The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [51]
Ann was searching for a complete picture and felt she sensed who Blomgren had been and what it was that had been lost. The hillside in Jumkil drew heavy breaths. Maple leaves floated to the ground. No creature emerged from the forest, not even a hint of wind altered the scene in any way.
It was with a feeling of melancholy grandeur that Ann Lindell knocked on Dorotea Svahn’s door. The old woman opened the door immediately and Ann guessed she had been spotted a long time ago.
“Come in,” Dorotea said. “I’ve put on coffee.”
Ann made small talk while Dorotea poured out the coffee and filled the bread basket with half a dozen sweet rolls that she had warmed up in the microwave.
“I saw you linger at the gate for a while,” Dorotea said. “It’s easy to get caught up in one’s thoughts.”
“Yes, I was thinking about the silence,” Ann said, “how it comes over you. I’m so used to stress and noise that the silence impresses me with another reality. I sometimes feel that I don’t have the concepts I need to express what is happening when I experience silence. Does that make any sense?”
Dorotea nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Did you leave those flowers by the gate?”
“No.”
“Anyone you know?”
Dorotea shook her head.
“I don’t know who it is,” she said curtly and Lindell dropped it, not convinced she was telling the truth.
“I’ve read my colleague’s, Beatrice Andersson’s, notes on her conversation with you,” Lindell said, starting over. “You and Petrus seem to have been very close. Maybe you were the person who knew him best.”
Dorotea nodded again.
“You said something to her about Petrus going abroad once, I think it was to Mallorca. Do you know anything else about that trip?”
Dorotea took a sugar cube and mixed the coffee with a spoon before she answered.
“Not any more than just that Petrus was a changed man when he came home.”
“How do you mean?”
“He was . . . happier,” Dorotea said after a couple of seconds of hesitation.
“Tell me!”
“He never used to go anywhere and then suddenly he was off to Spain.He was anxious about it beforehand, all the business with ordering his passport, but he got away. One week he was gone. The car gone too, he parked it at the airport. That cost him two hundred kronor right there. He said he had had fun down there. He managed with the language. They could almost speak Swedish down there.”
“Did he go alone?”
The question caused Dorotea to squeeze her eyes together momentarily.
“I think so,” she said and Lindell saw she was lying.
“Did he talk a lot about Spain when he returned?”
“Yes, the first while maybe.”
“Did Petrus have difficulties sleeping?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Dorotea said. “Why do you ask?”
“We found an old package of sleeping pills in the house.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“What year did he travel to Mallorca?”
“It was about twenty years ago. I don’t think he had turned fifty? No, he didn’t until the next fall, or . . . perhaps it was . . .”
“Was it 1981?”
“In May,” Dorotea said and nodded. “After the spring planting season.”
“The sleeping pills were prescribed in June 1981,” Lindell said.
She paused for several seconds, letting the information sink in, before she continued.
“Can’t you tell me? It’s important to understand what happened to Petrus.”
Dorotea suddenly stood up and left the room with surprising agility. She returned with a postcard in her hand that she placed on the table in front of Lindell.
The card showed a beach in front of a hotel. There was everything one would associate with a charter trip: a bar in the background shaped like a giant shell, sun umbrellas, and lounge chairs in the foreground.
Lindell flipped the postcard over. It was addressed to “Dorotea Svahn, Vilsne village, Jumkil, Sweden.” The text was brief: “Hi Dorotea! I am so happy and having a good time.” Signed, “Petrus.”
Dorotea stood with her hand held out and as