by Anna Jansson
“Are you sure they’re all dead? It’s not just the pigeons in the galvanized tub by the door?” Berit asked feebly. Now she had to sit down. She felt like she was going to faint. A high, ringing tone cut through her head and the sound of Petter’s voice came and went in waves.
“Come in, Petter, and don’t stand outside.”
“Every single pigeon! I counted them. There was even one too many. Sometimes I just can’t figure him out. What is it with him?”
“Have you tried calling his cell phone?” Berit rubbed her eyes and adjusted her bathrobe. It was annoying that she was running around half-undressed when people came.
“I’d gone to bed. Feeling a little under the weather,” she excused herself and tied the sash even tighter around her stomach. “Ruben wasn’t feeling well either when I was there yesterday. He’d gone to bed. I had to take care of the pigeons for him. Could I have done something wrong, do you think? Given them the wrong feed? It would be terrible if I did something to make a mess. What would people say?”
“I’ve called his cell phone at least twenty times. Could something have happened to him? Maybe he fell and broke something? What if he killed himself! First he kills off the pigeons and then himself. Is that possible? I hope I’m wrong, but we ought to take a look.”
“I don’t know if I’m able. I’m not feeling well at all. It must be the flu or something. Or else it’s the creamed morels we ate. Ruben had some too. You’re right, we must see what’s going on.” Berit staggered out to the hall again and opened the outside door. The daylight cut into her eyes and she felt weak and dizzy. “May I hold your arm, Petter? I hope no one sees that. Because what would people say? But it’s probably necessary if I’m going to make it all the way over there.”
“But Berit, I thought you’d never ask.” Petter let out one of his famous laughs and placed his arm around her. “I’ve gotten worse offers, my dear.”
They banged on the kitchen door, but nothing happened. It was locked. The formal entry with the little glassed-in porch was never used and it was locked too. They would not have expected anything else. Berit was getting more and more anxious and self-accusing. If she had poisoned Ruben Nilsson she would not be able to live with the shame. Not as a cook.
“We’ll probably have to break in,” said Petter Cederroth. “The question is where it will do the least damage. It will have to be a window. We’ll have to knock out a windowpane.”
“No, we can’t do that, can we? What if someone sees that and wonders. What would they say then?”
“I don’t care. Necessity knows no law. If we take one of the cellar windows that will be cheapest. Although I’ll never make it through that little hole,” he said, putting his hands on his imposing beer belly. “Would you consider—”
“Absolutely not!” Berit gasped for air. She was neither willing nor able to do such a thing. “Never, ever!” True, she was slightly less expansive than Cederroth, but not by much, and the mere thought of disgracing herself made her choke.
“Then it will have to be one of the kitchen windows.” Where Petter Cederroth was concerned, words always quickly led to action. Before Berit had closed her mouth he had taken his clog and knocked out the kitchen window by the steps and started removing shards of glass from the molding. “I see the key, it’s in the lock on the inside of the door. I’ll open for you in a moment,” he said, heaving himself up into the window with surprising agility.
“Be careful you don’t hurt yourself when you jump down on the glass.”
“Ouch, dagnabbit.” Cederroth staggered and put his foot down alongside his clog. He cut a big gash in his heel. “It’s bleeding like hell. I’ll have to wrap something around it before I open the door for you,” he shouted from the darkness. “It will have to be the kitchen towel. It’s dark as the grave in here. I can’t see a thing, dagnabbit. I really cut myself.”
“He hasn’t touched the food I brought,” Berit noted when she had come in and opened the refrigerator. The creamed morels were still in their little serving dish and the omelet was on the plate. Limping, with a flowery piece of cloth around one foot, Petter made his way upstairs to Ruben’s bedroom. Berit sat at the kitchen table with her hands feebly in her lap. She could not bear to take another step. Her legs would not hold her. After a little while Cederroth came down again with a strange expression on his face. He was holding onto the handrail with both hands with such a firm grip that his knuckles were white as he sought her eyes. It looked as if he was about to start laughing or crying or both at the same time. He looked really horrid, thought Berit, and his voice would barely obey him.
