Hunting Game

by Helene Tursten

  Epilogue

  “The Boy Who Saw”

  The boy was awakened by loud voices that were coming from the ground floor. He realized that there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. Besides, he didn’t dare to. Dad had been drinking a lot that evening. The boy knew what that usually meant.

  He got out of bed, slipped over to the bathroom, and quickly got dressed.

  He paused in the kitchen doorway. Mom was sitting on a kitchen chair, crying. She turned away so that he wouldn’t see. Dad was standing there, looking out the kitchen window. He struck his clenched fist on the kitchen counter and said, “That goddamned little whore! When she gets home . . .”

  Evidently he heard the boy’s steps because he turned around and looked at him. Mom got up from the chair and wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her sweater. She tried to smile at him and said, “Millan hasn’t come home yet. We’re just worried . . . No one knows where she is. We’ve called around but no one knows . . .”

  “Knock it off, damn it! She’s out there with some creep and . . .” Dad trailed off. And with another oath he turned around again and looked out into the darkness.

  It would be like when his sister came home from the end-of-school party, escorted by a policeman. It was late at night and Dad had given her a hard slap. His sister and her friend had both been grounded for several weeks.

  “Ninth Grade Class Party Turns into Drunken Binge.” That’s what it said in the newspaper. Laboriously he had read the headline word by word. In the article there had been a picture of young people sitting in the backseat of a hot rod. Some of them were hanging out of the open windows, waving. Millan was clearly holding a beer can in the photo. When Dad saw it he gave her another slap.

  The boy glanced at the kitchen clock. Quarter past five was very late at night. Or early in the morning.

  He felt the fear as a cramp in his throat. He managed to make it to his place at the table. But the bowl of puffed oats that Mom set in front of him was impossible to eat. The cereal floated around in the milk and slowly softened.

  His chance came when Dad went to the bathroom.

  Mom looked worriedly after him. “Listen . . . I’m just going to get the phone book,” she whispered before she too left the kitchen.

  Then he knew what he had to do. Quickly he slid down from the chair and scurried up to the freezer. He took out a bag of frozen cinnamon rolls. Three of them. That would be enough. In the refrigerator he found a bottle of pear soda. Quickly he stuffed it all in his school backpack, which was hanging inside the door to the laundry room. By the doorframe the case with the monocular was hanging on a hook. It was almost brand new and frightfully expensive. That was what Mom had said when Dad came home with it almost a year ago to the day. Frightfully expensive! Dad said that he needed it when he watched for birds. Although he never did. Mostly it hung there on the hook. The powerful monocular fit well with the boy’s plan. The hook was high up, but at last he managed to get the strap loose. He put the case in the backpack. The scope was large and super heavy. It was impossible to get the zipper to work right.

  Silently he slipped into the laundry room and walked toward the back door. From a hanger by the door he took down his quilted jacket. He was careful to close the door quietly so they wouldn’t hear him.

  It was still quite dark outside. The wind was cold. For a moment he considered going back in and getting his cap. But he didn’t dare to. With cautious steps he walked toward the stable. He was not afraid, although it was very dark. He knew exactly where his bike was in the shed. The one he got as a birthday present the year before, when he turned seven. He liked it a lot. It didn’t matter that it was used because it looked almost new. He groped his way toward the corner, where he knew it was waiting. He strapped the backpack on the carrier and walked the bike out. He started pedaling away toward the forest as fast as he could. He had to quickly get away from the farm. But there was probably no great risk that his parents would see him in the dark. And he had no bicycle light that could expose him.

  Outside the village there were no streetlights. Here on the country road he did not see the slightest speck of light. He stopped for just a brief moment to take his mittens out of his jacket pocket. Fortunately there was a thin hood on the collar of his quilted jacket that he could pull up. It gave a little protection from the wind at least.

  He wasn’t allowed to be in the forest. And was absolutely not to ride off on one of the forest roads. Both Mom and Dad always said that you could easily get lost. But he remembered the big sign. If he could just see it he would find his way. He was in second grade after all and could read.

  His thought was that his sister was drunk again and was hiding somewhere in the forest. Not in the little birch grove at home on the farm but in the deep forest. He understood why she wouldn’t want to go home, knowing how angry Dad would be. But he would try to convince her to go with him. For Mom’s sake.

  Deep down he also thought that his parents would think that he had done something good. Something really brave. Because it was extremely dark in the forest. Only a brave boy dared to defy the darkness alone to search for his missing sister.

  The thought livened him up and he pedaled with renewed energy. He and Dad had driven on this road right before school started. He thought that the car had moved at a snail’s pace along the winding road, and he had gotten carsick but didn’t dare say anything to Dad. They had driven all the way up to the steep hill. There they parked the car and climbed up to the top. Then they clambered up into the lookout tower. “This is the reward for our toil!” Dad had said, throwing out his arms.

  At first the boy had been afraid because it was so high, but after a while he forgot his fear. You could see so far!

