Frozen Moment (7 page)

    'Bengt,
you can look after things here until we have more to go on. Look for anyone
else who might be involved, as many people as you can find. As soon as you've
got a list, start sorting them into groups.
Relatives,
employees and so on.
Call me on my mobile then we can decide together how
to tackle things.'

    
'Are the technical team out there at
the moment?'

    'Yes.
They're not exactly cheering, but the tyre tracks are pretty clear, so we might
get something from those. There might be fibres too. There's a chewing-gum
wrapper - the old guy who was first on the scene picked it up - but to be
honest, the probability that the murderer decided to have a piece of chewing
gum while he was waiting to murder Waltz isn't strong.'

    'Not
to mention the chance of finding a decent fingerprint among all the rest on a
wrapper from some newspaper kiosk.'

    That
was Barneflod's contribution.

    
'Exactly.
Talking of the old
guy
,
one… Åke Melkersson.' Tell read

    
from
his notes. 'And his neighbour Seja Lundberg, we need to
take a closer look at those two.'

    'Why?'

    The
sharpness in his voice gave away how offended Barneflod was. He ought to be
grateful to escape shitty jobs such as knocking on doors while the rain was
lashing down, but he seemed to feel that Tell was doing more than looking after
Barneflod's creature comforts by leaving him out of the main investigation.

    
'Because they were first on the scene.
And because they
lied.'

    Tell
stood up a little too quickly and managed to knock over his chair, which fell
backwards with a crash.

    'OK,
let's get a move on.'

    He
turned to Karlberg, who already had his jacket on.

    It
was as if a sigh passed through the plane as it landed.

    
At last.
Lise-Lott Edell realised every muscle in her body
had been tense ever since they left Puerto de la Cruz. Next time she flew she was
going to take a taxi out to Landvetter instead of leaving the car in the
long-stay car park. Not that she travelled a great deal; it had been eight
years since her last trip abroad. But that was exactly why she should have been
able to indulge herself with a whisky or a Martini on the plane to calm her
nerves. Her fear of flying certainly hadn't lessened over the years.

    'You
look as if you've seen a ghost!' said Marianne when the plane finally came to a
halt. Marianne had seemed completely unmoved by the fact that the plane was
sufficiently high up in the air for the earth to look like an abstract map of
itself. She had even said that she loved flying, as if sitting on a plane was
the next best thing to being able to fly under your own steam. A feeling of
freedom - filled with expectation about the coming holiday, or sated with tales
to tell, memories to cherish.

    Her
pronouncements might have had something to do with the fact that she
had
had a drink, or a couple to be accurate. Not that this particularly bothered
Lise-Lott - if you were on holiday, you were on holiday. But there was no doubt
that Marianne's fondness for a tipple had made Lise-Lott look like a Sunday
school teacher. And there was no doubt that the nightcap in the hotel bar after
they'd done the round of all the pubs and clubs had been one drink too many for
Marianne.
Every night.

    Despite
this, Lise-Lott was more than happy with her trip, and grateful that her friend
had eagerly agreed to come along when she had suggested as late as the previous
week that they should take a last- minute holiday in the sun. After all, Lars
could never get away because there was just too much work in the winter. And
the few short weeks in the summer had a tendency to disappear while they mowed
the lawn and fixed things in the house that had been waiting all year. The
thought depressed her.

    There
wasn't really anything wrong with the way they felt about each other. They
loved each other and still had plenty to talk about, and they still wanted each
other - if only they had time to talk or the energy to make love. It was
stupid, really: two people burying themselves in their work to the extent that
they had no time to live.

    They
had only been married for six years, but with Lars having two jobs and
Lise-Lott getting the fabric shop up and running, which had been a dream come
true but had cost so much in terms of time and energy, they had already begun
to drift apart. She recognised the signs: Lars
fell
asleep downstairs on the sofa in front of the television more and more often.
She would hear him nod off and drop the remote on the floor. When she got up in
the small hours to go to the toilet, the war of the ants would have taken over
the television screen. He didn't always bother to have a shower before he came
to bed after working on the cars, and the smell of oil and petrol put a
definitive stop to her interest in marital relations.

    He
was also spending an increasing amount of time in the darkroom, developing his
photos. That was his second job, even if the line between job and hobby was
only a hair's breadth when the activity in question took up time without
actually generating any money. In the 8os he had published a book of
photographs which received very good reviews, but these days it was mostly a
case of commissions from the local council, pictures for brochures and that
sort of thing, which brought in a little extra cash. He had tried the
advertising industry for a few years and had done fairly well as an art
director before he developed an allergy to computer screens and, with
considerable relief, was forced to abandon his ambitions on that front.

    But
photography was still the activity closest to his heart. Apart from that he
really only wanted a job that would bring in money and wouldn't make any more
demands on him than he was prepared to meet. He wanted to be able to work less
so that he had more time for his passion. At least that had been the logic when
he gratefully agreed to run Thomas's old workshop. It was just that the hours
in the workshop on top of the hours in the darkroom turned out to be far more
than a full-time job, which was something he perhaps hadn't reckoned with.

