The Quarry töq-3

by Johan Theorin

  Because he was a coward.

  ‘Markus Lukas is dead,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry? Who’s dead?’ said Gerlof.

  Per started to tell the story, and it all came pouring out. He told Gerlof about Markus Lukas, whose real name was Daniel Wellman, a male model who had been HIV-positive and had rung Jerry and Bremer asking for money. Per had misunderstood Jerry’s fear of Markus Lukas; he had never been dangerous, just ill. And now he was dead.

  So who had set the incendiary devices in the film studio, killing Hans Bremer and Jessika Björk? Who had taken Bremer’s keys and got into Jerry’s apartment? And who had killed Jerry?’

  Gerlof listened, but eventually he held up his hand. ‘There’s nothing I can say about all that.’

  ‘No?’ said Per.

  Gerlof hesitated, then went on: ‘I’ve always puzzled over riddles and mysteries … tried to solve them. But it never ends well.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Per. ‘Surely solving something can’t do any harm?’

  Gerlof looked down at the diary on the table. ‘There was another mysterious fire not far from here forty years ago,’ he said, ‘at a farm to the north of Stenvik. A barn with cattle inside it was burnt to the ground. I was here at the cottage when it happened, and like everybody else in the village I went up to have a look. But I got suspicious, because there was the smell of paraffin all around the barn. And when I bent down I could see strange footprints left in the mud by a boot, with a big notch in the heel from a nail that had been badly hammered in. So I realized that the boot that had left the prints must have been repaired by Shoe-Paulsson.’

  ‘Shoe-Paulsson?’

  ‘He was a particularly bad shoemaker who lived in the village,’ said Gerlof. ‘So I mentioned it to the police, who found the owner of the boot and arrested him.’

  ‘So who was it?’ asked Per.

  ‘It was the farmer who owned the place.’ Gerlof nodded over towards the quarry. ‘Henry Fors … the father of our neighbour, Vendela Larsson.’

  ‘Vendela’s father?’

  ‘Yes. He blamed it all on his son, but I think it was Henry. It’s funny, but arsonists almost always operate on their own patch. They almost always set fire to places they know.’

  Per remembered Vendela’s sad expression when she was showing him around her childhood home a couple of weeks earlier. It was lonely here, she had said.

  ‘But why do you regret telling the police, Gerlof?’ he said. ‘I mean, pyromaniacs have to be stopped.’

  ‘Yes, I know … but it destroyed the family. It broke Henry completely.’

  Per nodded without saying anything; he understood. But here they were talking about misery and death again; he got to his feet. ‘I’ll be off to the hospital soon.’

  It was a sudden impulse, but it felt right. He would drive down and spend the whole evening and night with Nilla, even if Marika and her new husband were there. He wasn’t going to be afraid any more.

  ‘I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow,’ said Gerlof. ‘And your daughter, of course.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Per turned and left the garden.

  He was intending to go home, but a few metres from the gravel track by the quarry he came across Christer Kurdin, planting a tree. He had dug a hole in the lawn, and was busy filling in around the roots.

  He straightened up and took a couple of steps towards Per. ‘I heard about Gerhard, your father … that he’d died. Was it a car accident?’

  Per stopped. ‘Yes, he died in Kalmar … Is that an apple tree?’

  ‘No, a plum.’

  ‘Right.’

  Per was about to move on, but Kurdin held his gaze. ‘Would you like to come in for a while?’

  Per thought about it, and nodded. He followed Kurdin up the path, glancing at his watch. It was five to three, and the hands kept moving on, tick tock.

  ‘So you’re here over the holiday weekend?’ he said as they reached the house.

  ‘Yes,’ said Christer Kurdin. ‘We’re going home on Sunday … this will be our last visit before the summer.’

  They were in a narrow hallway leading into a large living room.

