Stone Coffin Part 18

Jack Mortensen was tan, but that was the only sign of health he displayed. He looked pained. He sat down in Lindell's office and looked around anxiously, as if he found himself in a torture chamber. Lindell fetched some coffee-probably her seventh cup-and sat down at her desk.

"An unpleasant incident," she began. "Do you take sugar?"

Mortensen shook his head and made no attempt to drink from his cup. It was as if he didn't even see it.

"Primates," Lindell said. "Do you have any of those?"

Mortensen flinched. He tried to smile but failed. Now he picked up the cup and brought it to his mouth while looking nervously at her. She waited, looking back with a neutral expression.

"Most people who research Parkinson's disease have to turn to animal trials," he said after putting his coffee down.

"And..." Lindell prompted.

"We have conducted animal experiments."

"The activists called them illegal. Is that true?"

"No, these were approved measures. We have had several series of trials. Everyone conducts research on primates. There's nothing unusual about it. Those people don't know what they're talking about. They've never seen anyone with Parkinson's. The only thing they're after is attention."

"Where do you keep them?"

"Various places," Mortensen said. "Ultuna is one."

"At the agricultural college?"

"Yes, exactly. They have ironclad controls."

"Who is in charge of these controls?"

"Independent veterinarians. There's an organization for it."

"So there's no basis for the activists' criticism?"

"Of course not," Mortensen said vigorously.

His confidence was returning. He took another sip of the coffee. Lindell felt as if she were sitting across from a politician.

"Then why do you think they would take this kind of step?"

"I told you-for the attention. They want to appear heroic."

"Have they ever paid a visit to your company?"

"No."

"Wouldn't it make sense for them to protest there?"

"I don't know what makes sense to these people."

"Did Sven-Erik Cederen come into contact with any activists?"

"No, not that he mentioned."

Lindell sat for a while without saying anything else.

"Do you see any connection between Cederen, the primates, and the incident at the television station?"

There was a flicker of pain in Mortensen's face, as if he had been stung. He squirmed in his chair, glanced very quickly at Lindell, and then leaned forward.

"I don't know what's happening," he said softly. "Sven-Erik was my friend, everything was going well. Now everything is collapsing. The entire company is faltering. Everyone is wondering what's going on. People are calling. Why should we have been targeted like this?"

"Maybe because you appear to have squirreled away a couple of million under the table, you conduct experiments on primates that animal rights activists-and perhaps others-believe to be unjustified torture, and your head of research recently ran over his family and took his life. Of course people are wondering what exactly is going on at MedForsk."

Mortensen did not answer.

"Clearly we're going to look into the matter of these animals. We may even have to reevaluate Cederen's death."

"What do you mean?"

"There may be a connection." Lindell made a note on her pad.

"I don't know what got into that devil!"

"You said he was your friend. You should know."

Again Mortensen didn't answer, sitting collected but grim on the other side of the table. His face had grown paler during the course of the conversation. He had a slightly indignant expression, as if Lindell had betrayed a prior agreement.

The conversation was over. Mortensen got up without a word while Lindell made a point of staying put.

"Let me show you out," she said finally.

She knew they were not going to get any further. She was convinced that a check on the primates at Ultuna would result in a report that all was in order. Perhaps not a pretty sight but very likely in accordance with the regulations. The man in front of her conjured up a feeling of distaste in her. The earlier sensation of relaxed intimacy from the garden was nowhere in evidence. She hated pathetic men, pathetic witnesses. Mortensen was trying to play a martyr, and the claim that Cederen was his friend was nothing more than an act and a bad one at that.

They walked in silence through the corridor and Lindell ushered Mortensen out with a sense of relief. She wanted to be alone. The nausea had come and gone all night and she felt exhausted. She had not been so smart in her conversation with Mortensen. She blamed this on her distaste. The feeling of having reached the end of her rope irritated her. Investigating an attack on a television station was not a task to her taste. She was the first to give primates their due, but it wasn't the same as solving human problems. She was a little ashamed of this feeling, because she had in fact become enraged by images of chimpanzees and other animals pierced with tubes, needles, and G.o.d knows what, but it was the image of Josefin and Emily by the side of the road that always forced its way to the front. Most of all she wanted to know what had happened to them, but she also knew that they were unlikely to get any further. Sven-Erik Cederen had taken the explanation for the drama with him to his grave.

