The Second Deadly Sin (38 page)

And while he continues to swear, he fetches a knife from the kitchen drawer and cuts the gaffer tape from her legs and hands.

She makes a big effort to get up on all fours. Everything is flickering in front of her eyes. Especially on the right. She can’t see properly with her right eye.

She struggles up onto her feet, leaning against the wall. Now she can see Marcus. He has been lying behind her.

He looks her in the eye – thank God, he looks her in the eye.

“Cut him loose as well,” she begs Örjan.

As she does so, there is a pinging noise from his mobile. He stares at it.

“She’s coming,” he says.

Twilight is approaching. Lundbohm loses everything. He loses all his wealth. He has cashed in his shares and used the proceeds to buy more shares, but those shares fall drastically in value and the end is already in sight. By the spring of 1925, he owes four banks and one private citizen a total of 320,000 kronor. He is forced to hand over all his shares and an advance on his pension to his creditors, and to pawn all his art collection.

His health deteriorates. Attacks of dizziness become more and more frequent. He loses his memory, and is crippled with pain.

He loses his friends. He can no longer invite guests to high-class dinner parties, and he lives in poverty with his brother Sixten. The tone of the letters he writes is whingeing, and they are mostly about his aches and pains, his bad knees, and the fact that his doctor has forbidden him to eat and drink anything but vegetables and mineral water.

Replies to his letters are brief and rare. Often no more than a picture postcard.

Twilight is approaching. But there is one thing he must do. One thing, before darkness finally falls.

Martinsson takes hold of Marcus’s jacket and drags him out of the house. How far away is Larsson? With a bit of luck she might have been on the other side of the bog when she texted Örjan.

If Martinsson heads for the bog and the bridge, she will risk bumping into Larsson, so that is out of the question. Maybe she can walk through the trees, following the rapids upstream and then branch off towards the main road, thus skirting round the bog.

It is dark, but far from pitch dark. The moon is shining all too brightly in the starry sky. All the patches of snow glisten like pools of molten tin. It is possible to see too far. It will only be a few minutes before Larsson comes out looking for her among the trees.

Having to take Marcus with her means she is going too slowly. She walks backwards, dragging him along purely in order to get as far away from the house as possible. It is hard work. Her legs are already shaking, and there is a pounding inside her head like a sledgehammer hitting an anvil.

She is grateful for the noise from the rapids. It drowns the sound of her footsteps, when twigs crack and crackle under her feet, and her panting breath.

She takes special care to avoid the patches of snow – she must not leave any tracks. If she can just get a bit further into the forest, she can hide herself somewhere and send a text message for help.

She peers towards the path – and there, only a hundred metres away, she sees the light of a torch flickering between the trees.

Ten paces of dragging, then a few seconds to get her breath back. Calm down, calm down. Ten paces of dragging. Getting her breath back. Moving as far away as possible. Now she is in among the tall pine trees. They are black and straggling, casting long moon shadows over the moss. She is quite well hidden by the trees now, and Larsson has not reached the house yet.

Something suddenly moves in among the shadows. Fear stabs at Martinsson’s midriff, but she doesn’t scream. And it only takes her half a second to realise what it is.

Vera.

The dog comes waltzing up. She sniffs at Marcus, then joins them as if they are enjoying a stroll through the woods like on any other day.

Good Lord, she had forgotten about Vera. She can’t possibly hide both a child and a dog. Vera won’t even lie down when ordered to do so.

“Hop it,” she whispers hoarsely to the dog, letting go of Marcus with one hand so as to be able to shoo Vera away.

Vera stands still, and stares at the cottage.

Martinsson cannot hear anything – but she can see something. The light of a torch shining in all directions.

She drags Marcus a bit further away. Vera follows them.

She looks over her shoulder to see where she is going. Drags Marcus over the undergrowth, avoiding rocks and stones. Looking for a place where she can hide. A dip where she can pull moss and undergrowth over them. A pine with low branches. Anything at all, anywhere at all.

She glances over towards the cottage. The torch is shining around in circles. Then it moves a little closer towards Martinsson. Shines around in circles again. Then moves a few more paces in Martinsson’s direction.

