The Second Deadly Sin (37 page)

Shit, she thought. Shit, shit, shit.

“He came to read my water meter last spring,” Larsson said, putting the mugs down on the table.

“I thought homeowners read meters themselves nowadays, and sent the readings to the company?”

“Yes, I’d done that in fact, but they had some kind of computer glitch, and a lot of data simply disappeared out of the system. Anyway, Örjan came to read it. And I had a rotten tree that was threatening to fall down on top of my shed. He offered to
cut it down for me, and things just went on from there. Why …”

Martinsson stood up.

“Marcus!” she exclaimed.

Larsson had picked up the coffee jug, but put it back down on the table.

“Good Lord, Rebecka,” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know how to put this,” Martinsson said, “but Örjan, he’s—”

As she said that there was a sound from inside the hall cupboard. A choking sound.

Larsson jumped back in horror, as if she had just seen a snake. She uttered a brief yelp of surprise.

Martinsson took a couple of quick paces forward and opened the cupboard door.

Marcus fell out. His knees were pulled up towards his face. He was trussed up with gaffer tape, round his wrists and feet, round his body and over his mouth.

He looked up and stared wideeyed at Martinsson.

Martinsson bent down to remove the tape from over his mouth, but she couldn’t: it was stuck fast.

A sudden thought flashed into her mind.

But … This was not possible. Because Örjan …

Marcus’s gaze switched to something behind her head. And at the same moment she felt fingers of steel around her neck.

Larsson was astoundingly strong. She grasped Martinsson’s neck with one hand, and grabbed tight hold of her hair with the other. Then she hit Martinsson’s head against the doorpost. Martinsson raised her hands to defend herself, but before she had lifted them as far as her face, her head hit the doorpost for the second time. After the third thump, her vision started to turn black at the edges. It was as if she were looking at Marcus through a keyhole. She did not feel the fourth thud against the doorpost. She had a vague
feeling of her legs disappearing from underneath her. Her arms became helpless.

Then she fell. On top of Marcus.

One evening in August 1919, Hjalmar Lundbohm bumps into Police Superintendent Björnfot. They decide to have dinner together, at the Railway Hotel. They start with cheese, butter and pickled herring, with a shot of schnapps and a lager chaser; then Lübeck ham with spinach and eggs and more schnapps; and they round things off with soured whole milk, coffee and cognac.

By the time the whisky appears on the table, they are both distinctly merry: but they are sturdy, upright gentlemen and can handle strong drink better than most, and so they continue beckoning to fröken Holm, who is their waitress. They drink and they smoke.

They talk about the war, which has finished at last. About how times have changed. Lundbohm sighs about the way in which the new board of directors at the mine keep poking their noses into everything: they want to be kept informed and consulted over every little detail.

“I’m a man of action,” he says. “If something needs doing, I do it, no messing about.”

It is a different world now. The jazz bacillus is everywhere. Votes for women. Civil war in Russia. And time is running out for the managing director of the mine. Herr Lundbohm will celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday next spring. They wallow in memories.

In the end Lundbohm brings up the subject of Elina Pettersson. He tells the police superintendent it’s no secret that he and the
schoolteacher were more than just good friends for the year before her murder.

Björnfot becomes very quiet indeed now, but Lundbohm doesn’t seem to notice.

“But then, she had several lovers,” he says, and pauses. When Björnfot looks puzzled, he goes on.

“I know about that. The investigation made that clear. There were several possible candidates for paternity.”

“What investigation?”

“Yours! Your investigation! Manager-in-Chief Fasth told me about it before he … Well, that was also a tragedy. We’ve certainly had our trials and tribulations, haven’t we?”

Police Superintendent Björnfot says nothing. He says nothing and shakes his head slowly. Stares at his glass of whisky, seems to hesitate, but then decides to speak up, come what may.

“No, as far as I’m aware she never had any other lover. But I’m absolutely certain that it was Manager-in-Chief Fasth who killed her.”

Lundbohm shudders. Like a dog shaking itself free of water. Wonders what the hell Björnfot is talking about.

And the superintendent of police looks at the managing director of the mine and thinks: he didn’t know. He really didn’t know.

Then he tells his friend the whole story. About the shirtsleeve in the stove. About what the maids have said.

