The Second Deadly Sin Page 4

  “I’ve peed myself,” Mella said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I was searching around in my dusty underwear drawer, then I sneezed and bloody well peed myself. I’m a wreck.”

  “A lot?”

  “No, of course not. Just a little drop. But still … I give up. I thought I’d wear a skirt as your sisters always look so smart, but it’ll have to be trousers and an incontinence pad.”

  “Oh, darling. Come here, let me have a feel.”

  “What? If you so much as touch me I’ll turn my police pistol on you.”

  She stood up, took a pair of cotton knickers and some socks from the drawer, and put them and a pair of jeans on inside thirty seconds.

  I don’t care, she thought. I can’t compete with them in any case.

  She stuck her head into Gustav’s room. He was on his bed, standing on his hands.

  “I thought I’d told you to get dressed! How many more times do I have to tell you? Get dressed, get dressed, get dressed! …”

  “Just one more time – I need to beat Lovisa at school, we have a competition to see who can stand on their hands longest, and she always wants to do it again and again because I always beat her. She says her record is thirteen seconds. It’s so hard doing it on the bed because it’s so soft. Take the duvet and the pillow off. Did you hear, Mum? Take the—”

  “Put this jumper on NOW before I lose my temper.”

  Mella pulled her son towards her and fitted the jumper over his head. She ought to have ironed it. His hair was too long as well. Robert’s mother was bound to point that out. Gustav was still jabbering away non-stop from inside the jumper.

  “Mum, surely you don’t believe that Lovisa’s record is thirteen seconds, when she can’t do it for any longer than three seconds at school. And Mum, do you know what? Have you seen my wish list?”

  “Thousands of times. And there’s a long time to go before Christmas Eve. Put those socks on.”

  “But you haven’t seen the new list! I wrote loads of things on it only yesterday. And you can buy all the things from Ellos dot com. And then there’s my Lego list. I’ve got a Lego list as well. Ouch! My eyebrow! Aaargh!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A boy’s head emerged from the jumper. She helped him to find the armhole as well.

  “There are so many Lego sets I want. For instance—”

  “Here! It says on my wish list that you have to put your underpants and socks on.”

  “What? Is that all you want for Christmas? Great. But Mum, I still want to go to Ullared. Linus in my class has been there, and there are sooo many things you can buy there. And can you guess how many traffic signs I know now? About a hundred, mebbe. How about this: if there’s a blue round thing with an arrow pointing somewhere. Dead easy. I got that straight away. No problem. I didn’t even have to ask you or Dad. It mines you have to drive to there – to where the arrow’s pointing. And if there are arrows inside a round circle. Do you know what that mines?”

  “Trousers! Now!”

  “Yes, I’m putting them on. It mines a roundabout.”

  “Means,” said Petter, who was passing his little brother’s room on his way to the kitchen.

  Mella managed to get Gustav’s trousers on and dragged him into the kitchen while he went on and on about various traffic signs and the lessons in swordsmanship that Link gets from Oshus when he has left the cave. She sat him down in front of a bowl of sour milk and muesli and an open sandwich while making a now-you-can-take-over-before-I-do-him-an-injury sign behind his back to her husband. Robert was already sitting at the breakfast table, focusing all his attention on the Advertiser.

  Their sixteen-year-old daughter Jenny was hunched over her physics textbook. Mella had long since given up any hope of being able to help her with her homework. The death blow had been a test on Euclidian geometry.

  Petter, the eleven-year-old, was staring at his bowl of sour milk and muesli with a helpless expression on his face.

  “I haven’t got a spoon,” he said.

  “But you’ve still got legs, I assume,” Mella said, pouring coffee into her mug and sitting down with a thud.

  “Mum, do you know what?” Gustav said, having been quiet for five seconds since his mother had shovelled a spoonful of sour milk into his mouth.

  “Can’t somebody shut him up?” Jenny hissed. “I’m trying to revise. I have a test tomorrow.”

  “Be quiet, you,” Gustav said indignantly. “You interrupted me!”

