The Darkest Room (30 page)

Tilda rang the doorbell
of Henrik Jansson’s apartment in Borgholm, keeping her finger there for a long time. She waited in silence along with Mats Torstensson, one of her colleagues in the town.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and this should all have been sorted out much earlier, but Henrik hadn’t turned up at the police station despite the fact that he had been called in for questioning about the wave of break-ins in northern Öland. If he wasn’t prepared to come in voluntarily, he would have to be brought in.

There wasn’t a sound. Tilda rang again, but no one opened the door and she couldn’t hear anything when she pressed her ear against it. She tried the handle—it was locked.

“Maybe he’s gone away,” suggested Torstensson. “To his mother’s or father’s, for Christmas.”

“His boss said he was supposed to be working today,” said Tilda. “Only half a day, but …”

She rang the bell again, and at the same time the outside door of the apartment block slammed and they heard the sound of boots clomping up the stairs. Tilda and Torstensson turned their heads at the same time—but it was a teenage girl who was coming up the stairs, a red woolen scarf covering half her face and a bag of Christmas presents in her hand. She glanced briefly at the uniformed police officers, but when she had unlocked the door opposite Henrik’s, Tilda took a step toward her and said, “We’re looking for your neighbor …Henrik. Do you know where he is?”

The girl looked at the nameplate on Henrik’s door. “At work?”

“We’ve checked there.”

The girl thought about it. “He could be at the boathouse.”

“Where’s that?”

“On the east coast … somewhere. He wanted to take me out there to go swimming last summer, but I said no.”

“Good,” said Tilda. “Have a great Christmas.”

The girl nodded, but glared at her bag of presents as if she were already pretty tired of the whole Christmas thing.

“That’s it then,”
said Torstensson. “We’ll have to bring him in after the holiday.”

“Unless we bump into him on the way back,” said Tilda.

It was half past two. It was cold and gray out in the street, almost minus ten, and twilight was already falling.

“I finish in a quarter of an hour,” said Torstensson as he opened the car door. “Then I have to go shopping … I’m a little behind with the Christmas presents!”

He looked at his watch. In his mind he was probably already at home with a glass of Christmas beer in front of the TV.

“I’ll just call …” said Tilda.

Her five days of leave were also approaching, but she still didn’t want to let go of Henrik Jansson.

She got in the car and called Henrik Jansson’s boss for the second time that day. He told her that Henrik’s boathouse was at Enslunda.

That was south of Marnäs, quite close to Eel Point.

“I’ll drive you back to the station,” she said. “Then I can call in at Enslunda on the way up. I’m sure he won’t be there, but at least I can check.”

“I’ll come with you, if you want.”

Torstensson was a nice guy and his offer was no doubt serious despite the Christmas stress, but she shook her head.

“Thanks, but I’ll call on the way home,” she said. “If Jansson’s there, I’ll bring him back here and ruin his Christmas. Otherwise I’ll go home and wrap presents.”

“Drive carefully,” said Torstensson. “There’s a snowstorm coming, you do know that?”

“Yup,” said Tilda. “But I’ve got snow tires.”

They drove back to the station. When Torstensson had gone inside, Tilda swung the car around and was just on her way out of the parking lot when the door opened again.

Mats Torstensson was waving at her. Tilda wound down the window and stuck her head out.

“What is it?”

“You’ve got a visitor,” he said.

“Who is it?”

“Your tutor from the academy.”

“Tutor?”

Tilda didn’t understand, but she parked the car and went into the station with Torstensson. Reception wasn’t manned. The Advent candles flickered in the windows, and most of the police officers on the island had already started their Christmas leave.

“I caught her,” said Torstensson.

He was speaking to a broad-shouldered man who was sitting in one of the armchairs in the waiting room. The man was dressed in a jacket and a pale gray police sweater, and smiled with satisfaction when Tilda walked in.

“I was in the area,” he said, getting up. He held out a big present wrapped in red paper. “I just wanted to wish you a merry Christmas.”

It was Martin Ahlquist, of course.

Tilda kept the mask in place and tried to smile.

“Hi, Martin … same to you.”

Her lips quickly stiffened, but Martin’s smile grew even broader.

“Would you like to go for a coffee?”

“Thanks,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’m rather busy.”

She did accept the present, however (it felt like a box of chocolates), nodded to Mats Torstensson, then went out into the parking lot.

Martin followed her. She turned around; now she no longer had to pretend to look pleased.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you mean?” said Martin.

“You keep on calling me … and now you turn up here with a present. Why?”

“Well …I wanted to see how you were.”