When he has finished, he expects Lundbohm to say something, to react in some way.

But Lundbohm just sits there with his eyes and mouth wide open.

In the end Björnfot becomes uneasy.

“Herr Lundbohm,” he says. “Herr Lundbohm. Are you alright?”

But Lundbohm has lost the ability to speak. Nor is he capable of standing up. Björnfot calls to fröken Holm. One of the girls in the kitchen runs to fetch the doctor while they and a few customers
who are still present combine to carry Lundbohm down to fröken Holm’s bed.

“He’s not drunk,” Björnfot shouts. “I’ve seen him drunk, and he’s not like this. Look at him! He’s trying to speak!”

The doctor arrives, but by then Lundbohm is able to walk, albeit with difficulty, and to speak again.

The doctor suspects nicotine poisoning and heart problems. And he comments that drinking in moderation never did anybody any harm.

“And that applies to the police as well!”

Martinsson slowly recovers consciousness, and hears somebody shouting. Her head is riven with pain, and when she gasps for breath she discovers that she cannot breathe in through her nose. It feels as if somebody has deposited a large lump of clay over her face, over her nose, and blocked all her airways.

She doesn’t move – the urge to vomit comes darting up from inside her.

Somebody is shouting over her, in the darkness. A man.

“No, no,” he yells. “This wasn’t what we agreed.”

She is lying in such a strange position, her legs stretched up behind her back, and her hands behind her back as well.

At first she has the vague feeling that she has been split into two pieces. Broken her back.

Then she hears a woman’s voice. Maja Larsson.

“Shush, this is the last one. It’s all for you, my darling. Just keep calm. If you could move her car—”

“No, I’m not going to do anything. This has nothing to do with what I promised. I’m not doing anything.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll move it. I’ll take care of everything. Keep calm. Sit down. Stop marching up and down. Keep calm.”

No, her back isn’t broken. She’s been trussed up. And she has a splitting headache. She tries to hold her breath and listen for any trace of Marcus.

Lie still. Don’t throw up. Don’t move. If you do, Larsson will start smashing your skull again.

She hears the sound of a bottle being placed on the table. And something else. A glass?

“Here you are,” Larsson says. “Just keep calm. I’ll soon be back.”

“What are you going to do? Where are you going? You mustn’t leave me alone.”

“I’m going to move her car. I’ll put the boy in the boat and overturn it. The simplest drowning accident anybody could possibly imagine. I’ll fetch a tarpaulin and some weights for her.”

“I don’t want anything to do with this. You promised.”

“I’m sorry. But you don’t need to do anything.”

A somewhat muffled voice now. As if she is pressing her mouth against his hair.

“Keep going – it’ll soon be over. And then everything will be yours. You’ll be able to travel to wherever you like. Do whatever you like. For the rest of your life. And if you’d like to have me there with you …”

“Of course I would. You must come with me.”

“. . . then of course, I’ll be there.”

Steps over the floor. Then the door. Opened. Closed.

The sound of the glass as he slides it towards himself. The sound of the metal stopper when he opens the bottle. The sound of liquid being poured into a glass.

Has she gone now? wonders Martinsson. Is he on his own? Yes, he is.

If only I could understand, she thinks, struggling so as not to sink into oblivion again. It is like a heartbeat inside her, a sort of murky liberation. Fractions of a second that are not throbbing pain. Her body longs to give way. To sink into that oblivion.

No, she says to herself. And she says aloud to him, “She’ll kill you.”

As she says that, she opens her eyes.

Maja’s boyfriend is sitting at the kitchen table. He gives a start and stares at her.

“Örjan,” she says – her voice is hoarse as a result of her blocked nose, and she makes a supreme effort to spit out onto the floor slime and blood that would prefer to be sliding down her throat. “She’ll kill you.”

“Rubbish,” he says. “Shut your gob, or I’ll smash your skull in.”

Martinsson is gasping for breath.

“My skull is already smashed,” she manages to say. “This isn’t what you had bargained for, surely? Killing a child.”

He thumps his fist down onto the table, in time with his roaring.

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up! She’s doing all this for me. For my sake! So why should she want to kill me? She wouldn’t get an öre if she did that.”

