The light from the twin lighthouses at Eel Point.
Henrik had struggled along in a daze, yard by yard through the snow, but in the end he had made it.
His jeans were soaking wet; it was the water that had woken him up. The storm waves were so high by now that they came crashing in over the shore, sluicing his legs with foam even though he was lying a long way up on the grass.
He got up slowly with his back to the sea. His hands had gone to sleep, as had his feet, but he was able to move.
There was a little strength left in Henrik’s trembling legs, and he set off again, his arms dangling at his sides.
A rectangular wooden object shifted inside his jacket, and ice-cold steel was poking up by his throat.
It was his grandfather’s ax-he remembered tucking it inside his jacket, but not why he was carrying it around.
Then it came to him: the Serelius brothers. He took the ax out and kept on going.
Two gray towers took shape through the storm. The sea below them was boiling, hurling glittering lumps of ice onto the islands where the lighthouses stood.
Henrik had arrived at Eel Point. He stopped, swaying in the wind. What should he do now?
He would go up to the house, it must be somewhere on the left. He turned off in that direction, away from the lighthouses.
With the wind at his back everything was suddenly much easier. It helped to nudge him along, up over the hard crust of snow covering the meadow. He had begun to recognize the different gusts of wind by now, how the weaker bursts were followed by sharper squalls.
After a hundred or two hundred steps he began to get an impression of broad shadowy shapes ahead of him.
A wooden fence suddenly blocked his way, but he found an opening. On the other side the buildings of Eel Point rose up like great ships in the night, and Henrik moved into the shelter between the gable ends.
Made it.
The manor house enfolded him in its dark embrace. He was safe.
The wind in the courtyard was like a caress compared with the way it had been down by the sea, but there was a lot more snow between the buildings. It came swirling down from the roofs like powder, melting on his face, and the drifts were almost up to his waist.
Henrik could just glimpse the veranda of the main house through the curtains of snow, and he plowed over to it and eventually reached the steps.
He stopped on the bottom step, caught his breath, and looked up.
The door had been broken open. The lock was smashed and the frame appeared to have been split.
The Serelius brothers had been here.
Henrik was too cold to be cautious now; he staggered up the steps, pulled open the veranda door, and more or less fell headlong over the threshold onto a soft rag rug. The door closed behind him.
Warmth. The storm was shut out, and he could hear his own wheezing breath.
He let go of the ax and began to move his fingers tentatively. At first they were like ice, but when the warmth and the feeling slowly began to return to his hands and toes, the pain came. The wound in his stomach started to throb again.
He was wet and tired, but he couldn’t just lie here.
Slowly he got up and staggered through the next doorway. It was dark around him, but here and there he could see the glow of small yellow lamps and candles. The wallpaper was fresh and white, the ceilings had been repaired and painted-a lot had happened since he was last here.
He turned left and suddenly found himself in the big kitchen. He had replaced and polished the floor in here last summer.
A gray and black cat was sitting looking out of the window, and the faint aroma of fried meatballs lingered in the air.
Henrik spotted the faucet and the sink and staggered over to it.
The water was only lukewarm, but still it burned his frozen hands. He gritted his teeth as the nerves warmed up, but after holding his fingers in the running water for a few minutes, he was able to move them.
The cat turned to look at him, then returned its gaze to the snowstorm.
On the counter stood a block containing stainless steel kitchen knives. Henrik grabbed the handle of the biggest one and pulled it out.
With the carving knife in his hand he went back into the main house.
He tried to remember the layout of the rooms, but had difficulty in picturing it. Suddenly he was standing in a long corridor, in the doorway of a small room.
A child’s room.
A little girl of about five or six, with blonde hair, was sitting up in bed. She was holding a white cuddly toy and a red sweater in her arms. A small television stood on the floor in front of her, but it was switched off.
Henrik opened his mouth, but his head was completely empty.
“Hi,” was all he said.
His voice was hoarse and rough.
The girl looked at him, but said nothing.
“Have you seen anyone else here?” he asked. “Any other… nice men?”
The girl shook her head. “I just heard them,” she said. “They were clomping around and they woke me up…I was scared to go out.”
“Good,” said Henrik, “you need to stay in here… Where are your mom and dad?”
“Daddy went out to Mommy.”
“And where’s your mommy?”
“In the barn.”
Before Henrik had time to think about that response,
the girl pointed at him and asked, “Why have you got a knife?”
He looked down. “Don’t know.”
It felt very strange to see himself clutching a big knife. It looked dangerous.
“Are you going to cut some bread?”
“No.”
Henrik closed his eyes. The feeling was beginning to return to his feet now, and it hurt.
“What are you going to do?” said the girl.
“I don’t know… but you need to stay here.”
“Can I go into Gabriel’s room?”
“Who’s Gabriel?”
“My little brother.”
Henrik nodded with some effort. “Sure.”
