Chapter 60
Brothers, Vidar Jorgensson thought as he stood next to a field in Skavboke and gazed out at a region that was just settling down for the night after another hot day. Two dead brothers.
It was past nine. Behind him, men and women with cameras and notepads in hand milled around gravely. They methodically noted what they found, took photographs, and spoke in subdued voices. Vidar took out his phone, dialed a number, and waited as it rang on the other end.
“Okay,” Markus Danielsson said, his mouth full of food. He swallowed. The tinkle of silverware. In the background was the soothing hum of a restaurant’s patio seating. “Let’s hear it.”
“So,” said Vidar. “Blunt trauma to the head. Two or three blows.”
Vidar heard his former colleague and current boss let out a deep sigh as he stood up and wandered away from his table to continue this conversation in private. Vidar remained at the edge of the field, waiting.
“What are you eating?”
“A ribeye.”
“That would hit the spot right about now.”
“Has it been confirmed that it’s him?” Markus said, his voice lower.
“Yes, it’s Filip Soderstrom. According to the ME, it happened a few hours ago. Toward late afternoon, early evening.”
Seconds of silence.
“Well, listen,” Markus said then, sounding apologetic. “I had hoped you’d get to enjoy a nice, calm summer, but this is going to be yours, I fear.”
“Right,” Vidar said. “Fair enough. I’m going to get back to it here, but I just wanted to let you know. Phones are going to start ringing.”
“How does it look on the scene?”
“I don’t know yet. Too early to say.”
“Well, how does it feel?”
Vidar turned his head. Filip was lying on his back in the grass, well hidden.
Only one shoe was visible. The teens who’d found him, a couple who had been sneaking off to canoodle in the summer night, had thought someone was sleeping there.
Maybe a drunk. At first they shouted at the shoe, expecting its wearer to wake up and move. When nothing happened, they approached.
“Skinny,” Vidar said. “We’ll have our work cut out for us.”
“I’ll see if I can free up some people for you,” Markus said.
Vidar observed the surroundings a little while longer, as if something he was looking at wasn’t quite as it should be. Only the crime-scene techs and a coordinator were inside the police tape; the officers stayed outside the blue-and-white barrier.
“Does anyone here know this area?” he asked, glancing around. “Anyone live nearby?”
A young officer with long, dark hair tucked under his cap raised a hand and approached Vidar at the edge of the cordoned area.
“I’m from ?led,” he said. “I’m Adrian. Adrian al-Hadid.”
He offered his hand and Vidar shook it.
“Great. Where are we?”
Adrian looked puzzled. “In Skavboke?”
“I mean the landslide.” Vidar pointed at the field. “The foliage is different here; it runs along the edge of this field almost like a ribbon. What was here before the landslide?”
Adrian scratched the back of his head. “I was three years old back then, in 1999. I don’t know. But I can find out.”
The young man hurried off toward one of the patrol cars. Taking care not to make a wrong step, Vidar ducked under the blue-and-white tape and picked his way to the body.
He was a slender man, Filip Soderstrom, skinny and sinewy, with pronounced shoulders.
He hadn’t even made it to forty, but his face looked like the far side of fifty.
A shadow of stubble covered his chin and cheeks.
The blow to his head had cracked his skull, and his head rested in a sludge of blood and broken soil.
The hands of a tradesman, with black rinds under the nails, dirty fingers, veins standing out on his forearms. No marks in the bend of his elbow—not anymore, but they’d been there once; as Vidar knew, old tracks went deep into the skin.
Jeans and a T-shirt; in his pockets they’d found a wallet, a lighter, keys to his house and a company van that was sitting silent and unlocked out on the road.
It was cool outside now. Lovely—you could breathe again. Vidar crouched down. No doubt this was the scene of the crime. Tracks in the grass and dirt; footprints. Vidar squinted and studied the ground at such close range that he could smell it.
Blood. Spatter on the little green blades.
“Hello,” someone said. “Hey.”
Vidar stood up and turned his head. The young officer was back. Adrian something. He was holding his phone. Then he realized where he was standing and looked at his shoes as if he’d destroyed a very important piece of evidence.
“Shit.”
“It’s fine. Just watch where you step on your way back. What is it?”
“Well, I found an old map; it was faster that way. There was a farm right here, as you can see. Several buildings.”
He held the screen toward Vidar.
“Find out who it belonged to,” he said, turning back to the body. “And,” he added, “find the names of the people who worked on the investigation back then.”
The response was immediate.
“The farm was theirs.”
“Whose?”
The officer nodded at Filip Soderstrom.
“The farm—it belonged to the Soderstroms. I sent a picture to my dad and asked him. He drives a truck and used to have deliveries out here sometimes, so I took the chance. Their house was right here.”
Vidar raised an eyebrow. Only now did he realize his young colleague was shaken up by the sight of the body.
“Well done,” he said to Adrian. Curious onlookers were starting to gather around the police tape, in the warm night. “So he was killed on what used to be his own family farm.”
“Sure is kymig,” Adrian said tentatively. “Right? It is, isn’t it?”
Brothers, Vidar thought again. Two dead brothers.
“Yes,” he said. “Kymig indeed.”