office and fetched the documents lying on her desk to hand them over to Martinsson.
Having followed on her heels, Martinsson collected them in Mella’s doorway, the other officers trailing after her like a tail.
“They’re probably not in the right order,” Mella said.
“That doesn’t matter,” Martinsson said.
She glanced at the noticeboard in Mella’s office. Pinned up were photographs of Wilma Persson, Simon Kyro and Hjorleifur Arnarson, with the dates when the first two had disappeared and when Hjorleifur had been murdered. There were maps of the area where Wilma had been found dead, and of Vittangijarvi. The names of the Krekula brothers were also posted.
“All that stuff,” Martinsson said, pointing, “we’ll move into the conference room tomorrow. So we have everything in one place. When shall we meet tomorrow? Eight o’clock?”
I don’t care what they think, Martinsson said to herself as she walked off with the documentation under her arm. I’m responsible now, and everything will be done by the book. It’s not my style to watch from the sidelines. If I’m in charge of the investigation, I’m the one who makes the decisions.
“Wow,” Mella said when Martinsson had left. “Do you think we’ll have to line up before the meeting tomorrow? In alphabetical order? Like at school?”
“But she did a bloody brilliant job today with Tore Krekula,” Stalnacke said. “Without her…”
“Yes, yes,” Mella said impatiently. “I just think a little humility wouldn’t go amiss.”
The silence between them seemed to last for eternity. Stalnacke looked hard at Mella. Mella stared back at him, ready to fight her corner.
“Looks like it’s time to go home,” Olsson said, and was seconded by Rantakyro, who explained that his girlfriend was getting annoyed – she’d phoned him about supper an hour ago now, and he had promised to call in and rent a film on the way home.
Word soon gets around in a little town like Kiruna. Pathologist Lars Pohjanen tells his technical assistant Anna Granlund that Rebecka Martinsson saw Wilma Persson in a dream after she died and told him that Wilma did not die in the river. That was why he took samples of the water in her lungs.
Granlund says she believes in that kind of thing – her sister’s grandfather’s cousin was able to staunch blood by the laying on of hands.
Granlund’s work is covered by hospital confidentiality rules, but she cannot resist telling her sister about this phenomenon over a pizza lunch at Laguna.
Her sister promises not to say anything about it, but close family does not count, of course, so she tells her husband that evening.
The husband does not believe in that kind of thing, however. That is precisely why he tells one of his mates about it while they are sitting in the sauna after a body-building session. Perhaps he feels the need to test the credibility of Martinsson’s claim. Could it really be possible? He wants to see how his friend reacts.
His mate does not say much at all. Just pours more water onto the hot stones.
His mate often goes hunting with an old Piilijarvi resident, Stig Rautio. They bump into each other outside the Co-op. He repeats the story to Rautio. Asks if he knew Wilma Persson. She was murdered, it seems. It was that District Prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson – the one who killed those pastors a few years ago – she was the one who…
Stig Rautio. He hunts on land owned by Tore and Hjalmar Krekula. He calls on Isak and Kerttu Krekula with the rent he owes Tore Krekula – Tore’s wife has told him her husband is visiting his parents. There is no urgency regarding the rent payment, but Rautio is curious. Everyone in the village, indeed in the whole of Kiruna, knows that the police have searched the Krekula brothers’ houses in connection with the murders of Wilma Persson and Hjorleifur Arnarson. Isak Krekula is in bed in the little room off the kitchen, as he always is nowadays. Kerttu Krekula is frying sausages and has made some mashed turnips for her boys. Hjalmar is eating, but Tore is only drinking coffee: he’s already eaten at home – after all, he has a wife who cooks for him.
Kerttu Krekula does not ask if Rautio would like a mug of coffee. They realize that he is only nosing around, but they cannot tell him anything. He hands over the envelope with the rent. He had used the first envelope he could lay hands on, and it happened to be one of his wife’s special ones, bought at Kiruna market. It looked as if dried flowers had been pressed into the hand-made paper. Taking the envelope, Tore gives it a quizzical look. Aha, says the look, someone is trying to give the impression of being posh and remarkable.
Rautio regrets not having looked for a different envelope: a used one with a window would have been better, but so what! He says he has heard that the police have been round – what a gang of idiots, halfwits! What the hell do they think they’re doing? Next thing we know they will be knocking on his door as well. Then he tells them about that business concerning District Prosecutor Martinsson and Pathologist Pohjanen. That she had dreamt about Wilma Persson, and gone to the pathologist as a result.
“Before long they’ll be buying crystal balls instead of chasing after thieves,” he jokes.
Nobody reacts, of course. The joke hangs in the air, awkward and heavy- handed. The Krekulas carry on as if nothing had happened. Hjalmar eats his mashed turnip and pork sausages, Tore taps on his coffee cup with his fingernail and gets a refill from his mother.
It is as if nothing unusual has happened. They make no comment on what Rautio says about the police. The kitchen is as silent as the grave for what seems like an eternity. Then Tore checks the notes in the envelope and asks if there is anything else Rautio wants to discuss. No, there is nothing else. He leaves without any gossip to pass on.
When Rautio is gone, Tore Krekula says, “What a bloody load of rubbish! Claiming that the prosecutor dreamt about her.”
Kerttu Krekula says, “This will be the last straw for your father. It’ll be the death of him.”
“People talk,” Tore says. “They always have done. Let ’em.”
Kerttu slams her palm down on the table. Shouts, “That’s easy for you to say!”
She starts clearing the table. Despite the fact that Hjalmar has not finished eating yet. A clear signal that there is nothing more to be said.
There never is anything more to be said, Hjalmar thinks. It was the same then. Last autumn, when Father had his heart attack. When Johannes Svarvare got drunk and started blabbing. There was nothing more to be said almost before they started speaking.
It is late September. The sun is setting on the other side of the lake. Hjalmar Krekula has carried the outboard motor indoors for his father. It is lying on the kitchen table, on a layer of newspapers. Johannes Svarvare usually dismantles it and gives it a service for Isak Krekula. The carburettor is blocked as usual.
Svarvare messes about with the motor. Isak serves him some vodka, by way of thanks. Tore Krekula’s wife is at a Tupperware party, so he is having dinner with his parents. Hjalmar is there as well. There is no room to swing a cat round in the kitchen. The table is piled high with plates of hamburgers and macaroni in white sauce alongside engine casing, screwdrivers, keys, a sheath knife, a plastic bottle with a long tube containing oil for the gearbox, new spark plugs and a tin of petrol in which the filter will be soaked.
Svarvare is gabbling away nineteen to the dozen. He is going on about old marine engines and various boats they have had or helped to build, and he even babbles on about the time he and his cousin loaded five sheep into his uncle’s rowing boat to take them to their summer grazing on one of the islands in the River Rautas, and how they hit a rock in Kutukoski and sank, all the sheep drowned, and he and his cousin only just escaped with their lives.
They have heard the story about the drowned sheep in Kutukoski before, but
