by Anna Jansson
“Wilma’s got laryngitis again. Her temperature’s 103.1 degrees.”
“How bad is it – do you need to go to the hospital?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’ll be really tricky waking up Tomas and bringing him, but I can’t leave him here by himself. Can you come?” She didn’t start crying this time. There was a calm, soft appeal in her voice and he promised. He was already regretting it by the time he was setting off in the car. But a promise is a promise.
Per went directly into the nursery to see how his girl was doing. He leaned forward in the dark, listening to her breathing. Wilma was sleeping calmly and deeply in her own bed. He felt her forehead, which was cool. Then turned with some puzzlement towards Rebecka.
“Things have calmed down. I gave her some ibuprofen. I wanted you to come anyway, so I could get an hour’s sleep or so. Things are calmer now but she needs watching.” Rebecka had lit candles on the coffee table in the living room and poured him a glass of wine. With a gesture she invited him to make himself comfortable on the sofa. He could surely do with a bit of rest, after all the excitement? Why not allow himself a glass, even though he had to drive home. The wine was peppery and good, she said.
Per Arvidsson felt all the air leaving his body. He’d worked himself up into a pitch of anxiety, and now the danger had passed. It amazed him just how quick everything went.
“I want you to hold me, I feel so alone. Just to hold me, nothing else.” She sat close to him and caressed his back without a word. Calm caresses. He put his arm round her and embraced her. The wild anxiety he’d felt came to rest. Everything seemed calm and melancholic now.
“How could life end up like this for us, Rebecka?”
She put her finger over his lips – didn’t want to talk. He felt the scent of her perfume, so intimately associated with lust. The body remembered. It had been so long since he last made love to anyone. The anti-depressants had made it impossible for him, and he’d repressed the need for sex so that he could slowly climb out of Hell and start living again. His sense of honor demanded that he had to make a living, pay his way. Now the medicine had been exchanged for a newer drug, and suddenly he felt his desire resurgent again. It made him happy, almost expansive, to feel this physical reaction. Without thinking about the repercussions he drank another glass of wine, which Rebecka poured him. Her hand continually caressed his back while the other hand alighted on his thigh when she happened to lean forward to refill her glass. Her breasts brushed against him. She didn’t take her hand away, merely leaned even closer into his arms. Her sweater was cut very low over her bust. The heat spread upwards toward the hot-spot. Her cheek gently touched his and her soft lips searched their way up from his throat to his mouth, while her hand on his thigh started looking for adventure.
There was a half-hearted protest.
When Per woke up the following morning in Rebecka’s bed, he wanted to shout out his bad conscience. His icy realization that he had failed Maria made him want to run away, rewind the tape, undo what had happened. How could he have let this happen? So easy, so meaningless. How significant is it within a relationship, every time we make love? We hardly even remember when we make love and when we don’t, not in day-to-day life. Often it’s just a kind of acquired behavior, something that helps us relax and sleep. So why did his unfaithfulness with Rebecka have to mean so much? Why did it make such a big difference if it happened before or after the break? Per examined his own arguments. No, he couldn’t play down the significance of what he had just done. All he wanted now was to get out of there and go home to his own life. Rebecka slept like a dead woman. Her big, wavy hair like a billowing sea over the pillow. Her mouth slightly open, a string of saliva suspended from a corner of her mouth. She mumbled something in her sleep and turned over, exposing her breasts. He pulled on his clothes as quietly as he could, but when he was leaving the room she reached for him.
“Thanks!” He squeezed her hand, and shook his head in response to her unarticulated question, when with her other hand she lifted the comforter and invited him to climb back in again. Her body was beautiful and inviting, but his bad conscience made him abstain. There would be no follow-up. He could see that this upset her, but he didn’t have the energy to stay and talk about it. All he wanted was to flee and have everything undone. Rebecka wanted something else. Maybe after all it was better to clearly state what his feelings were.
“What happened last night will never be repeated. It’s something between us. I hope you can keep it confidential. ”He thought he noticed a sort of flickering of her eyelids which he interpreted as concurrence. Most likely she thought him cowardly and deceitful, but right now he couldn’t cope with any further discussion about their relationship.
On the table in the living room stood two empty wine bottles. Presumably Per had himself drunk most of it. The car was parked outside in the street. Dawn was gray and cold and a fine drizzle was settling on the windscreen. He started the engine, turned on the windshield wipers, calculated how much alcohol he’d consumed – dividing this by the numbers of hours that had passed and the rate at which alcohol was broken down – then finally decided to leave the car where it was and walk home. His feelings were conflicted, to put it mildly. How the hell could things have ended up in such shambles? At the same time he couldn’t stop himself feeling ecstatic about his restored sexual potency.
The rain intensified, the wet and cold was penetrating to his skin as Per Arvidsson hurried homewards. It was no more than half past six, and there was hardly anyone around. The only people he met were a mailman on a bicycle and an elderly lady with a poodle. Should he tell Maria? Would she ever be able to forgive him? Every time she’d caressingly tried to seduce him he’d rejected her advances, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to get it up. She had held him and waited loyally, telling him it didn’t matter, she was happy enough just being near him. Damn the whole thing! Of course it makes a difference if one is impotent or not. And now when he’d finally got his potency back, he had ruined everything. Maria would never want to see him again. Maybe they wouldn’t even manage to work together any more. How the hell could he have done something so incredibly stupid? He knew Rebecka wanted him back again, yet he’d walked right into her trap.
