Before the Frost

16

What Linda saw through the open door, that which had caused her father to flinch and stumble backward, resembled something she had once seen as a child. The image flickered to life in her mind; she had seen it in a book Mona had inherited from her mother, the other grandmother Linda had never met. It was a large book with old-fashioned type, a book of Bible stories. She remembered the full-page illustrations, protected by a translucent sheet of tissue paper. One of the pictures depicted the scene she was now witnessing firsthand, with only one difference. In the book the picture had shown a man’s head with closed eyes, placed on a gleaming tray, a woman dancing in the background. Salome with her veils. That picture had made an almost unbearably strong impression on her.

Perhaps it was only now, when the picture had escaped from the page, the memory resurrected in the guise of a woman, that the moment of childhood horror was fully replaced. Linda stared at Birgitta Medberg’s severed head on the earth floor. Her clasped hands lay close by, but that was all. The rest of her body was missing. Linda heard her father groan in the background, then she felt his hands on her back as he dragged her away.

“Don’t look!” he shouted. “You shouldn’t see this. Turn back.”

He slammed the door shut. Linda was so scared she was shaking. She scuttled back up the side of the ravine, ripping her pants in the process. Her father was at her heels. They ran until they reached the main path.

“What is going on?” she heard him mutter under his breath. “What’s happened?”

He called the station and gave the alarm, using code words that she knew were meant to slip under the noses of journalists and curious amateurs listening in on police radio communications. Then they returned to the parking lot and waited. Fourteen minutes went by until they heard the first sirens in the distance. They had said nothing to each other during their wait. Linda was shaken and wanted to be with her father but he turned his back and took a few steps away. Linda had trouble making sense of what she had seen. At the same time another fear was mounting, a fear that this was somehow connected with Anna. What if there is a connection, she thought despairingly. And now one of them is dead, butchered. She interrupted her train of thought and crouched down on the ground, suddenly faint. Her father looked over at her and started to walk over. She forced herself to stand and shook her head at him as if to say it was nothing, a momentary weakness.

Now she was the one who turned her back to him. She tried to think clearly — slowly, deliberately, but above all clearly. An officer who can’t think clearly can’t do her job. She had written this statement on a piece of paper and pinned it to the wall next to her bed. She knew she always had to keep her cool, but how was she supposed to do that when right now she felt like bursting into tears? There was no trace of calm in her mind, only terrible flashes of the severed head and clasped hands. And even worse, the question of what had happened to Anna. She couldn’t keep new images from forming in her mind: Anna’s head, Anna’s hands. John the Baptist’s head on a plate and Anna’s hands, Anna’s head and Birgitta Medberg’s hands.

The rain had started again. Linda ran over to her father and showered his chest with blows.

“Now do you believe me? Don’t you realize something must have happened to Anna?”

Wallander grabbed her shoulders, trying to keep her at arm’s length.

“Calm down. That was Birgitta Medberg in there, not Anna.”

“But Anna wrote in her diary that she knew her. And now Anna is gone. Don’t you get it?”

“You have to calm down. That’s all.”

Linda slowly regained control of herself, or rather, felt a paralysis settle over her. Three, then four police cars came slipping and sliding into the muddy parking lot. The police officers got out and gathered around Wallander after quickly having thrown on the rain gear that they all seemed to keep stashed in the backs of their cars. Linda stood outside the circle, but no one tried to stop her when she eventually joined them. Martinsson was the only one who acknowledged her, with a nod, but even he never asked her what she was doing there. At that moment, in the rainy parking lot by Rannesholm Manor, Linda cut the cord to her life at the police academy. She fell in line behind the others and followed them in their long train into the forest. When a crime scene technician dropped a light stand, she picked it up and carried it for him.

She stayed there while day turned into dusk and finally evening. Rain clouds came and went, the ground was saturated with moisture, the lights erected around the site cast strong shadows. The crime scene technicians painstakingly marked out a working path to the hut. Linda took care not to get in their way, and she never put her foot down without placing it in someone else’s footprint. Sometimes her father met her gaze, but it was as if he could not really see her. Ann-Britt Höglund was always at his side. Linda had bumped into her from time to time since she came back to Ystad, but Linda had never liked her. In fact, she felt her father would do best to stay away from her. Höglund had barely greeted her today, and Linda sensed she would not be an easy person to work with, if that ever became the case. Of course, Höglund was a full-fledged detective inspector, while Linda was a rookie who hadn’t even started working yet and who would be busy breaking up street fights before she even had the opportunity to apply for a more specialized line of work.

She watched her future colleagues go about their business, noting the order and discipline that always seemed to be on the verge of giving way to sheer chaos. From time to time someone raised his voice, especially the irritable Nyberg, who often swore at his team for not watching where they put their feet. Three hours after they had arrived the human remains were removed from the scene, enclosed in thick plastic. Everyone stopped working as they were carried away. Linda could see the contours of Birgitta Medberg’s head and hands through the plastic casing.

Then they all resumed their work. Nyberg and his technicians crawled around on hands and knees, someone was sawing off branches and clearing away the underbrush, others were setting up lamps or repairing generators. People came and went, phones rang, and in the middle of all this her father stood rooted to one spot as if restrained by invisible cords. Linda felt sorry for him; he looked so lonely standing there, always available to answer a steady stream of questions, making snap decisions so that the investigation could proceed smoothly. He’s walking a tightrope, Linda thought. That’s how I see him. A nervous tightrope walker who should go on a diet and address the issue of his loneliness once and for all.

It was only much later that Wallander realized she was still there. He finished talking to someone on the phone, then turned to Nyberg, who was holding out an object for him to look at. He held it in the beam of one of the strong lights that attracted insects and burned them to death. Linda took a step closer to see what it was. Nyberg handed Wallander a pair of rubber gloves that he pulled onto his big hands with some difficulty.

“What’s this?”

“If you weren’t completely blind you would see it was a Bible.”

Wallander didn’t seem to take any notice of Nyberg’s tone.

“A Bible,” Nyberg repeated. “It was on the ground next to the hands. There are bloody fingerprints. But they could belong to someone else, of course.”

“The murderer?”

“Possibly. It’s a gory scene in there. The whole hut is spattered with blood. Whoever did this must have been completely drenched.”

“No weapons?”

“Nothing at this point. But this Bible is worth a closer look, even apart from the fingerprints.”

Linda took yet another step closer as her father put on his glasses.

“Open it to the Book of Revelation,” Nyberg said.

“I don’t know my way around this thing. Just tell me what’s in there.”

But Nyberg would not let himself be hurried.

“Who knows their Bible anymore? But the Book of Revelation is an important chapter, or whatever those parts are called.”

He threw a hasty glance at Linda.

“Do you know? In the Bible, is it called a chapter?”

Linda gave a start.

“No idea.”

“You see, the young are no better than we. Whatever. The thing is that someone has written comments between the lines. See?”

Nyberg pointed to a page. Wallander held it up closer to his eyes.

“I see some gray smudges. Is that what you mean?”

Nyberg called out to someone called Rosén. A man with mud up to his chest came clomping over with a magnifying glass. Wallander tried again.

“Yes, someone has been writing between the lines. What does it say?”

“I’ve made out two of the lines,” Nyberg said. “It seems as if whoever wrote in here wasn’t happy with the original. Someone has taken it upon themselves to improve on the word of God.”

Wallander removed his glasses.

“What does that mean, anyway, ‘the word of God’? Can you try to be more specific?”

“I thought the Bible was the word of God. How much more specific do I have to be? I just think it’s interesting that someone should rewrite passages in the Bible. Is that something a normal person does? A person in basic possession of his or her senses?”

“A lunatic, then. What is this hut, anyway? A place where someone was living, or a temporary hideout?”

Nyberg shook his head.

“Too early to say. But can’t they be the same thing for someone who wants to stay out of the public eye?”

Nyberg gestured out to the forest, which was impenetrably dark beyond the spotlights.

“We’ve had dogs search the area and I think they’re still out. The units claim the terrain is all but impassable. If you needed a hideout you couldn’t pick a better place.”

“Any idea who it might belong to?”

Nyberg shook his head.

“There are no personal effects, no clothes. We can’t even determine if it was a man or a woman living here.”

A dog started barking somewhere in the darkness as a light rain began to fall. Höglund, Martinsson, and Svartman emerged from various directions and gathered around Wallander. Linda hovered in the background, part participant, part spectator.

“Give me a scenario,” Wallander said. “What happened here? We know a repulsive murder took place — but why? Who did it? Why did Medberg come here? Did she plan to meet someone? Was she even killed here? Where is the rest of the body? Tell me.”

The rain continued to fall. Nyberg sneezed. One of the spotlights went out. Nyberg kicked the light over, then helped set it up again.

“A picture of what happened,” Wallander said.

“I’ve seen a lot of things that qualify as repulsive,” Martinsson said. “But nothing like this. Whoever did this was truly fucked up. Where’s the rest of the body? Who used this hut? We don’t know yet.”

“Nyberg found a Bible,” Wallander said. “We’ll run prints on everything, of course, but it turns out someone’s written new text between the lines in the book. What does that tell us? We have to see if the Tademans ever visited this place. We may have to go door-to-door for answers. We’ll maintain an investigation with a broad front, working around the clock.”

No one spoke.

“We have to get this psycho,” Wallander said. “The sooner the better. I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m scared.”

Linda stepped into the light. It was like stepping onto the stage without having learned your lines.

“I’m scared too.”

Wet, tired faces turned to her. Only her father looked tense. He’s going to explode, she thought. But she had to do this.

“I’m scared too,” she repeated. And then she told them about Anna. She made a point of not looking at her father as she spoke. She tried to remember all the details — omitting the parts about her intuitive fears — and present all the facts.

“We’ll look into it,” her father said when she had finished. His voice was ice-cold.

Linda instantly regretted what she had done. I didn’t want to, she thought. I did it for Anna’s sake, not to get back at you.

“I know,” she said. “I’m going home now. There’s no reason for me to be here.”

“You found the Vespa, didn’t you?” Martinsson asked. “Isn’t that right?”

Wallander nodded and turned to Nyberg.

“Can you spare someone who can escort Linda to her car?”

“I’ll do it,” Nyberg said. “I have to use the bathroom up there anyway. Can’t do my business in the forest — the dogs’ noses are far too sensitive.”

Linda clambered up out of the ravine, only now realizing how tired and hungry she was. Nyberg’s strong flashlight lit up the path for her. They ran into a canine unit on the way, the dog’s tail drooping behind him. Other lights glimmered among the trees. Night orienteering, Linda thought. Police officers hunting for clues in the dark. Nyberg muttered something unintelligible when they reached the parking lot, and then he was gone. Linda got into Anna’s car, someone lifted the yellow tape to let her past, and she was out on the main road. There were onlookers all along the road to the highway, people in parked cars waiting for something to happen, to see something. She felt as if her invisible uniform was back on. Go home! she thought. There’s a brutal murder to be solved and you’re getting in the way of our work. But then she shook the thoughts away. She wasn’t a policewoman, not quite yet.

After a while she noticed she was driving too fast and slowed down. A hare sprang out onto the road. For a brief moment his eye was frozen in her headlights. She slammed on the brakes. Her heart was beating hard. She took a few deep breaths. Lights from other cars came at her and she decided to turn into a parking lot. She turned off the lights first, then the engine. Darkness settled in all around her. She got out her cell phone, but it rang before she had a chance to dial the number. It was her dad. He was furious.

“Do you know what you did back there? You were telling me I didn’t know how to do my job.”

“I didn’t say anything about you,” she said. “I’m just afraid that something’s happened to Anna.”

“Don’t you ever do anything like that again. Ever. If you do, I’ll make sure your stint in Ystad is over before you know it.”

She didn’t have a chance to answer. He hung up. He’s right, she thought. I didn’t think, I just started to talk. She was about to dial his number to apologize or at least explain herself, but then she realized there was no point. He was still angry and it would take a couple of hours before he’d be ready to hear her out.

Linda needed to talk to someone and dialed Zeba’s number. The line was busy. She slowly counted to fifty and dialed again. Still busy. Without knowing why she dialed Anna’s number. Busy. Linda was startled and tried again. It was still busy. A huge wave of relief came over her. Anna’s back, she thought. She started the engine, turned on the headlights and swung back out onto the highway. Good God, she thought. I’ll have to tell her everything that happened just because she didn’t show up that night.

17

Linda got out of the car and stared up at the windows of Anna’s apartment. They were dark. Her fear returned; the phone had been busy. Linda called Zeba again. Zeba picked up right away as if she had been waiting by the phone. Linda talked in a hurry, stumbling over her words.

“It’s me. Were you talking to Anna just now?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! Have you been trying to call? I was explaining to my brother why I’m not going to lend him any money. He’s a spendthrift. I have four thousand kronor in the bank and that’s the full extent of my fortune. He wants to borrow the whole thing to buy a share in a trucking venture involving cargo transports to Bulgaria...”

“To hell with him,” Linda interrupted. “Anna’s disappeared. She’s never stood me up before.”

“Well, sometime has to be the first.”

“That’s what my dad says too, but I think something’s happened. Anna’s been away for three days.”

“Maybe she’s in Lund.”

“No. It doesn’t even matter where she is. It’s just not like her to be gone like this. Has she ever done this to you — not shown up on time or not been at home when she had invited you over?”

Zeba thought it over.

“Actually, no.”

“See?”

“Why are you so worked up over this?”

Linda almost told her about the severed head and hands. But that would mean breaking her professional code of secrecy.

“I don’t know. You’re right: I’m worked up over nothing.”

“Come over.”

“I don’t have time.”

“I think you’re going crazy with all this free time on your hands. But I have something for you, a mystery that needs solving.”

“What is it?”

“A door I can’t get to open.”

“Can’t do it, sorry. Call the property manager.”

“You need to slow down.”

“I will. See you.”

Linda rang the doorbell in the hopes that the windows were dark because Anna was asleep. But the apartment was still empty and the bed untouched. Linda looked at the phone. The receiver was in place and the message light wasn’t blinking. She sat down and thought about everything that had happened over the past couple of days. Every time an image of the severed head flashed through her mind she felt sick. Or were the hands even worse? What kind of a maniac would cut a person’s hands off? Cutting a person’s head off was a way to kill them. But their hands? She wondered if the forensic team would be able to determine if Birgitta Medberg’s hands had been cut off before or after she died. And where was the rest of the body? Suddenly her nausea got the better of her. She only just made it to the toilet before she threw up. Afterward she lay down on the bathroom floor. A little yellow rubber ducky was stuck under the bathtub. Linda stretched out her hand to touch it, remembering when Anna had gotten the duck.

It was a long time ago. They had been maybe twelve or thirteen. She couldn’t remember whose idea it was, but between them they had decided to go to Copenhagen together. It was spring and both of them were bored and restless at school. They covered for each other when one of them cut class, which happened more and more frequently. Mona had given her permission, but her dad wouldn’t hear of it. She heard him describe Copenhagen as a den of sin and iniquity, a beast waiting to consume two very young girls who knew nothing about life. In the end Anna and Linda had gone anyway. Linda knew there would be trouble waiting for her when she returned, so, as a kind of advance revenge, she lifted a hundred kronor from her dad’s wallet before she left. They took the train to Malmö and the ferry to Copenhagen. To Linda it seemed like their first serious excursion into the adult world.

It had been breezy but sunny, a happy, giggly day. Anna won the rubber ducky at an amusement stand at the Tivoli, and at first all of their experiences were transparent, joyous ones. They had their freedom, their adventure. Invisible walls crumbled around them wherever they went. Then the image darkened. Something happened that day that was the first real blow to their friendship. We were sitting on a green bench, Linda remembered. Anna had been borrowing money from me all day because she was broke. She had to go to the bathroom and asked me to hold her purse. Somewhere in the background a Tivoli orchestra was playing. The trumpet was out of tune.

Linda was thinking of all this while she lay on the bathroom floor. The warmth from the heating system installed under the tile felt good against her back.

It was a green bench and a black bag. After all these years she couldn’t say what had made her open the purse. There had been two crisp hundred-kronor notes inside, not even crumpled or hidden inside a secret compartment. She had stared at the money and felt a stab of betrayal. She closed the purse and decided she wouldn’t say anything, but when Anna came back and asked if Linda would buy her a soda, something exploded inside her. They stood there shouting at each other. Linda had forgotten what Anna had said in her defense, but they had gone their separate ways and had sat apart on the return trip to Malmö. It took them a long time to start speaking to each other again. They never talked about what had happened in Copenhagen, but eventually they had managed to resume their friendship.

Linda sat up. There are lies at the heart of this, she thought. I’m sure Henrietta concealed something from me when I was there, and I know Anna is capable of lying. I discovered that in Copenhagen and I’ve found her out on later occasions as well. But with her at least I know her so well that I can tell when she’s telling the truth. The story she told me about seeing her father — or a doppelgänger — in Malmö is true. But what’s behind all this? What didn’t she tell me? Sometimes the part that’s left out is the biggest part of the lie.

Her cell phone rang. She knew it was her father. She got to her feet to steel herself in case he was still angry, but the tone of his voice only told her that he was tense and tired. Her father had more voices than other people, it seemed to her.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“In Anna’s apartment.”

He was silent. She could hear that he was still out in the forest. There were voices of people walking past, the scrape of walkietalkies, and a dog barking sharply.

“What are you doing there?” he asked after a while.

“I’m more afraid now than I was before.”

To her surprise he said:

“I know. That’s why I’m calling. I’m on my way over. I need to hear about this in more detail. There’s no reason for you to worry, of course, but I’m taking this matter seriously now.”

“How could I not worry? It’s not natural for her to be gone like this, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. If you don’t understand that, then you can’t possibly know why I’m afraid. Also, her phone line was busy, but then when I got here she wasn’t in. Someone was here, I’m sure of it.”

“I’ll get the full report when I get there. What’s the address?”

Linda gave it to him.

“How is it going?” she asked.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Have you found the body?”

“Not yet. We haven’t found anything, least of all clues to what actually happened here. I’ll honk when I arrive.”

Linda bent over the bathroom sink and rinsed her mouth out. In order to freshen her breath she brushed her teeth with one of Anna’s toothbrushes. She was about to leave the bathroom when she impulsively opened the bathroom cabinet. She saw something that surprised her. This is just like leaving the journal behind, she thought.

