Before the Frost Page 29

  The day he had chosen was the eighth of September. This had come to him in a dream. He had found himself in a deserted factory with puddles of rainwater and dead leaves on the floor. There had been a calendar on the wall. When he woke up, he remembered that the date in the dream was the eighth of September. That is the day everything ends and everything begins again.

  He stepped closer to them and started to speak.

  “The time has come. I had not intended that we should meet before the day that you undertake your great task, but God has spoken to me tonight and told me that yet another sacrifice is necessary. When we meet again, another sinner will die.”

  He picked up the hawser and held it above his head.

  “We know what God demands of us,” he intoned. “The old scriptures teach us the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He who kills must himself be killed. We must remove all doubt from our minds. God’s breath is steel and he demands hardness from us in return. We are like the snake who wakes from his winter sleep, we are the lizards who live in the crevices of the rock and change color when threatened. Only through complete devotion and ruthlessness will we conquer the emptiness that exists inside men. The great darkness, the long days of degeneration and impotence are over.”

  He paused and saw that they understood. He walked along the row and stroked their foreheads, then gave the sign that they were to stand. Together they said the holy words that he told them had come to him in a vision. They did not have to know the truth, that it was something he had read when he was a young man. Or had the words in fact come to him in a dream? He could not be sure, but it was of no importance.

  And in our redemption we are lifted high on wings of might

  To join him in his power and shine with his holy light.

  Later they left the church, locked up, and drove away in the bus. A woman who came in to clean in the afternoon did not notice that anyone had been there at all.

  PART IV

  the thirteenth tower

  41

  The telephone woke her up. She checked the time: a quarter to six.

  There were noises coming from the bathroom. Her father was already up but hadn’t heard the phone. Linda ran out into the kitchen and picked up.

  “May I please speak to Inspector Wallander?” a woman’s voice said.

  “And who is this?”

  “May I please speak to him?”

  The woman spoke in a cultured way. Hardly a cleaning lady at the station, Linda thought.

  “He’s busy right now. Who may I say is calling?”

  “Anita Tademan from Rannesholm Manor.”

  “We’ve met, actually. I’m his daughter.”

  Anita Tademan ignored her last comment.

  “When will I be able to speak to him?”

  “As soon as he gets out of the bathroom.”

  “It’s very important.”

  Linda wrote down the number and put some water on for coffee. The pot had just started to boil when Wallander came into the kitchen. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that it did not even strike him as strange to see her up so early.

  “Anita Tademan just called,” Linda said. “She said it was important.”

  Wallander looked at his watch.

  “It must be, at this hour.”

  She dialed the number for him and held out the phone.

  While he was speaking with Mrs. Tademan, Linda looked through the cupboards and discovered there were no more coffee beans.

  Wallander hung up. Linda had heard him agree to a time.

  “What did she want?”

  “For me to come and talk to her.”

  “What about?”

  “To tell me something she heard from a distant relative who lives in a house on the Rannesholm grounds. She didn’t want to elaborate on the phone and insisted I come up to the manor. I’m sure she thinks she’s too important to come down to the station like a regular person. But that’s when I put my foot down. Maybe you heard that part?”

  “No—why?”

  Wallander muttered something unintelligible and started to rifle through the cupboard.

  “It’s all gone,” Linda said.

  “Do I have to be the only one around here who takes responsibility for keeping coffee in the house?”

  That immediately infuriated her.

  “You don’t understand how incredibly relieved I’ll be to move out. I should never have come back here.”

  He threw out his arms in apology.

  “That might have been best. Parents and children shouldn’t live on top of each other. But we don’t have time to argue about it now.”

  They drank tea and leafed through their respective parts of the morning paper. Neither one could concentrate on what he or she was reading.

  “I want you to come along,” he said. “Get dressed.”

  Linda showered and dressed as quickly as she could. But when she was ready, he had already left. He had jotted something down in the margin of the newspaper. She took that as a sign that he was in a hurry. He’s as impatient as I am, she thought.

  She looked out of the window. The thermometer said it was twenty-two degrees Celsius—still summer. It was raining. She half-ran, half-walked to the station. It was as if she were hurrying to school, with the same anxiety about making it on time.

  Wallander was talking on the phone when she came in. She sat down in the chair across from his desk. He put the phone down and stood up.

  “Come with me.”

  They walked into Lindman’s office. Höglund was leaning against the wall, a mug of coffee in her hand. For once she acknowledged Linda’s presence. Someone’s mentioned it to her, Linda thought. Hardly my dad. Maybe Lindman.

  “Where is Martinsson?” Höglund asked.

  “He just called,” Wallander said. “He has a sick child on his hands, so he’ll be in a little later. But he was going to make some calls from home and find out more about this Sylvi Rasmussen.”

  “Who?” Höglund asked.

  “Why are we all crowding around in here, anyway?” Wallander said. “Let’s go to the conference room. Does anybody know where Nyberg is?”

  “He’s still working on the two fires.”

