* * *
—
They took two cars, Ulf driving his faded grey Saab and Anna making do with a humble Volkswagen from the police car pool. They travelled together, with Ulf peeling off when Anna took the turning to Julia’s cattery. Erik had obtained details as to the location of the Pahl property through a phone call to the local police, and Ulf had worked out that it was only ten minutes or so from Julia and Nils. That was relevant, he thought, as such propinquity made Julia’s unease all the more credible. No wife would like a former girlfriend of her husband to live only a few kilometres down the road. Some distant location would have been far more comfortable, he thought, at least for Julia.
The land about Linda’s house was heavily wooded, although Ulf could make out a line of lush fields beyond the trees. Those would be the fields let out to the dairy farmer, and sure enough, there were the cows, contented Frisians clustered about a drinking trough. A winding driveway led to a small clearing where a sign said Pottery Parking. Ulf left the Saab there and made his way on foot to the back of the house. That, he imagined, was where work would be done on the proposed feed bin for the ducks.
Nils saw him and called out. “Inspector! Inspector! Over here.”
Ulf joined Nils beside a large wooden hutch, the roof of which was currently being covered with tar paper. Nils introduced him to Linda, who had been doing something inside the structure but who now crawled out backwards through a low hatch. Ulf observed that Linda was strikingly attractive, even when crawling out of a duck feed bin. Some people, he thought—absurdly—can look good even when crawling out backwards.
He went straight to the point. “I’m going to have to ask you to accompany me into town for questioning,” Ulf said.
He saw that Nils seemed to take this with equanimity.
“Why, Inspector?”
“Because I need to ask you questions in relation to an act of sabotage.”
This was the signal for Linda to gasp. “Sabotage!”
Ulf turned to her. “Placing a tomcat in another cat’s cat carrier.”
Ulf noticed that she was staring at Nils in apparent agony. Then she turned and blurted out, “No, it was me. I did that.”
Nils spun round. “No, you didn’t, I did.”
Ulf shook his head. “I didn’t accuse you,” he said to Linda.
“I know you didn’t, but I can’t stand by and let you arrest Nils for something I did.”
“Except that you didn’t do it,” said Nils forcefully. “I did.”
“Darling,” said Linda, her voice rising with emotion. “You don’t have to lie to save me.”
Ulf looked at the ground. He had become aware of a ginger tomcat, overweight and battered, that had suddenly appeared from the bushes and was rubbing itself against his right leg. Was this the way a cat confessed, he wondered.
* * *
—
Anna found Julia in her office, struggling with a pile of receipts.
“Who would run a business?” asked Julia, as she greeted her visitor. “I employ an accountant to do my tax return, but the hard part, in my view, is getting all the information to him. His is the easy part, if you ask me.”
She looked at Anna expectantly. “Developments?” she asked.
Anna asked whether she might sit down.
“We’ve made progress,” said Anna, choosing her words with all the care that Ulf had advised. “Your husband, I’m afraid to say, has been taken into town for questioning.”
Julia drew in her breath sharply. “Nils?”
“Yes. Your husband.”
“Oh, my God.”
Anna was watching the reaction. If there were to be any confession, this she thought, was the most likely time for it to emerge.
And it did.
Julia spoke quietly, but with an intense urgency. “Look,” she said. “You’re making a terrible mistake. I did it. I was intending that that Pahl woman, that husband stealer…” She spat out the words. “I wanted her to get the blame so that Nils would realise what a dangerous woman she was.”
Anna nodded. “I see.” Then she asked, “Where did you get the cat?”
Julia looked confused. “What cat?”
“The tom you put in the carrier.”
Nothing was said. Julia’s confusion seemed to deepen.
“Well,” insisted Anna. “Where did you get him?”
Julia waved a hand in the air. “Oh, there’s a tom that hangs around.”
“Oh yes?”
“I took him with me.”
Anna pressed her again. “Did you go in with Nils? Did you go to the show with him?”
“Yes.”
“So he must have been aware of the presence of the tom, because the tom must have travelled down with you. Was he aware of him?”
“Yes,” said Julia, and then, almost immediately, “No.”
Anna sighed and then rose to her feet. “You’ll be hearing from us,” she said and then added, “Or perhaps not.”
