Sven-Erik Stålnacke was woken by his mobile.
Feeling the familiar wave of early-morning fatigue flow through his body, he answered the phone.
“It’s me,” Anna-Maria Mella said, sounding chirpy.
Holding the phone at arm’s length, he squinted at the display. Twenty past seven.
Mella was an early bird. He was a night owl. They had always had an unspoken agreement that it was O.K. for either of them to ring and wake the other one up. Stålnacke might think of something at 1.00 in the morning and phone Mella. She might phone him bright and early, already in her car and on the way to pick him up. But that had been then.
Then, before Regla, Stålnacke would have said, “Are you up already?” and Mella would have said something about having to drag Gustav out of bed and take him to nursery during the week, while at weekends he would be jumping up and down on her head at dawn, begging her to switch on the television for the children’s programmes.
“Sorry to disturb you so early,” Mella said.
She regretted having phoned him; she had done it without thinking. But things were not as they had been.
Stålnacke could hear the change in her voice, and felt a mixture of regret and bad conscience.
Then he became angry. It was not his fault that things had turned out as they had done.
“Pohjanen rang me late last night,” Mella said, as if to stress that she was not the only one who phoned colleagues at odd times.
In bed next to Stålnacke, Airi Bylund opened her eyes. “Coffee?” she mimed. He nodded. Airi got up and pulled on her red towelling dressing gown. Boxar the cat, who had been fast asleep on Stålnacke’s legs, jumped eagerly down from the bed and tried to grab the belt of Airi’s dressing gown as she tied it round her waist, making it jiggle up and down irresistibly.
“He’s taken samples of water from Wilma Persson’s lungs and from the river, and that’s not where she died,” Mella said.
“You don’t say.”
“You thought that business of the car with no petrol in the tank was odd. Why venture into the back of beyond without enough juice to get them home again? Now we hear that she didn’t die in the river. So how did she get there?”
“You tell me.”
Neither spoke for a while. Finally she said, “I’m going to drive out to Piilijärvi today and ask if anybody there knows where the kids intended to go diving.”
Now was his chance, his opportunity to say he would accompany her.
“Didn’t they ask questions like that when she disappeared?” he said instead.
“Yes, no doubt they asked the people closest to her. But the situation has changed. Now I’m going to ask everyone.”
“Fair enough. Do that. Good luck.”
The silence between them was heavy with disappointment and accusation.
“Thank you,” she said, and hung up.
Airi came in with coffee and open sandwiches on a tray.
“What was all that about?” she said.
“Anna-Maria,” Stålnacke said. “She rings and wakes you up on a Saturday morning and expects you to drop everything and be at her beck and call. She can forget it.”
Airi said nothing. Handed him his mug of coffee.
“She’s so bloody inconsiderate,” he said.
“You know,” Airi said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “I’ve heard you say that so often this year. But I think that being in-considerate means thinking about not doing something and then doing it anyway. That business at Regla – she just… Well, it just happened.”
“She doesn’t think!”
“That’s as may be. But it’s how she is. She’s impulsive, quick to act. I love you, darling, but it would be pretty boring if people were all the same. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t think she just stood there and said to herself, right, I’m going to put my life and Sven-Erik’s at risk.”
Stålnacke got up. Pulled on his trousers. Shoved Boxar exasperatedly to one side just as she went on the attack.
“Anyway,” he said, “it’s going to be pretty mild today. I’d better go home and check that there isn’t any snow still lying on the roof. It’ll be wet and heavy if it is.”
“I know,” Airi said to Boxar with a sigh when Stålnacke had left. “It’s a waste of time trying to reason with him.”
Morning sun and pink clouds above the treetops. But all Mella saw was black forest on all sides, and dirty snowdrifts. Her eyes searched automatically for reindeer wandering along the edge of the road, but otherwise concentrated on the frost-damaged tarmac.
Her mood improved significantly when she got out of her car outside Anni Autio’s house.
“There’s a lovely smell of baking in the air,” she said when Anni opened the door.
Once in the kitchen, Anni packed buns and biscuits into plastic bags for Mella to take home with her.
“What else is there for me to do with them?” she said when Mella tried to protest. “All the old folk in the village have freezers chock-a-block with their own buns and biscuits. Surely you can let me offload the odd goodie on you, especially as they’re newly baked? You’re not on a G.I. diet, are you?”
“Good Lord, no.”
“Well, then, dunk away!”
Mella broke a corner off a cinnamon biscuit and dipped it in her coffee.
“Did Wilma and Simon tell you where they were going diving?” she said.
“I didn’t even know they were going diving. I told the police that when they went missing. Nobody knew anything at all. Simon’s mother said that his diving gear had disappeared from the garage, so we assumed they had gone diving. But as you know, they didn’t find the car. No sign of it.”
“I see. Do you think they might have told someone? Their friends in the village, perhaps?”
“There are hardly any young people left in the village. Just us old-timers. The children live in Kiruna or somewhere in the south. They argue among themselves about who’s going to look after the houses they’ve inherited from their parents. They make no attempt to sell them, and they never come to the village, not even in summer. The houses are falling to pieces. I usually refer to my nephews, Tore and Hjalmar Krekula, as ‘the boys’ – but they’re over fifty, for God’s sake. And Tore has two sons of his own: they do a bit of driving for their dad, but they also live in Kiruna. So Wilma and Simon used to stay at home most of the time. They drove into Kiruna now and then. He had a bedsit there. More coffee?”
“No thanks, I’ve had three cups already! Can I take a look at her room?”
“Of course. I won’t come with you, it’s upstairs.”
Anni suddenly looked worried.
“It’s very cold up there. I turned off the heating when she… I mean, she wasn’t… I suppose I was just thinking of the expense.”
She fell silent, standing by the countertop. Anxiously brushed traces of flour from her apron.