  “I forbid you to talk to me,” Jenny said, putting her hands over her ears.

  “If I get a Lego Mummeleo Falko for Christmas I’ll be quiet for a whole month. Can I have it, Mum?”

  “It’s called a Millennium Falcon, you nitwit,” Petter said. “Mum, do you know what it costs? Five thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine kronor.”

  “Come off it!” Mella said. “Who pays six thousand kronor for a Lego set? It’s not on.”

  Petter shrugged.

  “It’s you who’s a nitwit,” Gustav shouted.

  Petter made a rapid series of gestures with his fingers: first at his face, face; then up to the heavens, up; then two fingers, to; then he waved them in a fuck-off gesture, fac; then held his left index finger upright with his right one horizontally across the top of it, t; and finally drew a letter S with his right index finger. Face up to facts.

  “Stop it now,” Gustav yelled, with a sob in his voice. “You should face up to the fact that you are a fat nitwit!”

  “For God’s sake shut up now, all of you!” Jenny screamed. “That does it! I’m not coming with you. I’ve got a test tomorrow, can’t you understand that?”

  Gustav gave his elder brother a shove. Tears came flooding into his eyes. Petter laughed scornfully. Gustav set about him with his fists.

  “Ouch,” Petter squeaked in a loud, unnatural voice.

  Robert looked up from his newspaper.

  “Put the dirty stuff in the dishwasher now,” he said, apparently unmoved by the world war that had just broken out.

  Jenny stood up, slammed her book shut and yelled, “I’ll do it!”

  At that point Mella’s mobile started ringing. Where on earth had she left it? Not too far away, judging by the volume.

  “Be quiet now, everybody,” she shouted. “Can anybody find my phone?”

  She struggled to her feet and followed the noise, ending up at a pile of clothes on the chair in the hall.

  Silence had fallen in the kitchen. Her family was observing her. It was not a long call.

  “Hello,” she said. “What the hell … ? I’ll be there right away.”

  “What’s happened?” Jenny asked. “Come on, Mum, you know we won’t tell anybody.”

  “Has somebody died?” Gustav said. “I bet it’s somebody I know.”

  “No, it’s not somebody you know,” Mella said.

  She turned to Robert.

  “I’ve got to go. You’ll have to …”

  She finished the sentence with a hand gesture covering the breakfast and the mess in the kitchen and the children and Robert’s family and the car trip to Junosuando and back with all the youngsters.

  She could feel a flush spreading over her cheeks.

  Stabbed with a thin, pointed weapon, she said to herself.

  Her heart was beating calmly in her chest now.

  Multiple stab wounds, maybe a hundred. And in Kurravaara of all places!

  “Give my love to Auntie Ingela,” she said to the children.

  She turned to Robert, with an expression she hoped looked like disappointment.

  “And to Grandma,” she said. “I’m really—”

  “Cut it out,” Robert said.

  He pulled her close and kissed her hair.

  Sivving could not stand still. He was swaying from side to side, gazing towards the forest.

  “You’ll find him,” he said to Eriksson. “I know you will.”

  They were still outside Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s house. Forensics officers an
d pathologists were on their way. Eriksson glanced at Martinsson. She was talking on her mobile.

  They were still looking for the boy. The bed in his upstairs room was unmade. They had checked the woodshed and the old barn, and searched the area around the house. Shouted for him. No Marcus.

  Eriksson muttered an inaudible answer as he put the working jacket on Tintin, Sivving was still swaying from side to side behind him.

  Eriksson was used to this. There were always people shuffling about behind him – the parents of children who were lost in the forest, grown-up children whose senile parents had wandered off and lost their way. Everybody who hung around listlessly behind him always wanted a happy ending. He and Tintin were their big hope.

  But Tintin had no feelings of worry or anguish. She was whimpering away, eager to get started. Full of canine enthusiasm and desire to start work.

  Eriksson suddenly felt gloomy. He was not looking forward to finding the boy dead. There was so much that could have happened to him. His imagination provided him with so many alternatives to the happy ending.

