The Blood Spilt

35

M?ns Wenngren was sitting in the Grodan club looking at his cell phone. All day he’d been telling himself not to call Rebecka Martinsson, but now he couldn’t actually remember why not.
He’d call her and just ask casually how her job on the side was going.
He was thinking the kind of thoughts he’d had when he was fifteen. What her face would look like at the exact moment he pushed inside her.
Embarrassing old fool! he said to himself as he keyed in the number.
She answered after three rings. Sounded tired. He asked casually about the job on the side, just as he’d planned.
“It didn’t work out very well,” she said.
Then the whole story came pouring out, how she’d been accused of snooping by Nalle’s father.
“It was really nice, not being ‘the woman who killed three men,’ ” she said. “I wasn’t keeping it a secret, but there was no reason to tell anybody either. The worst thing is I left without paying the bill.”
“You can probably pay it by account transfer or something,” said M?ns.
Rebecka laughed.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you want me to sort it out for you?”
“No.”
No, of course not, he thought. Can do it herself.
“Then you’ll just have to go back there and pay it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t need to go crawling.”
“No.”
“Even if you have done something wrong, you shouldn’t crawl,” M?ns went on.
Silence at the other end of the phone.
“This is turning into hard work, Martinsson,” said M?ns.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Forget about it now,” said M?ns. “I’ll ring you first thing tomorrow and give you a bit of a pep talk. Going to pay a bill in some godforsaken little place, you can do that. Remember the time you had to deal with Axling Import all by yourself?”
“Mmm.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He won’t call, she thought when they’d rung off. Why should he?
* * *

The divers found Stefan Wikstr?m’s body in the lake at five past ten that evening. They managed to get him up with a stretcher made from a net, but he was heavy. An iron chain had been wound around his body. His skin was completely white and porous, as if it had been steeped in the water and faded. There were half centimeter wide entry holes in his forehead and chest.


YELLOW LEGS

It’s the beginning of May. The leaves that have been lying beneath the snow have been compacted to form a brown shell over the ground. Here and there something green is tentatively emerging. Warm breezes from the south. Birds flying overhead.
The she-wolf is still on the move. Sometimes she is overwhelmed by her great loneliness. Then she stretches her throat up to the sky and lets everything out.
Fifty kilometers south of Sodankyl? there is a village with an open garbage tip. She roots around there for a while, finds some discarded food and digs out fat, terrified rats. Fills her stomach well.
A little way outside the village there is a Karelian elkhound on a chain. When the she-wolf emerges from the edge of the forest, he doesn’t start barking like a thing possessed. Nor does he feel afraid and try to get away. He stands there in silence, waiting for her.
True, the smell of human beings frightens her, but she has been alone for a long time now, and this unafraid dog will do her very well. For three days she returns to him as darkness falls. Dares to come right up to him. Sniffs, allows herself to be sniffed. They court one another. Then she returns to the edge of the forest. Stops and looks at him. Waits for him to follow her.
And the dog pulls at his chain. During the day, he stops eating.
When the she-wolf returns on the fourth evening, he is no longer there. She stands at the edge of the forest for a little while. Then she trots off into the forest once again. And continues her journey.
* * *

The snow has completely gone. The ground is steaming, quivering with longing for life. Everywhere things are crawling, chirruping, crackling and playing. Leaves burst open on the aching trees. Summer is coming from below like a green, unstoppable wave.
She moves twenty kilometers northward along the river Torne. Crosses the bridge made by humans in Muonio.
Shortly afterward a man kneels before her for the second time in her life. She is lying in the birch woods with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. Her legs don’t exist. The trees above her a vague blur.
The man on his knees is a researcher in wolf behavior from the Nature Conservancy Council.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, stroking her flanks, her long yellow legs.
“Yes, she’s very pretty,” the vet agrees.
She gives her a vitamin injection, checks her teeth, flexes her limbs carefully.
“Three, maybe four years old,” she guesses. “Excellent condition, no scabies, nothing.”
“A real princess,” says the researcher, screwing the radio transmitter together around her neck, “a special piece of jewelry for a royal lady.”
The helicopter’s engine is still going. The ground is so soft the pilot daren’t turn it off, because the helicopter might sink down and be unable to lift off.
The vet gives the she-wolf another injection and then it’s time to leave her.
The researcher stands up. Still touching her. The thick, healthy coat. Wool next to the skin. Coarse, long hairs on the outer layer. The heavy paws.
When they have lifted off they can see her getting to her feet. A little bit wobbly.
“Tough lady,” the vet comments.
The researcher sends a thought to the powers that be. A prayer for protection.