The Gallows Bird

‘I wish I knew. There’s a lot more I wish I knew too.’

‘Hmm,’ said Gosta, now standing in front of the section of the wall where the photos and documents dealing with Elsa were pinned up.

‘I rang Uddevalla,’ Patrik said, anticipating Gosta’s question. ‘They haven’t found the files about her accident yet. But they’ll fax over the documents as soon as they locate them.’

Gosta didn’t reply. He just stood there in silence for a while, gazing at what was displayed on the wall. The spring sunshine filtered in from the window, illuminating some of the papers in bright light. He frowned. Took half a step back. Then leaned forward again, this time so close that he almost pressed his ear to the wall. Patrik observed him in amazement. What was the guy doing?

Gosta seemed to be studying the book page from the side. Elsa’s page was the first in the fairy tale, and the story of Hansel and Gretel began there. With a triumphant expression Gosta turned to Patrik.

‘Stand over here where I’m standing,’ said Gosta, taking a step to the side.

Patrik hurried to take up the same position, leaned his head close to the wall by the book page, just as Gosta had done. And there, in the backlight from the window, he saw what Gosta had discovered.

Sofie felt as if she were frozen inside. She watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. Watched, but didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. How could it be her mamma lying in the coffin?

The pastor spoke, or at least his lips were moving, but Sofie couldn’t hear what he said because of the white noise in her ears that drowned out everything else. She glanced at her pappa. Ola looked solemn and withdrawn, with his head bowed and his arm around Grandma. Sofie’s maternal grandparents had come down from Norway yesterday. They looked different from the way she remembered them, though she had seen them last Christmas. But they seemed shorter, greyer, thinner. Grandma had furrows on her face that weren’t there before, and Sofie hadn’t known how to approach her. Grandpa had also changed. He was more silent, more vague. He had always been cheerful and boisterous, but this time he had just wandered about the flat, speaking only when spoken to.

Out of the corner of her eye Sofie saw something moving by the gate, on the other side of the churchyard. She turned her head and saw Kerstin standing there in her red coat, her hands clutching the grating of the gate. Sofie had to look away. She felt ashamed. Because Pappa was standing here but not Kerstin. Ashamed that she hadn’t fought for Kerstin’s right to be here and say farewell to Marit. But Pappa had been so belligerent, so determined. And she simply couldn’t fight him anymore. He’d been berating her ever since he found out she’d given the newspaper article about Marit to the police. He said that she’d disgraced the whole family. Made a fool of him. Then he had started talking about the funeral, saying that it would be only for close relatives, Marit’s family. He hoped ‘that person’ wouldn’t dare show herself. So Sofie had taken the only way out and shut up. She knew it was wrong, but Pappa was so hateful, so furious, that she knew trying to protest would have cost her too much.

But when Sofie saw Kerstin’s face in the distance she was deeply sorry. There stood her mamma’s life partner, alone, with no chance to say a last farewell. Sofie should have been braver. She should have been stronger. Kerstin hadn’t even been mentioned in the obituary in the paper. Instead Ola had submitted a death announcement in which he, Sofie, and Marit’s parents were listed as the closest family members. But Kerstin had sent in one of her own. Ola was livid when he saw it in the paper, but he couldn’t do a thing about it.

Suddenly Sofie was so tired of everything: all the hyp o crisy, the injustice. She took a step onto the gravel path, hesitated a second, and then strode rapidly towards Kerstin. For a moment she again felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, and Sofie smiled when she threw herself into Kerstin’s arms.

‘Sigrid Jansson,’ said Patrik, squinting. ‘Look here, doesn’t it say Sigrid Jansson?’

He moved over so Gosta could take a look at the book page and the name that was visible in the light from the springtime sun.

‘It looks that way to me,’ said Gosta, sounding pleased with himself.

‘Funny that the NCL didn’t notice this,’ Patrik said, but then remembered that they asked them only to look for fingerprints. But apparently the owner of the book had written her name on the first page and the pen had left an imprint on the page beneath it, the first page, the one found next to Elsa Forsell’s body.

‘What do we do now?’ said Gosta, still with the same satisfied look on his face.

‘The name isn’t particularly uncommon, but we’ll have to start by doing a search for all the Sigrid Janssons in Sweden and see what turns up.’

‘The book was old. The owner could be dead.’

Patrik thought a moment before he answered. ‘That’s why we’ll have to expand the search to include women other than those alive today. Instead we’ll have to include, say, women born during the nineteenth century.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Gosta. ‘Do you think it means anything that Elsa got the first page? Could she be connected somehow to this Sigrid Jansson?’

Patrik shrugged. Nothing would surprise him in this case. ‘It’s something we’ll have to check out. And maybe we’ll find out more when Uddevalla calls back.’

As if on cue, the phone on Patrik’s desk rang. ‘Patrik Hedstrom,’ he said, waving to Gosta to stay put when he heard who was on the line.

‘An accident. 1969. Yes… Yes… No… Yes…’

Gosta was shifting his feet with impatience. He gathered from Patrik’s expression that he’d heard something crucial. Which turned out to be quite true.

When Patrik hung up he said triumphantly, ‘That was Uddevalla. They found the information about Elsa Forsell. She was behind the wheel in a head-on collision with another car in 1969. She was drunk. And guess the name of the woman who died.’

‘Sigrid Jansson,’ Gosta whispered.

Patrik nodded. ‘Are you coming with me to Uddevalla?’

Gosta merely snorted. Of course he was.

‘Where did Patrik and Gosta take off to?’ asked Martin when he came out of Patrik’s empty office.

‘They went to Uddevalla,’ said Annika over the top of her glasses. She’d always had a soft spot for Martin. There was something puppylike about him, something unspoiled, that aroused her maternal instincts. Before he met Pia he had spent many hours in her office discussing his love woes. Even though Annika was happy that he now had a steady relationship, sometimes she did miss those days.

‘Sit down,’ she said, and Martin obeyed. Not obeying Annika was an impossibility for anyone at the station. Not even Mellberg dared otherwise.

‘How are you doing? Is everything good? Do the two of you like your flat? Talk.’ She gave him a stern look. To her surprise she saw a big grin spread across Martin’s face, and he could hardly sit still.

‘I’m going to be a pappa,’ he said, and his smile got even wider. Annika could feel her eyes tearing up. Not out of envy, or sorrow that she had missed the experience herself, but out of pure and unadulterated joy for Martin’s sake.

‘What are you saying?’ she said, laughing as she wiped off a tear running down her cheek. ‘God, what a fool I am, sitting here and crying,’ she said with embarrassment, but she saw that Martin was also moved.

‘When’s the baby due?’

‘End of November,’ said Martin with another big smile. It warmed Annika’s heart to see him so happy.

‘The end of November,’ she said. ‘Yes, I must say… Well, don’t just sit there, give me a hug!’ She held out her arms and he came over and gave her a big hug. They talked about the coming happy event for a while longer, but then Martin turned serious and his smile vanished.

‘Do you think we’ll ever get to the bottom of all this?’

‘The murders, you mean?’ Annika shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m worried that Patrik is in over his head on this one. It’s just too… complicated.’

Martin nodded. ‘I had the same thought. What are they doing in Uddevalla, by the way?’

‘I don’t know. Patrik just said they’d called about Elsa Forsell and that he and Gosta were driving down there to find out more. One thing is for sure – they looked awfully serious.’

Martin’s curiosity was definitely aroused. ‘They must have found out something important about her. I wonder what…’

‘We’ll find out more this afternoon,’ said Annika, but she couldn’t help speculating about what had made Patrik and Gosta take off in such a rush.