He went out onto the veranda with his coffee cup, breathed in the cold air and saw that the sun had already gone down behind the outbuilding.
The inner courtyard lay in darkness, but Joakim could see that the door to the barn was half open. Hadn’t he closed it on Friday, before the Hesslins arrived?
He pulled on a jacket and opened the outside door.
It was twenty steps over to the barn. When he got there, Joakim pushed the huge door open wide and stepped into the darkness. The old black switch was in the middle of the shorter wall. When he turned it on, two small bulbs spread a pale yellow light across the stone floor, the empty stalls, and feeding troughs.
Everything was silent. It didn’t look as if any rats had moved in, despite the cold.
Every time he came in here, he discovered something new, and now he noticed that the floor inside the door looked as if it had been freshly swept. Katrine had mentioned something about the fact that she had been cleaning the barn when they were discussing the various buildings in the fall.
Joakim looked over toward the wooden steps up to the hayloft and thought about the last time he had been up there,
with Mirja Rambe. He would like to see the wall she had shown him again, the memorial to the dead.
Just a quick look.
When he got up there, he could see the rays of the sun again. It was just above the roof of the outbuilding, shining in through the small panes on the southern side of the barn.
Joakim moved slowly across the floor, picking his way among all the trash.
Finally he was standing in front of the far wall. In the glow of the yellow winter sun the names carved in the wood stood out sharply, their contours filled with shadows.
And on a plank almost at the very bottom were Katrine’s name and dates.
His Katrine. Joakim read the name over and over again.
The gaps between the boards were narrow and pitch black, but as he stood beside the broad planks he had a sense of darkness behind them. He suddenly got the idea that this was not in fact the outside wall of the barn he was standing next to.
Despite its being almost time to go and pick up Livia and Gabriel, he quickly went outside again. He took a few steps away from the barn and counted the small windows on the upper floor. One, two, three, four, five. Then he went up into the loft again.
There were four windows, high up below the roof. The last one must be on the other side of the wall.
There was no door or gap in the wall. Joakim pressed several of the thick planks, but none of them moved.
17
Dear Karin,
This is a letter from someone who wishes you no ill, but simply wants to open your eyes. This is the way things are: Martin has been deceiving you for a long time. More than three years ago he took over responsibility for a class at the Police Training Academy in Växjö; there was a woman in this class who was almost ten years younger than him. After a party at the end of the first academic year, Martin started a relationship with her which has continued until now.
It ended just a few days ago.
I know this for certain because I am the younger woman in question. I couldn’t put up with Martin’s lies any longer in the end, and I hope you won’t either when you find out the truth.
Perhaps you need some kind of proof to convince
you completely? I don’t want to get too intimate, but I can for example describe the two-inch scar above his right groin after the hernia operation he had a few years ago. He had been moving rocks at your country place outside Orrefors when it happened, isn’t that right?
And don’t you agree that he ought to wax his hairy back and ass now and again, when he’s so vain about the rest of his perfectly honed body?
As I said, I don’t want to hurt anyone, even though I know it will be painful for you to find out the truth. There are so many lies in the world and so many treacherous liars. But together you and I can at least fix one of them.
Best wishes from “The other woman”
Tilda leaned back in her chair and read through the letter on her computer screen one last time.
It was quarter to eight in the morning. She had arrived at the police station at seven in order to produce a clean copy from the draft she had scribbled down on a piece of paper the previous evening. The station was empty-as usual Hans Majner wasn’t in this early. He usually arrived about ten, if he bothered to turn up at all.
Tilda had seen Karin Ahlquist only once. It was when Martin had had to have his son Anton with him at the police academy for a few hours before Karin could pick him up. At about four o’clock she had come out to the exercise area where they were practicing traffic control. She was a head taller than Tilda, with dark, curly hair. She remembered how Martin’s wife had smiled at her husband, proud and loving, as they said goodbye that day.
Tilda looked out of the station window at the empty street.
Did she feel better now? Was her revenge on Martin really sweet?
Yes.
She was tired, but she did actually feel better now the letter was written. She quickly printed off a copy.
When she had taken out a plain white envelope, she felt unsure again. Martin had told her that Karin worked in the county environmental department, and Tilda thought about sending the letter there so that it wouldn’t fall into Martin’s hands. But mail that came to the county office was usually opened and noted in the diary, so in the end she put Karin Alhquist’s home address, printing it neatly in capital letters; she didn’t think Martin would recognize her writing. No sender’s name.
She pushed the letter into her cotton bag along with the tape recorder, put on her jacket and police cap, and left the station.
There was a yellow mailbox on the sidewalk near the police car. Tilda stopped, but didn’t take the letter out of her bag.
She hadn’t sealed it or put a stamp on it, and she didn’t want to mail it just yet.
Today she was giving talks on law and order to three school classes after lunch, but before that she had time to go out in the car for a while, check the traffic and knock on a few doors out in the country.
Edla Gustafsson lived near Speteby, in a little red house with a view across the alvar. There weren’t many trees around, and the main road went right past her house.
Time had stood still here. This is how people ought to live, thought Tilda, in the wilderness far away from all men.
She took her rucksack with her and rang the doorbell. A sturdy-looking woman opened the door.
“Hi, my name is Tilda-”
“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” the woman interrupted her. “Gerlof said you’d be calling. Come in, come in.”
Two black cats slipped away into the kitchen, but Edla
Gustafsson seemed pleased to have a visit from a relative of Gerlof’s. Edla was cheerful and energetic, hardly bothering to listen to Tilda’s explanation of why she was there. She quickly put some coffee on and fetched some small pastries from the larder. Pastries with jelly, with pearl sugar, with chocolate-ten different kinds altogether on a silver dish, all laid out beautifully in the small parlor. Tilda stared at the coffee table as she sat down.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many pastries.”
“Really?” said Edla in surprise. “Have you never been to a pastry shop?”
“Well, yes, but…”
Tilda looked at a black-and-white wedding photograph on the wall and thought about the letter to Martin’s wife. She had decided to send it that evening. Then Karin Ahlquist would receive it at the end of the week and have all weekend to kick Martin out.
She cleared her throat.
“I have one or two questions, Edla. I don’t know if you’ve seen the newspaper, but there has been a break-in with serious violence in Hagelby, and the police could do with some help.”
“I’ve had a break-in as well,” said Edla. “They got into the garage and took a gas can.”