by Lars Kepler
‘What does “Ossa ipsius in pace” mean?’ Joona asks.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘You said it under hypnosis.’
‘It means “his bones are at peace”,’ Rocky says in a rough voice.
‘You were describing a dead priest – that’s why he was wearing make-up.’
They walk quickly under the arch towards the door as Joona thinks about Rocky’s description of a funeral service with an open coffin. The deceased priest was made-up and dressed in a white cassock, but he wasn’t the unclean preacher. The funeral was simply the first time Rocky met him.
117
Beneath an ornate wrought-iron arch bearing the name ‘Fridhem’, a flight of stone steps leads up to the parish home for clergymen’s widows, where Peter Leer Jacobson’s older sister Ellinor was given permission to stay on after his death. Together with a younger woman from the Sköldinge village, she runs a café with a small exhibition about the village, and what life was like in bygone times for priests and their families.
Fridhem consists of three red cottages with white window frames and gables, open shutters and old-fashioned tiles on the roofs. The houses sit on three sides of a neat patch of lawn, with café tables beneath the weeping birch trees.
The two men enter the café and pass through a cramped room lined with framed black-and-white photographs. Joona glances along the pictures of buildings, teams of workers, priests’ families. Three glass cabinets contain mourning jewellery made of jet, letters, inventories and hymnbooks.
Inside the pleasant café Joona buys two cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits from an elderly women in a flowery apron. She looks nervously at Rocky, who doesn’t smile back when she tells them that the price includes a refill.
‘Excuse me,’ Joona says. ‘But you must be Ellinor? Peter Leer Jacobson’s sister?’
The woman gives him a quizzical nod. When Joona explains that they’ve just spoken to the new priest, who said so many nice things about her brother, her clear blue eyes fill with tears.
‘Peter was very, very popular,’ she says in a tremulous voice, then tries to catch her breath.
‘You must have been very proud of him,’ Joona smiles.
‘Yes, I was.’
In a rather touching gesture, she pulls her hands together over her stomach in an effort to calm down.
‘There’s something I was wondering,’ Joona goes on. ‘Did your brother have a particular colleague, someone he worked closely with?’
‘Yes … that would have been the rural dean in Katrineholm … and the vicars of Floda and Stora Malm … And I know he spent a lot of time in Lerbo Church towards the end.’
‘Did they see each other privately as well?’
‘My brother was a fine man,’ she says. ‘An honourable man, very well liked …’
Ellinor looks around the empty room, then walks round the counter and shows Joona a framed newspaper cutting from the King and Queen’s visit to Strängnäs.
‘Peter was chaplain at the jubilee service in the cathedral,’ she says in a proud voice. ‘The bishop thanked him afterwards, and—’
‘Show her your arms,’ Joona tells Rocky.
Without changing his expression at all, Rocky rolls up the sleeves of his top.
‘My brother was the orator at the diocesan meeting in Härnösand, and he—’
The old woman trails off when she sees Rocky’s ravaged arms, uneven and stained from hundreds of injection scars, dark with veins that have disintegrated from the ascorbic acid he’s used to dissolve the heroin.
‘He’s a priest too,’ Joona says without taking his eyes off her. ‘Anyone can get trapped.’
Ellinor’s wrinkled face turns pale and motionless. She sits down on the wooden bench with her hand over her mouth.
‘My brother changed after the accident … when his wife passed away,’ she says in a quiet voice. ‘Grief destroyed him, he withdrew from everyone … thought someone was following him, that everyone was spying on him.’
‘When was this?’
‘Sixteen years ago …’
‘What did your brother use to inject himself with?’
She looks at him with exhausted eyes.
‘On the boxes it said Morphine Epidural …’
The woman shakes her head and her old hands flutter restlessly over her apron.
‘I didn’t know anything … he was all alone in the end, not even his daughter could stand it, she looked after him for as long as she could, but now I understand why she couldn’t go on.’
‘But he was still able to conduct services, do his job?’
She raises her bloodshot eyes towards Joona.
‘Oh yes, he conducted his services, no one noticed anything, not even me, because we no longer spent any time together … but I used to go to the morning service, and … Everyone said his sermons were stronger than ever … even though he himself was growing weaker.’
Rocky mutters something and walks away from them. They watch him through the window as he emerges on to the lawn and goes and sits down at a table under the weeping birch.
‘How did you find out?’ Joona asks.
‘I was the one who found him,’ the old woman replies. ‘I was the one who took care of the body.’
‘Was it an overdose?’
‘I don’t know, he’d missed the morning service, so I went into the rectory … There was a terrible stench in there … I found him in the cellar … he had been dead for three days, naked and filthy, covered in scabs … he was lying in the cage like an animal.’
‘He was lying in a cage?’
She nods and wipes her nose.
‘All he had was a mattress and a can of water,’ she whispers.
‘Didn’t you think it was odd that he was in a cage?’
The old woman shakes her head.
‘It had been locked from the inside … I’ve always thought that he tried to lock himself in to escape the drugs.’
A younger woman in a similar apron comes out and stands behind the counter when some more customers arrive.
