Stone Coffin Part 20

"Okay," she said. "We'll do the identification and the voice tests tomorrow, and then we'll let them go."

"Yes, since we have nothing to go to the prosecutor with," Wende shot in.

"Unless we uncover something of significance," Lindell went on.

Wende left first, then Berglund and Sammy.

Still seated, Haver looked up at the clock and said out of the blue: "My father died exactly twenty-five years ago."

Lindell looked up. "Exactly?"

"Yes, exactly. Twenty-eight minutes past eight, on this exact date twenty-five years ago."

Lindell waited for more, but Haver pulled himself out of his chair.

"I'm going home," he said.

"How did he die?"

"A bee sting. Silly, isn't it? We were sitting out that evening. Dad was having a beer and a bee was swimming around in his gla.s.s. It went down his throat and stung him. Dad turned out to be extremely sensitive, because his throat immediately swelled up and he choked in a couple of minutes."

"How come you know it was at exactly twenty-eight minutes past eight?"

"The window was open, and when we stood there around Dad, the clock in the living room rang half past nine. At that point, a couple of minutes had gone by."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen. It happened so fast. We were sitting there on the patio and talking and then suddenly he was gone. It was a warm evening. I even remember what we were talking about. Mom said once afterward that she felt so helpless."

"That's awful" was the only thing Lindell could think of to say.

"No one should have to die like that."

"Death is never pleasant."

"I think about it more and more," Haver said, standing in the middle of the room. "I've tried to reach back into my memories, remember how Dad was, what he said, how his voice sounded, but I can't. I hardly remember anything. Some people can recite their entire childhoods, I remember almost nothing."

"You're a father yourself now."

"That must be why it comes up."

"What did he do?"

"He was a construction worker," said Haver and looked at Lindell, whose eyes teared up when she met his gaze.

"That's good," she said. "That sounds nice. Construction worker. He must have built a lot of wonderful houses."

Haver smiled. Lindell thought her last comment sounded ridiculous and regretted it immediately. It was something you said to children. "Built wonderful houses."

"I knew you would think that," he said, and Lindell realized that he had appreciated her words.

They were silent for moment. Haver looked at her one more time and seemed to be about to say something else, but he didn't.

"Give your family my regards," Lindell said.

As was often the case, she stayed behind as the others went home. She thought about the seven young people who had been brought in and detained on dubious grounds. She realized that both the prosecutor and the police had given way to the pressure. At a public briefing, the chief of police had said that a number of suspects had been apprehended and that he hoped there would soon be a break in the case of the "terror attack against an organ of so vital a public interest as television." This statement inspired undeniable hope, and the evening newscasters, a.s.suming this optimistic view was based on actual investigative information, had praised the Uppsala police and had also interviewed a high-level member of the Security Forces, who had basked in the attention.

The hangover would hit them the next day, unless the morning's attempt to link one of the seven to the station attack led to something. Lindell didn't know what the final determination of the offenses was likely to be and decided to contact the prosecutor.

She should have gone to the drugstore and bought a pregnancy test, but had not had time and was no longer sure whether a test was necessary. Yesterday's certainty had turned to doubt. The likelihood of becoming pregnant while on the pill had to be very small, and why would it happen after only a single night's adventure?

She stuck her hand inside her T-shirt and squeezed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s gently. Admittedly, they were a little tender. But that could also be the result of her Midsummer's activities. Edvard could be rough, she had noticed that before.

She should have called him but had not felt like it. What should she say? During the morning she had toyed with the idea of a quick abortion. Then she would not have to say a word to Edvard. Suddenly she was struck by the thought that this proved that she could have children.

"If I am pregnant," she muttered aloud.

I have no one to ask, she thought. No close friend to share confidences with, to talk to, to get advice from. She could have talked to Beatrice in her unit. She was experienced and smart and would never say anything to anyone. But Ann hesitated to confide in her colleague. It would affect their working relationship. She felt that she would find herself in a position of weakness psychologically if she opened up to Beatrice.

