“Have you talked to Olle?”
“I’m at the house right now. He’s reading a story to the children.”
“What are you doing there? Have you moved back in?”
“No, but we have to be able to spend time together. You do understand that, don’t you?”
She sounded annoyed, and she was speaking in a low voice, as if afraid that someone might hear.
“So he’s not mad anymore?”
“Of course he’s mad, but he has calmed down enough that we can talk, which means a lot to me. But I don’t want to risk causing any more trouble by talking to you right now. Bye!”
Johan stared at the phone in bewilderment. At the same time the freezing temperature outdoors swiftly moved inside and took up lodging in his guts. All of a sudden she was giving priority to Olle again. She sounded as if he didn’t mean shit to her, and that threat sapped him of all energy. He couldn’t bear to lose her again.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5
Emma stared at the indicator in her hand. It just couldn’t be true. Did two intersecting blue stripes forming a plus sign really mean that she was pregnant? It had been so long since she’d done this sort of test. With a pounding heart she got out the package. The directions couldn’t be clearer. A blue line in the window meant not pregnant. Two blue lines intersecting meant pregnant. How could this be possible? She and Johan had slept together only once recently, two weeks ago. And she could hardly remember the last time she had slept with her husband. Frantically she searched her memory. When was the last time with Olle? It must have been last summer. She counted the months since then: August, September, October, November, December. Good Lord, that would make her five months pregnant, and she ought to be showing more than she was. But her period was only three weeks late, and she’d had regular periods all fall. She felt suddenly faint when she realized what that meant. It had to be Johan. That Friday in October. His work had brought him to Gotland, and he had called her up. She was feeling weak and had agreed to meet him at the newsroom before he went back home. They had made love on the sofa. Damn it. How could she have such incredible bad luck? The one time they had given in when they were supposed to be taking a break from each other, and she ended up pregnant. That kind of thing could only happen to her.
She felt tears filling her eyes. This was more than she could take.
She just about jumped out of her skin when someone knocked on the bathroom door. She heard Olle’s voice saying, “Emma, are you almost ready?”
“Yes, just a minute.”
She tossed the indicator and the empty package in the wastebasket. She couldn’t say anything about this right now. She needed time to think. Quickly she washed her hands and opened the door.
“What’s wrong? Why are you so pale?” Olle gave her a worried look. “Are you sick?”
“You might call it that. I’m pregnant.”
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13
Every seat was taken in Visby Cathedral on this morning to celebrate the Saint Lucia holiday. Knutas was sitting with Lina and Nils on the third pew to the right of the center aisle. The cross vaulting in the church ceiling high overhead and the magnificent arches cast long shadows, in contrast to the glow of hundreds of burning candles. The churchgoers were whispering quietly to each other as they waited with anticipation. Only an occasional cough or shuffling of feet from the pews broke the gentle murmuring.
The Lucia procession in the cathedral was one of the high points of the year. Petra was one of the bridesmaids. She sang in the youth choir, which was now participating in this year’s Lucia procession, just as all the other choirs had done for as far back as anyone could remember. Knutas glanced through the brochure about the church as they waited for the event to begin. Construction of the St Maria Cathedral was started in the twelfth century with funds collected from the German ships that docked at Visby. In the beginning it was meant to serve only German merchants, but later it became the church of the entire German congregation. After the Reformation, it was opened to everyone. No extensive changes to the church had been made since the Middle Ages, and that seemed to Knutas quite evident as he sat there admiring the high ceiling, the beautifully painted windows, and the pulpit, which had probably been imported from the German city of Lubeck in the seventeenth century.
Suddenly a faint singing could be heard in the church, and everyone turned their heads to look back toward the entrance. The tones of the traditional Lucia song grew louder, and the white-clad figure of Lucia appeared in the doorway. Slowly she walked forward, wearing a long white dress. On her head was a wreath with candles. Behind her walked the brides-maids, two by two, with tinsel wrapped around their waists. They each held a lit candle. Behind them came the star boys, wearing paper cones on their heads.
The glow of the candles made it a magical spectacle, as the young people dressed in white walked forward, singing in their clear voices. A star boy who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven sang so beautifully in a loud and lovely voice that Knutas felt tears fill his eyes. In the middle of the solo, his cell phone began vibrating in the inside pocket of his jacket. Cautiously he pulled out the phone and held it up to his ear. It was hard to make out what Karin Jacobsson was saying on the other end. He managed to squeeze past the other people sitting on the pew and went out to the entryway.
“This better be important. I’m here watching my daughter in the Lucia celebration at the cathedral,” he said.
“Fanny Jansson was found dead out on Lojsta Heath.”
It took almost an hour to reach the site. Jacobsson and Knutas took the 142 down to Hejde and then headed out to Lojsta Heath. Old limestone farm buildings stood at the turnoff into the woods. A flock of black sheep with shaggy winter coats was crowded together at the fence, staring at them as they drove past.
A police car was waiting to show them the way. They bumped over the unpaved forest road, which was normally used only by tractors. The snow on the ground between the trees was untouched, and there was no wind. The low mixed forest had dense undergrowth, with withered ferns, heather, and lingonberry bushes. Here and there a few remaining berries shone bright red among the snow-covered hillocks. At the end of the road the forest opened into a clearing where another police car was parked. A short distance away, near an embankment, crime scene tape had been put up. The air was cold and fresh.
Fanny’s body lay in a hollow beneath several thick spruce trees covered with heavy green moss.
The site was relatively protected. The girl was fully dressed in dark riding pants, a short quilted jacket that was unbuttoned, and a brown woolen sweater that was torn at the neck. Her face was dark against the snow. Her beautiful long hair, which was spread out on the ground, seemed strangely alive. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the sky. When Knutas took a closer look, he noticed that there were red specks in the whites of her eyes. Dark bruises covered her throat.
Her body had been found by a woman who was out riding. She had fallen off her horse when it was startled by a fox. The horse had wandered off and led her to the clearing. The woman had hurt her back in the fall, and she was also in such a state of shock that she had been taken to the hospital in Visby.
On their way back to the city, Knutas’s cell phone started ringing. The third call was from Johan.
“What happened?” said the familiar voice on the phone.
“Fanny Jansson has been found dead,” said Knutas wearily.
Jacobsson was driving the car so he could devote all his attention to answering the journalist’s questions.
“Where?”
“In a wooded area out on Lojsta Heath.”
“When?”
“At eight thirty this morning.”