Somewhere nearby, a truck engine revved to life. Siri was outdoors. The vehicle accelerated, coughing and loud, and slowly faded into the distance.
“Could you come get it today, do you think? Or should I bring it in?”
“They’re not here.” He turned to the next box. “Have you spoken to Isidor Enoksson recently, by the way?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered.”
“I haven’t seen him in years.”
Vidar was nonplussed.
“He didn’t visit you the other day?”
“No,” she said. It sounded genuine. “What’s up?”
The cogs turned slowly behind Vidar’s temples. He had stopped mid-motion and was staring at the material concerning the burglary.
“Here it is.”
The binder was labeled “Miscellaneous Investigation Documents” and contained transcripts from supplemental interviews and witness statements, random tips that had been received in the days following the murder. Ideas that led nowhere. Some of the names he recognized; others he didn’t know.
“Okay, here it is,” he said again. “Here we go.”
The burglary files were in a separate folder at the back of the binder.
“Look at the photographs. The ones Gerd and I took of the scene, after the burglary.”
There. He was looking at the Lindell family’s house in the winter of 1999, in a backwater part of Skavböke. It needed a fresh coat of paint; there were patches of snow on the ground and the trees were bare. He saw a life that reminded him of his own life, around the same time, back home in Marbäck.
“There’s no spade hanging from the siding, is there?” Siri said. “You know, the way folks do, between two nails.”
“I don’t see one, anyway.” He turned the page. More photographs. A close-up of the broken glass, a smeared shoe print. “No. No, I see the nails, but no spade.”
Another prolonged silence.
“Listen,” Siri said. “I can’t…”
“It’s all right. I can pick up the binder later. But you need to tell me what I’m looking for.”
“A spade was hanging there just a few weeks earlier, according to Gerd. She was sure of it, although I don’t quite know how.”
Vidar didn’t respond. He was sweaty. Summer blazed mercilessly outside.
“Did she ever visit Lillemor Söderström?”
“Oh yes, she did. I think Gerd felt sorry for her. Filip hardly ever visited her during those rough years he had, if he came at all.”
Vidar went back to Lillemor Söderström’s album. Inga-Lill Lindell’s birthday celebration in the foreground, the platter of meat arriving at the set table. And there it was, the spade he recognized from Filip Söderström’s garage. If it was possible to recognize a spade, that is—but it seemed like the same one. It hung against the siding as though it was commonly used for work around the house, in the yard. He pulled over the burglary report again, found Inga-Lill’s government identity number. Its digits told him she was born in October of 1957. She had turned forty-two in 1999. Just two months before the murder, the spade was there.
A knock at his door. Waiting outside he found Adrian al-Hadid inuniform, his cap in one hand and a piece of paper in the other, his eyes shining.
“What is it?”
“The spade,” he said, holding the paper out to Vidar, who read it as he stood with his phone still in hand.
“Siri, can you hold on quick?”
