by Asa Larsson
But a lone wolf is no playmate. She doesn’t turn down any prey, doesn’t want to play with birds, isn’t willing to share.
One morning she surprises a vixen outside her earth. Several holes have been dug in a slope. One of the holes is hidden beneath a tree root. Only her tracks and a little bit of soil on the snow outside gives away its location. The vixen emerges from the hole. The wolf has picked up the acrid scent and taken a slight diversion from her route. She moves down the slope into the wind, sees the fox poke her head out, the spindly body. The wolf stops, freezes on the spot, the fox has to come out a little bit further, but as soon as it turns its head in this direction it will see her.
She pounces. As if she were a cat. A fight through the bushes and the branches of a fallen young spruce. Bites the fox right across her back. Snaps the spine. Eats her greedily, holding the body down with one paw as she rips the flesh, gulping down what little there is.
Two ravens immediately appear, working together to try to secure a share. One risks its life, coming dangerously close to make her chase it so that its companion can quickly steal a morsel. She snaps at them as they dive-bomb her head, but her paw doesn’t leave the body of the fox. She gobbles every scrap, then trots around all the other holes, sniffing. If the fox had cubs and they’re not too far down, she can dig them out, but there’s nothing there.
She returns to her original route. The legs of the lone wolf move restlessly onward.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 11
“It’s just as if he’s been swallowed up by the ground.”
Anna-Maria Mella looked at her colleagues. It was the morning meeting in the prosecutor’s office. They had just established that they had no trace whatsoever of Stefan Wikström, the missing priest.
You could have heard a pin drop for the next six seconds. Inspector Fred Olsson, Prosecutor Alf Björnfot, Sven-Erik Stålnacke and Inspector Tommy Rantakyrö looked distressed. That was the worst thing imaginable, that he actually had been swallowed up by the ground. Buried somewhere.
Sven-Erik looked particularly upset. He’d been the last to arrive at the prosecutor’s morning service. It wasn’t like him. There was a small plaster on his chin. It was stained brown with blood. The sign that a man is having a bad morning. The stubble on his throat below his Adam’s apple had escaped the razor in his haste, and was protruding from his skin like coarse gray tree trunks. Below one corner of his mouth were the remains of dried-up shaving foam, like white adhesive.
“Okay, so far it’s still just a missing person,” said the prosecutor. “He was a servant of the church, after all. And then he found out we were onto him about that trip he went on with his family with the wolf foundation’s money. That could well be enough to make him run. The fear of his reputation being ruined. He might pop up somewhere like a jack-in-the-box.”
There was silence around the table. Alf Björnfot looked at the people sitting there. Difficult to motivate this shower. They seemed to be just waiting for the priest’s body to turn up. With clues and proof to give the investigation a new lease on life.
“What do you know about the period just before he disappeared?” he asked.
“He rang his wife from his cell phone at five to seven on Friday evening,” said Fred Olsson. “Then he was busy with the youngsters in the church, opened up their club, held an evening service at half nine. He left there just after ten, and nobody’s seen him since.”
“The car?” asked the prosecutor.
“Parked behind the parish hall.”
It was such a short distance, thought Anna-Maria. It was perhaps a hundred meters from the youngsters’ club to the back of the parish hall.
She remembered a woman who’d disappeared some years before. A mother of two who’d gone out one evening to feed the dogs in their run. And then she was gone. The genuine despair of her husband, his assurances and everybody else’s that she would never leave her children of her own free will had led the police to prioritize her disappearance. They’d found her buried in the forest behind the house. Her husband had killed her.
But Anna-Maria had thought exactly the same then. Such a short distance. Such a short distance.
“What did you find out from checking phone calls, e-mails and his bank account?” asked the prosecutor.
“Nothing in particular,” said Tommy Rantakyrö. “The call to his wife was the last one. Otherwise there were a few work-related calls with various members of the church and the parish priest, a call to the leader of the hunting team about the elk hunt, his wife’s sister…I’ve got a list of the calls here, and I’ve made a little note of what the calls were about.”
