Copyright
Published by Sphere
ISBN: 978-0-7515-5784-8
Copyright © 2014 Anders Roslund & Stefan Thunberg
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Based on the Swedish work Björndansen.
Published by agreement with Salomonsson Agency.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Sphere
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.littlebrown.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Copyright
Now: Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Then: Part One
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Now: Part Two
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Then: Part Two
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Now: Part Three
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Then: Part Three
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Now: Part Four
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
About the Author
The truth behind the fiction
The Father is a work of fiction inspired by a true story.
Details of many events and characters have been changed, and others are purely fictitious. For more information on how the real case inspired this novel, please see the interview at the end of the book.
If then is now.
If now is then.
HE’S SITTING IN a yellow Volkswagen van that smells of sweat and paint and something else he can’t quite put his finger on. Maybe the petrol station coffee cup on the dashboard. Maybe the remnants of loose tobacco in the passenger seat. Maybe the bag of plaster and the paintbrushes on the seat behind him, which he’s just bought in a hardware store on Folkunga Street. Or the tools and the wallpaper table lying in the back that he took out of the fucking storage unit she’d rented – four years stacked next to his clothes and his bed, which had once been one half of their bed.
That’s what that smell is.
A cellar. Storage. Time.
The sun beats down onto the car window, onto a film of dried flies and dust. The kind of mysterious heat that comes out of nowhere. He rolls down the window to cool off and lets in even more heat, the memory of a phone call buzzing through his head.
‘It’s me.’
‘I know.’
‘How’s my boy? Everything OK? Everything good?’
Three hours from Stockholm. A small town surrounded by factories and a spruce forest. He’s been slowly circling it since early this afternoon, on his way to a neighbourhood with a Konsum supermarket, a hot dog kiosk and a small gravel football pitch – and to an apartment building at the centre, three floors of red brick that he’s never been to before.
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘What are you up to?’
‘Not much … we’re about to eat. Mamma’s cooking.’
As he left the city behind the roads got smaller and slower, cutting through a part of Sweden he hadn’t seen for a long time. He’d stopped at a petrol station on the outskirts of town, rolled a cigarette, closed the door to the phone box, and dialled a number he had memorised. She’d answered the call, fallen silent at the sound of his voice, and handed the phone to their eldest son.
‘And your brothers, Leo? How are they?’
‘They’re the same … as always.’
‘And everyone’s at home?’
‘Everyone’s here.’
He drove the last few kilometres slowly, past a church and an old school and the main square where sunbathers soaked up rays that would soon turn to clouds and thunder – it was that kind of heat.
‘Can you give Felix the phone?’
‘You know he doesn’t want to talk to you.’
He was parked outside the flat, staring at the door, feeling it staring back.
‘Well … Vincent then?’
‘He’s playing.’
‘Lego?’
‘No, he’s—’
‘Toy soldiers? Tell me what he’s doing.’
‘He’s reading – Pappa, soldiers were a long time ago.’
The window at the top on the right-hand side, he thinks, that must be the flat. His eldest son has described it so many times it feels that he knows what it looks like: the kitchen directly to the left as you enter, the brown, round table with four chairs, not five; living room straight ahead, a door of milky glass you can’t see through; to the right is her bedroom and the other half of the bed, which she’s kept, then the children’s rooms, just like when they all lived together.
‘And you?’
‘I have …’
‘What are you up to, Pappa?’
‘I’m on my way home.’
A four-bedroom flat is its own world of sound. When Mamma turns the tap on in the kitchen sink its dull rumbling collides with the clang of the cutlery tray and the brittle rattling of the crockery cabinet. Together they do their best to overpower the television in the living room, the high-pitched screech of the cartoons Felix is watching from the corner of the s
ofa, music coming from Leo’s two giant speakers, and whatever’s seeping out of the Walkman headphones that sit askew on Vincent’s head – a deep voice narrating a story – sounds that when pushed and squeezed together intertwine and then meld.
The spaghetti is ready, and the meat sauce is hot.
Mamma lifts up the headphones and whispers, ‘Dinner time,’ and Vincent runs through the hallway shouting, food, another lap, food food.
