by Asa Larsson
They’ll be all right, she thought. They’ll manage.
It made her happy. Or maybe not happy, but relieved.
And at the same time: loneliness had her on its hook, a barb through her heart, reeling her in.
* * *
After Magdalena’s autumn meeting Lisa strolled home through the darkness. It was just after midnight. She passed the churchyard and wandered up onto the ridge that ran upstream alongside the river. She went past Lars-Gunnar’s house, could just make it out in the moonlight. The windows were dark.
She thought about Lars-Gunnar.
The village chief, she thought. The strong man of the village. The man who got the firm with the contract to clear the snow and plow the road down to Poikkijärvi first, before he plowed down to Jukkasjärvi. The one who helped Micke when there was a problem with the bar license.
Not that Lars-Gunnar himself drank in the bar much. These days he hardly ever drank. It had been different in the past. In the old days the men used to drink all the time. Friday, Saturday and at least one day in the middle of the week as well. And at that time they really drank. Then it was a beer or two most days. That’s the way it was. But there comes a time when you had to ease up, otherwise the only way was downhill.
No, Lars-Gunnar didn’t bother much with spirits. The last time Lisa had seen him really drunk was six years ago. The year before Mildred moved to the village.
He actually came to her house that time. She could still see him sitting there in her kitchen. The chair disappears beneath his bulk. His elbow is resting on his knee, his forehead on his palm. Breathing heavily. It’s just after eleven o’clock at night.
It’s not just that he’s been drinking. The bottle is on the table in front of him. He had it in his hand when he arrived. Like a flag: I’ve been drinking, and I’m going to bloody well carry on drinking for a good while yet.
She’d already gone to bed when he knocked on the door. Not that she heard him knock, the dogs told her he was there as soon as he set foot on her veranda.
Of course it shows a kind of trust, coming to her when he’s like this. Weakened by alcohol and his feelings. She just doesn’t know what to do with it. She isn’t used to it. People confiding in her. She’s not the kind of person who invites that kind of behavior.
But she and Lars-Gunnar are related, after all. And she can keep her mouth shut, he knows that.
She stands there in her dressing gown, listening to his song. The song about his unhappy life. His unhappy and disappointing love. And Nalle.
“Sorry,” Lars-Gunnar mumbles into his fist. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“It’s okay,” she says hesitantly. “You keep talking while I…”
She can’t think what to do, but she’s got to do something to stop herself running straight out of the house.
“…while I get the food ready for tomorrow.”
And so he keeps talking while she chops meat and vegetables for soup. In the middle of the night. Celeriac and carrots and leeks and swede and potatoes and everything but the kitchen sink. But Lars-Gunnar doesn’t seem to think there’s anything strange about it. He’s too taken up with his own affairs.
“I had to get away from the house,” he confesses. “Before I left…I’m not sober, I admit that. Before I left I was sitting by the side of Nalle’s bed holding a shotgun to his head.”
Lisa doesn’t say anything. Slices a carrot as if she hadn’t heard.
“I thought about how things are going to be,” he sighs. “Who’s going to look after him when I’m gone? He’s got nobody.”
* * *
And that’s true, thought Lisa.
She’d arrived at her gingerbread house up on the ridge. The moon cast a silvery sheen over the extravagant carving on the veranda and window frames.
She went up the steps. The dogs were barking and charging about like mad things inside, recognizing her footsteps. When she opened the door they hurtled out for their evening pee on the grass.
She went into the living room. All that was left in there was the empty, gaping bookcase and the sofa.
Nalle’s got nobody, she thought.
YELLOW LEGS
Spring is coming. The odd patch of snow beneath the blue gray pines and the tall firs. A warm breeze from the south. The sun filtering through the branches. Small animals rustling about all over the place in last year’s grass. Hundreds of scents floating about in the air, like in a stew. Pine resin and the smell of new birch leaves. Warm earth. Open water. Sweet hare. Bitter fox.