Maybe it was Frisk's pose of confidence that had irritated her. She didn't have much faith in his lists of vegans and other similar groups. She suspected that pretty much anyone could end up on a list like that. A sense of arbitrariness radiated like an aura from Security, and not least from the division head. Where this feeling came from, she didn't know. Perhaps the source of it was the investigation of Enrico Mendoza from a couple of years ago. That was when she had realized how extensive their mapping of the left had been and that Security was still keeping an eye on completely harmless types such as Rosander, a middle-aged entomologist. They knew what newspapers and magazines he read, where he had been published. Ma.s.sive resources were expended on these mental ghosts: There were many more Rosanders all over Sweden.

She walked back to her office. She knew that Sammy was still in the building, but she wanted to be by herself. It had been a long day. What will happen if I'm going to live with Edvard? she wondered. Will he accept that I'm gone so much? She tried to imagine Edvard in an apartment in the city, hanging out in front of the television or reading a book, as she was down at the station or chasing around the countryside. It was hard to believe that he would put up with it for any length of time.

The nausea came over her in an instant and she barely managed to get to the trash can before she vomited a thin green-tinted soupy liquid. An image of Frisk's greasy hamburger floated before her eyes and she crouched over the bin again. Please don't let anyone come by, she thought before the next wave.

There, her brow sweaty, crouched over on shaky legs, she suddenly realized what was wrong. She should have realized it long ago, but only now did it dawn on her. It spread through her body like ice. She felt as if her body temperature fell by several degrees and she shivered. So wrong! So d.a.m.ned wrong!

She stared down at the bottom of the trash can, where the scrunched papers-the result of the day's clever deductions-lay in a paste of vomit. So wrong, she screamed inside, and she knew that life was laying down its cards.

She should have realized. Her period was supposed to have come at least ten days ago. She remembered that she had wondered about it in the middle of her vacation week, had reflected that it would be a pity if it came when she headed out to Graso Island. Then she had put it out of her mind. That her period was late or even skipped a cycle was not unusual in times of high stress. She rarely bled very much or for very long. Her cycles were irregular, and she was never very aware of the days or weeks involved.

But now she was suddenly painfully aware of her body. She should have understood the signs. The nausea that came and went, how she had been sick to her stomach both at home and at Graso the morning after Midsummer. She had blamed this on her irregular meals, on the herring and the schnapps, but not this.

She suddenly recalled her recent cravings for sugar and salt. She had seen pregnant girlfriends reach for chocolate coconut b.a.l.l.s, mustard sandwiches, licorice, and all kinds of candy. But she hadn't connected it to her own snacking habits these past couple of weeks.

Contempt was what she felt first. Contempt for herself. She-an investigative detective-hadn't been able to keep track of her own body. Then came the anger. Why go to bed with a boring engineer? Then fear. Now she would lose Edvard, the man she loved. And last, doubt. I can't be pregnant. I'm on the pill. This is just stress.

Her inner monologue was like a swarm of angry bees stinging her. The nausea had pa.s.sed, but it had been replaced by something far worse: a throbbing sense of worry that she knew would hold her in its iron grip for the foreseeable future.

How was it possible to get pregnant on the pill? It simply couldn't be. It couldn't be!

The telephone rang and Lindell shot up from her crouch. She stared at the appliance. Four signals. Immediately thereafter, her cell phone started to ring.

She fished it out of her pocket and did not know if she should answer. The display read "Private Caller."

She pressed the talk b.u.t.ton and said her name.

"Is this Ann Lindell?"

"Yes, as I already stated."

Her voice wobbled. The woman on the other end took a breath so deep that Lindell heard it.

"I have certain information regarding Sven-Erik Cederen."

It's his lover, Lindell thought, suddenly convinced.

"I see," she said.

"He didn't take his life."

"Who are you?"

"That isn't important."

"It's very important to me," Lindell said.

"No, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you don't believe that Sven-Erik ran over his family and then took his own life. He would never do that."

"Are you his female companion?"

The words sounded silly, but she couldn't bring herself to say lover.

"I'm a friend of the family."

It was clear that the woman had now used up her store of courage and strength. The line went dead. She had hung up. Lindell put her phone down with a feeling of great defeat.

