Open Grave

Twenty

Ann Lindell was on a stroll through her old investigations, that was how she experienced it. She had never seen such a dull period before. The crooks really had taken a fall vacation. She could pick a little absentmindedly at what was now on her desk, including a number of cases that were very well-seasoned. Fortunately the folders were not starting to smell like old cheese; instead they were drying out, shrinking, and sinking deeper and deeper into a dusty forgetfulness. But she had a three-year-old rape in English Park that she could not let go of, even if she realized that the prospects for success were not particularly good.

On the other hand she had a knifing at a bar in the center of town. She ought to do something about that. It looked like a dispute in criminal circles, as the local newspaper called it. The chances of solving the case were moderately good. There was presumably someone out there who would profit from the perpetrator going away for a few years. Perhaps she ought to dig a little more? There was a tip about a Ludwig Ohrman, who should be questioned. She stared at his list of credits. Not a nice guy, she could see that.

She pushed aside his CV and became lost in thoughts about yesterday’s outing to Gräsö. It had left a bad taste in her mouth. She regretted not having said goodbye to Edvard. She had been uncertain whether she could cope with a strained good-bye on the farmyard and instead sneaked off with the thought of calling him later. But that did not seem like a good idea either. She simply could not muster the courage. She was afraid of his judgment. Had he put it all behind him, forgiven her? She was also afraid of her own reaction. She did not want a romantic nostalgia trip back in time to destroy everything she had built up with such effort. Edvard was history. Sure, he still had that magnetic influence over her, she had felt it immediately, but now she had a new life to live. Being thrown back several years was not an alternative.

“That’s that,” she said, and suspected that this was how an old drug abuser must feel when, despite the yearning, he turned down an invitation for a shot. Shaky, but also pleased with himself.

Ludwig Ohrman would have to wait, she decided. It would be Savoy, the café where she had solved a number of troublesome knots, both personal and professional, where she would celebrate with one of their special pastries.

It turned out to be a princess pastry. The marzipan made her smile. Perhaps some experience in childhood. Sometimes when she got to go with her father on his rounds with the beverage truck in the areas around Ödeshög and Vadstena they took a break at some pastry shop. Ann realized in retrospect that what she thought was a generous gesture from her father was not as extravagant as it seemed. They were no doubt treated. He had actually delivered soft drinks in the area for twenty years.

It was unusually peaceful in the café, she was the only customer until an elderly woman laboriously made her way to a table and sat down. After her a teenage girl-a vocational student, Lindell suspected-came with a tray in her hand and set a cup of coffee with a Danish pastry in front of the old woman. There must be at least seventy years between them.

Lindell recognized the old woman. They had met several times at Savoy. She got more and more decrepit every time, but her mind was razor sharp. She had previously related that she had worked as a hydrologist, an uncommon profession for a woman when her career started in the 1940s.

“So now we have a Nobel Prize winner,” the woman said suddenly, pointing with a bony finger at the newspaper spread out in front of her.

“Yes, that’s nice,” said Lindell.

The elderly woman took a bite of her Danish. Flakes rained down on the table.

“Maybe not so nice,” she said. “I knew his father,” she continued after taking another bite. “He operated on me. Age nineteen. He was skillful, very skillful. Surgeon. Burst appendix.”

Lindell nodded. Now she remembered the woman’s abrupt way of communicating.

“Good friend of my father. They were in some kind of society during the war. Papa was Scottish. But the son,” said the woman, striking her hand against the newspaper, “was a real piece of shit. Even then.”

Lindell was a little surprised at her candor and choice of words.

“How is that?”

“It’s past the statute of limitations,” said the old woman, hacking her dentures pleasurably into the center of the Danish.

Lindell’s curiosity was aroused but it was impossible to go further. Two younger women with three children came in and sat down at the only round table in the place, which seemed to have become a gathering place for young mothers in that part of town, a kind of open preschool. A circumstance that Lindell was not particularly amused by.

“Legally anyway,” the woman said, wiping her mouth meticulously.

The mothers gave each other an amused look. Lindell suspected that they took the old woman for a senile crone who was talking to herself.

One of the children was spraying orange juice over the floor.

“Is it a good idea for him to pour the juice?” Lindell asked.

“But Willie! You’re not allowed to do that,” said one of the women, and made no sign of cleaning up after little Wilhelm, but instead continued talking with her girlfriend, while the boy tore a roll to pieces over the table.

Lindell sighed, the old woman likewise. They got up at the same time as if at a given signal and went out together. Lindell was grateful that Linnea Blank, as she now recalled the old woman’s name, did not comment on Wilhelm and his mother.

“What you said about it being past the statute of limitations made me curious. You do know that I’m a police officer,” said Lindell with a smile.

The woman arranged her coat. Lindell got an impulse to pick off a couple flakes of Danish that were on the collar.

“I had a girlfriend,” said Linnea Blank after she had buttoned all the way up. “She went out with Bertram. It was going to come to a sad end. I don’t need to say more than that.”

“How is that? Did he mistreat her?”

Linnea looked around. Lindell discovered that her one eye was covered with a gray film. Probably she was blind in that eye.

“He was good-looking. Came home in a uniform. This was during the war.”

Lindell tried to imagine Bertram von Ohler as good-looking. It didn’t work.

“But he was mean,” said Linnea. “Now I have to be off. Goodbye! I’m sure we’ll meet again soon.”

A few years earlier Linnea Blank had been featured in Upsala Nya Tidning, Lindell remembered. The article told about a long, exciting career, with assignments in Turkey and India. She had been active besides in the peace movement in the 1950s and later in the struggle against apartheid. As an eighty-year-old she had taken part in the hydrological world congress in Nairobi and given a lecture on the subject “Water and Peace.”

Lindell watched her. The judgment on the “Nobel guy,” as Sammy called Ohler, was hard and relentless. Greta had much the same attitude. Had he abused Linnea’s girlfriend or simply been “mean” in general?

She got in the car, made a U-turn and took Ringgatan east at high speed. Outside Sverkerskolan she became 2,400 kronor poorer.