From time to time Anna developed eczema on her throat. She had talked about it only a few weeks earlier when they were all over at Zeba’s place, talking about their dream vacations. Anna had said that the first thing she would pack was the prescription-strength cream that kept her eczema under control. Linda remembered her saying she only bought this cream one tube at a time in order to keep it as fresh as possible. And yet here it was, sitting among the other bottles and toothbrushes on the shelf. Anna had a thing about toothbrushes. Linda counted nineteen brushes in the cabinet, eleven of which had never been used. She looked at the cream again. Anna would never have left this behind, Linda thought. Not willingly. Neither this cream nor her diary. She closed the bathroom cabinet and left the bathroom. What could have happened? There were no signs that Anna had been removed by force, at least not from the apartment itself. Perhaps something had happened on the street. She could have been knocked over or forced into a car.

Linda stood by the window and waited for her father. She felt tired and cheated. Her time at the academy had in no way prepared her for what she had been through this day. She could never have imagined that she could one day find herself looking at a severed gray-haired female head and a pair of clasped hands cut off at the wrists.

Not simply clasped, she thought. Hands knit together in prayer before they were cut. She shook her head. What happened in those last moments, in the dramatic pause while the axe was lifted above those hands? What had Birgitta Medberg seen? Had she looked into another person’s eyes and understood what was about to happen? Or had she been spared that dreadful knowledge? Linda stared out at a streetlamp swaying in the wind. She sensed what must have happened: hands clasped together pleading for mercy. The executioner denies the plea. She must have known, Linda thought. She knew what was coming and she pleaded for her life.

Headlights suddenly lit up the side of the building. Her father honked his horn once, parked the car, then got out and looked around for the right entryway until he saw Linda in the window gesturing to him. She threw the keys down to the street and heard him come up the stairs. He’s going to wake up all the neighbors, she thought. I have a father who thunders his way through life like an infantry battalion. He was sweaty and tired, his clothes soaked through.

“Is there anything to eat?”

“I think so.”

“And a towel?”

“The bathroom is over there. There are towels on the bottom shelf.”

When he came back to the kitchen he had removed all his clothes except his undershirt and briefs. The wet clothes were hanging on the hot pipes in the bathroom. Linda had set the table with all the food she could find in the refrigerator. She knew he wanted to eat in peace. When she was growing up it had been forbidden to talk or make noise around the table at breakfast. His silence had driven Mona up the wall — she always waited to have her breakfast until after he had left for work. But Linda had often sat there sharing the silence with him. Sometimes he lowered the paper, usually the Ystad Allehanda, and winked at her. Silence at breakfast was sacred.

“I should never have brought you along,” he said suddenly, a sandwich halfway to his mouth. “There’s no excuse for it. You should never have had to see what was in that hut.”

“How is it going?”

“We have no clues, no explanations for what happened.”

“But what about the rest of the body?”

“There’s no sign of it. The dogs can’t pick up a scent. We know Birgitta Medberg was mapping trails in that part of the forest, so it seems reasonable to assume she stumbled onto the hut by accident. But who was hiding out there? Why this brutal murder, why mutilate the body and dispose of it in this way?”

Wallander finished the sandwich, made a new one and left it half-eaten.

“So tell me. Anna Westin, this friend of yours, what does she do? She’s a student — but of what exactly?”

“Medicine. You know that.”

“I never rely on my memory. You had arranged to meet her, you said. Was that here?”

“Yes.”

“And she wasn’t home when you came over?”

“No.”

“Is there any possibility of a misunderstanding?”

“No.”

“Tell me the part about her father again. He’s been gone for twenty-four years and has never once communicated with her in any way. And then she’s in a hotel and sees him through a window?”

Linda told him everything in as much detail as she could muster. He was quiet when she finished.

“We have one person who turns up after being missing for years,” he said finally. “And the following day the person who saw that person goes missing herself. One appears, the other disappears.”

He shook his head. Linda told him about the journal and the neck cream, and about her visit to Henrietta. He listened attentively to everything.

“What makes you think she was lying?”

“If Anna thought she saw her father on a regular basis she would have told me long before now.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know her.”

“People change. You can never know everything about them, even friends.”

“Is that true for me too?”

“For me, for you, your mother, Anna, everyone. Then, of course, there are people who are totally incomprehensible. My father was an outstanding example of the latter.”

“I knew him.”

“You think you did.”

“Just because the two of you didn’t get along doesn’t mean I felt the same way. And we were talking about Anna.”

“I heard you never reported it.”

“I followed your advice.”

“For once.”

“Oh shit, give me a break.”

“Show me the journal.”

Linda went to get it, and opened it to the page where Anna had written about the letter from Birgitta Medberg.

“Did she ever mention her name to you?” Wallander asked.

“Not that I can remember.”

“Did you ask her mother if she had any connection to Medberg?”

“I saw Henrietta before I knew about this.”

Wallander went to the bathroom to get his notepad from his jacket.

“I’ll have someone talk to her again tomorrow.”

“I can do it.”

Wallander sat down.

“No,” he said sternly. “You can’t do it. You’re not a police officer yet. I’ll get Svartman or someone else to do it. You aren’t going to be doing any more investigating on your own.”

“Do you always have to sound so pissed-off?”

“I’m not pissed-off, I’m tired. And worried. I don’t know why what happened in that hut happened, only that it was horrifying. And I don’t know if it marks an end or a beginning.”

He looked at his watch and got up again.

“I have to go back there,” he said.

Then he stopped in the middle of the kitchen, indecisively.

“I have trouble believing it was just a coincidence,” he said. “That Medberg simply had the misfortune to run into the wicked witch who lives in the gingerbread house. I can’t see that you’d get murdered for knocking on the wrong door. There are no monsters in Swedish forests. Not even trolls. She should have stuck with butterflies.”

Wallander walked back to the bathroom and put his clothes back on. Linda tagged along. What was it he had said? The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar.

“What was it you said?”

“No monsters live in Swedish forests.”

“After that.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. After the monsters and trolls and all that. The last thing?”

“She should have stuck to butterflies and not started mapping ancient trails.”

“What butterflies?”

“Höglund talked to the daughter — someone had to inform the relatives. The daughter said Medberg had had a large butterfly collection. She sold it a few years ago to help Vanya and her kids buy an apartment. Vanya always felt guilty about it because she thought her mother missed the butterflies. People often have these kinds of reactions when someone dies. I was the same way when Dad died. I could start blubbering at the thought of how he used to wear mismatched socks.”

Linda held her breath. He noticed something was up.

“What is it?”

“Come with me.”

They walked out into the living room. Linda turned on a lamp and pointed to the wall.

“I’ve tried to keep an eye out for things that are different, I’ve already told you that. But I forgot to say that something was missing.”

“What?”

“A butterfly case. You know, a butterfly in a frame. It disappeared the day after Anna went missing.”

Wallander frowned.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said. “And the butterfly was blue.”

18

It seemed to Linda that it took a blue butterfly to convince her father to take her seriously. She wasn’t just a kid anymore, not just an officer-in-training with potential, but a full-fledged adult with judgment and keen powers of observation.

She was sure of herself. The butterfly had been removed at the same time or shortly after Anna’s disappearance. That settled it. Wallander called his team in the field and asked Höglund to come to the apartment. He asked how things were going at the crime scene. Linda heard Nyberg’s irritated voice in the background, then Martinsson, who was sneezing violently, and finally Lisa Holgersson, the chief of police. Wallander put the phone down.

“I want Ann-Britt to be here,” he said. “I’m so tired I’m not sure I can trust my own judgment any more. Are you sure you’ve told me all the relevant facts?”

“I think so.”

Wallander shook his head.

“It seems too much of a coincidence.”

“A few days ago you said one always has to be prepared for the unexpected.”

“I say a lot of crap,” he said thoughtfully. “Is there any coffee in the house?”

The water had just boiled when Höglund honked her horn down on the street.

“She drives too fast,” Wallander said. “She has two young children — what is she thinking? Throw her the keys, will you?”

Höglund caught the keys in one hand and walked briskly up the stairs. Linda noted she had a hole in her sock but her face was made up — heavily made up. When did she have time to do that? Did she sleep with her makeup on?

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Please.”

Linda thought her father would be the one to talk, but when she came in with the coffee cup and put it on the table in front of Höglund, Wallander nodded at her to begin.

“It’s better for her to hear it from the horse’s mouth,” he said. “Don’t leave out any details, you can count on Inspector Höglund to be a good listener.”

Linda picked up her story with both hands and unfolded it as carefully as she was able, all in the right order. Then she showed Höglund the journal with the page that mentioned Birgitta Medberg. Wallander only broke in when she started talking about the butterfly. Then he took over, changing her story to something that would perhaps form the basis of an investigative narrative. He got up off the sofa and tapped the wall where the butterfly had been hanging.

“This is where the lines intersect,” he said. “Two points, or perhaps three. Birgitta Medberg’s name is in Anna’s journal and they exchange at least one letter, although we haven’t found it. Butterflies figure in both of their lives, although we don’t know yet what the significance of this is. And then there is the most important similarity: they’re both missing.”

Someone outside started shouting in Polish or Russian, most likely a drunk.

“It’s certainly a strange coincidence,” Höglund said. “Who knows Anna best?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Not right now.”

“But she’s had one?”

“Doesn’t everyone? I think probably her mother knows her best.”

Höglund yawned and ruffled her hair.

“What about all this business with her father? Why did he disappear? Had he done something?”

“Anna’s mother seems to think he was running away.”

“From what?”

“Responsibility.”

“And now he’s back and Anna disappears. And Medberg is murdered.”

“No,” Wallander broke in. “‘Murdered’ isn’t an adequate description of it. She was slaughtered, butchered. Hands clasped as in prayer, head severed, torso and limbs missing. Martinsson has tracked down the Tademans, by the way. Mr. Tademan was extremely intoxicated, according to Martinsson, which is interesting. Anita Tademan — whom Linda and I met — seems to have been much easier to talk to. They haven’t seen any unusual persons in the area, no one knew about the hideout in the forest. She called someone she knows who often hunts around there, but he hadn’t seen any hut or even the ravine, strangely enough. Whoever used the place knew how to keep a low profile while remaining in relatively close proximity to people. I sense this is an important point, that he was invisible but close by.”

“Close to what, or whom?”

“We don’t know.”

“We’ll have to start with the mother,” Höglund said. “Should we call her right now or wait until morning?”

“Wait until morning,” Wallander said after hesitating. “We have our hands full right now as it is.”

Linda felt her face flush.

“What if something happens to Anna in the meantime?”

“What if her mother forgets to tell us something important because we got her out of bed in the middle of the night? We’ll scare her half to death.”

He walked to the door.

“That’s how it’s going to be. Go home and get some sleep. But you’ll be coming with us to see Anna’s mother tomorrow morning.”

Höglund and Wallander put on their boots and rain gear and left. Linda watched them from the window. The wind was blowing harder, coming in strong gusts from the east and south. She washed the cups and thought about the fact that she needed to sleep. But how was she supposed to do that? Anna was gone, Henrietta had lied, Birgitta Medberg’s name was inscribed in the journal. Linda started to look through the apartment again. Why couldn’t she find Medberg’s letter?

She searched more energetically this time, pulling bookshelves from the wall and backings from paintings to make sure nothing was hidden inside them. She continued with this until the doorbell rang. Linda stopped. It was after one o’clock in the morning. Who rang a doorbell in the middle of the night? She opened the door and found a man outside in thick glasses, a brown robe, and worn pink slippers on his feet. He said his name was August Brogren.

“There’s a great deal of noise coming from this apartment,” he said angrily. “Would you be so kind as to keep it down, Miss Westin?”

“I’m sorry,” Linda said. “I’ll be quiet from now on.”

August Brogren took a step closer.

“You don’t sound like Miss Westin,” he said. “You aren’t Miss Westin at all, in fact. Who are you?”

“A friend.”

“When one has bad eyesight one learns to differentiate people’s voices,” Brogren explained sternly. “Miss Westin has a gentle voice, but yours is hard and rasping. It is like the difference between soft white bread and hardtack.”

Brogren fumbled his way back to the handrail of the staircase and started walking back down. Linda thought about Anna’s voice and understood Brogren’s description. She closed the door and got ready to leave. Suddenly she was close to tears. Anna is dead, she thought. But then she shook her head. She didn’t want to believe that, didn’t want to imagine a world without Anna. She put the car keys on the kitchen table, locked the door, and walked home through the deserted streets. When she got home she wrapped herself up in a blanket and curled up on her bed.

Linda woke up with a start. The hands on the alarm clock glowed in the dark and showed a quarter to three. She had hardly been asleep for more than an hour. What had caused her to wake up? She had dreamed something, sensed a danger approaching from afar like an invisible bird diving soundlessly toward her head. A bird with a beak as sharp as a razor. The bird had woken her up.

Even though she had slept so briefly, she felt clearheaded. She thought about the investigators still out at the crime scene, people moving back and forth in the strong spotlights, insects swarming in the light beams and burning themselves on the bulbs. It seemed to her that she had woken up because she didn’t have time to sleep. Was Anna calling out to her? She listened, but the voice was gone. Had it been there in her dreams? She looked at the time. It was now three minutes to three. Anna called out to me, she thought again. And she knew what she was going to do. She put on her shoes, took her coat, and ran down the stairs.

The car keys were still lying on Anna’s kitchen table. When she drove out of town it was twenty minutes past three. She swung north and ended up parking on a small overgrown road that lay out of sight of Henrietta’s house. Stepping out of the car, she listened for any noise, then gently closed the car door. It was chilly. She pulled her coat tightly around her body and chastised herself for not having brought a flashlight.

She started walking along the small road, taking care not to trip. She didn’t know exactly what she was planning to do, but Anna had called out to her and she felt compelled to respond. She followed the dirt road until she came to the path leading to the back of Henrietta’s house. Three windows were lit. The living room, she thought. Henrietta is still up — although she could have gone to bed and left the lights on.

Linda walked toward the light, giving a wide berth to a rusty harrow and getting closer to the garden. She stopped and listened. Was Henrietta in the middle of composing? She made it to the fence and climbed over it. The dog, she thought. Henrietta’s dog. What am I going to do if it starts barking? And what am I doing out here in the first place? Dad, Höglund, and I are coming back here in a couple of hours. What is it I think I can find out on my own now? But it wasn’t really about that. It was about waking up from a nightmare that seemed like a cry for help from a friend.

She approached the lighted windows, then stopped short. Voices. At first she couldn’t determine where they were coming from, but then she saw that one of the windows was pushed open. Anna’s neighbor had said that her voice was gentle. But this wasn’t Anna’s voice, it was Henrietta’s. Henrietta and a man. Linda listened, trying to will her ears to send out invisible antennae. She walked even closer and was now able to see through the glass. Henrietta sat in profile, the man was on the sofa with his back to the window. Linda couldn’t hear what the man was saying. Henrietta was talking about a composition, something about twelve violins and a lone cello, something about a last communion and apostolic music. Linda didn’t understand what she was talking about. She tried to be absolutely quiet. The dog was in there somewhere. She tried to figure out who Henrietta was talking to, and why they were talking in the middle of the night.

Suddenly, very slowly, Henrietta turned her head and looked straight at the window. Linda jumped. It seemed like Henrietta was looking directly into her eyes. She can’t have seen me, Linda thought. It’s impossible. But there was something about the woman’s gaze that frightened her. She turned and ran, accidentally stepping on the edge of the water pump, causing a clang from within the pump structure. The dog started to bark.

Linda ran back the way she had come. She tripped and fell, got up and stumbled on. She heard a door open somewhere behind her as she threw herself over the fence and ran down the path, trying to make her way back to the car. At some point she took a wrong turn. She didn’t know where she was. She stopped, gasping for air, and listened. Henrietta had not set the dog loose. It would have found her by now. She listened again. There was no one there, but she was still so scared she was shaking. After a while she cautiously started making her way back to the path, but she couldn’t see where she was going because it was so dark. The darkness frightened her, making shadows into trees and trees into shadows. She stumbled and fell.

When she stood up she felt a searing pain in her left leg. She felt as if she had been stabbed with a knife. She screamed and tried to get away from the pain, but she couldn’t move. It was as if an animal had sunk its teeth into her, except that this animal didn’t breathe or make any noise. Linda groped down her leg until her hand hit something cold and metallic connected to a chain. Then she understood. She was caught in a hunter’s trap.

Her hand was wet with blood. She continued to cry out, but no one heard her, no one came.

19

Linda tried to free herself from the trap. She didn’t like the idea of calling her father, but the trap was impossible to budge. She took out her cell phone and dialed his number. She explained where she was and that she needed help.

“What’s happened?”

“I’m caught in a trap.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I have a steel trap around my leg.”

“I’m on my way.”

Linda waited, shivering. It felt like an eternity before she saw the headlights from a car in the distance. Linda called out. The front door opened and the dog barked. She called and called. They walked over in the dark, a flashlight lighting their way. It was her father, Henrietta, and the dog. There was a third person with them but he hung back.

“You’re caught in an old fox trap. Who is responsible for putting this here?”

“Not me,” said Henrietta. “It must be the man who owns the land around here.”

“We’ll have a word with him.” Wallander forced the trap open.

“We’d better get you to the hospital,” he said.

Linda tried to put some weight on the foot. It hurt, but she was able to steady herself with it. The man in the shadows now came closer.

“This is a colleague you haven’t met yet,” Wallander said. “Stefan Lindman. He started with us a couple of weeks ago.”

Linda looked at him. His face was partly lit by the flashlight and she liked what she saw.

“What are you doing here?” Henrietta asked.

“I can explain,” Lindman said.

He spoke with some kind of dialect. But which was it? She asked her father later when they were driving back to Ystad.

“He’s from western Götaland,” Wallander said. “A strange language. They have trouble commanding respect, as do people from eastern Götaland and the island of Gotland. The ones who command the most respect are northerners, apparently. I don’t know why.”

“How is he going to account for me being out there tonight?”

“He’ll think of something. But maybe you can tell me what you thought you were doing.”

“I had a dream about Anna.”

“What sort of dream?”

“She called out to me. I woke up and drove out here. I didn’t know what I was planning to do. I saw Henrietta inside talking to a man. Then she looked over in my direction and I ran and then I got caught in that trap.”

“Now at least I know you’re not sneaking out for secret assignations.”

“Don’t you understand that this is serious?” she screamed. “Anna is missing!”

