Stone Coffin Part 22

"Lovely sweet peas," Nilsson said. "Did you make this trellis yourself?"

She smiled for the first time. "Salix," she said.

"I know. My old lady does this too."

Haver had to smile at his colleague. The old lady-Nilsson's wife-could hardly be more than forty.

"Perhaps he didn't take his life," Haver repeated.

"Do you mean that someone killed him?"

Haver didn't reply to her question. Instead, he turned to Nilsson.

"What do you say, should we keep going?"

"Can I have a radish?" Nilsson asked.

The woman nodded.

As they were backing out of the yard, she stood as if paralyzed in the same position that they had left her by the vegetable bed, but just as she dropped out of their line of sight, Haver thought he saw her raise her hand as if to stop them or perhaps to wave good-bye. He wanted to ask Nilsson to turn back, but there was a better alternative.

"You think it's her," Nilsson said.

"Yes," Haver said and opened both his notepad and his cell phone. He dialed a number. Maybe she was still in the store. Shops were open at all hours these days.

It was the store manager who picked up. The store was closed and he was the only one left. Yes, Ulrika Olsson-the clerk that Haver had spoken to earlier-lived nearby. Haver was given her number.

"Do you know where Karby is?" he asked Nilsson, who gazed back at him with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Ulrika Olsson was feeding the chickens when they arrived.

"You're quick," she said. "I thought you were calling from town."

She said that she was happy to accompany them back to the woman's house.

"I'm just going to change," she said and ran lightly ahead of them.

"s.p.u.n.ky girl," said Nilsson, whose mood kept improving the longer they spent in Rasbo.

They decided that she would wait in the car as Haver and Nilsson had another talk with the woman. The hope was that she was still out in the garden so that Ulrika could take a look and say yea or nay.

Haver felt a rising excitement the closer they got to the cottage. Nilsson chatted away and tried to clarify Ulrika Olsson's relation to another Olsson from Rasbokil. Haver turned his head toward the backseat and gazed anxiously at the thick tree trunks bordering the narrow gravel road.

The woman was still by the vegetable beds. It had been only forty-five minutes, but Haver was surprised. She was leaning over the beds and he couldn't help but study her b.u.t.tocks and slender thighs through her green work pants. Nilsson glanced at him.

Haver coughed lightly. The woman jumped and turned so quickly that she almost lost her balance. She looked frightened but tried to hide this by moving her hand across her face.

"Well," she said coldly.

"We forgot something," Nilsson said. "We're taking the names and telephone numbers of everyone that we're talking to."

Haver did not think that she was nave enough to believe this explanation.

"Gabriella Mark," she said. "But I have a private number."

She sat down on the wooden frame of the vegetable plot and looked expectantly at the two officers, as if she was waiting for more. Haver sensed that she was tired and somehow pleased at their return. Now she had a reason to take a break from her work.

Their car was only about ten or fifteen meters away, but some bushes partially hid it from view. Get up, he thought. Take a few steps.

"Here is my number if you think of anything," he said and held out a card, but Gabriella Mark made no attempt to get up. Haver walked over to her. She looked at him blankly and took the card, slipping it into the breast pocket of her overalls without glancing at it.

Haver thought she had been crying. Her whole being screamed loneliness. Here she was, digging and weeding alone. Who was going to eat all of these vegetables?

"It's her," Ulrika Olsson said when they returned to the car. "I'm completely sure of it."

Haver called the rest of the team and called off the rest of the search. The satisfaction at having found her was tainted by the fact that they now had to disturb her, question her, and perhaps force her to recall the memories that she had been trying to repress. He had felt this before. Many times it was a thankless task to dig into human misery.

"Gabriella Mark," Lindell said, testing its sound. "A beautiful name. How did she seem?"

"Fragile and strong at the same time," Haver said.

He thought about her body. An attractive body accentuated by the worn work clothes. Her hands had been powerful, black with earth, while her gaze was sorrowful.

"I liked that she was working with vegetables," he said.

"I wonder why she denies knowing Cederen?" Nilsson wondered.

Haver was not surprised.

"I think she wants to talk to a woman," he said.

Lindell looked over at him and thought he was right. When Gabriella made her anonymous call, it had been to her, and most likely not simply because she was the one in charge of the investigation.

They decided that Lindell should visit the house the next day. She felt too tired to leave right away. Maybe it was also good to give Gabriella some time to think. Haver was convinced that she realized she had been identified.

Lindell drove slowly through the city. It was a warm summer's evening. She looked with envy at the people around her. They strolled, sat at outdoor cafes, drank beer, socialized. Others were walking with determination toward destinations that Lindell could only guess. Probably to the Filmstaden cinemas or bars, or perhaps they were just on their way home from work.

There was a group of teenagers at the Nybro Bridge, not more than fourteen or fifteen years of age. They poured into the crosswalk just as Lindell drove up, and she was forced to stop. She tried to smile at them, but it turned into more of a grimace. One of the girls threw her a curious glance. When she had reached the other side of the street, she turned her head and their gazes met for a moment. What did she see? Lindell wondered. The car behind her honked.

She turned right and went across the bridge. She did not want to go home. At the foot of the Slottsbacken hill, there was a man leaning against a tree, reading the paper. There was a can of beer beside him.

Her city. Inhabitants she was paid to help and protect. A beautiful city when the mild breezes swept between the houses and the trees in the parks. She liked Uppsala. And yet she felt more distanced from it all than normal. It was as if the city had nothing to do with her. It was work, nothing else. This was the insight she had as she drove aimlessly through the central city blocks.

