The Second Deadly Sin (29 page)

“Excellent,” von Post said enthusiastically. “And what about Häggroth?”

The technician explained that no fingerprints nor strands of hair from Häggroth had been found. They still had to do D.N.A. tests, but that would take a little time. The blood test was more straightforward, and the cold temperature meant that the blood quality was good.

She assured him that they were giving the case top priority, and hung up.

Now, thought von Post, as he drank the rest of his cold coffee and strode towards his Mercedes. If anybody gets in my way, I’ll kill them.

*

The first person to get in von Post’s way was the duty doctor. The patient’s condition was still critical. Von Post walked purposefully down the corridor, and decided to speak in a low voice. Health-care assistants went swishing past them in Crocs and Birkenstock sandals, and he noted how young they all seemed to be.

A uniformed police constable was sitting on guard outside Häggroth’s room, and followed their conversation with interest.

Von Post explained the situation to the doctor. He had technical proof which could force Häggroth to confess. Then he tried to pull her heartstrings.

“I have a young boy aged seven who has lost the only adult he has ever had in his life,” he said.

He told her how little Marcus had presumably witnessed the brutal murder, but had suppressed all memory of it.

“I don’t want to force that poor boy to remember what he doesn’t want to remember,” von Post said, his voice shaking. “With all due respect, I would rather put the murderer’s health at risk.”

The duty doctor was still listening.

“And personally I think it would be more stressful for Häggroth to keep the truth to himself. He was having an affair with the
deceased, you see. It would be better for him to admit the facts. I’m not a psychologist, but that’s my experience.”

Then he threatened her, albeit while wearing silk gloves.

“The media are going to town on this – you’ve probably seen the headlines.”

She nodded.

“They’ve tried to force their way in here,” she said. “One of them offered me money.”

“They’ll soon find out that it’s the murderer we have in here … And if they discover that we’re not allowed to interrogate him …”

They’ll have you for breakfast, my dear, he thought. And I’ll have a job on the side as a waiter.

He flung out his hands in a gesture designed to signal that he would not be able to protect her in those circumstances.

“Give me a quarter of an hour,” he said. “You can be present, and you may interrupt whenever you like. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you were present – it would feel safer.”

“O.K.,” she said. “I’ll be present. A quarter of an hour.”

*

Häggroth was in a room of his own on the first floor, so they could talk without being disturbed.

Von Post moved a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down. Outside the window the sun was shining down on a dazzlingly white Kiruna. He saw that the duty doctor, who was standing a short distance away, was keeping a constant watch on the various monitors showing the pulse curve, heartbeat and blood pressure.

Häggroth looked completely shattered, as white as death, his thin hair sticking greasily to his scalp, dressed in the county council’s wonderful one-size-fits-all hospital gown. He had a towel over his legs and a loose-fitting plastic identity bracelet around his wrist. A drip from a bag on a stand was attached to his arm.

Von Post switched on the tape recorder and put it in his lap.

“I didn’t do it,” Häggroth said without emotion. “And I have—”

“Yes, yes,” von Post said, interrupting him. “But the fact is that the hayfork we found under your barn is covered in Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s blood.”

I would really like to ask him some more questions, von Post thought. What the hell were you thinking of? Why didn’t you throw it in the river? How bloody stupid can you get?

He didn’t dare to glance at the monitors. He hoped the readings were constant. He waited for a while, then leaned forward and said softly into Häggroth’s ear, “We shall find traces of you, it’s only a matter of time. Fingerprints, a strand of hair, a drop of sweat, a fibre from your trousers. Nowadays …”

He rubbed his thumb against his index finger.

“. . . all we need is a speck. Do you understand what I’m saying? Aren’t you going to tell me? I think you would feel better.”

“You’re lying,” whispered Häggroth. “I’ve never seen that hayfork before. It must have belonged to my grandfather …”

He bit his lip. Then he turned his head away. It was only when his body started shaking that von Post realised he was crying.

“Come on now,” he said awkwardly.

