Until Thy Wrath Be Past Part 17

"Thanks for your help today, that's all for now," he says.

Svarvare looks a bit surprised. He had expected several more gla.s.ses of vodka while he fitted the engine back together. That was the usual pattern.

But he has spent his entire life in the village and had dealings with Isak Krekula since childhood. He knows it is prudent to pay attention when Isak says, "Time to go."

He says thank you, staggers unsteadily out of the house and heads for home.

Kerttu remains standing absolutely still, her back to her family and her hands resting on the countertop. n.o.body says a word.

"Is Father alright?" Tore says.

Isak has tried to stand up from his chair by the kitchen table. His face is white as a sheet. Then he falls. Makes no attempt to break his fall with his hands. Hits his head on the table as he collapses onto the floor.

Tore puts the fancy envelope with the rental payment into his pocket. As always, Hjalmar thinks that there is a lot of money around of which he never sees a trace. He does not know what the firm's turnover is. He does not know how much of the forest they own, and what income it brings in. But then, Tore is the one with a family to look after.

There is a clattering of crockery as Kerttu nonchalantly drops plates, cutlery and mugs into the sink.

"Two sons he's got," she says without looking at them. "And what good do they do him?"

Hjalmar notices how Tore reacts badly to what she says. The words stab him like knives. Hjalmar has been used to such rebukes ever since he was a little boy. All the abuse. Useless, thick as three planks, fat, idiot. Actually, most of it has come from Tore and Isak. Kerttu has not said much. But she never looks him in the eye.

Things are going downhill, Hjalmar thinks.

There is something almost comforting about that thought. He thinks about the prosecutor, Rebecka Martinsson. Who saw Wilma after she had died.

Tore looks at Hjalmar. Thinks that he is keeping silent as usual. There is something the matter with him.

"Are you ill?" he says brusquely.

Oh yes, Hjalmar thinks. I'm ill.

He stands up, walks out of the kitchen, leaves the house, crosses the road. Trudges home to his sad little house full of furniture, curtains, cloths, you name it, none of which he has bought himself.

And then we spoke to Johannes Svarvare, he thinks. Father was in intensive care.

In his mind, Tore flings open Svarvare's front door. Marches into the kitchen.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Tore says, taking his knife from its sheath on his belt.

Hjalmar remains in the doorway. Svarvare is scared stiff, nearly s.h.i.tting himself. He is lying on the kitchen sofa, still suffering from yesterday's hangover, from when he sat in the Krekulas' house, taking their outboard motor to pieces. He sits up now.

Tore stabs his knife into Svarvare's kitchen table. He had better realize that this is serious.

"What the h.e.l.l . . . ?" Svarvare splutters.

"That aeroplane that disappeared," Tore says. "And all that was going on in those days. You've blabbed on about it like a silly old woman. Stuff that everyone's forgotten about, that ought to be forgotten. And now Father's in hospital thanks to you. If he doesn't make it or I hear that you've squeaked one more b.l.o.o.d.y word . . ."

He wrenches the knife loose and points it at Svarvare's eye.

"Have you been gossiping to anybody else?" he says.

Svarvare shakes his head. Stares squint-eyed at the knife point.

Then they leave.

"At least he'll keep his trap shut now," Tore says.

"Wilma and Simon?" Hjalmar says.

Tore shakes his head.

"They'll never find anything anyway. Let them think of it as an old man's ravings. We'll keep our eye on 'em. Make sure they don't go diving there."

Hjalmar Krekula stands outside his house. Suppresses all thoughts of Svarvare, Wilma, Simon Kyro and all the rest of it. He has no desire at all to go into his own house. But what alternative does he have? Sleep in the woodshed?

Sven-Erik Stlnacke and Airi Bylund drive to Airi's cottage in Puoltsa. They are only going to check on things besides, it is such a lovely evening.

In the course of the journey, Stlnacke tells Airi how he and Martinsson lured Tore Krekula into a trap.

Airi listens, albeit absent-mindedly, and says, "Good for you."

