Open Grave: A Mystery (16 page)

“The Germans have never liked the professor. And vice versa.”

She told about the article that had been published in some German magazine and how the professor had become hopping mad, first carrying on “like a brigand,” then collapsing on the library couch, stunned and silent, barely responsive.

“I was worried for a while, thought about calling his daughter. He is an old man after all and his heart can give out at any time.”

Lindell nodded as if she completely understood Agnes’s analysis.

“But perhaps Birgitta would make everything worse,” said Agnes in a gruff voice.

There was something of Viola in the woman. Perhaps some kind of female Gr
ä
s
ö
gene? The thought amused Lindell and she smiled carefully.

“There are two sons too, I’ve understood.”

Agnes smacked her lips.

“Abraham and Carl,” she said. “I watched them grow up. I shined their shoes.”

Lindell let the words sink in before she continued.

“Perhaps you’ll think I’m impertinent, but what is he like as an employer?”

“I take care of myself,” said Agnes.

“But the professor too, right?”

“That may be,” Agnes replied, and Lindell did not know what she should believe, whether the gruffness was directed at her or at the professor.

She heard voices from the yard and thought she could identify Sammy’s, but was not sure.

“I should thank you,” she said.

“It was nothing,” said Agnes, getting up.

Lindell did the same. They remained standing a moment on each side of the table.

“I’ll use the kitchen exit, like my associate. Maybe I can take a few apples?”

Agnes rounded the table, opened a drawer, and took out a plastic bag which she gave to Lindell.

“You probably know that Viola is not well,” Agnes said suddenly, when Lindell was standing with her hand on the doorknob.

She stared at Agnes.

“How did you know—”

“My sister Greta keeps track of everything,” Agnes explained.

“You knew that I—”

“You’re the police officer from Uppsala who associated with Edvard, yes. I recognized your name. I’ve known Viola my whole life. I’ve met Edvard too. A good person.”

Lindell bowed her head and got an impulse to hide her face with the plastic bag.

“She’s very weak,” said Agnes. “Greta went to see her yesterday. Viola doesn’t want to go to the hospital. Edvard will be with her. He’s like a son.”

Lindell nodded, incapable of saying anything.

“I’ll call Greta and tell her that you send greetings to Viola,” Agnes decided.

“Thanks,” whispered Lindell. “I didn’t know.”

She opened the door and stepped out into the garden. The wind took hold of the plastic bag and it fluttered away before it got stuck on a branch.

Lindell saw Sammy Nilsson standing by the boundary of the lot talking with a man in the neighboring yard. Laughter was heard. It was Sammy’s specialty, easy talk while at the same time taking in a little information.

Ann pulled down the bag, hesitated before the various apples. There were yellow-green oblong ones, another variety was bright red, while a third was blotchy and vaguely conical. She was enticed by the red ones, reached out and picked a few.

She filled the whole bag with a mixture of each variety, before she stopped. She was actually at work and was surely being observed by the neighbors. She set down the bag, leaning it against a trunk, and went over to Sammy.

The man he was conversing with was red-cheeked and actually somewhat red-eyed too. Lindell suspected that it was because the wind on this side of the house was blowing firmly.

“Now I know everything about spruce needles,” said Sammy.

Lindell did not understand what he meant and had no desire to know either, but she nodded toward the man on the other side of the fence. He nodded back and gave her a long look, as if he recognized her but could not place the face.

“Shall we get going?”

“Nice to meet you,” said Sammy, and Lindell was getting mortally tired of all the heartiness.

“Perhaps we have to talk a little with the associate professor too,” she said irritated when they had walked a few meters.

“What’s with you? Was she surly, the domestic servant?”

“Not at all,” Lindell said.

“My old man was almost pure sunshine,” said Sammy.

“That’s nice. Did he have anything to offer? What do you mean, almost?”

“He said that he knew of the professor, but no more than that. But then he said something that made me wonder, that Ohler has always been an oppressor, vermin. Those are really strong words.”

“Agnes knows Viola and Edvard on Gr
ä
s
ö
,” said Lindell.

“I’ll be damned! It’s a small world.”

“Gr
ä
s
ö
is small,” said Lindell.

