He might have bloody known it. She’s here because she wants something. He’s suddenly terrified that she’ll disappear. Gone.
“Help me,” he says to her. “Help me get out of here.”
She can see that he won’t manage it on his own. And she sees his rage. The secret hatred of the dependent, who can’t cope on their own. But it doesn’t matter anymore. She gets up. Places her hand on the back of his neck. Draws his face toward her breast.
Let’s go, she says after a while.
It’s quarter past seven when he closes the door of the house behind him for the very last time in his life. Everything he’s taking with him fits into a supermarket carrier bag. One of the neighbors pulls the curtain aside, leans against the windowpane and watches him with curiosity as he chucks the bag into the backseat of the car.
Mildred gets into the passenger seat. When the car drives out through the gate he feels almost elated. Like the summer before they got married. When they drove around Ireland. And Mildred is definitely sitting there with a little smile on her face.
They stop on the track outside Micke’s. He just wants to drop the key off with that Rebecka Martinsson.
To his surprise she’s standing outside the bar. Her cell phone is in her hand, but she’s not talking. Her arm is hanging straight down by her side. When she catches sight of him she almost looks as if she’d like to run away. He approaches her slowly, almost pleading. As if he were approaching a frightened dog.
“I thought I’d give you the key to the house,” he says. “Then you can pass it on to the priest along with Mildred’s work keys, and tell him I’ve moved out.”
She doesn’t say anything. Takes the key. Doesn’t ask about his furniture or property. Stands there. Cell phone in one hand, the key in the other. He’d like to say something. Ask for forgiveness, perhaps. Take her in his arms and stroke her hair.
But Mildred has got out of the car and is standing by the side of the road calling to him.
Come away now! she shouts. There’s nothing you can do for her. Somebody else will help her.
So he turns around and shambles back to the car.
As soon as he’s sitting down the unhappiness Rebecka Martinsson has infected him with begins to ease. The road up to town is dark and exciting. Mildred is sitting beside him. He parks outside the Ferrum hotel.
“I’ve forgiven you,” he says.
She looks down at her lap. Shakes her head slightly.
I didn’t ask for forgiveness, she says.
It’s two o’clock in the morning. Rebecka Martinsson is sleeping. Curiosity works its way in through the window like the tendrils of a climbing plant. Winds itself around her heart. Sends out roots and shoots, spreading through her body. Twining around her rib cage. Spinning a cocoon around her chest.
When she wakes up in the middle of the night it has grown into an irresistible compulsion. The sounds from the bar have died away in the autumn night. A branch is whipping and banging angrily on the metal roof of the chalet. The moon is almost full. The deathly pale light pours in through the window. Catches the bunch of keys, lying there on the pine table.
She gets up and dresses. Doesn’t need to put the light on. The moonlight is enough. She looks at her watch. Thinks of Anna-Maria Mella. She likes the policewoman. She’s a woman who’s chosen to try to do the right thing.
She goes outside. There’s a strong wind blowing. The rowans and the birch trees are whipping wildly to and fro. The trunks of the pine trees creak and groan.
She gets into the car and drives off.
She drives to the churchyard. It isn’t far. Nor is it very big. She doesn’t have to search for long before she finds the priest’s grave. Lots of flowers. Roses. Heather. Mildred Nilsson. And an empty space for her husband.
She was born in the same year as Mum, thinks Rebecka. Mum would have been fifty-five in November.
Everything is silent. But Rebecka can’t hear the silence. The wind is blowing so hard it’s roaring in her ears.
She stands there for a while looking at the stone. Then she goes back to the car, parked on the other side of the wall. When she gets into the car, it’s suddenly quiet.
What did you expect? she says to herself. Did you think the priest would be standing there, an apparition on her grave, pointing the way?
That would have made things easier, of course. But it’s her own decision.
So the parish priest wants the key to Mildred Nilsson’s locker. What’s in there? Why hasn’t anybody told the police about the locker? They want the key handed over discreetly. They’re expecting Rebecka to do just that.
It doesn’t matter, she thinks. I can do whatever I like.
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella woke up in the middle of the night. It was the coffee. Whenever she drank coffee late in the evening, she always woke up in the middle of the night and lay there tossing and turning for an hour before she could get back to sleep. Sometimes she’d get up. It was quite a nice time, really. The whole family was asleep, and she could listen to the radio with a cup of camomile tea in the kitchen, or fold laundry, or whatever, and lose herself in her thoughts.
She went down to the cellar and switched on the iron. Let the conversation with the husband of the murdered woman replay in her head.
ERIK NILSSON: We’ll sit here in the kitchen so we can keep an eye on your car.
ANNA-MARIA: Oh yes?
ERIK NILSSON: Our friends usually park down by the bar or a little distance away. Otherwise there’s the risk that you might get your tires slashed or the paint scratched or something.
ANNA-MARIA: I see.
ERIK NILSSON: Oh, it’s not too bad. But a year ago there was a lot of that sort of thing going on.
ANNA-MARIA: Did you report it to the police?
ERIK NILSSON: They can’t do anything. Even if you know who it is, there’s never any proof. Nobody’s ever seen anything. And people are scared. It might be their shed on fire next time.
ANNA-MARIA: Did somebody set fire to your shed?
ERIK NILSSON: Yes, it was a man in the village… At least we think it was him. His wife left him and stayed here with us for a while.
That was nice, thought Anna-Maria. Erik Nilsson had his chance to have a go at her then, but he let it go. He could have let bitterness creep into his voice, talked about how the police didn’t do anything and ended up blaming them for his wife’s death.
She was ironing one of Robert’s shirts, God, the cuffs were really worn. The shirt steamed beneath the iron. There was a good smell of freshly ironed cotton.
And he was well used to talking to women, that was obvious. Sometimes she forgot herself and answered his questions, not to gain his trust, but because he’d managed to gain hers. Like when he asked about her children. He knew just what was typical at their ages. Asked if Gustav had learned the word no yet.
ANNA-MARIA: It depends. If it’s me saying no, he doesn’t understand. But if it’s him…
Erik Nilsson laughs, but all at once becomes serious.
ANNA-MARIA: Big house.
ERIK NILSSON: (sighs) It’s never really been a home. It’s half priest’s house and half hotel.
ANNA-MARIA: But now it’s empty.
ERIK NILSSON: Yes, the women’s group, Magdalena, thought there’d be too much talk. You know, the priest’s widower consoling himself with assorted vulnerable women. They’re probably right, I suppose.
ANNA-MARIA: I have to ask, how were things between you and your wife?
ERIK NILSSON: Must you?
ANNA-MARIA:-
ERIK NILSSON: Fine. I had an enormous amount of respect for Mildred.
ANNA-MARIA:
ERIK NILSSON: She wasn’t the sort of woman who’s a dime a dozen. Not that sort of priest either. She was so incredibly… passionate about everything she did. She really felt she had a calling here in Kiruna and in the village.