“Of course I take you seriously. I take her disappearance seriously. I take my whole life and yours seriously. The butterfly was the clincher.”

“What are you doing about it?”

“Everything that can and should be done. We’re turning every stone, chasing every lead. And now we’re not going to discuss this further until we’ve had your leg checked out at the hospital.”

It was an hour before anyone could deal with her. Wallander dozed in an uncomfortable chair. And the process of cleaning the wound and bandaging it seemed to take forever. Just as they were finally leaving, Stefan Lindman walked in. Linda now saw he had closely cropped hair and blue eyes.

“I said you had terrible night vision,” he said cheerfully. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it will have to suffice as an explanation for what you were doing wandering around out there.”

“I saw a man in the house with her,” Linda said.

“Henrietta Westin told me she had a visit from a man who wants her to set music to some dramatic verse. It didn’t sound suspicious.”

Linda put her jacket on against the morning cold. She regretted having yelled at her father in the car. It was a sign of weakness. Never scream, always keep your cool. But she had done something stupid and had needed to turn the spotlight on someone else’s shortcomings. She also felt a huge wave of relief. Anna’s disappearance was no longer a figment of her imagination. A blue butterfly had made all the difference. The price was a painful ache in her leg.

“Stefan will take you home. I have to get back to the station.”

Linda went into the ladies’ room and combed her hair. Lindman was waiting for her in the corridor. He was wearing a black leather jacket and was sloppily shaven on one side of his face, which Linda didn’t like. She chose to walk on his good side.

“How does it feel?”

“What do you think?”

“It must hurt. I know something about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pain.”

“Have you ever had your leg caught in a bear trap?”

“It was a fox trap. But no, I haven’t.”

“Then you don’t know how it feels.”

He held the door open for her. She was still irritated by his unshaven cheek and didn’t say anything else. They came out into a parking lot at the back of the hospital. It was broad daylight. He pointed to a rusty Ford. As he was unlocking the door, an ambulance driver came over and demanded to know what he meant by blocking the emergency entrance.

“I came to pick up a wounded police officer,” Lindman said, nodding in Linda’s direction.

The ambulance driver accepted this and left. Linda maneuvered herself into the passenger side.

“Your dad said you live on Mariagatan. Where is that?”

Linda explained, and wondered silently about the strong smell in the car.

“It’s paint,” Lindman said. “I’m fixing up a house out in Knickarp.”

They turned onto Mariagatan and Linda pointed out her doorway. He got out and opened the car door for her.

“It was nice to meet you,” he said. “And the reason I know what it’s like to be in pain is that I’ve had cancer. Steel trap or a tumor — it’s all the same.”

Linda watched his car drive off. She had forgotten his last name.

She let herself into the apartment and felt fatigue set in. She was about to collapse onto the sofa when the phone rang.

It was her dad.

“I heard you made it home.”

“What was the name of the guy who drove me home?”

“Stefan.”

“No — the last name.”

“Lindman. He’s from Borås, I think. Or else it was Skövde. It’s time you got some rest.”

“I want to know what Henrietta said to you.”

“I don’t have time to go into that right now.”

“You have to. Just give me the highlights.”

“Wait a minute.”

His voice broke off. Linda sensed he was at the station, but on his way out. She heard doors closing, phones ringing, and then the sound of an engine starting up.

He came back on the line, his voice tense.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“OK, I’ll make this quick. Henrietta said she didn’t know where Anna was. She hadn’t heard from her recently. Nothing to suggest that Anna is depressed. She had apparently not said anything about seeing her father. On the other hand, Henrietta claims that this happened all the time when Anna was growing up. So it’s the mother’s word against yours. She couldn’t give us any leads, nor did she know anything about Medberg. So as you see it wasn’t very productive.”

“Did you notice that she was lying?”

“How would I have noticed that?”

“You always say all you have to do is breathe on someone to know if they’re telling the truth or not.”

“I didn’t get the impression she was lying.”

“She’s lying.”

“I have to go now. But Lindman — the one who gave you the ride — is working on the connection between Medberg and Anna. We’ve sent out missing persons reports on her, by the way. That’s all we can do for the moment.”

He hung up. Linda didn’t feel like being alone, so she called Zeba. She was in luck: Zeba’s son was at her cousin Titchka’s house and Zeba had nothing lined up. She agreed to come over.

“Buy some breakfast on the way,” Linda said. “I’m hungry. The Chinese restaurant by the main square, for example. I know it’s out of your way but I’ll make it up to you the next time you find yourself stuck in a steel trap.”

Linda told Zeba what had happened. Zeba had heard the news on the radio about the severed head that had been found, but she still had trouble believing that anything bad might have happened to Anna.

“If I were a crook I’d think twice before picking on Anna. Don’t you know she did martial arts? I can’t remember which kind, but I think it’s one where everything is allowed — short of actually killing someone, of course. No one messes with Anna and gets away with it.”

Linda regretted having brought it up in the first place. Zeba stayed for another hour before it was time for her to pick up her son.

Linda woke up when the doorbell rang. At first she was going to ignore it, but she changed her mind and limped out into the hallway. Stefan Lindman was standing outside the door.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

Then she looked at herself in the hall mirror. Her hair was standing on end.

“Actually I was sleeping,” she said. “I don’t know why I said that. My leg hurts.”

“I need the keys to Anna Westin’s apartment,” he said. “I heard you tell your father you had a spare set of keys.”

“I’ll come along.”

He seemed surprised by this.

“I thought you were in pain.”

“I thought that too. What are you going to do over there?”

“Try to create a picture for myself.”

“If it’s a picture of Anna, then I’m the person you should be talking to.”

“I’d like to have a look by myself first. Then we can talk.”

Linda pointed to a set of keys on a table. The keyring had a profile of an Egyptian pharaoh.

Linda hesitated.

“What was that about you having cancer?”

“I had cancer of the tongue if you can believe it. Things looked bad for a while, but I survived and there’s been no recurrence.”

He looked her in the eye for the first time.

“I still have my tongue, of course; I wouldn’t be able to speak without it. But my hair has never recovered.”

He tapped his neck with a finger.

“Soon it’ll all be gone.”

He walked down the stairs and Linda returned to bed.

Cancer of the tongue. She shuddered at the thought. Her fear of death came and went, though right now her life force was strong. But she had never forgotten what had gone through her mind while she was balancing on the edge of the bridge. Life wasn’t just something that took care of itself. There were big black holes you could fall into with long sharp spikes at the bottom, monstrous traps.

She turned over on her side and tried to sleep. Right now she didn’t have the energy to think about black holes. Then she was startled out of her half-awake state. It was something to do with Lindman. She sat up. She had finally caught hold of the thought that had been bugging her. She dialed a number on her cell phone. Busy. On the third try her father finally picked up.

“It’s me.”

“How do you feel?”

“Better. There was something I wanted to ask about the man who was at Henrietta’s house last night. The one who was said to be commissioning a composition. Did she say what he looked like?”

“Why would I have asked her that? She only gave me his name. I made a note of the address. Why?”

“Do me a favor. Call her and ask about his hair.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that’s what I saw.”

“I will, but I really don’t have the time for this. We’re drowning in rain over here.”

“Will you call back?”

“If I get ahold of her.”

He called her back nineteen minutes later.

“Peter Stigström — the man who wants Henrietta to set his verse to music — has shoulder-length dark hair with a few gray streaks. Will that do?”

“That will do just fine.”

“Are you going to explain yourself now or when I get home?”

“That depends on when you were planning to come home.”

“Pretty soon. I have to get out of these clothes.”

“Do you want something to eat?”

“No, we’ve been taken care of, in fact. There are some enterprising Kosovo immigrants out here who make a living out of putting up food stands around crime scenes and fires. I have no idea how they hear about our work, but there’s probably a leak at the station who gets a commission. I’ll be home in an hour.”

When the conversation was over, Linda sat staring down at the phone for a few minutes. The man she had seen through the window, the back of the head that had been turned toward her, had not had shoulder-length dark hair with a few gray streaks. His hair had been short and neatly trimmed.

20

Wallander came bounding in, his clothes soaked, his boots covered in mud, but with the happy news that the weather was about to clear up. Nyberg had called the air-control tower at Sturup, he said, and had received the report that the next forty-eight hours would be free of rain. Wallander changed his clothes, declined Linda’s offers of food, and fixed himself an omelet.

Linda waited for the right moment to tell him about the conflicting descriptions of Henrietta’s visitor. She didn’t know exactly why she was waiting. Was it a lingering childhood fear of his temper? She didn’t know, she just waited. And then, when he pushed away his plate and she plopped into the chair across from him and was about to launch into her story, he started talking.

“I’ve been thinking about your grandfather,” he said.

“What about?”

“What he was like, what he wasn’t like. I think you and I knew him in different ways. That’s as it should be. I was always looking for bits of myself in him, worried about what I would find. I’ve grown more and more like him the older I get. If I live as long as he did maybe I’ll find myself a ramshackle, leaky house and start painting pictures of wood grouse and sunsets.”

“It’ll never happen.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

Linda broke in at this point and told him about the man she had seen whose close-cropped head didn’t match Henrietta’s description. He listened attentively, and when she stopped he didn’t ask her if she was sure of what she had seen. He reached for the phone and dialed a number from memory — first incorrectly, then getting it right. Lindman picked up. Wallander told him succinctly that in light of what Linda had observed they had to make another visit to Henrietta Westin.

“We have no time for lies,” he said. “No lies, half-truths, or incomplete answers.”

Then he put the phone down and looked at her.

“This is unorthodox at best,” he said. “Not even necessary, strictly speaking, but I’m still going to ask you to come along. If you feel up to it, that is.”

Linda felt a surge of pleasure.

“I’ll do it.”

“How’s the leg?’

“Fine.”

She saw that he didn’t believe her.

“Does Henrietta know why I was there last night?” she asked. “She can hardly have believed what Stefan told her.”

“All we want to know is who was there with her last night. We have a witness; we don’t have to tell her it’s you.”

They walked down to the street and waited for Lindman. The air-traffic controllers had been right; the weather was changing. Drier winds were blowing in from the south.

“When will it snow?” Linda asked.

He looked at her in amusement.

“Not for a while, I hope. Why do you ask?”

“I can’t remember when it comes, even though I was born and raised here. I don’t remember the snow.”

Stefan Lindman pulled up in his car. Linda climbed into the back seat, her father sat in the front. His seat belt was caught on something and he had trouble getting it on.

They drove toward Malmö and Linda saw the sea shimmering to her left. I don’t want to die here, she thought. The thought came out of nowhere. I don’t only want to exist. Not like Zeba. And not be a single mother like her, or thousands of others whose lives become one long damned struggle to pay the rent and the babysitters and getting someplace on time. I don’t want to be like Dad, who can never find the right house and the right dog and the wife he needs.

“What was that?” Wallander asked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s funny. It sounded like you were swearing.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I have a strange daughter,” Wallander said to Lindman. “She curses without even knowing it.”

They turned onto the road that led to Henrietta’s house. The memory of being caught in the steel trap made Linda’s leg throb. She asked what would happen to the man who had set the trap.

“He went a little pale in the face when I told him he had snared a police cadet. I’m assuming he’ll have to pay a hefty fine.”

“I have a good friend in Östersund,” Stefan Lindman said. “A policeman. Giuseppe Larsson is his name.”

“He sounds Italian.”

“No, he’s from Östersund. But he has a connection of sorts with an Italian lounge singer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Linda leaned forward between the seats. She had a sudden urge to touch Lindman’s face.

“His mother had a dream that his father was not her husband but an Italian singer she had heard perform at an outdoor concert. It’s not just us men who have these fantasies.”

“I wonder if Mona has ever had the same thoughts,” Wallander said. “In your case it would be a black dream father, Linda, since she worshipped Hosh White.”

“Josh,” Lindman said. “Not Hosh.”

Linda wondered vaguely what it would have been like to have a black father.

“Anyway,” Lindman said. “My friend has an old bear trap on the wall at his place. It looks like an instrument of torture from the Middle Ages. He always said that if a person ever got caught in one, the steel teeth would cut all the way through the bone. The animals that get trapped in them have been known to gnaw their own legs off in desperation.”

Lindman stopped the car and they climbed out. The wind was gusty. They walked up to the house, in which several of the windows were lit up. When they entered the front yard, all three of them wondered why the dog hadn’t started to bark. Lindman knocked on the door, but no one answered. Wallander peeked in through a window. Lindman felt the door. It was unlocked.

“We can say we thought we heard someone call ‘Come in!’” he said tentatively.

They walked in. Linda’s view was blocked by the broad backs of the two men. She tried standing on tiptoe to see past them but winced with pain.

“Anybody home?” Wallander called out.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Lindman said.

They proceeded through the house. It looked much as it had when Linda was there last. Papers, sheet music, newspapers, and coffee cups were scattered all over. But she recognized that this superficial impression of disarray only disguised a home comfortably arranged to meet Henrietta’s every need.

“The door was unlocked,” Lindman said, “and her dog is gone. She must be out on an evening walk. Let’s give her a quarter of an hour. If we leave the door open she’ll know someone’s inside.”

“She may call the police if she thinks the house is being burgled,” Linda said.

“Burglars don’t leave the front door wide open for everyone to see,” her father said.

He sat down in the most comfortable armchair, folded his hands over his chest, and closed his eyes. Lindman put his boot in the front door to keep it open. Linda picked up a photo album that Henrietta had left lying on the piano. The first pictures were from the early 1970s. The colors were starting to fade. Anna sat on the ground surrounded by chickens and a yawning cat. Anna had told Linda about the commune outside Markaryd where she had spent the first years of her life. Henrietta was holding her in another picture from that time, in baggy clothes, clogs, and a Palestinian shawl around her neck. Who is holding the camera? Linda wondered. Probably Eric Westin, the man who was about to disappear without a trace.

Lindman walked over to her and she pointed to the pictures, explaining what she knew about them: the commune, the green wave, the sandal maker who vanished into thin air.

“It sounds like something out of a story,” he said. “Like A Thousand and One Nights. I mean the part about the Sandal Maker Who Vanished into Thin Air.”

They kept turning the pages.

“Is there a picture of him?”

“I’ve seen a few at Anna’s place, but that was a long time ago. I have no idea where they would be.”

Pictures of life in the commune gave way to images of an Ystad apartment. Gray concrete, a wintry playground. Anna was a few years older.

“By this time he had been gone for several years,” Linda said. “The person taking the pictures is closer to Anna than before. Pictures in the commune are always taken from a greater distance.”

“Her father took those pictures and now Henrietta is the one taking them. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes.”

They flipped through to the end of the album, but there was no picture of Westin. One of the last pictures was of Anna’s high school graduation. Zeba was included at the edge of the frame. Linda had been there too, but she wasn’t shown.

Linda was about to turn the page when the lights flickered and went out. The house was plunged into darkness and Wallander woke up with a start. They heard a dog barking outside. Linda sensed the presence of people out there in the night, people who did not intend to show their faces, but rather shied away from the light and were retreating even farther into the world of shadows.

21

He only felt secure in total darkness. He had never understood why there was always this talk of light in connection with mercy, eternity, images of God. Why couldn’t a miracle take place in total darkness? Wasn’t it harder for the Devil and his demons to find you in the shadows than on a bright expanse where white figures moved as slowly as froth on the crest of a wave? For him God had always manifested Himself as an enveloping, deeply comforting darkness.

He felt the same way now as he stood outside the house with the brightly lit windows. He saw people moving around inside. When all the lights suddenly went out and the last door of darkness was sealed he took it as a sign from God. I am his servant in the darkness, he thought. No light escapes from here but I shall send out holy shadows to fill the void in the souls of the lost. I shall open their eyes and teach them the truth of the images that reside in the shadow-world. He thought about the lines in John’s second epistle: “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” It was the holiest key to his understanding of God’s Word.

After the terrible events in the jungles of Guyana he could recognize a false prophet: a man with smooth black hair and even white teeth, who surrounded himself with light. Jim Jones had feared the dark. He had cursed himself countless times for not seeing through the guise of this false prophet who would lead them so astray — to their deaths. All of them except himself. This had been the first task God had assigned him: to survive in order to tell the world about the false prophet. He was to preach about the kingdom of darkness, which would become the fifth gospel that he would write to complete the holy writings of the Bible. This too was foretold at the end of John’s letter: “Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be complete.”

This particular evening he had been thinking about all the years that had gone by since he was last here. Twenty-four years, a large part of his life. When he left he was still a young man. Now age had started to claim his body. He took care of himself, ate sensibly, kept himself in constant motion, but the process of growing old had begun. No one could escape it. God lets us age in order for us to understand that we are completely in his hands. He gives us this remarkable life, but as a tragedy so that we will understand that only he has the power to grant us mercy.

He stood in the darkness and thought back to all that had happened. Everything had been what he had dreamed of until he followed Jim Jones to Guyana. Even though he missed those he had left behind, in the end he had been convinced by Jim that this loss was necessary to prepare him for the higher purpose God held in store for him. He had listened to Jim, and sometimes he had not thought about his wife and his child for weeks at a time. It was only after the massacre, when the whole community lay rotting on the fields, that they returned to his consciousness. But by then it was too late. The void created by the God that Jim had killed in him was so devastating that he could not think of anyone but himself.

He had retrieved the money and papers he had stored in Caracas, then took the bus to Colombia, to the city of Barranquilla. He remembered the long night he spent in the border station between Venezuela and Colombia, the city of Puerto Paez, where armed guards watched over the travelers like hawks. Somehow he had managed to convince these guards that he was John Clifton, as his documents stated, and he even managed to convince them that he didn’t have any money left. He had slept with his head on the shoulder of an old Native woman who carried a small cage with two chickens on her lap. They had not exchanged any words, just a look, and she had seen his exhaustion and suffering and offered him her shoulder and wrinkled neck to rest his head. That night he dreamed about those he had left behind. He woke up drenched in sweat. The old woman was awake. She looked at him and he dropped back against her shoulder. When he woke up in the morning she was gone. He felt inside his shirt and touched the thick wad of dollar bills. It was still there. He wanted her back again, the old woman who had let him sleep. He wanted to lean his head against her shoulder and neck and stay there for the rest of his life.