  Somebody is carrying the boy out to a car. He’s kicking and wriggling in his captor’s arms. He has a bleeding wound in his head, and a rag stuffed into his mouth. Another scenario: a madman stabs a woman to death in her bed. The boy wakes up and is also stabbed, but manages to escape into the darkness. Staggers along for a short while, then dies a solitary death in the forest.

  The plan had been to go for a stroll through the forest with Martinsson and the dogs today. It would be one of the last days when walking in the forest would be possible. The snow would soon be here.

  At least the boy hadn’t been lying in his bed, stabbed to death. There had been a jumper lying on the floor. Black, with a pattern that could just be made out despite all the many washings. Presumably he had been wearing it the day before.

  Eriksson let Tintin sniff at the jumper, then gave her the command: seek! They began by circling the house. The lead was stretched tightly. At the back of the house she branched out, sniffing at the parched autumn grass. She continued through the rowan trees with their masses of blood-red berries and into the coniferous trees, down into the ditch, up again, past an old bathtub sunk into the moss. They passed a pile of sawn planks covered by a green tarpaulin.

  Then she raised her nose. The scent in the air was very fresh. They must be close now. She led him through the pine trees, along a narrow path. Now they were out of sight of the house.

  And there, not far ahead, was a children’s playhouse.

  If you could call it that. The decrepit cabin was made of plywood sheets, painted with Falun red paint, and had a roof of tarred cardboard. The window had been broken a long time ago, and was covered by a piece of transparent plastic sheeting.

  Eriksson paused for a moment. Tintin strained at her leash, whimpering.

  He had discovered dead children before. He recalled a twelve-year-old girl who had taken her own life. That was up near Kalix. He shut his eyes tightly in an attempt to obliterate her image. She had been sitting under a tree, and it had looked as if she were asleep: her head had not fallen to one side.

  Tintin had found her after a search lasting for three hours. And as Tintin is not a fan of doggy treats and wasn’t even especially hungry at the time, Eriksson rewarded her the way he always did when she had carried out a task to his satisfaction: he played with her. That was the best reward she could possibly wish for. And it was important that she should feel that a successful end to a search was something to celebrate with a bit of fun.

  The dead girl had remained sitting under the tree while Eriksson larked around with Tintin only a few metres away, shouting: “There’s a good girl! Now I’m coming to get you, what a lovely girl you are!”

  Meanwhile two colleagues had turned up at the scene. They looked at the dead girl, then they stared at Eriksson as if he wasn’t quite right in the head. Eriksson put Tintin back on her lead and led her away in silence. He made no attempt to explain why he did what he did. Why should he? They would never have understood. But no doubt all kinds of rumours about him circulated around Kalix.

  The boy was lying there in the playhouse. Eriksson was almost certain of that. Tintin was whimpering, tugging at her lead and wanting to go there. No point in hanging about. He must investigate without delay.

  There was an old flowery mattress lying on the floor. Lots of empty bottles were standing on a rickety table. Somebody – perhaps several people – used this playhouse as somewhere to relax and sink a few beers. But just now there was a little boy lying on the mattress, under several blankets and rather a dirty and tatty cover.

  “Well done, my lovely!” Eriksson said.

  Tintin swaggered around, bursting with pride.

  Eriksson moved to one side the blankets and cover. Placed his hand carefully on the boy’s neck. His skin was warm. There was a pulse. Eriksson examined the white jumper and the bare feet: no blood. He seemed to be uninjured.

  The relief was so massive that Eriksson shuddered, as if from the cold. The boy was alive.

  At that very moment he opened his eyes. He stared at Eriksson, his eyes wide in horror.

  Then he screamed.

  Sivving circled round the car once more, dragging his crippled limbs after him.

  He’ll fall down at any moment, Martinsson thought. I’ll never be able to get him up again.

  “Shouldn’t you sit down?” she said.

  “It’s pretty obvious that she hasn’t had a man about the place for a while,” Sivving said, seeming not to hear her. “Just look at that fence. The snow will bring it down next winter. How do you reckon he’ll get on?”

