The Savage Altar

by Unknown

  “We’re not here for a discussion,” she says. “Now, either you fetch Sara, or I will go straight to the police with your daughter and report you for abduction. I swear on the Bible, I’ll do it. And before I do it, I’ll force my way into your living room and play hell. Sara is Sanna’s daughter, and she wants her. Your choice. You can fetch her, or the police will.”

  Kristina Strandgård peers anxiously over her husband’s shoulder.

  Olof Strandgård smiles scornfully at Rebecka.

  “Sanna,” he says to his daughter in a commanding voice, without taking his eyes off Rebecka. “Sanna.”

  Sanna looks down at the ground. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head.

  And then it happens. Olof’s mood changes abruptly. His expression becomes concerned and hurt.

  “Come in,” he says, backing into the hall.

  “If it was so important to you, you only had to say,” says Olof to Sanna, who is dressing Sara in her snowsuit and boots. “I can’t read your mind. We thought it might be nice for you to have a weekend to yourself.”

  Sanna puts on Sara’s hat and gloves in silence. Olof is talking quietly, afraid the guests will hear.

  “You didn’t need to come here threatening and carrying on,” he insists.

  “This really isn’t like you, Sanna,” whispers Kristina, but she is looking daggers at Rebecka, who is leaning against the front door.

  “Tomorrow we’re getting the locks changed,” says Rebecka as they walk to the car.

  Sanna is holding Sara in her arms and says nothing. Holding her as if she’ll never let her go.

  God, I was so angry, thought Rebecka. And it wasn’t even my own anger. It was Sanna who should have been angry. But she just couldn’t do it. And we changed the locks, but two weeks later she’d given her parents a spare key.

  Sanna grabbed hold of her arm to bring her back to the present.

  “They’re going to want to have the girls while I’m in here,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Rebecka absently. “I’ll speak to the school.”

  "How long do I have to stay here?"

  Rebecka shrugged her shoulders.

  “They can’t hold you for questioning for longer than three days. Then the prosecutor has to make an application for your arrest. And that has to be heard no more than four days after you were taken in for questioning. So that’s Saturday at the latest.”

  “Will I be arrested then?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rebecka uncomfortably. “It doesn’t look good, finding Viktor’s Bible and that knife in your kitchen.”

  “But anybody could have put them there when I went to church,” exclaimed Sanna. “You know I never lock the door.”

  She fell silent, fingering the red jumper.

  “What if it was me?” she said suddenly.

  Rebecka found it hard to breathe. It was as if they’d run out of air in the tiny room.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” whimpered Sanna, pressing her hands against her eyes. “I was asleep, I don’t know what happened. What if it was me? You’ve got to find out.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Rebecka. “If you were asleep…”

  “But you know what I’m like! I forget things. Like when I fell pregnant with Sara. I didn’t even remember that Ronny and I had slept together. He had to tell me. And how good it was. I still can’t remember. But I got pregnant, so it must have happened.”

  “Okay,” said Rebecka slowly. “But I don’t believe it was you. Blank spots in your memory don’t mean you can kill somebody. But you need to think.”

  Sanna looked at her questioningly.

  “If it wasn’t you,” said Rebecka deliberately, “then somebody planted the Bible and the knife there. Somebody wanted to put the blame on you. Somebody who knows you never lock the door. Do you understand what I’m saying? Not some oddball who’s wandered in off the street.”

  “You’ve got to find out what happened,” said Sanna.

  Rebecka shook her head. “That’s up to the police.”

  Both of them stopped talking and looked up as the door opened and a guard poked his head in. It wasn’t the same one who had shown them to the visitors’ room. This one was tall and broad-shouldered, with a cropped, military haircut. Rebecka still thought he looked like a lost boy as he stood in the doorway. He gave Rebecka an embarrassed smile and handed Sanna a small paper bag.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” he said. “But I’m off duty soon and I… I just thought you might like something to read. And I bought you some sweets.”

