The Blood Spilt

25

Torbj?rn Ylitalo, the chairman of Poikkij?rvi hunting club, was out in his yard sawing wood when Anna-Maria Mella arrived. She stopped the car and got out. His back was toward her. His red ear protectors meant that he hadn’t heard her. She took the opportunity to have a little look around in peace.
Well-looked-after geraniums in the window behind checked curtains. Presumably married, then. Tidy flower beds. Not a single fallen leaf on the lawn. The fence beautifully painted Falun red, with white tips.
Anna-Maria thought about her own fence, covered in patches of algae, and the paint flaking off the southern gable in great lumps.
We must paint it next summer, she thought.
But wasn’t that just what she’d thought last autumn?
Torbj?rn Ylitalo’s chainsaw bit through the wood with a piercing shriek. When he threw the last piece to one side and bent down to pick up a fresh meter-long piece, Anna-Maria shouted to attract his attention.
He turned around, took off his ear protectors and switched off the saw. Torbj?rn Ylitalo was in his sixties. A bit rough, but somehow well groomed. The remaining hair on his head was just like his beard, gray and well cut. When he had taken off his goggles, he opened his shiny blue work jacket and took out a pair of flexible, rimless Sven-G?ran Eriksson glasses which he fixed firmly on his big lumpy nose. Sunburned and weather-beaten above the white neck. His earlobes were two big flaps of skin, but Anna-Maria noticed that the razor had been over them as well.
Not like Sven-Erik, she thought.
Sometimes there were clumps of hair like witches’ brooms growing out of his ears.
* * *

They sat down in the kitchen. Anna-Maria accepted the offer of a cup of coffee when Torbj?rn Ylitalo said he was having one himself anyway.
He measured coffee into the machine and rummaged ineffectually in the freezer, seemed relieved when Anna-Maria said she didn’t want anything to eat.
“Are you on holiday before the elk hunting season starts?” asked Anna-Maria.
“No, but I’ve got very flexible working hours, you know.”
“Mmm, you’re the forestry officer for the church.”
“That’s right.”
“Chairman of the hunting club, and a member of the hunting team.”
He nodded.
They chatted for a while about hunting and gathering berries.
Anna-Maria took a notepad and pen out of the inside pocket of her jacket, which she’d kept on. She placed them on the table in front of her.
“As I said outside, this is about Mildred Nilsson. You and she didn’t get on, according to what I’ve heard.”
Torbj?rn Ylitalo looked at her. He wasn’t smiling, he hadn’t smiled once so far. He took a sip of his coffee without hurrying, placed the cup on the saucer and asked:
“Who told you that?”
“Was it true?”
“What can I say, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she sowed a lot of discord and bitterness in this village.”
“In what way?”
“I’ll be honest with you: she hated men. I really believe she wanted the women in the village to leave their men. And there isn’t much you can do in that situation.”
“Are you married?”
“Tick the yes box!”
“Did she try to get your wife to leave you?”
“No, not her. But there were others.”
“So exactly what did you and Mildred fall out about?”
“Well, it was this bloody stupid idea of having a quota system in the hunting team. Top-up?”
Anna-Maria shook her head.
“You know, every other member a woman. She thought that should be a condition if the lease was to be renewed.”
“And you thought that was a bad idea.”
A little more energy crept into his almost leisurely way of speaking.
“Well, there wasn’t really anybody who thought it was a good idea, apart from her. And I certainly don’t hate women, but I do think people should compete for places on the board of a company, or for parliament, or for that matter for our little hunting team, on equal terms. It really would be inequality if you got a place just because you were a woman. And how would you gain any respect? And besides— what’s wrong with letting the men do the hunting? Sometimes I think hunting is our last outpost. Leave us to do at least that in peace. I didn’t bloody well insist on joining her women’s Bible group.”
“So you fell out about that, you and Mildred?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say we fell out—she knew what I thought.”
“Magnus Lindmark said you’d have liked to put your shotgun in her mouth.”
Anna-Maria wondered for a moment whether she should have told him that. Then again, it would serve the bastard who chopped the heads off the kittens bloody well right.
Torbj?rn Ylitalo didn’t seem bothered. He even smiled slightly for the first time. A tired, almost imperceptible smile.
“That’s probably more to do with Magnus’ own feelings,” he said. “But Magnus didn’t kill her. And neither did I.”
Anna-Maria didn’t answer.
“If I’d killed her, I would have shot her and buried her deep in some bog,” he said.
“Did you know she wanted to cancel the lease?”
“Yes, but nobody on the church council was on her side, so it didn’t mean a thing.”
Torbj?rn Ylitalo stood up.
“Well, if there’s nothing else, I really need to get on with the wood.”
Anna-Maria got up. She watched him place their cups on the draining board.
Then he took the coffee pot and placed it in the refrigerator, the coffee still warm.
She didn’t comment. And they parted amicably out in the yard.
* * *

