Unknown ak-3

by Mari Jungstedt

  "Do the police think that Aron might be the murderer?"

  "Yes. And now you've turned up a whole new aspect of the case-the thefts. We just may have the solution to the burglary at the Antiquities Room, too."

  Pia gave Johan a poke in the side.

  "Look," she said. "Something's happening."

  Inside the house they could see people walking back and forth. Johan heard someone bolt the door from the inside. Strange, he thought. Out here in the country no one locks their doors.

  Cautiously they crept forward and peeked through a window. They were looking at the kitchen, which was old-fashioned and seemed very poorly outfitted. A decrepit electric stove and a small refrigerator and freezer were the only appliances. A considerable number of dirty dishes were littered about, along with glasses and bottles. Johan crept along the wall of the house, crouching down so as not to be seen. He went around the corner, summoned his courage, and then straightened up enough so that he could peer inside.

  It was a big room, almost like a hall, but sparsely furnished. About ten people were inside, men and women of various ages. Everyone was dressed in identical, long, cloaklike attire. Johan's first thought was that they were performing some sort of ceremony in connection with Medieval Week, but he quickly realized that something else was going on. A man came in, clad only in a pair of shorts. He was carrying a flat drum with an animal skin stretched across it. It looked like a tambourine. He was beating the drum with a wooden stick that had one end wrapped in leather. At the same time, he was droning a song that lacked any sort of melody. It consisted mostly of a monotone chanting. Johan couldn't understand a single word, but he had the feeling that the drummer was pronouncing incantations or invoking some higher powers.

  Another man stood in the center of the group, his face hidden from view. As if at a signal, a circle formed around him. He turned in different directions as he spoke, and the others in the group seemed to answer him.

  Knutas had come to stand beside Johan.

  "Who's the guy with the drum?" whispered Johan. "He looks like a shaman."

  "Yes, he does, though I don't know who he is. Take a look at the man in the middle, the one who seems to be the leader. That's Aron Bjarke."

  At that instant Bjarke turned in their direction, and for a moment Johan thought they had been discovered. But Bjarke continued on, undisturbed.

  Then Johan caught sight of Eskil Rondahl. He was standing off to one side with his eyes closed, murmuring just like everyone else. He looked totally different from when Johan had met him earlier in the day. Like a different person. He seemed to be in a trance, and Johan had the feeling that the drummer was transporting the others and even himself into some sort of ecstatic state.

  Suddenly a scantily clad woman came dancing into the room. She had curly red hair that reached down to her waist. Like the shaman, she was almost naked. Around her hips she wore a short piece of cloth, and above, a simple top. She danced around the drummer, tossing her hair. In her hands she carried something that looked like a horn, and she offered it to the others, who drank from it.

  After that, a bowl was brought in. The woman carried it carefully in her hands, and Johan and Knutas instinctively leaned closer to see better. She moved the bowl back and forth, and a look of ecstasy appeared in the eyes of the participants. Everyone was staring at the bowl. Then she held it out in front of her while the man with the drum pounded his club even harder and raised his voice. Now the sound bellowed out, but Johan and Knutas still couldn't distinguish any words. They'd never seen anything like this. Then the woman drank from whatever was in the bowl as the shaman shouted. A dark red liquid ran down the sides.

  Knutas and Johan exchanged looks of disgust.

  "What do you think they're drinking?" whispered Johan. "I bet you anything it's blood."

  "That wouldn't surprise me," said Knutas, taking his cell phone out of the inside pocket of his jacket. These people looked capable of just about anything. He called the officer on duty in Visby without taking his eyes off the spectacle.

  All of a sudden Johan noticed that Pia had disappeared. He took a step back and looked around. He didn't see her anywhere. He was both annoyed and worried. These people didn't look sane. What would they do if they found Pia sneaking around with a camera outside the window?

  Knutas also called Karin Jacobsson, who happened to be visiting her parents in Tingstade, which wasn't far away. Martin Kihlgard was with her, and they said they would drive over immediately.