From Barranquilla he took a plane to Mexico City. He washed off the worst of his filth in a public restroom. He bought a new shirt and a small Bible. It had been confusing to see the rushing crowds again, this life that he had left behind when he followed Jim. He walked past the newsstands and saw that what had happened had made the front-page headlines. Everyone was dead, he read. No one was thought to have survived. That meant they must think he was dead too. He existed but he had stopped living, since he was presumed to be one of the bloated bodies found in the jungle.

He still didn’t have a clear plan. He had $3,000 left after paying for the fare to Mexico City, and if he was frugal he could get by on that for quite a while. But where should he go? Where could he find the first step back to God, out of this unbearable emptiness? He didn’t know. He stayed in Mexico City, in a small hostel, and spent his days attending various churches. He deliberately avoided the large cathedrals as well as the neon-lit tabernacles run by greedy and power-hungry clergy. Instead he sought out the small congregations where the love and the passion were palpable, where the ministers were hard to tell apart from those who came to listen to their sermons. That was the way he had to find for himself. Jim hid himself in the light, he thought. Now I want to find the God who can lead me to the holy darkness.

One day he woke up with the overwhelming feeling that he had to leave. He took a bus going north the same day. To make the journey as cheap as possible, he took local buses. On certain stretches he hitched rides with truck drivers. He crossed the border into Texas at Laredo, where he checked into the cheapest motel he could find. He spent a week at the public library catching up on everything he could find that had been written about the catastrophe. To his consternation he found that there were former members of the People’s Temple who were accusing the FBI and CIA and the American government of fostering hostility toward Jim Jones and his movement, thereby inciting the mass suicide. He started to sweat. How could they defend the false prophet?

During the long sleepless nights it occurred to him that he should write about what had happened. He was the only living witness. He bought a notebook and started to write, but he was overcome with doubt. If he were going to tell the real story he would have to reveal his true identity: not John Clifton, as his documents claimed, but another man with another nationality and name altogether. Did he want that? He hesitated.

Then he read an interview with a woman named Mary-Sue Legrande in the Houston Chronicle. There was a photo of her: a woman in her forties with dark hair and a thin, almost pointed face. She talked about Jim Jones and claimed to know his secrets. In the interview she presented herself as a distant spiritual relative of Jim. She had known him at the time he had the series of visions that would later lead him to found his church, the People’s Temple.

I know Jim’s secrets, said Mary-Sue Legrande. But what were they? She didn’t say. He stared at the photograph. Mary-Sue seemed to be looking right back at him. She was divorced with a grown son and now owned a small mail-order company in Cleveland. Her company sold something called “manuals for self-actualization.”

He put the newspaper back on the shelf, nodding to the friendly librarian before walking out onto the street. It was an unusually mild day in December, shortly before Christmas. He stopped in the shade of a tree. If Mary-Sue Legrande can tell me Jim Jones’s secrets I will understand why I was taken in by him. Then I will never suffer this same weakness again.

He stepped off the train in Cleveland on Christmas Eve. His trip had taken more than thirty hours. He found a cheap hotel close to the railway station and ate some dinner at a Chinese restaurant before he went back to his room. There was a green plastic Christmas tree with flashing lights in the lobby of the hotel. He lay down on the bed in the dark hotel room. Right now I’m nothing more than the person who is registered for this hotel room, he thought. If I were to die now, or disappear, no one would miss me. They would find enough money in my sock to cover the costs of this room and a funeral — that is, unless someone stole the money and they had to dump me in a pauper’s grave. Perhaps someone would discover that I was not John Clifton. But the case would probably be put on the back burner, like a piece of paper you save without knowing why. That would be the extent of it. Right now I’m nothing more than a guest in a hotel room, and I can’t even remember the name of the hotel.

Snow fell over the city of Cleveland on Christmas Day. He ate warm noodles, fried vegetables, and rice at the Chinese restaurant and then returned to lie motionless on his bed. The following day, December 26, the snowy weather had passed. A thin white powder had dusted the streets and sidewalks and it was three degrees below zero Celsius. There was no wind, and the water on Lake Erie was calm. He had located Mary-Sue Legrande with the help of a phone book and a map. She lived in a neighborhood in southwestern Cleveland. He thought it was God’s intention that he meet her this day. He washed carefully, shaved, and put on the clothes he had bought in a secondhand store in Laredo. What will she see when she opens her door and sees my face? he thought. A man who hasn’t given up, a man who has suffered greatly. He shook his head at his reflection in the mirror. I don’t inspire fear, he thought. Perhaps pity.

He left his hotel and took a bus along the lakeshore. Mary-Sue Legrande lived on 1024 Madison, in a stone house partially hidden behind tall trees. He hesitated before he walked up the path and rang the doorbell. Mary-Sue Legrande looked exactly like her photograph in the Houston Chronicle, except that she was even thinner. She looked suspiciously at him, ready to slam the door in his face.

“I survived,” he said. “Not everyone died in Guyana. I survived. I’ve come because I want to know Jim Jones’s secrets. I want to know why he betrayed us.”

She looked at him for a long time before answering. When she did, she didn’t show any sign of surprise, or of any emotion whatsoever.

“I knew it,” she said finally. “I knew someone would come.”

She opened the door wide and stepped aside. He followed her in and stayed in her house for almost twenty years. It was with her help that he got to know the real Jim Jones, the man he had not been able to see through. Mary-Sue told him in her mild voice about Jim Jones’s dark secret. He was not the messenger of God he had given himself out to be; he had taken God’s place. Mary-Sue claimed that Jim Jones knew deep down that his vanity would one day be the destruction of everything he had built. But he had never been able to overcome his flaw and change course.

“Was he insane?” he had asked.

No, Mary-Sue insisted, far from it. Jim Jones had meant well; he had genuinely wanted to start a Christian awakening around the world. It was his vanity and pride that had prevented him from succeeding, that had turned his love into hate. But someone needed to take up where he left off, she told him. Someone who was strong enough to resist the pitfall of pride but could also be merciless when needed. The Christian awakening would only come to pass through bloodshed.

He stayed and helped her run the mail-order business she called God’s Keys. She had written all the self-help manuals herself, with their blend of vague suggestions and inaccurate Bible quotations, and he soon realized that she understood Jim Jones so well because she was a kind of charlatan herself. But he stayed with her, since she let him. He needed time to plan what would become his life’s mission. He was going to be the one to take over where Jim Jones had gone astray. He would sidestep the pitfalls of pride and vanity but never forget that the Christian rebirth would demand sacrifice and blood.

The mail-order company did well, especially with a product she called “The Aching Heart Package” priced at forty-nine dollars without tax and shipping. They started to get rich, and left the house on Madison for a large house in Middleburg Heights. Mary-Sue’s son Richard returned after completing his studies in Minneapolis and settled in a house nearby. He was a loner but always friendly when they saw each other. It was as if he was relieved not to have to take on his mother’s loneliness.

The end arrived quickly and unexpectedly. One day Mary-Sue came back from a trip into Cleveland and sat down across from him at his desk. He thought she had been running errands.

“I have cancer and I’m going to die,” she announced. She said the words with a strange air of relief, as if telling the truth lifted a great burden from her shoulders.

She died on the eighty-seventh day after she came back from the doctor with the news. It was in the spring of 1999. Richard inherited all her assets, since she had never remarried. They drove out to Lake Erie for a walk the evening after the funeral. Richard wanted him to stay. He suggested that they continue running the mail-order business and share the profits. But he had already made up his mind. The void in him had been assuaged by living with Mary-Sue, but he had a mission to complete. His thinking and his plans had matured over the years. He didn’t say any of this to Richard. He simply asked him for some money — only as much as Richard could comfortably part with. Then he would make his preparations. Richard asked no questions.

He left Cleveland on May 19, 2001, flying to Copenhagen via New York. He arrived in Helsingborg on the south coast of Sweden late on the evening of the twenty-first. He paused for a moment after stepping onto Swedish soil. It was as if he had left all his memories of Jim Jones behind at last.

22

Wallander was looking for the number to the power company when the electricity came back on. A few seconds later they all gave a start as Henrietta and the dog walked in. The dog jumped up on Wallander with its muddy paws. Henrietta ordered him to his basket and he obeyed. She then threw his leash aside with fury and turned to Linda.

“I don’t know what gives you the right to enter my house when I’m not home. I don’t like people sneaking around.”

“If the power hadn’t gone out we would have walked right out again,” Wallander said. Linda could tell he was losing his temper.

“That’s not an answer to my question,” Henrietta said. “Why did you enter in the first place?”

“We just want to know where Anna is,” Linda jumped in.

Henrietta didn’t seem to listen to her. She walked around the room, looking carefully at her things.

“I hope you didn’t touch anything,”

“We haven’t touched anything,” Wallander said. “We simply have a few questions to ask and then we’ll be on our way.”

Henrietta stopped and stared at him.

“What is it you need to know? Please tell me.”

“Should we sit down?”

“No.”

This is when he explodes, Linda thought and closed her eyes. But her father managed to control himself, perhaps because she was there.

“We need to be in touch with Anna. She’s not in her apartment. Can you tell us where she is?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Is there anyone who would know?”

“Linda is one of her friends; have you asked her? Or maybe she doesn’t have time to talk to you since she spends all her time spying on me.”

This sent Wallander over the edge. He yelled so loudly even the dog sat up. I know all about that voice, Linda thought, the yelling. God knows, it’s one of the earliest memories I have.

“You will answer my questions clearly and honestly. If you refuse to cooperate, we will bring you down to the station. We need to locate your daughter because she may have some information regarding Birgitta Medberg.”

Wallander made a short pause before continuing.

“We also need to assure ourselves that nothing has happened to her.”

“And what could possibly have happened to her? Anna studies in Lund. Linda knows that. Why don’t you talk to her house-mates?”

“We will. Is there anyplace else she could be, in your opinion?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll move on to the question of the man who was in your house last night.”

“Peter Stigström?”

“Could you describe his hair for us?”

“I already have.”

“We can call on Peter Stigström in person, but perhaps you could humor us.”

“He has long hair, about shoulder-length. It’s dark brown, with some gray streaks. Will that do?”

“Can you describe his neck?”

“Good grief — if you have shoulder-length hair it covers your neck. How would I know what it looks like?”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Then I’ll thank you for your time.”

He got up and left, slamming the door behind him. Lindman hurried out after him. Linda was confused. Why hadn’t he confronted Henrietta with the fact that she had seen a man with short hair? As she got ready to leave, Henrietta blocked her path.

“I don’t want anyone coming in here when I’m gone. I don’t want to feel I have to lock the door every time I take the dog out. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

Henrietta turned her back to her.

“How is your leg?”

“Better, thanks.”

“Maybe sometime you’ll tell me what you were doing out there.”

Linda left the house. Now she understood why Henrietta wasn’t worried about Anna, even though a terrible murder had been committed that intersected in some way with her daughter’s life. Henrietta wasn’t worried because she knew very well where Anna was.

Lindman and Wallander were waiting in the car.

“What is it she does?” Lindman asked. “All that sheet music. Does she write popular stuff?”

“She composes the kind of music no one wants to hear,” Wallander said.

He turned to Linda.

“Isn’t that right?”

“Something like that.”

A cell phone rang. They all clutched at their pockets. It was Wallander’s phone. He listened to the caller and checked his watch.

“I’ll be right there.”

“We’re heading out to Rannesholm,” he said. “Apparently new information has come in about individuals sighted in the area over the past few days. We’ll take you home first.”

Linda asked him why he hadn’t confronted Henrietta about the conflicting descriptions of Peter Stigström’s hair.

“I decided to sit on it,” he said. “Sometimes these things need time to ripen.”

Then they talked about Henrietta’s apparent lack of concern for her daughter’s safety.

“She knows where Anna is,” Wallander said. “There’s no other way to account for it. Why she’s lying is a mystery, though I expect we’ll find the answer sooner or later if we keep trying. But it’s not a top priority for us at this point.”

They drove on in silence. Linda wanted to ask about the investigation out at Rannesholm but felt it would be wiser to wait. They stopped outside the apartment on Mariagatan.

“Could you turn off the engine for a minute?” Wallander turned around so he could see Linda. “Let me repeat what I just said. I’m satisfied that no harm has come to Anna. Her mother knows where she is and why she’s staying away. We don’t have the manpower to investigate this any further. But there is nothing to stop you from going to Lund and talking to her friends there. Just do me a favor and don’t pretend to be a police officer.”

Linda got out and waved them off. It was only as she was opening the front door that she thought of something that Anna had said. Was it the last time before she disappeared? Linda scoured her memory but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

The next day Linda got up early. The apartment was empty and her father had clearly not been home at all since the day before. She left shortly after eight. The sun was shining and it was unusually warm. Because she had plenty of time, she decided to take the coastal highway toward Trelleborg and turn up north to Lund once she got to Anderslöv. She listened to the news on the radio but there was nothing about Birgitta Medberg.

Then her cell phone rang. It was her dad.

“Where are you?”

“On my way to Lund. Why are you calling?”

“I just wanted to see if I needed to wake you up.”

“You didn’t have to do that. By the way, I saw you never made it home last night.”

“I slept a while at the manor. We’ve staked out a few rooms for the time being.”

“How is it going?”

“I’ll tell you later. Bye.”

She put the phone back in her pocket. She found the right street in inner-city Lund, found a place to park the car, and bought herself an ice cream. Why had her father called? He’s trying to control me, she thought.

The house Anna shared was a two-story wooden building with a small garden in front. The gate was rusty and about to fall off its hinges. Linda rang the doorbell, but no one answered. She rang again and strained her ears. She didn’t hear a ringing on the inside, so she started to knock loudly. Finally a shadow appeared on the other side of the glass inlay. The man who opened the door was in his twenties, his face covered in acne. He was wearing jeans, an undershirt, and a large brown robe with big holes. He reeked of sweat.

“I’m looking for Anna Westin,” Linda said.

“She’s not in.”

“But she lives here?”

The man stepped aside so Linda could enter. She felt his eyes on the back of her head when she walked past him.

“She has the room behind the kitchen,” he said.

They walked into the kitchen, which was a mess of dirty dishes and leftover food. How can she live in this shit? Linda thought.

She reluctantly stretched out her hand to shake his, shuddering at his limp and clammy handshake.

“Zacharias,” he said. “I don’t think her door’s locked, but she doesn’t like anyone to go in there.”

“I’m one of her closest friends. If she hadn’t wanted me to go in, she would have locked the door.”

“How am I supposed to know you’re her friend?”

Linda felt like pushing him out of the kitchen, but pulled herself together.

“When did you see her last?”

He stepped back.

“What is this — a cross-examination?”

“Not at all. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her and she hasn’t gotten back to me.”

Zacharias kept staring at her.

“Let’s go into the living room,” he said.

She followed him into a room full of shabby, mismatched furniture. A torn poster of Che Guevara’s face hung on one wall, a tapestry embroidered with some words about the joys of home on the other. Zacharias sat down at a table with a chess set. Linda sat across from him, which was as far away as she could get.

“What do you study?” she asked.

“I don’t. I play chess.”

“And you make a living from that?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t live any other way.”

“I don’t even know how all the pieces move.”

“I can show you, if you like.”

Not a chance, Linda thought. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can.

“How many of you live here?”

“It depends. Right now there’s four of us: Margareta Olsson, who studies economics, me, Peter Engbom, who is supposed to be majoring in physics but is currently mired in the history of religion, and then Anna.”

“Who is studying medicine,” Linda filled in.

The facial movement was almost imperceptible, but she caught it. His face had registered surprise. At the same time she caught hold of the thought she had had the night before.

“When did you see her last?”

“I don’t have a good memory for these things. It may have been yesterday or a week ago. I’m in the middle of a study of Capablanca’s most accomplished endgames. Sometimes I think it should be possible to transcribe chess moves like music. In which case Capablanca’s games would be fugues or enormous masses.”

Another nut interested in unplayable music, she thought.

“That sounds interesting,” she said and got up. “Is anyone else home right now?”

“No, just me.”

Linda walked back to the kitchen, with Zacharias at her heels.

“I’m going in now, whatever you say.”

“Anna won’t like it.”

“You can always try to stop me.”

He watched her as she opened the door and walked in. Anna’s room must at one time have been a kitchen maid’s room. It was small and narrow. Linda sat down on the bed and looked around. Zacharias appeared in the doorway. Linda suddenly had the feeling he was going to throw himself on top of her. She got up and he took a step back but kept watching her. It was no use. She wanted to pull out the desk drawers but as long as he was watching she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“When do the others get home?”

“I don’t know.”

Linda walked out into the kitchen again. He smiled at her, revealing a row of yellow teeth. She was starting to feel sick and decided to leave.

“I can show you all the chess moves,” he said.

She opened the front door and paused on the steps.

“If I were you I’d spend some much-needed time in the shower,” she said and turned on her heel.

She heard the door slam shut behind her. What a waste of time, she thought angrily. The only thing she had managed to do was to demonstrate her weaknesses. She kicked open the gate. It hit the mailbox sitting on a fence post. She stopped and turned around. The front door was closed, and she couldn’t see anyone looking out of a window. She opened the mailbox. There were two letters. She picked them up. One was addressed to Margareta Olsson from a travel agency in Gothenburg. The other was addressed by hand, to Anna. Linda hesitated for a moment, then took it with her to the car. First I read her journal, then I open her mail, she thought. But I’m doing it because I’m worried about her. Inside the envelope was a folded piece of paper. She flinched when she opened it; a dried, pressed spider fell out onto her lap.

The message was short, apparently incomplete, and without a signature.

We’re in the new house, in Lestarp, behind the church, first road on the left, a red mark on an old oak tree, back there. Let us never underestimate the power of Satan. And yet we await a mighty angel descending from the heavens in a cloud of glory. .

Linda laid the letter on the passenger seat. She thought back to the insight she had had back in the house. It was the one thing she could thank that smelly chess-player for. He had mentioned what everyone who lived in the house studied, as well as their names. But Anna was just Anna. She was studying medicine ostensibly to become a physician. But what had Anna said when she told Linda about seeing her father in Malmö? She had seen a woman who had collapsed in the street, someone who needed help. And she had said that she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Linda was now struck by the incongruity of this statement coming from someone who professed to want to be a doctor.

She looked at the letter beside her. What did it mean? We await a mighty angel descending from the heavens in a cloud of glory.

The sun was strong. It was the beginning of September, but it was one of the warmest days of the summer. She took a map of Skåne out of the glove compartment. Lestarp was between Lund and Sjöbo. Linda pushed down the sun visor. It’s so childish, she thought. This business with the dried spider, the kind that falls out of lamp shades. But Anna is missing. This childishness exists alongside the reality, the reality of a little gingerbread house in the forest. Hands at prayer and a severed head.