Let’s hope he doesn’t get so worked up that the doctor starts making a fuss.

“The children,” Häggroth whimpered.

“Yes,” von Post said. “I understand.”

The sobbing increased, and the damned doctor started fidgeting and clearing her throat.

“He must rest now,” she said.

Von Post cursed to himself and switched off the tape recorder.

“It was me,” Häggroth said suddenly.

Von Post immediately started the tape recorder again.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “What did you say?”

“It was me. I killed her.”

Then he started whining and the doctor was there like a shot.

“That’s enough now,” she said. “You can continue the interrogation later.”

Von Post floated out of the room, out of the hospital building, up, up towards the snow-covered trees, towards the cold blue sky.

Press conference, he gloated deep down inside. We’ve got him. And it was me who got the confession out of him.

*

Van Post got into his car and drove along Hjalmar Lundbohmsvägen towards the police station. When it had just stopped snowing, as was the case now, Kiruna really did look beautiful.

The mountain which harboured all the seams of iron ore had been transformed from a scruffy heap of gravel and slag into a terraced, white-clad alp. The row of yellow-painted wooden houses looked like something from a book by Astrid Lindgren.

He glanced quickly into the mirror before getting out of the car. A series of witty one-liners had already taken shape inside his head. It was going to be an absolutely brilliant press conference. And Martinsson could have her job back. My pleasure, my dear. You are welcome to spend your time prosecuting drivers who have exceeded the speed limit or the alcohol limit. That’s fine by me.

He recalled the first time their paths had crossed. She had been one of those up-and-coming wannabes from Meijer & Ditzinger. Her overcoat had cost as much as he earned in a whole month. But now it looked very much as though she would end her days all alone in her old house at the edge of the village, eaten up by her dogs.

*

When he entered the police station Mella, Stålnacke, Rantakyrö and Olsson were standing in the corridor.

There was something wrong. He could see it immediately in their eyes. Serious and distressed.

“What’s happened to your mobile?” asked Mella.

“Eh? I’ve switched it off. Forgot to switch it on again. I was at the hospital and—”

“We know. They’ve just phoned. Häggroth has jumped out of the window.”

Von Post’s stomach turned.

He must have survived, he thought. It was only the first floor.

But he could see from his colleagues’ faces that that was not the case.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

Everyone looked down at the floor. Then up at him.

“Head first,” said Mella. “He landed on the asphalt right outside A.&E.”

Lizzie and Elina are lying on the sofabed in the kitchen. It’s the middle of the night, but the sun never sets at this time of year and it is just as light outside as it was in the middle of the day.

They are whispering to each other. The lodgers are snoring and farting in the living room. Elina has been crying her eyes out.

“You must know of somebody,” she says to Lizzie. “Somebody who can get rid of it.”

Lizzie’s heart almost breaks when she hears Elina talk like that. Her God is not worried about the fact that she and Johan-Albin have sex together. She is quite sure of that. And sure that on the whole, Christ shares her own views – that one should take responsibility for one’s own home, not spend one’s wages on booze, be fair and just, have compassion. And above all, one should not take another’s life.

“We’ll cope with it,” she whispers to Elina. “We can move away from Kiruna, you and me and Johan-Albin. He and I can adopt the child if you like. Then you can carry on working as a schoolteacher. We can live together, all four of us. Or you can be his mum, and we can help to look after him. Being a schoolteacher isn’t the only job there is, you know.”

She hugs Elina and whispers that it will be alright, it will be alright, it will sort itself out.

*

And Elina does not do it. She does not have an abortion. She cannot bring herself to do that. She conceals her condition the whole of July. She does not get paid during the summer holidays anyway.

In August she is informed, as expected, that the local authority has appointed a new teacher to take her place.

She accompanies Lizzie, who works like a woman possessed all summer and autumn. Not so much in Lundbohm’s residence, as he is away most of the time; but Lizzie’s services are constantly sought after. She can bleach sheets and chop wood. It is Lizzie who begs Elina to accompany her, saying that her friend can take care of less strenuous work – and of course, she can read aloud!

