The Gallows Bird Read online

  A hand on her shoulder made Sofie jump. She turned her head and looked up.

  ‘Kerstin. Were you home?’

  ‘Yes, I was taking a nap,’ Kerstin said, squatting down next to Sofie. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, Kerstin,’ was all Sofie could say, burying her face in her shoulder. Kerstin embraced her awkwardly. They weren’t used to having much physical contact; Sofie had passed the hugging stage by the time Marit moved in with Kerstin. But this time the awkwardness quickly disappeared. Sofie hungrily inhaled the smell of Kerstin’s jumper, which was one of her mother’s favourites. The scent of her perfume still lingered in the wool. The familiar smell made her sob even harder, and she felt her nose running all over Kerstin’s shoulder. She pulled away.

  ‘Sorry, I’m getting snot all over you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Kerstin, wiping away Sofie’s tears with her thumbs. ‘Cry as much as you like. It . . . it’s your mamma’s jumper.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sofie with a laugh. ‘And she would have murdered me if she saw I’d got mascara on it.’

  ‘Lamb’s wool can’t be washed in water hotter than thirty degrees C,’ they both blurted out at once, which made them both laugh.

  ‘Come on, let’s sit at the kitchen table,’ said Kerstin, helping Sofie up. Only now did Sofie see that Kerstin’s face looked all caved in and was several shades paler than usual.

  ‘How are you doing yourself?’ Sofie said with concern. Kerstin had always been so . . . together. It scared her to see Kerstin’s hands trembling as she filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

  ‘Okay, I suppose,’ said Kerstin, unable to stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. She had cried so much the past few days that she was astonished she had any tears left. Then she made a decision.

  ‘You see, Sofie, your mother and I . . . There’s something that –’ She stopped, unsure how to continue. Unsure of whether she should continue at all. But to her astonishment she saw Sofie start to laugh.

  ‘Come on, Kerstin, I hope you’re not going to tell me about your relationship with Mamma, as if it were some big news flash.’

  ‘What about our relationship?’ said Kerstin expectantly.

  ‘That you were a couple and stuff. Who did you think you were fooling?’ She laughed again. ‘Mamma moving her things back and forth depending on whether I was staying here or not, and you two secretly holding hands when you thought I wasn’t looking. My God, how ridiculous. I mean, everybody’s homo or bi these days. It’s so in.’

  Kerstin looked at her in total perplexity. ‘But why didn’t you say anything? Since you already knew?’

  ‘Because it was so cool. Just watching the two of you playing your roles. Fantastic entertainment.’

  ‘You little—’ said Kerstin with a hearty laugh. After the past few days of grief and weeping, it was a relief to laugh so loud it echoed in the kitchen. ‘Marit would have wrung your neck if she’d found out that you knew all along but never let on.’

  ‘Yeah, she probably would have,’ said Sofie, joining in the laughter. ‘You should have seen yourselves. Sneaking out to the kitchen to kiss, putting stuff back in place as soon as I went to Pappa’s house. Didn’t you realize what a farce it was?’

  ‘I know what you mean. But that’s the way Marit wanted it.’ Kerstin turned serious. The kettle whistled, and she gratefully used that as an excuse to get up and turn her back to Sofie. She took out two cups, put tea leaves in two tea strainers, and poured the hot water.

  ‘The water should cool off a bit first,’ said Sofie, and Kerstin had to laugh again.

  ‘I was thinking the exact same thing. She trained us well, your mother.’

  Sofie smiled. ‘Yes, she certainly did. Although she probably wished she could have trained me a little better.’ Her smile was sad, testifying to all the promises she would now never be able to keep, all the expectations she would never have a chance to live up to.

  ‘You know, Marit was very proud of you.’ Kerstin sat down again and handed one of the teacups to Sofie. ‘You should have heard her bragging about you. Even when the two of you had a real fight she would say, “She’s got real spirit, that kid.”’

  ‘She said that? Are you serious? She was proud of me? But I was always so contrary.’

