“Oh yes, often. She liked to hear me going on about the old days. It’s not the old days for me, of course: everything seems to have happened quite recently. You’ll understand what I mean one of these days. It’s only your body that grows old. Inside here I feel…”
He tapped the side of his forehead and grinned.
“… like a seventeen-year-old.”
“Did you tell her anything you regret having told her?”
He fell silent. Stared at a deep scratch in the middle of the kitchen table.
“You liked her, I think?”
He nodded.
“She was murdered, as you know. She and Simon went diving, and someone made sure they never came back up again. At any rate, she never came back up again. Strictly speaking the boy’s still missing, but presumably he’s somewhere in Vittangijarvi.”
“I thought they found her in the Torne, downstream from Tervaskoski?”
“Yes, they did. But she’d been moved there. Don’t you think you owe it to her to tell me what’s nagging at you?”
He stared at the scratch on the table.
“You should let sleeping dogs lie,” he said.
Martinsson’s hand shot out of its own accord and covered the scratch in the table.
“But sometimes those sleeping dogs wake up,” she said. “And now Wilma’s dead. I think you’re an honourable man. Think of Wilma. And Anni Autio.”
Her last remark was a gamble. She had no idea what sort of a relationship he had with Anni Autio.
He poured himself some more coffee. She noticed that he placed his left hand over his right one in order to keep it steady.
“Well,” he said. “But don’t tell anybody I said anything, mind. I told Wilma about an aeroplane that had been missing since 1943. It came down somewhere. I’ve spent ages thinking about that aeroplane. Wondering where it might have crashed. I told Wilma I thought it must have come down either in Vittangijarvi, Harrijarvi or Ovre Vuolusjarvi.”
“What kind of a plane was it?”
“I don’t know, I never saw it. But it was German. The Germans had big storage depots in Lulea. One of them was right next to the cathedral.
“I know, of course, that they were allowed to use our railway network,” Martinsson said slowly. “For transporting troops going on leave and coming back again.”
Sucking hard at his dentures, Svarvare eyed her up and down as if she were mentally deficient.
“Well, yes,” he said. “Anyway, Isak Krekula was a haulier. I left school at the age of twelve and started working for him. I was strong, and I could carry things and load lorries. I also did a bit of driving now and then – they weren’t so strict about it in them days. Anyway, that evening in the autumn of 1943, Isak drove one of his lorries to Kurravaara, and I went with him. Swedish Railways had stopped transporting German troops that summer, so we were never short of work – not that we had been before, come to that. The troops had to be provided for. So we sat there, waiting and waiting. There was me, Isak, and some of the lads from the village he’d hired to help with the unloading and reloading. But we gave up when morning came and nothing had happened. Isak paid one of the village lads to stay on and look out for the aeroplane, and to telephone if it turned up. But it seemed to have been gobbled up somewhere. Isak heard eventually that nobody knew what had happened to it. But you know, people didn’t talk about that sort of thing. Not then, and certainly not now. It was sensitive, you see.”
How sensitive? Martinsson wondered. Sufficiently sensitive for two young people to be killed to prevent gossip starting up again? Surely that could not be possible?
“It’s so long ago,” Svarvare said. “It happened, and now it’s in the past. Nobody wants to remember what went on. And before long all those who can will be dead and buried. The girls who used to stand by the railway lines and wave to the German soldiers in the trains on their way up to Narvik, all those who celebrated the arson attack on the
Svarvare wiped away a drop of coffee that had trickled down the side of his mouth.
“I just thought it might be exciting for the kids to go looking for a wrecked aeroplane.”
Martinsson thought for a moment.
“You asked me not to tell anybody that you’d been speaking to me,” she said. “To whom shouldn’t I say anything? Are you frightened of anybody in particular?”
Svarvare took his time, then sat up straight and looked her in the eye.
“The Krekulas,” he said. “Isak has always been keen to jump in with both feet no matter what. He’d be quite capable of setting fire to a house while the occupants were asleep. And the boys follow in his footsteps. They were so put out when I said I’d told Wilma about that plane. All that was done and finished with, they reckoned. I’ve been working for them for God only knows how many years, helped them with anything that cropped up. I was always on call. Always. And then they come here and…”
His hand dropped down on the table like a full stop at the end of a sentence. Vera, who had been lying under the table, woke up with a bark.
“Why? Was there something special about that plane?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got to believe me. I’ve told you everything I know. Do you think that the Krekulas had something to do with Wilma’s death?”
“Do you think so?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“I should never have said anything to her. I just wanted to make myself interesting. I wanted her to think it was fun to talk to me. It’s no fun, dammit all, being on my own all the time. It’s all my fault.”
Once outside again, Martinsson took a deep breath.
As Strindberg said, she thought, you have to feel sorry for people. I don’t want to die alone.
She looked at Vera, who was standing expectantly by the car.
Dogs are not enough, she thought.
She switched on her mobile. Ten past seven. No messages. No missed calls.
Bollocks to you then, was her unsent message to Mans Wenngren. Screw some other woman if you want to.
I’m sitting on Hjalmar’s window ledge. Watching him as he wakes up with a start. Worry is pounding away inside him. That worry is sinewy and has fists as hard as Isak’s, his father’s. That worry has pulled his leather belt out of its loops.
He’s sleeping a lot now. He’s tired. Doesn’t feel up to doing anything at all. But sleep is spasmodic and unreliable. Worry drags him to his feet. Usually at about 3.00 or 4.00 in the morning. It’s
