At that moment, I know I will never have to run from Vincent again. I just know it.
He shuffles back a few more meters, and I take another step toward him.
Vincent stands up and runs, all hunched over, into the darkness.
* * *
—
After he’s gone, I sit on the mattress for a long time, trying to make sense of what just happened. How did I do it? How could I, Jake, scare away Vincent—Ormberg’s King of Assholes?
My satisfaction is mixed with something darker and sharper, which rubs at my chest.
If I’m capable of this, does that mean I’ve become like him? That some part of me is as evil and twisted as Vincent?
I throw my bag over my shoulder, grab a candle in one hand and the mattress by the other, and drag it with me across the room.
Behind the machine called “Innocenti” there’s a small area that’s almost invisible, maybe two meters wide and one meter deep.
I’m safe in here.
I push the mattress inside, put the candle on the floor, and sit down on the bed. Lean against the cold wall and open up the diary again.
Night. I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about P.
I had another outburst at him today. Lost control completely, threw his computer at him and screamed.
P wrestled me to the ground. Said he’d call an ambulance if I didn’t settle down. Slapped me hard.
What’s happening to me?
What’s happening to us?
I set the diary aside.
Is Hanne going crazy for real? Or was she just very tired when she wrote that?
What if she had something to do with Peter’s disappearance; what if she really did push him into a creek, like she was afraid of?
What if I’m reading the diary of a murderer?
I rub my eyes. There aren’t many pages left now, but I’m hungry. My stomach grumbles, and I’m trembling from the cold.
I open my backpack and dig out the bread. Open the package and take a bite. The loaf is still frozen in the middle, but I eat all of the soft, doughy bread around the hard core. Then I open the second Coke I brought and drink it down in one gulp. Burp and throw it aside.
It rolls away into the dark.
I think about Hanne, and decide I feel sorry for her after all. Even though I’m mad at her, and she seems crazy, I feel sorry for her.
And I’m getting pretty pissed off at P.
I don’t understand why she’s together with him. She could have stayed in Greenland, with the Inuits, and never even come here, to Ormberg.
Before I read Hanne’s book, I never thought that there were any disadvantages to living here, but she doesn’t seem to like Ormberg, and maybe she’s right that it’s just an ugly little backwater.
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore, except that I have to read the rest of Hanne’s story.
The diary sits on my lap. There’s not much left of the candle. I have to hurry.
ORMBERG, DECEMBER 1
I woke up early. Heard P breathing next to me: regular, peaceful, completely unaware of my agony.
I tried to hold him.
He woke up and pushed me away. Mumbled he was too warm.
Too WARM!
I NEEDED his closeness! It felt like I might break apart otherwise.
But apparently what P needs is to never be subjected to any of my needs.
I got up instead. Read yesterday’s notes and remembered everything: the fight, the slap.
I flipped back and read the entire diary, from the first page to the last. It was an awful reminder of how much worse I’ve gotten lately. We were so happy and in love in Greenland. And now everything is awful.
Is it over? Not with a bang but a whimper, as T. S. Eliot wrote.
We ate breakfast in silence.
P read the newspaper thoroughly. Every article, every ad received his full attention.
I sat opposite him. Ate my toast, drank my coffee. Watched him.
P looked up at me now and then. Smiled. Seemed a little self-conscious; maybe he thought that I was staring.
We’ve been in Ormberg for one and a half weeks now.
It feels like an eternity.
We’ve driven around the village, tramped through the woods, and interviewed the locals. I still don’t understand this place. It’s as if a thick membrane covers everything. As if something’s hiding just below the surface.
Evil, under a façade of melancholic normality.
I tried to explain it to P.
He didn’t understand what I meant. Said I was being dramatic. That we were “investigating a crime in a small town, not trapped in a horror film.”
I didn’t tell him that was EXACTLY what it feels like! As if we were the naive cops who strolled into a house where a whole family’s been murdered, lured into a trap by a maniac with a chain saw under his arm.
We arrived at the office around nine. The storm was raging outside.
Malin was already at her desk. Manfred and Andreas were still in Stockholm. They’re coming back late this evening.
Malin just left; she’s going to her mother’s place to eat lunch. P’s out buying something.
The storm is roaring, rain falling down in sheets. It’s only noon, but it’s dark outside.
It never really gets light here.
For me Ormberg has become synonymous with darkness. Perhaps metaphorically as well, because I still maintain that something evil lured us here, no matter what P says.
P found somebody who owned a brown van in the early nineties, the one the staff at the refugee camp saw standing outside.
A person living in Ormberg had a brown Nissan King.
BUT he didn’t want to tell me who it was. All he said was that it was “very sensitive.”
It made me terribly sad and upset. Yes, I am more confused, but I would never share such a thing.
