We Know You Remember (85)

“That’s the foot you can see. More corpse wax.” Shirin took a bite of the cinnamon swirl in her hand. “And since we found it at the end of a right leg, it likely belongs to the same man.”

“So why after 1974?”

“That’s when Sko-Uno opened on Gamla Brogatan in Stockholm. Obviously our guy could have bought his Docs in London before then, but that doesn’t seem too likely unless he was a British factory worker. The boots didn’t become trendy among teenagers until the late sixties. The skinheads were first, then the neo-Nazis—they liked the steel toe caps . . .”

“A neo-Nazi?”

“Doubtful,” said Shirin. “But this is all guesswork now, so don’t write it up in any reports.”

She pointed to the boot with a stick. “The Nazis laced their boots all the way to the top. I actually don’t think they ever forgot.”

Eira leaned in closer. The boot had eight eyelets on each side, but it was laced only halfway, with the top four holes empty. Even the knot had been preserved by the blue clay and whatever else was on the riverbed.

“I’d guess our guy was a grunge kid,” said Shirin.

Eira laughed again. “Do you have special training in subcultures or something?”

“No, not exactly,” said Shirin. “But I was a teenager in the nineties when Dr. Martens were super popular and Kurt Cobain was god. I saved my pocket money for over six months just to go to Sko-Uno and buy a pair. I would rather have died than lace them all the way up.”

A cool breeze cut across the river, making the surface ripple.

“So what you’re saying is that the body ended up in the water sometime between the early nineties, when grunge was big, and . . .”

“A guess, like I said.”

The sound of a phone ringing interrupted them. It was GG. He was up by the road, wondering where exactly they were. Shirin took them through everything again once he arrived, and Eira listened as she watched a family of frogs cross the path.

“So he didn’t drown?” asked GG.

“And bury himself under the remains of a steamboat quay?” Shirin countered.

“Was he there before it collapsed, or did someone bury him there afterwards?”

“Even without the boot, I’d say afterwards. We’ve sent off some requests for images of the area over the past few decades.”

“Not historic, in other words,” said GG.

“Not unless grunge is historic.”



Just over half an hour later, GG and Eira left together. GG stuck to the edge of the trampled path, where the mud wasn’t quite so sticky and deep.

“So, what should we make of all this?” he asked once they had reached the cars, pausing to light a cigarette. “Is it a coincidence we’ve found one body while looking for another?”

Eira didn’t know what to say, but he probably wasn’t expecting an answer.

“I’ve spoken to the prosecutor,” he continued. “We’re looking at a new preliminary investigation into the murder.”

He exhaled the smoke in a long sigh.

“Guess I can take some time off this autumn instead. Or winter. Get away when it’s really dark.”

A thought came and went, wondering how it had gone with his girlfriend, having a baby, all that.

“I hope we can borrow you again,” said GG. “Your local knowledge has been invaluable; you’ve been able to see things no one else has. Unless you’re on leave, that is?”

“No . . . I don’t have any time booked off before August.”

Eira noticed a swarm of blackflies around his head. She could see the sign for an old school in the distance, a memory of the once lively community. She could just make out the roof of the forge building, the wound on the ridge where the tiles had come loose.

Local knowledge. That was such a superficial phrase, as thin as the new ice in November. It said nothing about the depths of the abyss, or the complications lurking beneath, in which every person was connected to another, memories tricking and deceiving. It said nothing about love.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Oh, OK . . .” GG seemed surprised. “I got the impression you enjoyed working with us?”

“I do,” she said. “Absolutely. It’s just . . .”

Words, those damned words. The feeling that she should just tell him the truth. But why bring up her brother’s name, an old investigation that had long since been shelved? Did she have to mention it? This investigation was completely separate. It was about the murder of a man, not Lina; it might not even have happened during the nineties. What proof did they have of that? A shoelace?

At the same time, she saw the earlier finds. The dress that might have been Lina’s. The sense that it was all too much of a coincidence.

“It just feels a bit disloyal,” she eventually said. “To my colleagues in Kramfors, I mean. Before long we’ll have nothing but brand-new police assistants straight out of the academy.”

“I understand.”

GG pinched out his cigarette, stamping on the last few flakes of ash that sailed down to the ground. He glanced back towards where the sawmill had once stood, to the newly clear sky above.

“Grunge,” he said. “What else does that tell us about our man, while we wait to find out who he is?”