ASA LARSSON ~ THE SAVAGE ALTAR (34 page)

T
he injection worked after a while. She could breathe normally without it hurting.

Måns sat down by the bed and looked at her in silence.

“Thirsty,” she whispered.

“You’re not allowed to drink properly yet. You’re getting what you need through the drip, but just wait a while.”

He got up. She brushed his hand.

“Don’t be angry,” she croaked.

“Don’t start,” he said as he walked toward the door. “I’m bloody furious.”

After a while he came back with two white plastic cups. In one of them was water so that she could rinse her mouth. In the other two ice cubes.

“You’re allowed to suck these,” he said, rattling the ice cubes. “There’s a policeman here who wants to talk to you. Are you up to it?”

She nodded.

Måns waved Sven-Erik in, and he sat down by her bed.

“The girls?” she asked.

“They’re fine,” said Sven-Erik. “We got to the cabin quite soon after… after it was all over.”

“How?”

“We went into Curt Bäckström’s apartment and realized we had to find you. We can talk about all that later, but we found a number of rather unpleasant things. In his refrigerator and freezer, among other places. So we went to the house in Kurravaara, the address you’d given the police. But there was nobody there. We actually broke in. Then we went to the nearest neighbor.”

“Sivving.”

“He was able to lead us to the cabin. The eldest girl told us what happened.”

"But the girls are all right?"

“Definitely. Sara’s cheek was frostbitten. She’d been outside trying to start the snowmobile.”

Rebecka whimpered. “But I told her.”

“It’s nothing serious. They’re here in the hospital with their mother.”

Rebecka closed her eyes.

“I want to see the girls.”

Sven-Erik rubbed his chin and looked at Måns. Måns shrugged his shoulders.

“She did save their lives after all.”

“Okay,” said Sven-Erik. “We’ll have a word with the nice doctor and we won’t bother having a word with the nice prosecutor, and we’ll see.”

S
ven-Erik Stålnacke pushed Rebecka’s bed in front of him along the corridor. Måns was one step behind with the rickety drip.

“That reporter who dropped the assault complaint has been sticking to me like a tick,” said Måns to Rebecka.

The corridor outside Sanna and the girls’ room was almost eerily empty. It was half past ten at night. From the dayroom farther along they could see the bluish glow of a television, but no sound. Sven-Erik knocked on the door and backed away a few meters, along with Måns.

It was Olof Strandgård who opened the door. His face contorted in an expression of distaste when he saw Rebecka. They glimpsed Kristina and Sanna behind him. There was no sign of the children. Perhaps they were sleeping.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” said Sanna, stepping out of the room. “You stay here with Mummy and the girls.”

She closed the door behind her and went to stand beside Rebecka. Through the door they heard Olof Strandgård’s voice:

“I mean, she was the one who endangered the girls’ lives,” he said. “Is she supposed to be some sort of hero now?”

Then they heard Kristina Strandgård, couldn’t make out any words, just a soothing mumble.

“What?” Olof Strandgård again. “So if I chuck somebody through a hole in the ice and then pull him out, I’ve saved his life, have I?”

Sanna pulled a face at Rebecka. Don’t bother about him, we’re all a bit shaken up and tired, it said.

“Sara,” said Rebecka. “And Lova.”

“They’re asleep, I don’t want to wake them up. I’ll tell them you were here.”

She’s not going to let me see them, thought Rebecka, biting her lip.

Sanna reached out her hand and stroked Rebecka’s cheek.

“I’m not angry with you,” she said gently. “I know you did what you thought was best for them.”

Rebecka’s hand clenched into a fist under the blanket. Then it shot out and fastened itself around Sanna’s wrist like a pine marten grabbing a ptarmigan by the back of the neck.

“You…” hissed Rebecka.

Sanna tried to pull her hand away, but Rebecka hung on to her.

“What is it?” asked Sanna. “What have I done?”

Måns and Sven-Erik Stålnacke carried on talking to each other a little distance away down the corridor, but it was obvious they had completely lost the thread of their own conversation. All their attention was fixed on Rebecka and Sanna.

Sanna crumpled.

“What have I done?” she whimpered again.

