As time went by, the memory of the tiger had grown diffuse, and she would happily have dismissed it as a hallucination if the feeling hadn’t stayed with her. It was no longer panting at her heels, but it was lurking somewhere behind her, waiting for the right moment to pounce.
And now it is here. Carina stops moving backwards, stops screaming as the tiger turns around and begins to walk away from her, but she doesn’t take her eyes off it until it is so far away that it could be something else. Something normal.
Her body has been so tense for such a long time that it hurts when she relaxes. The left side of her head is aching, and she has to make an effort to remember why.
Isabelle. The blood.
Every scrap of aggression has left her when she looks around and sees Isabelle sitting not far away. She too is staring at the spot where the tiger is shrinking on the horizon. Carina gets up on shaky legs, staggers over to Isabelle and slumps down on the grass beside her.
‘Can you see it?’ Carina asks.
The thick sound that emerges from Isabelle’s mouth seems to be a ‘Yes’.
Images of their fight come back to Carina. The blow to the chin, the blood pouring out of Isabelle’s mouth, her own compulsion to smash, to crush. Isabelle’s chin is covered in coagulating blood: Carina wants to apologise, but cannot find the right words. Perhaps it is because no apology is necessary. They were caught in the eye of the tiger.
What Carina cannot understand is the expression on Isabelle’s face. Not fear or disbelief, but sorrow, longing. As if the tiger is a dear friend who has left her.
The tiger is no more than a black dot against the blue sky when Carina gets to her feet, walks towards the car and stops halfway. She stares down at the grass around her feet, and two things strike her simultaneously. The tiger is moving in the direction of the camp. And there is no blood on the grass.
She can still make out the indentations left by their bodies. This was where they fought, and blood was pouring out of Isabelle’s mouth, but the blood has gone. As if it has been washed away.
Lapped up.
*
There is not a sound from inside Donald’s caravan as Peter creeps over and begins to raise the tow bar, a millimetre at a time. It takes him almost five minutes to get it to the right height, and as he locks it in place his hands are slippery with sweat and his mouth is dry.
Cautiously he opens the back door of Donald’s car and roots around in the side pocket until he finds the spare key that Majvor told him was there. As he slides behind the wheel and starts the engine, he doesn’t take his eyes off the rear-view mirror for a second. He is watching the curtains, making sure they stay closed, that the front window doesn’t open. He stops when he hears the tow ball scrape against the bar, leaving the engine running as he gets out.
Peter has positioned the car perfectly, and the hitch is directly above the tow ball. He lowers the bar as slowly as he raised it. Stefan is standing outside his caravan, and gives Peter the thumbs up. His job is to watch Donald’s door, because the awning is blocking Peter’s view.
Peter licks the sweat from his top lip as the hitch drops into place. All he has to do now is raise the stabiliser, but the locking mechanism is sticking. Peter pushes and pulls, but is unable to release it. He glances over at the window, then takes a step back and gives it a good kick.
Idiot!
The mechanism releases, but the entire caravan rocks as all its weight falls on the tow ball. Peter quickly lifts the wheel, but it is too late. The curtain is jerked to one side and Donald is staring into his eyes.
‘What the hell—’ Donald yells, lifting the window latch, but Peter doesn’t wait to hear what else he has to say. He leaps into the car and puts it into first gear. In the rear-view mirror he can see the window opening. He puts his foot down. The car doesn’t move at all.
The barrel of the gun is already poking through the window by the time Peter realises that old habits die hard; he put the handbrake on before he got out of the car. The stress is making it difficult for him to coordinate his movements, and he still has his foot on the accelerator when he releases the brake, fortunately for him. Both car and caravan jerk forward, and Donald disappears from the window as he falls backwards.
The tyres skid on the grass as Peter hunches over the wheel, driving out into the field without bothering about the direction. He switches on the GPS, intending to follow the first road that appears. The plan is to leave Donald close enough to the camp so that they will be able to find him again, but far enough away so that he will have difficulty getting back without the help of satellites.
