Håkan Nesser - The Living and the Dead in Winsford

It begins of course with my excited expectations at the thought of seeing Mark Britton standing outside the door — I’m convinced he will be carrying a bunch of roses or perhaps a bottle of champagne, maybe even both. But then a cloud descends over that expectation: it stumbles off the straight and narrow path, gets completely lost and falls down into an abyss. The whole thing reminds me of a little girl who has got lost in the woods. I can see her quite clearly in my mind’s eye: innocence, flaxen hair and lots of other details — I don’t need to go into who she is.

It won’t be Mark Britton standing out there, the left side of my brain tells me — the half that doesn’t devote itself to sagas and that sort of thing: my happiness and lust for life have been a total waste of time. They are as false and unreliable as eyes: it will be somebody else standing there.

Is it somebody else? What does that question mean? Well, even an idiot can explain what it means — but is there more than one answer? Is there more than one person who could take on the role of ‘some-body else’ in this situation? How have I. . How have I managed to scrape together all this fabulous belief in the future and this fruitless optimism in just a few weeks — an optimism that is now running off me like water off the back of the goose I clearly am.

‘Don’t open the door!’ yells a voice inside me. It is almost bellowing: it really is strong, so strong that for a fraction of a second I have the impression that there is actually somebody else shouting at me. Yet another somebody else who is evidently standing behind me, somewhere inside the house, and is trying to warn me — to prevent me, to save me, I don’t know what, but in a quick flash of inspiration I conjure up the presence of a redeeming angel. Yes, now afterwards I am certain that it must have been an angel. A bellowing angel — is there such a thing? Whatever, there is not much point in warning or bellowing, not at this late stage in my life, not in the fifty-ninth second of the sixtieth minute of the twelfth hour.

But before I submit to this destructive avalanche taking place so suddenly and so unexpectedly inside me, I am raised up out of the darkness. I regain control of myself, terror loosens its grip, everything is repeated and retreats in the opposite direction, I am transported from the fear of death to a state of happiness and trust by the fastest lift in the world — or perhaps it’s that angel after all — and when I turn the door handle that I have finally succeeded in coming to, the whole of my being is possessed by a sense of almost childish curiosity: who is it standing outside the door?

The fact is that until you have investigated, until you have lifted the lid, you can’t possibly know anything about what is inside. Until we reach that very last second, everything is still possible.

Expectation, there is no sweeter sweetness in this life.

Who’s ringing the doorbell?

There is a man in his sixties standing there. Slightly hunched, slightly overweight.

‘Yes?. .’

‘Fru Holinek?’

‘Yes. . Yes, of course. What’s it all about?’

He produces something from his inside pocket and holds it up. I don’t understand what it is.

‘Chief Inspector Simonsson. May I come in?’

I see that there is a dark blue car parked outside the gate. The engine is running, and another man behind the wheel is talking into a mobile phone.

‘Yes, of course. This way. . Forgive me, but I’m busy making dinner.’

He steps into the hall and sniffs the air. ‘Yes, I can smell that.’

He hangs up his jacket. ‘Is there somewhere where we can sit and talk? I have a few questions.’

‘Is it about. .?’

‘Yes, it’s about your husband, fru Holinek.’

I show him into the living room and we each sit down in an armchair.

‘Would you like anything?’

‘No thank you.’

He takes out a small notebook and leafs through it for a moment.

‘So your husband, Martin Holinek, disappeared from the ferry between Puttgarden and Rødby on the evening of the thirtieth of January, is that correct?’

‘Yes. . Yes, that’s true. Why are you asking about that? I’ve already spoken several times to both the Danish and the Swedish police-’

He holds up his hand and I break off.

‘The fact is that we might have found his body, fru Holinek.’

‘You might have. .?’

For a brief moment my brain blows a fuse. I stare at him and try to remember what he said his name was.

‘It’s a possibility at least,’ he adds. ‘There are quite a lot of bewildering circumstances.’

‘I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?’

‘Simonsson. Chief Inspector Simonsson.’

‘Thank you. I don’t really understand. . Bewildering circumstances?’

He clears his throat and looks at his notebook.

‘I can’t think of a better way of putting it. But maybe you can put us on the right track. Your husband is supposed to have jumped overboard from the ferry more or less halfway between Puttgarden and Rødby about. . well, just over two weeks ago. And now a body has been found that might possibly be his.’

‘What do you mean by “possibly”?’

He nods a few times and looks around the room before saying anything more. As if he were looking for an answer in the bookcase or up near the ceiling.

‘In the first place we are wondering about the spot where he was found. It’s quite a long way from where he is supposed to have jumped overboard.’

‘I. . I’ve been told that there are strong sea currents down there. That’s what the Danish police said, at least.’

He nodded. ‘That’s true. But this body was found rather a long way to the east of Fehmarn. . In Poland, in fact.’

‘Poland?’

‘Yes. That’s one of the circumstances. The other one is the time aspect. The human body they’ve found has evidently been dead for several months. . It’s been very badly mauled, and to complicate matters further was discovered inside a bunker.’

‘A bunker?’

‘Yes. An old abandoned remnant from the last war. .’

‘But then it can’t possibly be my husband. How. . how on earth could he have ended up inside a bunker?’

I don’t know where I got my neutral, almost slightly irritated tone of voice from.

Chief Inspector Simonsson sits up a little straighter in the armchair and leans towards me. ‘That’s a question we are also asking ourselves, fru Holinek. This body has been with the Polish police for quite some time, but they haven’t managed to identify it because it is so badly mauled. As far as they can see the man must have died inside that bunker, but before he did so he might possibly have written something on the wall.’

‘Written something. . Now you said “possibly” again.’

‘Yes. There are quite a lot of scribbles on those walls, it seems. Names and suchlike. But when the Polish police failed to get anywhere with identifying the body they sent out a list to police forces in other countries. That was about a month ago. . Eleven names in all, and one of them might have been scratched in by this man before he died — that’s what they are suggesting in any case.’

‘Really? I don’t think I. .’

‘Anyway, one of the names is Holinek. One of my younger colleagues happened to notice it and recognized it from that Rødby report. He’s the one sitting out there in the car, incidentally. Stensson — a promising young detective officer.’

I swallow and try to think of something to say, but I can’t find any words. Instead I look at the police officer with a calm and tolerant television smile.