It takes some time before the penny drops. Vera walks over the
patches of snow. And Larsson is following the dog’s tracks. It takes some time to find the next patch of snow with paw-prints, but it’s still quicker than Martinsson can move with Marcus.

Martinsson looks at Vera, and struggles to avoid bursting into tears.

Go away, you stupid bloody dog, she thinks.

But Vera doesn’t go away. She follows them. Walks over the wet snow. Leaves paw-prints.

Martinsson sinks down on one knee next to Marcus. Her strength is ebbing away. They haven’t a chance. They are not going to escape. She might just as well lie down and wait for the darkness to come.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to Marcus. “I can’t cope with this.”

She digs her mobile from out of her pocket. She holds it low down, not sure about how much light from the display can be seen from a distance. “cottages rautas” she writes, “danger beware maja”. Then she sends the message to Eriksson, and to Mella.

She tries to loosen the gaffer tape from around Marcus’s feet and hands, but it is impossible to shift. But she does manage to slide the tape over his mouth down a little, so that he can breathe more easily.

She tries to think. If she can hide Marcus … Cover him up with twigs, and continue alone with Vera … She won’t have the strength to continue for much longer anyway. She even wonders if she will be able to stand up again. Maja will catch up with her. And then Vera will lead Maja to Marcus – she’s only a clueless mongrel after all.

It’s not possible. It’s just not possible.

Or … Yes, there is a way. An absolutely terrible way.

“Come here,” she says to Vera, and looks around for something hard: a stone, a branch.

There. A thick branch.

She picks it up and calls to the dog again.

“Come here, old girl,” she says. And Vera comes to her.

Lizzie strolls home from church one Sunday in March 1926. Frans Olof is ten years old. He seems so mature as he walks along beside her, linking arms with her. Johan-Albin would not dream of setting foot inside the church, but Frans always accompanies her, even if he does not seem to appreciate a good sermon or the marvellous music that accompanies services at the Salvation Army citadel.

Perhaps it is the walk through Luleå that attracts him most. An occasion when they have time to chat to each other about this and that, just the two of them. Or perhaps because they sometimes go to Café Norden after the service. Or maybe it is just that he senses how much it means to her. That it boils down to love.

As they approach their house in Lulsundsgatan, they see a man standing outside it. It takes a while before Lizzie recognises him, despite the fact that he seems familiar the moment she sees him. Then it dawns on her that it is Managing Director Lundbohm. He has aged. His face seems to be hanging down from his body, and he is clinging to the gatepost like a very old man.

The sight of him makes her heart leap. Maybe she squeezes Frans’s arm, because he turns to look at her.

“What’s the matter, Mum?” he says.

But she cannot answer because they have now arrived at the entrance door, where the man is standing.

*

Lundbohm takes a few careful steps forward. He is afraid of being overcome by dizziness, and falling down. A flock of house sparrows has assembled in a bush close by him, chattering away.

He tries to keep calm. But that is not easy when he sets eyes on the boy. He is a living image of his mother. His head is covered in a mass of blonde curly hair. Lizzie is so meticulous, but she has not kept the boy’s hair short – understandably: he looks like an angel.

And he also looks like his father. It is mainly his eyes: the outside corners of his eyes are much lower than the inside ones, giving his face a melancholy expression.

“Hello!” Lundbohm says. He stops short because he is on the point of saying “Hello, Lizzie”: but she is no longer his housekeeper, and he can’t remember her surname.

Lizzie manages to produce a curt “hello”, and the boy bows his head in acknowledgement.

“Well, well, my lad,” Lundbohm says, “I used to know your mother …”

The boy looks hesitantly at Lizzie.

“What does he mean?” he wonders.

“He doesn’t mean anything,” Lizzie snaps, staring Lundbohm in the eye. “He’s old and sick and no doubt he’s no longer surrounded by friends and admirers like he used to be, now that he’s no longer the managing director of the mine. Am I right? And now he wants something that he’s never bothered about before.”

Lundbohm cannot bring himself to respond. He is holding a fat envelope in his hand, and now he presses it against his chest.

