On Sunday someone phoned the police station in Kiruna to say that he had information about the two kids who had featured in the late-night news bulletin the day before. He said his name was Göran Sillfors.
“I don’t know if what I have to tell you is all that significant,” he said, “but you said yourselves, ‘Rather a call too many than one too few’, so I thought…”
The receptionist put him through to Anna-Maria Mella.
“Absolutely right,” Mella replied when Sillfors repeated what he had already said.
“Anyway, those two kids. They were out in a canoe on the lake at Vittangijärvi last summer. We have a summer cottage up there. I always say that not all young people sit glued to their computers from morning to night. This pair carried and dragged their canoe along the river, paddled over Tahkojärvi and up as far as the lake. That’s a hell of a long way. I don’t know how much they were being paid by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, but it can’t have been all that much.”
“What do you mean, paid by the M.H.I.?”
“They were taking soundings in the lake for the M.H.I. – that’s what they told us when they called in for a chat and a coffee. First-class young people, they were. I didn’t know they’d gone missing – we were abroad when it happened. Our daughter and her partner have bought a hotel in Thailand, so we went out there for a three-week holiday. Obviously we had to muck in – you know how it is: when anything needs doing, Father’s the only one who knows how.”
“They called in for a chat and a coffee… What was it they said?”
“Not much.”
No, Mella thought. No doubt you did most of the talking.
Sillfors continued.
“They were taking some kind of measurements for the M.H.I. What did you say?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, not you, I was responding to my wife. She says they were taking depth soundings in the lake. I recognized them the moment I saw them on the telly. The girl looked a bit dangerous with those little daggers stuck through her eyebrows. Huh! I asked her if she was into that what-do-you-call-it – you know, when you hang yourself from a rope with hooks you stick into your skin. Christ Almighty, I saw a programme on the telly about these characters with piercings all over their bodies, hanging themselves up on a washing line. But no, she said she only had the things in her eyebrows and ears.”
“Can you remember what they said about the lake? Were they thinking of going diving there, for instance?”
“No. They asked if I fished there.”
“And you said?”
“That I did.”
“Anything else?”
“No, nothing else.”
“Think hard, now. If you were drinking coffee, you must have had time to chat about all kinds of things.”
“I suppose so. We spoke a bit about fishing. I said there was a particular place where the fish always seem to bite. I thought maybe they were interested in fishing themselves. We usually joke about that spot in the middle of the lake and reckon there must be a meteorite or an especially big rock there. Somewhere the fish can hide, because that’s always where they bite the most. But the kids weren’t going fishing. Hang on a minute, my wife is trying to say something.”
He doesn’t hear what I’m saying, Mella thought. That’s because I’m not saying anything. He’s doing all the talking.
“You what?” Sillfors shouted to his wife. “Why should she be interested in that? Talk to her yourself if you must.”
“What’s all that about?” Mella said.
“Huh, she’s going on about the door to our shed. How someone pinched it last winter.”
Mella’s heart skipped a beat. She recalled the flakes of green paint Pohjanen had found under Wilma Persson’s fingernails.
“What colour was the door?” she said.
“Black,” Göran Sillfors said.
Mella’s hopes collapsed. It had been too good to be true. She heard Sillfors’ wife saying something in the background.
“Ah yes. You’re right,” he said. “It was black on the outside – that was the side I painted a couple of years ago. You know how weather and especially wind ruins paintwork. I had a bit of black paint left over from when I helped our neighbour to paint our fences. There wasn’t much, but I thought I might as well give the outside a coat at least.”
“Go on,” Mella said, concealing her impatience with difficulty.
“The inside was green. Why do you want to know?”
Mella gasped. This was it. Bloody hell, this was it!
“Stay where you are,” she yelled into the telephone. “Where do you live? I’m on my way.”
Göran Sillfors and his wife Berit took Mella to their cottage at Vittangijärvi. It was a brown-painted timber house with white window frames. The porch was unusually wide with a little roof supported by carved wooden columns. Göran drove the snow scooter with Mella in the sledge.
“Shall we go in?” Berit said when they arrived.
Mella shook her head.
“Where’s the shed door?” she said.
“There isn’t a door,” Göran said. “That’s the problem.”
The snow on the shed roof had melted and then frozen again. An enormous cake of ice hung ominously from the edge.
Mella took off her woolly hat and unzipped her scooter overalls. She was much too hot.
“You know what I mean,” she said with a jolly smile. “Show me where the door was. At the back?”
The opening, at the gable end, had been boarded over.
“I’ll sort out a new door in time for the spring,” Göran said. “We’re not here in the winter, so this is a bit amateurish.”
Mella examined the door frame. No sign of green paint, or of black paint, come to that.
“Could you remove the boards, please?” she said. “Just so I can go inside and take a quick look round.”
“Might one ask what you’re looking for?”
“Obviously I’m hoping there’s a bit of green paint left on the inside of the door frame. So that we can take some samples.”
