“What do you mean?” asked Birgitta.
“Nobel Prize or not, if I were to tell what has happened in this cellar the image of the scientist would be different.”
Was there a trace of fear in the daughter’s face? Did she know something about what happened in the cellar over sixty years ago?
“Now you have to explain yourself!” Liisa ordered.
“I don’t want to hear,” said Birgitta.
“Of course we have to hear,” said Liisa.
“Calling the police equals scandal, just so you know,” said Karsten calmly.
“I see your cards,” said Liisa.
“This is not a poker game!” Birgitta shouted.
“Do you see that bed over there?”
“Stop! That’s just filthy talk. Have you spoken with Wiik?”
“I don’t know any Wiik,” said Karsten. “On the other hand I do know, or knew, an Anna Haller, née Andersson.”
“I see,” said Liisa. “Go on!”
“We’ll let him go,” said Birgitta.
“Anna Haller was my mother,” said Karsten.
“That’s a lie! She just wanted to extort money from Daddy.”
“What does she have to do with Bertram? Is that some—”
“Get out!” screamed Birgitta, waving the spear.
Karsten looked at Liisa. He saw hesitation in her eyes.
“What do you have in your pockets?” she asked.
“An inheritance,” said Karsten. “Or damages, if you wish.”
“Have you stolen money?” screamed Birgitta.
“Damages for what?” asked Liisa.
Karsten did not answer but instead looked at Birgitta von Ohler. When he saw her in the garden he had already felt repugnance and now that feeling was strengthened. The woman was totally out of balance. He himself felt calm and the woman with the Finnish accent seemed to be as cold as anything. He understood that he had to assure her to be able to leave the cellar. He had to give her something.
“Assault,” said Karsten, ignoring the pistol and walking quickly up to the bed, taking hold of the wrought-iron headboard and shaking it so that it rattled.
He felt, in the contact with the iron and the sight of the checkered frame of flat iron bars, a violent fury.
“In this bed my mother was raped! Raped! There is no other word.”
The two women stared at him.
“There is your fine Nobel Prize winner! Your father. Who is now being rewarded for his efforts.”
“What evidence do you have?”
He stared at Birgitta with contempt and hate in his eyes. He could strike at her.
“Evidence! Her life was the evidence. Because she got no reward, only a life sentence.”
He spit out the words. Liisa had lowered the gun.
“Are you sure? Perhaps it was mutual?” she said.
Haller shook his head vehemently.
“I know,” he said in a low voice. “I know exactly how it happened.”
He could tell about the pregnancy and the abortion that followed, tell about his mother’s despair, about the naked and painful words in the diary, but he did not want to expose her shame. He knew what awful guilt she had felt about what happened.
It was as if her words were meant only for him. He realized now that she had saved the diary for his sake. It should not be thrown away, it should be read. She wanted him to read it. Read and understand. In order to thereby forgive her for the worry and anxiety that sometimes seized her and indirectly also affected him as a child.
“She was lured down here by Ohler,” he continued. “I don’t know how, perhaps with promises or that she should fetch something. She was used to his caprices. She shined his shoes and washed his underwear, so why shouldn’t she obey when he told her to follow him down to the cellar?”
“Could she have been that innocent?” Liisa objected.
“Just that innocent. She did not know much about life, other than she should obey the gentry. But it really doesn’t matter if she had been an experienced woman or not, a rape is always a rape. Isn’t it?”
Liisa nodded.
“She came from Gräsö,” said Birgitta in a toneless voice.
Karsten turned around. He had directed all his attention toward the Finnish woman.
“Yes, and from a deeply religious family besides,” he said.
“You call it rape but perhaps she was in love with Bertram. And later it went further than she had imagined, and even further than what he had imagined. Perhaps they sneaked down here to cuddle a little and then they got carried away.”
The Finnish woman’s words made her sneer.
“You don’t believe that yourself,” he said. “This was 1944. She was at his mercy.”
