The Second Deadly Sin (7 page)

“What happened to your mum when your house burnt down?”
Marcus whispered in Eriksson’s ear when Martinsson went into the house to fetch some shoes and clothes.

“Oh,” Eriksson said, hesitating for a moment. “She died.”

“There’s Vera.”

The boy pointed to the edge of the trees as Vera came scuttling out.

“I had to let her go for a little run,” Martinsson said.

Vera scampered up to Eriksson. She had something in her mouth.

“What’s all this?” he wondered.

Then he burst out laughing. He stopped immediately. He couldn’t stand here laughing when Marcus’s grandma had …

“What’s the matter?” Martinsson said.

“It’s Vera. She’s found my chewing tobacco box that I threw away.”

And boy, do I need a wad, Eriksson thought. But it will have to be the last one.

Inspector Anna-Maria Mella stood in Sol-Britt Uusitalo’s bedroom together with prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson and her colleagues Tommy Rantakyrö, Fred Olsson and Sven-Erik Stålnacke. They had put police tape all round the house and grounds.

“The villagers will soon be turning up to gape,” Stålnacke said. “And in ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour at most, we can expect the local newspapers. And the national evening papers as well, come to that. They’ll send their nearest hacks, and it won’t take long. An hour from now we’ll be able to read all about the murder on the net.”

“I know,” Mella said. “Eriksson can take the boy with him and get him away from here – it’s great that he’s willing and able to take care of him.”

Eriksson can sit in on the interrogation later, she thought. So that the boy feels secure.

“Will you be taking care of that?” Stålnacke said. “Talking to the little lad, I mean.”

“Assuming none of you is desperately keen to do it?”

Her colleagues all shook their heads.

“Surely it can’t have been the lad who did it?” Rantakyrö said. “That’s the kind of thing that only happens … somewhere else.”

Mella made no comment.

They looked at Sol-Britt’s body, spotted with blood, and the word on the wall over the bed.

All those wounds, she thought. Would a seven-year-old have the strength? Would he know how to spell “whore”? Does he know what the word means? Out of the question, out of the question, she concluded.

Mella took a deep breath.

“O.K.,” she said. “Who would call her a whore? Somebody in the village, perhaps? Has she been threatened? Is there some old flame? Or maybe a new one? Sven-Erik, will you do the rounds? There aren’t any neighbours within sight of the house, but talk to the ones along the road. Have they seen or heard anything? Talk to her workmates as well. Who was the last to see her alive? Has anything special happened lately? You know the kind of thing to ask.”

Stålnacke’s thick moustache shifted perceptively to one side. He knew exactly what she meant, and had no objections.

Good, she thought. Sven-Erik is good with people. He makes himself at home at their kitchen table. Sips coffee and gossips away. Makes them feel that he is a relative paying a call. Come to think of it, he is nearly always like that. In a fanciful sort of way, he really is related to everybody. Or went to the same school. Or remembered their youthful sporting triumphs.

Sven-Erik would be due to retire before long. Then she would be the oldest member of the team. It seemed impossible to imagine. It was only the other day that she celebrated her twentieth birthday after all – the same age as Tommy Rantakyrö. He was the young pup of the team. Wads of chewing tobacco as big as pine cones under his lips. As restless as a teenager with creepy-crawlies under his skin. Always checking up on what the others were doing. Always the last to be given duties to perform. Always expected to be dealt the joker. And usually got it.

“Freddy,” she said, turning to Olsson. “No doubt you know what to do?”

“Incoming and outgoing calls,” he said without hesitation. “Text
messages. Computers. At home and at work, I assume. Have I permission to go and look for her mobile?”

“There’s an open handbag in the hall. Take a look inside, the forensics team will accept that. She didn’t have her mobile beside her bed in any case. But we can’t start poking our noses in all over the place. That would send them round the bend.”

Olsson went out into the hall. He soon returned with a mobile in his hand.

“I’ll check it,” he said.

“It’s odd that all the kitchen drawers are shut, but all the cupboards are open,” Stålnacke said. “As if somebody was looking for something. Something big.”

“The murder weapon?” Olsson guessed.

“Tommy,” Mella said. “Will you have a word with Marcus’s teachers? The headmaster and his staff. And after-school activities, if he attended any.”

