ASA LARSSON ~ THE SAVAGE ALTAR (25 page)

“Yes, what about it?” said Maja crossly. “It’s perfectly legal. I don’t understand what you want, Rebecka. You of all people ought to know that tax management—”

“I haven’t finished,” Rebecka cut her off sharply. “I think the company has been selling its services to the church below the market price, and has therefore deliberately created losses. I’m also wondering where the money to invest in the company has come from. As far as I know, none of the partners has a fortune hidden away. Perhaps you took out a massive bank loan, but I don’t think so. I didn’t actually see any deficit in capital earnings for any of you. I think the money to buy the printing works and other things comes from the church, but it isn’t on record. And that means it isn’t a matter of tax management. That means we’re talking about tax fraud. If the tax authorities and the Economic Crimes prosecutor start poking about in all this, then this is what will happen: If the partners can’t account for where the investment money has come from, you will be taxed on that money at the business rate. The church has made an advance payment, which should have been recorded as revenue.”

Rebecka leaned forward and fixed Maja Söderberg with her eyes.

“Do you understand, Maja,” she said. “About half of the money you have received from the church has to be paid in taxes. Then there’s national insurance and supplementary tax. You personally will be declared bankrupt, and you’ll have the authorities after you for the rest of your life. On top of which you’ll end up in jail for quite some time. Society takes dubious financial dealings very seriously. And if the pastors are behind the whole thing, as I believe they are, then Thomas is guilty of both fraud and a breach of trust against his principals, and God knows what else. Siphoned money from the church into his wife’s company. If he’s sent to jail as well, who’s going to look after the children? They’ll be able to come and visit you. Some depressing visitors’ room for a few hours at the weekend. And when you get out, where are you going to find a job?”

Maja stared at Rebecka.

“What is it you want? You come here, into my home, with your speculation and your threats. Threatening me. The whole family. The children.”

She stopped speaking and covered her mouth with her hand.

“If you want revenge, Rebecka, then take it out on me,” said Magdalena.

“Shut the fuck up!” snapped Rebecka, and saw how the sisters jumped when she swore.

It made her feel like swearing again.

“Too fucking right I want revenge,” she went on, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

R
ebecka is at home alone when the doorbell rings. Thomas Söderberg is standing outside. Maja and Magdalena are with him.

Now Rebecka understands why Sanna was in such a hurry to go out. And why she insisted Rebecka should stay at home and study. Sanna knew they were coming.

Afterward Rebecka thinks that she should never have let them in. That she should have slammed the door in their well-meaning faces. She knows why they’re here. Can see it in their faces. In Thomas’s serious and concerned expression. In Maja’s pursed lips. And in Magdalena, who can’t quite bring herself to meet Rebecka’s eyes.

They don’t want anything to drink. But then Thomas changes his mind
and asks for a glass of water. During the ensuing conversation he pauses from time to time to drink from the glass.

When they sit down in the living room Thomas takes control. He asks Rebecka to sit on the wicker chair, and steers his wife and sister-in-law to opposite ends of the L-shaped sofa. He places himself in the corner of the sofa. This enables him to maintain eye contact with all three of them at the same time. Rebecka has to keep turning her head to look at Maja and Magdalena.

Thomas Söderberg goes right to the heart of the matter.

“Magdalena told us she met you at the hospital,” he says, looking into Rebecka’s eyes. “She’s also told us why you were there. We’ve come here to persuade you not to go through with it.”

When Rebecka doesn’t respond, he goes on.

“I understand that things are difficult for you, but you really have to think of the child. You have a life inside you, Rebecka. You have no right to snuff it out. Maja and I have talked about this, and she has forgiven me.”

He pauses, gazing at Maja with his eyes full of love and gratitude.

“We want to look after the child,” he says. “Adopt it. Do you understand, Rebecka? It would have the same status in our family as Rakel and Anna. A little brother.”

Maja glances at him.

“If it’s a boy, of course,” he adds.

After a while he asks:

“What’s your answer, Rebecka?”

Rebecka looks up from the table and stares hard at Maja.

“What’s my answer,” she says, shaking her head slowly.

