The Second Deadly Sin Read online

  Newly bought, Martinsson thought.

  The boy’s fair hair was hanging down over his eyes. His arms and legs seemed thin and spindly.

  It’s not easy to deal with children, Martinsson thought. You could ask a grown-up how he was. If you could do anything to help. Express your sympathy. But what can you do with a young boy who comes crawling up to you on all fours?

  “Hello, Marcus,” she said in the end.

  He barked eagerly at her in response.

  “Well, well,” said Martinsson to Eriksson with a laugh. “Have you found yourself a new dog?”

  “I certainly have,” Eriksson said, also laughing. “It’s a wild dog Vera found wandering about in the forest. Isn’t that right?”

  “Wuff!” Marcus said, nodding his head.

  “He hasn’t got a name yet,” Eriksson said. “What do you think?”

  Martinsson stroked Marcus’s head and caressed his back.

  Terrific, she thought. At least I understand dogs.

  The boy crawled off into the living room, and returned with a tennis ball. It was too big for him to hold it in his teeth, so he held it in one hand in front of his mouth.

  “There’s a good dog! Fetch!”

  She threw the tennis ball away. The Brat and Marcus scampered after it.

  When Eriksson put the question, she said she would love to stay for dinner. Reindeer meat with preserved raw lingonberries, mashed potatoes and a brown sauce. Marcus ate his dinner out of a bowl on the floor. Vera sat patiently beside him, hoping she would be given the remains.

  After dinner Marcus went out into the garden, which was enclosed by a wire Gunnebo fence. While waiting for the coffee water to boil, Eriksson started the washing up.

  “He seems thrilled to bits, sleeping in the kennel outside,” he said. “I reckoned that if he wants to be a dog, and is happy pretending to be one, then why not?”

  “Why not indeed? A police officer from Umeå will be coming tomorrow: she’s apparently very good at interviewing children. Maybe she can get Marcus to remember things?”

  “Who’s going to look after him? Has that been decided yet?”

  “His grandma’s cousin will take him. Maja Larsson. She’s living in Kurravaara at the moment – her mother’s in hospital. I’ll give her your number.”

  Eriksson nodded.

  “He’s welcome to stay here. One extra dog doesn’t make much difference … I heard about that von Post business …”

  Martinsson squashed some crispbread crumbs on the table with her fingernails.

  “I’ve been sidelined,” she said. “Björnfot has handed the investigation over to von Post.”

  “Good Lord! But why?”

  “He says it’s because we could lay ourselves open to objections due to the fact that I live in the same village as the murder victim. But I think it’s mainly because von Post is desperate to take the case on. And that Alf simply …”

  She shrugged rather than finish the sentence.

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “Rather briefly.”

  She waited until Eriksson had put a mug in front of her and filled it with coffee before continuing.

  “I called him a cocksucker.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Well done! It’s good that you haven’t let it get you down.”

  Martinsson grinned and blew into her mug.

  “You mustn’t take these things personally,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. “I drew a heart round his behaviour and tried to see it from his point of view”

  “The cocksucker’s point of view.”

  *

  Eriksson looked at Martinsson. He had put her in a good mood. He wanted to do that always. Cheer her up when she was out of sorts. She was smiling broadly. He could see her tongue. Her lips were red. Without warning his head was filled with images. He was forced to turn away from the table and start fiddling with the washing up. Did she have to keep moving all the time? Shaking her head. Raising her shoulders so that the movement of her breasts was visible under her jumper.

  “I don’t know what got into me,” she said. “I was so angry. And it all happened so quickly. But now …”

  She shrugged, and looked sad and tired.

  “That’s not so surprising, I’d have thought,” Eriksson said. “It’s natural to be hurt and angry. If you’re badly treated.”

  “Yes. But I’ve no intention of turning up while they are investigating the murder. I’m going to take all the leave that’s owing to me.”

