Chapter 70
“Sorry to bother you. The staff said it would be okay.”
A woman turned around to look at him.
Vidar took a step forward.
“Felicia Grenberg, right?” He offered his hand. “My name is Vidar.”
They shook. Her palm was rough and warm.
“The older man who was just here,” Vidar said. “I ran into him on the way out. Who was he?”
“Must have been the priest,” Felicia said. “Isidor Enoksson.”
“That’s right. I thought he looked familiar.”
He was the man Vidar had seen leaving Siri Bengtsson’s farm in a Volvo.
“Could I talk to you for a bit, Lillemor?”
Lillemor gazed at him blankly. Felicia set her crossword on a table next to the old woman’s bed, on top of a stack of books and photo albums. Then she left the room, reluctant as a parent leaving a child alone with a stranger.
Lillemor had been notified of her son’s death. It was one of the first actions the investigative team took, and Vidar had been the messenger.
“It’d be good if she likes you,” Markus had said.
“She’s about to be told for the second time in her life that her son is dead,” Vidar said. “There are better ways to make a first impression.”
“Just do your best.”
When he gave her the news, she didn’t say or do anything for a long time.
As Vidar finally placed his big hand over her frail one, though, and put an arm around her shoulders, she looked at him with what might have been surprise, as if it had been so long since someone touched her she’d forgotten how it felt.
“Lillemor,” he said now. “It’s me, Vidar. From the police. I’m back, just like I said.”
“Yes,” she said.
Vidar looked at the crossword Felicia had left behind.
“ ‘Swede at the dinner table.’ What do we think?”
Lillemor produced a word. It sounded a little like “roo bake.”
“Totally agree. Want me to put it down?”
He picked up the crossword and took out his pen, wrote in rutabaga. Lillemor’s eyes followed. There was nothing the matter with her mind.
“Well,” he said, “I have some information for you, as I promised, and one question. Let’s take care of the information first.”
Lillemor made a noise like “mm.”
“We’re still trying to figure out what happened and why.
My colleagues only just finished with Filip’s house this morning, so it’s still very early in the investigation.
We know more now than we did before, but not by much.
As soon as I have anything else to share, I’ll come visit again. That’s a promise.”
He paused. She waited.
“So,” Vidar said, after a silence that felt longer than it was. “To my question. Filip moved into an old house up in Skavboke.”
“Flonk Yungerns.”
“Frans Ljunggren’s, exactly. Were you ever there? In Filip’s house?”
It took a long time for her to express herself. “Once or twice. Hard for me.”
“Hard how?”
“Physically. But memories too.”
“Of course. I understand. Were you ever out in the garage? Do you remember what it looked like?”
“A little.”
“He had tools there. You know, shovels and rakes and so on. Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“What I’m wondering,” Vidar said, taking out a folder that held a photograph, “is if you recognize this.”
She looked at the picture. “House.”
“Yes, that’s right. We took this picture at Filip’s house.”
“Spade.”
“Yes.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, only speaking up again just as Vidar was about to move on.
“Garage?”
“Yes, it was in the garage.”
“Never sawt.”
That didn’t mean much. The spade had been in plain sight, but it was just one of many tools. Nothing that would catch the eye.
“Now I have another question. It’s about Filip and your husband, Karl-Henrik.”
He thought he saw Lillemor move suddenly. He couldn’t say if it had really happened or was just a flicker of his eye.
“Did the two of them ever discuss the landslide together?”
A sound like a strangled cough came from Lillemor’s mouth. She tried to say “Sten Persson.”
“It was Sten Persson,” Vidar said slowly. “That’s what they said?”
“Mm.”
“And do you think so too?”
A growing silence. Vidar waited.
“Who else?” she said at last—a good question, and it was his job to answer it.
At the tip of Vidar’s tongue was another name. Jakob Lindell. He wanted to float it as a question, to test the idea. But he couldn’t, it would be too risky, so he said nothing.
Vidar had accomplished all he came for. He looked at the crossword again.
“Free of clocks,” he said, counting. “Eight letters.”
After pondering for a moment, Lillemor replied, “Timeless.”
Vidar picked up the crossword and entered it.
That was when he noticed something under the newspaper. A thick photo album bound in burgundy velvet. It looked full. Vidar tentatively picked it up. “Is this yours?”
“Yes.”
“Do you look at it often? You and Felicia?”
“She shows me.”
“May I have a peek?”
Lillemor nodded weakly, and when Vidar opened the album he found scenes from the past, moments from a life that no longer existed. Dinners, parties, holidays. In one of the pictures, someone, probably Karl-Henrik, was dressed up as Santa Claus.
He stopped on one page and paused for a second, perhaps a fraction too long.
“What beautiful pictures,” he managed to say, his voice quaking. “Could I borrow this?”
Long seconds passed. Lillemor’s eyes grew oddly blank. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick.
“Take good care of it. It’s all I have left.”