Part 29 (1/2)

They ended up in the bedroom-c.u.m-workroom because that was where Birger finally found the whisky. Johan thought it a good sign that he didn't seem to know where to find it, or possibly a bad sign that he kept it by his bed.

He was easy to talk to. His questions were straight to the point much as if he were noting down medical symptoms and he didn't rush to draw conclusions from what he was told. But when he did, he saw no reason to discuss them.

'Girls who are pregnant,' he said, 'young women having their first baby, often have these sudden attacks. It's no more peculiar than the fact that they often get wind or throw up. At first it's nice to expect a sweet little baby doll. They fuss around and arrange things and everything seems all right. But then the backlash comes. Presumably more often than they say. Most of them just probably seem a bit sulky for a while. But Mia is las.h.i.+ng out now. She's under great strain. They wonder what the h.e.l.l they've done. What they've let themselves in for. Mostly they say nothing. But those who manage to spit it out say ugly things. They may also be frightened. But it'll work out.'

'It doesn't always. Sometimes things don't go the way you expect. They go off the rails. And it hurts.'

'Yes,' said Birger. 'Sometimes it hurts.'

He was tilting his gla.s.s backwards and forwards and looking down at the grubby rag rug. He was over sixty and looked as if a long life had wound him up. He worked like a clock. Occasionally a stab of pain would double him up, his eyes closing and his mouth opening. Then he went on, saying what he usually said. Even changing his s.h.i.+rt. And eating. His familiarity with solitude and loneliness and a disciplined, dull, industrious life helped him plod on.

'You look scared,' he said.

'Yes, though I'm not usually,' said Johan. 'That night many years ago, that Midsummer, I was then. Though I haven't thought about it all that much since. But now it's come back and I recognise it. Sort of like remembering an accident or some injury when the same thing nearly happens again. Though you'd forgotten.'

'What were you afraid of that night?'

'I don't know. That it would all go wrong. It was just this feeling that things weren't working out as expected, or as they usually do. But badly. Really badly.'

'What were you up to that evening?'

'I went fis.h.i.+ng.'

'The police thought you'd run away to Norway.'

'I took the moped up to Alda's first, to get some bait. But my brothers caught up with me.'

'And beat you up?'

'No. Pekka's rather complex and he'd thought up something better. They let me down Alda's well. It wasn't all that bad, because there was very little water in it. But I was down there several hours before I figured out how to get out. Then I didn't want to go back home. I hadn't decided anything, but just ran. I never saw Annie Raft on the path. I didn't hear about her seeing someone until long after, but then I realised it was me she had seen. So did Gudrun and the brothers, and Torsten. They lied and said I'd already gone off in the evening, and that I had taken the moped. But I walked to Nirsbuan and slept an hour or two there. Then I paddled down to the Roback and got a lift. That was about five in the morning.

'It's odd that the man who gave you a lift said nothing to the police.'

'It was a woman. A Finn. No, a woman from Finland. She was d.a.m.ned fussy about that.'

'Fancy you remembering that.'

'I spent several days with her.'

Birger looked up.

'Having a bit of hanky-panky, were you?'

Johan laughed. That was unexpected and he needed it, he thought, with everything so b.l.o.o.d.y awful at the moment.

'You could say so,' he said. 'Though not exactly idyllic. She was quite a tough nut. I hurt myself, actually broke something in my foot and she gave me quinine powder and some vodka and made me walk on it. A long way.'

'That was an odd mixture.'

He had got up and put his gla.s.s down on the desk. For a long spell he stayed there with his back to Johan, almost as if looking out over the asphalted square below. But there was nothing there to see.

'Are you sure it was that? Quinine powder?'

'Yes, I thought it sounded horrible. There was a Red Indian on the bag.'

'And Koskenkorva?'

'Yes.'

'Quinine powder and Koskenkorva. That's what Sabine Vestdijk was given for her period pains.'

'Who's that?'

'That was her name. The young Dutch girl who was killed in the tent together with a man with no trousers. A man whom no one has identified and no one has missed. He tried to buy painkillers for her at the chemist's in Byvngen, but couldn't. Then she was given that quinine powder and Koskenkorva vodka. By someone. The bottle was found there, and the packet of powders. Where did your tough Finnish woman come from?'

'I thought she came off the Finland ferry.'

'At five in the morning?'

'I never asked. But she'd also been to the chemist's in Byvngen.'

'Did she tell you that?'

'No.'

He was suddenly horribly embarra.s.sed, as if he were sixteen again and having to confess to rummaging in her handbag.

'She had a paper bag from the chemist's,' he said. 'With the receipt still in it. She'd bought some condoms.'

'Sounds as if she'd hoped she would meet you.'

'We never used them. She never said we should be careful or anything like that. I thought she was on the pill. So I couldn't make out why she bought those condoms.'

'You were an innocent lamb.'

'Yeah, you could say so.'

'I expect she had had someone else in mind. Someone she thought she needed to protect herself from.'

'You mean from infection?'

Was it that simple? He was a doctor and naturally thought along those lines.

'Who then? There was a man up there, but she wasn't together with him. The packet of condoms was unopened. Who was she thinking of?'

'Sagittarius,' said Birger.

Johan didn't know what her name was, but she had called the hunting lodge Trollevolden. There was a cave nearby and a river ran alongside the cottage he had stayed in. He remembered the murmur of it all day and night.

'Anyhow, the house belonged to her family.'