Stlnacke lapses into a bad mood. For no obvious reason. He says, "It's a good job I can do something right, I suppose."

He tries not to think about how he trampled all over the evidence in Hjorleifur Arnarson's house and pontificated about the cause of death without knowing what he was talking about.

He wants Airi to say something along the lines of "You always do the right thing, bless you", but she does not say a word.

Stlnacke is overcome by the feeling that he is not good enough for anybody. He becomes downhearted and surly and silent.

Airi does not say anything either.

And it certainly is not the sort of silence to make the most of. Usually it is uplifting for the two of them to share silence. Silence full of glances and smiles and sheer joy at having found one another. Silence occasionally broken by Airi chatting to the cats or the flowers, to herself or to Stlnacke.

But this particular silence is filled with the echo of Stlnacke's thought: She's going to leave me. There's no point any more.

He can sense how fed up she has become with his dissatisfaction with his job. She thinks he goes on and on about Mella, about the shooting at Regla, about goodness only knows what else. But Airi was not there. She cannot possibly understand.

They arrive at their destination. Getting out of the car, she says, "I'll make some coffee. Would you like some?"

All Stlnacke can manage to say is: "Yes, alright, if you're making some anyway . . ."

She goes inside and he stands outside, at a loss, not knowing what to do next.

He trudges round the house. At the back Airi has made a cat cemetery. All the cats she has ever owned are buried there, and also some that belonged to her friends. Hidden under the snow are small wooden crosses and beautiful stones. Last summer when he was off sick, he helped her to plant a Siberian rose. He wonders if it has survived the winter. He likes to sit on the veranda with Airi and listen to her stories about all the cats lying there in her garden.

As he stands there thinking, Airi turns up at his side. She hands him a mug of coffee.

He does not want her to go back inside, so he says, "Tell me about Tigge-Tiger again."

Like a little child, he wants to hear his favourite fairy story.

"What can I say?" Airi begins. "He was my very first cat. I wasn't a cat person in those days. Mattias was fifteen, and he kept going on about how we ought to get ourselves a cat. Or at the very least a canary. Anything at all. But I said, Certainly not! But then that grey-striped cat started visiting us. We lived in Bangatan at the time. I didn't let him in, obviously; but every day when I came home from work he was sitting on the gatepost. Miaowing. Enough to break your heart. It was late autumn, and he was as thin as a year of famine."

"Some people are awful," Stlnacke growled. "They acquire a cat, then abandon it."

"I went round the neighbours, knocking on doors, but n.o.body admitted to knowing anything about it. And it kept on following me wherever I went. If I was in the laundry room, it would sit on the window ledge outside, staring at me. If I was in the kitchen, it would sit on a decorative pedestal we had in the garden, glaring at me. It would jump up onto the front door, clinging on to the ledge over the window, miaowing. It was driving me mad. The house was under siege. Every day when I came home from work I would think to myself: I hope to G.o.d it's not there again.

"Mattias came home late one evening. The cat was sitting outside,miaowing, really crying its eyes out. 'Can't we let him in, Mother?' Mattias said. I gave in. 'Go on then,' I said. 'But he'll have to live downstairs with you. He'll be your cat.' Some hopes! That cat followed me wherever I went. He always sat on my knee. Only very rarely on Mattias's. But then Mattias moved out, and I sometimes went away on holiday. Then the cat would sit the whole evening, staring at orjan. After three or four days he would eventually sit on orjan's knee. But then when I came back home, like that time I'd been in Morocco I'll never forget it he slapped me with his paw, gave me a really solid smack, to show how angry he was."

"You had abandoned him, after all," Stlnacke says.

"Yes. Then all was forgiven. But before we got to that stage, he kept on smacking me. I remember when orjan was depressed and in no fit state to do anything. Between us Tigge-Tiger and I built the May Day bonfire. He spent all day with me in the garden, working away. Then we sat together, gazing into the flames. And he was a terrific acrobat. When he wanted to come indoors in the evening he would cling on to the gutter with his front paws and swing towards the window, sort of knocking on it. So we'd open the window, and he would jump down onto the top of the frame and then into the house. I had lots of potted plants and cut flowers in vases on the window ledges, but he never knocked over a single one. Never ever."