    Lise-Lott
no longer had any idea what he was developing in his darkroom. That was the
saddest sign - the fact that he had stopped taking photographs of her. When
they first met she had been his favourite subject. Lise-Lott in bright
sunlight, Lise-Lott when she'd just woken up, Lise-Lott slightly tipsy, her
eyes seductively half closed. She had loved it, once she had got over her
initial shyness of course.

    That
was the price they'd had to pay for fulfilling their dreams and combining their
work with their interests: they had to work all the time. But it was fortunate
that Lars had the workshop to provide a steady income, fortunate that Thomas
had left her the workshop and that she had been so stubborn, or perhaps so
incapable of doing anything, that she hadn't sold it straight after his death.
It was also fortunate that she had met Lars and that he had been handy with
cars.

    She
thought about how lucky she had been, and this put her in a better mood.
Despite everything, Lars was a real catch.

    A
middle-aged widow in a run-down house out in the middle of nowhere with a car
workshop and no employees wasn't exactly at the top of anyone's wish list, but
Lars had seen her qualities. Not only on the inside, but on the outside - his
camera had brought out a beauty she didn't know she possessed, and presumably
no one else did either. It was also Lars who had persuaded her to follow her
dream, who had supported her every time she almost lost heart in the struggle
to open her fabric shop. He could make most things seem easy. And with that
attitude everything became achievable.

    Looking
back now, she couldn't understand why she had gone through life being so afraid
of… of failing, perhaps. She had grown several centimetres in the last few
years, she felt. That might have had something to do with the fact that she had
shrunk several centimetres during her marriage to Thomas, and that she had
rediscovered herself and her self-confidence in the calm waters of a normal
relationship with a normal, nice
guy
. Whatever the
reason, she was very happy.

    In
the car on the way home she decided that things were going to change, and that
she was going to initiate that change. From now on they would invest more time
in each other.
Special candlelit dinners, taking a bath
together, romantic weekends at that little hotel in Osterlen.
She
started planning, aware of the soppy grin on her face. It didn't matter,
because Marianne was fast asleep beside her, her cheek pressed against the seat
belt. She had a red stripe on her temple when Lise-Lott helped her unload her
suitcases outside her terraced house.

    'Thanks
for a fantastic week, Lise-Lott. Can we do it again next year?'

    Lise-Lott
waved as she drove off. She had a good feeling in her stomach. Christmas wasn't
far away, and for once she could hardly wait to make a start on the
preparations.

    She
felt a great sense of calm as she made the sharp turn on to the gravel track.
She would be home in a few seconds.

    .

    They
hadn't needed to break open the front door when they went into Lise-Lott
Edell's house that morning; a cellar window had been left ajar. Karlberg was
constantly surprised at how careless people were when it came to their hard-won
possessions. Mostly people fell into two categories: a
minority
who went over the top and built walls taller than the house, got themselves a
guard dog or a security firm or ridiculously expensive alarm systems; and then
there was the vast majority who fastened the front door with a double lock and
left the cellar window open.

    Perhaps
they hadn't thought a burglar would find his way to a house that was as
inaccessible as this one. Perhaps all the years in the job had damaged
Karlberg.

    At
any rate, the murderer had found his way here. Karlberg gave an involuntary
shudder at the thought.

    The
neighbour - they couldn't exactly chat over the fence, although they might be
able to exchange light signals across the fields on dark winter evenings - had
informed them that Lise-Lott Edell was away on holiday.

    'She's
gone to the Canary Islands - on her own!
While her man is at
home working.'

    Yes,
they were sure. Lise-Lott had told them all about it when they met in the shop.

    'Lars
hadn't time to go with her. Lars is the one who runs the workshop these days
since Thomas - that's Lise-Lott's first husband - went and died. There's plenty
of work because I hardly ever see him leave the place, but she goes past here
every day. You can't help noticing, officer, because they have to drive past
our house whenever they go anywhere. And if you're as old as Bertil and I you
haven't got much to do apart from sit here and gaze out of the window. And
there aren't that many people who drive along here these days.'

    Karlberg
had declined coffee and cakes three times before he managed to get away. He
could just imagine Tell's reaction if he'd sat dunking cake in his coffee in
the middle of an investigation.

    'We'll
be back to ask you some more questions, fru Molin, probably tomorrow. It's good
that you and your husband sit here looking out of the window; I'm sure you must
have seen or heard something significant.'

    He
backed out on to the steps and pulled his woolly hat down over his ears. But
fru Molin wasn't satisfied. She was wringing her wrinkled hands.

    'I
mean, we just presumed it was a break-in. But then we saw an ambulance, and of
course that made us wonder if something might have happened to Lars. That would
be terrible! You shouldn't have to lose two husbands when you're as young as
Lise-Lott. You understand
,
officer -1 knew Thomas when
he was just a little lad… and his father too, in fact. When Thomas died, it was
just too much for Lise-Lott, looking after the house and the workshop. I mean
she didn't know anything about cars or farming. For a while we thought she
would sell up and move away, but… It would be absolutely dreadful if anything
happened to Lars…'

    'Thank
you, fru Molin. I just wanted to check if you knew where your neighbours were,
but as I said, I will be back.'

    Karlberg
tramped across the muddy field, which was already beginning to freeze as the
light faded. He could feel fru Molin's gaze on his back for a long time. At the
bottom of the field, with a grove of trees behind it, the Edell property stood
etched against the darkening sky.