"h.e.l.lo!" Mella shouted. "Is anybody home?"
She looked over at Martinsson. Perhaps it had been a mistake, bringing her along. Martinsson"s appearance seemed too elegant somehow. It would be easy to a.s.sume that she was upper cla.s.s. But then again, if you allowed an excited dog to lick off all your make-up, as Martinsson was doing, you might pa.s.s muster. Mella tried not to think about Stlnacke. He always had a calming effect on people.
I miss him, she surprised herself by thinking. I"m as angry as h.e.l.l with him, but I regret not having him around.
"Hi there!" a man said, appearing from behind the house.
Hjorleifur Arnarson was wearing incredibly filthy blue overalls which hung loose round his skinny body. His hair was long and curly, although the crown of his head was bald. His face was deeply tanned and weatherbeaten. He looked much the same as he had done the last time Mella had seen him. That must have been about fifteen years ago, she thought. He was carrying a basket of eggs. The hens a.s.sembled devotedly around his feet.
"Women!" he said with a broad smile.
"Er, yes," Mella said. "We"re from the police."
She introduced herself and Martinsson.
"You"re welcome even so," Hjorleifur said. "Maybe you"d like some eggs? Environmentally friendly. They"ll make you more fertile. Do you have any kids?"
"Yes," Mella said with a laugh, a bit taken aback. "Four."
"Four!"
Hjorleifur paused and stared at her in admiration.
"All with the same man?"
"Yes."
"That"s not so good. It"s best to have children with as many different men as possible. That ensures a richer gene pool. Increases your chances of a biological bull"s eye."
He turned to Martinsson.
"Do you have any children?"
"No," she said.
"That"s not good. Is it intentional or accidental? Forgive my frankness, but infertile women are useless for the future of humankind."
"Perhaps it leaves us free to get some work done instead," Martinsson said. "While the rest of you are busy making children."
"We can do all the work ourselves," Hjorleifur said. "As well as make children. But I expect you are fertile in fact. Probably just one of them career women. With the right man you ought to be able to produce loads of children."
"With the right men, surely, you mean," Mella could not resist saying, and was delighted to note the cut-it-out look she received from Martinsson.
"But only one at a time," Hjorleifur said, eyeing Martinsson covetously. "Come in."
Martinsson gave Mella a look that said, "Come in and be impregnated, is that what he means?"
"We just wanted . . ." Mella said, but Hjorleifur had disappeared inside the house.
All they could do was follow him.
Hjorleifur was putting the fertility-boosting eggs into an egg box on the kitchen counter. He wrote the date on each of them with a pencil. Mella looked around with a mixture of horror and elation. She was impressed to see a kitchen as messy and dirty as this one it made her own kitchen look like an advert in a home-improvement magazine.
In front of the wood-burning stove was a big pile of shavings and bark from timber Hjorleifur had sawn up. There was a cork mat on the floor, but it was impossible to see what colour it was under all the layers of dirt. A rag rug under the table was the same greyish-brown shade. The cloth on the kitchen table was stiff with congealed grime. The window panes had been half-heartedly wiped in the middle so that it was just about possible to see out. There were no curtains. Instead Hjorleifur had installed shelves in front of the windows, on which were rows of tins and potted plants. An old-fashioned zinc bathtub stood in the middle of the floor, and washing was hanging in front of the stove. There were piles of dirty dishes everywhere. Mella suspected that Hjorleifur never washed up, simply using the plate and mug nearest to him as needed. A yellowish-green sleeping bag lay on the kitchen sofa. The ceiling was black with soot, and the paraffin lamp hanging from it was covered in dust and spiders" webs.
Both women declined the offer of ecological herbal tea.
"Are you sure?" Hjorleifur said. "I make it myself. It"s high time you started eating in an environmentally friendly way, if you don"t already. Only 10 per cent of us will give birth to children sufficiently capable of coping with life to ensure that our genetic heritage will survive for the next three generations."
"You usually bathe at Vittangijarvi, is that right?" Mella said, thinking that it was time to change the subject.
"Yes."
"Have you ever seen these two down by the lake?"
She showed Hjorleifur a photograph of Wilma and Simon.
He looked at the picture and shook his head.
"I think they were diving in the lake on October 9. That must have been shortly after the ice formed. Did you ever see or meet them? Have you noticed anything happening down by the lake? Do you know about Goran and Berit Sillfors" shed door? Seems it was nicked last winter."
Hjorleifur"s expression changed. He looked grumpy.
"Questions, questions," he said.
For a while Mella said nothing.
"They may have been murdered," she said eventually. "It really is important that you tell me anything you know."
Hjorleifur remained silent the way little children do, his mouth tightly closed.
"Come back tomorrow," he said finally. "Maybe I might have seen something."
"Tell me now," Mella said. "I . . ."
"Maybe I haven"t seen anything at all," Hjorleifur said.
He eyed Mella defiantly. It was clear that she was not going to get anything out of him today.
She gritted her teeth.
The stubborn old goat, she thought.
She opened her mouth to urge him to tell her what he knew, but Martinsson got there first.
"Thank you so much for being willing to help us," she said. "We"ll be happy to come back tomorrow."
She smiled at him, revealing her perfect teeth. Her eyes gleamed. "What"s the name of your lovely dog?" she said.
Hjorleifur melted.
"Vera," he said with a smile. "So there we are then. Come back tomorrow. I"ll boil a few eggs for you."
Hjorleifur Arnarson stood outside his front door watching Mella and Martinsson drive away. Martinsson had put him in a good mood, but now he was suffering agonies.
When they came back tomorrow, what if they brought handcuffs with them? What if they took him to the police station and locked him up? What if he was no longer free? Unable to get out? Locked up in a grey concrete cage?
Back in the house, he fished his mobile out of a cupboard. He hardly ever used it. But this was an emergency. Holding a piece of aluminium foil between his head and the phone, he dialled the number of Goran and Berit Sillfors.
"What have you told the police?" he said in an agitated voice when Goran Sillfors answered.
Goran Sillfors sat down on a stool in the kitchen and took his time to convince Hjorleifur that he and his wife had not said anything at all, and that n.o.body believed that Hjorleifur had anything to do with the disappearance of the young couple.
Once Hjorleifur had calmed down, Sillfors couldn"t resist enquiring, "And what about you? What did you tell them?"
Hjorleifur could feel the vibrations coming from the telephone. They heated up his ear and gave him a headache.
"Nothing. They"ll be back again tomorrow," he said curtly.
And hung up.
It is not easy to be Goran Sillfors. He is a talker, a blabber. He likes the sound of his own voice. He will hold forth about anything under the sun, especially himself. He is the type about whom people say, "He gossips like an old woman" and use phrases like "verbal diarrhoea". He is the type people want to kill to get him to shut up.
Of course, he senses that this is how he is regarded. But instead of being quiet, he just talks some more. He has learnt to talk without pausing so that it is impossible for people to end conversations with him.
Now Goran Sillfors really has got something to talk about. Something that other people really will be interested in, especially people living in Piilijarvi. The police suspect that Wilma Persson and Simon Kyro were murdered. The police have been talking to Hjorleifur, who might know more than he has admitted. Sillfors is sitting on a piece of red-hot news, and now he rings his cousin"s former workmate, who lives in Piilijarvi.
He cannot know what a terrible mistake that is. What consequences that telephone call will have.
After taking the call, his cousin"s former workmate puts on his jacket and goes into the village.
The word spreads like water beneath late-winter snow.
Mella and Martinsson arrived back at the police station at 12.30.
"I"d love to go looking for that shed door," Mella said as they were getting out of the car. But it would have to wait. The ice was too unreliable to walk on. Almost half a metre thick, but there was still a danger of falling through it. "I wonder if Krister Eriksson would be able to put Tintin on the trail of a wooden door?
"I"m sure he could," she replied to herself. "I think that dog makes him porridge every morning."
"What happened to his face?" Martinsson said.
"I"m not sure," Mella said, "but according to what I"ve heard, admittedly not from him directly . . ."
She came to a sudden stop.
"What"s the matter?" Martinsson said.
Following Mella"s gaze, she saw Hjalmar and Tore Krekula sitting in their car in the police-station car park. When they noticed Mella, they got out and came towards her. Mella could feel her stomach churning with fear and anger. She thought about Jenny, her daughter.
"I just thought I"d inform you," Tore Krekula said, "that we"ve been to see your boss to complain about police hara.s.sing people in Piilijarvi."
"How . . ." Mella said.
"It"s your att.i.tude," Tore said. "You march round the village acting so d.a.m.ned superior, and people feel they are being accused and hara.s.sed. Lots of us feel that way. And lots of us are going to complain to your boss."
"Do that," Mella said, looking him straight in the eye. "Done much texting lately?"
"Sure," Tore said casually, returning her gaze.
Neither of them looked away.
In the end Martinsson took Mella by the arm.
"Come on," she said.
She looked hard at Hjalmar.
Hjalmar put his hand on his brother"s shoulder.
Martinsson and Hjalmar Krekula stood there like two dog owners, each with their pit bull terrier on a lead.
In the end Mella allowed herself to be led away. Tore shrugged off his brother"s hand.
"Shall we go?" Hjalmar said.
Tore spat in the snow.
"b.i.t.c.h," he called after Mella as she entered the police station.
His mobile rang and he answered it. Listened for a while without speaking. As he hung up he said, "Let"s get going. Time to pay Hjorleifur Arnarson a visit."
I"m at Anni"s. She"s gone down to the lake on her kick-sledge. The sun is hiding behind the treetops. There"s been a midday thaw, and there"s a strange, magical haze above the lake.
She hears a hare scream on the far sh.o.r.e. It sounds like the cry of a little baby. Ghostly through the haze. The hare was probably taken by a fox. Hares get careless in the mating season.
There are some who sacrifice their lives for love, she thinks.
As that thought comes to her, she becomes aware of her sister standing behind her.
Kerttu. Also on her kick-sledge, she parks next to Anni and gazes out over the lake.
"You shouldn"t talk to the police," she says. "You shouldn"t let them in."
Anni says nothing. I try to glide in between them, but there are so many threads connecting the two sisters.
Anni doesn"t turn her head. Instead she sees Kerttu in her mind"s eye. The Kerttu she is looking at is young and smooth-skinned. It doesn"t seem that long ago, but in fact more than sixty years have pa.s.sed.
It is May 1943. Kerttu is on her way home, her hair in curlers, expecting Isak Krekula to pick her up in his lorry. She is sixteen years old. A lot of years will pa.s.s before she weeps over the loss of her son in the forest. Isak Krekula is twenty-two, but already owns eight lorries, has his own haulage firm and several employees. For many years now he has been the hero of his village. He has transported supplies across the border into Finland, to both German and Finnish troops during the Winter War and the Continuation War against Russia.