The Second Deadly Sin (6 page)

“My God, yes,” Sivving said, standing still for a few moments. “Poor little sod. First his mum runs off to Stockholm. Then his dad gets run over. And now his grandma …”

“How was he run over?”

“They don’t know. It was one of those hit-and-run affairs. Maybe you’re right and I should sit down for a bit. Is that allowed? Won’t it leave all kinds of traces to confuse the scene-of-crime boys?”

“You can sit in the car. I’ll pull back the driving seat and we can leave the door open. And you can tell us all you know about Sol-Britt.”

Sivving sat down and mopped his brow. Martinsson almost felt like doing the same.

“Anyway, when her son died. Inevitably the locals wondered if somebody in the village might have done it. Everybody knows there’s a few blokes who drive when they’re drunk. They might have panicked and driven off. Or not even noticed.”

Bella and the Brat were scurrying about in the dog cage – they’d been told they were going for a walk in the forest. Vera lay on the back seat, sighing.

“And then there was Sol-Britt’s dad,” Sivving said. “But you know all about that, no doubt.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Come off it, of course you do. He was mauled by a bear. Oh, for God’s sake, when was it? My memory’s useless! Yes, the beginning of June! It was in the newspaper! He was old, they thought he’d got lost. And then, it can’t be more than two months ago, they shot a bear not far from Lainio. It had killed and eaten a guard dog that was tied up on a running lead. And in the bear’s stomach they found bits of the old man, Frans Uusitalo, Sol-Britt’s dad. The bear had spent the whole of the summer gobbling him up, bit by bit. Ugh!”

“Ah yes, I read about that. So that was Sol-Britt’s dad, was it?”

Sivving looked accusingly at her.

“I’ve just said it was. Have you forgotten already?”

He sat quietly for a while. Martinsson wandered off into a world of her own. She remembered the man mauled by a bear in Lainio. When they found a bone from one of his hands inside the belly of the bear, they started searching the area. They eventually found the body. Or what was left of it.

It did happen occasionally that people were mauled by bears up
in these parts of the far north. If they found themselves between a female bear and her cubs. Or if they had a stupid dog that chased after the bear and then came hurtling back to its owners with the beast at its heels.

“And his mum as well,” Sivving said. “Sol-Britt’s grandma, that is. She was murdered too.”

“What?”

“She was a teacher in Kiruna. When was that, now? Er, she must have arrived just before the First World War. My uncle had her as a teacher. He always used to say she was as sweet as a sugar lump. Nice to the children. She had a little boy, although she wasn’t married. He was Sol-Britt’s dad, the one that was mauled by a bear. She was murdered when he was only a few weeks old. A horrific story. She was beaten to death in her own classroom one winter evening. But that was a long time ago.”

“Who killed her?”

“Nobody knows. Her friend looked after the little boy and brought him up as if he’d been her own child. It wasn’t so easy in those days.”

He glared accusingly at her as he said that.

Martinsson thought about Sivving’s mother, who was widowed early on and had to bring up the children by herself.

I know I’m very lucky, she thought. I could have children and we’d survive without any problems. They would have a roof over their head, food in their bellies and they could go to school. I wouldn’t need to give them away.

She looked at Sivving. She knew he had stared real poverty in the face. “We could easily have ended up in a children’s home,” he sometimes used to say.

Not everything was better in the good old days, she thought.

It is 15 April, 1914. Schoolteacher Elina Pettersson is on the train from Stockholm. She’s going to Kiruna. The journey takes thirty-six hours and twenty-five minutes, according to the timetable – but there is a delay due to all the snow on the lines. She has spent two nights on the train, and her backside is giving her hell after having to sleep in a sitting position: but soon she will reach her destination.

When she looks out of the window she sees an endless expanse of stunted trees, laden with snow. Snow-covered bogs and lakes. Herds of reindeer, staring wideeyed but apparently without fear at the huffing and puffing, squeaking and clanking train belching out smoke. Over and over again the carriages have to be uncoupled while the engine backs, then charges with its plough at the drifts of snow, and struggles to clear the lines.

