The Intruder

by Hakan Ostlundh

  Ellen had not mentioned the woman in the car at all since they left the school. Unless she had said something to Axel when Malin was not present. Didn’t she think about what had happened? Perhaps it was nothing more to her than the immediate, the very surface. Someone had asked her to show the way to the ferry and promised to drive her back to the school, but then did not keep the promise so she was forced to walk almost a mile.

  Could it be that simple? Malin was doubtful. If nothing else surely Malin’s, Henrik’s, and all the other grown-ups’ worry had spilled over on her and made her wonder what she had really been involved in. The police. That they went home before the school day was over.

  A night at a hotel would only add to that.

  “I have to ask you about something,” she said quietly, placing one arm around Ellen’s back.

  Ellen did not say anything.

  “That lady in the car that you rode with, what color hair did she have?”

  Ellen looked at her.

  “Light-haired. I already said that.”

  “Yes. But I was just thinking that you can be light-haired in different ways. Take Lisa, for example. She’s blond, but not all of her hair has the same color. Here and there it’s almost like strands—”

  “I know. Like light brown,” said Ellen with sudden fervor.

  “So I was thinking whether you remembered how this lady’s hair was. Was her hair completely even in color, or was it more like Lisa’s? Or perhaps it changed in some other color?”

  Ellen seemed to lose interest again when Malin brought the conversation back to the woman in the car. She looked down and rubbed her nose.

  “Do you remember that?”

  Ellen sighed.

  What was it Sara Oskarsson had said to Henrik? You don’t need to torment her with it. Was she doing that now? Tormenting her?

  “It was light hair,” said Ellen. “Lighter than Lisa.”

  Malin stroked Ellen across her back with her palm.

  “Sometimes blond hair may have a little red, too, without anyone thinking about it. That is, you say that it’s blond, although actually it’s a little bit red, too. It doesn’t look really red, more like pale orange, but we usually say strawberry blond.”

  Malin smiled at Ellen, who had slithered forward a little so that she could dangle her legs over the edge of the bed.

  “She wasn’t red-haired.”

  “No, I understand, but that wasn’t really what I meant, either. If someone is red-haired, you see that right away. But some…”

  Malin interrupted herself when Ellen glided down from the bed and went over to the secretary desk where her little brother was sitting with his head bowed over the paper and the crayons poised. Presumably he was drawing sharks and Ture. Ellen stood quietly and followed the movements of his hand across the paper.

  Malin decided that there was no point in asking her more right now. She would follow the police officer’s advice and wait for a suitable moment, but she could not wait too long. This was serious. They had to find out what she knew.

  Five minutes later Ellen was sitting on a stool alongside her brother and drawing, too. It was tempting to sneak up and see what was appearing on the paper, but Malin chose instead to leave her in peace. She could look at the drawings later. The wadded-up and discarded ones as well as the proudly displayed ones.

  27.

  Gustav did not have much to say on the way back to Visby, either. They left the car in the garage and Sara hurried off to make a call.

  “Is there something?” Fredrik asked.

  “No, no, nothing in particular,” Gustav replied quickly.

  They went up to the crime unit and Gustav slinked into his office, sat down heavily behind his desk. Fredrik remained standing in the doorway.

  “I was just wondering. You’ve hardly said ‘boo’ the whole day.”

  Gustav looked at him with surprise, as if he did not understand why Fredrik hadn’t gone to his own office.

  “Sometimes you just have other things to think about. That’s not so strange.”

  “Sure,” said Fredrik.

  He tapped awkwardly on the doorpost and was turning around to go when he heard a deep sigh behind him. It was a little too demonstrative not to mean something. That he should stay, for example. He turned around slowly, prepared to quickly leave if he had interpreted the sigh wrong.

  Gustav was looking down at his right hand; he clenched it and opened it.

  “It’s Lena.”

  “Lena?” said Fredrik.

  “Yes,” said Gustav, and continued in a low voice, almost absently, “she has some suspicious symptoms.”

  Fredrik took a step into the office and closed the door behind him.

  “Suspicious symptoms? That doesn’t sound good.”

  He thought that the words were clumsy, but he had to make some kind of response.

  “Yes,” said Gustav. “She has had strange prickly sensations and numbness in her legs. And she has felt—”

  He interrupted himself and swallowed before he continued.

  “This has been going on for a while. It doesn’t hurt or anything and she … Well, you know how it is. You think it’s nothing, it will pass. But this has just continued. Pricking, numbness, strange creeping sensations in her legs, plus she has felt tired. She called her sister; she’s a nurse.”

  Gustav looked out the window, up toward the roof of the police station, as if he wanted to assure himself that no one was in flight from the jail’s exercise yard.

  “She started crying,” he continued. “Her sister, that is. When Lena told her she started crying.”

  Fredrik felt himself turning completely cold. Gustav had not even said what it was Lena might conceivably be suffering from, but he sensed it. Parkinson’s, MS, ALS.

