reporter had vanished out of the picture. Rebecka and Sanna Strandgard more or less climbed over her and went into the police station. The camera followed them, and the reporter’s furious voice could be heard over the clip.
'Ow, my arm. Christ, did you get that on film?'
The voice of the male reporter from Channel 4 could be heard once again.
“The lawyer is with the well-known firm of Meijer & Ditzinger, but no one at the office was prepared to comment on this evening’s events.”
Mans was shocked to see an archive picture of the company’s offices. He pressed the pause button.
“Too fucking right,” he swore, getting up from the sofa in such a rush that he spilt milk all over his shirt and trousers.
What the hell was she up to? he thought. Was she really acting as this Sanna Strandgard’s lawyer without telling the firm? There must have been some sort of misunderstanding. Her judgment couldn’t be that poor.
He grabbed his cell phone and keyed in a number. No reply. He pressed the bridge of his nose with his right index finger and thumb and tried to think straight. As he was walking into the hall to fetch his laptop he tried another number. No reply there either. He felt sweaty and out of breath. He opened up the computer on the table in the living room and started the video again. Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl von Post was speaking outside The Source of All Our Strength.
“Damn it,” swore Mans, trying to start up the computer and holding his cell phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear at the same time.
His hands felt clumsy and agitated.
Mans found the earpiece and was able to make calls and start up the computer at the same time. Every number rang without anyone picking up the receiver. No doubt the phones had been red hot after the evening news. The other partners were no doubt wondering how the hell one of his tax lawyers could be up there flattening journalists one after the other. He checked his phone and found that he had fifteen messages. Fifteen.
Carl von Post was looking straight at Mans from the television screen and explaining how the investigation was proceeding. It was the usual stuff about how the search was in full swing, door-to-door inquiries, interviewing members of the congregation, looking for the murder weapon. The prosecutor was elegantly dressed in a gray wool coat with matching gloves and scarf.
“Bloody clotheshorse,” commented Mans Wenngren, failing to grasp that von Post was wearing virtually the same as he was.
Finally someone picked up the phone. It was the husband of one of the female partners, and he wasn’t happy. She had remarried the much younger man, who lived well off his successful lawyer wife while he pretended to be studying, or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing.
He doesn’t need to sound quite so miserable, thought Mans.
When his colleague came on the line the conversation was very short.
“We can meet right away, can’t we?” said Mans crossly. “What do you mean, the middle of the night?”
He looked at his Breitling. Quarter past four.
“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll meet at seven instead. Early breakfast meeting. We’ll need to try and get hold of the others as well.”
When he had finished the conversation he sent an e-mail to Rebecka Martinsson. She hadn’t answered the phone either. He shut down the computer, and as he stood up he could feel his trousers sticking to his legs. He looked down and discovered the milk he’d spilt all over himself.
“That bloody girl,” he growled as he pulled his trousers off. “That bloody girl.”
And evening came and morning came, the second day
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella is sleeping restlessly in the darkest hour of the night. Clouds cover the sky, and the room is pitch-black. It is as if God himself has cupped His hand over the town, just as a child places his hand over a scuttling insect. No one who has joined the game shall escape.
Anna-Maria tosses her head from side to side to escape the voices and faces from yesterday that have occupied her sleep. The child kicks angrily in her stomach.
In her dream Prosecutor Carl von Post pushes his face toward Sanna Strandgard and tries to force answers from her that she cannot give. He presses her and threatens to interrogate her daughters if she cannot answer. And the more he asks, the more she closes down. In the end she appears to remember nothing.
“What were you doing in the church in the middle of the night? What made you go there? You must remember something, surely? Did you see anyone else there? Do you remember calling the police? Were you angry with your brother?”
Sanna hides her face in her hands.
“I don’t remember. I don’t know. He came to me in the night. Suddenly Viktor was standing by my bed. He looked sad. When he just dissolved I knew something had happened…”
“He dissolved?”
The prosecutor looks as if he doesn’t know whether to laugh or give her a slap.
“Hang on, so you were visited by a ghost and you realized something had happened to your brother?”
Anna-Maria whimpers so much that Robert wakes up. He raises himself on his elbow and strokes her hair.
“Ssh, Mia-Mia,” he soothes her. He says her name over and over again, stroking her straw-colored hair until suddenly she gives a deep sigh and relaxes. Her face softens and the whimpering stops. When her breathing is calm and even once more, he goes back to sleep.
Those who know Carl von Post probably believe he is sleeping well tonight. That he has eaten his fill of attention and golden dreams of what the future holds in her glorious lap. He should be sleeping in his bed with a contented smile on his face.
But Carl von Post is tossing and turning as well. His jaws are clamped together so that the surfaces of his teeth grind impotently against one another. He always sleeps like this. The events of the day have not saved him.
And Rebecka Martinsson. She is in a deep sleep on the sofa bed in the kitchen of her grandparents’ house. Her breathing is calm and regular. Virku has kindly come to lie beside her, and Rebecka is sleeping with her arm around the dog’s warm body, her nose buried in the black woolly coat. There is not a sound from the outside world. No cars and no planes. No loud late-night revelers and no winter rain hammering against the windowpanes. In the bedroom Lova mumbles in her sleep, and presses closer to Sanna. The house itself creaks and groans a little, as if it were turning over in its long winter sleep.
Tuesday, February 18
Just before six o’clock Virku woke Rebecka by pushing her nose into Rebecka’s face.
“Hello, you,” whispered Rebecka. “What do you want? Time for a pee?”
She fumbled for the lamp by the bed and switched it on. The dog scampered toward the door, gave a little whimper, turned back to Rebecka and nudged her face with her nose again.
“I know, I know.”
She sat up on the edge of the bed, but kept the blanket wound around her. It was cold in the kitchen.
Everything in here is my grandmother, she thought. It’s as if I’ve been sleeping beside her in the kitchen sofa bed, allowed to stay in the warm bed while she lit the stove and put the coffee on.
She could see Theresia Martinsson sitting at the table rolling her morning cigarette. Her grandmother used newspaper instead of the expensive cigarette papers you could buy. She would tear the margin carefully down one page of the previous day’s