They sit in silence for a while, looking at the birch tree under which Tigge-Tiger is buried.

"And then he grew old and died," Airi says. "He turned me into a cat person."

"You grow attached to them," Stlnacke says.

Then Airi takes hold of his hand. As if to demonstrate that she is attached to him.

"Life is too short for arguing and falling out," she says.

Stlnacke squeezes her hand. He knows she is right. But what is he going to do about that lump of anger lodged permanently in his chest?

20.32: "You have reached Mns Wenngren at Meijer & Ditzinger. I can't take your call right now. Please leave a message after the beep."

Martinsson: "Hi, it's me. Just wanted to say I'm thinking about you and love you to bits. Ring me when you can."

She looks at Vera, who is having a pee outside the front door. It is still light, a bright spring evening. She can hear the chuckling call of a curlew. She is not the only one pining for love.

"Why does life have to be so complicated?" she asks the dog.

21.05: Text from Rebecka Martinsson to Mns Wenngren: Hi sweetheart. Sitting here, reading up on murder investigation. Would rather be creeping into bed with you. Be nice to me, my love.

She puts her mobile on the lavatory lid and turns on the shower. Gives Vera a thorough rinse to follow up her shampoo.

"So, stop all this rolling around in muck," she scolds her. "Is that clear?"

Vera licks her hands. It is clear enough.

23.16: "You have reached Mns Wenngren at Meijer & Ditzinger. I can't take your call right now. Please leave a message after the beep."

Martinsson hangs up without leaving a message. She gives Vera some food.

"I don't deserve to be punished," she says.

Vera comes over to her and dries her mouth on Martinsson's trouser leg.

04.36: Martinsson wakes up and reaches for her mobile. No message from Mns. No missed call. Doc.u.ments concerning the murder investigation are scattered all around her on the bed. Vera is lying at the foot, snoring.

It's O.K., she says to herself and makes a hushing noise into the darkness. You can go to sleep now.

WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL.

At 6.05 in the morning Rebecka Martinsson rang Anna-Maria Mella. Mella answered in a low voice, so as not to wake Robert. Robert snuggled up behind her and fell asleep again, his warm breath fanning the back of her neck.

"I read the notes you made after talking to Johannes Svarvare," Martinsson said.

"Mmm."

"You recorded that he gave the impression of wanting to say something, but that he cut the interview short by lying down on the sofa and closing his eyes."

"Yes, although he first took out his false teeth and tossed them into a gla.s.s."

Martinsson laughed.

"Is it O.K. with you if I ask him to put his teeth back in and have a word with me?"

Mella vacillated between two reactions. Of course they would need to interview Svarvare again. She felt annoyed at not having reached that conclusion herself, and even more annoyed because Martinsson wanted to repeat the interrogation Mella had already done. But at the same time she realized that Martinsson was phoning her as a peace-making gesture. That was decent of her. Martinsson was good. Mella decided not to sulk.

"That'll be fine," she said. "When I spoke to him we were still investigating what looked like an accidental death with a few details that needed clarifying."

"You wrote that he had been talking to Wilma, and had told her more than he ought to have done."

"Yes."

Mella began to feel uneasy. She really had handled that interrogation badly.

"But he didn't say anything about what they actually discussed?"

"No. I suppose I ought to have pressed him, though I'm not sure how; but like I said, it wasn't a murder investigation then."

She fell silent.

Don't start making excuses, she told herself.

"Hey," Martinsson said, "you handled the situation extremely well. You made all these notes. Observed that there seemed to be something else he wanted to say. O.K., so we know what we need to concentrate on in round two, now that we've established what this case is really about."

"Thank you," Mella said.

"It's me who should be thanking you."

"For what?"

"For trusting me to go and talk to him."

"I can always conduct round three, if necessary. When are you going to see him?"