  She took a couple of gulps of her coffee and tapped at the mug with her fingernail.

  “What do you think happened to her?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly, as if he were afraid Marcus might hear even though he was outside. “All that pointless stabbing, over and over again. Maybe somebody in the village who lost his rag. Sol-Britt was an outsider, after all. People gossiped about her. Some loony might react to that. The type that murders a celebrity, or somebody the village calls a whore.”

  “Guilt,” Martinsson muttered. “A whole village has been sitting at their kitchen tables calling Sol-Britt Uusitalo a whore. Pointing the finger. And then somebody loses control. Picks her as the one to stab to death. Who’s guilty? The whole village? Me? Because I live there and preferred not to know about such things, not to see?”

  Eriksson did not answer. Martinsson was staring fixedly at the bottom of her coffee mug, as if the truth could be found in the dregs. Then she gave a start. Remembered that she was supposed to be doing something for Sivving, for Christ’s sake. She got a grip on herself and thanked Eriksson for the meal.

  Then she left. Took the Brat with her, but left Vera behind for Marcus’s sake.

  Eriksson remained standing in the kitchen. Feeling a bit confused. As always when she tumbled into and out of his existence.

  He wondered if the Wild Dog might perhaps fancy some ice cream for afters.

  Anna-Maria Mella sat at her kitchen table, eating a cold pancake. Her knife and fork lay undisturbed at the side of her plate, and she was eating the pancake as if it were a sandwich – without even bothering to heat it up in the microwave. Robert and the children had spent the whole day at his sister’s. She was able to think about whatever she liked, in peace and quiet.

  What a bloody mess!

  She put her elbows on the table. Lingonberry jam dripped down onto the tablecloth. She scraped it up with her index finger, which she then licked clean.

  Ought she to have told von Post to go to hell today? Should she have been loyal to Martinsson?

  She realised that there was nobody she could ask about this.

  There was no point in talking to Robert. She knew what he would say. “Oh, come on! You were not the one who removed Rebecka from the investigation. Why should you turn awkward squad because somebody else had her replaced? You should just carry on doing your job. I don’t understand your problem.”

  Some people were able to talk to their mothers. She had never been able to do that. Her parents lived down in Lombolo, and they only met about once a month. She couldn’t force Jenny and Petter to accompany her anymore, so they hardly ever met their grandma and granddad. And in any case, her mother was not all that interested. She liked babies: they were good fun and easy to cope with. But older children were a nuisance, kicked up a noise and ran about all over the place. Especially Mella’s children. Mella’s brother lived in Piteå, and her mother used to go on and on about his children – how well they were doing, and how nice and calm and clever they were. And as for Mella’s father …

  She sighed. Her father used to go for walks, and kept a close check on the weather. That was his life. Why had her parents sold their house? When they had it he could spend hours pottering about in the house and garden, but now all he did was go for endless walks. He would be most upset if his daughter started going on about problems at work.

  And I don’t have any girlfriends, she thought as she started taking clean
crockery out of the dishwasher.

  But is it really my fault? She made a threatening gesture with a fork before putting it away in a drawer. I work full-time and have four children. How could I make time for girlfriends? Or the strength to cope with them? If we were ever to arrange to have a beer at Ferrum or to go to the gym together, you can bet your life that one of the children would fall ill. And after a while folk get tired of that sort of thing. They find other people to go to the cinema with.

  Mella closed the dishwasher and picked up a tea towel to do some drying.

  The kitchen looked quite tidy now. Admittedly the tea towel smelled of old napkins, but there was no unwashed crockery lying around, no obvious dirt traps. If only the family would go and visit relatives more often, she would be able to make their home neat and tidy.

  Then Jenny came into the kitchen. She filled a glass with water, took an apple and leaned against the bench.

  “How’s it been today?” Mella said.

  “O.K.,” said Jenny in a tone of voice that suggested this wasn’t a time for discussing matters.

  I could ask her, Mella thought. If I dared.