“It’s O.K.,” Mella said. “It costs a lot of money to keep a house warm. I know. I live in one myself.”
“It’s not O.K. The heating should have been on. The house and I ought to have been ready for her.”
“Do you know what?” Mella said. “You can be practical at the same time as you’re worrying or grieving. I reckon you were doing both.”
“I don’t want to start crying again,” Anni said, looking entreatingly at Mella as if hoping that she would be able to stop her going on about it. “You should have felt what the house was like when she was living here. So full of life. I still keep waking up and thinking it’s time to make her breakfast. I don’t suppose you believe me, knowing that I turned the heating off.”
“Listen, Anni, I couldn’t care less about the heating being off.”
Anni smiled wanly.
“I was so happy back then. I enjoyed every day, every morning when she was here with me. I didn’t take it for granted, though. I knew she could move back to Stockholm at any moment.”
This isn’t a typical teenager’s room, Mella thought as she entered Wilma’s room.
An old office desk stood in front of the window. A blue-painted Windsor-style chair served as a desk chair. The bed was narrow – 80 centimetres, perhaps. On it was a white embroidered bedspread. There were no posters on the walls, no ancient teddy bears or other plush toys to remind Wilma of her childhood. A photograph of her with Simon was pinned to the wall beside the bed. It looked as if Wilma had taken it herself. She was roaring with laughter, he was smiling in mild embarrassment. Mella’s heart bled as she looked at it.
She searched the desk drawers. No maps. No diary.
She could hear Anni Autio struggling up the stairs, and hastened to open the wardrobe and look through the clothes piled at the bottom. When Anni entered the room, Mella was standing on a chair, examining the top of the wardrobe. Anni sat down on the bed.
“What are you looking for?” she said – not aggressively, she was just interested.
Mella shook her head.
“I don’t really know. Something that might indicate where they went. Where they were going to go diving.”
“But you found her in the river at Tervaskoski. Isn’t that where they were diving?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should talk to Johannes Svarvare,” Anni said. “He lives in that little red house with the glazed porch on the right just after the curve as you enter the village. He used to lend maps to Wilma and Simon when they were going exploring in the forest. I’m going to lie down here for a while. Perhaps you could call in and help me down the stairs before you drive back to town?”
Mella felt the urge to give Anni a big hug. To console her. And hopefully find a bit of consolation for herself.
But all she said was: “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll stop by on my way home.”
Johannes Svarvare also offered Mella coffee. She accepted even though she was feeling a bit queasy from having drunk so much already. He fetched the best china from the glass-fronted cupboard in the living room. The cups clinked against the saucers as he put the tray down on the kitchen table. They were delicate, with handles you could not fit your finger through, ivory-coloured with pink roses.
“Please excuse the mess,” Svarvare said, gesturing towards himself. “It never occurred to me that the forces of law and order would come visiting on a Saturday afternoon.”
His hair was unkempt, and he looked as if he had slept in his clothes. His brown woollen trousers were almost falling down. His crumpled shirt had several stains down the front.
“How nice to have a wood-burning stove in the kitchen,” Mella said, in an attempt to lessen his embarrassment.
Christmas curtains were still hanging in the windows. Rag rugs lay chaotically on the floor, one on top of the other, to keep the heat in. The floor itself was covered in crumbs.
His eyesight can’t be all that good, Mella thought. He doesn’t see that the place could do with a good vacuuming.
What a fascinating village, she thought. It’s just as Anni said: in a few years’ time there’ll be nobody left. At best, the houses will have become summer cottages for surviving family members. The place will be completely deserted in winter.
“This is a big loss for poor old Anni,” Svarvare said, moving his jaw from side to side. “A tragic accident.”
It looked as if his false teeth were a bad fit. There was a glass of water on the draining board – no doubt that was where he normally kept them. Mella suspected that he only put his teeth in when he was about to eat or expecting visitors.
“I’m trying to find out what happened,” she said, coming straight to the point. “Various details are unclear. Did she tell you where they were going to dive?”
“Didn’t you find her downstream from Tervaskoski?”
“Yes… even so.”
“‘Even so?’ What do you mean, details that are unclear?”
Mella hesitated. She preferred not to put her cards on the table. But sometimes you had to take a gamble to get results.
“There are indications that she didn’t drown in the river,” she said.
Svarvare slammed his cup down on the saucer.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean anything at all! Really! It’s just that I need to investigate this death in a bit more detail. And then, of course, we want to find Simon Kyrö as well.”
“She came here,” Svarvare said. “She came here…”
As he spoke, he made sweeping gestures with both hands on the kitchen table.
“We chatted. The way one does. People need to talk. I mean, the only people left in the village are us old wrecks. As a result, perhaps we talk too much.”
“What do you mean?” Mella said.
“What do I mean? What do I mean?” Svarvare said, lost in thought. “Do you know that just over a week before they disappeared, Isak Krekula had a heart attack? He’s back home now, but I haven’t even seen him going to his post box to collect the newspaper.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mella said. “But I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
Svarvare poked at a scratch on the kitchen table with a dirty fingernail. He looked at the wall clock. It had stopped at 7.00. In fact it was 12.05.
“Oh dear,” he said, sounding as if he had made up his mind. “I need to lie down. I’m an old man, you know.”
He stood up, removed his dentures and put them in the glass of water on the draining board. Then he lay down on the kitchen sofa, his arms crossed over his chest, and closed his eyes.
“Fair enough,” Mella said, feeling a complete idiot. “But can’t you explain what you meant?”
There was no response from the sofa. The conversation was over. Svarvare’s chest rose and fell rapidly.
“For fuck’s sake!” Mella said as she got into her car.
