The Intruder (5 page)

Sara looked at him and seemed almost a little wary. “Can you have one?”

Fredrik laughed. “No, of course not. Then I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Sara followed his movement as he put the key in the ignition.

“Maybe I should drive anyway,” she said.

This time she was joking, he heard that.

“Is that what everyone thinks? That at any moment I’ll have a cerebral hemorrhage or collapse in an epileptic seizure?”

He turned toward her with his hands on the steering wheel.

“Don’t ask me,” said Sara. “You were the one who started talking about strokes.”

“More like Lennart.”

“Yes, but Lennart…” Sara said with a sigh.

Fredrik started the car and backed out.

“The risk, in any event, is no greater for me to have one than for you when you’re sitting behind the wheel.”

“Can we stop talking about strokes now? If you really are healthy, I mean. Or are you going to be an old retiree who always harps on his infirmities?”

He should stop thinking about it. Göran no doubt had his reasons to have Sara ride along. With a little goodwill it was probably a good idea even apart from the accident. He had not been on patrol duty in two years. Maybe he needed a mentor.

Sara brushed her black hair behind her ears and looked toward the garage door, which had quickly opened. The light from the cloud-free late-summer sky made Fredrik blink. This time it was not only symbolic, like on the sidewalk just half an hour ago. This time it was for real. He was a detective on his way out on a mission.

Two years earlier he never could have suspected that one day he would feel fortunate about a routine job on Fårö.

He drove toward Route 148, turned left, and stepped on the gas, headed north through the flat landscape. Patches of forest alternated with fields and pastures and scattered houses whose front steps almost crept up on the asphalt edge. After a couple miles they caught up with a tractor with a trailer full of light green sacks of silage. The driver, in burgundy-red ear protectors with mandatory antenna, moved politely over to the edge of the road so that Fredrik could drive around him.

*   *   *

With the ferry transport and a wait at the ferry, it took one and a half hours to make their way up to Kalbjerga on Fårö. Quite the trip, for being on Gotland. It was not so strange that Fredrik himself, who lived at the far southern end of Gotland, seldom went up there. It was mostly when he and Ninni had visitors from the mainland that they took the trouble with the long trip. And when they took their guests to Fårö they infallibly followed the same pattern every time. Bought raspberry pie from Sylvi’s Daughters and swam in Ekeviken.

He knew that one of the bakery’s daughters lived at the farm in Kalbjerga, but he could not remember how he knew that. Presumably heard it from someone at work. The police station was an information and gossip center that did not miss much. You never knew what might be useful to know as a police officer.

Henrik Kjellander’s and Malin Andersson’s house was almost at the top of Kalbjergahobben, a little rock hillock that made itself known as a slight rise in the landscape. A dizzying height by Gotland standards.

Fredrik could see the Kalbjerga farm straight ahead, just over a half mile away, before he turned right. Kjellander’s and Andersson’s house was partially concealed behind a big barn with a sheet metal roof, but stood out more and more as they approached. The lot was enclosed by a wide-meshed barbed-wire fence stretched between rusty iron posts. He slowed down as he caught sight of two cars right in front of the gate, on either side of the road. An older model red Mercedes SUV and a new black Honda. He turned in and parked alongside the Honda.

They got out of the car and crossed the road, which was actually not much more than two separate ruts over the hillock. Fredrik held open the gate for Sara and closed it behind him. They continued down the slope toward the house. A few crows were squawking on a meadow farther away. The house sat open in the terrain, but the entry was protected by an overgrown lilac bush that was starting to thin out at the bottom. Fredrik stepped onto the lichen-covered limestone landing and knocked.

The door was opened by a dark-haired woman with a light suntan. She had freckles on her nose that spread moderately across her cheeks. Her hair was put up like Sara’s, but she had bangs that ended right below her eyebrows.

“Malin Andersson?” asked Fredrik.

“Yes.”

