Hunting Game

by Helene Tursten

  To her relief she saw her ankle boots immediately. Even if she didn’t put on any clothes, she needed something on her feet to be able to run. Because she had to run. He had guns in the house. Her half-dry clothes were hanging in the drying cabinet, but she didn’t see her panties and bra, and her cell phone was gone, too. Fumbling, she started to get dressed. The jeans stuck damply to her skin but reluctantly came all the way up. She didn’t bother with the tunic, it was easier to pull the damp fleece sweatshirt over her head, even though she was barely able to raise her arms. The pain in her shoulders cut like glowing iron toward her back and neck. A dull pain was pounding in the back of her head but she ignored it. She mustn’t lose her head start. She didn’t find her socks, but instead stuffed her bare feet into the ankle boots. She slipped over to the door and listened. She could hear sounds coming from the top floor. He must have come to. She didn’t dare try to slip out through the front door; he could surely control and lock it with his codes. How would she get out? Her gaze fell on the window above the whirlpool. It was worth a try. Limping she made her way across the floor and up to the window. Latches and a lock. The lock was a problem but force could solve most things.

  First by using the knife she loosened the two screws that attached the lock at the windowsill, then she guided the knife blade under the lock and pried. After a bit more coaxing she was able to remove it. An alarm started sounding somewhere in the house. She heard heavy steps on the stairs. With trembling fingers she opened the window latches and raised the window. Outside the rain was pouring as intensely as before and she could hear the harsh wind had not ceased. She set one foot on the edge of the tub and finally managed to get the other one up, too. The window was narrow but she was able to wriggle out. Headlong, she fell to the wet ground below but got up immediately. She had to quickly get away from the illuminated farmyard. She limped off toward the forest at the back of the house. He would discover that she had slipped out the window in the workout room and hopefully think she was trying to reach the road. She knew the forest like the back of her hand. She was safer there. In her mind she had a map and knew exactly which way to go. Peter’s nearest neighbor was Sixten Svensson.

  She was only a few meters from the protective edge of the forest when the first shot echoed. Her left upper arm throbbed heavily. While continuing to run, she checked to see if she could still move her arm. It was okay; the bullet had plowed up a flesh wound but nothing more. It was lucky he didn’t have a better aim. But she couldn’t take for granted that he would miss a second time. She threw herself down on the ground.

  The bullet struck lower this time, she felt the splinters explode from the tree trunk in front of her. It would have hit her in the lower back. There was a brief respite while he reloaded, and she knew she had to exploit that. As a boxer she was used to ignoring pain and now she ran for all she was worth toward the nearest tree. Once there she threw herself behind the trunk and pressed herself tight against it. The shot missed and continued into the forest. Now that she was among the trees, her odds were better. There was a risk that he had a night-vision sensor on the rifle, so she decided to try to hide behind the tree trunks. She didn’t need to move as fast now; the most important thing was to move in the right direction and stay out of sight. Just then she became aware of something warm running down her arm. Blood.

  Embla ran in a zig-zag between the trees in what she knew was the direction of Sixten’s farm. The chance that he had heard the shots was almost nonexistent. He was too far away. Besides, he was likely drunk on his ass by then. Whatever. She just needed to borrow a landline phone, not a cell phone. And hopefully a rifle. Just as she thought the word “rifle,” two shots went off in close succession. Presumably he saw movements caused by the wind and was shooting at random. By this point she should be beyond his field of vision. But there was a risk that even a stray shot might hit her.

  She chose to make her way to where the vegetation was densest. The rain and darkness favored her, too. In a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, she pressed her right hand hard over the wound, but she could feel the warm blood seeping through the sweatshirt.

  In the darkness she could barely see her hand in front of her, and the pouring rain made the ground slippery. The last thing she needed now was a broken leg. Damp branches struck her in the face and she started getting cold again. Strangely enough she no longer felt any pain from the bullet wound, and the feeling in her toes and feet had come back, which gave her courage and renewed energy. On the final stretch to Sixten’s farm she made fairly good time.