  Johan wondered what Knutas was planning to do. Was he going to arrest Aron Bjarke? If so, on what grounds? The fact that he'd been in Stockholm at the same time as Ambjornsson was hardly a good enough reason.

  Now the other people inside the house had started drinking from the bowl, too. After they drank, they began rhythmically stomping on the floor. They were all stomping to the same beat.

  One of the members of the sect moved away from the group and dipped what looked like a small sculpture of a god in the bowl. Then the person held it up for the others to see. Johan thought the sculpture reminded him of an ancient Nordic god, maybe Thor or Odin. The idol was passed from hand to hand, and the participants became daubed with the red liquid, which they rubbed on their faces. It looked quite macabre.

  Johan leaned toward Knutas.

  "It looks like they'll be at it for a while. I'm going to find out where Pia has gone. Just whistle if anything happens."

  He walked around the house. There were lights in all the windows on the ground floor, but the second floor was dark. He crossed the yard and opened the barn door. It was pitch-black and smelled damp and musty. The light switch was inside the door. It took a few minutes of fumbling around in the dark before he found it. After some hesitant flickering, the fluorescent tube in the ceiling went on, producing a faint light. A pile of boards and a couple of bundles of insulating material lay in a corner.

  Along one wall stood a large freezer. Johan noticed that it was plugged in, and out of curiosity he went over and opened it. The lid was big and hard to lift, and the handle was slightly broken. Cold air rose up toward him as he peered down inside the freezer. All he could see was several rectangular plastic packages, completely frozen. He picked up one of the boxes and scraped the frost off the lid. A label was stuck to it. He had trouble making out what it said. Part of the text, which had been written with black ink, was smeared. All of a sudden the letters became clear enough to be legible. It was a name that he recognized. Mellgren. Instinctively he looked up to check that no one was around to see what he was holding. He twisted and turned the small package. It seemed to contain a brown liquid that had solidified. His stomach lurched when he realized that what he was probably holding in his hands was Mellgren's blood. He picked up another package and began scraping off the frost, but he was interrupted by a noise from outside.

  He glanced toward the barn door and watched as the handle slowly moved downward.

  Jacobsson and Kihlgard drove toward Hall in the August darkness. The road got narrower the farther they went, and they met only a few other cars. They passed the exits to Lickershamn and Ireviken, and they almost missed the turnoff for the farm. Jacobsson braked hard and then turned onto the small road. It was now pitch-dark all around them; there were no streetlights or houses. The scruffy woods got thicker, and here and there they caught a glimpse of dead trees with bare, gnarled branches.

  "Are you sure this is the right road?" asked Kihlgard, sounding worried.

  "Absolutely. I checked the map. This has to be the right way. But I have to admit that even though I've lived my whole life on Gotland, I've never been out here before."

  "It's damned desolate. Like some kind of ghostly landscape."

  "Yes, it is," Jacobsson agreed. "It feels like this is as far away from civilization as we can get."

  The car jolted along as the terrain became more and more rugged. Jacobsson wondered if they'd be able to keep going without getting stuck somewhere. Just as she was starting to look
for a place to turn around, they saw a car parked up ahead in the woods. Farther along was another car. She recognized it as Knutas's old Benz.

  Jacobsson parked next to it. Then they made their way up to the farm, moving as quietly as possible.

  The expression on Eskil Rondahl's face hardly changed at all when he found Johan holding a package in his hands. Only his eyes revealed a flash of surprise. For the second time that day, they met.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I was just going to ask you the same thing."

  Johan held out the packages toward him.

  Rondahl didn't reply. His arms hung clumsily at his sides, as if he didn't know what to do. They stood there for a moment, staring at each other.

  "Who are you?"

  "My name is Johan Berg, and I'm a journalist."

  "For a newspaper?"

  "For TV. Swedish TV, Regional News."

  "Did you follow me?"

