‘Do you know a village called Hedberg?’
Kippen frowned and pursed his lips, fixing his gaze on the cigarette shelf as if the answer was written there.
‘No. Where is it?’
‘Up near Arjeplog.’
‘Are you going there to look?’
Lelle nodded and tore the cellophane from the cigarette packet. ‘If I don’t come back, you know what to do.’
‘You’re not going to trespass on someone’s land?’
‘I’m going to visit the farm of a convicted rapist and abuser.’
The flabby skin on Kippen’s neck trembled as he shook his head, but he said nothing and gave a low whistle instead. Some youngsters came into the shop and Lelle put the cigarette in his mouth and winked at Kippen as he walked to the door.
He parked on an overgrown turning circle he had found on a satellite image. From there he could follow a brook that carved a channel through the back of Roger Renlund’s land. He stepped out into thick scrub that came up to his armpits. Dark clouds of flies rose up from the wild flowers as he forced his way through. Roger Renlund’s farm lay like a medieval fortress, surrounded by wildly overgrown fields and thorny forest. It would be a nightmare trying to get through that lot.
Lelle tucked his trousers into his boots and pulled up his hood as protection against the mosquitoes. At the tree line he broke off a branch and used it to beat the air. The whining settled all around him, along with his revulsion. The ground was marshy and foul-smelling, and the night sun painted strips of light between the trees where the midges gathered in angry clouds. He felt them biting, despite the hood and his attempts to shake them off. They bit through to his head where his hair was soaked in sweat. The gun was in his waistband and he sensed the smell of fear permeating from his pores. Perhaps it was the smell that attracted the damned mosquitoes.
He didn’t know what he was afraid of, whether it was the feeling of being on someone else’s land or the fear of what he might or might not find. It didn’t matter. He would search for his daughter using all possible means, legal or not. Perhaps he was afraid he was losing his mind. This business of acting alone was seductive; no one saw what he saw or drew the same conclusions. Lelle was in it on his own and he knew it. Perhaps he should start knocking back the diazepam or zopiclone and spend his evenings grieving his lost daughter on social media. That seemed to work for Anette. She didn’t break any laws. She didn’t run around, armed, on someone else’s property in the middle of the night. She didn’t drive to dying villages to look for her daughter among the ruins. It was him, and him alone.
When the forest opened up, his T-shirt was sticking to his skin and he could no longer hear the whining of the mosquitoes for the blood rushing in his ears. In the glade he glimpsed a paddock full of grass that hadn’t been grazed for many years. He crouched among the moss and flowers and looked towards the main house, two storeys that had been subjected to wind and weather. The night sky was reflected in the sad-looking window panes. There was no sign of life, animal or human. Lelle hunched over and made his way across the paddock. The car was parked beside one of the walls, he could see it now. A snowmobile or motorbike stood under a tarpaulin. He crept past a rusty wheelbarrow filled with dark earth and on to a recently dug potato plot waiting for the new shoots to appear. The ground was wet and cold beneath him. He set his sights on the woodshed, the building closest to him, and listened for the sound of barking a final time before getting to his feet. He began to run, but didn’t get far before he had to fall flat again. The squeal of a hinge broke the silence, followed by a dry cough. Lelle tried to lie still, but his heart and lungs heaved against the ground. Dew soaked through his layers of clothing and the cold made him think of the ice he had fallen through as a child. His hands had scraped themselves bloody on the jagged edges and his father, suddenly sober, yelled at him to grab the rope. Hold on to the rope, boy!
Through the blades of grass he saw a figure on the veranda steps. Renlund was dressed in a pair of green underpants and his stomach was hanging over the waistband. He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, and a greying dog bounded out of the trees. Lelle pressed his cheek to the ground and closed his eyes. He heard Renlund say something to the dog and then the hinge squealed again as the door shut behind them. Lelle stayed where he was for a long time, until the cold seeped through to his bones and made his joints and jaws shudder. He began crawling to the woodshed, all the time keeping his eyes on the house and the windows where the sky gleamed. Not until he was out of sight did he stand up and start to run. The door to the woodshed was half open and he slipped in sideways. He peered through the darkness and breathed in the smell of dried wood. Logs were stacked several metres high along one wall, more than enough for three winters. Renlund might be a bastard, but there was nothing to indicate that he was lazy.
Lelle padded through the barn, which was empty of animals and stank of rotten hay. He shone his torch on the stalls and prodded piles of hay with a rake to make sure nothing was concealed underneath. Spider webs and bird droppings covered the walls, testimony that it had been a long time since any livestock had been kept here. He came out to an empty dog pen with food bowls filled with rain and earth. Next to that was a hunting hut with sloping walls and two hares strung up in the doorway, waiting to be skinned. Lelle peered through the scratched window and saw that the hut was filled with tools, fishing rods and knives. A butchery bench ran along one of the short walls. There was nothing unusual or worrying there. He looked back at the house. He really would like to take a look inside. It was a big place for just one man, with many rooms that were never used.
