The Second Deadly Sin (3 page)

Martinsson’s other dog never lay in her bed. Never sat in her lap as the Brat frequently did. Vera the mongrel might allow herself to be stroked very briefly, but there was no question of longer spells of tenderness.

She slept under the table in the kitchen. Nobody knew her age, nor her pedigree. She used to live with her master in the depths of
the forest, a hermit who made his own anti-mosquito balm and pranced around naked in the summer. When he was murdered, his dog ended up with Martinsson. If she hadn’t taken her in, she would have been put down. Martinsson wouldn’t have been able to cope with that, and so she had taken Vera home with her. And she had stayed there.

In a way, at least. She was a dog who knew her own mind. Who left it up to Martinsson to track her down when she wandered off along the village road, or went off to explore the potato patch down by the boathouse.

“How on earth can you let her wander off like that?” said Martinsson’s neighbour Sivving. “You know what people are like. Somebody will shoot her.”

Please look after her, Martinsson prayed. To a God she sometimes hoped existed. And if you can’t do that, let it happen quickly. Because I can’t stop her. She’s not my dog in that sense.

Vera’s paws never twitched when she was asleep, nor did she go hunting after tempting scents in her dreams. What the Brat dreamed about, Vera did while she was awake. In the winter she would listen for sounds made by field mice under the snow, pounce down upon them and break their backs just as foxes do. Or stamp down with her front paws and kill them off like that. In the summer she would dig out mouse nests, gobble up the naked youngsters and eat horse dung in the pastures. She knew which farms and houses to avoid. She would run past those places, skulking down in the ditches. But she knew where she would be treated to cinnamon buns and slices of reindeer meat.

Sometimes she just stood there, staring into the north-east. On such occasions Martinsson would get goose pimples. Because that was where the dog’s original home was, on the other side of the river, up in Vittangijärvi.

“Do you miss him?” Martinsson would ask on such occasions.

And was pleased that only the river could hear her.

Now Vera woke up, sat on the floor next to the head of the bed and stared at Martinsson. When Martinsson opened her eyes, Vera started wagging her tail.

“You must be joking,” Martinsson groaned. “It’s Sunday morning. I’m asleep.”

She pulled the covers up over her head. Vera lay her head on the edge of the bed.

“Go away,” Martinsson said from under the covers – although she knew it was too late now: she was wide awake.

“Do you need to pee?”

Whenever she heard the word “pee”, Vera usually sat down next to the door. But not this time.

“Is it Krister?” Martinsson asked. “Is Krister on his way here?”

It was as if Vera could feel when Krister Eriksson got into his car in Kiruna, fifteen kilometres away from the village.

In reply to Martinsson’s question, Vera walked over to the door and lay down to wait.

Martinsson collected her clothes that were hanging over a chair back next to the sofa bed, and lay on them for a few minutes before getting dressed under the covers. It was freezing cold in the house after the minus temperatures of the night, and you couldn’t just leap out of bed and put on icy cold clothes.

As she sat on the lavatory, both dogs assembled in front of her. The Brat put his head on her knee and insisted on being stroked.

“Time for breakfast now,” she said, reaching for the toilet paper.

Both dogs dashed out into the kitchen. But when they noticed that their food bowls were empty, it seemed to dawn on them that the alpha-female was still in the bathroom, and they raced back to Martinsson. By now she had flushed the toilet and washed her hands in cold water.

After breakfast the Brat went back to the warm bed.

Vera lay down on the rag mat next to the hall door, settled down with her nose on her front paws, and sighed deeply.

Ten minutes later a car drew up outside.

The Brat shot out of the bed in such a rush that the covers were scattered in all directions. He dashed under the dining table, raced up to Martinsson, then to the door, then to the bed and repeated the same operation. The rag mats were sent flying, he slid over the varnished wooden floorboards, and kitchen chairs fell over.

Vera had stood up, was standing there patiently and also wanted to be let out. Her tail was wagging away, but she didn’t overdo things.

“I really don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” said Martinsson innocently. “You’ll have to explain yourselves more clearly.”

And the Brat whimpered and yelped and stared pleadingly at the door, running up to it and then back to Martinsson.

