A summer with Kim Novak

by Håkan Nesser

  He took the road that led east through the woods, toward the Levis, and it turned out to be an especially short spin.

  Short and so goddamn shocking, as he later told the journalist from Kurren. Only a few kilometres into the ride, he comes charging down the winding road past ours and the Lundins’ parking spots. Full speed. Bent over the handlebars. Sees two parked vehicles. A black VW and a red Volvo PV 1800.

  The Volvo makes him brake so sharply that he’s practically standing on his ears in the gravel on the road.

  Or rather, what’s next to the car does.

  The passenger’s door is open and just below it on the ground a person is lying on their stomach. It’s a man wearing narrow black shoes, light polyester trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. This is what Crook-mouth sees when he turns his bike around and goes back up the hill. He glimpses a striped blazer on the driver’s seat. The man is lying on his front, but slightly contorted, with his arms stretched alongside his body. As Crook-mouth says to the reporters and the photographers several times: The arms were what made it click.

  Something wasn’t right.

  A living person doesn’t lie like that. You can tell at a glance, at least if you have a pair of eyes in your head, and Crook-mouth certainly does. It’s around quarter past six and he’s guiding his racing bike toward the unbelievable thing with great caution and care.

  Sees what he already knows.

  Sees that the man lying there has a gaping hole in his head, and that it’s covered in blood: his hair, his shirt and the ground around him.

  He can’t tell who it is, because of course he doesn’t dare touch the body and turn it over. You’re not supposed to do that, anyway. It’s the police’s job to turn dead bodies over, not Lasse Crook-mouth’s.

  No, Crook-mouth doesn’t identify the man in the clearing; we do. Henry and Edmund and I, because we’re the ones he comes running to, shouting at the top of his lungs.

  And it’s we who run with him up the path, and we who stand in a semi-circle around Bertil ‘Berra’ Albertsson, and not one of us says a word.

  Not one of us. Three of us know that it’s Super-Berra who’s lying there, but none of us lets anything slip. Not one sound.

  Neither does Lasse Crook-mouth. For thirty seconds, four people stand there, staring at a fifth who is no longer a person, and these are the longest thirty seconds of our lives.

  Then we look at the clock and see that it’s six twenty-five. It’s the morning of 12 July and the Incident is a fact.

  When Lasse Crook-mouth left to go and call the police from the Lundins’, I knew there was something I had to find out, even though my head felt scrambled. I managed to make eye contact with my brother Henry and to mouth the question ‘Ewa?’, looking in the direction of Gennesaret. I don’t know why I felt I had to keep Edmund out of it, but I did. It was as if this had to stay between me and my brother. This, whatever it was.

  I think Henry understood me, but he didn’t answer. He simply shook his head gently and lit a Lucky Strike.

  I sighed and put my arm around Edmund. He was shivering in the cold morning air, but otherwise, it was just as he’d predicted.

  The strep throat had eased during the night.

  15

  The first police car arrived while we were still by the parking spot. Crook-mouth had returned—along with Gladys Lundin and a woman about thirty years her junior who was her double. Smaller and paler, she didn’t have a cane yet, but she was valiantly chain-smoking and her breasts were already drooping down toward her belly button.

  ‘That’s the way that cookie crumbled,’ was Gladys’s first comment. ‘Lucky none of the men are home, or the cops would pop straight down and pick them up.’

  No one else had an opinion about the situation. Super-Berra lay where he lay on the gravel, but no one seemed to want to take a closer look. We spread out in a protective semi-circle of sorts, with our backs to the Incident, and when the black and white Amazon turned up with three uniformed policemen and one in plain clothes inside, we had to give them our names and then trudge home and sit tight.

  ‘Goddamn,’ said Edmund when we were back in our room. ‘Goddamn.’

  I realized that I was feeling very sick and considered going into the woods and sticking a finger down my throat, but the waves of nausea retreated. I shut my eyes and hoped that I could sleep for an hour or two, but that was wishful thinking. From the ground floor, I heard Henry sit down at the Facit and begin to write; I thought it was strange that he’d do that at a time like this, and indeed the clatter stopped after a few minutes.

  ‘Hey, Erik,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Let’s not talk about it now. I can’t hack it.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘It’d probably be a good thing if we got some rest first.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Edmund said anyway. ‘Can you believe the bastard is dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Berra Albertsson is dead.’

  The detective arrived around nine. He was called Lindström and wore a pale suit and a bow tie, and, except for his black, slicked-back hair, resembled Ture Sventon, P.I.

  One at a time, he greeted us: shook hands and then said his name, Detective Superintendent Verner Lindström, three times. He smelled faintly of cologne and spoke carefully and thoughtfully, as if he were making an effort to discard any unnecessary and frivolous words before speaking so he could be sure to say exactly what he meant. He exuded a certain confidence, and I saw that he wasn’t to be toyed with.

  Naturally, he started with Henry. They locked themselves away in the kitchen and while Edmund and I wandered around the house, we could see them sitting in there at the table covered with the checked wax cloth, like two chess players.

