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:
Wallander looked down at his hands. Then he turned to her and smiled.
“What was it you asked me?”
“How is the investigation going?”
“We haven’t found a single trace of the perpetrator. We have no idea who was living in that hut.”
“What do you think?”
“You know you should never ask me that. Never what I think, only what I know or what I suspect.”
“I’m curious.”
He sighed.
“I’ll make an exception. I think Birgitta Medberg came upon the hut accidentally in her search for the pilgrim trail. The person who was there panicked or became enraged and killed her. But the fact that he dismembered the body complicates the picture.”
“Have you found the rest of it?”
“We have divers in the lake and a canine unit combing the forest. They haven’t found anything yet.”
He got ready to get up off the sofa.
“I take it there’s something you want to tell me.”
Linda told him in great detail about her visit to Anna’s house in Lund as well as to the house in Lestarp.
“Too many words,” he said when she finished.
“I’m working on it. Did you get the gist?”
“Yes.”
“Then it couldn’t have been too bad.”
“I’d give it a beta query,” Wallander said.
“What’s a beta query?”
“When I was in school, anything less than a beta query was considered a failing grade.”
“So what do you think I should do?”
“Stop worrying. You haven’t been listening to me. What happened to Birgitta Medberg was a mishap, one of almost biblical proportions. She took the wrong path. If I’m not mistaken, Birgitta Medberg had excruciatingly bad luck. Therefore there’s no longer any reason to think Anna is in any danger. The journal shows there is a connection between the two of them, but it’s no longer of concern to us.”
Ann-Britt Höglund and Lisa Holgersson came walking by at a brisk clip. Holgersson nodded kindly to Linda. Höglund didn’t seem to notice her. Wallander got up.
“Go home now,” he said.
“We could have used an extra set of hands,” Holgersson said. “I wish the money was there. When is it you start?”
“Next Monday.”
“Good.”
Linda watched them walking out together, and then she also left the manor. It was raining and getting colder, as if the weather couldn’t make up its mind. She walked back to the car. The house behind the church had sparked her curiosity. Why were they all gone? I can at least find out who the owner of the house is, she thought. I don’t need a permit or a police uniform for that. She drove back to Lestarp and parked in her usual spot. The doors to the church were half-open. After hesitating for a moment, she walked in. The old man she had talked to before was in the vestibule. He recognized her.
“Can’t stay away from our beautiful church?”
“I came by to ask you something.”
“Isn’t that why we all come here? To find answers to our questions?”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant. I was thinking about the house behind the church. Do you know who owns it?”
“It’s been in many different hands. When I was young, a man with one leg shorter than the other lived there. His name was Johannes Pålsson. He worked as a day laborer up at Stigby farmstead and was good at mending china. The last few years he lived alone. He moved the pigs into the living room and the chickens into the kitchen. That kind of thing went on in those days. When he was gone, someone else used the place as storage for grain. Then there was a horse breeder, and after that, sometime in the 1960s, the house was sold to someone whose name I’ve forgotten.”
“You don’t know who owns it now?”
“Oh, I’ve seen people come and go lately. They’re peaceful and discreet. Some say they use the house for meditation. They’ve never bothered us. But I don’t know who the owner is. You should be able to find out through the property-tax records.”
Linda thought for a moment. What would her father have done?
“Who knows all the gossip in this village?”
He looked at her with a smile.
“That would be me, wouldn’t it?”
“But apart from you. If there’s anyone who would know who owns the house, who would it be?”
“Maybe Sara Edén, the retired schoolteacher. She lives in the little house next to the car-repair shop. She devotes her time to talking on the phone. She knows everything that’s going on, and fills in the rest as needed. She’s a good sort, just insatiably curious.”
“What will happen if I ring her doorbell?”
“You’ll make a lonely old woman’s day.”
The front door opened wider and the grieving woman walked in. She met Linda’s gaze before walking to her regular pew.
“Every day,” the old man said. “The same time, the same face, the same grief.”
Linda left the church and walked down to the house. It was still empty. She returned to the church, decided to let the car stay where it was, and walked down the hill to Rune’s Auto and Tractor. On one side of the shop there was a ramshackle pile of spare car parts; on the other there was a high fence. Linda suspected that the retired schoolteacher didn’t care for a view of a car-repair shop. She opened the gate and stepped into a well-tended garden. An elderly woman was kneeling over a flowerbed. She stood up when she heard Linda come in.
“Who are you?” she asked sternly.
“My name is Linda. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
Sara Edén came over to where Linda was standing, holding a garden shovel aggressively outstretched. It occurred to Linda that there were people who were the human equivalent of ill-tempered dogs.
“Why would you want to ask me questions?”
“I’m looking for a friend who’s disappeared.”
Sara Edén looked skeptically at her.
“Isn’t that something for the police? Looking for missing persons?”
“I am from the police.”
“Then perhaps you’ll show me your ID. That’s my right, my older brother informed me. He was the headmaster at a school in Stockholm. He lived to be one hundred and one years old despite his bothersome colleagues and even more bothersome students.”
“I don’t have an ID card yet. I’m still in training.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it then. Are you strong?”
“Fairly.”
Sara Edén pointed to a wheelbarrow that was filled to the brim with discarded plants and weeds.
“There’s a compost pile around the back of the house, but my back has been giving me a bit of trouble. I must have slept in a strange position.”
Linda took hold of the wheelbarrow. It was very heavy, but she managed to coax it around to the compost pile. When she had finished emptying it, Edén showed a kindlier side. There were some chairs and a table tucked into a little arbor.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Then you’ll have to pick it up yourself from the vending machine by the furniture warehouse on the road out to Ystad. I don’t drink coffee — or tea for that matter. But I can offer you a glass of mineral water.”
“No, thank you.”
They sat down. Linda had no trouble imagining Ms. Edén as a schoolteacher. She probably saw Linda as an unruly schoolgirl.