Before the Frost

“Did you write out a receipt for him?”

“No. I rely on my bookkeeping. I take great pains to pay my share of taxes, even though this kind of situation is ideal for tax evasion.”

“How would you describe him?”

“Tall, light hair, maybe losing a little of it in front. Courteous, polite. When he first came in he was dressed in a suit, same when he picked up the keys, though it was a different suit that time.”

“How did he get here?”

“I can’t see the road from the workshop, but I assume he drove a car.”

Linda saw Lindman gather himself for the next question, intuitively sensing what it must be.

“Can you describe the way he spoke?”

“He had an accent.”

“What kind of accent?”

“Something Scandinavian. Not Finnish, nor Icelandic. That would leave Danish or Norwegian.”

“Do you have anything else to say about him?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Did he say that these keys were for church doors?”

“He said they were keys for some kind of storage facility — in an old manor house, come to think of it.”

“Which manor?”

Holmberg knocked some ash out of his pipe and wrinkled his forehead.

“He told me the name, but I’ve forgotten.”

They waited. Holmberg shook his head.

“Could it have been Rannesholm?” Linda asked.

The question simply jumped out of her, like last time.

“Right,” Holmberg said. “That was it. Rannesholm. An old brewery at Rannesholm.”

Lindman got up, as if he was suddenly in a hurry. He finished the rest of his coffee.

“Thank you,” he said. “This has been valuable.”

“Working with keys is always meaningful,” Holmberg said and smiled. “Locking and opening is, in a sense, man’s very purpose on this earth. Key rings rattle throughout history. Each key, each lock has its tale. And now I have yet another to tell.”

He followed them out.

“Who was Virgil?” Linda asked.

“Dante’s guide,” he answered. “And a great poet.”

He lifted the old straw hat that was starting to come apart and went back inside. They got in the car.

“So often you meet fearful, angry, shaken people,” Lindman said. “But sometimes there are moments of light. Like this man. I’m filing him away in my archive of interesting people I’ll remember when I’m old.”

They left Sjöbo. Linda saw a sign for a hotel and giggled. He looked at her but didn’t ask anything. The cell phone rang. He answered, listened, hung up, and sped up.

“Your dad has finished talking to Anita Tademan,” he said. “Apparently something important has come to light.”

“Better not tell him that I was with you today,” she said. “He had something different in mind for me.”

“What?”

“Talking to Anna,” she said.

“Maybe you’ll have time for both.”