Satellites?
The timing isn’t ideal, but as he crouches low over the wheel Peter catches himself looking up at the sky, as if he might catch sight of some small probe up there. After all, the GPS is working, so there must…
His train of thought is interrupted as the car lurches to one side. There is no sign of Donald, but a glance in the wing mirror tells him what the problem is. The awning is dragging along the side of the caravan. It is still being kept upright to a certain extent by the pegs that remain in place, but a long strip has become caught in one of the caravan’s wheel arches, which means that wheel is no longer turning, but is simply sliding across the grass, leaving a long skid mark behind it.
The car is powerful and can still manage to tow the caravan, so Peter changes up to second gear and floors the accelerator. After a hundred metres he realises that the plan isn’t going to work. Why the hell would Donald need satellites when he can follow the mark left by the wheel all the way back to camp whenever he feels like blowing all their heads off?
The engine is racing and the smell of burnt rubber is being pumped into the car via the air con system when Donald reappears at the window, his eyes burning with hatred. He pokes the barrel of the gun out, and Peter ducks so far down that he can’t actually see through the windscreen. His body is curled into the shape of a question mark as he rests his cheek on the passenger seat, while keeping one hand on the wheel and his right foot on the accelerator.
This was a bad idea, a seriously bad idea.
The key point in their plan had been the belief that Donald probably wasn’t crazy enough to actually try and shoot someone, but given the look in his eyes, it seems they might have been wrong.
The burnt rubber smell is blowing right in Peter’s face. He feels sick, and risks reaching up to turn off the fan. Instead he manages to switch on the radio, halfway through ‘It Always Gets Worse When the Night Comes’ by Björn Skifs.
Himmelstrand, of course—that melancholy line about being far away from all the lights and the laughter.
The engine roars, the car lurches sideways, and Peter is driving without looking, to the accompaniment of yet another Swedish Eurovision entry. There is only one possible reaction. Peter starts laughing. His foot bobs up and down on the accelerator, making the car jerk forward as the spasms pass through his stomach.
‘You fucking bastard!’ Donald bellows behind him, which sounds like the punchline to a really funny sketch. Peter is laughing so hard that he can hardly breathe.
Then comes the explosion, and he stops laughing abruptly as fragments of glass shower down on his face. Tiny, tiny fragments, that’s all. Not like when a windscreen shatters in an action film. He glances up and sees that the windscreen is still intact, unlike the GPS screen, which has exploded in a cascade of plastic, glass and electronic components.
Peter isn’t sure, but through the music and the roar of the engine he thinks he hears a three-step metallic click. The sound of a gun being reloaded. Seconds later the next shot is fired.
This is impossible.
Peter screws up his eyes and takes a deep breath. In a single movement he sits up and slams his foot on the brake. The car has ABS, and he feels the impact all the way up his leg. A glance in the mirror confirms that the desired result has been achieved: Donald has lost his balance. When he straightens up to take aim once more, Peter floors the accelerato
r.
The car responds beautifully, and Donald is hurled away from the window. When Peter checks the wing mirror, he sees that the manoeuvre has also caused the awning to free itself, and the wheel is now running smoothly. Peter nods to himself, phrases as meaningless as football chants echoing in his brain.
All I have to do is drive. Foot down. Keep on keeping on.
He changes up to third, maintaining a lower speed so that he can shoot forward if Donald reappears. Peter stares out across the empty field as if he were looking for someone to cross the ball to. When he can’t find anyone, he automatically looks back at the GPS which is no longer a GPS, but merely a jagged plastic box.
Focus. Drive like a pro…
Think!