“What is it, Petter? Why do you look so strange?”
“He’s dead. Dead as a doornail. Completely cold. I touched him with my hand and patted his cheek. Like this.” Petter stroked his big fist over the handrail. “Ice cold.”
“Good Lord, what are we going to do? What if it’s the mushrooms!” Berit put her hands to her mouth and closed her eyes. All she wanted was to get away from here, far away to a safe place where everything was as usual. Her dizziness was increasing and she felt like she was going to vomit. She got up quickly and fumbled her way over to Ruben’s toilet. His bridge was in a water glass on the edge of the sink. That was enough to trigger the reflex. Berit got on her knees and held onto the seat as her stomach churned inside out.
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” said Petter. “Yes, I’m going to. No more protests now. This may be serious. I guess they’ll have to send out a doctor who knows what to do with … the body. Or do you call the police? You probably call 911. But I’ll do that on the way to the hospital. If it’s the mushrooms this may be urgent.”
“But Ruben … we can’t just leave, can we?”
“Well, he’s not going to run away. He’ll stay where he is. Your stomach may have to be pumped.” Cederroth took hold of Berit’s arm and helped her to her feet.
“Are you sure he’s really dead? It can’t be that it looks like—that he’s asleep?” Berit wrung her hands in despair and hoped for a miracle.
“Dead as a doornail—and now you’re going outside with me, so I can drive the car up.”
“I don’t even have any clothes on. This is terrible. I have to put regular clothes on. This can’t be happening. If he died from the mushrooms I might as well stay home and die too. What will people say? There’s going to be talk. I won’t be able to go to the store, won’t be able to look anyone in the eye—”
“It’s not certain that he died from the mushrooms. He may have had a heart attack or a stroke or what do I know. Now let’s take it easy and then we’ll see what happens. There now, sit in the front seat. I have plastic bags here that you can use if you feel sick,” said Petter, placing the roll between Berit’s knees. He had been driving a taxi his entire adult life and knew not to take any chances.
At the emergency room they had to wait. At first a misunderstanding arose when the intake nurse thought the visit was about Petter Cederroth’s foot, which was conspicuously wrapped in a flowery cotton rag. She was busy and had a hard time making sense of the story. The wound on the foot was rather deep and it had bled profusely. Berit fainted the moment when the flap of skin was turned to the side so that the periosteum came into view. This was taken as a shock reaction. Petter Cederroth’s talk of stomach pumping, homing pigeons, and a deceased neighbor was taken as “crazy talk.” There must be some reason why he had an escort. He was apparently not properly oriented.
When the woman did not revive at once, a doctor was summoned and it was quickly determined that her condition was serious. Oxygen saturation was down to 79 percent and blood pressure immeasurable. She was lifted up onto a stretcher and taken into a treatment room. Left behind in the waiting room was Cederroth. He watched the little lamp by the door change from green to red and wondered what that might mean. A little boy was driving his plastic tractor on the floor and rolled right over Cederroth’s foot. It hurt so much that he screamed in pain and the boy started cr
ying. To show that he was not offended Petter offered the mother and the little boy each a piece of candy and then it was his turn to go into a room to get stitches.
“When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?” the doctor asked. He looked young and inexperienced, but he appeared confident enough as he injected the syringe of anesthetic.
“I can’t remember. Well, if I think about it I got a rusty nail in my butt when we were tearing down a shed one time. There must have been four years ago, I think.” Petter grimaced. The stitches still hurt quite a bit despite the anesthetic. The doctor could have waited a little longer before he picked up the needle. On the other hand it was over quickly. It was a nice-looking white bandage too. Petter was about to tell the doctor about Ruben when the man heard an alarm and rushed off. Through the open door Ruben saw Berit’s bed being taken toward the elevators at great speed. He really wanted to ask how she was doing. The oxygen mask she had on her face and the activity around the gurney were alarming. Was it that serious?