The girl quickly jumped out of bed, still holding the cuddly toy and the sweater, and scampered past him.
Henrik gathered his remaining strength and turned around. He heard the door close in the next bedroom along. He went in the other direction, to look for the Serelius brothers. Had he been along here before? He must have been.
Down along a corridor, back to the front of the house.
He listened for noises apart from the wind, and for a few seconds he thought he could hear a rhythmic banging from the upper floor-a loose shutter, perhaps. Then the house was silent again.
A dark, flat object was lying in a corner out in the hallway. Henrik went closer.
He saw that it was the Ouija board, thrown onto the floor, split across the middle with considerable force. The little glass lay beside the board like a cracked egg.
Henrik went back out to the veranda where the air was cooler. The snow was sticking to the windowpanes, but he could just make out movements in the courtyard.
He bent down in silence and picked up his grandfather’s ax.
Two shadows were moving out there. They slowly came closer through the snow, and Henrik could see that one of them was holding a dark object. A gun?
He wasn’t sure if it was the brothers, but raised the ax anyway.
By the time the outer door was opened, he had already swung it.
34
Tilda staggered forward, heading straight for the blinding wall of swirling snow. Martin was still by her side, but neither of them was talking. It was impossible in the storm.
They were out in a field, but the few times Tilda tried to look up to work out where they were heading, the granules of snow flew into her eyes like burning sparks.
She had lost her police cap; it had been ripped off by the wind and disappeared. She felt as if her ears were frozen solid.
One small encouraging sign was that the storm had briefly carried wi
th it the aroma of burning wood. She guessed that it came from an open fire or stove, and realized they were close to a house-presumably Eel Point.
A rectangular snowdrift appeared in front of them, but when Tilda tried to plow through it, she came to a sudden stop. It was a stone wall.
She slowly clambered over the snow-covered stones, and
Martin followed her. On the other side the ground was flatter, as if they were walking along a little track.
Suddenly Tilda heard a creaking noise further away along the wall, followed by a grinding squeal and a dull thud.
After a minute or so they reached a couple of huge white drifts with square contours. Two parked vehicles were standing there rocking in the wind, half buried in the snow.
Tilda brushed away the snow along the side of the taller vehicle and suddenly recognized it. It was the dark-colored van with kalmar pipes & welding on it.
Further along by the wall lay a boat on a trailer lying on its side. It looked as if it had been picked up and tipped over by the wind.
The boat was still securely tied to the metal frame, but the tarpaulin covering it had split. An extraordinary collection of objects lay scattered in the snow: loudspeakers and chain saws alongside old paraffin lamps and wall clocks.
It looked like stolen goods.
Martin shouted something, but Tilda couldn’t hear what he said. She made her way slowly along the side of the van and tried the doors. The driver’s door was locked, but when she went around to the other side and tried the passenger door, it flew open with a crash.
Tilda climbed in to catch her breath.
Martin stuck his head in behind her, with snow in his hair and eyebrows.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
Tilda massaged her frozen ears and nodded wearily. “Okay.”
The air inside the van was still warm, and she was finally able to breathe normally. She looked behind the seats and saw that the back of the van was full of even more items, all piled on top of one another. There were jewelry boxes and cartons of cigarettes and cases of alcohol.
As she turned back to Martin she discovered that the brown panel inside the passenger door had come loose.
White plastic was protruding beneath the panel-it was a packet of some kind.
“A hiding place,” she said.
Martin looked. Then he got hold of the plastic and pulled, and the whole panel came away and fell off into the snow.
Behind it was a secret cache, full of even more packets.
Martin took out the top one, made a small slit in it with the car key, and put his finger against the gap. He licked the powder off his finger and said, “It’s methamphetamine.”
Tilda believed him-he had taught her group about different types of drugs. She pushed a couple of the packets into her pocket.
“Evidence,” she said.
Martin looked at her as if he wanted to add something, but Tilda didn’t want to hear it. She unfastened her holster and took out her Sig Sauer.
“There are bad guys around here,” she said.
Then she clambered past Martin out into the gale and began to make her way along the track once again.
When she had left the vehicles and the boat behind her, she caught her first glimpse of the beam from the lighthouse: a sweeping glow that only just managed to penetrate through the snowstorm.
They had almost reached Eel Point now. Tilda could see the main house, with faint lights shimmering in the windows.
They were candles, she realized. And Joakim Westin’s car was parked in front of the house beneath a pile of snow.
The family must be at home. In the worst-case scenario they were being held hostage inside by the thieves-but Tilda didn’t want to think along those lines.
The big barn appeared in front of her. She struggled to cover the final few steps to the red wooden wall, and at last found some shelter from the wind. It was a considerable achievement-she breathed out and wiped the melting snow off her face with the sleeve of her jacket.
Now all she had to do was see who was in the house, and what state they were in.