It was as if she only now fully understood what she had seen in the hut that day. And Anna was no longer the person she thought she knew. Maybe she isn’t even studying medicine. Maybe this is the day I realize I know nothing about Anna Westin. She’s dissolving in an unfathomable fog.

Linda was not aware of formulating a conscious plan as such; she just started driving toward Lestarp. It was almost thirty degrees Celsius in the shade.

23

Linda parked outside the church in Lestarp. She could see that it had been recently renovated. The newly painted doors gleamed. A small black-and-gold plaque above them was inscribed 1851. Linda remembered her grandfather saying something about his own grandfather drowning in a storm at sea that very year. She thought about him as she looked for a bathroom in the vestibule. It was located in the crypt. The cool air felt good to her after the heat outside. I only remember important years, her grandfather had said. A year when someone drowns in a terrible accident, or when someone, like you, is born.

When she had finished, she washed her hands thoroughly as if she were washing off the remains of the chess-playing Zacharias’s limp handshake. She looked at her face in the mirror. It passed muster, she decided. Her mouth was stern as always, her nose a little big, but her eyes were arresting and her teeth were good. She shuddered at the thought of the chess-player trying to kiss her, and hurried back up the stairs. An old man was walking in carrying a box of candles. She held the doors open. He put the box down and then placed his hands on his back.

“You would think God could spare his devoted servant from the trials of back pain,” he said in a low voice. Linda realized he was keeping his voice down because someone was sitting in the pews. She thought at first it was a man, then saw she was mistaken.

“Gudrun lost two children,” the old man whispered. “She comes here every single day.”

“What happened?”

“They were run over by a train, a terrible tragedy. One of the ambulance drivers who took care of their remains lost his mind.”

He picked up the box again and continued up the aisle. Linda walked back out into the sun. Death is all around me, she thought, calling out to me and trying to deceive me. I don’t like churches, or the sight of women crying. How does that mesh with wanting to become a police officer? Does it make any more sense than Anna not being able to stand the sight of blood or of people collapsing in the street? Maybe you can want to become a doctor or a police officer for the same reason: to see if you have what it takes.

Linda wandered into the little cemetery attached to the church. Walking along the row of headstones was like perusing the shelves of a library. Every headstone was like a folder or the cover of a book. Here, for example, lay the householder Johan Ludde and his wife Linnea. They had been buried for ninety-six years, but he was seventy-six when he died, and she was only forty-one. There was a story here, in this poorly tended grave. She kept browsing the headstones, wondering what her own would look like. A headstone that was overgrown caught her eye. She crouched down and cleared moss and earth from its face. SOFIA 1854–1869. Fifteen years old. Had she too teetered on a bridge railing, but with no one to help her?

She left the car parked where it was and followed the narrow road that led to the back of the church on foot. She came upon the tree with the red mark almost immediately and turned onto a road that led down a small hill. The house was old and worn, the main part whitewashed stone with a slate roof, an addition built of rustic red-painted wood. Linda stopped and looked around. It was absolutely quiet. A rusty, overgrown tractor stood to one side, by some apple trees. Then the front door opened and a woman in white clothes started walking out to greet Linda, who didn’t understand how she had been spotted. She hadn’t seen anyone and she was still partly hidden by the trees. But the woman was making her way briskly straight for her, smiling. She was about Linda’s age.

“I saw that you needed help,” she said when she was close enough. She spoke a mixture of Danish and English.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Linda said. “Anna Westin.”

The woman smiled.

“We have no use for names here. Come with me. You may find this friend you are looking for.”

The mildness of her voice made Linda suspicious. Was she walking into a trap? She followed the woman into the cool interior of the main house. It took some time for Linda to see clearly. The slowness of her eyes to adjust from bright outdoor light to dim interiors was one of her few physical weaknesses, one she had discovered during her time at the academy.

All of the walls on the inside were also whitewashed, with no rugs on the bare, broad planks of the floor. There was no furniture, but a large black wooden cross hung between two arched windows. People sat along the walls, directly on the floor. Many with their arms wrapped around their knees, all silent. They were of all ages and in different styles of dress. One man with short hair was wearing a dark suit and tie; by his side was an older woman in very simple clothes. Linda looked all around but could not pick out Anna among them. The woman who had come out to greet her looked inquiringly at her, but Linda shook her head.

“There’s one more room,” the woman said.

Linda followed. The wooden walls of the next room were also painted white. These windows were far less elaborate. Here too people sat along the walls, but Linda did not see anyone who looked like Anna. What was going on in this house? What had the letter said? A mighty angel in a cloud of glory?

“Let us go out again,” said the woman.

She led Linda across the lawn, around the side of the house to a group of stone furniture in the shadow of a beech tree. Linda’s curiosity was now fully engaged. Somehow these people had something to do with Anna. She decided to come clean.

“The friend I’m looking for is missing. I found a letter in her mailbox that described this place.”

“Can you tell me what she looks like?”

I don’t like this, Linda thought. Her smile, her calm. It’s completely disingenuous and makes my skin crawl. Like when I shook that chess-player’s hand.

Linda gave her Anna’s description. The woman’s smile never wavered.

“I don’t think I’ve seen her,” she said. “Do you have the letter with you?”

“I left it in the car.”

“And where is the car?”

“I parked it over by the church. It’s a red VW Golf. The letter is lying on the front seat. I left the car unlocked, actually, which I know is careless of me.”

The woman was silent. Linda felt uncomfortable.

“What do you do here?”

“Your friend must have told you. Everyone who is here has the mission of bringing others to our temple.”

“This is a temple?”

“What else would it be?”

Of course, Linda thought sarcastically. What was I thinking? This is clearly a temple and not simply the somewhat dilapidated remains of a humble Swedish farmstead where the owners once struggled to put food on the table.

“What is the name of your organization?”

“We don’t use names. Our community comes from within, through the air we share and breathe.”

“That sounds very deep.”

“The self-evident is always the most mysterious. The smallest crack in a musical instrument alters its timbre completely. If a whole panel falls out, the music ceases. It is the same with human beings. We cannot fully live without a higher purpose.”

Linda did not understand the answers she was getting, and didn’t like this feeling. She stopped asking questions.

“I think I’ll leave now.”

She walked away quickly without turning around, nor did she stop until she reached the car. Instead of leaving right away, she sat and looked out at the trees. The sun was shining through the leaves and into her eyes. Just as she was about to start the engine she saw a man cross the gravel yard in front of the church.

At first she only saw his outline, but when he crossed into the shade of the high trees she felt as if she had just taken a gulp of frigid air. She recognized his neck, and not just that. During the seconds before he walked back out into the blinding sun she heard Anna’s voice reverberate inside her head. The voice was very clear, telling her about the man she had seen through the hotel window. I am also sitting by a window, Linda thought. A car window. And suddenly I’m convinced I’ve just seen Anna’s father. It is completely unreasonable. But that’s what I think.

24

Is it completely ridiculous to think you can identify a person by his neck? Linda wondered. What had convinced her so completely about something she had no grounds for knowing? You can’t recognize someone you’ve never met, let alone someone you’ve only ever seen in a few snapshots and heard brief descriptions of from a person who in turn hasn’t seen him in twenty-four years.

She shook off the thought and drove back to Lund. It was early afternoon. The sun was still strong, and the heat hung oppressively over the surroundings. She parked outside the house she had visited just a few hours earlier and prepared herself for another meeting with Zacharias the chess-player. But the door was opened by a girl a few years younger than Linda with blue streaks in her hair and a chain suspended from her nostril to her ear. She was wearing black clothes in a combination of leather and vinyl. One of her shoes was black, the other white.

“There are no available rooms,” she said brusquely. “If there’s still a notice up at the student union it’s a mistake.”

“I don’t need a room. I’m looking for Anna Westin. I’m a friend of hers — my name’s Linda.”

“I don’t think she’s here, but you can take a look.”

She stepped aside and let Linda pass her. Linda cast a quick glance into the living room. The chess set was still there, but not the player.

“I was here a few hours ago,” Linda said. “I talked to the guy who plays chess.”

“You can talk to whomever you like.”

“Are you Margareta Olsson?”

“That’s my assumed name.”

Linda was taken aback. Margareta looked amused.

“My real name is Johanna von Lööf, but I prefer a simpler name. That’s why I call myself Margareta Olsson. There’s only one Johanna von Lööf in this country, but a couple of thousand Margareta Olssons. Who wants to be unique?”

“Beats me. You study law, right?”

“No. Economics.”

Margareta pointed to the kitchen.

“Are you going to see if she’s in or not?”

“You know she isn’t here, don’t you?”

“Of course I know. But there’s nothing stopping you from checking it out yourself.”

“Do you have some time to chat?”

“I have all the time in the world — don’t you?”

They sat in the kitchen. Margareta was drinking tea but she didn’t offer Linda any.

“Economics. That sounds hard.”

Margareta tossed her head with irritation.

“It is hard. Life should be hard. What did you want to know?”

“I’m looking for Anna. She’s my friend, and I want to make sure nothing has happened to her. I haven’t heard from her for a while, and that’s not like her.”

“And what can I do for you?”

“You can tell me when you last saw her.”

Margareta’s answer was caustic.

“I don’t like her. I try to have as little to do with her as possible.”

Linda had never heard that before — someone not liking Anna. She thought back to their school days. Linda had often fought with her fellow students, but she couldn’t remember Anna doing so.

“Why?”

“I think she’s stuck-up. I can generally tolerate that in others since I’m just as bad. But not in her case. There’s something about her that drives me up the wall.”

She got up and rinsed her teacup.

“It probably bothers you to hear me say this about your friend.”

“Everyone has a right to their opinion.”

Margareta sat down again.

“Then there’s another thing. Or two, more precisely. She’s stingy and she doesn’t tell the truth. You can’t trust her. Either what she says or that she won’t use all your milk.”

“That doesn’t sound like Anna.”

“Maybe the Anna who lives here is a different person. All I’m saying is I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me. We cope. I don’t eat when she’s eating and there are two bathrooms. We rarely bump into each other.”

Margareta’s cell phone rang. She answered and then left the kitchen. Linda thought about what she had just been told. More and more she was starting to realize that the Anna she had become reacquainted with was not the same Anna she had grown up with. Even though Margareta — or Johanna — didn’t make the best impression, Linda instinctively felt that she had been telling the truth. I have nothing more to do here, she thought. Anna is choosing to stay away. She has some reason for it, just as there will turn out to be a reason why she and Birgitta Medberg were in contact.

Linda got up to leave as Margareta came back into the kitchen.

“Are you angry?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“Because I’ve told you unflattering things about your friend.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Then maybe you’d like to hear more?”

They sat down at the table again. Linda felt tense.

“Do you know what she studies?”

“Medicine.”

“That’s what I thought too; we all did. But then someone told me she had been expelled from the medical school. There were rumors about plagiarism — I don’t know if that was true or not. Maybe she simply gave up. But she never said anything to us about it. She pretends that she’s still studying medicine, but she’s not.”

“What does she do?”

“She prays.”

“Prays?”

“You heard me,” Margareta said. “Prays. What you do when you go to church.”

Linda lost her temper.

“Of course I know what it is. Anna prays, you say. But where? When? How? Why?”

Margareta did not react to her outburst. Linda was grudgingly impressed by this display of self-control of a kind that she herself lacked.

“I think it’s genuine. She’s searching for something. I can understand her in a way. Personally, I’m on a quest for material wealth; other people are looking for the spiritual equivalent.”

“How do you know all of this if you don’t even talk to her?”

Margareta leaned over the table.

“I snoop, and I eavesdrop. I’m the person who hides behind curtains and hears and sees everything that goes on. I’m not kidding.”

“So she has a confidante?”

“That’s a strange word, isn’t it? ‘Confidante’ — what does it really mean? I don’t have one, and I doubt if Anna Westin does either. To be completely honest, I think she’s unusually dim-witted. God forbid I would ever be diagnosed and treated by a physician like her. Anna Westin talks to anyone who will listen. I think all of us here find her conversation a series of naïve and worthless sermons. She’s always lecturing us on moral topics. It’s enough to drive anyone insane, except perhaps our dear chess-player. He cherishes vain hopes about getting her into bed.”

“Any chance?”

“Zilch.”

“What do her lectures consist of?”

“She talks about the poverty of our daily existence. That we don’t nurture our inner selves. I don’t know exactly what she believes in, other than that she’s Christian. I tried to discuss Islam with her one time and she went ballistic. She’s a conservative Christian. More than that I don’t know. But there’s something genuine about her when she talks about her religious views. And sometimes I hear her when she’s in her room. It sounds real. That’s the only time she isn’t lying or stealing. She’s being herself. Beyond that, I can’t say.”

Margareta looked at her.

“Has something happened?”

Linda shook her head.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“But you’re worried?”

“Yes.”

Margareta got up.

“Anna Westin’s God will protect her. At least that’s what she always brags about. Her God and some earthly angel named Gabriel. I think it was an angel. I can’t remember exactly. But with that kind of protection she should be fine.”

She stretched out her hand.

“I have to go now. Are you also a student?”

“I’m a police officer. Or will be soon, that is.”

Margareta took a closer look at her.

“I’m sure you will, as many questions as you’ve been asking.”

Linda realized she had one more.

“Do you know anyone called Mirre? She left a message on Anna’s answering machine.”

“No. But I can ask the others.”

Linda gave her her phone number and left the house. She was still vaguely envious of Margareta Olsson’s poise, her self-confidence. What did she have that Linda didn’t?

The following morning, Monday, Linda was awakened by the sound of the front door slamming shut. She sat up in bed. It was six o’clock. She lay down and tried to fall back asleep. Raindrops were spattering against the windowsill. It was a sound she remembered from childhood. Raindrops, Mona’s shuffling slippered gait, and her father’s firm footsteps. Once upon a time these sounds had been her greatest source of security. She shook off her thoughts and got up. Her father had forgotten to turn the stove off, and he hadn’t finished his coffee. He’s nervous and he left in a hurry, she thought.

She pulled the paper toward her and leafed through it until she saw an article about the latest developments in the Rannesholm case. There was a short interview with her dad. It was early, he had said, and although there were almost no clues, they thought they had some leads, but he was not free to comment further for the time being. She put the paper away and thought about Anna. If Margareta Olsson was right — and she had no reason to doubt she was telling the truth — Anna had turned into a very different person. But why was she staying away, and why did she claim to have seen her father? Why wasn’t Henrietta telling the truth? And that man that Linda had seen walk past the front of the church — why was she convinced it was Anna’s father?

And the other crucial question: what was the connection between Anna and Birgitta Medberg?

Linda had trouble separating all these thoughts. She heated up the coffee and wrote everything down on a piece of paper. Then she crumpled it up and threw it away. I have to talk to Zeba, she thought. I’ll tell her everything. She’s smart. She never loses touch with reality. She’ll give me some good ideas. Linda showered, put her clothes on, and then called Zeba. Her answering machine picked up. Linda tried her cell phone but it was out of range. Since it was raining, she could hardly have taken her boy out for a walk. Maybe she was with her cousin.

Linda was impatient and irritated. She thought about calling her father, possibly even her mother, just to have someone to talk to. She decided she didn’t want to interrupt her father. And a conversation with Mona could drag on forever. She didn’t need that. She pulled on her boots and a rain jacket and walked down to the car. She was getting used to having a car. That was dangerous. When Anna came back, Linda would have to start walking places again. When she couldn’t borrow her dad’s car. She drove out of the city and stopped at a gas station. A man at the next pump nodded to her. She recognized his face without being able to place him until she was standing in line at the cashier’s window. It was Sten Widén, her father’s friend who had cancer.

“It’s Linda, isn’t it?”

His voice was hoarse and weak.

“Yes. Sten, right?”

He laughed, something that seemed to cost him an effort.

“I remember you as a little girl. And suddenly you’re all grown. A police officer no less.”

“How are the horses?”

He didn’t answer until she had finished paying and they were walking back to their cars.

“Your dad has probably told you what’s going on,” Widén said. “I have cancer and I’m going to die soon. I’m selling the last of the horses next week. That’s how it is. Good luck with your life.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just got into his muddy Volvo and drove away. Linda watched him leave and could only think one thing: how grateful she was that she wasn’t the one selling her last horse.

She drove to Lestarp and parked by the church. Someone must know, she thought. If Anna isn’t here, where is she? Linda pulled up the hood of her yellow rain jacket and hurried down the road behind the church. The yard to the house was deserted. The old tractor was wet and shiny from the rain. She banged on the front door and it swung open. But no one had opened it; it hadn’t been properly closed. She called out, but no one answered. The house was empty, abandoned. Nothing was left. She saw that they had taken the black cross on the wall. It felt as if the house had been empty for a long time.

Linda stood in the middle of the room. The man in the sun, she thought. The one I saw yesterday and thought was Anna’s father. He came here, and today everyone is gone.

She left the house and drove to Rannesholm. There she was told that Wallander was up at the manor, conducting a meeting with his closest associates. She walked over in the rain and settled down to wait for him in the big hall. She thought about the last thing Margareta Olsson had said, something about Anna Westin not having to worry about her safety because she had God and an earthly guardian angel named Gabriel for protectors. It seemed important. She just couldn’t think how.

25

Linda never stopped being surprised by her father, by his rapid mood changes, that is. When she saw him come through a door in the large hall at Rannesholm manor she expected him to be tired, anxious, and downcast. But he was in good spirits. He sat down next to her and launched into a long-winded story about a time he had a left a pair of gloves at a restaurant and been offered a broken umbrella instead. Is he going crazy? she thought. Then he left to go to the bathroom and Martinsson stopped briefly on his way out. He told her that her father had been in a relatively good mood ever since she had moved back to town. Martinsson hurried on when Wallander returned. He sat down so heavily on the old sofa that the springs groaned. She told him about running into Sten Widén at the gas station.

“He’s remarkably stoic about his fate,” Wallander said. “He reminds me of Rydberg, who had the same calm attitude. I hope that will turn out to be true for me one day, that I’ll be stronger than I think.”

Some officers carrying cases of equipment walked by. Then the room was silent.

“Are you making progress?” Linda asked.

