We Know You Remember (6)

I can’t believe it looks like any other house.

Eira drove up onto the property and came to a halt.

One of thousands of simple timber houses slowly worn down by the elements, by a lack of the attention and care needed in the forest, red wood turning gray, flaking white paint at the corners.

“It might not be relevant,” she said. “The cause of death could be perfectly natural.”

A small group of people had gathered by a cairn on the other side of the gravel track. A youngish couple, somewhere around thirty. Dressed like summer visitors—a little too much white, a little too expensive. The woman was sitting on a boulder, and the man was standing so close that their relationship couldn’t be anything other than intimate. A few meters away from them was a stocky older man in a fleece and a pair of trousers that had slipped low on his hips. He seemed uncomfortable to be standing still. Definitely a permanent resident.

Up ahead, on the driveway by the garage: a flashy black American car. There was a large man slumped back in the driver’s seat. He looked like he was sleeping.

“You took your time.”

The man in white peeled away from the group and came forward to meet them, shaking their hands and introducing himself. Patrik Nydalen, he was the one who had made the call. Eira didn’t need to ask him to take her through what had happened in detail; he did it voluntarily.

They were staying next door for the summer—Patrik pointed up the road—he was born and raised there but didn’t know Hagstr?m particularly well. Neither did his wife. Sofi Nydalen got up from the rock. Slender hand, anxious smile.

The older neighbor shook his head. He didn’t know Sven Hagstr?m well either, not really, no. They spoke whenever their paths crossed at the letter boxes; both helped keep the road clear in the winter.

As neighbors do.

Eira made a few notes and saw that August was doing the same.

“I think he’s in shock,” said Patrik Nydalen, nodding to the man in the American car. “Who wouldn’t be—if what he says is true.”

He hadn’t recognized Olof Hagstr?m at first, barely even remembered him. It was just lucky he’d gone out for a run so early, before the roads got too busy. And to bring in the daily paper too, they’d had their subscription redirected over the summer. Otherwise God knew what might have happened.

He had asked Olof Hagstr?m to reverse up the road and wait until the police arrived.

“It felt pretty unpleasant standing here, I have to say, but the operator asked me to wait, so I did. Even if it did take forever.” Patrik glanced at his watch, leaving no doubt what he thought about the speed of the police.

Eira could have told him that there were just two patrol cars covering an area stretching from the coast to the mountains, from south of H?rn?sand to the border with J?mtland; she could have talked about the many kilometers of road and the fact that it was Midsummer, which meant the staffing focus was on that evening, the one night of the year when they also had a helicopter stationed in H?rn?sand, because it was geographically impossible for them to attend call outs in both Junsele and Norrf?llsviken at the same time.

“So none of you have been into the house?” she asked instead.

They hadn’t.

His wife, Sofi, had come out later in her billowy summer dress, bringing Patrik a coffee and a sandwich—he never ate breakfast before he went running, she explained. Her voice lacked the occasional note of ?ngermanland melody that her husband still possessed. She was from Stockholm, she said, but she loved the countryside. Didn’t want to be afraid of the silence and the remoteness up here, both of which she loved. They spent almost all summer here, on the small farmstead where Patrik grew up; the house wasn’t anything special, but it was authentic. Her parents-in-law were still fit and healthy and moved into the old bakehouse during the summer months, to make space for them. They were down at the beach with the kids now, thank God. Sofi felt for her husband’s hand.

The older man, Kjell Strinnevik, lived in the house closest to the main road. He’d noticed that Hagstr?m hadn’t taken in his paper the day before, he said. That was virtually all he had to say. Hadn’t seen the old man all week, as far as he could remember, but then again he wasn’t the curtain-twitching type. He had plenty of his own things to worry about.

“You’re Veine Sj?din’s girl, from Lunde, aren’t you? Mmm, heard she’d joined the police.” Kjell Strinnevik’s eyes narrowed disapprovingly, though he may also have been impressed.

Eira asked her younger colleague to take down their details. Not because it was necessarily his job, but because speaking to Olof Hagstr?m was more important, and it made sense for the more experienced officer to take care of that.

The nine-year-old in her agreed.

She walked over to the car. A Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, 1988 model, according to Patrik Nydalen, his voice ringing out as she crossed the lawn.

“Bit strange that he was talking about cars when he’d just found his father dead, but who knows how you’d react in his shoes. We’ve got a good relationship, me and my parents; my dad would never just be left there like . . .”

The garden was neglected but not overgrown, the grass yellow from the early-summer heat. Someone had been looking after it until relatively recently. Given up over the last year or so.

A black dog appeared, paws on the car window, and let out a bark. The man looked up.