Strange Bird (2013)

by Anna Jansson

  “Do you mean that all the general public needs to do is make an appointment for vaccination and possible prescription? This is amazing.” The reporter’s voice was shrill and excited.

  “To start with we want to discuss the matter with Social Services and the responsible disease control officer, and give the health and nursing administration on Gotland an offer. A package solution. And in parallel we are going to operate our vaccination clinic here at Vigoris Health Center as usual.”

  “What do you mean? Could you please clarify that a little?”

  “It will be possible to buy vaccine and medication at market price without waiting for a decision from Social Services to get a prescription from your county physician. Production of these products is not free of course. Naturally the company has expenses for product development, administration, tests. Costs we must recover, to put it simply. But we will surely find a solution together with the affected authorities.”

  “So it will be possible to pay for medicine and vaccination and get it without having one of the county physicians prescribe it? Is that what you mean?”

  “That’s how it has always worked with us. This will not happen uncontrolled, obviously. We have our own private physicians who in each individual case will recommend what vaccinations the patient should receive.”

  “So how much will a vaccination cost?”

  “We were thinking twenty-five thousand kronor per injection. The protection is calculated to be eighty-five percent and full effect can be counted on after two to three weeks.”

  “That’s a large amount. I wonder if regular people can afford that much. Doesn’t it seem extremely unfair if those who can pay move to the front of the line?”

  “We anticipate that the government will step in and subsidize this. For an individual that can be a lot of money. But if someone wants to pay for themselves and not burden the tax system I see no injustice in that, on the contrary. Then there will be more money left over for the healthcare administration to buy medicine with. We expect the same thing with the antiviral medicine. A course of Tamivir 75 milligrams morning and evening for five days will cost ten thousand kronor. Then we will see how much may be needed, that depends on how long the epidemic continues.”

  “Ten thousand? If I remember correctly, the price of a course of Tamiflu was less than a thousand before. Why is Tamivir so much more expensive?”

  “As stated we have our development and production costs and this is the current price on the market. I’m pleased that we can offer this. Things were truly looking grim. If Vigoris Health Center can save people’s lives and health through its efforts and prevent the community from being isolated from the outside world, with major financial and purely private losses as a result, we’re pleased to offer our help.”

  In her joy Maria tried to immediately contact Jonathan Eriksson. The line was busy of course. What had she expected? That she would be the first to talk with him about the news? Clearly he had been given first-hand information. Actually it was just as well that he didn’t answer, it would only be awkward. She was simply so relieved and grateful that the dark hell she had pictured to herself as she was lying on the floor next to Emil’s bed seemed to have ended. She wanted to share her joy with Jonathan. Very silly and like a teenager, if you thought about it. He obviously had other things to do. Instead she got to speak with Nurse Lena, who confirmed that a first shipment of Tamivir had arrived at the sanitarium and that Emil had received his dose.

  “Maria, phone for you.” Hartman’s gray-haired head appeared in the doorway and Maria followed him out to the corridor. “Yrsa Westberg, do you know who that is?”

  “Isn’t that Tobias Westberg’s wife?” For a moment she had hoped it was Jonathan. Why was she thinking so much about him? Emil’s health and future was in his hands, maybe that sort of dependent position produces an attachment that borders on love. This was as far as Maria could take that thought before she picked up the phone.

  “Yes, this is Detective Inspector Maria Wern.”

  “My name is Yrsa Westberg. I’ve been gone for a week and just returned. I’m concerned because I was expecting my husband, Tobias Westberg, to be here when I got back, and no one seems to know where he is.”

  “Yes, we’ve actually been trying to get hold of him.”

  “He’s not at home. I came home yesterday evening and he wasn’t here. He didn’t leave a note and hasn’t called and I don’t know where he is. It doesn’t look like he slept here last night … he’s not the type who would … sleep somewhere else.”

  “What do you think?” said Hartman later when they were in the car headed to Yrsa Westberg’s home. “Straying married men usually turn up at dawn when they’ve woken up in the wrong bed, but perhaps this is something different.”

  “Do you think he had a relationship with Sandra Hagg? I mean, is there any evidence of that?” Maria took out the directions to the house in Kappelshamn, although she doubted they would need it. Hartman knew the area well, having grown up nearby.

  “We have nothing that indicates they knew each other, actually. No more than the suspicions Lennie and Jessika expressed. And Jessika was not even sure of the name. At regular intervals there’s a ‘T’ in Sandra’s calendar and a time. ‘T’ might just as well stand for therapist or trainer, but how likely is that? ‘T’ may be Tobias or someone else. And if it is the case that she’s been seeing him, they had a meeting just over a week ago and one on July 4. We don’t know if he has anything to do with her being murdered. We don’t even know if he was there.”

  “Was she raped?” Maria wondered how much important information she missed when she was with Emil. “I think you should take this from the start,” she said.

