Stone Coffin Part 36

In that moment she hated the old woman, but this feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come. She pulled herself into a sitting position. The cramp in her stomach receded somewhat and she sobbed from pain and anguish.

"Tell me," she said and saw an image of Josefin Cederen's father when he received the news of her death. So close, she thought.

"He was taking up the nets and went by the board," Viola began.

Why is she using that wording? Lindell thought and her anger returned.

"He hung on, and after an hour we were able to get him with the boat. It was Victor, the old man," Viola said, and now Ann heard that she was close to tears.

"The old man," Lindell repeated mechanically and burst into tears.

After a long while Lindell managed to collect herself enough so that she felt comfortable rejoining her colleagues.

They were cleaning up the remains of the meal when she returned. The room went completely quiet and everyone's gaze went to her. She saw the worry in their eyes and struggled not to start crying again.

"It was Edvard," she said. "He fell out of his boat this morning. It was blowing hard and the idiot went out to pull up some nets."

"How did it go?" Ottosson said and took a step closer.

Right then she did not want him to touch her or put his arm around her shoulders and say something nice as he usually did when he saw that she was concerned about something.

"He broke his leg, but that was when he was picked up from the reef. Apparently he slipped."

She saw the relief among her colleagues. They think I'm fragile, she thought. That I wouldn't be able to handle Edvard dying.

She tried to pull herself together and said something about the ongoing interrogations, but it was as if the others no longer cared. A gust of cold air had swept through the room. Death had showed its face. One of them had been close to losing a loved one. Even though they worked with violence, death, and grief, the message from Graso touched a nerve and revealed their vulnerability. So close, they all thought, and their own loved ones came to mind. Lindell felt as if the group of detectives drew closer. She saw the seriousness in their faces. Never before had she felt as strong a connection with them as at this moment, in these few seconds during the transition from the personal to the collective.

She lingered in the room. More than half of the food on her plate remained but she was no longer hungry. Beatrice was waiting in the doorway and watched Lindell as she gathered up the remains of her meal.

"Do you think you can go on?"

Lindell turned around.

"Of course," she said but her thoughts were of Graso.

Edvard's leg had been set and he had now been admitted to a clinic in sthammar. She tried to imagine him in a hospital bed, but it was difficult. How would Edvard with his impatience deal with being hospitalized? Lindell had told Viola that she would try to drive out to sthammar that evening.

The interrogations continued after lunch. Lindell walked around, listened, and tried to build up her knowledge of the MedForsk employees. Teresia Wall, whom Beatrice was questioning, really did look terrified. Lindell tried in vain to remember what had been said when she was there before time but could not think of anything out of the ordinary. There had simply been normal conversation.

Berglund, who was now focused on trying to get Mortensen to elaborate on his relationship to Cederen, looked more and more exhausted as Mortensen explained that he and his research director's quarrels over the past winter and spring had arisen from differences regarding the future direction the company should take. He a.s.sured Berglund that it had had nothing to do with any supposed experimentation with primates.

"We were in complete agreement on that point," Mortensen claimed. "Sven-Erik was a serious researcher who would never allow himself to cross the line into ethical misconduct."

"Was that something you argued about?" Lindell inserted.

Berglund shot her a quick look and she had the feeling that he resented her intrusion.

"If you're implying that I have a different opinion on the matter, you are mistaken," Mortensen said emphatically. "We were, as I said, in complete agreement."

Lindell left and sought out Haver's room next.

After an hour, Lindell and Ottosson decided that the sessions should be ended. Nothing of substantial value had been uncovered. It had been easy to slide out of the grasp of the police.

"We simply had too little to work with," Ottosson concluded.

The employees were shaken up and had become visibly nervous over the broadly coordinated action, but when it was revealed that Lindell and her colleagues did not have more substance to their a.s.sumptions, the whole thing came off sounding hollow. They could not corroborate Adrian Mrd's claims in any way, much less refer to a doc.u.ment that they had not even seen.

Was it financial issues that had led to the deaths of Gabriella Mark and the Cederen family or was it something to do with the alleged illegal animal experimentation? This question remained unanswered.

The investigation was simply marking time, and this left its mark on the detectives as they met to review the situation.

"Mortensen is slippery," Berglund said. "He acts friendly but glides away in an underhanded way. He knows that we don't have anything."

Berglund didn't like the CEO, and Lindell had seen it as soon as she had seen the two men in the interrogation room. The normally mild-mannered Berglund had appeared irritated and given an almost unprofessional impression in his attempts to get in under Mortensen's skin.

The wind was blowing hard when Lindell stepped out onto the street a little after five o'clock. She felt extremely dissatisfied. As she got in her car, the tears suddenly came. It was as if all the tension and hopes for the interrogations made her defenseless now that she was no longer at the station. As long as the interrogations and discussions with her colleagues had been going on, she was able to retain a facade, a facade that was now collapsing. The uncertainty in her existence presented itself as an insurmountable obstacle, both in her work and as a future mother.

"Pointless," she muttered.

Earlier, she had made up her mind to drive out to sthammar but was becoming increasingly unsure of what she should do. She both wanted and didn't want to see Edvard. She longed for his voice and hands but realized that things would never be as before. She could not keep him in the dark for very much longer. The story of Edvard and Ann was almost at its end. Deal with it, she thought, and the thought left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She drove home and entered the quiet apartment. Everything felt unreal. Had she really lived here for several years? The refrigerator was empty, the sink was full of dishes, the laundry basket was full, and she was almost surprised that the water still came out of the shower. Something was working. She watched the water whirl down the drain.