The TV is turned off. The music stops.
It’s almost silent as they all head towards the kitchen table, and then another sound enters, interrupts – the doorbell.
Vincent is already on his way back out to the hall.
‘I’ll get it.’
Felix passes the TV and hurries towards the front door.
‘I’ll get it.’
They race, and Vincent who’s closest gets there first and reaches for the doorknob, but he isn’t able to turn it. Felix is a step behind and lifts Vincent’s hand away, leans forward, peering through the peephole. Leo sees Vincent reaching for the knob again and not being able to pull it down, while Felix recoils, turns round with fear on his face that hasn’t been there for a long time.
‘What is it?’
Felix nods at the door.
‘There.’
‘There … what?’
The bell rings again. A long sound, and Leo continues towards the front door. Vincent jumps up to unlock it, and Felix refuses to let go of the handle.
‘Felix, Vincent – move. I’ll get it.’
Later she won’t even remember if she actually turned round, if she even had time to wonder why the boys were standing still. What she will remember, the only thing, is that his curly hair was longer and his breath had stopped smelling of red wine.
And that he punched her, but not like he used to.
Because if he hit her too hard, she’d fall down, and he wanted her to look him in the eye as he destroyed her, destroyed her for ignoring him, for passing the phone to his eldest son. She needed to look him in the eye when they touched for the first time in four years.
The first punch is right fist against left cheek, and his hand then continues towards her neck, grabs it and twists it so they can look at each other. The second and the third and the fourth punches are just the opposite, left knuckle on right cheek, look at me, quick powerful punches, and she puts her arms over her head to shield herself, spiked elbows forming a helmet, all skin and bone.
One hand on her neck and the other in her hair, he forces her to stand up even though she’s getting heavier, wants to stay down, lie down, protect herself. He holds her head down while he knees her, feel me, knees her again, feel me, knees her once more, feel me.
Because Leo doesn’t understand the terrible silence.
That’s why it takes so long for Leo to react. Pappa’s knuckles hit Mamma’s face like a whip, but he takes his time and does it silently; you used to be able to hear it when Pappa threw a punch. He is both Pappa and someone else. And because Mamma doesn’t scream. And Vincent is hiding behind his brother’s back, and Felix is still standing by the front door.
They’re not yet the same height. If they had been, Leo wouldn’t have had to jump onto his back. That’s what he does when Pappa starts using his knees, when Leo realises that this time Pappa won’t stop until she’s dead. He hangs onto his back and clenches his arms around his father’s neck, until Pappa finally grabs hold and rips him off.
But at that point at least Pappa has to let go of her head.
Leo slips, falls to the floor, and his mother, confused, takes a couple of steps away, her arms protecting her heavily bleeding face, mostly from a gash on her cheekbone from Pappa’s knuckles. Pappa follows her, grabs her again, the same way as before – he wants her to look at him while he’s punching her.
One more punch. A fist to her nose and mouth.
But that’s the only one he gets in before Leo stands up and squeezes himself between them and raises his hands.
No, Pappa.
He’s standing in a void. Between a mother who is bleeding and a father who wants to hit her again, but can’t because there’s another face in the way.
And Leo grabs hold of him.
Not his neck, Pappa’s too tall for that, nor his arms, Leo can’t quite catch them. But his waist and a bit of his chest.
No, Pappa.
He tries to plant his feet on the kitchen floor. His socks slide, and he has to brace himself against the table legs, doing his best to hug his Pappa away. He can’t quite do it, but at least Pappa lets go of her hair.
Mamma runs out of the kitchen and into the hallway to the front door, which is standing wide open. She slips on the polished stone floor of the stairwell and her blood pours out, and she whimpers and moans on every step.
Only the two of them are left.
Leo keeps hold of him, his arms around his father’s waist, and leans into his body, as if he were still hugging him.
‘It’s your turn now, Leonard.’
The smell of food, spaghetti and meat sauce, and Mamma’s blood. They look at each other.
‘Do you understand? I won’t be around any more, not here. You’re responsible from now on.’
