Open Grave: A Mystery (15 page)

“Don’t think so,” said Fredriksson, “although it is the same street.”

Both of them seemed strangely unaware of the effect the talk about K
å
bo had on her. Perhaps they thought she had left it behind her, but sometimes she still woke up at night, drenched in sweat, in her dreams transported back to a burning inferno.

Sammy put an arm around her shoulders.

“I’ll go along,” he said, pulling her away from a nodding Ottosson and a wildly scratching Fredriksson.

“What the hell can it be?” was the last thing Lindell heard Fredriksson say.

“Something is rotten in Denmark,” Sammy observed in the elevator going down.

Lindell did not bother to ask what he meant. The whole morning had been slightly absurd. If she was to ask about everything she thought was strange she would not get anything else done.

Lindell assumed that the professor did not want uniformed police officers running around in his home, but still! It would be enough if Superintendent Wohlin went there himself, presented all his credentials in his most charming Dalarna dialect, and calmed the old man down, then everything would work out for the best.

“Was it Dalarna?”

“Dalsland,” said Sammy.

As they drove out of the garage and up onto the R
å
by highway she told about her nightmare, which included everything from scratching rats and rotting corpses to smoke and consuming fire. She had not even talked about this with Brant, even though he was the one who was occasionally subjected to her nocturnal anxiety.

She realized while she was talking that she was being subjected to Ottosson’s solicitude; for therapeutic reasons he simply wanted her to be confronted with the sight of the imposing villas and relive the events from that time, thinking that this would get her started, get her to talk. And it had succeeded beyond all expectations. She unburdened her mind, put words to the torments even before they arrived in K
å
bo.

And Sammy was the right person for her to confide in. They were getting along better than ever. Lindell had even socialized a bit during the fall with the Nilsson family.

And there were not too many others to choose from, in a squad that was in the process of falling apart. Ottosson had announced that he would retire at the end of the year, withdraw to his cabin in Jumkil. Berglund had already quit, Haver was on long-term sick leave and would most likely not come back, and a couple of days ago Beatrice Andersson had dropped a bomb: she was going to get a divorce, resign, and move to Sk
å
ne. She had met a man, a farmer from the
Ö
stra S
ö
nnarsl
ö
v area, and was going to “start over.” It sounded like she was presenting a package from some agency, with forms, start-up subsidies, and follow-up.

“How the hell do you meet someone from Sk
å
ne?” Sammy Nilsson had asked.

“Through the Farmers Cooperative newsletter,” Ottosson speculated.

“What’s wrong with farmers?” Fredriksson hissed.

“I was talking about Sk
å
ne,” said Nilsson, who was known for his almost racist attitude toward people from that province.

And clearly Dalsland had now also fallen into disfavor.

*   *   *

Ann
Lindell hardly knew her
way around the block west of Villav
ä
gen and she sensed that the terror she had felt five years ago had erased many of the memories. Where the Hindersten villa had once stood there was now a newly constructed, functionalism-inspired house.

“That time it was an associate professor, now it’s a professor,” said Sammy Nilsson with a smile. “Does that mean that—”

“We have both an associate professor and a professor,” Lindell interrupted. “A neighbor is an associate professor and he’s the one who’s the villain in the drama, our Nobel Prize winner thinks.”

“What do you mean? Is he the one who’s threatening the professor’s life?”

Lindell shrugged.

“We’ll just have to see,” she said in a tone that expressed her understanding of their mission.

In front of the house was a van from the local radio station and a couple of other cars.

“Journalists,” Sammy moaned, “and then you’re along. This is going to be really amusing.”

They stopped behind the van. The journalist they already recognized, G
ö
te Bengtsson. He was one of the fixtures on local radio.

When Lindell got out of the car he was standing on the sidewalk, with a wry smile. Dressed in a large parka, he looked like a shaggy bear.

“Reception committee,” Lindell observed.

G
ö
te Bengtsson nodded. He had a disarming talent for looking uninterested, a little disheveled and borderline indifferent, as if he had just been wakened and sent out on an assignment that barely intrigued him. But Lindell did not let herself be fooled.