No one came into the room for a long time. They seemed to have forgotten him. Half an hour passed and Petter sat up again on the edge of the cot. Perhaps he should just say thanks and go home. He couldn’t lie here waiting. The nurse in reception was occupied with a young mother with a screaming baby in her arms and Petter did not care to speak with her. He had to go home and try to sleep a couple of hours before the night shift started.
Chapter 6
On Thursday the twenty-ninth of June, the day after Ruben Nilsson found a new pigeon in his dovecote, Mats Eklund left the apartment on Donnersgatan in Klintehamn in great haste. He did not even bother to tie his shoelaces, much less pull on a jacket despite the chill in the air.
He hardly suspected that the worries that occupied him at the moment would take on new proportions before the evening was over. As he closed the door behind him he doubted that there was any way back. It had finally been voiced. There was no way around it. His jogging session was only a temporary respite before his security was smashed to bits forever. He knew it was cowardice to just take off and he wished he could have approached it in a better way, but he needed time to think.
“Do you want a divorce?” Jenny had asked the question flat out and without the slightest trace of anxiety. She should be just as scared and shaky inside as he was, but she didn’t show it. Her face was strangely expressionless. Her neck twitched a little when she saw his surprised look, as if with a nod of her head she could help him along. But nothing came out. No dead certain yes. Not a “no, I love you, you know that” either. Not a “Why are you saying such a silly thing, darling?” They were in a borderland. In meaningless, and in every way unarousing trench warfare, about whose fault it was that the garbage didn’t get taken out and the stove wiped off. In the midst of their togetherness he felt so infinitely alone and unhappy and tired of it all. Was this life? Daycare, cloth diapers, organic carrots, and Jenny who had lost the desire for making love when she got the children she wanted. No, tonight I’m too tired. No, the children might wake up! But do the kids have to sleep in here with us? Yes, because Henrik is afraid of the dark and Stina threw up this morning. Was life supposed to be this monotonous? Sleep, work, pick up the kids, put the kids to bed, sleep, work … in a perpetuum mobile that was only interrupted by weekend shopping and visits from the in-laws. If they had a better sexual relationship presumably the other problems of life would have been first-degree equations to solve. Then there would have been warmth and intimacy that might have lifted them over the mountain of laundry and the mountain of ironing and the abyss of nighttime screaming. But that’s not how it was. I’m suffocating, he thought, and started to jog as he crossed the road to Klinte Church and continued up toward Värsände. He thought he would take the embankment home and quickened his pace to shake off the uneasiness. But his thoughts followed him like a swarm of sweat-loving flies.
Next week Jenny would be the coach at a soccer camp in Klinte School and spend the night there, and the children would be with their grandparents. It would be good if they could wait on a decision until after that. Then they would have time to think over what they should do, each one separately.
How could it get this way? They had loved each other so much. Where did the love go? The caresses, the words, the passion? Fear came over him with a force he was not prepared for. Abandonment like a dizzying abyss. The adrenaline was rushing in his blood and he felt nauseated.
Until now he had only thought about himself, about his own dreams about how life together with Jenny should have been, and deep down he had accused her of not fulfilling all his needs, as if he were a little child with the right to unconditional love. He had no idea what Jenny thought about their life together. He had never dared ask. What if she was the one who wanted a divorce and that was why she was asking him? No, this can’t happen. They needed to take it calmly and think it over before rushing off and doing something they couldn’t fix. They had to think about the children.
