Stallo

by Stefan Spjut

  ‘Did they have a son? An adult son?’

  Torbjörn looked up.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should have asked that …’

  Then he added:

  ‘He would be … how old?’

  ‘Thirty-two this year,’ said Mona. ‘So thirty-one.’

  ‘I’ll check,’ he said.

  He sat down to write a text but then changed his mind and went out to phone instead, and when he came back he said in a low voice to Susso:

  ‘I spoke to Matti Alkberg. He’s going to see if anyone knows someone called Fredén. Or Skarf. And who is that age.’

  ‘Okay, but it’s important we get an address for Inger and Yngve.’

  ‘What would you like to do?’ Gudrun asked, unscrewing the top of her lip salve as she looked at Mona. ‘We’ll find those people, don’t you worry. Boden is on our way home. Would you like to come with us? I would understand if you did.’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I’d like to sleep on it.’

  Susso, Gudrun and Torbjörn checked into a hotel in Kristineberg, a pink building right next to an underground station. The standard was poor. The furnishings were shabby, the venetian blind was broken and there was an unpleasant smell in the bathroom. They decided to share a room because no one wanted to sleep alone.

  *

  Susso sat for a while on the toilet lid before turning on the tap and washing around her mouth. Then she wetted a wad of paper and used it to clean out her nostrils. Torbjörn and Gudrun were watching television when she came out. She found it impossible to relax and paced the floor until finally saying she had decided to drive out to Färingsö and look for the squirrel. Gudrun thought she should wait, at least until it was light, but that upset Susso. The squirrel had saved her. She would be dead had it not been for the squirrel.

  *

  In a bin outside the hotel’s delivery entrance Susso found a cardboard box, which she flattened and taped to the damaged car window. It flapped in the wind as she and Torbjörn drove out to the islands.

  It was half past midnight when they arrived. They parked in the same place as before. The ambulance tyres had left deep furrows in the snow. Torbjörn used the torch on his mobile to guide them. Susso had inserted the two remaining cartridges in the revolver and was holding it tightly.

  The troll’s blood was a black shadow in the churned-up snow. Both of them saw it but neither said anything. They walked around the tiny island several times, calling softly in all directions. It was pointless trying to climb up onto the rocks. Susso made a half-hearted attempt but got no further ashore than a few metres. The trees were crowded together, their branches intertwined, and there was nowhere secure to put her feet down among the shingle and the sheer rocks.

  At last they heard a cracking sound among the trees and soon something small scampered towards them through the snow.

  ‘Here he is!’ said Torbjörn.

  Susso crouched down in front of the squirrel as it sat upright. Then she held out her hand.

  She held the squirrel on her lap all the way back to the hotel and was amazed at how calm it was. She stroked its white breast with her finger.

  ‘Have you felt how soft he is?’ she said

  ‘Yes,’ Torbjörn replied. ‘Like cotton wool.’

  *

  They padded into the room. Gudrun was lying on her side, snoring loudly. Susso went into the bathroom and took her toothbrush from her toilet bag, and as she was brushing her teeth the squirrel sat on the edge of the basin, watching her intently. The ceiling lights were reflected as distinct dots of light in the animal’s black eyes.

  Torbjörn’s pale face appeared in the doorway. He was standing a few metres from the door, looking at Susso’s reflection.

  Then he slipped into the bathroom and suddenly there he was, behind her. A cold hand rested on her right hip, which was indented slightly at the lacy waistband of her knickers. When Susso felt his touch, she took out the toothbrush and supported herself with her other hand on the handbasin. He had already placed his other hand on her left hip.

  ‘You’ve got blood in your hair,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got blood here,’ he said, taking hold of a lock of her hair. The end was stiff with coagulated blood and he showed it to her in the mirror. ‘Is it yours?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know …’

  She watched as he lifted the strand of hair first to his nose and then to his mouth. He put the rust-red tip between his lips and sucked, not taking his eyes from hers. Then he nodded slowly.

  ‘It tastes of Susso.’

  A puff of air came from her nose as she laughed. She smiled. He had not pressed up close to her yet. All he did was stand there, holding her hips in a tight grip, as if they were ice dancers preparing to leap.

  Very slowly he leaned forwards, and as his mouth touched her neck she closed her eyes. She did not want to see herself in the mirror, to see how she was transforming. She drifted away, breathing between parted lips. But he saw. Only he saw. His mouth blew warm air against her throat, and like a cautious animal the tip of his tongue appeared and brushed against her skin. She knew he would push his hips against hers at any moment, knew how rough the denim of his jeans would feel against her skin. But he took his time. The lips left her neck as slowly as they had arrived and he released his hold on her hips. She opened her eyes. This was not what she had expected.

  Torbjörn stood with his back to the wall, and when she saw his frozen expression she raised her eyebrows.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said.

  And then she noticed the squirrel. She had completely forgotten about it. It had climbed onto the rim of the handbasin and was standing there on all fours, staring at Torbjörn as its tail jerked from side to side. It was as if the little animal had nailed Torbjörn with its eyes. Susso waited a few seconds before reaching out her hand and prodding the squirrel with her toothbrush. It did not move from the spot.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I think he’s jealous.’

