The Shapeshifters: A Novel

by Stefan Spjut

  ‘You going up to Riksgränsen for Christmas?’ Susso stared at the road, and waited for an answer.

  ‘Yes, I thought I might,’ he said.

  She turned and looked at his profile.

  ‘Seriously?’

  Torbjörn snorted and moved the pouch of snus under his lip. Which meant: ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, I thought I’d go up anyway,’ she said.

  Torbjörn nodded, and after a moment he said:

  ‘Say hello to my mum from me.’

  They sat in silence for a few kilometres, watching the peaks grow larger. The slopes were jagged with fir trees. Torbjörn leaned forwards and squinted.

  ‘It’s near here somewhere,’ he said.

  A short distance further on there was a break in the wall of ploughed snow on the right-hand side. Susso depressed the clutch and switched her foot to the brake pedal.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘There’s nowhere else it can be.’

  The Volvo lurched as it made its way through the snow lying in thick ridges on the small road. In front they could see tyre tracks, the edges marked out in sharp shadows, and although she was not sure if they had been made by a vehicle with greater ground clearance than her own, she took it as a sign that there was no risk in going on. After about fifty metres the road was blocked by a barrier. There was a circular steel notice hanging from it, and even though the text was hidden by snow, the message was unmistakable: they would not be welcome here.

  Susso stopped the car.

  ‘Well,’ she said, taking a quick look in the rear-view mirror. ‘What do we do now then?’

  ‘We’ll just have to walk, I guess,’ Torbjörn said, folding up the map.

  Susso sighed and thumped the steering wheel.

  ‘But we can’t leave the car here,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to reverse first.’

  She rested her right arm on the back of the seat and looked over her shoulder, then quickly unclipped her seat belt.

  ‘You’re going to have to do that anyway,’ Torbjörn said, nodding towards the road ahead.

  A police car was coming towards them. Blue letters on the bonnet and on the roof the shining blue plastic of the lights. The car was moving slowly, and when it was about twenty metres from the barrier it came to a halt and stood there with its lights on in the half-darkness: cold, blinding xenon headlamps. Inside were two men, looking as if they had no plans to get out.

  ‘What are they waiting for?’ Susso said. ‘Do they want us to open it for them, or what?’

  ‘Or maybe they want us to reverse out of the way,’ replied Torbjörn.

  ‘What shall I do then?’

  ‘Reverse.’

  Susso gripped the gear lever, put the car into reverse, turned her head and began to drive backwards. It was dark in the ravine that opened up between the fir trees, so they made slow progress.

  ‘Are you going to talk to them?’ Torbjörn asked.

  ‘Not sure,’ Susso answered quickly. ‘Do you think I should?’

  When she reached the main road she asked Torbjörn to check if any cars were coming, and he strained his neck to see. When he gave the all-clear she reversed out, turned the car round and parked parallel to the wall of snow at the roadside. They waited with the engine idling. Neither of them said anything.

  A harsh light flashed over the trees, and immediately afterwards the police car appeared. Susso opened the door, stepped out and stood facing the oncoming Volvo. She hardly needed to wave: naturally they would understand that she wanted something.

  But they did not.

  To her utter amazement they drove straight past.

  The driver was wearing a police cap and was sitting stiffly behind the wheel. He did not even glance to the side. Susso ran after them for a few paces, waving her arms, and she noticed that the man in the passenger seat was one of the police officers she had spoken to in Jokkmokk. The one with the leather jacket. Wikström!

  He looked directly at her but seemed not to recognise her.

  The police car drove off in the direction of Jokkmokk, its engine whining as it shot off at top speed, leaving behind it a whirlwind of snow and exhaust. Susso waved both her arms above her head, but it was no use.

  She flung open the car door.

  ‘Shit! Why didn’t they stop?’ She was practically shouting.

  Torbjörn did not answer. He merely shook his head, and when she had climbed in and started the engine he mumbled:

  ‘Perhaps they were in a hurry.’

