Free Until Thy Wrath Be Past by Åsa Larsson Page A

turned off the heat when she . . . I mean, she wasn’t . . . I suppose I was just thinking of the expense.”
    She fell silent, standing by the countertop. Anxiously brushed traces of flour from her apron.
    “It’s okay,” Mella said. “It costs a lot of money to keep a house warm. I know. I live in one myself.”
    “It’s not okay. The heat should have been on. The house and I ought to have been ready for her.”
    “Do you know what?” Mella said. “You can be practical at the same time as you’re worrying or grieving. I reckon you were doing both.”
    “I don’t want to start crying again,” Autio said, looking entreatingly at Mella as if hoping that she would be able to stop her going on about it. “You should have felt what the house was like when she was living here. So full of life. I still keep waking up and thinking it’s time to make her breakfast. I don’t suppose you believe me, knowing that I turned the heat off.”
    “Listen, Anni, I couldn’t care less about the heat being off.”
    Autio smiled wanly.
    “I was so happy back then. I enjoyed every day, every morning when she was here with me. I didn’t take it for granted, though. I knew she could move back to Stockholm at any moment.”
    This isn’t a typical teenager’s room, Mella thought as she entered Persson’s room.
    An old office desk stood in front of the window. A blue-painted Windsor-style chair served as a desk chair. The bed was narrow—two and a half feet, perhaps. On it was a whiteembroidered bedspread. There were no posters on the walls, no ancient teddy bears or other plush toys to remind Persson of her childhood. A photograph of her with Kyrö was pinned to the wall beside the bed. It looked as if Persson had taken it herself. She was roaring with laughter; he was smiling in mild embarrassment. Mella’s heart bled as she looked at it.
    She searched the desk drawers. No maps. No diary.
    She could hear Autio struggling up the stairs, and hastened to open the wardrobe and look through the clothes piled at the bottom. When Autio entered the room, Mella was standing on a chair, examining the top of the wardrobe. Autio sat down on the bed.
    “What are you looking for?” she said—not aggressively, she was just interested.
    Mella shook her head.
    “I don’t really know. Something that might indicate where they went. Where they were going to go diving.”
    “But you found her in the river at Tervaskoski. Isn’t that where they were diving?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Maybe you should talk to Johannes Svarvare,” Autio said. “He lives in that little red house with the glassed-in porch on the right just after the curve as you enter the village. He used to lend maps to Wilma and Simon when they were going exploring in the forest. I’m going to lie down here for a while. Perhaps you could come back and help me down the stairs before you drive back to town?”
    Mella felt the urge to give Autio a big hug. To console her. And hopefully find a bit of consolation for herself.
    But all she said was, “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll stop back on my way home.”
    Johannes Svarvare also offered Mella coffee. She accepted even though she was feeling a bit queasy from having drunk so much already. He fetched the best china from the glass-fronted cupboard in the living room. The cups clinked against the saucers as he put the tray down on the kitchen table. They were delicate, with handles you could not fit your finger through, ivory-colored with pink roses.
    “Please excuse the mess,” Svarvare said, gesturing toward himself. “It never occurred to me that the forces of law and order would come visiting on a Saturday afternoon.”
    His hair was unkempt, and he looked as if he had slept in his clothes. His brown woolen trousers were almost falling down. His crumpled shirt had several stains down the front.
    “How nice to have a wood-burning stove in the kitchen,” Mella said, in an attempt to lessen his