The Savage Altar

by Unknown

  “No…”

  Come on, thought Rebecka, giving herself a pep talk. Don’t get upset. Just say what has to be said and hang up. Things can’t get any worse.

  “The police have found a knife and Viktor Strandgård’s Bible in Sanna Strandgård’s flat,” she said. “They’ve detained Sanna as a murder suspect; they’ve just driven off with her. I’m standing outside her flat at the moment. They’re just sealing it off. I’m going to take her daughters to school and day care.”

  The irritated breathing at the other end of the phone stopped, and Rebecka permitted herself a pause before she went on.

  “She wants me to defend her, refuses to have anybody else, and I can’t say no. So I’ll be staying up here for the time being.”

  “You’ve got a bloody nerve,” exclaimed Måns Wenngren. “You go behind my back. Embarrass the firm on television and all over the papers. And now you’re intending to take on a case outside the terms of your employment. It’s a competitive act, and grounds for dismissal, you do know that?”

  “Måns, don’t you understand, I want to take the case as a member of the firm,” said Rebecka agitatedly. “But I’m not asking for permission. I can’t back out of this. And I can do it—I mean, how difficult can it be? I’ll sit in on a few interviews, there probably won’t be too many. She doesn’t know anything and she can’t remember anything. They’ve found the murder weapon—if it was the knife—and Viktor’s Bible in her flat. She was in the church just after it happened. There isn’t a hope in hell of anybody getting her off if it gets to court. If they do decide to prosecute, which is not what I expect, I hope somebody who specializes in criminal law would back me up—Bengt-Olov Falk or Göran Carlström. There’ll be a lot of press interest, and some publicity on the criminal side would be good for the firm—you know that. It might be company law and tax cases that bring in the big money, but it’s the big crime cases that make a firm well known in the papers and on TV.”

  “Thank you,” said Måns deliberately. “You’ve already made a start on publicity for the firm. Why the hell didn’t you get in touch with me when you flattened that journalist?”

  “I didn’t flatten her,” Rebecka defended herself. “I was trying to get past her and she slipped—”

  “I haven’t finished!” hissed Mans. “I’ve wasted an hour and a half this morning sitting in a meeting about you. If I’d had my way, I’d be asking for your resignation. Fortunately for you, other people were in a more forgiving frame of mind.”

  Rebecka pretended she hadn’t heard. “I need some help with that journalist. Can you get in touch with the news team and get her to withdraw her complaint?”

  Måns gave an astonished laugh. “Who the hell do you think I am? Don Corleone?”

  Rebecka scrubbed at the car window again.

  “I was only asking,” she said. “I’ve got to go. I’m looking after Sanna’s two kids, and the youngest is taking all her clothes off.”

  “Well, let her get on with it,” said Måns crossly. “We’re not finished yet.”

  “I’ll ring or send you an e-mail later. The kids are outside and it’s bitter. A four-year-old with double pneumonia is the last thing I need right now. Bye.”

  She hung up before he managed to say anything else.

  He didn’t tell me I couldn’t do it, she thought with relief. He didn’t tell me I couldn’t carry on, and I haven’t lost my job. How come it was so easy?

  Then she remembered the children and hurled herself out of the car.

  “What on earth are you doing?” she screamed at Sara and Lova.

  Lova had taken off her jacket, gloves and both jumpers. She was standing there in the snow with her hat on her head, her upper body bare except for a tiny white cotton vest. Tears were pouring down her face. Virku was looking anxiously at her.

  “Sara said I looked like an idiot in the jumper I borrowed from you,” sobbed Lova. “She said I’d get teased at nursery.”

  "Put your clothes on at once," said Rebecka impatiently.

  She grabbed hold of Lova’s arm and forced her into the jumpers. The child sobbed inconsolably.

  “It’s true,” said Sara mercilessly. “She looks ridiculous. There was a girl at our school who had on a jumper like that one day. The boys got hold of her and pushed her head down the toilet and flushed it till she nearly drowned.”

