Frozen Moment (3 page)

    'They're
certainly not living on top of one another,' he muttered as he heard the sound
of a car in the distance.

    'OK,
let's get started.'

    Tell
had already taken a few rapid drags of his cigarette, stubbed it out in an
empty McDonald's paper cup and set off towards one of the uniformed officers.
The police surgeon's car turned in and drove up on to the grass, followed by
the crime scene team. The investigation was under way.

    Nine
minutes before the telephone rang Seja had switched the alarm clock to snooze
in case she fell asleep again.
One foot in reality, her gaze
fixed on the cracks in the painted ceiling, one foot still in her dreams.
She jumped when the clock emitted its vaguely encouraging beep, followed
swiftly by the shrill sound of the telephone. The noise drilled into her skull,
and for a moment it startled her. The meagre daylight seeped in through the
gaps between the curtains, but the cottage was still in darkness.

    The
old copy of
Rekordmagasinet
fell on the floor as she rolled out of bed
and dashed across the cold wooden floor.

    'Hello?'

    'Hello.
Were you asleep?'

    'Who
is this?'

    
'Your neighbour.
Are you up and about?'

    'Åke,
is that you?'

    She
sighed to herself. Since Martin left she had been grateful for some contact
with her next-door neighbours. It gave her the feeling that she wasn't entirely
alone with her fears during all those dark nights; she could peep through the
curtains, and even if the only thing she could see was the fir trees
silhouetted against the night sky, she knew that behind those fir trees there
was a peat bog and another little house where Åke and Kristina Melkersson
lived.

    It
was true that Åke could be a bit too chatty in his old man's way, and
annoyingly flirty, but they had developed a comfortable relationship; it was
quite pleasant to meet someone by the mailboxes in the mornings. She had also
enjoyed being around to help Kristina during the day while Åke was at work. It
was often something small, such as bringing an item back from the shops or
posting a letter. Seja suspected that Åke was grateful for the sense of
security this gave him, despite the fact that her involvement with his wife was
comparatively limited. On a couple of occasions he had even, with a certain
amount of embarrassment, offered to pay her for coming round. Which, of course,
she had declined, equally embarrassed. She was on her own after all, and despite
the fact that she was halfway through a training course to become a journalist
after several years of aimless study, she had oceans of time at her disposal.
However, being woken up in the morning by Melkersson was definitely a step in
the wrong direction.

    'What
do you want, Åke?'

    'I
need your help. I've got into a bit of a… well… an odd situation.
To say the least.'

    He
sounded stressed.

    'What
do you want me to do? Where are you?'

    'Pick
me up outside the ICA supermarket in Gunnilse. My car has broken down, but
that's not all. I'll tell you about it when you get here. I don't really want
to talk over the phone. I'm hanging up now.'

    'Åke!'
she yelled down the phone. 'I'm going nowhere unless you tell me what this is
about. What's going on? Has the car packed up? Why don't you just ring for a
breakdown truck?'

    He
lowered his voice.

    'Listen…
A man has been murdered.
At a garage not far from here.
I found him. He's been executed, shot in the head, that's what must have
happened, there was so much blood. But that wasn't all, Seja, he'd been run
over. He was completely squashed. Someone has… You have to drive me there, I
promised the police and my
car's
completely-'

    
'Åke!
The police?
What-'

    'I'm
hanging up now.'

    
Click.

    He
was very pale, standing there in front of his old Opel. Seja pulled in next to
him and pushed open the passenger door.

    'Jump
in. And explain yourself.'

    An
acrid smell surrounded Åke as he slumped down on the seat.

    'I
only wanted to ask him to take a look at the car.'

    He
seemed to be concentrating on his breathing.

    'For
God's sake, you tell me there's a body in a garage, and for some unknown reason
I'm on my way there. I just don't understand why - you could have called a
breakdown truck.
Or a taxi.'

    
'Left here.
Don't you understand, Seja? I'm too old for this
kind of thing. I need a bit of support.'

    She
didn't say anything. The first rays of the sun hit the wing mirrors and dazzled
her as she took the bend a little too fast. Åke grabbed hold of the handle on
the roof and gave her an inscrutable look. She swallowed and thought about how
she had rushed off without taking the time to feed her horse or let him out
into the field. She couldn't be away for too long.

    She
often got annoyed when she was afraid. It seemed easier to be afraid and angry
than afraid and merely weak.
Easier to be driven by an idea
than to allow chance to make a fool of you.
The sense of excitement,
because it was there too, came from her nightly reading of fifty-year-old crime
reports in
Rekordmagasinet.
She had found the pile down in the cellar,
left behind by the former owner of the cottage. She had intended using them for
the fire, but instead had become caught up in a wealth of old-fashioned and
innocently formulated articles about long-forgotten crimes. They interested
her, giving a picture of how society had changed or perhaps of the general
fascination for the darker side of
mankind.
Recently
she had started to think about using them as a basis for her undergraduate
dissertation: a historical overview of crime journalism. Or perhaps this was
just an excuse to avoid getting down to the reading she should be doing for her
next exam. Right now the thought of the grainy black and white pictures and the
sensational headlines gave her a reassuring sense of distance from the current
situation.

