The Black Path

by Asa Larsson

  That afternoon my mother sat in the kitchen by herself. Snapped at me, so I kept out of the way. I understood that she was ashamed. Ashamed because she’d been afraid of the dog. Because of her fear and weakness, Musta was dead.

  Sven-Erik Stålnacke went round to see Airi Bylund on his lunch break. He’d offered to do it, and Anna-Maria had been relieved that she didn’t have to go. Sitting at Airi’s kitchen table, he explained that her husband hadn’t killed himself, but had been murdered.

  Airi Bylund’s hands kept moving, unsure of what to do with themselves. She smoothed out a crease that wasn’t there from the tablecloth.

  “So he didn’t kill himself,” she said, after a long silence.

  Sven-Erik Stålnacke unzipped his jacket. It was warm. She’d been baking. There was no sign of the cat or her kittens.

  “No,” he said.

  A muscle near the corner of Airi Bylund’s mouth was twitching. She got up quickly and put some coffee on.

  “I thought about it so often,” she said, with her back to Sven-Erik. “Wondered why. I mean, he did have a tendency to brood about things, but just to leave me like that…without a word. And the boys. They’re grown up, of course, but still…Just to leave us all.”

  She arranged pastries on a plate and put it on the table.

  “I was angry too. God, I’ve been so angry with him.”

  “He didn’t do it,” said Sven-Erik, looking into her eyes.

  She gazed back at him. And in her eyes was all the anger, sorrow and pain of the past months. A clenched fist raised toward heaven, an impotent despair beneath an unanswered question, the search for her own guilt.

  She had beautiful eyes, he thought. A black sun with blue rays against a gray sky. Beautiful eyes and a beautiful ass.

  Then she began to cry. Still gazing at Sven-Erik as the tears poured down her cheeks.

  Sven-Erik got up and put his arms around her. Placed one hand behind her head, feeling her soft hair. The mother cat came strolling in from the bedroom, closely followed by her kittens, who began winding themselves around Sven-Erik and Airi’s feet.

  “Oh God,” said Airi at last, sniffling and wiping under her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “The coffee will be going cold.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Sven-Erik, rocking her gently. “We’ll heat it up in the microwave later.”

  Anna-Maria Mella walked into Chief Prosecutor Alf Björnfot’s office at quarter past two.

  “Hi, Anna-Maria,” he said cheerfully. “Glad you could come. How’s it going?”

  “Fine, I think,” said Anna-Maria.

  She wondered what he wanted, and wished he’d get straight to the point.

  Rebecka Martinsson was there as well. She was standing by the window, and acknowledged Anna-Maria with a brief nod.

  “And Sven-Erik?” asked the prosecutor. “Where’s he?”

  “I rang him and said you wanted to see us. I should imagine he’s on his way. Do you mind if I ask what…?”

  The prosecutor leaned forward, waving a fax.

  “The lab has finished analyzing the coat the divers found in Torneträsk,” he said. “The blood on the right shoulder is Inna Wattrang’s. They’ve managed to get DNA from the inside of the collar. And…”

  He handed the fax to Anna-Maria.

  “…the British police have found a match for the DNA profile in their records.”

  “Douglas Morgan,” Anna-Maria read.

  “A paratrooper in the British Army. In the mid-nineties he attacked an officer, was convicted of grievous bodily harm and dismissed. Started working for Blackwater, a firm that specializes in protecting individuals and property in various trouble spots around the world. He’s been in central Africa, and was in Iraq pretty early on. While he was there, one of his close colleagues was taken prisoner and executed by an Islamic resistance group about a year ago. Guess what his colleague was called.”

  “John McNamara, perhaps,” suggested Anna-Maria Mella.

  “Yep. He used his dead pal’s passport when he came to Sweden and when he rented the car at Kiruna airport.”

  “And what about now? Where is he now?”

  “The British police didn’t know,” said Rebecka Martinsson. “He’d left Blackwater, that much is certain, but they refuse to say why, just insist it was at his own request. It’s difficult to get security firms like this to answer questions and cooperate with the police. They’re not too keen on being scrutinized. But Douglas Morgan’s former boss at Blackwater said they thought he’d got a job with another company working in the same field, and gone back to Africa.”

