We Know You Remember (37)

The smoke was visible from miles away. Eira pulled up on the grass behind the letter boxes to leave the road clear for the emergency vehicles and walked the rest of the way on foot.

The scorched spruces were the first thing she saw. She pulled her sweater up over her mouth against the smoke. Some of the walls were still standing, but the roof had caved in. The blackened chimney stack rose up into the air, ash falling like a dull gray rain. She saw the warped, charred, and melted remains of objects no one would ever point to and say, “I remember.”

Even the outhouse had been ravaged.

The Pontiac was still parked outside.

August came towards her.

“Was he inside?” she asked.

“They don’t know. The whole place had gone up by the time the fire service got here. They had their hands full over by Saltsj?n, so they could only spare one engine. No way they could get inside. He might not have woken up in time.”

They didn’t look at each other, their faces turned to the sooty black remains of the house. It was still burning in places, the firemen working to put out the last of the flames, which kept dying down and popping up elsewhere.

“No,” said Eira.

“No what?

“I don’t believe in God or revenge. I don’t think the lightning chooses where to strike. This place is on high ground. There were some old TV antennas on the roof.”

She fought back the urge to lean against his chest.

“They’ll go in as soon as they can,” said August. “And then we’ll know.”

It would be hours until most people in the area woke up, so Eira drove back to Lunde to get changed.

Kerstin was awake and had already brought in the newspaper. “Uff, what a stink. Where have you been?”

When Eira told her about the fires, she saw her mother’s gaze wandering, searching for a solid footing.

“You shouldn’t stay out all night.”

“I’m a police officer, Mum. I’m not fifteen anymore.”

“No, I know that.”

Eira popped some bread into the toaster and wondered whether she really did know. Her mother turned her attention to the obituaries, mumbling quietly to herself. “Oh, not her, not him. Oh, that’s too sad.” She had brought in the post, too. It didn’t seem to have been done the day before. That was something Kerstin Sj?din could still manage, so Eira left it to her, didn’t want to take the little jobs away. There was a bill, a letter from the bank, a statement of pension benefits. As she opened the envelopes and put the important things in a safe place, a thought came to her.

Perhaps a person didn’t need either a phone or a computer, or even to know what googling meant.





Chapter 19





“Sven Hagstr?m could have gone through his neighbors’ post,” she told Bosse Ring a few hours later, as they drove back to Kungsg?rden.

When the clock struck seven, she had called GG to tell him everything she had found out about Tryggve Nydalen. About the conviction for sexual abuse that actually seemed more like a gang rape, his attempts to erase his identity.

“Let’s bring him in for questioning,” GG had said, heading off in a patrol car the minute he arrived in Kramfors.

It was left to Eira and Bosse Ring to deal with the family. That was where they were on their way now, to a home that had been torn apart by the decision to take one of their number away in a police car that morning, where the stench of the previous night’s fire left a sense of catastrophe in the air.

Eira turned off by the back road, involving a short climb through the rough terrain. The fire service had blocked off the other driveway.

“The letter boxes are all in a row,” she continued. “He only had to steal a bill from the Nydalens’ box—some kind of formal letter including all his names—and he would have known that Tryggve was also called Adam. He might even have opened one and seen his ID number.”

“But there must be at least twenty houses around here,” Bosse Ring said once they found the trail and were making their way up the hill. “Are you saying the old man really checked every one?”

“Maybe he’d had his suspicions about who it was from the moment he heard the gossip at the races. A man around the right age, originally from the area around the Pite River valley . . .” Eira hadn’t noticed a northern accent when she spoke to Tryggve Nydalen, but he could have been making an effort. It had likely been much stronger when he first moved south thirty years earlier, and clearly it still came out from time to time, as it had in the ironmonger’s.

“And if he confronted Nydalen,” Bosse filled in. “If he reminded him of what happened back then . . . Well, you’ve got to wonder what that would do to a man who’s managed to hide who he really is for almost forty years.”

They reached the crown of the wooded hill. The homestead seemed quiet. There was no sign of anyone.

Eira noticed a few plastic toys floating in the paddling pool, saw that one of the two cars was gone.

“I wonder if his wife knew,” she said.

“People always know,” her colleague replied. “Even if you don’t know you know.”



Mejan Nydalen looked tired, one of the buttons over her stomach gaping open. She had applied mascara and filled in her brows, but seemed not to have noticed the button.