He got as far as halfway across the yard before the first shot rang out, a loud rifle shot that shook the pines above his head. Lelle crouched down and started to run. Over his shoulder he saw Renlund on the veranda steps, still in his underpants, but now with a rifle under his arm. He yelled something at Lelle, but the words didn’t reach him. Then there was a second shot and this time he felt the rush of air as the bullet passed him. He threw himself to the ground and crawled on all fours. Soon the dog was barking behind him. He could hear how close it was. The ground swayed beneath him and when the dog’s paws landed on his back he fell flat on the ground, covering his head with his hands. He heard the dog give a bark, the kind of bark that meant it had caught its prey. Lelle lay totally still and heard the grass being parted by heavy footsteps. A hoarse voice ordered the dog to be silent. Lelle made an attempt to get up, but the man pressed a foot between his shoulder blades and forced him down again.
Meja drank cold coffee and glared at the forest. The days were endless in the wait for night-time and Carl-Johan, because it was only then he came. An image of the pack of cigarettes she had thrown away kept floating into her mind and she thought that just one couldn’t hurt. But she didn’t want to smell of smoke if he suddenly appeared, standing there at the edge of the forest.
The restlessness drove her out of the house. The sun was playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds and there was no real warmth in it. She took the dog with her, but it soon abandoned her to follow a promising scent. It nosed its way through the low lingonberry bushes and blended in with the shadows. Meja called, but didn’t like hearing the sound of her own voice. The wind seemed to make the forest reach out to her and it gave her goosebumps. Her loathing of it lay like a heavy blanket around her shoulders. She walked towards the barn.
The door was heavy, but it swung open easily on its hinges. Inside the barn the roof was high. Assorted vehicles slumbered under dark tarpaulins and one of the long walls was hung with tools of all kinds. Torbjörn appeared to be especially interested in axes; he had at least a dozen hanging in a row. The shiny cutting edges nestled inside their leather sheaths. Meja ran her fingers over the thick handles and wondered what it would feel like to swing one, but she didn’t dare try. Perhaps Torbjörn would show her.
Two cycles were propped in one corner, both old and without gears, but with sturdy rear carrier racks.
Meja left them and went into an adjoining room, where various animal hides were stretched across the walls and a heavy iron hook hung from the ceiling. A wooden work bench took pride of place in the middle of the room and when she walked closer she noticed the surface was dark with bloodstains. She realized this was where Torbjörn butchered the animals that filled the freezers in the cellar. The thought made her recoil.
The dog started barking outside and when Meja turned to leave she caught sight of yet another door. It was hanging off its hinges and a pool of daylight shone through from underneath. She walked over and felt the handle. The door opened straight away with a long creak. There inside was a tiny room, really nothing more than an alcove, with a dirty window letting in a beam of daylight. The walls were lined with narrow shelves packed with carved wooden figures in long rows, everything from rabbits to large-breasted women. On the floor among the wood shavings were old drink crates full of magazines.
She could see immediately what kind of magazines they were. Glossy pages of naked women. Close-ups of gaping buttocks and genitals. Images that both fascinated and repulsed her. She thought of Torbjörn, imagined him sitting here, carving figures and leafing through the porn mags in the evenings. The thought was more sad than laughable. She flicked through a few of them until she came to a collection of photographs of a more amateur kind. They fell out like bookmarks. They were pictures of women at the lake beach. Young women in colourful bikinis, diving from rocks and drying themselves with towels, apparently unaware they were being photographed. Meja squinted and tried to make out their faces. A feeling of uneasiness came over her. When the dog barked outside she hurried to put the photographs back, her hands trembling.
Then she rushed out, past the butcher’s block and the axes, grabbing one of the ancient bicycles on the way. She pushed it outside, leapt on to the saddle and began pedalling unsteadily along the cracked asphalt that led to the village.
Roger Renlund still brewed his coffee on a cast-iron wood stove. Lelle sat on the edge of his chair, playing with the brown-striped wax tablecloth that must have been there since the Sixties. The grey dog was stretched out in the doorway like a shaggy prison guard, keeping a sleepy eye on him. Renlund spat his snus into the sink and poured coffee into green plastic mugs. It was thick and black and steamed intensely in the sunshine.
‘I apologize for the warning shot,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t aiming at you. I’ve had a problem with diesel thieves the past few years and I thought I’d teach them a lesson.’
Lelle’s hand was still shaking as he picked up the mug.
‘Can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have been nosing around your property in the middle of the night.’
‘So we don’t need to contact the police?’
‘Hell, no.’
They gulped their coffee in silence for a while and Lelle looked around him. It was clear the house had belonged to the man’s parents and the furniture had been handed down through generations. A wooden clock ticked away the seconds and above the pine panelling the striped wallpaper was hung with hunting knives and a bundle of dried cat’s foot flowers.
Renlund kneaded tobacco between his fingers and kept his eyes on Lelle.
‘I recognize you,’ he said. ‘I met you the other night. It was your phone I borrowed to call the wife!’
‘That’s right,’ said Lelle.
‘I’ll be damned.’
Renlund frowned and looked down at the photograph of Lina that was lying between them on the tablecloth.
‘So she’s your daughter?’