“Just like today,” said Liisa.
“What do you mean?”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said, putting the pistol into her waistband. “It’s just as well that you disappear from the house.”
“Never!” screamed Birgitta.
“Calm down, Birgitta. He goes away, everything is forgotten and remains like before, that is, false and depressing. Bertram gets his prize and his glory. You can wallpaper the whole house with money if you want.”
“Don’t mock me! This thief and liar can create scandal just to get at Daddy. He wants to create scandal! He hates us!”
“No, I just want to disappear,” said Karsten.
“He hates us,” repeated Birgitta. “He hates us because we have a big, fine house, a name, because Bertram is appreciated.”
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” said Karsten, but the words made no impression on her.
He took a few steps closer to the exit. Birgitta raised the spear.
“You hate us simply because your mother fucked my father. She wanted to! But then she was ashamed. That was it, wasn’t it? She was ashamed of her sanctimonious father.”
He shook his head. He didn’t want to hear more, he didn’t want to see her. Yes, he hated Bertram von Ohler and he hated her. He hated the whole lot!
“Go to hell,” he said softly.
Liisa took a few quick steps toward them both and raised her hands in an attempt to calm the situation down.
“You and your rapist father!”
“Stop! Liisa, he’s lying! He’s mocking us!”
“I think you know more than you’re letting on,” Karsten continued. “But here secrets, dirtiness, and violence are preserved as family relics.”
“Shoot him!”
“Calm down, damn it! He means nothing to you, to us. You know that. He disappears and then it will be calm. He takes the money and leaves. He isn’t interested in anything else.”
Karsten suddenly smiled.
“I’m going to Africa in four days,” he said.
“There you are,” said Liisa.
“He’s bluffing,” said Birgitta. “Don’t you see that he wants to harm us?”
“You are the most fucked-up bitch I have ever met,” said Karsten with emphasis.
“Don’t talk a lot of shit now,” she said, but he did not let himself be stopped.
“You don’t believe in a dead woman’s story, but ask her sister, she must know the whole story.”
“She doesn’t know a thing, she was a child in 1944,” said Birgitta, now considerably calmer, as if Liisa’s comment had placated her.
“Not even about the abortion?” It came out of him.
“What abortion?”
“Anna got pregnant. Down here,” he said, pointing at the bed. “And down here your grandfather performed the abortion and your amazing daddy assisted. An intervention that she never would have accepted if she had known what it meant. Confused and afraid as she was she thought that the professor was only going to examine her, but she was drugged and they took the fetus from her. I know that it sounds completely improbable but that’s what happened.”
They stared at him.
“And Bertram was the father?” asked Liisa.
<
br /> Karsten nodded.
“And after that operation she could never have children again,” he said.
Birgitta laughed.
“And what about you?”
“Adopted,” said Karsten. “My biological mother was killed during the last days of World War Two. I was only a few months old when father took me to Sweden on a boat called Rönnskär. He married Anna later. For a long time I thought she was my real mother. But that made no difference to me. I loved Anna as a mother.”
“Good God,” said Liisa. “What a story. What a damned mess. What if—”
Liisa and Birgitta looked at each other. Karsten sensed what was going on in their heads. If this “mess” were to come out and become generally known, that would definitely mean the end of the Ohler family’s reputation. A doctor who first raped a religious young woman and then, together with his father the gynecology professor, performed an illegal abortion in a cellar, could never receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine, regardless of what he accomplished later in life in the service of research.
He saw how the insight about this was slowly growing in them. He took a step toward the door.
“Now you know,” he said. “Now you know that the Nobel Prize winner rapes his employees.”
“Stop!”
Birgitta’s shout echoed in the cellar. At the same moment a figure appeared at the top of the stairs.
“What’s going on?”
Everyone’s eyes turned toward Greta, but Birgitta quickly recovered.
“It’s no problem, Greta, we’ve surprised a thief,” Birgitta called.
