The Darkest Room

17

Dear Karin,

This is a letter from someone who wishes you no ill, but simply wants to open your eyes. This is the way things are: Martin has been deceiving you for a long time. More than three years ago he took over responsibility for a class at the Police Training Academy in Växjö; there was a woman in this class who was almost ten years younger than him. After a party at the end of the first academic year, Martin started a relationship with her which has continued until now.

It ended just a few days ago.

I know this for certain because I am the younger woman in question. I couldn’t put up with Martin’s lies any longer in the end, and I hope you won’t either when you find out the truth.

Perhaps you need some kind of proof to convince

you completely? I don’t want to get too intimate, but I can for example describe the two-inch scar above his right groin after the hernia operation he had a few years ago. He had been moving rocks at your country place outside Orrefors when it happened, isn’t that right?

And don’t you agree that he ought to wax his hairy back and ass now and again, when he’s so vain about the rest of his perfectly honed body?

As I said, I don’t want to hurt anyone, even though I know it will be painful for you to find out the truth. There are so many lies in the world and so many treacherous liars. But together you and I can at least fix one of them.

Best wishes from “The other woman”

Tilda leaned back in her chair and read through the letter on her computer screen one last time.

It was quarter to eight in the morning. She had arrived at the police station at seven in order to produce a clean copy from the draft she had scribbled down on a piece of paper the previous evening. The station was empty-as usual Hans Majner wasn’t in this early. He usually arrived about ten, if he bothered to turn up at all.

Tilda had seen Karin Ahlquist only once. It was when Martin had had to have his son Anton with him at the police academy for a few hours before Karin could pick him up. At about four o’clock she had come out to the exercise area where they were practicing traffic control. She was a head taller than Tilda, with dark, curly hair. She remembered how Martin’s wife had smiled at her husband, proud and loving, as they said goodbye that day.

Tilda looked out of the station window at the empty street.

Did she feel better now? Was her revenge on Martin really sweet?

Yes.

She was tired, but she did actually feel better now the letter was written. She quickly printed off a copy.

When she had taken out a plain white envelope, she felt unsure again. Martin had told her that Karin worked in the county environmental department, and Tilda thought about sending the letter there so that it wouldn’t fall into Martin’s hands. But mail that came to the county office was usually opened and noted in the diary, so in the end she put Karin Alhquist’s home address, printing it neatly in capital letters; she didn’t think Martin would recognize her writing. No sender’s name.

She pushed the letter into her cotton bag along with the tape recorder, put on her jacket and police cap, and left the station.

There was a yellow mailbox on the sidewalk near the police car. Tilda stopped, but didn’t take the letter out of her bag.

She hadn’t sealed it or put a stamp on it, and she didn’t want to mail it just yet.

Today she was giving talks on law and order to three school classes after lunch, but before that she had time to go out in the car for a while, check the traffic and knock on a few doors out in the country.

Edla Gustafsson lived near Speteby, in a little red house with a view across the alvar. There weren’t many trees around, and the main road went right past her house.

Time had stood still here. This is how people ought to live, thought Tilda, in the wilderness far away from all men.

She took her rucksack with her and rang the doorbell. A sturdy-looking woman opened the door.

“Hi, my name is Tilda-”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” the woman interrupted her. “Gerlof said you’d be calling. Come in, come in.”

Two black cats slipped away into the kitchen, but Edla

Gustafsson seemed pleased to have a visit from a relative of Gerlof’s. Edla was cheerful and energetic, hardly bothering to listen to Tilda’s explanation of why she was there. She quickly put some coffee on and fetched some small pastries from the larder. Pastries with jelly, with pearl sugar, with chocolate-ten different kinds altogether on a silver dish, all laid out beautifully in the small parlor. Tilda stared at the coffee table as she sat down.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many pastries.”

“Really?” said Edla in surprise. “Have you never been to a pastry shop?”

“Well, yes, but…”

Tilda looked at a black-and-white wedding photograph on the wall and thought about the letter to Martin’s wife. She had decided to send it that evening. Then Karin Ahlquist would receive it at the end of the week and have all weekend to kick Martin out.

She cleared her throat.

