“Tinnitus,” Ann-Charlotte said when he complained of it, “it’s all the opera arias that have ruined your ears.”
He smiled to himself when he thought of his daughter. She had inherited his determined manner and his predilection for categorical statements. Now he had been tempered somewhat, and expressing himself so harshly and self-confidently no longer appealed to him. If his body had become stiffer, then his mind had softened in his old age. And that was among others thanks to Mirabelle, and Ellinor, of course.
He smiled even broader when he thought of his grandchild. She was coming out after school. He would muck out the stalls and take out some of the horses, but he wasn’t going to ride them. He would go home for a few hours and then be back in time for her arrival. Maybe he could pick her up on the way?
He walked out into the central corridor and was again hit by the feeling that he wasn’t alone. There had been a “visitor” about six months ago, someone who had broken in late one evening. It had frightened Ellinor but Palmblad had reassured her with the fact that it was probably just some teenagers out having a good time. Nothing had been stolen but some of the equipment had been thrown around and the stall doors had been covered in meaningless graffiti.
But burglars in the middle of the afternoon? Palmblad walked silently down the corridor, pushed on a storage room door, and peeked in. The smell of apples wafted out and he remembered that Ellinor had brought in a couple of boxes of winter fruit.
The break room was empty, just like the room where they stored the saddles, and this eased his mind somewhat.
Then he heard a scraping sound, as if a stall door was being opened. I’m hearing things, Palmblad thought. It’s the horses moving around. Get a grip on yourself, he told himself and walked over to Mirabelle’s stall. She neighed. Justus, an ungovernable stallion on the other side of the corridor, answered. Carl-Henrik Palmblad said something soothing, opened the stall door, stepped in next to Mirabelle, and patted her on the side.
Carl-Henrik died with a smile on his lips. The last thing he felt was warmth, a burning sensation down his back that radiated down to his legs. He fell headlong. Mirabelle had to receive his body and she shied away, neighed anxiously, circling the box but managing-as horses do- to avoid stepping on a prone human.
Justus became all the more nervous and egged on the other horses. The whole stall seemed to vibrate with restless hoofs. The nervousness only died down a good while after the stable door had creaked and shut again.
Mirabelle tossed her head and looked down at her caretaker. He was lying curled up with his right arm stretched out and the hand clenched around a few stalks of hay. The horse walked carefully around the box. She knew that something was wrong, Her nostrils widened, the muscles under the shiny skin vibrated, and she poked Palmblad’s lifeless body tentatively with her muzzle.
Ellinor Niis walked into the stables at a quarter past four. She let out a whistle as she usually did, a shrill signal intended as greeting: I’m here. It was as much directed at the horses as her grandfather.
Mirabelle neighed. Otherwise silence reigned.
Twenty-two
Once more Berglund stood over a corpse. For which time in his professional life he was not sure. He had worked as a police officer for thirty-five years, the past fifteen in the Violent Crimes Division.
“Can someone cut the music?”
His voice echoed in the stables. One of the horses in the box next to them answered with a whinny. Berglund turned and looked at the mare whose eyes were fixed on him.
“Poor bastard,” he said and Ola Haver didn’t know if he meant the man at their feet or the horse.
Ola Haver hadn’t even registered the soft music playing from the loudspeakers in the ceiling.
“Thanks,” Berglund said when the music stopped.
“Could he have been kicked to death?”
Berglund made a gesture with his head and shoulders to show that it was perhaps possible but that he personally thought they had a new case of murder on their hands.
“You sure got that horse out easily.”
“I grew up with horses,” Berglund said, still in the somewhat whiny voice that Ola Haver found increasingly irritating. It was hardly his fault that the guy had kicked the bucket, murdered or not.
“Don’t you like Britney Spears?”
Berglund stared at Beatrice, who came walking down the corridor, as if she had insulted him.
“I hate Muzak,” he said, with equal emphasis on each word, “regardless of whether it is in an elevator, in a department store, or at a crime scene.”
“Maybe it calms the horses,” Beatrice said lightly and smiled.
I can’t believe they have the energy for this, Haver thought and gave Beatrice a look that clearly said: give it a rest.
She smiled at him but it was a sad smile. Haver suddenly saw that the wrinkles around Beatrice’s eyes and nose did not simply testify to a temporary fatigue but also to a continuing aging process. The freshness that had always been Bea’s signature was disappearing. The earlier always-so-healthy skin was no longer youthfully smooth. The rosy glow had been replaced by a hint of gray.
Bea’s expression revealed that she had noticed his searching look and she tried to maintain her smile, adjust the sadness to a superior confidence that was not, however, there. The smile became a grimace and she looked away.
Ola Haver was both embarrassed and distraught over his unchecked examination of his colleague and friend. He had the feeling that he had betrayed her but knew at the same time that it could not be undone and that there was nothing to say to assuage Bea’s apparent discomfort over being looked over in that way.
“I’m calling Ann,” he muttered and pushed his way out of the box.
Haver ended up standing with the phone in his hand out in the yard, watching how a couple of crows were picking at a plastic bag lying on the ground. They pulled and tugged, each from their own side, paused for a second or so but continued with an energy and drive that was in marked contrast to his own state of mind. Even the crows are cooperating, he thought, and engaged the speed dial to reach Ann Lindell.
“Of course it’s murder,” Ryde said. “You can see that yourselves! A horseshoe would not have made this kind of imprint.”
The pathologist grinned. Up yours, Berglund thought, but kept quiet.
“Only one blow was needed,” Ryde continued, who had spent a couple of hours together with Charles Morgansson and three other technicians combing the stables.
Now the body was to be taken away. As usual it was Fridh who was taking care of this. His slow and mild manner made him suited to this task, everyone was in agreement about this, and when he came walking down the corridor the police officers grew quiet and pulled back.
Fridh nodded, took a first look, and then went to work.
“This is getting to be a regular occurrence,” he said laconically as he bent down over the dead man. “Who is this one then?”
“Carl-Henrik Palmblad,” Berglund said. “Born in 1936, dead today.”
“The Berlin Olympics,” Fridh said.
Berglund would have wanted to go home but knew it would be a late night. The others looked as if they shared his feelings. Only Lindell seemed to be in a good mood. She had taken the initiative directly and assigned the tasks.
Now she was outside talking to a couple who lived a few hundred meters away. The man spoke unusually loudly and Berglund couldn’t help hearing how vividly and wordily he talked about the car he had seen parked in the woods.
“I thought it was mushroom pickers,” he said with a thunderous voice. “There are a lot of people running around these woods.”