The alpha female has dug a new lair this year. It’s an old fox’s den on a south-facing slope, two hundred meters above a mountain lake. The ground is sandy and easy to dig out, but the alpha female has worked hard, widening the entrance so that she can get in, clearing out all the old rubbish left by the foxes, and digging out a chamber to live in three meters beneath the slope. Yellow Legs and one of the other females have been allowed to help sometimes, but she’s done most of the work herself. Now she spends her days close to the lair. Lies in front of the entrance in the spring sunshine, dozing. The other wolves bring food. When the alpha male approaches her with something to eat, she gets up and comes to meet him. Licks and whimpers affectionately before gulping down his gifts.
* * *
One morning the alpha female goes into the lair and doesn’t come out again that day. Late in the evening she squeezes out the cubs. Licks them clean. Eats up the membranes, umbilical cords and the placenta. Nudges them into the right place beneath her stomach. No stillborn cub to carry out. The fox and the crow will have to manage without that meal.
The rest of the pack live their lives outside the lair. Catching mostly small prey, staying close by. Sometimes they can hear a faint squeaking when one of the cubs has wriggled in the wrong direction. Or been pushed out by one of its siblings. Only the alpha male has permission to crawl in and regurgitate food for the alpha female.
After three weeks and a day, she carries them out of the lair for the first time. Five of them. The other wolves are beside themselves with joy. Greet them carefully. Sniffing and nudging. Licking the little ones’ rotund tummies, and under their tails. After just a short while the alpha female carries them back into the lair. The cubs are completely worn out by all the new impressions. The two one-year-olds hurtle joyfully through the forest, chasing one another.
It’s the beginning of a wonderful time for the pack. They all want to help with the little ones. They play tirelessly. And the rest are infected by their playfulness. Even the alpha female joins in a tug-of-war over an old branch. The cubs are growing, they’re always hungry. Their muzzles grow longer and their ears more pointed. It happens quickly. The one-year-olds take turns to lie on guard outside the lair when the others go off hunting. When the adults return, the youngsters come forward, tails wagging. Begging and whimpering and licking the corners of the older wolves’ mouths. In reply the adult wolves bring up red mounds of the meat they’ve swallowed. If there’s anything left over, the babysitters can have it.
Yellow Legs doesn’t go off on her own. During this period she stays with the pack and the new cubs. She lies on her back playing the helpless prey beneath two of them. They hurl themselves at her, one sinks his needle-sharp teeth into her lips and the other attacks her tail like a mad thing. She pushes the one who was dangling from her lip aside and places her enormous paw on top of it. It’s all the cub can do to free itself. Wriggling and struggling. Finally it escapes. Gallops around her on its fluffy paws, comes back and throws itself at her head, growling recklessly. Bites her ear aggressively. Then all of a sudden they fall into a deep, peaceful sleep. One lying between her front legs, the other with its head on its sibling’s stomach. Yellow Legs takes the opportunity to have a little doze as well. She snaps half-heartedly at a wasp that comes too close, misses, the sleepy hum of insects above the flowers. The morning sun rises above the tops of the pine trees. The birds swoop through the air, hunting for food to regurgitate into the ga
ping mouths of their babies.
Playing with cubs makes you tired. Happiness flows through her like spring water.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 8
Inspector Sven-Erik Stålnacke woke up at half past four in the morning.
Bloody cat, was his first thought.
It was usually his cat Manne who woke him up around this time. The cat would leap up from the floor, landing with a surprisingly heavy thud on Sven-Erik’s stomach. If Sven-Erik just grunted and turned on his side, Manne would stalk up and down the side of Sven-Erik’s body like a mountain climber on top of a high ridge. Sometimes the cat would let out a terrible wail, which meant that he either wanted food, or to be let out. Usually both. Straightaway.
