mats in the process.
“What foul weather!” Fjallborg grunted. “The bloody snow is coming at you from 90 degrees. Look at this!”
He removed snow from his shoulders, where it had formed icy clumps.
“Mmm,” Martinsson said. “Soon they’ll be singing ‘Sweet lovers love the spring’ in Stockholm.”
“Yes, yes,” Fjallborg said impatiently. “Then they’ll get beaten up in the streets as they make their way home from the May Day celebrations.”
He didn’t like Martinsson comparing Stockholm and Kiruna to Stockholm’s advantage. He was afraid of losing her to the metropolis again.
“Have you got a moment?” he said.
Martinsson adopted an apologetic expression and was about to explain that she had to go to work.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to clear away snow or anything like that,” Fjallborg said. “But there’s someone you ought to meet. For your own good. Or rather, for the good of Wilma Persson and Simon Kyro.”
Martinsson felt depressed the moment she and Fjallborg walked through the door of the Fjallgarden care home for the elderly. They brushed off as much snow as they could in the chicken- yellow stairwell, climbed the stairs and walked across the highly polished grey plastic floor tiles. The plush painted wallpaper and neat, practical pine furniture cried out
Two residents in wheelchairs were leaning forward over their breakfast in the kitchen. One of them was propped up with cushions to make sure he did not fall sideways. The other kept repeating “Yes, yes, yes!” in an increasingly loud voice until a carer placed a calming hand on his shoulder. Fjallborg and Martinsson hurried past, trying not to look.
Please spare me this, Martinsson said to herself. Spare me from ending up in a day room with worn-out, incontinent old folk. Spare me from needing to have my bottom wiped, from sitting parked in front of a television surrounded by staff with shrill voices and bad backs.
Fjallborg led the way as fast as he could along a corridor with doors either side leading into individual rooms. He also seemed far from happy with what he was seeing.
“The man we’re going to meet is called Karl-Ake Pantzare,” he said quietly. “My cousin used to know him. They saw a lot of each other when they were young. I know he was a member of a resistance group during the war, and I know my cousin was a member as well – but he’s dead now. It wasn’t something he talked about. This is Pantzare’s room.”
He stopped in front of a door. There was a photo of an elderly man and a nameplate that announced: “Bullet lives here”.
“Just a minute,” Fjallborg said, holding on to the rail running along the wall so that the old folk still able to walk had something to hang on to. “I need to pull myself together.”
He rubbed his hand over his face and took a deep breath.
“It’s so damned depressing,” he said to Martinsson. “Bloody hell! And this is one of the better places. All the girls who work here are really friendly and caring – there are homes that are much worse. But even so! Is this what we have to look forward to? Promise to shoot me before I get to this stage. Oh dear, I’m sorry…”
“It’s O.K.,” Martinsson said.
“I forget, I’m afraid. I know you had no choice but to shoot… Huh, it’s like talking about ropes in a house where a man’s hanged himself.”
“You don’t need to muzzle yourself. I understand.”
“I get so damned depressed,” Fjallborg said. “Please understand that I think about this even though I try hard not to. Especially with my arm and all that.”
He nodded towards his dysfunctional side. The one that could not keep up. The side whose hand could not be trusted, and kept dropping things.
“As long as I can…” Martinsson said.
“I know, I know.” Fjallborg waved a hand dismissively.
“And why must places like this always have such cheerful names?” he hissed. “Fjallgarden, Mountain Lodge, Sunshine Hill, Rose Cottage.”
Martinsson could not help laughing.
“Woodland Glade,” she said.
“It sounds like a tract from the Baptists. Anyway, let’s go in. You should be aware that his short-term memory is pretty bad. But don’t be misled if he seems a bit confused. His long-term memory is fine.”
Fjallborg knocked on the door and they entered.
Karl-Ake Pantzare had white, neatly combed hair. His eyebrows and sideburns were bushy, with the stubbly, spiky hair typical of old men. He was wearing a shirt, pullover and tie. His trousers were immaculately clean and smartly pressed. It was obvious that earlier in his life he had been very good-looking. Martinsson checked his hands: his nails were clean and cut short.
Pantzare shook hands with both her and Fjallborg in a pleasant, friendly fashion. But behind his welcoming look was a trace of anxiety: had he ever met these people before? Ought he to recognize them?
Fjallborg hurried to allay his uncertainty.
“Sivving Fjallborg,” he said. “From Kurravaara. When I was a lad they used to call me Erik. Arvid Fjallborg is my cousin. Or was. He’s been dead for quite a few years now. And this is Rebecka Martinsson, the granddaughter of Albert and Theresia Martinsson. She’s from Kurravaara as well. But you haven’t met her before.”
Pantzare relaxed.
“Erik Fjallborg,” he said brightly. “Of course I remember you. But goodness me, you’ve aged a lot.”
He winked to show that he was teasing.
“Huh,” Fjallborg said, pretending to be offended. “I’m still a teenager.”
“Of course,” Pantzare said with a grin. “Teenager. That was a long time ago.”
Fjallborg and Martinsson accepted the offer of a coffee, and Fjallborg reminded Pantzare of a dramatic ice-fishing session with Fjallborg’s cousin and Pantzare on Jiekajaure.
“And Arvid used to tell me about how you cycled into town whenever there was a dance on a Saturday night. He said that the 13 kilometres from Kurra to Kirra was nothing, but if you met a nice bit of skirt from Kaalasluspa, that meant you had to cycle back with her first, and it was a long way home from there. And then of course he had to be up at 6.00 the next morning to do the milking. He sometimes fell asleep on the milking stool. Uncle Algot would be furious with him.”
The usual run-through of relatives they both knew followed. How a sister of Pantzare’s had rented a flat in Lahenpera. Fjallborg thought it was from the Utterstroms, but Pantzare was able to inform him that it was in fact from the Holmqvists. How another of Fjallborg’s cousins, a brother of Arvid’s, and one of Pantzare’s brothers had been promising skiers, had even competed in races in Soppero and beaten outstanding Vittangi boys. They ran through who was ill. Who had died or moved to Kiruna, and, in those cases, who had taken over the childhood home.
Eventually Fjallborg decided that Pantzare was sufficiently relaxed and that it was time to come to the point. Without beating around the bush, he said that he had heard from his cousin that both he and Pantzare had been members of the resistance organization in Norbotten. He explained that Martinsson was a prosecutor, and that two young people who had been murdered had been diving in search of a German aeroplane in Lake Vittangijarvi.
“I’ll tell you straight, because I know it will go no further than these four walls, that there’s reason to assume that Isak Krekula from Piilijarvi and his haulage business were mixed up in it
