by Stefan Spjut
He stood up, refilled his coffee cup and sat back down.
‘I don’t understand what’s with you,’ he said. ‘They’re fine and on their way home. And here you are, moping around.’
‘Yes, I know. I should be happy.’
‘I don’t know about happy, but you should breathe a sigh of relief at least. Not heaving dark sighs of anxiety. You were tossing and turning all night. And sighing. And sighing.’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Not even after you had that text from Diana’s bloke. And what time was that? Five?’
‘I can’t just turn off my worries. They have a life of their own.’
He studied me for a long moment.
‘Gudrun,’ he said, ‘didn’t we agree we were going to be open with one another, about our thoughts and opinions, even though we may not always agree? That we weren’t going to keep secrets from each other?’
His words were like knives. He might as well have used the word murderer. I kept a straight face and sipped my coffee. But evidently, my acting skills were less impressive than I had thought.
‘How am I supposed to help you,’ he said, ‘if you don’t trust me?’
‘I don’t trust you? I’ve told you everything, what we went through, me and Susso. Do you think those are things you’d tell a person you don’t trust?’
‘Then tell me what’s wrong.’
‘Nothing.’
He leaned back in his chair.
‘You’re limping around here, grimacing, looking like you’re walking on nails. And you’re normally loath to miss any opportunity to update me on exactly how much pain you’re in. Take your feet, for instance. I get up-to-date observations from the southern regions of Gudrun twice an hour. But now, not a word.’
‘That’s just because you’re being like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Poking fun at me. For being in pain.’
‘What I mean to say is that I can tell you’re keeping something from me. It’s obvious. So spit it out.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘If it can make you bite your tongue when you’re in that much pain, I don’t believe it’s nothing.’
‘What if you’ve made a promise to someone? Then do you think it’s right to tell you? I would like to know so I can decide whether I’m right to trust you with things in the future.’
‘Who did you make a promise to?’
‘Just answer my question. Isn’t it right to keep your promise?’
‘That depends on the situation. In my opinion.’
‘If I make a promise, I keep it. You have to respect that, Roland.’
‘No, I can’t. Sorry.’
‘You can’t help me.’
It just slipped out. And then, once I had started, more followed. The floodgates had opened.
‘No one can help me,’ I said. ‘What’s done is done.’
‘And what is done?’
‘I told you about that man Susso forced out of the car in Sorsele. That it was tantamount to murder. Because the bears were outside.’
‘I never agreed with you on that. That it was tantamount to murder. Murder is something you do to do it. Murder’s not what I’d call it. Besides, he deserved being kicked out, given what he’d done.’
‘We murdered him. In practice, that’s what we did.’
‘You can’t dwell on that, Gudrun. The statute of limitation on that passed a long time ago. Conscience-wise. That’s what we agreed. That you should let it go. You told the police what happened and no one thought you or Susso had done anything wrong. If you had, you would have been charged, and you weren’t.’
‘I didn’t tell them about the squirrel. The police.’
He leaned back and crossed his arms.
‘No, because then the nice men in white coats would have come for you.’
‘I’ve come to the conclusion – lying awake, going over everything again and again, like I’ve been doing almost every night for ten years now – that it was all the squirrel’s fault. He’s who made Susso do what she did. It’s the squirrel’s fault Susso’s become what she’s become.’
‘Here we go again.’
‘I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a monster.’
‘I know.’
‘But it’s actually not that simple.’
My coffee had gone cold, so I put it in the microwave and while the cup rotated in there, I contemplated whether I should tell him what happened or continue to keep my mouth shut. I added a splash of milk and sat down and realised I’d passed the point of no return.
‘When we got to Susso’s yesterday, there was someone there. A man, a young man. He was sitting in her bed, saying he was going to live there; it was very unsettling. And Håkan, he strangled that man.’
‘Now hold on.’
‘He strangled him. Like this. And I watched.’
Roland took off his glasses and put them down on the table. He watched me without speaking. Picked up one of the temples of his glasses and tapped it against the table, and he did it thoughtfully. Like a tentative signaller.
‘Then we buried him the garden.’
Without a word, he stood up and walked over to the pantry; I heard him take down a bottle and put his cup on the counter and fill it up and knock it back. Then he came back and sat down with the bottle. It was whisky. He poured me a slug and then another for himself.
‘Håkan thought he’d done something to Diana at first. Something terrible. Because he just sat there on the bed, not speaking. Like he was ashamed of something. And he had tattoos. A spiderweb tattoo on his elbow and snakes and whatever else. He didn’t exactly look innocent.’
‘But he was.’
‘Apparently. And that’s why I didn’t jump for joy when I got that text from Håkan this morning, which said they were fine and on their way back. If they had been in trouble and he had been involved somehow, maybe I could have lived with it. That’s going to be much harder now.’
‘It’s not like you killed him.’
‘True, but I didn’t do anything to stop it either. And I helped bury him. It was actually my idea. Because Håkan wanted to call the police. And it all happened in my daughter’s house. I’m certainly implicated.’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s it like, Roland, living with a murderer?’
