The Blood Spilt

by Asa Larsson

  Micke turned to Rebecka.

  “You see what I mean.”

  Then he became serious.

  “Why are you asking? You’re not a journalist, are you?”

  “Oh no, I was just wondering. I mean, she lived here, and…No, that lawyer I was in here with yesterday evening, I work for him.”

  “Carry his bag and book his flights?”

  “Something like that.”

  Rebecka Martinsson looked at the clock. She’d been afraid that a furious Anna-Maria Mella would turn up demanding the keys to the safe, but she’d wanted it to happen as well. But presumably the priest’s husband hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe he didn’t know what the keys were for. It was a complete bloody mess. She looked out of the window. It was starting to get dark. She heard a car drive onto the gravel yard outside.

  Her cell phone buzzed in her bag. She rooted it out and looked at the display. The law firm’s number.

  Måns, she thought, and hurried out onto the steps.

  It was Maria Taube.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered Rebecka.

  “I was talking to Torsten. He said you’d hooked them anyway.”

  “Mmm…”

  “And he said you’d stayed behind to take care of a few things.”

  Rebecka didn’t reply.

  “Have you been to the village where your grandmother’s house is, what was it called again?”

  “Kurravaara. No.”

  “Problem?”

  “No, it’s nothing.”

  “Why don’t you go up there, then?”

  “I just haven’t got around to it,” said Rebecka. “I’ve been a bit too busy helping our future clients sort out a load of crap.”

  “Don’t snap at me, honey,” said Maria gently. “Spill. What kind of crap?”

  Rebecka told her. She suddenly felt so tired she wanted to sit down on the steps.

  Maria sighed at the other end of the phone.

  “Bloody Torsten,” she said. “I’ll…”

  “No, you won’t,” said Rebecka. “The worst thing is the locker, though. It must have the priest’s personal stuff in it. There could be letters and…anything. If anybody should have what’s in there, it’s her husband. And the police. There could be some sort of evidence, we don’t know.”

  “I’m sure her boss will pass on anything that might be of interest to the police,” Maria Taube ventured.

  “Maybe,” said Rebecka in subdued voice.

  There was a silence between them for a moment. Rebecka kicked at the gravel with her shoe.

  “But I thought you went up there to go into the lion’s den,” said Maria Taube. “That’s why you went with Torsten, after all.”

  “Yeah yeah.”

  “For God’s sake, Rebecka, don’t give me the yeah-yeah! I’m your friend and I’ve got to say this. You just keep on backing off. If you daren’t go into town and you daren’t go up to Kurrkavaara…”

  “Kurravaara.”

  “…and you’re just sitting there hiding in some village bar up the river, where are you going to end up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Maria Taube didn’t speak.

  “It’s not that easy,” said Rebecka in the end.

  “Do you think I think it is? I can come up and keep you company, if you want.”

  “No,” Rebecka cut her off.

  “Okay, I’ve said my piece. And I’ve made the offer.”

  “And I appreciate it, but…”

  “You don’t need to appreciate it. Now I’ve got to do some work if I’m going to get home before midnight. I’ll call you. Måns asked how you were, by the way. I think he’s worried. Rebecka, do you remember what it was like when you went to the swimming pool when you were at school? And you jumped from the top board straight away, so you wouldn’t be scared of the other heights. Go up to the Crystal Church and go to one of their hallelujah services. Then you’ll have got the worst over. Didn’t you tell me last Christmas that Sanna and her family and Thomas Söderberg’s family had moved away from Kiruna?”

  “You won’t tell him, will you?”

  “Who?”

  “Måns. That I…oh, I don’t know.”

  “Of course not. I’ll call, okay.”

  Erik Nilsson is sitting stock-still at the kitchen table in the priest’s house. His dead wife is sitting opposite him. He daren’t say anything for a long time. He hardly dares breathe. The least word or movement and reality cracks and splinters into a thousand pieces.

  And if he blinks she’s bound to be gone when he opens his eyes.

  Mildred grins.