“I wonder what he meant by vermin?”

“Viola is really ill.”

“Go out and see her then,” said Sammy thoughtlessly.

Yes, maybe I should do that,
she thought.
She would probably be happy. I’m sure I would cry the whole time and Viola would be the one who would have to console.

“Shall we go see the associate professor?”

Sammy nodded and cast a glance backward, before they rounded the corner of the house. Yet another car was now parked on the street.

“We’ll have to bring Moberg here,” said Sammy.

Anthony Moberg was a particularly zealous traffic cop, with zero social skills and the one who used the most parking ticket forms in the whole department, perhaps in the whole country.

“Shall we see the associate professor?” Lindell repeated in such an expressionless voice that Sammy stopped and turned toward her.

“Forget about Gr
ä
s
ö
now,” he said, without being able to conceal his irritation.

“Okay, I’ll cheer up,” said Lindell, giving him a crooked smile. “It’s just such a shock to be reminded.”

“Shock,” muttered Sammy Nilsson, but he seemed appeased and jogged over toward the journalists who now were thronging by the gate in full force, except for Bengtsson.

“We’ll do the phone trick,” he mumbled.

He opened the gate and smiled at the assembled press.

“Ann Lindell will tell you a little,” he said, slinking off.

She swept her eyes over the flock before she started to perform her spiel.

“Yes, as you know we have received reports that Professor von Ohler has been subjected to a number of villainies”—where did she get that word from?—“and because he has received so much attention, both in Sweden and abroad, in connection with the Nobel Prize, we obviously take seriously—”

“What does Professor von Ohler think about this?” asked Liselott Karnehagen, the woman from
Aftonbladet
, taking out her pocket recorder.

“What does he
think
?”

Karnehagen nodded eagerly.

“You’ll have to ask him that,” said Lindell.

At the same moment a shrill whistle was heard. They all turned around. Sammy was standing by the associate professor’s gate gesturing. With exaggerated movements he pointed at his cell phone.

“Excuse me,” said Lindell, pushing her way forward, “evidently there’s a call I have to take.”

She set off at a rapid pace and reached the associate professor’s gate before the throng of journalists realized what had happened. G
ö
te Bengtsson started his van and rolled off, giving a thumb’s-up as he passed Lindell and Nilsson.

*   *   *

“Associate
Professor
Gregor
Johansson,”
Lindell
noted on her pad, and it struck her that he was the first associate professor she had spoken with. The one she had encountered previously was in a state of decomposition.

Something also smelled in the living associate professor’s house, not rotten, but she got a faint sense of the untidy, the unaired.

“Why don’t we go up in the tower,” said Johansson.

Sammy and Lindell gave each other a look. Neither of them wanted a lecture on orchids or some other exciting species, but they could not say no, the man was obviously delighted at the thought of letting their conversation take place under glass. Perhaps he wanted to show them how well he had arranged it? He radiated loneliness and Lindell had nothing against keeping him company for a while.

“That would be exciting,” said Sammy.

They climbed up, the associate professor in the lead, eagerly talking about when and how he had his tower constructed, while Lindell thought about Viola. Was she on her deathbed? Agnes’s choice of words might suggest that. She was not a person who exaggerated, dramatized about death, Lindell was sure of that. Agnes seemed to possess a kind of stripped-down, unsentimental attitude to hers and other people’s lives, just like Viola. So when she said, “Edvard will be with her” it could mean that the end was near for the old woman.

Lindell sighed. Sammy gave her a worried look and reached out his hand to support her as she climbed up into the tower.

“Yes, I must say, the view is good,” he said.

The associate professor nodded.

“For the annual fireworks in the Botanical Gardens I usually sit here with a glass of wine.”

“What beautiful plants!” Lindell exclaimed. “And an olive tree! Do you see, Sammy? Olives! And lemons. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

Pride made the associate professor’s skinny cheeks twitch. It was obvious that he didn’t know how to react to this enthusiastic and wholehearted praise.

“That was kind,” he was finally able to say.