She knew she ought to have let him talk. He had been on the way to telling her something. Stålnacke would have sat there quietly, waiting. Let Svarvare speak in his own good time. Damn that Stålnacke! And what was all that about Isak Krekula having a heart attack? How was it revelant?
“We’d better have a word with Isak Krekula,” Mella said to herself as she turned the ignition key.
The Krekulas’ houses formed a group of three at the far end of the village. Mella parked, got out of the car and stood beside it. So this was where Tore and Hjalmar lived, and their parents as well. She tried to guess which house belonged to whom. All were clad in red-painted wooden panels. One of the houses was older than the other two, and had a barn attached, with a roof of irregular corrugated-iron sheets. Embroidered curtains in the windows. This had to be where the parents lived.
Mella hesitated. A feeling of unease swept over her. In a pen at the side of the older house, a hunting dog was hurling itself over and over again at the wire netting, barking for all it was worth. Baring its fangs. Gnawing at the wooden frame. Snarling and snapping at the air. Barking and barking. Tireless and aggressive.
Spruce trees grew close together along the boundary of the plot. The house stood in deep shade. Nobody ever seemed to have bothered to thin the trees. They were very tall, seemingly bent forward. Black, straggly and threatening. The branches looked wispy and weak, drooping down onto the slope. The image they evoked was of a father in a bedroom doorway, belt in hand, ready to attack. Of a mother, her feeble arms dangling at her sides.
Don’t go in there, a voice said deep inside Mella.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
Afterwards, she would recall the feeling. But now she was paying no attention to it.
The dog was scratching away at the netting. The air was a thick soup of hostility. One of the curtains twitched slightly. Someone was at home.
A notice on the door proclaimed: “No beggers. No hawkers.” When Mella rang the bell, the door opened a fraction. The face of an old woman wondered what she wanted. Mella introduced herself.
Anni’s sister, she thought. What had Anni said her name was? Kerttu. Mella tried to see if there was a family resemblance. Perhaps, but then Mella realized that what she had noticed most about Anni were the signs of old age. Her bearing, her many wrinkles, her scraggy hands. Mella tried to imagine what the sisters had looked like when they had been her age. Anni had little hair left. Her face was long and narrow, just like Mella’s own. Kerttu Krekula still had thick hair. Her cheekbones were high. No doubt she had been the pretty sister. She was younger, as well.
But Anni had been happy. Except when she was grieving over Wilma, of course.
The sides of Kerttu Krekula’s mouth were drawn downwards, as if she had a devil on each shoulder pulling at them with a boathook.
“I don’t usually allow strangers in my house,” she said. “You never know.”
“You are Anni Autio’s sister, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve just come from Anni’s. She’s been baking.”
“I never bake. What’s the point? When you can buy stuff. Besides, my hands are so bad.”
At least she’s talking, Mella thought.
“Do you have a toilet?” she said.
“Yes, of course.”
“Do you think I might use it? I badly need a pee. It’s a long way back to town.”
“Come in, then, before you let the winter in with you,” Kerttu said, opening the door just wide enough for Mella to squeeze through.
“No, I didn’t think much of Wilma. She filled my sister’s head with no end of nonsense, if you ask me.”
They were sitting at the kitchen table. Mella had hung her jacket over a green-painted chair.
“In what ways did she fill your sister’s head with nonsense?”
“Huh, in all kinds of ways. Last summer they went swimming in the lake, stark naked. Not after a sauna or anything like that. In broad daylight. For no reason at all. Anni’s dugs were hanging down to her belly. Disgusting, it was. Made you feel ashamed. But Wilma didn’t seem to have anything against displaying herself to all the men for miles around. Flashed her pussy and her tattooed bottom.”
The dog started barking again in its pen. A man’s voice shouted “Shut up!” to no effect whatsoever. There was a sound of feet stamping off snow outside the front door. Shortly afterwards two men appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Tore and Hjalmar, Mella thought.
She had heard about them. A long time ago, just after she had moved back to Kiruna after completing her course at police college, an accusation of assault had been withdrawn by the injured party. Mella recalled the fear in the plaintiff’s eyes as he begged the prosecutor to drop the case. It was Hjalmar Krekula who got off on that occasion. Hjalmar already had a record for several assaults. Two or three, she seemed to remember. And there were several other cases that had never progressed past suspicion. She had heard that Hjalmar was big. And he certainly was. Head and shoulders taller than his brother. Well built and decidedly overweight. He leaned listlessly against the door jamb. Washed-out-looking skin hung from his cheekbones, which were badly in need of a shave.
Not much in the way of fruit and veg in his diet, Mella thought. Both men, in their fifties, were wearing work trousers. Tore Krekula’s hair was close-cropped. He seemed unable to keep still. There was something restless about him.
“So you have visitors, eh?” he said to his mother, without introducing himself to Mella.
“From the police,” Kerttu said curtly. “Asking about Wilma and Simon.”
“The police?” Tore said, staring at Mella as if she were from another world. “Well, I’ll be damned. We don’t see the likes of you very often. Or what do you think, Hjallie?”
Hjalmar stayed leaning against the door jamb and said nothing. His face was expressionless, his eyes blank, his mouth open. It was impossible to say if he had heard what his brother had said. A shiver ran down Mella’s spine.
“When Stig Rautio’s summer cottage was burgled, could we get you out here to investigate?” Tore said. “Like hell. We told you what you needed to do – check cars with Polish registration. If you’d done that, you’d have found his stuff in a flash. They’ve caught on to the fact that it’s a waste of time picking berries up here. They can break into people’s property and earn themselves a packet, no risk at all, ’cos the police… fuck only knows what you get up to, you seem to have more important things to do than catch thieves. Bikes, out-board motors… no matter what gets nicked, everyone knows it’s pointless going to the police. Our drivers have stuff pinched all the time. The crooks cut open the tarps and take whatever they like. There hasn’t been a single thief brought to book all the years I’ve worked for the firm.”
