by Karin Nordin
He sighed and glanced over to where his nightstand should have been. Where was his photograph of Eiji? Had someone moved it?
Stenar tried to turn, but he had an ache in his torso that prevented him from too much rotary motion. What had he done with his wife’s photo? Had she moved it while she was cleaning? Did Kjeld take it?
A nurse walked into the room. She was short, shorter than Eiji, but she had the same shoulder-length blonde hair and honest smile. Her teeth were a little crooked in the front. Eiji’s teeth had been crooked too. Not glaringly so, but just enough to be endearing.
‘How are you feeling, Herr Nygaard? Do you need any more water?’
Stenar shook his head. His thoughts became more rapid and confused. Where had Kjeld run off to? Hadn’t he just been here? Where did he say he was going? It had been something about the barn, Stenar was almost certain of it. Something about the birds. But Kjeld shouldn’t go out to the barn. The barn wasn’t safe. That’s where it had happened. And if Kjeld went out there then he could get hurt. He could get hurt like the last time.
‘It’s not safe, Eiji,’ Stenar said, again trying to change his position in the bed.
‘You’re perfectly safe here, Herr Nygaard,’ the nurse comforted. ‘I’m just going to change your fluids.’
Stenar heard the nurse’s words, but he didn’t understand them. He didn’t understand what Eiji was talking about. Eiji shouldn’t have even been there. She had left for the Christmas party hours ago. Left him alone with Sara after their argument. The argument that was his fault. He’d been so stupid and foolish to accuse her of taking Peter’s side. She’d only been trying to support their old friend after the loss of his wife and child. She was right. Peter was only doing what he knew best. Running that mine was all he was capable of controlling and it was the only thing that took his mind off his grief. And what had Stenar done? Ruined their friendship because he’d been too upset about the conservation of the local wildlife to help him. And now Eiji was angry with him. And Kjeld was angry, too.
‘I have to go.’ Stenar pulled at the peripheral intravenous line on his hand. ‘I have to stop Kjeld from going into the barn. He’s going to get hurt.’
The nurse placed a consoling hand on Stenar’s arm. ‘It’s going to be all right, Herr Nygaard. Do you know where you are?’
Stenar grabbed the nurse’s wrist. ‘Why did you do it, Eiji? Why?’
‘Please, let go. You’re hurting me.’
‘Why did you go to the party? We agreed we weren’t going to go. Not after what he did. He’s a criminal. He’s destroying the forest. He understood the harmful effects of his operation and he didn’t care! How could you take his side? Why would you do that?’
The nurse tugged her arm, but Stenar’s grip tightened. She reached over to the side of the bed and pressed the emergency call button.
‘I’m sorry, Eiji. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. But he was going to destroy everything I worked to protect. That damn company was ruining everything beautiful and pristine about this countryside. How could I forgive him for that? How could I let that go?’
Another nurse and a broad-shouldered orderly entered the room. Stenar was gripping the blonde nurse’s arm so tightly that her hand turned red, her wrist already beginning to bruise. The orderly held Stenar down by the shoulders, distracting him while the other nurse injected a sedative into his line. Within seconds Stenar’s grip loosened.
His head throbbed and his eyelids began to droop. The book in his lap slid off the side of the bed and hit the floor, but Stenar’s senses had already started to dull and he didn’t hear the sound of the old binding snapping along its well-worn crease. He thought of the birds and hoped that they wouldn’t be angry with him. Then he thought of Eiji. She would forgive him eventually. Their love for each other was enough to get them over this hurdle. They just needed time. Before his eyes closed fully, he saw a glimpse of his boy, of Kjeld lying in the dirt, crying, face covered in blood. Stenar never should have let him go out to the barn on his own. He should have been there with him. And if it hadn’t been for Peter, he would have been.
If it hadn’t been for Peter none of this would have ever happened.
Chapter 36
Torsdag | Thursday
Kjeld woke up to a knock on the glass near his head. He was freezing. His breath was visible, hovering above the steering wheel like a cloud before forming a small circular damp spot on the windshield in front of him. Along the edges where the window met the steel frame of the car were frozen blossoms spreading out to the centre, giving the impression of broken crystal.
Kjeld turned his head to the side and saw Hanna, bundled up in a faux fur-lined coat, staring back at him with that concerned look mothers often gave their children. He tried to start the car so he could roll down the window, but the battery was dead. It didn’t even try to roll over. It just puttered, whirred, and then died. He opened the door and swivelled his legs out onto the street. His back groaned from sitting in the same position for hours.
He leaned forward and spat a yellow glob of morning phlegm on the ground.
‘Lovely.’ Hanna turned up her nose.
‘What time is it?’
‘Almost six.’
Kjeld looked at the sky. It was dark and the lamplights were lit. It distorted his perception of time. ‘In the morning?’
‘Of course, in the morning.’ Hanna scoffed. ‘How long have you been out here?’
‘All night, I suppose.’ He climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him.
‘All night?’ The wind pushed at her hood and Hanna tugged it back over her head. ‘Why didn’t you come inside?’