‘You had a T-shirt with her picture on. In the car.’
‘Yes. We were involved in the search, the old lady and me. Part of the human chains. And we’ve been on the torchlight parades through the years.’
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
‘She’s got a farm up in Baktsjaur. We don’t live together.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want to sell my family home and she doesn’t want to sell hers.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Lelle. ‘And she works in a care home?’
Renlund looked astonished.
‘How do you know that?’
‘You phoned there the night we met.’
‘She insists on working nights,’ he said. ‘Because that’s when they die. And she doesn’t want anyone to die alone.’
There was a long silence while Lelle thought about this, broken only by Renlund gulping his coffee and aiming gobs of spit into a tin bucket on the floor. The dog had rolled on to its back, revealing the white hair on its stomach.
‘But I still don’t understand what your girl would have been doing here on my farm, of all places,’ Renlund said.
Lelle took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. All I do know is that she’s been missing for three years and it’s my job to look for her. I heard about your past,’ he said, ‘and to be honest every sodding person is a potential suspect in my eyes. Until I know what has happened to my daughter I’d even suspect the king himself. So, don’t take it personally.’
Renlund scowled and considered this for a while. ‘I guess I can understand that. I’d have done the same if I had kids of my own. I’m not proud of the stuff I got up to in my younger days, I can tell you that. But I swear I’ve had nothing to do with your daughter’s disappearance.’
It was full daylight when Lelle stepped out on to the veranda and began to make his way through the undergrowth to the car. Renlund’s eyes burned into the back of his neck and before he disappeared into the trees Lelle lifted a hand to him. The lone man waved back. He was standing on the veranda steps with the rifle propped against the flaking wall of the house, and the dog was sitting beside him. Lelle ducked and wound his way between the trees and as soon as he was out of sight he began to run.
‘You look an absolute wreck!’ Anette put her arm around Lelle and held him tight. ‘You stink, too.’
‘Thanks for those kind words.’
She held him away from her, looking at him with tear-filled eyes. There were new lines on her face that he didn’t remember. She looked older, more tired. But unlike her, he said nothing. He hadn’t had time to get cleaned up or change his clothes. His body felt battered after the night up at Hedberg.
Anette pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes.
‘Three years,’ she said. ‘Three years without our little girl.’
Lelle could only nod. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop his voice breaking. Instead, he held out his hand to Thomas, who was standing to one side. A mass of people had gathered around them, but all he saw was the grey outline of a crowd. He felt their eyes on him, but couldn’t see any faces. He couldn’t bring himself to look.
They lit torches and handed them around. The crowd came alive, but the flames helped to block them out. Lelle’s shoulders relaxed a little. Anette stood on the steps of the old school and said something in her high voice that Lelle couldn’t hear, but its sound was familiar to him.
Other voices followed. Local police officer Åke Ståål gave a brief account of the case that was still open and how the search would continue. One of Lina’s friends read a poem and another sang. Lelle kept his eyes on the ground, wishing he was somewhere else, wishing he could get behind the wheel and drive the Silver Road to look for his daughter.
‘Lelle?’ Anette’s voice cut through his thoughts. ‘Do you want to say a few words?’
Everyone’s eyes were on him and he felt his cheeks burning. The torch crackled in his hand, but he could still hear muffled sobs. He cleared his throat and licked his lips.
‘I just want to say thank you to everybody who has come here today. These three years without Lina have been the worst of my life. And it doesn’t get any easier. It’s time we got her home. I need my daughter.’
His voice broke and his head dropped to his chest. A longer speech was impossible. This was all he had to offer. Someone slapped him on the back and it felt like the slap someone would give a horse.
Lelle looked sideways at the pair of shoes and knew it was Ståål, the incompetent old bastard.
They began walking in a long line with their burning torches towards the bus stop where Lina was last seen. A reporter from Norrlands-Posten was there, taking pictures. Lelle walked with his head bowed and his coat collar turned up. The air was heavy with damp and the scent of lilacs. Ahead of him was Anette, with Thomas’s arm around her shoulders. The rest of the people lacked dimension, as if they were not really alive.
The bus stop came into view at the top of the slope and he could feel his heart beating faster. Waves of dizziness washed over him and he focused on putting one foot in front of the other and filling his lungs with air. The hope that Lina would be standing there, waiting, was always under the surface, even if it never became a reality.
The villagers made him feel uncomfortable. His whole body reacted against them, but he couldn’t explain why. A rage burned under his skin and made it impossible for him to look them in the face. Lina’s friends and their parents, teachers and acquaintances, neighbours and neighbours’ neighbours – all these people who ought to have seen something, ought to know something. Who were possibly involved. The whole of Glimmersträsk was to blame. Until the day Lina came back to him he wouldn’t trust a single one of them.
By the time they reached the bus shelter he was so angry he found it hard to keep the torch still. He pictured himself lunging at the crowd, scorching the faces of the inquisitive people closest to him. He could almost hear the screams. He lowered his face to look at the fractured asphalt and started to count the cracks. Anette’s voice was coming from somewhere and he was amazed at how clear and controlled it was.
The Silver Road Page 7