  “What does he think he’s going to find there?”

  The last comment came from Höglund. Linda sensed that she was one of those who looked forward to his retirement.

  They discussed the case for three hours and ten minutes, until someone knocked on the door and said that an Anita Tademan had arrived to speak with Inspector Wallander. Linda wondered if the discussion had really come to its natural conclusion, but no one made any objections when Wallander stood up. He stopped by her chair on his way out.

  “Anna,” he said. “Keep talking to her, keep listening to her.”

  “I don’t know what we should talk about. She’s going to see through me, that I’m keeping an eye on her.”

  “Just be yourself.”

  “Shouldn’t you talk to her again?”

  “Yes, but not just yet.”

  Linda left the station. The rain had turned into a thin drizzle. A car honked its horn, so close to her that she jumped. It was Lindman. He pulled over and opened the door.

  “Jump in. I’ll take you home.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was music on. Jazz.

  “Do you like this music?” she asked.

  “Yes. A lot, actually.”

  “Jazz?”

  “Lars Gullin. A sax player, one of Sweden’s best jazz musicians ever. He died much too young.”

  “I’ve never heard of him, but I don’t like this kind of music.”

  “In my car I play what I like.”

  He seemed stung and Linda instantly regretted what she had said. Unfortunately one of the many things I’ve inherited from my father is this ability to make thoughtless, hurtful comments.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  His answer was curt.

  “Sj�
�bo. To see a locksmith.”

  “Is it going to take long?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Maybe I could come along. If you’ll have me.”

  “If you can stand the music.”

  “From now on I love jazz.”

  The tension was broken. Lindman laughed and drove north. He drove fast. Linda had the urge to touch him, to run her fingers over his shoulder or his cheek. She felt more desire than she could remember feeling in a long time. She had a silly thought that they should check into a hotel in Sjöbo. Not that there probably even was one. She tried to shake off the thought, but it stayed with her. Rain splattered the windshield. The saxophone poured out some high, insistent, quick notes. Linda tried to pick out the melody line, without success.

  “If you’re talking to a locksmith in Sjöbo, it must have something to do with the investigation. One of them. How many are there, exactly?”

  “Medberg is one. Bolson is another, so are the burned animals, and the two church fires. Your dad wants them all treated under the rubric of one investigation, and the D.A. has agreed. At least for now.”

  “And the locksmith?”

  “His name is Håkan Holmberg. He’s not your average dime-store locksmith; he makes copies of very old keys. When he heard that the police were wondering how the arsonists broke into the churches, he remembered that he made two keys a few months ago that could very well have been old church keys. I’m on my way to see if he remembers anything else. His workshop is in the center of Sjöbo. Martinsson had heard of him before. He’s won prizes for his craftsmanship. He’s also studied philosophy and teaches in the summer.”

  “In his workshop?”

  “In another part of the farmstead. Martinsson has thought about doing it sometime. The students work in the smithy half the day and explore philosophical issues the rest of the time.”

  “Not something for me,” Linda said.

  “What about your dad?”

  “Even less so.”

  They arrived in Sjöbo and stopped outside a red brick house with a giant iron key hanging outside the door.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t go in with you.”

  “If I understood matters correctly, you’ve started working.”

  They walked in. It was very hot. A man working at the forge nodded at them, then took out a piece of glowing iron and started hammering it.

  “I need to finish this key,” he said. “You can’t interrupt this kind of work once you’ve started. It lets a kind of hesitation into the iron. That happens and the key will never sit well in its lock.”

  They watched him with fascination. At last the key lay finished on the anvil. Holmberg wiped the sweat from his face and washed his hands. They followed him out into a courtyard with tables and chairs. A coffee pot and some cups had been put out. They shook hands. Linda felt foolishly flattered by Lindman’s introducing her as a “colleague.” Holmberg served the coffee and put on an old straw hat. He noticed Linda looking at it.

  “One of the few crimes I’ve ever committed,” he said. “I take a trip overseas every year. A few years ago I was in Lombardy. One afternoon I was somewhere close to Mantua, where I had spent a few days in honor of the great Virgil, who was born there. I caught sight of a scarecrow out on a field. I don’t know what crop he was supposed to be protecting. I stopped and thought that for the first time in my life I wanted to commit a crime, become a dishonest blacksmith, in a word. So I snuck out onto the field and stole his hat. Sometimes in my dreams it isn’t a scarecrow at all but a living person. He must have realized I was a harmless coward who would never steal from anyone—that’s why he let me take the hat. Perhaps he was the remains of a Franciscan monk hoping to do one last good deed on this earth. In any case, it was an overwhelming, tumultuous experience for me, to commit this crime.”

  Linda glanced at Lindman and wondered if he knew who Virgil was. And Mantua? Where was that? It had to be Italy, but she had no idea if it was a region or a city. Zeba would have known; she could sit for hours over her maps and books.

  “Tell me about the keys,” Lindman said.