  At the corner of the barn a single strong lamp lit up the yard, otherwise the farm was bathed in darkness. Was he not at home? Worst-case scenario, she would break a window. She had to get to a phone. As quietly as she could she slipped up toward the cracked front door while she looked around. All that was on the farmyard was the same scrap as before. She slipped on the broken cement step and struck her knee but barely noticed it. She felt for the door handle, and her heart jumped for joy when the door glided open while creaking in protest. Quickly she slipped in and locked the door behind her. Then she called in a hushed voice into the dark house.

  “Sixten? Are you home? It’s me, Embla.”

  She listened intensely for a response and at last picked up a sound like loud snoring from the living room. On tiptoe she went up to the doorway and peered into the darkness. Carefully she stepped into the room and approached the sofa.

  “Hi, Sixten. It’s Embla. I’m turning on a lamp.”

  From her previous visit during the day she remembered that there was a floor lamp between the sofa and one of the armchairs. Guided by Sixten’s snoring she fumbled over to the lamp. It took a few moments before she found the switch, but at last she managed to turn it on. With a jerk her unintentional host woke up.

  “What the hell! Who the hell . . . ?”

  Confused, he laboriously sat up. The exertion provoked a wheezing coughing fit. She stood quietly and waited until it was over. He now wore a flannel shirt and a pair of old pants, but the heavy socks, wisps of hair, and streaks of snus were still there.

  “It’s me, Embla. I’ve been shot. I need to use your phone.”

  He wheezed and coughed again. “Shot? Who the hell shot . . . ?”

  “Peter. Peter Hansson.”

  “Hansson! I can damn well believe it!”

  Suddenly he sounded wide-awake and stone sober.

  “Yes . . . Where’s your phone?”

  “In the kitchen. On the wall.” With lightly shaking hands he rubbed his eyes and looked at her again.

  “You look like hell! You’re bleeding. That bastard!” he exclaimed.

  But she was already on her way to the kitchen. There she turned on the ceiling light and found the phone hanging right beside the door. Clumsily she dialed Göran’s cell phone number. After a few signals she heard a familiar voice.

  “Superintendent Göran Krantz.”

  It was as if a barrier was released and the words started rushing out of her.

  “It’s Peter Hansson . . . he shot me! He’s crazy! And armed. He’s the one who killed Forsnaess and Cahneborg. He confessed to me! And he’s hacked all our cell phones. He can listen to our calls and read text messages. And the emails in our computers. And he controlled Ola Forsnaess’s car because it had an automatic emergency phone . . . a little computer that he hacked and . . .”

  “Calm down. Where are you now?”

  “With Sixten Svensson. I . . . Peter tortured me to find out how much we’ve figured out . . . but I managed to escape. He shot at me . . . just a flesh wound in the arm . . . it’s bleeding . . .”

  “I’ll call for reinforcements. And an ambulance. Lock all the doors in case he comes.”

  Sixten was standing right behind her as she turned around. The gaze in his small, red-rimmed eyes was present. He was perhaps not quite sober but far from drunk. He had put on his hunting vest. In his hands he was holding a clean linen towel that was so heavily mangled that it c
racked when he unfolded it and had a faint aroma of lavender and mothballs. Without a word he wrapped it around her wounded upper arm and fastened it with some safety pins.

  “Come with me,” he said, walking ahead of her toward the study.

  In there he turned on the ceiling light and then went up to one of the bookshelves and started groping along the side. With a snap it moved out a little and turned on creaking hinges.

  “A secret door!” she exclaimed in surprise.

  “Pops made it. He was afraid of all the guns in the house. Both he and I hunt, so there were quite a few. But I follow the rules, and I’ve put in a real gun cabinet.”