“I see, Nobel Prize,” he began grandiosely.

In the corner of her eye Lindell saw one of his colleagues approach. In the background a photographer could be seen.

“Personnel shortage,” said Lindell, trying to put on an embarrassed but at the same time bored expression. The journalist, however, did not seem convinced.

“He’s still alive,” said Bengtsson, who knew very well what kind of cases she worked with normally.

“You are too,” said Sammy Nilsson, who had joined them on the sidewalk and now voluntarily took on the task of trying to disarm Bengtsson’s colleagues. He went up to them.

“Is this a new initiative, a kind of preventive activity from the homicide squad?” Bengtsson asked.

Lindell was cold and wished she had a parka too.

“Stylish shack,” she said. “No, we’re allocated here by quota, to get an idea of how the social cases in K
å
bo are doing.”

It was not a particularly funny remark, but Bengtsson smiled.

“I had a chat with our prize winner,” he said. “He was extremely outspoken.”

“That’s nice,” said Lindell with a smile. “Then you don’t need me.”

“A little later perhaps?” said Bengtsson.

Lindell nodded and smiled again.

Bengtsson smiled back, turned his head, and saw how Sammy Nilsson was backing away from the journalists with a dismissive gesture.

“Karnehagen from
Aftonbladet
,” said Bengtsson, “and a new star from
Expressen
.”

“Do you have any coffee with you?”

Bengtsson nodded toward his van.

Lindell, Bengtsson, and Nilsson then had their coffee in peace and quiet, talking about this and that, and Bengtsson’s impending retirement.

On the sidewalk outside was the tabloid press.

*   *   *

“There are no excuses for
the laxity you have shown. Two uniformed policemen came here and then nothing happens.”

“What should we have done, do you think?” asked Sammy Nilsson. “Cordoned off the block, called in the marines?”

They had talked for ten minutes with Bertram von Ohler and both police officers felt they had no business being there.

The professor stared at Nilsson.

“Perhaps we can speak with your … employee,” said Lindell.

“Why is that?”

“Perhaps she has seen or heard something of interest?”

“And what would that be?”

Lindell smiled. Nobel Prize winner, she thought.

“I don’t want you to worry Agnes, she is extremely sensitive.”

*   *   *

Agnes
Andersson did not look
at all worried. She was sitting straight-backed on the other side of the gigantic kitchen table, her hands folded in front of her. She mostly resembled an aged confirmand who was waiting for a question from Bible history. A question that she knew in advance and would manage splendidly.

“What an amazing kitchen,” said Lindell, “so well organized.”

“Thank you,” said Agnes.

Lindell let her eyes sweep again over the walls and cabinets.

“How long have you worked here?”

“Fifty-five years. I came here in 1953.”

There was something familiar about Agnes Andersson, thought Lindell. Had they met previously?

“As a young girl,” Lindell noted, inspecting the woman before her a little more carefully.

How old could she be? Over seventy, at a guess. The protruding eyes looked fixedly at Lindell.

“Before, there was more to do,” said Agnes, “and then there were more of us too. Now it’s just the professor and me.”

“But you can’t very well clean the whole house yourself?”

“Oh yes, but three times a year my sister comes and helps out. At Christmas, in May when the apple trees are blooming, and now in the fall.”

Lindell tried to imagine what it would be like to vacuum, dust, and mop fourteen rooms and kitchen, but couldn’t. Just polishing all the copper forms that were hanging on the walls must take at least a week.

“My sister likes apple blossoms very much,” the woman added.

Lindell tried to imagine what it might be like to have a sister who liked apple blossoms, but couldn’t do that either.

“You must be a strong woman,” said Lindell unexpectedly.

Agnes Andersson moved her head almost imperceptibly.

“I’ll take a look in the garden,” said Sammy, slipping out the kitchen door without waiting for any comment from Lindell.

“I mean, to run a household of this size basically alone.”

“I’m used to it,” said Agnes.

Lindell smiled, and to her surprise the woman answered with a smile.

