Open Grave: A Mystery (29 page)

At the same moment Liisa Lehtonen stepped into the drawing room, which reinforced the image of a scene where yet another actor made an entrance. But she had no lines, only gave the sisters a furious look before she placed her arm around Birgitta’s shoulders and led her out of the room. If the Finnish woman had had a pistol in her hand they would have been shot, thought Agnes.

“That was one round,” Greta commented, getting up, going over to the door, and closing it with a bang.

Agnes saw that she was very content, presumably because they had stood up so well. She herself was shaken. She wanted to cry but did not really understand why. Preferably she would have left the house immediately, disappeared, but Ronald was not coming until the next morning. How she would be able to make her way down the stairs, through the hall, and out the front door she did not know. Would she say goodbye to the professor? After all, they had shared a roof for more than half a century. Would he shake her hand and thank her for the time that had passed or would he just make a fuss? Would she look around with a sense of loss? There were so many questions, so many emotions tumbling over one another that she could simply hide her face and sob.

“We’ll soon be out of here,” said Greta. “You know that gratitude has never been the Ohlers’ strong suit. We don’t need to feel ashamed. We’ve done what’s been asked of us, and then some.”

Agnes straightened her back a little and removed her hands from her face. Of course that’s how it was. All three of them, Anna, Greta, and herself, had done good work. Still she felt a guilty conscience. She was deserting. Should she have waited perhaps until after the Nobel Prize ceremony? The professor’s heart was not strong. Perhaps he would die of fury before he was able to receive the prize. Then she would be blamed for his death. And rightly so.

“Greta,” she said. “Maybe—”

“Never!” her sister exclaimed. “We are not moving from this spot. Now we’ll sit here like two old ladies who can’t move. Then we’ll go to bed. Ronald is coming at eight sharp.”

Agnes did not reply. She peered at the garbage bags and happened to think about the gardener at Lundquist’s. He had also carried black bags around. Now he was gone too, probably for good.

“Time lives a life of its own,” she said.

Greta stared at her but said nothing and turned her attention to the TV.

Thirty-two

The house was silent and
dark. It was approaching midnight. Karsten Haller guessed that Ohler and the old housekeeper were sound asleep.

Third time’s a charm, he thought as he slipped in through the cellar entrance. He felt exhilarated, not anxious at all like on the previous occasions. There was a routine to it all. He was no ordinary villain, no simple burglar, and because his motives were complex and elevated he did not doubt that for a moment. In reality he was doing justice a service by partly correcting an irregularity. He was claiming a sort of disinterested damages, if you will. Another interpretation could be that he was improving his mother’s inheritance somewhat. And as a side effect he would get a few years in the landscape he appreciated most of all, the dry savanna.

But above all he wanted to create the most possible confusion in the Ohler home and inflict the most possible injury. Karsten Heller had never been a bloodthirsty or revengeful person, but the thought that the old man should have to suffer for the assaults he had committed had taken a firm hold.

The keys to the safe were in their place, no one seemed to have moved the ring since his last visit. He now moved deftly in the cellar, did not need to hesitate, made his way up the stairs, turned off the flashlight, and carefully opened the door. It was dark. Like at Melongo, that time when nature seemed to be holding its breath. He and Christian. Stock-still. Then came the scream. Both of them jumped. Christian had then shown his white teeth in a broad smile.

The house smelled different. It took awhile before he realized that they had been wallpapering and repainting. He turned on the flashlight a moment to quickly survey the hall; he did not want to stumble on a can of paint.

The door to the corridor that led to the billiard room was closed. He knew from the last time that it creaked. From his pocket he took out an oil can and sprayed the hinge. When he then pushed down the handle the door glided open soundlessly. He smiled to himself in the darkness. He was starting to get really good at the break-in game.

The floor creaked. The window at the end of the corridor was letting in a faint light that fell in across the runner. He opened the door to the billiard room, waited a moment but it was still dead silent in the house.

