“Pull up a bit further on and let me out,” said Sven-Erik. “You drive like hell and get the warrant sorted out and then come back. I want to keep an eye on her.”
Anna-Maria stopped the car, Sven-Erik slid out.
“Get a move on,” he said.
Sven-Erik trotted back to the priest’s house. He positioned himself behind one of the gateposts where he was hidden by a rowan bush. He could see both the outside door and the chimney.
If there’s any smoke, I’m going in, he thought.
After quarter of an hour Kristin Wikström came out. She’d changed from her dressing gown into jeans and a sweater. She was holding a garbage bag in her hand, tied at the top. She was heading for the garbage can. Just as she lifted the lid, she turned her head and caught sight of Sven-Erik.
Only one thing to do. Sven-Erik hurried over to her and held out his hand.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take that.”
She passed him the bag without a word. He noticed that she'd dragged a brush through her hair and put a little bit of color on her lips. Then the tears began to flow. No gestures, hardly even a change of expression, just the tears. She might just as well have been peeling onions.
Sven-Erik undid the bag. It contained cuttings about Mildred Nilsson.
“Now now,” he said, pulling her toward him. “There now. Tell me where he is.”
“In school, of course.”
She let him put his arms around her, let herself be held. Wept silently into his shoulder.
“But what is it you’re thinking?” asked Sven-Erik as he and Anna-Maria were parking the car outside the Högalid school. “Do you think he murdered Mildred Nilsson and his father?”
“I don’t think anything at all. But he’s got a book with the same symbol that was on that threatening drawing sent to Mildred. Presumably he drew it. And he had a load of cuttings about her murder.”
The headteacher of the school was a charming woman in her fifties. She was slightly plump, and was wearing a knee-length skirt with a dark blue jacket that didn’t match. She had a bright scarf around her neck, like a piece of jewelry. The very sight of her cheered Sven-Erik up. He liked women who seemed to crackle with energy.
Anna-Maria explained that she would like Benjamin Wikström to be sent for without any fuss. The head took out a timetable. Then she rang the teacher taking Benjamin’s class and had a brief conversation.
While they were waiting, she asked what it was all about.
“We think he might have been threatening Mildred Nilsson, the priest who was murdered last summer. So we just need to ask him a few questions.”
The teacher shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I find that very difficult to believe. Benjamin and his friends-they look appalling. Black hair, white faces. Their eyes sooty with makeup. And sometimes when you look at their tops! Last term one of Benjamin’s friends was wearing a top with a picture of a skeleton eating newborn babies.”
She laughed and pretended to shudder. Became serious when Anna-Maria failed to smile.
“But they’re really nice kids,” she went on. “Benjamin had a few problems last year, but I’d happily let him babysit my children. If I had small children, that is.”
“What do you mean, he had problems?” asked Sven-Erik.
“His schoolwork wasn’t going very well. And he became so very… They want to be different, mark themselves out by the way they dress and so on. Sometimes I think they actually wear their sense of being outsiders. Make it their own choice. But he didn’t feel good. He had lots of little sores on his arm, and he was always sitting there picking the scabs off. He ended up with a patch of sores that just wouldn’t heal. Then sometime after Christmas things straightened themselves out. He got a girlfriend and started a band.”
She smiled.
“That band. My God, they did a gig here at the school last spring. Somehow they’d got hold of a pig’s head, and they stood there on the stage hacking at it with axes. They were ecstatic.”
“Is he good at drawing?” asked Sven-Erik.
“Yes,” said the headteacher. “Yes, he is actually.”
There was a knock at the door and Benjamin Wikström walked in.
Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik introduced themselves.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” said Sven-Erik.
“I’m not talking to you,” said Benjamin Wikström.
Anna-Maria Mella sighed.
“In that case I shall have to arrest you on suspicion of making illegal threats. You’ll have to come down to the station.”
Eyes fixed on the ground. The lank hair hanging in front of the face.
“Whatever.”
“Okay,” said Anna-Maria to Sven-Erik. “Shall we talk to him, then?”
Benjamin Wikström was sitting in interview room one. He hadn’t uttered a single word since they picked him up. Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria had got themselves a coffee. And a Coca-Cola for Benjamin Wikström.
Chief Prosecutor Alf Björnfot came cantering along the corridor toward them.
“Who’ve you picked up?” he panted.
They told him.
“Fifteen,” said the prosecutor. “His guardian has to be present, is his mother here?”
Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria exchanged glances.
“Get her here,” said the prosecutor. “Give the kid something to eat if he wants it. And ring social services. They need to send a representative as well. Call me later.”
He disappeared.
“I don’t want to do all that!” groaned Anna-Maria.
“I’ll go and get her,” said Sven-Erik.
After an hour they were sitting in the interview room. Sven-Erik Stålnacke and Anna-Maria Mella were sitting on one side of the table. On the other side sat Benjamin Wikström, with a representative from social services on his left. On his right was Kristin Wikström, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Did you send this drawing to Mildred Nilsson?” asked Sven-Erik. “We’ll have prints from it very shortly. So if you did do it, we might as well talk about it.”
Benjamin Wikström maintained a stubborn silence.
“My God,” said Kristin. “What’s going on, Benjamin? How could you do something like this? It’s just sick!”
Benjamin’s cheeks stiffened. He looked down at the table. Arms pressed tightly against his body.
“Maybe we should take a little break,” said the woman from social services, putting her arm around Kristin.
Sven-Erik nodded and switched off the tape recorder. Kristin Wikström, the social services woman and Sven-Erik left the room.
“Why don’t you want to talk to us?” asked Anna-Maria.
“Because you don’t understand anything,” said Benjamin Wikström. “You don’t understand anything at all.”
“That’s what my son always says to me. He’s the same age as you. Did you know Mildred?”
“It’s not her on the drawing. Don’t you get it? It’s a self-portrait.”
Anna-Maria looked at the drawing. She’d assumed it was Mildred. But Benjamin had long dark hair too.
“You were friends!” exclaimed Anna-Maria. “That’s why you had those cuttings.”
“She understood,” he said. “She understood.”
Behind the veil of hair, slow tears dripped onto the surface of the desk.
Mildred and Benjamin are sitting in her room at the parish hall. She’s invited him for meadowsweet tea with honey. She’s been given the tea by one of the women in Magdalena who picked the leaves and dried them herself. They’re laughing because it tastes bloody awful.
One of Benjamin’s friends was confirmed by Mildred. And through his friend he and Mildred got to know one another.
The Gate is lying on Mildred’s desk. She’s finished reading it.