Until Thy Wrath Be Past

WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL

At 6.05 in the morning Rebecka Martinsson rang Anna-Maria Mella. Mella answered in a low voice, so as not to wake Robert. Robert snuggled up behind her and fell asleep again, his warm breath fanning the back of her neck.

“I read the notes you made after talking to Johannes Svarvare,” Martinsson said.

“Mmm.”

“You recorded that he gave the impression of wanting to say something, but that he cut the interview short by lying down on the sofa and closing his eyes.”

“Yes, although he first took out his false teeth and tossed them into a glass.”

Martinsson laughed.

“Is it O.K. with you if I ask him to put his teeth back in and have a word with me?”

Mella vacillated between two reactions. Of course they would need to interview Svarvare again. She felt annoyed at not having reached that conclusion herself, and even more annoyed because Martinsson wanted to repeat the interrogation Mella had already done. But at the same time she realized that Martinsson was phoning her as a peace-making gesture. That was decent of her. Martinsson was good. Mella decided not to sulk.

“That’ll be fine,” she said. “When I spoke to him we were still investigating what looked like an accidental death with a few details that needed clarifying.”

“You wrote that he had been talking to Wilma, and had told her more than he ought to have done.”

“Yes.”

Mella began to feel uneasy. She really had handled that interrogation badly.

“But he didn’t say anything about what they actually discussed?”

“No. I suppose I ought to have pressed him, though I’m not sure how; but like I said, it wasn’t a murder investigation then.”

She fell silent.

Don’t start making excuses, she told herself.

“Hey,” Martinsson said, “you handled the situation extremely well. You made all these notes. Observed that there seemed to be something else he wanted to say. O.K., so we know what we need to concentrate on in round two, now that we’ve established what this case is really about.”

“Thank you,” Mella said.

“It’s me who should be thanking you.”

“For what?”

“For trusting me to go and talk to him.”

“I can always conduct round three, if necessary. When are you going to see him?”

“Now.”

“Now? But it’s only…”

“Yes, but you know what old people are like. When they finally get the chance to get the night’s sleep they’ve always longed for, they wake up at 4.00 in the morning.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. I’m sitting in my car outside his house. He just looked out at me from behind his kitchen curtain for the third time.”

“She’s mad,” Mella said when she had hung up.

“Who?” Robert said as he caressed her breasts.

“Rebecka Martinsson. She’s taken over the investigation. I like the woman, for Christ’s sake – I mean, I saved her life back there in Jiekajarvi: that does things to you. And she’s fun to talk to when she relaxes. Even if we are very different. She’s a bloody good prosecutor.”

Robert kissed the back of her neck, and pressed his lower body against her backside.

Mella sighed.

“I suppose I’m put out because she seems to be taking everything over. I’d really prefer to run this case myself.”

“She needs to realize that you’re an alpha female,” Robert said, squeezing her nipples.

“Yes,” she said.

“Didn’t you read a book recently? What was it called – There’s a Special Place in Hell for Women Who Don’t Help Each Other?”

“No, you’re thinking of There’s a Special Place in Hell for Men Who Don’t Have the Sense to Agree When Their Wives Act Like a Bitch. Hey, what do you think you’re going to do with this?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly into her ear. “What does the alpha bitch want me to do with it?”

Svarvare offered Martinsson a cup of coffee to start the day. Declining his best china, she asked for a mug instead. And accepted his offer of a sandwich. He smelled dirty the way old men do; hygiene was evidently not his strong point. He was wearing a vest under a knitted cardigan. A pair of black trousers, very shiny at the rear, held up by braces. She could not suppress the feeling that she did not want to put anything in her mouth that he had touched. When had he last washed his hands? She shuddered at the thought that the fingers he had used to hold his false teeth had also been in contact with the bread and whatever he had put into the sandwich.

But then again I can allow a dog I have never seen before to lick my mouth, she thought.

She smiled and looked down at Vera, who was sniffing around under the kitchen table, gulping down scraps of food and crumbs, and licking the legs of the bench where something had trickled down and dried up.

Including you, you filthy little swine! she thought. I must be out of my mind.

“You knew Wilma, is that right?” she said.

“Yes, of course,” Svarvare said, downing half his mug of coffee.

There are questions he is dreading that I might ask, Martinsson thought. I’ll start with the easy ones.

“Can you tell me a bit about her?”

He seemed surprised. Relieved at the same time.

“She was so young,” Svarvare said, shaking his head. “Much too young. But you know, it’s a good thing if youngsters come to a village like this one. And when she moved in with Anni, Simon Kyro also started to come and visit his uncle. The whole place seemed to come to life. Those of us who live here are all old-timers. But her and her friends – well, they looked like…”

He held up both hands and bent his fingers to look like claws, and pulled a face intended to be frightening.

“Black all round their eyes, and black clothes. But they were fun. And there was no harm in them. Once they borrowed kick-sledges from us old-timers and went racing around the village. There must have been ten of them. Careering around and shouting and laughing. Taking it in turns to give the others rides. Like a flock of crows. They say that young people nowadays just sit around indoors and gape at computers. Not her.”

“Did she visit you sometimes?”