“No, there won’t be any. It must be, let’s see, fifteen years ago that I painted it green. I unscrewed the hinges and laid it down on trestles. So there won’t be any paint on the frame.”
Göran Sillfors’ expression changed from pride at having done the painting so carefully to worry when he saw how disappointed Mella was.
“But do you know what?” he said. “One of the doors inside the cottage was painted with the same stuff. From the same tin. I painted it the same day, if I remember rightly. Will that do?”
Mella’s face lit up, and she threw her arms round a somewhat surprised Göran Sillfors.
“Will it do?” she shouted in delight. “You bet your life it will!”
“Shall we go inside after all, then?” Berit Sillfors said. “It would be good if I could check the mousetraps while we’re here.”
Scraping a bit of paint from the green door between the cottage’s vestibule and large hall, Mella put the flakes carefully in an envelope.
“Scrape as much as you like,” Göran said generously. “It needs repainting anyway.”
Berit Sillfors emptied the mousetraps in the upstairs wardrobes and beneath the sink. When she had finished she showed the result to Mella and her husband: five frozen mice in a red plastic bucket.
“I’ll just go and dispose of them,” she said.
“I’m finished,” Mella said.
She looked out through the hall window. The whole lake still seemed to be covered with ice. With a lot of snow on top of it.
What if they made a hole in the ice and went diving through it? Mella asked herself. And then someone laid the door over the hole so that they would drown? That might be what had happened. But why move her body? And where is his? Is the door still out there on the ice, hidden beneath the snow?
“Can I go out on the ice and have a look?” she said.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Göran said. “It’s slushy and unreliable.”
“Is there anybody who spends time out here in winter?” Mella said. “Who owns the other house? I’m just wondering if there might be someone who could have seen something or met Wilma and Simon.”
“No, there’s never anyone in the house next to ours,” Berit said sadly. “The man who owns it is too ill and too old, and his nephews and nieces have shown no interest in it at all. But there’s Hjörleifur…”
“That’s enough!” Göran said. “You can’t send her to Hjörleifur.”
“But she was asking.”
“Leave Hjörleifur out of this! He can’t cope with the authorities.”
“Anyway,” Berit said, shaking the bucket with the dead mice as if to attract attention, “Hjörleifur Arnarson lives in a remote farmhouse about a kilometre from here. Do you know who he is?”
Mella shook her head.
“He bathes in the lake. Walks here through the forest, summer and winter alike. He usually cuts a hole in the ice by our jetty. He’s become very grumpy. You have to agree, Göran.”
“Hjörleifur has nothing to do with this,” Göran said firmly. “He’s as crazy as a loon, but there’s no evil in him.”
“I’m not suggesting that there’s any evil in him,” Berit said defensively. “But he’s become very grumpy.”
“What do you mean, grumpy?” Mella said.
“Well, for example, he doesn’t like intruders up here. He borrowed your shotgun without permission, didn’t he, Göran? And scared off some anglers. Was that two years ago?”
Göran Sillfors gave his wife a dirty look that said, “Hold your tongue!”
Mella said nothing. She was not going to go on about Göran Sillfors evidently not keeping his shotgun locked up in a gun safe.
Unconcerned, Berit went on talking.“I sometimes call in on him to buy some of the anti-mosquito oil he concocts, and we have a little chat. Last summer when I went to see him, I found his billy goat hanging in a tree.”
“Eh? How do you mean, hanging in a tree?”
“I asked him: ‘What on earth’s been happening, Hjörleifur?’ He told me the goat had butted him, and he was so angry that he killed it and threw its body into the air with all his strength. The poor thing ended up in the birch tree outside Hjörleifur’s house, got stuck there with its horns. I helped him to get it down. If I hadn’t, the crows would have started pecking at it. Hjörleifur was so sorry. The billy goat had just been in rut – that makes them a bit excited.”
Berit Sillfors turned to look at Mella.
“But Hjörleifur would never do anything to people. I agree with Göran. He’s a bit potty, but there’s no evil in him. Just be careful how you handle him. Would you like us to go with you?”
Mella checked her watch.
“I have to go home now,” she said with a smile. “If I don’t, my husband will throw me up into the birch tree.”
It’s Sunday evening at the haulage firm’s garage. I’m sitting on top of the cabin, watching Hjalmar. He’s opened up the hydraulic lift on the back of one of the lorries and is oiling the pistons. He attaches the greasing gun to the nipples and fills them. He doesn’t hear Tore come in. Suddenly Tore is standing by the lorry, yelling at him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Hjalmar glances at Tore, but continues working. Tore races to fetch some supports and jams them under the hydraulic platform.
“You fucking idiot!’ he says. “You can’t work under the hydraulic platform without making it secure, surely you realize that?”
Hjalmar says nothing. What is there to say?
“I can’t run this firm on my own,” Tore says. “It’s bad enough having Father in bed and unable to help with the book-keeping. You’re no use to me as a cripple or a corpse. Is that clear?”
Tore is upset. He spits as he talks.