  Tracks from paws of various shapes and sizes criss-crossed the snow that had fallen during the night. Necklaces of patterns from the smallest animals meandered haphazardly, crossing the wider and more prominent prints the hares had left over the yard and around the buildings.

  Something had crept up onto the roof of the Volvo and left behind a twisted black strand, and Seved thought it must have been one of the weasels. That would be typical of them. ‘The kind ones’, Ejvor had called them, and Seved had believed her until he realised that ‘kind’ really meant ‘quick’, and that the weasels were anything but kind as he understood the word.

  With his hands in his pockets he stopped a few metres in front of Hybblet and checked to make sure there were no bear footprints there. He had not heard anything during the night but he knew the big old-timers had no trouble making themselves inconspicuous when they chose to. As a child he had more than once been startled to find they had crept up close to him while he was playing. It was always their heavy breathing that gave them away. That and their stench.

  The worry that Skabram would return had kept Seved awake most of the night. It was the chain he was mainly concerned about. What if the old troll decided to go in that way for some reason? The hatch was bolted from the inside, so he would not be able to get in while there was no one inside the hide to open it for him. Even if he knew Karats was not waiting for him it must still be something he desperately desired – so desperately perhaps that he let himself be controlled by his desire. Besides, Seved had no idea what went on in the big troll’s head. Rage had driven him to shapeshift, but what had triggered the rage? Was it as if someone had suddenly ripped a tooth from his jaw? Did he know Karats was dead or had he only felt the pain of it?

  Börje was in the dog compound, crouching down and patting the Lapphund cross, digging his fingers into the thick, curly coat on its neck and murmuring a stream of questions one after the other. />
  Seved opened the shaky gate and stepped in.

  ‘They’ve crapped on the car,’ he said, holding out his hand so the little Laika could come forwards to sniff it. It ran its rough tongue over his little finger, making it wet and warm.

  ‘Better that than tipping it over,’ Börje said.

  They sat back to back, stroking the dogs.

  ‘Has he come home?’

  Börje shook his head, sniffing the mucus back into his nose.

  ‘But Lennart will be here tomorrow, you’ll see.’

  ‘Has he given up on that now?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hunting down that girl Myrén.’

  ‘Oh no. He’ll never do that.’

  *

  He stood for a few moments in Hybblet’s kitchen, waiting for something to flit past the corner of his eye, but it was totally still. In the pallid daylight he saw how filthy the floor was.

  He imagined most of them were down in the hide but he certainly did not want to go there, so he walked upstairs instead. In one of the lofts he found a solitary batshifter hanging with its claws attached to the edge of a sheet of plywood. It was old and grey and had a tiny, compressed, dog-like head. The sight of it would probably scare the boy, so he left it alone.

  When he came down from the loft a mouse was sitting on a chair, looking at him. It was a birch mouse and he thought it was one of the shapeshifters Torsten had given them to bring back. Seved squatted down and chatted kindly to the creature until it was brave enough to walk up to his outstretched hand.

  He allowed the mouse to crawl onto his hand and get used to him before carefully putting it into his jacket pocket, where it scratched around for a while and then settled down.

  *

  Mattias was sitting on the bed playing a video game. He was frenetically tapping the buttons on the controller. Seved stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at him.

  ‘Are you winning?’

  The boy was engrossed in the game and did not answer.

  ‘Look,’ Seved said. ‘I’ve got a new mouse for you.’

  He took out the creature and released it onto the bed. It scrabbled against the duvet cover and almost disappeared among the billowing folds.

  The boy put down the controller. It looked as if he had forgotten about the game.

  Mona had been staying the night with friends in Sundbyberg and early the next morning she phoned to ask if they could all meet up in the hospital cafeteria.

  They went directly after breakfast.

  The squirrel lay in the front pocket of Susso’s jacket like a hot-water bottle and it made her feel more secure than the weapon she was carrying. During the night the little animal had sat immobile, watching the lights from the trains as they swayed past immediately outside the window.

  Now it was sleeping soundly – or at least, it was completely still.

  On the table in front of Mona was a coffee cup and a plate with a cake still in its cellophane wrapper. The coffee looked cold. Subdued and seldom looking them in the eye, she told them she was in two minds about finding the Skarf family. She knew, of course, that the chance of them being involved in Magnus’s disappearance was very small, and the chance that he was still with them even smaller, but, oddly enough, the thought of seeing him again filled her with mixed emotions. She was worried about what it would do to her. How it would affect her.

  He had been gone half her life and she had become used to the hole he had left. She had grown around it. And however it turned out she would never get him back. She would be fooling herself to think otherwise. All she knew of him was the way he had been back then.

  ‘A little boy. The most wonderful little boy in the world.’

  Now he would be a man and they would be strangers to each other. There was no guarantee he would even remember her. And what if it all went wrong between them!