“The professor must have quite a few guests too.”

“Not anymore. He wants to take it a little easier.”

“What do you think about what happened? I mean the stone-throwing and then the threat in the mailbox this morning.”

“What should one think?” Agnes replied after a few seconds of reflection. “If you ask me I think it’s just some rowdy kids, schoolboy pranks.”

“Have there been threatening phone calls too?”

“Not that I know,” said Agnes, and for the first time during the conversation she looked a trifle uncertain.

“You haven’t noticed anything unusual recently?”

Agnes shook her head. Just then it occurred to her what made Agnes Andersson so familiar. It was the dialect she didn’t really manage to conceal. Fifty-five years in Uppsala had rubbed off most of it but like a shadow from the past the Gr
ä
s
ö
dialect was there.

“You weren’t born in Uppsala, were you?”

“Gr
ä
s
ö
,” said Agnes.

Lindell wanted to ask if she knew Viola, but refrained. Obviously she knew Viola, probably everyone did on Gr
ä
s
ö
, just like everyone knew, or knew of, Munkargrundarn and other features on the island.

Viola, whom she had gotten to know through Edvard Risberg, the man she met during a murder investigation ten years ago. He had gotten a divorce, moved to Gr
ä
s
ö
, rented the top floor of Viola’s old archipelago homestead, and he and Ann had started a relationship. Later, when she got pregnant with another man, the relationship fell apart. The biggest mistake of her life, she might think, always with a bad conscience, as her son Erik was her great joy. But Erik would have been Edvard’s too, that was a thought Ann could not let go of and suffered from. One night’s lack of judgment and she was punished by losing the man she loved so deeply.

She knew that she would never experience that passion again. Edvard was there like a thorn in her heart. She had talked with Anders Brant about him, but always in that relaxed way you are expected to do where old relationships are concerned. Perhaps he understood anyway that he could never fully replace Edvard?

Reminded about Viola by Agnes’s dialect, however faint, was to travel along a painful path. It was like looking out through a train window and reliving a beautiful, familiar landscape but not being given the opportunity to stop and get out and experience it close up once again. She would never be able to sleep with Edvard again. Never feel him cuddle up next to her. Never hear Viola rummaging in the kitchen on the ground floor, making morning coffee and sandwiches for her and Edvard.

Agnes was observing her. Ann felt caught and made an effort to come back to the present.

“Can you imagine anyone who wishes the professor harm?”

“That would be Bunde then, the neighbor,” said Agnes, tossing her head. “He’s the one who has an article in
Upsala Nya
today. The associate professor, he lives one house over, is probably not too pleased with the professor, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a man of peace. He’s the one who has the high tower you see. He grows olives and a lot of other things.”

Ann turned her head and through the window she glimpsed a glass cupola. She knew that the associate professor had been a colleague of Bertram von Ohler. The professor had pointed out the associate professor as the instigator of the article in the newspaper, and that although Torben Bunde wrote it, that did not affect the matter. The associate professor was surely behind the skull in the mailbox too, Ohler thought.

Lindell had not read the article that Agnes was talking about, not even noticed it when she quickly leafed through the newspaper that morning. It was G
ö
te Bengtsson who mentioned it and said that it actually did not add anything new, and was more an account of what was being said in Germany and other places. Bunde was well informed according to Bengtsson and unusually temperate, but could not keep from slipping in a few spiteful remarks in the last paragraph about what a duck pond Sweden was, and in an ingenious way Bunde made Professor von Ohler a victim of provincial narrow-mindedness. Being known at a regional hospital in Sweden does not necessarily mean that you should be rewarded with the Nobel Prize, he had concluded.

Bengtsson had pointed out where the author of the article lived and Ann Lindell had on several occasions seen a face visible in the windows.

“A real wasp’s nest,” she let out.

Agnes smiled carefully.

“And then we have the Germans,” she continued, and Lindell saw how the old woman was becoming increasingly exhilarated, her eyes glistened, her hands came up from the table and she underscored each word with cautious gestures.