The Hand that Trembles

by Kjell Eriksson

  Lindell glanced at the painting that stood leant up against the wall.

  ‘Is that one for sale?’

  ‘What does it mean to you?’

  ‘The sea,’ Lindell said. ‘The shore.’

  She didn’t want to add anything else, afraid of becoming too personal and vulnerable. Lisen was someone who had earlier seen through her, caught the scent not only of Dove and jasmine but of loneliness. If Lisen was so perceptive, she probably picked up on other things too.

  ‘You can have it,’ Lisen said.

  Lindell protested but Lisen maintained that the watercolour painting was a gift. She did not want to sell it. If Lindell wanted it, she would have to accept it as a Christmas gift.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lindell said. ‘It is the most beautiful—’

  Lisen silenced her with her hand. Their eyes met. Lindell knew she had a budding friend in Lisen, if only she could nurture the relationship. She lowered her gaze, checked her watch, and knew she ought to call Marksson and pick him up.

  ‘The other ones, Sunesson and Malm. How are they?’

  ‘Lasse Malm has been by a couple of times. He wanted to impress me a little, puff himself up. And he is undeniably powerful. Thomas likes to brag but is basically a nice guy. A little prim. I think he would have trouble letting anyone get too close.’

  Lindell recalled Sunesson’s neat and tidy home, verging on pedantry.

  ‘They’re going to end up like Torsten, so the future of Bultudden is secure,’ Lisen said with a smile.

  ‘What will you do if your mysterious visitor comes back?’

  ‘Take out my pepper spray,’ Lisen answered.

  ‘I think you should call.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Me, or better yet Bosse Marksson. Or 911.’

  ‘You believe me? That I heard someone, I mean.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I believe you?’

  ‘But who would it be? If Tobias wasn’t dead I would guess it was him. He was interested in me.’

  Lisen stood up.

  ‘I’ll wrap up the painting,’ she said.

  ‘Do you mind if I take a walk around in the meantime?’

  ‘Of course, you’re probably a better police dog than I am.’

  The sea was still glossy. A few solitary, fluttering snowflakes strengthened the feeling of isolation that reigned. Lindell walked along the water, convinced that any nightly visitor would have kept to the shoreline. It was not completely selfevident, but walking through the dark and thorny forest appeared more difficult.

  She saw nothing out of the ordinary, no trace of any human except for an aluminum can bobbing in a clump of reeds. Had Lisen scared herself for nothing? The fact that she could hear footsteps through the logs of the cottage walls meant she either had unusually good hearing or a lively imagination. Lisen’s talk of mind and body had not impressed Lindell.

  After a couple of minutes she turned and walked back to the house. Lisen stood in the doorway watching her. Lindell shook her head.

  ‘Here you go, a present from Bultudden,’ Lisen said, and held out the wrapped painting.

  ‘Thank you!’

  They stood there for a second without speaking.

  ‘Call me if you notice anything out of the ordinary,’ Lindell said finally.

  ‘In that case I’ll be calling every day,’ Lisen said, and fired off the smile that made her entire face light up. Lindell understood that the neighbouring men were interested in being warmed by such a smile, if not her art.

  ‘See you later,’ Lindell said, but was not convinced by her own words.

  Bosse Marksson was waiting by the mailboxes outside Torsten Andersson’s house. Lindell pulled over and her colleague jumped in. He didn’t say anything about the fact that Lindell’s visit with Lisen had taken a long time.

  ‘So what did our friend Torsten have to say?’

  ‘Not much. Mostly we just chitchatted about old times. He knows everyone.’

  ‘But is friends with no one,’ Lindell said.

  Marksson looked at her. ‘Is that Lisen’s analysis?’

  Lindell nodded.

  ‘She may be right,’ Marksson conceded. ‘What else did she say?’

  Lindell described Lisen’s night-time experience.

  ‘And it wasn’t all in her mind?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m not sure, but it feels right somehow. There is some kind of force field over this area, can’t you feel it? From Andersson’s house to Lisen’s cottage: a slab of land jutting out into the sea with four – now three – bachelors, three old couples, and a lonely artist.’