  Sanna smiled at him. An open smile, eyes sparkling. Then she quickly lowered her eyes, as if she was embarrassed. Her eyelashes brushed her cheeks.

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “You’re really kind.”

  “It’s nothing,” said the guard, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I just thought you might get a bit bored in here.”

  He was quiet for a moment, but when neither of the young women spoke, he went on.

  “Yes, well, I’d better be off, then.”

  When he’d gone Sanna looked in the bag he’d given her.

  “You bought much better sweets,” she said.

  Rebecka gave a resigned sigh.

  “You don’t have to think my sweets are better,” she said.

  “But I do, though.”

  After visiting Sanna, Rebecka went to find Anna-Maria Mella. Anna-Maria was sitting in a conference room in the police station and eating a banana as if somebody were about to take it off her. In front of her on the table lay three apple cores. In the far corner of the room stood a television showing a video of an evening service at the Crystal Church. As Rebecka came into the room, Anna-Maria greeted her cheerfully. As if they were old friends.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked. “I went to get some, but I don’t know why. Can’t face it at the moment…”

  She finished the sentence by pointing to her stomach.

  Rebecka remained standing by the door. The past was coming to life inside her. Set in motion by the faces on the flickering screen. She clung to the door frame. Anna-Maria’s voice reached her from far away.

  “Are you all right? Sit down.”

  On the screen Thomas Söderberg was addressing his congregation. Rebecka sank down onto a chair. She could feel Anna-Maria Mella’s thoughtful gaze on her.

  “This is from the service before the night he was murdered,” said Anna-Maria. “Do you want to watch a little bit?”

  Rebecka nodded. She was thinking she ought to say something by way of explanation. Something about not having eaten, or whatever. But she remained silent.

  Behind Thomas Söderberg, the gospel choir was standing guard. Some of them shouted out in agreement as he spoke. His message was accompanied by shouts of “Hallelujah” and “Amen” from both the choir and the congregation.

  He’s changed, thought Rebecka. Before, he used to wear a striped shirt with a mandarin collar from Arbetarboden, jeans and a leather waistcoat. Now he looks like a stockbroker in his Oscar Jacobsson suit and trendy glasses. And the congregation is made up of cheap H & M copies of this image of success.

  “He’s a talented speaker,” commented Anna-Maria.

  Thomas Söderberg was switching rapidly between relaxed jokes and intense seriousness. His theme was opening your heart to the spiritual gifts of grace. Toward the end of the short sermon he invited everyone present to come forward and allow themselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

  “Step forward and we will pray for you,” he said, and as if they had been given a sign, Viktor Strandgård, the two other pastors from the church and some of the elders were standing by his side.

  “Shabala shala amen,” Pastor Gunnar Isaksson called out. He was marching back and forth, waving his hands. “Step forward, you who are tortured by sickness and pain. It is not the will of God that you should remain in your sickness. There is someone among us
who suffers with migraine. The Lord sees you. Come forward. The Lord says that one of our sisters has problems with a stomach ulcer. God intends to put an end to your suffering. You will not need tablets anymore. The Lord has neutralized the corrosive acid in your body. Come forward and accept the gift of healing. Hallelujah.”

  A crowd of people surged forward. Within a few minutes there was a mass of people in ecstasy around the altar. Some were lying on the floor. Others stood like swaying grass, their hands stretched upward. They were praying, laughing, weeping.

  “What are they doing?” asked Anna-Maria Mella.

  “Falling under the power of the spirit,” replied Rebecka curtly. “Singing, speaking and dancing in the spirit. Soon some of them will start to prophesy. And the choir will start singing hymns to accompany the whole thing.”

  The choir began to sing in the background, and more and more people surged forward. Many danced their way to the front as if they were drunk.

  The camera frequently zoomed in on Viktor Strandgård. He was holding his Bible in one hand and praying fervently for a stout man on crutches. A woman was standing behind Viktor with her hands held up toward his hair, also praying. As if she were filling herself with God’s power.

