The Shapeshifters: A Novel

by Stefan Spjut

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she muttered. ‘Can’t you ring instead?’

  Gudrun was sitting in the back seat, her head leaning heavily against the window.

  ‘I’m too tired, Susso.’

  Her voice was weary, almost whining.

  Susso waited a few moments longer. She could not understand why Mats Ingvar would want to mislead them. Clearly the Vaikijaur man had stayed with him and his family, but why send them to John Bauer’s house? She could not equate Mats’s sorrowful expression with someone who was conning them when a little boy’s life was at stake. It did not add up.

  There had to be another explanation. She had toyed with the idea that Bauer might have made the same observations as her grandfather and had some connection with authentic trolls. Perhaps the Vaikijaur man was acquainted with Bauer?

  ‘Okay, I’ll phone,’ she said, pressing the keys.

  She pressed the mobile to her ear and rested one foot on her knee. A yellowing pine needle had hooked itself onto one of the laces. She picked it off and rolled it between her fingers. The phone rang at least twenty times before she gave up. She was relieved that he had not answered. Her anger had not lessened but it was diluted with doubt. There was so much she did not understand at the moment. She borrowed Torbjörn’s smartphone and typed ‘Bauer’ and ‘Björkudden’ into the search box.

  After a short delay a list of links appeared on the screen. The first was to the John Bauer museum.

  ‘Look!’ she said triumphantly. ‘I’ve found something.’

  The screen filled slowly with text, and as sleet splashed against the car windows Susso began to read aloud from the phone as it glowed in the dark interior of the car:

  Upon their return from a trip to Italy, John and Esther Bauer found Villa Björkudden, beautifully situated on a small headland beside Lake Bunn, south of Gränna. They rented the house from the artist Pelle Malmborg and lived there between 1910 and 1911. But Esther was not happy living at the isolated property through the winter, so for a couple of years they lived at Björkudden during the summer months and rented a home in Stockholm for the winter. In 1914, John and Esther decided to buy the house at Björkudden, and the following year Esther gave birth to their son Bengt, who was given the nickname Putte. This was a harmonious time for the family, who appeared to have settled happily in the idyllic location.

  The house was surrounded by thick forest, essentially untouched. Here John Bauer found the silence and tranquillity necessary for his creativity. They planned several ambitious renovations and extensions to the property, but these were never realised. It became obvious that Esther was not smitten with Björkudden like John. She was lonely in the wild forest and longed to return to Stockholm. John’s father paid for a plot of land in Djursholm, on the outskirts of Stockholm, where the couple built a new house. They were on their way to the newly built house on the steamer ferry Per Brahe when it capsized on Lake Vättern in November 1918 and the whole family died.

  Susso clicked on the link ‘Per Brahe capsizes’ and continued reading:

  The accident was widely discussed and contributed to John Bauer’s fame. Perhaps it can be regarded as fitting, if tragic, that the artist who illustrated fairy tales met his death in the mysterious depths of Lake Vättern.

  Susso dropped her hand to her knee. Torbjörn said nothing. He pulled at the edge of his hat and then replaced both his slender hands on the wheel.

  ‘I didn’t know he drowned,’ he said. ‘Did you?’

  Susso shook her head.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Susso said. ‘It can’t just be coincidence, can it?’

  ‘What?’ said Torbjörn.

  ‘That he wanted to be given a lift there, of all places.’

  ‘No, of course it can’t!’ snapped Gudrun.

  ‘So what was he doing there then—assuming Mats isn’t making the whole thing up, which I find hard to believe,’ Susso said. ‘How would he have been able to do that? It’s perfectly obvious it’s the same person on the film and in my photo. There’s no mistaking it.’

  ‘Maybe he felt he belonged there?’ Torbjörn said. ‘It’s like it was a leper colony, or however you want to describe it. A sanctuary . . .’

  ‘Ring that man,’ Gudrun said. ‘The one who owns the house.’

  ‘Ring him yourself,’ Susso said. ‘You’re much more polite.’