She left the office and returned to the pool Volkswagen. It smells bad, this car, she thought. Somebody has been smoking in it. That was disgusting, and quite against the rules, and her resentment over the unknown rule breaker hung above her, a tiny, localised cloud, all the way back to the office.
Chapter Eight
It reminded her of what Sweden used to be
Ulf arranged to see Bjorn that evening, after his brother had finished a press conference. They met once more in the Ships’ Galley, in the early evening, when it was popular with drinkers rather than diners. Bjorn was hungry, though, and ordered a plate of charred Brussels sprouts, lightly drizzled with olive oil.
“Everybody’s eating these things,” he said. “It’s the zeitschnack of our times.”
“Zeitschnack?” asked Ulf.
“The snack de nos jours. Of our times. As in zeitgeist,” said Bjorn, with a smile. “Spirit of the times. Zeitgeist. You’re the one who speaks German.”
“Very badly,” said Ulf.
“So do the Germans,” Bjorn retorted. “You should hear some of them.”
Ulf took a Brussels sprout. “I’ve been thinking about your problem,” he said.
Bjorn laughed. “Which one?”
“Your leak.”
Bjorn passed the plate of sprouts over to Ulf. “Help yourself,” he said. “If you leave them all to me, I’ll polish the whole lot off. Just like a Belgian.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” said Ulf. “Not all Belgians are greedy.”
“They like their food,” said Bjorn. “Just like the Russians like to drink. And don’t tell me they don’t—they do. They drink like fish.”
“I don’t think generalisations are helpful,” said Ulf.
“Maybe not,” countered Bjorn. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t accurate.” He paused. “That’s the great thing about being a Moderate Extremist—we allow our members to speak their minds—up to a point. That’s the moderation kicking in.”
Ulf made a dismissive gesture. “I didn’t ask you here to discuss your politics, Bjorn. You know my views on those.”
“So?”
“So, I asked you here so that I could tell you that I think I know who might have been leaking information.”
Bjorn had been flippant to this point; now he became serious. “You’ve found out?”
“Not exactly found out. What I’ve done is come up with a possible theory.”
“Then tell me.”
Ulf drew in his breath. “I think it might be Kitty.”
It was as if Bjorn had been delivered a physical blow. He reeled. For a few moments he said nothing, then he leaned forward. “You haven’t accused her?” he asked. “Not directly, I hope?”
Ulf assured his brother that he had not suggested anything
to Kitty. And he emphasised, too, that this was just a hypothesis—that nothing was definite.
“I think she may have leaked information in order to compromise you,” he said. “I think she may have planned to make it possible for Olga Hansson to make a case to the effect that you were the one who had been leaking. Then you would have to resign, and that, of course, is what she wants. Kitty loves you, you see, Bjorn, and she doesn’t want to see you exhausted and broken by policies. She wants you to get out.”
Bjorn was shaking his head. “No, Ulf, no. Kitty would never betray me.”
“But it’s not betrayal. She did it to try to save you from yourself.”
Bjorn’s head shaking became more violent. “No, no, no. It was me, Ulf. I did it. I did it and wanted it pinned on Olga to get her out of the way. She’s my rival, you see.”
Bjorn stared at his brother. “You wanted to use me as part of an attempt to discredit Olga Hansson?”
Bjorn became more animated. “It was for the greater good, Ulf. The cause we espouse in the Moderate Extremist Party is a great one. We’re patriots. We want to do our best for Denmark. That’s what we want.”
“Denmark?”
Bjorn looked puzzled. “What about Denmark?”
“You said you wanted to do your best for Denmark.”
Bjorn shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I said that we wanted to do our best for Sweden. We’re a Swedish party, for heaven’s sake, Ulf.”
“All right,” Ulf conceded. “Forget it.” He was tired. There were two possibilities here. One was that Bjorn was telling the truth, the other was that he was making this up to shield Kitty. Either explanation could be true. But which was it? He had no idea, but he thought, on balance, the whole business had probably been instigated by his brother. The world was full of falsity—and smoke and mirrors, and every sort of artifice. In that sea swam politicians—not all of them, by any means, but certainly quite a number.
“The whole thing?” asked Bjorn, his voice eager.
“I meant the slip of the tongue.” But then Ulf realised that he might as well say the whole thing could be forgotten, because that would have to happen, sooner or later. Bjorn and Kitty would have to work out their mutual future. Olga Hansson would have to sort out her future in the party. These were things that were of no real concern to Ulf, and he was only too happy to set them aside.