Sometimes Sven-Erik tried refusing to get up, muttered “it’s the middle of the night you stupid bloody cat,” and wrapped himself in the bedclothes. Then the promenade up and down his body was carried out with the claws extended further and further each time. In the end Manne would scratch Sven-Erik’s head.
Pushing the cat onto the floor or shutting him out of the bedroom didn’t really help. Then Manne started on the soft furnishings and curtains with all his might.
“That cat’s too bloody crafty,” Sven-Erik always said. “He knows I’ll put him outside when he does that. And that’s exactly what he wanted all along.”
He was a man who commanded respect. Strong upper arms, broad hands. Something in his face and bearing bore witness to years of dealing with most things, human misery, fired-up troublemakers. And he found pleasure in being ruled by a cat.
But this morning it wasn’t Manne who’d woken him. He woke up anyway. Out of habit. Maybe because he was missing that stripy young man who constantly terrorized him with his demands and whims.
He sat up heavily on the edge of the bed. He wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. This was the fourth night the bloody cat had been missing. He’d gone missing before for one night, occasionally two. That was nothing to worry about. But four.
He went downstairs and opened the outside door. The night was like gray wool, on the way toward the day. He gave a long whistle, went into the kitchen, fetched a tin of cat food and stood on the steps banging the tin with a spoon. No cat. In the end he had to give up, he was getting cold in just his underpants.
That’s the way it is, he thought. That’s the price of freedom. The risk of getting run over or taken by the fox. Sooner or later.
He spooned coffee into the percolator.
Still, it’s better that way, he thought. Better than Manne getting weak and ill, and having to be taken to the vet. That would have been bloody awful.
The percolator got going with a gurgle, and Sven-Erik went up to the bedroom to get dressed.
Maybe Manne had made himself at home somewhere else. That had happened before. He’d come home after two or three days and hadn’t been the least bit hungry. Obviously well fed and well rested. It was probably some old dear who’d felt sorry for him and taken him in. Some pensioner who had nothing else to do but cook him salmon and give him the cream off the top of the milk.
Sven-Erik was suddenly filled with an unreasoning anger against this unknown individual who took in and adopted a cat that didn’t belong to the person in question. Didn’t this person realize that there was somebody worrying and wondering where the cat had gone? You could tell Manne wasn’t homeless, with his shiny coat and affectionate ways. He’d get him a collar. Should have done it a long time ago. It was just that he was afraid he’d get caught up somewhere. That’s what had stopped him, the thought of Manne caught in some undergrowth starving to death, or hanging in a tree.
He ate a good breakfast. The first few years after Hjördis had left him, breakfast had usually consisted of a cup of coffee, drunk standing up. But he’d mended his ways since then. He shoveled down spoonfuls of low fat yogurt and muesli without really tasting it. The percolator had fallen silent, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the kitchen.
He’d taken over Manne from his daughter when she moved to Luleå. He should never have done it. He realized that now. It was nothing but bloody trouble, that’s all it was, bloody trouble.
* * *
Anna-Maria Mella was sitting at the kitchen table with her morning coffee. It was seven o’clock. Jenny, Petter and Marcus were still asleep. Gustav was awake. He was bouncing around in the bedroom upstairs, clambering all over Robert.
In front of her on the table lay a copy of the horrific drawing of the hanged Mildred. Rebecka Martinsson had made copies of a number of papers as well, but Anna-Maria didn’t understand a bloody word. She hated numbers and maths and that sort of thing.
“Morning!”
Her son Marcus ambled into the kitchen. Dressed! He opened the door of the refrigerator. Marcus was sixteen.
“So,” said Anna-Maria, looking at the clock. “Is there a fire upstairs, or something?”
He grinned. Picked up milk and cereal and sat down opposite Anna-Maria.
“I’ve got an exam,” he said, spooning down milk and cornflakes. “You can’t just jump out of bed and dash in at the last minute. You have to prime your body.”
“Who are you?” said Anna-Maria. “And what have you done with my son?”