And now his pappa’s eyes are different – they don’t slip away, they stop, and even though his pappa doesn’t say anything else, his eyes do.
Not that it matters, but this novel is inspired by a true story.
now
part one
1
LEO HELD HIS breath. The intense, white light of a torch swept over him, and he pressed his face against damp moss and straggling sprigs of bilberry, pushing his entire body harder against the ground. Lying there – just a few steps inside the woods – it was easy to follow the inspector’s routine.
First, he pointed the light at the lock on the security door, searching for signs of a break-in.
Then he walked around the cube-shaped building with his torchlight directed at the surface of the concrete walls.
Finally, he stood with his back to it and had a smoke, apparently taking a break until he was sure everything looked just as it had the night before.
Leo started breathing again. He’d been lying just like this at the same time for seven nights in a row, beside a large, square gravel yard surrounded by forest and with a small, grey concrete cube in the middle – the bunker. The night was motionless. Just the wind, and an owl hooting incessantly, and the occasional insect.
It was a peculiar feeling, lying a few metres away, watching every movement of a man convinced that he was completely alone – a man in uniform taking deep drags on a cigarette, responsible for all the military storage facilities in what was called Stockholm Defence Area 44.
Leo adjusted the microphone on his collar, raised his head above the bilberry bushes and whispered, ‘Cancerman is leaving the site.’
The ditch between the forest and the gravel yard was filled with water, and the coarse soles of Leo’s boots slid on the grass as he took a run up and jumped over it, a heavy bag in one hand and a square of hardboard in the other.
Jasper approached from the other direction, with moss and pine needles in his hair and an equally heavy bag in his arms.
They didn’t speak to each other. They didn’t need to.
Leo placed the sheet of hardboard – exactly 60 by 60 centimetres – on the ground in front of the bunker door.
He’d been pondering these walls for a long time. Blasting them would show up later in the beam of the inspector’s torch and would make too much noise.
Then he’d analysed the roof. It would have been easy to remove the metal sheet that protected the building against rain, penetrate the fifteen centimetres of concrete from above, and then put the metal back on again. A blasted roof wouldn’t show up in the inspector’s torchlight. But that too would be heard.
One way left: the floor. With the hard ground providing counter-pressure, the force of the explosion would be redirected upwards; fewer explosives coul
d be used and less noise would result.
Leo lifted half a kilo of heavy plastic explosive out of the bag.
He sank to his knees and kneaded it, shaped twelve balls in the light from the lamps on their heads.
‘It’s not enough,’ said Jasper.
He placed them one at a time on the hardboard, like a clock fitted with forty grams of plastic explosive for each hour.
‘It’s enough.’
‘But according to the table—’
‘The army always uses too much. They’re trying to kill people in battle. I’ve halved it. We want to get in – not destroy what’s inside.’
Leo watched Jasper unfurl a folding shovel from his bag with a flick of the wrist and start digging. With each movement the hole in front of and below the safe-like door grew.
One piece of dough to mark each hour. A circle of time, linked by a length of brown, twine-like penthrite.
He knew it was silly, but he lived with the clock – Leo always knew what time it was, even when he wasn’t carrying a watch. Time ticked inside him, and always had.
‘Ready.’
Jasper was sweating, stooped over, kneeling with the shovel deep inside the hole under the door – and the floor of the bunker. Leo crept closer, their eager arms getting in each other’s way as he pulled out with cupped hands whatever the shovel couldn’t reach.
‘Now.’
They held onto either side of the hardboard and gently pressed it inside bit by bit, making sure the twelve balls of plastic explosive didn’t get stuck to anything and that the fuse ended up exposed. When they were sure that the square had gone under the door, beneath the small, one-room building, they pressed gravel into the hole and around it until it was completely sealed.
‘Satisfied?’
‘Satisfied.’
Hours of calculations. Days spent obtaining the materials. Weeks spent in rubber boots, tramping through one forest after another, a mushroom-picking basket under his arm, surveying Swedish military storage facilities, and when he’d found this one, in an area called Getryggen about fifteen kilometres south of Stockholm, he’d known he could stop looking.
The Father: Made in Sweden Part I Page 1
