‘Well, I gathered from Annika that you’re the one who has taken the reports they’ve filed against each other over the years. Could you tell me a bit about them?’
Without answering at once, Gösta turned round and took a binder from the bookshelf behind his desk. He hastily paged through it and found what he was looking for.
‘I only have stuff from the most recent years here; the rest is down in archives.’
Patrik nodded.
Gösta leafed through the binder, skimming over some of the pages he found.
‘You might as well take this binder. There’s a bunch of good details in here. Complaints from both sides about everything you could imagine.’
‘About what, for example?’
‘Trespassing – Kaj apparently cut across their property on one occasion, and his life was actually threatened – Lilian clearly said to Kaj that he should watch out if he valued his life.’ Gösta kept paging through the binder. ‘And then we have a number of complaints about Kaj’s son, Morgan. Lilian claimed that he was spying on her, and I quote, “boys like that have an overdeveloped sex drive, I’ve heard, so he’s surely planning to rape me”, end quote. And this is just a small selection.’
Patrik shook his head in astonishment. ‘Don’t they have anything better to do?’
‘Apparently not,’ said Gösta dryly. ‘And for some reason they always insist on coming to me with their woes. But I’ll gladly let you take over for the time being,’ he said, handing the binder to Patrik, who took it with some misgivings.
‘But even if both Kaj and Lilian are quarrelsome devils, I find it hard to believe that Kaj would have gone so far as to kill the girl.’
‘No doubt you’re right,’ said Patrik, getting up with the binder in his arms, ‘but, as I said, now his name has been brought up, so I’m at least going to have to examine that possibility.’
Gösta hesitated. ‘Let me know if you need any more help. Mellberg couldn’t have been serious when he said that you and Ernst were supposed to take care of this by yourselves. It’s a homicide investigation, after all. So if I can be of any assistance …’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it. And I think you’re right. Mellberg was probably just trying to rile me. Not even he could have meant that you and Martin wouldn’t be allowed to help out. So I thought I’d call everyone in for a briefing, probably tomorrow. If Mellberg has anything against it, he’ll have to speak up. But as I said, I don’t think he will.’
He thanked Gösta with a nod before he left the office and turned left towards his own. Settled in his desk chair, he opened the binder and began to read. It turned out to be a journey through the pettiness of humankind.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Her hand shook a bit as she cautiously knocked on his window pane. The window was opened at once, and she thought with satisfaction that he must have been sitting there waiting for her. It was warm in the room, and she didn’t know whether his cheeks were flushed from the warmth or from the prospect of the hours they had before them. Probably the latter, she thought, because she felt the same heat in her own face.
Finally they had arrived at the moment she had been longing for ever since she had thrown that first pebble against his window. She had instinctively known that she needed to proceed cautiously with him. And if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to read men. Read them and then give them the woman they wanted. In Anders’s case that meant she would have to play the shrinking violet for a couple of interminable weeks, even though she wanted to creep into his room and slip into his bed that very first evening. But she knew he would have been scared off by such behaviour. If she wanted to win him she would have to play the game. Whore or madonna. She could give men both.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked her as she sat next to him on his narrow bed.
She forced back a smile. If he knew how well-versed she was in what was now about to take place, he would be the one shaking with alarm. But she couldn’t show her true self. Not now, when for the first time she wanted a man as much as he wanted her. So she looked down at the floor and just nodded feebly. When he tried to reassure her by putting his arms around her, she couldn’t help smiling against his shoulder.
Then she sought out his mouth with her own. When the kiss deepened and got serious, she felt him carefully unbuttoning her blouse. He moved at a devastatingly slow pace. She wanted to grab hold of her blouse and tear it off. Yet she knew that would destroy the image that she had spent weeks creating. Soon enough she’d be able to show the passionate side of her nature, but by then he’d be able to credit himself with having enticed her. Men were so simple.
When the last piece of clothing fell, she pulled the covers modestly over herself. Anders caressed her hair and looked into her eyes, silently asking her permission. Then he waited for her affirmative nod before he crept in beside her.
‘Could you blow out the candle?’ she asked, making her voice sound tiny and frightened.
‘Yes, of course, absolutely,’ he said, embarrassed that he hadn’t realized she might prefer the cover of darkness. He reached towards the nightstand and pinched off the flame with his fingers. In the dark she felt him turn towards her and, unbearably slowly, begin to explore her body.
At precisely the right moment she let out a whimper of feigned pain, hoping that he wouldn’t take the absence of blood as a telltale sign. But judging from his tender solicitude afterwards, he had no suspicions, and she felt satisfied with her performance. Since she’d had to stifle her natural instincts, it had been somewhat more boring than she’d expected, but the potential was there. Soon she’d be able to blossom in a way that would be a pleasant surprise for him.
Lying in the hollow of his arm, she thought about whether she might cautiously initiate a second round, but decided she’d better wait a while. For the time being she would have to be content at having played her part well. She had him right where she wanted him. Now it was merely a question of recouping the maximum dividend from all the time she’d invested in him. If she played her cards right, she could look forward to an entertaining pastime this winter.
8
Monica went round with her cart, replacing books on the shelves. She had loved books her whole life. Having almost died of boredom the first year at home after Kaj sold the business, she had seized the opportunity when she heard that the library needed someone to help out part-time. Kaj thought she was barmy, working when she didn’t need to, and she suspected that he considered it a loss of prestige for him. But she was enjoying herself too much to care. There was a good atmosphere at work, and she needed some feeling of community to see any meaning in her life. Kaj had grown more and more short-tempered and grumpy with each passing year, and Morgan didn’t need her any more. There probably weren’t going to be any grandchildren either; in any case she thought it highly unlikely. Even that joy had been denied her. She couldn’t help feeling a consuming envy when the others at work talked about their grandchildren. The light in their eyes made Monica shrink inside with jealousy. Not that she didn’t love Morgan. She did, even though he hadn’t made it easy for them to love him. And she believed that he loved her too. He just didn’t know how to show it. Maybe he didn’t even know that what he felt was called love.
It had taken many years before they understood that there was something wrong with him. Or rather, they knew that something wasn’t as it should be, but there was nothing in their experience that jibed with what they observed in Morgan. He wasn’t mentally challenged, but instead extremely intelligent for his age. She didn’t think that he was autistic, because he didn’t