“I looked at your notes and broke confidentiality,” says Magdalena. “You’re perfectly entitled to report me to the authorities.”

“Sometimes we have to choose whether to follow the laws of Caesar or of God,” says Thomas. “I’ve told Magdalena that you’ll understand. Isn’t that right, Rebecka? Or are you going to report her?”

Rebecka shakes her head. Magdalena looks relieved. She is almost smiling. Maja isn’t smiling. Her eyes are black when she looks at Rebecka. Rebecka feels the nausea welling up. She ought to eat something, it usually eases off then.

They want her to bring up my child? thinks Rebecka.

“So what do you say, Rebecka?” Thomas persists. “Can I leave here with your promise to cancel that hospital appointment?”

Now the nausea suddenly floods through her body. Rebecka bangs her knee on the table as she leaps out of the wicker chair and runs to the bathroom. She brings up the contents of her stomach with such force that it hurts. When she hears them getting up in the lounge, she closes the door and locks it behind her.

The next moment all three of them are standing outside the door. They knock. Ask how she is, and beg her to open the door. It’s deafening. Her legs feel weak and she slumps down on the toilet seat.

At first the voices outside sound anxious, and they plead with her to come out. Even Maja is sent to the door.

“I’ve forgiven you, Rebecka,” she says. “We only want to help you.”

Rebecka doesn’t answer. She reaches out and turns the taps full-on. The water thunders into the bath, the pipes bang and drown out their voices. At first Thomas is merely irritated. Then he gets angry.

“Open this door!” he shouts, hammering on it. “It’s my child, Rebecka. You have no right, do you hear me? I have no intention of allowing you to murder my child. Open the door before I break it down!”

In the background she can hear Maja and Magdalena trying to calm him. They pull him away from the door. At last she hears the door to the flat close, and their footsteps disappearing down the stairs. Rebecka lowers herself into the bath and closes her eyes.

Much later the door of the flat opens again. Sanna is home. The bathwater has been cold for a long time. Rebecka climbs out and goes into the kitchen.

“You knew,” she says to Sanna.

Sanna looks guiltily at her.

“Can you forgive me?” she says. “I did it because I love you, you do understand that?”

“W
hy are you here?” asked Maja.

“I want to know why Viktor died,” said Rebecka harshly. “Sanna is a suspect, she’s being held for questioning and nobody seems to give a shit. The people in the church are dancing and singing hymns and refusing to cooperate with the police.”

“But I don’t know anything about it,” exclaimed Maja. “Do you think I killed him? Or Thomas? Chopped off his hands and gouged out his eyes? Have you gone mad?”

“How should I know?” replied Rebecka. “Was Thomas at home the night Viktor was murdered?”

“That’s enough, Rebecka,” Magdalena interjected.

“Something was going on with Viktor before he died,” said Rebecka. “He seemed to have fallen out with Sanna. Patrik Mattsson was angry with him. I want to know why. Was he having a relationship with somebody in the church? A man, perhaps? Is that why it’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop in the house of God?”

Maja Söderberg stood up.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Maja screamed. “I have no idea! Thomas was Viktor’s spiritual mentor. And Thomas would never pass on anything he was told in confidence in his capacity as pastor. Not to me, nor to the police.”

“But Viktor’s dead!” hissed Rebecka. “So I imagine he couldn’t give a shit whether Thomas breaks a confidence or not. I think you all know more than you’re prepared to say. And I’m ready to go to the police with what I know, then we’ll see what else comes out in a preliminary investigation.”

Maja stared at her.

“You’ve taken leave of your senses,” she exclaimed. “Why do you hate me? Did you think he’d leave me and the girls for you, is that what it is?”

“I don’t hate you,” said Rebecka tiredly, getting up. “I feel sorry for you. I never thought he’d leave you. I never imagined I was the only one, it was just bad luck that you found out. Am I the only one you know about, or were there…?”

Maja swayed slightly. Then she pointed her finger at Rebecka.

“You,” she said furiously. “You child murderer! Get out of here!”

Magdalena followed Rebecka to the door.

“Don’t do it, Rebecka,” she pleaded. “Don’t go to the police and stir things up. What’s the point? Think of the children.”

