The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [5]
Charles Morgansson had been working in Forensics for a couple of weeks. He had joined them from Umeå, where he had been for the past few years. Eskil Ryde, the head of the Forensics Department, had installed Morgansson in the empty cubicle in their division and the northener had made a comment about it being like a row of boxes in the stables and had said little else since then. His reticence had irritated some, aroused the curiosity of others, but all in all the new recruit had acclimated well. This was his first homicide case in Uppsala.
“Have you heard anything of Ryde’s plans?”
“No,” Lindell said, who as recently as the other day had talked to Ryde about his plans of quitting the force and taking early retirement, but this was nothing she wanted to discuss with Sammy Nilsson.
“Anita thought his buns were cute,” Nilsson said.
“Whose buns?”
“Morgansson’s”
“Forget about his buns a while,” Lindell said flatly, “we have an investigation under way.”
“I was just trying to . . .”
“Forget it. Can you take the upstairs? I want to take a look around out there. Tell Allan to go over the TV room.”
The technicians Jönsson and Mårtensson had spent almost two hours going through the home. Now it was the detectives’ turn but Lin-dell was finding it hard to remain in Petrus Blomgren’s house. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on it but it was something more than the usual oppressiveness she felt in the homes of those who had fallen victim to deadly violence. Perhaps a little fresh air will help, she thought and walked out into the yard again.
The mercury strip had indicated negative five degrees Celsius this morning but now there was milder weather approaching. The period of unusual cold would be followed by a warm front and the end of October would be marked by more normal temperatures.
She turned the corner and came out of the wind. A couple of black currant bushes, with withered leaves and the occasional, dangling dried berry, reminded her of a time gone by. It was always this way when she came out to the countryside. All the little cabins, woodsheds, and woodpiles with bunched-up twigs and grass took her thoughts back to Gräsö Island. This was her punishment, or so she felt. She had to live with it; she knew that. Everyone carried some painful memories. This was hers.
She sighed heavily, plucked a berry that she popped in her mouth, and looked around. There was nothing of note to see: a handful of old apple trees, a bed of wilted flowers, and a rusty ladder hanging on the wall. She took a closer look at it and the mounting hardware. The ladder did not look as if it had been moved in years.
Behind the house there was a pile of rocks that stirred the imagination. Large stone blocks pushed up against each other as if engaged in a wrestling match. From having been enemies once upon a time they had now made their peace and—weighed down with age, covered with moss and lichen—had stiffened, exhausted in their struggle, leaning heavily against each other.
Petrus Blomgren had planted a tree near this rock pile. Lindell rubbed its smooth, striated trunk. A single chair had been left out under its thin crown. Lindell pictured him sitting there in the coolness of the rocks, pondering the decisions he had to make on his own. Wasn’t that what he had written, that he had to make all his decisions alone?
Where was the motive for killing an old man? Lindell stopped, took a deep breath, and drew out her newly acquired notebook. She was a little embarrassed about it. She had read a mystery novel over the summer, the first she had read in a number of years, and in it the protagonist had a notebook where he wrote down everything of interest. At first Lindell had thought it seemed silly, but after she finished reading she kept thinking about that notebook and so when it happened that she passed by a bookstore she had slunk in and bought a pad for thirty-two kronor. She always carried it with her now and she thought it had sharpened her thought processes, ennobled her as a police officer. Perhaps she was simply going with her gut here,