Rantakyrö smiled wryly.

“What shall I ask them about?”

“What sort of state is he in? Is he normal? Is he not well? Is everything … Was everything well at home? We must get in touch with his mother.”

“No doubt Sivving knows what she’s called. I can contact her,” said Martinsson.

“Good. Do that right away. Some journalist or other will be ringing her at any moment now. Has Sivving had anything else to say about Sol-Britt?”

“She was working at the Winter Palace as a breakfast waitress, but this morning she didn’t turn up for work – that was why Sivving wanted to drive out here. She had alcohol problems before, but since her son died three years ago she stopped drinking and looked after her grandson. Marcus’s mum is alive, but she lives in Stockholm and has a new family, and prefers to have nothing to do with him.”

“What’s the matter with some people?” Stålnacke bellowed in disgust. “What kind of a mother abandons her child?”

Mella didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t a sound to be heard in the room. Martinsson’s mother had abandoned her family when Rebecka was a little girl. Not long afterwards she fell under a lorry – nobody knew if it was an accident or not.

The same thought had struck Stålnacke. Nobody could think of anything to say. Stålnacke cleared his throat.

Martinsson did not appear to have been listening. She was gazing out of the window. Outside in the garden Marcus was throwing a tennis ball. It looked as if he was urging Vera to fetch it. In vain, of course. Vera had never played fetch in her life. She just stood there watching the ball until Marcus gave up and fetched it himself. He tried throwing it over and over again. Sometimes Eriksson ran after it. It was only Vera who remained motionless.

“That boy out there,” Martinsson said, pointing at Marcus, “does he understand that his grandmother is dead?”

They all looked at Marcus.

Children could be so upset or so detached when it came to grief, Mella thought. She had seen it all before. A child crying over its dead mother one moment, then spellbound by a cartoon film the next.

“Yes,” Mella said finally. “I think he probably does.”

Mella had been on a course about interrogating children, and on several occasions she had interviewed children when there had been suspicions of domestic violence in the family. It was a very specialised topic, but she did not really think it was all that difficult. If only her family knew how calm and patient she could be when it was necessary …

It’s only at home that I ask questions and don’t bother to listen to the answers, she thought with a wry smile.

“So, we’ll meet again at three o’clock at the police station,” she decided. “I suppose we’ll have to have a press conference, but that
won’t be until eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Not a minute earlier, no matter what. Tommy, will you drive back to town and fetch the video camera, please? I must have a chat with Marcus before he … as soon as possible.”

“Look!” Martinsson said. “Look at the dog! She’s playing!”

Vera had suddenly started scurrying after the ball, bringing it back and dropping it at Marcus’s feet.

“She’s never done that before,” Martinsson said.

Then added, as if to herself: “Not with me, at least.”

He’s the type who gets bullied at school, Eriksson thought when Mella switched on the video camera. Like me, but he’s nice.

Marcus had long, fair hair, was on the small side for his age with a pale face and dark shadows around his eyes. But he was clean and his nails were neatly clipped. His clothes had been kept in a chest of drawers in his bedroom, folded and ironed. The pantry and the refrigerator had been full of wholesome food, and there had been fresh fruit in a bowl in the kitchen. Sol-Britt had evidently taken good care of her grandson.

Now the boy was sitting on Martinsson’s kitchen sofa. Vera was lying by his side, and enjoying being patted and stroked. Eriksson was sitting on the other side, taking it all in with a somewhat astonished smile.

That confounded dog, he thought.

If it had been himself or Martinsson sitting there, stroking Vera, she would have jumped down and gone away ages ago.

“Do you know what?” he said to Marcus. “I took Vera with me to visit some friends of mine in Laxås not all that long ago. They had a cat that had just had kittens, and she refused to leave her brood, not even for a second. She was as thin as a rake, because she didn’t even allow herself time to eat anything. But when we got there, she ran off and left her kittens with Vera. The kittens crawled all over Vera, and bit her ears and her tail.”

And sucked her titties dry, he thought. Poor old girl.

“The cat mother was away for over an hour,” he said. “No doubt she made use of the time to eat lots and lots of mice. But she trusted Vera.”