  ‘Oh, Marit said you were just doing your job. It was your job to break loose from her. And . . .’ she paused, ‘considering everything that went on between her and Ola, she thought it was extra important for you to stand on your own two feet.’ Kerstin took a sip of tea but burnt her tongue. It would have to cool off a bit first. ‘She was worried about that, you know. She thought the divorce and all the crap afterwards might have . . . wounded you somehow. Most of all she was worried that you wouldn’t understand why she was forced to end the marriage. It was just as much for your sake as for her own.’

  ‘Yeah, I didn’t understand that before, but now that I’m older I get it.’

  ‘Since you turned fifteen, you mean,’ Kerstin teased her. ‘At fifteen you get the manual with all the answers, everything about life, death, and eternity, right? Could I borrow it sometime?’

  ‘Come on,’ Sofie laughed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that maybe I’ve started to look at Mamma and Pappa more as people rather than parents. And I’m probably not Pappa’s little girl anymore either,’ she added sadly.

  For a moment Kerstin considered whether to tell Sofie about all the rest of it, all the stuff they had tried to spare her. But the moment came and went and she let it pass.

  Instead they drank their tea and talked about Marit. Laughed and cried. But above all they talked about the woman they had both loved, each in her own way.

  ‘Hello, girls, what’s it going to be today? A little Uffe baguette, perhaps?’

  Charmed giggles from the girls who’d crammed into the bakery revealed that his comment had had the desired effect. This encouraged Uffe to go the whole hog, and he took one of the bakery’s baguettes and tried to show what he had to offer by swinging it in front of him at hip height. The giggling turned to shrieks of scandalized joy, which made Uffe start thrusting his hips in their direction.

  Mehmet sighed. Uffe was so bloody tiresome. He’d got a raw deal when he was assigned to work with Uffe at the bakery. Otherwise there was nothing wrong with the job. He loved cooking and looked forward to learning more about baking, but he simply couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to stand five weeks with Uffe.

  ‘Hey, Mehmet, why don’t you show them your baguette? I think the girls would like to see a real greaseball baguette.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off,’ said Mehmet, who went on laying out battenberg cakes next to a tray of macaroons.

  ‘I thought you were a real ladies’ man. And I’m sure they’ve never seen a greaseball here. Have you, girls? Have you seen a greaseball before?’ Uffe held out his hands dramatically towards Mehmet as if presenting him onstage.

  Mehmet was starting to get seriously pissed off. He could feel rather than see the cameras fastened to the ceiling zooming in on him, ready to capture his reaction. Every nuance would be whisked by cable straight into people’s living rooms. No reaction meant no viewers. Having made it all the way to the final on The Farm, he knew how the game was played. So why had he agreed to take part in this? For five weeks he would be allowed to live in a sort of protected environment. No responsibilities, no demands to do anything more than be himself, and to react. No slaving away at some shitty job, bored to death, just to make the rent on a dismal fucking flat. No daily obligations that stole his life day after day with nothing ever happening. No disappointment because he wasn’t living up to what was expected of him. That was the main thing he was running from. The disappointment he saw constantly in his parents’ eyes. They’d pinned so many of their hopes on him. Education, education, education. That was the mantra he’d heard his whole childhood. ‘Mehmet, you have to get yourself an education. You have to seize the opportunities in this excellent country. In Swe
den anyone can go to university. You have to study.’ And Mehmet had tried, but he just wasn’t the studying type. The letters and numbers wouldn’t stick. He was supposed to become a teacher. Or an engineer. Or in the worst case get a degree in business administration. His parents had been utterly set on that. His four older sisters had entered all three of those professions. Two of them were doctors, one was an engineer, and one was in business. But he was the youngest child, and somehow he ended up being the black sheep of the family. And neither The Farm or Sodding Tanum had raised his stock in the family at all. Not that he’d thought it would. Getting drunk on TV was not something that had even been mentioned as an alternative to becoming a doctor.

  ‘Show us your greaseball baguette, show us your grease-ball baguette,’ Uffe kept on nagging, trying to get his giggling pubescent public to join in. Mehmet felt his anger about to boil over. He stopped what he was doing and stepped over to Uffe.

