ASA LARSSON ~ THE SAVAGE ALTAR (26 page)

Pull yourself together, she told herself, and turned the ignition key.

V
irku is lying in darkness. Then the lid above her is opened and the light of a torch dazzles her. Her heart shrinks with fear, but she does not try to resist when two rough hands reach in and lift her up. Dehydration has made her passive and obedient. But she still turns her face up toward the man who is lifting her out of the trunk of his car. Shows him as much submission as she can, with silver tape bound tightly around her muzzle and paws. In vain she exposes her throat and presses her tail between her back legs. For there is no mercy to be had.

P
astor Vesa Larsson’s newly built modern villa was behind the Folk High School. Rebecka parked the car and looked up at the impressive building. The white geometric blocks of stone blended in with the white landscape all around. In snowy weather it would have been easy to drive straight past without realizing there was a house here, if it hadn’t been for the connecting sections, which glowed in glorious bright red, yellow and blue. It was obvious the architect had been thinking of the white mountains and the colors of the Sami people.

Vesa Larsson’s wife, Astrid, opened the door.

Behind her stood a small Shetland sheepdog, barking frantically at Rebecka. Astrid’s eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth curved downward in a grimace of distaste when she saw who was at the door.

“And what do you want?” she asked.

She must have put on thirty pounds since Rebecka last saw her. Her hair was tied back messily, and she was wearing Adidas tracksuit bottoms and a washed-out sweatshirt. In an instant she had registered Rebecka’s long camel coat, the soft Max Mara scarf and the new Audi parked outside. A hint of uncertainty flickered across her face.

I knew it, thought Rebecka nastily. I knew she’d lose the plot as soon as they had their first child.

In those days Astrid had been a little on the plump side, but pretty. Like a chubby little cherub on a fluffy cloud. And Vesa Larsson was the unmarried pastor, fought over by all the prettiest girls in the Pentecostal church who were desperate to get married.

It’s very liberating not to have to try to love everybody, thought Rebecka. I never did like her.

“I’ve come to see Vesa,” said Rebecka, walking into the house before Astrid had time to reply.

The dog backed away, but was now barking so hysterically that it was making itself hoarse with the effort. It sounded as if it had a hacking cough.

There was no hallway and no porch. The whole of the ground floor was open plan, and from her position in the doorway Rebecka could see the kitchen, the dining area, the seating around the big open fireplace and the impressive picture windows looking out at the snow. On a clear day you would have been able to see Vittangivaara, Luossavaara and the Crystal Church up on Sandstensberget through those windows.

“Is he in?” asked Rebecka, trying to speak over the sound of the dog without shouting.

Astrid snapped back: “Yes, he is. Will you shut up!”

This last remark was directed at the furiously barking dog. She rummaged in her pocket and found a handful of reddish brown dog treats, which she threw onto the floor. The dog stopped yapping and scurried after them.

Rebecka hung her coat on a hook and pushed her hat and gloves into her pocket. They’d be soaking wet when it was time to put them on again, but that couldn’t be helped. Astrid opened her mouth as if to protest, but closed it again.

“I don’t know if he’ll see you,” she said sourly. “He’s got the flu.”

“Well, I’m not leaving here until I’ve spoken to him,” said Rebecka calmly. “It’s important.”

The dog had now eaten all its treats and come back to its mistress, grabbed her leg and started rubbing itself against her, once again yapping excitedly.

“Don’t do that, Baloo,” Astrid protested halfheartedly. “I’m not a bitch.”

She tried to push the dog off, but it clung frantically to her leg with its front paws.

Good God, you can see who’s in charge in this house, thought Rebecka.

“I mean it,” said Rebecka. “I’ll sleep on the sofa. You’ll have to call the police to get rid of me.”

Astrid gave up. The combination of the dog and Rebecka was just too much for her.

“He’s in the studio,” she said. “Up the stairs, first on the left.”

Rebecka took the stairs in five long strides

“Knock first,” Astrid called after her.

