We Know You Remember (26)
“Though apparently he doesn’t call himself that anymore,” August continued. “Ullberg says that people have always taken refuge in the forests around here—American deserters from the Vietnam War, people escaping urban development, women fleeing their abusive husbands.”
“Welcome to the edge of the wilderness,” said Eira. “What does this have to do with our case?”
August Engelhardt wiped salad dressing from the corner of his mouth and finished off his Raml?sa water.
“This Adam Vide guy lives in Kungsg?rden now,” he said. “That’s why Ullberg told Sven Hagstr?m. He thought he, if anyone, should know. And I quote: ‘After all that business with his boy, the shame. That he wasn’t the only one.’”
“What kind of rape are we talking about?”
“A gang rape somewhere in upper Norrland, a really brutal case apparently.”
The cramped room, the humidity and the heat of all the people, the noisy atmosphere—it was too much for her to be able to think clearly. They were back outside before she managed to grasp the key questions.
“Does Ullberg know what this man calls himself now?”
“Nope, unfortunately. His cousin or his cousin’s brother-in-law didn’t want to share the name in case the woman was wrong, or maybe they just didn’t know.”
The last race of the day was over, but the old men were still hanging around by the track. Even from a distance, Eira could see that their plastic cups were full.
“But I do have her name,” August continued. “She lives in Pr?stmon, and I’ve got Ullberg’s number in case we need anything else from him.”
“Good work,” said Eira.
He smiled, fishing a scrap of paper from his back pocket. “Can I go and collect my winnings now?”
Chapter 14
Eira never usually went for a beer with her colleagues after work. She usually drove straight home to Lunde to make sure her mother ate dinner, to make sure everything was OK.
In the Swedish language, going for a beer always meant at least three or four.
It meant a taxi home, almost ten kilometers away.
Despite all that, it was Eira who suggested it. There was something desolate about August Engelhardt’s tone once they had recapped the key information from the racetrack. On the way out, he had asked whether she could recommend any good TV shows, though he already seemed to have seen most of them.
“What else is there to do in Kramfors in the evenings?”
“Have you been to Kramm yet?” Eira asked, immediately regretting her words. It wasn’t her responsibility if he felt lonely.
“Sounds exciting,” said August.
“Just you wait.”
A few of the letters in the neon sign above the Hotel Kramm had gone out. Eira had spent plenty of drunken nights there in the distant past. One or two crazy one-night stands, too. Bodies without clear faces.
August returned from the bar with two bottles of High Coast beer.
“So what do you think about this rapist thing? Could it be something?”
“Talking about the case at the pub—you really think that’s a good idea?”
“We were talking in the restaurant.”
“But that was you bringing me up to speed. Besides, there was no one listening.”
They both glanced around the bar. Wall-to-wall carpet and upholstered seats, a group of local women in their forties, a couple of gloomy businessmen.
August swigged from his bottle. “What’s it like, living in the same place all your life? Where everyone knows you.”
He leaned back, his eyes glittering. Eira felt the first rush of the alcohol, the heightened presence of the moment. There was no risk. He was too young, and he had a girlfriend, he’d told her.
“I lived in Stockholm for a few years,” said Eira. “I always thought I’d move away from here as soon as it was up to me.”
“But then love got in the way, right?”
“In a sense.” She peered out through the window, at the tarmac and the parked cars. It was her mother who had got in the way, but that felt far too heavy a topic of conversation, far too personal. Her illness, the responsibility, the fear of being in the wrong place; that was why she had moved back the previous year. Surely that belonged under the heading of love too.
He clinked his bottle against her glass.
“Eira,” he said. “That’s a nice name. Unusual.”
“Not in ?dalen.” She waited to see whether there was any reaction. There wasn’t. “The girl who died after being hit by a ricocheting military bullet in nineteen thirty-one. Eira S?derberg. I’m named after her.”
“Aha. Cool.”
Eira still wasn’t sure he knew what she was talking about, so she ignored the fact that she didn’t want to be the type of person who told stories at every turn. The shots in ?dalen were general knowledge, after all. Eira S?derberg was only twenty when she died. She wasn’t even part of the demonstration, just standing to one side, watching the protesters, when she was hit by the bullet. It was a moment that had fundamentally changed Sweden. Never again would the military be brought in to deal with civilians; what would go on to become the Swedish model began right there. Peace among workers and owners, the land of compromise.