“Don’t you dare let me down!” he says, pointing a finger at Hjalmar.
When Hjalmar doesn’t respond, Tore says, “You’re an idiot! A bloody idiot!”
Turning on his heel, he leaves.
No, Hjalmar thinks. I won’t let you down. Not again.
They spend five days and nights looking for Tore. Volunteers from the old Emergency Service and the Mountain Rescue Service are out searching. Police officers and a company of soldiers from the I. 19 regiment in Boden are also taking part. An aeroplane makes two reconnaissance flights over the wooded areas north of Piilijärvi. No sign of Tore. The men from the village spend most of their time outside the Krekulas’ house. Drinking coffee. They are either on their way into the forest or on their way back from it. They want to talk to Hjalmar, ask him where he and his brother went, what the route looked like. What the swamp looked like. Hjalmar does not want to talk, tries to keep out of the way, but he is forced to answer questions. He is back at home now, having spent the first couple of nights with Elmina Salmi. On the morning of the second day, she took Hjalmar home and said to Kerttu Krekula, “You have a son here who is alive. Be grateful for that.”
Kerttu gave him some porridge, but did not say anything. She still has not said anything to Hjalmar.
When the men ask him questions, he turns himself inside out trying to answer them. But he does not know. Cannot remember. In the end he starts making things up and telling lies, just to have something to tell them. Did they see Hanhivaara mountain? Yes, maybe. Was the sun on their backs as they walked? Yes, he thought it was. Had the trees been thinned? No, they had not been.
They search the forest to the north of the village. That is where he came from when he emerged onto the main road. And everything he says suggests that it is where the boys got lost.
He has to get used to days like this. To people falling silent when he approaches. To comments such as: “May God forgive you” or “What the hell were you thinking of, boy?” To head-shakings and piercing looks. To his mother’s silence. Not that she ever had much to say for herself. But now she does not even look at him.
Once he overhears his father say to one of the men from the village: “What I’d really like to do is kill the little shit, but that wouldn’t bring Tore back.”
“Jumala on antanu anteeksi,” says the man, who is a believer. God has forgiven that sin.
But Isak Krekula does not believe in God. He has nothing to console him. Nor can he do as Job did, wave his fist in the air and cry out to the Lord. He mutters something evasive and embarrassed in reply. But he clenches his fists whenever he looks at his son.
On the sixth day, the search for Tore Krekula is called off. A six-year-old boy is incapable of surviving for five days and nights in the forest. He has probably been sucked into one of the bogs. Or perhaps he has drowned in the beck the brothers were standing by when they parted. Or he has been savaged by a bear. The house feels empty. Some of the villagers consider it their duty to spend an hour there in the evening on the sixth day. But all of them have their own lives to lead. What is the point of looking for someone who is already dead?
That night Hjalmar Krekula lies awake in the little bedroom. He can hear his mother sobbing through the wall.
“It’s our punishment,” she wails.
He can hear the bed creaking and complaining as his father gets up.
“That’s enough of that – shut up!” he says.
Hjalmar listens to his mother crying, then suddenly the bedroom door is wrenched open. It is his father.
“Get up,” he bellows. “Get up, and down with your trousers.”
He lashes his son with his belt. As hard as he can. Hjalmar can hear his father grunting with the strain. At first the boy is determined that he is not going to cry. No, no. But in the end the pain is too much for him. His tears and screams just flow out of him, whether he wants them to or not.
Not a sound from the big bedroom.
Now she is the one lying silent, listening to him.
The miracle occurs on the morning of 23 June, 1956. At about 5.00, before his mother has gone to the cowshed, before his father has even got up, Tore Krekula trudges up to the front door. Going into the kitchen, he shouts, “Paivää!” Hi there!
His mother has been in the toilet, putting her hair up. She emerges and stares at Tore. Then she bursts into tears. Shouts, screams. Hugs him so tightly that he howls in pain and she has to let him go.
He has been so badly bitten by mosquitoes, gnats and horseflies that his shirt collar is soaked in blood and appears to be stuck to his neck. His mother has to cut it loose with scissors. His feet are tender and swollen. For the last few days he has been carrying his boots – something people laughed about later, the fact that he did not want to lose his boots no matter what.
All day, villagers keep popping in to watch Tore eating. Or to watch Tore lying asleep on the kitchen sofa. Or to watch Tore eating again.
The story gets into the newspapers, and is repeated on the radio. The Krekulas receive letters from all over the country. People send presents – clothes, shoes, skis. People turn up from Kiruna and Gällivare to see Tore Krekula with their own eyes. Sweden’s most popular singer, Ulla Billquist, sends a telegram.
Kerttu and Tore Krekula take the train down to Stockholm, and the boy is interviewed by the legendary Lennart Hylund on the children’s programme Roundabout.
Hjalmar sits listening to it all. Thank God Tore did not say anything on the radio about his brother hitting him. But word has spread around the village. Hjalmar Krekula hit his little brother, three years younger than he is. And then abandoned him in the forest.