“No, not exactly,” her mother said, and Ann wondered what she meant.
“I’ll be home soon. Give him some banana, he likes that.”
“He doesn’t need a banana. He needs his mother.”
“He has a grandmother,” Ann said, but she regretted her words at the moment she said them.
There was silence on the other end.
“Just come home,” her mother said and hung up.
Ann Lindell stood there with the phone in her hand, looked at Haver and Berglund, pretended to end the conversation in a normal way, and then returned to their midst.
“The baby-sitter?” Berglund said. Lindell nodded and she saw him give Haver a quick look. Then Ryde’s old car came up the driveway. He braked and seemed to hesitate before driving up all the way to the house.
Lindell walked over to Gunnel Sagander, who was standing out on the porch. She was shivering.
“Should we go in?” Lindell asked.
Gunnel shook her head.
“What is it?” she asked again and looked intently at Lindell.
“Car tracks,” Lindell said. “I have to ask you who has visited you today.”
Gunnel looked away.
“Agne’s brother Ruben,” she said tersely. “He stopped by a few hours ago. He was going off to hunt hare and wanted to borrow a box of ammunition for his rifle.”
“Did he have the rifle with him?”
“He usually does,” Gunnel said. “He is…”
She fell silent. Both of the women watched as Ryde got out of his car, walked over to the other two, and crouched down. Berglund turned the flashlight back on.
“Where does Ruben live?”
“Up the hill,” Gunnel said and pointed to a pair of houses a couple of hundred meters away.
“Where the lights are on, the house with the two chimneys?”
Gunnel nodded.
Lindell walked back to the car tracks. Ryde gave her a disapproving look but didn’t say anything. He took out a folding ruler and measured the tracks.
“Same width,” he said.
Then he took out a camera and quickly took half a dozen pictures. The flash lit up the snow. Haver shivered. Lindell told him that it was most likely Sagander’s brother’s car, that he was armed and lived close by.
Ola Haver looked at her but Lindell sensed that he was far away in his thoughts.
“The knife that Mattias stole was in the car. The car that made the tracks in Libro and now here,” Haver said. “Ruben visited his brother in the hospital the day after the murder.”
“Fucking amateur,” Ryde said.
“Ruben Sagander,” Lindell said, and all four turned north to look at the house with the two chimneys.
“He’s armed,” Haver said.
As if on a given signal they all started walking to Agne Sagander’s house. Gunnel sensed what was going on; they all saw it. She drew the scarf tight around her neck, straightened up, and steeled herself.
“Do you know if Ruben visited his brother in the hospital on the day after the operation?” Lindell asked.
“Yes, we went there together.”
“In Ruben’s car?”
Gunnel nodded.
“Does he have a red-and-white pickup?”
A new nod.
“What’s happened?” she asked, but Lindell sensed that Gunnel Sagander already knew.
“Did Ruben know John?” Berglund asked.
“Yes, certainly.”
They went into the house. Haver made a call. Berglund talked to Agne Sagander, who was sitting where they had left him. Even Ryde took out his phone and made a call. Lindell was left in the hall with Gunnel.
“Could you get Erki’s phone number now?” Lindell asked.
She knew she should go home. In some way she felt that this case no longer interested her. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t taken part in much of the investigation. Was it thoughts of Justus that kept her here?
Haver finished his call and was about to say something when Berglund stepped out of the living room and carefully closed the door behind him.
“We’ll have to send for an ambulance and some patrol officers,” he said. “Sagander refuses to budge an inch. He says he can’t be moved.”
Berglund shared none of Haver’s excitement. The soon-to-be retired police officer wanted to get home to his wife, children, grandchildren, and Christmas tree, but Lindell knew that he would work all through Christmas without complaining, if needed. He was still standing with his hand on the door handle and looked at Gunnel as if to commiserate with her or perhaps hear her comment on her husband’s claimed immovability.
“He’s stubborn,” was all she said.
“How is his brother?” Haver asked.
They saw how she hesitated, choosing her words with care.
“He’s like his brother in many ways-they’re twins-but he’s more hot-blooded, I have to say.”
“Would you describe him as violent?”
“He has a wonderful wife,” Gunnel said, as if this were an answer to his question.
Haver’s phone rang and he picked up after the first ring. Lindell saw that he was sweating. She started thinking about Edvard. She felt a twinge in her stomach as she thought about how they had made love in their wooden palace at Gräsö, sapping the force of the north wind. One night she had tiptoed out of bed before sunrise, walked to the open window, detached the mosquito screen, and leaned out. The birds were singing at their greatest intensity. The sea lay still as a mirror and the temperature was already close to twenty degrees Celsius. When she turned to look at Edvard in the bed she had thought to herself that no person could be happier than this. During the night he had pulled the sheet off and a few beads of sweat glistened on his stomach.
“I guess we’ll go up and see Ruben,” Haver said, interrupting her stream of thought. “Two cars will be here soon. I told them to hurry.”
“Can I borrow your car, Eskil?”
Ryde turned to Lindell and looked at her as if he didn’t understand her question.
“I have to get into town,” she said, as embarrassed as if she had asked to borrow his pants.
“Take mine,” Haver said to save her, tossing the keys over.
“Thanks, Ola,” she said and smiled. “I think you’ve got it sewn up,” she added, using one of Edvard’s expressions.
She stepped out onto the porch, unfolded the note with the phone number, and dialed it. It took five or six rings for Erki to answer. In the background she heard Christmas music and the rattle of plates.
She presented herself, but before she had time to explain why she was calling, Erki Karjalainen broke in.
“He’s here,” he said, and Lindell thought his accent was just like that of the Mumins.
She laughed with relief.
“Have you called Berit?”
“No,” Erki said. “The boy won’t let me.”
“Can I come over?”
“Wait,” Erki said, and Lindell heard how he walked away from the phone.
She tried to imagine how he lived, what he looked like, and how he was talking to the boy. It took a while, and she looked out over the fields in front of Sagander’s house, the road with the juniper decorations and the brother’s house a few hundred meters away. Would Agne call and warn his brother? She didn’t think so. It would be hard for him to get to the regular phone, and even if he had a cell phone nearby he would probably let it stay where it was. It was a feeling based on Gunnel’s reaction. She knew what was going on, even that her husband might be accused of accomplice to murder, but Lindell saw that deep inside she was relieved that the police were taking over. Maybe even Agne in all his grumpiness felt the same. Twin brothers can be tricky, Lindell thought, and recalled a case where one twin had raped a woman in Engelska park and where the other twin, although he abhorred the crime, nonetheless hesitated to testify against this brother.
Karjalainen returned to the phone. Lindell was allowed to come by, he reported, but she was not allowed to call Berit.
“I promise,” she said.
Karjalainen lived twenty minutes away, if the shortcut through the forest was passable. She had taken that road with Edvard a few times. It was in those forests that they had made some of their best mushroom finds.