Read Online The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell - Free Book Online
Authors: Henning Mankell
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said that the number of dead wasn’t yet known.”
“These are the latest editions. They’ve killed practically the whole population of a hamlet up there. It’s incredible. How did it go with the judgment you were working on?”
“It’s finished. I acquitted him. I didn’t have any choice.”
“The papers are all abuzz.”
“Thank God for that.”
“You’re going to come in for some stick.”
“No doubt. But I can suggest that the reporters might like to check what the law says, and then decide if they’d prefer us to go over to lynch law in Sweden.”
“These mass murders are going to detract attention from your case.”
“Of course. What’s a petty little rape compared with a brutal mass murder?”
They went to bed early that night. He would be in charge of an early train the following morning, and she had failed to find anything of interest on television. She had also decided which wine she was going to buy. A case of Barolo Arione 2002, at 252 kronor per bottle.
She woke up with a start at midnight. Staffan was sleeping soundly by her side. She was fairly frequently woken up by pangs of hunger in the middle of the night. She put on her robe, went downstairs to the kitchen, made herself a cup of weak tea and a couple of sandwiches.
The evening papers were still lying on the kitchen table. She leafed absentmindedly through one of them—it was hard to form a clear picture of what had happened in that little village in Hälsingland. But there was no doubt that a large number of people had been brutally murdered.
She was just going to put the paper to one side when she gave a start. Among the dead were several people called Andrén. She read the text carefully, then checked in the other paper. The same there.
She stared hard at the page in front of her. Could this really be true? Or did she remember wrongly? She went to her study and took out from a desk cupboard a folder of documents wrapped in a red ribbon. She switched on the desk lamp and opened the folder. As she hadn’t brought her glasses down with her, she borrowed a pair of Staffan’s. They were not as strong as hers, but they were usable.
The folder contained all the documents connected with her parents.
Her mother had been dead for more than fifteen years. She had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas and died within three months.
She eventually found the photograph she had been looking for in a brown envelope. She took out her magnifying glass and examined the picture. It depicted a group of people in old-fashioned clothes standing in front of a house.
She took the photograph with her to the kitchen. In one of the newspapers there was a general view of the village where this major tragedy had taken place. She examined the picture carefully through her magnifying glass. She paused at the third house and began comparing the two photographs.
She had remembered rightly. This hamlet that had been struck down by unannounced evil was not just any old place. It was the village in which her mother had grown up. Everything fit—it was true that her mother’s surname had been Lööf as a child, but as her parents had both been alcoholics, she had been placed with a family called Andrén. Birgitta’s mother had rarely mentioned those days. She had been well looked after, but had always longed to be acquainted with her real parents. However, they had both died before she was fifteen, and so she had to stay in the village until she was considered old enough to find work and look after herself. When she met Birgitta’s father, the names Lööf and Andrén disappeared from the scene. But now one of them had returned with a bang.
The photograph lying among her mother’s papers had been taken in front of one of the houses in the village where the mass murders had been perpetrated. The façade of the house, the ornamental carving around the windows, was exactly the same in the old photograph as in the newspaper.
There was no doubt about
“These are the latest editions. They’ve killed practically the whole population of a hamlet up there. It’s incredible. How did it go with the judgment you were working on?”
“It’s finished. I acquitted him. I didn’t have any choice.”
“The papers are all abuzz.”
“Thank God for that.”
“You’re going to come in for some stick.”
“No doubt. But I can suggest that the reporters might like to check what the law says, and then decide if they’d prefer us to go over to lynch law in Sweden.”
“These mass murders are going to detract attention from your case.”
“Of course. What’s a petty little rape compared with a brutal mass murder?”
They went to bed early that night. He would be in charge of an early train the following morning, and she had failed to find anything of interest on television. She had also decided which wine she was going to buy. A case of Barolo Arione 2002, at 252 kronor per bottle.
She woke up with a start at midnight. Staffan was sleeping soundly by her side. She was fairly frequently woken up by pangs of hunger in the middle of the night. She put on her robe, went downstairs to the kitchen, made herself a cup of weak tea and a couple of sandwiches.
The evening papers were still lying on the kitchen table. She leafed absentmindedly through one of them—it was hard to form a clear picture of what had happened in that little village in Hälsingland. But there was no doubt that a large number of people had been brutally murdered.
She was just going to put the paper to one side when she gave a start. Among the dead were several people called Andrén. She read the text carefully, then checked in the other paper. The same there.
She stared hard at the page in front of her. Could this really be true? Or did she remember wrongly? She went to her study and took out from a desk cupboard a folder of documents wrapped in a red ribbon. She switched on the desk lamp and opened the folder. As she hadn’t brought her glasses down with her, she borrowed a pair of Staffan’s. They were not as strong as hers, but they were usable.
The folder contained all the documents connected with her parents.
Her mother had been dead for more than fifteen years. She had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas and died within three months.
She eventually found the photograph she had been looking for in a brown envelope. She took out her magnifying glass and examined the picture. It depicted a group of people in old-fashioned clothes standing in front of a house.
She took the photograph with her to the kitchen. In one of the newspapers there was a general view of the village where this major tragedy had taken place. She examined the picture carefully through her magnifying glass. She paused at the third house and began comparing the two photographs.
She had remembered rightly. This hamlet that had been struck down by unannounced evil was not just any old place. It was the village in which her mother had grown up. Everything fit—it was true that her mother’s surname had been Lööf as a child, but as her parents had both been alcoholics, she had been placed with a family called Andrén. Birgitta’s mother had rarely mentioned those days. She had been well looked after, but had always longed to be acquainted with her real parents. However, they had both died before she was fifteen, and so she had to stay in the village until she was considered old enough to find work and look after herself. When she met Birgitta’s father, the names Lööf and Andrén disappeared from the scene. But now one of them had returned with a bang.
The photograph lying among her mother’s papers had been taken in front of one of the houses in the village where the mass murders had been perpetrated. The façade of the house, the ornamental carving around the windows, was exactly the same in the old photograph as in the newspaper.
There was no doubt about
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