  ‘I said cut it out, Uffe.’

  Simon came out from the inner recesses of the bakery carrying a big tray of freshly baked buns. Uffe gave him an obstinate look and considered whether to obey or not. Simon held the tray out to him. ‘Here, give the girls some freshly baked buns instead.’

  Uffe hesitated but finally took the tray. A twitch at the corner of his mouth showed that his hands weren’t as used to handling hot trays as Simon’s were, but he had no other choice but to grit his teeth and hold the tray out to the girls.

  ‘Well, you heard the man. Uffe is offering free buns. Maybe you could thank him with a little kiss?’

  Simon rolled his eyes at Mehmet, who smiled back in gratitude. He liked Simon. He was the owner of the bakery, and they had clicked at once, from his first day on the job. There was something special about Simon. A rapport that made it possible for them just to look at each other to understand what the other meant. It was pretty amazing, actually.

  Mehmet watched Simon as he went back to his dough and his cake-baking.

  The green emerging on the branch outside the window aroused a painful longing in Gösta. Each bud bore with it a promise of eighteen holes and Big Bertha. Soon nothing would be able to come between a man and his golf clubs.

  ‘Have you managed to get past the fifth hole yet?’ A female voice came from the doorway, and Gösta quickly and guiltily shut down the computer game. Damn, he could usually hear when somebody was approaching. He always had his ears pricked up when he played, which unfortunately was somewhat detrimental to his concentration.

  ‘I . . . I was just taking a break,’ Gösta stammered in embarrassment. He knew that his co-workers no longer put much faith in his capacity to work, but he liked Hanna and had hoped to enjoy her confidence for at least a short while yet.

  ‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ Hanna laughed, sitting down next to him. ‘I love that golf game. My husband Lars does too, and sometimes we have to fight over the computer. But that fifth hole is a bitch – have you got past it yet? If not, I can show you the trick. It took me hours to work it out.’ Without waiting for an answer she moved her chair closer to his.

  Gösta hardly dared believe his ears. ‘I’ve been struggling with the fifth hole since last week. No matter what I do, I either hook or slice the ball. I can’t see what I’m doing wrong.’

  ‘Here, I’ll show you,’ said Hanna, taking the mouse from him. She clicked expertly forward to the right place, did some manoeuvres on the computer, and the ball moved forward and landed on the green in perfect position for him to sink the ball with his next stroke.

  ‘Wow, so that’s how it’s done! Thanks!’ Gösta was deeply impressed.

  ‘Yep, it’s no kid stuff, this game,’ Hanna laughed, pushing back the chair so that she ended up a bit further from him.

  ‘Do you and your husband play real golf too?’ Gösta asked with newfound enthusiasm. ‘Maybe we should play a round together.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said Hanna with a regretful expression. ‘But we’ve thought about starting. We just never seem to find the time.’

  Gösta liked her more with each minute that passed. Like Mellberg, he had been sceptical when he heard that their new colleague would be of the opposite sex. There was something about the combination of breasts and a police uniform that felt, well, a bit odd, to say the least. But Hanna Kruse had wiped out all his prejudices. She seemed to be a good down-to-earth woman, and he hoped that Mellberg would realize that and not make her life here too difficult.

  ‘What does your husband do?’ Gösta asked. ‘Has he managed to find a job locally?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Hanna, picking some invisible lint from her uniform blouse. ‘He was lucky enough to get a tem porary job here at least, so we’ll have to see how it goes.’

  Gösta raised his eyebrows quizzically. Hanna laughed. ‘He’s a psychologist. And yes, you guessed it. He’s going to work with the participants for the duration of the shoot. Of Sodding Tanum, that is.’

  Gösta shook his head. ‘Some of us are probably too old to see the appeal of all that jumping into bed with each other, staggering around drunk and making asses of themselves in front of the whole country. And of their own free will. No, I don’t get the point of that sort of thing. In my day we watched good shows like Hyland’s Corner and Nils Poppe’s theatre productions.’

