He finished his sentence by pointing at the floor of the sled.
An axe. Spett bent to pick it up. The blunt end of the axe blade was covered in blood and hair.
“Who is capable of doing something like that?” Bäckström wondered. “And besides, I also found these.” He held out his hand, showing little red pieces of a broken seal.
“Is that a mail seal?” Spett asked.
“We’ll bring them to the station to have a closer look,” Björnfot said. “Did you speak to the postmaster?”
“Yes,” Spett said. “He said that Johansson had a very valuable delivery in his sled. It was insured for twenty-four thousand kronor. Probably worth twice that. And he was armed. The postmaster was certain of that.”
“Someone has driven this horse to the limit,” Bäckström said. “Her back has been beaten and she had sweat so much that a sheet of ice covered her coat of hair. My assistant has rubbed her off and covered her in blankets. I’ll be glad if she doesn’t fall ill and die on me.”
“Yes,” Björnfot said, thoughtfully. “The horses have been through quite a lot since yesterday. I wish they could speak.”
“That they can,” hauler Bäckström said. “Though perhaps not of such things.”
At that moment, the door to the carriage shed was opened and a boy poked his head in. He was around ten years old. Dressed in an oversized leather jacket. A running nose poked out of a knitted gray scarf. Clumps of snow hung like grapes from his knitted mittens.
“There you are, sir,” he said to sheriff Björnfot and managed something that resembled a bow. “Your wife told me . . . I ran there first, then here . . . They’ve caught you a robber, Sheriff. They’re waiting for you outside the police station.”
In the street outside the police station, four men were waiting for sheriff Björnfot and acting parish constable Spett. They were all around twenty years of age. Three of them wore heavy clothes against the cold. One was dressed only in pants and shirtsleeves. Two of the heavily dressed men were holding the thinly dressed one. One of them was twisting his arm up behind his back. The other had pulled his mitten off and was holding the lightly dressed man’s neck in a firm grip.
The last one, who had both hands free, called out in greeting as soon as he caught sight of Björnfot and Spett.
“And here comes the police authority. We’ve brought you a present.”
The speaker was a big man, easily as large as the arriving servants of justice. He was blond. His eyes shone, blue as spring snow.
The man being held captive was delicate, almost spindly, with shoulders like a bottle. He had brown, greasy hair. His eyes were dark and full of terror—like swamp water in his pale, frozen face. His lip was swollen and split. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his nose was red and puffy. It seemed as if the man in his shirtsleeves had tried to stop his nose from bleeding, because the sleeve of his white shirtsleeve was stained red all the way up to his elbow.
“Here’s your murderer,” the big man said, shaking hands. “My name is Per-Anders Niemi. I work at the post office. The postmaster told me what happened last night. So all I had to do was to think it over a little. Who knew about the valuable delivery? And when Edvin Pekkari didn’t show up to work on time this morning, I though . . . well, why not surprise him with a visit?”
“Are you Pekkari?” Björnfot asked the man being restrained by the others.
“Answer,” the man holding the spindly one by the neck said and punched his temple with his free hand.
Pekkari didn’t answer.
“That he is,” Per-Anders Niemi said. “He works at the post office, too. As a mail carrier. As I said, he knew about the insured letter. And we found this at his place.”
He hauled a pistol out of his pocket and handed it to Björnfot.
“It’s Johansson’s,” he said. “I recognize it.”
“But what about the money?” Björnfot asked.
“We didn’t find it,” Per-Anders Niemi said. “But then we didn’t look all that carefully. We were more interested in turning him over to you.”
“Did he resist?” Spett asked, scrutinizing Pekkari’s battered face.
Per-Anders Niemi and his two friends smiled crookedly and shrugged their shoulders.
“We’ll lock him up,” Björnfot said. “After that, we’ll search his place.”
Pekkari gave him a frightened look.
“You can’t lock me up,” he croaked. “I’m innocent.”
Per-Anders Niemi turned quickly and hit him in the stomach.
“Shut up,” he screamed. “Goddamned killer bastard.”
Pekkari sank to his knees in the snow.
