Part 68 (1/2)

'But he was still able to conduct services, do his job?'

She raises her bloodshot eyes towards Joona.

'Oh yes, he conducted his services, no one noticed anything, not even me, because we no longer spent any time together ... but I used to go to the morning service, and ... Everyone said his sermons were stronger than ever ... even though he himself was growing weaker.'

Rocky mutters something and walks away from them. They watch him through the window as he emerges on to the lawn and goes and sits down at a table under the weeping birch.

'How did you find out?' Joona asks.

'I was the one who found him,' the old woman replies. 'I was the one who took care of the body.'

'Was it an overdose?'

'I don't know, he'd missed the morning service, so I went into the rectory ... There was a terrible stench in there ... I found him in the cellar ... he had been dead for three days, naked and filthy, covered in scabs ... he was lying in the cage like an animal.'

'He was lying in a cage?'

She nods and wipes her nose.

'All he had was a mattress and a can of water,' she whispers.

'Didn't you think it was odd that he was in a cage?'

The old woman shakes her head.

'It had been locked from the inside ... I've always thought that he tried to lock himself in to escape the drugs.'

A younger woman in a similar ap.r.o.n comes out and stands behind the counter when some more customers arrive.

'Could one of your brother's colleagues have helped him write his sermons?' Joona asks.

'I don't know.'

'He probably had a computer, could I take a look at it?'

'He had one in the office, but he wrote his sermons by hand.'

'Have you kept them?'

Ellinor slowly stands up from the bench.

'I took care of his estate,' she says. 'I cleaned out the rectory so that there wouldn't be any gossip ... but he'd got rid of everything ... There were no photographs, no letters or sermons ... I couldn't even find his diaries, he'd always kept a diary ... He used to keep them locked up in his bureau, but it was empty.'

'Could they be anywhere else?'

She stands still and her mouth moves silently until the words come.

'I've only got one diary left ... It was hidden in the drinks cabinet, they usually have a secret compartment at the back, where gentlemen could keep their saucy French postcards.'

'What did it say in the diary?' Joona says.

She smiles and shakes her head.

'I would never read it, you don't do that sort of thing ...'

'Of course not,' he replies.

'But many years ago Peter used to get his diaries out at Christmas and read about Mother and Father, and about ideas for sermons ... he wrote very well.'

The door to the cafe opens once more and a draught sweeps through the cosy room, spreading the smell of fresh coffee.

'Do you have the diary here?' Joona asks.

'It's in the exhibition,' she says. 'We call it a museum, but it's really just a few things we found here.'

He goes with her to the exhibition. An enlarged photograph from 1850 shows three thin women in black dresses in front of the home for widows. The buildings look almost black. The picture was taken early one spring, the trees are bare and there's still snow in the furrows of the field.

Beneath the picture is a short caption about the priest who had Fridhem built so that his wife wouldn't have to marry the next priest if he died before her.

Next to the earrings and necklace of polished jade lies a rusty key and a small colour photograph showing the funeral of Peter Leer Jacobson. A man dressed in black is acting as marshal of ceremonies, holding the black veil. The bishop, and the priest's daughter and sister are standing by the coffin with their faces lowered.

They walk past pictures of the mine at Kantorp, women and children sorting the ore in bright suns.h.i.+ne, Skldinge workhouse, and the opening of the railway station. One black-and-white photograph of the church has been hand-tinted, so that the sky is pastel blue, the vegetation looks tropical, and the wooden construction of the new steeple s.h.i.+nes like polished bronze.

'Here's the diary,' Ellinor says, stopping in front of a gla.s.s cabinet containing an array of objects.

118.

On top of a linen cloth lies a rusty hairgrip, a pocket watch, a white hymnbook bearing the name 'Anna' in gold writing, a page of old church accounts, Luther's Small Catechism and the priest's diary, with a lilac strap round its stained leather binding.

The old woman looks at Joona with frightened eyes as she opens the case and removes the diary. On the front page, in ornate handwriting, are the words 'Peter Leer Jacobson, priest, volume XXIV'.

'I don't think it's right to read other people's diaries,' she says with a hint of anxiety in her voice.

'No,' Joona says, and opens the book.

He sees at once that it's old: the first entry is dated almost twenty years ago.

'We don't have the right to-'

'I have to,' Joona interrupts.

He leafs through, staring at the handwriting in the hope of finding something about the person who wrote Peter's sermons.

The administration of the parish has become more onerous, the guidelines stricter. I fear that finances will come to govern my church more and more. Why not start selling indulgences again [Sic!].

Today is the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, and the liturgical colours are getting darker again. The theme is 'Sowing and Reaping'. I don't like the warning in Paul's Letter to the Galatians about not mocking G.o.d. 'For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' But sometimes you haven't sown, yet must still reap. I can't say that to my congregation they want to hear about the riches of heaven.