V
esa Larsson was sitting in front of the big white-tiled stove on a sheepskin-covered stool. On one of the tiles “The Lord Is My Shepherd” was written in elegant letters the color of birch leaves. It was pretty. Presumably Vesa Larsson had written it himself. He wasn’t dressed, but was wearing a thick toweling dressing gown over flannelette pajamas. His tired eyes looked at Rebecka from two gray hollows above his stubble.

He feels bad, all right, thought Rebecka, but it’s not the flu.

“So you’ve come to threaten me,” he said. “Go home, Rebecka. Leave all of this alone.”

Aha, thought Rebecka. They didn’t waste any time ringing to warn you.

"Nice studio," she said, instead of answering.

“Mmm,” he said. “The architect nearly had a stroke when I said I wanted an untreated wooden floor in here. He said it would be ruined in no time by paint and ink and all the rest of it. But that was the idea. I wanted the floor to have a patina, from everything I’d created.”

Rebecka looked around. The studio was large. Despite the gloomy snowy weather outside, the daylight flooded in through the huge windows. Everything was tidy. On an easel in front of the picture window stood a covered canvas. There wasn’t the least speck of color on the floor as far as she could see. It had been a bit different in the days when he used to work in the cellar of the Pentecostal church. There were sheets of drawings all over the floor, and you could hardly move for fear of knocking over one of the many jars of turpentine and brushes. The smell of turpentine gave you a slight headache after a while. In this room there was just the faint smell of smoke from the stove. Vesa Larsson saw her inquiring look and gave a crooked smile.

“I know,” he said. “When you finally get the studio other people can only dream about, you…”

He finished the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.

“My father used to paint in oils, you know,” he went on. “The Aurora Borealis, Lapporten, the cottage in Merasjärvi. He never grew tired of it. Refused to take an ordinary job, sat drinking with his mates instead. Then he’d pat me on the head and say: ‘The lad thinks he’s going to be a truck driver and all sorts of things, but I’ve told him, you can’t get away from art.’ But I don’t know, these days it just seems pathetic, sitting here with my dreams of being a painter. It wasn’t so hard to get away from art after all.”

They looked at each other in silence. Without knowing it, they were both thinking about the other one’s hair. That it used to look better. When it was allowed to grow more freely, go its own way. When it was obvious it was friends who were wielding the scissors.

“Nice view,” said Rebecka, and added: “Although maybe not just at the moment.”

All you could see outside was a curtain of falling snow.

“Why not?” said Vesa Larsson. “Maybe this is the best view of all. It’s beautiful, the winter and the snow. Everything’s simpler. Less to take in. Fewer colors. Fewer smells. Shorter days. Your head can have a rest.”

“What was going on with Viktor?” asked Rebecka.

Vesa Larsson shook his head.

“What’s Sanna told you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” replied Rebecka.

“What do you mean, nothing?” said Vesa Larsson suspiciously.

“Nobody’s telling me a damned thing,” said Rebecka angrily. “But I don’t believe she did it. She’s on another planet sometimes, but she can’t have done this.”

Vesa Larsson sat in silence, gazing at the falling snow.

“Why did Patrik Mattsson say I should ask you about Viktor’s sexual inclinations?” asked Rebecka.

When Vesa Larsson didn’t answer, she went on:

“Did you have a relationship with him? Did you send him a card?”

Did you put a threatening note on my car? she thought.

Vesa Larsson replied without meeting her eyes.

“I’m not even going to comment on that.”

“Right,” she said harshly. “Soon I’ll be thinking it was you three pastors who killed him. Because he wanted to blow the whistle on your dubious financial dealings. Or maybe because he was threatening to tell your wife about the two of you.”

Vesa Larsson hid his face in his hands.

“I didn’t do it,” he mumbled. “I didn’t kill him.”

I’m losing it, thought Rebecka. Running around accusing people.

She rubbed her fist across her forehead in an attempt to force a sensible thought out of her brain.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand why you’re all keeping quiet. I don’t understand why somebody put the knife in Sanna’s kitchen drawer.”

Vesa Larsson turned and looked at her in horror.

“What do you mean?” he said. “What knife?”

Rebecka could have bitten off her tongue.

“The police haven’t told the press yet,” she said. “But they found the murder weapon in Sanna’s kitchen. In the drawer under the sofa bed.”