‘Could one of your brother’s colleagues have helped him write his sermons?’ Joona asks.
‘I don’t know.’
‘He probably had a computer, could I take a look at it?’
‘He had one in the office, but he wrote his sermons by hand.’
‘Have you kept them?’
Ellinor slowly stands up from the bench.
‘I took care of his estate,’ she says. ‘I cleaned out the rectory so that there wouldn’t be any gossip … but he’d got rid of everything … There were no photographs, no letters or sermons … I couldn’t even find his diaries, he’d always kept a diary … He used to keep them locked up in his bureau, but it was empty.’
‘Could they be anywhere else?’
She stands still and her mouth moves silently until the words come.
‘I’ve only got one diary left … It was hidden in the drinks cabinet, they usually have a secret compartment at the back, where gentlemen could keep their saucy French postcards.’
‘What did it say in the diary?’ Joona says.
She smiles and shakes her head.
‘I would never read it, you don’t do that sort of thing …’
‘Of course not,’ he replies.
‘But many years ago Peter used to get his diaries out at Christmas and read about Mother and Father, and about ideas for sermons … he wrote very well.’
The door to the café opens once more and a draught sweeps through the cosy room, spreading the smell of fresh coffee.
‘Do you have the diary here?’ Joona asks.
‘It’s in the exhibition,’ she says. ‘We call it a museum, but it’s really just a few things we found here.’
He goes with her to the exhibition. An enlarged photograph from 1850 shows three thin women in black dresses in front of the home for widows. The buildings look almost black. The picture was taken early one spring, the trees are bare
and there’s still snow in the furrows of the field.
Beneath the picture is a short caption about the priest who had Fridhem built so that his wife wouldn’t have to marry the next priest if he died before her.
Next to the earrings and necklace of polished jade lies a rusty key and a small colour photograph showing the funeral of Peter Leer Jacobson. A man dressed in black is acting as marshal of ceremonies, holding the black veil. The bishop, and the priest’s daughter and sister are standing by the coffin with their faces lowered.
They walk past pictures of the mine at Kantorp, women and children sorting the ore in bright sunshine, Sköldinge workhouse, and the opening of the railway station. One black-and-white photograph of the church has been hand-tinted, so that the sky is pastel blue, the vegetation looks tropical, and the wooden construction of the new steeple shines like polished bronze.
‘Here’s the diary,’ Ellinor says, stopping in front of a glass cabinet containing an array of objects.
118
On top of a linen cloth lies a rusty hairgrip, a pocket watch, a white hymnbook bearing the name ‘Anna’ in gold writing, a page of old church accounts, Luther’s Small Catechism and the priest’s diary, with a lilac strap round its stained leather binding.
The old woman looks at Joona with frightened eyes as she opens the case and removes the diary. On the front page, in ornate handwriting, are the words ‘Peter Leer Jacobson, priest, volume XXIV’.
‘I don’t think it’s right to read other people’s diaries,’ she says with a hint of anxiety in her voice.
‘No,’ Joona says, and opens the book.
He sees at once that it’s old: the first entry is dated almost twenty years ago.
‘We don’t have the right to—’
‘I have to,’ Joona interrupts.
He leafs through, staring at the handwriting in the hope of finding something about the person who wrote Peter’s sermons.
The administration of the parish has become more onerous, the guidelines stricter. I fear that finances will come to govern my church more and more. Why not start selling indulgences again [Sic!].
Today is the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, and the liturgical colours are getting darker again. The theme is ‘Sowing and Reaping’. I don’t like the warning in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians about not mocking God. ‘For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ But sometimes you haven’t sown, yet must still reap. I can’t say that to my congregation – they want to hear about the riches of heaven.
Joona looks up and sees the old woman leave the room with her hands hanging by her sides.
I met the pasty-faced contract priest in Lerbo for a private conversation. He was probably expecting me to talk about my drinking. He’s young, but his faith is so strong that it makes me feel bad. I decided not to visit him again.
My daughter is growing up now. The other day I watched her without her knowing. She was sitting in front of the mirror, she had her hair just like Anna’s, and was smiling to herself.
Today is the fifth Sunday after Easter. The theme for the sermon is ‘Growing in Faith’. I think about Grandmother and Grandfather who went to Guinea before they moved to the farm in Roslagen. In my congregation there is no place for missionary work, and that makes me wonder.
Joona sits down on one of the old chairs beneath the photographs. He leafs through the book, reading about the duties of the liturgical year, Christmas carols, summer services at some mill or other. He goes back through it again, looking for any further mention of the priest in Lerbo, and finds himself in the middle of Easter.
The Gospels turn their attention to the empty grave, but around the dinner table we talked about the Old Testament text describing the last plague to strike Egypt. My daughter said that God loves blood, and referred to one of Easter’s biblical texts: ‘And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood I will pass over you.’