  “Well, that was really cheerful,” said Gustav.

  Fredrik hummed in response.

  “They suspect MS.”

  “Do you know that?”

  “They’ve taken samples and then there are a number of other tests. It’s clearly not easy to make a diagnosis.”

  “But you don’t know. She can still turn out to be okay?”

  “Yes, but after her sister’s crying spell the mood is pretty low, as perhaps you understand.”

  “Yes,” said Fredrik.

  He sought desperately for something sensible to say, but the more he exerted himself, the more blocked he became. During the eighteen months he had been away from the job after the accident Gustav had been the colleague who supported him most. Not so much through words, of course, but by stopping by and visiting. At least once a week he had stopped when he had been out on some errand anyway. Sometimes on the weekends he rode his bicycle. That made Fredrik feel that he was not completely cut off from work, that there really was a way back. It would be too bad if he couldn’t repay that in some small way.

  “When will you find out?” he was finally able to say.

  “We have an appointment, or Lena has an appointment, for a return visit next Monday, so I assume it’s then that—”

  “And Martin?”

  “We haven’t said anything yet. We thought it was just as well to wait.”

  Martin had moved to the mainland to study, just like Joakim, but had chosen a completely different path. He was studying to be a psychologist in Lund. Fredrik was both surprised and fascinated by these occupational choices that seemed to come out of nowhere. One year the kids were sitting in front of a video game, the next they were going to be a psychologist and a photographer. Where did that come from?

  “It could be a false alarm.”

  “We have to hope so,” said Fredrik.

  Gustav got up and wriggled out of his jacket.

  “But you can keep this to yourself,” he said. “Lena doesn’t want rumors to start before we know ourselves.”

  “No, of course. I won’t say anything.”

  28.

  Henrik was standing on a ladder, mounting a motion detector up by the ceilin
g, when Malin came into the kitchen.

  Their large kitchen was more practical than charming. After seven years as a café owner she wanted it to be functional. Normally she got inspired when she came in there, started thinking about new recipes to try and write about. But today was different.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  “Not bad,” said Henrik. “How are things with Ellen?”

  “It seems okay. Or it seems good. Listen, there’s one thing; I haven’t said anything about it before but…”

  She came closer, stopped alongside the ladder. Henrik lowered the screwdriver and looked at her.

  “I spoke with Fredrik Broman today. I thought it was best.”

  “About what?”

  She told the whole story about the reddish-blond or possibly blond-haired woman outside the school and the idea that Ellen had perceived the hair color as blond, or light-haired. That it could be the same person.

  “Are you sure?” said Henrik.

  “Yes. There was something about her. She stood there much too long. I’m completely sure.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

  It was not that she hadn’t wondered about that herself. But it was always easy to second-guess.

  “It was right after we found the first picture. I felt completely paranoid. I thought I was imagining things.”

  “But you did see what you saw?”

  “Yes, of course, but thought that I overinterpreted. I thought that maybe she was just a little off or was thinking about something, or what do I know.”

  “But now you’re sure?”

  “Yes. Sure enough to say that there was something about her. What happened yesterday puts things in a slightly different light, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Every incident about which there’s the least little question is worth mentioning.”

  Henrik slowly rotated the screwdriver in his hand, his gaze lost somewhere at the other end of the room.

  “What is it?” she said, looking up at him.

  He did not answer.

  “What is it?” she repeated.

  “Nothing,” he said, and now he met her gaze.

  “Sure there is. I see that there’s something,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “It’s just a little … I mean, I understand that you thought it was unpleasant, but…”

  He threw out his arms, waving the screwdriver a little.

  “But what the hell, Henrik. There is something. You’re thinking about something.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. It was just something that occurred to me.”

  “But you can say what it is, can’t you?”

  “Of course, it…”

  He climbed down from the ladder, put the screwdriver down on the counter, and looked seriously at her. Malin felt the hair rising on her arms. She did not like that look.

  “But say it then,” she almost roared.

  “It’s probably nothing,” he repeated. “But there was something about how you described her and…”

  “Yes?”

  He swallowed.

  “It reminded me of a girl I was with a long time ago. It was in Stockholm, but she was from here, or from Fårösund, that is.”

  “What do you mean? Why haven’t you told me about her?”

  Malin put her hands on her sides.

  “I have told you about her,” said Henrik.

  “I see. What’s her name?”

  “Her name is Stina Hansson. It was a long time ago, but I have mentioned her.”

  Malin had never heard about her, but she was bad at names. She might have forgotten it.

  “And you were together in Stockholm?”

  “Yes. It was when I was at the photography school. We met through some common acquaintances from Gotland. I knew her from here, but we didn’t really socialize then. It lasted less than a year. We broke up, or I broke up with her. It got really messy because she didn’t want to let go, kept on calling and that. But then suddenly she moved back to Fårösund and then … Well … Then we weren’t in touch anymore. She must have quit school. Or that was what they said anyway.”