Who does he think I am these days? I’m forgetful, not lacking in judgment!
Oh, dear, it sounds as if something has blown down outside the store.
Have to stop.
Malin
We’re at the old ironworks. The snow is up to my knees, but it’s soft and light as I make my way back toward Andreas. Every step creates a flurry around my legs.
It’s blowing more than before, and I hunch over against the wind.
I put my phone in my pocket, pull on my thick gloves. Turn on my flashlight and try to take in what Max just said.
Take a break.
What the hell does he mean by that? We’re getting married this summer. I need his help planning the wedding. We can’t take a break.
Not now.
Or does he mean he wants to break up? Was that it, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t put it into words?
I know I should have called him and apologized for what I said the last time we spoke. I was really unpleasant. Not just that, I was unfair, too. He can’t help the fact that he has the job he has. That he spends his days ensuring that people injured in accidents get as little compensation as possible.
Or can he?
I try to push that thought away, but still it comes, like an uninvited guest who won’t leave even after you’ve offered him wine, coffee, cognac, and a late supper.
He could get another job. He’s a lawyer—there are plenty of jobs for lawyers in Stockholm. Nobody forced him to take that job.
Doesn’t the fact that he chose it say something about him, about his character?
The various buildings stand around me in the dark: the blast furnace, the roasting furnace, the coal house, and the old smithy. Some of them have collapsed, but others—those made of bricks—stand like a silent reminder of all that Ormberg once was.
Next
to them, the creek flows silently by. Large sheets of ice have grown along the shoreline.
Andreas looks up at me as I arrive.
“I thought you knew your way around here?”
I sense a bit of annoyance in his voice. He stamps his feet in the snow and pulls his hat farther down over his ears.
It’s cold, we’re all freezing, but that’s hardly my fault.
“It’s never easy to find your way in the dark,” I answer.
Manfred, Andreas, and I have spent the last hour out here searching for any trace of Peter and Hanne—something to confirm they were here during the night of that fateful storm just over a week ago. We’ve searched through the buildings and wandered rather aimlessly through the deep snow.
We haven’t found anything.
We know Hanne was here, because traces of iron were found on her clothes, specifically on the back of her jeans, as though she’d been sitting on the ground.
A large figure approaches through the snow: soundlessly lumbering our way, like a bear.
Manfred.
I aim the flashlight downward so as not to blind him.
“Let’s forget about this,” he says. “The technicians and the dogs will search this place tomorrow.”
I think for a moment.
“Soon,” I say, and look around. “I want to check one more thing.” I head toward the roasting furnace.
“Goddamnit, Malin.” Manfred sighs, apparently tired of freezing his butt off.
I hear Andreas behind me, panting as he approaches.
“What are you checking?” he asks.
“One thing.”
The roasting furnace’s beautiful brick silhouette rises in front of us in the darkness. The chimney stretches up toward the sky. The windows are broken and covered with graffiti, but the crooked old door is slightly open.
“What kind of thing?”
I sigh and wait for him.
“There was a storm that night,” I say. “It’s likely she would have sought shelter in one of the buildings if she came here. And this building is the only one with doors and windows.”
The old wooden door whines as I pull it open.
“I’ve already checked in there,” Andreas says.
“Just one minute,” I say, entering.
I shine my flashlight into the darkness.
In the middle of the room stands the impressively huge, round roasting furnace. Cast-iron hatches are built into it just above the floor. The floor is littered with old beer cans and empty wine bottles. There are piles of cigarette butts along the walls.
“Where would you sit if you came in here seeking shelter from a storm?”
Andreas looks around. His breath turns to white clouds in the shine of the flashlight.
“There,” he says, pointing to a pile of old wood that sits at the farthest corner of the building.
“Exactly,” I say, making my way around the enormous furnace and heading for the wood.
Old rusty nails stick up here and there out of the floorboards.
I sit down on the top plank, take my hand out of its glove, and feel the board beneath me. The sticky, frosty wood reminds me of something else.
“Hanne said something about boards,” I say. “She remembered boards.”
“Boards and a dark room,” Andreas adds.
“Could it have been this she was referring to?”
We look around. Andreas sweeps his flashlight over the angular room.
“She said the room was cramped,” he says. “It’s not particularly cramped in here. But perhaps she mixed it up.”
I nod and put my glove on again and look around one final time.
“Maybe we should go,” I say, rising up.
At that very moment something gleams near my feet, something beneath the boards.
“Shine right here!”
Andreas does as I say.
I bend forward and pick up the gleaming item.
“Fucking hell,” Andreas murmurs when he sees what it is.
* * *
—
The blowing of the heater and the purr of the engine fill the car.
Manfred weighs the phone in his hand.
“It is Peter’s,” he says, and presses the Home button with a gloved thumb.