  Gudrun keyed in the number she had written on the back of a receipt.

  ‘Is this Fredrik Dahllöf?’ she said. ‘My name is Gudrun Myrén and I’m phoning you because . . . well, because I’m looking for a missing person and I think this person could have visited you in the spring of 1980. At Björkudden, your holiday home in Gränna . . . I was given it by your neighbour . . . He looks quite unusual. He’s short, very short in fact. So if you have met him, I’m sure you would remember . . . Hello? Yes. Like a child, except he isn’t a child, he’s . . . old. He looks a bit like a troll. Or a gnome perhaps . . .’

  She sat in silence for a moment before folding the phone shut and saying:

  ‘He hung up.’

  ‘But what did he say?’ Susso asked.

  ‘He hung up. He didn’t say anything.’

  ‘But why didn’t you say anything about Mattias?’

  Gudrun took a deep breath, and after she had exhaled she said:

  ‘I didn’t have time. I just told you, he hung up!’

  ‘You’ll have to ring again.’

  ‘Ring him yourself.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘You ought to phone,’ retorted Gudrun. ‘You know more about the boy than I do.’

  ‘Give me the phone then.’

  ‘Use Torbjörn’s.’

  Susso gave a laugh.

  ‘Why are you being so silly?’

  ‘I’m not. He hung up on me! If he gets another call from the same number, it’s highly likely he won’t answer.’

  They pulled in at a petrol station. Gudrun and Torbjörn vanished into the shop but Susso stayed in the car. Outside the illuminated circle of the filling station it had become night. The beams from their headlights lengthened in the rainy darkness and turned into spiralling veils, and Susso could not tear her eyes away from them.

  Later, as they swung back out onto the motorway, she said:

  ‘He wasn’t lying. I’m sure about that.’

  ‘You can never be completely sure,’ Gudrun said, chewing.

  She had bought a hot dog and the whole car smelled of sweet mustard and grease.

  ‘I can be sure of that, at least.’

  ‘You ought to phone Tomas,’ Torbjörn said. ‘His son. To get it confirmed.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gudrun. ‘That’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘It is him on the film,’ Susso said. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Why don’t you ring Dahllöf again?’ Gudrun said, her mouth full of food.

  ‘But he didn’t know anything,’ Susso said over her shoulder.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Gudrun finished her mouthful. ‘I only said he hung up.’

  Susso held out her hand, and when Torbjörn saw it out of the corner of his eye he fished his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it.

  ‘Give me the number then,’ she said.

  ‘Dahllöf.’

  ‘Please don’t hang up,’ Susso said, ‘because what I want to tell you is important. It concerns a child who has been kidnapped.’

  ‘Look, what is this all about . . . ?’

  ‘You’ve probably read about it. Mattias Mickelsson, who disappeared at Christmas. In Jokkmokk. We’re looking for someone who might be involved in that.’

  ‘Who am I speaking to? Are you the police?’

  ‘My name is Susso. You spoke to my mother a minute ago.’

  ‘No, I did not. Goodbye!’

  ‘Stupid bloody man,’ Susso said, pressing the disconnect key hard with her thumb.

  ‘You ought to phone the police and ask them to phone him,’ Gudrun said, crumpling up the hot-dog wrapper. ‘That’ll mak
e him talk.’

  ‘It’s a bit suspicious, I think,’ Susso said. ‘Hanging up like that and refusing to answer.’

  ‘Maybe he’s mixed up in it,’ Torbjörn said.

  ‘We might have to track him down,’ Gudrun sighed. ‘And make him understand.’

  ‘Where does he live then?’ Susso asked.

  ‘Didn’t she say Helsingborg?’ answered Gudrun.

  Torbjörn snorted.

  ‘How far is that?’ said Susso.

  ‘It’s in Skåne,’ Gudrun replied.

  ‘If we go there, we’ve practically driven down the entire country,’ Torbjörn said. ‘And judging from his response on the phone it’s not going to be a very rewarding journey.’

