Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011

The Wood Thief by Liza Marklund

Swedish journalist, columnist, and publisher Liza Marklund is also one of Sweden’s (and Europe’s) bestselling novelists. She is best known for her novels about the series character of this story, journalist Annika Bengtzon. Her latest book to see print in the U.S. is a novel she co-wrote with bestselling American writer James Patterson. Entitled The Postcard Killers, it became the number one bestseller in Sweden and was published in the U.S. in August 2010.

Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

The dark figure slipped like a shadow among the trees, silent, breathless, watchful. The moon shone cold and blue over the forest, exposing every movement.

She looked around cautiously as she hurried along, shivering. Warmth was a long way off.

When she reached the glade, she stopped behind a fir tree. Nothing was moving. The chimneys pointed up towards the night sky, cold and mute. No smoke rising towards the stars.

It must be bloody freezing for the old man, she thought.

She stared at the kitchen window for a long time, watching the moon glittering on the uneven, hand-blown glass. Not a single movement.

She made her decision, walked calmly over to the shed, and pulled out the sack.

The old man was woken by the cold; it had crept through the blanket and down into his lungs, heavy and damp. Slowly he allowed the pain to reach his brain; he groaned and coughed quietly. Then he took a few harsh, deep breaths as he lay there on the sofa bed listening to the clock. The starlight outside the window splintered the darkness into myriad shades of black and grey, sometimes almost blue. He bent his head and peered over at the box of wood by the iron stove, the tiles above it catching the light.

“Blackie,” he said.

The cat emerged from the shadows by the stove, took two agile leaps across the kitchen floor, and landed on the man’s chest. He laughed out loud.

“You’re getting fatter and fatter, puss.”

The cat stomped around in circles several times on top of the blanket before settling down with her nose tucked in the hollow at the base of the man’s throat. He could feel the heat of the little body radiating down through the blanket, easing the pain in his chest. They lay like that for a while, the old man and the cat. His bladder was bursting; he would have to get up soon.

There was a rustling noise over by the wood box and the cat shot up. With an enormous leap the animal landed on the floor and started chasing the mouse. The rugs ended up in a heap as the old man lay motionless, listening with great concentration as the hunt unfolded. Then came the terrified squeak of pain and death, the cat’s triumphant yowl, and the subsequent crunching of the mouse’s bones. The old man chuckled.

“Good girl, Blackie.”

But there was nothing for it — he had to get up. He pushed aside the blanket and carefully lifted his legs over the edge of the bed, using his right hand to help. He stepped straight into his trousers; he kept his long johns and thick socks on in bed. With an enormous effort he pushed with his hands and managed to get to his feet, his back aching. The situation was urgent now. He staggered onto the porch, pulled on his Helly Hansen top, his cap, and his boots, and headed for the steps.

It was sparkling with cold outside, and the rime frost had made the steps slippery. He almost fell on the millstone at the bottom. Leaning on the wall with his right hand he made his way around the corner and released the urine in a crooked stream, aiming at the forest. He closed his eyes, enjoying the relief. When he had shaken off the drops and tucked it away, he took a few deep breaths and gazed out across the landscape. Dense forest to the north, but over to the east there was a more open aspect towards the marsh where the sawmill had once stood. The moon and stars made the frost sparkle; he could make out the light and the colours.

Then the cold struck his lungs again, making him cough. He tore his gaze away from the view and made his way back indoors. He switched on the lamp in the porch and the fluorescent light in the kitchen, the sudden brightness making him blink. The cat was licking her lips over by the larder, a few tufts of hair and splinters of bone bearing witness to the recent slaughter.

The old man went over to the sink and picked up the water scoop. He took a swig as the cat leapt up and began to lap from the bucket.

“Delicious,” said the old man, smacking his lips.

Then it was time to fetch the wood.

The thought made his guts twist with apprehension.