  “We’re looking for him, of course,” said Alf Björnfot. “But it’s far from certain that we’ll find him. It’s really only if he comes back to England that—”

  “So what do we do now?” Anna-Maria interrupted him. “Just forget the whole thing?”

  “Of course not,” said Alf Björnfot. “The kind of guy who hires a car and travels on somebody else’s passport…”

  “…got paid to kill Inna Wattrang,” said Anna-Maria. “In which case, the question is by whom.”

  Alf Björnfot nodded.

  “One person knew where she was,” said Anna-Maria. “And lied about it. Her brother. She rang him from the tourist station.”

  “You can take the early flight down there tomorrow morning,” said Alf Björnfot, looking at the clock.

  There was a brief knock on the door and Sven-Erik walked in.

  “You need to go home and pack,” said Anna-Maria. “Actually, no, we should be able to get the evening flight back tomorrow, otherwise we’ll just buy a toothbrush each and…hang on, what have you got there?”

  “Ah, well, I’ve just become a daddy,” said Sven-Erik.

  His cheeks were flushed. A kitten poked her head through the opening in his jacket.

  “Is it Airi Bylund’s?” asked Anna-Maria. “Yes, I can see it is. Hi there, boxer.”

  “Oh, look!” said Rebecka, who had come over to Sven-Erik to say hello. “That’s quite a black eye you’ve got there!”

  She stroked the head of the kitten with the black ring around one eye. The kitten had no interest whatsoever in saying hello, she just wanted to climb out of Sven-Erik’s jacket to explore her new surroundings. She clambered up onto his shoulder, teetering recklessly. When Sven-Erik tried to lift her down, she clung on with her claws.

  “I’ll look after her while you’re away,” said Rebecka.

  Alf Björnfot, Anna-Maria and Rebecka were all beaming, as if they were looking at the baby Jesus in his crib.

  And Sven-Erik was laughing. At the cat who clung stubbornly to his jacket, then started to climb down his back so that Sven-Erik had to bend forward to stop her from falling off. The others had to loosen her little claws from his jacket.

  They called her “boxer,” “mischief,” “little tinker” and “trouble.”

  Ebba Kallis was woken by somebody ringing the doorbell at one-thirty in the morning. Ulrika Wattrang was standing outside. She was shivering, wearing nothing but pajamas and a dressing gown.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” she began in a despairing voice, “but have you got three thousand kronor? Diddi’s just arrived in a cab from Stockholm, and the driver’s going crazy because Diddi’s lost his wallet and I don’t have that much money in my account.”

  Mauri appeared on the stairs.

  “Diddi’s arrived,” said Ebba, without looking at him. “By cab. And he can’t pay.”

  Mauri made a small, resigned noise and went up to his room to fetch his wallet.

  All three hurried across the yard to Diddi and Ulrika’s house.

  Diddi and the driver were standing by the cab.

  “No,” said the driver. “She’s not coming back with me. You’re both getting out here. And paying for the trip.”

  “But I don’t know who she is,” Diddi defended himself. “I’m going inside now for a sleep.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said the cabdriv
er, grabbing hold of Diddi’s arm. “Not until you’ve paid.”

  “Right,” said Mauri, stepping forward. “Three thousand? Are you sure that’s correct?”

  He held out his American Express card to the driver.

  “Listen, I’ve had to drive halfway round Stockholm dropping people off, and it’s been a hell of a job. If you want to see the details of the route, that’s absolutely fine.”

  Mauri shook his head and the driver got in the cab to process the card. Meanwhile, Diddi fell asleep on his feet, leaning against the car.

  “What about her, then?” said the driver when Mauri had signed the slip.

  He nodded toward the backseat of the car.

  Mauri, Ulrika and Ebba looked in.