Kjeld didn’t have an answer to that. It was a simple question. Why didn’t he go inside? Why did he spend the night risking hypothermia by sleeping in a car in freezing temperatures? Why didn’t he go home? Why did he have to be such an arsehole? They were all simple questions, none of which had simple answers.
‘Guess I fell asleep,’ he said. ‘Can I come in now?’
There was a moment then when Kjeld thought she might turn him down. It wasn’t a hesitation on her part so much as a fleeting lull in the space between them. Not long, but long enough for Kjeld to question whether he’d overstepped his boundaries. It wouldn’t have been the first time that week.
She gave an exasperated sigh in the way one would after discovering that a puppy had just accidentally pissed on the carpet. Then she smiled.
‘Of course. Come on, ya old charmer. Let’s warm you up.’
* * *
Hanna’s house, albeit 1970s style on the outside, was completely remodelled on the inside to look like a swanky apartment one might expect to find on an Airbnb advertisement for Old Town in Stockholm. Everything was, in the IKEA fashion, white and rectangular and clean, accented with pastel blues and pinks. Hanna herself stood out in stark contrast. Not just because her skin was at least four shades darker than her Liatorp-model coffee table, but because she struck Kjeld as being more adventurous than do-it-yourself furniture pieces, thick-weave throws, and magazine-styled sofa pillows.
He sat in the corner of her couch, a low-backed retro model with attached cushions and short wooden legs that forced him to slouch so as not to aggravate his lumbar region any more than he already had, and cradled the coffee mug she’d given him. Like the throw pillows, which he’d carefully pushed to the side, the mug was a soft rose shade. On the forward face of the mug was the phrase “all I need is coffee and mascara” in gold cursive font. Kjeld agreed with the first half, but thought he’d do better to save the world the horror of seeing him with thick black lashes. Besides, that would clash with his ruddy hair.
Hanna sat down on the couch beside him, close enough for their knees to touch.
‘All right, handsome. Spill it.’
‘What?’ Kjeld’s thoughts were in a haze and his fingers were still stiff from the cold.
‘What’s going on with you?’ Hanna asked.
&nbs
p; ‘What do you mean?’
She tucked her legs up beneath her in a pose that, while it looked extremely photogenic due to the slender length of her calves, Kjeld couldn’t imagine was comfortable.
‘I know two nights together might not qualify me as having a professional opinion on your state of mind, but I’ve seen enough vacant eyes in my time to know that something’s not right. And I’m not talking about the obvious. God knows I drank an entire bottle of Riesling on my own after we found that body. But you don’t strike me as the sort who gets his panties in a twist over corpses.’ She brought her own mug, baby blue with “everything’s gonna be all right” wrapped around the cup, to her lips in a short sip. ‘Spit it out. What happened?’
‘I had a row with my dad.’
‘Come to blows did it?’
Kjeld snorted. ‘Not exactly. Might have been easier if it had.’
Hanna nodded. ‘Dementia is a bitch. My grandmother had it bad. She practically raised me, you know, because my mum was always working to pay the bills. One time I was over at her house. We’d just had the most marvellous day. You couldn’t even tell that anything was wrong. She was going on and on about these stories from her childhood and when I was a little girl. It was beautiful. We must have been going on like that for four or five hours and then she just stopped, stared straight at me, and asked me what my name was. We’d just spent hours talking about things we’d done with each other when I was growing up and she didn’t have any idea who I was. It just about broke me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kjeld said. He brought the mug to his face and let the steam waft over his nose and lips.
Hanna shrugged. ‘Life is shitty sometimes. I remember thinking there were all these things I wished I could say to her. And I did say them eventually, but I don’t know if she understood any of it. Guess it was more for my own well-being than anything else.’
There were a lot of things that Kjeld wanted to say to his father, but none of them were good. Certainly not for anyone’s well-being. Some of the things he had managed to say. Instead of feeling better, however, he just felt worse. Worse because he knew his father wouldn’t understand or would forget five minutes later. Things he should have said twelve years ago, perhaps even earlier. Then maybe he wouldn’t be carrying around his guilt like a suitcase with a broken wheel.
Hanna understood. And not just because she’d watched her grandmother fade into a stranger. She understood because, like Kjeld, she was from Varsund. She was familiar with the struggle of growing up in a place where nothing was private. A town where everyone knew the locations of the closets each family used to hide their proverbial skeletons. She understood the challenge of trying to leave. Of knowing the likelihood that she and everyone she grew up with would eventually take on the roles of their parents and grandparents. She saw the cycle. She was part of it. Maybe that was why Kjeld felt like he could open up with her about his father and his past in a way he couldn’t with Esme. There was a kind of safety net with Hanna he didn’t have with his partner. Because when this was all over she wouldn’t be a part of his life in Gothenburg. When this was over he could finally put it all behind him.
‘I always told myself I would never be like my father. It was the one thing I promised myself growing up. That no matter what I did or who I ended up with, I wouldn’t be like him. Especially if I ever had my own children. I would be different. Better.’ Kjeld took a sip. ‘I didn’t even really want kids. I didn’t plan for that. I think part of me always knew I was too selfish to be a parent. Too fearful that I’d fail to do it right. Don’t get me wrong. I love my daughter, but I’m not a good father.’
