Until Thy Wrath Be Past (10 page)

He jabbed his index finger hard on the table in front of Mella.

“I pay your wages. Just bear that in mind, constabitch. Me, my brother, my father. People like us with real jobs who actually do something useful and pay taxes. You could say you’re my employee. And I think you do a bloody awful job. Am I allowed to think that?”

“You can if you like,” Mella said. “I’m leaving.”

Tore’s face was still pressed up against hers. Now he backed off slightly and waved his hand about in front of her face.

“There’s no charge for fresh air, I suppose you know that?” he said.

“Didn’t you want to use the toilet?” Kerttu said. “You came in because you wanted to go to the toilet. It’s to the right in the hall.”

Mella nodded. Hjalmar Krekula moved unhurriedly to one side, so that she could get past him.

Once safely in the toilet, she took a deep breath. What ghastly people.

She stood there for a while, trying to pull herself together. Then she flushed the lavatory and turned on the tap.

There was no sign of Hjalmar when she came out. Tore was sitting at the kitchen table. Mella took her jacket from the chair and put it on.

“You can’t go yet,” Tore said. “Hjalmar has let Reijo out. He’ll gobble you up.”

“Could you ask him to shut the dog in again, please,” Mella said. “I want to go now.”

“He’s just letting him do a quick round of the house. In a hurry, are you? Lots to do?”

Don’t let them see you’re afraid, Mella told herself.

“Do you know where Wilma and Simon were planning to go diving?” she said, her voice steady as a rock.

She heard a faint groan coming from the little room next to the kitchen. It was the sound of a restless sleeper. An old man.

“How is he?” Tore asked his mother.

She replied with a shrug and an expression on her face that seemed to signify “same as usual”.

Mella wondered if the sleeping man was Isak Krekula. She supposed it must be. She ought to ask about what Johannes Svarvare had told her, about Isak Krekula having a heart attack a week or so before the kids disappeared, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Nor could she manage to ask again whether any of them knew where Simon and Wilma were planning to go diving. She was sweating, and all she wanted to do was to get away. The kitchen really was ugly. Painted various peculiar shades of green, as if they had mixed green paint with a bit of white here and there. There were hardly any countertops, and what little space there was had cheap, ugly ornaments crammed into it.

The door opened and Hjalmar came in.

“Can she go now?” Tore asked his brother in an odd tone of voice.

Hjalmar didn’t reply, didn’t look at Mella.

“Goodbye, then,” she said. “I may be back.”

She left the house. The dog was barking nonstop. Both brothers followed her out. They stood in the porch, watching her.

“What the hell?” she said when she got to her car.

All the tyres were flat.

“My tyres!” she said, aghast.

“Well, fuck me!” Tore said. “No doubt some kids did it.”

He smiled so there could be no doubt that he was lying.

Someone has to come and fetch me, Mella thought, fumbling for her mobile in the inside pocket of her jacket. Her first thought was Stålnacke – but no, that was out of the question. She would have to ring Robert. He would have to bring Gustav with him.

The mobile was not in the pocket where she usually kept it. She felt in her other pockets. No phone. Had she left it in the car? She checked. No.

She looked at the brothers standing in the porch. They had taken it. While she had been in the toilet.

“My mobile,” she said. “It’s missing.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that we took it,” Tore said. “That would really piss me off. Come out here and start casting aspersions. Do you need a lift into town?”

“No. I need to borrow a phone.”

She looked at the dog. It was running around in its pen, barking gruffly. Typical behaviour for a dog that would run off if it got the chance. Hjalmar had not let it out at all. If he had done, it would be several kilometres away by now. Besides, the snow around the pen was unmarked.

“Mother’s telephone is out of order,” Tore said. “Hop into the red Volvo. Me and Hjallie are going to town anyway. You can come with us.”

They must be out of their minds, she thought.

A series of images flashed through her mind. Hjalmar wrenches open the back door and drags her out of the car. Tore has driven on-to a forest track. Hjalmar grabs hold of her hair and bashes her head against a tree trunk. He pins her arms down while Tore rapes her.

I’m not getting into a car with them, she thought. I’d rather walk all the way back to town.

“I’ll manage,” she said. “I’ll come back with some colleagues and collect the car.”

Turning on her heel, she strode off. Followed the village street in the direction of Anni Autio’s house. Halfway there she was overtaken by Tore and Hjalmar Krekula in their car, on the way to Kiruna. She half-expected them to stop and for Tore to offer her a lift again, but they just sailed past without even slowing down. She forced herself to walk at normal speed.

I’ll borrow Anni’s telephone, she thought.

Then she remembered that she’d promised to go back and help Anni down the stairs.

Good Lord, she thought. I’d forgotten all about that.

Anni was fast asleep upstairs in Wilma’s room. She had pulled the bedspread over her. When Mella sat down on the edge of the bed, she opened her eyes.

“Back already?” she said. “How about a cup of coffee?”

“If I drink another cup of coffee, I’ll drop down and die,” Mella said with a wry smile. “Can I borrow your phone?”

Anni did not sit up, but her eyes were suddenly wide open and searching.

“What’s happened?” she said.

“Nothing,” Mella said. “I just can’t start my car.”

Robert didn’t answer the phone. He was probably out playing in the snow with the kids. Ringing Stålnacke was a non-starter. She couldn’t phone any of her other colleagues either.

It’s Saturday, she thought. They’re off duty. I’ve got myself into this situation. The last thing I need is another story about how inconsiderate I am.