“Good,” said Alf Björnfot encouragingly.
“What did the sister and the parish priest have to say?” wondered Anna-Maria.
“He called the sister to tell her he was worried about his wife. Worried she was going to be ill again.”
“She wrote those letters to Mildred Nilsson,” said Fred Olsson. “Things seem to have been pretty bad between the Wikströms and Mildred Nilsson.”
“So what did Stefan Wikström talk to the parish priest about?” asked Anna-Maria.
“Well, he got a bit worked up when I asked him,” said Tommy Rantakyrö. “But he told me Stefan was worried because we’d borrowed the accounts for the wolf foundation.”
An almost imperceptible frown appeared on the prosecutor’s brow, but he didn’t say anything about improper conduct and seizing items without permission. Instead he said:
“Which could indicate that he disappeared of his own free will. That he’s staying away because he’s afraid of the shame. Believe me, the most common reaction to this sort of thing is to bury your head in the sand. You say to yourself ‘can’t they see they’re just making things worse for themselves,’ but often they’ve gone beyond sensible logic.”
“Why didn’t he take the car?” asked Anna-Maria. “Did he just walk off into the wilderness? There weren’t any trains at that time. Nor any flights.”
“Taxi?” asked the prosecutor.
“No pickups,” answered Fred Olsson.
Anna-Maria looked at Fred appreciatively.
You stubborn little terrier, she thought.
“Right, then,” said the prosecutor. “Tommy, I’d like you to…”
“…start knocking on doors in the area around the parish hall asking if anybody’s seen anything,” said Tommy with resignation in his voice.
“Exactly,” said the prosecutor, “and…”
“…and talk to the kids from the church youth club again.”
“Good! Fred Olsson can go with you. Sven-Erik,” said the prosecutor. “Maybe you could ring the profiling group and see what they’ve got to say?”
Sven-Erik nodded.
“How did you get on with the drawing?” the prosecutor asked.
“The lab is still working on it,” said Anna-Maria. “They haven’t come up with anything yet.”
“Good! We’ll meet again first thing tomorrow morning, unless anything major happens in the meantime,” said the prosecutor, folding his glasses with a snap and pushing them into his breast pocket.
That brought the meeting to an end.
* * *
Before Sven-Erik went to his office he called by to speak to Sonja on the exchange.
“Listen,” he said. “If anybody rings and says they’ve found a gray tabby cat, let me know.”
“Is it Manne?”
Sven-Erik nodded.
“It’s a week now. He’s never been away that long.”
“We’ll keep our eyes open,” promised Sonja. “He’ll be back, you’ll see. It’s still warm. He’s probably out courting somewhere.”
“He’s been neutered,” said Sven-Erik gloomily.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell the girls.”
* * *
The woman from the national police profiling team answered her direct line straightaway. She sounded cheerful when Sven-Erik introduced himself. Far too young to be working
with this kind of crap.
“I suppose you’ve read the papers?” said Sven-Erik.
“Yes, have you found him?”
“No, he’s still missing. What do you think, then?”
“What do you mean?”
Sven-Erik tried to marshal his thoughts.
“Well,” he began. “If we assume the papers have got it right.”
“That Stefan Wikström has been murdered and we’re dealing with a serial killer,” she supplied.
“Exactly. But in that case, this is peculiar, isn’t it?”
She didn’t speak. Waited for Sven-Erik to carry his thought through to its conclusion.
“What I mean,” he said, “is that it’s peculiar that he’s disappeared. If the murderer hung Mildred up from the organ, why doesn’t he do the same thing with Stefan Wikström?”
“Maybe he needs to scrub him clean. You found a dog hair on Mildred Nilsson, didn’t you? Or maybe he wants to hang on to him for a while.”