  He proudly showed her the large, locked gun cabinet that was behind the bookshelf. She was truly impressed. He entered the combination and the door opened quietly. She counted eight rifles inside, along with two pistols and several stacks of ammunition on a shelf.

  “Wow!”

  “Yeah, you better believe we have resources here! Here, take this in case he comes after you.”

  He leaned forward and took out a Sako caliber 6.5 with a mounted telescopic sight. It was the rifle she was used to.

  “Night-vision sensor,” he said, winking.

  “Super! And you?”

  “I’ll take my Remington. And I have a night-vision sensor for it, too.”

  With a grim expression he mounted the sight. Then he leaned down and took out two boxes of ammunition. One he gave to her, the other he put in one of the vest’s roomy pockets. In silence they loaded their rifles.

  “We’ll go up to the top floor. You guard the back and I’ll check the front. I’ll grab the lights.”

  There was no trace of the grumpy old man. Straight-backed he went up to the switch to turn off the lights.

  Only after the window had shattered and Sixten fell forward did she perceive the sound of the shot. As he fell his hand dragged across the switch and the ceiling light went out. Quickly Embla crouched and crawled up to the window. Without sticking her head up she fired off a shot. He answered the fire immediately, and the shot struck the lower part of the windowsill. That aroused a hope in her that he didn’t have a night-vision sensor on his rifle. But the clumsy shot could also mean that he hadn’t had time to mount a telescopic sight at all. She stood up and aimed toward the light that was at the corner of the barn. One shot and it turned completely dark outside. Lightning quick she crouched down again. He sent a bullet through the window but it hit high up on the wall. Right after that came another that shattered the ceiling light.

  She crawled over toward Sixten. The shot had struck his left shoulder blade. He was bleeding profusely and he moaned faintly before he slipped into unconsciousness. He was old and not in the best physical shape. There was a great risk he would become Peter’s next victim.

  She recognized the chill that rose inside her and made her brain crystal clear. The hunting instinct.

  In the kitchen the ceiling light was still on. It was crucial that he not catch sight of her through the window. She crawled on all fours across the filthy kitchen floor. Under cover of darkness in the hall she could stand up again. As carefully as she could she sneaked toward the stairs to the top floor. Something soft made her quickly move her foot and wild hissing made her heart almost stop. The cat ran like a shadow ahead of her up the stairs. After a few deep breaths to slow down her pulse she continued. Her focus was on quickly getting to the window above the study. It ought to be in the room just to the right as you came up the stairs.

  The door was open. Carefully she closed it behind her, so as not to risk letting even a little light in that would expose her against the doorway.

  There was a sour smell of unwashed bedlinens; she was in the bedroom. When her injured knee struck the bedframe she swore between clenched teeth but continued up to the window. It had an old lace curtain, which suited her perfectly. Through the telescopic sight she looked toward the place where he ought to be standing. Carefully she pushed up the safety catch with her thumb. The whole time she was very careful not to graze the curtain. The slightest movement might catch his attention.

  Slowly she started scanning the area through the sight. After a few seconds she saw him, shielded behind the old tractor.

  Even if he performed well at the firing range under optimal conditions, the distance was too great and the night too dark for an inexperienced shooter like him. To have a chance to land a shot he would have to make his way closer to the house. He stayed close behind the tractor and offered her no good shooting angle. Sometimes he peeked out but was careful to stay behind the tractor wheels. But she could wait. That was her strength as a hunter. The icy cold was there unchanged inside her, and she knew what she had to do. He had killed three men, perhaps four if Sixten didn’t recover, and he had tried to kill her. Peter was a mass murderer.

  In the phosphorescent green image in the sight she saw how he wiped away the blood that was still running from his nose with what looked like a kitchen towel. He had pushed a cap down on his head as protection from the rain. He constantly looked ahead, trying to see where she was. Sometimes he directed his gaze up toward the window where she was standing, but she remained motionless.