She wanted to pour herself a gla.s.s of wine and settle herself on the couch but she was out of wine and had decided not to get any more. Not for several months. How long did you have to breastfeed?

It had been raining heavily in sthammar, and when Lindell stepped out of the car in the clinic parking lot, she breathed in deeply. The air was very fresh.

With every step she took she felt increasingly tense. She had brought nothing. No chocolate or flowers. She came empty-handed with a single hope: that he would hug her like before.

A staff member came to greet her. She had a name tag that read Maria. Nurse. Lindell explained why she had come and the nurse pointed to a bed at the far end of the corridor.

"We've put a cast on," Maria said with a smile, but Lindell saw that she was tired.

"Will he stay here?"

"No, we send them home as soon as the plaster dries."

"Is he in pain?"

"He was given painkillers back in regrund. I don't think it's so bad."

That's what you always say, Lindell thought.

"Thanks for the help," she said, and again had the feeling of grat.i.tude that she often had around hospital workers.

Lindell walked up to the bed. He was sleeping. There was a bruise on his right cheek. Apart from that, he looked fine. The cast was hidden under the blanket. She studied him, the thinning hair, the wrinkles in the tanned face, and the large hand resting on the covers. The large white scar he had from before.

If it hadn't been for the rise and fall of his chest he could have been dead, so strangely peaceful was this energetic and restless man.

Ann gently stroked his hand. Let us stay here, she thought. Can't we freeze life right here? Let's pretend, Edvard. I stand here as your beloved. You are dreaming about me. You wake up and I am here by your side. I love you. I know that now.

When she lifted her gaze from his hand, he had opened his eyes. He looked at her and smiled a crooked, almost shy smile.

"Just look at me," he said.

He twisted his hand and took hers. Your hands make me defenseless, she thought.

"How are you?"

"Well taken care of," he said and smiled again.

She nodded. He moved clumsily to the side so that she could sit down on the edge of the bed but Ann went and fetched a chair.

"What happened?"

He told her briefly about his fishing outing. He praised Victor's courage. Edvard had seen the old man as he must have been thirty or forty years ago, forceful and with an a.s.surance in managing the boat that he himself would never possess. The old man had skillfully maneuvered between the reef and the underwater rocks and tossed the anchor at exactly the right moment. It was as if the sea itself grew calmer.

"It was slippery on the rocks," Edvard finished.

"It scared me half to death when Viola called. She said that you had gone by the board and I thought you had died."

Edvard didn't say anything.

"Why did you set out in such bad weather?"

"It was Victor's nets."

"Who cares about some silly old nets?"

She saw that Edvard didn't want to keep talking about it. He stared straight ahead. The slightly embarra.s.sed but open expression in his face was gone.

"You wanted to test the limits, didn't you? Isn't that right?"

"No," he said, but Lindell heard the hesitation in his voice.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

He had no reaction. He simply turned his head, looked at her, and nodded.

"Did you know?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I love you," he said quietly and she saw tears in his eyes. "I knew it without a doubt when I lay there in the water. I can't live so far away from you."

"It's not yours," she said and she didn't understand where she found the words or the strength.

Lindell saw the doubt and then the pain that drew across his face like a thundercloud. It was as if she had whipped him. Edvard collapsed in front of her eyes. He didn't want to believe her. For a few seconds he had experienced joy and uttered the words that she had longed for.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed.

His body became rigid and he closed his eyes. The color in his cheeks had been replaced with a sickly gray pallor.

"Forgive me. I love you."

He started as if she had given him another blow.

"Go," he said curtly.

"I love you," Ann said.

"Just go. Go, for the love of G.o.d!"

Lindell staggered off. She cast a last glance at Edvard. He was watching her and their eyes met. It was a desperate hate that she saw. She could walk. He was bedridden and she sensed his emotions. He who always fled when the questions became too many or too difficult, who dove into work when darkness threatened to take over. Now he was laid out, fettered to his own anguish.

She regretted having spilled the truth so baldly. It was as if she had taken advantage of his vulnerability, newly rescued from the sea, exposed not only to the waves of the Baltic but to the swell of emotions. He could interpret it that way.

Their shared life was now over. The trust between them would never be reestablished. Suddenly she was standing at the clinic exit. She had noticed his hesitation when she had asked why he had gone out in such bad weather. Had he intended to take his life? She gazed up at the outside of the building, where the windows gleamed in the slow evening sun. He was capable of it, she was sure of it.

If she had had an abortion, would he have wanted her then? She turned as if to go back through the entrance, run down the corridor, and ask him. Straight out. Not care about her shame or his unspoken questions. She knew that he would never ask who the father of her child was. Would she be able to explain, win back his confidence enough that they could at least try again?

She shook her head. Not Edvard. His melancholy nature put a stop to any such thoughts. Simply the knowledge of her brief affair would lie like a boulder in their path.

Her cell phone rang, and for a moment she thought it was him, but it was Frenke at the call center.

"Hi, Ann, sorry for disturbing you, but I received a call and I thought I recognized the name. Mortensen, does that ring a bell?"

"Yes, of course," Lindell said quickly.

"His neighbor, who seems to be a nut case, called and complained about Mortensen's making too much noise."

"Too much noise?"

"Yes, apparently he's operating some kind of machinery in his yard and the neighbor thought it was too late. He's been firing it up a lot lately, he says."

"I see," Lindell said.

"I know, I know," Frenke said, "but since I recognized the name Mortensen, I thought I would let you know. He's involved in that MedForsk investigation, isn't he? I asked the neighbor to give you a call tomorrow morning."