First of all, he lit the stove with the kindling he had brought in the previous evening, the iron of the door cold to his touch. As he struck the match he noticed that his hand was shaking. He knew what was waiting for him. Laboriously he got to his feet and picked up the basket and the flashlight.

Holding his left hand straight out in front of him to help him balance, he shuffled across to the woodshed, the flashlight rolling around in the bottom of the basket. On the other side of the ditch he stopped and switched it on, pointing the beam at the ground. He blinked. Damned eyesight. Even if there were tracks in the rime frost, he couldn’t make them out. When he lifted the hasp and opened the door, he knew. He couldn’t have explained why, perhaps the smell of another person somehow lingered, perhaps there was the faintest rise in the temperature left behind, but he was certain. Someone had been here very recently.

He swept the beam of the flashlight across the piles of wood, the carefully sawn, split, dried, stacked, sorted, and stored logs, all exactly the same length so that they would fit the kitchen stove, cut into the different dimensions necessary to catch quickly and then keep the fire going. Alder, aspen, birch, pine, and fir, different piles for the different kinds of wood, boxes of birch bark and other types of bark.

When the beam reached the pile of birch logs, he gasped out loud. So it was the birch tonight. He staggered across to the pile and ran his hand over the wood; yes, he was right. His eyes might miss things, but his hands remembered; there were logs missing from here. Rage and impotence twisted like cramps in his abdomen, and he groaned out loud. Clenched his fists, the nails burrowing into his palm to overcome the pain. His wood! The birch that he had worked so hard on last spring. The sections of trunk he had dragged all the way from Gorgsjö, where the birch tree had been brought down by the wind. It had been a fine tree, right by the shore of the lake, with rustling leaves and plenty of thick branches. He had made use of every one, chopping up the tree and bringing home every last scrap. His entire spring lay in these piles of wood. He sniffed loudly as the tears overflowed. Bastard! Some bastard was stealing his wood! Bastard wood thief!

He sank down onto the chopping block and wept.

Annika Bengtzon kissed her grandmother’s hair.

“I won’t be long.”

Her grandmother patted her on the cheek.

Annika looped her bag over her shoulder and picked up the plastic carrier. Out on the steps she stopped, screwing up her eyes in the sharp winter light and taking several deep breaths. The lake down below Lyckebo had frozen; if it stayed this cold she would be able to go ice skating after Christmas.

The rime frost crunched beneath her feet as she headed for the turnpike, past the rented car from the garage at Norrtull. Old Gustav lived on the other side of the track in a cottage next to the marsh where the sawmill had been; it was known as Lillsjötorp, and she had visited him every Christmas Eve for as long as she could remember. He had already been ancient when she was a child.

Annika walked quickly and purposefully along the forest track; she knew it well. She had grown up in these Sörmland forests around Hälleforsnäs, had lived here all her life until last autumn. For the last two months she had been working nights on Kvällspressen, a newspaper in Stockholm. The autumn’s events, especially her investigation of a young woman’s murder[1], had meant that she had been unable to come home for some time. But the job had created a vacuum in her life that could be filled only by solid traditions such as Christmas at her grandmother’s cottage by the shores of the lake.

Lillsjötorp sparkled like a little jewel on the edge of the forest, the frost glittering on its walls, so picturesque you could almost weep. White and Falun red, leaded windows, blue door, mossy apple trees.

But as Annika drew closer, the deterioration became obvious. The garden was overgrown with lupins, the black stems bearing pods surrounding the house like rotting exclamation marks. The odd tracks on the ground had been made by Old Gustav’s shuffling gait and bad hips; one led to his pissing-place around the corner, one to the outside toilet, and the deepest, of course, to the woodshed. The outside walls needed brushing down and painting. The putty had started to come away around the windowpanes; Gustav appeared to have repaired it with cement. On the edge of the forest she could see a mountain of empty tins and empty schnapps bottles.

Annika sighed and knocked on the door. No response. She knocked harder.

“Uncle Gustav!”

A coal-black cat came skittering out of the trees, ran up the steps, and started rubbing around her legs.