“Not really, or slowly, I should say. The worse the crime, the more impatient one becomes about solving it, even though in these cases patience is critical. I once knew an officer in Malmö — Birch — who used to compare our investigative work to that of a surgeon facing a complicated operation. The calm, time, and patience needed for such procedures are key ingredients even for us. Birch is dead now, as it happens. He drowned in a little lake. He went swimming, must have suffered a cramp, no one heard him. He should have known better, of course, but now he’s dead. I feel as if people are dying all around me, although I know it’s irrational. Births and deaths are going on all around us all the time. But the dying seems more pronounced when you reach the front of the line. Now that my father is dead there’s no one ahead of me anymore.”

Wallander looked down at his hands. Then he turned to her and smiled.

“What was it you asked me?”

“How is the investigation going?”

“We haven’t found a single trace of the perpetrator. We have no idea who was living in that hut.”

“What do you think?”

“You know you should never ask me that. Never what I think, only what I know or what I suspect.”

“I’m curious.”

He sighed.

“I’ll make an exception. I think Birgitta Medberg came upon the hut accidentally in her search for the pilgrim trail. The person who was there panicked or became enraged and killed her. But the fact that he dismembered the body complicates the picture.”

“Have you found the rest of it?”

“We have divers in the lake and a canine unit combing the forest. They haven’t found anything yet.”

He got ready to get up off the sofa.

“I take it there’s something you want to tell me.”

Linda told him in great detail about her visit to Anna’s house in Lund as well as to the house in Lestarp.

“Too many words,” he said when she finished.

“I’m working on it. Did you get the gist?”

“Yes.”

“Then it couldn’t have been too bad.”

“I’d give it a beta query,” Wallander said.

“What’s a beta query?”

“When I was in school, anything less than a beta query was considered a failing grade.”

“So what do you think I should do?”

“Stop worrying. You haven’t been listening to me. What happened to Birgitta Medberg was a mishap, one of almost biblical proportions. She took the wrong path. If I’m not mistaken, Birgitta Medberg had excruciatingly bad luck. Therefore there’s no longer any reason to think Anna is in any danger. The journal shows there is a connection between the two of them, but it’s no longer of concern to us.”

Ann-Britt Höglund and Lisa Holgersson came walking by at a brisk clip. Holgersson nodded kindly to Linda. Höglund didn’t seem to notice her. Wallander got up.

“Go home now,” he said.

“We could have used an extra set of hands,” Holgersson said. “I wish the money was there. When is it you start?”

“Next Monday.”

“Good.”

Linda watched them walking out together, and then she also left the manor. It was raining and getting colder, as if the weather couldn’t make up its mind. She walked back to the car. The house behind the church had sparked her curiosity. Why were they all gone? I can at least find out who the owner of the house is, she thought. I don’t need a permit or a police uniform for that. She drove back to Lestarp and parked in her usual spot. The doors to the church were half-open. After hesitating for a moment, she walked in. The old man she had talked to before was in the vestibule. He recognized her.

“Can’t stay away from our beautiful church?”

“I came by to ask you something.”

“Isn’t that why we all come here? To find answers to our questions?”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant. I was thinking about the house behind the church. Do you know who owns it?”

“It’s been in many different hands. When I was young, a man with one leg shorter than the other lived there. His name was Johannes Pålsson. He worked as a day laborer up at Stigby farmstead and was good at mending china. The last few years he lived alone. He moved the pigs into the living room and the chickens into the kitchen. That kind of thing went on in those days. When he was gone, someone else used the place as storage for grain. Then there was a horse breeder, and after that, sometime in the 1960s, the house was sold to someone whose name I’ve forgotten.”

“You don’t know who owns it now?”

“Oh, I’ve seen people come and go lately. They’re peaceful and discreet. Some say they use the house for meditation. They’ve never bothered us. But I don’t know who the owner is. You should be able to find out through the property-tax records.”

Linda thought for a moment. What would her father have done?

“Who knows all the gossip in this village?”

He looked at her with a smile.

“That would be me, wouldn’t it?”

“But apart from you. If there’s anyone who would know who owns the house, who would it be?”

“Maybe Sara Edén, the retired schoolteacher. She lives in the little house next to the car-repair shop. She devotes her time to talking on the phone. She knows everything that’s going on, and fills in the rest as needed. She’s a good sort, just insatiably curious.”

“What will happen if I ring her doorbell?”

“You’ll make a lonely old woman’s day.”

The front door opened wider and the grieving woman walked in. She met Linda’s gaze before walking to her regular pew.

“Every day,” the old man said. “The same time, the same face, the same grief.”

Linda left the church and walked down to the house. It was still empty. She returned to the church, decided to let the car stay where it was, and walked down the hill to Rune’s Auto and Tractor. On one side of the shop there was a ramshackle pile of spare car parts; on the other there was a high fence. Linda suspected that the retired schoolteacher didn’t care for a view of a car-repair shop. She opened the gate and stepped into a well-tended garden. An elderly woman was kneeling over a flowerbed. She stood up when she heard Linda come in.

“Who are you?” she asked sternly.

“My name is Linda. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

Sara Edén came over to where Linda was standing, holding a garden shovel aggressively outstretched. It occurred to Linda that there were people who were the human equivalent of ill-tempered dogs.

“Why would you want to ask me questions?”

“I’m looking for a friend who’s disappeared.”

Sara Edén looked skeptically at her.

“Isn’t that something for the police? Looking for missing persons?”

“I am from the police.”

“Then perhaps you’ll show me your ID. That’s my right, my older brother informed me. He was the headmaster at a school in Stockholm. He lived to be one hundred and one years old despite his bothersome colleagues and even more bothersome students.”

“I don’t have an ID card yet. I’m still in training.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it then. Are you strong?”

“Fairly.”

Sara Edén pointed to a wheelbarrow that was filled to the brim with discarded plants and weeds.

“There’s a compost pile around the back of the house, but my back has been giving me a bit of trouble. I must have slept in a strange position.”

Linda took hold of the wheelbarrow. It was very heavy, but she managed to coax it around to the compost pile. When she had finished emptying it, Edén showed a kindlier side. There were some chairs and a table tucked into a little arbor.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” she asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Then you’ll have to pick it up yourself from the vending machine by the furniture warehouse on the road out to Ystad. I don’t drink coffee — or tea for that matter. But I can offer you a glass of mineral water.”

“No, thank you.”

They sat down. Linda had no trouble imagining Ms. Edén as a schoolteacher. She probably saw Linda as an unruly schoolgirl.

“Well, tell me what happened.”

Linda gave her a brief outline of the events and said she had traced Anna to the house behind the church. She was careful not to let on how worried she was.

“We were supposed to meet,” she said. “But something happened.”

The old lady looked doubtful.

“And how do you believe that I can be of assistance?”

“I’m trying to find out who owns that house.”

“In the olden days, one always knew who was who and who owned what. But in this day and age, there’s no way of telling. One day I’ll find out I’ve been living next to an escaped criminal.”

“I thought perhaps in such a small town people still knew these things.”

“There has been a great number of comings and goings in that house during the past while, but nothing that caused any disturbance. If I have understood it correctly, the people there are involved in some kind of health organization. Since I take good care of myself and am not planning to give my departed brother the satisfaction of dying at a younger age, I watch what I eat and drink, and I am curious about this new so-called alternative medicine. I went up to the house one time and spoke to a very friendly English-speaking lady. She gave me a pamphlet. I don’t remember what the organization was called, but they espoused meditation and certain natural juices for promoting health.”

“Did you ever go back?”

“The whole thing was far too vague for my tastes.”

“Do you still have the pamphlet?”

Edén nodded toward the compost.

“I doubt there’s anything left of it by now.”

Linda tried to think of something else to ask, but she didn’t see the point of pursuing it further. She got up.

“No more questions?”

“No.”

They walked back to the front of the house.

“I dread the fall,” Sara Edén said. “I’m afraid of the creeping fog and the rain and the noisy crows in their treetops. The only thing that keeps my spirits up is the thought of the spring flowers I’m planting right now.”

Linda walked out to the gate.

“There may be something else,” the old lady said.

They were now standing on either side of the gate.

“There was a Norwegian,” she said. “I sometimes go in to Rune’s shop and complain if they’re making too much of a racket on a Sunday. I think Rune is a little afraid of me. He’s the kind of person who never grows out of the respect he had for his teachers. The noise usually stops. But one day he told me about a Norwegian who had just been by to fill up his car and who paid with a thousand-kronor note. Rune isn’t used to bills that big. He said something about the Norwegian owning the house up there.”

“So I should ask Rune?”

“Only if you have time on your hands. He’s on vacation in Thailand right now. I don’t even want to think about what he might be getting up to.”

Linda thought for a moment.

“A Norwegian. Did he say what he looked like?”

“No. If I were in your place I would ask the people who most likely handled the sale of the house. That would be the Sparbank real estate division. They have an office in town. They may know.”

Linda left. She thought that Sara Edén was a person she would like to know more about. She crossed the street, passed a hair salon, and stepped into the tiny Sparbank office. There was only one person inside; he looked up when she came in. Linda asked him her question and the answer came without his having to consult any binders or notes.

“That’s right,” he said. “We handled the sale of that house. The seller was a Malmö dentist by the name of Sved. He had used the house as a summer retreat for a while but grown tired of it. We advertised the property online and in the Ystad Allehanda. A Norwegian came in and demanded to see the place. I asked one of the Skurup realtors to take care of him. That’s fairly normal, since I run the branch by myself and can’t always take on the extra responsibility for real-estate sales. Two days later the sale was finalized. As far as I recall, the Norwegian paid cash. They’ve got money coming out their ears these days.”

The last comment revealed his grumbling displeasure at the vibrant Norwegian economy. But Linda was more interested in the Norwegian’s name.

“I don’t have the papers here, but I can call the Skurup office.”

A client walked into the branch, an old man who walked with the help of two canes.

“Please excuse me while I attend to Mr. Alfredsson first,” the man behind the counter said.

Linda waited impatiently. It took what seemed like an endless amount of time before the old man was finished. Linda held the door open for him. The man behind the counter placed his call, and after about a minute he received an answer that he wrote down on a piece of paper. He finished the conversation and pushed the note over to Linda. She read: Torgeir Langas.

“It’s possible he spells the last name with a double ‘a,’ that would be Langaas.”

“What’s his address?”

“You only asked me for his name.”

Linda nodded.

“If you need more information, you can turn to the Skurup office directly. Do you mind my asking why you so urgently need to contact the owner of the house?”

“I may want to buy it,” Linda said and left.

She hurried up to the car. Now she had a name. As soon as she opened the car door, she noticed that something was amiss. A receipt that had been on the dashboard was on the floor, a matchbox had been moved. She had left the car unlocked; someone had been in it while she was gone.

Hardly a thief, she thought. The car radio is still here. But who’s been in the car? Why?

26

The first thought that ran through Linda’s head was completely irrational: Mom did this. She’s been rifling through my stuff again like she used to. Linda climbed hesitantly into the car. Another thought ran through her like electric current: a bomb. Something was going to explode and tear her to pieces. But of course there was no bomb. A bird had left a big dropping on the windshield, that was all. Now she noticed that the seat had been pushed back. The person who had been here was taller than she was. So tall he or she had to adjust the seat in order to slip behind the wheel. She sniffed for new scents but couldn’t pick anything out, no aftershave or perfume. She looked everywhere. Something was different about the black plastic cup of loose change that Anna had taped behind the gearshift, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Linda’s thoughts returned to her mother. The game of cat-and-mouse had gone on for most of her childhood. She couldn’t remember the exact moment when she realized that her mother was constantly looking through her things in search of who knows what kind of secrets. Maybe it had started when Linda was eight or nine and noticed when she came home from school that something had changed about her room. At first she had simply thought she must have been wrong. The red cardigan had been lying over the green sweater like that, not the other way around. She had even asked Mona, who had snapped at her. That was when the suspicion had been born and the game of cat-and-mouse started in earnest. She had left traps for Mona among her clothes, toys, and books. But it was as if Mona immediately sensed what was going on. Linda laid increasingly elaborate traps and even noted the exact arrangement of her things in a notebook so that she could catch her mother.

Linda kept looking around the car. A mom has been here, a mom who may have been either a man or a woman. Snooping in their kids’ stuff is more common than you’d think. Most of my friends had at least one parent who did it. She thought about her dad. He had never looked through her things. Sometimes she had seen him peer in through her half-open door to make sure she was really there. But he never made surreptitious expeditions into her life. That had always been Mona.

She concentrated on the question of what kind of person had been in the car. Taking the radio would have been a simple way to cover his or her tracks. Then Linda would simply assume there had been a normal break-in and chastise herself for being so lazy she didn’t even lock the car. This is not a particularly cunning mom, she thought.

She didn’t get any further. There was no conclusion to be drawn, no answer as to who and why. She readjusted the front seat, got out, and looked around. A man walked by in the blinding sun. I saw his back and thought it was Anna’s father. Linda shook her head in irritation. Anna had just been imagining things when she said she saw her father in the street. Maybe her acute disappointment was what made her take off for a few days. She had done that before — taken a trip without advance warning. But Zeba had said she always let at least one person know where she was going.

Who did she tell this time? Linda wondered.

She walked back over the gravel yard in front of the church, glancing up at some pigeons circling the bell tower, and then continued down to the house. A man named Torgeir Langaas bought the house, she thought. He paid cash.

She walked around to the back of the house, looking thoughtfully but absentmindedly at the stone furniture. There were several black and red currant bushes. She picked a few strands of berries and ate them. Her memories of Mona returned. Linda didn’t think she had snooped out of sheer curiosity; rather, it seemed that she had been motivated by fear. Why had she been so afraid? Was she afraid I wasn’t who she thought I was? A nine-year-old can play roles and have her secrets, but hardly of a magnitude that requires continuous snooping in order to truly understand her, especially if she is your own child.

Open warfare had only broken out when Mona started reading Linda’s diary. Linda had been thirteen by then and had been hiding her diary behind a loose panel at the back of a closet. At first she had thought it was safe there, but one day she realized that her mother had found her secret hiding spot. The diary had been pushed back a few centimeters too far. She could still remember the rage she had experienced. That time she really hated her mother.

There was an epilogue to that memory. Linda had decided to set another trap for her mother. This time she simply wrote a message on the first blank page in the diary stating that she knew her mother was reading it, that she was snooping in all her things. She put the diary back in its hiding place and started walking to school. About halfway there she slowed down and decided to cut class, since she knew she would not be able to concentrate anyway. She spent the day wandering around in the shops downtown. When she came home she broke out in a cold sweat, but her mother greeted her as if nothing had happened. Late that evening after they had all gone to bed Linda got out of bed, took out the diary, and saw that her mother had written — without apology or explanation — “I won’t read it anymore, I promise.”

Linda picked a few more berries. We never talked about it, she thought. I think she stopped snooping altogether after that, but I could never be sure. Maybe she got better at covering her tracks, maybe I stopped caring as much. But we never talked about it.

The real estate agent’s name was Ture Magnusson and he was in the middle of a transaction involving the sale of a house in Trunnerup to a retired German couple. Linda skimmed through a folder of houses for sale while she waited. Ture Magnusson spoke German very badly. Finally he got up and walked over to her. He smiled.

“They want a moment alone,” he said and introduced himself. “These things tend to take time. What can I do for you?”

Linda gave him her story without playing the policewoman this time. Ture Magnusson nodded before she was even finished. He seemed to remember the deal without having to look it up.

“That house was indeed bought by a Norwegian,” he said. “A pleasant sort, very quick to make up his mind. He was what you would call an ideal client, paid in cash, no hesitation, no second thoughts.”

“How can I get in touch with him? I’m interested in the house.”

Ture Magnusson leaned back and seemed to take stock of her. His chair creaked as he pushed onto the back legs of the chair and balanced up against the wall.

“To be perfectly honest, he paid too much for that house. I shouldn’t tell you that, but it’s true. I can show you at least three other places in much better condition, in more beautiful surroundings going for less.”

“This is the house I want. I’d like to at least ask the owner if he would consider selling.”

“Of course. I understand. ‘Torgeir Langaas was his name,’” Ture Magnusson said, singing the last sentence. He had a good voice. He went into the next room and soon reappeared with an opened folder.

“Torgeir Langaas,” he read. “He spells his last name with a double ‘a’ at the end. He was born somewhere called Baerum, forty-three years old.”

“Where in Norway does he live?”

“Nowhere. He lives in Copenhagen.”

Ture Magnusson put the folder down in front of her so she could see. Nedergade 12.

“What sort of man would you say he was?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I want to know if there’s any point in looking him up, in your opinion.”

Ture Magnusson leaned back up against the wall.

“It was clear from the moment I laid eyes on him that Torgeir Langaas meant business. He was very courteous. He had already picked out the house he wanted. We drove out there together and inspected the property; he didn’t ask any questions. When we returned he pulled the cash out of his shoulder bag. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me except on one other occasion. The other was when one of our young tennis stars came with a suitcase full of bank notes and bought a large estate in West Vemmenhög. He’s never been there since, as far as I know.”

Linda wrote down Langaas’s address in Copenhagen and prepared to leave.

“Come to think of it, there was something else I noticed about him.”

“What was it?”

Ture Magnusson shook his head slowly.

“It wasn’t anything remarkable, just that he turned around a lot, as if he were afraid of running into someone he knew. He also excused himself a number of times, and when he returned from the bathroom the last time, his eyes were glazed over.”

“Had he been crying?”

“No, I would almost say he seemed high.”

“Alcohol?”

“I would have smelled that on his breath. I guess he could have been drinking vodka.”

Linda tried to think of something else to ask.

“But respectful, pleasant,” Magnusson said again. “Perhaps he’ll sell you the house. Who knows?”

“What did he look like?”

“He had a normal-looking face. What I remember most about him is his eyes, not simply because they were glazed over but because there was something disturbing about them. Some people would perhaps even have found his look menacing.”

“And yet his manner struck you as pleasant?”

“Oh, very. An ideal client, as I said. I bought myself a very nice bottle of wine that evening. Just to celebrate such an easy day’s work.”

Linda left the real-estate office. This is another step on the way, she thought. I can go to Copenhagen and find this Torgeir Langaas. I don’t know exactly why — perhaps it helps to diminish my anxieties. I’m treating this as if Anna simply decided to go away without remembering to mention it to me.

