The Hand that Trembles

by Kjell Eriksson

  The conversation with Torsten Stenberg had affected her mood in two ways. The feeling that there was another life, in a foreign landscape, with a different sound, but still so recognisable and near. If she stretched out her hand, her life with charr would be there.

  ‘Damn Bultudden,’ she mumbled, but it was the bay at Gräsö she saw before her.

  At the same time this initial contact with Sorsele meant a small break. Something that was immediately confirmed with her next call. Sorsele Campsite was first on the list of likely accommodations for a visiting sport fisherman. Ten or so signals rang out. Lindell was about to hang up when someone picked up.

  Lindell said what she was looking for.

  ‘That’s easy enough to take care of,’ said the man who had answered the phone, and introduced himself as Gösta Ohlman. ‘I’ll look him up in the book. What was it you said he was called?’

  ‘I didn’t mention it yet, but the name is Tobias Frisk.’

  ‘Has he gone missing?’

  ‘Not really,’ Lindell said. ‘I just wanted to check if he—’

  ‘Fishermen are good people,’ Ohlman said.

  Lindell heard the receiver put down and thereafter the sound of footsteps. Several voices in the background, perhaps a radio. How did a campsite in Västerbotten in northern Sweden look at the end of December? She had never been so far north.

  ‘They don’t cause any trouble.’

  His voice reappeared quite unexpectedly in her ear and it took a second for her to realise that he was continuing his argumentation about fishermen.

  ‘He was definitely here,’ Gösta Ohlman went on. ‘He arrived at the end of August and left a week later. I think I remember him. He’s from the coast, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, from Roslagen. Why do you remember him?’

  ‘He caught a grayling that was almost three kilos.’

  ‘And is that a lot?’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘Do you remember anything else?’

  The silence at the other end spoke vividly and Lindell could almost see how Ohlman hesitated.

  ‘You don’t have to feel that you …’

  ‘He met a girl up here,’ he said abruptly. ‘We weren’t too excited about that.’

  ‘A girl from Sorsele?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A pigeon was sitting on the left fence post and when Sven-Arne Persson approached it slowly turned its head. The perfectly round eyes regarded him without any apparent anxiety.

  He took this as a good sign but then became uncertain. Perhaps it was injured and unable to lift into the air?

  The street was completely empty and Sven-Arne had not seen a single person on the short walk from Norbyvägen where he had asked the taxi driver to let him out, except for a couple of schoolchildren in the distance. He had asked himself where this reluctance to be driven all the way up came from but had not found a good reason. Perhaps he had wanted space between himself and the destination in case he changed his mind at the last minute?

  He stopped a couple of metres from the gate. The pigeon was motionless. Sven-Arne pulled his coat tighter around his body.

  ‘What do you want?’ he muttered.

  The pigeon took some careful steps along the rail. Sven-Arne looked around. The small houses in a row with low fences or hedges toward the street looked like they had always done. The street had looked like this for approximately fifty years.

  Most of the original owners were likely gone by this point but maybe a few of them had hung on past their time. Sven-Arne believed the area was inhabited by younger families, the houses a typical starter home – in the career as house owner – before the children came.

  His father had had several acquaintances who had built homes in the area in the forties. These construction projects could take several years to complete at a time when decent industry and construction workers with fairly secure positions could take advantage of each other’s skills and helpfulness. One year basements could be dug out and the foundation laid. Thereafter they raised the frame, walls, and roof, and during the third season the house would be ready for occupancy.

  The work was done on evenings and weekends. There was a great deal of barter – the only possibility for workers and tradesmen to scrape together the material. It was possible to buy refabricated framing and lumber cheaply, or even get it free in return for hauling; it could be stripped of nails and scraped clean, to be reused again and again. Bricks could take the most remarkable journey through town, to finally end up in a self-built house. Wood from sugar crates was painstakingly freed from brackets and nails and lined walls in storage areas.