Martinsson walked extremely slowly to the door. In slow motion. Looked unremittingly at the Brat, who was shaking and trembling with excitement. Vera just sat there, anticipating the inevitable. Martinsson turned the key and opened the door. The dogs bounded down the steps.

“Oh, was that what you wanted?” she exclaimed with a laugh.

*

Eriksson the police dog handler parked his car outside Martinsson’s house. Even from a distance he had noted that there was a light in her kitchen window on the upper floor, and his heart gave a little leap of joy.

Then he opened the car door just as Martinsson’s dogs came rollicking down the steps.

Vera was first. Her hindquarters were swinging from side to side, and she hunched her back in sheer pleasure.

Krister’s own two dogs, Tintin and Roy, were two hardworking,
handsome, well-disciplined and pedigree sheepdogs. Martinsson’s Brat was Tintin’s son. He was destined to be a super-dog.

And so Vera, a vagrant with no pedigree at all, had become a member of the gang. As thin as a rake. One of her ears stood straight up, the other was limp. And she had a black patch around her eye.

To start with he had tried to train her. “Sit!” he had said. She had looked him in the eye and put her head on one side. If I could understand what you meant, well, maybe – but if you’re not going to eat that tasty-looking bit of liver, then perhaps …

He was used to dogs obeying him. But her he could not charm.

“Hello, you scruffy little mongrel!” he said, tugging gently at her ears and stroking her head. “How can you be so slim when you spend all your time gobbling?”

She allowed herself to be stroked, then made way for the Brat. He was running around like a cat with a firework up its bottom – between Eriksson’s legs, all over the place, couldn’t stand still long enough for Eriksson to stroke him, then lay down totally submissive – then up again, stood up with his paws on Eriksson, lay down once more on his back, twirled around, then ran off and fetched a pine cone that they might be able to play with, dropped it at Eriksson’s feet, licked Eriksson’s hand then yawned – one way of getting rid of some of those feelings that had become too much to cope with.

*

Martinsson appeared in the porch. He looked at her. Beautiful, beautiful. Her arms crossed and her shoulders up by her ears to keep in the warmth. The contours of her small breasts were visible through her military-style vest. Her long dark hair was slightly tousled in a just-out-of-bed way.

“Hello!” he shouted. “I’m glad to see that you’re an early bird.”

“Early bird, my foot,” Martinsson shouted back. “It’s that confounded dog. You two are in cahoots in some mysterious way. She wakes me up whenever you’re on your way here.”

He laughed. Joy and pain arm in arm. She already had a boyfriend, a lawyer in Stockholm.

But I’m her man here in the forest, he thought. I’m the one who looks after her house and garden and takes care of her dogs. When she goes to see him, admittedly. But still.

I take whatever I can get, was his mantra. I take whatever I can get.

“That’s a good girl,” he whispered to Vera. “You carry on waking her up. And give that bloody lawyer a bite in his leg.”

Martinsson looked back at Eriksson, and shook her head pensively. He hadn’t said straight out that he was in love with her. Nor did he impose himself upon her. But he always gave himself the pleasure of gazing long and hard at her. He sometimes smiled and looked at her as if she were a miracle. Without asking first he would come and visit her, and go for walks through the forest with her. As long as Måns wasn’t staying with her, of course. When he was, Eriksson would give them a wide berth.

Måns did not like Krister Eriksson.

“He looks like something from outer space,” Måns used to say.

“Yes,” Martinsson would say.

Because it really was true. Eriksson had been badly burnt as a young boy, and his features were permanently damaged. He had no ears, and his nose was not much more than two holes in the middle of his face. His skin was like a shrivelled map in pink and brown.

But he has a strong and nimble body, she thought as she watched the Brat licking his face. The dogs knew what that dry skin of his felt like.

“Just so that you know,” she said with a little smile, “he spent all
yesterday afternoon in Larsson’s dunghill, digging up old cowpats and wolfing down all the white maggots he could find.”

“Huh!” Krister said, pulling a face and trying to thrust the Brat to one side.

Vera raised her head, looked towards the road and gave a bark.

Eriksson’s dogs also started barking in his car. They obviously thought everybody had been having fun for ages, except them.

