releasing first his wife and then his children aged seven and eleven from the sufferings of this world. Then he succeeded in taking his own life with an overdose of ordinary iron tablets. His kidneys and liver gave up the ghost. Mind you, it took more than two months for him to die. He was in hospital in Umea with tubes wherever you looked, under arrest for murder.”
Neither of them spoke. Mella wanted to bite her tongue off. She thought about when Martinsson had shot those men at Jiekajarvi. The circumstances had been quite different, of course. And how she had lost the plot and wanted to kill herself. But those circumstances had also been quite different. Why was everything always so complicated? The ground around Martinsson was a minefield. Why the hell did she have to bump into her in the doorway?
Rantakyro and Olsson came charging down the corridor. Greeting Martinsson hurriedly, they looked questioningly at Mella.
“Right, we’re off to pick up Tore Krekula,” Mella said. “I expect you’ll want to be present at the interrogation?”
Martinsson nodded and the pack raced out of the door, baying and howling, sniffing the ground.
She remained where she was, feeling left out.
Oh dear, she said to herself, how little and insignificant you are.
Vera suddenly started barking. Krister Eriksson had just parked his car and let out Tintin and Roy. His face lit up when he caught sight of Martinsson. He went over to her.
“I was looking for you,” he said with a smile so big that his pink skin seemed tightly stretched. “Do you think you could look after Tintin for a while? I’m going to put Roy through his paces, and Tintin is always so miserable when she’s left behind in the car.”
Vera stood submissively still, wagging her tail in a friendly greeting, as Tintin and Roy sniffed at her, under her stomach and around her rump.
“I’d love to,” Martinsson said.
“How are things?” he said. Martinsson had the feeling he could see right through her.
“Fine,” she lied.
She told him about Tore Krekula’s jacket, about how he was about to be arrested.
Eriksson said nothing, just stood there and waited. Looked sympathetically at her.
You’re a right one for standing there and waiting, Martinsson thought. Wait on.
She had no intention of telling him about Hjalmar Krekula and their meeting in the cemetery.
Then he smiled suddenly. Tapped her gently on the arm. As if he simply could not keep his hands off her.
“So long, then. I’ll collect her this evening.”
He instructed Tintin to stay with Martinsson, went back out to his car and drove off with Roy.
Laura Krekula took her time before opening the door. She eyed the police officers standing outside. Mella could not resist flashing her I.D.
She could see the fear in Laura Krekula’s eyes. Rantakyro and Olsson were wearing their serious faces.
I don’t feel sorry for her, Mella thought. How on earth could she marry such an idiot?
“Here you are again,” Laura said in a weak voice.
“We’re looking for Tore,” Mella said.
“He’s at work,” his wife said. “You won’t find him at home in the middle of the day.”
“Is that his car parked over there?” Mella said.
“Yes, but he’s making a delivery to Lulea today and won’t be back home until late tonight,” his wife said.
“Is it O.K. if we take a look round the house? One of the drivers at the garage said Tore was at home.”
Laura Krekula stepped to one side and let them in.
They opened wardrobes. Checked the garage and laundry room. Laura remained in the hall. After five minutes, the police thanked her and left.
When they had driven off, Laura went upstairs. She collected the big, long, hexagonal spanner that fitted the hatch to the cold loft. Turning the spanner, she let the hatch fall open and unfolded the ladder.
Tore Krekula climbed down.
Walking past his wife, he bounded down the stairs to the ground floor.
Laura followed him. Said nothing. Watched him pull on his boots and jacket. He went into the kitchen wearing his outdoor clothes. Spread some butter on the side of the crispbread with the deepest holes and cut some slices of sausage which he laid on top.
“Don’t say a thing,” he said with his mouth full. “Not a word to your mother or your sister. Is that clear?”
Hjalmar is skiing through the forest. The afternoon sun is warming everything. There are big balls of new snow in the trees, but it has started to melt and drip. I’m sitting in the birch trees among all the watery pearls, watching him. Moving from tree to tree. Being weightless, I can perch on the thinnest of twigs. In winter they are black and the frost makes them straggly. Now they’ve assumed a violet tinge. The colour of spring. I run like a lynx up a pine trunk smelling of resin. The bark is golden brown, just like Anni’s ginger biscuits. The branches are dressed in her green cable-knit cardigan. I hide inside the cardigan. Lying in wait for Hjalmar.
It must be at least twenty years since he last went skiing. His boots and skis are much older than that. Old-fashioned, untarred, unwaxed skis with ancient mousetrap bindings. He can’t make them slide. He has to keep stopping in order to scrape away the snow clinging onto the bottoms. He sinks down into the snow even though he is trying to follow the scooter tracks. His ungreased, cracked leather boots are soon soaked through. His trousers as well.
His poles sink into the snow. Deep down, and it’s hard work pulling them out again. The discs get stuck. When he manages to pull them up again they look like cylinders, with 30 centimetres of snow clinging to the poles above the discs.
He thinks he’s making wretchedly slow progress, but he wouldn’t have been able to progress at all without skis. And if skis like these were good enough for his father and his friends, why shouldn’t they be good enough for him? Don’t forget that in the old days the Lapps used to roam far and wide through the forests with much worse equipment and only one pole.
Occasionally he looks up. Sees drops of water trembling hesitantly on the branches.
Sweat runs down his forehead and makes his eyes smart.
At last he comes to the shelter he and Tore built twenty years ago just south of Ripukkavaara.
Hjalmar sits down in the shelter and takes the thermos of coffee and box of sandwiches from his rucksack. The sun warms his face.
Taking the sandwiches out of the plastic box, he is overcome by exhaustion. He puts them down beside him.