If he told Maria, everything would be shot. If he didn’t, she’d probably never find out. Was it possible living a happy life without telling each other everything? Now when he knew his body was working as it should, he’d be able to give her all the good things they’d both been missing. Now he’d be able to look Death in the eye and say that he deserved his life because he wanted to live and love. He thought about the rope hanging in the hall and the hook he’d put up in his living room ceiling. In spite of his difficult situation, any notion of taking his own life now seemed infinitely remote. He no longer saw death as a way out. Finally he seemed to be returning to full health; in this difficult predicament he found himself in, this made him if not happy then certainly less heavy than he might have been. He decided not to tell Maria. What happened with Rebecka last night was a slip-up. In a way it was even good, because now he knew he was functioning normally. If people belong together and love one another there’s no point wasting their lives on separation.
The rain came down even heavier but Per did not take shelter as he walked through the lanes. He wanted to get home. As soon as he walked through the door he was going to call Maria to hear if she loved him and wanted him. He looked in his pocket for the key, but found to his surprise that the front door was unlocked and half-open. He sensed something wrong and walked round the house to the back entrance, where he found the window of the veranda door shattered. Under the outside lamp, shards of glass lay glittering on the ground. He picked up a stick from the ground and poked the front door open to get a better look inside. No doubt about it, someone had broken in. The door wouldn’t open completely, there was something in the way. The bookshelf had been moved. The stereo table had been pulled out at an angle in the room. The sofa cus
hions lay scattered on the floor. The coffee table had been shifted. What the hell! It looked as if there were a sack hanging from the hook in the ceiling where the chandelier had been hanging. Then suddenly it hit him with full impact that there was a person hanging there! Maybe he was still alive? A knife! Per charged into the kitchen. Within a few seconds he’d fetched a knife from the drawer, stepped up on the table, cut the man down, and loosened the rope round his neck. He also loosened his clothes, but there was no pulse and no breathing. For a brief moment he considered giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The tongue of the dead one was blue and swollen, the eyes were bloodshot and pressing out of their sockets. The thought of blowing air into the dead body turned Per’s stomach – he was almost unable to control his nausea. He turned away, trembling, and inhaled deeply; then straightened up and looked at the dead body. It was stiff and cold. He must have been dead for hours. Only when Per had calmed himself down somewhat did he realize who he was, even though his features had been so grotesquely transformed by the swelling. It was inexplicable. Utterly absurd. When he called the emergency number he was no longer a police officer reporting a situation. He was a civilian, stuttering awkwardly over his words.
CHAPTER 24
EK AND HARALDSSON WERE first on the scene. Per Arvidsson met them outside in the courtyard after what seemed like an interminable wait.
“He’s dead. There’s nothing we can do.”
Jesper Ek looked as if he couldn’t quite believe it. It seemed so unlikely.
“What, he was just hanging there in your living room? Jesus, that must have been a real shock to you!”
“You bet it was,” said Arvidsson in a muffled voice. It was a relief not being alone with the dead man. Everything that could have happened to Harry Molin had already taken place, yet it was still terrible to be in such close proximity to death.
“Do you know who he was?” Haraldsson was on his way into the house when Ek stopped him.
“Erika will skin you alive if you blunder in there and mess up the evidence, you know that don’t you?”
“I knew him,” said Per. “He was my neighbor, Harry Molin. I don’t understand it. I just don’t understand why he’d hang himself here. In my place? Was he worried he wouldn’t be found if he did it in his own place? He never had any visitors.”
“We’ve been trying to contact him at his own address. Maybe he was thinking of the dogs when he hanged himself here; because he didn’t want them to have to see it. I can hear them from here. He was probably worried they’d be left on their own for too long if no one found him.” Haraldsson wiped down the green-painted bench at the side of the house and sat down. “Didn’t he have any family?”
“A sister in Arboga,” Arvidsson recalled. “But I don’t know what her name is. I wonder why he did this? Why now in particular? Was he just sick of everything?”
“Maybe he was alone… unhappy.” Jesper Ek stood under the roof to avoid the drizzling rain. They waited. “Maria was trying to get hold of Harry Molin all day yesterday. She wanted to question him about the murder of Linn Bogren, for our information. Because he was her neighbor and we had evidence that he’d been at the murder scene. His dogs were left tethered at some point by her front door. We know that Harry and Linn sometimes spoke to each other and now he’s dead.” Jesper shoved in a pinch of snus. “You think it might have been him?”
“What, who killed Linn?” Per let the thought sink in. This was a quiet residential area. Harry had never shown the slightest signs of aggression, quite the opposite. His slow, slightly elaborate behavior may have irritated some, but in fact he was a calm and rather withdrawn man.