  ‘Force field?’

  ‘I don’t know how else to explain it. Maybe it’s just my own mind-ghosts but I feel a kind of bubbling energy under the surface. But it is a form of anger that will never be released, at least not constructively. It is a rage that turns inward.’

  ‘I see,’ Marksson said.

  ‘I’m trying to understand,’ Lindell said, ‘and I know I’m going on and on. It’s a lot of feeling and not so much knowing. It also feels tragic. If this sliver of Sweden can’t be happy then who can? Do you understand? Everything becomes so clear out here. In the city we’re concealed by all the people, we hide and are hidden. Here there is no place to hide.’

  ‘What points to them being unhappy?’

  Lindell glanced at Marksson.

  ‘I know you think I’m talking nonsense, but, as I said, I think the whole area feels sad and repressed.’

  ‘It is another life, but the people out here are supposedly unhappier than—’

  ‘That’s not what I mean! Lisen said something about Christmas, about the stress and crazed shopping. She is going to celebrate it out here. It can seem lonely but the loneliness in town is just as great. Only out here it appears more clearly. Visualise this: A lone woman lights the fourth candle of advent, then eats herring and ham all by herself. That sounds so pathetic. But how many forlorn characters aren’t there in Uppsala?’

  ‘You would know more about that,’ Marksson said.

  ‘Okay, we’ll drop my mind-ghosts. We have an investigation that leaves more questions than answers. What do we do about that?’

  ‘I was thinking about the seal-shooting rifle, the one that Frisk put to his head. Where did it come from? Torsten mumbled something but I never did get it straightened out.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Lindell asked.

  ‘That he had seen a lot of those rifles in the past.’

  ‘But not that one? You’ve shown it to him, haven’t you?’

  ‘I think he recognised it, but didn’t want to say anything.’

  ‘Maybe he just wanted to confuse us.’

  ‘That would be typical of him, I admit. But all the same I got the feeling he’s sitting on something.’

  ‘That would mean the rifle belonged to someone else. Because if it had been Frisk’s weapon, Torsten should have been able to say so. Don’t you think? Even if he likes toying with the police.’

  ‘Torsten muttered something about everyone knowing that Frisk had never owned a weapon, never had one. He said something about “what business would a person who doesn’t hunt have with a gun?”’

  ‘Inheritance. The gun is old.’

  ‘I asked my dad. He’s sure that Frisk’s father didn’t hunt either.’

  Lindell digested this information. It was clear that Marksson had put a lot of thought into it.

  ‘You could play a little fast and loose,’ she said after a couple of kilometres. ‘Go to Sunesson and tell him we have information indicating it is his rifle. Then do the same with Malm. Just to see how they react. Stir the pot.’

  ‘Risky,’ Marksson said, but did not elaborate.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lindell answered.

  The snowfall was getting heavier, and shortly before they reached Östhammar they encountered a snowplough.

  ‘A white Christmas,’ Lindell said.<
br />
  ‘A merry Christmas,’ Marksson said, and smiled his widest smile.

  They parted outside the police station. Marksson was going to walk to the library and drop off some books before having lunch. Lindell declined to accompany him. She felt a need to be alone for a while and had also arranged to meet with Ottosson in the early afternoon.

  On top of this, she was dieting, but this was not something she admitted even to herself. I’m not hungry, she told herself. I can stop on the way and buy some fruit.

  She felt that they were walking around in circles. The reason for it was dissatisfaction over how the case was developing, or rather because it had ground to a complete halt. They had a confirmation from Sorsele that Tobias Frisk had been seen with a Thai woman and that she had accompanied him when he checked out of the campsite. Their colleague in the area had promised to try to check with the agents who imported the foreign labour to see if they had further information on record regarding their berry-picking recruits.

  Stolt in Thailand had collected a saliva sample from the sister in Krabi and sent it to Sweden. In a week or two they would see if there was a match with the dead woman’s DNA. Every person’s DNA is unique but between close relatives there were always similarities to support an identification.

