‘See you later,’ Lindell said, but was not convinced by her own words.
Bosse Marksson was waiting by the mailboxes outside Torsten Andersson’s house. Lindell pulled over and her colleague jumped in. He didn’t say anything about the fact that Lindell’s visit with Lisen had taken a long time.
‘So what did our friend Torsten have to say?’
‘Not much. Mostly we just chitchatted about old times. He knows everyone.’
‘But is friends with no one,’ Lindell said.
Marksson looked at her. ‘Is that Lisen’s analysis?’
Lindell nodded.
‘She may be right,’ Marksson conceded. ‘What else did she say?’
Lindell described Lisen’s night-time experience.
‘And it wasn’t all in her mind?’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure, but it feels right somehow. There is some kind of force field over this area, can’t you feel it? From Andersson’s house to Lisen’s cottage: a slab of land jutting out into the sea with four – now three – bachelors, three old couples, and a lonely artist.’
‘Force field?’
‘I don’t know how else to explain it. Maybe it’s just my own mind-ghosts but I feel a kind of bubbling energy under the surface. But it is a form of anger that will never be released, at least not constructively. It is a rage that turns inward.’
‘I see,’ Marksson said.
‘I’m trying to understand,’ Lindell said, ‘and I know I’m going on and on. It’s a lot of feeling and not so much knowing. It also feels tragic. If this sliver of Sweden can’t be happy then who can? Do you understand? Everything becomes so clear out here. In the city we’re concealed by all the people, we hide and are hidden. Here there is no place to hide.’
‘What points to them being unhappy?’
Lindell glanced at Marksson.
‘I know you think I’m talking nonsense, but, as I said, I think the whole area feels sad and repressed.’
‘It is another life, but the people out here are supposedly unhappier than-’
‘That’s not what I mean! Lisen said something about Christmas, about the stress and crazed shopping. She is going to celebrate it out here. It can seem lonely but the loneliness in town is just as great. Only out here it appears more clearly. Visualise this: A lone woman lights the fourth candle of advent, then eats herring and ham all by herself. That sounds so pathetic. But how many forlorn characters aren’t there in Uppsala?’
‘You would know more about that,’ Marksson said.
‘Okay, we’ll drop my mind-ghosts. We have an investigation that leaves more questions than answers. What do we do about that?’
‘I was thinking about the seal-shooting rifle, the one that Frisk put to his head. Where did it come from? Torsten mumbled something but I never did get it straightened out.’
‘What did he say?’ Lindell asked.
‘That he had seen a lot of those rifles in the past.’
‘But not that one? You’ve shown it to him, haven’t you?’
‘I think he recognised it, but didn’t want to say anything.’
‘Maybe he just wanted to confuse us.’
‘That would be typical of him, I admit. But all the same I got the feeling he’s sitting on something.’
‘That would mean the rifle belonged to someone else. Because if it had been Frisk’s weapon, Torsten should have been able to say so. Don’t you think? Even if he likes toying with the police.’
‘Torsten muttered something about everyone knowing that Frisk had never owned a weapon, never had one. He said something about “what business would a person who doesn’t hunt have with a gun?”’
‘Inheritance. The gun is old.’
‘I asked my dad. He’s sure that Frisk’s father didn’t hunt either.’
Lindell digested this information. It was clear that Marksson had put a lot of thought into it.
‘You could play a little fast and loose,’ she said after a couple of kilometres. ‘Go to Sunesson and tell him we have information indicating it is his rifle. Then do the same with Malm. Just to see how they react. Stir the pot.’
‘Risky,’ Marksson said, but did not elaborate.
‘Does it matter?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lindell answered.
The snowfall was getting heavier, and shortly before they reached Östhammar they encountered a snowplough.
‘A white Christmas,’ Lindell said.
‘A merry Christmas,’ Marksson said, and smiled his widest smile.
They parted outside the police station. Marksson was going to walk to the library and drop off some books before having lunch. Lindell declined to accompany him. She felt a need to be alone for a while and had also arranged to meet with Ottosson in the early afternoon.
On top of this, she was dieting, but this was not something she admitted even to herself. I’m not hungry, she told herself. I can stop on the way and buy some fruit.
She felt that they were walking around in circles. The reason for it was dissatisfaction over how the case was developing, or rather because it had ground to a complete halt. They had a confirmation from Sorsele that Tobias Frisk had been seen with a Thai woman and that she had accompanied him when he checked out of the campsite. Their colleague in the area had promised to try to check with the agents who imported the foreign labour to see if they had further information on record regarding their berry-picking recruits.
Stolt in Thailand had collected a saliva sample from the sister in Krabi and sent it to Sweden. In a week or two they would see if there was a match with the dead woman’s DNA. Every person’s DNA is unique but between close relatives there were always similarities to support an identification.
Everything was falling into place, and yet not. Lindell wanted a motive. She wanted a body. She wanted to understand why Frisk had shot his brains out, and she wanted to know more about where the seal-shooting rifle had come from. Many wants, but the chances of satisfying them were marginal. The question about the suicide weapon was the only one where they could hope for a reasonable explanation.
She had lunch – a banana, an apple and a bottle of water – in the car at a petrol station in Gimo while she thought about the person who had been sneaking around outside Lisen Morell’s cottage. Lindell believed her, wanted to believe her, despite Lisen’s talk of feelings and spirit that was at times more than a little wacky. If she was correct in her assertion of a prowler, who could it have been? It could of course be someone from Lisen’s earlier life, perhaps a rejected suitor returning to spy on her, but it was more probable that it was one of Bultudden’s inhabitants creeping around in the dark. And if that was the case, why? Was there a tangible threat to Lisen? Was there some connection to Patima and Tobias Frisk’s suicide, and in that case what did it consist of? Did Lisen have some significance that she may not have been aware of herself?
Lindell went through the candidates in the area and three names emerged as the most likely: Torsten Andersson, Thomas B. Sunesson, and Lasse Malm. In that trio there was also – Lindell was convinced of it – a concealed knowledge about Frisk’s life during the past year that could help explain what had happened.
She stepped out of the car, walked over to a rubbish bin, and threw out the remains of her lunch. The tabloid headlines outside the petrol station screamed out news of a soap opera star who had had an affair with a married man, who in turn apparently had alcohol problems and a pregnant wife. The headlines of Upsala Nya were more discreet but dramatic nonetheless, with the sensational news of the county commissioner’s return.
‘Bultudden,’ she said aloud, trying to imagine a reality show about the inhabitants of the Avenue.
Who is sleeping with whom? Who hates whom? Who is cheating his neighbour? Who is bluffing me and Marksson?
A crow came hopping over the concrete. It had a piece of paper in its beak. A mail crow, Lindell thought. Have you got a letter? She imagined the eagle, a little heavy and clumsy but also majestic, far above Bultudden. In its claws it held a foot. It was dripping blood over the waters of the bay.