“We can watch him for you,” Per-Anders Niemi said to Björnfot.
“There won’t be any watching,” Spett said resolutely and snatched Pekkari as if he had been a sack of potatoes.
He walked into the police station, holding Pekkari by the scruff of his neck. Kajsa stood guard outside. After a while he came back out. Locked the door from the outside and demonstratively put the key in his pocket.
“He should be hung right now,” Per-Anders Niemi growled.
“If anyone as much as touches the door while we’re gone . . .” Spett warned.
“All right, boys,” sheriff Björnfot said diplomatically, “now I’d like to take a good look at Pekkari’s place. Not waste my time imposing fines on such splendid specimens of our citizenry as yourselves just for disobedience to the police. So if you’d be so kind . . .”
He finished his sentence by making a considerate gesture asking them to leave.
The men muttered a moderately insolent goodnight and slunk away.
Edvin Pekkari’s apartment was on the second floor of a wooden house on Järnvägsgatan. A stuffy smell of boiled reindeer meat, old smoke and wet wool greeted sheriff Björnfot and acting parish constable Spett when they entered the house.
“Here it is,” the landlady said, opening the door to a tiny room just under the sloping roof. She looked askance at Kajsa, but said nothing.
“Who does he share with?” Björnfot asked.
“He doesn’t share,” the landlady said. “Asked special when he moved in back in October. And since the windowpane is broken and the window is boarded up, he got it cheap. No, he doesn’t know anyone and lives all lonesome. Is it true he killed Johansson and his waggoner lad? You’d never have believed it. He never made a fuss about anything. Paid his rent on time.”
A bed, a chest of drawers, a small chair and a shaving mirror. Nothing more would fit in the room. It was quick work to search it. Björnfot went through the chest, pulling out all the drawers. Checked the coat hanging on a hook in the wall, felt its pockets. Spett kicked aside the rag carpets on the floor to check for a loose floorboard where you might hide a wad of bills. They found nothing.
“Hang it all,” Spett said as they went back into the hallway.
“Are you done?” the landlady asked. “You can tell him from me that I’ll be renting the room at once.”
“What’s up there?” Björnfot asked, pointing at a hatch in the ceiling.
“Nothing,” the landlady said. “Just an attic.”
“That we want to see,” Björnfot said.
Spett got the chair from Pekkari’s room, put it under the hatch and opened it. He folded down the ladder made fast to the hatch. They asked the landlady to bring something to light their way and she returned with a simple flashlight. Björnfot climbed the ladder, lamp in one hand.
When he had climbed a ways up the ladder and placed the flashlight on the attic floor, something suddenly rustled up there.
A rat ran across his hand on the edge of the hatch and he heard numerous others start running back and forth. Their shrill squeaks cut through the dark. He quickly backed down the ladder.
“Rats!” he exclaimed. “Nasty devilry!”
The landlady smiled, amused. Afraid of rats. Such a big man.
“Move over, Sheriff, and we’ll let Kajsa up,” S
pett said.
Spett lifted the bitch and carried her up the ladder under his arm. Set her down in the dark. He stayed on the ladder, holding the lamp.
Suddenly the hunt was on in the attic. They could hear rats scurrying across the floor. As well as Kajsa’s heavier but rapid steps. Then a mortal scream as she bit the back of one of the rats. After that silence, broken only by the crunching and slurping from Kajsa, eating her prey. The other rats had escaped and wouldn’t dare show their ugly noses for quite a while.
The servants of the law climbed up into the attic. Kajsa swaggered about on the double flooring, fawning and swaying to the praise of her masters.
“You’re really something, girl,” Spett said proudly, but he wouldn’t let her lick his mouth. It had been a rat, after all.
And Björnfot said that he was going to order a uniform for her the next morning.
They searched the attic. And this time they didn’t have to search in vain.
“It’s time to confess!”
Sheriff Björnfot was standing outside the cell in the police station, talking to Edvin Pekkari. In his hand he held a cotton bag, adorned by the Postal Service emblem.
“We found this in the attic above your room,” he went on. “There is five thousand kronor in it. Can you explain how it ended up there?”