  Jenny would no doubt be disappointed. Would have thought that her mother should obviously have supported a colleague she liked who had been sidelined.

  She’s so young, Mella thought in self-defence. Everything is black or white as far as she’s concerned. Or else she’s right. Probably she’s right.

  Jenny suddenly stood up and looked at her.

  “How are you, Mum? Louise wrote on Facebook that she saw you on the telly today.”

  Without warning she threw her arms around Mella – the apple in one hand, the glass of water in the other.

  “You need a hug,” she said with her mouth up against her mother’s shoulder.

  Mella stood stock still. Held the smelly tea towel as far away as possible, so that the stink wouldn’t scare Jenny into beating a retreat.

  Life goes by so fast – a hundred-metre runner who laughs at her as she flies past.

  It was not all that long since Jenny used to lie in Mella’s arms, sucked her breasts. Who was this long-legged, made-up young woman?

  Stop, time! Mella commanded, closing her eyes.

  But the moment had already passed. Mella’s mobile rang in her pocket. Jenny let go of her and left the kitchen.

  It was Fred Olsson.

  “Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s mobile,” he said without beating about the bush.

  It sounded as if he had food in his mouth.

  “I’ve worked my way through it. Retrieved her erased text messages as well. I think you ought to see them.”

  Kiruna was a black silhouette against the graphite-grey sky: the huge granite terraces on the mountain where the entrances to the iron ore seams were located; the skeleton-like clock tower of the town hall; the triangular church perched on the mountainside like a Lappish shack.

  There was a ring on Krister Eriksson’s doorbell.

  “Maja Larsson,” the woman said, holding out her hand. Eriksson shook it.

  “I’m Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s cousin,” she said. “I’m supposed to collect Marcus.”

  She was good-looking. About sixty, he would say. Her hair tumbled down from her head in a thousand silver plaits.

  He noted that she did not react to his own appearance. Some people would stare hard into his eyes as they spoke, making sure that their gaze didn’t happen to fall onto his burnt skin or his mouse-like ears. And when he looked away, or was busy with something else, they were unable to tear their eyes away from his face.

  He noticed nothing of that sort with Maja Larsson. She looked at him as his sister did, or as people who knew him so well that they had forgotten how different he looked.

  “Would you like a bite to eat?” he said when they came into the kitchen. “There’s still some of the dinner left – I can pop it into the microwave if you fancy something.”

  She said yes please, and duly ate what she was given. She seemed tired. For a moment he thought she would fall asleep at his kitchen table. She blinked slowly, like a child.

  “I heard that your mother is ill,” he said. “I can look after Marcus if you like.”

  She looked grateful for that suggestion.

  “Perhaps we can share him?”

  After the meal they went out to the dog kennel. It was dark, but Marcus had equipped himself with blankets, a torch and some comics. Vera was also lying inside. When Eriksson asked him to come out, the only response was a chorus of loud barking – and it wasn’t Vera.

  “He’s a wild dog,” Eriksson said.

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “No, I think he’s very friendly.”

  No matter how much they tried to persuade him, the Wild Dog refused to come out. He yelped and growled after everything they said.

  “He doesn’t know me at all,” Larsson said quietly. “He seems to feel safe in there. Perhaps he saw something when Sol-Britt …”

  “He’s welcome to stay here,” Eriksson whispered.

  “Are you sure? Thank you very much.”

  She then said aloud, “Even if he is friendly, I don’t think I dare take that wild dog with me. Maybe I can come back and stroke him tomorrow?”

  “What does the Wild Dog have to say to that?” Eriksson said. “Is that alright with you?”

  “Wuff!” was the response from inside the kennel.

  Larsson said thank you for the meal. Eriksson said it was a pleasure – there was food left over after all: Martinsson had not eaten very much.

  She gave him a quick smile. She’s one of those people who can read a man’s thoughts, he told himself after she had left.