In the end she dialled Rebecka Martinsson’s number. Martinsson picked up after two rings.

“I’ll fill you in later,” Mella said, glancing at Anni, who was in the kitchen getting some yoghourt and bread. “Can you come and fetch me, please? I hate having to ask you.”

“I’ll be there right away,” Martinsson said, without asking any questions.

Forty minutes later, Rebecka Martinsson pulled up at Anni Autio’s house.

Mella was standing outside, waiting for her. Slammed the passenger door as she got into the car.

“Let’s go,” was all she said.

Once they had left the village, the story came tumbling out.

“The bastards,” she said, bursting into tears. “What a bunch of fucking cunts.”

Martinsson said nothing, concentrated on her driving.

“And they knew the score exactly,” Mella snuffled. “I can’t prove a bloody thing. Not that Hjalmar slashed my tyres, not that they nicked my mobile, nothing.”

Shame raged inside her. She had allowed herself to be terrified. Tore Krekula must have felt like a bloated rat on top of a rubbish tip when he offered to drive her into Kiruna and she said no.

“He enjoyed every minute of it,” she said to Martinsson.

I ought to have made a scene, she thought. I ought to have raised hell and screamed and accused them. I should have insisted that they drove me into town. Instead I let them see that I was shit-scared.

“I’ll give them hell!” she roared, slamming her fist down on the glovebox. “I’ll reopen every suspended investigation, check out every retracted accusation involving those damned brothers. You can charge them. They’ll regret the day they started fucking with me.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Martinsson said calmly. “You’ll keep a cool head and act in a professional manner.”

“You saunter in all serene and innocent,” Mella said, “and they launch an all-out attack. Crash, bang, wallop!”

“Some people . . .” Martinsson said, without finishing her sentence. “Do you think this has anything to do with Simon and Wilma?”

“Simon and Wilma. I’m going to find Simon. And I’m going to discover exactly how they died.”

“Yes, you do that,” Martinsson said. “That’s your job.”

“I’ll call in the media and appeal to the public for information. And I’ll ring the Krekula brothers and suggest that they switch on their televisions.”

She slapped her forehead.

“Oh, shit!” she said. “I was supposed to collect Jenny from the stables. What time is it?”

“Quarter past two.”

“I can just make it . . . that is, if you . . . Is it O.K. if we pick her up?”

There was no sign of Jenny at the stables. Mella ran into the coffee room, checked all the seats around the riding track, every box, every stall. She asked all the stable girls she could find, becoming desperate when they shrugged and said they had no idea where Jenny might be. Martinsson was hard on her heels. They finally discovered one of Jenny’s friends behind the main building. She was busy splitting bales of hay open for the horses in the paddock.

“Hi Ebba,” Mella said in an uncharacteristically cheerful voice, trying to subdue the suspicions that were beginning to creep up on her. “Where’s Jenny?”

Ebba looked at Mella in confusion.

“But you sent her a text,” she said. “Jenny was so upset. She texted you back, then rang you, but you didn’t pick up.”

Mella went ice-cold with horror.

“But I haven’t sent any texts,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper. “I have . . . My mobile . . .”

Martinsson’s mobile rang. It was Måns Wenngren. She ignored the call.

“What did the text say?”

“Surely you must know what you wrote?” Ebba said.

Mella groaned, covering her mouth with her hand to prevent herself from screaming.

“Oh my God!” Ebba said, looking scared. “You texted Jenny that she should meet you. Immediately. She was pretty put out, having to go back to town.”

“Where to?” Mella screeched. “Where was she supposed to go?”

“To that old open-air stage in the park by the railway station. We thought it seemed odd. A funny place to meet. She tried to ring and text you, but you didn’t answer. Neither did Robert. Your text said to come immediately – Jenny was afraid something might have happened to you.”

The stage in Järnvägsparken, Martinsson thought. There won’t be a soul anywhere in the vicinity.

“Are you saying it wasn’t you who sent that text?” Ebba said, sounding worried.

But Mella was already racing for the car. Martinsson ran after her.

Mella’s heart was thumping. She could envisage Tore and Hjalmar Krekula telling Jenny that her mother had had an accident. She could see them driving off with Jenny in their car.

How many times had Mella found herself observing her only daughter surreptitiously since she had become a teenager? Mella had contemplated Jenny’s budding breasts, her perfect pink skin. Prayed for divine protection. Please God, don’t let anything awful happen to her. And now . . . Please, please God . . .

Martinsson set off with Mella on her mobile, trying to ring Jenny. No answer. Please, please God . . . Don’t let anything happen to her. Please don’t let anything happen to her. We’ll be there very soon.

Martinsson drove through the park along the pedestrian walkway to the stage. There was Jenny. She looked frozen to death in her stable girl’s light jacket. Mella leapt out of the car, yelling out her daughter’s name. Jenny! Jenny!

“I’m here, can’t you see?” Jenny said, breaking free from her mother’s embrace.

She was furious. Scared as well, you could see that in her eyes.

Mella flew into a rage.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she thundered.

“I tried to ring you. My battery ran out. God knows how long I’ve been standing here waiting. Nobody answered! You didn’t. Dad didn’t. What’s going on? Why are you crying?”

The late news on North Swedish Television carried pictures of Wilma Persson and Simon Kyrö. The presenter said that although the young people had disappeared in October, Wilma’s body had only just been found. Mella stood in front of the camera asking the public for any leads. Anything and everything was of interest, she said. Did anyone know where the kids were planning to go diving? Had anybody spoken to them before they disappeared?