The Second Deadly Sin Page 5

  When she looks out of the window she sees an endless expanse of stunted trees, laden with snow. Snow-covered bogs and lakes. Herds of reindeer, staring wideeyed but apparently without fear at the huffing and puffing, squeaking and clanking train belching out smoke. Over and over again the carriages have to be uncoupled while the engine backs, then charges with its plough at the drifts of snow, and struggles to clear the lines.

  So much snow, and so much forest. It is incredible how big Sweden is, how far north it stretches. She has never been so far north before. Nor has anybody she knows been so far north.

  The sun gushes in through the windows, pools of brilliant light form on the mock-leather seats and trickle back and forth over the green-and-blue patterned plush. The light is so brilliant that it is difficult to keep one’s eyes open, but she does not want to draw the curtains. It is all so beautiful.

  She is free. She has just celebrated her twenty-first birthday, and she is on her way to Kiruna! The world’s newest town. That is where she belongs. In this new age.

  In just a few decades Sweden has raised itself out of poverty. It is not long since vaccines, peace and potatoes enabled the population to start increasing. With a big bang. All those poverty-stricken people … Now that they did not simply die off, they somehow managed to survive. Gave birth to more poverty-stricken children, hollow-cheeked. How would they survive? Continue to dig even more ditches, or work as milkmaids? No. The last century had no place for them. The towns were still ridiculously small. Instead, people emigrated from Sweden. Young people, inspired by a new feeling of strength and dreams, headed for America. The authorities stood by and watched it happen, incapable of action, and merely preached patriotism and contentment.

  The journey out of poverty began as it usually does for the poorest: by means of natural resources. Iron ore. Forests. And then, as the twentieth century dawned, the exploitation of creative genius really began in earnest. Patents were taken out on inventions, new companies were formed left, right and centre.

  Now people began migrating into towns, where there were industries making wood pulp, telephones, machine guns, agricultural machinery, adjustable spanners, pipe wrenches, dynamite, matches. The new Sweden was beginning to become rich.

  *

  She stretches her back and thinks it is time she ventured as far as the refreshment car. She really must get a little exercise. Soon, very soon now, she will be in Kiruna.

  The whole town has an electricity supply – bliss! Street lights and household electricity. And there is a swimming baths, a bandstand and a library.

  She looks out at the snow, glistening in the sun, and smiles. Her face is not used to smiling. She runs her fingers over her mouth, and feels what it is like to smile. Only now, when she has left the countryside behind her, abandoned Jönåker, does she realise that she has been miserable for two whole years.

  It is like waking up from an unpleasant dream and hardly being able to remember what it was about. She will forget the village school. All those characterless children of crofters, farm labourers, smallholders, shepherds, maidservants, hands for hire. The sort of children who know they will never be able to continue their studies once they have completed the six years of schooling demanded by the law. By the age of twelve they will be sufficiently grown-up to make a living. But they can never desert their father, mother, siblings. Something has been extinguished inside them. You can see it in their eyes. When it is raining or snowing outside, the air inside the classroom reeks of the stench of cowsheds, filth and wet wool.

  And then there are the sons of the gentleman farmers. They can travel by road and rail now, they can even fly. Fat and prosperous, up-and-coming country squires already, they can behave however they like when they come into contact with their classmates, and even their teacher – after all, their father owns the whole village, and the surrounding forests and fields. Any teacher who wants to keep her job handles the boy indulgently. She gives him high marks, to make sure she does not miss out on her Christmas present: a barrel of rye, ham and sausages, not to mention some fodder for her own cow. Oh yes, be nice to the boy, and remember who his father is.

  The village priest – at last she can be rid of him!

  I hope he fries in Hell, she thinks.