“I don’t know,” said Rebecka, holding on to Sanna’s hand as tightly as she could. “You tell me what you’ve done. Curt loved you, didn’t he? In his own twisted way. Maybe you told him about your suspicions of Viktor? Maybe you did the whole helpless-little-girl bit, told him you didn’t know what you were going to do? Maybe you cried a little and said you wished Viktor would just disappear out of your life?”

Sanna jerked back as if someone had slapped her. For a second something dark and alien passed across her eyes. Rage. She looked as if she wished her nails would grow into claws of iron so that she could dig them into Rebecka and rip out her insides. Then the moment was gone and her lower lip began to tremble. Big tears welled up in her eyes.

“I really didn’t know…” she stammered. “How could I know what Curt would do… how can you think…?”

“I’m not even sure it was Viktor,” said Rebecka. “It might just have been Olof. All the time. But you can’t get the better of him. And now you’re taking the girls back to him. I’m going to put in a complaint. Ask Social Services to carry out an investigation.”

They had met on the spring ice. On an ice floe, the remains of something that no longer existed. And now the ice was cracking, splitting in two. They were floating away in different directions. Irrevocably.

Rebecka turned her head away and released her hold on Sanna, almost threw the white hand away from her.

“Tired,” she said.

In a flash Måns and Sven-Erik were by the bed. Each of them bade a silent farewell to Sanna. Mans jerked his head. Sven-Erik gave a brief nod, and smiled. They swapped places. Måns grabbed hold of the bed and Sven-Erik took the drip. Without a word they pushed Rebecka off down the corridor.

Sanna Strandgård stood there watching them as they disappeared around the corner. She leaned against the closed door.

In the summer, thought Sanna, I’ll take the girls on a cycling holiday. I’ll borrow a trailer for Lova. Sara will be all right on her own bike. We can cycle down through Tornedalen, they’d like that.

S
ven-Erik said good-bye and disappeared in the opposite direction. Måns pressed the elevator button, and the door slid open with a ping. He swore as he banged the bed against one of the walls. He stretched out for the drip, keeping one leg in front of the electronic eye at the same time so the door wouldn’t close. The unaccustomed gymnastics made him breathless. He was dying for a Scotch. He looked at Rebecka. Her eyes were closed. Maybe she’d fallen asleep.

“Do you think you can put up with this?” he asked with a crooked smile. “Being pushed around by an old man?”

From a loudspeaker in the ceiling a metallic voice announced “Third floor,” and the elevator door slid open.

Rebecka didn’t open her eyes.

You carry on pushing, she thought. I can’t afford to be choosy. I’ll take what I can get.

AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Rebecka Martinsson will be back, she’s not that easy to get rid of. Just give her a little time.

Remember that this story is made up, and so are the characters. Some places in the book are also invented: for example, the Crystal Church and the stairwell in the Söderberg family house.

There are many people to thank, and I would like to mention some of them here. Jur. Kand. Karina Lundström, who in her former life was a police investigator and used to be known as Kritan. I asked her about guns and police databases, for example. Deputy Magistrate Viktoria Lindgren and Councillor Maria Widebäck. Senior doctor Jan Lindberg and autopsy technician Kjell Edh, who contributed to the description of the dead man and the autopsy room. Birgitta Holmgren, for information about psychiatric care in Kiruna. Shiitake grower Sven-Ivan Mella, for all the stuff about mushrooms and the mine and the man who disappeared.

Any errors in the book are mine. There are certain things I didn’t ask the people named above, certain things I’ve misunderstood, and sometimes I just decided to go my own way. For me the most important thing has been to make my lies credible, and when there was a conflict between the story and reality, the story won—every time.

Thanks also to: the literary surgical team—Hans-Olov Öberg, Marcus Tull and Sören Bondeson (who have sighed, groaned, shaken their heads and on the odd occasion grunted approvingly). Publisher Gunnar Nirstedt, for his opinions. Thanks to Elisabeth Ohlson-Wallin and John Eyre. My mother and Eva Jensen, who kept shouting, “Write faster,” and thought EVERYTHING was BRILLIANT. Lena Andersson and Thomas Karlsen Andersson, for friendship and hospitality whenever I’ve been in Kiruna.

And finally: Per. Lead the tiger away….