The phone rang at six thirty in the morning. The ring was unusually muted and Ann Lindell was grateful for that; Anders needed to sleep. As far as she knew he had been up working until far into the night. She woke up when he crept into bed and glanced at the clock: 2:33. She was happy, he had started writing again. This time it probably concerned the Middle East. She fell back asleep right away.
She was sure it was Ottosson and it was not without feeling a certain excitement that she hurried out into the hall to reach the phone. The calm of the past few weeks would now be broken by something more stimulating to the imagination.
That was a morbid thought, she admitted it, but homicide was her department.
She found the phone on the couch between two cushions.
“Yes, now she’s gone.”
Edvard’s voice sounded distant, as if he was far from the receiver.
“I thought you would want to know.”
Of course she wanted to know! She collapsed on the couch. The news was expected, but still Ann felt paralyzed. She could not get out a sound.
“She died in her sleep,” Edvard continued. “Calmly and peacefully.”
She heard now how tired he was.
“I sensed it last night and got up. Right when I came into her room she took a deep breath, just one. I waited but there weren’t any more. It was over. She was lying with her arms crossed over her chest and it looked like she was smiling.”
Ann had experienced this a number of times, how the dead seemed to smile, even after a violent, unnatural death.
“She had a long life,” was the first thing Ann could say.
It sounded like a platitude, she thought, but the words held much more than just the number of years Viola had lived and she sensed that Edvard understood what she meant.
Edvard hummed a little in response as if he agreed. She could picture him. He was no doubt sitting at the kitchen table staring out over the farmyard where dawn could still only be sensed. It struck Ann how alone he must feel.
“Is it very windy?” she asked.
“Yes, and it’s been a steady northeaster for a couple of days,” Edvard replied.
“Which she detested.”
“Yes,” said Edvard. “Which she detested.”
She wanted to say something to the effect that she could come out, but refrained. Perhaps he would misunderstand.
“Have you spoken with anyone else?”
“No, I’m going to call Torsten, Greta, and a few others. Then the word will spread on its own. But there’s no hurry.”
“Are you having coffee?”
“Mmm.”
“Have a sip for me too,” said Ann. “Will you be in touch?”
“Yes,” said Edvard.
She thought he was crying. After the call she remained sitting on the couch. She realized that a chapter in her life was about to end. Viola’s illness and death had made her and Edvard reestablish contact, she had visited Gräsö, something that only a few weeks ago would have seemed inconceivable. After Viola’s funeral there would be no real reason for continued contact. The story of Edvard led irrevocably to its end.
She wished she could go to the island to keep him company, console him, but that was out of the question. He would take it as a sign that she wanted them to continue seeing each other, perhaps even resume the relationship. But the feelings were not there. Or else they were so deeply pushed back that they could not make themselves known. Her reasonable self had mobilized all its forces to erase all the real or imagined feelings for the man she loved and then frittered away.
“Is she dead?”
Anders was standing in the door, looking at her. He looked as much the worse for wear as his threadbare bathrobe.
She nodded.
“Have you had breakfast?”
“No, it would be nice if you’d make some coffee.”
“Sad?”
“Yes, of course. Viola was a remarkable woman. A friend.”
“She lived a long time,” said Anders, and Ann wondered if he had listened to her call.
“I’ll put on a little java, that will perk us up.”
She smiled. He was the only person she knew who called coffee “java.”
“There will be one last trip to Gräsö. Do you want to come with me to the funeral?”
“Don’t think so,” he answered. “Funerals are not my strong suit. And I didn’t know her. It’s better if you go alone.”
And of course that’s how it was. They would both feel uncomfortable if he went along.
She heard him fill the coffeemaker and take out the mugs. Mostly she wanted to stretch out on the couch and let Anders wrap a blanket around her, but she knew that no pardon was given. She had to get up. The clock said seven. In one and a half hours she would be taking part in some kind of conference, the subject of which she didn’t even know. But she was sure it would not affect her work situation for the better. A grinding meeting without meaning or purpose. She would sit there and vegetate, while the knife man Ludwig Ohrman and his ilk could stretch out on any number of couches and plan new mischief. She would have to get to work on him. He did not show up for the interview she had arranged the other day.
Ann got up with some effort, forced, but also lured by the smell of coffee.
“Now your Nobel Prize winner is taking a beating again,” said Anders.
He sat hunched over the newspaper, grinning a little. He liked conflict and polemics.
“By who?”
“An Associate Professor Johansson, if you’re familiar with the name.”
“I am, in fact,” said Ann.
She leaned over Anders’ shoulder and peered at the prominently featured article. There was a photo of Ohler as well as Johansson, a twenty-year-old archive picture where the two were posing together in what apparently was a laboratory setting. Both dead serious. The associate professor looked young. She read the lead-in and the final paragraph.
“The mild-mannered old guy has sharpened his pencil properly,” she observed. “Now there will be a real feud with the neighbors.”
Ann briefly told about what had happened earlier. He was visibly amused and that made her happy. He was working. She was infected by his boyish delight at two neighbors attacking a third one.
“Torben Bunde has never really been in his right mind, but Johansson is all right,” said Anders. “No ferocious jabs or complicated academic double-talk—instead dry and factual but still razor sharp. I can imagine how the feelings are cooling at home with Ohler. This is not some outsider grumbling but someone who’s been there. That hurts.”
Ann wondered whether she should tell about the connection between the housekeeper and Viola, but refrained. It was good that their conversation had left the island.
She pulled the other section of the newspaper to her, opened a page at random, and found that divine justice had arrived before the worldly kind. The first thing she saw was Ludwig Ohrman’s obituary. He was forty years old, deeply mourned and missed by mother and father, and a whole throng of brothers and sisters.
She checked the date of death. I see, she thought, not strange that he didn’t show up for questioning.
“I’ll wake Erik,” said Anders.
It had become a routine for Anders to make sure the boy got breakfast in him and left home in time. Most mornings he went with Erik to school and then took a long walk.
She knew that it was an arrangement Erik liked. Anders was something out of the ordinary where stepfathers were concerned. First he had been run over by a bus and then almost killed by knife thrusts administered by a murderer, with impressive scars as evidence.
Erik had decided to become a policeman. Ann did not bother to protest. Soon enough he would realize and start dreaming about something better.
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thanks,” she said.
He looked up from the newspaper with surprise.
“For what?”
“For…”
She did not know how to continue. He smiled at her, but it was a doubtful smile and she saw a flash of worry in his eyes.
“You’ll have to guess,” she said at last, and left the kitchen.