  He was also chairman of the board of school governors. They fell out at the very first meeting. She had been in favour of spelling reform and her head was full of the feminist writings of Ellen Key. He considered Ellen Key to be immoral, Selma Lagerlöf unwholesome, Strindberg a lost soul, Fröding a writer of pornography. Tears came into his eyes when the pupils sang about daffodils dancing in the meadows of Sweden, but in between times he was incapable of removing his gaze from her breasts. If she ever found herself alone in a room with him, she could never be sure where his fat fingers might end up. And he often found an excuse to call in at the school after the children had gone home. Such visits always ended up in a race round the teacher’s desk, with her in the lead and him in pursuit.

  It will be different in Kiruna. Her head is full of dreams. Her heart, full of hope, is beating in time with the pounding of the rails.

  She is like a spring-cleaned house. The floors have been scrubbed. There is a smell of soft soap and wind and sunshine. All the windows and doors are wide open, and the rag rugs are hanging out to dry on lines stretched between the birch trees.

  She is ready to fall in love. And he boards the train in Gällivare. The man who will capture her heart.

  The boy screamed in sheer terror. Tintin barked.

  Eriksson ordered Tintin to be quiet, backed out of the playhouse and stood outside the door, out of sight.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did we frighten you? I know I look pretty scary.”

  The boy stopped screaming.

  “I’ll stay here, outside,” Eriksson said. “Can you hear me?”

  There was no answer.

  “I’ll tell you why I look like I do. When I was a little boy my house burnt down. When I came home from school it was on fire. My mum was inside it. I ran in because I knew she would be lying on the bed, asleep. I was very badly injured. That’s why I don’t have any ears and no nose and no hair and funny skin. But I’m nice and friendly on the inside. And I’m a police officer, and I’ve been looking for you with my sheepdog, Tintin, because we were worried that something might have happened to you. Are you afraid of dogs?”

  Silence.

  “Because if you aren’t, maybe Tintin can come in and say hello to you. Would that be O.K.?”

  Still no response.

  “I don’t know if you are nodding or shaking your head, because I can’t see you. Do you think you could answer me using your voice?”

  “Yes.”

  He sounded very faint.

  “Does that mean yes, Tintin can come in?”

  “Yes.”

  Eriksson let go of Tintin, who scurried inside but soon came out again.

  Bloody dog, he thought. Why couldn’t you have stayed there with him?

  “Oh dear, that was a quick visit,” he said. “Did you have time to stroke her?”

  “No.”

  “She’s one of those dogs who only make a fuss of their master. And that’s me. But I know another dog you would like. Her name’s Vera.”

  “I know her. She comes to visit me and my grandma, and Grandma usually makes some pancakes and then when Vera has eaten one or two with us she goes back home. It’s Sivving’s dog.”

  “Yes, Sivving sometimes looks after her, that’s true – but in fact she’s Rebecka’s dog. Do you know who that is? No, I don’t suppose you do, but I sometimes look after her as well.”

  Eriksson couldn’t help laughing out loud.

  “Vera, that is.”

  “You can come in now if you like. I’m not scared of you.”

  “O.K., here I come. There we are. Oh dear, it’s pretty cramped in here now. Shift yourself a bit, Tintin! Well done, girl! You’ve done an excellent job. She tracked you down, followed y
our scent all the way from the house, and now she’s feeling very proud of herself.”

  “She has a nice soft tongue. We used to have a dog as well.”

  There was a smell of mould in the playhouse. Time to withdraw.

  “Don’t you feel cold? You haven’t got any shoes or socks on. Did you run here in your bare feet?”

  The boy suddenly looked serious. He nodded briefly, but kept his eyes on the dog’s soft ears that he was trying to reach so that he could stroke them.

  “It would be great if you could tell us a bit about that later, but just now I’d like to carry you to my car. It’s parked outside your house. I think you ought to put some warm clothes on. Sivving is there. You know him, don’t you?”

  “Can I play with Vera?”

  “If you want to.”

  But she’s not the kind of dog that likes being played with, Eriksson thought. A pity we don’t have a Labrador handy. A stupid, happy-go-lucky dog who lies still when kids want to have a ride.

