We Know You Remember (68)

Mejan knew how to handle a hunting knife. It felt like an extension of her hand. You couldn’t hesitate when you drove it into flesh, living or dead.

It was all very quick.

Did he cry out?

She couldn’t say. Probably not. His jaw had certainly dropped, typical of a bad man who didn’t think anything bad could happen to him, who thought he was master of everything and could treat other people however he liked.

“No doubts there, right?”

Eira was dragged back to the present, to the office, the sun high in the sky outside. GG was standing in the doorway behind her with a mug of coffee in one hand, a smile on his face.

“Good work,” he said. “It was great to have you on board, but I’m afraid I’ve had a nudge from your boss; they want you back.”

“Right now?”

“I couldn’t argue to keep you on, unfortunately, but I told him to try to cope until Monday, so you can have a few days off at least.”

“OK.”

Eira closed the document, the case that looked to have been solved. Mejan’s confession didn’t leave any obvious question marks. It was clear and meticulous down to the very last detail, and even explained the issue of the keys. She had taken Sven’s key from the inside of the door when she left, locked it from the outside, and then dropped it into a hole beneath the porch. It struck Eira that they wouldn’t find it there.

In the ashes, perhaps.

It had been a long time since she had last had several days off in a row.

“Thanks,” she said. “It’s been rewarding to work with you.”

“Glad to hear it,” said GG. “But you’ll have to hold off with the goodbyes.”

They were going to take one last trip out to Kungsg?rden first.



Tryggve Nydalen was sitting in a garden chair at the end of the old barn. There was an ax lying on the ground by the chopping block, and the air smelled like freshly cut wood.

He had been questioned briefly before leaving custody, but hadn’t said much. Things might be different now that he was at home, with a little distance from his wife’s confession.

“I was about to stack the wood,” he said. “But then I found myself wondering what the point was.”

“Shall we sit here?” asked Eira.

Tryggve shrugged and nodded to the veranda, but didn’t get up. She assumed that meant they could fetch a chair each.

GG explained that their conversation was being recorded, and placed his mobile phone in the grass.

Did Tryggve know about his wife’s plans in advance? Did they come up with it together?

“I would’ve rather taken the gun out,” Tryggve Nydalen replied, “and turned it on myself.”

The thought had been there, yes, it had definitely crossed his mind.

That Mejan . . .

But he never would have thought . . .

It was only when they put the photographs of the hunting knife and overalls down in front of him that he realized.

Really understood.

“It’s my fault,” he said, his gaze fixed somewhere around the treetops. “If I hadn’t done what I did, the bloke would still be alive. What business did Hagstr?m have getting mixed up in my life? It was an injustice, that’s what he said when I went over there to plead and beg, that one person could suffer so much when another got away with it. But I didn’t get away with anything. I served my time.”

He blew his nose between his fingers, wiped his hand on his trousers.

“I should never have done any of this,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Tryggve gestured to the yard. The well-tended house, the abandoned trampoline. The grandchildren’s toys piled neatly in the sandpit, the deflated swan-shaped paddling pool.

“Family, the whole lot. I never asked for any of it, I was ready to head off to the oil rigs. It would’ve been an adventure. No one cares where you’re from out there on the North Sea, but she started crying, got in the way when I tried to leave. So I told her everything. About J?vredal, all of it. Any woman with an ounce of sense would’ve run a mile, not teamed up with me like she thought she could save me from myself. And she was pregnant, too. Didn’t even want to talk about an abortion. Said she didn’t know what she’d do if I left.”

“Has she ever shown any violent tendencies before?”

“You won’t make me say a bad word about Mejan. I’d rather go back to prison.”

Eira felt a sting of pain on her shoulder and swatted away a horsefly. They had arrived en masse with the high summer. She saw a fat one land on Tryggve’s forearm, and another on his bare wrist, but he didn’t seem to notice the pain when they bit.

He had thought Mejan seemed like her usual self that day. Around lunch, she had come into the bathroom where Tryggve was cleaning the drain. It wasn’t clogged, but she had been nagging him about it, and over the years he had learned it was easiest just to do what she wanted.

“Seems very quiet over at Hagstr?m’s place,” she had said. “Wonder if he’s gone away. Or if he’s in hospital or something. No need for you to tell Patrik about all that stuff now.”

When Sven Hagstr?m was eventually found dead, Tryggve had convinced himself it was all just a coincidence. He didn’t believe in God. It was more like his lottery numbers had finally come up.