  ‘He’ll understand how serious it is,’ Susso said, ‘if we come to him.’

  ‘Unless he’s protecting someone,’ said Gudrun. ‘It’s like Torbjörn says—they might both be involved in the kidnapping.’

  ‘You’ve got to phone the police,’ Torbjörn said. ‘And explain.’

  ‘Explain what?’ Susso said, unscrewing the lid of her snus tin. ‘That the person they’re looking for visited the headland where John Bauer lived? Twenty-five years ago?’

  She inserted a pouch under her lip, pressed it into place with her tongue and went on:

  ‘It’s hardly a hot lead.’

  Seved was sitting in his shirt and underpants, eating a meal he had bought at the fast-food kiosk. He had hung his trousers over the radiator below the window after rinsing them under some running water in the handbasin.

  Cecilia Myrén’s telephone was locked, so he could not get into it. He thought about phoning Lennart again. Perhaps Jola would know how to unlock it? If it proved to be impossible to get into the phone and find some useful information, he would be forced to make another attempt with the sister, and this time it would be considerably more difficult. His only chance would be to break into her place at night, and if her bloke was there, who knew how it would end? It was tempting to talk to Lennart instead and tell him there had been a cock-up, that he had tried but had not been able to get anything out of her. That she had collapsed. And that was the truth. But Lennart would not give up until he had pushed Susso Myrén’s sister so hard she died.

  Seved felt distinctly uncomfortable when he thought about what the little creature had done to her, and he wondered what would have happened if he had taken all three, as Lennart had told him to do. Could it be that he had made a mistake in taking only one? But he trusted Börje. It was Börje who had fetched the cage from Hybblet and told him one would be enough.

  The lemmingshifter had found a place in the top bunk bed. It was impossible to know what was going on up there. Every so often there were minute, indeterminate sounds, and Seved had seen yellow flakes fall to the floor. They were pieces of foam rubber that the thing was tearing from the mattress. Either it was a kind of vandalism or just something to pass the time.

  The phone had rung four times—‘TOMMYBOY,’ it said on the screen—and every time the twittering signal cut through the silence the creature came out to have a look. It seemed very interested in the sound, standing there with its little wrinkled face half hidden behind the metal frame and staring expectantly.

  From beneath his floppy hair Seved peered at the little object, but he had to be careful not to catch its eyes. They were a kindly brown but he had noticed a nasty piercing gleam in them, something hard and sharp that wanted to force its way inside him.

  Evil beings, Börje had said.

  Seved realised now what he meant.

  It was nine by the time they stepped out of the car, stiff and tired. They had found their way to the Scandic Hotel at Järva Krog on the northern outskirts of Stockholm. As soon as they entered their room Gudrun collapsed on the bed, still wearing her clothes and shoes, her neck creasing into more than one double chin. She groaned, and Torbjörn, who was sitting in a small armchair with his legs splayed, grinned at her.

  Susso sat down on the bed beside her mother and began to lever off one of her boots.

  ‘What are we going to do then?’ she said.

  ‘Sleep!’

  ‘Are we going to Helsingborg? We’ll fly, surely. Won’t we?’

  ‘I’ve got to call Cecilia,’ said Gudrun, yawning again.

  Susso and Torbjörn went down to the restaurant. Lamps cast a cold light over the bar and its dark wooden counter, and there was low music coming from the loudspeakers, but there were no people about.

  ‘Perhaps it’s closed,’ Susso said.

  A man appeared wearing a white shirt and a waistcoat. His sideburns grew down to his beard and the top of his head was bald. He was carrying a plastic crate full of washed glasses.

  ‘Are you open?’

  The man nodded without looking at them.

  They each bought a large glass of draught beer and sat down at a round table at the back of the restaurant. Through the window they could see the motorway and the cars rushing past in an unbroken stream.

  ‘So, are you coming with us if we go to Helsingborg?’

  Torbjörn took a mouthful of beer and set his glass down carefully.

  ‘No, I think I’ll wait here.’