  As Eskil talked, he slowly came closer. Johan took a step back and cast a surreptitious glance to either side. Where the hell was Knutas? And Pia?

  Rondahl was now circling around him like a wild animal about to attack its prey.

  Johan didn't know what to do. The door was closed, and he hadn't noticed any other exit. Outside everything was quiet. He suddenly found himself in a situation over which he had no control whatsoever. He hadn't counted on ending up in the danger zone himself. Images of his daughter flickered past. He cursed his stupidity. How could he have landed in this situation without thinking about the consequences? This had to do with a triple homicide. Emma's face appeared in his mind.

  He saw the white walls of the barn with the peeling plaster, the old stalls where the cows must have stood, chained and lined up in a row, shackled and unable to escape, just like him. He noted how Rondahl's eyes darkened, and he realized that the man who had seemed so timid was actually deadly dangerous. He was standing face-to-face with the killer.

  The windows gleamed black; the darkness from outside came in, squeezing around his heart and blocking his brain. Then he saw the glint of a knife blade in the man's hand. At first he thought he was imagining it, but then it glittered again. Ice-cold terror settled like a tight band around his neck. He stood perfectly still. Incoherent thoughts were racing through his mind, giving him no guidance. He didn't know how many seconds or minutes passed as he stood there as if frozen to the spot. Then he woke from his momentary, fear-induced torpor and made a lunge for the door in a hopeless attempt to escape. The next second the man was on him. Johan felt a burning pain in his stomach.

  He sank to the floor.

  Jacobsson and Kihlgard hurried toward the farm and caught sight of Knutas, who was pressed up against the side of the house.

  "What's going on?" whispered Jacobsson as she inquisitively peeked through the window.

  "They're performing some kind of ritual. Both Eskil Rondahl and Aron Bjarke are inside, and Bjarke seems to be the leader, as you can see. I don't know what it means, but it looks as if they're drinking blood."

  "Are you serious?"

  Kihlgard made himself as small as possible, considering the bulk of his body.

  Knutas was starting to get very worried. The reinforcements that he'd called for hadn't arrived, and he wondered where Johan and Pia had gone.

  "Where's Rondahl?" asked Jacobsson.

  Knutas crouched down and let his eyes survey the mysterious figures inside the hall. He couldn't see Rondahl anywhere. Apparently he had left the room without Knutas noticing.

  "Both Johan and Pia have disappeared, too," said Knutas tensely. "And that was quite a while ago."

  Pia was lying in the most uncomfortable position imaginable. She had found a stairway at one end of the house, on the outside. She'd gone up to the attic and discovered a hatch that she was able to lift up so she had a full view of the living room below.

  Up there she could stretch out and film what was happening undisturbed, as long as none of the participants decided to look up and peer through the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

  She would not have dreamed that what was playing out in the room below would ever occur in reality.

  Several of the participants were holding figures, which they dipped into the bowls containing something that actually did look like blood. She tried to zoom in on the sculptures to make out what they were supposed to symbolize. One woman was kissing her sculpture, and to Pia's horror, she then carefully began licking off the blood.

  Pia recognized Aron Bjarke, although he was behaving in a totally unexpected manner. His face was contorted and his eyes rigid as he stretched his arms overhead and intoned incantations that she couldn't understand.

  She let the camera roll, hoping that the images would be clear enough.

  Suddenly something happened. The door opened, and the man who had left the room a while ago came back. He looked agitated. Now Pia recognized him. It was the man from the film, Eskil Rondahl. She noticed that he had blood on his clothes and his hands, although she didn't recall seeing any on him when he left the room. But it could have come from one of the bowls that were being passed around.

  He went over to Aron and whispered in his ear. Aron's expression instantly changed. He turned toward Eskil to talk to him, but what they said was inaudible. Pia silently cursed. Now she could see only his back.