  He took his jacket off and put it on the boy. Marcus answered his questions, but avoided looking him in the eye.

  It was very rare for Krister Eriksson to touch another human being. He thought about that as he picked the boy up and carried him back through the woods, through the rowan trees, and over the lawn to the front of the house. After a while the little body began to shake a bit as the warmth came back into it. The boy had his arms round Eriksson’s neck, and wasn’t heavy in the least: he was breathing against Eriksson’s cheek and his vertebrae were sticking up inside his skin.

  Eriksson had to suppress an impulse to hug him tightly, to hold hard onto him as a worried parent would have done.

  That’s enough of that, he told himself. What you are doing is the job you’re paid to do.

  Sivving struggled out of the car, thanked the Good Lord, and looked as if he were about to start crying in relief. Martinsson was also there, gave him a quick smile and looked him in the eye. He also felt like crying without knowing why – probably due to the relief of having found Marcus alive.

  “What happened to your mum when your house burnt down?” Marcus whispered in Eriksson’s ear when Martinsson went into the house to fetch some shoes and clothes.

  “Oh,” Eriksson said, hesitating for a moment. “She died.”

  “There’s Vera.”

  The boy pointed to the edge of the trees as Vera came scuttling out.

  “I had to let her go for a little run,” Martinsson said.

  Vera scampered up to Eriksson. She had something in her mouth.

  “What’s all this?” he wondered.

  Then he burst out laughing. He stopped immediately. He couldn’t stand here laughing when Marcus’s grandma had …

  “What’s the matter?” Martinsson said.

  “It’s Vera. She’s found my chewing tobacco box that I threw away.”

  And boy, do I need a wad, Eriksson thought. But it will have to be the last one.

  Inspector Anna-Maria Mella stood in Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s bedroom together with prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson and her colleagues Tommy Rantakyrö, Fred Olsson and Sven-Erik Stålnacke. They had put police tape all round the house and grounds.

  “The villagers will soon be turning up to gape,” Stålnacke said. “And in ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour at most, we can expect the local newspapers. And the national evening papers as well, come to that. They’ll send their nearest hacks, and it won’t take long. An hour from now we’ll be able to read all about the murder on the net.”

  “I know,” Mella said. “Eriksson can take the boy with him and get him away from here – it’s great that he’s willing and able to take care of him.”

  Eriksson can sit in on the interrogation later, she thought. So that the boy feels secure.

  “Will you be taking care of that?” Stålnacke said. “Talking to the little lad, I mean.”

  “Assuming none of you is desperately keen to do it?”

  Her colleagues all shook their heads.

  “Surely it can’t have been the lad who did it?” Rantakyrö said. “That’s the kind of thing that only happens … somewhere else.”

  Mella made no comment.

  They looked at Sol-Britt’s body, spotted with blood, and the word on the wall over the bed.

  All those wounds, she thought. Would a seven-year-old have the strength? Would he know how to spell “whore”? Does he know what the word means? Out of the question, out of the question, she concluded.

  Mella took a deep breath.

  “O.K.,” she said. “Who would call her a whore? Somebody in the village, perhaps? Has she been threatened? Is there some old flame? Or maybe a new one? Sven-Erik, will you do the rounds? There aren’t any neighbours within sight of the house, but talk to the ones along the road. Have they seen or heard anything? Talk to her workmates as well. Who was the last to see her alive? Has anything special happened lately? You know the kind of thing to ask.”

  Stålnacke’s thick moustache shifted perceptively to one side. He knew exactly what she meant, and had no objections.

  Good, she thought. Sven-Erik is good with people. He makes himself at home at their kitchen table. Sips coffee and gossips away. Makes them feel that he is a relative paying a call. Come to think of it, he is nearly always like that. In a fanciful sort of way, he really is related to everybody. Or went to the same school. Or remembered their youthful sporting triumphs.