She hated being distracted. She should be putting all of her might into the investigation of Cederen, MedForsk, and TV4 so that it could be cleared up by the end of the summer. The summer with Edvard. Now everything had been thrown into disarray. She bit her lower lip until it hurt. She was awash with anxiety about having gone to bed with an unknown man.

She had been enveloped in a diffuse sense of worry for a while. She knew that her social life was a catastrophe. Almost all of her time went to her work. Edvard had not been the most ideal partner, but you don't really get to choose, she thought. You fall in love and are thrust into situations that are hard to control. Now life was catching up with her. This was nothing unusual. She had seen similar symptoms in some of her colleagues, a kind of unfulfilled longing to work in peace and also to establish connections between the workplace and the private sphere. Everyone found this hard to achieve, not just those involved in police work. It seemed as if the country was becoming more and more splintered, both at the level of the individual and at large. There was never enough time, someone said the other day as they were complaining to one another in the lunchroom.

That it should be so d.a.m.ned hard! Some managed to make it work. Like Ola. Two children and a wife that he loved above all else. He was tired but often smiled, and there was a longing in his gaze. He seemed so loyal toward something-what, she didn't know. I don't know if I would recognize it if it turned up in front of my nose.

Edvard could have become this "something" if I am going to hang this on a man, and I guess I will. I can't manage to live alone. If I am forced to, my life will be an endless series of investigations, stress-filled moments, and red wine in the evenings. Maybe I'll make commissioner in a couple of years, in a black hole of a society of fried people.

Edvard had talked about a kind of breakdown. He had his union spiel, which she often found tiresome. Life wasn't just a struggle. Sometimes when he was calmer, but also sometimes when he started to talk about the cause, he could express some of what he meant. She could sense an inheritance of sorts inside him.

Like her, Edvard was searching for connection and trust between people, and he had found it in Graso among the older folks-Viola, Victor, and the cousins, a dying breed. This lack of sustainability troubled him.

Lindell realized that the child had set this internal monologue going. A budding life was forcing her to make a decision, placing markers in the ground for a playing field on which she would act out her life. Until now there had been no lines. Life seemed unstructured, and in a couple of years she would be forty.

She sighed, rose heavily as if she were already in an advanced stage of pregnancy, left the office, and walked down the empty corridor. She remembered the first time she came to the station and walked by all of the offices, reading the name tags and arriving at Ottosson's door. He had received her with great kindness and care. She had felt welcome and secure from the first day, and she still loved her workplace and respected most of her colleagues.

But now there was this thing called life.

Eighteen.

Lindell woke at half past five. Her body felt tender and she immediately became aware of her condition. There was no morning respite in which-for a couple of seconds-she could think and act as if everything were normal. Abortion was the first thought that came to her. She had no moral objections to this action, but now that it concerned her directly, she realized that it was not as cut-and-dried as she had believed.

She remembered the few times when she had discussed the issue with friends who were wrestling with the decision about whether to have the child or abort it. At those times she had talked dispa.s.sionately and objectively about a woman's right to choose.

Free choice, she thought now. There's no such thing. I am caught in my body, by my longing for a child, in the conflicts between my work and Edvard's and my new life. I could probably have an abortion without Edvard finding out about it, but what happens then? Won't the unborn child always be there between us?

She got out of bed. The sheets needed laundering. There was so much she needed to attend to. The sun shone through the crack in the curtains and created a track across the floor and the bed. She allowed herself to stand in the pool of light for half a minute as her thoughts swirled. She looked down at her naked body, with the sunbeams dancing on her belly.

"Do you know what happened this morning?" Haver asked.

No one said anything.

"I stepped in some dog s.h.i.t. A huge f.u.c.king pile of it, right outside the main door."

Sammy looked up and grinned. "Was it soft and warm?"

"It was disgusting. Right outside the door. It would be one thing if I had been in a park or on the sidewalk, but this was right in front of the door."

"You live in a slum," Sammy said.