At Martin Luther King Plaza she noticed a colleague in an unmarked car. He raised his hand in greeting. Outside the Fyris cinema, there was a lone woman. A man came around the corner at Rundelsgrand. The two walked smiling toward each other. Lindell averted her gaze.

Nineteen.

Gabriella Mark put the last of the seed trays away and piled them carefully in the shed. It would be a while until the next round of planting. Almost a whole year. She ended up standing with the last tray in her hand, tracing her fingers along the bottom. Knowledge that the growing season was coming to an end now that the plants were in place and sprouting in their containers and beds alarmed her. It wasn't that the season was over-there were a few months left until the final harvest. Some plants would even be left in the ground until the first snow. But the most pleasurable phase-starting the seedlings and transferring them outside-was completed.

She put the last tray on the stack. The evening sun shone across the yard. The mournful song of the curlew could be heard from afar. This was the second season the bird had nested in these parts. Gabriella loved that bird. Its song was hers: melancholy and full of longing.

She walked slowly back to the house. She was drawn to linger, to stop and draw in the heavy scent of the sweet mock orange. She could hear a faint noise from a car or tractor, but it died away.

"Alone," she muttered.

She did not know if she would ever plant any more seeds. Maybe it was the last summer at the cottage. She could sell. The prices has gone up and she would earn a pretty penny. Why would she stay now that Sven-Erik would never be back?

She had hoped that he would stay for good, that he would get divorced, as he had spoken about the last time she had seen him. She knew that he had been serious. It isn't right, she thought, sitting down on the bench at the corner of the cottage.

Would the police be back? She had mulled on this all afternoon. It would be strange if they weren't. She sensed that they knew she was Sven-Erik's friend. What did they think of her? She didn't care anymore.

But she knew she had to call Ann Lindell again. During the last call there had been a kind of connection. Gabriella felt she could trust her. She was a woman, and there was something in her voice that told her Lindell would understand. You don't get to choose the person you love, she thought. It hadn't been rational to fall in love with Sven-Erik, a married man so unlike herself. That was perhaps what had been so exciting and fulfilling for her. He had seen her life with different eyes, new eyes. He had longed for a more peaceful existence. He had said so again and again, and he saw the cottage as a respite. Slowly he had changed. At each visit, she could see how his att.i.tude was changing.

It was his job that killed him. It had to be that. It was the job that had killed his wife and child. She was deeply convinced of this, but how would she make Lindell see it? They probably wanted to make this a crime of pa.s.sion, a.s.suming he had no longer been able to stand his double life. But Sven-Erik hadn't been like that. He had become happier and more open as time went by.

Work wore him down, but the time with her built him up. Then why would he leave her? Or was this all simply her own fantasy, built on dreams of a life together with a man?

She couldn't live alone. She knew that. The gardening and work around the house were a way to spend her time, a kind of therapy, in waiting for a real life. At first she had despised herself for thinking that a man would save her, but she had come to realize that love would heal her. She needed the warmth of another person.

The oxazepam she had taken a couple of days ago made her movements heavy. Her thoughts returned like the sound of a music box. The melancholy song played over and over. Even in her state of sedation, she realized that this had to be brought to an end, but she didn't know how. She saw no relief.

She heard a faint crackling of leaves in the woods across the road. She imagined it was the elk cow with her lame calf coming to eat of the abundant vegetation at the edge of the little marsh. She peered into the leaves to try to spot the animals, but they must be keeping farther back. She did not believe the calf would survive. They could not move far because of its injury, and in the winter it would probably lose the battle.

She got up from the bench and walked down to the road. The meadowsweet by the side of the road sent out a sharply intoxicating scent. She broke off a couple of pieces. The woods were quiet. Dusk was starting to fall between the alder trees and the old self-seeded apple tree, whose fruit had started to take shape and grow. Some stock doves could be heard in the distance. Something crunched under her feet. A snail's slimy body slithered in the gravel. One of the antennae was moving spasmodically in and out of the damaged head.

The fleshy ma.s.s revolted her and she hurried back to the cottage. A gust of wind buffeted her, pus.h.i.+ng her forward.

Alone. Eight hundred meters to the nearest neighbor. The woods close by. The only other life was an elk cow and her calf.

She turned quickly and searched the edge of the woods. She heard the crackle in the leaves again. She stood completely still and tried to figure out what the sound was. Perhaps it was the owls that were nesting farther in.

s.h.i.+vering, she closed the door. At that moment, the clock on the wall struck eight. She began to cry.

Twenty.

The signals mixed with the images of her dreams. She was loping along when the sharp sound of the telephone cut through the apartment. She turned around, but her pursuers were far away. She had managed to shake them off. Would she be caught now because she had to answer the telephone? She stopped, panting. It could be a call from the pharmacy.

Slowly she returned to consciousness and fumbled for the receiver, squinting at the clock.

Edvard. At once she was wide awake.

"No, you didn't wake me," she said and sat up.

"I just wanted to thank you for coming out here," Edvard said.

"I should thank you."

It was half past seven and she should be at work.

"How are you?"

Don't call me! Leave me alone!

"Busy," she said and got out of bed.

"I'm going to be in town this afternoon. I thought maybe we could see each other tonight."

She walked absently toward the bathroom.

"I don't know," she said weakly.

"We could get a bite to eat. It's supposed to be nice weather."

"I don't know," she repeated.

"Has anything happened?"

"No, there's just so much going on with a case right now. I have to work."

She heard from his voice that he was disappointed. She knew it had been hard for him to call. He wasn't the kind who took the initiative.

"Maybe," she said.

Her face in the mirror looked ashen. The dream had left its traces.

"Call me on my cell," he said.

She lifted the lid of the toilet.

"I want to see you," he added.