  ‘Nils who?’ said Hanna, which made Gösta look gloomy. He sighed.

  ‘Nils Poppe,’ he said. ‘He did theatrical pieces that –’ He stopped when he saw that Hanna was laughing.

  ‘Gösta, I know who Nils Poppe is. And Lennart Hyland too. You don’t have to look so distressed.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ said Gösta. ‘For a minute there I felt a hundred years old. A regular relic.’

  ‘Gösta, you’re as far from a relic as anybody could be,’ Hanna laughed, getting up. ‘Just keep playing now that I’ve shown you how to get past the fifth hole. You deserve to take it easy for a while.’

  He gave her a warm and grateful smile. What a woman.

  Then he went back to trying to master the sixth hole. A par 3. Nothing to it.

  ‘Erica, did you talk to the hotel about the menu? When are we going to have a tasting?’ Anna was holding Maja on her knee, bouncing her up and down. She gave Erica an urgent look.

  ‘Shit, I forgot.’ Erica slapped her forehead.

  ‘What about the dress? Do you intend to get married in your jogging outfit, or what? And maybe Patrik could wear his graduation suit to the wedding. If so, he’d probably need to put some extra material in the sides, and elastic between the buttons of his suit coat.’ Anna laughed heartily.

  ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ said Erica, but she couldn’t help feeling pleased when she looked at her sister. Anna was like a new woman. She talked, she laughed, she had a good appetite, and yes, she even teased her big sister. ‘When am I going to find time to deal with everything?’

  ‘Hello you happen to be at Fjällbacka’s babysitter número uno! Emma and Adrian are at kindergarten all day, so it’s no problem for me to babysit this little lady.’

  ‘Hmm, you’ve got a point,’ said Erica, feeling awkward. ‘I just didn’t think that –’ She cut herself off.

  ‘Don’t worry. I understand. You haven’t been able to count on me for a while, but now I’m back in the game. The puck has been dropped. I’ve come in from the penalty box.’

  ‘I can hear that somebody’s been spending way too much time with Dan.’ Erica laughed heartily and realized that this was just what Anna had intended. No doubt the events of these past few months had affected Erica as well. The stress had made her go about with her shoulders up around her ears, and only now did she feel as if she could begin to relax. The only problem was that she was feeling a growing sense of dread because the wedding was less than six weeks away. And she and Patrik were hopelessly behind in the planning.

  ‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do,’ said Anna firmly, setting Maja down on the floor. ‘We’ll make a list of what has to be done. Then we’ll divide up the tasks b
etween you and me and Patrik. Maybe Kristina could help out with something too.’ Anna gave Erica a questioning glance, but when she saw her appalled expression she added, ‘Or maybe not.’

  ‘No, for God’s sake, keep mother-in-law out of it as much as possible. If it was left up to her, she’d treat this wedding like it was her own private party. If you only knew all the ideas she’s already put forward, “with the best of intentions”, as she puts it. You know what she said when we first told her about the wedding?’

  ‘No, what?’ asked Anna.

  ‘She didn’t even start by saying “how lovely, congratulations” or anything like that. She reeled off five things that she thought were wrong with the wedding.’

  Anna laughed. ‘That sounds just like Kristina. So, what were her complaints?’

  Erica went over and picked up Maja, who had resolutely begun to climb the stairs. They still hadn’t got around to buying a gate. ‘Well,’ said Erica, ‘first of all it was much too soon; we were going to need at least a year to plan it. Then she didn’t like the fact that we wanted a very small wedding, because then Aunt Agda and Aunt Berta and Aunt Ruth, or whatever all their names are, wouldn’t be able to come. And bear in mind that these aren’t Patrik’s aunts but Kristina’s! Patrik has probably met them once when he was about five years old. ‘Then she got upset because I didn’t want to wear her bridal gown.’ As if! I’ve seen Lars and Kristina’s wedding photos:, it’s one of those typical sixties dresses a crotcheted thing that stops just below her backside. I wouldn’t dream of wearing it, any more than Patrik would want to turn up sporting his father’s bushy sideburns and moustache from the same photo.’