  That time Dad had the monocular with him. Then it was brand new. He had shown the boy how to focus it. The boy’s plan was to find where his sister was hiding with the help of the monocular. He would surely be able to see if she had gotten lost and was wandering around. She would be visible because she had her bright-pink jacket on.

  He had never dared ride his bike so far away alone before. He was lost. Just as he felt he was about to start crying he heard the sound of a car engine. The car soon caught up with him and to his terror it stopped.

  “Hey, kid, what are you doing out on the road this early?” he heard a familiar voice say. It was their nearest neighbor who was driving the vehicle, a small truck.

  Without needing to think about it he answered, “Look . . . going to look for birds.”

  “Really? Do the bird brains have a youth group?” The neighbor laughed. It was not a nice laugh. Then he asked, “So where are you going to meet?”

  “At . . . at the Lookout.”

  “The Lookout? That’s a long ways away. I don’t think you’ll be able to bike there. But I can drive you. I’m heading that way with some material for the construction. We’re working on a new butchering shed, as you know.”

  The boy nodded. He knew about it because Dad had helped out a little.

  The neighbor tossed the bike in the back of the truck and the boy jumped up in the front seat beside him. It took a while before he caught sight of the wooden sign where someone had burned THE LOOKOUT in large letters. He remembered that sign. It was right by the path that led up to the tower. The neighbor, whose name was Sixten Svensson, stopped and dropped him off. “You have a watch. I’ll come and pick you up in two hours,” Sixten said.

  The boy thanked him and scooted out. The neighbor helped him get the bike and the backpack down from the truck bed. With a jolt the truck disappeared down the road.

  He parked the bike by the sign. Then he put on the backpack. It was super heavy. He started the climb up the path toward the lookout tower. He stumbled a few times on slippery stones and roots. Why didn’t he think to bring a flashlight? The backpack was starting to feel extremely heavy and his back got sweaty. It would be lig
hter if he ate some of the food but he dismissed the thought. The rolls would be the reward when he had arrived.

  When he reached the top he sat down by the foot of the lookout tower. The faint light meant that now he could see a little better. The sun would soon come up. Satisfied, he took the soda and the bag of rolls out of the backpack. He was the bravest person in the world who had defied the darkness alone to rescue his sister. He was a real adventurer! A hero!

  He washed down the first cinnamon roll with several sips of soda. Yum! You should have a breakfast like this every day instead of wimpy puffed oats. Or boring cheese or sausage sandwiches. The roll had not really thawed in the middle, but that didn’t matter. Without thinking he quickly consumed the second roll too. Now there was only half a bottle left. It was best if he saved that for the last roll. He didn’t know how long he would need to be out here in the forest, looking.

  Fortified by his breakfast, he climbed up in the lookout tower. It looked like an ordinary hunting tower, although higher and bigger. The local historical society had constructed it a few years earlier. He knew that Dad had been there and worked on the tower too.

  Just like last time at first he thought it was awfully high when he looked out from the platform. He gripped the railing. After a while the fine view made him forget his fear of heights. The sun was on its way up. The monocular must come out of its case. It was heavy and it was harder to focus it than he remembered. The little tube that you looked in was on the top side of the device. Dad had told him to look in the tube and then he could see just fine. He found a little round screw and started turning it. After a bit he managed to get a slightly sharper image. He swept the monocular around in all directions to try to catch sight of his sister’s pink jacket. If he moved the monocular too fast there was just a blur and he got dizzy, but if he stayed calm he had a clear view.

  There was the butchering shed, the one Dad had shown him the year before. Although then only the foundation had been dug. It was in that shed that the hunters would cut up the moose they shot during the hunt. Although Dad had rented out his hunting right. When Sixten, who leased the land, came with the meat, Dad would usually invite him in for aquavit and beer. The last time that happened Mom hadn’t said anything, but the boy saw how sad she was.

  Now he tried to adjust the focus on the butchering shed. It sounded like a scary place. The butchering shed. He truly wished that Millan wouldn’t be there. If she were he would have to bike the whole way there to bring her home. He would never make it. But it was a little exciting, too, of course. Some time he would dare to look more closely at that shed. Although preferably not today.

  He could see the truck parked outside the shed. A man went in and out of the door with boards and boxes. The distance was too great for him to be able to see who it was, but he knew that it was Sixten Svensson. The boy watched him for a long time. He saw that the neighbor closed the door before getting into the truck again. When the boy looked at his watch there was a whole hour left before he would be picked up down by the sign. When he peeked in the little tube again he saw to his surprise that the truck was driving off right into the forest. There must be a small road, the boy assumed. But he got a little worried that the neighbor had forgotten about him. Although he did have his bike. Even if it took a little time, he would probably be able to bicycle the whole way home.

  Suddenly he glimpsed something in the monocular. Something red that was moving by the side of the shed. A car. He thought he recognized that car. A BMW. Probably an E23 7 Series. He had seen it several times parked in the village. Once he had sneaked up to it and written down the make and license number in the back of his math book. He loved cars. He wanted to have a BMW like that when he got his driver’s license. But this was no ordinary car in the northern parts of Dalsland. There was only one, and that was the one he had written down in his book.