Linda drove toward Malmö. Just before the turnoff to Jägersro and the Öresund Bridge she decided to make an unexpected visit. She pulled up outside the house in Limhamn, parked, and walked in through the gate. A car was pulled into the driveway. She stopped herself as she was about to ring the doorbell; why, she couldn’t say. Instead she walked around to the back of the house to the glassed-in porch. The garden was well-tended. The gravel path was even raked. The door to the porch was slightly ajar. She pushed it open farther and listened. It was quiet, but she was sure that someone was home. These people spent far too much time locking doors and checking their alarm system. She walked into the living room, looking at the painting over the sofa. It was a picture she had often looked at as a child, fascinated and disturbed by the brown bear shot through with flames and about to explode. She still found it disturbing. Her dad had won it in a lottery and given it to her mother as a birthday present.

Linda heard a noise in the kitchen and walked to the door. Her “hello” stuck in her throat. Mona was standing at the kitchen counter. She was naked and drinking vodka straight from the bottle.

27

Afterward Linda would think that it had been like staring at an image from her past. An image that reached beyond the reality of her mother standing there naked with a bottle of vodka, to something else, an impression, a memory she only managed to grasp when she drew a deep breath. She had experienced the same thing herself once.

She had been only fourteen years old, in the midst of those terrible teenage years when nothing seems possible or comprehensible, but where everything is also straightforward, easy to see through. All parts of the body vibrate with a new hunger. It had happened during a brief period in her life when not only her father but even her mother disappeared off to work all day, having pulled herself out of an unfulfilling stay-at-home existence to work for a shipping company. This finally enabled Linda to be alone for a few hours after school, or to bring friends home with her. She was happy.

That was the time Torbjörn came into her life. He was her first real boyfriend, one whom Linda imagined looked much like Clint Eastwood would have looked at fifteen. Torbjörn Rackestad was half-Danish, a quarter Swedish, and a quarter Native American, a fact that not only gave him a beautiful face but a tinge of exoticism.

It was with him that Linda started a serious investigation into all that went under the rubric of love. They were slowly approaching the moment of truth, although Linda equivocated. One day, when they were sprawled half-naked on her bed, the door opened. It was Mona. She had had a fight with her boss and left work early. Linda still broke out into a sweat when she remembered the shock she had felt. At the time she had started laughing hysterically. Since she had buried her face in her hands she didn’t know exactly how Torbjörn had reacted, but he must have pulled his clothes on and left the apartment soon afterward.

Mona hadn’t lingered in the doorway. She had simply shot her a look that Linda could never quite describe. There had been everything in that look from despair to a kind of smug triumph in finally having her worst fears about her daughter’s nature confirmed. When Linda eventually went out into the living room, they had had a shouting match. Linda could still recall Mona’s repeated war cry: I don’t give a shit what you do as long as you don’t get pregnant. Linda could also hear echoes of her own shouts — their sound, not the words. She remembered the embarrassment, the fury, and the sense of humiliation.

All these thoughts ran through her head as she stared at the nude older woman by the refrigerator. It also occurred to her that she hadn’t seen her mother naked since she was a little girl. Mona had gained a lot of weight, the extra flesh spilling out in unappealing bulges. Linda’s face registered disgust, a brief unconscious expression but distinct enough for Mona to see it and snap out of her initial shock. She slammed the bottle down on the counter and pulled the refrigerator door open as a kind of shield for her body. Linda couldn’t help giggling at the sight of her mother’s head sticking up over the door.

“What do you mean by sneaking in like this? Why can’t you ring the doorbell?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“But you can’t just barge into a person’s house!”

“How else would I find out that my mother spends her days getting pissed?”

Mona slammed the refrigerator door shut.

“I am not a drunk!” she screamed.

“You were swigging vodka straight from the bottle, Mom.”

“It’s water. I chill it before I drink it.”

They both lunged for the bottle at the same time, Mona to hide the truth, Linda to uncover it. Linda got there first and sniffed it.

“This is pure, undiluted vodka. Go and put something on. Have you taken a look at yourself recently? Soon you’ll be as big as Dad. But you’re all blubber, he’s just heavy.”

Mona grabbed the bottle out of her hands. Linda didn’t fight her. She turned her back to Mona.

“Mom, put your clothes on.”

“I can be naked in my own house if I want to.”

“It’s not yours, it’s the banker’s house.”

“His name is Olof and he happens to be my husband. We own this house together.”

“You do not. You have a prenuptial agreement. If you get divorced he keeps the house.”

“Who told you that?”

“Grandpa.”

“That old bastard. What did he know?”

Linda turned and slapped her in the face.

“Don’t say that about him.”

Mona took a step back, unbalanced more by the alcohol than the slap.

“You’re just like your dad. He hit me too.”

“Put some clothes on, for God’s sake.”

Linda watched as her naked mother took one more long swallow from the bottle. This isn’t happening, she thought. Why did I stop by? Why didn’t I go straight to Copenhagen?

Mona tripped and fell. Linda wanted to help her up but got pushed aside. Mona finally pulled herself up into a chair.

Linda went into the bathroom and got a robe, but Mona refused to put it on. Linda started to feel sick to her stomach.

“Can’t you put anything on?”

“All my clothes feel too tight.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“Can’t you at least stay for a cup of coffee?”

“Only if you put something on.”

“Olof likes to see me naked. We always walk around naked in the house.”

Now I’m becoming a mother to my mother, Linda thought, firmly guiding her mother into the robe. Mona put up no resistance. When she reached for the bottle, Linda moved it away. Then she started to make coffee. Mona followed her movements with dull eyes.

“How is Kurt?”

“He’s fine.”

“That man has never been fine in his entire life.”

“Right now he is. He’s never been better.”

“Then it must be because he’s rid of his old man — who hated him.”

Linda held her hand up as if to strike and Mona shut up. She lifted her palms in apology.

“You have no idea how much he misses him. No idea,” Linda said.

Mona got up from the chair, swaying but staying on her feet. She disappeared into the bathroom. Linda pressed her ear against the door. She heard a faucet running, but no bottles being taken from a secret stash.

When Mona reappeared she had combed her hair and washed her face. She looked around for the vodka that Linda had poured down the drain, then served the coffee. Linda suddenly felt a wave of pity for her. I never want to be like her, she thought. Never this snooping, nervous, clingy woman who never really wanted to leave Dad but was so insecure that she ended up doing the very things she didn’t want.

“I’m not usually like this,” Mona said.

“Just now I thought you said you and Olof always walk around naked.”

“I don’t drink as much as you think.”

“Mom, you used to drink next to nothing. Now I catch you stark naked in your kitchen, tossing back vodka in the middle of the day.”

“I’m not well.”

“You mean you’re sick?”

Mona started to cry, to Linda’s dismay. When had she last seen her mother cry? She would sometimes fall into a nervous, almost restless sobbing if a meal didn’t turn out well or if she had forgotten something, and she had cried when she had fought with Linda’s father. But these tears were different. Linda decided to wait them out. The sobbing stopped as suddenly as it had started. Mona blew her nose and drank her coffee.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d rather you told me what was bothering you.”

“What would that be?”

“Only you know that, not me. But clearly something’s on your mind.”

“I think Olof has met another woman. He denies it, but if there’s one thing life has taught me it’s to tell when a man is lying. I learned that from your dad.”

Linda immediately felt the need to jump to his defense.

“I don’t think he lies more than anyone else. Not any more than I do.”

“You don’t know the things I could tell you.”

“And you don’t know how little I care about that.”

“Why do you always have to be so mean?”

“I’m just telling you the truth.”

“Right now I could do with some plain old-fashioned kindness.”

Linda’s feelings for Mona had always oscillated between pity and anger, but now they seemed to have reached an unprecedented intensity. I don’t like her, she thought. My mother asks for a love I’m incapable of giving to her. I need to get out of here. She put down her cup.

“Are you leaving already?”

“I’m on my way to Copenhagen.”

“What for?”

“I don’t have time to go into it.”

“I hate Olof for what he’s doing.”

“I’ll come back another time when you’re sober.”

“Why are you so mean to me?”

“I’m not mean. I’ll call you.”

“I can’t live like this anymore.”

“Then leave him. You’ve done it before.”

“You don’t need to tell me what I’ve done.”

Her voice was full of hostility again. Linda turned and walked out. She heard Mona’s voice behind her: stay a little longer. And then, just as she was about to close the door: all right then — go. But don’t you dare show your face here again!

Linda reached the car drenched in sweat. Bitch, she thought. She was furious, but she knew that before she was halfway across the Öresund Bridge her anger would flip over into guilt; she should have been a good daughter and stayed with her mother, listening to her troubles.

The guilt had already started to take over as she paid the toll for the bridge, and she wished she were not an only child. I’m the one who will have to take care of them one day. She shivered and decided to tell her father what had happened. Maybe he knew if Mona had ever had problems with alcohol in the past, if there was something Linda didn’t know about.

She reached Denmark and started to feel better. Her decision to talk to her father made her feel less guilty. Leaving Mona alone was the only thing to she could do until Mona sobered up. If she had stayed, they would only have kept yelling at each other.

Linda drove to a parking lot and got out. She sat down on a bench overlooking the sound, and stared off across the water at the misty outline of Sweden. Over there somewhere were her parents. They had enveloped her whole childhood in a strange mist. My dad was the worst, she thought. The talented but gloomy policeman who had a sense of humor but never let himself laugh. My father who never found a new woman to share his life since he still loves Mona. Baiba tried to explain it to him but he wouldn’t listen. Baiba told me he claimed, “Mona belongs to the past.” But he hasn’t forgotten her, he never will. She is his one great love. Now I’ve seen her wandering around naked, drinking hard alcohol in the middle of the day. She’s also lost in the gloomy fog. I haven’t managed to free myself from it and I’m almost thirty.

Linda kicked angrily at the gravel, picked up a pebble and threw it at a seagull. The eleventh commandment is the most important, she thought, the one that reads “Thou shalt never become like thy parents.” She got up and returned to the car. She stopped in Nyhavn and looked at a tourist map, finally locating Nedergade.

It was already starting to get dark by the time she found Nedergade. It was a street in a shabby neighborhood with rows of tall, identical apartment buildings. Linda immediately felt unsafe and would have preferred to come back in broad daylight, but the bridge toll was too expensive to waste a trip. She locked the car and stamped her foot on the pavement as a way of rousing her courage. Then she tried to make out the names of the people who lived in the building, although it was difficult to see in the dim light. The front door opened, and a man with a scar across his brow walked out. He was startled when he saw her. She caught the door and walked in before it closed behind him. Inside there was another notice board with names, but no one by the name of Langaas, or Torgeir, for that matter. A woman, about Linda’s age, walked by carrying a bag of trash. She smiled at her.

“Excuse me,” Linda said. “I’m looking for a man by the name of Torgeir Langaas.”

The woman stopped and put the bag down.

“Does he live here?”

“He gave this as his address.”

“What was his name? Torgeir Langaas? Is he Danish?”

“Norwegian.”

She shook her head. It seemed to Linda that she genuinely wanted to help.

“I don’t know of any Norwegians around here. We have a couple of Swedes and some people from other countries, but that’s all.”

The front door opened and a man walked in, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt. The woman with the garbage bag asked him if he knew of a Torgeir Langaas. He shook his head. The hood was pulled up and Linda couldn’t see his face.

“Try Mrs. Andersen on the second floor. She knows everything about everyone in this building. I’m sorry I can’t help you myself.”

Linda thanked her for the tip and started walking up the stairs. Somewhere above her a door was pulled open, and loud Latino music reverberated in the stairwell. Outside Mrs. Andersen’s door there was a small stool with an orchid. Linda rang the doorbell. Immediately a dog started to bark on the other side of the door. Mrs. Andersen, shrunken and hunched over, was one of the smallest women Linda had ever seen. The dog, barking by her slippered feet, was also one of the smallest dogs Linda had seen. She asked Mrs. Andersen her question. The old lady pointed to her left ear.

Linda shouted out her question again.

“I may hear badly but there’s nothing wrong with my memory,” Mrs. Andersen said. “There’s no one living here by that name.”

“Could he be staying with someone?”

“I know everyone who lives here, whether or not they are on the lease. It’s been forty years, believe it or not, since they built this house. Now there are all kinds of people here, of course.”

She leaned closer to Linda and lowered her voice:

“They sell drugs here. And no one does anything about it.”

Mrs. Andersen insisted on inviting her in and serving her coffee that she poured from a pot in the narrow kitchen. Linda managed to leave after half an hour. By then she knew all about what a wonderful husband Mr. Andersen had been, a man had who died far too young.

Linda walked down the stairs. The music had stopped. Instead there was the sound of a child wailing. Linda walked out the front door and looked each way before crossing the street. She sensed someone’s presence in the shadows and turned her head. It was the man with the hooded sweatshirt. He grabbed her by her hair. She tried to get away but the pain was too great.

“There is no Torgeir,” he said through clenched teeth. “No Torgeir Langaas. Drop it.”

“Let me go!” she screamed.

He let go of her hair, but punched her hard in the temple. Linda fell headlong into darkness.

28

She was swimming as fast as she could, but the great waves had almost caught up with her. Suddenly she saw rocks in front of her, big black prongs sticking out of the water ready to spear her. Her strength ebbed away and she screamed. Then she opened her eyes.

Linda felt a sharp pain in her head and wondered what was wrong with the bedroom light. Then she saw her father’s face looming over her and wondered if she had slept in. But what was she supposed to do today? She had forgotten.

Then she remembered. What caught up with her was not the great waves but the memory of what had happened right before she plunged into darkness. The stairwell, the street, the man who stepped out of the shadows, delivered his threat, and hit her. She winced. Her dad laid a hand on her arm.

“It’s OK. Everything’s going to be OK.”

She looked around the hospital room, the dim lighting, the screens, and the rhythmic hissing of medical equipment.

“I remember now,” she said. “But how did I get here? Am I hurt?”

She tried to sit up while at the same time testing all her limbs to make sure nothing was broken. Wallander tried to restrain her.

“They want you to stay lying down. You were knocked unconscious, though there doesn’t appear to have been any internal damage, not even a concussion.”

“How did you get here?” she asked and closed her eyes. “Tell me.”

“If what I’ve heard so far from my Danish colleagues and one of the emergency-room physicians here at the Rikshospital is correct, you were extremely lucky. A patrol car was driving by and saw a man knock you down. It only took a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive. The officers found your driver’s license as well as your ID card from the police academy. They contacted me in half an hour. I drove over as soon as I heard about it. Lindman is also here.”

Linda opened her eyes and looked at her dad. She thought in a fuzzy way that she was maybe a little in love with Stefan Lindman even though she had hardly spent any time with him. Am I delirious? I return to consciousness after some lunatic has knocked me out and the first thing I think about is that I’ve fallen in love, and much too quickly at that.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Where’s Lindman now?”

“He went to get a bite to eat. I told him to go home, but he wanted to come with me.”

“I’m thirsty.”

Wallander gave her some water. Linda’s head was clearer now; images from the moments before the assault were coming back.

“What happened to the creep who assaulted me?”

“They arrested him.”

Linda sat up so quickly that her father couldn’t stop her.

“Lie down!”

“He knows where Anna is. Or perhaps he doesn’t know that — but he does know something.”

“Calm down.”

She reluctantly stretched out on the bed again.

“I don’t know his name, it could be Torgeir Langaas, but I can’t know for sure. But he knows something about Anna.”

Her father sat down on a chair beside the bed. She looked at his watch. It was a quarter past three.

“Is it day or night?”

“It’s night. You’ve been sleeping like a baby.”

“He grabbed my hair and then he threatened me.”

“What I don’t understand is what you were doing here in the first place. Why Copenhagen?”

“It’ll take too long to explain. But the bastard who attacked me may know where Anna is. Maybe he assaulted her too. Or he may have something to do with Birgitta Medberg.”

Wallander shook his head.

“You’re tired. The doctor said your memory would come back in bits and pieces, and things may be jumbled for a while.”

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

“I do. As soon as the doctor checks you again we can go home. Stefan can drive your car home.”

The truth was starting to dawn on her.

“You don’t believe a word I’ve told you, do you? That he threatened me?”

“No, I know he threatened you. He’s admitted to that.”

“Admitted to what, exactly?”

“That he threatened you because he wanted to get the drugs that he assumed you had bought while you were in the apartment building.”

Linda stared at her father while her mind was trying to absorb this new information.

“He threatened me and told me to stop asking about Torgeir Langaas. He never said a word about drugs.”

“We should be grateful the matter has been cleared up, and that the police were nearby at the time. He’s going to be charged with assault and attempted robbery.”

“There was no robbery. It’s all about the man who owns the house behind the church in Lestarp.”

Wallander frowned.

“What house is that?”

“I haven’t had time to tell you about this before. I went to Anna’s house in Lund and found a lead that pointed to Lestarp and a house behind the church. After I was there asking about Anna, everyone disappeared. The only thing I managed to find out was that the house is owned by a Norwegian by the name of Torgeir Langaas, and his address is in Copenhagen.”

Her father looked at her for a long time, then took out his notebook and started reading from one of the pages.

“The man they arrested is one Ulrik Larsen. If my Danish colleague is to be believed, Larsen is hardly the kind of man who owns very many country houses in Sweden.”

“Dad, you’re not listening to me!”

“I am listening, but what you don’t seem to understand is that there’s a man who has confessed to trying to steal drugs from you.”

Linda shook her head desperately. Her left temple throbbed. Why didn’t he understand what she was trying to tell him?

“My mind is completely clear. I know I was knocked out but I’m telling you what actually happened.”

“You think you are. What I still don’t understand is what you were doing in Copenhagen — after barging in on Mona and upsetting her like that.”

Linda went cold.

“How do you know about that?”

“She called me. She was in a terrible state. She was crying so hard she couldn’t speak clearly, so at first I thought she was drunk.”

“She was drunk, damn it. What did she say?”

“That you had accused her of all manner of things and complained about both her and me. She’s crushed. And that banker husband was apparently not there to comfort her.”

“I caught Mom naked in the kitchen with a bottle of vodka in her hand.”

“She said you snuck into the house.”

“I walked in through the veranda doors, which hardly qualifies as sneaking in. She was as high as a kite, whatever she may have told you on the phone.”

“We’ll talk about this later.”

“Thanks.”

“What were you doing in Copenhagen?”

“I’ve already told you.”

Wallander shook his head.

“Can you explain why a man has been arrested for trying to rob you?”

“No. But I also can’t explain why you refuse to believe me.”