“Hello Blackie, is your daddy not at home?”

She tried the handle; the door wasn’t locked.

“Hello...?”

She stepped onto the porch, blinking in the darkness, and discovered she was staring straight down a double-barrelled shotgun. She deafened herself with her scream, and the barrel jerked.

“For Christ’s sake, Gustav, what the hell are you doing?”

The old man lowered the gun, staring at her in confusion. He was dirty and unshaven; she could smell the odour coming off his body from over three feet away. His hair was greasy, his eyes cloudy. His face looked slightly swollen.

“Gustav, what on earth is going on?”

Her heart was pounding in her chest; she had been really scared. The cat slipped past them into the kitchen, and Annika closed the outside door. The porch was in darkness; she could see the old man only as a silhouette against the kitchen doorway.

“Maria’s Annika?” he said, lowering the gun slightly.

“Of course!” she said, sounding more angry than she intended. “What the hell are you doing standing here on the porch with a shotgun?”

The old man turned and shuffled into the kitchen, with Annika following close behind. The heat was oppressive in there, the kind of suffocating heat produced by an old wood-burning stove made of iron, with the fire well banked up. The cat had curled up on the tiled edging between the stove and the wall; Annika wondered how it managed to avoid being roasted alive. Gustav sat down on a wooden chair by the kitchen table, resting the gun on his knees. Annika put her bags down next to the sofa bed; the old man hadn’t made his bed today. She walked over to him and firmly took the gun away; he didn’t protest. She broke it open; it wasn’t loaded. With a sigh, she pushed it under the bed.

“Right, Gustav,” she said, sitting down opposite him. “Start talking — what’s going on?”

The old man started weeping. His shoulders slumped and shook as he hid his face in his hands.

“Now, now,” said Annika, patting him clumsily on the arm. “Come on, Uncle Gustav, tell me what’s happened!”

“The wood thief,” the old man said quietly. “It’s the wood thief.”

He blew his nose in his hand and wiped the snot on his trousers.

“Is someone stealing your wood?” Annika asked.

He nodded. She looked at the little old man. Gustav had worked as a forester for many, many years. He had spent his whole life in this tiny cottage, first with his mother, then all alone since her death. He had electricity and cold water, which he kept in a bucket on the draining board and shared with the cat.

Gustav lived on a very small pension, so he had permission to take the trees blown down by the wind in the forest owned by the estate. He dedicated his life to these trees. To him, the woodshed was a treasure trove of memories, thoughts, nature, and work.

She remembered all the summers she had helped Gustav with the wood. He had taught her how to pile it high on her left arm, balancing it perfectly as the right hand built a tall mountain. She had learned to split great big logs with a single blow at the age of only seven, and had had her own little chopping block next to Gustav’s large one.

When they were having their snack, always perched on their own logs, Gustav would tell her about the remarkable things the trees had witnessed. He had shown her the age rings and described the trees at different periods in history, both global and local.

Look, when this one was the same size as a Christmas tree, the Bolsheviks took over in Russia. This birch was no more than a leafy twig when the crofters’ children coughed themselves to death up in Löfberga. This is where I was born, this is where you were born. The trees have seen everything, they know everything, make no mistake about that.

“Shall we go and have a look in the woodshed?” Annika suggested.

Gustav was walking very badly, she noticed.

“It started three weeks ago,” the old man ground out. “I noticed it right away. First it was the fir from the White Mountains, then the pine from the other side of the marsh. Now it’s the Gorgsjö birch.”

He lifted the hasp and pushed the door open. Inside, the logs were stacked to the ceiling, layer upon layer, as much wood as you could possibly want. To Annika and anyone else on this earth it was just firewood, any old firewood.

“Here,” said Gustav, patting one of the piles. “The birch. That’s what the wood thief stole last night.”

Annika looked around. There were several tracks outside the woodshed, made by both people and animals.