  It was a little blurry in the viewer, but he saw a person getting out of the car. In one hand the car key dangled with a gleaming tab on the key ring. The boy knew that it must be the BMW logo. He and his grandfather had been at a BMW dealer in Gothenburg because his grandfather also liked cars. The boy had asked if he could get such a key ring, but the salesman just laughed at him and said that he had to buy the car first.

  He tried to zoom in on the key ring but it was impossible at that great distance. Besides, the monocular slipped as he supported it on the railing. The device dropped off the support and struck his knee. Fortunately it didn’t fall to the floor. He set the monocular up on the railing again.

  At first everything was a single jumble of colors. Disappointed, he turned the ring around the lens. There! A hand reaching for the trunk of the car. On the wrist a gold watch was gleaming in the first rays of the morning sun. The hands opened the trunk.

  The boy moved the viewer a little and caught the back of another guy. He was dressed in a black T-shirt with a big skull on the back. It was impossible to read what it said but the grinning skull was clearly visible. The man in the T-shirt raised his arms and started tying a broad, black band around his head. Like a Native American. Although the hair color was wrong. Native Americans aren’t blond. There was only one guy with such long blond hair in the area, and he didn’t live in the area and wasn’t around much. Just sometimes. He rode a big motorcycle and was a friend of the guy who owned the car. The boy in the lookout tower knew about him because it was a small community, but he didn’t know what the light-haired guy’s name was or the names of the other two men. There were three of them: the blond in the skull shirt, the one with the gold watch, and the one who had the keys to a BMW. It didn’t seem like there were any others.

  The boy aimed the monocular toward the trunk again. Now the guy who’d been driving the car was standing there, too. He put the keys in the pocket of his black leather jacket. The men were in constant motion so the boy couldn’t see their faces clearly. They were too far away besides. The one who drove the car and the one with the gold watch helped each other lift a big sack out of the trunk of the car. Together they carried it into the shed. The blond took a spade and something that looked like a toolbox out of the car and followed them in and closed the door. He came right out again, started the car, and moved it behind the shed, where it was no longer visible from the road. When he had done this he went back in again.

  The boy waited a long time while the men were inside the shed. He got tired and started searching the surroundings with the monocular in the hope of catching sight of the pink jacket, but he couldn’t see it anywhere.

  At the butchering shed nothing seemed to be happening. He took the last drops of the pear soda and ate the roll. When he glanced at his watch he saw that he only had twenty minutes left before he was supposed to meet the neighbor again. Maybe it was best if he started walking down to the sign and the bicycle.

  It was disappointing that he hadn’t found his sister, but he had made an attempt. Mom and Dad would surely appreciate that.

  The neighbor came almost half an hour late. He reeked of alcohol but he helped the boy load the things onto the back of the truck. He dropped the boy off at the approach to the farm. The last hundred meters he could bike himself.

  “You goddamned idiot! Where the hell have you been? And with my expensive monocular!” Dad screamed as he crossed the threshold to the kitchen. With a few large strides he crossed the floor and gave the boy a slap and he fell against the doorpost.

  At first the boy felt no pain. A tone started piping inside his head. At first faintly, then stronger and stronger. It was like it drowned out the pain. The fireball that formed in his chest slowly started to work its way upward and into his head. It stopped behind his eyes. He could only see the intense light. His eyes burned and he tried to rub away what hurt so much.

  But then he felt the warmth that started running down his leg.

  “Pear soda,” he managed to think before the ball of light exploded.

  The following
days flowed together in a single chaos. His sister was still gone. The days turned to weeks, then months. The boy and his mother moved away from the farm and never returned.

  It would take almost thirty years before he remembered what he had seen as a little boy in the monocular that morning.

  Acknowledgments

  There are many people I want to thank for all their help with this book. First and foremost a warm thanks to my publisher, Kerstin Aronsson.

  Even though I have lived in Värmland for twenty-five years, my knowledge of hunting and wildlife management was extremely rudimentary before I started doing research. But I know a lot of hunters, in particular my sister Pia and brother-in-law Stefan. She read the manuscript and he patiently answered my questions. Thanks so much!

  Any factual errors are entirely my responsibility and no one else’s. As usual I have maintained a very loose relationship to geographic facts.

  Along with the producers at Illusion Film, Johan Fälemark and Hillevi Råberg, I had already started to sketch out Åsa Embla Nyström’s character in 2006 for a future film script. During the past year the author/screenwriter Stefan Ahnhem has also been involved in these discussions and contributed many valuable ideas. My very warmest thanks!

  I already tested Embla in The Treacherous Net (Soho Crime, 2015). There she shows up in an internship and collaborates with Irene Huss and her colleagues on the Violent Crimes Unit. She worked well on the police team. Now it’s time for her to stand on her own two feet. Thanks to all of you who have made that possible!

  Helene Tursten