“Sorry to bother you. The staff said it would be okay.”
A woman turned around to look at him.
Vidar took a step forward.
“Felicia Grenberg, right?” He offered his hand. “My name is Vidar.”
They shook. Her palm was rough and warm.
“The older man who was just here,” Vidar said. “I ran into him on the way out. Who was he?”
“Must have been the priest,” Felicia said. “Isidor Enoksson.”
“That’s right. I thought he looked familiar.”
He was the man Vidar had seen leaving Siri Bengtsson’s farm in a Volvo.
“Could I talk to you for a bit, Lillemor?”
Lillemor gazed at him blankly. Felicia set her crossword on a table next to the old woman’s bed, on top of a stack of books and photo albums. Then she left the room, reluctant as a parent leaving a child alone with a stranger.
Lillemor had been notified of her son’s death. It was one of the first actions the investigative team took, and Vidar had been the messenger.
“It’d be good if she likes you,” Markus had said.
“She’s about to be told for the second time in her life that her sonis dead,” Vidar said. “There are better ways to make a first impression.”
“Just do your best.”
When he gave her the news, she didn’t say or do anything for a long time. As Vidar finally placed his big hand over her frail one, though, and put an arm around her shoulders, she looked at him with what might have been surprise, as if it had been so long since someone touched her she’d forgotten how it felt.
“Lillemor,” he said now. “It’s me, Vidar. From the police. I’m back, just like I said.”
“Yes,” she said.
Vidar looked at the crossword Felicia had left behind.
“ ‘Swede at the dinner table.’ What do we think?”
Lillemor produced a word. It sounded a little like “roo bake.”
“Totally agree. Want me to put it down?”
He picked up the crossword and took out his pen, wrote inrutabaga. Lillemor’s eyes followed. There was nothing the matter with her mind.
“Well,” he said, “I have some information for you, as I promised, and one question. Let’s take care of the information first.”
Lillemor made a noise like “mm.”
“We’re still trying to figure out what happened and why. My colleagues only just finished with Filip’s house this morning, so it’s still very early in the investigation. We know more now than we did before, but not by much. As soon as I have anything else to share, I’ll come visit again. That’s a promise.”
He paused. She waited.
“So,” Vidar said, after a silence that felt longer than it was. “To my question. Filip moved into an old house up in Skavböke.”
“Flonk Yungerns.”
“Frans Ljunggren’s, exactly. Were you ever there? In Filip’s house?”