“That’s one possible reason for killing himself. Maybe he made a few advances and she resisted. What if he found it so humiliating and embarrassing that he couldn’t bear it? What if he killed Linn and then took his own life to avoid the punishment?” Haraldsson stood up when he heard the sound of an approaching car. “Erika?”
“Strange that he’d hang himself in someone else’s home, though. How did he know that hook in the ceiling would carry his weight?” Per sank down where Haraldsson had been sitting. His tiredness was like a lead weight in his body.
“He knew I was a policeman. Maybe he wanted to turn himself in. Just think if I’d been at home.” In the same moment that he spoke these words, he realized their implication. If he’d been at home and not in Rebecka’s bed, Harry may have been alive now… or both of them dead.
A car stopped outside the wooden fence. Shortly after, Tomas Hartman, Erika Lund, and a tall gangling man who was the doctor on call appeared at the gate. Erika greeted them tersely and started working without delay.
“We won’t cordon off the place until we’re done here. The police tape only attracts curious bystanders.” Tomas Hartman sat down on the garden bench next to Arvidsson.
“Once we start walking around knocking on doors people will come to have a peek anyway.” Ek gave Haraldsson a shove to rouse him out of his introspection. “Because we’re not really needed here any more, are we?” They were relieved to be able to leave the place.
“Your observation is quite correct.” Hartman opened his briefcase and took out his pen and writing pad. The situation did undoubtedly feel strange. “What’s your date of birth, Per?” Hartman took down the necessaries and then asked Arvidsson to take everything from the beginning.
“So you arrived on the ferry last night. What time did it come in? Just after midnight?” Hartman squinted over the top of his glasses to get a better look at Per’s face. He wasn’t quite accustomed to his new progressive lenses.
“The ferry was a quarter of an hour late, so it was about quarter past twelve.”
Hartman was perturbed. “But you only reported it now? That’s more than seven hours ago!”
“It’s true.” Only now did it become clear to Arvidsson that his overnight stay with Rebecka would not pass detection.
“I was with Rebecka and the children.” It sounded a little better than saying that he’d slept in her bed. At best, Hartman might believe that he’d stayed over with his children on the sofa in Rebecka’s living room, because she was coming home late and they were staying with her the following day.
Hartman gave him a look that quickly dispensed with that hope. Per felt himself enveloped in a hot flush. His cheeks burned. Hartman shook his head. “Sorry to hear it.”
“Yes.” There was nothing else to add. It had all gone to hell. And Hartman sat there looking virtuous. Damn him! “Have you never done anything stupid?”
“Yes, but it falls under the statute of limitations. I’m too old now. Not exclusively led by my hormones and a bit more comfortable. Are you going to tell Maria?”
“No.” Per felt his fear intensifying into something like vertigo. “No, I don’t want to lose her again.”
“Okay, that’s up to you. I’m not the right man to advise you, but…”
“So don’t, then,” said Per, feeling invaded and irritated. “Anything else?”
“You came home. And then what?”
Per Arvidsson tried to describe, to the best of his ability, the course of events – from the time he’d noticed the shattered window and then Harry’s body hanging from the hook in the ceiling – until the arrival of his colleagues.
“Harry told his doctor something important.…”
“Anders Ahlström. He’s my G.P. as well. He works at the health center serving this area.” Per had heard Harry talking about him on numerous occasions. Mostly, Ahlström was in his good books, but there were days when he was in the doghouse. It depended on the doctor’s willingness to consider Harry’s various theories.
“Harry told his G.P. that he’d run into Linn in the company of three men late one night about a week earlier. She wasn’t sober. The doctor mentioned this to Erika Lund, they know each other.…” Hartman’s face was like an open book.
“I know. They like to play doctor together,” said Per, in an unsuccessful attempt to be amusing. “W
hat are you driving at?”
“Harry also told the doctor that you were visited by Linn Bogren the evening before she was murdered.”
Per gave it some thought. In the fog of exhaustion, the days and details all seemed to merge. She’d come to him late one evening. He’d had a good deal more whisky than he should have. “She wanted to borrow the computer.”
“Why did she want to borrow your computer?”
“She’d sold hers on eBay or something. I don’t know. Surely we can check that. She was talking about some booking she had to make for a trip. I wasn’t even in the room while she was using the computer. I don’t know what she was doing.” Per thought back, tried to search his way back through memory, but all the details were lost.
“What sort of mood was she in? Full of anticipation? Happy? Frightened? Sad?” Hartman clawed at his scalp, making a rustling sound. Per’s dullness troubled him. He’d never hold up as a witness when he couldn’t remember things with any exactitude or keep a track of days and times.
“Don’t remember. I just thought she seemed a bit insistent. I didn’t want to let her in, I sort of felt she was disturbing me. I needed to be alone.”
“You’re aware of the fact that we have to take your computer in, and that you can’t live here for a while?”
“Yes, I’ll ask Ek if I can crash with him. I mean, he has a whole house, there must be some corner I can rent.” The most natural thing, Per thought to himself, would have been if he could stay with Maria. But he wouldn’t dare ask her. It was probably written on his forehead, what he’d done. Just think if she found out. What the hell would he do then?