  ‘You understand now that I’m not mad.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘No, but you’ve thought it.’

  He shook his head as his eyes wandered around the room, indicating that he would prefer to avoid the subject, and that in itself meant they were halfway to an argument. Susso filled her mouth with beer. After she had swallowed, she said:

  ‘But you can’t deny he’s not . . . human.’

  ‘He does look flipping weird, I agree with you there. But that’s not the same as saying he’s not human.’

  ‘But you saw,’ Susso said, leaning forwards with her elbows on the table and gesticulating, ‘his eyes. They’re not human.’

  Torbjörn shrugged.

  ‘It was an old film. Colours go a bit strange.’

  ‘But you saw it!’

  ‘He’s deformed, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s what I thought at first. But not any more.’

  ‘You said yourself that could be the reason why people started believing in trolls in the past,’ said Torbjörn. ‘People saw some poor sod who had been driven out into the forest because of some defect and they thought it was a troll, because what else could it be?’

  Susso smiled down at the froth on top of her beer, which had thinned to a ring around the edge of the glass. She had tried to have an objective conversation about trolls and folklore with Torbjörn before, but he always kept his mouth shut because he hated it when she got irritated. This time, however, he was not backing down, so she wanted to take it slowly.

  ‘As I said,’ she went on, ‘I used to think the same way. Poor people, I thought. But when I add up everything I know and everything I’ve seen, I’m not so sure. The Vaikijaur man could actually be a real troll and connected in some way to the thing in Granddad’s photo.’

  ‘Yes, but that could have been something totally different,’ Torbjörn said.

  She looked at him for a long time, studying his face.

  ‘You’ve never actually said what you really think about the photo.’

  ‘I have.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do you think it’s a fake?’

  Now he was on dangerous ground, and it showed because he did not move a muscle. He sat still, holding his glass. Soft footsteps could be heard as the barman made his way over to them, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder, and asked if they wanted anything else.

  They ordered two more beers. Torbjörn paid from the small bundle of notes he had in his jeans pocket. He asked the barman if he had any snus, but he said no.

  ‘It could be a troll,’ he continued. ‘Or at least some strange animal no one has discovered yet. I can go along with that. But I don’t think the Vaikijaur man is one of them.’

  ‘And so he is . . . ?’

  ‘A
freak of nature.’

  ‘But what about John Bauer then?’ Susso asked him. ‘Why did he go to his old house, of all places?’

  Torbjörn took a drink, and after replacing the glass on the table he shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Like I said, maybe he felt it was some kind of sanctuary. I get that. I’m sure he believes he’s a troll himself, if that’s how people have treated him all his life. That was the place he wanted to see. For reasons we can’t understand. Maybe he thought he could find others like him in the area. What would you do if you were so like a troll you actually thought you were one? A changeling.’

  ‘Drown myself. Swallow poison and then drown myself through a hole in the ice.’

  ‘Well,’ said Torbjörn, leaning forwards, ‘perhaps that’s what he did. He might have decided to do away with himself somewhere close to Bauer’s house. Or in Lake Vättern. To follow him down into the depths, so to speak.’

  There was a gleam of amusement in Torbjörn’s eyes, but she ignored it.

  ‘Clearly that is not what he did,’ she said, a fixed expression on her face. ‘Because he was in Jokkmokk just before Christmas. I have photographic evidence of that.’

  They went up to their room. The fitted carpet muffled their footsteps and Susso heard from Torbjörn’s breathing that he was trying to come up with something to say to placate her, or even cheer her up, but he was uncertain what her reaction would be. So he kept silent.

  She took out the keycard, pressed it into the slot and opened the door. Then she walked straight to the bed and ripped off her jumper, but it fastened in her hair slide, so she had to pull that out at the same time.

  Gudrun was asleep, curled in a heap under the duvet, her face to the wall lined with wardrobes. Her glasses lay on the bedside table. There was a faint shimmer from the little glittery butterfly on the frames. Beside them was her mobile. It was flashing green.