the hall: unwashed hair, tracksuit bottoms and hooded jumper. Eyes narrow with hatred.
“I’m sorry,” Mella said, “but you must come with us.”
“So that you can throw me out of a window?”
“Jenny, you must understand—”
“Listen here, you,” Jenny yelled so loudly that she made the police officers and her sister jump, “don’t you even dare mention my name! Is that understood, you fucking police whore? Bloody fuzz filth! Shit heaps, the lot of you!”
Without taking her eyes off them, she smashed her fist into the hall mirror. It cracked, and several splinters fell onto the floor.
The officers stared in horror at the blood pouring out of the cuts on her hand.
“Jenny!” exclaimed her sister.
“You shut your gob!” Jenny bawled.
Then she shouted up to the upper floor.
“You kids! Come here! Now!”
Two boys appeared at the top of the stairs. The older one was wearing a cap, even though he was indoors, a large T-shirt and sagging jeans. The younger one also had a big jumper and sagging jeans, and was holding a games console. He tried to take hold of his brother’s hand, but wasn’t allowed to.
“Here,” screamed Jenny, holding out her bleeding hands. “Put the cuffs on me. Go on. In front of my children. These are the bastards who murdered your dad.”
“Can’t you just calm down and come with us?” Mella said.
“Calm down? I’ll mark you for life,” Jenny said, taking a step forward towards Mella.
Mella raised her hands to cover her face, and then Jenny was onto her. Grabbed her hair with one hand and punched her with the other. Tried to hit her in the face but only made contact with Mella’s lower arms, then tried to push the policewoman’s face up against the broken mirror. The children and her sister started screaming.
Rantakyrö and Olsson threw themselves at Jenny and dragged her away from Mella. Jenny was spitting and kicking, managed to pull one hand loose and scratched at Olsson’s face.
Olsson shouted: “My eye!” and put his hands over one of his eyes.
Rantakyrö rushed forward, hit Jenny hard and pushed her onto the floor. He forced h
er down and pulled her arms up behind her back, Mella helped to put on the handcuffs, and they dragged her out of the house while she, her sister and the children carried on screaming and shouting.
Olsson showed his eye to Rantakyrö.
“It’s still there,” said Rantakyrö grimly, massaging his right hand.
Then Olsson sat down in the driver’s seat.
“Hey,” Mella said. “This is my car.”
“For Christ’s sake, Mella,” Olsson roared. “Get into the car and hold your tongue. The last thing we need now is for you to crash the car and kill the lot of us.”
And so they drove off. And the police officers were just as silent as they had been on the way there.
But Jenny Häggroth was anything but silent. She never let up, all the way to the police station. They were whores and arseholes and monsters and lunatics. She would sue them and kill them and get her own back and they had better watch out.
Nobody told her to shut up. Mella looked furtively at her face. It was swollen up after Rantakyrö’s punch, and that bleeding hand needed treatment.
When Jenny met von Post at the police station, she lost no time in making him aware of her opinion of him as well: it had much to do with his deviant sexual preferences. Then she announced, surprisingly calmly, “I’m not going to say a word until I have a lawyer present, and I want Silbersky.”
They put her in a cell, and von Post said he would do his best to provide her with her chosen lawyer.
“After all,” he said, leaning against the wall in the corridor, “she’s under arrest on suspicion of murder. And in view of what has happened today, we must make sure we do everything in strict accordance with the rules. What the hell have you done to her?”
“Violent resistance,” Mella said, nodding in the direction of Olsson, who was still bleeding from the wound over his eye. “And that’s just the start.”
“There were three of you,” von Post said wearily. “Arresting one lone woman. It’s one hell of a cock-up, you must realise that yourselves.”
He looked at the clock.
“Do whatever you like. We can’t interrogate her until she has a solicitor present. If Silbersky is able to take it on, he’ll have to get the first available flight tomorrow morning. We’ll meet here at eight o’clock.”