While they are dancing she tells him how she has moved to her cousin’s in Luleå while she looks for a job. Her cousin seems to have forgotten that they were going to meet at the dance and has not turned up. But that doesn’t matter as Viebke and Kerttu dance together all evening.
When the dance is over, he wants to walk her home. She says he can come part of the way. They go down to the riverbank. The leaves on the weeping birches will soon be turning yellow; it will not be long before summer is over. That is both sad and romantic.
Viebke says he admires the way she snubbed the German soldier who asked her for a dance. Who did he think he was, rolling up like that in his posh car!
“I hate the Germans,” she says.
She falls silent and gazes out over the river.
Viebke offers her a penny for her thoughts. She wonders if he has heard that three Danish prisoners of war have escaped from a ship in the harbour.
“I hope they’ll be alright,” she says. “Where will be safe for them?”
Viebke looks at her. She feels as if she is in a film. Like Ingrid Bergman.
“They’ll be alright,” he says, stroking her cheek.
“How can you be so sure?” she says with a smile.
And the smile has a trace of condescension in it. As if she thinks he is just a young lad at a dance who could not possibly know anything at all. Although in fact she is much younger than he is.
“I know,” he says. “Because I’m the one who’s hidden them.”
She bursts out laughing.
“You’d say anything to get yourself a kiss.”
“You can think whatever you like,” he says. “But it’s a fact.”
“Then I’d like to meet them,” Kerttu says.
Two days later she is sitting in Zindel’s Auto-Union Wanderer beside Sicherheitschef Schörner. Two German soldiers are in the back seat. Their rifles are lying on the floor.
It is a lovely late summer’s day. Haystacks stand in rows in the fields, and the scent of sun-warmed hay is lovely. In the meadows where the hay has been harvested, cows are grazing on the last of the late-summer grass. The car has to keep slowing down because farmers are out on the roads with their horses and carts. The rowan trees are laden with clumps of bright red berries. A father and his three daughters are on the way home from berry-picking in the woods. You can see from the way he is walking that the birch-bark rucksack on his back is heavy with fruit. The girls have small enamel buckets full of blueberries.
Kerttu and the Germans walk the last part of the way. The path runs through the forest and alongside some swampy meadows. Eventually they come to Viebke’s uncle’s hut, used by farm hands as a base at haymaking time. It is small and unpainted, but in the sunshine that day everything is beautiful. The hut gleams like silver in the middle of the clearing.
Schörner orders the others to keep quiet as he draws his pistol and approaches the hut.
It is only when he does this that Kerttu becomes vaguely aware that Viebke will feel that she has betrayed him. That had not occurred to her before. It had all been a sort of adventure.
Schörner and the other soldiers walk cautiously towards the hut. They go inside. After a short while they come out again.
“There’s nobody here,” Schörner says disapprovingly.
He looks accusingly at Kerttu.
She opens her mouth to defend herself. She was here only yesterday with Viebke and met the Danes. Nice chaps, all three of them.
At that very moment they hear voices not far away in the woods. Laughter. It is the Danes. Schörner and the others hurry back into the trees. Dragging Kerttu with him, he whispers that she should lie down and keep quiet.
Here they come, walking through the trees. Viebke and the Danes. He is so handsome with his curly hair and happy laugh. They have been fishing. Viebke is carrying a pike and three perch. He has threaded a switch of willow through their gills. He is holding a pipe in his other hand. The Danes are carrying fishing rods made of birch branches.
Kerttu’s spirits rise when she sees Viebke. Then her stomach ties itself in a knot.
Sonja on the switchboard transfers the incoming call to Martinsson’s mobile.
Martinsson has been out for a walk with the dogs. The afternoon sun is exuding warmth. Tintin and Vera are strutting around, exploring the parking area in front of the house. Vera is digging away eagerly at the woodpile, sending wet soil and moss flying in all directions. Some poor field mouse is no doubt sitting petrified underneath all the wood, its heart pounding, convinced that its end is nigh. Tintin waltzes off towards the paddock where the neighbour keeps his horses. They are used to dogs, and do not even condescend to glance at her. She finds a lovely pile of horse manure, guzzles down half of it, then rolls around in what is left. Martinsson decides not to intervene. She can put both dogs in the shower when they eventually come inside. Then they can lie in front of the fire to dry. She considers ringing Krister Eriksson and telling him how his pretty miss behaves the moment his back is turned. Joking about having made up her mind that she needs a holiday so that she can become a dog.
No sooner has she registered the thought than the phone rings. At first she thinks it is Eriksson sensing that she has been thinking about him, but then she realizes that it is the police switchboard. After Sonja tells her she has a call, Martinsson hears a man clearing his throat.
“Er, hi. It’s Hjalmar Krekula. I want to profess,” he says.
Then corrects himself.
“Confess.”
“I see,” she says.
Hell and damnation, she thinks. No tape recorder handy, nothing.
“It was me who killed them. Wilma Persson. And Simon Kyrö.”
There’s something wrong. Martinsson can feel it in her bones. She can hear that he is in his car. Where is he going?
Thoughts as quick as swimming vipers.
“O.K.,” she says calmly. “I’d like to record this. Can you come to the police station?”
Holding the receiver away from her face, she swallows. He must not hear that she is worried or afraid.
“No.”
“We can come to you. Are you at home?”
“No. This will have to do. I’ve said it now. So now you know.”
No, no. He must not hang up. She can see a little boy in front of her, his eyes red with crying.
“No, that won’t do,” she says. “How do I know that you’re telling the truth? People ring us to make confessions all the time.”
But he has already hung up.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she yells, making the dogs pause and look at her.
But as soon as they realize that she is not angry with them, they continue about their business. Vera has found a pine cone and laid it at Tintin’s feet. Backing off a few paces, she has crouched down. Come on, she is saying. Let’s have a game. See if you can grab it before I do. Tintin yawns demonstratively.
Martinsson tries to ring Anna-Maria Mella, but there is no answer. “Ring me right away,” she tells the answering machine.
She looks at the dogs. Vera has soil and clay on her legs and belly. Tintin has applied horse-shit perfume to her neck and behind her ears.
“Filthy swine,” she says to them. “Criminals. What the hell do I do now?”
The moment she says that, she knows. She must drive to his house. So that he does not. So that he does not. The dogs. She will have to take them with her. Despite the filthy state they are in.
“You’re coming with me,” she says to them.
But no. Nobody answers the door when she gets to Hjalmar’s place. Martinsson trudges all the way round the house through the wet snow, peering in through the windows. She knocks on them as well. But she decides that he is not at home. And his car is not there.