  Everything was falling into place, and yet not. Lindell wanted a motive. She wanted a body. She wanted to understand why Frisk had shot his brains out, and she wanted to know more about where the seal-shooting rifle had come from. Many wants, but the chances of satisfying them were marginal. The question about the suicide weapon was the only one where they could hope for a reasonable explanation.

  She had lunch – a banana, an apple and a bottle of water – in the car at a petrol station in Gimo while she thought about the person who had been sneaking around outside Lisen Morell’s cottage. Lindell believed her, wanted to believe her, despite Lisen’s talk of feelings and spirit that was at times more than a little wacky. If she was correct in her assertion of a prowler, who could it have been? It could of course be someone from Lisen’s earlier life, perhaps a rejected suitor returning to spy on her, but it was more probable that it was one of Bultudden’s inhabitants creeping around in the dark. And if that was the case, why? Was there a tangible threat to Lisen? Was there some connection to Patima and Tobias Frisk’s suicide, and in that case what did it consist of? Did Lisen have some significance that she may not have been aware of herself?

  Lindell went through the candidates in the area and three names emerged as the most likely: Torsten Andersson, Thomas B. Sunesson, and Lasse Malm. In that trio there was also – Lindell was convinced of it – a concealed knowledge about Frisk’s life during the past year that could help explain what had happened.

  She stepped out of the car, walked over to a rubbish bin, and threw out the remains of her lunch. The tabloid headlines outside the petrol station screamed out news of a soap opera star who had had an affair with a married man, who in turn apparently had alcohol problems and a pregnant wife. The headlines of Upsala Nya were more discreet but dramatic nonetheless, with the sensational news of the county commissioner’s return.

  ‘Bultudden,’ she said aloud, trying to imagine a reality show about the inhabitants of the Avenue.

  Who is sleeping with whom? Who hates whom? Who is cheating his neighbour? Who is bluffing me and Marksson?

  A crow came hopping over the concrete. It had a piece of paper in its beak. A mail crow, Lindell thought. Have you got a letter? She imagined the eagle, a little heavy and clumsy but also majestic, far above Bultudden. In its claws it held a foot. It was dripping blood over the waters of the bay.

  A berry picker, she thought, and an image of the chainsaws on Såma’s shop wall welled up. She shivered and felt pain radiating out from her midsection. The crow hopped closer, flapped its wings, then lifted off, careening in the wind and finally disappearing behind a car wash.

  FORTY-THREE

  ‘He is a psychological riddle,’ Ottosson said, and Lindell could not help but smile. ‘Come on now, don’t laugh at me. A politician. A man at the height of his career who commits the contemptible murder of a defenceless old man, returns after twelve years, and then seems proud of his actions. No remorse whatsoever.’

  ‘We’ve seen it before,’ Lindell remarked.

  ‘But not in this way. Admit that he is a remarkably atypical murderer.’

  ‘He has a remarkably atypical uncle as well. I told you about him before. Talk about an unbelievable character.’

  ‘Beatrice has interrogated him,’ Ottosson said.

  ‘Bea? What did he say?’

  ‘Ante Persson was dumbfounded when she said that Sven-Arne had confessed to the killing of Dufva. She could hardly get a word out of him after that. He just stammered. Beatrice assessed him as senile.’

  ‘Completely wrong! He’s sharper than most of us.’

  Lindell talked about the contents of Ante Persson’s bookcase, how he appeared to plough through books in any number of languages and had not shown any signs of decrepitude, except that his legs seemed weak.

  ‘Has he also been in politics?’

  ‘If so, it would have been to the far left,’ Lindell said.

  ‘Morgansson went along and took the old man’s prints. As you know, we have a handprint from a piece of furniture at Dufva’s.’

  ‘And it didn’t match the county commissioner’s?’

  Ottosson shook his head. ‘Dufva did not have a large circle of acquaintances. That is to say, he did not have one at all. Jenny Holgersson – the relative who card for him – could not recall a single visitor from outside the family.’