  Suddenly she saw through the camera's viewfinder that Aron was saying something to the man with the drum, and the rhythmic pounding abruptly stopped. One by one the participants noticed that the drumming had ceased, and they, too, stopped moving as they looked around the room in confusion. Aron raised his hand and started speaking. Pia heard him order those present to go home now, but to return on the following night to complete the ritual when the moon was full. If they came back, they would all experience something extraordinary.

  Some tried to ask Aron what he meant, but he merely raised his hand and gave them a faint smile.

  At the very moment when they discovered that Eskil Rondahl was gone, he came back. They watched him go over to his brother, they watched Aron speak to all the people gathered in the room, and they watched as a certain amount of confusion arose when the ritual was interrupted. One by one the participants left the house. The moonlight forced the three police officers to back so far away from the house that they had a hard time hearing what was said or seeing who came out. Neither Knutas nor Jacobsson recognized any of the individuals in the mysterious sect, except for Aron and Eskild. Since everyone's face was painted, it was hard to make out their features.

  Knutas was getting more and more worried about Johan and Pia. Where had they gone? He was afraid that something had happened to them.

  Where the hell were the police cars?

  They decided to wait to launch an assault until the guests had driven off. As soon as the last car disappeared beyond the hill, the door to the house opened and the two brothers came out. They walked briskly across the yard toward the dark barn. With tense and serious expressions, they went in, carefully closing the door behind them. A light went on inside.

  Knutas had an ice-cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he urged his colleagues to hurry. The three of them raced across the barnyard. When Knutas peered through the window, his fears were confirmed. Both brothers were bending over someone lying on the ground, and Aron was holding a knife.

  The man on the ground was Johan. It took only a few seconds before Knutas, followed by his colleagues, stormed through the door with their pistols drawn.

  "Police!" shouted Knutas. "Drop your weapon and put your hands up!"

  Aron and Eskil were leaning down, with their backs to the door. For a second they froze.

  "Drop the knife!" Knutas shouted again.

  He tried to see whether Johan was still alive, but the reporter's body was hidden from view. Slowly the two men straightened up and turned around. Even though Knutas had met Aron several times before, he hardly recognized him. His face had changed, but Knutas couldn't figure
out what was different about it. His expression was not the same; his mask had fallen away. Knutas was struck by how similar the brothers looked.

  So far Aron had made no sign of letting go of the knife. He stared at Knutas with a remote look in his eye, as if he weren't really present in the room.

  "Drop the weapon!" Knutas shouted for the third time.

  He sensed Jacobsson and Kihlgard on either side of him, standing a couple of paces back. They had their guns aimed at the brothers.

  Knutas had to summon all his forces to make himself stand still. Precious time was being wasted while the life was possibly running out of Johan as he lay motionless on the floor. We have to call for an ambulance, thought Knutas. He could be dying.

  Slowly Aron released his grip on the knife, and with a hollow clang it fell to the floor. The officers immediately rushed forward and seized the men.

  Johan lay on the floor, his face white and his eyes closed. His shirt was dark red with blood that had soaked through and run out onto the floor.

  "He has a pulse, but it's faint," said Jacobsson.

  The door opened, and Pia came in, holding the camera in her hand. When she caught sight of Johan, she screamed and ran over to him.

  "He's alive," said Jacobsson, "but just barely."

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 8

  The walls were painted with soothing colors, and all the sounds were muted. She sat with the baby in her arms, as the chair she was sitting in rocked back and forth. It might have been a day like any other. She was nursing Elin. The baby greedily sucked in life, letting it flow through her little body. Emma had no tears. She wished that she could cry, but her anguish and despair were dry. Something became petrified inside her when she received word that Johan had been seriously wounded and was hovering between life and death. Inside she felt frozen solid, and she didn't know whether she would ever thaw out again.

  She looked down at Elin. It was quiet in the waiting room. By now it was undoubtedly all over the news: the story about the local reporter from Swedish TV who had been stabbed by one of the arrested perpetrators and who was now undergoing surgery at Visby Hospital.