  It took years but finally these projects turned into homes that then represented the highest attainment of happiness for a factory worker at Ekeby or a heavy construction worker at Diös. A feeling of harmony characterised the neighbourhood, a sense of proportion between house and lot, something missing from the terraced houses in Eriksdal that Sven-Arne had just left behind.

  The pigeon broke into a sudden flapping and, alarmed, Sven-Arne backed up a step. The bird took flight in a wide arc over the tops of the apple trees, who with their abundance of thin upward-turned shoots mostly resembled clumps of reeds. Sven-Arne followed the bird’s flight with his gaze and saw it disappear between the houses.

  He was awakened out of these thoughts by a passing car. It slowed down a couple of houses away and turned in to the gravel area in front of the very small garage. A man got out of the car and as he took out a couple of grocery bags he subjected Sven-Arne to curious examination. Sven-Arne smiled and nodded at him. The man closed the car door with a bang and went into the house.

  The streetlamps flickered and turned on. Yet another car drove past. Sven-Arne walked in through the fence posts and walked up the path, just like twelve years ago, and set his sights on the front door. Everything was going much easier than he had thought.

  NIKLAS ÖHMAN – JENNY HOLGERSSON said the enamelled nameplate. He chose to use the clapper instead of the doorbell and in a way he wished that no one would open.

  The door was opened with a quick movement and a man stared at Sven-Arne with astonishment.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The directness of the question surprised Sven-Arne.

  ‘I … it’s a little hard to explain … but I am acquainted with the man who lived here before.’

  The man looked closely at him.

  ‘With Dufva?’

  Sven-Arne nodded.

  ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. He didn’t have any friends.’

  ‘I didn’t say friend. And to be precise he was not really my acquaintance.’

  ‘Are you a policeman?’

  ‘No, I just wanted to—’

  ‘Come on inside, there’s too much cold air blowing in.’

  Sven-Arne hesitated. He could still extricate himself, but he was more or less physically dragged inside the house.

  ‘There’s something wrong with the furnace, that’s why it’s so cold. Let’s sit down in the kitchen. It’s warmer there.’

  The man disappeared into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Sven-Arne followed him but ended up standing in the doorway, looking around. He could smell fish. Fresh vegetables were spread out on a countertop.

  ‘Sit down.’

  Sven-Arne obeyed. The man, who looked to be between thirty-five and forty, grimaced, pressing his lips together as if experiencing a sudden pain.

  ‘I must be intruding, I see you are in the middle of preparing dinner,’ Sven-Arne said. But the man waved this away. ‘I don’t know how to express this, but Nils Dufva meant a great deal to my family. What do you know about him?’

  ‘Not much,’ the man said. ‘But who are you?’

  ‘I am Sven-Arne, but the past couple of years I have gone by the name of John for the sake of expediency. I have been away for many years and now I am trying to get some
order in my life again.’

  The man nodded and appeared genuinely interested. Sven-Arne was slowly starting to warm to him, considering how he had let him into his kitchen without reservations.

  ‘Nils Dufva was in Spain during the thirties.’

  ‘That’s nothing new,’ Niklas Öhman said. ‘He was always going on about Spain.’

  ‘So you met him?’

  ‘Of course. Jenny and I have been together almost twenty years. We met in school and she cleaned for the old man, bought his groceries, that kind of thing. Sometimes I helped around the house, things that Dufva couldn’t manage. Two or three times a year he would invite us to dinner, either here or at the pub. They were crazy events. The old man went on about all kinds of historical shit.’

  ‘What did he tell you about Spain?’

  ‘That he was down there fighting in the war, but it mostly came out in episodes. I’m not so sure about the facts other than that they had a civil war, and to be totally honest I didn’t listen particularly carefully.’

  ‘You didn’t think that there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he was there and—’

  ‘Nothing could be out of the ordinary with that old man,’ Niklas Öhman interrupted. ‘He was odd, to say the least. You know that he was in Germany later during the war?’

