And now she’s standing here with the new priest. She feels quite peculiar inside. The priest’s eyes have climbed inside her.
Another secret to drop in the well. It falls down. Lies there sparkling like a jewel among all the rubbish.
It was almost three months since his wife had been found murdered. Erik Nilsson got out of his Skoda in front of the priest’s house. Still warm, although it was September. The sky bright blue, not a cloud in sight. The light piercing the air like sharpened knives.
He’d been to call in at work. It had felt good to see his colleagues. They were like another family. He’d go back soon. Give him something else to think about.
He looked at the pots and containers lining the steps and the veranda. Wilted flowers drooped over the edges. He thought vaguely that he must take the pots in. Before you knew it the grass would be crisp with frost, and the cold would crack them.
He’d been shopping on the way home. Unlocked the door, grabbed the carrier bags and pushed down the door handle with his elbow.
“Mildred,” he called out once he was inside.
He stopped dead. You could have heard a pin drop. The house consisted of two hundred and eighty square meters of silence. The whole world was keeping quiet. The house was drifting through a silent dazzling universe like an empty spaceship. The only sound was the earth, creaking around on its axis. Why on earth was he calling out to her?
When she was alive he’d always known whether she was at home or not. As soon as he got through the door. Nothing odd about that, he always used to say. A newborn baby could recognize the smell of its mother, even if she was in another room. You didn’t lose that ability when you grew up. It just wasn’t part of the conscious mind. So people talked about intuition or a sixth sense.
Sometimes it still felt like that when he got home. As if she was somewhere in the house. In the room next door all the time.
He dropped the bags on the floor. Walked into the silence.
Mildred, the voice in his head called out.
At the same moment the doorbell rang.
It was a woman. She was wearing a long fitted coat and high-heeled boots. She didn’t fit in, couldn’t have stood out more if she’d been dressed in just her underwear. She took off her right glove and held out her hand. Said her name was Rebecka Martinsson.
“Come in,” he said, unconsciously running his hand over his beard and hair.
“Thank you, but there’s no need, I just want to…”
“Come in,” he said again, leading the way.
He told her to keep her boots on and asked her to sit down in the kitchen. It was clean and tidy. He’d done the cleaning and cooking when Mildred was alive, why stop now she was dead? He didn’t touch her things, though. Her red sweater was still lying in a heap on the kitchen sofa. Her papers and her post were on the worktop.
“So,” he said pleasantly.
He was good at that. Being pleasant to women. Over the years many had sat at this very kitchen table. Some had had a little one on their knee and another standing beside them clutching mummy’s sweater in a small fist. Others hadn’t been trying to get away from a man, but rather from themselves. Couldn’t stand the loneliness in an apartment in Lombolo. The sort who stood out on the veranda smoking, cigarette after cigarette out in the cold.
“I’m here on behalf of your wife’s employer,” said Rebecka Martinsson.
Erik Nilsson had been on the point of sitting down, or perhaps asking if she’d like a cup of coffee. But he remained standing. When he didn’t say anything, she went on:
“There are two things. First of all I would like her work keys. And then there’s the matter of your moving out.”
He looked out through the window. She kept talking, now she was the calm and pleasant one. She informed him that the house went with the job, that the church could help him find an apartment and a removal firm.
His breathing became heavy. His mouth a thin line. Every breath sounded like a snort down his nose.
He was gazing at her with contempt. She looked down at the table.
“Bloody hell,” he said. “Bloody hell, it’s enough to make you feel sick. Is it Stefan Wikstrom’s wife who can’t wait any longer? She never could stand the fact that Mildred had the biggest house.”
“Look, I don’t know anything about that. I…”
He slammed his hand down on the table.
“I’ve lost everything!”
He made a movement in the air with his fist, pulling himself together so as not to lose his self-control.
“Wait,” he said.
He disappeared through the kitchen door. Rebecka could hear his footsteps going up the stairs and across the floor above. After a while he came back, flung the bunch of keys onto the table as if it had been a bag of dog shit.
“Was there anything else?” he asked.
“Your moving out,” she said firmly.
And now she was looking him in the eye.
“How does it feel?” he asked. “How does it feel inside those fine clothes, when you’ve got a job like yours?”
She got up. Something changed in her face, it was a fleeting moment, but he’d seen it in this house many times. Silent anguish. He could see the answer in her eyes. Could hear it as clearly as if she’d spoken the words out loud. Like a whore.
She picked her gloves up from the table with stiff movements, slowly, as if she had to count them to make sure she had them all. One two. She picked up the big bunch of keys.
Erik Nilsson sighed heavily and rubbed his hand over his face.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Mildred would have given me a kick up the backside. What day is it today?”
When she didn’t reply he went on:
“A week, I’ll be out of here in a week.”
She nodded. He followed her to the door. Tried to think of something to say, it wasn’t exactly the time to ask if she’d like a coffee.
“A week,” he said to her departing back.
As if it could have made her feel happy.
Rebecka tottered away from the priest’s house. Although that was just the way it felt. She wasn’t actually tottering at all. Her legs and feet carried her away from the house with steady steps.
I’m nothing, she thought. There’s nothing left inside me. No human being, no judgment, nothing. I do whatever they ask me to do. Of course. The people at the office are all I’ve got. I tell myself I can’t cope with the idea of going back. But in fact I can’t cope with the idea of ending up on the outside. I’ll do anything, absolutely anything, to be allowed to belong.
She focused on the mailbox and didn’t notice the red Ford Escort driving up the track until it slowed down and turned in between the gateposts.
The car stopped.
Rebecka felt as if she’d had an electric shock.
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella climbed out of the car. They’d met before, when Rebecka was defending Sanna Strandgard. And it had been Anna-Maria Mella and her colleague Sven-Erik Stalnacke who’d saved her life that night.
Anna-Maria had been pregnant then, shaped like a cube; now she was slim. But broad-shouldered. She looked strong although she was so small. Her hair in the same thick plait down her back as before. White, even teeth in her brown, sunburned horse face. A pony policewoman.
“Hi there!” exclaimed Anna-Maria.
Then she fell silent. Her whole body was a question mark.
“I…” said Rebecka, lost her way and tried again. “My firm has some business with the different communities within the Swedish church, we’ve had a sales meeting and… and there were one or two things they needed some