  You’re funny, you are, she says. You can believe that the universe is endless, that time is relative, that it can turn and go backwards.

  The clock on the wall has stopped. The windows are mirrors. How many times has he invoked his dead wife these last three months? Wished that she would come gliding up to his bed in the darkness at night. Or that he might hear her voice as the wind whispers through the trees.

  You can’t stay here, Erik, she says.

  He nods. It’s just that there’s so much. What shall he do with all the things, the books, the furniture? He doesn’t know where to start. It’s an insurmountable obstacle. As soon as he thinks about it, he’s overwhelmed by such exhaustion that he has to go and lie down, even though it’s the middle of the day.

  Sod it, then, she says. Sod the lot of it. I don’t care about all this stuff.

  He knows it’s true. All the furniture comes from her parents’ home. She was the only daughter of a parish priest, and both her parents died while she was at university.

  She refuses to feel sorry for him. She always has. It still makes him secretly angry with her. That was the bad Mildred. Not bad in the sense of nasty or malicious. But the Mildred who hurt him. Who wounded him. If you want to stay with me, then I’m pleased, she said when she was alive. But you’re an adult, you choose your own life.

  Was that right? he thinks as so many times before. Is it all right to be so uncompromising? I lived her life, all the way. True, I made my own choice. But shouldn’t you meet halfway in love?

  She looks down at the table. He can’t start thinking about children again, because then she’s bound to disappear like a shadow through the wall. He’s got to pull himself together. He’s always had to pull himself together. It’s almost black in the kitchen.

  She was the one who didn’t want to. The first few years they did have sex. In the evenings. Or in the middle of the night, if he woke her up. Always with the light off. And still he could feel her stiff, ill-concealed reluctance if he wanted to do anything other than just stick it in. In the end it stopped of its own accord. He stopped making the approach, she didn’t bother. Sometimes the wound opened and they’d quarrel. He might snivel that she didn’t love him, that her job took everything. That he wanted children. And she, palms upward: What do you want from me? If you’re unhappy, it’s up to you to get up and go. His turn: Go where? Who to? The storms always passed. Everyday life stumbled on. And it was always, or almost always, good enough for him.

  Her bony elbow on the table. The nail of her index finger tapping thoughtfully on the varnished surface. She looks deep in thought, with that stubborn expression she always gets when she’s come up with some idea.

  He’s used to preparing food for her. Takes the plate covered with clingfilm out of the fridge when she gets home late, pops it in the microwave. Makes sure she eats. Or runs a bath. Tells her not to keep winding her hair round her finger, because she’ll finish up bald. But now he doesn’t know what to do. Or say. He wants to ask her what it’s like. On the other side.

  I don’t know, she says. But it’s drawing me toward it. It’s powerful.

  He might have bloody known it. She’s here because she wants something. He’s suddenly terrified that she’ll disappear. Gone.

  “Help me,” he says to her. “Help me get out of here.”

&
nbsp; She can see that he won’t manage it on his own. And she sees his rage. The secret hatred of the dependent, who can’t cope on their own. But it doesn’t matter anymore. She gets up. Places her hand on the back of his neck. Draws his face toward her breast.

  Let’s go, she says after a while.

  It’s quarter past seven when he closes the door of the house behind him for the very last time in his life. Everything he’s taking with him fits into a supermarket carrier bag. One of the neighbors pulls the curtain aside, leans against the windowpane and watches him with curiosity as he chucks the bag into the backseat of the car.

  Mildred gets into the passenger seat. When the car drives out through the gate he feels almost elated. Like the summer before they got married. When they drove around Ireland. And Mildred is definitely sitting there with a little smile on her face.

  They stop on the track outside Micke’s. He just wants to drop the key off with that Rebecka Martinsson.

  To his surprise she’s standing outside the bar. Her cell phone is in her hand, but she’s not talking. Her arm is hanging straight down by her side. When she catches sight of him she almost looks as if she’d like to run away. He approaches her slowly, almost pleading. As if he were approaching a frightened dog.