  Per looked around. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture or ornaments, but there was plenty of electronic equipment, telephones and speakers. Black and grey cables snaked across the floor along the walls. On one table there were two large computer monitors. It seemed that either Kurdin or his wife was heavily involved in music as well, because under one of the windows was an oblong table with rows of dials and switches – a mixing desk.

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  Near the windows looking out towards the quarry was a black leather sofa behind a low coffee table made of stone. Per sat down.

  ‘How about a beer?’

  ‘That would be good.’

  Per remembered he had just decided to drive to the hospital this evening, but one beer probably wouldn’t do any harm.

  Christer went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses of lager.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Per took a couple of swigs, put down his glass and wondered what to say. ‘Have you been married long?’ he asked.

  ‘Marie and I? No, not very long. Two years, just about. But we’ve been together for five.’

  ‘So where do you actually live? Stockholm?’

  ‘No, Gothenburg. I went to university there, to the Chalmers Institute, and that’s where my company is. But I come from Varberg originally.’

  ‘And your wife?’

  ‘She’s from Malmö.’

  They drank their lager in silence. Per took another swig; it was quite strong, and the alcohol settled like a warm blanket over his anxiety about the following day. ‘What do you think of Max Larsson?’ he asked. ‘Just between ourselves?’

  Christer Kurdin pulled a face. ‘Larsson? I think he’s one of those people who has to be right all the time. He won’t give up until everybody agrees with him. Didn’t you notice how subdued his wife was?’

  Per didn’t respond to that; instead he asked, ‘Have you read any of his books?’

  ‘No,’ said Christer, ‘but I’ve seen how many he’s churned out, so I can imagine what kind of advice you’d get from them.’

  ‘Bad advice, you mean?’

  ‘Simplistic, at any rate,’ said Christer. ‘Reading a psychology book isn’t going to make you a good person. You need life experience for that – plenty of trial and error.’

  Per nodded, and at that moment the front door opened. Marie Kurdin came into the hallway with their baby in a sling across her stomach.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Anyone home?’

  She hadn’t noticed Per, but Christer Kurdin got up quickly and went over to her. ‘Hi darling,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a visitor.’ He seemed relieved to see her, as if he’d been waiting for an interruption to a difficult conversation. But if he didn’t like Per, why had he bothered to invite him in? ‘It’s our neighbour, Per Mörner.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Per clearly saw Marie Kurdin’s smile briefly disappear.

  Christer kissed his wife, who kissed him back, but Per thought they were both moving awkwardly. He had the impression they were playing roles for his benefit.

  ‘Did you find everything, darling?’

  ‘I think so … I got candles too.’

  ‘Good.’

  Per picked up his glass and looked at them. Marie and Christer Kurdin and their baby, the happy family in their luxury home. Was he envious of them?

  Marie nodded at Per in passing as she disappeared into one of the bedrooms with the baby in her arms.

  Jerry had pointed at Marie. Filmed her, he had said.

  Christer Kurdin sat down again and smiled at Per across the table.

  Per didn’t smile back; he was searching for the right words to say. ‘Did you know my father?’ he asked.

  Kurdin sho
ok his head. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Per looked down into his glass, which was almost empty, and said, ‘He was known as Jerry Morner, but when we met today you referred to him by his real name, Gerhard.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Per looked at him. ‘Have you been phoning me?’

  Christer Kurdin didn’t reply.

  ‘Someone’s been calling me,’ Per said slowly. ‘It started after the party … Someone’s been calling and playing something that could be the soundtrack from one of Jerry’s films.’

  Kurdin still said nothing; he just stared at Per for a few seconds before turning and calling over his shoulder, ‘Darling?’

  ‘Yes?’ replied his wife.

  ‘Could you come here for a moment?’

  Marie Kurdin’s heels tapped across the floor as she came back into the living room. ‘What is it?’

  ‘He knows,’ said Christer Kurdin.

  His wife didn’t speak, but she looked Per in the eye.

  ‘Did you do some filming with Jerry and Markus Lukas?’ Per asked.