He slides his glass to one side, raises the bottle to his mouth and gulps down large amounts of Jägermeister.

“Cousins don’t inherit,” he says, as if he is repeating something he has learnt by rote. “Sol-Britt and Maja were cousins.”

“No,” Martinsson says. “But aunts inherit. And Maja’s mother is Sol-Britt’s aunt. Think about that. If Sol-Britt had survived, you would have inherited half of it. And half of it is a lot of money, But Maja wouldn’t have got anything at all. She was patient to start with. It’s three years since she ran over Sol-Britt’s son.”

“That was an accident; she had nothing to do with that.”

“Oh, come on, Örjan. I think she had. But she had time to spare then. It was supposed to look like an accident. But then, all at once, it became urgent. How did you meet?”

“What’s that got to do with you?” Örjan says, wiping his forehead and his upper lip with his sleeve.

We don’t have much time, Martinsson thinks. Maja will soon be back.

“I think she set her sights on you,” she says, perhaps a little too
quickly. “It wasn’t an accident. She told me that you came to read her water meter. So that she could claim that you took advantage of her. Made use of her so that you could get access to Sol-Britt and Marcus. But think for a moment. Why had it suddenly become so urgent? She killed Sol-Britt’s father only a few months ago, and then Sol-Britt herself, and now Marcus is in more than a bit of a mess. Do you know why it suddenly became so urgent?”

Örjan Bäck says nothing. He strokes his mop of hair back and glares at Martinsson. There is something in his look now.

He’s scared, Martinsson thinks.

“Maja’s mother is dying,” she says. “That’s why it’s become urgent. Maja thought along these lines: if you and Sol-Britt and Marcus are out of the way, Maja’s mother will inherit the fortune. Aunts inherit. Her mother has cancer of the liver. Not much time left. It could be a matter of days. A few weeks at most. Maja is feeding her very patiently. Do you understand now? Maja thinks that once you are all out of the way, her mother will inherit all Sol-Britt’s worldly goods. Then her mother will die, and everything will go to Maja. She wants it all.”

“That’s just a load of …”

Örjan’s voice is a mere whisper.

“She would have killed you already if she hadn’t needed you. I think you are her reserve plan.”

“She loves me,” Örjan says, wrapping his hand round the empty glass on the table.

“I understand,” Martinsson says, closing her eyes for a few seconds. “I thought she really liked me as well. She knew my mother. Or says she did at least. Very odd. We became great friends. Incredibly quickly.”

A pang of pain shoots through her back and head. What if she is bleeding? Inside her head …

“I think her plan is to blame you. She must have been very
surprised to discover that you existed. Perhaps Sol-Britt told her. But this business, getting rid of me and Marcus – there will be no way of hiding what has happened. There are traces of my blood here that will never go away. The tiniest strand of hair will be enough. And it will be obvious from an examination of Marcus’s body that it wasn’t an accident. I think she will fetch something from the house that you’ve touched. A spade, a crowbar – anything at all. She will kill Marcus and me with whatever it is. Then she will kill you and say it was self-defence. She wanted you to move my car. Because you refused, she will put something of yours inside it. Something with traces of you on it. Sweat. Hair. D.N.A.

Örjan holds his head in his hands. Then he stands up and goes to check on the hat rack. Looks around, on the floor and the table.

Then he stares hard at Martinsson.

“She’s clever,” Martinsson says.

He nods.

“Frans Uusitalo,” he says. “She took an elk-hunter’s gun from his cottage. And put it back again when she had finished with it. I always thought that …”

He wipes his face with his sleeve again.

“. . . That she was too good to be true. Pretty and clever.”

Cold-blooded, Martinsson thinks. He’s a bloody fool as well. But everybody wants to stay alive.

“You haven’t done anything,” she says. “Cut me loose. You don’t want to get involved. That’s what you said.”

Örjan sways from side to side, like a child in a cradle.

“What shall I do?” he says. “What shall I do?”

“You won’t be able to bear the killing of Marcus,” Martinsson says. “But you’re innocent, Örjan. And you’re already a rich man. Those shares are worth several million. Half of them are already yours.”

“Fuck,” he says pitifully. “Fuck, fuck.”