  “I thought I’d give you the key to the house,” he says. “Then you can pass it on to the priest along with Mildred’s work keys, and tell him I’ve moved out.”

  She doesn’t say anything. Takes the key. Doesn’t ask about his furniture or property. Stands there. Cell phone in one hand, the key in the other. He’d like to say something. Ask for forgiveness, perhaps. Take her in his arms and stroke her hair.

  But Mildred has got out of the car and is standing by the side of the road calling to him.

  Come away now! she shouts. There’s nothing you can do for her. Somebody else will help her.

  So he turns around and shambles back to the car.

  As soon as he’s sitting down the unhappiness Rebecka Martinsson has infected him with begins to ease. The road up to town is dark and exciting. Mildred is sitting beside him. He parks outside the Ferrum hotel.

  “I’ve forgiven you,” he says.

  She looks down at her lap. Shakes her head slightly.

  I didn’t ask for forgiveness, she says.

  It’s two o’clock in the morning. Rebecka Martinsson is sleeping. Curiosity works its way in through the window like the tendrils of a climbing plant. Winds itself around her heart. Sends out roots and shoots, spreading through her body. Twining around her rib cage. Spinning a cocoon around her chest.

  When she wakes up in the middle of the night it has grown into an irresistible compulsion. The sounds from the bar have died away in the autumn night. A branch is whipping and banging angrily on the metal roof of the chalet. The moon is almost full. The deathly pale light pours in through the window. Catches the bunch of keys, lying there on the pine table.

  She gets up and dresses. Doesn’t need to put the light on. The moonlight is enough. She looks at her watch. Thinks of Anna-Maria Mella. She likes the policewoman. She’s a woman who’s chosen to try to do the right thing.

  She goes outside. There’s a strong wind blowing. The rowans and the birch trees are whipping wildly to and fro. The trunks of the pine trees creak and groan.

  She gets into the car and drives off.

  She drives to the churchyard. It isn’t far. Nor is it very big. She doesn’t have to search for long before she finds the priest’s grave. Lots of flowers. Roses. Heather. Mildred Nilsson. And an empty space for her husband.

  She was born in the same year as Mum, thinks Rebecka. Mum would have been fifty-five in November.

  Everything is silent. But Rebecka can’t hear the silence. The wind is blowing so hard it’s roaring in her ears.

  She stands there for a while looking at the stone. Then she goes back to the car, parked on the other side of the wall. When she gets into the car, it’s suddenly quiet.

  What did you expect? she says to herself. Did you think the priest would be standing there, an apparition on her grave, pointing the way?

  That would have made things easier, of course. But it’s her own decision.

  So the parish priest wants the key to Mildred Nilsson’s locker. What’s in there? Why hasn’t anybody told the police about the locker? They want the key handed over discreetly. They’re expecting Rebecka to do just that.

  It doesn’t matter, she thinks. I can do whatever I like.

  Inspector Anna-Maria Mella woke up in the middle of the night. It was the coffee. Whenever she drank coffee late in the evening, she always woke up in the middle of the night and lay there tossing and turning for an hour before she could get back to sleep. Sometimes she’d get up. It was quite a nice time, really. The whole family was asleep, and she could listen to the radio with a cup of camomile tea in the kitchen, or fold laundry, or whatever, and lose herself in her thoughts.

  She went down to the cellar and switched on the iron. Let the conversation with the husband of the murdered woman replay in her head.

  ERIK NILSSON: We’ll sit here in the kitchen so we can keep an eye on your car.

  ANNA-MARIA: Oh yes?

  ERIK NILSSON: Our friends usually park down by the bar or a little distance away. Otherwise there’s the risk that you might get your tires slashed or the paint scratched or something.

  ANNA-MARIA: I see.

  ERIK NILSSON: Oh, it’s not too bad. But a year ago there was a lot of that sort of thing going on.

  ANNA-MARIA: Did you report it to the police?

  ERIK NILSSON: They can’t do anything. Even if you know who it is, there’s never any proof. Nobody’s ever seen anything. And people are scared. It might be their shed on fire next time.