He leaned over the table. Thrust his face close to Mella’s.
“You couldn’t give a fuck about us,” he said. “Snotty-nosed kids vandalize cars and smash windscreens, and the worst that can happen is that they end up with some old crone at Social Services who tells them what deprived childhoods they’ve had. Half-witted, feather-brained old biddies. That’s what the bloody lot of you are, if you ask me. So, what are you nosing around here for?”
“If you back off, I’ll be pleased to inform you,” Mella said, slipping into the measured, professional tone of voice she always used when dealing with people who were aggressive or drunk and looking for trouble.
“You think I should back off, do you?” Tore said, without shifting a millimetre.
He jabbed his index finger hard on the table in front of Mella.
“I pay your wages. Just bear that in mind, constabitch. Me, my brother, my father. People like us with real jobs who actually do something useful and pay taxes. You could say you’re my employee. And I think you do a bloody awful job. Am I allowed to think that?”
“You can if you like,” Mella said. “I’m leaving.”
Tore’s face was still pressed up against hers. Now he backed off slightly and waved his hand about in front of her face.
“There’s no charge for fresh air, I suppose you know that?” he said.
“Didn’t you want to use the toilet?” Kerttu said. “You came in because you wanted to go to the toilet. It’s to the right in the hall.”
Mella nodded. Hjalmar Krekula moved unhurriedly to one side, so that she could get past him.
Once safely in the toilet, she took a deep breath. What ghastly people.
She stood there for a while, trying to pull herself together. Then she flushed the lavatory and turned on the tap.
There was no sign of Hjalmar when she came out. Tore was sitting at the kitchen table. Mella took her jacket from the chair and put it on.
“You can’t go yet,” Tore said. “Hjalmar has let Reijo out. He’ll gobble you up.”
“Could you ask him to shut the dog in again, please,” Mella said. “I want to go now.”
“He’s just letting him do a quick round of the house. In a hurry, are you? Lots to do?”
Don’t let them see you’re afraid, Mella told herself.
“Do you know where Wilma and Simon were planning to go diving?” she said, her voice steady as a rock.
She heard a faint groan coming from the little room next to the kitchen. It was the sound of a restless sleeper. An old man.
“How is he?” Tore asked his mother.
She replied with a shrug and an expression on her face that seemed to signify “same as usual”.
Mella wondered if the sleeping man was Isak Krekula. She supposed it must be. She ought to ask about what Johannes Svarvare had told her, about Isak Krekula having a heart attack a week or so before the kids disappeared, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Nor could she manage to ask again whether any of them knew where Simon and Wilma were planning to go diving. She was sweating, and all she wanted to do was to get away. The kitchen really was ugly. Painted various peculiar shades of green, as if they had mixed green paint with a bit of white here and there. There were hardly any countertops, and what little space there was had cheap, ugly ornaments crammed into it.
The door opened and Hjalmar came in.
“Can she go now?” Tore asked his brother in an odd tone of voice.
Hjalmar didn’t reply, didn’t look at Mella.
“Goodbye, then,” she said. “I may be back.”
She left the house. The dog was barking nonstop. Both brothers followed her out. They stood in the porch, watching her.
“What the hell?” she said when she got to her car.
All the tyres were flat.
“My tyres!” she said, aghast.
“Well, fuck me!” Tore said. “No doubt some kids did it.”
He smiled so there could be no doubt that he was lying.
Someone has to come and fetch me, Mella thought, fumbling for her mobile in the inside pocket of her jacket. Her first thought was Stålnacke – but no, that was out of the question. She would have to ring Robert. He would have to bring Gustav with him.
The mobile was not in the pocket where she usually kept it. She felt in her other pockets. No phone. Had she left it in the car? She checked. No.
She looked at the brothers standing in the porch. They had taken it. While she had been in the toilet.
“My mobile,” she said. “It’s missing.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting that we took it,” Tore said. “That would really piss me off. Come out here and start casting aspersions. Do you need a lift into town?”
“No. I need to borrow a phone.”
She looked at the dog. It was running around in its pen, barking gruffly. Typical behaviour for a dog that would run off if it got the chance. Hjalmar had not let it out at all. If he had done, it would be several kilometres away by now. Besides, the snow around the pen was unmarked.
“Mother’s telephone is out of order,” Tore said. “Hop into the red Volvo. Me and Hjallie are going to town anyway. You can come with us.”
They must be out of their minds, she thought.
A series of images flashed through her mind. Hjalmar wrenches open the back door and drags her out of the car. Tore has driven on-to a forest track. Hjalmar grabs hold of her hair and bashes her head against a tree trunk. He pins her arms down while Tore rapes her.
I’m not getting into a car with them, she thought. I’d rather walk all the way back to town.
“I’ll manage,” she said. “I’ll come back with some colleagues and collect the car.”
Turning on her heel, she strode off. Followed the village street in the direction of Anni Autio’s house. Halfway there she was overtaken by Tore and Hjalmar Krekula in their car, on the way to Kiruna. She half-expected them to stop and for Tore to offer her a lift again, but they just sailed past without even slowing down. She forced herself to walk at normal speed.
I’ll borrow Anni’s telephone, she thought.
Then she remembered that she’d promised to go back and help Anni down the stairs.
Good Lord, she thought. I’d forgotten all about that.
Anni was fast asleep upstairs in Wilma’s room. She had pulled the bedspread over her. When Mella sat down on the edge of the bed, she opened her eyes.
“Back already?” she said. “How about a cup of coffee?”
“If I drink another cup of coffee, I’ll drop down and die,” Mella said with a wry smile. “Can I borrow your phone?”
Anni did not sit up, but her eyes were suddenly wide open and searching.
“What’s happened?” she said.
“Nothing,” Mella said. “I just can’t start my car.”