Vesa Larsson stared at her.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “Oh, God!”

“What is it?”

Vesa Larsson’s face changed to a stiff mask.

“I’ve broken the vow of silence once too often,” he said.

“Fuck the vow of silence,” exclaimed Rebecka. “Viktor’s dead. He couldn’t give a shit if you break the vow of silence as far as he’s concerned.”

“I have a vow of silence toward Sanna.”

"Fine!" Rebecka exploded. "Don’t bother talking to me, then! But I’m prepared to turn over every last stone to see what crawls out. And I’m starting with the church and your financial affairs. Then I’m going to find out who loved Viktor. And I’m going to get the truth out of Sanna this afternoon."

Vesa Larsson looked at her, his expression tortured.

“Can’t you just leave it, Rebecka? Go home. Don’t let yourself be used.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He shook his head with an air of resignation.

“Do what you think you have to do,” he said. “But you can’t take anything from me that I haven’t already lost.”

“Screw the lot of you,” said Rebecka, but she hadn’t the strength to inject any emotion into the words.

“ ‘Let he who is without sin…’ ” said Vesa Larsson.

Oh, yes, thought Rebecka. I’m a murderer after all. A child killer.

R
ebecka is standing in her grandmother’s woodshed chopping wood. No, “chopping” isn’t the right word. She has picked out the thickest and heaviest logs and is splitting them in a kind of feverish frenzy. Brings the axe down onto the reluctant wood with every ounce of her strength. Lifts the axe with the log hanging from its blade and slams the back of it down onto the chopping block with all her might. The weight and the force drive the axe in like a wedge. Now she must pry it apart and work at it. At last the log is split in two. She splits the halves in two again, then places the next log on the chopping block. Sweat is pouring down her back. Her shoulders and arms are aching from the effort, but she doesn’t spare herself. If she’s lucky the
child will come out. Nobody has said that she shouldn’t chop wood. Perhaps then Thomas will say that it was not God’s will that she should be born.

It, Rebecka corrects herself. That
it
was not meant to be born. The child. And yet, she knows deep within herself that it’s a girl. Johanna.

When she hears Viktor’s voice behind her, the tape inside her head rewinds and she realizes that he has been standing behind her for some while and has said her name several times without her hearing him.

It feels strange to see him sitting there on the broken wooden chair that never quite makes it to the fire. The back of the chair is missing, and there are holes at the back of the seat where the wooden staves used to be. It’s been standing there for years, waiting to be turned into firewood.

“Who told you?” asks Rebecka.

"Sanna," he replies. "She said you’d be furious."

Rebecka shrugs her shoulders. She hasn’t the strength to be angry.

“Who else knows?” she asks.

Now it’s Viktor’s turn to shrug his shoulders. The news has got around, then. Of course. What did she expect? He’s wearing his secondhand leather jacket and a long scarf that some girl has knitted for him. His hair is neatly parted in the center, and is tucked into his scarf.

"Marry me," he says.

Rebecka looks at him in amazement.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I love you,” he says. “I love the child.”

The air smells of sawdust and wood. Outside she can hear water dripping from the roof. The tears are stuck in her throat, and it hurts.

“Just like you love all your brothers and sisters, friends and enemies?” she says.

Like the love of God. The same for everyone. Prepacked and issued to everyone who joins the queue. Maybe that’s the kind of love for her. Maybe she should take what she can get.

He looks so tired.

Where have you gone, Viktor? she thinks. After your journey to God, there are so very many people queueing up for a little bit of you.

“I’d never abandon you,” he says. “You know that.”

“You don’t understand anything,” says Rebecka; tears and snot are
pouring down her face, and she can’t stop herself. “As soon as I answer, I’ve already been abandoned.”

A
t half past six in the evening Rebecka arrived at the police station with Sara and Lova. They had spent the afternoon at the swimming baths.

Sanna came into the meeting room and looked at Rebecka as if she had stolen something from her.

"Oh, so here you are," she said. "I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me."

The girls took off their outdoor clothes and each climbed up onto a chair. Lova was laughing, because a piece of her hair that had been sticking out from under her hat was frozen solid.