“I’m fine,” said Tilda. “So you can go home … home to your wife and children. It’s almost Christmas Eve.”

He just kept on smiling at her.

“It’s all arranged,” he said. “I told Karin I was staying over in Kalmar, and I’d be home early in the morning.”

For Martin everything seemed to be about practical problems—keeping the lies in some sort of order.

“You do that, then,” said Tilda. “Take yourself off to Kalmar.”

“Why would I do that? I can just as easily stay over here, on Öland.”

She sighed and walked over to her car. Opened the door and threw Martin’s present on the back seat.

“I haven’t got time to talk now. There’s a guy I have to bring in.”

She closed the door before he had time to reply. Then she started the engine and pulled out of the station’s parking lot.

Soon she saw a blue Mazda pull out behind her.

Martin’s car. He was following her.

On the way north from Borgholm she wondered why she hadn’t been more determined in her efforts to get rid of him. She could have spat and yelled—perhaps he would have understood those signals.

By the time Tilda reached the
eastern side of the island, it was half past three. The daylight was almost completely gone; the sky was dark gray and the silently falling snow had changed and become more intrusive. The snow had become aggressive, she thought. The flakes had stopped whirling around aimlessly in the air and were grouping for attack. They hit the front of the police car in dense flurries, clinging to the windows.

She turned off onto the narrow track down toward Enslunda. Martin’s Mazda was still a little way behind her.

In the glow of the headlights, Tilda could see that there were several tire tracks in the snow ahead of her, and when the track ran out fifty yards or so from the sea she expected to see at least a couple of parked cars.

But the little turning area was completely deserted.

There was nothing there but a mass of fresh tracks in the snow—tracks left by heavy shoes or boots, running back and forth between the tire tracks and one of the boathouses. The snowflakes were already beginning to cover them.

The Mazda had pulled in and stopped behind her.

Tilda put on her police cap and pushed open the driver’s door against the wind.

It was bitterly cold and desolate here at the edge of the Baltic. The cold and the emptiness made the entire coast feel menacing. The waves were rolling in, and had begun to break up the covering of ice offshore.

Martin got out of his car and walked over to Tilda.

“This guy you’re going to bring in … is he supposed to be out here?”

She just nodded. She would have preferred not to speak to him.

Martin started to walk purposefully over to the boathouses. He appeared to have forgotten that he was a tutor and no longer a police officer.

Tilda said nothing, she just followed him.

A rhythmic thudding could be heard as they drew closer—the door of one of the boathouses was banging to and fro in the wind. Almost all the footprints in the snow seemed to lead to this particular building.

Martin opened the door and peered in. “Is this one his?”

“I don’t know …I suppose so.”

Thieves are always afraid of other thieves, Tilda thought. They want good locks on their own houses. If Henrik Jansson had forgotten to lock up here, then something unforeseen must have happened.

She went over to Martin and peered into the darkness. There was a workbench, some old nets and other fishing tackle and tools along the walls, but not much else.

“He’s not home,” said Martin.

Tilda didn’t reply. She went inside and bent down. Small shiny droplets could be seen on the wooden floor.

“Martin!” she shouted.

He turned his head and she pointed at the floor.

“What do you make of this?”

He bent down. “Fresh blood,” he said.

Tilda went outside and looked around. Someone had been injured, possibly shot or stabbed, but they had still been able to leave the area.

She walked down to the meadow by the sea, where the wind was even stronger. There were indistinct tracks in the snow—a long line of footprints leading north.

Tilda considered following the trail along the shore, facing
straight into the wind and the raw chill from the sea, but the impressions would soon disappear in the falling snow.

There were only two inhabited houses within reasonable walking distance, as far as Tilda knew: the Carlsson family’s farm and, to the northeast, the manor house at Eel Point. Henrik Jansson, or whoever had made these footprints, seemed to be heading for one of them.

A fierce gust of wind gave Tilda a push, and she turned around and headed back toward the car, away from the shore.

“Where are you going?” shouted Martin behind her.

“It’s confidential,” she replied, and continued on to the police car.

She got in without checking whether he was following her or not. Then she switched on her police radio and called central control in Borgholm. She wanted to report the suspected altercation by the boathouses and to let them know that she was heading north.

There was no reply.

The snow was falling even more thickly now. Tilda started the car, turned the heat full on, and switched on the windshield wipers before slowly setting off.

In her side mirror she saw the interior light of the Mazda come on as Martin opened the door. Then he switched on the headlights and started to follow her car along the gravel track.

Tilda increased her speed—before she looked to the east and saw that the horizon had disappeared. A gray-white wall of snow hung over the sea. It was dropping rapidly toward the coast.