Robert didn’t answer the phone. He was probably out playing in the snow with the kids. Ringing Stålnacke was a non-starter. She couldn’t phone any of her other colleagues either.
It’s Saturday, she thought. They’re off duty. I’ve got myself into this situation. The last thing I need is another story about how inconsiderate I am.
In the end she dialled Rebecka Martinsson’s number. Martinsson picked up after two rings.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Mella said, glancing at Anni, who was in the kitchen getting some yoghourt and bread. “Can you come and fetch me, please? I hate having to ask you.”
“I’ll be there right away,” Martinsson said, without asking any questions.
Forty minutes later, Rebecka Martinsson pulled up at Anni Autio’s house.
Mella was standing outside, waiting for her. Slammed the passenger door as she got into the car.
“Let’s go,” was all she said.
Once they had left the village, the story came tumbling out.
“The bastards,” she said, bursting into tears. “What a bunch of fucking cunts.”
Martinsson said nothing, concentrated on her driving.
“And they knew the score exactly,” Mella snuffled. “I can’t prove a bloody thing. Not that Hjalmar slashed my tyres, not that they nicked my mobile, nothing.”
Shame raged inside her. She had allowed herself to be terrified. Tore Krekula must have felt like a bloated rat on top of a rubbish tip when he offered to drive her into Kiruna and she said no.
“He enjoyed every minute of it,” she said to Martinsson.
I ought to have made a scene, she thought. I ought to have raised hell and screamed and accused them. I should have insisted that they drove me into town. Instead I let them see that I was shit-scared.
“I’ll give them hell!” she roared, slamming her fist down on the glovebox. “I’ll reopen every suspended investigation, check out every retracted accusation involving those damned brothers. You can charge them. They’ll regret the day they started fucking with me.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Martinsson said calmly. “You’ll keep a cool head and act in a professional manner.”
“You saunter in all serene and innocent,” Mella said, “and they launch an all-out attack. Crash, bang, wallop!”
“Some people…” Martinsson said, without finishing her sentence. “Do you think this has anything to do with Simon and Wilma?”
“Simon and Wilma. I’m going to find Simon. And I’m going to discover exactly how they died.”
“Yes, you do that,” Martinsson said. “That’s your job.”
“I’ll call in the media and appeal to the public for information. And I’ll ring the Krekula brothers and suggest that they switch on their televisions.”
She slapped her forehead.
“Oh, shit!” she said. “I was supposed to collect Jenny from the stables. What time is it?”
“Quarter past two.”
“I can just make it… that is, if you… Is it O.K. if we pick her up?”
There was no sign of Jenny at the stables. Mella ran into the coffee room, checked all the seats around the riding track, every box, every stall. She asked all the stable girls she could find, becoming desperate when they shrugged and said they had no idea where Jenny might be. Martinsson was hard on her heels. They finally discovered one of Jenny’s friends behind the main building. She was busy splitting bales of hay open for the horses in the paddock.
“Hi Ebba,” Mella said in an uncharacteristically cheerful voice, trying to subdue the suspicions that were beginning to creep up on her. “Where’s Jenny?”
Ebba looked at Mella in confusion.
“But you sent her a text,” she said. “Jenny was so upset. She texted you back, then rang you, but you didn’t pick up.”
Mella went ice-cold with horror.
“But I haven’t sent any texts,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper. “I have… My mobile…”
Martinsson’s mobile rang. It was Måns Wenngren. She ignored the call.
“What did the text say?”
“Surely you must know what you wrote?” Ebba said.
Mella groaned, covering her mouth with her hand to prevent herself from screaming.
“Oh my God!” Ebba said, looking scared. “You texted Jenny that she should meet you. Immediately. She was pretty put out, having to go back to town.”
“Where to?” Mella screeched. “Where was she supposed to go?”
“To that old open-air stage in the park by the railway station. We thought it seemed odd. A funny place to meet. She tried to ring and text you, but you didn’t answer. Neither did Robert. Your text said to come immediately – Jenny was afraid something might have happened to you.”
The stage in Järnvägsparken, Martinsson thought. There won’t be a soul anywhere in the vicinity.
“Are you saying it wasn’t you who sent that text?” Ebba said, sounding worried.
But Mella was already racing for the car. Martinsson ran after her.
Mella’s heart was thumping. She could envisage Tore and Hjalmar Krekula telling Jenny that her mother had had an accident. She could see them driving off with Jenny in their car.
How many times had Mella found herself observing her only daughter surreptitiously since she had become a teenager? Mella had contemplated Jenny’s budding breasts, her perfect pink skin. Prayed for divine protection. Please God, don’t let anything awful happen to her. And now… Please, please God…
Martinsson set off with Mella on her mobile, trying to ring Jenny. No answer. Please, please God… Don’t let anything happen to her. Please don’t let anything happen to her. We’ll be there very soon.
Martinsson drove through the park along the pedestrian walkway to the stage. There was Jenny. She looked frozen to death in her stable girl’s light jacket. Mella leapt out of the car, yelling out her daughter’s name. Jenny! Jenny!
“I’m here, can’t you see?” Jenny said, breaking free from her mother’s embrace.
She was furious. Scared as well, you could see that in her eyes.
Mella flew into a rage.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she thundered.
“I tried to ring you. My battery ran out. God knows how long I’ve been standing here waiting. Nobody answered! You didn’t. Dad didn’t. What’s going on? Why are you crying?”
The late news on North Swedish Television carried pictures of Wilma Persson and Simon Kyrö. The presenter said that although the young people had disappeared in October, Wilma’s body had only just been found. Mella stood in front of the camera asking the public for any leads. Anything and everything was of interest, she said. Did anyone know where the kids were planning to go diving? Had anybody spoken to them before they disappeared?