  Because we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves, we went up to the clearing to have a look.

  Four other cars had arrived at the scene; it had been cordoned off and on black and yellow signs it read that a crime scene investigation was under way and it was forbidden for unauthorized persons to cross the police line. Edmund explained to a cocky constable that we were the ones who had found the body—almost, if you didn’t count Lasse Crook-mouth—but that didn’t help. We had no business being there. Still, I noticed that Berra Albertsson’s body had been removed and thick chalk lines had been drawn around where it had lain.

  I also saw several men in green overalls crawling in and around the red Volvo. They wore thin gloves and held brushes and magnifying glasses. Suddenly, the scene felt so unreal that I had to pinch myself in the arm to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Edmund noticed what I was doing and shook his head grimly.

  ‘It won’t help,’ he stated. ‘You might as well accept you’re awake, mate.’

  A number of others were milling about outside the barrier, but not many. I saw Crook-mouth and his dad, the old Levi couple and a few folk from Sjölycke. As well as a couple of journalists and a photographer.

  But not many, as I said. I guessed that the world didn’t yet know that the handball legend Berra Albertsson was dead. You could still tell yourself that nothing had happened. Almost.

  But that feeling wouldn’t last long; and then I realized that Henry’s Killer was inside the police ropes and placards and for some reason I felt so cold that I started to shiver.

  Yes, I must’ve been awake this whole time.

  When we arrived back at Gennesaret, Henry’s interrogation was finished. It was Edmund’s and my turn to sit at the kitchen table with Detective Lindström. Before we went inside I began to think about when Berra and I had talked out on the lawn not twenty-four hours ago.

  ‘I’m just going to check on something,’ I said to Edmund and left him for a few seconds.

  It was as I thought. There wasn’t a trace of the gob.

  ‘As you know, there has been a serious incident,’ the detective began. ‘It’s important that everyone’s statement is as accurate as possible so that we can sort this out. No guesses. No lies. Is tha
t clear?’

  Edmund and I nodded.

  ‘Your names, please.’

  We gave them.

  ‘And you’re living here this summer?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Together with Henry Wassman, who is also your brother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time did you go to bed last night?’

  Edmund explained that he had gone to bed at half eight because of his strep throat. I said I was in bed about half an hour later.

  Detective Lindström didn’t have a tape recorder, but he wrote down every word we said with a blue biro in a notepad that lay in front of him on the table. He kept one arm bent protectively around the pad, so it was impossible to read his writing. You could tell it wasn’t his first time questioning someone, and my respect for him grew.

  ‘And what time did you fall asleep, approximately?’

  ‘At once,’ explained Edmund.

  I hesitated.

  ‘Ten, I think.’

  ‘Was either of you awake later during the night?’

  Edmund wrinkled his forehead for a moment and I let him answer first.

  ‘I went out for a pee,’ he said.

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Edmund. ‘Haven’t the foggiest.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice anything unusual then?’

  ‘No,’ said Edmund. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Was it raining?’

  Edmund thought about it.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t raining.’

  Detective Lindström made a note.

  ‘And you?’ he said, turning to me. ‘Were you awake at any point during the night?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was your brother at home last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What time did he come home?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not while I was awake, in any case.’

  He turned to Edmund again.

  ‘Did you notice if Henry was home when you were relieving yourself?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Edmund.

  ‘You didn’t see if his light was on?’

  ‘I think it was off. Why don’t you ask Henry when he came home yourself, Detective Lindström, sir?’

  Lindström didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he set his sights on me.

  ‘And there’s nothing else that you think we should know about?’

  ‘No.’

  He wrote a few words on the pad.

  ‘Tell me what happened this morning,’ he then said.

  Edmund and I took turns retelling how Lasse Crook-mouth’s shouts from down on the lawn had woken us. How, together with him and Henry, we’d rushed up to the parking area to see what had happened. How we’d waited there while Crook-mouth called the police from the Lundins’.

  ‘Do you know who was on the ground?’ asked Lindström.

  Edmund and I looked at each other.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was Berra Albertsson.’

  Lindström nodded.

  ‘Did you know this already then? When you saw him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How come you recognized him?’

  ‘We had seen him before,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Where?’ said Lindström.

  ‘Around,’ said Edmund. ‘In Lackaparken, for example.’

  ‘He’s been in the papers, too,’ I added. ‘In Kurren.’

  Lindström adjusted his bow tie and made a note. Leaned back and thought for a few seconds.

  ‘He hadn’t paid you a visit?’

  ‘Berra Albertsson?’ said Edmund. ‘No, he hasn’t.’

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘Not when I’ve been home, at least.’

  ‘Do you know if your brother was acquainted with him?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he wasn’t.’

  ‘Have you seen him around? In Sjölycke or anywhere around Möckeln?’

  We thought about it.

  ‘No,’ said Edmund.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  Lindström took a tube of Bronzol out of his inner pocket and shook out two pastilles. Weighed them for a few seconds in his hand and then threw them in his mouth with a practised gesture.

  ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you’ve never seen Berra Albertsson in the area?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Only in Lackaparken,’ I said.

  ‘And you didn’t hear anything unusual last night?’

  We shook our heads. Detective Lindström chewed on the Bronzol pastilles, deep in thought.

  ‘All right then,’ he said and then the interrogation was over.

  Our fathers took the twelve o’clock bus and Laxman picked them up in his yellow taxi from Åsbro.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ said my father.

  ‘It’s out of the question,’ said Edmund’s.

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Henry.

  Edmund’s dad took out a handkerchief that was as big as a tent and patted his face and neck.

  ‘Easy?’ he snorted. ‘How the heck can we take it easy? A murder was committed one hundred metres from here. Are you mad?’

  He looked at Henry with wide-open eyes, and when Henry didn’t answer he turned to my father.

  ‘Is he mad?’

  ‘You have to go back to town,’ my father repeated. ‘This won’t work. It’s unbelievable. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’

  Henry lit a Lucky Strike and got up from the kitchen table.

  ‘Do what you like with the lads,’ he retorted. ‘I’m staying here.’

  ‘You want to go home, right, boys?’ asked Edmund’s dad in a milder tone. ‘You do want to get back to town as soon as possible?’

  I looked at Edmund. Edmund looked at me.

  ‘Not on your life,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ my father repeated. ‘I’m speechless.’

  ‘Don’t you understand? A murderer is on the loose!’ said Mr. Wester.

  They stayed the whole day and spent the night, and the next day Edmund and I agreed to go back to town with them if they promised that we could return to Gennesaret the day after, as long as no other act of violence was committed around Möckeln. Edmund went home, and I went with my father to the hospital and sat for an hour with my mother. Her hair had been washed and set, but otherwise she seemed unchanged. Perhaps she was paler. We spoke about Berra Albertsson’s murder the entire time—the newspapers had dedicated several pages to it—or, more precisely, my mother and father talked about it while I mostly sat in silence, nodding and pretending to agree with everything they said. The results from the doctors’ latest tests weren’t ready yet, so there wasn’t really much else to discuss. It was what it was.

  Before we left the hospital my mother took my hand and held it between both of hers for a while. She looked at me with a kind of gravity and I thought she might share another one of her strange words of wisdom.

  She didn’t.

  ‘Take care of yourself, my boy,’ is all she said. ‘Take care of yourself and take care of Edmund, too.’

  We went home on the eight o’clock bus. Then I slept one night at Idrottsgatan and the next day, a Saturday, Henry came and picked Edmund and me up and we returned to Gennesaret.

  16

  Even though we were so close to the heart of the action, we had to read Kurren and the Läns newspaper to find out about the police’s progress with the case. On the first day, Police Chief Elmestrand explained that there was a good chance of finding the perpetrator in the near future, and they had no intention of calling in the National Criminal Investigation Department. He had total faith in Detective Lindström and his men, he said, but the ever-vigilant general public was welcome to share any information that might shed more light in the case. It was important that everyone did their part to help solve this brutal tragedy that had befallen our region and the Swedish sporting community.

 
The national handball team had been dealt a blow, as Bejman put it in the Läns newspaper.

  With regard to the suspect’s identity, the police didn’t have any answers on that Saturday. They said they were pursuing several leads, but it was too soon to focus their suspicions on any one person.

  Perhaps it was the work of a madman. Perhaps there were other motives.

  According to the facts that were reported in the papers, it was assumed that Bertil ‘Berra’ Albertsson had met his killer some time between twelve and two on the night between Wednesday and Thursday. Apparently, the perpetrator had launched his attack just as Albertsson was getting out of his vehicle in the small parking area where he was later found—next to the gravel road that ran through the forest between the Sjölycke resort and the Fläskhällen beach on Lake Möckeln. They were still in the dark about what Albertsson had been doing there at that time of day. In spite of the information provided by people who had known the deceased—his fiancée Ewa Kaludis, for instance—nothing had surfaced that could shed light on the matter.

  The murder itself had been committed with a so-called blunt object, probably a heavy hammer or a small sledgehammer. A single blow had been enough; it had made contact with Albertsson’s head from above, cracking through the crown of his skull to the brain. It was assumed that he died instantly.

  ‘Right in the nut,’ said Edmund as he set Kurren aside. ‘Shall we go for a swim?’

  From the start, Edmund and I seemed to have an understanding. An unspoken understanding that we wouldn’t talk about the murder. At least not more than absolutely necessary. But neither of us could stop thinking about it; it overshadowed everything else. The Incident occupied every nook and cranny of our minds, all of the time.

  It was far too much to process. That was clear without even having to talk about it.

  Edmund and I had a lot of unspoken understandings. It felt both completely natural and a bit strange. Although we hadn’t spent more than a couple months together, we knew where we stood with each other. It was as if we had known each other our entire lives. We could have been twins, I thought once.