  Viktor went up to a microphone and started to speak. He began in his usual way.

  “What shall we talk about?” he asked the congregation.

  He always preached like this. He prepared himself by praying. Then the congregation was permitted to decide what he should speak about. Much of the sermon was a conversation with those who were listening to him. This had also made him famous.

  “Tell us about heaven,” shouted someone from the congregation.

  “What can I tell you about heaven?” he said with a tired smile. “Buy my book instead, and read it. Come on! Something else.”

  “Tell us about success!” said someone else.

  “Success,” said Viktor. “There are no shortcuts to success in the kingdom of God. Think of Ananias and Sapphira. And pray for me. Pray for that which my eyes have seen, and shall see. Pray that the strength of God will continue to flow from Him through my hands.”

  “What was that he said just now?” asked Anna-Maria. “Ana…”

  She shook her head impatiently before she went on.

  “… and Sapphira, who were they?”

  “Ananias and Sapphira. They’re in the Acts of the Apostles,” replied Rebecka, without taking her eyes off the television screen. “They stole money from the first church, and God punished them by killing them.”

  “Wow, I thought God only struck people dead in the Old Testament.”

  Rebecka shook her head.

  When Viktor had been speaking for a while, the prayers of intercession continued. A man of about twenty-five wearing a hooded top and loose-fitting, well-worn jeans, pushed his way forward to Viktor Strandgård.

  That’s Patrik Mattsson, thought Rebecka. He’s still there, then.

  The man seized Viktor’s hands, and just before the camera switched to the gospel choir, Rebecka saw Viktor jerk backwards and snatch his hands away from Patrik Mattsson.

  What happened there? she thought. What’s going on between those two?

  She glanced at Anna-Maria Mella, but she was bending down and rummaging though a box of videotapes on the floor.

  “This is the tape from yesterday evening,” said Anna-Maria as she popped up from behind the desk. “Would you like to watch a little bit?”

  On the tape from the evening following the murder, Thomas Söderberg was preaching again. The wooden floorboards beneath his feet were stained brown from the blood, and there were piles of roses on the floor.

  The performance was serious; he was fired up. Thomas Söderberg exhorted the members of the congregation to arm themselves in readiness for spiritual conflict.

  “We need the Miracle Conference more than ever now,” he proclaimed. “Satan shall not gain the upper hand.”

  The congregation answered with cries of “Hallelujah!”

  “This just can’t be true,” said Rebecka, shocked.

  “Think carefully about who you can rely upon,” shouted Thomas Söderberg. “Remember: ‘He who is not with me, is against me.’ ”

  “He just told people not to talk to the police,” said Rebecka thoughtfully. “He wants the church to shut itself off.”

  Anna-Maria looked at Rebecka in amazement as she thought of her colleagues who had spent the day knocking on doors and speaking to members of the congregation. During the course of their inquiries every single officer had complained that it had been impossible to get people to talk to them at all.

  During the prayers of intercession the collection was taken.

  “If you had intended to give only ten kronor, wrap it in a hundred-kronor note!” shouted Pastor Gunnar Isaksson.

  Curt Bäckström also spoke.

  “What shall we talk about?” he asked the congregation, just as Viktor Strandgård used to do.

  Is he mad? thought Rebecka.

  People squirmed uncomfortably. Nobody spoke. Finally Thomas Söderberg saved the situation.

  “Talk about the power of intercession,” he said.

  Anna-Maria nodded toward the television, where Curt was instructing the congregation.

  “He was in the church praying when we were speaking to the pastors,” she said. “I know you used to be a member of the church. Did you know the pastors and the congregation?”

  “Yes,” said Rebecka in a reluctant tone of voice, making it clear that this was something she didn’t want to go into.

  Some of them in the purely biblical sense, she thought, and suddenly the camera angle altered and Thomas Söderberg was looking straight into the lens and into her eyes.

