by Kepler, Lars
‘I thought we were going to meet at Farang?’
‘We need to talk, things are happening which …’
He falls silent and takes a deep breath. Valeria swallows hard and her face tenses.
‘You think he’s alive,’ she whispers. ‘But they found the body, it was his body, wasn’t it?’
‘I’ve been through it all with Nils, but it isn’t enough … Jurek Walter’s alive. I didn’t think he was, but he’s alive.’
‘No,’ she says, quietly but firmly.
Joona looks over his shoulder, but he can’t see the door of the greenhouse, there are too many plants in the way.
‘You need to trust me,’ he says. ‘I’m going to get Lumi to a safe place abroad and try to protect her, and – well, I’m asking you to come with me.’
Valeria’s face has turned grey, it does that when she’s worried. The wrinkles around her mouth become more defined, and her face becomes less expressive.
‘You know I can’t do that,’ she says quietly.
‘This is a difficult decision.’
‘Is it? Because I’m almost starting to wonder what this is all about … I don’t want to exaggerate my own significance, but this has come right at the start of us having a serious relationship … I’ve wanted you to know you weren’t under any sort of pressure, I’m not trying to compete with Summa, because I can’t, I know that.’
Joona takes one step to the side so he can get a better view of the greenhouse behind her.
‘I hear what you’re saying, but—’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean … that was a silly thing to say.’
‘I do understand,’ he says. ‘We can discuss everything, but Jurek’s alive … and he’s killed at least five people in the past month.’
Valeria rubs her forehead with her dirty fingers, leaving two black streaks above her right eyebrow.
‘Why haven’t I read anything about that in the papers?’ she counters.
‘Because the victims are spread across Europe, and because the victims are criminals as well, murderers and sex offenders … Jurek’s looking for someone he can work with, he’s been testing various candidates and killing the ones who don’t make the grade.’
He looks at his watch, then glances up towards the dark house.
‘Do you genuinely think it’s dangerous for the two of us to stay here?’
‘Yes,’ he says, looking her in the eye. ‘There’s a good chance you’re already being watched. He’ll have been watching you, getting to know you, your routines.’
‘It sounds so over the top.’
‘You have to come with me,’ Joona pleads.
‘When are you thinking of leaving?’ she says after a pause.
‘Now.’
She looks at him in astonishment and moistens her lips.
‘Can I join you later?’
‘No.’
‘You’re saying I just have to pack a bag and leave?’
‘There’s no time to pack.’
‘How long are we going to be in hiding?’
‘Two weeks, two years … as long as it takes.’
‘All this would be ruined, everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve,’ she says in a toneless voice.
‘Valeria, you can always start again, I’ll help you.’
She stands there silently, her eyes lowered.
‘Joona,’ she says, and looks up. ‘You’ve done what you could, I appreciate that this could be serious, but I don’t have a choice. I can’t leave, I’ve got my greenhouses, my client-base … This is my home … and I’m going to celebrate Christmas with my boys for the first time … you know how much that means to me.’
‘You could be back in time for Christmas,’ Joona says, feeling desperation rising. ‘Listen, Valeria – when Jurek escaped I was living with a woman, Disa … I never thought I’d ever dare to do that again.’
‘Disa? Why haven’t you ever mentioned her?’
‘I didn’t want to frighten you,’ he says heavily.
She shuts her eyes when she realises what he means.
‘He killed her.’
‘Yes.’
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘That doesn’t mean he’s going to kill me,’ she says in a shaky voice.
‘Valeria,’ Joona begs, feeling more helpless than at any point in his life.
‘I can’t, I just can’t,’ she says. ‘How am I supposed to leave the boys again?’
‘Please, you—’
‘I can’t,’ she interrupts.
‘I’ll organise police protection.’
‘Never,’ she says, then lets out a surprised laugh.
‘You wouldn’t have to see them.’
‘Joona, listen to me, no cops, not on my property … except you.’
He stands with his head bowed for several seconds, then opens his bag, takes out a pistol in a shoulder holster, removes it and hands it to her.
‘This is a Sig Sauer. It’s loaded, eleven shots in the magazine … Carry it with you at all times, keep it with you even when you’re in bed … See here, all you have to do is release this catch, hold it with both hands, aim and fire. Don’t hesitate if you get the opportunity, shoot immediately, several times.’
She shakes her head.
‘I’m not going to do that, Joona.’
He puts the gun down on the stool next to her knife and takes a deep breath.
‘The other thing I need to do is give you a warning. From now on you have to regard anything that isn’t absolutely familiar to you as a trap. Unexpected visitors, a new customer, someone who’s changed their car or has turned up at the wrong time … No matter what it is, you call this number.’
Joona shows her a number on his mobile, then sends her the contact details.
‘Keep that number, and make sure it’s always the first option when you open your phone … It won’t be enough to save you immediately, Jurek’s too quick for that, but this number belongs to a friend of mine, Nathan Pollock … he’ll be able to see where you are, and that increases the chances of them tracking and rescuing you.’
‘This all sounds crazy,’ she says simply, fixing her eyes on him.
‘I’d stay with you if it wasn’t for Lumi, I have to look after her,’ he says.