  ‘But I’ve spoken to one of them,’ Susso said, getting out her mobile while turning the car around. ‘In Jokkmokk. He was there when they questioned me. And I know he saw me.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t recognise you.’

  ‘What do you mean, not recognise me? What the hell does that matter? They should have stopped anyway, if someone’s waving them down. What kind of fucking police are they? What if something had happened?’

  ‘Well, at least we know they’ve been here,’ Torbjörn said.

  ‘Morons,’ said Susso under her breath, looking from the road to the keys on her mobile.

  ‘Who are you ringing?’

  ‘I want to know! If he was there.’

  She tapped in the number for Kjell-Åke Andersson but got through to voicemail. The instant she began to say her name it struck her that it might not be appropriate for her to be spying on the Laestadians, and so she coughed and said only that she wanted to know how the investigation was going. When she had finished she held the mobile in her hand as it rested on the wheel.

  For the last ten kilometres or so Jirvin had been talking to himself in the back seat—at least, he moved his lips and a whispered word came out from time to time. They were unintelligible sounds, but Seved could hear they were words. He did not like it and he drove far too fast. He just wanted to get there. He had not yet started to be affected but he had no idea what he would do if he began to sense the old man taking him over inside. It could very well end in an accident.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, and because talking made him feel calmer he carried on: ‘We live near a little village called Jillesnåle. That’s where you are going to be. For a while.’

  No sound came from the back seat. It could have just been a green jacket lying there. With a tail, thought Seved, after taking a look over his shoulder. The feet were visible too. They looked like a child’s feet that had grown old. Like the feet of a mummified child. Black nails. Or rather, claws.

  It took a while for the door to open and, when it did, it opened slowly. Börje was standing on the veranda, watching as the little man climbed down from the seat. The dogs barked, but that was probably because the shapeshifter was wearing clothes and had his hood up. It made them think something suspicious was going on. The little man held his boots in one hand and pressed the other to his chest while his yellow eyes looked at the dog enclosure.

  ‘Is he going to be in Hybblet, or where?’ asked Seved, slamming the car door behind him.

  ‘The barn,’ Börje said.

  Seved walked across the yard and opened the barn door. The little man was right behind him and he picked up speed when he saw the darkness inside the barn. The dogs did not like it when he ran, but Börje roared at them and they instantly fell silent. But it was impossible for them to be still. Whining and with their tails erect they paced up and down inside the fence.

  No sooner had the little man stepped inside the barn than he let something go, something that quickly glided up to the greying roof beams and was gone. A bird, Seved thought, astonished, and he took a step to one side to see where it had gone. Something tiny flew past him and then darted back, and he realised it was a bat. Seved looked at the little man, who was also standing with his head turned up towards the roof. It almost looked as if he was smiling.

  ‘I heard you had a close shave,’ said Börje, throwing his snus into the rubbish bin under the sink. Seved stood beside him drinking milk from a carton. He nodded witho
ut moving it from his lips.

  ‘What will happen with those policemen now?’ he asked, after he had swallowed.

  ‘They’ll have a little chat with Luttak,’ Börje said.

  ‘Yes, but what will happen to them? Will they forget everything, or what?’

  ‘If he could just make them forget, then he would,’ said Börje, who was standing looking out of the window with his hands in his pockets. ‘But he can’t. When he scrapes the details of the event out of them, other things come too. And the memory of it will sit inside them like an old nightmare. They will never be themselves again, believe me. In many cases it ends in suicide.’

  ‘Because no one believes them?’

  Börje shook his head.

  ‘It’s more like a burn. They’ll feel the pain but have no memory of the fire. They won’t know what they’ve experienced, but it will hurt and they will suffer a personality change, as the newspapers say. Start to drink. Slap the wife about. And then it ends with a gun in the mouth. Either that or they kill themselves driving.’

  ‘The key to the padlock was bent,’ Seved said in a low voice. ‘So I didn’t lock the barrier after me. That’s why they could drive all the way up to Torsten’s and take us by surprise like that.’

