Autumn Killing (49 page)

Bettina, is that you?

No, but is he still here?

What was it he said?

I didn’t understand.

Someone’s coming now, is he coming back?

He took his stinking fingers out of my nostrils, but the rag is still in my mouth. He didn’t cut me again.

Ropes around my ankles and wrists. I try pulling this way and that, and I know he’s going to come back, I want to see you, Bettina.

Or do I?

I want to stay. I know what I’ve got to do, I can feel the light returning to my eyes now, I heard a door open, is that death or life coming in?

Spare me.

I’m a good person.

The room is bathed in light from a spotlight in the ceiling.

Malin sees him.

He’s sitting still on a chair in the middle of the room, blood running from his head and nostrils.

Axel Fågelsjö.

Alone. No Anders Dalström.

Fågelsjö. Not so imposing now, and Malin thinks that it makes little difference if he’s alive or dead, yet she still hesitates in front of him, approaching him slowly, is he dead, alive?

Fågelsjö seems to be melting into the stone beneath him, his blood seems to be sucked up by the castle walls, and she can feel the heartbeat of history, pumping a strange music through her veins.

Standing right in front of Fågelsjö now.

She puts an arm on his shoulder.

He squints. His eyes seem to clear.

Malin waves the others into the room. No one else there, where’s Dalström?

And Fågelsjö jerks.

Coughs, wants the rag out of his mouth, and Malin looks around again, nothing, and she puts her pistol down on the stone floor, Zeke breathing heavily behind her.

Then she takes the rag from Fågelsjö’s mouth as a uniformed officer cuts the ropes tying his wrists and ankles.

He throws up his arms, as if with some peculiar, new-found power.

Kicks his legs.

His bloody sweater shudders, and Malin can see the fat moving beneath it.

Then he moves, and stands up.

Looks down at Malin.

‘The bastard didn’t have the nerve,’ Fågelsjö says. ‘He didn’t have the nerve.’

He probably did have the nerve, Father
.

But he couldn’t, didn’t want to.

I see you sit down again, defenceless, and not long ago you were experiencing the most profound of all fears, the feeling that is the only thing that exists on the boundary where life and death meet.

You were there just now, and now you’ve been called back, but have you learned anything, Father?

I don’t think so.

I shall be buried in a few days’ time, Father, but you don’t care about that, or do you? The family vault is ready out in the chapel.

There’s so much I don’t know about you, Father, and now Malin Fors and Zacharias Martinsson are standing by the door, they’re talking to their boss, wondering: where is Anders Dalström?

You’re close now, Malin, but this drama isn’t over yet. There are still a few more moments of obscurity and clarity to come
.

You’ve found the knife, with the coat of arms on the shaft, the knife that perforated my body. Karin Johannison will let you know within a few days that it was the knife that inflicted my wounds.

I’m tumbling around in my space,
amused as I am by this relentless desire for events to play themselves out, come to a conclusion, so that a new beginning can finally have its beginning.

There’s some justice in the position I’m in. I destroyed friendships, and many other forms of love, and I never took responsibility for that.

But where is he now, Anders Dalström?

You know, Malin. You know.

Malin is crouching beside Axel Fågelsjö, who has sat down on the chair again, when she sees Waldemar Ekenberg and Johan Jakobsson coming over from the direction of the stairs.

Axel Fågelsjö is carefully but firmly wiping the blood from his face, breathing slowly, saying: ‘He didn’t have the nerve. The bastard. But he knocked out several of my teeth.’

‘Did he say anything as he left?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any idea where he might have gone?’

‘No. Where would someone like that go?’

The man before her looks huge on his chair, the look in his eyes tired but sharp as he says: ‘When animals are about to die, they go to places they’ve been before, places that are important to them.’

‘Did he have a rifle?’

‘How else do you think he got me down here?’

‘So you were here when he arrived?’

‘No, I was at home in the apartment, but I was about to come out here when he arrived. It was time to come home.’

Malin jumps up and runs over to Zeke without paying any attention to Johan, Sven or Waldemar.

‘Come on!’ she yells. ‘I know where he is.’