    She
was thirty years old, and had only recently decided what she wanted to do with
her life - or perhaps the realisation that it was actually possible was
something new, for the writing had always been there, so much a part of her
that she had hardly even considered that it could become her profession. So far
she had only managed to get published in insignificant contexts: she had sold a
short story to a

    
monthly
magazine; done a brisk report in the local paper
about a long-distance ski club that was celebrating an anniversary; carried out
an investigation into local procedures for clearing snow. She was happy just to
be paid for her writing.

    At
that moment she caught sight of the place. There was no doubt that this was
where the crime had been committed. A collection of cars was already blocking
the entrance to the yard, and she had to park by the side of the road a short
distance away.

    It
was an old farm, the paint flaking. A sign was swinging in the bitter wind:
THOMAS EDELL - VEHICLE REPAIRS AND SCRAPYARD.

    An
electric shock ran through her body. Her heart beat so fast it felt as if her
chest was actually vibrating. Her hands started to shake and she had to take a
deep breath in order to regain control of her body.

    Åke
didn't seem to take any notice; he was completely taken up with his own
anxiety. He got out of the car and, with as much composure as he could muster,
walked over to a group of what she presumed
were
plain-clothes police officers. Her mind was racing feverishly. She couldn't
hear what was being said, but Åke was directed towards a man who was over at
the side of the yard, staring down at the ground like a tracker dog.

    She
opened the car door and stepped out. All around her was a hive of activity, but
she could see no sign of the body. Her heart turned a few more somersaults in
her chest. Driven by a strength she neither understood nor could analyse, she
walked towards Åke and the man in the coat. Her neighbour didn't turn around
when she stared at his back.
Help me now, Åke. Help me be allowed to stay
here and see the body. I can't explain why, it's too complicated; I just have
to do it.

    The
police officer caught sight of her and she took a tentative step in his
direction.

    'Excuse
me, but I assume you'll
be wanting
to question me. I
was with Åke when he found the body.'

    She
pretended not to notice Åke's surprised expression.

    And
you are?'

    'I
think there's been some kind of misunderst-'

    'Seja
Lundberg,' she interrupted, her voice sounding reasonably steady as she met the
officer's gaze. He had a finely chiselled face: with its straight slender nose
and thick eyelashes it could have been regarded as feminine had it not been for
his bushy eyebrows. Seja thought she caught a hint of his breath: coffee and
cigarettes, a trace of mint.

    He
extended his hand towards her.

    'Inspector
Christian Tell.
Right.
Melkersson here told me that
you found the body just after seven,
then
drove up to
the main road to telephone us. Hmm…'

    He's
wondering why Åke gave the impression he was alone.
Seja was already
regretting her stupid lie.

    'That
seems about right,' Tell went on after a brief pause. 'The emergency call was
logged at seven thirty.'

    He
seemed a little distracted, raising his shoulders up towards his ears and
shivering as if he had just noticed that the temperature had fallen well below
zero overnight. It was hardly surprising that he was frozen. His coat was much
too thin for the weather, a typical city coat,
perfect
for someone who only moved between his apartment and the car, the car and work.

    'I'll
see if I can find somewhere inside where we can talk. It's too bloody cold out
here.
If you'll excuse me.'

    Seja
nodded mutely after he had turned on his heel. She got the idea that she had
met the man before, in a completely different context.
There's something
ludicrously familiar about him.
The thick black eyebrows that met in the
middle and didn't seem to match the ash- coloured hair, which fell below his
ears. The deep voice and the accent: broad Gothenburg to start with, but a real
effort had been made to tame it. She recognised the voice and thought she knew
from which evening the memory came.

    They
had just moved into the cottage. She was due to pick up Martin from the pub at
the central station; he had been bowling and had gone for a few beers
afterwards with a friend from Stockholm who was Maying over. Both the
guys
were pretty drunk, very drunk in fact, loud and not at
all interested in going home with her. She had grown tired of nagging them and
had considered driving back on her own and leaving them to their fate, but
instead she had sat down crossly on one of the bar stools while they ordered
another beer and a shot each. The man who resembled Christian Tell had been
sitting next to her, and had made a comment on her unfortunate situation, half
amused and half sympathetic. She remembered that she had found him attractive
and had been embarrassed at being so feeble. At just sitting there, sweaty and
furious with her jacket on, waiting, like a dog, once again placed in the box
labelled nagging old bag, while Martin was the one who was such fun, so ready
to embrace life. The one who was absolved of responsibility because there was
always someone else to shoulder it, the martyr who yet again would come
tiptoeing along with the Alka-Seltzer the next day, doggedly tidying up,
cleaning up, picking up the pieces of something that had been fun but wasn't
any longer.

    She
was brought back to reality as Åke grabbed hold of her arm. She pre-empted him
by whispering, 'I thought if I said I was in the car with you I'd be allowed to
stay. Otherwise I would have had to leave.'

    He
seemed to have regained the power of speech.

    'Do
you realise what you've done? You've lied to the police in a murder case, and
dragged me along with you. Now we'll have to carry on lying and-'