“Are you suggesting he might have been doing something illegal?”
“Perhaps. He must have got the money from somewhere. And you have to ask where. And I wonder why Oberleutnant Zindel asked the managing director of the mine to release Krekula from his three-year contract. Why Krekula? There were other hauliers who had contracts with L.K.A.B.”
“So?”
“I don’t know,” Martinsson said. “I don’t even know how to go about discovering what kind of a customer Isak Krekula was, or finding out about his dealings with Walther Zindel. In any case, it wouldn’t be of any help to us. Even if we discovered that he was involved in dirty business with the Germans, that would have no bearing at all on whether Tore and Hjalmar Krekula had anything to do with the deaths of Wilma Persson and Simon Kyrö.”
“Always assuming that Simon Kyrö is dead in fact,” Mella said mechanically.
“Of course he’s dead,” Martinsson said impatiently. “We’ll find him as soon as the ice on Vittangijärvi thaws.”
“Hmm, I’ve been trying to keep an open mind. Might he have killed Wilma himself, for instance?”
“And then killed Hjörleifur Arnarson? Hardly, don’t you think? Anyway, I reckon we should follow up on this line of investigation now – we don’t have unlimited resources.”
“We should probably just wait to see what develops,” Mella said. “Hope that the forensic examination of Hjörleifur’s body and his house, and the clothes Hjalmar and Tore Krekula were wearing, produce interesting results. And hope that we find the door and Simon Kyrö’s body when the thaw comes, and that there are finger-prints on it, or something of the sort.”
Clearing his throat, Fjällborg gave Martinsson a withering look.
“I’ve got to go,” Martinsson said. “I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow.”
“Johannes Svarvare told me that Isak Krekula had a heart attack just over a week before Wilma and Simon went missing,” Mella said. “And when he said that, I had the impression that he wanted to say more, but was holding back for some reason.”
“He’s scared of them,” Martinsson said.
“I can’t help wondering if he had a heart attack because he’d heard that they were going to go diving to look for the aeroplane. There’s something about that bloody plane. It’s a bugger that the ice is melting, and that it’s not possible to go diving there right now. We’ll have to wait. I hate waiting.”
“I hate waiting too.”
“So do I!” Fjällborg said, slamming the potato stew down on the table. “I hate waiting for food to get cold.”
Mella laughed.
“What are you having to eat this evening?”
“Smoked pike.”
“Smoked pike? I’ve never tried that.”
“It’s good! What are you having?”
“We’ve eaten already,” Mella said. “Gustav was allowed to choose, so we had ‘porky sausages’.”
“Hmm,” Fjällborg said when Martinsson had hung up. “How’s it going?”
“Not very well,” Martinsson said. “I think the Krekula brothers are guilty, but…”
She shrugged.
“We’ll have to hope the forensic examination turns up trumps.”
Fjällborg ate in silence. He had heard her talking about the Krekulas’ haulage business and the Germans during the war. He knew exactly who Martinsson ought to talk to in order to get information about all that. But the question was: would that person be willing to talk?
Måns Wenngren is sitting in his flat in Floragatan. All the lights are out. The television is on, its flickering screen relieving the darkness. Some Seinfeld episode that he has seen before.
Martinsson has not rung today. No text messages, nothing. The previous evening she had both texted and rung him. He had not answered. She had left a message.
Now he regrets not having answered. But everything is arranged the way she wants it to be. She wants to live in Kiruna. She is busy with work and has no time to talk.
Yesterday. He had thought he would try and make it clear to her that he had no intention of playing the love-lorn loon, allowing her to trample all over him.
“Yes, I’m angry,” he says to his empty flat. “With good reason.”
He puts down his mobile. If there is no message from her tomorrow, he will phone her.
“But I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” he says out loud.
He longs to be with her. He imagines them back on good terms, imagines travelling up north to spend the weekend with her. He can take Friday off. He does not have any important meetings planned.
THURSDAY, 30 APRIL
A snowstorm was brewing. April in Kiruna. Martinsson woke up and all she could see through the window was the white, snow-laden wind howling around the house.
It was 5.30. She had just poured herself a cup of coffee when her mobile rang. She could see from the display that it was Maria Taube, her former colleague at Meijer & Ditzinger. They had both worked for Måns Wenngren before Martinsson had moved back to Kiruna.
Pressing “answer”, she gave a theatrical groan suggesting she was still half asleep.
“Oh dear!” Taube said. “I’m sorry! Did I wake you?”
Martinsson laughed.
“No, I was just teasing you. I’ve been up for some time.”
“I knew you would be. You’re a workaholic. It’s O.K. to ring you when everyone else is still asleep. But I thought that maybe the laid-back lifestyle of the northern Swedes we’re always hearing about might have rubbed off on you.”
“It has, but round here ladies of a certain age are up and about very early.”
“Yes, I know how it is – first one up gets a medal. My aunts are like that; they sit at the dinner table competing to see who’s been up longest. ‘I woke up at 5.00 and thought I might as well get up and clean the windows.’ ‘I woke up at 3.30, but thought I’d force myself to stay in bed, so I didn’t get up until 4.30.’”
“A bit like us, then,” Martinsson said, taking a sip of coffee. “Are you at work already?”
“I’m on my way. And walking. Listen.”
Martinsson could hear early birds singing.
“We’ve got a terrible snowstorm up here,” she said.
“You’re kidding! Down here all the cafés have set up their pavement extensions, and people are talking about how many tulips they’ve counted in their gardens in the country.”
“Have you managed to get to smell the tulips, my dear?”
“No, I haven’t, darling. I’m stuck in a rut, working myself to death and getting involved in destructive relationships.”
“Then you’d better climb out of your rut,” Martinsson said, sounding like a perky weather forecaster. “Your body can do other things; it’s your mind that’s getting in the way. Dare to do something different. Wear your watch on the other wrist. Have you tried walking backwards today?”
“You’re an agent of the dark forces, you know,” Taube said dejectedly. “I’ve actually read a book about mindfulness. It says that you’ve always got to be ‘with it’. I wonder if they’ve tried being ‘with it’ at Meijer & Ditzinger…”
“Is Måns being cruel and nasty?”
“Yes, he is in fact. Have you two had a row or something? He’s in such a bloody awful mood. He flew into a rage yesterday because I’d forgotten to put Alea Finance on the list of firms allowed to make late payments.”