“Don’t be afraid to ring us,” she said. “Rather a call too many than one too few.”
Anna-Maria Mella was sitting on the living-room sofa, watching the late news. Robert was beside her. Each of them had a pizza in a box on their knees. Jenny and Petter had already finished eating. There were empty boxes and drinks cans on the table. Marcus was staying over at his girlfriend’s place. Gustav had been asleep for ages.
All around Mella and Robert, behind them and on the floor in front of the sofa, was clean, crumpled laundry waiting to be sorted and folded. Robert had been out with Gustav all day. They had had lunch at his sister’s.
It would never occur to him to volunteer to fold newly washed laundry, Mella thought disapprovingly. Everything was such a mess. She would need to devote an entire holiday to catching up with the housework. And she would have much preferred a real dinner instead of this nasty, greasy pizza. She made a play of dropping the slice in her hand into the box, and pushing it away.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Robert folding pieces of pizza and stuffing them into his mouth while caressing her back absent-mindedly.
She was irritated by this monotonous, aimless stroking. As if she were a cat. Just now what she needed were some real, sensuous caresses. Fingertips alternating with the whole of his hand. A trace of desire. A kiss on the back of her neck. A consoling hand stroking her hair.
She had told him what had happened, and he had listened without saying much. “Well, everything turned out alright in the end,” he had said at last. She had felt like screaming, “But what if it hadn’t turned out alright? It could have been very nasty indeed!”
Do I always need to cry in order to be consoled? she said to herself. Do I always have to fly into a rage before he does anything to help in the house?
She had the feeling that Robert thought he was being very generous in not complaining. She was the police officer after all. If she had a different job, none of this would have happened. The unspoken accusation made her angry. That he seemed to think he had the right to be furious, but that he was sufficiently kind and generous to forgive her. She did not want to be forgiven.
She wriggled her shoulders, a leave-me-alone gesture.
Robert took his hand away. Washing down the last piece of pizza with the dregs from a Coca-Cola can, he stood up, collected all the boxes and empty cans and went out to the kitchen.
Mella stayed where she was. She felt abandoned and unloved. Part of her wanted to go after Robert and ask him for a hug. But she didn’t. Turned her attention listlessly back to the television, feeling that, deep inside, she had become hardened.
I’m paying a visit to Hjalmar Krekula. His place is a real bachelor pad. His mother Kerttu still changes the curtains for him. Every spring and autumn. He told her to stop a few years ago, so she no longer puts up Christmas curtains. She’s filled the window ledges with plastic geraniums. He hasn’t bought a single item of furniture for his house. He’s got most of his things from Tore. When his younger brother changed his woman, the new woman replaced all the old furniture. Whatever was left from Tore’s previous marriage was either too dark, too light, too worn or just plain wrong. Tore let her do whatever she wanted, as they do in the beginning. All the old furniture ended up in Hjalmar’s house.
But he bought the television himself. A big, expensive one. He’s just switched off the late-night news bulletin from North Swedish Television. They showed pictures of me and Simon. He senses that I’m there when I sit down next to him on the living-room sofa. I notice him glancing quickly to the side. Then he moves away, tries to stop feeling my presence, closes all the doors to the house that is his self.
He hurries to switch on the television again.
He’s surprised by that little policewoman.
He remembers how Tore leaned over, in a way that showed he was used to doing it, and searched her pockets while she was in the toilet.
Kerttu didn’t say a word. Isak was in bed in the little room off the kitchen, gasping for breath.
Tore took out her mobile, put it in his pocket and told Hjalmar to go out and fix her car.
“That’ll stop the bitch rootling around in my business,” Tore said as they drove off to town, passing the policewoman on her way to Anni’s.
Then they sent the text message to the policewoman’s daughter. It was dead easy to figure out the girl’s name and send her a text.
They’ve found my body. Things should start happening now. Tore’s on a high, although he’s trying to disguise it. He wants to convince Hjalmar that all this was just a job that had to be done, merely another aspect of the firm’s business.
I can sense how Hjalmar’s mind is working. Knowing that Tore thrives in such situations. Not so much on the violence itself as on the threat of violence. Tore feeds off other people’s fear and impotence. It fills him with strength and a lust for work. Spurs him on to tidy up the cabs of the lorries, polishing everything with Cockpit-Shine or changing the papers in the tachographs. Hjalmar is pretty much the opposite. Or used to be. He’s never understood the point of making threats; it’s always been Tore who’s looked after that side of things. But Hjalmar knows all about violence. Always assuming his opponent is someone to be reckoned with, preferably superior to himself.
That feeling of getting involved in a fight, perhaps against three opponents. The initial fear. Before the first punch has been delivered. Then the blood-red rag of fury. Unrestrained by thoughts or feelings other than the determination to survive, the desire to win. I was also a fighter until I moved to Piilijärvi and met Simon. I know the pleasure there is to be derived from fighting.
But Hjalmar only fought like that when he was young. It’s been a different matter since he became an adult.
Now he’s sighing deeply, as he only does when he’s alone. He’s standing up.
These days he indulges in violence with a sort of mechanical listnessness. Beating up some poor soul who owes money, or has to be made to close down his business to reduce the competition; or making sure someone grants the necessary permission to set up a greasing pit, that sort of stuff.
Generally speaking, violence isn’t necessary. The brothers are known far and wide. People usually do as they’re told. But Inspector Mella hasn’t allowed herself to be intimidated.
Now Hjalmar goes out onto his porch. It’s a Saturday evening. Still light outside. He checks Tore’s house: Tore and his wife are watching television. Hjalmar wonders if Tore has seen the news bulletin. No doubt Kerttu has helped Isaak to sit up, pulled the tea trolley over and is feeding him spoonfuls of rose-hip soup and rusks that have been dipped into it.