She broke off and seemed to be thinking.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “When the body turns up—if it turns up, he might have gone of his own accord—we can talk again. See if there’s a pattern.”
“Okay,” said Sven-Erik. “He could have gone of his own accord. He hadn’t been completely honest in his dealings with a foundation that belonged to the church. Then he found out that we were on the trail of his grubby little story.”
“His grubby little story?”
“Yes, it was a matter of about a hundred thousand kronor. And it’s doubtful there would have been enough to make a case. It was a study trip that was actually more of a private holiday.”
“So you don’t think that was any reason for him to run?”
“Not really.”
“So what if it was just the fact that the police were getting closer that frightened him?”
“What do you mean?”
She laughed.
“Nothing!” she said, stressing the word.
Then she suddenly sounded formal.
“I wish you luck. Let me know if anything happens.”
As soon as they’d hung up, Sven-Erik realized what she’d meant. If Stefan had murdered Mildred…
His brain immediately started to protest.
If we just assume that’s what happened, Sven-Erik persisted. Then he would have been scared enough to run if the police were getting closer. Whatever we wanted. Even if we just wanted to ask him the time.
Anna-Maria’s phone rang. It was the woman from the science fiction bookstore.
“I’ve found something out about that symbol,” she said, coming straight to the point.
“Yes?”
“One of my customers was familiar with it. It’s on the cover of a book called The Gate. It’s by Michelle Moan, that’s a pseudonym. There isn’t a Swedish version available. I haven’t got a copy, but I can order one for you. Shall I do that?”
“Yes please! What’s it about?”
“Death. It’s a book of death. Really expensive—fifty-two pounds. And then there’ll be the postage on top of that. I actually rang the publisher in England.”
“And?”
“I asked if they’d had any orders from Sweden. A few—and one in Kiruna.”
Anna-Maria held her breath. Long live amateur detectives.
“Did you get a name?”
“Yes, Benjamin Wikström. I got an address too.”
“Don’t need it,” said Anna-Maria. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
Sven-Erik was standing by Sonja on the exchange. He hadn’t been able to stop himself going out to ask.
“What did the girls say? Had any of them heard anything about the cat?”
She shook her head.
Tommy Rantakyrö suddenly materialized behind Sven-Erik.
“Has your cat gone missing?” he asked.
Sven-Erik grunted in reply.
“He’ll have moved in with somebody else,” said Tommy breezily. “You know what cats are like, they don’t get attached to anybody, it’s just our own…projectifi…that you read your own feelings into the situation. They can’t feel affection, it’s been scientifically proven.”
“You’re talking crap,” growled Sven-Erik.
“No, it’s absolutely true,” said Tommy, not reading the warning in Sonja’s eyes. “When they start rubbing up against your legs and winding themselves round you, they’re only doing that to mark you with their scent, because you’re a sort of restaurant and resting place that belongs to them. They’re not pack animals.”
“No, maybe not,” said Sven-Erik. “But he still comes up and sleeps in my bed like a baby.”
“Because it’s warm. You don’t mean any more to the cat than an electric blanket.”
“But you’re a dog person,” Sonja cut him off short. “You can’t go making all these statements about cats.”
To Sven-Erik she said:
“I’m a cat person too.”
At that precise moment the glass door flew open. Anna-Maria came hurtling in. She grabbed hold of Sven-Erik and dragged him away from reception.
“We’re going to the priest’s house at Jukkasjärvi,” was all she said.
* * *
Kristin Wikström opened the door wearing her dressing gown and slippers. Her makeup was smudged beneath her eyes. Her blonde hair was tucked behind her ears and lay flat and uncombed at the back of her head.
“We’re looking for Benjamin,” said Anna-Maria. “We’d like a word with him. Is he at home?”
“What do you want?”
“To talk to him. Is he at home?”
Kristin Wikström’s voice went up a notch.
“What do you want him for? What do you want to talk to him about?”
