by Kepler, Lars
The road is empty.
No one else is waiting to go across.
Saga looks at the dark island on the other side of the water and the approaching cable ferry.
Her and Nathan’s search for the large man calling himself the Beaver has disconcerting connections with the final chapter in Jurek Walter’s story, and the precise location where his remains were found.
There’s a scraping sound as the ferry pulls in.
The water beyond is completely still.
When the barrier rises they drive onto the quay, and a man in waterproofs waves them on board. The ramp clanks against the quay as the car’s weight presses it down.
The deck is black and wet, and the railings and ferryman’s cab are painted mustard yellow.
Nathan and Saga stay seated in the car, which starts to shake as the ferry gets under way. The trembling moves through their legs, pelvises, and stomachs.
Beneath the surface of the water two sturdy steel cables run in parallel between the two islands. They get pulled out of the water and passed through the ferry’s powerful winch before being dropped down again.
Saga looks back and watches as the swell makes the frozen yellow reeds on either side of the quay sway.
Joona is convinced that Jurek Walter is alive, and that he’s devoted the last few years to finding a replacement for his brother.
Saga has always been convinced she killed Jurek.
The reason she spent a year searching for his body was so she could calm Joona down.
It was her fault that Jurek escaped, so she felt it was her duty to prove to Joona that Jurek was dead, if that was at all possible.
She vividly remembers meeting the churchwarden on Högmarsö. He was gathering driftwood from the rocks, and told her he’d found a man’s body five months earlier.
He’d kept the body in the toolshed, but when the stench got too bad he burned it in the old crematorium.
He cut off one of the fingers and kept it in his fridge in a jar of vodka.
Saga and Nils Åhlén studied the photograph he had taken of the swollen torso and bullet holes.
It was Jurek, every detail fitted.
And when the DNA and fingerprint turned out to be a one hundred per cent match, they were convinced.
Saga wishes Joona had waited a bit longer before disappearing, that he’d had time to see the security-camera footage from Belarus.
She’ll never forget the look on his face when he came to warn her.
She almost didn’t recognise him; the theft of his wife’s skull had made him paranoid.
Suddenly he was convinced that Jurek was alive – that he’d found a man the same age and build as him, shot him in the same places Saga had shot him, then amputated his own hand or part of it, and left the amputated body part to soak in seawater for six months.
Joona’s conclusion was that the churchwarden must have helped him, that Jurek either forced or persuaded Erland Lind to photograph the dead man’s torso and then cremate it, cut off and save the finger from Jurek’s rotted hand, and burn the rest.
Saga thinks back to Erland Lind’s drink-ravaged gaze, his taciturnity, his shabby clothes. She tried to interview him on several occasions after that first meeting, but he’d descended so far into dementia that it was pretty pointless.
The water is almost black this morning, there’s no wind and the surface is still. Thin mist is hanging between the islands in the distance.
The ferry slowly approaches Högmarsö.
Bare trees stand motionless beyond the empty quay.
The ferry slides up the underwater rails with a dull rumble, and the ramp scrapes across the concrete quayside before the ferry comes to a halt.
The swell laps against the rocky shore.
Nathan gives Saga a look, starts the car and rolls ashore. They drive up the hill, past summerhouses boarded up for the winter.
It only takes them a couple of minutes to reach the boatyard. The glare of a welding torch bounces between the buildings. The dusty yard is full of clutter and covered boats.
Nathan turns left, past some small fields and a patch of woodland. The chapel glints between the black tree trunks, as white as sugar.
They slow down, drive up a hill and stop. A large anchor is propped up in the yellow grass.
The cold air carries the smell of the sea. The cries of gulls can be heard from the harbour.
Saga walks up the gravel path and tries the door of the chapel. It’s locked, but the key is hanging from a nail under the railing beside the steps.
She unlocks the door, pushes the handle down, and Nathan follows her inside, onto the creaking wooden floor. The pews have been painted green, and there are votives on the walls. The cream-coloured dado rail reflects the winter light from the arched windows. They walk up to the simple altar, turn back, and stop in front of a muddy blanket lying on the floor.
There are some cans of beans and meat stew by the wall, next to the hymn books.
Nathan and Saga go outside again, lock the chapel and carry on towards the churchwarden’s cottage. The bell tower looms like a hunting platform between the trees.
As they knock on the door the sun breaks through the mist. They wait a few seconds then go in.
The tiny house consists of a kitchen with a bed in an alcove, and a small bathroom.
On the table, the remains of a meal have curled up and dried out. Beside the coffee-maker is a plastic bag full of mouldy cinnamon buns. The narrow bed in the alcove has no sheets. He’s been sleeping on the bare mattress with only a blanket to cover him. A watch with a scratched glass face is lying on a stool next to the bed.
The cottage has been abandoned.
Saga remembers the smell of cooking and damp the first time she was here. Erland Lind had been drunk, but at least his mind was relatively clear back then.
The next time she came he had been introverted and confused.
The process seemed to have been very rapid.