Nothing happens. The screen is black.
He connects the phone to a cord hanging under the dashboard.
“Shouldn’t we call the technicians?” Andreas asks.
“Absolutely,” Manfred says. “But I’m not gonna wait for them to get here. It’s a Sunday evening. And we don’t even have a newly murdered corpse to tempt them. If there’s anything important on this phone, I want to know it now.”
It’s warm in the car; the fan is set to Max and the fog has started to dissipate from the windows. The smell of damp wool and wet fabric fills the air. I take off my hat and unbutton my thick coat.
Andreas does the same.
The phone buzzes and blinks to life.
Manfred puts it on his knee. Takes off his gloves, opens the glove compartment, and roots around for something inside. Takes out a blue latex glove and puts it on his left hand. Grabs the phone with his left hand and presses the display with his right index finger. Then he turns to us.
“Your guess is as good as mine. What do you think the code could be?”
* * *
—
Half an hour later we haven’t gotten anywhere.
We’ve tried the most common codes, the unimaginative combinations most of us use, like 0000 or 1234. And of course, Peter’s and his son’s birthdays.
“There are tens of thousands of possible combinations,” Andreas says quietly, scratching at his chin. “Maybe we better hand it over to the IT guys.”
Manfred sighs and puts the phone on his knee.
“Wait,” I say. “Try 3631.”
Manfred shrugs his shoulders and enters the code. The phone buzzes.
“Wrong,” he says.
“Try 3632 or 3633.”
Manfred does as I say.
“Wrong. And wrong. What’s this about? It’s locked again, by the way. It says that we have to wait five minutes.”
We wait in silence. The only thing we hear is the engine’s hum and Manfred’s labored breathing, though I know that outside the wind and snow are rattling through the trees.
“Keep going,” I say when the phone flashes. “Try 3634 and 3635.”
“Nope. Wrong.”
Manfred turns to me and Andreas.
“Can we go home now?” he asks.
“Wait,” I say.
“Let me guess,” Manfred says. “3636?”
He puts in the code, takes a breath—probably so he can say something surly—but then freezes.
The phone dings.
“What the hell?” he whispers. “How could you know that?”
“Those were the numbers on Hanne’s hand,” Andreas says. “She’d written 363, and then something unreadable.”
Manfred shakes his head like he can’t believe his eyes. He clicks through text and email.
We both fall silent.
“Nothing we don’t already know,” Manfred says after a while.
“Check the photos,” I say.
Manfred opens the camera roll.
Hanne stands in front of a bay—turquoise glaciers float on the water, and sunshine dances on the waves.
He scrolls forward: Hanne sitting on a bed in an unknown hotel room, smiling and holding a sandwich in her hand.
“Keep going,” I say. “These must be from Greenland.”
Manfred scrolls on and pictures of Ormberg start to pop up: our office, the cairn, the steep slope of Orm Mountain, the spruce trees with blueberry bushes growing at their base.
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“Keep going,” I say. “This was all before the snow arrived.”
The pictures replace each other, their character slowly changing. The first snow appears: a powdery dusting on the field in front of the church, like a delicate warning of winter arriving. Then the snow deepens. And, I note, the pictures of Hanne become more rare.
But one of the last photographs is a close-up of Hanne. I guess she must be lying in bed, because she’s holding something that looks like a cover against her chin. She smiles widely and her hair is messy. Her eyes shine and I can almost hear her laughter bubbling up. The love between her and Peter rings out so clearly—like a note being played, a vibration through time and space—in that one picture alone.
It’s hard to breathe as I realize they’ll probably never meet again, that this might have been one of the last times they were happy together.
The last two photos are taken indoors.
The first shows a staircase down to something that might be a basement. The concrete walls have large moisture stains and the plaster has chipped away here and there. At the bottom, clothes hang on hooks, or maybe there’s some sort of coat rack.
“Where’s this taken? Malin, do you recognize that staircase?”
Manfred holds the phone in front of me, and I look very carefully.
“No,” I say. “But it looks like a basement staircase. Check out the next picture.”
Manfred scrolls forward. It’s blurry, as if the person holding the phone were moving. You can just make out a person’s head at the left edge.
It’s Peter—you can’t mistake that slightly crooked nose and the disheveled gray-blond hair.
On the right-hand side of the picture you can see something in the distance. It looks like a human being curled up on the floor.
“Fucking hell,” Andreas says again.
Jake
The candle goes out with a hiss, and everything goes black. The dim daylight has been replaced by a darkness so compact that I can’t see my own hand in front of me. My back hurts and my fingers are stiff from cold. The wind howls outside, whistling by in gusts and whispering to me to keep reading. The rustle of the chains hanging from the ceiling is constant, as if the building itself were writhing anxiously.
After She's Gone Page 25