‘I don’t.’
I knocked my drink back.
‘You’ve already left me?’
‘You’re not a murderer.’
‘Then how do you explain my being involved in two murders? My witnessing them first-hand and up close.’
‘There’s something about you, Gudrun,’ he said and topped me up. ‘I’ve always said that.’
‘The least common denominator in these two murders is not me. The least common denominator in these two murders is the trolls. And I’m talking about the smallest ones.’
‘So it was there? The squirrel?’
‘No, it was a mouse.’
‘A mouse.’
‘It was the mouse that harnessed Håkan’s rage and amplified it. Like a little transformer. And I was completely numb. I felt nothing. Even though he was killed right in front of me. It was like watching TV. And you know I don’t even like seeing violence on TV, I look away when there’s blood. But it wasn’t the mouse’s idea. It just harnessed Håkan’s feelings. Do you see what I mean? The hatred didn’t come from the mouse, it came from Håkan. And it was the same with the squirrel that time in Sorsele. It wasn’t the squirrel that wanted to throw that man to the bears, it was Susso. It’s as if they’re triggered by strong emotions. Particularly strong negative emotions.’
‘You have to understand, Gudrun, that this is pretty hard to take in.’
‘You just have to swallow it. Because this is serious.’
He stroked his moustache thoughtfully.
‘What happened to the mouse? I’d like to take a look at it.’
‘I smacked it dead.’
‘You sma
cked it dead?’
‘Yes.’
Roland pondered this while cradling his cup. Sipping his whisky.
‘Well, the mouse had it coming,’ he said. ‘Technically speaking. And you can’t let a mouse that more or less incites murder run loose.’
‘It wasn’t premeditated, I just struck it with my shovel.’
He nodded.
‘So now there’s a corpse buried in Susso’s garden.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s not going to appreciate that.’
‘What were we supposed to do?!’
‘The question is whether we should consider moving him.’
‘Have you gone completely off your head?!’
‘No, I’m trying to use my head. In situations like this, you have to keep cool. Very cool. If he is – was – one of Susso’s neighbours or a boyfriend, there may very well be people who know he was there. Or who could guess. And if the police go out there looking for him, there’s no telling what they might find. What with their dogs and everything. And if we’re going to move him, we should do it as soon as possible. It’s not pleasant, but we can’t let that stop us.’
‘I’m going to let that stop me. I’m not digging up a corpse. That’s where I draw the line. When we buried him, we weren’t ourselves entirely, I’ve realised since. I don’t even think I could bear going to Vittangi now. I’m not doing it, Roland, I’m not doing it! I’d rather go to prison.’
‘You mean that?’
‘Yes, I mean that.’
He sat there, looking at me.
‘Why don’t you sleep on it.’
‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Take this.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Drink it.’
I knocked back the whisky and pulled a face at the oily liquid that made my eyes tear up. Then I went into the bedroom. After lying down, I reached for my phone on the nightstand. Nothing new. My head spun when I closed my eyes and I could hear the tinkling of the bottleneck against the edge of a cup from the kitchen.
Ipa had ripped the tape off Susso’s mouth and cleaned her battered face with wet wipes, gently and not without affection. Crumpled up and red with blood, the wipes were now littering the floor around Lennart’s feet. They reeked of perfume as well.
The car slowed down. There was a sign by the side of the road. At the top of it, someone had written ‘MURHAAJA!’ in pink paint that had run down across the village’s name and the rest of the sign.
They turned off on a shady gravel road. After a few hundred yards, they came to a boom barrier. It was brand new, a bright red and yellow symbol. Ipa climbed out, opened the barrier, got back in the car, drove through, climbed out, closed the barrier, got back in the car and drove on.
The village lay next to a lake and consisted of about ten houses. Spruce-covered mountains rose up on the other side of the lake, which was being clawed by a stiff breeze. Some of the houses were surrounded by tarpaulins that blocked them from view; they drove in through an opening in one of the billowing enclosures.
Ipa turned off the engine, pulled the handbrake, grabbed both phones with one hand and climbed out. She took the front steps in one stride, threw open the front door and called out. Then she stood talking to someone in the hallway who seemed not to want to show themselves.
Lennart opened his door and heaved himself out. The car sagged under his weight. A face slipped out of sight in a window. He scanned the yard. A horse trailer. A green Ford Scorpio with tinted windows in the back.
‘Well now, we have fancy visitors, do we? The celebrity has come.’
Mikko Jokela had appeared in the doorway. He stood there for a moment before stepping out into the light. Under his unbuttoned military jacket, he wore nothing except a lot of gold necklaces of varying thickness and a pair of black plastic sunglasses that dangled from the chain that hung lowest on his chest. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and stroked the beard that was growing in a neat circle around his mouth. An enormous signet ring sparkled on his pinkie.
‘Where’s Erasmus?’ Lennart said.