  Holmberg rocked back in his chair and fished a pipe out of the breast pocket of his overalls.

  “It happened by accident, in a way,” he said after lighting the pipe. “I don’t watch or read any kind of news in the summer, as a way to rest my mind. But one of my customers came by to pick up a key. It was the key of an old seaman’s chest that had once belonged to a British admiral’s ship in the eighteenth century. He told me about the fires and the police suspicion about copied keys. I recalled that I had made two keys a few months ago that looked like church keys. I’m not saying it was definitely the case, but I suspected it was.”

  “Why?”

  “Experience. Church keys often look a certain way. And there aren’t very many other doors these days that still use the locks and keys of the old masters. I decided to call the police.”

  “Who ordered these keys?”

  “He said his name was Lukas.”

  “Lukas—?”

  “Mr. Lukas. An extremely well-mannered sort. He was in a hurry and made a generous deposit.”

  Lindman took a packet out of his pocket, which he unwrapped. Holmberg immediately recognized the contents.

  “Those are the keys I made copies of.”

  He stood up and walked into the smithy.

  “This could be something,” Lindman said. “A strange old man. But his memory seems good.”

  Holmberg returned with an old-fashioned ledger in his hand, turning the pages until he found the right one.

  “It was the twelfth of June. Mr. Lukas left two keys. He wanted the copies made by the twenty-fifth at the latest. That didn’t leave me very long, since I had a lot to do, but he paid well and even I need money, in order to keep up the forge and take my holiday trips.”

  “What address did he give you?”

  “No address.”

  “Telephone number?”

  Holmberg turned the ledger around so that Lindman could see. He dialed the number on his cell phone, listened, then turned it off again.

  “That was a florist in Bjärred,” he said. “I think we can safely assume that Mr. Lukas doesn’t have anything to do with them. What happened after that?”

  Holmberg flipped forward a few pages.

  “He came to fetch the keys on the twenty-fifth of June. That was all.”

  “How did he pay?”

  “Cash.”

  “Did you write out a receipt for him?”

  “No. I rely on my bookkeeping. I take great pains to pay my share of taxes, even though this kind of situation is ideal for tax evasion.”

  “How would you describe him?”

  “Tall, light hair, maybe losing a little of it in front. Courteous, polite. When he first came in he was dressed in a suit, same when he picked up the keys, though it was a different suit that time.”

  “How did he get here?”

  “I can’t see the road from the workshop, but I assume he drove a car.”

  Linda saw Lindman gather himself for the next question, intuitively sensing what it must be.

  “Can you describe the way he spoke?”

  “He had an accent.”

  “What kind of accent?”

  “Something Scandinavian. Not Finnish, nor Icelandic. That would leave Danish or Norwegian.”

  “Do you have anything else to say about him?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Did he say that these keys were for church doors?”

  “He said they were keys for some kind of storage facility—in an old manor house, come to think of it.”

  “Which manor?”

  Holmberg knocked some ash out of his pipe and wrinkled his forehead.

  “He told me the name, but I’ve forgotten.”

  They waited. Holmberg shook his head.

  “Could it have been Rannesholm?” Linda asked.

  The question simply jumped ou
t of her, like last time.

  “Right,” Holmberg said. “That was it. Rannesholm. An old brewery at Rannesholm.”

  Lindman got up, as if he was suddenly in a hurry. He finished the rest of his coffee.

  “Thank you,” he said. “This has been valuable.”

  “Working with keys is always meaningful,” Holmberg said and smiled. “Locking and opening is, in a sense, man’s very purpose on this earth. Key rings rattle throughout history. Each key, each lock has its tale. And now I have yet another to tell.”

  He followed them out.

  “Who was Virgil?” Linda asked.

  “Dante’s guide,” he answered. “And a great poet.”

  He lifted the old straw hat that was starting to come apart and went back inside. They got in the car.

  “So often you meet fearful, angry, shaken people,” Lindman said. “But sometimes there are moments of light. Like this man. I’m filing him away in my archive of interesting people I’ll remember when I’m old.”

  They left Sjöbo. Linda saw a sign for a hotel and giggled. He looked at her but didn’t ask anything. The cell phone rang. He answered, listened, hung up, and sped up.

  “Your dad has finished talking to Anita Tademan,” he said. “Apparently something important has come to light.”

  “Better not tell him that I was with you today,” she said. “He had something different in mind for me.”

  “What?”

  “Talking to Anna,” she said.

  “Maybe you’ll have time for both.”

  Lindman dropped her off in the center of town. When she made it to Anna’s apartment and was greeted by her at the door she immediately realized that something was wrong. Anna had tears in her eyes.

  “Zeba is gone,” she said. “Her boy was screaming so loud that the neighbors were worried. He was home alone. And Zeba was gone.”

  Linda held her breath. Fear overwhelmed her like a sudden pain. Now she knew she was close to a terrible truth that she should already have grasped.

  She looked into Anna’s eyes and saw only her own fear.