  ANNA-MARIA: Did somebody set fire to your shed?

  ERIK NILSSON: Yes, it was a man in the village…At least we think it was him. His wife left him and stayed here with us for a while.

  That was nice, thought Anna-Maria. Erik Nilsson had his chance to have a go at her then, but he let it go. He could have let bitterness creep into his voice, talked about how the police didn’t do anything and ended up blaming them for his wife’s death.

  She was ironing one of Robert’s shirts, God, the cuffs were really worn. The shirt steamed beneath the iron. There was a good smell of freshly ironed cotton.

  And he was well used to talking to women, that was obvious. Sometimes she forgot herself and answered his questions, not to gain his trust, but because he’d managed to gain hers. Like when he asked about her children. He knew just what was typical at their ages. Asked if Gustav had learned the word no yet.

  ANNA-MARIA: It depends. If it’s me saying no, he doesn’t understand. But if it’s him…

  Erik Nilsson laughs, but all at once becomes serious.

  ANNA-MARIA: Big house.

  ERIK NILSSON: (sighs) It’s never really been a home. It’s half priest’s house and half hotel.

  ANNA-MARIA: But now it’s empty.

  ERIK NILSSON: Yes, the women’s group, Magdalena, thought there’d be too much talk. You know, the priest’s widower consoling himself with assorted vulnerable women. They’re probably right, I suppose.

  ANNA-MARIA: I have to ask, how were things between you and your wife?

  ERIK NILSSON: Must you?

  ANNA-MARIA:—

  ERIK NILSSON: Fine. I had an enormous amount of respect for Mildred.

  ANNA-MARIA:—

  ERIK NILSSON: She wasn’t the sort of woman who’s a dime a dozen. Not that sort of priest either. She was so incredibly…passionate about everything she did. She really felt she had a calling here in Kiruna and in the village.

  ANNA-MARIA: Where did she come from originally?

  ERIK NILSSON: She was born and bred in Uppsala. Daughter of a parish priest. We met when I was studying physics. She used to say she was fighting against moderation. “As soon as you feel too strongly about something, the church sets up a crisis group.” She talked too much, to
o quickly and too loudly. And she was almost manic once she got an idea in her head. It could drive you mad. I wished a thousand times that she was a bit more moderate. But…[gestures with his hand]…when a person like that is snatched away…it isn’t only my loss.

  She’d looked around the house. There was nothing next to Mildred’s side of the double bed. No books. No alarm clock. No Bible.

  Suddenly Erik Nilsson was standing behind her.

  “She had her own room,” he said.

  It was a little room under the eaves. There were no flowers in the window, just a lamp and some ceramic birds. The narrow bed was still unmade, just as she must have left it. A red fleecy dressing gown lay carelessly tossed across it. On the floor beside the bed, a tower of books. Anna-Maria had looked at the titles: Beyond the Bible, Language for an Adult Belief, a biblical reference book, some children’s books and books for teenagers. Anna-Maria recognized Winnie-the-Pooh, Anne of Green Gables, and underneath the whole lot an untidy pile of torn out newspaper articles.

  “There’s nothing to see here,” said Erik Nilsson tiredly. “There’s nothing more for you to see.”

  * * *

  It was odd, thought Anna-Maria, folding the children’s clothes. It was as if he was hanging on to his dead wife. Her mail lay unopened in a big pile on the table. Her glass of water was still on the bedside table, and beside it her reading glasses. The rest of the house was so clean and tidy, he just couldn’t bring himself to tidy her away. And it was a lovely home. Just like something out of one of those interior design magazines. And yet he’d said it wasn’t a home, but “half priest’s house, half hotel.” And then he also said he “respected her.” Strange.

  Rebecka drove slowly into town. The gray white moonlight was absorbed by the asphalt and the rotting leaf canopy. The trees were pulled back and forth in the wind, seemed as if they were almost reaching out hungrily for the poor light, but getting nothing. They remained naked and black. Wrung out and tortured just before their winter sleep.