Apart from sheer technical skill, there are two things that distinguish a good footballer: the ability to have an overview, and to improvise. To be able to read the game on a wider scale, and to make creative decisions in an instant. Zidane was a master of the former, Maradona the latter. Without making any further comparisons Peter is more of a Maradona, because although he has improvised pretty well so far, at the moment he is experiencing a distinct lack of any kind of overview. He can deal with each individual situation as it arises, but what is he going to do?
When Donald’s face pops up yet again, his forehead is bleeding; this doesn’t seem to have improved his mood. Before Peter has time to react, Donald pokes the gun out of the window and fires without even bothering to take aim. The bullet passes through the back window and the passenger seat before slamming into the glove compartment. This is followed by the sound of breaking glass, whereupon a yellow liquid the colour of urine starts trickling out of the hole.
Peter speeds up, and yet again Donald falls backwards. The trick isn’t going to work forever, and there is a problem. A big problem. How the hell is he going to uncouple the caravan without getting shot?
Of course one option is to stop the car, jump out and run as fast as he can, hoping that Donald won’t shoot him in the back. This course of action seems less than appealing, partly because he saw the look in Donald’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, and partly because he now knows that the gun is equipped with a rangefinder.
He’s got the gun. I’ve got the car. Exploit the situation.
Perhaps the idea that comes into Peter’s head is just as bad as the idea of driving off with Donald, but at the moment he can’t think of anything else. He increases his speed to eighty kilometres an hour while twisting the wheel from side to side so that the caravan swings and sways behind him, hopefully making it nigh on impossible for Donald to keep his balance.
Only when ‘It Always Gets Worse When the Night Comes’ finishes does Peter realise that it has been playing all that time. When it is replaced by ‘Helledudane, What a Guy’, he switches off the radio. He fastens his seatbelt, grits his teeth, and makes a sharp turn to the right.
He wishes he knew more about mechanical engineering, physics or whatever the fuck would help him to predict the precise effect of his action. The plan is to shake Donald up so much that it will give Peter a few precious seconds in which to uncouple the caravan, but there is the impetus of the turn and the speed to which a caravan weighing at least two tons is about to be subjected, and that caravan is attached to a comparatively small car.
The taste of gall rises in Peter’s throat as he watches the caravan swing around; the wheels on the left-hand side leave the ground. Peter turns the wheel to the left to compensate, but the weight of the caravan makes it impossible to stop its progress. It forces the car forward in a skid as the tow bar creaks and grates.
Peter puts his foot on the brake, but the caravan pushes him forward. The acrid stench of burning rubber once again fills the car, the wheels smoking as the brake pads struggle to cope. The caravan slides sideways, accompanied by a cacophony of breaking glass and china as the cupboards fly open. It is about to tip right over, and Peter feels the car’s wheels on the left-hand side leave the ground. For one quivering second everything is in the balance, then the caravan crashes back down on all four wheels.
Okay. Okay.
Peter allows himself to sit still for two seconds, expelling the air from his lungs. When he tries to get out of the car his fingers are locked onto the steering wheel, and he has to prise them free like a bandage from a festering wound.
Sometimes you find your own space. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. You’ve passed the back line, you’re in control of the ball, and the goal is straight ahead. Then it’s important not to think, but to let your instincts take over. The body knows what to do, if you leave it in peace. The goalie’s position in relation to the goal, the position and speed of the ball and the body. It is all so complicated that you could fill a whiteboard with calculations. If you thought about it. So you don’t think.
Something similar happens to Peter as he gets out and rushes around the back of the car on surprisingly steady legs. He doesn’t waste time checking on Donald’s whereabouts, he doesn’t even bother winding up the tow bar, he simply stands with one leg firmly planted on either side of it, pushes down the handle of the locking mechanism and lifts. He knows it is the only possible course of action.
Under normal circumstances he might not have managed it. But he isn’t thinking, he is just assuming he can do it. And he does. The muscles in his arms and legs are screaming as he lifts the caravan off the tow bar with one single movement and drops it onto the stabilising wheel to the sound of more breaking glass and china from inside. And Donald’s voice.
