evenings. It’s all about miracles. Faith healing, wonders, prayers being answered, various spiritual gifts of grace. Wait a minute.”
Olof Strandgard got up and went out into the hall. After a while he came back with a shiny colorful folder in his hand. He passed it to Sven-Erik, who leaned toward Anna-Maria so that she could look at it.
It was an invitation in folded A4 format. The soft-focus pictures showed happy people with their hands raised. In one picture a laughing woman was holding up her child. In another, Viktor Strandgard was praying for a man who was on his knees, his hands raised toward heaven. Viktor’s index and middle fingers rested on the man’s forehead, and his eyes were closed. The text explained that the seminars would be dealing with topics including “You Have the Power to Demand That Your Prayers Are Answered,” “God Has Already Conquered Your Illness,” and “Release Your Spiritual Gifts of Grace.” There was also information about the evening services, where you could dance in the spirit, sing in the spirit, laugh in the spirit and see God work miracles in your own life and the lives of others. And all for four thousand two hundred kronor, excluding board and lodging.
'How many participants are there in the conference?' wondered Sven-Erik.
“I can’t tell you exactly,” said Olof, betraying a hint of pride, “but somewhere around two thousand.”
Anna-Maria could see Sven-Erik calculating how much the church had made from the conference.
“We need a list of participants,” said Anna-Maria. “Who should we get in touch with?”
Olof Strandgard gave her a name, and she made a note of it. Sven-Erik could get somebody to check it against police records.
“How was his relationship with Sanna?” asked Anna-Maria.
“I’m sorry?” said Olof Strandgard.
“Could you describe their relationship?”
'They were brother and sister.'
'But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they had a good relationship,' Anna-Maria persisted.
Olof took a deep breath.
“They were the best of friends. But Sanna is a fragile person. Sensitive. Both my wife and I, and our son, have had to take care of her and the girls on many occasions.”
There’s a hell of a lot of talk about how fragile she is, thought Anna-Maria.
“What do you mean by ‘sensitive’?” she asked, and noticed Kristina squirm slightly.
“This isn’t easy to talk about,” said Olof. “But there are times when she finds it difficult to cope as an adult. Difficult to maintain the boundaries for the girls. And sometimes she’s found it difficult to look after them and herself, hasn’t she, Kristina?”
“Yes,” replied his wife obediently.
“She has actually spent a whole week lying in a darkened room,” Olof Strandgard went on. “We took care of the girls then, and Viktor sat and fed Sanna with a spoon, like a child.”
He paused and gazed steadily at Anna-Maria.
“She wouldn’t have been able to keep the girls without the support of the family,” he said.
Okay, thought Anna-Maria. You really do want to convince us of how frail and weak she is. Why? A neat and tidy family like you should be trying to keep a low profile about something like this, surely.
“Don’t the girls have a father?” she asked.
Olof Strandgard sighed.
“Of course,” he said. “She was only seventeen when she had Sara. And I…”
He shook his head at the memory.
“… I insisted they get married. They had to go before the highest authority, as they say. But the promise they made before God didn’t stop the young man from abandoning his wife and child when Sara was only one. Lova’s father was a passing weakness.”
“Can you give me their names? We’d like to get in touch with them,” said Sven-Erik.
“Certainly. Ronny Bjornstrom, Sara’s father, lives in Narvik. At least, we think so. He doesn’t have any contact with his daughter. Sammy Andersson, Lova’s father, died two years ago in a tragic snowmobile accident. He was driving over a lake in early spring and the ice didn’t hold. Terrible thing.”
No, that’s it, if I’m going to avoid doing it in the armchair, thought Anna-Maria, heaving herself up.
“I’m sorry, but could I…?” she began.
“In the hall on the right,” said Olof Strandgard, getting up as she left the room.
The bathroom was as pristine as the rest of the house. It smelled of something synthetic and flowery. Presumably from one of the aerosols on top of the cupboard. In the toilet bowl hung a little container with something blue in it that ran down along with the water when you flushed.
Clean, clean, clean, thought Anna-Maria as she walked back through the hall to the living room.
“We’re very worried about the fact that Rebecka Martinsson has our girls,” said Olof Strandgard once she was settled in the armchair again. “They must be shocked and terrified by what’s happened. They need a calm, secure environment.”
“That isn’t something the police can get involved in,” said Anna-Maria. “Your daughter is responsible for the care of her children, and if she has handed them over to Rebecka Martinsson, then-”
“But I’m telling you, Sanna isn’t reliable. If it hadn’t been for my wife and me, she wouldn’t have custody of them today.”
“It still isn’t a police matter,” said Anna-Maria in neutral tones. “It’s Social Services and the courts who decide to remove custody from unsuitable parents.”
The softness in Olof Strandgard’s voice disappeared instantly.
“So we can’t expect any help from the police, then,” he snapped. “I shall of course be contacting Social Services if necessary.”
“But don’t you understand,” Kristina Strandgard suddenly burst out. “Rebecka tried to split up the family before. She’ll do everything she can to turn the girls against us. Just like she did with Sanna that time.”
The last comment was addressed to her husband. Olof sat with his jaws clamped shut, staring out of the window. His whole body was rigid, his hands clenched on his knees.
“What do you mean by ‘with Sanna that time’?” asked Sven-Erik gently.
“When Sara was three or four, Sanna and Rebecka Martinsson shared a flat,” Kristina Strandgard went on, her voice strained. “She tried to break up the family. And she is an enemy of the church and of God’s work in this town. Do you understand how it makes us feel, knowing our girls are in her power?”
“I understand,” said Sven-Erik sympathetically. “How exactly did she try to break up the family and work against the church?” “By-”
A look from her husband made her swallow the rest of the sentence.
“By what?” probed Sven-Erik, but Kristina Strandgard’s face had turned to stone, and her eyes were fixed on the shiny surface of the glass table.
“It’s not my fault,” she said in a broken voice.
She repeated it over and over again, her gaze on the table, not daring to look up at Olof Strandgard.
“It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.”
Is she defending herself to her husband, or is she accusing him? thought Anna-Maria.
Olof Strandgard became his gentle, considerate self once again. He placed his hand lightly on his wife’s arm to silence her, then stood up.
“I think this has been a bit too much for us,” he said to Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik, and the conversation was at an end.
When Sven-Erik Stalnacke and Anna-Maria Mella emerged from the house, the doors of two cars parked in the street flew open. Out jumped two reporters equipped with microphones wrapped in thick woolen socks. A cameraman was right behind one of them.
“Anders Grape, Radio Sweden’s local news team,” said the first one to reach them. “You’ve arrested the Paradise Boy’s sister-any comment on that?”
“Lena Westerberg, TV3,” said the one who had the cameraman in tow. “You were first on the scene of the murder-can you describe what it looked like?”
Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria didn’t reply but jumped into the car and drove off.
“They must have asked the neighbors to tip them off if we turned up,” said Anna-Maria; in the rearview mirror she could see the journalists walking up to the parents’ house and ringing the doorbell.