Edvin Pekkari didn’t answer. Just sat on the farthest corner of the cot.
“You can improve your position by cooperating,” Björnfot continued. “The examining magistrate is arriving tomorrow. If you hand over your haul and confess, it will count in your favor. There was supposed to be fifty thousand in the sack. Where is the rest of the money?”
“Listen to the sheriff,” said acting parish constable Spett, who stood with his back turned, picking his dry socks from the tile stove damper and stuffing them into his pockets. “What good will the money be to you if they chop off your head?”
“I’m innocent,” Pekkari said in a low voice. “I’ve already told you . . .”
Acting parish constable Spett turned around violently. Kajsa stood up, barking passionately.
“Johansson had six children!” he roared. “God knows what will happen to them now. Oskar Lindmark was twelve years old. Johansson’s gun was found in your room. The sack with some of the money in the attic above your room. You knew about the money. I want you to tell me . . . Tell me how you stole the sled from hauler Bäckström, how you shot Johansson with his own gun, how you killed Oskar Lindmark with the axe. I can’t take any more of your damned lies, so shut up until you want to confess.”
He grabbed his uniform coat and his fur cap.
“I’m going out,” he said to Björnfot. “I need some fresh air.”
He pulled the door open and a man standing outside, on the verge of raising the knocker, lost his balance and stumbled into the police station. Spett caught him in his arms and kept him from falling down. It was a tall man with an impressive mustache. Borg Mesch, the town photographer.
“Mister acting parish constable!” the photographer exclaimed. “Now only the music is missing! But which of us should lead? You or me?”
Spett lost his ill humor and laughed. He put his coat back on its hook and let Kajsa out the door to take her evening walk on her own. Mr. Mesch dragged in the heavy cases holding his equipment. Then he put his hand in between the bars to introduce himself to Edvin Pekkari.
“May I take your picture?” he asked.
Pekkari pulled his hand back.
“No,” he said. “I’m . . .”
He glanced at acting parish constable Spett and fell silent.
“Perhaps I could show you some photos,” Borg Mesch said eagerly, anxious to break the silence.
He opened his briefcase and pulled out a bunch of black-and-white photographs. They were neatly wrapped in tissue paper and he showed them one at a time. Before showing the next picture, he carefully rewrapped the previous one.
“This one,” he said, “just look . . . it’s King Oscar II after the inauguration of the ore line up to the border. This is from the royal dinner with managing director Lundbohm. Important gentlemen. I photograph important gentlemen. That’s my profession. Well, what more could I show you . . . oh, yes, this one . . . just look . . . the Kiruna Athletics Club . . .”
Spett and Björnfot had to come closer to look at the strong men of the athletics club, posing with folded arms in their black vests, with broad leather body belts and light-colored tights. On the floor in front of them were round iron weights with handles or fitted on steel bars.
“The one with the medals is Herman Turitz,” photographer Mesch said. “Isn’t it great that we have such an outstanding and versatile athlete in town . . .”
He fell silent and looked with interest at Pekkari.
“You actually resemble him a little. Would you be kind enough to turn your head a little away from me . . . no, in the other direction . . . Do you see, gentlemen? Can you see the resemblance?”
The photographer kept talking while, with surprising speed, he unpacked his equipment.
“Mainly it’s your forehead. And your jawline. You have a phrenologically interesting forehead, Mr. Pekkari. A sign of inner strength, did you know that? So I told Mr. Turitz when I took his portrait. That in his case, one might have expected a herculeanly developed occiput. Which is what you find in most physically strong persons. But no, it’s his forehead. Too bad, I should have brought his portraits along. You would have found them most interesting. Perhaps next time. I told Mr. Turitz that inner strength is more important to an athlete than bodily qualifications. It’s his inner strength that makes him submit to the constant practice, the self-sacrifice necessary to win all those medals. The other day I heard that he had run through the deep snow all the way to Kurravaara for a training session. If you could . . . if you’d allow me to take a picture . . . perhaps you could come a bit closer to the bars. Yes, that’s it. No, no need for you to look this way, keep your eyes down a bit just as you did. I can see a sadness in your expression, which I hope to do justice. Now, please hold . . .”