Joakim was standing
in the kitchen in the twilight, watching the thickening snowfall between the buildings. It was going to be a white Christmas at Eel Point.

Then he looked over at the barn door. It was closed now, and no footprints led toward it through the snow. He hadn’t been back inside the barn since the previous evening, but couldn’t stop thinking about the hidden room.

A room for the dead, with its own church benches.

Ethel’s jacket had been lying there neatly folded on one of the benches, among all the other old mementos. He had left it there.

It was Katrine who had put it there. She must have found the room during the fall and placed the denim jacket on the bench, without telling Joakim. He hadn’t even known that Katrine had the jacket.

His wife had kept secrets from him.

It was only when he called his mother that he found out
she had sent the jacket to Eel Point. Until then he had assumed that Ingrid had simply placed Ethel’s clothes in a box and put it in the attic.

“No, I got it down and wrapped it in brown paper,” said Ingrid. “Then I mailed it to Katrine. … It was sometime in August.”

“But why?” Joakim had asked.

“Well … she asked me to send it. Katrine called me last summer, wanting to borrow the jacket. She wanted to check on something, she said, and so I sent it to her.” Ingrid paused. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t you talk to each other?”

Joakim didn’t reply. He wanted to say that of course he and Katrine had talked to each other, trusted each other completely—but he remembered the strange look she had given him the night they found out Ethel was dead.

Katrine had hugged Livia and looked at Joakim with shining eyes, as if something wonderful had happened.

When darkness fell
outside the kitchen window, Joakim began to prepare dinner. Serving up Christmas fare on the twenty-third of December was perhaps a little early, but he wanted to get the celebrations under way as quickly as possible.

It had been the same last year. His sister had drowned at the beginning of December, and her name had not been mentioned at all over Christmas—instead Katrine and Joakim had bought more presents and even more food than usual. They had filled the Apple House with candles and decorations.

But of course it had still felt as if Ethel were there. Joakim had thought about her every time Katrine raised her glass of alcohol-free cider to him.

He blinked away the tears, continued flicking through the
recipes in
Delicious Christmas Fare
, and did the best he could in the kitchen as the shadows grew outside the window.

He fried sliced sausage and meatballs. He cut the cheese into strips, shredded the cabbage, and warmed the spare ribs. He grilled the oven-baked ham, peeled the potatoes, and brushed the freshly baked spiced bread with syrup and water. He dished up eel and herring and salmon, and cooked the children’s specially requested meal: grilled chicken with fries.

Joakim placed dish after dish on the kitchen table, and underneath the table Rasputin got a bowl of fresh tuna.

At half past four he called Livia and Gabriel.

“Time to eat.”

They came in and stood by the table.

“Lot of food,” said Gabriel.

“It’s called the Christmas table,” said Joakim. “You take a plate and fill it up with a little bit of everything.”

Livia and Gabriel did as he said, up to a point. They took some chicken and fries, and potatoes and a little sauce, but the fish and the cabbage remained untouched.

Joakim led the way into the drawing room and the family sat down at the big table beneath the chandelier. He poured cider and wished his children a happy start to the Christmas festivities. He waited for them to ask why he had set a fourth place at the table, but they said nothing.

Not that he really believed Katrine would come back during the evening, but at least he could look at her empty place and fantasize that she was actually sitting there.

The way it should have been.

His mother had set an extra place last Christmas. But of course Ethel never turned up either.

“Can I get down now
, Daddy?” asked Livia after ten minutes.

“No,” said Joakim quickly.

He could see that her plate was empty.

“But I’ve eaten everything up.”

“Stay there anyway.”

“But I want to watch TV.”

“Me too,” said Gabriel, who still had a lot of food left on his plate.

“There’s horse riding on TV,” said Livia, as if this were a weighty argument.

“Just stay where you are,” said Joakim, his tone harsher than he had intended. “This is important. We’re celebrating Christmas together.”

“You’re stupid,” said Livia, glaring at him.

Joakim sighed. “We’re celebrating together,” he repeated, with no conviction.

The children kept quiet after that, but at least they stayed put. Eventually Livia went off to the kitchen with her plate, followed by Gabriel. Both came back with a helping of meatballs.

“It’s snowing really hard, Daddy,” said Livia.

Joakim looked out of the window and saw thick flakes whirling by.

“Good. We’ll be able to go sledding.”

Livia’s bad mood disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived, and soon she and Gabriel were chatting about the Christmas presents under the tree. Neither of them seemed concerned about the fourth chair at the table, while Joakim kept glancing toward it all the time.

What had he been expecting? That the front door would open and Katrine would walk into the drawing room?

