Allyn Allyn - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

Her mother had come home in the afternoon. She had said that she didn’t have the energy to follow Birger any further, as he had wanted to hunt all the way up to the top of Vestfjellet mountain. She had brought the pack back with her. No coffee remained in the thermos. Linda Odden quickly cleaned it thoroughly. That was that. And now everything felt easy and right. Yes, it had to be providence.

“Another toast to Father,” she proposed and raised her glass once more.

“A toast to Birger.”

Marta Lindbo was also in a pleasantly animated state. This celebration was indeed a worthy celebration. She really felt that Birger was invisibly present. Birger as he was before he became so single-minded, stubborn, and difficult. Over the years there was more and more hunting and fishing, less and less time for her. More and more often she had traveled alone to their holiday retreat in the Canaries. And the inevitable had happened. She had known Jan Tydell for three years. He was a Swedish widower who owned a picturesque restaurant in a small coastal village on the south coast of Gran Canaria. He was five years her junior, and so fresh, so spontaneous, so different. His tender attention had awakened her dormant urges. Eventually they had become dependent on each other. At home in the grand villa in Norway, Birger sat with his fly-tying and his books on hunting and fishing. Unless he was at the cabin with his unavoidable hunting buddies. Or at the factory he owned. The one producing Lindbo’s Outdoor Gear. Initially it was just tents, sleeping bags and fishing equipment. Later on, there were backpacks, clothes, skis, canoes, and whatnot. The enterprise he had established had become a gold mine he was reluctant to relinquish. Over the years he had become an old, impotent man who couldn’t acknowledge that time had passed, and who watched over the family with the suspicious eye of a miser. No, why should she feel regret?

“Birger was so virtuous that I often felt unworthy of him,” she said with a shy smile.

“Mother! How could you be unworthy of him? You, of such high morals. You, who shared his interests and stood loyally by his side.”

Her daughter’s indignation touched Marta Lindbo. And so did her son-in-law’s unfailing interest in whatever she had to say. It was indeed a day of celebration. Linda had become more lively and youthful after she and Robert had moved into the villa. Now she could finally host the grand dinner parties she had always dreamed of. She was an excellent hostess, just as Marta Lindbo once had been. But Marta had felt no desire to live in the villa by herself, so she had exchanged dwellings with her daughter and son-in-law. In any case, she spent so many months of the year abroad. It was a beneficial arrangement for all parties. Robert had also shed that slightly insecure and humbled attitude once he became director at the factory. Everything was indeed harmonious.

She really wasn’t to blame for the events that had unfolded. She had told a white lie, and that was it. She had accompanied Birger on the hunting trip. Following several hours of fruitless hiking they had stopped for a break. She unpacked the delicious lunch that Linda had prepared. Then they had eaten. And drunk coffee and tea. In a short while Birger had become very tired. He must be ill, she had thought. Good God, he’s falling asleep. Here, way up in the mountains in the cold and rain. What am I to do?

Then she had the idea. Not a sudden impulse, but rather a logical and natural conclusion. There had to be a purpose to the situation. She had been given a chance that perhaps would never return. When she confirmed that he was fast asleep, she packed the lunch and removed all traces of herself. Before she left her husband, she bent over him, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Goodbye Birger, and thank you.” Then she left, sure that he wouldn’t suffer. He would sleep until death caught up with him. Perhaps he had suffered heart failure, in such a quiet and peaceful manner. Perhaps it was fate that had determined that he should die up in the mountains. And that she should be financially independent. She had taken the shortest route back to the cabin. She said that she had had to part ways with her husband, that she just didn’t have the energy to follow him up the mountain as she wasn’t as fit as she used to be.

That was it. And now she sat there in the warmth of June, youthful, well-kept, eyes blank with intoxicating drink and a torrent of memories from her long marriage.

“Excuse my sentimentality,” she said with a melancholy smile.

“You have every right to be sentimental,” exclaimed Linda.

“We are all sentimental at moments such as these,” said Robert Odden. “Mournful, too. We have every reason to be. Another toast to Birger.”

When he put down his glass, he thought that if he hadn’t acted as he did, he would still be at the foot of the table. His father-in-law would have him under surveillance with his hawkish eye, and he would append his inevitable “boy” to every second sentence directed at him. “You must understand, boy.” “You must get it into your head that it’s as I say it is, boy.” He used the same figure of speech when they spoke confidentially at the factory. The old man is unreasonably hard and difficult, Robert Odden had thought. But he had been patient and polite enough to avoid giving him a piece of his mind, as he was brought up in a home where manners were instilled in him in daily doses, much like cod liver oil.

No, he wasn’t a criminal, by any means. What had happened was chance and a chance he couldn’t let pass. His mother-in-law had returned from the walk and said that she couldn’t keep up with her husband. The hours went by, and when the old man didn’t return, he had gone out to search for him. He brought a tent and a sleeping bag, as it was late autumn and darkness would come early. He couldn’t find his father-in-law that evening. The morning after, he was up early and continued the search. He found him below the peak of Vestfjellet, lying next to an extinguished fire with his shotgun and backpack. He’s dead, was Robert’s first thought. But he soon discovered that there was some life in him, despite hypothermia and a slow pulse. It was testimony to his unique toughness. He would live to be a hundred if he had the chance.

Robert Odden had summed up his options. The old man would undoubtedly die if he was left in this condition. However, he was on a well-used path up the mountain. If he returned with news that he hadn’t found him, it would seem strange that he hadn’t looked there. In other words, his father-in-law had to be moved to a more inaccessible location. But that would also seem suspicious if he were to be found later on.

It was then the idea came to him, but at the same moment his father-in-law moved and opened his eyes. For a few fateful seconds the two men had stared each other in the eye. Then panic gripped Robert Odden, he felt that the chance of a lifetime was about to be torn from his grasp. He grabbed a rock, bent over his father-in-law, and hit him on the head so that he fell calm once more. The blow may indeed have been fatal, but this was no time for regrets. Birger Lindbo had to disappear for good.

His panic passed, and he once more felt in command of himself and capable of logical thought. He had made a huge mistake, but it was not to seal his fate. He took his father-in-law’s backpack and gun on his back. Then he lifted the frail old body over his shoulders. Robert Odden had always been as strong as an ox, and he maintained his shape through regular visits to the gym.

Nevertheless, it took him three-quarters of an hour to carry his father-in-law up to the glacier. He made numerous stops under way. He put on his special spiked shoes for glacier climbing and continued on his way with his burden, now on hard, slippery ice. Half an hour later he had arrived at a narrow, bottomless crevasse. First he got rid of the gun and the backpack, but as he was about to topple his father-in-law over the edge, he noticed signs of life — a gurgling rattle, a leg twitching. Robert Odden pulled the belt from his jacket, tied it around the wrinkled neck, and pulled it tight. Imagine regaining consciousness at the bottom of a crevasse. He shuddered. No, his father-in-law didn’t deserve it.