  “So what do you mean? That this Stina has carried off our daughter and stuck needles in our family pictures because you broke up with her … what will it be, fifteen years ago or something like that?”

  Henrik looked at her in dismay. His hand was trembling as he brushed back the hair from his forehead.

  “Good Lord, I don’t mean anything. You’re the one who saw someone staring at you outside the school. It’s probably not even her. I only said that I happened to think of her when you described her.”

  Malin’s head was spinning. One moment she thought she was decisively on the trail, the next it seemed like paranoid fantasies. Nothing that had to do with reality.

  “But you know that she still lives in Fårösund?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “I’ve run into her a few times.”

  “A few times…”

  Malin fell silent and looked at him, felt cold and strange.

  “Why haven’t you said anything?”

  “Said? I’ve run into her a couple times in Fårösund. What should I say?”

  Henrik’s voice had acquired an angry tone and one eyebrow was raised as if the question was a little stupid. Malin thought he looked like a liar.

  “So where in Fårösund?”

  “At the Bungehall grocery store.”

  “And those are the only times?”

  “I saw her once in town, but that was at a distance and she didn’t see me. Does that count?”

  There was that ironic expression again, as if it was Malin who had done something wrong. She ought to get angry, but felt that instead she was sad. He remembered that he had seen her in town, even though they hadn’t even spoken. Extremely quickly he remembered that. It seemed like he was counting the times.

  “I don’t understand that you didn’t say anything,” she said flatly.

  “It’s not like we went out for coffee or anything. I’ve seen her at ICA and we stood and talked a little while.”

  “About what?”

  Henrik sighed demonstratively before he answered.

  “What are you doing nowadays? Married, two kids, blah blah blah. You know. That kind of thing.”

  “Is she married and has two kids?”

  “No. I’m married and have two kids.”

  He smiled a little, tried to get her in a good mood again. But it was too late now for that type of cheap charm.

  “But not her?”

  “No. She’s not married.”

  “No husband, no children.”

  “No.”

  “Damn.”

  “What do you mean, damn?”

  Malin tried to look at him from a place far away, distant and superior, but was uncertain whether it succeeded.

  “Was it nice with Stina?”

  “Huh?”

  Henrik tried to look offended, surprised.

  “Yes. Did you have a nice time with her? Was it nice sleeping with Stina?”

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “It’s not so strange that I wonder what she means to you, is it?”

  Malin hoped that it would sound factual and a little cool, but to her disappointment heard her voice quiver a little on the final syllables.

  “Malin, that was fifteen years ago. It lasted less than a year. I broke up with her. I hardly remember it.”

  He walked slowly over to the table, sat down at the short end with his arms crossed.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  Malin did not reply.

  “Excuse me, but it really is.”

  Was it ridiculous? Was she ridiculous? She tried to think about how the conversation ended up where it did. One thing had led to another. She had followed her emotion. Had it really ended up completely wrong? An old girlfriend from fif
teen years back. That was three years before she and Henrik met. Surely he had mentioned Stina Hansson in one of their childish run-throughs of old exes. She had forgotten that. She forgot names. She forgot a number of other things, too. Henrik used to say that it was practical. Every three years he could reuse old jokes and she would still think he was the most amusing guy in the world. That joke she remembered anyway.

  “I’m from here,” he said. “I know people.”

  “That’s not really the same thing.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  Henrik sighed as if he was right and she was just silly to let her emotions run away with her. He looked at her seriously.

  “Can’t we just concentrate on ourselves and get this alarm going?”

  Malin swallowed. She did not intend to apologize anyway. Perhaps she had gone too far, but she still thought it was wrong that he hadn’t said anything. He ought to have told her that he had seen this Stina Hansson the same day he did. That was the kind of thing you did when you were in a relationship. Just to avoid suspicions and outbursts of this type.

  “Sure,” she said. “But you have to call the police and tell them.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll do that.”

  “Do it now.”

  29.

  Stina Hansson lived in a two-room unit in an old villa that had been divided up into apartments. The house on Kalkugnsvägen in Fårösund was slightly shadowed behind a row of tall willows with ungainly root suckers. Stina Hansson normally worked at the register at the college restaurant in Visby, but today she was out sick.

  In other words, Stina worked in the same building as Alma Vogler. Fredrik wondered whether they knew each other. At least by appearance they ought to. Stina Hansson must have taken payment for Alma’s lunch numerous times.

  He had nothing against driving up to Fårösund again. After six months behind a desk he was just happy for any opportunity to get out and move around. Sara, on the other hand, had groused a little when Göran asked them to go. Not in front of her boss, of course, but in the corridor on the way down to the garage. Fredrik could understand, but unless something completely unforeseen were to happen, they ought to be back in Visby before Sara’s long-distance boyfriend got off the ferry.

  Their first impression of Stina Hansson was of a healthy thirty-three-year-old woman. Beautiful blond hair fell down a little over her shoulders, and she met Fredrik’s gaze with a smile and determined ice-blue eyes when they met.