Saga thinks he must have ended up in care, and none of his relatives has managed to deal with his effects yet.
‘This is where he kept the finger in an old jam-jar,’ she says, opening the fridge.
The dirty shelves are strewn with bottles with no labels and packs of rancid and rotten food. She looks at the best-before dates of a carton of cream and a pack of bacon.
‘He hasn’t been here for four months,’ she tells Nathan, and shuts the fridge.
They leave the house and go to the garage.
A dirty spade with a rusty blade is lying on the floor surrounded by dry soil. They can see part of Erland’s illegal still behind the covered snow-blower.
‘This was where Jurek was lying, liquid was leaking from his body down into the drain,’ she says, pointing.
They walk outside again and look back towards the car and chapel.
‘Shall we go and ask the neighbours if they know where he’s gone?’ Nathan asks in a low voice.
‘I’ll call the parish office,’ Saga says, turning back the other way.
The remains of the crematorium’s foundations are hidden in the tall weeds, but the brick chimney sticks up four metres from the ground.
‘That was where he burned Jurek’s body,’ Nathan says.
‘Right.’
They walk through the grass and stop in front of the sooty oven. Saga carries on cautiously to the edge of the forest, looks at the pitchfork sticking out of the compost heap, then moves on towards the soil between the trees.
It feels as if all the air vanishes when she sees a metal tube sticking out of the ground.
She has to grab one of the trees to stop herself falling.
With her heart pounding she walks over and feels her heels sink into the loose soil. Thoughts are swirling through her head. She kneels down, leans forward and smells the tube, then stands up, coughing, backs away and spits on the ground.
Rotten meat.
The edge of the forest slides away as she turns, searching for something to
focus on. She takes a few steps, looking at the crematorium and churchwarden’s house.
‘What is it?’ Nathan asks anxiously.
She can’t answer, just runs to the garage, grabs the spade, runs back and starts digging in the softly packed soil, shovelling it into the tall weeds.
Sweat trickles down her back.
Her throat makes a whimpering sound as she presses the blade into the earth with her foot and heaves the soil away.
Panting hard, she makes the hole bigger, then climbs into it and keeps digging.
Seventy centimetres down the spade hits a coffin. She sweeps the loose soil aside with her hand. The pipe leads through the lid, and the hole has been sealed with silver duct tape.
‘What is this?’ Nathan asks.
She clears the whole top of the coffin, forces the blade of the spade beneath the lid and breaks it open. She tosses the spade aside and grabs hold of it with both hands, jerks the lid sideways and pulls the last of the nails out.
Nathan takes the lid from her and puts it beside the shallow grave.
They both stare down at the remains of the churchwarden.
Erland Lind’s body is swollen and oozing, some parts have almost dissolved, while others, including his hands and feet, seem to be intact. His face is emaciated, his eyes black, his fingertips torn to shreds.
‘Jurek did this,’ Saga whispers.
She clambers out of the grave, hurries back towards the chapel and stumbles over part of the crematorium’s foundations.
‘Wait!’ Nathan calls, hurrying after her.
‘He’s got my dad!’ she screams, and starts running towards the car.
41
Police officers Karin Hagman and Andrej Ekberg are sitting in patrol car 30-901 on Palmfeltsvägen close to the Globe Arena.
It’s a quiet morning. The rush-hour traffic heading into Stockholm has thinned out, the queues on Nynäsvägen have gone and, apart from one minor collision in which no one was hurt, things have been very calm.
Karin and Andrej have driven around the slaughterhouse district, and pulled up behind a parked van with a pornographic image painted across its door. Karin checked the registration number in the criminal database in the hope that they could have intervened on stronger grounds than bad taste alone.
Now they’re driving slowly along the shaded road that runs beside the underground line, beneath deserted footbridges and dark, empty brick buildings. The area is still a mess after a concert the previous evening.
‘Life’s too long to have the energy to have fun all the time,’ Karin sighs.
‘You said you were going to tell Joakim how you’re feeling,’ Andrej says.
‘It won’t make any difference … he doesn’t seem to want anything any more, he just doesn’t care.’
‘You need to split up.’
‘I know,’ Karin whispers, then drums the steering wheel with her hand.
They pass someone collecting discarded cans to get the deposit back on them. He’s dressed in a filthy military coat and fur hat as he walks along the ditch dragging a bin-bag behind him.
Karin opens her mouth to say that Joakim will do anything to avoid having sex when they get a call from Central Command.
She answers the call and notes that the operator’s voice sounds unusually stressed when he says they have a Priority 1 alarm from a colleague.
The pale glow from the POLMAN radio makes her hand look as white as snow as she reaches for the gear-stick.
The alarm concerns an ongoing kidnapping at Enskede School, at the Mellis out-of-school club on Mittelvägen.
The operator does his best to answer their questions calmly and efficiently, but there’s clearly something about the situation that’s got to him.
As Karin understands it, they’re dealing with the violent kidnapping of a twelve-year-old girl with Down Syndrome. The suspected perpetrator is believed to be extremely dangerous, possibly armed.
