The professor went on about the apples. The man rested a foot on a shovel. It looked so comfortable, as if they were close friends, him and the shovel.
The rain increased. She drew closer to the French window that faced the garden, but shut it with her foot and remained standing out on the crumbling flagstone, partly shielded from the rain.
She feared the approaching afternoon. Her body was completely limp and she didn’t see how she would be able to pull herself together and call Stig.
Twelve
Later on, when they laid the investigation about the murder in Jumkil next to the investigation concerning the murder of Jan-Elis Andersson in Norr-Ededy village in Alsike, they appeared almost identical.
Both of them were elderly men living alone in the countryside, who had been farmers in the past. Andersson, just as Blomgren before him, had suffered brutal blows to the head with a murder weapon that the police had not yet found.
In the search for a possible motive the results were the same: nothing. Both men had lived a retiring, peaceful life, they lacked the ready assets attractive to a murderer, and they appeared to be without enemies, at least of the order to lead to a murder.
There was one difference: Jan-Elis Andersson had resisted. To what extent this was so it was not possible to determine but the evidence in his kitchen spoke for itself: three chairs had been knocked over, and the tablecloth had been pulled to the floor, taking a bowl of oatmeal, a spoon, and a jar of lingonberry jam with it.
“There’s someone out there who doesn’t like old men who eat lingonberries,” Beatrice said, remembering Dorotea Svahn’s words about Blomgren being a champion berry picker.
Most likely the killer had crept up on Andersson from behind. The neighbor had said he had severely impaired hearing.
Lindell could guess how it had happened. Andersson had been struck hard on the back of the head, had been thrown forward, pulled the cloth with him down onto the floor but had managed to get up and grab a chair for protection. One of the chairs had two broken legs. Ryde, the forensics specialist who was not supposed to be working but who had jumped in, was firm on that point: the chair had been used in an attempt at self-defense.
But Jan-Elis Andersson had failed in his attempts and now he lay facedown in a mess of lingonberries and blood.
Ann Lindell stood with her head bent. The technicians had- grudgingly-cleared a thin corridor of floor space in the kitchen so that she and Beatrice could come in and take a look. Morgansson sat in a crouch next to the counter, trying to secure some fingerprints. He looked up at Ann.
“Same guy?” he asked.
Ryde muttered something. He hated speculation during the work process.
“It could be a coincidence,” she said and looked out the window.
Out in the yard, Sammy Nilsson was questioning the nearest neighbor, a man of about fifty who looked noticeably upset. He paced around and Lindell saw Sammy try to calm the shocked man, who was the one who had found the body.
Lindell called Sammy and watched him reach irritably for his cell phone.
“Check out any potential connection to Petrus,” she said and Sammy groaned.
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“I was thinking of farmer associations and such,” Ann said in a docile voice. “There are things like that, aren’t there? Blomgren and Andersson may have met at some point.”
“I’m a country boy, if you recall. I’ve got this covered.”
The people gathered in the yard gave Lindell the same déjà vu feeling she had had in the kitchen.
“The question of whether or not we believe there is a real connection between the murders is crucial,” Lindell said. “If we do then what we have to set our sights on right now is to turn up everything that potentially connects these two farmers.”
She stared out over the landscape. A police officer in uniform was climbing over a barbed wire fence a couple of hundred meters away. He looked clumsy and out of place in the terrain.
The fields that bordered the farm lay fallow. Or at least that was what Lindell thought. She compared them to the Östgöta area where she came from with its wide expanses of fields and sturdy farm buildings. Here things looked paltry by comparison, thin strips of cultivated land between swathes of dark forest. The cottages that were dotted about were small, as dictated by the landscape.
“The neighbor hasn’t seen anything.” Sammy Nilsson interrupted her thought process.
“Can he see this house from his?”
“No. He lives behind that clump of trees up there. You can see the roof,” Nilsson said and pointed.
“What was he doing here?”
“Nothing in particular. He would sometimes walk over and have a little coffee and a chat with Jan-Elis. The neighbor is on disability.”
“At least we have a clue as to when the murder took place,” Bea said. “Around breakfast time.”
Lindell walked off to the side. Was it the same perpetrator? In that case what was the connection?
Again she let her gaze sweep over the area, as if the answer was to be found out there. Not a puff of wind, not a sign of life or movement. A static place, maintained by a retired farmer and a man on disability. A region that had sunk down into its own wasted and worn sparseness. Who would want to or even have the energy to think of killing someone here? Everything already seemed dead.
Why kill two seventy-year-old farmers?
Just as in Blomgren’s home, nothing here was touched. Straight into the house, bash the old man’s head in, and then leave just as fast. That’s how the whole thing must have happened.
She caught sight of Morgansson through the kitchen window. His wide back looked monumental in the tiny window. The night before she had toyed with the idea of going home with him, only for a night, in order to feel the warmth of another human being. Now that thought seemed somehow absurd.
They had said good-bye and good night and then left, each in their own direction. As she was walking down East Ågatan she had the feeling of being in a foreign city, a foreign country, as if she were on holiday, on her way to the hotel.
Pleased with the evening, she had crawled into bed and decided she would like to see him again, if for no other reason than to see another movie and have another beer.
Today is another life, she thought, not without bitterness. It was as if two consecutive days of happiness were not possible. She watched Morgansson move around inside. Then something in her changed, she felt a welling up of pride. She was standing in the yard involved in a murder investigation, yet again. She didn’t need to denigrate herself. First, she was a competent police officer and second, a pretty good mother to Erik. Her contract with life had been signed and she was going to make the best of the situation. She didn’t need to apologize for the fact that she wanted to live, wanted to laugh or go to the movies with a handsome man, who also happened to be nice and had awakened something slumbering within her.
But for now she would have to put all thoughts of movies aside. Two murders. She would not be able to relax even for a second. She turned to Sammy Nilsson.
“You’ll be responsible for charting these two farmers-you said yourself you’re a country boy. I want the minutest detail. Not a single item can go unchecked. They’re around seventy and have a past. Somewhere their lives run together. Find that point.”
Sammy looked at her and smiled.
“Full steam ahead,” he said, turned, and left.
Just then Morgansson stepped out onto the stoop.
“I think we have something,” he said and went back into the house.
Of course, Lindell thought, you have something. She followed him in. When she was in the hall Morgansson pointed to the little table right inside the door.
“A letter,” he said. “I found it in the drawer under the telephone. You don’t have to pick it up.”