Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

Silently she began to cordon off the back of the vicarage, looking for impressions left by shoes to cover up out in the garden. The crime scene technicians would be over from Kalmar on Monday morning.

There were in fact several prints left by shoes in the muddy ground around the house. They looked as if they came from men’s boots or shoes with grooves in the soles-and further in among the trees there were traces in the undergrowth indicating that someone had fallen headfirst, then crept along on their hands and knees.

Tilda looked and counted the tracks. It looked as if there had been three visitors to the vicarage.

A woman came out from the veranda. It was the lady from next door; she had a key to the house and was keeping an eye on it for the elderly couple who were in the hospital in Kalmar. She asked if they would like to come over to her house for a cup of coffee.

A coffee break with Majner?

“I’d rather take a quick look inside, thanks,” said Tilda.

When she had sent the neighbor home, she went up the stone steps.

On the floor of the hallway past the veranda lay a mosaic of shards of glass from a mirror that had fallen down. The rug was in a heap and blood had splashed across the doorway and over the wooden floor.

The door to the large drawing room was half open, and she stepped over the broken glass and looked in.

It was a mess. The doors of glass-fronted cabinets stood wide open, and every drawer in an old bureau had been pulled out. Tilda could see the marks left on the polished wooden floor by muddy shoes-the technicians would have plenty to work with here.

When they had finished at the vicarage, the two police officers went their separate ways, without exchanging a single word. Tilda got into her car and drove down to the home where Gerlof lived.

“A break-in,” said Tilda to explain why she was late.

“Really?” said Gerlof. “Where?”

“The vicarage at Hagelby. They beat up the owner.”

“Badly?”

“Pretty badly, he was stabbed as well… but I’m sure you’ll be able to read more about it in the paper tomorrow.”

She sat down at his little coffee table, took out her tape recorder, and thought about Martin. He would be home by now; he would have walked in through the door, hugged his wife, Karin, and the kids, and complained about how dull the police conference in Kalmar had been.

Gerlof said something.

“Sorry?”

Tilda hadn’t been listening. She’d been thinking about how Martin had walked out of the door without looking back.

“Have you been looking for traces of the people who did it?”

Tilda nodded, without going into details.

“The crime scene team will go over the place tomorrow.” She switched on the microphone. “Shall we talk about the family now?”

Gerlof nodded, but still asked, “So what do you do, then, at the scene of a crime?”

“Well… the technicians preserve any traces,” said Tilda. “They take photographs and film what’s there. They look for fingerprints and hairs and traces of textiles-fibers from clothing. And for biological traces like blood, of course. And then they make plaster casts of any footprints outdoors. They can preserve prints left inside the house from shoes as well, if they make an electrostatic-”

“You’re very conscientious,” Gerlof interrupted her.

Tilda nodded. “We try to work methodically. We’re assuming they came in a car or a van. But we don’t have much to go on at the moment.”

“And of course it’s important that you find these villains.”

“Absolutely.”

“Could you get me a piece of paper from the desk?”

Tilda did as he asked and looked on silently as Gerlof wrote a few short lines on the piece of paper. Then he handed it to her.

There were three names, in Gerlof’s neat handwriting:

John Hagman

Dagmar Karlsson

Edla Gustafsson

Tilda read through them and looked up at Gerlof.

“Okay,” she said. “Are these the thieves?”

“No. They’re old friends of mine.”

“Right…”

“They can help you,” said Gerlof.

“How?”

“They see things.”

“Okay…”

“They all live near the road, and they keep an eye on the traffic,” said Gerlof. “For John and Edla and Dagmar a car is still a big event, particularly at this time of year, in the winter. Edla and Dagmar drop whatever they’re doing to look out and see who’s driving past.”

“Okay. Then I’d better have a chat with them,” said Tilda. “We’re grateful for any information.”

“Quite. Start with John down in Stenvik, we’re friends… Say hi from me.”

“And ask about strange cars,” said Tilda.

“Exactly. John’s bound to have seen a few driving along the coast…Then you can go over to Dagmar, she lives by

the turning for Altorp, and ask her the same thing. And Edla Gustafsson, Edla in Hultet, is also worth talking to. She lives on the main road, near Speteby on the way to Borgholm.”

Tilda looked at the list of names.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll call in if I’m in the neighborhood.”

Then she pressed Record.

“Gerlof… when you think about your brother, Ragnar, what comes into your mind?”

Gerlof was silent, mulling the question over.

“Eels,” he said eventually. “He liked to be out in his little motorboat checking his nets on the seabed in the fall. He liked to dupe the eels as well… to try out different kinds of bait to lure the females into the nets at night and get them into the pots.”

“The females?”

“You only catch female eels.” Gerlof smiled at her. “Nobody wants the males, they’re too small and feeble.”

“So are a lot of men,” said Tilda.

“When will it be Christmas Eve, Daddy?” asked Livia one evening when Joakim was putting her to bed.

“Soon… in a month.”

“How many days?”

“In…” Joakim looked at the Pippi Longstocking calendar above her bed and counted, “twenty-eight days.”

Livia nodded and looked thoughtful.

“What are you puzzling out?” he asked. “Are you thinking about Christmas presents?”

“No,” said Livia. “But Mommy will be home then, won’t she?”

Joakim didn’t say anything at first.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he said slowly.

“She will.”

“No, I don’t think we should get our hopes-”

“She will,” said Livia more loudly. “Mommy will come back then.”

Then she pulled the coverlet up to her nose and refused to talk anymore.

Livia had developed a new sleep pattern-Joakim had discovered this after just a couple of weeks at Eel Point. She would sleep peacefully for two nights, but on the third she would become restless and start calling out for him.

“Daddy?”

It would usually start an hour or so after midnight, and however deeply Joakim was sleeping, he was instantly wide awake.

Livia’s cries also woke the cat, Rasputin. He would jump up onto a windowsill and stare out into the darkness, as if he could see something moving between the buildings.

“Da-dee?”

At least there was some progress, thought Joakim as he went toward his daughter’s room. She no longer called out for Katrine.

This Thursday night he sat down on the edge of Livia’s bed and stroked her back. She didn’t wake up, just turned to face the wall and slowly relaxed again.

Joakim stayed where he was, waiting for her to start talking. After a couple of minutes she began, in a calm and slightly monotonous voice.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?” he answered quietly. “Can you see anyone, Livia?”

She was still lying with her back to him.