“Let’s just forget,” he said. And then he added, “Do you think we’ll ever be able to forget Bergman?”
“No,” said Bjorn. “Some things stay with you. All your life, they stay with you.”
“Such as the knowledge that you have a brother,” mused Ulf.
Bjorn looked at him. “Yes. And the love you have for your brother. In spite of everything, that stays with you.”
“I think it does,” said Ulf.
* * *
—
In the office the following day, Anna took a telephone call from Julia to the effect that she wished to withdraw her complaint relating to the tomcat. At the end of the conversation, Anna replaced the telephone receiver and looked across the room at Ulf.
“Well, that’s that,” she said. “Julia is dropping her complaint. That’s the end of our feline problem.”
Ulf frowned. “So, what do we conclude?”
“Do we have to conclude anything?” asked Anna. “The file can be closed. No complainant.”
“But what do you think?” Ulf asked.
“I think none of them did it.”
Ulf was astonished. “But…”
“I think the tom got in by himself. I think Julia, or Nils, might have left the cat carrier unsecured. Along comes some disreputable tom and takes his chance. Then, when the discovery is made, Julia or Tom decide that somebody had put the tom in the cage.”
Ulf waited.
“And then?”
“We hadn’t thought of insurance before this,” said Anna. “I asked her, though, and she admitted they had made a claim. It was for the economic loss that flowed from losing that expensive litter.”
“Ah.” Ulf thought insurance was one of the first issues they should have addressed.
“So it could be an insurance fraud,” Anna continued. “The tom gets in through their own negligence. They need somebody to blame. Julia decides that Linda would be a good candidate for that. Nils is keen to get away from Linda and, besides, he’ll do anything Julia wants him to do. So he goes along with the whole thing.”
“I’m not sure,” said Ulf. “They struck me as a nice couple. And I thought that he, in particular, was a rather agreeable sort.”
“Nobody is,” said Anna. “In our line of work, Ulf, nobody’s an agreeable sort, as you put it. Nils may be nice, but he’s weak.”
“I don’t know about that. I didn’t think so.”
Anna smiled. “Did you see his jaw?”
“What?”
“He had the classic weak jaw. I spotted it immediately. I said to myself: weak—easily led.”
Ulf stared at her in astonishment. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” said Anna. And then added. “A bit.”
Ulf shook his head. “I think you could be wrong, you know. Your whole explanation is based on assumptions for which you have no proof.”
“Possibly,” said Anna. “But just what can we prove in this life?”
It was a good question, Ulf thought. He sighed. “Oh, well. If the objective of detective work is resolution, then we’ve achieved resolution. Perhaps not in quite the way we anticipated, but resolution none the less.”
“I’m relieved,” said Anna. “That was the sort of case that would have stirred up a lot of comment. It could have seemed as though we were concerning ourselves with ridiculous storms in teacups—that sort of thing.”
“A storm in a teacup can be a very serious thing for the sailors in that teacup,” Ulf pointed out.
Anna thought about this. Ulf had put it very well. A tiny storm was bad if the world in which it occurred was itself a miniature one.
“I sometimes wish,” she said, “that we made more arrests.”
Ulf wondered whether it mattered. “People put far too much store on figures these days,” he observed. “They want inputs and outputs and so on, but what does any of that actually mean. Does it have any bearing—any bearing at all—on whether an outcome is good, bad, or indifferent? Does it?”
“No,” said Anna. “I don’t think it does. The important thing is how people feel at the end of the day.”
You are so right, thought Ulf. You are so, so right. Because you are who you are, and you understand these things, and you want to bring to our poor world the healing and the reconciliation that it so, so desperately needs.
He closed his eyes. Oh love, he thought, come down and knock at my door someday—some day soon.
For more information, PantheonBooks.com
VISIT THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF
Alexander McCall Smith
© Chris Watt
• AlexanderMcCallSmith.com
Join the official Alexander McCall Smith Fan Club to receive email updates on author events and book releases. Click on “Newsletter” on the home page to sign up!
• facebook.com/AlexanderMcCallSmith
• twitter.com/mccallsmith
Available wherever books and eBooks are sold
Discover more at PenguinRandomHouse.com
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
>
The Strange Case of the Moderate Extremists Page 7