So much snow, and so much forest. It is incredible how big Sweden is, how far north it stretches. She has never been so far north before. Nor has anybody she knows been so far north.

The sun gushes in through the windows, pools of brilliant light form on the mock-leather seats and trickle back and forth over the green-and-blue patterned plush. The light is so brilliant that it is difficult to keep one’s eyes open, but she does not want to draw the curtains. It is all so beautiful.

She is free. She has just celebrated her twenty-first birthday, and she is on her way to Kiruna! The world’s newest town. That is where she belongs. In this new age.

In just a few decades Sweden has raised itself out of poverty. It is not long since vaccines, peace and potatoes enabled the population to start increasing. With a big bang. All those poverty-stricken people … Now that they did not simply die off, they somehow managed to survive. Gave birth to more poverty-stricken children, hollow-cheeked. How would they survive? Continue to dig even more ditches, or work as milkmaids? No. The last century had no place for them. The towns were still ridiculously small. Instead, people emigrated from Sweden. Young people, inspired by a new feeling of strength and dreams, headed for America. The authorities stood by and watched it happen, incapable of action, and merely preached patriotism and contentment.

The journey out of poverty began as it usually does for the poorest: by means of natural resources. Iron ore. Forests. And then, as the twentieth century dawned, the exploitation of creative genius really began in earnest. Patents were taken out on inventions, new companies were formed left, right and centre.

Now people began migrating into towns, where there were industries making wood pulp, telephones, machine guns, agricultural machinery, adjustable spanners, pipe wrenches, dynamite, matches. The new Sweden was beginning to become rich.

*

She stretches her back and thinks it is time she ventured as far as the refreshment car. She really must get a little exercise. Soon, very soon now, she will be in Kiruna.

The whole town has an electricity supply – bliss! Street lights and household electricity. And there is a swimming baths, a bandstand and a library.

She looks out at the snow, glistening in the sun, and smiles. Her face is not used to smiling. She runs her fingers over her mouth, and feels what it is like to smile. Only now, when she has left the
countryside behind her, abandoned Jönåker, does she realise that she has been miserable for two whole years.

It is like waking up from an unpleasant dream and hardly being able to remember what it was about. She will forget the village school. All those characterless children of crofters, farm labourers, smallholders, shepherds, maidservants, hands for hire. The sort of children who know they will never be able to continue their studies once they have completed the six years of schooling demanded by the law. By the age of twelve they will be sufficiently grown-up to make a living. But they can never desert their father, mother, siblings. Something has been extinguished inside them. You can see it in their eyes. When it is raining or snowing outside, the air inside the classroom reeks of the stench of cowsheds, filth and wet wool.

And then there are the sons of the gentleman farmers. They can travel by road and rail now, they can even fly. Fat and prosperous, up-and-coming country squires already, they can behave however they like when they come into contact with their classmates, and even their teacher – after all, their father owns the whole village, and the surrounding forests and fields. Any teacher who wants to keep her job handles the boy indulgently. She gives him high marks, to make sure she does not miss out on her Christmas present: a barrel of rye, ham and sausages, not to mention some fodder for her own cow. Oh yes, be nice to the boy, and remember who his father is.

The village priest – at last she can be rid of him!

I hope he fries in Hell, she thinks.

He was also chairman of the board of school governors. They fell out at the very first meeting. She had been in favour of spelling reform and her head was full of the feminist writings of Ellen Key. He considered Ellen Key to be immoral, Selma Lagerlöf unwholesome, Strindberg a lost soul, Fröding a writer of pornography. Tears came into his eyes when the pupils sang about daffodils dancing in the meadows of Sweden, but in between times he was incapable of
removing his gaze from her breasts. If she ever found herself alone in a room with him, she could never be sure where his fat fingers might end up. And he often found an excuse to call in at the school after the children had gone home. Such visits always ended up in a race round the teacher’s desk, with her in the lead and him in pursuit.

It will be different in Kiruna. Her head is full of dreams. Her heart, full of hope, is beating in time with the pounding of the rails.