Karsten became unexpectedly and suddenly afraid. The previous certainty and feeling of being invincible gave way to a pulsating worry. He wanted to leave immediately but stopped to think. He was so close to the goal. With shaking hands he took out the key ring. The door of the safe glided open. A puff of closed-in air struck him.

Suddenly the room was lit up by the headlights from a passing car. Karsten checked the time: twenty minutes to one. Five minutes had passed.

The box with the money was there. He had actually not expected anything else, but still heaved a sigh of relief. Quickly he took out the bundles, stuffed them in his pockets, swept the flashlight one last time to see if he had missed anything, and locked the safe. Then he left the room, many hundred thousand kronor richer.

The tension, the weight of the money, made him giggle. He took the same way back, quickly managed the corridor and hall, carefully opened the door to the cellar. Now it can’t go wrong, he thought, turned on the flashlight again, went quickly down the stairs and over to the paint can, threw back the keys, and headed for the door out to freedom. Now he wanted to get out of the house! He wanted to go home, open a beer, and count the money. He giggled again.

At the same moment the cellar was bathed in light.

In front of him was a woman with a raised gun in her hand, probably a pistol. She had been standing hidden in the darkness. The barrel was aimed at him. She stood in the middle of the cellar, partly hidden behind a pillar, with a good view in all directions. A good position, he thought.

“Who are you?”

He turned around. On the stairs stood another woman. He recognized her from the garden. In her hands she had one of the spears he had seen in the library.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Administering a little justice,” he answered.

“Justice?! What do you mean?”

“My name is Karsten, and who are you?”

“Birgitta von Ohler.”

“The daughter of the house?”

The woman nodded. He felt calmer at once. The hands that held the spear were shaking. He turned his head. The pistol on the other hand was not shaking a millimeter.

“Right when you opened the door to the cellar I looked out the window,” said the woman with the pistol. “Bad luck for you.”

He looked toward the door where he had come into the cellar.

“If you move I’ll shoot you,” said the woman.

“I certainly believe that,” he said.

Once before he had had a gun aimed at him. That was in Johannesburg, and he had escaped. True, he lost a good deal of money and a watch, but no more than that.

“And I don’t miss,” said the woman. “I have three medals from the Olympics and the world championships.”

“I understand,” said Karsten, smiling, but was struck by the suspicion that the woman was slightly crazy.

“Liisa, he’s the gardener from Lundquist’s, I recognize him now.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“And Liisa is a competitive shooter.”

“Then that’s clarified,” he said. “But now I have to leave.”

He saw a quick smile from the shooter.

“Leave?” she said. “You’ve broken in and then you think you can just trot off, after having been introduced?”

“Yes, you have every reason in the world to let me go.”

“And that would be?” asked Birgitta.

“Your father’s posthumous reputation,” said Karsten Haller, turning halfway around and looking at her. “The Nobel Prize winner, the renowned professor.”

“Posthumous reputation, what kind of rubbish is that?” Liisa hissed.

“What do you mean?” asked Birgitta.

“Nobel Prize or not, if I were to tell what has happened in this cellar the image of the scientist would be different.”

Was there a trace of fear in the daughter’s face? Did she know something about what happened in the cellar over sixty years ago?

“Now you have to explain yourself!” Liisa ordered.

“I don’t want to hear,” said Birgitta.

“Of course we have to hear,” said Liisa.

“Calling the police equals scandal, just so you know,” said Karsten calmly.

“I see your cards,” said Liisa.

“This is not a poker game!” Birgitta shouted.

“Do you see that bed over there?”

“Stop! That’s just filthy talk. Have you spoken with Wiik?”

“I don’t know any Wiik,” said Karsten. “On the other hand I do know, or knew, an Anna Haller, n
é
e Andersson.”

“I see,” said Liisa. “Go on!”

“We’ll let him go,” said Birgitta.

“Anna Haller was my mother,” said Karsten.

“That’s a lie! She just wanted to extort money from Daddy.”

“What does she have to do with Bertram? Is that some—”

“Get out!” screamed Birgitta, waving the spear.