“Coming here!” Lizzie snarls. “After all these years!”

She catches her breath. Now at last she can say what she’s always wanted to say! Her legs are rigid – she feels no urge to curtsey.

“Do you know what?” she says. “I thought about you today. The pastor’s sermon was about greed, about Moloch, the idol to whom people sacrificed children in order to become rich. I sat there in
the pew, thinking. Thinking that we all know the sort of person who does that. People like you! Just like you! Thinking that money is the root of all evil. You craved the limelight. Artist friends, aristocratic men and women. But all that brilliance has crumbled away and become no more than gravel in your hands. And now you must face up to your sins. To the way you abandoned her! Face up to the facts! She loved you! And you thought she was a nice bit of skirt – but not good enough for you! Not as eminent as fru Karin Larsson.”

Lundbohm has to acknowledge his guilt. He has been found out.

Karin Larsson was often a guest of his in Kiruna. Her husband Carl, the great artist, never accompanied her. And for a while Karin’s letters to him were so affectionate. “I sometimes think you are the only person in the whole world who can understand me,” she once wrote. He read that sentence over and over again. But then relations between Karin and her husband Carl improved, and now she hardly ever writes, although Carl has been dead for many years. If he ever complains about this, she always says she has so much to do for her children and grandchildren.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Lizzie screeches, so shrilly that Frans looks horrified and whispers, “Mother,” and tugs at the sleeve of her coat.

“I was so terribly fond of her,” she goes on. “Her voice when she read aloud to us. Her way with the schoolchildren. And the way in which she never made me feel like a maid.”

“I have never treated you in a way that could suggest you were somehow inferior,” Lundbohm insists. “And as for her …”

Neither of them mentions Elina by name. The boy looks wideeyed at first one of them, then the other.

“You made her feel like something much worse,” Lizzie says, interrupting him. “You left her in the lurch with …”

She looks askance at Frans, and prays to God that he will not understand.

Lundbohm’s face is as grey as burnt paper. Lizzie has fallen silent. Then Lundbohm looks up.

“Does your pastor ever preach about forgiveness?” he asks quietly.

When Lizzie doesn’t reply, he hands her the envelope.

“Here! I’m a ruined man, destitute. But they didn’t take quite everything. These are shares in a foreign company, so nobody knows—”

“I don’t need anything from you! Johan-Albin and I have worked hard, and we have managed so far.”

So Lundbohm offers the envelope to Frans, who takes it as bidden when the man waves it in front of him.

“Go away!” says Lizzie firmly. “Just clear off! There is nothing here for you. Have you understood that? Don’t you think you’ve done enough harm? Be off with you!”

Then she disappears through the front door with the boy.

*

Lundbohm walks over the street to the taxi that is waiting there to take him back to the railway station.

So there, my heart, he says to himself when the driver has shut the door behind him. Now you have done all I’ve asked of you. Just carry on beating long enough for me to get away from here. Then I shan’t ask any more of you. All I want is to have my time over again. And if I can’t have that, then too bad.

*

Lizzie takes the envelope as soon as they are inside the house. And she answers “nobody” and “nothing” to Frans’s questions about the mystery man. Then she tells him that he must not say a word about what has happened to his father.

Once they are inside the flat, she opens the envelope. It contains
a letter from Lundbohm, and three sheets of paper headed
SHARE CERTIFICATE – ALBERTA POWER GENERATION
.

She lights a fire in the stove, and intends to burn it all up – but first of all she puts on some water for coffee. Then she hears Johan-Albin’s footsteps on the stairs. She takes the envelope and hides it in among the papers on the desk.

And that is where it stays.

Martinsson kneels there among the trees, crying her eyes out. She is holding Vera’s collar in one hand, and has the branch in the other.

The moon is like a cold, white goddess in the black sky. Not too far away, the light from the torch is shining in circles over the lingon shoots and heather, the snow and the tracks made by Vera. Larsson is finding her way methodically towards where Martinsson is hiding.

It’s Marcus or Vera, Martinsson thinks. And I have no time to lose.