The address appears on their screen.
They’re close.
Karin switches the flashing lights on and turns the car round, sending the blue light pulsing across a brown brick wall with shredded awnings.
The operator tells them that they’re coordinating their response with Södermalm Hospital and the National Operational Unit.
‘But we’re closest, we’re going to be first on the scene,’ he says.
Karin switches on the hi-lo siren, puts her foot down, and feels the car’s acceleration push her into her seat. There’s a cyclist up ahead to their right, and a truck approaching from the opposite direction.
In the rear-view mirror the man collecting cans in the ditch stands and watches them go.
She slows down at the large junction to make sure that everyone has stopped to let them across before accelerating again.
Andrej asks the operator if he knows how many children are in the club, and is told that there are probably fewer than normal because the school is closed for the day.
Karin thinks it sounds like a custody battle that’s got out of hand, some aggrieved ex-husband who feels hard done by.
They pass the yellow façade of the Catholic school, turn sharp right at the roundabout and speed up past the large sports field.
Silvery fencing in front of the row of football pitches flickers past.
As Karin drives, Andrej keeps talking to the operator. They’ve received a number of calls from the public about a disturbance, as well as gunshots.
She’s driving a little too fast when they reach the next roundabout and the tyres lose their grip as she turns left.
They slide across the loose grit on the tarmac and end up on the pavement, scraping a sign pointing to Enskede Church.
‘Take it easy,’ Andrej mutters.
Karin doesn’t answer, just puts her foot down again as they drive along the edge of Margareta Park.
Several birds take off from a rubbish bin.
The winter grass in the park is brown and the bare trees shade the network of paths.
They spot the tiled roof of the school above the surrounding buildings and Karin turns the siren off. She turns sharp right onto Mittelvägen, slows down and stops right in front of the entrance.
They get out of the car and check their weapons and protective vests. Karin tries to control her breathing.
The brown leaves that have gathered at the base of a spiral fire-escape are rustling in the wind.
Andrej confirms that they’re on the scene. Karin looks on as he listens and nods before ending the call.
‘The operator told us to be careful,’ he says, looking her in the eye.
‘Careful? I’ve never heard that before,’ she says, without quite managing to summon up a smile.
‘That was from the colleague who raised the alarm.’
‘Careful,’ she repeats in a low voice.
She looks at the single-storey building that houses the out-of-school club, which has been squeezed into a gap between the far taller school buildings on either side. Its brick walls have been painted yellow, and there’s moss growing on the red-tiled roof.
There are lights on behind the curtains but there’s no one in sight.
Everything is quiet.
‘Let’s go in and take a look,’ Andrej says.
With their pistols drawn, they run across the wide pavement, then creep along the wall to the dark-red door.
Andrej pulls it open and Karin takes a couple of steps into the cloakroom.
There’s a large plastic box of discarded clothing in the middle of the floor. Boots and trainers are lined up next to a drying-cupboard.
Andrej moves past Karin and gestures towards the next door, and she follows him into a large room with tables laid out for chess and backgammon.
The curtains in front of all the windows are closed.
The only sound is the rustle of their uniforms and the noise of their boots on the plastic floor as they move between the low tables.
The door to one of the toilets at the far
end of the room is closed.
They stop.
They can hear a clicking, bubbling sound.
Karin exchanges a glance with Andrej, and he immediately moves to one side. She walks closer to the toilet door, thinking about the unusual exhortation to be careful, and realises that she’s shaking as she reaches her hand out and pushes the door handle.
42
Karin yanks the door open, backs away and aims her pistol into the darkness, but the door swings shut before she has time to see anything.
She reaches forward and opens the door again.
There’s no one there.
The tap is on and an even trickle of water is running down the plughole with a gentle tinkling sound.
‘Where the hell is everyone?’ Andrej whispers behind her.
They carry on into the dining room. Three circular tables are spread out across the floor. On one of the tables is a glass of chocolate milkshake and a plate with half a sandwich on it.
Karin spots a shoe on the floor between the tables and chairs, close to the half-closed door to the kitchen.
Andrej goes over to the window, nudges the curtain aside and looks out. There’s no sign of the rapid-response unit, but a white van has stopped at the end of the block.
‘There’s a van further down the street,’ he says quietly.
Karin looks at the pistol in her hand, moves a chair out of the way and walks over to him.
She stops and looks back towards the kitchen again.
She can see a bare foot among the tables.
‘Andrej,’ she says in a tense voice.
She turns and hurries across the dining room, her pulse racing.
In the doorway to the kitchen a large woman is lying on her stomach, completely motionless. The sliding door is half-closed, so that only the bottom half of her body is visible.
Both her shoes are missing.
Her heels are pink, the wrinkled soles of her feet almost white.
Karin looks at the faded jeans and tasselled back pockets across the woman’s large backside.
A horizontal-striped Marimekko T-shirt is stretched across the woman’s back.
Aiming her pistol towards the kitchen, Karin reaches out her other hand and slowly slides the door open.