“Did you see or hear anything? A car? A motorbike?” she asked.

The old man shook his head. His eyesight wasn’t very good, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing. Annika studied the ground.

“There are no tracks made by a bike, either. The wood thief must have come on foot. So you know what that means, Gustav?”

The old man didn’t reply.

“Nobody can carry wood farther than a couple of hundred yards,” said Annika. “So it has to be someone from Hedberga.”

Together they looked over at the forest track leading down to the village.

When Annika had left Old Gustav with the Christmas ham and dried fish and gravlax and wished him a very happy Christmas, in spite of the wood thief, she set off along the track through the trees. Feather-light snowflakes had begun to drift towards the ground with infinite slowness, hovering in the air. Annika caught a few on her tongue.

After a few minutes she reached the first of the wooden houses in Hedberga. The entire village was an ancient collection of heaps of timber huddled against the backdrop of the vast forest. The odd satellite dish shattered the picture-postcard idyll.

She walked along slowly, studying the village houses, all decorated for Christmas. The electric candles dispersed a warm glow through the windows. She had some kind of relationship with every single person in this village.

There, in the biggest house of all, lived Åke and Inga Karlsson; he had been her teacher at junior school.

Next door lived Asta and Folke Nykander and their son Petter; he had learning difficulties of some kind. Petter was a couple of years older than Annika; she had been afraid of him when she was little.

Farther along was the manor house where Hjalmar Pettersson, the church pastor, lived with his hypocritical wife Elsa. Hjalmar had once condemned Annika’s mother in public after her divorce.

On the farm over by the edge of the forest lived Karin and Anders Bergström and their three young children. She and Karin had been classmates; Anders was well known in the area for being bone idle.

He can’t even be bothered to put on a condom, thought Annika as she passed the yard, toys strewn all over the place.

Ingela Jönsson, known as the Sperm Bucket because she was such a slag, lived in a small cottage she had inherited from her mother. It looked silent, dark, and empty. Annika glared at it; her boyfriend had been one of those carrying on with the Sperm Bucket.

Around the corner lived Axelsson, the farmer, with his five children who always smelt of the farmyard. Annika used to babysit for them sometimes when she was in high school.

One of these people stole Old Gustav’s wood, Annika thought.

She sighed and turned off towards Lyckebo.

The early morning Christmas service at the church in Floda began at six o’clock. Annika and her grandmother were already there at twenty to. The Axelssons stomped in with almost all of their children, and there sat arrogant Hjalmar and his Elsa, and Asta and Folke Nykander, but not their son. Åke and Inga Karlsson arrived just after the bell began to ring; Åke looked as if he had a hangover.

The big church exuded peace in the winter darkness. Annika closed her eyes and listened to the familiar tones of the traditional entry hymn, “Var hälsad sköna morgonstund,” raucously delivered by the Sörmland farmers. The classic readings of Christmas floated past her, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed....

She nodded off and woke with a start as the bells rang out once more; the service was over. She was carried along with everyone else to the doorway in some confusion, and got in the car with her grandmother to head back towards Lyckebo along Stöttestensvägen. It had stopped snowing, but the landscape was enveloped in a thick layer of white cotton wool.

They were passing Granhed, with Hedberga up on their left, when Annika suddenly gave a start.

“Did you see that?” she said.

“What?” asked her grandmother, who had dozed off in the warmth of the car.

“Someone was standing on the edge of the forest.”

“That doesn’t seem very likely,” said her grandmother. “I expect it was a deer.”

“Wearing a hood?” Annika said sceptically.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey, but when Annika had helped the old woman into the cottage, she said:

“I’m just going out for a while.”

“At this time of day?”

“I want to check on Gustav,” said Annika, taking a big flashlight out of her bag. On the steps outside, she pushed the switch forward — yes, it was working.

The moon was still shining over the forest like a round spotlight; she didn’t need any other source of light out here. She moved quickly between the trees, thinking about the autumn when she had picked chanterelles as big as toilet seats here. The ground was completely covered in snow now; she stumbled over hidden branches here and there.