She unzipped her jacket and pulled out her flashlight. With her pistol in one hand and the flashlight in the other, she pressed herself against the wall of the barn, moved slowly forward, and peeped around the corner.
Snow, all she could see was snow. White curtains sweeping down from the roof, and whirlwinds of snow swirling between the buildings.
Martin came up behind her out of the darkness, his back bent, and took shelter by the wall.
“Is this where we were heading?” he yelled.
Tilda nodded and took a deep breath. “Eel Point,” she said.
The main house was about ten yards from the barn. The lights were on in the kitchen, but there was no sign of anyone.
She started moving again, away from the barn and out into the inner courtyard, which was completely covered in snow. It came up to her waist in some places, and she had to force her way through the drifts. She carried on toward the house, her gun at the ready.
There were fresh tracks in the snow here. Someone had recently plodded across the courtyard and walked up the stone steps.
When Tilda reached the veranda, which was in darkness, she looked at the door.
It had been broken open.
She moved slowly up the steps. Then she grabbed hold of the handle, opened the door cautiously, and moved onto the top step.
Then something slender and metallic gray came whirling through the opening. She closed her eyes but didn’t manage to duck or raise her arm in time.
Ax, was all she managed to think before it hit her in the face.
There was a crunching noise from her own head, then a burning pain seared all the way up her nasal bone.
She could hear Martin shouting in the distance.
But by then she had already begun to fall backward, down the steps and back out into the snow.
35
The murderer had stepped out of the shadows among the trees, walked over to Ethel, and whispered:
“Do you want to come with me? If you just keep quiet and come with me, I’ll show you what I’ve got in my pocket… no, it isn’t money, it’s something even better. Come down to the water with me and you can have a fix of heroin from me, completely free. You’ve got your own needle and spoon and lighter, haven’t you?”
Ethel had nodded.
Joakim shivered and pushed the dream-pictures out of his head. A rumble like thunder shook him.
He woke up properly and looked around him. He was sitting in the front row in the prayer room, with Katrine’s Christmas present on his knee.
Katrine?
It was almost completely dark. The flashlight had gone out and the only light came from the single bulb in the loft, seeping in through the narrow gaps in the wall.
And the rumbling noise? The barn hadn’t been struck by thunder or lightning-it was the storm, roaring its way in over the coast.
The blizzard had reached its peak.
The stone walls on the lower floor were immovable, but the rest of the barn was shaking in the wind. The sound of the air being forced in through the cracks rose and fell like a siren around Joakim.
He looked up at the roof beams above his head and thought he could see them trembling. The storm-force winds came pouring in over Eel Point like black waves, making the wooden walls creak and bang.
The blizzard was tearing the barn apart. That’s what it felt like.
But Joakim thought he could hear other sounds too. Rustling noises from inside the room-slow footsteps crossing the wooden floor. Restless movements in the darkness. Whispering voices.
The church benches had begun to fill up behind him.
He couldn’t see who the visitors were, but felt a growing chill in the room. There were many of them, and they were starting to sit down.
Joakim listened, his body tense, but remained where he was.
It was quiet on the church benches now.
But someone else was walking slowly along the aisle beside them. He heard careful noises in the darkness, the scraping sound of footsteps from a figure passing all the benches behind him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that a shadow with a pale face had stopped beside his bench, and was standing there motionless.
“Katrine?” whispered Joakim, without daring to turn his head.
The shadow slowly sat down beside him on the bench.
“Katrine,” he whispered again.
Tentatively he groped in the darkness and his fingers brushed against another hand. It was stiff and ice cold when he took hold of it.
“I’m here now,” he whispered.
There was no reply. The figure bent its head, as if in prayer.
Joakim also lowered his eyes. He looked down at the denim jacket beside him and carried on whispering:
“I found Ethel’s jacket. And the note from the neighbors. I think… Katrine, I think you killed my sister.”
And still there was no reply.
So we sat there in the outbuilding staring at each other, Ragnar Davidsson the eel fisherman and I.
I was extremely tired by this time. The blizzard was on its way, but I had managed to rescue only a few of Torun’s oil paintings, half a dozen canvases that were lying on the floor next to me. Davidsson had thrown the rest into the sea.
– MIRJA RAMBE
WINTER 1962
Davidsson has refilled his glass with schnapps.
“Sure you don’t want some?” he asks.
When I clamp my lips together, he takes a deep draft from the glass. Then he puts it down on the table and smacks his lips.
He seems to get various inappropriate ideas when he looks at me, but before he has time to select one of them, his guts are suddenly twisted into a knot in his belly. That’s what it looks like to me, anyway-his body jerks, he bends over and presses his arms against his stomach.
“Shit,” he mumbles.
Davidsson tries to relax. But then he suddenly goes rigid again, as if he has suddenly thought of something.
“Oh shit,” he says, “I think…”
The Darkest Room Page 32