  A woman of around twenty-five was sitting there, fast asleep. Her hair was long and bleached blonde. Despite the fact that it was quite dark in the car, they could see that she was heavily made up, with false eyelashes and baby pink lipstick. She was wearing patterned sheer stockings and white, high-heeled shoes. Her skirt was tiny.

  Ulrika hid her face in her hands.

  “I can’t bear it,” she wailed.

  “She doesn’t live here,” said Mauri coldly.

  “If you want me to take her back it’ll cost you,” said the driver. “Same again. I’ve actually finished my shift.”

  Mauri handed over his card again without a word.

  The driver got back in the car and swiped it again. Climbed out after a while, got the second slip signed. Nobody spoke.

  “Can you open the gate?” said the driver as he got in the car.

  As he started the engine and drove away, Diddi, who had been leaning on the car, crashed to the ground.

  Ulrika cried out.

  Mauri went over to him and got him up on his feet. They turned him so his back was toward the outside light, and looked at the back of his head.

  “He’s bleeding a little bit,” said Ebba. “But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

  “The gate,” exclaimed Ulrika, dashing into the house to open it with the remote control.

  Diddi grabbed hold of Mauri’s arms.

  “I think I’ve done something really stupid,” he said.

  “Make your confession to somebody else,” said Mauri harshly, pulling away. “Coming here with some fucking tart. Did you invite her to the funeral?”

  Diddi swayed on his feet.

  “Fuck you,” he said. “Fuck you, Mauri.”

  Mauri turned on his heel and walked quickly to the house. Ebba scurried after him.

  Diddi opened his mouth as if to shout something after them, but suddenly Ulrika was by his side.

  “Come on,” she said, putting her arm around him. “That’s enough now.”

  FRIDAY MARCH 21, 2005

  Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stålnacke parked their rented Passat outside the first set of gates on the track to Regla. It was ten o’clock in the morning. They’d flown down from Kiruna that morning and hired a car at Arlanda.

  “Quite a fortress,” said Anna-Maria, gazing through the bars toward the next set of gates and the wall surrounding the estate. “How does this work?”

  She looked at the telephone by the gate for a moment, then pressed the button with a picture of a receiver on it. After a moment they heard a voice asking who they were and whom they were looking for.

  Anna-Maria Mella introduced herself and Sven-Erik, and explained why they were there. They wanted to speak to Diddi Wattrang or Mauri Kallis.

  The voice on the other end asked them to wait. Quarter of an hour went by.

  “What the hell are they doing?” hissed Anna-Maria, pressing the button again like mad, but this time nobody answered.

  Sven-Erik went and stood a little way off among the trees and had a pee.

  What a beautiful place, he thought.

  Gnarled oak trees and deciduous trees he didn’t know the names of. No snow. Wood anemones and scilla beginning to emerge through the brown carpet of last year’s leaves. It smelled of spring. The sun was shining. He thought about his cat. His cat and Airi. Airi had said she could look after Boxer whenever it was necessary, but Rebecka Martinsson had been so quick to offer this time. And that was probably for the best. What would Airi think if he took the kitten, then came back the very same day and asked her to look after it?

  Anna-Maria called out from the iron gates.

  “Somebody’s coming!”

  A Mercedes was driving down toward the gates. Mikael Wiik, Mauri Kallis’s head of security, got out.

  Next to the big gates was a smaller one that could be used by pedestrians. Mikael Wiik greeted Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stålnacke perfectly pleasantly, but he didn’t open either of the gates.

  “We need to speak to Diddi Wattrang,” said Anna-Maria.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Mikael Wiik. “Diddi Wattrang is in Toronto.”

  “And Mauri Kallis?”

  “I’m sorry. He’s completely booked up for the next few days. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Yes,” said Anna-Maria impatiently. “You can help us to see Diddi Wattrang or Mauri Kallis.”

  “I’ll give you the number for Mr. Kallis’s secretary. She can book an appointment for you.”

  “Right, I’ve had enough of this,” said Anna-Maria. “Let us in. We’re investigating a murder, for God’s sake.”

  Mikael Wiik’s expression hardened slightly.