‘I think most parents feel like that at some point.’
‘Maybe, but I became everything I promised I wouldn’t. I used to think that it was because she was young. That maybe it wasn’t in me to get along with small children, but I think it’s just me. And now I’ve passed down this derelict parent gene to her and I’m afraid the circle will never stop.’
Hanna reached over, placed a hand on his thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘You’re not your father, Kjeld. Whatever happened in the past, it’s in the past. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Raising kids is a rollercoaster that never ends. Sometimes you’re at the top of the hill heading down at breakneck speeds and sometimes you’re on the loop. No one does it right. Everyone fails. It’s just a matter of doing your best.’
Kjeld cracked a smile. ‘Where’d you hear that? Off the back of a cereal box?’
‘Just something my therapist used to say when I was going through my divorce,’ she said, grinning. ‘Kinda stuck with me.’
‘I like that.’
‘Just remember, you can leave whenever you want. You’ve already done a lot by coming up here. I’m sure your family would understand if it’s too much for you.’
‘I think you give my family too much credit.’
‘You gotta take care of numero uno, handsome.’
‘Something else your therapist said?’
‘Nah. Heard that on RuPaul’s Drag Race.’
Kjeld laughed. It felt good. It was a pity that Hanna was so entrenched in Varsund. Kjeld thought she might be someone he could spend more time with. Maybe someone he could come to feel serious about. But not in Varsund. Varsund was a pit of despair. And as soon as he was able he would be on the road and back to the busy streets of Gothenburg.
‘I have to see this through. I’ll have too many questions if I don’t. It’s just a matter of putting together the pieces. Unfortunately, right now they don’t fit.’
‘The pieces about your dad?’ Hanna asked between sips.
‘Oddly enough I think it’s more about my mum.’
‘The lady from the photograph?’
Kjeld nodded. He didn’t know why, but he had a nagging feeling that his mother’s relationship to the Lindqvists had more to do with the corpse in his father’s barn than anything else. Jealousy was the number-one cause for murder, after all. Jealousy followed by revenge. Could something have happened that pushed his father over his breaking point? A crime of passion gone dreadfully wrong and then forgotten about?
Kjeld didn’t know, but he felt he owed it to himself, and to his father who sounded so desperate on the phone when he called him, to find out. Even if it didn’t heal the wounds between them. Even if his father didn’t remember that he’d helped.
As if sensing his thoughts, Hanna shook her head. ‘But your dad is so—’
Kjeld quirked a brow.
‘I don’t know. I just … He seemed nice. Granted, I’m a stranger, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would be responsible for a murder.’
‘They never do.’ That was one of the first tenets of good police work. Never underestimate the ones you least suspect. Kjeld had ignored that rule once before to disastrous results. Never again.
‘So how do you find out?’
‘Find out?’ Kjeld asked.
‘How do you find out about the connection between your mother and the Lindqvists? Have you spoken with Roland?’
‘I tried. I got waylaid by his son.’
Hanna let out an irritated groan. ‘That man is so disgusting. What a creep.’
‘Like Norberg?’ Kjeld remembered she also referred to Norrmalm’s lawyer as creepy.
‘Hardly. I’d take Norberg over David Lindqvist any day. That man is … guh!’ She shivered. ‘Every time he looks at you it’s like he’s imagining what you look like naked.’
‘Isn’t that a self-confidence booster? To help you speak in public or something?’
‘Not where David is concerned. There have been more than a few receptionists who’ve seen him off the clock, so to speak. Needless to say, they aren’t working at Norrmalm anymore.’
‘He’s into weird stuff, you mean?’ Kjeld leaned forward to the coffee table and set his mug on a glass coaster.
‘I mean he’s not exactly in the running for feminist of the year.’ Hanna looked at the rim of her mug where sh
e’d smeared her lipstick. ‘He’s the sort who thinks he’s God’s gift to womankind. I hear things sometimes. Nothing good.’
‘Yeah I got the impression he likes to be in control.’
‘Deep pockets, small package. At least that’s the word around the water cooler. He might be good-looking, but I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.’
Hanna glanced at her wristwatch and then stood up to gather her purse. She searched through the large pouch, items rattling against each other, until she found a lipstick tube. She used a mirror beside the front door to touch up the areas she’d smeared. It was dark red. Like blood under a dim lamplight.
‘What else do they say around the water cooler?’
‘That David will do anything to make a buck. And he hates Norrmalm Industries. He can’t wait for this merger to go through so he can take his profits and get the hell out of Dodge, as the Americans say.’
‘You mentioned the merger earlier. Is Norrmalm restructuring?’
‘Roland is selling to some other mining company. Of course, all of us lower tier people will probably lose our jobs in the downsizing, but the Lindqvists will be sitting pretty on their newfound fortune.’
Kjeld thought about those bins in his father’s basement, remembering the wording on the outside of the cardboard that he’d found the tackle box in. N.M. Miscellaneous. What else could have been in those boxes? What else didn’t he know about his parents and their relationship to Norrmalm Industries?