“Aunt,” whispered Karsten, and he could not suppress a smile.
Now he felt more secure. Above all when he saw the old woman coming down the stairs.
“A thief?”
“Now I’m leaving,” he said, turning around and grasping the handle to the door out to freedom.
At the same moment he got a powerful jolt in the back. He fell forward, opened the door, fumbled with his hands in the air and thudded down on the floor, just as the pain came. He twisted his body, saw Birgitta’s distorted face, perceived how the spear was raised and felt as it was again driven into his body.
I have to get away, he thought. he knew what an African spear could do, and summoning all his strength he stumbled into the corridor toward the cellar entrance.
In a fruitless attempt to protect himself he put up his hand. The spear came rushing again. Now it pierced his throat. His mouth was immediately filled with blood. He made an attempt to crawl further but collapsed. Then came the fourth thrust. The spear went in just below the right shoulder blade and punctured the lung.
Thirty-three
“What do we do with—”
Liisa was unsure how she should express herself. “The body,” “the corpse,” or simply “him”?
Birgitta had not said a word since Liisa managed to stop her violent attacks. She sat hunched over on a steamer trunk that had been plastered with stickers for various destinations.
Greta had tried to shake life into the gardener but in vain. The whole corridor to the cellar door was messy with blood.
We’ll put him in the trunk, thought Liisa, but realized that did not solve the problem. He would start stinking after only a day or two.
She had decided to get rid of the body. Nothing of what had happened could come out. The police could not be involved. The professor should not know a thing. Birgitta and Greta stared at her while she laid out the strategy.
“If this becomes known, then we can forget the Nobel Prize and everything else. Besides that, Birgitta will end up in jail. For a long time. Us too, because we were accomplices.”
She was not sure of that, an attorney could certainly argue that self-defense had been involved, but she poured it on to frighten Greta. Birgitta she could handle, but she did not know about Greta.
“But he broke in,” the old woman also objected.
“Yes, but he died of a number of deep wounds. That’s harder to explain. All in the back besides. It doesn’t look good for any of us.”
“But why? He’s a gardener.”
Liisa looked at Greta, whose eyes were still staring, scared out of her wits and not understanding.
“As if that sort can’t commit a crime? He took lots of money. You saw that yourself.”
Liisa pointed with the spear toward the entry where the dead man’s legs were visible. Birgitta mumbled something.
“We’ll bury him,” she said. “We have to bury him. He is a Christian person anyway.”
“We know nothing about that,” said Liisa. “But we have to get rid of him.”
Beneath her outward calm she was terrified. Not so much about how they would handle the situation, but more about the fury that had consumed Birgitta. The wildness of thrusting a spear into a person, again and again, frightened her terribly. She thought she knew Birgitta, they had lived together for several years, but it was clear to her that there was a side of her that had until now been concealed.
“We’ll bury him,” Birgitta repeated in a mechanical voice.
“Where?” said Liisa.
Greta stared at her. Liisa realized that she had to act quickly while the woman was still in shock. Soon Greta, or perhaps Birgitta, could break down.
“We’ll carry him out to my car,” said Liisa. “I can drive it onto the yard.”
No one reacted. It was not a good suggestion, she realized that at once. It was the middle of the night and the sound of a car engine starting might waken a neighbor. Bunde might look out. Besides, she was not sure whether the gate to the garage access could be opened. As far as she could recall it was locked with a chain and a sturdy padlock. The professor wanted it that way.
“The garden,” she threw out.
“It’s too hard to dig there,” Birgitta objected.
Liisa had a desire to run over and hug her. Birgitta’s voice still sounded ghost-like, but even so Liisa could perceive something of the usual tone of voice. She was on her way back.
“At Lundquist’s,” said Birgitta suddenly. “The ground is soft there.”
Liisa did not understand what she meant, but Birgitta continued as if it concerned something very everyday.