“I have one or two questions, Edla. I don’t know if you’ve seen the newspaper, but there has been a break-in with serious violence in Hagelby, and the police could do with some help.”

“I’ve had a break-in as well,” said Edla. “They got into the garage and took a gas can.”

“Really?” said Tilda. “And when was this?”

“It was the fall of ’73.”

“Right…”

“I remember, because my husband was still alive and we still had the car.”

“Okay, but we’re looking at more recent break-ins at the moment, over the last few months.” Tilda held up her notepad. “So I have a few questions about unfamiliar cars on the main highway… Gerlof tells me that you keep an eye on the traffic.”

“Through the window, that’s right. I always have done; I

can hear them getting closer. But there are so many nowadays.”

“But I don’t suppose there are too many cars at this time of year, in winter?”

“No, it’s easier now than when the tourists come… but I don’t write the numbers down anymore, I haven’t time. They drive past so quickly. And I’m no good at identifying the make of a car.”

“But have you seen any cars you didn’t recognize over the past few days? Late at night… last Friday, for example?”

Edla gave it some thought.

“Big cars?”

“Probably. In some cases they have stolen quite a lot, so they would have needed a car with plenty of space to stow everything.”

“Trucks often drive past here. Garbage trucks too, and tractors.”

“I don’t think they’re driving a truck,” said Tilda.

“A big black car came past here last Friday. It was heading north.”

“Like a van? Was it late at night?”

“Yes, it was just before twelve, after I’d switched the lights off up in the bedroom,” said Edla. “A big black van, that’s what it was.”

“Good… did it look new or old?”

“Not particularly new. And there was some kind of writing on the side. ‘Kalmar,’ and something to do with welding.”

Tilda made a note of that.

“Great. Thank you so much for your help.”

“Will there be a reward if you catch them?”

Tilda lowered her notepad and shook her head sadly.

After visit to Edla, Tilda headed back toward the north and turned onto the coast road south of Marnäs. It

went past Eel Point, but that wasn’t where she was going. She wanted to take a quick look at her grandfather Ragnar’s old place in Saltfjärden before she went back to the police station.

PRIVATE ROAD, it said on a piece of wood by the side of the road. An icy, overgrown track led down toward the sea, and Tilda’s police car bounced along in the wheel ruts.

The track led past an old Iron Age burial ground covered in round stones, and ended at a closed gate in front of a white cottage. She could just catch a glimpse of the sea through a grove of pine trees.

Tilda parked by the gate and walked in among the overgrown grass in the yard. Her memories were vague, and everything seemed smaller than when she had last been here with her father, fifteen years earlier. At that time Ragnar was long dead and Tilda’s grandmother had been taken into the hospital. The house had been for sale. She vaguely remembered the smell of tar, and that there had been several old eel tanks in the yard. They were gone now.

“Hello?” she called out into the soughing wind.

No reply.

The house itself was small, but it was just one of several buildings. There was a boathouse with closed shutters at the windows, a woodshed, a barn, and something that might have been a sauna. It was a fantastic location, right by the shore, but the whole place needed painting and there was an air of gloom and abandonment about it all.

She knocked on the door of the cottage. No reply there either, as expected. The house was probably just a summer residence now, as Gerlof had thought. All traces of the Davidsson family were gone.

Eel Point wasn’t visible from here, but when Tilda had passed the pine trees and walked out onto the meadow by the shore, she could see the old wreck a few hundred yards away and the twin lighthouses on the horizon to the south.

She moved closer to the water, and a large bird that had

been sitting on a rock on the shore took off slowly, its wings beating heavily. A bird of prey.

On the edge of the wood there was another cottage, she noticed, and in front of it on the lawn was a chair where someone had placed a pile of blankets.

Then the blankets moved. A head poked out and Tilda realized there was a person wrapped up in them. She went closer and saw that it was an elderly man with a gray beard and a wooly hat, with a thermos flask beside him and a long, dark green telescope in his hands.

“You scared off my Haliaeetus albicilla,” he called out.

Tilda went over to him.

“Sorry?”

“The sea eagle,” said the man. “Didn’t you see it?”

“I did, yes,” said Tilda.

A birdwatcher. They turned up along the coast at all times of the year.