The wood thief must have come from Hedberga, so Annika took the route past the village. She didn’t need to search for very long.

The tracks were crystal clear, footprints glowing blue in the fresh, pure white snow. They were quite big, meandering slightly through the forest, but eventually leading straight to Old Gustav’s woodshed. Annika followed them all the way, and when she was just a dozen or so yards from the shed, something struck her:

The tracks led in only one direction.

The wood thief was still in there. Her mind was whirling; what if it was that great big idiot Petter — he might beat her to death. Or what if it was Anders Bergström, Karin’s idle husband?

She crept the last few yards to the door feeling as if she was no longer touching the ground. She yanked the door open. Someone was standing inside, a tall, dark figure dressed in black. It spun around; Annika pushed the switch and shone the beam straight in the intruder’s face.

“You,” said Annika.

It was Ingela Jönsson, the Sperm Bucket. The woman raised her arm to protect her eyes from the light.

“Turn that off!” she yelled.

Annika stepped inside without moving the circle of light from the woman’s face.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Annika, her voice trembling with rage. “How in God’s name can you steal from an old man who can hardly walk? Do you realize how much work he’s put into this wood?”

She took a step closer to the wood thief. A second later the flashlight flew out of her hand as a sudden blow to her abdomen forced the air from her lungs. She stumbled into a pile of fir wood, fell over, and landed hard on her bottom.

The thief rushed at the door, yanked it open with a crash, and was about to run off into the forest. At that moment, a deafening bang echoed through the glade, reverberating from tree to tree, and the doorpost next to Annika was splintered by a hail of lead shot. Annika screamed; Ingela Jönsson howled and fell backwards into the woodshed.

“That mad old bastard is shooting at us!” she roared.

The next shot hit the door, shattering the timber. Annika screamed again and crawled over to the pile of birch wood on all fours. She shuffled her way in between two stacks, drew her legs up beneath her chin, and made herself as small as possible.

The silence that followed the bangs was just as deafening as the shots themselves. After a minute or so Annika was able to hear her own panic-stricken breathing and Ingela Jönsson’s irregular sobs and groans.

“Did he get you?” Annika asked.

The woman was whimpering in the darkness, right next to her.

“I think so,” said Ingela. “In the face.”

Annika pushed back her hair with trembling hands. Her hat had come off.

“I need to speak to him,” she said.

Cautiously she got to her feet in the darkness and banged her head on a protruding log. The damaged door had swung shut, and it was dark inside the shed. She groped her way over to the door.

“Gustav,” she shouted into the winter morning through the gap. “Gustav, it’s me, Annika. Maria Hellström’s Annika. I’m in here with the wood thief. Can we have a chat?”

She waited in silence for a response. None came.

“Gustav!” she shouted, even louder. “It’s Annika. I’m coming out now.”

Still nothing.

“Get a move on for God’s sake, before I bleed to death,” the wood thief moaned.

Annika took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The shots followed immediately, one after the other, shattered fragments of wood dancing in the air. Annika tumbled backwards and landed on top of the wood thief.

“Watch out, you fat cow!” shouted Ingela Jönsson.

“Shut your mouth, you stupid whore!” Annika yelled back.

Silence slowly descended once again behind the lingering whine of the gunfire. Ingela shoved Annika off her knee.

“Screw you,” said Ingela, on the verge of tears. “How can you call someone a whore? Or Sperm Bucket? I know that’s what people call me. Have you ever thought about how awful it feels?”

Annika was breathing hard, her mouth open.

“You deserve it. You’re nothing but a slut. I haven’t forgotten that you tried to steal my boyfriend.”

Ingela Jönsson crept over to another pile of wood.

“I loved Sven,” she said. “And he loved me. We would have been engaged by now if it hadn’t been for you.”

“That’s crap,” said Annika.

