The Blood Spilt

11


It’s two o’clock in the morning. Rebecka Martinsson is sleeping. Curiosity works its way in through the window like the tendrils of a climbing plant. Winds itself around her heart. Sends out roots and shoots, spreading through her body. Twining around her rib cage. Spinning a cocoon around her chest.
When she wakes up in the middle of the night it has grown into an irresistible compulsion. The sounds from the bar have died away in the autumn night. A branch is whipping and banging angrily on the metal roof of the chalet. The moon is almost full. The deathly pale light pours in through the window. Catches the bunch of keys, lying there on the pine table.
She gets up and dresses. Doesn’t need to put the light on. The moonlight is enough. She looks at her watch. Thinks of Anna-Maria Mella. She likes the policewoman. She’s a woman who’s chosen to try to do the right thing.
She goes outside. There’s a strong wind blowing. The rowans and the birch trees are whipping wildly to and fro. The trunks of the pine trees creak and groan.
She gets into the car and drives off.
She drives to the churchyard. It isn’t far. Nor is it very big. She doesn’t have to search for long before she finds the priest’s grave. Lots of flowers. Roses. Heather. Mildred Nilsson. And an empty space for her husband.
She was born in the same year as Mum, thinks Rebecka. Mum would have been fifty-five in November.
Everything is silent. But Rebecka can’t hear the silence. The wind is blowing so hard it’s roaring in her ears.
She stands there for a while looking at the stone. Then she goes back to the car, parked on the other side of the wall. When she gets into the car, it’s suddenly quiet.
What did you expect? she says to herself. Did you think the priest would be standing there, an apparition on her grave, pointing the way?
That would have made things easier, of course. But it’s her own decision.
So the parish priest wants the key to Mildred Nilsson’s locker. What’s in there? Why hasn’t anybody told the police about the locker? They want the key handed over discreetly. They’re expecting Rebecka to do just that.
It doesn’t matter, she thinks. I can do whatever I like.