  Börje nodded.

  ‘Things happen.’

  ‘But if I hadn’t done it, those policemen wouldn’t have been hurt.’

  ‘If they’d wanted to take a closer look at Torsten’s farm, a broken barrier wouldn’t have stopped them. So don’t you worry about it. It turned out all right.’

  Seved nodded.

  ‘I feel bad anyway.’

  ‘We’ve got other things to think about,’ said Börje, and walked out of the kitchen.

  They had pulled in at the Statoil filling station in Gällivare. Susso bought a yoghurt drink and a cheese and ham baguette, and carried her purchases in a rustling paper bag to the car. She ate everything and crumpled up the wrapping. When she had thrown the rubbish away in the bin beside the petrol pump and brushed away the crumbs from her jumper, she hurried back to the car, where her mobile was lying on the seat with the display lit up.

  She answered and heard Kjell-Åke Andersson’s voice at the other end.

  ‘I just wanted to know how everything was going,’ she said. ‘With the Vaikijaur man, I mean. Because I heard he might be living in that area, around Kvikkjokk, with some Laestadians. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Yes, we know about that.’

  ‘So you’ve been there then?’

  ‘Susso,’ he said, ‘naturally we are grateful for your photograph and your interest in the search for Mattias, but I’m sure you understand that I can’t answer that question.’

  ‘But I only want to know if you’ve found him.’

  ‘When, or should I say if, we find him, you will be informed.’

  Seved took a dish from the washing-up rack, put it on the table and then fetched a carton of yoghurt and a tube of cheese spread from the fridge. The boy lifted the carton with both hands and poured some into the dish. He took his time, making sure not to spill any. From the basket of woven birch bark he took a slice of crispbread and crumbled it over the yoghurt.

  Seved felt a pang when he saw how the boy broke the bread, because it gave him an insight into the life he must have had, a life they had taken from him. That he had taken from him. Who had taught him to crumble crispbread into his yoghurt? Seved tried to push the thought aside but it was not easy. It worked its way in and spread, forcing to the surface a lingering anxiety. Much of the boy’s chest was visible in the opening of his shirt: it was like a bib of pale skin, lined with the shadows of his ribs. He had been with them for several days now and had not been eating well. He mainly wanted to drink. He liked apricot smoothies and yoghurt and clementines. Seved had asked him what he liked to eat. The boy never replied.

  The boy bent over his bowl, pressing his elbows tightly to his body. It was as if he was trying to take up as little room as possible. He had a slight cold and was breathing through his mouth. Below his nose lines of mucus had dried to a crust.

  ‘It’s Christmas Eve today,’ Seved said. ‘Lennart will have presents with him when he comes back, you wait and see. What would you like for Christmas?’

  There was no answer.

  Lennart turned up around four o’clock with four plastic bags full of Christmas presents. The boy sat alone on the sofa, and his shoulders were so narrow he practically disappeared into the crack between the olive-green velour cushions with their large buttons.

  ‘We’ve got to have some Christmas music as well,’ Lennart said, and went to fetch the CD player. He fumbled with the buttons but nothing happened, so Seved had to hurry and put in the plug before the big man got angry with it.

  Once the CD started spinning and the music streamed out of the loudspeakers, Lennart sang along. He was unsure of the words. All he knew was ‘hejsan hoppsan’ and ‘fallerallera’.

  As he sang and hummed he emptied the plastic bags onto the wooden floor, grabbing hold of the bottom of each bag and turning it upside down. Out tumbled rattling Lego boxes, athletic-looking plastic figures with cheerful grins, cars with big tractor wheels, board games, jigsaw puzzles, soft toys, a shining silver pistol, a sword and dinosaurs with stiff gaping jaws. There was a drawing pad and a box of tricks with a magician on the front in a high top hat and a cape.

  Wide-eyed, the boy slid from the sofa and kneeled among the toys. Jim the mouseshifter was sitting in his uncombed hair.

  ‘Bet you’ve never seen this many toys before,’ said Lennart, grimacing as he clenched and unclenched his fingers inside their protective bag.

