Before the Frost (33 page)

Anna burst into laughter and turned around. Linda tried to judge if her laughter was genuine.

“How did you find out?”

“I called the hotel.”

“May I ask why?”

“I don't know.”

“What did you ask them, exactly?”

“It's not so hard to figure out.”

“Tell me.”

“I asked if an Anna Westin was still there or if she had checked out. They didn't have an Anna Westin, but they did have a Wallander, they said. It was that simple. But why did you do it?”

“What would you say if I told you I didn't know why I used your name? Maybe I was afraid my father would run away again if he found out I had checked into the hotel where we saw each other. If you want the truth, it's that I don't know.”

The phone rang, but Anna made no move to pick it up. The answering machine switched on and then Zeba's chirpy voice filled the room. She was calling for no reason, she informed them happily.

“I love people who call for no reason with so much positive energy,” Anna said.

Linda didn't answer. She had no room to think about Zeba.

“I read a name in your diary: Birgitta Medberg. Do you know what's happened to her?”

“No.”

“Don't you read the papers?”

“I was looking for my father.”

“She's been found murdered.”

Anna looked closely at her.

“Why?”

“I don't know why.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying she was murdered. The police don't know who did it, but they're going to want to talk to you about her.”

Anna shook her head.

“What happened? Who would want to kill her?”

Linda decided not to reveal any details about the murder. She simply sketched out the news in broad brush-strokes. Anna's dismay seemed completely genuine.

“When did this happen?”

“A few days ago.”

Anna shook her head again, left the window, and sat down in a chair.

“How did you know her?” Linda asked.

Anna looked narrowly at her.

“Is this a cross-examination?”

“I'm curious.”

“We rode horses together. I don't remember the first time we met, but there was someone who had two Norwegian Fjord horses that needed exercising. Birgitta and I both volunteered to ride them. I didn't know her at all. She never said very much. I know she mapped old pilgrimage trails. We also shared an interest in butterflies. But I don't know anything more about her. She wrote to me fairly recently and suggested we buy a horse together. I never replied.”

Linda tried to remain alert for any hints that Anna was lying.
I'm not the person who should be doing this,
she thought.
I should be driving a patrol car and picking up drunks. Dad should be talking to Anna, not I. It's just that damn butterfly. It should be hanging on the wall.

Anna had already followed her gaze and read her mind.

“I took the butterfly with me when I went to look for my dad. I was going to give it to him, but then when I realized it was all my imagination, I threw it into the canal.”

It could be true,
Linda thought.
Or else she lies so well I can't tell.

 

The phone rang again. Ann-Britt Höglund's voice came into the room. Anna looked at Linda, who nodded. Anna picked up the receiver. The conversation was brief and Anna didn't say much. She hung up.

“They want me to come in now,” she said.

Linda got up.

“Then you'd better go.”

“I want you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“I'd feel more secure.”

Linda hesitated.

“I'm not sure it's appropriate.”

“But I'm not accused of anything. They just want to have a conversation with me, at least that's what the woman said. And you're both a police officer and my friend.”

“I'm happy to go down there with you, but I'm not sure they'll let me stay in the room when they talk to you.”

Höglund came out into the reception area at the police station to meet Anna. She looked disapprovingly at Linda.
She doesn't like me,
Linda thought.
She's the kind of woman who prefers young men with piercings and an attitude.
Höglund had put on weight.
Soon you'll be dumpy,
Linda thought with satisfaction.
I still wonder what Dad saw in you when he courted you a few years ago.

“I want Linda to be there,” Anna said.

“I don't know if that will be possible,” Höglund said. “Why do you want her to be there?”

“I have a tendency to make things more complicated than they are,” Anna said. “I just want her there for support, that's all.”

Höglund shrugged and looked at Linda.

“You'll have to ask your father if it's OK,” she said. “You know where his office is. He's waiting in the small conference room two doors down from there.”

Höglund left them and marched off.

“Is this where you'll be working?” Anna asked.

“Hardly. I'll be spending time in the garage and in the front seat of patrol cars.”

The door to the small conference room was half open. Wallander was leaning back in his chair, a cup of coffee in his hand.
He's going to break that chair,
Linda thought.
Do cops have to get so fat? I'll have to take early retirement.
She pushed the door open. Wallander didn't seem particularly surprised to see her with Anna. He shook Anna's hand.

“I would like Linda to stay,” she said.

“Of course.”

Wallander threw a glance behind them into the corridor.

“Where's Höglund?”

“I don't think she wanted to come along,” Linda said, seating herself as far away from her father as possible.

 

That day Linda learned something important about police work from both Anna and her father. Wallander impressed her by steering the conversation with imperceptible yet total control. He never confronted Anna directly; he approached her from the side, listening to her answers, encouraging her even when she contradicted
herself. He gave the impression of having all the time in the world, but never let her off the hook.

What Anna taught her was through her lies. She appeared to be trying to keep her lies to a minimum, but without success. Once, when Anna bent down to pick up a pencil that had rolled off the table, Linda and her father exchanged a look.

When it was over and Anna had gone home, Linda sat down at the kitchen table at home and tried to write down the conversation exactly as it had progressed, like a screenplay. What was it Anna had said? Linda started to write, and the exchange slowly reproduced itself on paper.

Slowly, but surely,
Linda thought.
He has all the time in the world.

A slight hesitation,
Linda thought as she wrote.
An imperceptible tremor at times, but here she actually stumbled.
What was she hiding? Linda thought about what she had seen in the hut and broke out into a sweat.

And right here he had suddenly sat up in his chair,
Linda thought,
a tactical maneuver telling Anna to be on her guard.

Anna had looked over at Linda in surprise, then narrowed her eyes.
There goes that friendship,
Linda had thought at the time.
If it wasn't gone already, that is.