“Well, help me, then,” snapped Rebecka. “Sanna’s on her way to jail, and nobody will say a bloody word. And you want me to be nice.”

Magdalena pushed Rebecka out onto the landing in front of her, then closed the door behind them.

“You’re right,” she said. “There was something the matter with Viktor recently. He’d changed. Become aggressive.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rebecka, pressing the glowing red button so that the lights came on.

“Well, you know, his whole manner, how he prayed and spoke to the congregation. It’s hard to put your finger on it. He was restless, somehow. Often used to pray at night in the church, and didn’t want any company. He never used to be like that. He used to like other people to pray with him. He was fasting and he was always busy. I thought he looked haggard.”

She’s right, thought Rebecka, remembering how he’d looked on the video. Hollow-eyed. Strained.

“Why was he fasting?” she asked.

Magdalena shrugged her shoulders.

“How should I know,” she said. “It does say that certain demons can be driven out only by prayer and fasting. But I wonder if anyone knows what was wrong with him. I’m sure Thomas doesn’t know, they hadn’t been getting on very well recently.”

“What was the problem between them?” asked Rebecka.

“Well, nothing that was going to make Thomas murder Viktor, at any rate,” said Magdalena. “But seriously, Rebecka, you can’t really believe that? It seemed as if Viktor had withdrawn from everybody. Including Thomas. I just think you should leave this family in peace. Neither Thomas nor Maja has anything to tell you.”

“Who has, then?” asked Rebecka.

When Magdalena didn’t reply, she went on:

“Vesa Larsson, maybe?”

When Rebecka reached the street it occurred to her that she’d better let Virku out of the car for a pee, before she remembered that the dog had disappeared. What if something had happened to her? In her mind’s eye she could see Virku’s little body lying in the snow, frozen to death. Her eyes had been pecked out by crows or ravens, and a fox had eaten the tastiest parts of her stomach.

I’ll have to tell Sanna, she thought, and her heart felt heavy in her breast.

A couple pushing a pram passed by. The girl was young. Maybe not even twenty. Rebecka noticed her glance enviously at Rebecka’s boots. She was passing the old Palladium. Ice and snow sculptures still stood there, left over from the Snow Festival at the end of January. There were three half-meter-high concrete ptarmigans in the middle of Geologgatan to stop cars driving down it. They had little hoods of snow on their heads.

It was an unpleasant feeling, getting into the empty car. She realized she’d already got used to the children and the dog.

Pack it in, she told herself sharply.

She looked at her watch. It was already half past twelve. In two hours it would be time to pick up Sara and Lova. She’d promised them they’d go swimming this afternoon. She ought to get something to eat. This morning she’d given the girls sandwiches and hot chocolate, but she’d just gulped down two mugs of coffee. And she wanted to fit Vesa Larsson in as well. And she ought to try and do a bit of work. She could feel the pain in her midriff kick in when she thought about the memo on the new regulations for small companies that she still hadn’t finished.

She nipped into The Black Bear and grabbed a bar of chocolate, a banana and a Coke. An advertising board for one of the evening papers screamed, “Viktor Strandgård Murdered by Satanists.” Above the headline in almost illegible print it said, “Anonymous Member of the Church Claims.”

“What a cold hand,” said the woman who took her money.

She wrapped her warm, dry hand around Rebecka’s fingers and squeezed them briefly before she let go.

Rebecka smiled at her in surprise.

I’m not used to it anymore, she thought, chatting to strangers.

The car was icy cold. She ripped off the skin and gobbled the banana. Her fingers were getting colder and colder. She thought about the woman in the newsagent’s. She was around sixty. Powerful arms and plump bust in a pink mohair cardigan. Home-permed hair, cut short in a style that was fashionable in the eighties. She’d had kind eyes. Then she thought about Sara and Lova. About how warm their bodies were when they slept. And about Virku. Virku with her velvety eyes and her soft woolly coat. Misery suddenly overwhelmed her. She turned her face up to the roof of the car and wiped the tears from her eyelashes with her index finger so that she wouldn’t get mascara under her eyes.