  Sven-Erik would be due to retire before long. Then she would be the oldest member of the team. It seemed impossible to imagine. It was only the other day that she celebrated her twentieth birthday after all – the same age as Tommy Rantakyrö. He was the young pup of the team. Wads of chewing tobacco as big as pine cones under his lips. As restless as a teenager with creepy-crawlies under his skin. Always checking up on what the others were doing. Always the last to be given duties to perform. Always expected to be dealt the joker. And usually got it.

  “Freddy,” she said, turning to Olsson. “No doubt you know what to do?”

  “Incoming and outgoing calls,” he said without hesitation. “Text messages. Computers. At home and at work, I assume. Have I permission to go and look for her mobile?”

  “There’s an open handbag in the hall. Take a look inside, the forensics team will accept that. She didn’t have her mobile beside her bed in any case. But we can’t start poking our noses in all over the place. That would send them round the bend.”

  Olsson went out into the hall. He soon returned with a mobile in his hand.

  “I’ll check it,” he said.

  “It’s odd that all the kitchen drawers are shut, but all the cupboards are open,” Stålnacke said. “As if somebody was looking for something. Something big.”

  “The murder weapon?” Olsson guessed.

  “Tommy,” Mella said. “Will you have a word with Marcus’s teachers? The headmaster and his staff. And after-school activities, if he attended any.”

  Rantakyrö smiled wryly.

  “What shall I ask them about?”

  “What sort of state is he in? Is he normal? Is he not well? Is everything … Was everything well at home? We must get in touch with his mother.”

  “No doubt Sivving knows what she’s called. I can contact her,” said Martinsson.

  “Good. Do that right away. Some journalist or other will be ringing her at any moment now. Has Sivving had anything else to say about Sol-Britt?”

  “She was working at the Winter Palace as a breakfast waitress, but this morning she didn’t turn up for work – that was why Sivving wanted to drive out here. She had alcohol problems before, but since her son died three years ago she stopped drinking and looked after her grandson. Marcus’s mum is alive, but she lives in Stockholm and has a new family, and prefers to have nothing to do with him.”

  “What’s the matter with some people?” Stålnacke bellowed in disgust. “What kind of a mother abandons her child?”

  Mella didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t a sound
to be heard in the room. Martinsson’s mother had abandoned her family when Rebecka was a little girl. Not long afterwards she fell under a lorry – nobody knew if it was an accident or not.

  The same thought had struck Stålnacke. Nobody could think of anything to say. Stålnacke cleared his throat.

  Martinsson did not appear to have been listening. She was gazing out of the window. Outside in the garden Marcus was throwing a tennis ball. It looked as if he was urging Vera to fetch it. In vain, of course. Vera had never played fetch in her life. She just stood there watching the ball until Marcus gave up and fetched it himself. He tried throwing it over and over again. Sometimes Eriksson ran after it. It was only Vera who remained motionless.

  “That boy out there,” Martinsson said, pointing at Marcus, “does he understand that his grandmother is dead?”

  They all looked at Marcus.

  Children could be so upset or so detached when it came to grief, Mella thought. She had seen it all before. A child crying over its dead mother one moment, then spellbound by a cartoon film the next.

  “Yes,” Mella said finally. “I think he probably does.”

  Mella had been on a course about interrogating children, and on several occasions she had interviewed children when there had been suspicions of domestic violence in the family. It was a very specialised topic, but she did not really think it was all that difficult. If only her family knew how calm and patient she could be when it was necessary …

  It’s only at home that I ask questions and don’t bother to listen to the answers, she thought with a wry smile.

  “So, we’ll meet again at three o’clock at the police station,” she decided. “I suppose we’ll have to have a press conference, but that won’t be until eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Not a minute earlier, no matter what. Tommy, will you drive back to town and fetch the video camera, please? I must have a chat with Marcus before he … as soon as possible.”