  He felt he had been unmasked. She realised that he enjoyed letting her know that Martinsson had been there.

  Fred Olsson sat down in Mella’s visitor’s armchair, and handed over a printout to both her and von Post. Von Post was sitting on the edge of Mella’s desk.

  “These are the erased text messages I extracted from Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s mobile. I’ve marked the ones I think might be of interest. It might be possible to dig out a few more, but to do that we’d have to send the handset to Ibas.”

  “What’s that?” Mella said, shifting her desk chair so that she could see Olsson. Von Post had been sitting in the way.

  “It’s a company that specialises in retrieving data. In the Iraq war some gang or other had shot and destroyed a hard disk with an A.K.5 – three bullet holes, all the way through. The Yanks sent it to Ibas and they were able to rescue ninety-five per cent of the contents.”

  “Wow!”

  “Mind you, it didn’t contain anything of interest. It was just a flight simulator. Hardly worth the three hundred thousand they had to cough up for it.”

  “Very good,” said von Post. “It’s a bonus to have an I.T. wizard in the team. Have you thought of applying for a job at the National Forensic Laboratory?”

  Olsson caught Mella’s eye: they were on the same wavelength. Then he stared down at the document and said nothing.

  If only I were a bit quicker on the uptake, Mella thought. Grin and make a witty reply instead of just sitting there, long-faced and silent. I’d have had a seat on the National Police Board by now. Or at the very least a job in Luleå.

  “Come on round then, if you’re feeling randy”, Sol-Britt had written to somebody. “Marcus is asleep.” “It’s not on – Maja is here.” “Mmm, you’re welcome to try that on me.” “Me as well.” “Kiss and goodnight.”

  Under the heading “INBOX” four messages attracted her attention. “Is it O.K. if I drop in?” “Can’t wait! What about you?” “She’s away with the fairies – can I call in?” “Fancy a shag?”

  “So she had a boyfriend. Who sent these messages?” Mella asked.

  Olsson shrugged.

  “It’s a Telia number. I looked it up, but it’s one of those pay-as-you-go cards. And it’s not registered, so …”

  He shrugged again.

  “But one good t
hing is that you can check up on which transmitter the message was sent by. So you know to within a radius of two kilometres where he was at the time. If the text message was sent from Lombolo in the evening, it’s a fair guess that he lives out there. If it was sent from the mine during the day, well, it’s reasonable to assume that he works there.”

  “Excellent,” von Post said. “Good work.”

  “And I think,” Olsson said without taking his eyes off Mella, “that Telia sells bundles of pay-as-you-go cards to retailers. So that should mean we could track down who sold him the card, and when it was activated.”

  “Somebody might well remember something,” Mella said, nodding her approval.

  Von Post agreed.

  “But what about this?” Mella said, pointing to a text message. “It was sent the day before yesterday. To her cousin Maja Larsson.”

  I must send him packing, we can’t go on like this, it said.

  Von Post stood up.

  “Surely Martinsson spoke to Maja Larsson, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mella said.

  “But she didn’t discover that there was a lover involved! And that Sol-Britt evidently broke off the relationship! What the hell did they do, then? Drink coffee?”

  Probably, Mella thought. God only knows how much coffee we get through …

  “Right, we must go there,” von Post said. “Now!”

  It took half a second for Mella to realise that he meant they should call on Larsson and not Martinsson.

  “Who are you going to send there?” she asked.

  “I want to talk to her myself. You’re all welcome to come as well. Let’s go there all together.”

  Mella stood up. It was gone eleven at night. Larsson might well have gone to bed. Dragging people out of their beds made them scared, sometimes aggressive. The police became enemies.

  But Sol-Britt Uusitalo had been in a relationship with somebody. And Larsson knew about it.

  It’s always somebody they know, Mella thought despondently. A man they were close to. Somebody they were madly in love with.

  Olsson seemed hesitant.

  “Do I really have to come as well?” he said.