Malin smiled warmly but modestly as she invited them to come in. As soon as they entered the hall they heard steps from the next room. A short man rounded the doorpost. He was thin and fit and his medium-blond hair was a little unruly. He looked at them with curiosity as he extended his hand. Henrik Kjellander looked happy. Despite the threat against his family. Perhaps it was not as serious as the report made out, thought Fredrik.

“I guess we can sit down, or how do you want to start?” said Henrik, looking at them inquiringly.

“Of course,” answered Fredrik. “We would like to hear more about what has happened.”

Henrik led them back into the living room. The room was furnished with a large gray couch with a protruding part at one end, a kind of cross between sofa and divan. It seemed to be the prevailing fashion in couches. Gustav and Lena had bought one like it a few years ago.

Around the low coffee table there were also three black armchairs with oak arm supports that resembled oars. On the floor evidence of small children could be seen. Colorful plastic toys. Henrik and Malin sat beside one another on the couch. Fredrik and Sara each took an armchair. On the wall behind the couch three black-and-white photographs were hanging, big as posters. One of them depicted Malin on a street in a big American city. The other two depicted two small children, the couple’s own children, Fredrik assumed. They were pictures full of life, taken on the go, with crooked horizon line, blurred movement. Fredrik had developed a certain eye for photography thanks to Joakim, and picked up a concept or two.

“It’s best if you start from the beginning,” he said. “You came back home Saturday evening and then you discovered some kind of threat? A picture?”

“It was more than that,” Malin said seriously.

Henrik and Malin looked at each other. The brief, wordless deliberation ended with a nod from Henrik.

“Okay,” she said, leaning forward on the couch before continuing. “We came home from vacation. It was already dark. We had the house rented out, so of course you wonder a little how it went. The first thing I notice is that it is not cleaned and there is garbage. Then I discover that things are missing. Glasses and cups in the cupboards. Our family pictures in the study.”

Fredrik could hear in Malin’s voice that she was still upset by what had happened. Her voice transformed as she progressed farther along in the story. The glass she got in her foot. The excrement in with the children’s toys. And then the picture that floated out of the linen closet. When she was done, she put her hands in her lap and stared at them.

“We would like to look at the picture,” said Fredrik.

“I’ll get it,” said Henrik.

He got up and hurried off to a room that faced the back side of the house. He came back with a photograph in a transparent plastic folder, which he handed over to Fredrik. Fredrik set it down on the table in front of him.

“I’ve tried not to touch it,” said Henrik. “I thought that … well, fingerprints and such.”

“Exactly the right idea,” said Fredrik, leaning over the photograph.

It was a fine picture. Malin, Henrik, and the children were in swimming suits on the beach. They seemed to have just unpacked something to eat. The smallest child, a three-year-old boy, was holding a shovel and seemed more interested in digging in the sand than in a picnic. Everyone was looking right into the camera—the boy, too. But his and the others’ eyes were missing. They were poked out of the cardboard-like paper. Fredrik studied the faces of the two children. A strong feeling of discomfort swept through him. The feeling surprised him and he coughed involuntarily, as if to distract himself.

He held the picture up toward one of the windows. The light from outside shone right through in eight defined points and he thought he could hear the sound of a sharp pencil or the point of a compass being pressed through the paper.

Not until he became aware of the others’ perplexed looks did he realize that he had been sitting a little too long, staring at the picture. He handed it over to Sara.

“I understand that you were scared,” he said.

“I don’t get who could do something like this,” said Malin. “It’s creepy.”

Her voice got fainter and she stroked her hand across her arm as if she were cold.

“But it wasn’t just this that was gone?”

“No,” said Henrik. “All the pictures that were hanging in the study were gone. Six of them. This is the only one we’ve found.”

“And you’ve looked everywhere?”

Malin nodded. “I’ve looked through everything.”

“But those are still hanging up?” said Fredrik, pointing at the pictures of Malin and the children on the wall behind the couch.

“Yes,” answered Malin curtly to the rhetorical question.

Sara set the picture down on her lap.

“We need to take this with.”

“Sure, of course.” Henrik made a gesture as if he were handing the picture over again.

