out of a copper frying pan, with the hands attached to the bottom. A vase on a window ledge contains a bunch of artificial flowers. And there are a few photographs pinned up as well.
“Let me show you my secret,” Hjalmar says without warning, and stands up. Vera jumps reluctantly onto the floor.
Pulling the rag mat to one side, Hjalmar removes a rectangular piece of linoleum. There is a loose floorboard underneath: lifting it up, he produces a packet. Three maths books are wrapped in a piece of red-and-white-striped oilcloth. There is also a plastic folder. Opening the packet, he places everything on the countertop in front of Martinsson.
She reads the titles out loud:
“The same books as they read at the university,” Hjalmar says, not without pride.
Then he adds angrily, “I’m not an idiot, if that’s what you thought. Look in the folder; the proof’s all there.”
“I didn’t think anything in particular. Why have you hidden all this away under the floorboards?”
She leafs through the books.
“My father and my brother,” he says, with sorrow in his voice. “And Mother as well, come to that. There’d just be a bust-up.”
Martinsson opens the folder. It contains an Advanced Level Certificate of Education, from Hermod’s Correspondence College.
“I spent all my free time sitting here. At this very table. I struggled and studied. With the other subjects – I’ve always found maths very easy. I don’t have a problem with maths. The mark I got would have been good enough to get me into university, but…”
He remembers the summer of 1972. He was twenty-five years old. He spent the entire summer thinking seriously about telling his father and brother that he was going to stop working for the haulage business. He would apply for a study grant, go to university. He lay awake at night, rehearsing what he was going to say. Sometimes he would tell them that it was just a temporary thing, that he would return to the firm once he had got his degree. But sometimes he would tell them they could go to hell, that he would rather sleep rough than go back into the family firm. But in the end he said nothing at all.
“Ah well, it just didn’t come off,” he says to Martinsson.
She looks at him again. He is in pain. Something is breaking inside him. He has to sit down. The chair by the kitchen table is nearest.
The dogs are there like a shot. Both of them. They lick his hands.
“Bloody hell,” he says. “My life. Bloody hell. I’ve grown fat and I’ve worked. That has been my only…”
He nods in the direction of the maths books.
He presses his hand over his mouth, but he cannot prevent it – he starts sobbing loudly.
“Have you brought a tape recorder?” he says. “Is that why you’re here?”
“No,” she says.
And she looks, looks, looks. A witness to his sorrow. As it comes cascading out of him. She does not touch him. Vera places a paw on his knee. Tintin lies down at his feet.
Then she looks away. Hjalmar stands up and puts the books back under the floorboard. Martinsson notices a black-and-white photograph of a man and woman sitting outside a front door, at the top of some steps. Two boys are sitting on the bottom step. It must be Hjalmar and Tore Krekula and their parents. Isak and – what’s their mother’s name? Kerttu. There is something familiar about her, Martinsson thinks. She tries to remember if she had seen the same photograph when she had visited Anni Autio. Or when she was at Johannes Svarvare’s. No.
Then she remembers. It was in the album in Karl-Ake Pantzare’s room. She is the girl who was standing between Pantzare and his friend Viebke. Yes, it must be her.
Kerttu, she thinks.
And then it strikes her that Hjalmar and Tore Krekula are white-haired in the way that red-headed people become. Now she thinks about it, it is clear that they must have been red-haired, and they have very light-coloured skin.
The fox, Martinsson thinks. Didn’t Pantzare say that the British called the Germans’ informer the Fox? The Finnish for “fox” is
I hover above Anni’s head as she makes her way to her sister’s with the aid of her kick-sledge. There’s a delay of at least five minutes before Kerttu opens the door. About two centimetres.
“What do you want?” she says in annoyance when she sees it’s Anni standing there.
“Was it you?” Anni says.
“What do you mean?”
“Come off it,” Anni says, her voice trembling with rage. “Hjalmar came to see me. He was on his way to his cottage. He told me that he… You put them up to it, didn’t you?”
“Have you lost your mind? Go home and lie down.”
“And Tore! He should have been given a good hiding ages ago.”
Kerttu tries to close the door, but Anni is furious.
“You…” she says, forcing her spindly arms in through the crack and grabbing hold of Kerttu’s dress. She pulls her sister out onto the top step.
“Come on, out with it,” she says, giving Kerttu a good shaking.
I’m sitting on the rail, laughing. This isn’t at all funny, in fact, but my God! It’s like watching two scraggy old hens fighting. Kerttu howls, “Let go of me!” But they don’t have enough strength to fight and talk at the same time. They pant and struggle for all they’re worth.
“Go on, Anni!” I shout. “Let her have it!”
But only the ravens can hear me. They are making a racket on the roof of the barn.
Anni holds on to Kerttu’s dress as hard as she can, shoving her against the iron rail, over and over again. Kerttu slaps Anni in the face. Anni starts crying. Not because of the pain in her cheek, but because she is hurting deep down inside. She hates Kerttu, and that hurts.
“Traitor,” she snarls. “You bloody…”
That’s as far as she gets because Kerttu gives her a head-butt. Anni loses her grip on her sister and falls down the steps.
With considerable difficulty she gets up on all fours. She’s sobbing loudly, out of frustration and sorrow.
“Go away,” Kerttu says, gasping for breath. “Go away before I set the dog on you.”
Anni crawls to her kick-sledge and struggles to her feet. Pushes the sledge ahead of her and hobbles along behind it. Crosses the parking area with difficulty, and comes out onto the road.
When she is out of sight, Kerttu goes back indoors. Tore is standing in the kitchen.
“Did you hear that?” she says.
He nods.
“Hjalmar has lost the plot. And Anni! I think everyone’s gone mad. He can ruin