The next moment Sivving the neighbour appeared down by the letter boxes.

“Hi there,” he shouted. “And hello, Krister – I thought I heard your car.”

“Oh my God,” Martinsson mumbled. “Only a few minutes ago I was having a nice quiet Sunday morning …”

*

Vera scampered off to greet Sivving. He was walking as fast as he could, but that was not very fast at all. The left side of his body was unable to do what he wanted. His left foot was dragging behind him. His left arm hung helplessly at his side.

Martinsson watched as Vera pulled off Sivving’s mitten then circled slowly round him – just sufficiently slowly and close to him that he was able to grab it back.

“Bloody bitch!” he exclaimed, his voice full of warmth.

Vera never plays with me like that, Martinsson thought.

By now Sivving had reached them. He was still a big man. Tall. A dauntingly large belly and a shock of white, fluffy hair looking like the puffball head of a dandelion.

“Can we drive out to Sol-Britt Uusitalo?” he asked without beating about the bush. “I’ve promised to go and see how she is. They rang from her workplace and were worried about her. She lives out at Lehtiniemi.”

Martinsson groaned inwardly.

There’s always something he wants me to do for him, she thought. He promises people things, then comes here to me even though it’s early on Sunday morning.

But Eriksson opened the car door on the passenger’s side.

“Jump in,” he said to Sivving, pushing back the seat so that it would be easier for him to sit down.

He’s nice, Martinsson thought. Kind and thoughtful. She felt a prick of conscience.

“Ann-Helen Alajärvi – I expect you know who she is, Gösta Asplund’s girl,” said Sivving, struggling to fasten the safety belt over his large stomach. “She works as a breakfast waitress with Sol-Britt at the Winter Palace. She rang and was worried about her: Sol-Britt ought to have been at work at six o’clock this morning. I promised to call in and check up on her. I was just going to go out for a walk with Bella, but then I saw that Krister had turned up. It’s good that you’re here as well, in case we need to break the door down.”

He smiled at them. A prosecutor and a police officer.

“That’s not the way we work,” Martinsson said.

“Oh yes it is,” Eriksson said with a laugh. “That’s exactly how we work. Rebecka climbs up onto the roof and swings her way in through the window and I barge down the door.”

They set off for Lehtiniemi.

“Is she a friend of yours, then, this Sol-Britt?” Eriksson asked.

Martinsson was sitting in the back seat with Vera and Sivving’s German pointer Bella. The Brat had to share the dog cage with Eriksson’s dogs.

The car reeked of dog. Bella tended to get carsick, and long strands of dribble were dangling from her mouth.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s a friend,” Sivving said. “I mean, she lives some distance away. And she’s younger than I am. But Sol-Britt has always lived here, and so obviously we have a chat
whenever we meet. She had a bit of an alcohol problem a few years ago, and so at that time it was nothing unusual if she sometimes didn’t turn up for work. Her workmates knew all about it. She once appeared on my porch and wanted to borrow some money. I said no, but I offered her some food. But that wasn’t what she wanted. Anyway, three years ago her son was run over and died. He was thirty-five, worked at the ice factory in Jukkasjärvi; he was a promising skier as a young lad, won the Junior District Championship when he was seventeen. He left a little boy, only about three or four years old. What’s his name, now …”

Sivving fell silent and shook his head, as if that would make the boy’s name come tumbling out. You could not tell a story without knowing all the names.

My God, does he never stop talking? Martinsson wondered, gazing out of the window.

It came in the end.

“Marcus! That’s it! Thereby hangs a tale as well. His mum had moved to Stockholm a long time before that. She’d found a new man, and had two kids with him. Pretty quick work. She ran off to Stockholm just after Marcus’s first birthday. She moved in with the new bloke straight away and had new kids. And she wasn’t very interested in looking after the lad. Sol-Britt was really pissed off. Mind you, she was pleased to have Marcus staying with her. And it was like a new start for her. She joined Alcoholics Anonymous and stopped drinking altogether. I asked Ann-Helen this morning when she rang if she thought Sol-Britt might have had a relapse, but she said no way. So no doubt she’s right. All kinds of things could have happened. People slip on mats and hit their heads on tables. It can be days before anybody finds them.”