Part 7 (2/2)

'Do you know what this is?'

Birger shook his head. ke Vemdal put the piece of paper down on a notepad and took out another piece of paper folded like an envelope. Carefully he started poking it open with a pair of blunt pincers, then spread it out. It held a few grains of white powder, and a closer look revealed some transparent crystals among it.

'No medicine you know of?'

'No. Have you found a syringe?'

'No, I haven't.'

Then Birger saw the pad of paper underneath the torn bag.

Antaris Balte on motocross bike. Reindeer herdsman. 8.15. Barbro Lund with son. 9.30.

'But that's her!'

Vemdal didn't understand.

'That's Barbro. And my boy.'

He pointed.

'What the h.e.l.l is that about?'

'They're the people who came out this morning. From the Area,' said Vemdal.

'It's Barbro. Her name's Lund, was. Her maiden name.'

'Why would she have given her maiden name?'

'She uses it when she signs her tapestries.'

'She was questioned and then they left at about ten,' said Vemdal. 'The car was up at Bjornstubacken.'

'Can you take a car up there?'

'It's really only a tractor road. But obviously it was possible.'

'That was Barbro. Good G.o.d!'

When the the shock of relief had settled, he thought of the boy. How had she got him to go with her? Tomas hadn't even wanted to come fis.h.i.+ng. For him to go demonstrating against uranium mining was incredible. But he had been there. Barbro Lund and son, it said on the list.

'Come back home,' she said, when he phoned from the Stromgrens' kitchen. Nothing else.

His stomach had troubled him from the moment he had seen her name on the list. He could feel the pressure on his bowels, but didn't get a chance to make use of Henry and Oriana's toilet. As he was on his way into the village, his guts rebelled and he had to get out and squat down behind some trees. Got no further. A police car pa.s.sed and slowed down. Birger tried to wave as he relieved himself.

This had never happened to him before. It happened when you were really frightened. s.h.i.+t-scared. In the trenches. When people were a.s.saulted. It hadn't happened to either of those two in the tent. But it had happened to him afterwards. After the fear.

Thick, dark-grey smoke was billowing out of a chimney further down in the village, dispersing very slowly in the gleaming sky. He stared at the cloud of smoke as he squatted there. Everything had gone so quickly he hadn't brought any paper with him from the car. He took a handful of birch leaves. It felt unpleasant afterwards and he had to wash, so he drove to the Westlunds'. Elna tried to give him some coffee, but his stomach was still queasy and he declined. a.s.sar went with him out onto the steps. Birger saw that Elna had hung out the was.h.i.+ng although it was Midsummer Day. Blue-grey longjohns and floral duvet covers. He had grown up in a works community outside Gavle and when he was a child, no one ever hung the was.h.i.+ng out on Sundays. You didn't even rake the gravel path when morning service was being held.

'Has Vidart come back?' he said.

The Duett was standing in rusty majesty down by the road, just up Vidart's drive.

'He's still in hospital. The Duett came back some time last night.'

Birger thought that was good.

'The Brandbergs want to play it down,' he said.

'I suppose they hope the police have other things to think about.'

As he got into the car, he thought he could smell burning rubber. There was something else, too, something nauseating. The greyish-black smoke was flickering in the heat above the houses. He had a neighbour in Byvngen who burnt butcher's waste and old tyres on his Walpurgis bonfire. This was something like that. At first he thought it was coming from the Brandbergs' chimney, but then he saw it was the Lennartssons'. That reminded him of his fish.

When he knocked on the back door, no one came. He knocked again and finally pushed open the door and called out. It was quiet. He felt a vague unease, went on in and opened the door to Lill-Ola's bedroom. Ola was lying on his back and the room was almost insufferably hot and heavy. She had put a check car rug over him. A half-empty gla.s.s of milk stood on the bedside table. The envelope of tablets was crumpled up. The man had taken all six.

Birger opened the window. The sun was baking at the front and the air almost hotter outside. The stench of burning he had noticed outside the Westlunds' came in. He felt Lill-Ola's pulse, but it was regular and calm. He was asleep, would sleep for a long time and probably wake with a headache. The large-pored skin was pale grey and moist, sweat oozing out of his throat and forehead. Birger removed the rug before leaving.

He was going to take his fish parcel out of the freezer, but had to search around for a while before finding it. The stacks of cartons had been muddled up. Plastic bags of buns and vegetable packs lay among the packets of meat. I didn't leave such a d.a.m.ned mess behind me, he thought. Lill-Ola must have been rummaging in the freezer. Did he think I had stolen something? Is he that crazy?

He heard sounds from the bas.e.m.e.nt, the central-heating pipes echoing. He had to go round the house to find the bas.e.m.e.nt door and when he opened it, evil-smelling smoke poured out at him. As it cleared, he saw Bojan Lennartsson poking about in the boiler. Flakes of soot and feathers were swirling round in the smoke. She was bent double, raking in and out of the bottom of the boiler.

'Can I help?' he said.

He frightened her. She swung round with the rake in her hand. She almost looked smoked herself, greyish black, and she was angry when she saw him. Or afraid.

'I'm heating up the water,' she snapped.

'Yes, can I help? You've got back draught. You've probably forgotten a damper?'

She didn't reply, but closed the boiler door. Now he could see she had been stuffing cardboard boxes into the boiler. She had cut them up into large pieces, and pale brown and white feathers lay trampled in the soot.

'It's done now,' she said. 'Ola is all right. You can go.'

'He's taken all those tablets I gave him. That wasn't exactly intended.'

She wiped her dirty hands on her overall and shooed him ahead of her as she went out.

'Is that dangerous?'

'No, I didn't give him that many.'

She poked her head forward and trotted off towards the stairs. Upstairs she slammed the door behind her so that the windows rattled. She had had enough. So have I, he thought.

He found a bag of mint toffees in the glove compartment and ate them all as he drove along, telling himself it was best to eat the lot so that he could throw the bag away. He didn't want Barbro to find it. He was getting far too d.a.m.ned fat.

When the toffees were finished, he found himself again and again falling forwards over the wheel. His eyelids kept drooping and meaningless pictures rose before his eyes. He saw the flesh of disintegrating fish in muddy water. He was forced to stop in Laxkroken. He rang home from the phone box by the shop. Tomas answered.

<script>