My wife and I haven’t shared a bedroom for a year now. I usually stay up late, and I snore like a mechanical digger (according to her). But we often sneak in to each other at night. Sometimes I go with Anna to her bedroom in the evening just to watch her get ready. I’ve always liked watching her take off her jewellery at night, pressing the little studs back on to her earrings and putting them in the case next to each other. Anna is quietly attentive to detail. She doesn’t reach behind her back when she takes her bra off, but slips the straps over her shoulders, slides the bra down to her waist and turns it round before unfastening it.
When I sat on her bed last night watching her plait her hair ready for bed, I thought I could see a face at the dark window. I got up and went over, but I couldn’t see anything, so I went out on to the veranda, then into the garden, but everything was quiet and I looked up at the starry sky instead.
Joona looks out of the window and sees that Rocky is still sitting under the tree, with his eyes closed and legs outstretched. He carries on reading.
I saw the pasty-faced priest from Lerbo in the supermarket yesterday, but didn’t have to say hello.
Fourth Sunday in Lent.
So we have reached the midpoint of Lent. Headache, sat up late drinking wine, reading and writing.
Today we think about ‘the bread of Life’. The holy days of Easter are almost upon us, and the heavy fist of existence presses us to the ground.
Joona leafs forward, glancing at the pages about Trinity Sunday and the transition to the gentler half of the church calendar, before stopping abruptly and reading:
It has happened, terrible, impossible. I shall write about it here, and beg God for forgiveness, then I shall never mention it again. My hand is shaking as I write this, two days later:
Like old Lot I was tricked into breaking the Lord’s commandment, but I am writing to understand my role in this, my share of the guilt. It got rather late, and I drank more wine than I could handle, more that I usually do, and I was drunk when I went to bed and fell asleep.
In hindsight I think I was aware on some level that it wasn’t Anna who crept into my bed in the darkness, she smelled like Anna, she was wearing my wife’s jewellery and nightshirt, but she was scared, her body was trembling as I lay on top of her.
She didn’t whisper at all, she didn’t sigh like Anna, she was breathing as if to resist giving in to pain.
I tried to turn on the lamp, I was still so drunk that it fell to the floor, I stood up, staggered, followed the wall with my hand and turned on the main light.
In my bed sat my daughter. She was wearing make-up and smiling, even though she was scared.
I roared, I shouted, and rushed over and tore Anna’s earrings from her ears, I rubbed her face on the bloodstained sheet, I dragged her down the stairs and out into the snow, I slipped and fell, got up again and shoved her away.
She was freezing, and her ears were bleeding, but she was still smiling.
I shall be punished, I must be punished, I should have seen this coming. Isolation and blossoming, her creeping, spying, always fiddling with Anna’s jewellery and make-up.
Joona stops reading, looks at the rusty key and the black earrings in the case, and at the text about having to take on the last priest’s wife. He leaves the exhibition with the diary in his hand, passing the picture of the skinny widows. Out in the café Ellinor is putting small coffee cups on saucers on the shelf behind the counter. The porcelain tinkles gently as she stacks it. A lethargic fly has flown in through the open doors and is now bouncing against the window as it tries to get out.
Ellinor turns round when she hears Joona come in. It’s clear from her face that she regrets mentioning her brother’s diary.
‘Can I ask how Peter’s wife died?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says curtly and carries on stacking cups and saucers.
‘You said you were friends, you and Anna.’
The old woman’s chin trembles.
‘I think you should leave now,’ she says.
‘I can’t
,’ Joona replies.
‘I thought you were interested in Peter’s sermons, that’s why I …’
She shakes her head, picks up a tray containing coffee and two pastries, and starts to walk towards the door.
Joona follows her, holding the door for her and waiting as she takes the tray over to the customers in the garden.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she says weakly.
‘It wasn’t an accident?’ he asks sharply.
Her face becomes completely helpless and she looks like she’s about to cry.
‘I don’t want to,’ she pleads. ‘Don’t you understand? It’s too late …’
She lowers her face and sobs quietly to herself.
The other woman comes in and puts her hands on Ellinor’s shaking shoulders. The other customers get up and change tables.
‘I’m a police officer,’ Joona says. ‘I can find this out, but—’
‘Please, leave now,’ the other woman says, hugging Ellinor.
‘It was just an accident,’ the old priest’s sister says.
‘I don’t want to upset you,’ Joona goes on. ‘But I need to know what happened, and I need to know now.’
‘It was a car accident,’ Ellinor whimpers. ‘It was pouring with rain … they drove straight into the church wall, the car buckled and crushed Anna, she hit her face so badly that …’
She sits down unsteadily at one of the tables and stares ahead of her.
‘Go on,’ Joona says gently.
The woman looks up at him, wipes the tears from her eyes and nods.
‘We saw it from the rectory … My brother ran out, down the road … and I followed him through the rain, and saw their daughter fighting to get her out, she was using the car-jack … kept hitting it against the car … and I just screamed and ran off through the thicket of willow …’
The woman’s voice cracks, and she opens and closes her mouth a couple of times before she goes on:
‘There was broken glass and wreckage from the car everywhere, and there was a smell of petrol and hot metal … Their daughter had given up, she was just standing there waiting for her father to get there … I can still remember the look of shock in her eyes, and her peculiar smile …’