  Rebecka is sitting in the visitors’ armchair in Thomas Söderberg’s office; she is crying. The midseason sales are on. The town is full of people. Handwritten signs in red proclaiming big reductions plaster the shop windows. The atmosphere makes you feel hollow inside.

  “It feels as though He doesn’t love me,” she sobs.

  She is talking about God.

  “I feel like His stepchild,” she says. “A changeling.”

  Thomas Söderberg smiles carefully and passes her a handkerchief. She blows her nose and snivels. Just turned eighteen and crying like a baby.

  “Why can’t I hear His voice?” She sniffs. “You can hear Him and talk to Him every day. Sanna can hear Him. Viktor has even met Him….”

  “But Viktor is special,” interjects Thomas Söderberg.

  “Exactly,” howls Rebecka. “I’d just like to feel as if I were a little bit special too.”

  Thomas Söderberg sits without speaking for a little while, as if he were listening inside himself for the right words.

  “It’s all a matter of training, Rebecka,” he says. “You must believe me. In the beginning when I thought I could hear His voice, it was only my own imagination I heard.”

  He puts his hands together before his breast, raises his eyes and says in a childish voice:

  “Do you love me, God?”

  Then he answers himself in a deep voice:

  “Yes, Thomas, you know I do. Very, very much.”

  Rebecka laughs through her tears. There is almost too much laughter. It bubbles over because she has cried so much she has created an empty space, ready to be filled by another feeling. Thomas joins in and laughs too. Then all of a sudden he becomes serious and gazes into her eyes for a long time.

  “And you are special, Rebecka. Believe me, you are special.”

  Then the tears come again. They roll silently down her cheeks. Thomas Söderberg reaches out and wipes them away. Strokes her lips with the palm of his hand. Rebecka is totally still. She didn’t want to frighten him away, she thinks later.

  Thomas Söderberg stretches out his other hand and wipes away the rest of her tears with his thumb, while his fingers take hold of her hair. All at once his breath is very close. It flows over her face like warm wat
er. There is the slightly acrid smell of coffee, the sweetness of gingerbread and something else that is just him.

  Then everything happens so quickly. His tongue is inside her mouth. His fingers are tangled in her hair. She clasps the back of his head with one hand and with the other tries in vain to undo at least one button on his shirt. His hands fumble at her breasts and try to find their way in under her skirt. They are in a hurry. They rush over each other’s bodies before reason catches up with them. Before the shame comes.

  She locks her arms around his neck and he raises her up out of the chair, lifts her onto the desk and pushes up her skirt with a single movement. She wants to get inside him. Presses him against her body. When he pulls off her tights he scratches the outside of her thigh, but she doesn’t notice until later. He can’t get her knickers off. There isn’t time. Pushes the crotch to one side at the same time as he undoes his trousers. Over his shoulder she can see the key in the door. She thinks that they should lock it, but now he is inside her. Her mouth is open against his ear and she gasps for breath with every thrust. She clings to him like a baby monkey to its mother. He comes silently, controlled, with a final convulsion. He leans over her; she has to support herself on the desk with one hand so that she doesn’t fall backwards.

  Then he backs away from her. Takes several steps, until he bumps into the door. He looks at her with no expression, and shakes his head. Then he turns his back on her and looks out through the window. Rebecka slides off the desk. She pulls on her tights and straightens her skirt. Thomas Söderberg’s back is like a wall.

  “I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Please go,” he says roughly. “Just go.”

  She runs all the way home to the flat she shares with Sanna. Runs straight across roads without looking. It is the middle of an icy January. The cold stabs at her and hurts her throat. The inside of her thighs is sticky.

  The door burst open and Prosecutor Carl von Post’s furious face appeared.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he asked. When he got no answer, he turned to Anna-Maria and went on:

  "What are you up to? You’re not going through preliminary investigation material with her, surely?"