‘It’s OK, I understand, Joona.’
‘I’ve got to go now,’ he whispers. ‘If you want to come with me, you’ll have to come as you are, in boots and dirty trousers … I’ll go back to the car and wait twenty seconds.’
She doesn’t answer, just looks at him and tries to hold back the tears and swallow the lump in her throat.
Joona walks out of the greenhouse and gets in his car, reverses to the turning circle and stops.
He looks at his watch.
Snowflakes are falling through the glow from the big greenhouses.
The seconds tick past, he should have left by now.
He leans against the cold seat and puts his right hand on the gearstick.
Everything is quiet and still.
He starts the engine again and the headlights form a swirling tunnel down towards the edge of the forest.
The fans whirr as the car heats up.
Joona stares ahead of him, then glances at his watch again, changes gear and drives slowly round the turning circle. He looks at the greenhouses in the rear-view mirror and he drives slowly away from Valeria’s nursery.
20
Erica Liljestrand is sitting on her own at the counter in the Pilgrim Bar, waiting for a friend from her biotechnology course.
Sleet is running down the window facing the street.
She puts her phone down beside the glass of wine and looks at the fingerprints on the screen before it goes dark.
She and Liv agreed to meet here at ten o’clock to discuss the New Year’s Eve party, but Liv is over an hour late now, and she’s not answering her phone.
There are hardly any customers in the Pilgrim Bar this evening, probably because
the building’s being renovated and the façade on Regeringsgatan is covered up. The entrance is hidden by scaffolding and dirty white nylon netting.
The three guys at the table at the back have started glancing in her direction, so she sticks with the bartender, chatting to him and checking her phone.
Weird that a woman sitting alone in a bar has to think of herself as fair game, she thinks.
Erica knows she isn’t exactly pretty, and she’s a long way from being a flirt. Even so, the simple fact that she’s there on her own is enough for them.
The bartender, who says his name is Nick, seems to assume that he’s irresistible. He’s a suntanned, wrinkled man in early middle-age, with blue eyes and a fashionable haircut. His short-sleeved shirt is tight across his bulging biceps, and only half covers the fuzzy tattoo on his neck.
So far Nick has told her about mountain-climbing in Thailand, skiing in the French Alps, and the jittery stock market.
Erica glances surreptitiously at the older, pink-cheeked couple chatting over at one of the corner tables. They look happy with their bottle of wine and nachos with salsa and guacamole.
She calls Liv again, and lets it ring for a ridiculous amount of time.
Dirty water is dripping from the scaffolding outside.
She puts her phone down and traces a scratch in the polished wood of the bar counter with her fingernail, then stops when she reaches the foot of her glass and takes a sip.
The bell jangles as the door opens.
Erica turns to look.
It isn’t Liv, but a man the size of a bear. He brings cold air from the street in with him, then takes off his black raincoat and squeezes it into a plastic bag.
The man is wearing a dark blue knitted sweater with leather patches on the elbows, cargo trousers and military-style boots.
He says hello to the bartender and sits down a metre or so away from Erica, with one chair between them, and hangs the plastic bag from a hook under the bar.
‘It’s a blowy night,’ he says in a deep, soft voice.
‘Looks that way,’ the bartender replies.
The large man rubs his hands together.
‘What vodkas have you got?’
‘Dworek, Stolichnaya, Smirnoff, Absolut, Koskenkorva, Nemiroff,’ Nick says.
‘Black Smirnoff?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll have five doubles of Smirnoff, then.’
Nick raises his eyebrows.
‘You want five glasses of vodka?’
‘Room temperature, if that’s OK,’ the man smiles.
Erica looks at the time on her phone and decides to wait another ten minutes.
The bartender places five shot glasses in front of the large man, then fetches a bottle from the shelf.
‘And refill her glass, seeing as we’re celebrating,’ he says, nodding in Erica’s direction.
Erica has no idea what he’s talking about. Maybe it was just a joke that didn’t quite work. She looks at him, but he doesn’t look back. His face looks sad, and his thick neck has settled into folds, his hair is cropped and he has beautiful pearl earrings in each earlobe.
‘Do you want another glass of wine?’ the bartender asks Erica.
‘Why not?’ she replies, stifling a yawn.
‘Seeing as we’re celebrating,’ Nick says, then fills a fresh glass.
The large man has taken out a book of matches and is now chewing on one of them.
‘I used to have a bar in Gothenburg,’ he says, then gets to his feet.
He stands still, as if he can no longer understand where he is. Slowly he turns to look at the bartender, then Erica. His pupils are dilated, and the match falls from his lips. He keeps turning, looks at the older man at the corner table, then one of the young men, before licking his lips and sitting back down again.
He clears his throat and empties the first glass of vodka, then puts it down on the bar.
Erica looks at the flat matchbook lying next to the line of glasses. The black cover is decorated with what looks like a small white skeleton.
‘Are you spending Christmas in Stockholm?’ Nick asks, putting a bowl of large green olives in front of Erica.
‘I’ll be going to my parents’ in Växjö,’ she replies.
‘Nice, Växjö’s a good town.’
