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 got up, quickly.
“Forget it,” he said. “I’m going.”
She watched him as he rinsed out his coffee cup. Am I too hard on him? she thought. But if I don’t do it, who will?
Linda called Anna at around ten o’clock.
“I just want to make sure I didn’t dream the whole thing.”
“And I realize now how much I worried you. But I called Zeba, so she knows I’m back.”
“And Henrietta?”
“I’ll talk to her later. Are you still coming over at noon?”
“I’ll be there.”
Linda didn’t put the receiver down right away after they ended the conversation.
That little sliver of anxiety was still inside her somewhere. It’s a message, she thought. My body is trying to tell me something, like dreams where everything leads back to you even though it may seem like you’re dreaming about someone else. Anna has returned. She’s unhurt and everything seems normal, but I keep wondering about two names that appeared in her journaclass="underline" Birgitta Medberg and Vigsten. And then there’s a third person, a Norwegian by the name of Torgeir Langaas. I won’t be able to shut the door on these thoughts until I get some answers.
She went out and sat on the balcony. The air was cool and fresh after the previous night’s thunderstorm. The paper had said the rain had caused sewers to overflow in Rydsgård. A dead butterfly lay on the balcony floor. That’s another question I need answered, Linda thought. The blue butterfly on the wall.
She put her legs up on the balcony railing. Only five more days, she thought. Then I’ll no longer be in limbo.
Linda didn’t know where the thought had come from, but she went inside and called information. The hotel was run by the Scandic Corporation. She was put through, and a cheerful man’s voice picked up. She sensed the trace of a Danish accent.
“I’d like to speak to one of your guests, Anna Westin.”
“One moment.”
The first lie is easy, she thought. Then it gets harder.
The cheerful voice returned.
“I have no one registered under that name.”
“Perhaps she’s already checked out. I know she was staying at your hotel.”
“Anna Westin, you said? Is that W-e-s-t-i-n?”
“Yes.”
“One moment.”
This time he returned almost immediately.
“There’s been no guest by that name in the last two weeks, at least. Are you sure you have the right spelling of the name?”
“She definitely spells it with a ‘W.’”
“We’ve had a Wagner, Werner, Wiktor with a ‘W,’ Williamsson, Wallander...”
Linda squeezed the receiver.
“Excuse me. What was the last name?”
“Williamsson?”
“No, Wallander.”
The cheerful voice took on a steely edge.
“I thought you said you were looking for someone by the name of Westin.”
“But her husband’s name is Wallander. Perhaps she had booked them under his name?”
“Please hold the line for a moment.”
It can’t be, she thought. This isn’t happening.
“I’m afraid that isn’t right either. The only Wallander we’ve had was a woman who was staying in a single room.”
Linda couldn’t speak.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
“Was her first name Linda, by any chance?”
“Yes, it was, actually. I’m sorry I can’t do anything more for you. Perhaps your friend was staying elsewhere. We also have a wonderful establishment outside Lund.”
“Thank you.”
Linda almost slammed the phone down. At first she had felt surprise, but now it was anger. She knew she should speak to her father and not keep working on her own. Right now this is the only question that matters to me, she thought. Why would Anna go to Malmö to look for her father and book a room under my name?
She tore a piece of paper from a pad lying out on the kitchen table and crossed out the word “asparagus” already written on it. He doesn’t even eat asparagus, she thought irritably. By the time she was ready to start jotting down all of the names and events associated with Anna’s disappearance, she no longer knew where she should begin. Eventually she drew the outline of a butterfly and started filling it in with blue. Then the pen ran out and she got another. One of the wings was blue, the other black. This is a butterfly that doesn’t exist anywhere but in the realm of imagination, she thought. Just like Anna’s dad. Reality is full of other things, such as burning swans, a butchered body in the forest, a mugger in Copenhagen.
At eleven she walked to the harbor, strolled out onto the pier, and sat down on a bollard. She tried to think of a reasonable explanation for Anna using her name. A dead wild duck floated in the turbid water. When Linda finally stood up, she still had not thought of a reasonable explanation. It must exist, she thought. I just can’t think of it.
She rang Anna’s doorbell at exactly twelve o’clock. The anxiety she had felt earlier was gone. Now she was simply on her guard.
34
Torgeir Langaas opened his eyes, surprised that he was still alive, as always. His life should have ended in that Cleveland gutter, his body disposed of by the state of Ohio.
He lay still in what had once been the maid’s room off the kitchen — a room Vigsten had forgotten all about — and listened to noises issuing from the apartment. A piano tuner was working on the baby grand. He came every Wednesday. Torgeir Langaas had enough of an ear to know that the tuner only needed to make very minor adjustments to the pitch. He imagined old Vigsten sitting on a chair by the window, his eyes following the tuner as he worked. Langaas stretched out. Everything had gone according to plan yesterday evening. The pet store had burned to the ground; not a single mouse or hamster had escaped. Erik had stressed how important this last animal sacrifice was, how crucial it was that nothing go wrong. Erik came back to this point over and over: that God allowed no mistakes.
Every morning Langaas recited the oath that Erik had taught him, first and foremost disciple: “It is my duty to God and my Earthly Master to follow the orders I receive without hesitation and undertake whatever actions necessary to teach the people what will happen to those that turn away from Him. Only by accepting the Lord through the words of his only true prophet will redemption be possible, and with it the mercy of being counted among those who will return after the great transformation.”
He folded his hands in prayer and mumbled the verses from Jude that Erik had taught him: “And the Lord, when he had saved his people from Egypt’s land, afterward smote those who had not believed in Him.” You can turn every room into a cathedral, Erik had told him. The church you seek is here and everywhere.
Langaas whispered his oath, closed his eyes, and pulled the blankets up to his chin. The piano tuner hit the same high-pitched note again and again. Erik’s words were what had sparked the memory of his grandfather who, despite his diminishing comprehension, had spent his last few years alone in his house by Femunden. One of Langaas’s sisters had spent a whole week with him without his registering the fact. Langaas had told Erik about his idea and received his cautious blessing. Frans Vigsten had appeared as if from nowhere. Langaas sometimes wondered if Erik had steered Vigsten in his direction. Langaas had been at a café in Nyhavn, testing himself to see if he could resist the multitude of temptations that came his way. The old man had been there drinking wine. Suddenly he had come over to Langaas and asked: