Before the Frost
- Автор: Манкелль Хеннинг
- Серия: Linda Wallander #1
- Год: 2004
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Harvill Press
- ISBN: 978-1-84343-113-8
- Переводчик: Ebba Segerberg
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Before the Frost». Краткое содержание книги:
She approached the lighted windows, then stopped short. Voices. At first she couldn’t determine where they were coming from, but then she saw that one of the windows was pushed open. Anna’s neighbor had said that her voice was gentle. But this wasn’t Anna’s voice, it was Henrietta’s. Henrietta and a man. Linda listened, trying to will her ears to send out invisible antennae. She walked even closer and was now able to see through the glass. Henrietta sat in profile, the man was on the sofa with his back to the window. Linda couldn’t hear what the man was saying. Henrietta was talking about a composition, something about twelve violins and a lone cello, something about a last communion and apostolic music. Linda didn’t understand what she was talking about. She tried to be absolutely quiet. The dog was in there somewhere. She tried to figure out who Henrietta was talking to, and why they were talking in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, very slowly, Henrietta turned her head and looked straight at the window. Linda jumped. It seemed like Henrietta was looking directly into her eyes. She can’t have seen me, Linda thought. It’s impossible. But there was something about the woman’s gaze that frightened her. She turned and ran, accidentally stepping on the edge of the water pump, causing a clang from within the pump structure. The dog started to bark.
Linda ran back the way she had come. She tripped and fell, got up and stumbled on. She heard a door open somewhere behind her as she threw herself over the fence and ran down the path, trying to make her way back to the car. At some point she took a wrong turn. She didn’t know where she was. She stopped, gasping for air, and listened. Henrietta had not set the dog loose. It would have found her by now. She listened again. There was no one there, but she was still so scared she was shaking. After a while she cautiously started making her way back to the path, but she couldn’t see where she was going because it was so dark. The darkness frightened her, making shadows into trees and trees into shadows. She stumbled and fell.
When she stood up she felt a searing pain in her left leg. She felt as if she had been stabbed with a knife. She screamed and tried to get away from the pain, but she couldn’t move. It was as if an animal had sunk its teeth into her, except that this animal didn’t breathe or make any noise. Linda groped down her leg until her hand hit something cold and metallic connected to a chain. Then she understood. She was caught in a hunter’s trap.
Her hand was wet with blood. She continued to cry out, but no one heard her, no one came.
19
Linda tried to free herself from the trap. She didn’t like the idea of calling her father, but the trap was impossible to budge. She took out her cell phone and dialed his number. She explained where she was and that she needed help.
“What’s happened?”
“I’m caught in a trap.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I have a steel trap around my leg.”
“I’m on my way.”
Linda waited, shivering. It felt like an eternity before she saw the headlights from a car in the distance. Linda called out. The front door opened and the dog barked. She called and called. They walked over in the dark, a flashlight lighting their way. It was her father, Henrietta, and the dog. There was a third person with them but he hung back.
“You’re caught in an old fox trap. Who is responsible for putting this here?”
“Not me,” said Henrietta. “It must be the man who owns the land around here.”
“We’ll have a word with him.” Wallander forced the trap open.
“We’d better get you to the hospital,” he said.
Linda tried to put some weight on the foot. It hurt, but she was able to steady herself with it. The man in the shadows now came closer.
“This is a colleague you haven’t met yet,” Wallander said. “Stefan Lindman. He started with us a couple of weeks ago.”
Linda looked at him. His face was partly lit by the flashlight and she liked what she saw.
“What are you doing here?” Henrietta asked.
“I can explain,” Lindman said.
He spoke with some kind of dialect. But which was it? She asked her father later when they were driving back to Ystad.
“He’s from western Götaland,” Wallander said. “A strange language. They have trouble commanding respect, as do people from eastern Götaland and the island of Gotland. The ones who command the most respect are northerners, apparently. I don’t know why.”
“How is he going to account for me being out there tonight?”
“He’ll think of something. But maybe you can tell me what you thought you were doing.”
“I had a dream about Anna.”
“What sort of dream?”
“She called out to me. I woke up and drove out here. I didn’t know what I was planning to do. I saw Henrietta inside talking to a man. Then she looked over in my direction and I ran and then I got caught in that trap.”
“Now at least I know you’re not sneaking out for secret assignations.”
“Don’t you understand that this is serious?” she screamed. “Anna is missing!”
“Of course I take you seriously. I take her disappearance seriously. I take my whole life and yours seriously. The butterfly was the clincher.”
“What are you doing about it?”
“Everything that can and should be done. We’re turning every stone, chasing every lead. And now we’re not going to discuss this further until we’ve had your leg checked out at the hospital.”
It was an hour before anyone could deal with her. Wallander dozed in an uncomfortable chair. And the process of cleaning the wound and bandaging it seemed to take forever. Just as they were finally leaving, Stefan Lindman walked in. Linda now saw he had closely cropped hair and blue eyes.
“I said you had terrible night vision,” he said cheerfully. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it will have to suffice as an explanation for what you were doing wandering around out there.”
“I saw a man in the house with her,” Linda said.
“Henrietta Westin told me she had a visit from a man who wants her to set music to some dramatic verse. It didn’t sound suspicious.”
Linda put her jacket on against the morning cold. She regretted having yelled at her father in the car. It was a sign of weakness. Never scream, always keep your cool. But she had done something stupid and had needed to turn the spotlight on someone else’s shortcomings. She also felt a huge wave of relief. Anna’s disappearance was no longer a figment of her imagination. A blue butterfly had made all the difference. The price was a painful ache in her leg.
“Stefan will take you home. I have to get back to the station.”
Linda went into the ladies’ room and combed her hair. Lindman was waiting for her in the corridor. He was wearing a black leather jacket and was sloppily shaven on one side of his face, which Linda didn’t like. She chose to walk on his good side.
“How does it feel?”
“What do you think?”
“It must hurt. I know something about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Pain.”