  “You’ve already spoken to both Mr. Kallis and Mr. Wattrang. You have to understand that they’re incredibly busy people. I can arrange for you to meet Mr. Kallis on Monday, although that will be extremely difficult. I have no idea when Mr. Wattrang will be back.”

  He passed a card through the gate to Anna-Maria.

  “That’s the direct number for Mr. Kallis’s secretary. Is there anything else I can do for you? I really do have to…”

  He didn’t get any further. A car came driving along the avenue toward Regla. It was a Chevrolet van with tinted windows. The car stopped behind Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik’s hired car. A man jumped out. He was wearing a dark suit and a black polo-neck.

  Anna-Maria looked at his shoes. Sturdy but lightweight boots made of Gore-Tex.

  Inside the car another man was sitting in the passenger seat. He had cropped hair and was wearing a dark jacket. She caught a glimpse of at least two men in the back, then the car door closed. Who were these people?

  The man who had got out of the car said nothing, didn’t introduce himself, just nodded briefly at Mikael Wiik, who nodded almost imperceptibly back.

  “If there’s nothing else…” Mikael Wiik said to Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik.

  Anna-Maria was battling with her frustration. She had nothing to counter his refusal to let them in.

  Sven-Erik gave her a look. No idea, it said.

  “And who are you?” she asked the new arrival.

  “I’ll move so you can get out” was all he said, walking back to the Chevy.

  The visit to Regla was over before it had even begun. Before Anna-Maria got in the car, she noticed a young woman on the other side of the wall. She was wearing a track suit, and was standing in the middle of a field of wood anemones.

  “What’s she doing?” she asked Sven-Erik as she was reversing in order to turn round.

  Sven-Erik peered through the gate.

  “Looking at the flowers,” he said, “but she seems very disorientated. Hey, look out for those tree roots.”

  This remark was addressed to the woman in the track suit, who was walking backward without looking.

  Ester Kallis was looking at the ground. Suddenly there were flowers everywhere. She hadn’t noticed them before. Had all these flowers been here yesterday? She didn’t know. She looked around for a few seconds, not noticing the cars and the people over by the gate.

  Then she looked through the oak trees.

  And she could feel his presence. She knew he was there. Maybe a kilometer away. A wolf that
had climbed up into an oak tree.

  He had them all in his sights. Keeping a count of how many came in and how many went out. He was looking straight at her at this moment.

  She took a couple of steps backward and almost stumbled over a tree root.

  Then she set off. Galloped off, away from the forest and the flowers. This must be over soon.

  It’s early summer. Ester is fifteen years old, and has just finished school. She’s been given a watercolor block and some watercolors as a present for taking her exams. There are flowers everywhere on the mountain, and she’s lying on her stomach on the ground drawing in pencil. In the evening she comes home, covered in mosquito bites and contented, and keeps her mother company in the studio, adding color to the day’s drawings. It’s wonderful to have proper paper that takes the color and doesn’t buckle. Mother takes her time and looks: the delicate, pretty mountain wildflowers she found at Njuotjanjohka, the fine-leafed cloudberry, the plump yellow globeflowers. Ester has taken pains over the details. Mother praises her for the care she has taken to show the veins on the leaves.

  “They’re lovely,” she says.

  Then she tells Ester to make sure she adds the flowers’ Latin names next to their Sami names.

  “They like that sort of thing,” she says.

  “They.” She means the tourists at the mountain station. Mother thinks Ester should frame the pictures in passe-partout, “it’s cheap and it looks nice,” and sell them at Abisko tourist station. Ester isn’t sure.

  “You can buy your own oils with the money,” says her mother, and the decision is made.

  Ester is sitting in the lobby of the tourist station. A train carrying iron ore is passing by on the way up to Narvik, and she looks out the window. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. A group of mountain walkers are standing out in the sun, adjusting the straps of their rucksacks. A happy-looking dog is running around their feet. It reminds her of Musta.

  Suddenly she becomes aware of someone looking at her pictures. She turns her head and sees a middle-aged woman. The woman is wearing a red anorak and putty-colored Fjällräven trousers that look brand new. “They” spend thousands on clothes for their days out.