Ante held up his left hand.
‘This is what Nils Dufva did! He made me terrified. I didn’t want to die. Not then. That man took everything from me, my honour and peace. I could not resist him. There were others who did, but I gave way.
‘Every time I used my shovel, every time I worked a load on a construction site, every time I put on my shirt, every single minute of the day I am reminded of my betrayal. You carry your hand with you. It can’t be stuffed into a drawer. You see, two fingers is what the Brush was worth.’
Ante stared at his own hand as if it was an unfamiliar and frightening figure.
‘By a coincidence I discovered that Dufva lived in this town. It was many years ago and I should have looked him up right away and sunk the knife in his Fascist heart. But I didn’t have the guts. And then it was too late. I didn’t even manage that much, and now I’m going to die.’
FIFTY-FIVE
Bultudden was embedded in snow. The bay between the mainland and the point had started to ice over.
Thomas B. Sunesson had helped Doris Utman put up lights in the rowan tree in front of her house.
‘It looks pretty,’ Lindell said. ‘Like a winter fairyland.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Doris had said, but Lindell could tell she was pleased at her words.
Doris had waved at Lindell as she drove by on her way to Lisen Morell and Lindell had pulled over. They had talked about what had happened. Doris was the person in Bultudden that Lindell found the easiest to talk to. She felt that Doris had nothing to hide and thereby nothing to defend.
‘Don’t judge Torsten too harshly,’ Doris had said. ‘He was very fond of the boys, above all Lasse Malm. He liked them because they stayed out here.’
Lindell had stopped at Torsten Andersson’s house to tell him the results of the forensic investigation of Malm’s house. There had been many traces of Patima. In a closet on the second floor they had also located a grease-stained cloth that the technicians could determine the old seal rifle had been wrapped in.
Torsten was full of regret. Lindell knew he was accusing himself of not having acted in time. He had known about Patima’s existence since the day she had moved in with Tobias Frisk and also about her departure. According to Torsten, Frisk had tried to convince her to stay but she had left his house after a quarrel one night in May and had wandered around in the forest only to meet Lasse Malm the following morning as he was leaving for work. He had let Patima stay in his house and promised to help her get a return ticket back to Thailand.
‘But he fell in love at once and then he didn’t want to let her go. It went completely wrong, but I am convinced that Lasse had no intention to kill her.’ That was how Torsten summarised the chain of events.
It didn’t matter to Lindell one way or another what his intentions had been. He had killed Patima and violated her body.
That Malm thereafter had shot Tobias Frisk and arranged it as a suicide was something that Torsten Andersson steadfastly refused to believe. But Lindell was completely convinced of it.
‘I should get going,’ Lindell said.
Doris stretched out her hand.
‘Give my regards to Lisen,’ she said. ‘Will she stay over the winter?’
‘It seems like it,’ Lindell said. ‘She’s planning to paint.’
‘That’s good,’ Doris said. ‘Now that two houses are empty we need all the people we can get here in Bultudden.’
Lindell left Doris and went back to the car. She knew it was probably the last time she would be driving on the Avenue. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen to Bultudden over the next few years.
There was nothing romantic about the area any longer. Putting up lights didn’t help. Bultudden would always be connected in her mind with Pranee Kaew Patima’s tragic fate.
‘Loneliness,’ Lindell murmured, and backed out of Utman’s driveway.
About the Author
KJELL ERIKSSON is the author of the internationally acclaimed Ann Lindell series, which includes The Princess of Burundi and The Hand that Trembles. His series debut won Best First Novel from the Swedish Crime Academy, an accomplishment he later followed up by winning Best Swedish Crime Novel for The Princess of Burundi. He lives in Sweden.
