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 concentrated on the question of what kind of person had been in the car. Taking the radio would have been a simple way to cover his or her tracks. Then Linda would simply assume there had been a normal break-in and chastise herself for being so lazy she didn’t even lock the car. This is not a particularly cunning mom, she thought.
She didn’t get any further. There was no conclusion to be drawn, no answer as to who and why. She readjusted the front seat, got out, and looked around. A man walked by in the blinding sun. I saw his back and thought it was Anna’s father. Linda shook her head in irritation. Anna had just been imagining things when she said she saw her father in the street. Maybe her acute disappointment was what made her take off for a few days. She had done that before — taken a trip without advance warning. But Zeba had said she always let at least one person know where she was going.
Who did she tell this time? Linda wondered.
She walked back over the gravel yard in front of the church, glancing up at some pigeons circling the bell tower, and then continued down to the house. A man named Torgeir Langaas bought the house, she thought. He paid cash.
She walked around to the back of the house, looking thoughtfully but absentmindedly at the stone furniture. There were several black and red currant bushes. She picked a few strands of berries and ate them. Her memories of Mona returned. Linda didn’t think she had snooped out of sheer curiosity; rather, it seemed that she had been motivated by fear. Why had she been so afraid? Was she afraid I wasn’t who she thought I was? A nine-year-old can play roles and have her secrets, but hardly of a magnitude that requires continuous snooping in order to truly understand her, especially if she is your own child.
Open warfare had only broken out when Mona started reading Linda’s diary. Linda had been thirteen by then and had been hiding her diary behind a loose panel at the back of a closet. At first she had thought it was safe there, but one day she realized that her mother had found her secret hiding spot. The diary had been pushed back a few centimeters too far. She could still remember the rage she had experienced. That time she really hated her mother.
There was an epilogue to that memory. Linda had decided to set another trap for her mother. This time she simply wrote a message on the first blank page in the diary stating that she knew her mother was reading it, that she was snooping in all her things. She put the diary back in its hiding place and started walking to school. About halfway there she slowed down and decided to cut class, since she knew she would not be able to concentrate anyway. She spent the day wandering around in the shops downtown. When she came home she broke out in a cold sweat, but her mother greeted her as if nothing had happened. Late that evening after they had all gone to bed Linda got out of bed, took out the diary, and saw that her mother had written — without apology or explanation — “I won’t read it anymore, I promise.”
Linda picked a few more berries. We never talked about it, she thought. I think she stopped snooping altogether after that, but I could never be sure. Maybe she got better at covering her tracks, maybe I stopped caring as much. But we never talked about it.
The real estate agent’s name was Ture Magnusson and he was in the middle of a transaction involving the sale of a house in Trunnerup to a retired German couple. Linda skimmed through a folder of houses for sale while she waited. Ture Magnusson spoke German very badly. Finally he got up and walked over to her. He smiled.
“They want a moment alone,” he said and introduced himself. “These things tend to take time. What can I do for you?”
Linda gave him her story without playing the policewoman this time. Ture Magnusson nodded before she was even finished. He seemed to remember the deal without having to look it up.
“That house was indeed bought by a Norwegian,” he said. “A pleasant sort, very quick to make up his mind. He was what you would call an ideal client, paid in cash, no hesitation, no second thoughts.”
“How can I get in touch with him? I’m interested in the house.”
Ture Magnusson leaned back and seemed to take stock of her. His chair creaked as he pushed onto the back legs of the chair and balanced up against the wall.
“To be perfectly honest, he paid too much for that house. I shouldn’t tell you that, but it’s true. I can show you at least three other places in much better condition, in more beautiful surroundings going for less.”
“This is the house I want. I’d like to at least ask the owner if he would consider selling.”
“Of course. I understand. ‘Torgeir Langaas was his name,’” Ture Magnusson said, singing the last sentence. He had a good voice. He went into the next room and soon reappeared with an opened folder.
“Torgeir Langaas,” he read. “He spells his last name with a double ‘a’ at the end. He was born somewhere called Baerum, forty-three years old.”
“Where in Norway does he live?”
“Nowhere. He lives in Copenhagen.”
Ture Magnusson put the folder down in front of her so she could see. Nedergade 12.
“What sort of man would you say he was?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I want to know if there’s any point in looking him up, in your opinion.”
Ture Magnusson leaned back up against the wall.
“It was clear from the moment I laid eyes on him that Torgeir Langaas meant business. He was very courteous. He had already picked out the house he wanted. We drove out there together and inspected the property; he didn’t ask any questions. When we returned he pulled the cash out of his shoulder bag. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me except on one other occasion. The other was when one of our young tennis stars came with a suitcase full of bank notes and bought a large estate in West Vemmenhög. He’s never been there since, as far as I know.”
Linda wrote down Langaas’s address in Copenhagen and prepared to leave.
“Come to think of it, there was something else I noticed about him.”
“What was it?”
Ture Magnusson shook his head slowly.
“It wasn’t anything remarkable, just that he turned around a lot, as if he were afraid of running into someone he knew. He also excused himself a number of times, and when he returned from the bathroom the last time, his eyes were glazed over.”
“Had he been crying?”
“No, I would almost say he seemed high.”
“Alcohol?”
“I would have smelled that on his breath. I guess he could have been drinking vodka.”
Linda tried to think of something else to ask.
“But respectful, pleasant,” Magnusson said again. “Perhaps he’ll sell you the house. Who knows?”
“What did he look like?”
“He had a normal-looking face. What I remember most about him is his eyes, not simply because they were glazed over but because there was something disturbing about them. Some people would perhaps even have found his look menacing.”
“And yet his manner struck you as pleasant?”
“Oh, very. An ideal client, as I said. I bought myself a very nice bottle of wine that evening. Just to celebrate such an easy day’s work.”
Linda left the real-estate office. This is another step on the way, she thought. I can go to Copenhagen and find this Torgeir Langaas. I don’t know exactly why — perhaps it helps to diminish my anxieties. I’m treating this as if Anna simply decided to go away without remembering to mention it to me.