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:
“Harriet was unmarried,” she said. “She was twenty-six when she disappeared. She and her sister were daughters of a Methodist pastor in Cleveland, Ohio. Prominent, it says. They had a happy childhood, no evidence of trouble, studies at various universities. Harriet had a position in Tulsa with a very good salary. She lived simply with regular habits. She worked hard all week and went to church on Sundays.”
“Is that it?” Wallander asked when Höglund finished reading.
“That’s it.”
He shook his head.
“There has to be something more to her story,” he said. “We need to know everything about her. That will be your job. Pour on the charm. Give Officer Richardson the idea that this is the most important murder investigation in Sweden right now. Which it probably is, for that matter.”
This was followed by a short period of open discussion. Linda listened attentively. After half an hour her father tapped the table with his pencil and ended the meeting. Everyone except Linda and her father left the room.
“I want you to do me a favor,” he said. “Talk to Anna, hang around, but don’t ask any questions. Try to figure out why Medberg’s name was really in her journal. And Vigsten. I’ve asked my colleagues to look a little closer at him.”
“Not the old man,” Linda said. “He’s senile. But there was someone else there, someone who kept himself hidden.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” he said impatiently. “Have you understood what I’ve asked you?”
“Act normal,” Linda answered, “but try to get answers to these questions.”
He nodded and stood up.
“I’m worried,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m afraid of what’s next.”
Then he looked at her, stroked her briefly and almost shyly on the cheek, and left the room.
Linda invited Zeba and Anna to join her for coffee down at the harbor the same day. They had just sat down when it started to rain.
39
Zeba’s son played happily with a toy car that squeaked because it was missing two of its wheels. Linda looked at him. Sometimes he could be almost unbearably needy and attention-seeking. Other times, like now, he was peaceful, lost in thought about the invisible roads his little yellow car was traveling.
The café was almost empty at this time of day. A few Danish sailors in one corner were hunched over a nautical map. The young woman behind the counter yawned.
“Girl talk,” Zeba said suddenly. “Why don’t we have more time for that?”
“Talk away,” Linda said. “I’m listening.”
“What about you?” Zeba asked, turning to Anna. “Are you listening?”
“Of course.”
They were quiet. Anna pushed a teaspoon around in her cup, Zeba folded a pinch of snuff into her upper lip. Linda sipped her coffee.
“Is this all there is?” Zeba asked. “In life, I mean.”
“What are you thinking of?” Linda asked.
“All our dreams. What became of them?”
“You dreamed of having children,” Anna said. “At least that seemed like your main goal.”
“You’re right. But all the other stuff. I was such a dreamer! Especially when I was drunk out of my mind, you know the way you drink when you’re a teenager, when you end up on your hands and knees, throwing up in a bush, having to fight off a guy who’s looking to take advantage of the situation. But I never even realized any of my dreams. I drank them away, you could say. When I think of all the things I was going to do: be a fashion designer, rock star — fly a jumbo jet, for God’s sake.”
“It’s not too late,” Linda said.
Zeba put her chin on her hands and looked at her.
“Of course it is. Did you really dream about becoming a policewoman?”
“Never. In my dreams, if you can call them that, I was always going to devote my life to theater or refinishing old furniture. Not very exciting.”
Zeba turned her head to Anna.
“What about you?”
“I wanted to find a meaning with my life.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Anna shook her head.
“It’s not the kind of thing you can talk about. You either find it or you don’t.”
Linda thought Anna seemed to be on her guard. From time to time she looked at Linda as if she was thinking: “I know you’re trying to see through me.” But I can’t be sure, Linda thought.
The Danish sailors got up to leave. One of them patted Zeba’s boy on the head.
“His existence hung by a thread for a while,” Zeba said.
Linda raised her eyebrows.
“What do you mean?”
“I was close to having an abortion. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and think I really did it, that he doesn’t exist.”
“I thought you wanted a baby.”
“I did. But I was scared. I didn’t think I’d be up to it.”
“Thank God you didn’t do it,” Anna said.
Both Zeba and Linda were taken aback by her emphatic declaration. She sounded stern, almost angry. Zeba was immediately put on the defensive.
“Something as abstract as god makes no sense in that context. Maybe you’ll understand when you get pregnant one day.”
“I’m against abortion,” Anna said. “That’s just the way it is.”
“Having an abortion doesn’t mean you’re ‘for’ abortion,” Zeba said calmly. “There can be other reasons for it.”
“Like what?”
“Like being too young. Or too sick.”
“I’m against abortion, period,” Anna repeated.
“I’m happy I had my boy,” Zeba said. “But I don’t regret the abortion I had when I was fifteen.”
Linda was taken by surprise, and so was Anna. She seemed to stiffen and stared at Zeba.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Zeba said. “I was fifteen years old — what would you have done?”
“Probably the same thing,” Linda said.
“Not me,” Anna said. “It’s a sin.”
“Now you sound like a priest.”
“I’m just telling you what I think.”
Zeba shrugged.
“I thought this was girl talk. If I can’t talk about my abortion with my friends, who am I supposed to talk to?”
Anna stood up.
“I have to go now,” she said. “I forgot about something I have to do.”
She disappeared out the door. Linda thought it was strange that she left without even saying good-bye to Zeba’s son.
“What got into her?” Zeba said. “It’s enough to make you think she had an abortion herself and can’t talk about it.”
“Maybe she did,” Linda said. “You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.”
Zeba and Linda ended up staying longer than they had planned. With Anna gone, the atmosphere became more lighthearted. They giggled like teenagers. Linda followed Zeba home, and they said good-bye outside Zeba’s building.
“What do you think Anna will do?” Zeba asked. “Say that we can’t be friends anymore?”
“I think she’ll realize she overreacted.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Zeba said. “But I hope you’re right.”
Linda went home. She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes, and drifted off. Now she was walking to the lake again, where someone had seen burning swans and called the police. Suddenly she opened her eyes. Martinsson had said they would check the phone log of calls to the station that night. That meant the conversation was preserved on a cassette tape. Linda couldn’t recall anyone commenting on what the man had sounded like. It was a Norwegian by the name of Torgeir Langaas. Amy Lindberg had also heard someone who spoke either Norwegian or Danish. She got out of bed. If the man who called in had an accent, we may be able to determine a link between the burning animals and the man who bought the house behind the church in Lestarp.