Hjalmar would love to go off into the forest. I can tell by looking at him. He’s gazing at the spruce trees along the edge of their plot like a chained-up dog. He has a little cottage at Saarisuanto on the banks of the River Kalix. I know about it. I bet that’s what he’s thinking about.
He likes the remoteness there. He loves to get away from people. I wonder if he’s always been like that. Or if it began after the incident.
There was “an incident” in the village. A story that’s told behind the brothers’ backs.
It is early in the morning of 17 June, 1956. Hjalmar Krekula is preparing to drive the cows out to their summer pasture. That is one of the tasks he has to perform during the summer holidays. The farms within the village are fenced in, and the cows are sent into the forest during the day to graze. In the evening they nearly always come home of their own accord, udders bulging, to be milked. But sometimes Hjalmar has to go to fetch them. They are especially difficult to bring home towards the end of summer. When they have been eating mushrooms among the trees. It can take hours to find them. Mushrooms tend to make them behave oddly.
The boys’ mother is in the kitchen, making packed lunches to put in their rucksacks.
“Does Tore have to come as well?” Hjalmar says, fastening the only three buttons left on his flannel shirt. “Can’t he stay at home with you?”
Hjalmar Krekula is eight years old, will be nine in July. Tore is six. Hjalmar would prefer to be in the forest on his own. Tore is a nuisance, following him around all the time.
“Don’t argue,” his mother says in a voice that will not tolerate contradiction.
She is spreading butter on bread for her boys. Hjalmar notices that she is spreading the butter more thickly on one of the slices. She wraps the sandwiches in newspaper, and the one with the most butter goes into Tore’s rucksack. Hjalmar makes no comment. Tore is sitting on the kitchen stool, sliding his new knife up and down in its sheath.
“Don’t play with knives,” Hjalmar says, just as he has been told not to do many times.
Tore does not seem to hear him. Their mother says nothing. She pours a little yoghourt into a small wooden flask and puts a piece of salted fish into an old flour bag. These Hjalmar will carry in his rucksack.
The family keeps only three cows, to supply their own needs. Isak Krekula, their father, runs the haulage firm, while Kerttu looks after the house and the cattle.
The boys have their rucksacks. They are wearing caps, and trousers that just cover their knees. Hjalmar’s boots are too big for him and flop around. Tore’s boots are a bit too small.
Before they have even crossed the main road, Tore cuts off a birch switch with which he pokes the cows.
“You don’t need to hit them,” Hjalmar says with annoyance. “Star is bright. She follows you if you lead the way.”
Star, the lead cow, follows Hjalmar. She has a bell attached to a leather strap round her neck. Her ears are black, and she has a black star on her forehead. Rosa and Mustikka traipse along behind. Their tails are twitching, aiming at flies. They occasionally run a few paces in order to get away from Tore and his confounded birch switch.
Hjalmar presses on. He is leading the cows to the edge of a bog a kilometre or so away. It is a good grazing spot. The sun is warm. The forest is fragrant with wild rosemary which has just come into bloom. Star trots happily after Hjalmar. She has learnt that he takes her to good grazing grounds.
Tore keeps on holding them up. He stops to poke a big branch through an anthill, back and forth, back and forth. And he feels the need to cut notches in tree trunks with his new knife. Hjalmar looks the other way. His own knife is nowhere near as sharp. One of his father’s employees has used it to scrape rust off one of the lorries. There is a big hack in the cutting edge, too big to be ground away. Tore’s knife is brand new.
Tore prattles away behind his brother and Star. Hjalmar wishes the younger boy would keep quiet. You have to keep silent in the forest. When they reach the edge of the bog, they unpack their lunches. The cows immediately start grazing. They drift further and further from the boys.
The bog is white with cloudberry flowers.
When the boys have finished eating, it is time to head for home.
They have been walking for ten minutes when they catch sight of a reindeer. It is standing absolutely still, watching them with big black eyes. The Lapps have already taken their herds up into the mountains; this is one they missed.
The boys try to sneak up on it, but it stretches its neck and sets off at a brisk trot. They hear the clippety-clop of its hooves, and then it is gone.
They try to follow it for a while, but give up after ten minutes. The reindeer is no doubt a long way away by now.
They set off for home again, but after a while Hjalmar realizes that he does not know where he is. Even so, he continues in the same direction – no doubt he will soon see the familiar rocks and clearings. But before long they come to a swamp that he has never seen before. Spindly, stunted pine trees are growing in the middle of it. Beard lichen hangs from the branches, looking burnt. Where on earth are they?
“We’re lost,” Hjalmar says to his brother. “We must retrace our steps.”
They retrace their steps. But after an hour or so, they find themselves on the edge of the same swamp.
“Let’s cross over it,” Tore says.
“Don’t be silly,” Hjalmar says.
He is worried now. Which way should they go?
They hear a cow lowing in the distance, very faintly.
“Hush,” he says to Tore, who is prattling on about something or other. “It’s Star. It’s coming from over there.”
If they can find the cows, they will be able to get home. Star will find the way as milking time approaches.
But after only a few steps, they realize that they can no longer hear any lowing. They cannot follow the sound. Neither of them is sure where it came from.
They lie down in a clearing to rest. The moss is dry and the sun is warm. They feel sleepy. Hjalmar is no longer on the verge of tears; he is just tired. He drops off to sleep. Tore’s legs twitch, and he says something in his dream.
Hjalmar is woken up by his brother shaking his arm.
“I want to go home now,” Tore whimpers. “I’m hungry.”
Hjalmar is also hungry. His stomach is rumbling. The sun is low in the sky. The forest is filled with different sounds. The heat drains away from the trees, making them crackle. The noise is almost like footsteps. An eerie sound must be a barking fox. It is chillier now, and the boys are cold.
They set off aimlessly.