The old Mora clock
by the wall struck just once—it was already half past five, and almost all the light had vanished outside the window.

As Joakim popped the last meatball in his mouth and looked over at Gabriel, he could see that his son was already
falling asleep. He had eaten twice as much food as usual this evening, and now he was sitting there motionless, gazing down at his empty plate with his eyelids drooping.

“Gabriel, how about a little sleep?” he said. “So you’ll be able to stay awake longer tonight?”

At first Gabriel just nodded, then he said, “Then we can play. You and me. And Livia.”

“We sure can.”

Joakim suddenly realized that his son had probably forgotten Katrine. What did he himself remember from when he was three years old? Nothing.

He blew out the candles, cleared the table, and placed the food in the refrigerator. Then he turned down Gabriel’s bed and tucked him in.

Livia didn’t want to go to sleep at such an early hour. She wanted to watch horses, so Joakim moved the small television into her room.

“Is that okay?” he said. “I was just going to go out for a little while.”

“Where?” asked Livia. “Don’t you want to see the horse riding?”

Joakim shook his head. “I won’t be long,” he said.

Then he went and picked up Katrine’s Christmas present from under the tree. He took the present and a flashlight into the hallway and pulled on a thick sweater and a pair of boots.

He was ready.

He stopped in front of the mirror and looked at himself. In the darkness of the corridor he was hardly visible in the glass, and got the idea that he could see the contours of the room through his own body.

Joakim felt like a ghost, one of the apparitions haunting the manor house. He looked at the white English wallpaper around the mirror and the old straw hat hanging on the wall like some kind of symbol of life in the country.

Suddenly everything seemed completely meaningless—why had he and Katrine actually carried on renovating and
decorating year after year? The places where they lived had just gotten bigger and bigger; as soon as one project was finished they had started the next one and made every effort to get rid of any trace of the people who had lived there before. Why?

A low yowling interrupted his thoughts. Joakim turned and saw a small four-legged creature crouching on the rag rug.

“Do you want to go out, Rasputin?”

He went over to the glassed-in veranda, but the cat didn’t follow him. It just looked at him, then slunk into the kitchen.

The wind whirled around the house, rattling the small windowpanes in the veranda.

Joakim opened the outside door and felt the wind seize hold of it; it was coming in strong gusts now and seemed to be growing stronger all the time, transforming the snowflakes into needle-sharp shards whirling across the courtyard.

He went carefully down the steps, screwing up his eyes against the snow.

The sky over the sea looked darker than ever, as if the sun had disappeared for good into the Baltic. The cloud cover above the water was a threatening shadow-play of gray and black patches—huge snow clouds in the northeast had begun to descend, moving closer to the coast.

A storm was on its way.

Joakim went along the stone pathway between the buildings, out into the wind and the snow. He remembered Gerlof’s warning, that you could get lost if you went out in a blizzard—but there was only a thin covering of snow on the ground so far, and a short walk over to the barn didn’t seem to pose many risks.

He went over to the broad door and pulled it open.

Nothing moved inside.

A flash of light in the corner of his eye made him stop and turn his head. It was the light from the lighthouses. The barn obscured the northern tower, but the southern lamp was flashing at him with its red glow.

Joakim walked into the barn and it felt as if the wind were pushing at his back, as if it wanted to come with him. But he slammed the door shut.

After a few seconds he switched on the lights.

The lightbulbs hung there like feeble yellow suns in the dark space of the barn. They couldn’t chase away the shadows along the stone walls.

Through the roof he could hear the howling wind, but the framework of solid beams didn’t move. This building had survived many storms.

In the loft was the wall with Katrine’s name and the names of all the others who had died, but Joakim didn’t go up the steps this evening either. Instead he moved on past the stalls where the cattle had stood every winter.

The stone floor in the furthest stall was still free of dust and hay.

Joakim sank down to his knees and got down on his stomach. Then he slowly wriggled in through the narrow opening under the wooden planks, the flashlight in one hand and Katrine’s present in the other.

Inside the false wall he stood up and switched on the flashlight. Its beam was weak and it would soon need new batteries, but at least he could see the ladder leading up into the darkness.

Joakim listened, but everything was still silent in the barn.

He could stand here or start climbing. He hesitated. Just for a moment he considered the fact that a storm was coming, and Livia and Gabriel were alone in the house.

Then he lifted his right foot and placed it on the bottom rung.

Joakim’s mouth was dry and his heart was pounding, but he was more expectant than afraid. Step by step he was getting closer to the black opening in the ceiling. He didn’t want to be anywhere else but where he was now.

Katrine was close, he could feel it.