The wood thief started to cry. Annika sat in silence for several minutes, listening to her. It was starting to get really cold now; she was losing the feeling in her fingers.

“I’m bleeding,” sobbed Ingela. “I’ve been hit in the face.”

At that moment Annika felt the cold metal of her flashlight under her hand. She pushed the switch forward; it was still working.

“Let me see,” she said, shining the light on the other woman’s face.

Ingela Jönsson screwed up her eyes against the beam of light. She was actually bleeding from a gash near the top of her left cheek. Annika leaned closer.

“Have I been shot?”

Annika poked at the wound; the other woman jumped.

“No,” she said, “but there’s a big splinter below your eye. Just let me get it out...”

“Ow!”

Annika removed the splinter with a quick tug. She held it up triumphantly in the beam of the flashlight. Ingela pressed her fingers against the spot.

“I’ll get tetanus,” she said.

“I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“Provided the old bastard doesn’t shoot us both!”

Annika fumbled around in the darkness until she found a long stick, which she used to push open the broken door. Seconds later another shot was fired. The women curled up with their arms over their heads.

“I think we’re going to be here for some time,” said Annika.

The late winter dawn was slowly beginning to find its way in among the piles of wood. Annika and Ingela had settled down with their backs resting against the logs, facing each other. Now and again they poked at the remains of the door, and every time a shot rang out. Some of the planks on the front of the shed were beginning to disintegrate.

“Why?” said Annika.

Ingela didn’t reply.

“How can you steal from an old man?” Annika asked in a slightly louder voice, staring at the woman opposite her.

“I was freezing cold,” said Ingela, turning her head away.

Annika blinked. “Right,” she said. “And the solution was to start stealing wood?”

“You’d never understand,” Ingela said resentfully. “Things have always been so easy for you.”

Annika laughed loud and long; Old Gustav responded with two more shots.

“You can laugh,” said Ingela when the whine had died away. “I mean, you have it all, you got the best job and the best guy and the chance to move to Stockholm.”

Annika swallowed hard.

“You don’t know anything,” she said. “You have no idea what things have been like for me.”

Ingela Jönsson didn’t reply. They sat in silence for a long time. Annika’s feet were numb with cold.

“They’ve cut off my electricity,” Ingela said eventually. “And the phone. I can’t get any social security benefits anymore, I haven’t got any money at all.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve considered getting a job?” Annika said sarcastically.

“Don’t be so bloody clever,” said Ingela. “What kind of jobs do you think there are in Hedberga?”

“Well then you’ll have to move, won’t you?” said Annika.

“And where would I live? My house is here!”

“Sell it, then!”

“I’d get next to nothing for that old wooden shack.”

Annika groaned.

“Well, sit there and moan then,” she said. “I think you just want to fail.”

Ingela poked at the door; two shots rang out.

“Old bastard!” she yelled.

Gustav reloaded and fired off two more shots.

“Have you never had a job?” Annika wondered.

Ingela sighed, her fingers playing distractedly with the sawdust on the floor.

“Oh yes,” she said, “with the home-care service in Hälleforsnäs. Although that was before the cuts. I was laid off in the rationalization program three years ago.”

“So why don’t you study for some kind of qualification?”

“I’d need a car for that, and I can’t afford one.”

“Speaking of cars,” said Annika, “do you hear what I hear?”

The sound of a Volvo engine was audible through the trees, rising and falling.

“Do you think it might be on its way here?” Ingela wondered.

Annika listened for a few seconds longer.

“Yep,” she said. “It’s almost here.”

The women crept over to the front of the shed, each peering through a gap in the planks. The blue-and-white estate car slowly materialized behind the screen of branches.

“It’s a police car!” Annika gasped.

“Yes!” whispered Ingela.

The car stopped by the path leading to the house. A man and a woman in uniform got out.

“Hansson and Pettersson from Katrineholm,” Annika said quietly. “I once went out on patrol with them when I was working on a news story.”

