was sitting in front of the big white-tiled stove on a sheepskin-covered stool. On one of the tiles “The Lord Is My Shepherd” was written in elegant letters the color of birch leaves. It was pretty. Presumably Vesa Larsson had written it himself. He wasn’t dressed, but was wearing a thick toweling dressing gown over flannelette pajamas. His tired eyes looked at Rebecka from two gray hollows above his stubble.
He feels bad, all right, thought Rebecka, but it’s not the flu.
“So you’ve come to threaten me,” he said. “Go home, Rebecka. Leave all of this alone.”
Aha, thought Rebecka. They didn’t waste any time ringing to warn you.
"Nice studio," she said, instead of answering.
“Mmm,” he said. “The architect nearly had a stroke when I said I wanted an untreated wooden floor in here. He said it would be ruined in no time by paint and ink and all the rest of it. But that was the idea. I wanted the floor to have a patina, from everything I’d created.”
Rebecka looked around. The studio was large. Despite the gloomy snowy weather outside, the daylight flooded in through the huge windows. Everything was tidy. On an easel in front of the picture window stood a covered canvas. There wasn’t the least speck of color on the floor as far as she could see. It had been a bit different in the days when he used to work in the cellar of the Pentecostal church. There were sheets of drawings all over the floor, and you could hardly move for fear of knocking over one of the many jars of turpentine and brushes. The smell of turpentine gave you a slight headache after a while. In this room there was just the faint smell of smoke from the stove. Vesa Larsson saw her inquiring look and gave a crooked smile.
“I know,” he said. “When you finally get the studio other people can only dream about, you…”
He finished the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.
“My father used to paint in oils, you know,” he went on. “The Aurora Borealis, Lapporten, the cottage in Merasjärvi. He never grew tired of it. Refused to take an ordinary job, sat drinking with his mates instead. Then he’d pat me on the head and say: ‘The lad thinks he’s going to be a truck driver and all sorts of things, but I’ve told him, you can’t get away from art.’ But I don’t know, these days it just seems pathetic, sitting here with my dreams of being a painter. It wasn’t so hard to get away from art after all.”
They looked at each other in silence. Without knowing it, they were both thinking about the other one’s hair. That it used to look better. When it was allowed to grow more freely, go its own way. When it was obvious it was friends who were wielding the scissors.
“Nice view,” said Rebecka, and added: “Although maybe not just at the moment.”
All you could see outside was a curtain of falling snow.
“Why not?” said Vesa Larsson. “Maybe this is the best view of all. It’s beautiful, the winter and the snow. Everything’s simpler. Less to take in. Fewer colors. Fewer smells. Shorter days. Your head can have a rest.”
“What was going on with Viktor?” asked Rebecka.
Vesa Larsson shook his head.
“What’s Sanna told you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” replied Rebecka.
“What do you mean, nothing?” said Vesa Larsson suspiciously.
“Nobody’s telling me a damned thing,” said Rebecka angrily. “But I don’t believe she did it. She’s on another planet sometimes, but she can’t have done this.”
Vesa Larsson sat in silence, gazing at the falling snow.
“Why did Patrik Mattsson say I should ask you about Viktor’s sexual inclinations?” asked Rebecka.
When Vesa Larsson didn’t answer, she went on:
“Did you have a relationship with him? Did you send him a card?”
Did you put a threatening note on my car? she thought.
Vesa Larsson replied without meeting her eyes.
“I’m not even going to comment on that.”
“Right,” she said harshly. “Soon I’ll be thinking it was you three pastors who killed him. Because he wanted to blow the whistle on your dubious financial dealings. Or maybe because he was threatening to tell your wife about the two of you.”
Vesa Larsson hid his face in his hands.
“I didn’t do it,” he mumbled. “I didn’t kill him.”
I’m losing it, thought Rebecka. Running around accusing people.
She rubbed her fist across her forehead in an attempt to force a sensible thought out of her brain.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand why you’re all