He leaned over.

“Do you understand what I went through when they called me? When they told me you had been admitted to a hospital in Copenhagen after an assault — do you know what that felt like?”

“I’m sorry that you had to worry about me.”

“Worry? I was scared out of my mind — more frightened than I’ve been in years.”

Maybe you haven’t been so scared since I tried to kill myself, she thought. She knew his greatest fear was that something should happen to her.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“I wonder what it will be like when you start working, of course,” he continued. “If that will turn me into a worried old man who can’t sleep when you’re working the night shift.”

She tried to tell her story again, slowly, with painstaking care, but he still didn’t seem to believe her.

She had just finished when Stefan Lindman walked into the room. He had a paper bag with sandwiches. He nodded happily at her when he saw she was awake.

“How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

Lindman handed the paper bag to Wallander, who immediately started to eat.

“What kind of car do you have? I’m going to get it for you,” Lindman said.

“A red VW Golf. It’s parked across the street from the apartment building on Nedergade. I think it’s in front of a smoke shop.”

He held up the key.

“I took this out of your coat pocket. You were lucky, you know. Desperate drug addicts are about the worst thing you can run into.”

“He wasn’t a drug addict.”

“Tell Lindman what you told me,” her father said in between bites.

She proceeded through her account again, calmly and methodically, just as she had been taught.

“This doesn’t exactly jibe with what our Danish colleagues reported,” Lindman said when she was done. “Nor with what the thug said either.”

“But I’m telling you what really happened.”

Wallander carefully wiped his hands with a paper napkin.

“Let me put this a different way,” he said. “It’s unusual for people to confess to crimes they haven’t committed. It does happen, admittedly, but not very often, and least of all by convicted drug offenders, since what they fear most is incarceration and the possibility that they will be cut off from their lifeline of drugs. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Linda didn’t answer. A physician walked into the room and asked her how she felt.

“You can go home,” he said. “But take it easy for a few days, and call a doctor if the headache doesn’t subside.”

Linda sat up. Something had just occurred to her.

“What does Ulrik Larsen look like?”

Neither Lindman nor her father had seen him.

“I’m not leaving until I know what he looks like.”

Her father lost his temper.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble? We are going home — now.”

“Surely it can’t be hard to get a description of him. Can’t you ask one of these Danish colleagues you keep talking about?”

Linda realized she was shouting. A nurse popped her head in and gave them a stern look.

“We need this room for another patient,” she said.

There was a bleeding woman lying on a stretcher in the corridor, banging her fist against the wall. A waiting room was empty and they walked in.

“The man who hit me was about one hundred and eighty centimeters tall. I couldn’t see his face since he was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. The sweatshirt was either black or dark blue. He had dark pants and brown shoes. He was thin. He spoke Danish and had a high-pitched voice. He also smelled of cinnamon.”

“Cinnamon?” Lindman said.

“Maybe he had been eating a cinnamon bun, how should I know? Anyway, call your colleagues and find out if the man they have in custody matches this description. If I can just find that out, I’ll keep my mouth shut for the time being.”

“No,” Wallander said. “We’re going home.”

Linda looked at Lindman. He nodded carefully after Wallander had already turned his back.

The doorbell rang. Linda sat up in a daze and looked at the alarm clock. It was a quarter past eleven. She climbed out of bed and put on her robe. Her head was sore, but the throbbing pain was gone. She opened the front door. It was Lindman.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

She let him in.

“Wait in the living room. I’ll be right back.”

She ran into the bathroom, splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth, and combed her hair. When she returned he was standing in front of the balcony door. It was open.

“How are you feeling today?”

“I feel OK. Would you like some coffee?”

“I don’t have time. I just wanted to tell you about a phone call I made about an hour ago.”

Linda waited. He must have believed what she told him back at the hospital.

“What did they say?”

“It took a little while to get to the right officer. I had to wake somebody called Ole Hedtoft who had worked all night. He was one of the patrol officers who found you, and who arrested the guy who did it.”

Lindman took out a piece of paper from the pocket of his leather jacket and looked at her.

“Give me Ulrik Larsen’s description again.”

“I don’t know if his name really is Ulrik Larsen, but the man who attacked me was one hundred and eighty centimeters, thin, with a black or navy blue hooded sweatshirt, dark pants, and brown shoes.”

Lindman nodded and then rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.

“Ole Hedtoft described the same man. But you may have misunderstood the threat he made.”

Linda shook her head.

“That’s not possible. He talked about the man I was looking for, Torgeir Langaas.”

“Well, somebody must have misunderstood something.”

“Why do you keep going on about a misunderstanding? I know what happened, and I’m more afraid than ever that Anna is in danger.”

“Report it then. Talk to her mother. Why doesn’t she come report her missing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t she be worried?”

“I can’t explain why she isn’t worried, but I do know Anna may be in danger.”

Lindman started walking back to the front door.

“Report it to the police and let us take care of it.”

“You haven’t done much up to this point.”

Lindman stopped dead. He was angry when he answered her.

“We’re working around the clock,” he said. “We’re investigating something that has actually taken place: a homicide, and a repulsive, baffling one at that.”

“Then we’re in the same situation,” she said calmly. “My friend Anna isn’t there when I call or knock on her door. And I’m baffled by that too.”

She opened the door for him.

“Thanks for at least believing part of what I told you.”

“This is between the two of us. There’s no need to mention it to your dad.”

Lindman ran down the stairs. Linda ate a hasty breakfast, put her clothes on, then called Zeba. She didn’t pick up. Linda drove over to Anna’s apartment, but this time there were no signs that the place had been disturbed in any way. Where are you? Linda called out silently. You’ll have a lot to explain when you get back.

She opened a window, pulled up a chair, and opened Anna’s journal. There has to be a clue somewhere, she thought. Something that can explain what’s happened.

Linda started reading, going back about a month into the past. Suddenly she stopped. There was a name scribbled in the margin, as if a reminder by Anna to herself. Linda frowned. She knew she had seen or heard it recently, but where? She put down the diary. There was a distant rumble of thunder. The heat was oppressive. A name that she had seen or heard, the question was where or from whom. She made herself some coffee and tried to distract herself enough to make her brain relax and shake out the name. Nothing happened.

It was only later when she was about to give up that she finally remembered.

She had seen it less than twenty-four hours ago. It was the name of one of the people living in the apartment building on Nedergade.

29

Vigsten. She knew she was right. She wasn’t sure if it was someone living on the street side or in the inner building over the courtyard, nor if there was a D or an O as a first initial, but she knew she was right about the surname. What do I do now? she thought. I’m working on something that is actually starting to hang together. But I’m the only one who takes it seriously; I haven’t managed to convince anyone else. Of course, I have no idea what is actually going on. Anna thought she saw her father and then she disappeared. Two disappearances that camouflage each other, cancel each other out, or complete each other? Linda felt a sudden need to talk to someone, and there was no one to turn to except Zeba. She ran down the stairs of Anna’s building and drove to Zeba’s place. Zeba was just on her way out with her son. Linda tagged along. They went to a nearby playground, where the boy ran off to the sandbox. There was a bench there, although it was littered with dirt and chewing gum.

They sat on the edge of the sandbox while the boy threw sand around and let out whoops of joy. Linda looked at Zeba and felt the usual sting of envy: Zeba was extravagantly beautiful. There was something arrogant and inviting about her at the same time, the kind of woman Linda had once dreamed of becoming. But I became a policewoman, she thought. A policewoman who hopes she won’t turn out to be a scaredy-cat.

“I’ve been trying to reach Anna,” Zeba said. “She hasn’t been home. Have you seen her?”

This infuriated Linda.

“Hello? Have you been listening to a single word I’ve said? About her being gone, that I’m worried about her, that I think something’s happened to her?”

“But you know what she’s like, don’t you?”

“Do I? Apparently not. What is she like?”

Zeba frowned.

“Why are you so worked up?”

“I’m worried about her.”

“What do you think has happened? And what is that bruise on your head, for heaven’s sake?”

Linda decided to fill her in on the latest events. Zeba paid attention in silence. The boy played.

“I could have told you that,” she said when Linda finished. “The part about Anna being religious.”

Linda looked at her.

“Religious?”

“Yes.”

“She never said anything to me.”

“You only just met up again, after a long gap. And Anna is the kind of person who says different things to different people. She tells a lot of lies.”

“Really?”

“I had been meaning to warn you, but I thought it would be best if you discovered it for yourself. Anna is a compulsive liar. She can say just about anything.”

“She didn’t used to be like that.”

“People change, don’t they?” Zeba said in a mocking tone. “I’m friends with Anna because of her good qualities. She’s cheerful, nice to my son, helpful. But when she starts telling one of her stories, I don’t bother to listen. Do you know that she spent last Christmas with you?”

“I was still in Stockholm last winter.”

“She said she had been up to see you. Among the many things you did together, apparently, was a trip over to Helsinki on the ferry.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Of course it is. But that’s what Anna told me. I don’t know why she lies, perhaps it’s an illness or else she’s just bored.”

“Do you think she was lying when she said she had seen her father in Malmö?”

“Of course. It’s so typical of her to invent an amazing reappearance like that, even though her father has probably been dead for a long time.”

“So you don’t think anything has happened to Anna?”

Zeba looked at her with an amused expression.

“What could possibly have happened to her? She’s gone off like this many times before. She comes back when she’s done, and then she has a fantastic and completely fabricated story about where she’s been.”

“And nothing of what she says is true?”

“Compulsive liars are only successful if they weave in enough aspects that are true. Then we believe it, then the lie sails by, until we finally realize their whole world is built out of lies.”

Linda shook her head in slight bewilderment.

“The medical studies?”

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

“But where does she get her money? What does she do?”

“I’ve wondered about that. Sometimes I think she might be a professional con artist, but I really don’t have a clue.”

Zeba’s son called out to her and she joined him in the sandbox. Linda watched her as she walked over. A man walking by on the street also turned around to look at her. Linda thought about what Zeba had said. It doesn’t explain everything, she thought. It explains a part of it, and it reduces my anxiety and above all infuriates me, since I now know that Anna has been feeding me lies. I don’t like people claiming to have gone to Helsinki with me when it’s not true. It explains a lot, she thought. But not everything.

When they had gone their separate ways, Linda walked down into the center of town and withdrew some money from an ATM. She was careful with money since she worried about finding herself without. I’m like my dad, she thought. We’re both thrifty to the point of being miserly.

She walked home, cleaned the apartment, and then called the housing agency. After several tries she managed to reach the man in charge of her case. She asked if she could move into the apartment earlier than planned, but apparently that wasn’t possible. She lay on the bed in her room and thought more about the conversation with Zeba. Her concerns for Anna’s well-being had been replaced by a feeling of unease over the fact that she hadn’t seen through her lies. But what should she have noticed? How did one see through a person who did not concoct remarkable, fantastic stories but lied about everyday events?

Linda got up and called Zeba.

“I never finished talking to you about Anna’s religiosity.”

“Why don’t you ask her about it when she comes back? Anna believes in God.”

“Which one?”

“The Christian one. She goes to church occasionally, or she says she does. But she does pray. I know because I’ve caught her in the act a couple of times. She gets down on her knees.”

“Do you know if she belongs to a particular congregation or sect?”

“No. Do you?”

“I don’t know. Have the two of you ever talked about it?”

“She’s tried to a couple of times but I’ve always put a stop to it. God and I never got along too well.”

Linda heard a howl in the background.

“Oops, he just hurt himself. Bye.”

Linda walked back over to the bed and continued staring up at the ceiling. What do we really know about people? An image of Anna floated through her mind, but it was like looking at a stranger. Mona was also there, naked, with a bottle in her hand. Linda sat up. I’m surrounded by a bunch of crazy people, she thought. The only normal one is Dad.

She walked out onto the balcony. It was still a warm day. I’m going to drop this thing here and now, she said to herself. I should concentrate on something important, like enjoying this weather for instance.

Linda read in the newspaper about the investigation into Birgitta Medberg’s murder. Her father was interviewed. She had read the same words many times before. No definitive leads, the investigation continues on many fronts, results may take time. She threw the paper down and thought about the name in Anna’s diary. Vigsten. The second person in her diary after Birgitta Medberg to have crossed Linda’s path.

One more time, she thought. One more trip across the bridge, even though it’s expensive. But one day I’ll present Anna with a bill for all the needless worrying she’s caused.

This time I’m not going to walk around on Nedergade in the dark, she thought as she drove across the bridge toward Denmark. I’m going to look up the man — I’m assuming it’s a man — whose name is Vigsten and ask him if he knows where Anna is. That’s all. Then I’m going to go home and cook dinner for my dad.

Linda parked in the same spot as before and was hit by a sense of dread when she got out of the car. It was as if she hadn’t fully realized it before now: she had been attacked on this street the night before.

She got back into her car and locked the doors. Take it easy, she thought. I’m just going to get out of the car; there’s no one who’s going to knock me down. I’ll walk into that building and find this Vigsten person. And that will be that.

Linda kept telling herself to remain calm, but she ran across the street. A cyclist veered hard to get out of her way and almost fell over, yelling an obscenity after her. The front door opened when she pushed on it. She saw the name almost immediately. On the fourth floor, F. Vigsten. She hadn’t remembered the initial correctly. She started walking up the stairs. Fredrik Vigsten, she thought. It’ll be Fredrik if it’s a man, that’s typically Danish. Or Frederike for a woman. She stopped and caught her breath once she was on the fourth floor. Then she rang the doorbell, which played a short melody. She waited and counted slowly to ten. Then she rang again, and the door opened at about the same time. An older man with ruffled hair and glasses hanging from a cord around his neck gave her a stern look.

“I can’t walk any faster,” he said. “Why can’t you young people have some patience?”

He stepped aside without asking for her name or why she was there, hurrying her into the hall.

“I sometimes forget when I have a new student,” he said. “I don’t always make a note of everything as conscientiously as I should. Please feel free to hang up your things. I’ll wait in there.”

He disappeared down a long corridor with short, almost springy steps. A student of what? Linda wondered. She took off her jacket and followed him. It was a large apartment, perhaps the result of knocking down a wall between two smaller ones. In the room farthest in from the door there was a black baby grand piano. The white-haired man was over by the window, leafing through the pages of a monthly planner.

“I can’t see an appointment for today,” he complained. “What did you say your name was?”

“I’m not a student,” Linda said. “I just want to ask you some questions.”

“I’ve been answering questions my whole life,” he said. “I’ve told them why it’s so important to sit correctly when playing the piano. I’ve tried to explain to countless young pianists why not everyone can learn to play Chopin with the right combination of caution and power that is required. Above all I try to get my impatient opera singers to stand properly, and not attempt the hardest pieces without wearing good shoes. Have you got that? Opera singers need good shoes, and pianists need to take care to avoid developing hemorrhoids. What did you say your name was?”

“It’s Linda and I’m neither a pianist nor an opera singer. I’ve come to ask you about something that has nothing to do with music.”

“Well, you must have the wrong man because I can only answer questions about music. The world beyond that is incomprehensible to me.”

Linda was momentarily confused.

“Your name is Fredrik Vigsten, isn’t it?”

“Not Fredrik: Frans. But the last name is right.”

He sat down at the piano and began turning over the pages of some music. Linda had the feeling that he had forgotten she was there.

“Your name appears in my friend Anna Westin’s diary,” she said.

Frans Vigsten tapped his finger on the paper rhythmically and did not seem to hear her.

“Anna Westin,” she repeated in a louder voice.

He looked up abruptly.

“Who?”

“Anna Westin. A Swedish girl.”

“I’ve had many Swedish pupils,” he said. “Of course, now it is as if everyone has forgotten about me, and—”

He interrupted himself and looked at Linda.

“Did you tell me your name?”

“I’m happy to tell you again. It’s Linda.”

“And you are not a pupil? Not a pianist? Not an opera singer?”

“No.”

“You’re asking about someone called Anna?”

“Anna Westin.”

“I don’t know an Anna Westin. Vest-in. My wife was a vestal, but she died thirty-nine years ago. Do you have any idea what it is like to be a widower for almost forty years?”

He stretched out a thin hand with finely etched blue veins and touched her wrist.

“Alone,” he said. “It was one thing when I had my day job doing rehearsals at Det Kongelige. But then one day they told me I was too old. Maybe it was that I insisted on doing things the old way. I didn’t tolerate sloppiness.”

“I found your name in my friend’s diary,” Linda broke in.

She took his hand. The fingers that grabbed onto hers so hungrily were surprisingly strong.

“Anna Westin, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never had a pupil by that name. My memory is not what it once was, but I can still remember all their names. They are the only ones who have given my life any meaning since Mariana was taken by the gods.”

Linda didn’t know if there was any point in continuing the conversation. There was really only one thing left to ask.

“Do you know anyone by the name of Torgeir Langaas? I’m looking for him.”

But Frans Vigsten was lost in dreamland again. He picked out some notes on the piano with his free hand.

“Torgeir Langaas,” she repeated. “A Norwegian.”

“I have had many Norwegian pupils. The one I remember best was Trond Ørje. He was from Rauland and a wonderful baritone, but he was so shy he could only pull it off in the recording studio. He was the most remarkable baritone and the most remarkable person I ever met in my life. He cried with consternation when I told him he had talent. A remarkable man. There are others...”

Linda got up. She was never going to get a sensible answer out of him. It also seemed unlikely to her that Anna had had any contact with him.

She left the room without saying good-bye. As she walked to the front door, she heard him start playing on the piano. She glanced into the other rooms on her way out. The apartment was a mess and the air was stale. A lonely man who only has his music, she thought. Just like my grandfather and his painting. What am I going to do when I get old? What about Dad? And what about Mom — the bottle?

She lifted her jacket from the hook in the hall. Music filled the apartment. She stood motionless and studied the clothes hanging by the door. Vigsten might be a lonely old man, but he had a coat and a pair of shoes that did not belong to an old man. She glanced back into the apartment. There was no one there. But she already knew that Frans Vigsten did not live alone. Fear flooded her so quickly that she jumped. The music stopped, and she listened for any sounds. Then she fled, running across the street to the car, and driving away as fast as she could. She only started to calm down when she was back on the Öresund Bridge heading home.

At the same time that Linda was driving over the bridge, a man broke into the Ystad pet store. He doused the rows of caged birds, hamsters, and mice with gasoline, threw a match on the floor, and left just as the animals caught fire.