  “The medical examiner’s preliminary report says that Sandra Hagg was strangled. There are no traces of sexual violence, no semen. On her left upper arm she had a small scratch. So we can assume that the perpetrator was also carrying a knife. Just like Lennie said, she had a bar code on one buttock. No skin scrapings under the nails. It doesn’t seem like she put up much resistance if there was a struggle. But as you saw, the furniture was smashed. We don’t know how long the murderer chased her around the apartment. My first thought was that she was struck in the head with a blunt object and then strangled. The medical examiner confirms that theory. She was struck on the back of the head. There is a contusion.”

  “But no one heard her scream for help. If she was chased in her apartment she would have tried to attract attention, don’t you think? What about Hans Moberg? The guy who sells medicine on the Internet? Where is he?”

  “It’s like he’s been swallowed up by the earth. We have the registration number for both the camper and the car and we have surveillance down in the harbor now, but he may have taken off before everything was closed, of course. In the past you always had to provide a registration number when you reserved a car place on the ferry over to the mainland, so we could’ve looked at the reservations, but it’s not that way anymore. He could have made his way to Nynashamn or Oskarshamn under a false name or else he’s still on the island hiding out somewhere, and if that’s the case we’ll probably find him soon.”

  Yrsa Westberg lived in a small white-plastered house in the town of Kappelshamn, twenty or thirty scenic kilometers north of Visby, past the Lummelund nature reserve, Lickershamn’s limestone pillar area, and Ireviken Bay with its greenish blue water. From a distance they could see her running with three border collies on an obstacle course in the shady yard. Morning light filtered through the trees and played in her blonde hair. An energetic woman of about forty with her hair in a ponytail, dressed in jeans and a big hand-knit wool sweater. The dogs obeyed her slightest hint and stood motionless as Hartman and Maria got out of the car and walked up toward them. Not until Yrsa asked whether they liked dogs and wanted to greet them did she give the dogs the sign to move and carefully nose them.

  They were shown into a comfortable kitchen filled with the aroma of fresh-baked bread. The
morning’s loaves were on checked hand towels to cool. While Yrsa set out coffee and home-baked sourdough bread, she told them in a calm, controlled way why she had contacted them.

  “Tobias is a freelance journalist. Sometimes he goes away to work on a story, but this week he was going to be home. I’m a graphic artist and had an exhibition in Skagen this week. We’ve been texting every evening to say goodnight. He’s been at home or in town or at least sent texts from his cell phone. I came home yesterday evening and I expected him at any time, so I made osso buco and opened a bottle of wine. But he didn’t come and I couldn’t reach him by phone either. The strange thing is that he had left the dogs with his sister the whole time I was on the mainland. She called yesterday evening and that was how I learned that she had the dogs. She hasn’t seen Tobias all week—not since the day I left. He must have gone there right away and dropped them off. Without saying anything to me.”

  “Did he usually drop off the dogs when he had a lot of work?”

  “Only if he was going away, never if he was at home. He would never bother his sister with that unnecessarily. Besides, Tobias thought he needed the exercise he got from walking them in the morning and evening. I’m so worried that something has happened to him. People drive like lunatics and I suspect there are a lot more drunk drivers now that it’s summer. You imagine all sorts of things. That someone mowed him down in a ditch and ran away or he had a heart attack … I’m terribly worried.”

  “Do you know what he was working on right now?”

  “We seldom talk about work. He’s not particularly interested in my art and to be honest I must say that I’m not terribly interested in his medical articles either. Yes, one thing is strange. The computer is gone. The desk is empty. The keyboard and monitor are still there.” Yrsa got up from the table and led them into the study. “I thought about that right after I phoned you, then I went out with the dogs and then it disappeared. I thought, how strange that he took the computer when he has a laptop. But maybe he took it in for repair somewhere. It’s a few years old. Although Tobias hasn’t mentioned that there was anything wrong with it. I think he would have said something.”

  Maria looked around the room. There was a balcony door on one side. A peculiar drapery of bottle caps and corks was hanging in front of it. Maria could not decide if it was bold or just terribly ugly.

  “You haven’t had a break-in, as far as you’ve noticed?” She inspected the doorframe and gave the door a slight push with her shoulder. It opened. On the balcony floor outside a pile of shavings could be seen and there were obvious cut marks on the wooden frame.

  “No.” Yrsa looked alarmed. “We live out in the country. I don’t even lock the bicycle. Nothing ever happens here.”

  “Is anything missing besides the computer?” Hartman inspected the damage to the door. “Looks like they used a knife and a crowbar.”

  “I don’t understand what they would do with the computer; it’s over ten years old, now that I think about it. You can probably get one like it for free. No, nothing seems to be touched,” she said when she had checked whether the bankbooks were still in the top desk drawer. “We don’t have anything valuable in that way. I’ve never been much for jewelry. Tobias’s only major interest is music. He has several shelves of CDs, but it doesn’t seem like any of those are gone either. Maybe they just didn’t find anything else to take.”

  “You have no idea what he was working on right now, not for which magazine or what subject it concerned?” Maria asked.

  “Not a clue, but you can get the telephone numbers for the publications he usually writes for.” Yrsa was about to sit down at the computer when she recalled that it was no longer there. “He must have taken the regular address book with him, it’s not here either.”

  “Does he have a calendar we can look at?” Hartman caught sight of the little blue book just as Yrsa put it in her hand. She browsed absentmindedly in it until she found the day’s date.