  ‘So you think Ante Persson came along inside the house?’

  ‘We’ll see. Allan thinks so. Why would the two of them go there in the car?’

  ‘A murder on the fly.’

  ‘That is what Sven-Arne is claiming, but I don’t believe him.’

  ‘And what do you base this on?’

  ‘Thirty-eight years of police work,’ Ottosson said, grinning.

  Allan Fredriksson popped his head in the door, which was somewhat ajar. He nodded at Lindell.

  ‘The fingerprints in Dufva’s house belong to Ante Persson. Left thumb and pointer finger on well-polished oak. There’s no doubt about it. The old man was there.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be darned!’ Ottosson exclaimed. ‘Have you talked to Sven-Arne?’

  ‘He’s sleeping again. The guy can apparently nod off at any time. Sammy and I thought we would wait for him to wake on his own. We think it’s best. But we have to interrogate Ante Persson again and hear what he has to say.’

  ‘I’ll come along,’ Lindell said impulsively. ‘I’ve met him before. Can’t you and I handle it, Allan?’

  Fredriksson glanced at Ottosson, who nodded his consent after a second or so.

  It was a different Ante Persson who greeted Lindell this time. The power and confidence were gone. What remained was an old man with trembling hands and a gaze that expressed confusion and helplessness.

  ‘The police are back,’ he stated.

  Ante Persson was sitting in bed. He was wearing a pair of wrinkled trousers and a cardigan that was more or less clean. He had slippers on his feet. One hand was resting on his thigh, the other was pulling bits of wool out of the front of the cardigan.

  ‘Hello, Ante,’ Lindell said. ‘You remember me from the other day. This is my colleague, Allan Fredriksson.’

  Ante lifted his head and looked at her, and something of his old edge gleamed in his eyes. Lindell realised she had spoken too loudly.

  ‘We have some things to talk about,’ she went on, and wondered if she should proceed with some small talk. She decided to get straight to the point. ‘As you know, your nephew has confessed to the murder of one Nils Dufva. Now we are wondering if you can shed any light on that day, in the autumn of 1993. We have some new information.’

  Ante Persson’s face did not reflect that he had heard or understood a word of what she had said
. His hand continued to pull wool threads out of the jumper and roll them into tiny balls.

  ‘We think you were there,’ Allan Fredriksson said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That you were in the house when Dufva was killed.’

  ‘I have no idea what Sven-Arne is up to,’ Ante Persson said. ‘He must have got a bit messed up when he was in India.’

  ‘Were you there?’

  ‘Nils Dufva is dead and buried,’ Ante said. ‘And that’s just as well.’

  ‘Please answer the question.’

  Ante breathed audibly. ‘Sven-Arne is a peaceful man.’

  ‘Your fingerprints were in the house,’ Lindell said, and sat down next to him. ‘Were you present at the time of the murder? Had you been there before?’

  Ante shook his head. Wrong tack, Lindell thought. Two questions in one breath. She started over.

  ‘Did you know Nils Dufva?’

  She put her hand on his left arm. Ante turned his head and stared her in the eyes. Am I going to get this old, she wondered. His cheeks were covered in red dots. A couple of grey hairs stuck out of his chin. He was breathing heavily, his breath sickly sweet and not altogether pleasant.

  ‘Dufva was a Nazi, a full-blooded Nazi. He is dead, and now I think you should leave.’

  ‘Not until you have answered my questions.’

  ‘You can read all about it in my memoirs.’

  ‘You’re writing your memoirs?’ Fredriksson broke in.

  Lindell shot him a look.

  ‘You are a socialist, and he was a Nazi. That much is clear,’ Lindell resumed. ‘That means you could hardly have been the best of friends. But did you meet him in a political context?’

  ‘I had never seen his face,’ Ante said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t want to think about it, can’t you understand that? There’s so much else I need to work through. I am old, too old. I am one of the last. What do you know about poverty? Squat!’