“He was digging for several days,” she said, getting up eagerly. “I saw him digging! There’s a spade in the shed by the old oil tank. We—”
“We can’t do it that way,” objected Greta. “We can’t just—”
Liisa looked around.
“Are there any old rugs down here?”
Birgitta pointed toward a corner of the cellar.
“There are some wrapped up over there,” she said. “In plastic.”
Liisa hurried over to the dark corner.
“Plastic is better,” she said, tearing at the bundle of rugs. “There’s less friction.”
She turned around and saw that at least Birgitta understood what she meant. Greta only looked confused. Liisa tore loose a large piece of plastic which she rolled up.
“Where’s Agnes?” Birgitta asked suddenly.
“I’m sure she’s asleep,” Greta answered. “I heard strange noises and … I didn’t want to wake her … she would never—”
“That’s good!” said Liisa. “We’ll let her sleep.”
“Mustn’t we call the police?”
“Greta! Wake up! Don’t you understand? They’ll put Birgitta in prison! Prison! Is that what you want?”
Liisa stared at the old woman, leaned over the dead man, and pulled out the bundles of bills that Karsten had taken. They were bloody. She threw them on the floor.
“Help me now,” she said, sticking her hands into Karsten’s armpits. “Take hold of the feet!”
Greta and Birgitta approached hesitantly.
“We have to get him out! Then we’ll lay him on the plastic and pull him across the lawn.”
Together they managed to lift the body and lug it out through the door and up the cellar steps.
It was drizzling. The br
anches of the fruit trees were moving slowly in the wind. Liisa sneaked up to the corner of the house and spied. The only worrying factor was the associate professor. The lights were on as usual in his tower, a faint bluish sheen that Birgitta had explained came from a plant-growing installation.
She returned to the two others.
“It looks fine,” she whispered. “All the windows are dark. Did you get the spade?”
Birgitta nodded. Liisa stroked her hand across her face. The rain picked up.
She spread out the black plastic on the grass. Greta sobbed. Birgitta mumbled something. Liisa leaned over and rolled the corpse onto the plastic. She knew that she could manage pulling the body, but the hard thing would be to get it through the hedge into Bunde’s lot and then across the fence to Lundquist’s. The latter step was the most critical. For a short time they would not be hidden by any bushes.
“Now let’s get going,” she said, despite her own growing hesitation, and took hold of the plastic and pulled.
Everything went easier than she had thought. The plastic and the damp grass helped make the body seem light. Birgitta was not much help, but Greta was unexpectedly strong. Together they managed to squeeze the dead man through the hedge and over the low fence. He fell with a thud over on Lundquist’s side. It sounded as if Karsten Heller sighed when the air was pressed out of the lungs.
“I’ll manage the rest myself,” Liisa whispered, waving aside Birgitta’s protests. She jumped lithely over the fence, pulled the body into the protection of some bushes, and retrieved the spade that Birgitta tossed over. She waited a minute or two. By using the breathing technique from the shooting range she recovered her equilibrium, and her pulse rate went down. The rain intensified. The body at her feet resembled a sack. The night chill and the tension made her shiver.
The block seemed to rest. All that was heard was the incessant drumming of the rain.
After having memorized how the small plants, which she thought resembled lingonberry, were planted, she pulled them out and set them to one side. She started digging and was surprised at how porous the dirt was. It did not take long for her to shovel up a grave. Half a meter down the earth became hard and she decided that it would have to be deep enough.
After shoving the body, which now felt heavier and more uncooperative, down into the pit, she spread the plastic out like a shroud, tucked in the corners around the body, and then shoveled the dirt back in. She worked quickly and single-mindedly, and when the last shrub was replanted she allowed herself to rest a minute or two. She crouched down. The rain ran over her face. She wanted to recite a prayer, or do something that might resemble a ceremony, but found that she could only remember a few lines of the Lord’s Prayer.
Open Grave: A Mystery Page 23