Kittens and a lonely boy, he thought. Vera has endless patience with them.

“So, let’s get started,” Mella said. “Can you tell me your name, and how old you are?”

“My name is Marcus Elias Uusitalo.”

“And how old are you?”

“Seven years and three months.”

“O.K., Marcus. Krister and Tintin found you in a hut in the forest today. Can you tell me how you got there?”

“I went there.” Marcus moved even closer to Vera. “Will Grandma come to fetch me?”

“No, your grandma … Don’t you know what’s happened to her?”

“No.”

Mella looked at Eriksson, hoping for help. Hadn’t he explained? Hadn’t he told Marcus anything?

Eriksson gave a subtle nod. Of course he had told Marcus. But she must put the brakes on - he had barely sat down. She ought to talk about something else first.

“I’m afraid your grandma is dead, my darling,” Mella said. “Do you know what that means?”

Marcus looked at her, a serious expression on his face.

“Yes, like my dad.”

Mella said nothing. She looked uncertain. She contemplated the boy, her eyes narrowed.

He seemed to be calm and collected, if somewhat subdued. He was stroking Vera’s soft ears.

Mella shook her head, almost imperceptibly.

“She’s a nice dog,” she said.

“Yes,” said Marcus. “She likes to eat pancakes with me and
Grandma. Once she came to school with me on the bus. She just jumped on board even though she didn’t have a ticket. But dogs don’t need one. She sat next to me. Nobody minded, not even Willy. Everybody wanted to stroke her. And my teacher - she was only a supply teacher, but she phoned my grandma. And Grandma phoned Sivving, and Vera ended up going back home in a taxi. It wasn’t all that expensive, because Sivving works as a volunteer on the patient ambulance service. But Grandma says that Vera is the only one who has ever taken advantage of the free rides.”

“Tell me how you came to be in the playhouse in the forest.”

She’s still going too fast, Eriksson thought. He tried in vain to make eye contact with Mella.

“We had a dog as well,” Marcus said. “But it disappeared. Maybe it was run over.”

“Hmm. How did you get to the playhouse, Marcus?”

“I walked there.”

“O.K., do you know what time that was?”

“No, I can’t tell the time.”

“Was it dark or light outside?”

“Dark. It was night-time.”

“Why did you go out to the playhouse in the middle of the night?”

“I …”

He paused and looked confused.

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it. I’ll wait here while you think it over.”

They sat there in silence for ages. Eriksson tapped Marcus on his arm. Marcus was lying across Vera. He whispered something into the dog’s ear. He’d forgotten what the question was.

“Why didn’t you have any shoes on? And no jacket?”

“You can jump out of my bedroom window. You land on the roof of the porch at the back. And then you can climb down the ladder.”

“Why didn’t you have any shoes on?”

“My shoes are in the hall.”

“Why did you jump out through the window? Why didn’t you go out through the door?”

The boy said nothing.

Eventually he shook his head,

Time to pack up, Eriksson thought.

*

Didn’t he remember? The questions piled up inside Mella’s head. They all wanted to come tumbling out at the same time. Why did you wake up? What did you see? Did you hear anything? Would you recognise … ?

He just sat there, stroking the dog. Seemingly unconcerned. Mella didn’t know what to say.

“Do you remember anything?” she said in the end. “Anything at all? Do you remember when you went to bed that evening?”

“I have to go to bed every night at half past seven, Grandma says. Every night. It doesn’t matter what’s on the telly. I always have to go to bed very early.”

I must stop now, Mella thought. I’m pressing him too much. He’ll soon start inventing things. That’s what they kept emphasising on that course. Children like to keep their interrogators happy. They’ll say anything in order to keep you happy.

“I wake up when anybody comes to look at me,” said Marcus to Eriksson. “When you and Tintin came I woke up almost straight away. Do you think I was sleepwalking?”

But a few minutes ago he told us how he jumped out through the window, Mella thought. This just isn’t working. I’m making a mess of everything. We’ll have to call in a real pro.

“The conversation with Marcus Uusitalo is concluded,” she said, switching off the video camera.

“We’ll ring your mum,” she said to Marcus. “But she lives in Stockholm. That’s a long way away. Is there any grown-up you know who lives around here that you would like to stay with?”