  Marie shook her head. ‘Of course not.’

  She didn’t say any more, but Christer Kurdin lifted his chin. ‘Her younger sister did.’

  ‘Sara,’ Marie said quietly. ‘She was in one of their films when she was only eighteen … and she fought it with antiretroviral drugs, but she died three years ago. She knew she’d been infected during filming and she told me, but she refused to tell anyone else. She was too ashamed.’

  Per understood. ‘So you rang my father … to remind him.’

  ‘I recognized him at the party,’ said Marie. ‘I knew who he was when he got out that magazine.’

  Per couldn’t look her in the eye; he lowered his gaze. ‘He did actually say that he recognized you too. You must have been alike … you and Sara.’

  Marie didn’t reply.

  He looked into his glass. What was in the beer? It seemed cloudy – had Kurdin put something in his glass when he poured it in the kitchen?

  Did Christer Kurdin own a red Ford?

  Had he lured Jerry to a deserted road in Kalmar?

  Per put his glass down carefully on the table and got to his feet, very slowly. He wanted to ask more questions, but his head was spinning.

  ‘Must you go?’ said Christer Kurdin.

  Per nodded; he thought he could hear girls’ voices echoing in the back of his mind. ‘Yes … I have to go home.’

  They looked at him and he felt ridiculous, but the girls were screaming inside his head now and Jerry was in there too, whispering and telling him to leave.

  He took a step away from the sofa in the direction of the hallway, then one more. It was fine, he could move. It felt like being back in Jerry’s film studio, in the middle of all the smoke and heat and the smell of burnt human flesh.

  Arsonists almost always operate on their own patch, Gerlof had said. So it must have been Jerry who burnt down his own studio. Or Hans Bremer. Or maybe Per himself, the lost son.

  The last thing he did was to turn around in the hallway and raise his voice: ‘I don’t think Jerry … I don’t think he knew anything. He didn’t know Markus Lukas was infected. And I’m sorry, I didn’t know, but they’re all dead now …’

  He was babbling, and closed his mouth. Christer and Marie Kurdin were standing side by side, still watching him, but he couldn’t look them in the eye. He could only manage one more word: ‘Sorry.’

  He fumbled with the front door handle and eventually managed to get out.

  63

  The elves didn’t come back to their stone.

  It had been a cold night for Vendela out on the alvar, but she had curled up inside layers of winter clothes, and had got through it somehow. She had even slept for a few hours, stretched out on the soft grass with the elf stone sheltering her from the wind. Hunger had gnawed at her stomach, but she had coped with that too.

  The situation with regard to Max was much worse.

  The elves had taken the wedding ring from the stone, and now it was too late for Vendela to retract her wish.

  Max was already dead, she was sure of it. She could see it all in her mind’s eye across the alvar: the heart attack striking his chest like a hammer blow. Perhaps it had happened the previous evening, when he was back home sitting at his thinking desk among all the funeral flowers.

  Bang, and his heart just stopped. His body slumped forward across the desk and lay there, his head twisted to one side. There was nothing to be done about it now, but Vendela still didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to find her husband in his thinking room.

  The elves had gone. But still she waited by the stone, hour after hour.

  At some point in the middle of the day, she wasn’t sure exactly when, she heard a rustling noise in the bushes a few metres away and a hare hopped past the stone. It turned to look at Vendela for a few seconds before it disappeared.

  A couple of hours later she saw two people some distance away to the west, a man and a woman. They were walking side by side across the grass wearing red windproof jackets and sturdy boots. Neither of them looked in her direction.

  Perhaps she was invisible. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty now, she needed nothing.

  No, that was wrong, there was one thing she needed.

  She reached into her pocket and felt the bottle of tablets.

  They were the Danish tablets, the strong ones that made her feel calm and weightless. She had only taken three or four since she came to the island, so the bottle was almost full.