Anna-Maria drove away from Torbj?rn Ylitalo. She wanted to go and see Erik Nilsson again. Ask if he knew who’d sent the drawing to his wife.
She parked the car outside the gates to the priest’s house. The mailbox was overflowing with newspapers and letters, the lid jammed open. Soon it would be raining into the box. Bills, junk mail and newspapers would turn into one great big papier-maché lump. Anna-Maria had seen overflowing mailboxes like this before. The neighbors ring, the mailbox looks like that, the police go in, and there’s death in the house. One way or another.
She took a deep breath. She’d try the door first of all. If the priest’s husband was lying in there, it might well be unlocked. If it was locked she’d look in through the windows on the ground floor.
She went up onto the porch. It was decorated with pretty white carved wood, white wicker chairs and big blue glazed pots, the contents of which had dried to a solid cement containing the brown, withered remains of summer flowers.
Just as she touched the door handle, it was pressed downward and the door opened from the inside. Anna-Maria didn’t scream. Her expression probably didn’t even change. But inside she jumped. Her stomach tied itself in knots.
A woman came out onto the porch, almost collided with Anna-Maria, and gave a little scream of fear.
She was around forty, wide-open dark brown eyes with long, thick eyelashes. Not much taller than Anna-Maria, so quite short. But she was slimmer, more fine-boned. The hand that flew up to her breast had long, slender fingers, the wrist was small.
“Oh,” she smiled.
Anna-Maria Mella introduced herself.
“I’m looking for Erik Nilsson.”
“Ah,” said the woman. “He’s… he isn’t here.”
Her voice faded away.
“He’s moved away,” she said. “I mean, the house belongs to the church. Nobody actually forced him to go, but… I’m sorry, my name’s Kristin Wikstr?m.”
She extended the delicate hand toward Anna-Maria. Then she seemed embarrassed, as if she felt the need to explain her presence.
“My husband, Stefan Wikstr?m, is going to move in here now Mildred’s… Well, not just him. Me and the children too, of course.”
She gave a short laugh.
“Erik Nilsson hasn’t moved his furniture or his belongings and we don’t know where he is and… well, I came here to see how much there was to do.”
“So you don’t know where Erik Nilsson’s staying?”
Kristin Wikstr?m shook her head.
“What about your husband?” asked Anna-Maria.
“He doesn’t know either.”
“No, but I’m wondering: where’s he at the moment?”
Small furrows appeared above Kristin Wikstr?m’s upper lip.
“What do you want with him?”
“Just a few questions.”
Kristin Wikstr?m shook her head slowly, her expression troubled.
“I’d really prefer it if he were left in peace,” she said. “He’s had a very difficult summer. No holiday. The police around all the time. Journalists, they even ring at night, you know, and we daren’t unplug the phone because my mother’s old and ill, what if she were trying to ring us? And we’re all afraid that it was some lunatic who… You daren’t let the children out on their own. I’m worried about Stefan all the time.”
But she didn’t mention the grief over a lost colleague, Anna-Maria noted coldly.
“Is he at home?” she asked mercilessly.
Kristin Wikstr?m sighed. Looked at Anna-Maria as if she were a child who’d disappointed her. Disappointed her a great deal.
“I don’t actually know,” she said. “I’m not the kind of woman who has to keep tabs on my husband all the time.”
“Then I’ll try the priest’s house in Jukkasj?rvi first, and if he’s not there I’ll go into town,” said Anna-Maria, resisting the urge to roll her eyes to heaven.
* * *

Kristin Wikstr?m remains standing on the porch of the priest’s house in Poikkij?rvi. She watches the departing red Ford Escort. She didn’t like that woman detective. She doesn’t like anyone. No, that isn’t true, of course. She loves Stefan. And the children. She loves her family.
In her head she has a film projector. She doesn’t think it’s very common. Sometimes it just shows rubbish. But now she is going to close her eyes and watch a film she likes very much. The autumn sun warms her face. It’s still late summer, it’s hard to believe this is Kiruna, when it’s as warm as this. It fits in very well. Because the film is from last spring.
The spring sun is shining in through the window and warming her face. The colors are muted. The picture is in soft focus, so it looks as if she has a halo around her hair. She is sitting on a chair in the kitchen. Stefan is sitting on the chair next to her. He is leaning forward, his head on her lap. Her hands are caressing his hair. She says: ssh. He is weeping. “Mildred,” he says. “I can’t cope much longer.” All he wants is peace and quiet. Peace at work. Peace at home. But with Mildred spreading her poison through the congregation… She strokes his soft hair. It’s a sacred moment. Stefan is so strong. He never seeks consolation from her. She enjoys being needed by him. Something makes her look up. In the doorway stands their eldest son Benjamin. What a mess he looks, with his long hair and his tight black ripped jeans. He stares at his parents. Doesn’t say a word. But his eyes look completely crazy. She indicates with her eyebrows that he should disappear. She knows Stefan won’t want the children to see him like this.
The film ends. Kristin grabs hold of the banister. This will be her and Stefan’s house. If Mildred’s husband thinks he can just leave all the furniture behind, and that nobody will dare to move it out, then he’s wrong. As she walks toward the car, she allows the film in her head to run once more. This time she edits out her son Benjamin.