happened to the temperature in the kitchen, Annika could feel the dead man in the next room, like a cold breath, a faint note from the angelic choir in her mind.
The woman was sitting quite still, but she raised her eyes to look into Annika’s.
‘If you were going to shoot yourself,’ she breathed, ‘why would you aim for your eye? Why would you stare down the barrel when you pulled the trigger? What would you expect to see?’
She closed her eyes.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’ Her voice was louder now. ‘He would never have done that, and certainly not in my chair. He’s never sat in it, not once. He was sending me a signal that someone was forcing him to do it. It was something about that phone call.’
She opened her eyes, Annika saw her pupils suddenly widen, only to contract again.
‘We had a call on Friday evening,’ she said. ‘Late, after nine thirty. We had just watched the news, and were about to go to bed, we have to be up early for the cows, but Kurt went out. He didn’t say who it was, just got dressed and went out, and was gone for a long time. I lay awake waiting and he didn’t get back until eleven o’clock, and of course I asked who he’d been to see but he said he’d tell me later because he was tired, but after the cows something else came up and we never got a chance to talk about it properly, so I went off to the scouts and when I got back he was…’
She slumped, putting her hands in front of her face. Annika didn’t hesitate this time but put an arm across the woman’s shoulders.
‘Did you say this to the police?’
She collected herself at once, stretched for a napkin and wiped her nose, then nodded. Annika let her arm drop.
‘I don’t know if they were interested,’ she said, ‘but they wrote it down anyway. On Saturday I was so upset I didn’t think to say anything, but I called them yesterday and then they came and collected the armchair and looked for fingerprints on the doors and furniture.’
‘And the gun?’
‘They took that on Saturday, said it was standard procedure.’
‘Kurt was in the civil defence?’
Gunnel Sandstrom nodded. ‘All these years,’ she said. ‘He did the officers’ course at the Home Guard Combat School in Vallinge.’
‘Where did he keep the rifle?’
‘In the gun cabinet. Kurt was always meticulous about keeping it locked. Even I don’t know where he kept the key.’
‘So he must have taken it out himself?’
Another nod.
‘Have you ever been threatened?’
She shook her head this time, slumping a little further.
‘No strange phone calls before the one on Friday, no odd letters?’
The woman stiffened, tilting her head slightly.
‘There was a strange letter in today’s post,’ she said. ‘Complete nonsense, I threw it in the bin.’
‘A letter? Who from?’
‘Don’t know, it didn’t say.’
‘Have you emptied the bin?’
Gunnel Sandstrom thought for a moment.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, getting up and going over to the cupboard under the sink. She pulled out the bin and rummaged through the crusts and potato-peelings.
She looked up at Annika. ‘It’s not here. I must have emptied it after all.’
‘You wouldn’t have thrown it somewhere else?’ Annika asked.
The woman put the bin back in the cupboard.
‘Why do you think it’s important?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know if it is important,’ Annika said. ‘What did it say?’
‘Something about the peasants’ movement, I don’t really know. I thought it was something about the Federation of Swedish Farmers.’
‘A mail-shot, a leaflet?’
‘No, nothing like that. Handwritten.’
‘Think for a moment. Is there anywhere else you might have put it?’
‘In the fireplace, I suppose,’ she said, pointing.
In two strides Annika was at the hearth. There were several crumpled balls of paper in there, at least two of them coloured flyers from local shops. She took a piece of wood out of the basket and prodded them.
The woman came over to her, holding out her hand for them.
‘Yes, it might be here, I do throw paper on here sometimes. It’s good for getting the fire started.’
‘Hang on,’ Annika said. ‘Have you got any gloves?’
Gunnel Sandstrom stopped and looked up at her in surprise, then disappeared into the hall. Annika leaned forward to look at the balls of paper. Three were glossy adverts, one green with black text; the fifth was a sheet of lined A4.
‘Get that one,’ Annika said when the woman came back wearing a pair of leather gloves, pointing at the lined paper.
Gunnel Sandstrom leaned over, and with a little groan managed to get hold of it. She straightened up and smoothed it out.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘This is it.’
Annika moved to stand beside her as she slowly read out the anonymous text.
‘
She lowered the letter.
‘What does that mean?’
Annika shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Have you still got the envelope?’
They found it beneath the adverts, a simple little envelope with the ‘Sverige’ brand, and an ice-hockey player on the stamp. It was addressed to the Sandstrom family and postmarked in Uppsala the previous day.
‘Can you lay it out on the table so I can copy it?’
Dark fear swept across Gunnel’s eyes. ‘Do you think it’s something serious?’
Annika looked at the woman, her grey hair, her knitted cardigan, soft cheeks and bent back, and was overwhelmed by a sympathy that took her breath away.
‘No,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘I don’t think so. But I still think you should tell the police about the letter.’
Annika copied the letter on the kitchen table. The handwritting was even, soft and round, the words symmetrically placed on the page, every other line left blank to make it easier to read. She noted the torn edge, which showed that the sheet had been pulled from a pad of lined paper, and wondered if she ought to feel the quality of the paper in one corner, but decided against it.
‘Are you going to write anything in the paper about Kurt?’ Gunnel Sandstrom asked when she had stood up and pushed in her chair.
‘I don’t know,’ Annika said. ‘Maybe. If I do, I’ll call you first to let you know.’
She took the woman’s hand.
‘Have you got anyone to look after you?’ she asked.
Gunnel nodded. ‘We’ve got a son and two daughters. They’re coming this afternoon with their families.’
Annika felt the room spin again. There was something here, a sense of belonging that ran through the generations, a love that had lived here for centuries.
‘You’ll be okay,’ she said, surprised that she was so certain.