She sank down on her chair. Who was the woman? I'm pregnant. Edvard. It was as if the events of the day had paralyzed her. She couldn't move, couldn't think clearly, could hardly breathe. She simply sat there with a single wish in her head: not to lose Edvard.

I should call Sammy, she thought and observed her hand that moved unbidden across the shiny surface of the desk.

"h.e.l.l," she said aloud. "But what about the baby? Am I willing to lose it?"

She stood but immediately sank back onto the chair.

"Take it easy, call Sammy, go home."

It was as if the sound of her own voice calmed her and she continued a dialog with herself. She talked incessantly like a very confused person, gathered her papers on the table, tied the stinking plastic bag from the garbage can, grabbed her coat, and looked around the office as if she were about to leave it for good.

She walked into the warm evening air and wanted to cry. I'm carrying a life inside me, a child that I've wanted so much earlier but that I now hate. Who was he, the father? She was hardly able to formulate the word "father" in her mind.

She would recognize him if they met in the street. As a trained police officer of course she would, if need be, be able to identify her temporary guest, whose sperm had outsmarted her. He had tricked her. No, she had wanted it. She hadn't been so out of it. She had wanted him in her home and in her bed.

She lingered outside her car. The feeling of low-level functioning was similar to a state of intoxication, and she was suddenly unsure if she would be able to drive.

"Idiot," she said aloud and unlocked the door. "Get ahold of yourself."

She dialed Sammy from the car and told him about the call. In turn, he told her that Frisk had presented him with a handful of names of the core members of the animal rights activists. They agreed to meet early the next morning. Lindell knew without saying that Sammy would spend the evening giving the names on the list a little more substance. Where were they? Addresses, jobs, if they were enrolled in courses, if they were already in the police register-all questions that it was possible to find answers to, if only you were logged in to the right databases.

Lindell had only one thought as she drove home and parked the car. To pour herself a gla.s.s of wine, lie down on the couch, pull the blanket over her, and sink deep into her own thoughts. The investigation of MedForsk that would normally have dominated her ruminations flashed past like speeding cars. Single words, a phrase she had heard the past week, the image from Uppsala-Nas, and the forest clearing in Rasbo. The woman whom she believed to be the lover had sounded nervous, her controlled voice an effort. She knew more than she had said, and Lindell believed that she would call again. The woman was apparently convinced of Cederen's innocence and would not be able to sit on her information. She would do anything to make Lindell believe her version.

But what was it that made her so certain? Lindell guessed it was love. To come to grips with the fact that one's lover had committed both murder and suicide was something that took time.

The wine didn't have much taste. Campo Viejo was the kind she almost always drank. She was a regular at the wine store on Skolgatan. It was almost to the point where the clerk put three bottles on the counter when Lindell stepped into the store. Recently she had been going to the store at OBS. It was self-serve and she could be more anonymous.

Do I want children? She had asked herself that question many times, and the past few years she had always answered yes. She had wanted them with Rolf, the man she was together with before she met Edvard. She had wanted them with Edvard, although she had been less certain. She was approaching forty and knew that it soon would be too late.

Why a child seemed so important, she didn't really know. As she lay on the sofa, staring into s.p.a.ce, she reviewed her situation. She calculated that she would give birth in February of 2001. She was a March child herself. She thought of her parents in deshog, their patient longing for a grandchild. What would they say? A child without a father in its life.

She reached for the winegla.s.s, perched on her elbow, and took a sip. She shouldn't be drinking. She sank down on the pillow, pulled the blanket more tightly around her, and felt sorry for herself.

After ten minutes she was asleep. Her last conscious thoughts circled around the fact that she should have contacted Haver and told him about the woman's call. In some way this was his territory.

Sixteen.

Gabriella Mark stopped by the door to the earth cellar. Like Lot's wife, she stood paralyzed. For a moment she had looked back and that had been enough. She had seen him right here, his hand on the stone wall of the cellar. The lady's bedstraw had been in full bloom; she never touched it and had made a narrow path to the thick door. "My lady," he had said, "my beautiful flower," and he had gazed at her with loving eyes.

The scent of the bedstraw intoxicated him. Gabriella believed in the healing powers of plants. She knew that he was in the force field of this yellow flower, defenseless, stripped to his skin-no, the sweet smell went even deeper than that. It was the flower that brought the smile to his face, looking at her.