  Sven-Arne nodded.

  ‘A real Hitler lover. He hated Russians and Communists. That was his thing.’

  ‘My uncle Ante was also in Spain.’

  ‘Damn. Did Dufva and your uncle know each other?’

  ‘Ante was a Communist.’

  Niklas Öhman stared quizzically at Sven-Arne.

  ‘They fought on opposite sides?’

  ‘You’re quick on the uptake,’ Sven-Arne said. ‘Maybe they bumped into each other down there, I don’t know, but Nils Dufva was important in some way for my uncle. I came here to possibly get some clues. I knew that Jenny had moved in here after her relation died, and I thought that she might have had some information—’

  ‘Has your uncle died?’

  ‘No, he is still alive, I have just come from him at any rate, but he doesn’t tell me anything, not about Dufva at least.’

  Niklas Öhman got up and walked over to the kitchen counter, took up a knife, and started to cut up what Sven-Arne believed was fennel, while he went on to talk about how they had renovated the whole house. Jenny Holgersson had developed an almost fanatical obsession with obliterating all the old traces of her relative.

  ‘Jenny doesn’t want to talk about him either.’

  ‘But she wanted to live here?’

  ‘The price was right. When he died Jenny had lived in rental flats for many years. To get a house was … you understand, I’m sure.’

  ‘So she inherited the old man? Did she get a lot?’

  Niklas Öhman stopped his knife.

  ‘Quite a bit,’ he said, and then halved some carrots with a couple of swift slices. ‘He was richer than you would have thought. He never talked about money or …’

  ‘So they weren’t close?’

  ‘Jenny and Dufva? No, not at all, but she felt a duty to step in, with housecleaning and the like.’

  ‘But she stood to inherit,’ Sven-Arne observed.

  Niklas Öhman glanced at him over his shoulder.

  ‘What do you want, anyway – I thought you wanted to find something out about Dufva?’

  ‘I don’t really know what I want. Perhaps get some order to the story, or to understand my uncle. The fact is that you are the first person I’ve really talked to since returning to Sweden. Besides Ante, of course.’

  Up until this point in the conversation, Niklas Öhman had turned his head from time to time and looked at Sven-Arne over his shoulder, but now he put down the knife, turned, and leant up against the counter.

  ‘Why was Nils Dufva so important?’

  ‘He died,’ Sven-Arne Persson said.

  ‘As we all do at some point. You should ask me, I associate with human remains a great deal.’

  ‘Are you—’

  ‘Archeologist,’ Öhman said. ‘And now Dufva is a heap of bones in the earth. And that is nothing that concerns me. He is history. And that’s fine by me.’

  ‘Would you mind if I took a quick look around the house?’ Sven-Arne asked suddenly.

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it, but it would help me understand my uncle’s argumentations.’

  He felt his cheeks heat up. Perhaps the lie was too weakly constructed for Niklas Öhman to swallow.

  ‘I definitely don’t want to go nosing around, I don’t want you to think that. But I would like to see the room where Dufva died. I believe—’

  ‘What do you know about his murder?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Sven-Arne replied. ‘I just know that Dufva and Ante were up to something.’

  Some of his confidence returned and he now launched into a wordy explanation that he deliberately left somewhat unclear. He sensed that if he presented himself as somewhat confused it might help his cause. Öhman might think he may as well authorise a short tour of the house, and then try to convince his visitor to leave.

  ‘I want you to be gone when Jenny gets back. She has put all that behind her. Most of all she wants to forget about the old man. It was hard enough to find him dead. He was lying in the living room with his head bashed in. She had to have therapy for a couple of years in order to try to forget and move on, and still, I can sometimes see on her face how hard it is for her and sometimes she can’t even walk into the room. She’ll never be free.’

  ‘Could I possibly have a carrot? I haven’t had much to eat for a while.’

