“Yes. No!”
“But it ran off the rails. You didn’t expect blood, did you, Counselor? Come on. We’ve got a few minutes. I don’t know response times around here, but Swedish police are said to be kind of slow on the uptake. Am I right? You knew!”
Hammar’s face took on a gray tint, its color drained. “I didn’t know…all this.” He waved in the direction of the house. “How could I?”
“I can’t believe I was so damned stupid.” Brand was talking to herself now. “Let’s head up the drive and find out, he says. What do I do? I do exactly like he says, like some—like a tool. I must be off my game. I’ve been in trouble ever since I pulled my duffel off the carousel at Arlanda. You played me. And I don’t like to be played.”
“Veronika!” he wailed. “Vad gör du?” What are you doing?
It was her fault, a fact which did not help with her feelings of betrayal. She had entered the manor house, acting like a cop instead of what she was, a tourist. Plus she had foolishly tampered with the scene. She extracted the torn dress and the wad of discarded tissues from the pocket of her down vest.
She turned back to Hammar. “Have you any contacts in the local constabulary?”
He shook his head.
“Well, our presence here is a little problematic,” she said. “You do realize that, don’t you? What are we up to? Why were we even here in the first place? Just taking a little tour of the great manor houses of Sweden? We need to decide what’s what. Then we make the call. ”
She didn’t even mention one of the dead was police. Glancing at Hammar, she realized the man wasn’t even listening to her. Brand reacted with a flare of anger. She wanted to give him a shake. Hadn’t he heard her?
He was staring at the balled-up wedding dress that Brand still held in her hand. “What’s that? Where did you get that?”
“Jesus, what’s the matter with you?”
Hammar reached out slowly, as if moving in a dream. He took the dress from Brand. The movement was so odd that she gave it up willingly.
“Don’t tell me you recognize it?”
“I need to—need to check—I’m not sure,” Hammar stammered. “I think I know whose it is.”
“Come on,” Brand said, skeptical. “Out of all the wedding gowns on the planet, you’re telling me you can identify this one? They all look pretty similar, don’t they?”
“No, no,” Hammar protested. He clutched at the fabric. “It is…very recognizable. I’ve seen it often. I know who wore it.”
Part two: The blond beast
At the center of all these noble races we cannot fail to see the beast of prey, the magnificent blond beast avidly prowling round for spoil and victory… // Nietzsche
11.
Brand sat alone at the local police station in the town of Ljusdal. For once she found herself on the other side of an interrogation table.
There had been some preliminary questioning at the manor house. The responding officers had quickly established that the bearded man was not, in fact, a member of the police force. The ID was an obvious fake. The real police had responded out of a Gävleborg County headquarters in Ljusdal. They directed Brand and Hammar to follow along behind them as they drove the ten-kilometer distance to the station.
The former market town was located on a single lane carriageway, and featured a mix of non-descript 1960’s detached housing with an eclectic collection of shops and cafes that wouldn’t know a latte from a milkshake. A welcome change to the endless flat fields of snow and farmhouses that dotted the landscape of the journey so far. In the station, the officers separated the two of them. She recognized the time-honored police practice of cooling out subjects and keeping them apart.
The interrogation room where she sat reflected the Swedish preference for no-nonsense functionalism. The room was in stark contrast to the windowless, strip-light illuminated boxes she felt at home in. The setting almost felt like a new office; soft ceiling lights complemented the sun’s feeble rays which snuck in through a small window high up on the wall to her left. The light cast a warm glow on the clean white walls and the sleek wood table, glinting off the tell tale two-way mirror which took up most of the wall directly in front of her. Brand couldn’t help but feel slightly impressed that the stylish wooden chairs matched the table, an achievement she hadn’t managed in her own misshapen apartment. Brand sat on the side usually occupied by the assumed guilty, her hands clasped in front of her on the bare tabletop, gazing out of the window at a small spruce offering a shield from prying outside eyes.
A cop often thinks along the lines of a criminal. Put the right type of prisoner in this snug room, Brand considered, leave them alone, and they’d have a weapon fashioned in five minutes. Her own weapon was safely hidden in the Saab. Brand stashing the pistol in his vehicle sparked another anxiety attack in Hammar. He demanded that she turn the Glock in.
Held in limbo in separate rooms in the station house, they waited, each alone. The police hadn’t taken away their cell phones. Brand looked at hers, and realized that for once she had a signal. She stood as if to stretch her legs, turning her back to the mirror, cradling the phone in both hands in front of her mouth in an attempt to conceal the call she was making to Hammar.
“Veronika.” He sounded subdued.
“It’s okay,” she said in a placating tone, the one she always employed