  “No, there’s nothing marked down—nothing he wrote down that he was going to do this week. Why are you looking for him? Do you know something I don’t know?” Yrsa’s face underwent a transformation. “If something has happened to him you have to tell me, anything else is cruel and inconsiderate.”

  “We don’t know where he is,” Maria hurried to say. “But we would like to get hold of him to find out if he knew a woman whose name was Sandra Hagg.”

  “Name was? What do you mean?” Yrsa stared at them, first one and then the other. She looked like a child who had fallen down and had the breath knocked out of her, the moment before the wailing starts.

  “Sandra Hagg is dead. We’re trying to figure out how it happened. Did your husband know Sandra?”

  Yrsa sank down on the chair by the desk. She suddenly turned very pale. “I know that they met. They had some kind of relationship. He was not himself. Not at all. He was up pacing around in the living room at night and sometimes he slept on the couch. Of course I got worried. I asked him if there was anything between them, but he denied it firmly. Good Lord, she’s dead! And Tobias is gone …”

  “There doesn’t have to be a connection.” Maria carefully placed her hand on Yrsa’s shoulder. “Could he have gone somewhere and forgot to mention where he was going?”

  Yrsa shook her head so that the ponytail bobbed, incapable of getting out a word.

  “Do you know where he usually keeps his passport?” Yrsa nodded and got up without a sound. After a while she came back from the bedroom. She had a determined look on her face; she blinked often to keep the tears back.

  “His passport is gone. He didn’t say that he was going anywhere. If he were traveling abroad he would have told me.” Yrsa burst into tears. “Here you’ve lived with someone your whole adult life and think that you know him as well as you know yourself. And then it’s not that way at all.”

  “Is there anyone you can ask to come here, someone who can be with you? I understand that this is hard.”

  “Tobias’s sister. Good Lord, what could have happened? You don’t think he could have … no. No, there’s no way. Tobias would never hurt anyone physically. He’s not that strong and he has always avoided contact sports and physical exercise, he’s not that type at all. He always jokes that when you sweat your muscles are crying.”

  “What do you think?” said Hartman when they were back in the car on their way into town.

  “I just compared Tobias’s calendar with the times in Sandra’s. Tobias has written X and the dates agree with Sandra’s calendar in every case. A love affair, or could it be something else? Appointments for massage perhaps? There is a time the evening she was murdered. It says T on the edge for 12:00 a.m. A little odd for a massage appointment.” Maria opened the side window and let the air stream in. What a summer!

  Chapter 27

  Yrsa Westberg watched the police head toward the main road. She caught a last glimpse as the white Ford passed the neighbor’s maple trees and the tall privet hedge. Then they were no longer there.

  The dogs came close to her, put their noses on her lap, and looked up at her with gentle eyes. Instinctively they sensed her worry and tried to console her. She burrowed her head in Rex’s black-and-white fur and let the tears flow. Felt the warmth and devotion, his silently present consolation, which people are so poor at giving. Words create distance and close others out, limit and steal attention from emotions. Only without words and in the warmth from another body is there relief. Dogs never question, never assess, they simply are.

  Even when she left for Skagen she’d had vague misgivings. There was something about the way Tobias quickly kissed her goodbye. He was constantly glancing at his watch. He helped her pack the paintings into the van and there were a few minutes to spare before it was time to leave. She was always punctual. He often teased her about that.

  Perhaps it was just that last half hour that made her wonder later and once again question her marriage. As soon as Tobias did what was expected of him—carried out the pain
tings, kissed her quickly—he sat down at the computer. Logged in and sat with his hands in a ready position waiting for … for her to leave. It was so obvious that he wanted her out of the house. She stood by the window and watched him, the man she had chosen to live with. For his sake she had moved from the village in Kalix, where her whole family lived, where her best friends were, where she was Yrsa without having to prove anything.

  “We’ll keep in touch,” they promised each other. “See you!” But it was not the same to visit once a year as to share everyday things. She had been so madly in love and young and full of expectations. She had never met a man like Tobias—never loved so much and been so validated and felt so whole. Right then the choice had been easy. Afterward came the hard part. Tobias did not want to have children. He could not imagine it, and his conviction was unshakable.

  Yrsa met her face in the hall mirror and smoothed her flat stomach. Soon it would be too late. This year she turned forty. It was the biggest compromise of her life and in the beginning she hoped he would change. Thought that it was a question of maturity, that the desire would come when people around them had children.

  “Why don’t you want to have children with me?” she pleaded. “How can you deny me this, when I want it so much? Don’t you understand how important this is to me? Answer me! I have to know why.”

  He tried to explain that he was unwilling and he didn’t want the responsibility, but for her that wasn’t enough. It was not the whole truth. Bit had been joined to bit. A sudden silence when she asked about his mother. The family photographs he should have had. What does the past have to do with the present, your parents’ lives with our lives?

  He could not put it into words until she finally confronted him with it. Tobias’s mother died during his birth. Tobias’s father never got over it. It remained as a silence, a yawning abyss, over his entire childhood.