“His father’s disappeared,” said Sven-Erik patiently. “We need to ask him one or two questions.”
“He’s not home.”
“Do you know where he is?” asked Anna-Maria.
“No, and you should be looking for Stefan. That’s what you two should be doing right now.”
“Can we have a look at his room?” asked Anna-Maria.
His mother blinked tiredly.
“No, you can’t.”
“In that case we’re very sorry to have disturbed you,” said Sven-Erik pleasantly, dragging Anna-Maria to the car.
They drove out of the yard.
“Fuck!” Anna-Maria burst out once they were through the gateposts. “How could I be so stupid as to come out here without a search warrant?”
“Pull up a bit further on and let me out,” said Sven-Erik. “You drive like hell and get the warrant sorted out and then come back. I want to keep an eye on her.”
Anna-Maria stopped the car, Sven-Erik slid out.
“Get a move on,” he said.
* * *
Sven-Erik trotted back to the priest’s house. He positioned himself behind one of the gateposts where he was hidden by a rowan bush. He could see both the outside door and the chimney.
If there’s any smoke, I’m going in, he thought.
After quarter of an hour Kristin Wikström came out. She’d changed from her dressing gown into jeans and a sweater. She was holding a garbage bag in her hand, tied at the top. She was heading for the garbage can. Just as she lifted the lid, she turned her head and caught sight of Sven-Erik.
Only one thing to do. Sven-Erik hurried over to her and held out his hand.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take that.”
She passed him the bag without a word. He noticed that she’d dragged a brush through her hair and put a little bit of color on her lips. Then the tears began to flow. No gestures, hardly even a change of expression, just the tears. She might just as well have been peeling onions.
Sven-Erik undid the bag. It contained cuttings about Mildred Nilsson.
“Now now,” he said, pulling her toward him. “There now. Tell me where he is.”
“In school, of course.”
She let him put his arms around her, let herself be held. Wept silently into his shoulder.
“But what is it you’re thinking?” asked Sven-Erik as he and Anna-Maria were parking the car outside the Högalid school. “Do you think he murdered Mildred Nilsson and his father?”
“I don’t think anything at all. But he’s got a book with the same symbol that was on that threatening drawing sent to Mildred. Presumably he drew it. And he had a load of cuttings about her murder.”
The headteacher of the school was a charming woman in her fifties. She was slightly plump, and was wearing a knee-length skirt with a dark blue jacket that didn’t match. She had a bright scarf around her neck, like a piece of jewelry. The very sight of her cheered Sven-Erik up. He liked women who seemed to crackle with energy.
Anna-Maria explained that she would like Benjamin Wikström to be sent for without any fuss. The head took out a timetable. Then she rang the teacher taking Benjamin’s class and had a brief conversation.
While they were waiting, she asked what it was all about.
“We think he might have been threatening Mildred Nilsson, the priest who was murdered last summer. So we just need to ask him a few questions.”
The teacher shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I find that very difficult to believe. Benjamin and his friends—they look appalling. Black hair, white faces. Their eyes sooty with makeup. And sometimes when you look at their tops! Last term one of Benjamin’s friends was wearing a top with a picture of a skeleton eating newborn babies.”
She laughed and pretended to shudder. Became serious when Anna-Maria failed to smile.
“But they’re really nice kids,” she went on. “Benjamin had a few problems last year, but I’d happily let him babysit my children. If I had small children, that is.”
“What do you mean, he had problems?” asked Sven-Erik.
“His schoolwork wasn’t going very well. And he became so very…They want to be different, mark themselves out by the way they dress and so on. Sometimes I think they actually wear their sense of being outsiders. Make it their own choice. But he didn’t feel good. He had lots of little sores on his arm, and he was always sitting there picking the scabs off. He ended up with a patch of sores that just wouldn’t heal. Then sometime after Christmas things straightened themselves out. He got a girlfriend and started a band.”