While Lizzie is hemming towels or changing curtains for engineers’ wives, Elina reads aloud from
Oliver Twist
and
Emma
.

Lizzie and the young maids who assist her all agree that it is so incredibly exciting to be able to work all day long and forget to eat. And how Elina can read! It’s like going to the theatre.

Books! They mitigate Elina’s torments. When she is reading she cannot think about Hjalmar, or the future.

The baby is bracing itself inside her, and pressing its head up against her chest so hard that she has to keep clutching her ribs. It’s kicking so hard that you can see the impact marks on her stomach.

The engineers’ wives and the other teachers – all of them women – ignore her when they meet in the street. But nearly all the people who live in Kiruna are young, working class, and they are hatching babies all the time. There are lots of bulging stomachs around, and not all their owners are married. There are other people to greet and talk to. She can go to political meetings and lectures, and even go to the Salvation Army with Lizzie to listen to the band, without being stared at.

There’s always a way, Elina tells herself and the baby inside her.

And Lizzie keeps an iron grip on her good humour.

“I can do the work of three ordinary women, you know that!” she says.

And she laughs. Even when Elina feels depressed and Johan-Albin returns from the crusher with blood in his ears. She laughs and drives the shadow of the managing director of the mine out of the kitchen.

On November 3 Elina gives birth to a baby boy at home in their kitchen. The midwife slaps him on the backside and says “lovely” and “as pretty as his mother”.

They have decided that he will be called Frans. And Elina makes up her mind that he will be recorded as Frans Olof in the parish register. Hjalmar Lundbohm’s second name is Olof, and the angels know how to read between the lines. They see what is important, and do not stop dead at the word “illegitimate”.

It was ten to six. The press conference was due to start shortly. The journalists were thirsting for blood.

Von Post was pacing up and down in the corridor, mumbling, “This wasn’t our fault.”

What does he mean, our fault? Mella thought. We weren’t the ones who interrogated the sick man in the hospital.

She phoned Martinsson.

“It’s a bloody catastrophe,” she said. “So unnecessary. His youngest was the same age as Gustav.”

“Yes,” Martinsson said.

Then she told Mella about the shirt.

“Pohjanen has sent it to the National Laboratory of Forensic Science. You must admit that it seems very odd. She gets stabbed to death, her son was killed by a car that didn’t stop three years ago, her father was probably shot, and Marcus …”

She didn’t go on.

“You know all the details.”

“It was probably some drunken hunter who panicked,” Mella said. “That wouldn’t be the first time. Assuming it
is
a bullet hole. And then the bear dug him up out of his shallow grave.”

“Mmm,” Martinsson said.

“Häggroth confessed, Rebecka. It’s a damned tragedy that he jumped out of the window, but he was the murderer. And he had no
reason to kill her father or run over her son. Sometimes it’s just coincidence.”

“I know,” Martinsson said.

“I must go,” Mella said. “The press conference is about to start. What I really want to do is to hide away until it’s all over.”

“Where are you?” Martinsson asked.

“In the loo. But I really must go and join them. Goodbye for now.”

*

Martinsson hung up. She drank her cold coffee, then read a text message from Eriksson.

We’re playing hide and seek
, it said.
And you?

Yes, she thought. Hiding away. Hide and seek.

She put down her mobile.

She could just see them, Eriksson and Marcus. Eriksson doing the seeking. Marcus hiding. And Mella hiding in the loo.

Yes. And in Sol-Britt’s house all the big cupboard doors had been opened. Somebody had obviously been looking for Marcus. Thought that he had hidden himself away.

“I can’t make head nor tail of this,” she said to the Brat, who was sitting at her feet and gazing longingly at her sandwiches.

“But I suppose what they say is right. Why should Jocke Häggroth be chasing after the whole family?” She tickled the Brat’s neck.

“Do you want something from me? Didn’t you have your dinner only ten minutes ago?”

Eh?
the Brat said.
I don’t remember that. But hunger is gnawing at my body like a field mouse
.