Chapter 91
Siri had personally been to the scene of the accident, had witnessed the wreck and seen Killian Persson’s fire-ravaged body behind the wheel.
But after her visit to the farmer in Mj?la, after seeing the harvesttime photograph, doubt had begun to gnaw at her.
She didn’t mention it to anyone. What would she have said?
That Killian had risen from his grave and walked off?
They would have looked at her like she had a screw loose.
“Which,” she confided in Vidar, “might have been true. I wasn’t doing so hot.”
She was starting to reach her limits.
“But you looked into it?”
“His identity notwithstanding, I had received information about an unidentified man who left one farm and never arrived at his expected destination. That meant yet another possible disappearance. But also,” she added, her voice full of regret, “I started to take a look at our investigation of the accident. If you can call it an investigation. I’m sure you’ve seen it. ”
Vidar understood what she was getting at.
It wasn’t immediately noticeable; everything was in its proper place and procedures had been followed to the letter.
But what had been done was flimsy. It was understandable: it had been Christmas, all the stations in the county were understaffed, people were enjoying time off.
And what’s more, the incident had not been remarkable, not from a law-enforcement perspective.
A fatal crash on a deserted county road.
Happens all the time. There was no reason to investigate any scenario besides the obvious one.
Besides, the landslide in Skavboke happened less than twenty-four hours later.
All resources were diverted to dealing with the aftermath of the disaster.
Vidar realized he probably would have done exactly what they did, prioritized the same things.
All that was left of the body in the car was bone and sinew; the fire had consumed the rest. DNA testing was still in its infancy back then.
And even if they could have taken a sample from the remains, there wouldn’t have been anything to compare it to, besides the small amount of blood that had been collected from the car in Skavboke, the blood believed to have come from Killian Persson.
In this case, the use of dental records—a common method of identifying the deceased—had been made considerably more difficult because the driver hadn’t been wearing a seat belt.
The crash resulted in a fractured jaw and the loss of several teeth, many of which were never recovered.
Accordingly, the results were based more on what was logical and probable than what was discovered during analysis. Vidar found this reasonable as well.
As he related these thoughts to Siri, she looked grim. They had stopped next to a bench along one of the park’s gravel paths, protected under one of the big old trees. It smelled sharp and fresh, ancient.
“Right,” she said. “But that doesn’t actually change anything.”
“You didn’t say anything to anyone? Not even Gerd?”
“What would I have said?” She sat down on the bench and slumped. “That they buried the wrong person?” She shook her head. “Yes, I probably should have. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know who I could talk to.”
Vidar waited. It was cool beneath the tree. He would be happy to stay here for a while, just for a chance to breathe.
“Then again,” she continued, “the more I uncovered, the more convinced I became that it really could have been him at the farm. Killian, that is. And that he was the one I caught a glimpse of at the encampment, the guy who took off. I guess I just started to accept it, just to myself, that it could be true. That the body in the car belonged to someone else.”
Whoever it was she was searching for now, he remained in the shadows. Alive, perhaps, but at some point during her search Siri began to wonder what that really meant. Alive. Such a beautiful word, maybe the most beautiful of all. If you ignored what it could entail.
“Given the circumstances, I suppose we should have connected the accident with Hampus Olsson. But there was no reason to, really, not from what we could see. They were simply two separate incidents. By the time there was a link between them, it was too late.”
“Until you put the two together,” Vidar pointed out.
“And, like I said, it was too late.”
He supposed you could look at it that way, or at least tell yourself that was so if you had to.
“Then that’s why you quit,” Vidar said, as though he had only just realized it. “Because of Hampus Olsson and Killian Persson, right?”
She looked up at him. Her gaze was steady and warm but full of regret. She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her thighs and burying her face in her hands.
“All I wanted, once,” she said, “was to understand stuff. Then, when I did understand, I couldn’t handle it. And now Filip Soderstrom is dead. I don’t know what to do. I’m so ashamed.”
Not so surprising, maybe.
Oftentimes, part of being human is living your life on the very edge of shame.
Vidar observed her hunched back and considered placing a hand there. She seemed to need it. Instead, he said: “I have a proposal.”