Chapter 11
The police station in Oskarstrom was on Brogatan, right next to the Nissan River.
Once upon a time it had housed no fewer than five valiant officers of the law.
Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, reallocation of resources and the centralization of authority had reduced these representatives to two, and, on this particular late-December morning, one.
One single police officer for five thousand residents.
When the new day dawned, there would be two once more, doubling the manpower, according to those math whizzes in Halmstad.
The newcomer was called Siri, and she had some common last name.
Karlsson, B?ck, something like that. She was coming from the city.
But for a little while longer, Gerd Pettersson was on her own. Some in the area were afraid of her, but lots of people liked the tall woman with frizzy hair that fell past her shoulders, and her gruff, loud laugh. She was approaching sixty and had been a police officer for her entire adult life.
Gerd started the car, crossed the bridge over the Nissan, and headed out of Oskarstrom and up to Skavboke, in the dark.
Kjell’s farm was quiet, the night thick as oil. Bill began to bark as she stepped out of the car, and a white light blinded her.
Kjell was sitting on a chair at the base of the steps, his dog and shotgun next to him, a flashlight in hand.
“Do you have a license for that, Kjell?” Gerd asked.
“Damn straight I do.”
It took a moment for him to get to his feet.
He had been waiting for almost an hour, hadn’t dared to do anything else in the meantime.
You couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.
Not these days. The world was changing too fast. Everything said “Made in China,” little punks stole diesel and equipment from honest, hardworking folks, and people were saying that in a week, on New Year’s Eve, all the clocks would stop.
And now this—a night that seemed to be twisting its dark claws around him.
The scene that awaited down on the road.
He took in the sight of Gerd in the sharp beam of the flashlight, as if she were a disappointment.
“Did you lose everyone else along the way?”
“I’m the only officer on duty right now.”
“I guess I’ll hold on to the gun, then.”
“Sure, but Kjell, that light.” Gerd squinted. “Aim it at the ground, would you?”
She blinked and saw white spots.
As they crossed the frozen field, Bill walked loyally and silently at Kjell’s side, as though he’d known him for years.
He could probably tell that something was wrong.
They climbed over the fence and there, on the road that formed the border between Kjell’s land and Soderstrom’s, was the Volvo.
Gerd turned on her own flashlight and told Kjell to stay back.
She approached the trunk to peer inside and lingered there for quite some time.
“Well,” she said when she returned. “I think I’m gonna have to call this in.”