‘Rasmus? There’s no one by that name here.’
The look of theatrical puzzlement he had put on morphed into a smile that revealed an incomplete set of teeth.
‘Where is he?’
‘What happened to your paw?’
Ipa stepped out through the door and down from the porch. She motioned to Lennart to get back in the car. Mikko had put on his sunglasses. Stood there staring at him, glittering with gold, grinning scornfully.
*
They drove along the edge of the lake and stopped in front of a cabin. A dark cabin with gingerbread window frames. The garden looked like a scrapyard. There was a hob sitting next to the front steps.
‘Is he in here?’
‘Here? No, this house is empty.’
‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘You’re going to live here.’
He stepped out of the car and after it left, he looked around. Paper bags bursting with decomposing newspapers in the tall grass. A picture frame with gilded embellishment. A moose shed gnawed to pieces by tiny teeth. It looked like the remnants of a truly terrible car boot sale.
A pungent smell of corpse greeted him when he stepped through the door. Every room was crammed with stuff; what the floor might look like was anyone’s guess.
He located the bathroom and sat down with a snowmobile magazine that kept falling to the floor when he tried to hold it open in his lap. The dimmer switch was buzzing like a bug in his ear; he turned it off with a hard slap.
The fridge was empty but in a cabinet above the sink he found a tin of meat soup. He cradled it in the crook of his arm, wiggled his finger into the little metal loop and pulled the lid enough to fold it back. He scarfed it all down in two gulps, grinding the stringy bits of meat up between his teeth.
The bed was wide and had a tall headboard with turned bedposts. He lay on the side of the mattress that was not dark with dried-in bodily fluids. His eyes roved sleepily across the room. A white table fan. Stacks of CDs. An empty aquarium with grimy sides. A terrarium, actually. The heat lamp was stashed inside. A wood stove that wasn’t connected to a chimney. His chest moved slowly up and down and the air generated one strange noise after the other on its rattling way to and from his lungs.
*
A chirping woman’s voice. From inside the house. Ipa popped her head through the door. She patted a bag that was slung across her shoulder.
‘I figured we should tend to that wound.’
Lennart grunted.
‘Let’s do it here,’ she said.
‘Fine.’
‘Sit up.’
‘You want me to sit up?’
‘Yes, sit up.’
She got down on her knees and unwound the bandage from his arm, humming a song as she did. What emerged looked like a wet pork shank, but it didn’t seem to revolt or even surprise her. She studied the weeping wounds meticulously and even sniffed them with her little nose.
‘Did someone bite you?’
He said nothing.
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t get infected.’
‘It won’t.’
A hand reached up and felt his forehead.
‘A bit hot.’
‘I just need some sleep.’
‘And what are we going to do about this?’
She pursed her lips thoughtfully.
‘Just wrap it back up. The main thing is to keep it from making a mess and me from getting at it and opening it up again.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s any point sewing it up.’
‘No. There isn’t.’
She took out a compress and a roll of gauze from her bag; he studied her face while she wrapped the gauze around his arm. It was like a starry night sky of moles and tiny birthmarks.
‘All right then,’ she said, ‘what’s it going to be tonight, are you staying in, watching the telly?’
He said nothing.
> ‘You don’t watch TV?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What do you watch then, do you have a favourite show?’
He shook his head.
‘I watch whatever’s good.’
His answer made her smile.
‘Would you like something for your fever?’
‘No. I just need to sleep.’
She gathered up the last of the gauze, put it in a plastic bag, stood up and watched him as he lay back down. As though that was something that required supervision. Then she left, without closing any of the doors behind her.
It was close to eleven at night when Diana rolled into Kiruna. The festival was over and an unnatural stillness enveloped the city. It made her uneasy to think that people had been partying while she was gone. Partying wildly. Chugging beer out of plastic cups. Belting songs out at the bright night sky in a collective, pagan frenzy. Status Quo had played. Like some kind of subtle propaganda. Dear local residents! We’re going to tear down your houses and move the city but everything’s going to stay the same.
Her dad had always been peeved the carousel would keep turning after he got off, but she had never understood why. Wasn’t that just the way of things? Now, as she drove down Malmvägen and met a lorry that said LINDSTRÖM’S CARNIVAL, she felt she knew what he meant. The infuriating thing wasn’t that the carousel kept turning, the infuriating thing was that you fooled yourself into thinking you were an inseparable part of it. She thought to herself it must be the remnants of some grandiose developmental phase. A psychological foetal membrane protecting humanity from the awful truth: the world is just fine without you. While you’re trapped in the car boot of death, other people are clapping to the beat of Status Quo.
She parked in front of the garage and climbed out. She had driven without breaks; her back hurt and her neck. A mild evening. Almost summer. They’d had snow just a week before. The ground had been covered.
*
Håkan was lying on the bed with his tablet on his belly, its light falling across his face like a blue mask. He had earphones on and was breathing heavily like an old man. Kiruna could be seen as a small lump under the covers. One foot was sticking out.
