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:
“I want Linda to be there,” Anna said.
“I don’t know if that will be possible,” Höglund said. “Why do you want her to be there?”
“I have a tendency to make things more complicated than they are,” Anna said. “I just want her there for support, that’s all.”
Höglund shrugged and looked at Linda.
“You’ll have to ask your father if it’s OK,” she said. “You know where his office is. He’s waiting in the small conference room two doors down from there.”
Höglund left them and marched off.
“Is this where you’ll be working?” Anna asked.
“Hardly. I’ll be spending time in the garage and in the front seat of patrol cars.”
The door to the small conference room was half open. Wallander was leaning back in his chair, a cup of coffee in his hand. He’s going to break that chair, Linda thought. Do cops have to get so fat? I’ll have to take early retirement. She pushed the door open. Wallander didn’t seem particularly surprised to see her with Anna. He shook Anna’s hand.
“I would like Linda to stay,” she said.
“Of course.”
Wallander threw a glance behind them into the corridor.
“Where’s Höglund?”
“I don’t think she wanted to come along,” Linda said, seating herself as far away from her father as possible.
That day Linda learned something important about police work from both Anna and her father. Wallander impressed her by steering the conversation with imperceptible yet total control. He never confronted Anna directly; he approached her from the side, listening to her answers, encouraging her even when she contradicted herself. He gave the impression of having all the time in the world, but never let her off the hook.
What Anna taught her was through her lies. She appeared to be trying to keep her lies to a minimum, but without success. Once, when Anna bent down to pick up a pencil that had rolled off the table, Linda and her father exchanged a look.
When it was over and Anna had gone home, Linda sat down at the kitchen table at home and tried to write down the conversation exactly as it had progressed, like a screenplay. What was it Anna had said? Linda started to write, and the exchange slowly reproduced itself on paper.
KW: Thanks for coming. I’m glad that nothing serious happened to you. Linda was very worried, and I was too.
AW: I guess I don’t need to tell you about the person I thought I saw in Malmö.
KW: No, you don’t. Would you like something to drink?
AW: Juice, please.
KW: I’m afraid we don’t have any. There’s coffee, tea, or plain water.
AW: I’ll pass.
Slowly, but surely, Linda thought. He has all the time in the world.
KW: How much do you know about what happened to Birgitta Medberg?
AW: Linda told me she was killed. It’s horrible. Incomprehensible. I also know you saw her name in my journal.
KW: Not us. Linda was the one who saw it when she was trying to figure out what had happened to you.
AW: I don’t like people reading my journal.
KW: Of course not. But Birgitta’s name was there, wasn’t it?
AW: Yes.
KW: We’re trying to contact all the people she may have known. The conversation we’re having is identical to those my colleagues are having with others all around us.
AW: We rode a pair of Norwegian Fjord horses together. They’re owned by a man called Jörlander. He lives on a small farm near Charlottenlund. He was a juggler in an earlier life. He has something wrong with his leg and can’t ride anymore. We exercised the horses for him.
KW: When did you first meet Birgitta?
AW: Seven years and three months ago. KW: How come you remember it so precisely?
AW: Because I’ve thought about it. I knew you would ask me that.
KW: Where did you first meet?
AW: In the stables. She had also heard that Jörlander needed volunteers. We rode two or three times a week. We always talked about the horses, that was all.
KW: You never met each other outside of riding?
AW: I thought she was boring, to be perfectly honest. Except for the butterflies.
KW: Which butterflies? What do you mean?
AW: One day when we were riding, we realized we both had a passion for butterflies. Then we had a new topic of conversation.
KW: Did you ever hear her express any fears?
AW: She always seemed nervous when we had to take the horses across a busy road; I remember that.
KW: And apart from that?
AW: No.
KW: Did she ever have anyone with her?
AW: No, she would always come alone on her little Vespa.
KW: So you had no other contact with each other?
AW: No. Just a letter she wrote to me once. Nothing else.
A slight hesitation, Linda thought as she wrote. An imperceptible tremor at times, but here she actually stumbled. What was she hiding? Linda thought about what she had seen in the hut and broke out into a sweat.
KW: When did you last see Birgitta?
AW: Two weeks ago.
KW: In what context was that?
AW: For heaven’s sake, how many times do I have to repeat myself? Riding.
KW: This is the last time, I assure you. I just want to make sure I have all the facts straight. What happened in Malmö, by the way? When you were looking for your father?
AW: How do you mean?
KW: I mean, who rode the horses for you? Who filled in for you and Birgitta?
AW: Jörlander has some reserves, young girls mostly. He doesn’t like to use them because of their age but he must have had to. You can ask him.
KW: We will. Do you remember if there was anything different the last time you met?
AW: Who? The young girls?
KW: No, I was thinking of Birgitta.
AW: She was her usual self.
KW: Do you remember what you talked about?
AW: I’ve told you several times now that we didn’t talk very much. A little about horses, the weather, butterflies. That was about it.
And right here he had suddenly sat up in his chair, Linda thought, a tactical maneuver telling Anna to be on her guard.
KW: We have another name from your diary: Vigsten. He lives on Ned ergade in Copenhagen.
Anna had looked over at Linda in surprise, then narrowed her eyes. There goes that friendship, Linda had thought at the time. If it wasn’t gone already, that is.
AW: Clearly someone has read more of my journal than I realized.
KW: That may be. Vigsten. What can you tell me about that name?
AW: Why is this important?
KW: I don’t know if it’s important.
AW: Does he have anything to do with Birgitta?
KW: Perhaps.
AW: He’s a piano teacher. He was my teacher for a while, and we’ve kept in touch since then.
KW: Is that it?
AW: Yes.
KW: When was he your teacher?
AW: It was during the fall of 1997.
KW: And only then?
AW: Yes.
KW: Dare I ask why you stopped going to him?
AW: I wasn’t good enough.
KW: Did he tell you that?
AW: I did. Not to him, to myself.
KW: It must have cost a great deal of money to have a piano teacher in Copenhagen, with all that travel.
AW: It’s a matter of setting priorities.