Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

mainland, Joakim plowed back through the snow, over toward the road and the two snow-covered vehicles.

He brushed away the snow from the sides of the largest of them, a van. Then he peered inside.

Someone was sitting in there, motionless.

Joakim seized the handle and opened the door.

It was a man, curled up as if he had desperately tried to preserve the warmth in the driver’s seat.

Joakim didn’t need to feel the man’s pulse to realize he was dead.

The key was in the ignition and it was switched on. The engine must have been ticking over until it stopped sometime during the night, and the cold began to creep back into the van again.

Joakim closed the door gently. Then he went back to the house to call the police and tell them the last burglar had been found.

The wind stayed away and the sun kept on shining over Eel Point for the next few days.

The snow didn’t start to thaw, but now and again a piece of the white edging hanging from the roofs came loose and fell soundlessly into the drifts on the ground. The garden birds were back outside the kitchen window, and on the morning of the twenty-sixth the isolation from the outside world was broken when a truck with a huge plow in front of it drove over from Marnäs. It kept going in a straight line out along the coast road, but looked as if it were rolling along through a white sea.

When he got out the blower and starting blowing away the snow leading from the house, Joakim’s goal was to reach the plowed main road in an hour. It took more than two hours, but after that they could get out easily once again.

Joakim put new batteries in his flashlight, went out onto the veranda steps and over to the barn.

The staircase leading to the loft was black and in pieces after the fire, but there was no sign of any smoke anywhere.

He looked over toward the other end of the barn. He hesitated, but then went over and crawled in under the false wall.

Inside the hidden room he switched on the flashlight and listened for sounds from the upper floor, but there was nothing. Then he climbed up the ladder.

Pale sunlight filtered in through the cracks in the wall as he pulled himself up into the prayer room.

Everything was quiet. The letters and mementos still lay on the old wooden benches, but no one was sitting there.

He started to move along the rows. When he reached the front, he saw that both the Christmas present for Katrine and Ethel’s jacket were still there.

But the parcel had been opened. The tape had been pulled away and the paper folded to one side.

Joakim left the parcel where it was; he didn’t dare look to see if the green tunic was gone.

Instead he picked up Ethel’s denim jacket for the first time-and suddenly his fingers felt a small, flat object sliding around inside the fabric.

Joakim had placed the denim jacket in a plastic bag when Inspector Göte Holmblad arrived in his own car, two days after Christmas.

By this time an ambulance and a breakdown truck had already been to Eel Point and taken away the body of the last suspect. The crime scene team had also been there, digging for bullets in the snow. On the local radio news, Tommy had been reported as one of two deaths at the house during the snowstorm, although he wasn’t mentioned by name. The storm over northern Öland was already being referred to as “the Christmas blizzard,” and was classed as one of the worst snowstorms since the Second World War.

Holmblad got out of the car and wished Joakim season’s greetings.

“Thanks, same to you,” he said. “And thank you for coming.”

“I’m actually on leave until New Year’s,” said Holmblad. “But I wanted to see how you were getting on out here.”

“Everything’s very calm now,” said Joakim.

“I can see that. The storm has passed.”

Joakim nodded and asked, “And Tilda Davidsson… how’s she doing?”

“Pretty good, considering,” said Holmblad. “I spoke to her yesterday… she’s left the hospital and is at home with her mother at the moment.”

“But she was here alone? It wasn’t a colleague who…”

“No,” said Holmblad, “it was her tutor from the police academy… a father of two, it’s a real tragedy. He shouldn’t really have been here.” The inspector looked thoughtful, and added, “Of course, things could have gone very badly for Davidsson too, but she coped very well.”

“She did,” said Joakim, opening the door to the house. “I’ve got a few things I’d really like to show you-would you like to come in for a while?”

“Sure.”

Joakim led the inspector into the kitchen, where he had cleared the kitchen table.

“There,” he said.

On the table lay the bag containing Ethel’s denim jacket, and the items he had found in the jacket. There was the handwritten note-and a small gold case that had been tucked inside the lining of the jacket.

“What’s this?” said Holmblad.

“I’m not sure,” said Joakim. “But I hope it’s evidence.”

When Holmblad had left, Joakim took a rucksack and went down through the snow to the northern lighthouse.

On the way there he glanced over toward the forest in the north. Most of the trees seemed to have survived the storm, apart from a few of the older pines closest to the shore, which were lying on the ground.

The white tower sparkled against the dark blue sky. Before he even set off along the stone jetty, he could see that it would be difficult to get inside it. The waves had crashed over the islands during the blizzard, and both lighthouses where encased in chalk-white ice. It looked like plaster that had set, and extended around the lower part of the tower in an arctic embrace.

Joakim put his rucksack down outside the door and unzipped it. He took out the keys to the lighthouse, along with a large hammer, a spray can of oil for the lock, and three thermos flasks full of boiling water.

It took him almost half an hour to get rid of all the ice around the door and undo the lock. It was still only possible to open the door a little way, but Joakim managed to squeeze through the gap.

He had the flashlight with him, and switched it on when he got inside.

Every little sound the soles of his shoes made on the cement floor echoed up into the tower, but he didn’t hear any footsteps on the stairs. If some old lighthouse keeper was still up there Joakim didn’t want to disturb him, so he stayed downstairs.

Just a chance , Gerlof Davidsson had said. My brother Ragnar had the keys to the lighthouses, so there’s just a chance that they might be there .

There was a small wooden door leading into the space under the staircase, a storeroom on the ground floor of the lighthouse. Joakim opened the door and walked in, stooping low.

A calendar from 1961 hung on the stone wall. Gas cans, empty booze bottles, and old lanterns stood on the floor. The collection of objects in here made him think of all the old

stuff piled high in the hayloft. But this was a little more organized, and along the curve of the outside wall stood several wooden boxes.

The lids weren’t secured. Joakim lifted up the closest one and shone the flashlight into the box.

He saw metal pipes-sections of old drainpipes approximately three feet long, piled up at the bottom of the box. They would have been fixed together and put up around the house at Eel Point several decades earlier, if Ragnar Davidsson hadn’t stolen them and hidden them in the lighthouse.

Joakim put his hand in and carefully lifted out one of the pipes.

“Where are we going?” asked Livia as they drove away from Eel Point the day before New Year’s Eve, with the car packed full.