‘You?’ she asks politely.
‘Thailand, as usual.’
‘I don’t think so,’ the large man says.
‘Sorry?’ Nick says in surprise.
‘Not that I can see into the future, but—’
‘Can’t you?’ the bartender interrupts. ‘That’s a relief, you almost had me worried there for a moment.’
The large man has lowered his gaze and is looking at his stubby fingertips. The young men get up noisily and leave.
‘It’s complicated,’ the large man says after a while.
‘Isn’t it just,’ Nick says tartly.
The man doesn’t answer, carries on picking at his matchbook. The bartender stands and looks at him for a while, waiting for him to look up, then he starts wiping the counter with a grey cloth.
‘Nice earrings,’ Erica says, and hears the bartender let out a laugh.
‘Thanks,’ the man says in a serious voice. ‘I wear them for my sister, my twin sister, she died when I was thirteen.’
‘That’s terrible,’ she whispers.
‘Yes,’ he says simply, and raises his shot glass towards her. ‘Cheers … cheers, whatever your name is …’
‘Erica,’ she says.
‘Cheers, Erica …’
‘Cheers.’
He drinks, puts the empty glass down, and licks his lips.
‘They call me the Beaver.’
The bartender turns away to hide his smile.
‘It’s a shame your friend’s late,’ the Beaver says after a pause.
‘How did you know that?’
‘I could say it’s deduction, a logical conclusion,’ he says. ‘I watch people, I saw the way you’ve been looking at your phone, the way you turned towards the door … And I’ve also got a sixth sense.’
‘A sixth sense, like telepathy?’ she asks, forcing herself not to smile.
Nick removes her first wine-glass and wipes the counter.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ the Beaver goes on. ‘But in layman’s terms I should probably call it precognition … Along with claircognizance, intrinsic knowledge.’
‘That sounds pretty advanced,’ Erica says. ‘So you’re some sort of medium?’
She can’t help feeling sorry for him. He seems completely unaware of how weird he comes across.
‘My abilities aren’t paranormal … there’s a logical explanation.’
‘OK,’ the bartender says sceptically.
They wait for him to go on, but instead he empties the third shot glass with very precise movements, then sets it down beside the others.
‘Almost every time I’m with other people, I know the order in which they’re going to die,’ he says. ‘I don’t know when it’s going to happen – in ten minutes or fifty years … but I can see the order.’
Erica nods. She regrets having encouraged him to talk. She only felt obliged to be a bit friendlier because Nick was starting to act like a bully. She’s wondering how soon she can leave without it looking like she’s trying to get away from him when her mobile buzzes.
21
Erica turns her phone round, hoping it will give her an excuse to leave the bar at once. It’s a text from Liv, apologising for not showing up, and saying she had to help a friend who’d drunk too much get home.
Erica’s thumbs feel oddly numb when she replies that she understands and that they can meet up tomorrow instead.
‘I have to go,’ she says, pushing her almost untouched glass of wine away.
‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ the large man says, looking at her intently.
‘No, it’s … I believe everyone has abilities that they don’t use,’ she replies rather vaguely.
>
‘I’m aware it sounded overdramatic, what I said, but I never seem to be able to find the right words to describe it.’
‘I understand,’ she says, looking at the screen.
‘Sometimes I only have time to count everyone, but sometimes I can do everyone in a room … It’s like I see a big clock-face with Roman numerals, and when the hand points to the number one, I find myself looking at the first person in the room who’s going to die, I don’t know how, but it’s just what happens. Tick tock, the hand moves to the number two, and I’m looking at another person … often I catch sight of my own face in a mirror before I lose contact.’
‘Can I settle up?’ Erica says to the bartender.
‘I scared you,’ the Beaver says, still trying to catch her eye.
‘Can you leave her alone, now?’ Nick says.
‘Erica, I just want to say that your number wasn’t the first to come up in this room.’
‘Stop it,’ the bartender says, leaning across the bar.
‘I’m stopping,’ the Beaver says calmly, and tucks the flat little matchbook in the chest pocket of his sweater. ‘Unless you’d like to know who number one was?’
‘Excuse me,’ Erica says, and heads off towards the toilets.
The bartender watches her go, and sees her wobble and hold one hand out to the wall to steady herself.
The Beaver empties his fourth glass of vodka, then puts it down silently next to the last one.
‘OK, who’s going to die first?’ the bartender asks.
‘You … which isn’t really surprising,’ the Beaver replies.
‘Why isn’t it surprising?’
‘Because I’m here to cut your throat,’ the Beaver replies calmly.
‘Am I going to have to call the police?’
‘You’ve already dosed her glass with Xyrem, haven’t you?’ the Beaver asks.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Nick hisses.
‘Did you know that one of your girls died in the ambulance?’ the Beaver says, turning the last glass on the bar.
‘You’re mentally ill,’ Nick tells him. ‘You may not be aware of it yourself, but …’
He falls silent when Erica returns to her stool. Her cheeks are pale and she sits quietly for a while with her eyes half-closed.
‘I’m fairly sure I’m going to succeed, seeing as you’re number one, and I’m number five,’ the Beaver says quietly.