  He gestured in the direction that Eriksson had headed, together with Tintin.

  Martinsson looked at the fence, which was leaning in all directions. The posts were rotten. She refrained from observing that her own fence was solid and upright, despite the fact that there was no handyman in the house, and that there were several layabouts in the village whose fences had given up the ghost long ago.

  “Did you say that her son was run over?” she said instead.

  “My God, yes,” Sivving said, standing still for a few moments. “Poor little sod. First his mum runs off to Stockholm. Then his dad gets run over. And now his grandma …”

  “How was he run over?”

  “They don’t know. It was one of those hit-and-run affairs. Maybe you’re right and I should sit down for a bit. Is that allowed? Won’t it leave all kinds of traces to confuse the scene-of-crime boys?”

  “You can sit in the car. I’ll pull back the driving seat and we can leave the door open. And you can tell us all you know about Sol-Britt.”

  Sivving sat down and mopped his brow. Martinsson almost felt like doing the same.

  “Anyway, when her son died. Inevitably the locals wondered if somebody in the village might have done it. Everybody knows there’s a few blokes who drive when they’re drunk. They might have panicked and driven off. Or not even noticed.”

  Bella and the Brat were scurrying about in the dog cage – they’d been told they were going for a walk in the forest. Vera lay on the back seat, sighing.

  “And then there was Sol-Britt’s dad,” Sivving said. “But you know all about that, no doubt.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Come off it, of course you do. He was mauled by a bear. Oh, for God’s sake, when was it? My memory’s useless! Yes, the beginning of June! It was in the newspaper! He was old, they thought he’d got lost. And then, it can’t be more than two months ago, they shot a bear not far from Lainio. It had killed and eaten a guard dog that was tied up on a running lead. And in the bear’s stomach they found bits of the old man, Frans Uusitalo, Sol-Britt’s dad. The bear had spent the whole of the summer gobbling him up, bit by bit. Ugh!”

  “Ah yes, I read about that. So that was Sol-Britt’s dad, was it?”

  Sivving looked accusingly at her.

  “I’ve just said it was. Have you forgotten already
?”

  He sat quietly for a while. Martinsson wandered off into a world of her own. She remembered the man mauled by a bear in Lainio. When they found a bone from one of his hands inside the belly of the bear, they started searching the area. They eventually found the body. Or what was left of it.

  It did happen occasionally that people were mauled by bears up in these parts of the far north. If they found themselves between a female bear and her cubs. Or if they had a stupid dog that chased after the bear and then came hurtling back to its owners with the beast at its heels.

  “And his mum as well,” Sivving said. “Sol-Britt’s grandma, that is. She was murdered too.”

  “What?”

  “She was a teacher in Kiruna. When was that, now? Er, she must have arrived just before the First World War. My uncle had her as a teacher. He always used to say she was as sweet as a sugar lump. Nice to the children. She had a little boy, although she wasn’t married. He was Sol-Britt’s dad, the one that was mauled by a bear. She was murdered when he was only a few weeks old. A horrific story. She was beaten to death in her own classroom one winter evening. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “Nobody knows. Her friend looked after the little boy and brought him up as if he’d been her own child. It wasn’t so easy in those days.”

  He glared accusingly at her as he said that.

  Martinsson thought about Sivving’s mother, who was widowed early on and had to bring up the children by herself.

  I know I’m very lucky, she thought. I could have children and we’d survive without any problems. They would have a roof over their head, food in their bellies and they could go to school. I wouldn’t need to give them away.

  She looked at Sivving. She knew he had stared real poverty in the face. “We could easily have ended up in a children’s home,” he sometimes used to say.

  Not everything was better in the good old days, she thought.

  It is 15 April, 1914. Schoolteacher Elina Pettersson is on the train from Stockholm. She’s going to Kiruna. The journey takes thirty-six hours and twenty-five minutes, according to the timetable – but there is a delay due to all the snow on the lines. She has spent two nights on the train, and her backside is giving her hell after having to sleep in a sitting position: but soon she will reach her destination.