Mats Eklund was rounding the corner at the outhouse at the old abandoned farm in Värsände, when he caught sight of the tent. A small, dirty gray pup tent. He’d had one like it himself as a boy, with old-fashioned wooden pegs and a front flap tied with cord instead of a zipper. He couldn’t keep from peeking in. It took a little while for his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. Gradually a figure emerged from the gray. The sight of blood, black as pitch, could be discerned in the darkness. And white skin. A person. The sight made him gasp for air. He staggered backward and sat on the ground, got up again, and ran out toward the road to get as far away as possible from what he had just witnessed. He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone to call the police, but didn’t dare rely on his senses without checking that he’d really seen what he thought he saw. This time he tied back the flap and took a proper look. The view paralyzed him and he just stood there, unable to do anything. A man a few years older than himself was lying on a tarp on the ground. His eyes were staring vacantly and his mouth was open. A large, black, shiny bloodstain had spread over the light-colored shirt.
The police officer who questioned Mats Eklund was a woman. She introduced herself as Maria Wern, Detective Inspector. With her long blonde hair and brown eyes she resembled Jenny so much that it made him even more shaky and nervous. And the warmth and calmness in her voice caused him succumb to the tension and completely lose self-control.
“How are you feeling? Is it all right if I ask you a few questions?” He started shaking beyond all control. She waited for him and then very carefully asked question after question while she noted the incoherent answers. While they were talking he could not help glancing in the direction where the police technicians were working. A barricade had been set up. The body was carried out and covered. If he had looked in a different direction at just that moment perhaps he would have avoided the nightmares that would plague him, but his gaze was drawn there as if by a magnet. There was dried blood everywhere. When the men in uniform carried the body to the waiting black sack one of them stumbled on an uneven spot in the ground. For a moment he lost his hold and the dead man’s head was slung sharply backward, showing a large gap in the neck.
When Detective Inspector Maria Wern drove Mats Eklund home after he refused to go to the hospital, she was relieved to see that his wife was at home. She would have felt uneasy leaving him alone. When the murder victim was lifted into the black sack Mats fainted, simply collapsed in front of her. She didn’t think he struck his head, although she was not able to cushion the sudden fall. He was very pale and affected and his hands were shaking terribly. The wife’s name was Jenny. Maria had met her earlier in the week at an informational meeting about the soccer camp Emil had signed up for. Jenny was one of the coaches. She seemed confident and considerate and helped Mats sit down. She made sure he got something hot to drink and a blanket around his shoulders.
Back at the scene of the murder Maria wrote down the questions she had not had time to ask. She would have to return later that evening, when Mat
s Eklund was more composed. Maria went up to the barricade that surrounded the old farm buildings, the house and smithy and barn. Mårtenson was just rolling up the tarp the body had been lying on. He tried to avoid getting blood on his clothes. The victim had apparently bled profusely.
“He had no identity papers on him. It looks like he’s been sleeping right on the tarp, without a mattress. It must have been freezing.” Mårtenson shuddered at the thought. “And hard as stone. Something occurred to me. His clothes seem to be homemade, there are no labels on them, size, manufacturer, you know.”
“How did he get here? Did he walk?” Maria looked around for a vehicle. A car or a bicycle that might explain how he got there with his luggage.
“Hartman found a car, parked up on a gravel road in the bushes a little way up. He’s still there.” Mårtenson gestured in the direction and Maria headed toward it, after asking a few more questions for which the technician had no answers. A few hundred meters farther down the road Maria could hear Hartman’s voice from behind the shrubbery. Soon he became visible and alongside him was a rusty car of a make unknown to Maria, without wheel rims, and with the trunk jerry-rigged shut with twine. The car even lacked license plates, she noted after looking it over.
“Is this his car?” she asked.
“I think we can assume that.” Hartman opened the door to the driver’s seat with a gloved hand and held up a bag for a tent and a couple of wooden tent pegs. “But what was he doing here? Why was the car hidden? There’s a birdcage in the backseat. Did you see it? I think it’s made of willow, homemade. And there are some paintings wrapped in worn-out sheets. Nice oil paintings and the occasional watercolor. In the glove compartment there is a pack of cigarettes with Cyrillic writing, but no identification whatsoever.”