The flash was lit and burst.
Borg Mesch put a new glass plate in his camera and replenished the magnesium powder in his flash.
“Perhaps now you might come a little closer,” he went on. “I would like to see your face here, between the bars. Just so. Do you think you might take hold of the bars as well? One hand high, the other below. Exactly. I don’t doubt that you could have become an actor if you had wanted to, Mr. Pekkari. Just a moment now . . .”
Photographer Mesch quickly walked up to Mr. Pekkari and arranged the sleeve of his shirt so that all the bloodstains were clearly visible.
“Open your eyes a little more, Mr. Pekkari. So! Just so! You’re a mind reader!”
Sheriff Björnfot watched Mr. Pekkari while he was being immortalized.
Now he was truly posing in front of the camera. He stood there, seeming to want to burst out of his cell. Eyes wide and hands clenched around the bars as if he were shaking them. Blood on his sleeve, a black eye and a swollen lip.
Kajsa barked outside the office. Spett let her in and she immediately sought out her moose jaw, lay down in front of the tile stove and began gnawing it. Photographer Mesch offered everyone Turkish cigarettes.
“Who is it now?” Spett wondered when the knocker sounded. “What an infernal running.”
Photographer Mesch looked out the window. Dusk had returned. It was that time of year when daylight lasted only briefly at midday and the sun never managed to clear the horizon.
“Watch your language,” he said with a wink. “For here comes the servant of the Lord.”
The Eastern Laestadian preacher Wanhainen was simply dressed in black pants, a black worker’s vest and a woolen coat. He was a working man, drove water around town on weekdays. The preachers were not like the priests who lived off the toil of their brethren. No, a Laestadian preacher supported himself. He was not superior, was not a burden to his siblings in faith, never
leafed through Scripture with tender fingers looking for cloudberry-sweet words as did the state church priests.
He walked into the police station closely followed by the father of the murdered errand boy, Oskar Lindmark.
Wanhainen greeted them the Laestadian way, giving a half embrace with his left arm while simultaneously shaking hands in the Swedish fashion.
“Jumalan terve.”
God’s greetings, in Finnish.
Björnfot and Spett both grew stiff and uncomfortable. It was the preacher’s way to hold a handshake for so long, his eyes staring unflinchingly into those of the one he was greeting, that it seemed as if he had the penetrating eye of God. And to that came his way of ending his embrace with pat on your back that was slightly too hard.
Borg Mesch kept his good humor, even responded to the greeting, though Spett thought that his reply sounded like a teasing “Jumalalle terveisiä,” Greetings to God.
Oskar Lindmark’s father also greeted them, but mostly kept his eyes on the floor.
The preacher turned to Pekkari.
“The boy you killed,” he said, “his father is here to forgive you.”
He put his hand on the father’s back, pushing him towards the cell.
“As I myself have been forgiven,” Oskar Lindmark’s father said in a thick voice, “I want to forgive you.”
“Are you ready?” the preacher asked in an unctuous voice. “Are you willing to let go of your thoughtless life and receive redemption from your brother? What is bound on earth is bound in heaven and what is released on earth is released in heaven.”
Edvin Pekkari was drawn to the bars by a power he was unable to resist.
Maybe what he saw in the teary, sincere eyes of the father was the image of his heavenly maker.
He was unable to stop himself from seizing the knotty hands of Oskar Lindmark’s father. And while he held them, tears streamed down both their faces.
Borg Mesch rigged his camera and immortalized the moment.
“God’s forgiveness,” the preacher said. He too seized Pekkari’s hands through the bars.
In that moment, the door burst open. In strode the Western Laestadian preacher Jussi Salmi. East and West were adversaries in faith ever since the Laestadian congregation had split in two. Preacher Jussi Salmi in a roundabout way had learned what was happening in the jailhouse and had therefore brought the widow of postman Johansson, who belonged to his congregation. His red cheeks and the fact that he had removed his mittens showed that he had been in a hurry. He greeted the policemen with the same embrace and a “God’s peace.”
A Darker Shade of Sweden Page 15