It’s Hanna, she thought. God bless her.
Hanna was Marcus’ girlfriend. Her keen attitude toward schoolwork was catching.
“Cool,” said Marcus, sliding the drawing of Mildred toward him. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” answered Anna-Maria, taking the drawing off him and turning it upside down.
“No, seriously. Let me have a look!”
He took the picture back.
“What does this mean?” he said, pointing at the grave mound visible behind the dangling body.
“Well, maybe that she’s going to die and be buried.”
“Yes, but what does it mean? Can’t you see it?”
Anna-Maria looked at the picture.
“No.”
“It’s a symbol,” said Marcus.
“It’s a grave mound with a cross on top.”
“Look! The outlines are twice as thick as in the rest of the picture. And the cross carries on down into the ground and ends in a hook.”
Anna-Maria looked. He was right.
She got up and shuffled the papers together. Resisted the urge to give her son a kiss, ruffled his hair instead.
“Good luck in the exam,” she said.
In the car she rang Sven-Erik.
“Yes,” he said when he’d fetched his copy of the picture. “It’s a cross that goes through a semicircle and ends in a hook.”
“We need to find out what it means. Who’ll know the answer to something like that?”
“What did they say at the lab?”
“They’ll probably get the picture today. If there are clear prints they’ll get them off this afternoon, otherwise it takes longer.”
“There must be some professor of religion who knows about the symbol,” said Sven-Erik thoughtfully.
“You’re a clever boy!” said Anna-Maria. “Fred Olsson can sort somebody out, then we can fax it to them. Go and get dressed and I’ll pick you up.”
“Oh yes?”
“You can come to Poikkijärvi with me. I want to talk to Rebecka Martinsson, if she’s still there.”
* * *
Anna-Maria pointed her light red Ford Escort in the direction of Poikkijärvi. Sven-Erik sat beside her, pushing his foot down to the floor in a reflex action. Why did she always have to drive like a boy racer?
“Rebecka Martinsson gave me copies too,” she said. “I don’t understand any of it. I mean, it’s something financial, but…”
“Shouldn’t we ask the economic crimes team to have a look at it?”
“They’re always so busy. You ask a question, and you get the answer a month later. It’s just as well to ask her. I mean, she’s already seen it. And she knows why she gave it to us.”
“Is this really a good idea?”
“Have you got a better idea?”
“But will she really want to get dragged into all this?”
Anna-Maria shook her plait impatiently.
“She was the one who gave me the copies and the letters! And she’s not going to get dragged into anything. How long can it take? Ten minutes of her holiday.”
Anna-Maria braked sharply and turned left on to Jukkasjärvivägen, accelerated up to ninety, braked again and turned right down toward Poikkijärvi. Sven-Erik clung to the door handle, thinking that maybe he should have taken a travel sickness pill; from there his thoughts turned spontaneously to the cat, who hated travelling by car.
“Manne’s disappeared,” he said, gazing out at the pine trees, sparkling in the sunshine as they swept by.
“Oh no,” said Anna-Maria. “How long’s he been gone?”
“Four days. He’s never been away this long.”
“He’ll come back,” she said. “It’s still warm out, it’s natural for him to want to be outside.”
“No,” said Sven-Erik firmly. “He’s been run over. I’ll never see that cat again.”
He longed for her to contradict him. To protest and reassure. He would stick to his conviction that the cat was gone for good. So he could express a little of his anxiety and sorrow. So she could give him a little hope and consolation. But she changed the subject.
“We won’t drive all the way up,” she said. “I don’t think she wants to attract attention.”
“What’s she actually doing here?” asked Sven-Erik.
“No idea.”
Anna-Maria was on the point of saying she didn’t think Rebecka was all that well, but she didn’t. Sven-Erik was bound to insist they cancel the visit. He was always softer than she was when it came to that sort of thing. Maybe it was because she had children living at home. Most of her protective instincts and consideration for others were used up at home.