  Niklas Öhman stared at Sven-Arne Persson, shook his head, and gave him a peeled carrot.

  ‘I don’t want Jenny to become upset, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sven-Arne said, without thinking of the fact that he was speaking English, and took a bite of his carrot.

  ‘Just a minute, then maybe Ante’s talk will make more sense to me.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Öhman echoed. ‘I’ll show you.’

  He left the kitchen and led the way into the hallway before Sven-Arne had time to get to his feet. They walked out into the living room that was directly connected to the entry hall.

  ‘Well, this is it. This was where he died,’ Niklas Öhman said. ‘He was lying face down. We have redone everything, painted and hung wallpaper.’

  The furnishings were relatively contemporary and Sven-Arne realised it would have looked completely different in Dufva’s time.

  ‘So they met here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sven-Arne said. ‘He rambles on about so many strange things.’

  He felt Öhman’s eyes on him.

  ‘Does Jenny grieve for him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, is that why she doesn’t want to go into this room?’

  ‘I don’t think you understand. She found him, and it was not a pleasant sight.’

  Sven-Arne nodded.

  ‘Thanks for the carrot,’ he said. ‘It tasted good.’

  He walked back into the hall, slipped his feet into his sandals, and unhooked his jacket from the peg. Niklas Öhman was watching him from the doorway to the living room.

  ‘You need new shoes,’ he said.

  ‘Not where I’m headed,’ Sven-Arne said, and put his hand on the front door handle.

  At that moment the door opened and he stood eye-to-eye with a woman. He understood at once it was Jenny Holgersson. She was flushed red and panting. Her cheeks bore vivid acne scars.

  ‘Hi, Jenny,’ he said.

  Niklas forced his way past, put a hand on Sven-Arne’s shoulder, and pushed him out so that he almost tripped in front of Jenny.

  ‘Go!’ he rasped in Sven-Arne’s ear.

  Jenny Holgersson managed to slink in between the doorpost and Sven-Arne, but he had time to catch sight of the fear in her eyes.

&
nbsp; ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘He invited himself in,’ Niklas Öhman said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Sven-Arne said. ‘We’ve had a nice conversation. And I got a carrot.’

  He felt strangely elated. He was glad that he at least got a look at Jenny Holgersson, even though he was not likely ever to get to talk to her, but to get a face meant he had an easier time imagining Dufva’s life and death.

  ‘Go away!’

  Niklas Öhman slammed the door shut with a strong bang.

  ‘I want to talk to a homicide detective,’ Sven-Arne Persson said, and at the same time presented his number slip. He was customer number sixty-eight.

  The receptionist took the slip and inspected it before she tossed it into a basket on the counter.

  ‘What does this concern?’

  Sven-Arne shivered and felt his face grow warm and probably flush a flaming red.

  ‘That’s not important,’ he said.

  The woman studied him and he realised he must present a remarkable and foreign sight: bearded, with hands marked with labour, his skin weathered by wind and sun, and clothes as out of place as when he stepped off the plane at Arlanda. In addition he probably smelt strange, of curry most likely.

  ‘Are you reporting a crime?’

  Sven-Arne nodded. She thinks I am an alcoholic, he thought. But the idea of how he was judged did not affect him at all.

  ‘A crime,’ he said. ‘A serious crime. My name is Sven-Arne Persson,’ he added after a couple of seconds, as if that would explain something.

  Suddenly there came the sound of shouting from the entrance and he turned around. There was a man there dressed in a gigantic ankle-length overcoat, and a fur hat of the kind that older men wore in the sixties. He was gesticulating wildly.

  A younger man, probably a relative, Sven-Arne determined by their resemblance, was trying to calm the older one.

  The woman behind the counter sighed. Sven-Arne smiled at her.

  ‘Nice to have a little life around here,’ he said, but realised as soon as the words came out that it was the wrong thing to say.

  ‘You want to meet with a homicide detective and report a serious crime? It can take a while for—’