  Then he would be gone for ever and she was afraid all the precious memories she had of him would be tainted.

  She dreaded the thought of it.

  ‘You’d think this was something I longed for, after all these years,’ she said. ‘Getting him back. But now that the opportunity has come I don’t know what I want. I’m ashamed to admit it.’

  Gudrun shook her head.

  ‘No need to be.’

  Susso agreed, muttering something about it being only natural to think like that. What Mona had gone through was so awful that she could think of nothing helpful to say. She thought about Carina Mickelsson and Edit and wondered whether she should mention them, but was not sure if it was suitable to move the focus from Magnus at a time like this.

  ‘Have you seen the films of the tsunami?’ Mona asked. ‘From Thailand?’

  They nodded.

  ‘There were children on those beaches,’ Mona said. ‘Little children. The wave came in and took them, as if it was collecting them. I think it was the same with Magnus. The person who took him was like that flood wave, the same kind of indifferent force.’

  She moved her fingers across the surface of the table to show how the wave had swept in.

  ‘It has been explained to me that my shock formed an image of the person who took him,’ she went on. ‘That the pain inside me took on a physical shape, the shape of a giant. And in the end you believe it was like that because it’s the only reasonable explanation. And it wasn’t only the giant. The day Magnus disappeared I saw a fox and a hare as well outside the cabin. Perhaps you know about that?’

  ‘Yes, Barbro said Sven had told her.’

  Mona shook her head and gave a half smile.

  ‘Do you know, I thought I dreamt that he phoned. Uncle Sven! It was so unreal, that he of all people should phone. When I told people about it afterwards they said I must have imagined it just because he was so kind to children. Perhaps I thought he would care about Magnus and would help him, which was why I dreamt it. But he did ring, didn’t he? He really did?’

  Gudrun nodded.

  ‘He did want to help. That was exactly what he wanted. It wasn’t a dream.’

  ‘How strange,’ Mona said. ‘It all feels so strange.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gudrun. ‘You can imagine how surprised we were when it turned out he was involved in all this. And John Bauer too.’

  ‘So those animals were real. And the bat too.’

  Torbjörn looked up but he said nothing. He only looked at Susso, passing the question on to her.

  ‘What bat?’ she asked.

  ‘I killed a bat,’ Mona said. ‘By mistake. And then, after we had been shopping, we found it in the fridge. I thought someone was playing a trick on us. But I have wondered about that since, whether it was a kind of message, and if that was why the giant took Magnus. In exchange, or something. Perhaps it was his bat I killed, because it had a little ring in its ear.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Gudrun said. ‘I expect they took Magnus because they wanted him. They wanted to have a child, a human child. It seems to be something these stallo folk do.’

  ‘And those animals I saw, were they like the bear, do you think?’

  Susso nodded.

  ‘That’s the secret,’ she said. ‘They are animals. And that is why they are so hard to find.’

  ‘The bat as well?’

  ’Presumably.’

  Without thinking, she had put her hand on her stomach. She wondered whether she should show Mona the squirrel but decided to wait for another occasion. She did not want to wake the animal and it felt wrong to open her pocket while it was sleeping. And after all, they were in a hospital. It would cause quite a stir if someone discovered she had smuggled in an animal – a rat, more or less.

  By now Mona had broken open the cellophane around the cake and gone back in time. She told them what it been like for her afterwards. How furious she had been with the police.

  ‘A giant can’t hide himself very easily, but they didn’t want to listen to any of that. It was as if their minds were made up, and eventually they didn’t listen to anything
I had to say. To be treated like that … in the end you doubt yourself, your own sanity, and there is nothing worse. I began to wonder if I really had seen what I thought I had seen. And then I got a letter from the prosecutor, I think that’s who it was, where it said ‘Mona Bodin’. Bodin! How would they ever be able to find Magnus if they couldn’t even get his name right!’

  She dipped her cake in the coffee cup so forcefully it struck the bottom. She let it drip before putting it down on a napkin.

  ‘They needed help checking the details and everything, so they were in touch quite often, and every time I went from hope to despair. Once they came to my house and showed me a pair of underpants they had found under some trees and I had to tell them if they were Magnus’s underpants. You can imagine what that felt like. And another time they phoned to ask if Magnus had any holes in his teeth, because they had found a body. Just like that! He was four years old. Do four-year-olds usually have holes in their teeth?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Of course, I know they have to do the job their way and they can’t always be wrapping things up in nice words, but they were so horribly insensitive. And there was no one to talk to. All that about counselling and support and so on – that only came later. There was nothing like that then. I was completely alone.’

  ‘What about now?’ Gudrun asked. ‘What would you like to do now?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘As we said, we are going to try and find those people. See what kind of people they are. It might not lead to anything but you’re welcome to come with us.’

  ‘I think I’ll stay, what with Klas and everything …’

  Gudrun stood up.

  ‘We’ll keep in touch,’ she said, giving Mona a brief hug. ‘As soon as we have spoken to those Skarf people we’ll let you know. Then we’ll take it from there.’