‘Fucking bastard! I’m going to shoot you dead, you fucking…’
Peter is in the car with the door shut, cutting off the stream of invective. He reaches for the start button and his brain suddenly shuts down when his fingers find a key instead.
Key. Lock. Why is there a key?
Then he remembers that this is not his car; he turns the key, depresses the clutch and puts the car in first gear. As it begins to move, the caravan door flies open and Donald staggers out clutching the shotgun.
Peter changes up to second and puts his foot down. He glances in the mirror and sees Donald drop to his knees and put the gun to his shoulder. Peter hunches over the wheel, grateful for every nanosecond, every metre between him and Donald before the shot is fired.
He hears a sharp, dry crack followed by a bang, much closer this time, like a reverse echo, and for one terrible moment he thinks maybe that’s what it sounds like when the spinal cord is shattered by a bullet; he closes his eyes to deal with the pain. But there is no pain. Instead the car begins to shudder, and Peter realises that Donald has burst one of the rear tyres.
The car is pulling slightly to one side, but the four-wheel drive keeps it moving steadily away from Donald. The next crack is much more distant, but Donald must be a good shot, because judging from the sound he has managed to shatter one of the rear lights.
When Peter looks in the mirror again, the caravan is over a hundred metres behind him, and he should be out of range. He keeps on driving.
The relief at having escaped from mortal danger and achieved his objective lasts for about thirty seconds. Then Peter realises that he is driving out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.
During the manoeuvres with the caravan he has lost all sense of direction. The GPS has been destroyed, and there are no markings to show him the way. The field stretches out in front of him, vast and unchanging, and he has no idea whether he is heading towards home or away from home or somewhere in between.
He is driving. That’s all.
*
It’s time for revenge, and it’s not going to be pretty…
Carina sets aside Martyrs, the DVD she has found, and carries on rooting through the Toyota’s glove compartment, her hands shaking. Make-up bag, instruction manual, advertising leaflets. Right at the back she finds a duster; that will have to do.
Isabelle, who is still sitting on the ground, pulls a face as Carina holds out the dirty rag, but she scrunches it up
and pushes it into her mouth to stem the flow of blood from her tongue. Carina looks over towards the field where the tiger is no longer visible, then she tugs at Isabelle’s arm.
‘It’s on its way to the camp. We have to go.’
Isabelle offers no resistance as Carina pulls her to her feet, but Carina stops in mid-movement. There is something strange about the expression on Isabelle’s face. Carina is still frightened following her encounter with the tiger, but Isabelle’s eyes are saying something completely different. Carina lets her fall back down.
‘You saw it too, didn’t you?’
Isabelle nods and makes a noise that could mean absolutely anything as the corners of her mouth turn up. A thought strikes Carina, and she crouches down in front of Isabelle, who is still gazing out at the field. Eventually she catches her eye and asks: ‘What did you see?’
In spite of her battered body Isabelle manages an elegant gesture which cannot possibly relate to the terrifying figure that Carina saw. Isabelle tries to remove the duster from her mouth, but winces and decides to leave it where it is.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Carina says. ‘It was…it became…’
She doesn’t know how to explain the madness that came over her, but nor does she need to, because Isabelle gives her the finger, thus erasing Carina’s desire to apologise. Isabelle is now staring at the ground next to Carina, her eyes flicking from side to side.
‘Yes, I noticed it too,’ Carina says. ‘The blood has gone. It’s taken it.’
Isabelle closely examines the grass. She nods to herself, then looks up at Carina, stares at her for a long time. Carina gets the impression that she is being assessed, like some antique objet d’art. Or a piece of meat. It is not a pleasant feeling.
Isabelle drags herself to her feet and walks over to the car. Carina follows her. She gets behind the wheel and reaches for the start button with a sense of dread. Part of her just wants to turn the car around and drive in the opposite direction, away from the tiger.
I Am Behind You Page 20
