Chapter 110
It was Advent, after a church service. Siri had been waiting for Isidor by the entrance. She was there about a disappearance, she said. A teenager. His name was Hampus Olsson.
Isidor had heard the name; everyone had. The newspapers had run his picture on the front page for quite some time. But that was several years ago now.
Siri showed him pictures and asked questions.
Had Isidor seen him? Heard anything about someone who looked like him?
Would he be willing to keep these pictures and show them to colleagues and people who were active in the church’s outreach programs?
Maybe someone knew something, had seen or heard of a drifter like him.
The acoustics in the church brought a new ring to her voice.
A day or two later, she called the church office and said she wanted to visit again.
Once she was facing Isidor in the room the congregation used for absolution and pastoral counseling, she didn’t know what to do.
She said she needed someone to confide in, but she wasn’t sure who it should be.
And then the words simply poured out of her, first the name, and then the astonishing notion.
I think Killian Persson is alive.
The words washed through Isidor like a chilly wave.
As if he had just helped her complete an arduous task, she sighed in relief.
An amazingly loud laugh burst out of her. In that bright, quiet room, it echoed off the walls. She apologized immediately, said that she was just scared. Or confused.
Isidor remained very calm. At last he tentatively leaned toward her.
“How could anyone carry this all alone, for as long as you have, without breaking?” he said.
That was in fact exactly what someone couldn’t do.
—
Together, Vidar and Adrian led Isidor into a corner of Felicia’s house. Two forensic technicians had arrived and were moving meticulously from room to room. The house was very quiet now.
The rain was still falling in sheets outside, pattering loudly against the window.
“And you,” he said forcefully, “told Filip.”
Isidor opened his mouth to respond. But then he shook his head one last time.
“I’m bound by confidentiality. I can’t say.”
As though there could be no explaining it, what he had gone through.
“So you sit there with him at Rasmusg?rden,” Vidar said.
“Once a week, month after month. I’ve seen the documents, I know.
Never in the capacity of a psychologist, and not even, really, as a priest—just as someone he can talk to.
Someone with ties to the place where he grew up, who knew the people around him.
It helped him. And there you sit, with reason to believe his brother’s killer is alive. ”
“But I didn’t say anything!” Isidor exclaimed fiercely, as if an invisible pressure inside him had grown too strong.
Behind Vidar, a colleague had stopped short, reacting to Isidor’s outburst.
“Is everything all right in here?”
Adrian raised a hand in reassurance. Isidor was breathing hard.
“For God’s sake, I was the one who buried him! Can you imagine? The nightmares! Had the casket been empty? The ash at the interment—what was in that urn, dust? I know what I’m looking at when I look at the ashes of a human child. I buried someone, I know that much. But who?”
“So when,” Vidar repeated, “did you tell him? Was it recently, this summer?”
“Filip had…he had matured. Become more grounded, somehow. He had gotten his life together, he had a job. Bought the house from Frans. He mentioned more than once that he wasn’t as angry anymore, that he didn’t…
All he wanted was to find answers, so he could stop imagining what they might be.
That was all. He needed to know, like one last step before he could move on to the rest of his life.
And then, at that point, yes—back in June when we met for one last conversation, I suppose I said more than I should have.
” A long, tense silence. “What was I supposed to do?”
No one said anything. Maybe the question wasn’t directed at them anyway.
“Thank you,” Vidar said at last. “Now we know.”
“Is it true,” Isidor went on, “that you have the material from Rasmusg?rden?”
“Why do you ask?”
Isidor nodded at Adrian. “He said you did.”
Vidar stared at Adrian, who blushed.
“You should be able to find Filip’s account in there,” Isidor said, “of the night his brother died. I got him to write it down for his own sake, but I never read it. No one did.”
“When did he write that?”
“I don’t remember, sometime while he was at the facility. I’m sure you know better than I do, incidentally, if you have the records. I want to go home now.” Isidor looked awfully sick. “Can I please do that?”