  Suddenly he was on the move and started to run in a crouch toward the house. He swerved and ran along the barn, perhaps in the hope that it would make it harder for her to locate him in the dark, but she followed him the whole time in the telescopic sight. When he stopped to peer up toward the house before he left the protection of the barn wall, she fired.

  A hit in the right shoulder. The force slung him backward and he dropped the rifle. He lay there motionless by the stone base of the barn.

  As quickly as she could she made her way downstairs. At the front door she stopped and turned on the light on the end of the farmhouse. To be on the safe side she put the rifle to her shoulder again and checked the sight. He was lying in the exact same position. The light barely reached the place where he was lying, but it was enough that she could orient herself without having to look in the sight as she walked. It was difficult enough to stay upright in the slippery mud in the farmyard.

  When she came up she saw that he was unconscious. Bubbles of blood came out of his nostrils and he made gurgling sounds as he breathed. The blood was running from the wound in the shoulder, mixing with the mud in the puddle he had landed in. His head was leaning against the stone foundation of the barn; he must have struck the back of his head as he fell.

  Presumably it was good that his head was up a little, considering the bleeding from the nose fracture. She leaned down and picked up the muddied rifle as a precaution. She did not feel anything. Inside she was empty, cold, and strangely clearheaded.

  What the hell! Why did you shoot the dog?

  Because it asked me to.

  On shaky legs she slid her way back toward the house in the mud and managed not to fall down in the puddles.

  Once she was inside the hall she locked the door, unloaded Peter’s rifle, and set it in a corner. Now she could calmly walk through the kitchen and continue to the study. She turned on the desk lamp and fell on her knees beside Sixten. He moaned weakly but was still unconscious.

  She remembered the cotton mittens she had seen in the gun cabinet, went for a pair, and put them on him. At the same time she took one of the soft rags that were in a neat pile on the bottom shelf. She unscrewed the night-vision sensor on the rifle she had borrowed, carefully wiped the sight off with the rag, and set it in its box in the gun cabinet. Then she took out an ordinary sight, a Swarovski she noted automatically, and mounted it. Now the rifle she had borrowed did not have a night-vision sensor, but a regular sight. That was an important detail for the future investigation of the exchange of gunfire. Without a night-vision sensor the shot to Peter’s shoulder could be deemed a random hit. If the sensor was still mounted, the shot would be harder to explain since she was known as a capable shooter within the police corps. Here it wasn’t like on those American cop shows she grew up watching, where deadly
force could always be excused. Swedish law was very strict where use of deadly force by the police was concerned, under any circumstances. And the last thing she wanted was an inquest into her actions—especially given how the evening had played out. No. Things were already complicated enough.

  She went out in the kitchen again and wiped the cotton mittens and rag across the dirty kitchen counter. When they were really filthy she went down to the cellar with them and threw them in a corner. It would be a long time before they were discovered in the mess down there.

  When that was done she went up to the hall again and took a gray raincoat down from the hanger. By the front door she took off her ankle boots and stepped into a pair of old rubber galoshes and went back out in the rain. The galoshes stuck in the gooey mud on the farmyard, and with a sucking sound the mud reluctantly released its hold. It reminded her of how she moved in the dream where Lollo disappeared. Although this was a real nightmare that she would not wake up from.

  He was still lying there in the same position, exhaling bubbles and gurgling through his mouth and nose. She could not do anything about that, but she spread Sixten’s raincoat over him. She ran as best she could into the house again, jumped out of the boots, and put on her ankle boots. Then she went back to the study.

  Sixten had bled a lot. His respiration was weak, but he was still moaning, which meant he was alive. She took his hand and started talking to him. Presumably it was just nonsense. Afterward she didn’t remember a single thing she had said.

  The voices echoed around her: “Now you’re going to be poked in the arm!” “We have certain procedures for taking care of rape victims. Do you think you can cope with a gynecological examination? There are certain samples we have to take, you understand.” “I’m just going to measure your pulse and blood pressure.”