  She picked up one of the small tablets and closed her eyes as she put it in her mouth. There was no water, but it was easy to swallow.

  After quarter of an hour she hadn’t noticed any effects, so she took another tablet. And then two more at the same time.

  When she had taken fourteen tablets she thought she’d better stop – after all, she didn’t want to kill herself. She just wanted to relax and see the elves. And it looked as if they were on their way, because a white mist was creeping around the bushes.

  She put the lid back on the bottle and slipped it into her pocket.

  It was ten to four. She had been sitting here by the stone almost all day; soon it would be evening.

  Vendela leaned back, feeling her pulse beating more and more slowly.

  She suddenly remembered that it was Walpurgis Night. The evil spirits had left the alvar, at least for the time being. But the elves were still here.

  The white mist quickly settled around her. It blocked out the sunlight, but suddenly she saw a small figure emerge from the juniper bushes.

  It was a young boy. He walked across the grass between the drifting veils of mist, and Vendela knew where he had come from.

  The boy stopped in front of a juniper bush and looked at her. Vendela smiled and held out her hands, because now she recognized him.

  ‘Come here, Jan-Erik.’

  The boy hesitated for a moment, then he came over to her. He stood by the stone and placed his cool hands on her shoulders. Vendela closed her eyes and relaxed.

  When she looked up again a bright, warm gateway had opened up in the grass in front of her. There was no sign of any birds, but she could hear their song echoing beneath the sky.

  She stood up and walked through the gateway, hand in hand with Jan-Erik.

  She didn’t look back. When the last of the mist had disappeared the yellow sunshine returned, and all the grey, earthly things were gone.

  64

  ‘Mörner!’ a voice shouted from over by the quarry.

  Per turned and saw that it was Max Larsson. He must have just come out of his house, because the front door was wide open. He was striding down the garden path, waving at Per.

  Per stopped, despite the fact that he really wanted to get home. He could still feel the effects of the beer he had drunk with Christer Kurdin, and hoped he wouldn’t start swaying on his feet.

  ‘Where’s my wife?’ asked Max Larsson. He had stopped just a metre or so away.


  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Vendela. Have you seen her?’

  Per shook his head. ‘Not today.’

  He didn’t care about Max Larsson, he had more important things to think about. But Max kept staring at him, as if he were weighing Per’s answer on some internal set of scales. ‘You’ve been spending time together,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Per. ‘I saw her yesterday.’

  He had no intention of telling Max what they had talked about, or what they had done. It was up to Vendela to tell him if she wanted to.

  Max was still staring at him, but his expression was more uncertain now. ‘She must have gone somewhere,’ he said, looking around. ‘I tried calling her from town, but she didn’t answer. Her mobile’s on the kitchen table.’

  ‘Maybe she’s gone shopping,’ said Per.

  ‘She can’t have,’ said Larsson. ‘She hasn’t got a car.’

  Per took a step towards home. ‘Perhaps she’s just gone for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep an eye open for her.’

  ‘Good,’ said Larsson. ‘I’ll drive down the coast … see if I can find her.’ And then he added, with a certain amount of hesitation, ‘Thanks for your help.’

  Per nodded and left him. He felt quite sober now. The effects of the beer had subsided, and the idea that Kurdin might have put some kind of drug in it suddenly seemed utterly ridiculous. He was paranoid – and it was Jerry’s fault. Jerry had thought people were out to get him for years, and he had evidently managed to pass this on to his son.

  He walked quickly back to his empty cottage and unlocked the door. When he got inside he switched on most of the lights to chase away the shadows.

  It was quarter past four. Eighteen hours to go until Nilla’s operation.

  He took a deep breath and sat down at the kitchen table to call her.

  ‘Hi, it’s Dad.’

  ‘Hi.’

  She sounded subdued but calm. Per could hear music playing in the background. Nirvana, presumably.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Reading,’ she said. ‘And waiting.’

  ‘I know. It’ll be good when it’s all over, won’t it?’