“It was watching the tufted ducks,” said the ornithologist. He pointed his telescope out to sea, where a dozen or so black-and-white birds were bobbing along on the waves. “They swim here all year round and hang out with the birds of prey. They’re tough little devils.”

“Very exciting,” said Tilda.

“It sure is.” The man in the blankets looked at her uniform and said, “This has to be the first time we’ve ever had a cop out here.”

“Well, it does seem very quiet out here.”

“It is. In the winter, at least. Just cargo ships passing by, and a few motorboats now and again.”

“This late in the year?”

“I haven’t seen any here this winter,” said the man. “But I’ve heard them further down the coast.”

Tilda gave a start. “You mean around Eel Point?”

“Yes, or even further south. You can hear the sound of an engine several miles away, if the wind is in the right direction.”

“A woman drowned over by the lighthouses at Eel Point a few weeks ago,” said Tilda. “Were you here then?”

“I think so.”

Tilda looked at him, her expression serious. “You remember the case?”

“Yes. I read about it… but I didn’t see anything. You can’t see the point through the trees.”

“But can you remember if you heard the sound of an engine on that particular day?”

The ornithologist thought it over.

“Maybe,” he said.

“If a boat went past going south out in the bay, would you have seen it?”

“It’s possible. I often sit out here.”

It was a vague testimony. Edla Gustafsson’s supervision of the highway was much better than this birdwatcher’s monitoring of the Baltic.

She thanked him for his help and set off back to the car.

“Perhaps we could keep in touch?”

Tilda turned around. “Sorry?”

“It’s a bit lonely here.” He smiled at her. “Beautiful but lonely. Perhaps you’d like to come back sometime?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’ll have to find a whooper swan to keep you company.”

After lunch Tilda spent almost three hours at the school talking about law and order with the pupils. She had several traffic reports to write up when she got back to the station, but couldn’t quite let go of the drowning at Eel Point.

She collected her thoughts, then picked up the telephone and rang the manor house.

Joakim Westin picked up after three rings. Tilda could hear the sound of a ball thudding and happy children’s voices in the background, a good sign. But Westin himself

sounded tired and distant when he answered. Not angry-it was just that there was no strength in his voice.

Tilda didn’t bother with any small talk.

“I need to ask you something,” she said. “Did your wife know anyone who has a boat here on Öland? A boat owner close to your place?”

“I don’t know anyone at all who has a boat here,” said Westin. “And Katrine… she never mentioned anyone with a boat either.”

“What did she do during the week when you were in Stockholm? Did she talk about it?”

“She was renovating the house and furnishing it, and looking after the children. She had her hands full.”

“Did she ever have any visitors?”

“Only me. As far as I know.”

“Okay, thanks,” said Tilda. “I’ll be in touch if-”

“I have a question too,” Westin interrupted her.

“Yes?”

“When you were here, you said something about a relative of yours who knew Eel Point… someone from the local history society in Marnäs.”

“That’s right, Gerlof,” said Tilda. “He’s my grandfather’s brother. He’s written a few things for the society’s yearbook.”

“I’d really like to have a chat with him.”

“About the manor?”

“About its history… and about a particular story about Eel Point.”

“A story?”

“A story about the dead,” said Westin.

“Right. I don’t know how much he knows about folk stories,” said Tilda, “but I can ask. Gerlof usually likes telling stories.”

“Tell him he’s very welcome to come over.”

By the time Tilda hung up, it was four-thirty. She switched on the computer to do some work on new cases and her own

reports, including the one about the black van. It was a reasonably concrete piece of information in the investigation into the break-ins. Everything the birdwatcher had told her about the sound of motorboat engines around Eel Point was too vague to put in a report.

She wrote and wrote, and when she had finished the reports it was quarter to eight.

Hard work-that was the best way to avoid thinking about Martin Ahlquist. To drive him out of her body and soul.

Tilda still hadn’t mailed the letter to his wife.

When the Second World War broke out, the manor at Eel Point was taken over by the military. The lighthouses were extinguished and soldiers moved into the house to guard the coast.

In the loft in the barn there is one name preserved from this time, but it is not a man’s name.

IN MEMORY OF GRETA 1943 it says, carved in thin letters.

– MIRJA RAMBE