‘I do all right,’ he said.
‘Can’t you light a fire in the stove, even though it’s neither morning or night? I like the sound of it crackling.’
He got to his feet, pulled out the wood bin with practised movements, opened the door to the wood stove, popped in a little bark shavings, some kindling and thin pieces of wood, put a match to it, shut the door almost all the way, remained crouched in front of it and watched the fire light before he closed it completely. Then he sat back down at the table and started to tell her about Bultudden.
Margit who had baked the cinnamon buns turned out to be his cousin.
‘One of twenty-six,’ he said with a crooked smile.
She was born in Bultudden and had been married to Kalle for over forty years. They were retired now. They had three children, all grown.
‘Kalle doesn’t saw anything other than wood, but he’s good at that. We thin the woods together.’
Torsten Andersson stood up again and added more fuel to the fire.
‘It’s pine,’ he said. ‘So that should be to your liking.’
Lindell nodded. The heat rose in the kitchen and she removed her jumper and straightened her T-shirt. Torsten Andersson glanced at her breasts but when their gazes met he immediately looked embarrassed.
‘I never married,’ he said. ‘Want some more coffee? But I have been lucky to have Margit,’ he added, after Lindell declined a third cup. ‘She’s very considerate.’
He looked out the window. A couple of raindrops spattered against the glass.
‘She sewed the curtains,’ he said, and waved his hand.
Unexpectedly, Lindell felt a wave of tenderness toward the man on the other side of the table.
‘When I arrived, you became quite angry. Why is that?’
‘I thought you were a real estate bitch. They’re always running around out here, wanting to buy.’
‘You own a lot of land?’
‘Margit and I own most of the point, but we are equally stubborn,’ he said with a smile.
When he smiled, his whole face pulled together in an intricate pattern of wrinkles.
‘We inherited it, and so that’s how it should be. Margit and Kalle’s boys will take over. I’m leaving it to them as well, and the boys are made of the same stuff as us.’
A new smile.
‘The chickens. What was that all about?’
The smile disappeared.
‘I had some before, but then there were new rules. They’ve been after me. I wrung all their necks in the spring.’
Lindell thought about Viola on Gräsö Island. Had the authorities been after her too?
‘Did you have many?’
‘About three hundred. An infernal cackling.’
Lindell was certain Torsten had taken good care of his hens.
‘Tell me more about Bultudden,’ she asked, well aware that she should not allow herself to be seduced by his quiet talking.
She had a task at hand. Marksson wanted a report, and not one on wood and chickens. She took out her notebook, writing a one and then ‘Torsten Andersson.’
‘Two,’ he said, and Lindell wrote a two and then ‘Margit and Kalle.’
He watched her, straightened his back, and pushed his coffee cup away.
‘Five hundred metres past Margit and Kalle there’s Thomas B. Sunesson. The B is important. He was a repair technician at Vattenfall – an electrician, in other words – and he has lived here for at least fifteen years. Unmarried, but not exactly a hermit. He often goes out dancing, mostly at Norrskedika.’
A list of names followed, residents from north to south on Bultudden. Number four and five were married couples, six and seven unmarried males.
‘And then there is Lisen, but maybe she doesn’t count. She lives all the way down toward the bay. A strange woman, seems to have problems. Sometimes she drops by. She doesn’t live here permanently, she rents an old fishing cottage from me. Comes and goes, a restless spirit. She’s here this week. Otherwise she is in Uppsala.’
After concluding this review of residents – which included brief elaborations and biographical details – Lindell thanked him for his help. She had a final question for him when they stood in the hall.
‘I saw a large bird on my way over. Could it have been a sea eagle?’
‘Sure. We have a couple that hang around here.’
Torsten Andersson looked almost proud.
‘Any that nest on the point?’
‘Absolutely. Two sets of mating couples, actually.’
She was hungry but decided to skip lunch in order to get in a few more houses. Cousin Margit was probably home, and maybe some of the married couples.
She realised that the single men would be difficult to question during the day as all three worked: Sunesson at Vattenfall, Lasse Malm at Forsmark, and the third bachelor, Tobias Frisk, at a bakery in Östhammar.
It was most likely among the latter that she would find something of interest. She had trouble imagining that the three couples would be intent on butchering bodies. But could she rule out Torsten Andersson?
Why did Bultudden strike her as the most interesting area to work through? One reason was of course that Marksson and his colleagues had diligently visited all of the homes on the other side of the bay and carefully scrutinised its inhabitants. But she was actually enticed by the eagle theory, sending Fredriksson a thought of gratitude. It would be sensational if it turned out to be true. She wished it was – an eagle rising, a murderer who saw part of the body he had butchered disappear into the sky, the eagle that soared above the pine trees, beating its wings with powerful if not elegant strokes, and disappeared.
The likelihood that an eagle could be involved also appeared more plausible after the conversation with Örjan Bäck. He had in fact observed an eagle flying away only a couple of seconds before he caught sight of the foot. It had been flapping low to the water in the direction of Bultudden.
Or am I wasting my time, Lindell asked herself as she slowly, almost reluctantly walked back to the car, Andersson’s gaze on her back and the smoke of sap-rich pine in her nostrils.
Dreamy before this landscape, barren and yet so rich, that had been the backdrop against which she had loved and been loved, lost in a dialect that had seemed at first laughably childlike, but that she after her time with Edvard on Gräsö Island soaked up as greedily as a thirsty person reaches for a sponge filled with water, seduced by the sea.
She understood very well that by exposing herself to Roslagen she was tempting herself, toying with herself. A pathetic show dressed up as an investigation with only one actor and only herself as the audience. For with whom could she share this ridiculous passion, this grief, and this truncated love?
But – there was always a but in this play – she could transform her attachment to the landscape and people to a painstaking and exhaustive investigation. She came from the outside, with respect and a keen ear, not bound by old ties. She would transform her weakness to strength.
Back in the car, bouncing down the road, she stumbled upon yet another reason she liked this assignment so much. She could be alone. No co-worker to take into consideration and measure herself against. Normally it should have been two, but Ottosson was wise enough to pick up on her unspoken preference, and luckily it coincided with their current staffing situation. No co-worker was available, and for his part Marksson was too harried to tag along.
Her need to be alone was growing stronger. She did not know if it improved the quality of her work but that didn’t matter. It was a compulsion.
‘Misanthrope,’ Sammy Nilsson had called her one time. Unsure what it meant she had not commented on it, and looked it up later, finding the synonyms ‘hater of the world’ and ‘hater of mankind.’
She smiled to herself. She was what she was. Sammy Nilsson and the others had contributed. She was a woman without imagination, her emotional landscape a morass, like most a good-enough mother, but she was a good – sometimes very good – cop. She liked the word ‘cop,’ it sounded ballsy, and testified to courage and effectiveness.