She watched the two officers walk slowly towards the house, and heard the woman say “Merry Christmas” and “What’s going on here, then?” in a loud voice.

Then she heard Gustav mumbling something in reply.

Quickly she shuffled over to the ruined door and peeped out. She saw the male officer walk up to the old man and take the gun away from him. She pushed the door open and stepped out into the daylight. Ingela Jönsson shot out behind her, shouting and screaming.

“He’s crazy, the old bastard’s crazy, he tried to kill us!”

The police officers looked over towards the woodshed in surprise. Old Gustav tried to wrench back the shotgun, yelling at the top of his voice.

“Damned wood thieves, damned rabble! You need your backsides peppered with lead, you damned...”

The police officers grabbed hold of the old man and pushed him into the backseat of the police car. Gustav protested loudly every step of the way, accompanied by the Sperm Bucket’s hysterical outpourings about what a bloodthirsty, murderous bastard he was. Annika felt the air go out of her; she suddenly felt faint with exhaustion and coldness.

“I’m going inside,” she said.

The kitchen was freezing cold; no doubt the walls were poorly insulated. Annika pushed a bundle of kindling into the stove, added some birch bark underneath, and lit it; it caught immediately. Quickly she pulled a chair over and sat down right next to the fire. Gradually her joints began to thaw out, and she added more wood.

Hansson, the policewoman, came into the kitchen.

“Hi there, Bengtzon,” she said, pulling up a chair. “What the hell’s been going on here?”

Annika sighed.

“Ingela Jönsson has been stealing wood from Gustav for a while; he lost it and started shooting at the woodshed.”

“We got a call from down in Hedberga saying that there was a hell of a lot of shooting going on up here in the forest,” said Hansson. She leaned forward and looked intently at Annika.

“Do you think he was intending to hit whoever was in the shed?”

Annika met her gaze.

“Definitely not,” she said. “If he’d wanted to hurt us, all he needed to do was open the door and shoot us dead. He just wanted to mark his territory.”

Hansson sighed, leaned back, and put her gloves down on the kitchen table.

“What a goddamn mess,” she said. “Ingela Jönsson is out there yelling about attempted murder and terrorism.”

“She’ll soon calm down,” said Annika, putting more wood on the fire.

The policewoman looked around the kitchen.

“Does the old man live here?” she said sceptically.

“Yep,” said Annika. “He sleeps on the sofa bed and gets a roaring fire going in the stove.”

“What a dump,” said Hansson in disgust. “Mouse droppings on the floor. And he didn’t smell too sweet, either.”

“Gustav’s good at keeping himself clean,” Annika protested. “He has a bath once a week in a big tub, right here in front of the stove. It’s just that things have been a bit difficult since the wood thief started turning up, that’s all.”

Hansson got to her feet.

“I’ll give social services a call,” she said.

Ingela and Blackie came in as the policewoman went out. The cat jumped up onto Annika’s knee, turned round and round several times, then settled down with the tip of her tail tucked under her chin. The women sat in silence side by side, slowly getting warm and allowing their adrenaline levels to fall.

“He’s not right in the head, is he?” said Ingela.

Annika didn’t reply, she just kept on stroking the cat, who had fallen asleep on her knee.

“Anyway, they’re bound to lock him up for this,” the wood thief went on smugly. “I suppose the question is whether he’ll ever come out. I should think the old bastard will peg it any day now.”

“One thing you need to know,” said Annika. “Gustav is the closest thing to a grandfather I’ve ever had. I love him.”

Only when she had said it did she realize it was true.

Ingela gritted her teeth but didn’t answer; she sat in silence for a few minutes.

“I’ve met someone,” she said eventually.

Annika raised her eyebrows.

“And?”

Ingela lowered her head.

“He actually likes me. He doesn’t know anything about... about that name you call me. He comes from Eskilstuna, he’s got an apartment there. He loves Hedberga, and he thinks my house is just charming. Particularly the open fire...”

The wood crackled — birch wood.