Karsten looked at Liisa. He saw hesitation in her eyes.

“What do you have in your pockets?” she asked.

“An inheritance,” said Karsten. “Or damages, if you wish.”

“Have you stolen money?” screamed Birgitta.

“Damages for what?” asked Liisa.

Karsten did not answer but instead looked at Birgitta von Ohler. When he saw her in the garden he had already felt repugnance and now that feeling was strengthened. The woman was totally out of balance. He himself felt calm and the woman with the Finnish accent seemed to be as cold as anything. He understood that he had to assure her to be able to leave the cellar. He had to give her something.

“Assault,” said Karsten, ignoring the pistol and walking quickly up to the bed, taking hold of the wrought-iron headboard and shaking it so that it rattled.

He felt, in the contact with the iron and the sight of the checkered frame of flat iron bars, a violent fury.

“In this bed my mother was raped! Raped! There is no other word.”

The two women stared at him.

“There is your fine Nobel Prize winner! Your father. Who is now being rewarded for his efforts.”

“What evidence do you have?”

He stared at Birgitta with contempt and hate in his eyes. He could strike at her.

“Evidence! Her life was the evidence. Because she got no reward, only a life sentence.”

He spit out the words. Liisa had lowered the gun.

“Are you sure? Perhaps it was mutual?” she said.

Haller shook his head vehemently.

“I know,” he said in a low voice. “I know exactly how it happened.”

He could tell about the pregnancy and the abortion that followed, tell about his mother’s despair, about the naked and painful words in the diary, but he did not want to expose her shame. He knew what awful guilt she had felt about what happened.

It was as if her words were meant only for him. He realized now that she had saved the diary for his sake. It should not be thrown away, it should be read. She wanted him to read it. Read and understand. In order to thereby forgive her for the worry and anxiety that sometimes seized her and indirectly also affected him as a child.

“She was lured down here by Ohler,” he continued. “I don’t know how, perhaps with promises or that she should fetch something. She was used to his caprices. She shined his shoes and washed his underwear, so why shouldn’t she obey when he told her to follow him down to the cellar?”

“Could she have been that innocent?” Liisa objected.

“Just that innocent. She did not know much about life, other than she should obey the gentry. But it really doesn’t matter if she had been an experienced woman or not, a rape is always a rape. Isn’t it?”

Liisa nodded.

“She came from Gr
ä
s
ö
,” said Birgitta in a toneless voice.

Karsten turned around. He had directed all his attention toward the Finnish woman.

“Yes, and from a deeply religious family besides,” he said.

“You call it rape but perhaps she was in love with Bertram. And later it went further than she had imagined, and even further than what he had imagined. Perhaps they sneaked down here to cuddle a little and then they got carried away.”

The Finnish woman’s words made her sneer.

“You don’t believe that yourself,” he said. “This was 1944. She was at his mercy.”

“Just like today,” said Liisa.

“What do you mean?”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, putting the pistol into her waistband. “It’s just as well that you disappear from the house.”

“Never!” screamed Birgitta.

“Calm down, Birgitta. He goes away, everything is forgotten and remains like before, that is, false and depressing. Bertram gets his prize and his glory. You can wallpaper the whole house with money if you want.”

“Don’t mock me! This thief and liar can create scandal just to get at Daddy. He wants to create scandal! He hates us!”

“No, I just want to disappear,” said Karsten.

“He hates us,” repeated Birgitta. “He hates us because we have a big, fine house, a name, because Bertram is appreciated.”

“I don’t want to see you anymore,” said Karsten, but the words made no impression on her.

He took a few steps closer to the exit. Birgitta raised the spear.

“You hate us simply because your mother fucked my father. She wanted to! But then she was ashamed. That was it, wasn’t it? She was ashamed of her sanctimonious father.”

He shook his head. He didn’t want to hear more, he didn’t want to see her. Yes, he hated Bertram von Ohler and he hated her. He hated the whole lot!

“Go to hell,” he said softly.

Liisa took a few quick steps toward them both and raised her hands in an attempt to calm the situation down.