She is like a spring-cleaned house. The floors have been scrubbed. There is a smell of soft soap and wind and sunshine. All the windows and doors are wide open, and the rag rugs are hanging out to dry on lines stretched between the birch trees.

She is ready to fall in love. And he boards the train in Gällivare. The man who will capture her heart.

The boy screamed in sheer terror. Tintin barked.

Eriksson ordered Tintin to be quiet, backed out of the playhouse and stood outside the door, out of sight.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did we frighten you? I know I look pretty scary.”

The boy stopped screaming.

“I’ll stay here, outside,” Eriksson said. “Can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

“I’ll tell you why I look like I do. When I was a little boy my house burnt down. When I came home from school it was on fire. My mum was inside it. I ran in because I knew she would be lying on the bed, asleep. I was very badly injured. That’s why I don’t have any ears and no nose and no hair and funny skin. But I’m nice and friendly on the inside. And I’m a police officer, and I’ve been looking for you with my sheepdog, Tintin, because we were worried that something might have happened to you. Are you afraid of dogs?”

Silence.

“Because if you aren’t, maybe Tintin can come in and say hello to you. Would that be O.K.?”

Still no response.

“I don’t know if you are nodding or shaking your head, because I can’t see you. Do you think you could answer me using your voice?”

“Yes.”

He sounded very faint.

“Does that mean yes, Tintin can come in?”

“Yes.”

Eriksson let go of Tintin, who scurried inside but soon came out again.

Bloody dog, he thought. Why couldn’t you have stayed there with him?

“Oh dear, that was a quick visit,” he said. “Did you have time to stroke her?”

“No.”

“She’s one of those dogs who only make a fuss of their master. And that’s me. But I know another dog you would like. Her name’s Vera.”

“I know her. She comes to visit me and my grandma, and Grandma usually makes some pancakes and then when Vera has eaten one or two with us she goes back home. It’s Sivving’s dog.”

“Yes, Sivving sometimes looks after her, that’s true – but in fact she’s Rebecka’s dog. Do you know who that is? No, I don’t suppose you do, but I sometimes look after her as well.”

Eriksson couldn’t help laughing out loud.

“Vera, that is.”

“You can come in now if you like. I’m not scared of you.”

“O.K., here I come. There we are. Oh dear, it’s pretty cramped in here now. Shift yourself a bit, Tintin! Well done, girl! You’ve done an excellent job. She tracked you down, followed your scent all the way from the house, and now she’s feeling very proud of herself.”

“She has a nice soft tongue. We used to have a dog as well.”

There was a smell of mould in the playhouse. Time to withdraw.

“Don’t you feel cold? You haven’t got any shoes or socks on. Did you run here in your bare feet?”

The boy suddenly looked serious. He nodded briefly, but kept his eyes on the dog’s soft ears that he was trying to reach so that he could stroke them.

“It would be great if you could tell us a bit about that later, but just now I’d like to carry you to my car. It’s parked outside your house. I think you ought to put some warm clothes on. Sivving is there. You know him, don’t you?”

“Can I play with Vera?”

“If you want to.”

But she’s not the kind of dog that likes being played with, Eriksson thought. A pity we don’t have a Labrador handy. A stupid, happy-go-lucky dog who lies still when kids want to have a ride.

He took his jacket off and put it on the boy. Marcus answered his questions, but avoided looking him in the eye.

It was very rare for Krister Eriksson to touch another human being. He thought about that as he picked the boy up and carried him back through the woods, through the rowan trees, and over the lawn to the front of the house. After a while the little body began to shake a bit as the warmth came back into it. The boy had his arms round Eriksson’s neck, and wasn’t heavy in the least: he was breathing against Eriksson’s cheek and his vertebrae were sticking up inside his skin.

Eriksson had to suppress an impulse to hug him tightly, to hold hard onto him as a worried parent would have done.

That’s enough of that, he told himself. What you are doing is the job you’re paid to do.

Sivving struggled out of the car, thanked the Good Lord, and looked as if he were about to start crying in relief. Martinsson was also there, gave him a quick smile and looked him in the eye. He also felt like crying without knowing why – probably due to the relief of having found Marcus alive.