After a while they come to a beck. Kneeling down, they fill the mugs they have with them. Drink until they are no longer thirsty.
Hjalmar thinks.
What if this is the same beck that flows past Iso-Junti’s farmhouse on the edge of the village?
Hjalmar had once thrown pieces of wood into the beck. They had floated off in the direction of the Kalix. So, if they follow the beck upstream, they should find themselves in the village.
Always assuming it is the same beck, of course. They could well be following one that goes somewhere else.
“Let’s go this way,” Hjalmar says to his brother.
But Tore doesn’t like being told what to do. Nobody is going to tell him which way to go. Except his father, perhaps.
“No,” he says. “Let’s go that way.”
He points in the opposite direction.
They start arguing. Tore’s opposition makes his older brother certain that following the beck upstream is the best thing to do.
Tore refuses absolutely. Hjalmar calls him a stupid brat, tells him he is being idiotic, that he must do as he is told.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Tore howls.
He starts blubbing and shouts for his mother. Hjalmar slaps him. Tore punches Hjalmar in the stomach. Soon they are both on the ground. The fight doesn’t last long. Tore doesn’t have a chance. Age wins the day. And Hjalmar Krekula is big.
“I’m going now,” he bellows.
He is sitting on top of his brother. Lets go of his arms, but grabs them again when Tore tries to hit him in the face. The younger boy gives up in the end. He has lost the fight. But not the battle. When he eventually stands up, he marches off resolutely in the direction he had chosen to begin with.
Hjalmar shouts after him.
“Don’t be an idiot. Come with me! Now!”
Tore pretends not to hear. After a while Hjalmar can no longer see him.
At 11.15 that night Hjalmar Krekula comes to the main road to Vittangi. He starts walking along it, and just over an hour later a lorry stops and picks him up. It is one of his father’s lorries, but his father is not driving it. The driver is Johannes Svarvare. In the passenger seat is another villager, Hugo Fors. They pull up 50 metres in front of Hjalmar, and both men open their doors and shout to him. Their soft caps are askew over their sunburnt faces. Shirt sleeves rolled up. Hjalmar feels his chest opening up as joy and relief flood in. He will soon be home.
They laugh as they help him to clamber up into the lorry. He is allowed to sit between them. By Jove, my boy, they say, his mother and father have been worried sick. Since the evening milking, practically everyone in the village has been out shouting and looking for them. Hjalmar wants to reply, but the words stick in his throat.
“Where’s Tore?” they say.
He cannot produce a single word. The men exchange worried looks.
“What’s happened?” Svarvare says. “Out with it, my boy. Where’s your brother?”
Hjalmar turns his head towards the forest.
The men do not know how to interpret that movement. Has his younger brother got stuck in one of the bogs?
“Let’s get you home,” Fors says, placing his hand on Hjalmar’s head. “We can talk about it later.”
His voice is as calm as a lake in the evening, but beneath the surface a shoal of worry glints like a sheet of steel.
They are gathered outside the Krekulas’ house. It is like a Laestadian prayer meeting. Ten grown-ups in a circle round Hjalmar Krekula. The women are whimpering and shouting with emotion – but not too loudly; they do not want to miss a word of what is said. Kerttu Krekula does not whimper. She is white and as frozen as an icicle. Isak Krekula is red and sweaty; he has run all the way home from the forest.
“Right, let’s hear what’s happened to Tore,” he says.
Hjalmar forces the words out.
“He’s still in the forest,” he says.
The grown-ups stand around him. Like black pine trees on a summer night. He is alone in this particular clearing.
“You mean you left him in the forest?”
“He didn’t want to. I told him to come with me. We were lost. He didn’t want to.”
He bursts into tears. One of the women shouts, “Oh, Lord!” in Tornedalen Finnish, and presses her hand over her mouth.
Kerttu Krekula stares at Hjalmar.
“This is the punishment,” she says to her husband, without taking her eyes off her son. “We’ll never find him.”
Then she turns slowly, just as slowly as an icicle would turn if it were alive, and goes into the house.
“Take him away,” Isak Krekula bellows to the crowd. “Someone had better take him home before I do him an injury. You left him in the forest. You left your little brother in the forest.”
Elmina Salmi takes Hjalmar home with her. He turns several times and looks back at his house. His father ought to have given him a good hiding with his belt. That would have been better.
“When will I be able to go home?” he says.
“God knows,” Elmina says. She is very religious. “We must pray that they find poor little Tore.”
My name is Wilma Persson. I’m dead. I don’t really know what that involves yet.
Hjalmar is on his knees outside his house, pressing snow onto his face. He doesn’t want to think about it any more. He doesn’t want to think at all.
Enough now, enough, he says to himself.
I’m looking at Anni. She’s lying in bed asleep, on her side. Her clothes are folded neatly over the back of a chair in the bedroom. She’s sleeping with one hand under her cheek. It’s like a dish for her head to rest in. Her other hand is open, on her chest. She makes me think of a fox. How it snuggles down for the night. Curls up into itself. Uses its tail to keep its body warm.
The policewoman Anna-Maria Mella is lying awake in her bedroom. Her husband has turned away from her and is snoring. She feels lonely and can’t keep herself warm like a fox. She wishes he’d given her that hug now. So that she didn’t need to feel angry and abandoned. Her life has been torn apart today.
I sit down on her side of the bed. Place my hand against her heart.
If you want to go to sleep in his arms, then do it, I tell her.
After a while she wriggles closer to Robert. Lies behind him. Wraps her arms around him. He wakes up sufficiently to turn over and embrace her.
“How do you feel?” he says sleepily.
“Not good,” she says. He caresses her, squeezes her, kisses her forehead. At first she thinks it’s a bloody scandal, having to beg him to do this, having to make all the moves. But she no longer has the strength to be bothered. She relaxes and falls asleep.