  No, the boy most certainly had not.

  ‘We didn’t know what you wanted, so we took everything.’

  The boy lifted up a robot and turned its arms.

  ‘There are games too,’ Lennart said. ‘The kind you play on the TV.’

  Börje was sitting in the armchair with a can of beer in his hand. He was drunk and he had said nothing for almost an hour. It was as if he had forgotten how to talk, and if anyone spoke to him, he only raised his eyebrows, startled. His eyelids had drooped so that only the lower half of his eyes was visible, but every time it looked as if he was about to shut his eyes completely all he did was slurp another mouthful from the can.

  The snow was falling gently and sparkled in the light from the lamp on the barn wall. On the windowpane two white patches appeared in front of the noses of the gigantic figures standing outside, draped in tarpaulin, watching the child playing.

  Sigrid Muotka tentatively felt a bag of walnut kernels. She squeezed the cellophane and inspected the contents. The walnuts looked like brains. Her knitted beret was an intense splash of colour and a round reflective tag dangled from a twisted cord emerging from the pocket of her poplin coat. Susso stood behind her holding the wire basket. It was already quite full and she was holding it with both hands.

  ‘Do you want the nuts?’

  As if in answer to Susso’s question, Sigrid let go of the bag and walked on, her rubber-soled shoes shuffling on the shop floor. She looked timidly along the shelves but could not see what she wanted, and perhaps she did not even know herself. Susso wanted to help her and frequently offered suggestions, but the old lady either shook her head or appeared not to hear.

  There was a muffled buzz from Susso’s jacket. She put down the basket, dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out her mobile, along with a crumpled tissue. Unknown number. Normally she would be curious to find out who was phoning but lately she had not wanted to know. Because what if it was the police and they had discovered something? She did not answer and the caller left a voicemail message.

  They made their way to the till and Susso began to empty the basket onto the conveyor belt—milk, tins of mackerel, a sliced loaf, knobbly potatoes, a packet of coffee and four rolls of kitchen paper.

  Leaving the store, the two women pulled on their gloves, turned up their collars and lower
ed their chins, and went out to face the biting cold. It was almost three o’clock and the sky was grey. Sigrid Muotka lived on Föreningsgatan. There was not far to go but the final stretch was steadily uphill and Susso felt as if the cold was gouging out her eyes. She was pulling the sledge with the bags stacked one on top of the other, grimacing and glancing at little Sigrid, who was struggling along with the kitchen rolls in her arms, her eyes fixed on the snowy ground.

  ‘Not far now!’

  When they reached the block of flats the old woman walked straight in through the entrance doors, while Susso unloaded the sledge and took it to the carpet-beating frame, which doubled as sledge storage. There was not much room and to find a place Susso had to step in snow that was yellow and corroded by dog piss.

  Then her phone rang again.

  Unknown number.

  She realised it could be important, so this time she answered.

  It was a woman’s voice. She said her name too quickly for Susso to make it out, but she did hear the next sentence:

  ‘. . . and I’m phoning from Expressen. I’d really like to talk to you a bit about this website you’ve got . . .’

  TROLL HUNTER’S PHOTO ONLY POLICE LEAD

  The Vaikijaur man is not a man. At least, not if you believe cryptozoologist Sussie Myrén, who has captured him on film.

  ‘It could be a genuine troll,’ she says.

  Sussie Myrén’s wildlife camera took the picture, which is the only lead the police have in their search for four-year-old Mattias Mickelsson, who was abducted by two unidentified men on 17 December in Jokkmokk. But she had not set up the camera to take pictures of animals.

  She wanted to document something completely different. Trolls.

  In the family

  Ever since she was a child Sussie Myrén, who works as a care assistant in Kiruna, has dreamed of seeing a supernatural being with her own eyes. She inherited this unusual interest from her maternal grandfather, a fells photographer. Towards the end of the eighties he took an aerial photo of a bear with an unidentifiable creature on its back.