Everyone in the family feared that Malte’s death would be a shock to his grandfather’s system. The tragedy would claim two Voss lives instead of one. But the old man clutched at Ylva’s arm with surprising strength. His expression was odd, pleading. It was as if he would siphon some of Ylva’s youth in order to somehow sustain him in life. She saw him struggle to formulate his thoughts.
“I’ve heard that woman detective is involved,” Loke said, his hoarse voice barely rising beyond a whisper.
Ylva nodded. “The American, Veronika Brand.”
“Veronika Brand,” the old man repeated. He had a strange, wistful tone to his voice, as if he were about to cry. “I’ve never met her.”
“Of course not,” Ylva said.
“Must she be…removed?”
Ylva reacted with mild surprise. Ylva didn’t know how to respond. What was he asking? Why was he asking it? He did indeed appear to weep, or perhaps it was only an old man’s rheumy eyes leaking.
“Must she…?” Loke repeated, trailing off.
“Yes,” Ylva said firmly.
“The death…has to stop!” Loke called out, afterwards abruptly sitting back and falling into brooding silence.
Old age, concluded Ylva. One gets soft. A man at death’s door, of course he would wish for the death to stop. And if wishes were horses beggars would ride.
Ylva rose to her feet. “That’s all right, farfar. I’ll make it stop.”
Then she went about her business.
46.
“What I’m finding difficult to understand is how the animal could be taken from the estate without your knowledge.”
Detective Inspector Vincent Hult had never before confronted his patron in such a direct manner. Normally the Baron expected and received deference due to his position. Even though nobility was challenged and debased in these egalitarian times, it still counted for something in Swedish society.
“Do you know how to tell when a Roma is lying?” the Baron asked. “His lips are moving. The boy responsible for this foul business, Lash Mirga, has disappeared. I’ve informed the constabulary of his disappearance. So far, your police investigation has turned up nothing. I will have to put my own people on it.”
Hult felt that the ball he had served to the Baron had returned quickly to his side of the court.
“I understand,” he said placatingly, trying to smooth the Baron’s feathers. “You believed the beast had simply been taken out for veterinary procedures.”
“Yes, I was lied to,” the Baron said in a clipped manner. “It happens, if you deign to deal with the lesser races.”
They had gathered for fika around a small table in one of the barns on the Gammelhem property. Hult, the Baron, his man Magnusson, and Junior Voss—the four males stood in rubber boots and matching duck jackets of heavy-duty canvas. Two of them, the Baron and Junior Voss, displayed the casual condescension of power, with the other two clearly subordinate.
Separated from them by a stout fence, a paddock spread with wood shavings featured a jumble of landscaped boulders at its opposite end. Three spotted hyenas, two pups and a nursing dam, its teats engorged and prominent, lounged lazily at the mouth of a den built into the rocks.
“What I want to know from you,” the Baron said to Hult, “is if the connection of Gammelhem to this tawdry affair has been contained.”
“I believe it has,” Hult responded. “The knowledge of the animal’s presence at the Hede River scene has been limited to two officers, and they have been directed to remain silent on the matter.”
“Fenrir…” the Baron mused, gazing over at the other members of the small hyena pack he maintained at the estate's zoo. “I carried him in my arms onto the plane from Ghana. He grew into his magnificence here, in this corral.”
“We buried the beast with proper ceremony,” put in Magnusson, leaving Hult and Voss to wonder just what might be the suitable internment rituals for hyenas.
Junior spoke: “The Roma and your damn demon dogs from Africa are a separate matter. I have no doubt that you and Magnusson will punish your own people to everyone’s satisfaction. I am much more concerned with the possible involvement of the American woman and the Sami lawyer.”
“They left the lodge immediately after the truck carrying Fenrir,” Magnusson said, earning a glare from the Baron.
“What were you doing hosting them?” demanded Junior. “They’re very dangerous to us!”
“Gentlemen!” Hult cut in. “We are focusing too much on deciding whose mess this was. What we need to be doing is cleaning it up quickly and thoroughly. I offer a mea culpa myself. I had the two of them brought in to the central polisstation in Stockholm, attempting to frighten them off. Perhaps I let them go too easily.”
Junior cursed. “It’s ancient history, this whole Nordic Light thing! I wasn’t even born! What does the bitch want? Does she expect my ninety-eight year old father to offer some sort of public apology?”
“Detective Brand’s motives don’t matter in the least,” Hult said authoritatively. “She is a lonely, bitter woman who was recently fired from her post in the NYPD. It would be sad if it weren’t so pathetic. But like a wounded animal, she can still bite.”
“Not particularly good-looking, I hear?” Junior Voss asked.
“Ill-favored,” Hult said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the Baron mused. “I’ve often thought there’s a kind of beauty that has something wrong with it. An off-kilter look can be alluring. It is not the perfect, magazine-style, prefabricated prettiness that is so commonly foisted upon us. I’m thinking of someone like Bette Davis, or maybe more of your generation, the Streep woman.”
“I don’t see any of that in the Brand bitch,” Hult said.
“Not to my taste, of course,” the Baron added quickly. “But I wouldn’t deny her intelligence, however much her life is in pieces.”
“Say we remove her from the scene,” Junior said. “What could we expect in return?”
“Remove…?” Hult asked, letting the question dangle.
“I’m afraid my niece Ylva has formed a violent hatred of