  “Leave me alone!” bawled Lova as Rebecka dressed her by sheer force.

  “Get in the car,” said Rebecka in a tight voice. “You are going to nursery and to school.”

  “You can’t force us,” screamed Sara. “You’re not our mother!”

  “You want to bet?” growled Rebecka, lifting the two screaming children into the backseat. Virku hopped in after them, turning round and round anxiously on the seat.

  “And I’m hungry,” wailed Lova.

  “Exactly,” yelled Sara. “We haven’t had any breakfast, and that’s neglect. Give me your cell phone, I’m going to ring Granddad.”

  She grabbed Rebecka’s phone.

  “Like hell you are,” snapped Rebecka as she snatched back the phone.

  She leapt out of the car and flung open the back door.

  “Out!” she ordered, dragging Sara and Lova out of the car and throwing them down on the snow.

  Both children fell silent immediately, and stared at her with big eyes.

  “It’s true,” said Rebecka, trying to control her voice. “I’m not your mother. But Sanna has asked me to look after you, so neither you nor I has any choice. We’ll make a deal. First we’ll drive to the café in the bus station and have breakfast. Because it’s been such a terrible morning, you can order anything you want. Then we’ll go buy some new clothes for Lova. And for Sanna too. You can help me choose something nice for her. Now get in the car.”

  Sara didn’t speak, just looked down at her feet. Then she shrugged and got in the car. Lova climbed in after her and the older girl helped her little sister with the seat belt. Virku licked the salty tears off Lova’s face.

  Rebecka Martinsson started the car and reversed out of Sanna’s yard.

  Please, God, she thought for the first time in many years. Please help me, God.

  The redbrick houses on Gasellvägen were neatly arranged along the street like pieces of Lego. Snow-covered hedges, piles of snow and kitchen curtains covering the lower part of the windows protected them from anybody who might look in.

  And this family is going to need that, thought Anna-Maria Mella as she and Sven-Erik Stålnacke got out of the car outside Gasellvägen 35.

  “You can actually feel the neighbors’ eyes on the back of your neck,” said Sven-Erik, as if he’d read her thoughts. “What do you think Sanna and Viktor Strandgård’s parents might have to tell us?”

  “We’ll see. Yesterday they didn’t want to see us, but once they heard their daughter had been taken in for questioning they rang and asked us to come.”

  They stamped the snow off their shoes and rang the doorbell.

  Olof Strandgård opened the door. He was well groomed and articulate as he invited them in. Shook hands, took their coats and hung them up. Late middle age. But with no sign of middle-age spread.

  He’s got a rowing machine and weights down in the cellar, thought Anna-Maria.

  “No, no, please keep them on,” said Olof Strandgård to Sven-Erik, who had bent down to take off his shoes.

  Anna-Maria noticed that Olof Strandgård himself was wearing well-polished indoor shoes.

  He led them into the lounge. One end of the room was dominated by a Gustavian-style dining suite. Silver candlesticks and a vase by Ulrika Hydman-Vallien were reflected in the dark mahogany surface of the table. A small reproduction crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. At the other end of the lounge was a suite consisting of a pale, squashy corner sofa made of leather, and a matching armchair. The coffee table was made of smoky glass with metal legs. Everything was spotlessly clean and tidy.

  Kristina Strandgård was slumped
in the armchair. Her greeting to the two detectives who had turned up in her living room was distracted.

  She had the same thick, pale blond hair as her children. But Kristina Strandgård’s hair was cut in a bob following the line of her jaw.

  She must have been really pretty once upon a time, thought Anna-Maria. Before this absolute exhaustion got its claws into her. And that didn’t happen yesterday, it happened a long time ago.

  Olof Strandgård leaned over his wife. His voice was gentle, but the smile on his lips didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Perhaps we should give Inspector Mella the comfortable chair,” he said.

  Kristina Strandgård shot up out of the chair as if someone had stuck a pin into her.

  “I’m so sorry, yes, of course.”