Lindell was happy that they had taken the trouble to come up. The tower gave an overview of the block. This is where the drama is playing out, she thought, amused and slightly energized. The former colleague and now bitter enemy, the associate professor who apparently calmly observes everything from above: the neighbor Bunde, whom they had only glimpsed like a moray in its hole, prepared to strike again with its sharp teeth at any moment; the red-eyed gardener in the neighboring yard who with his tirade about “vermin” and “oppressors” was the strange bird in this academic wasp’s nest; the “Germans,” this frightening people who were only jealous that they did not have a Nobel Prize to either award or receive; Agnes, with a half century of experiences, with slow cooking and shiny copper pans, who certainly knew more about Bertram von Ohler than he did himself.

And as the cherry on the cake, someone who with more tangible methods amuses himself by throwing stones and placing a cranium—a real-life skull, as Ottosson had expressed it—mounted on a fence post next to the professor’s mailbox.

“This stone-throwing, what do you think about that?” Sammy Nilsson abruptly interrupted the associate professor’s lecture about succulents.

The associate professor was startled. He looked at Sammy Nilsson in a way that expressed a wounded fatigue, as if the police had abused his confidence.

“I don’t think anything,” he said.

“You haven’t seen or heard anything?”

Gregor Johansson shook his head.

“Have you talked with the gardener, Haller? You seem to have a good deal in common,” said Sammy, pointing down toward the man. “He called Ohler vermin, what could he mean by that?”

“No idea,” said the associate professor.

“Have you discussed the professor and the prize with him?”

“Just in passing,” the associate professor answered.

“Do you share that understanding, about Ohler as vermin?”

“If that were the case, I would be very careful about airing such opinions.”

“Wise,” said Sammy Nilsson. “But now we have to be going. Nice to get a little perspective on existence.”

*   *   *

“What the hell are succulents?”
Sammy exclaimed as they were getting in the car.

“What the hell did you mean by being so contrary? He was a friendly old man.”

The throng of journalists was standing in a semicircle in front of Ohler’s steps. On the steps stood the professor. The whole thing resembled a press conference at the White House.

“Yes, old, and perhaps friendly, definitely to us, but I think there’s some shit there. I thought Haller hinted at a few things. He stood surrounded by dirt and a number of stones that he had dug up, did you see that? He also said something about ‘there is more ammunition for anyone who is interested.’ He stank of booze, did you notice that? And he talked about the associate professor as his ‘brother-in-arms,’ what did he mean by that?”

Lindell leaned her head back and closed her eyes and immediately after that her ears. She did not want to hear more about associate professors and skulls. They would write a report, then turn their attention to essentials.

*   *   *

The essentials proved to be
a sixty-year-old garage owner and member of the Home Guard in the Almunge area who had gotten tired of his wife and then of himself.

The wife was tied up with her back to a chopping block in the woodshed, shot once in the head and once in the chest. The walls of the shed were covered with dried blood, brain matter, and bone chips.

The man was on his back a couple of meters outside the woodshed. Half of his skull was missing. By his side was a hunting rifle.

It was a neighbor who found them. He had heard the shots and “immediately understood” that something was wrong.

“It’s to defend his home,” said Sammy Nilsson, kicking at the foundation of a tank that was on the yard.

After the first attack of nausea, he vomited in the woodshed. He had been seized by fury and yelled at the man who was lying at his feet.

Lindell had been forced to pull him away from the dead man.

“We don’t know what happened,” she said.

“He tied her up,” said Sammy.

That she could not deny and therefore did not say anything. She was also nauseated, partly by the sight of the dead, partly from the smell of diesel.

“Let’s move away a little,” she said, taking Sammy by the arm.

They walked in silence. There was not much they could do now, the technicians would have to perform their duties first. Lindell was struck by the dramatic difference between the villa in K
å
bo and the farm in Almunge. Ottosson called just when they had left the associate professor and driven up to the main road. One moment among the bigwigs and the next in front of two dead people in a little village in the country, the man obviously unhappy, evil, or crazy, or all three at once. With the woman bound and terrified in the presence of her husband, Lindell thought this was obviously an uncommonly brutal sight that indicated a kind of planning, and she understood Sammy’s rage. But he was too blocked to start reasoning, so she had to do it for herself.