"Right," Haver said.

"Drop it," Lindell broke in. "We have things to do other than to talk about dog s.h.i.t."

"Well, excuse me," Haver said in exaggeratedly polite tones.

Sammy and Haver exchanged glances.

"But Eriksberg is a slum," Sammy maintained.

"So tell me about the woman," Haver said.

He saw from Lindell's face that they couldn't tease her any longer.

"She called me last night. She sounded scared but driven by conviction. I know she has more to say."

"How do you know?"

"It was the impression I had," Lindell said.

Ottosson entered the room. He stopped for a moment, indecisively rubbing his beard. Everyone stared at him expectantly.

"The prosecutor has decided to release all seven. We don't have anything on them."

He sat down at the table.

"It's the right thing to do," he went on and turned to Lindell, looking at her. At first she thought he looked apologetic, but then she realized she was reading too much into it. Perhaps he was simply tired, she thought, and tried to smile but failed.

"Is there a connection?" Lindell said to no one in particular.

She didn't like Ottosson's look. How many times had she asked herself this question during these past twelve hours?

"I have trouble believing that the animal rights folk are willing to run people over," Haver said and repeated what he had said the night before.

"What about this woman's conviction?" Ottosson asked.

He picked his nose unselfconsciously and Lindell averted her gaze. Abortion, she thought to herself.

"That Cederen would never take his own life and even less be prepared to kill his family," he said and took out a checkered handkerchief.

"He wrote a note that said, 'I'm sorry,'" Sammy said.

His comment was almost drowned out by his chief's violent nose-blowing.

"It was written in his handwriting," Sammy went on. "Why did he write it if he didn't kill his family?"

"Perhaps it was an apology for taking his own life," Ottosson suggested.

"So perhaps he had learned of or even witnessed the fact that his wife and child had been killed and could no longer bear to live," Sammy said, picking up on this thread.

"Shouldn't he have become enraged or gripped by hatred, revenge, or whatever else?" Haver objected. "Not just gas himself. That seems oddly pa.s.sive."

Lindell felt that Ottosson was waiting for her to respond, but she couldn't manage to think of anything insightful.

Haver suddenly got up and started to walk to and fro across the room. The others watched him pace. He stopped just as abruptly and looked at Lindell, as if seeking her support.

"We should do a general sweep of Rasbo," he said in a loud voice. "Knock on every door, and if we are lucky, we'll turn up Cederen's mistress."

"Rasbo is a sizable parish," Sammy observed.

Lindell, who was not a native of Uppland, had only a vague idea of that part of the district.

"All right," she said, mainly to move things forward, "let's take the clearing where Cederen was found as our starting point and knock on every door in a two-kilometer radius and hope we get something. All women between the ages of twenty-five and forty will be given additional scrutiny."

Everyone pondered this suggestion and-when no one said anything-she continued.

"It will be your task, Ola. We'll bring in as many additional resources as we can," she said and glanced at Ottosson. He would be the one who would have to fight for the extra manpower. He nodded.

"Then we have TV4," Lindell continued energetically, surprising herself. "The roadblocks gave us nothing-we know that-as have our searches. We have a gang of teenagers out there somewhere, maybe with explosives, even though I have doubts about the contents of that bag, but who are prepared to adopt tough methods. Sammy, you will have to maintain contact with Frisk and see what Security can produce. Let's put twenty-four-hour surveillance on the seven."

She again glanced at Ottosson, but he looked neutral. She took this as his acquiescence, although she knew herself how much manpower would be needed to keep seven people under surveillance.

"We'll borrow some officers from Surveillance. We'll do one more review of the names that Frisk is sure to be working on. He'll be secretive as usual but will probably take the chance to gloat."

Lindell wanted to end the meeting as soon as possible and was in a hurry to arrive at these decisions. She wanted to be alone. The others interpreted this as enthusiasm and decisiveness.

They broke up after a quarter of an hour, everyone pleased that the morning's deadlock was over.