“Is it because of him?” Annika asked.

Ingela didn’t reply.

“Is that why you’ve been stealing wood?”

The woman closed her eyes.

“Maybe,” she said. “We like to make love in front of the fire. At the beginning I used to buy wood, but who can afford forty-five kronor a sack? Then they cut off the electricity, and I no longer had any choice.”

Annika could feel the rage mounting inside her once more.

“It didn’t occur to you that it might be a good idea to spread things out a bit more evenly, to steal from different places?”

The other woman shrugged her shoulders.

“I didn’t think it would matter to the old man. I mean, he’s got so much wood, and his eyesight isn’t so good. I didn’t think he’d notice anything. And wood’s heavy, you know! I couldn’t carry it very far, so I had to take it from someone who was close by.”

Annika didn’t reply; she was thinking with considerable distaste of the Sperm Bucket making love in front of her open fire, with Gustav’s wood providing the burning backdrop.

Suddenly heavy footsteps came marching up the steps.

“Hello there!” said a spirited voice from the doorway.

“Marja!” said Ingela, getting to her feet.

A sturdy woman in a hat and padded coat virtually filled the doorway leading into the kitchen; the policewoman was just visible behind her.

“Ingela!” said the sturdy woman. “It’s been a long time! How are you?”

The women greeted each other with obvious pleasure.

“Marja used to run the home-care service in Hälleforsnäs,” Ingela explained when Annika had shaken hands with the woman.

“I know, we’ve met,” said Annika.

Marja, who was now working for social services, looked around the kitchen.

“So,” she said, “this is how he’s living, is it? I see...”

“His name is Gustav,” said Annika.

“I know, I know,” said Marja, walking over and opening the larder door. “I didn’t know there were people up here who still lived like this.”

She bent down and studied the remains of a half-eaten mouse.

“Hm,” she said. “Things can’t go on like this.”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” said the policewoman.

Marja opened the china cabinet and held a glass up to the light.

“We’ll have to sort out a place in a residential home,” she said.

Annika was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

“Just a minute,” she broke in. “Have you spoken to Gustav? He’s managed perfectly well here for his whole life. Rather than moving him, couldn’t he be provided with a little bit of help here in the house from time to time?”

Marja threw her hands wide, a small smile playing around her lips.

“He has the right to a decent life, Annika,” she said, “just like everyone else.”

“Exactly. But all he needs for that is a little help and support.”

Marja shook her head. “This is not an acceptable environment.”

“And that’s up to you to decide on Gustav’s behalf, is it?” Annika said quietly.

The woman contemplated Annika for a little while.

“A little bit of help from time to time,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Well, that’s a possibility, of course. We could give that a try first. It would have to be someone local, someone who’s able to come and see to Gustav more or less every day. We’d need to find someone like that,” she said, her expression wise, “someone with experience who lives close by...”

At that moment Pettersson, the other police officer, walked in with the old man trailing behind him.

“Get that trigger-happy old bastard away from me!” screamed Ingela Jönsson.

Gustav stiffened in the doorway when he saw her standing in his kitchen.

“Get that wood thief out of my house!” he yelled. “I’m not having that thieving bitch on my property!”

“Stop it!” yelled Annika. “Stop it right now! Use your brains, for pity’s sake!”

A deathly silence fell in the kitchen as five pairs of eyes stared at her; the only sound was the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the birch wood.

“It’s Christmas Day,” she said. “I don’t care whether you believe in God or not, but you ought to take that as a sign. If you can just use a little bit of sense and show a little bit of tolerance, you can sort this out. Otherwise you’re both screwed,” she said, looking first at Gustav and then at Ingela.

“What are you talking about?” Ingela said stupidly.

“You two are the solution to each other’s problems,” said Annika.

She quickly pushed past Ingela Jönsson and Old Gustav, stopped by the door, and confronted their surprised looks.

“It’s up to you now,” she said as she closed the door behind her and stepped out into the snow.