  She gave Anna-Maria an embarrassed smile and stood there for a second as if she’d forgotten where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. Then she suddenly seemed to come back to the present, and sank down on the sofa next to Sven-Erik.

  Anna-Maria lowered herself laboriously into the proffered armchair. It was far too low and the back wasn’t sufficiently upright to be comfortable. She turned the corners of her mouth upward in an attempt at a grateful smile. The baby was pressing against her abdomen, and she immediately got heartburn and a pain in her lower back.

  “Can we get you anything?” asked Olof Strandgård. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”

  As if she had been given a signal, his wife shot up again.

  “Yes, of course,” she said with a quick glance at her husband. “I should have asked.”

  Both Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria waved dismissively. Kristina Strandgård sat down again, but this time she perched on the very edge of the sofa, ready to leap to her feet again if something came up.

  Anna-Maria looked at her. She didn’t look like a woman who’d just lost her child. Her hair was newly washed and blow-dried. Her polo-neck sweater, cardigan and trousers were all in toning shades of sandy brown and beige. Her makeup wasn’t smudged around her eyes or mouth. She wasn’t wringing her hands in despair. No screwed-up tissues on the coffee table in front of her. Instead, it was as if she’d shut out the outside world.

  No, actually, thought Anna-Maria, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She isn’t shutting out the outside world. She’s shutting herself in.

  “We appreciate the fact that you were able to come straightaway,” said Olof Strandgård. “We heard just a little while ago that you’d taken Sanna in for questioning. You must realize it’s a mistake. My wife and I are extremely concerned.”

  “I understand,” said Sven-Erik. “But perhaps we could take one thing at a time. If we ask some questions regarding Viktor first, we can talk about your daughter afterward.”

  “Of course,” said Olof Strandgård with a smile.

  Well done, Sven-Erik, thought Anna-Maria. Take command now, otherwise the visit will be over before we’ve got an answer to anything.

  “Could you tell us about Viktor,” said Sven-Erik. “What kind of person was he?”

  “In what way is this information likely to be of assistance in your investigation?” asked Olof Strandgård.

  “It’s a question we always ask,” said Sven-Erik, not allowing himself to be provoked. “We have to try and build a picture of him, since we didn’t know him when he was alive.”

  “He was gifted,” said his father seriously. “Extremely gifted. I suppose that’s what any parent would say about their child, but if you ask his teachers they’ll confirm what I say. He got top grades in every subject, and he was highly musical. He had the ability to focus. On his schoolwork. On guitar lessons. And after the accident he focused one hundred percent on God.”

  He leaned back on the sofa and pulled his right trouser leg up a fraction before crossing his right leg over the left.

  “It was no easy calling God laid upon the boy,” he went on. “He put everything else to one side. Left school, and gave up his music. He preached and prayed. And he had a burning conviction that the revival would come to Kiruna, but he was also convinced that this could only happen if the free churches joined together. United we stand, divided we fall, as they say. At that time there was no sense of community between the Pentecostal church, the Mission church and the Baptist church, but he was determined. Only seventeen when he got the call. He more or less forced the pastors to start meeting and praying together: Thomas Söderberg from the Mission church, Vesa Larsson from the Pentecostal church and Gunnar Isaksson from the Baptist church.”

  Anna-Maria squirmed in the armchair. She was uncomfortable, and the baby was boxing with her bladder.

  “He got his calling in connection with his accident?” she asked.

  “Yes. The boy was riding his bike in the middle of winter, and he was hit by a car. Well, you’re from Kiruna, you know the rest. The church just kept on growing, and we were able to build the Crystal Church. It’s just as well known as the lad himself. We had some really famous singers at the Christmas concert there in December.”

  “How was your relationship with him?” asked Sven-Erik. “Were you close?”

  Anna-Maria could see how Sven-Erik was making a real effort to draw Kristina Strandgård in with his questions, but she was staring blankly at the pattern on the wallpaper.

  “Our family is very close,” said Olof Strandgård.

  “Was he going out with anybody? Did he have other interests outside the church?”