“These various persons who rented your house, how did you find them?” asked Fredrik.

“Through the Gotlands travel agency,” said Henrik.

“So you’ve had no contact with the tenants yourself?”

Henrik shook his head. “No, everything has gone through the agency.”

“But perhaps you have their names and addresses?” Fredrik asked.

“Yes, we do. They sent copies of the contracts.”

Henrik leaped up off the couch, sprinted across the floor, and was soon back with the papers.

Fredrik quickly skimmed the three sheets. Two of the families came from the Stockholm area and one came from Gothenburg. The one from Gothenburg was the last.

“Have you tried to contact any of them since you came home?”

“I actually called the ones from Gothenburg,” said Henrik. “I got so mad when we found the picture. I couldn’t help it. But I didn’t get an answer.”

He shrugged his shoulders dejectedly.

“If it is one of the tenants behind this, it’s likely one of the ones who were here last,” said Fredrik.

“Yes,” said Henrik. “That’s what I thought.”

“But if we overlook the tenants, can you think of anyone who might have done this? Who would want to frighten or threaten you?”

“What do you mean?” said Malin.

“Well, that is, you can’t rule out that someone may have been here after the last tenant left the house, but before you made it back.”

There was silence from the couch. Henrik moved back against the back support. Malin looked at him.

“Well,” Henrik began. His hand scratched nervously back and forth through his hair. “I have relatives here on Fårö, two half sisters that I’ve actually never had any contact with—”

He interrupted himself, looking from Fredrik to Sara and back again with an embarrassed smile.

“I don’t want to point fingers at anyone…”

“But, really!” said Malin. She straightened up and looked at Henrik with irritation.

“To begin with, this is not about pointing fingers at anyone,” Sara intervened. “Simply think about whether there is anyone who could conceivably want to get back at you for something, even if it feels improbable. Then it will be our job to find out whether that person actually has anything to do with this picture or not.”

“Okay, I understand,” said Henrik.

Malin nodded at him encouragingly.

“I have two half sisters here on Fårö,” said Henrik. “In principle I’ve never met them, except at my mother’s funeral. Or not in principle. I’ve never seen them except then. The little contact we have had beyond that has been by mail and telephone. But all in all we’re talking about a few occasions.”

Fredrik listened attentively. Instinctively he felt that there was something important in the story, despite so far having heard only the beginning.

“It’s a long story but I’ll try to make it fairly brief,” said Henrik.

“Take the time you need.”

Henrik rocked his upper body almost unnoticeably while he thought about how he should continue.

“My dad was actually never in the picture. He left Mother before I was even born. I don’t even know if they had a steady relationship. Well, she knew who he was and that, but…”

He lost the thread, got stuck with one hand raised in a gesture that was never completed.

“Anyway, then my mother met this Ernst Vogler from Fårö when I was one. After a while he proposed to Mother, but set as a requirement, or his family set as a requirement, that I would stay with my grandmother in Fårösund. That was where we were living then, Mother and I.”

Fredrik nodded thoughtfully and then looked very briefly at Malin. She was looking intently at him with a determined expression, as if she wanted to underscore every word that Henrik uttered.

“Evidently Mother thought it was a good idea, because that’s what happened.”

Was Henrik’s mother already pregnant with one of the sisters? thought Fredrik. In that case it could make it a little easier to understand such a drastic decision. That ought to be easy to figure out.

“To tell the truth, I don’t know much about why it turned out the way it did. What I know is what my grandmother told me.”

“You haven’t had any contact at all with your mother?” asked Fredrik.

“Sure. None when I was really small, but from the time I started school sometimes she would come to visit Grandma and me. Not often, but … well, maybe when I had a birthday and similar occasions.”

It sounded like a guess, but that was the sort of thing you remembered, pictures that made an impression. Packages on the breakfast table, cake and lit candles. Someone ready with a camera.

“I know that it sounds very nineteenth century,” said Henrik. “I actually have no idea how these people are constructed.”

These people. Did that also include his mother?