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:
Linda walked over to Lindman, who looked at her with surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m just a curious onlooker. But I need to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“The fire.”
He thought for a moment.
“I have to go home and eat something anyway,” he said. “You can come along.”
Stefan’s apartment was located in one of three high-rises scattered arbitrarily across an area dotted with a few single-family homes and a paper-recycling center.
His was the middle building. The glass in the front door had been smashed and replaced by a piece of cardboard in which someone had also kicked a hole. Linda saw a message scribbled on the walclass="underline" LIFE IS FOR SALE. SPREAD THE WORD.
“I read that every day,” Stefan said. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
He unlocked the apartment and handed her a hanger for her coat. They walked into the living room, which was furnished with a few simple pieces, randomly scattered around the room.
“I don’t have anything to offer you except water or beer,” he said. “This is just a place for me to camp out.”
“Where are you moving? You said something about Knickarp.”
“I’m renovating a house out there. It has a large garden. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I’m still at my dad’s,” Linda said. “I’m counting the days until I get out of there.”
“You have a good father.”
She was taken aback.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. You have a good father. I didn’t.”
Some newspapers were lying on a side table. She pulled over a copy of the Borås Daily.
“I’m not nostalgic,” he said. “I subscribe to it because I enjoy reading about everything I’ve managed to escape.”
“It was that awful?”
“I knew I had to leave when it was clear I was going to survive the cancer.”
He fell silent. Linda wasn’t sure how to change the subject. Then he stood up.
“I’ll get the beer and some sandwiches.”
He came back with two glasses. Linda declined the sandwich.
She told him how she had overheard the conversation between Amy Lindberg and her friend and subsequently asked her some questions. Stefan listened attentively. She continued to talk, going back to the incident when Anna thought she saw her father in the street in Malmö. The shadowy figure of a Norwegian, who was perhaps named Torgeir Langaas, kept appearing in her account.
“Someone is killing animals,” she said in conclusion. “Someone has also killed a person, cut her up into pieces. And Anna has disappeared.”
“I understand your concern,” Stefan said. “Not only because of the vaguely disturbing possibility of a return by Anna’s father. We also have the menacing presence of an unknown person, someone who says ‘The Lord’s will be done’. Perhaps not aloud, but the intent is there in all his actions. You’ve also learned that your friend Anna is religious. These random facts are starting to look like pieces of a grotesque puzzle, not least the morbid detail of allowing two severed hands to go on pleading for mercy after death. From everything you’ve said and from what I already know of the case, it’s clear that there’s a religious dimension to all of this that we haven’t taken as seriously as we perhaps should have.”
He drank the last of his beer. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance.
“It’s out over Bornholm,” Linda said. “There are often thunder-storms out there.”
“It’s an easterly wind. That means it’s on its way here.”
“What do you think about what I just told you?”
“That it’s true. And that what you’ve told me will impact our investigation.”
“Which investigation?”
“Birgitta Medberg. Anna’s disappearance has not been a priority up to this point. I guess that will change now.”
“Am I right to be scared?”
He shook his head hesitantly.
“I don’t know. I’m going to write down everything you’ve told me, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to do the same. I’ll let my colleagues know about this tomorrow.”
Linda shivered.
“Dad will be furious that I went to you first and not him.”
“Why don’t you blame it on the fact that he was so busy with the arson?”
“He keeps saying he’s never too busy when it comes to me.”
Stefan helped her put on her coat. She thought again that she was genuinely attracted to him. His hands on her shoulders were gentle.
She returned to Mariagatan. Her father was waiting for her at the kitchen table, and she could tell from his face that he was angry. You bastard, she thought. Couldn’t you at least have waited until I got home?
She sat down across from him and braced herself.
“If you’re just going to rant and rave I’m going to bed. No, I’ll leave. I’ll sleep in the car.”
“You could at least have talked to me. This amounts to a breach of trust, Linda. A huge breach of trust.”
“For Christ’s sake — you were in the middle of a pet massacre. A street was going up in flames.”
“You shouldn’t have taken it upon yourself to talk to that girl. What gave you the right to do that? How many times do I have to tell you this is not your business? You haven’t even started working yet.”
Linda pulled up her sleeve, and showed him Amy Lindberg’s phone number.
“Will that do? I’m going to bed.”
“I find it deeply disturbing that you don’t even have enough respect for me not to go behind my back.”
Linda’s eyes widened.
“Go behind your back? Who said anything about going behind your back?”
“You know what I’m saying.”
Linda swept a salt shaker and a vase of withered roses to the floor. He had gone too far. She rushed out into the hallway, grabbed her coat, and slammed the front door behind her. I hate him, she thought, fumbling in her pocket for the car keys. I hate his endless nagging. I’m not spending another night in this place.
She tried to calm herself when she reached the car. He expects me to feel guilty, she thought. He’s waiting for me to go back and tell him that little Linda Caroline had a moment of rebellion but takes it all back now.
“Well, I’m not going back,” she said aloud. “I’ll stay with Zeba.” She was about to start the car when she changed her mind. Zeba would talk, ask questions, discuss the situation. Linda didn’t have the energy for that. She drove to Anna’s apartment instead. Her dad could sit at the kitchen table and wait until the end of the world as far as she was concerned.
She put the key in the lock and pushed the door open.
Anna was standing in the hall with a smile on her face.
32
I knew it had to be you. No one else would drop by like this, like a thief in the night. You probably intuited I had come back and woke up. Isn’t that it?” Anna said cheerfully.
Linda dropped her keys.
“I don’t understand. Is it really you?”
“It’s me.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
Anna frowned.
“Why are you relieved?”
“I’ve been worried sick about you.”
Anna lifted her hands in apology.
“I’m guilty, I know. Do you want me to apologize or tell you what happened?”
“You don’t have to do either right now. It’s enough that you’re here.”
They went into the living room. Even though Linda was struggling to come to terms with the fact that Anna was back and sitting in her usual chair, she noticed that the framed blue butterfly was still missing.