  “No, as I said, he decided to put everything else in life to one side for the time being, and to work only for God.”

  “But didn’t that worry you? Not having anything to do with girls, or any hobbies?”

  “No, not at all.” Viktor’s father laughed, as if he found what Sven-Erik had just said utterly ridiculous.

  “Who were his closest friends?”

  Sven-Erik looked at the photographs on the walls. Above the television hung a large photograph of Sanna and Viktor. Two children with long, silvery blond hair. Sanna’s in ringlets. Viktor’s straight as a waterfall. Sanna must have been in her early teens. It was quite clear that she was refusing to smile for the photographer. There was something defiant in the turned-down corners of her mouth. Viktor’s expression was also serious, but natural. As if he was sitting and thinking about something else altogether, and had forgotten where he was.

  “Sanna was thirteen and the boy was ten,” said Olof, who had noticed Sven-Erik looking at the photograph. “It’s obvious how much he looked up to his sister. Wanted to have long hair just like hers from when he was little, and screamed like a stuck pig if his mother ever came near him with the scissors. At first he got teased in school, but he wanted it long.”

  “His friends?” prompted Anna-Maria.

  “I’d like to think the family were his closest friends. He and Sanna were very close. And he idolized the girls.”

  “Sanna’s daughters?”

  “Yes.”

  "Kristina," said Sven-Erik.

  Kristina Strandgård jumped.

  “Is there anything you’d like to add? About Viktor,” he explained when she looked at him questioningly.

  “What can I say,” she said uncertainly, glancing at her husband. “I haven’t really got anything to add. I think Olof described him perfectly.”

  “Have you got an album of clippings about Viktor?” asked Anna-Maria. “I mean, he was in the papers quite a bit.”

  “There,” said Kristina Strandgård, pointing. “That big brown album on the bottom shelf.”

  “May I borrow it?” asked Anna-Maria, getting up and taking it off the shelf. “You’ll have it back as soon as possible.”

  She held on to the album for a moment before putting it on the table in front of her. She was desperate to get another image of Viktor into her head, instead of the white lacerated body with its eyes gouged out.

  “It would be very helpful if you could write down the names of people who knew him,” said Sven-Erik. “We’d like to talk to them.”

  "It’ll be a
very long list," said Olof Strandgård. "The entire population of Sweden knew him. And more."

  "I mean those who knew him personally," said Sven-Erik patiently. "We’ll send somebody to pick up the list this evening. When was the last time you saw your son alive?"

  “On Sunday evening, at the Songs of Praise Service in the church.”

  “That would be the Sunday evening preceding the murder, then. Did you speak to him?”

  Olof Strandgård shook his head sorrowfully.

  “No, he was part of the intercession group, so he was busy all the time.”

  “When was the last time you met and had time to talk?”

  “On Friday afternoon, just about two days before—” Viktor’s father broke off and looked at his wife.

  “—You’d cooked some food for him, Kristina; it was Friday, wasn’t it?”

  “Definitely,” she replied. “The Miracle Conference was just starting. And I know he forgets to eat, always puts others before himself. So we went round to his house and filled up the freezer. He thought I was being a mother hen.”

  “Did he seem worried about anything?” asked Sven-Erik. “Was anything bothering him?”

  “No,” answered Olof.

  “He obviously hadn’t eaten for some considerable time when he died,” said Anna-Maria. “Do you have any idea why that might be? Could it have been because he’d just forgotten to eat?”

  “Presumably he was fasting,” replied his father.

  I’ll need to find the bathroom in a minute, thought Anna-Maria.

  “Fasting?” she asked, concentrating on not wanting to go. “Why?”

  “Well,” said Olof Strandgård, “it says in the Bible that Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert and was tempted by the devil before He appeared in Galilee and chose the first disciples. And it says that the apostles prayed and fasted when they were choosing the elders for the first churches and handing them over to God. In the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah fasted before they received God’s revelations. Presumably Viktor felt that he had an important role during the Miracle Conference, and wanted to sharpen his concentration beforehand through fasting and prayer.”