“My wife will come in just a minute,” he said, almost shrilly.
She entered, her head cast down. She was younger than Justine had imagined. She had Martina’s dark hair and somewhat squinting eyes. There was something sluggish and slow about her.
“Marianne,” she said and reached out her hand. “I’m taking Sobril right now. I assume it’s not something I can hide.”
Her husband entered with a coffee pot. When he began to pour, the lid fell off and knocked over one of the cups. Her face looked like a polecat.
“I can’t stand that noise, I’ve said,” she exclaimed. His earlobes turned red.
“My fingers are anything but practical,” he tried to joke. The woman walked around the room. She was barefoot;
there was a narrow ring on one of her toes. She threw her hair back; strange sounds came from her.
“To lose a child,” she chanted. “To lose a beloved child.”
“Was she your only daughter?” asked the policeman.
“Yes,” answered Mats Andersson. “We also have a son. He lives in Australia. Of course, he’s coming home for the funeral. Otherwise, he doesn’t come home very often. Excuse me; I’m just going to get something to clean up the mess.”
“The funeral, yes… you’ve received her back home, I’ve heard.”
The woman stopped pacing.
“In a box! Like a piece of freight!”
She stood in front of Justine; she fell on her knees onto the white shag rug. Let her head rest in Justine’s lap; she was warm and shaking. She turned her face to Justine’s legs and suddenly bit down hard. Justine gasped; she slapped her hand on her mouth and stared at the policeman. He was there right away, lifted up Marianne Andersson and helped her to an armchair.
“How are you, Marianne?” he asked. “How are you?”
Her narrow eyes shone. She opened her lips, her mouth, but shut them again.
Her husband came back with a rag. Clumsily, he began to wipe up the spilled coffee.
Marianne Andersson said, in a completely normal voice, “Now, if we may, we would like to ask a few questions to the person who was the last one to see our daughter alive.”
“Yes, Justine Dalvik, here,” said the policeman.
“I really wasn’t the last person to see her alive. That one is in Kuala Lumpur, the person who… killed her. He was the last one.”
The woman turned to her.
“Don’t play with words, please. It’s difficult enough as it is.”
“Please listen,” said the policeman. “We are all deeply affected by what has happened. Our nerves are on edge. Justine Dalvik shared a room with your daughter. She has testified that she was in the shower when it happened.”
“May I ask any question I want?” asked the woman.
“Yes?”
“There’s a few things that I have been wondering about.”
“Ask away.”
“When you came out of the shower… were you naked then?”
“No… I had a bath towel around me.”
“Was that man just standing there? Didn’t you hear him come in?”
“No, I was in the shower, like I said.”
“He didn’t hear you in the shower?”
“I don’t know… Maybe he thought I was alone in the room. He heard the shower certainly. Maybe he thought he could rob the place while I was in there.”
“And then he discovered that someone else was there?”
“Yes.”
The questions came quickly and jarringly.
“Didn’t my daughter try to stop him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, but what do you think?”
“No… I think he caught her by surprise. They said there were no traces of a fight.”
“But wouldn’t he have fled the moment he saw someone else in the room?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, maybe she’d gone out for a minute and when she came back, he was there; maybe she had to go get something.”
“You didn’t try to defend her?”
“It was too late! It had already happened!”
“So what did you do?”
Her head was spinning. She looked at the policeman; he nodded encouragingly.
“What I did… What would you have done?”
“I would have killed him. I would have strangled him with my bare hands. I would have cut him to pieces with my bare fingers…”
“Marianne,” said Mats Andersson. “Marianne…”
”He was dangerous,” whispered Justine. “If he killed one person, he might kill another.”
“So what did you do?”
“I ran back into the shower and locked the door.”
“Why didn’t you run out of the room instead? Out to get help? It all appears very strange to me.”
“I don’t know. A reflex.”
“If she could have reached a hospital! If she could have gotten there in time!”
“It was too late already!”
“How do you know? How many dead people have you seen? How can you be so sure?”
She gripped the coffee cup but her hands were shaking so strongly that she was not able to lift it.
“May I… ask something?” said her father. “How was she that day? What was her mood? Was she happy or sad… can you…?”
“None of us were what you could call happy.”
“You have to remember what happened in the jungle,” said Hans Nästman. “The group had to break camp suddenly, one of the leaders had disappeared, probably met with an accident, most likely dead.”
“They never found him then?”
“No. When things disappear in the jungle, they tend to be lost forever.”
“She was a wandering soul, our girl. I always felt on tenterhooks whenever she was out and about on one of her trips. That something would happen to her. Sooner or later, I would think, sooner or later… but you can’t forbid them.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Do you have any children, Commissioner?”
“Yes, two boys, eighteen and twenty.”
“It’s easier with boys.”
“Don’t say that.”
The woman got up. She went over to the altar and lit the candles.
“You can go now, if you want,” she said hoarsely. “Now I know what she looks like, that person who shared a room with Martina. I don’t want to know any more. It’s enough.”
“What a strange and unpleasant woman,” said Hans Nästman, when they returned to the car. “In my job, you meet a number of bizarre people. But someone like Marianne Andersson…”
“Sorrow can affect you.”
“Whatever.”
She put the seatbelt on.
“What did she do to you?”
“Nothing.”
“She hurt you. I saw it. She bit you, didn’t she?” “No.”
“Justine, listen to me. You have to get a vaccination against lockjaw. Human bites are the most dangerous kind.” “I’m already vaccinated.”
“Of course, of course. When you’ve traveled so far.” “We got all kinds of vaccinations. Nathan, too. But you can’t vaccinate against everything.”
“That’s a wise saying.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I saw that she bit you, Justine.”
She sighed.
“I have the feeling you let her.”
“OK, OK, maybe I deserved it. Maybe I should have protected her daughter somehow.”
“Do you feel that way yourself?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the kind of thing a psychiatrist needs to sort out. Please, can you just drive me home now? This has been an awful day.”
Hans Nästman kept in touch with her.
“I imagine you want to know what’s going on in Kuala Lumpur. And whether they ever find Nathan Gendser some day. But the man they caught for hotel burglary will only confess to burglary. He also insists that he never set foot in that hotel. Nothing can be proven. There are many fingerprints on the knife, but not his. He could have been wearing gloves… but it really is fairly hot in that country.”
She didn’t know what to say to him.
“I imagine they can put him in prison anyway if he doesn’t have an air-tight alibi. A poverty-striken fellow with no money.”