humanity. As long as he was engaged in the hunt, he didn’t need to question who he was. As long as he was working to serve the cause, he could slowly but surely chip away at his guilt. Only by refusing to stand still was he able to shake off everything that he didn’t want to think about.
He turned around. The doorbell was ringing. For a moment he couldn’t tear himself away from all those faces flickering before his eyes. Then he blinked them away and went to open the door.
‘Oh, so it’s you,’ Axel said when he caught sight of Paula and Martin. For a second he felt overwhelmed by fatigue. Sometimes it seemed this would never end.
‘Could we come in and talk to you for a few minutes?’ asked Martin in a kindly tone of voice.
‘Of course. Come in,’ said Axel, again leading the way to the veranda. ‘Is there any news? I heard about Britta, by the way. Dreadful business. I saw her and Herman just a couple of days ago, you know. It’s so hard for me to imagine that he would…’ Axel shook his head.
‘Yes, it’s really tragic,’ said Paula. ‘But we’re not about to jump to any hasty conclusions.’
‘But from what I heard, Herman has confessed. Isn’t that true?’ asked Axel.
‘Well, yes,’ said Martin hesitantly. ‘But until we’re able to interview him…’ He threw out his hands. ‘That’s actually why we’ve come to talk to you.’
‘All right. Although I don’t really see how I can help.’
‘We’ve taken a look at the phone records – calls that were made from Britta and Herman’s house – and your number appears on three occasions.’
‘Well, I can tell you about at least one of them. Herman phoned me a few days ago and asked me to come over to see Britta. We haven’t had any contact for years and years, so it was a little surprising. But from what I understood, she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And Herman seemed to want her to see someone from the old days, in case that might help.’
‘And that’s why you went over there?’ asked Paula, studying him intently. ‘So that Britta could see someone from the old days?’
‘Yes. At least, that’s the reason Herman gave me. Of course, we weren’t exactly close back then. She was actually my brother Erik’s friend, but I didn’t think it would do any harm. And at my age, it’s always pleasant to talk about old memories.’
‘So what happened while you were there?’ Martin leaned forward.
‘She was quite clear-headed for a while, and we chatted a bit about the old days. But then she got confused, and, well, it didn’t make any sense for me to stay, so I excused myself and left. Incredibly tragic. Alzheimer’s is a horrible illness.’
‘What about the phone calls in early June?’ Martin looked at his notes. ‘First one from your phone on the second, then an incoming call from Britta or Herman on the third, and finally another one from their phone on the fourth.’
Axel shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about that. They must have talked to Erik. But it was probably the same sort of request. And it was actually more natural for Britta to want to see Erik if she’d started regressing into the past. They used to be friends, as I said before.’
‘But the first call was made from your house,’ Martin persisted. ‘Do you know why Erik might have phoned them?’
‘As I also said before, my brother and I may have lived under the same roof, but we didn’t interfere in each other’s business. I have no idea why Erik would have wanted to contact Britta. But maybe he wanted to renew their friendship. People get a little strange in that way, the older they get. Things from the distant past suddenly seem to get closer and assume greater importance.’
Axel realized how true this was as soon as he’d said it. In his mind’s eye he saw jeering people from the past come bounding towards him. He took a firm grip on the armrests of his chair. This wasn’t the right time to allow himself to feel overwhelmed.
‘So you think it was Erik who wanted to see them, for the sake of old friendship?’ asked Martin sceptically.
‘As I said,’ replied Axel, relaxing his grip on the armrests, ‘I have absolutely no idea. But that seems the most logical explanation.’
Martin exchanged a glance with Paula. It seemed unlikely that they’d get any further. Yet he still had a nagging feeling that he was being given only tiny crumbs of something much bigger.
After they left, Axel went back to stand at the window. The same faces began dancing in front of him.
‘Hi, how did it go at the library?’ Patrik’s face lit up when he saw Erica come in the front door.
‘Er… I… didn’t actually go to the library,’ said Erica, with a strange expression on her face.
‘Where did you go then?’ asked Patrik. Maja was taking her afternoon nap and he was cleaning up after their lunch.
‘To see Kristina,’ she said, coming into the kitchen to join him.
‘Kristina who? Oh, you mean my mother?’ said Patrik, astonished. ‘Why did you do that? I’d better check to see that you’re not running a fever.’ He went over to Erica and pressed his hand to her forehead. She waved him away.
‘Hey, it’s not all that odd. She’s my mother-in-law, after all. Why shouldn’t I go over to visit her on the spur of the moment?’
‘Oh, right,’ said Patrik, laughing. ‘Okay, out with it. Why did you want to see my mother?’
Erica told him about the sudden brainwave she’d had outside the library about Kristina’s friendship with her mother. And then she told him about Kristina’s peculiar reaction, and how she’d revealed that Elsy had had a love affair with the Norwegian who had fled from the Germans. ‘But she refused to tell me anything else,’ said Erica, sounding frustrated. ‘Or maybe that’s all she knew. I’m not sure. But it seemed that Hans Olavsen abandoned my mother in some way. He left Fjallbacka and, according to Kristina, Elsy told her that he’d gone back to Norway.’
‘So what are you going to do now?’ asked Patrik, putting the lunch leftovers in the refrigerator.
‘I’m going to track him down, of course,’ said Erica, heading for the living room. ‘By the way, I think we should invite Kristina over on Sunday. So she can spend some time with Maja.’
‘Now I’m positive that you must have a fever,’ laughed Patrik. ‘But all right, I’ll ring Mamma later and ask her if she’d like to come over for coffee on Sunday. But she may not be able to. You know how busy she always is.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he heard Erica say from the living room in a strange tone of voice. Patrik shook his head. Women. He would never understand them. But maybe that was the whole point.
‘What’s this?’ called Erica.
Patrik went to see what she was talking about. She was pointing at the folder on the coffee table, and for a second Patrik wanted to kick himself for not hiding it away before she came home. But he knew her well enough to realize that it was too late to keep it from her now.
‘That’s all the investigative material from the Erik Frankel murder case,’ he told her, raising an admonitory finger. ‘And you’re not to tell anybody about what you happen to read in that file. All right?’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Erica with amusement as she waved him away like an annoying fly. Then she sat down on the sofa and started leafing through the documents and photographs.
An hour later she’d gone through all the material in the folder and started over again. Patrik had looked in on her several times, but eventually gave up any attempt to get her attention. Instead, he sat down with the morning newspaper, which he hadn’t yet had time to read.
‘You don’t have much physical evidence to go on,’ said Erica, running her finger over the techs’ report.
‘No, it seems pretty scanty,’ said Patrik, putting down the newspaper. ‘In their library there were no fingerprints other than those belonging to Erik and Axel and the two boys who found the body. Nothing seems to be missing, and the footprints don’t belong to anyone else either. The murder weapon was under the desk. A weapon that was already on the scene, so to speak.’
‘Not a premeditated murder, in other words. Most likely committed on impulse,’ mused Erica.
‘Right, unless, of course, somebody knew about the stone bust on the window sill.’ Patrik was again struck by an idea that had occurred to him a couple of days ago. ‘Tell me again, when exactly did you go see Erik Frankel to show him the medal?’
‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Erica, still sounding as if she were far away.
‘I’m not sure. It might not be important at all. But it would be good to know.’