Zeke follows her without asking, and they rush towards the car over the moat where the water seems to be frothing with green bubbles. The rain is pounding the ground and soon they are in the Volvo, carrying them faster and faster through the darkness of the estate, imagining that they can see the spirits of those who have gone before them, drifting anxiously outside the car windows.

They sit in silence.

Behind them other cars with flashing blue lights.

But no sirens.

The sound of wind and rain and engines dominates the forest and fields.

They pass Linnea Sjöstedt’s cottage, a dull glow coming from the windows.

They pass the building where the party took place that New Year’s Eve, turn once, twice, three times, and then the sharp bend by the field where Jerry Petersson and the others rolled over and over and over, bodies flying through the air, the winter night must have been shattered by the sound of metal crumpling, bodies breaking, beyond any hope of repair.

A car some way out in the field.

White, almost transparent rain in the beams of light from the headlamps.

And at the boundary of light and darkness stands a man with a rifle in his hand.

Lights and sounds.

Cars, spraying cascades of colour.

I couldn’t kill the old man. But I could kill his son, I had that much in me. And it felt wonderful.

I did it.

I didn’t mean to kill Jerry Petersson, but can anyone say he didn’t deserve to end his days like that?

It’s time for me to go. This is it. And this is a good place, Andreas, isn’t it?

If you’re here, show me, because in that case I’ll stay. And stare straight into the yellow faces of the snakes.

The lights.

The cars.

Shouting and people, that person moving towards me like a black silhouette over the waterlogged meadow.

I can’t see the person’s face.

But I know it isn’t you, Andreas.

Out of the car.

‘I’ll take this on my own, Zeke.’

The figure out in the field seems to be shaking, just like in the images of his life. His long black hair like a whip in the wind.

And in his hand the rifle. A sporting rifle.

Malin has drawn her pistol for the second time that day.

Close to their prey now.

Evil, confusion, fear, all within sight.

He’s holding the gun along the side of his body.

The others take cover behind the cars, Sven’s voice, anxious, concerned, but full of certainty: I can’t stop her from doing this, and now she’s walking towards the man in the field and the closer she gets, the clearer his contorted features become, the torment in his eyes. It’s as if he can’t see me, Malin thinks. As if he’s alone in the rain and wind and his gaze seems to be searching for something he’s been missing for a long time.

I can’t see anything but darkness.

Can only feel the sharp slithering of the snakes inside me, can only hear their whimpering. Feel Dad’s blows, hear their shriek as they chase me.

You’re not here, Andreas.

That’s enough for me, there’s nothing more for me to do here, and the cold rain that has pressed through all my clothes will never stop, nor will the darkness.

I’m looking at the lights and the person coming towards me, she seems to be shouting but I can only hear an agitated rumbling, as if she wants something important.

But I ignore her. Instead I put the barrel of the rifle in my mouth, and caress the trigger the way your finger often caressed it, Dad, before your eye was destroyed.

I see her in front of me.

But I can’t see you, Andreas. You’re not here.

He’s raised the gun to his mouth.

His finger’s on the trigger, careful yet without any uncertainty.

‘Don’t do it,’ Malin shouts. ‘It won’t make anything better.’

As she shouts a powerful wind sweeps over the field, somehow making a rattling sound.

He’s going to shoot, Malin thinks.

But Anders Dalström doesn’t pull the trigger, instead he meets her gaze, and his eyes become calm, reassured by what is about to happen, and Malin shouts again: ‘There’s another way, there always is,’ and time becomes compressed and she sees Janne and Tove standing in front of her. They’re sitting watching television in the house out in Malmslätt, waiting for her to come back with her love, that must be it, they must be missing that. I want to understand, she thinks, what it is that stands between me and the love that I feel.

‘Don’t do it.’

My voice a prayer now.

Don’t do it.

There’s always another way.

‘Don’t do it,’ she shouts at me. I can hear it now.

But I want to do this, and I look out into the darkness, and I see a car roll and spin and the world tumbles into nothingness, it ends.

Tell me, why should I stay?

The barrel is cold and hard. A taste of gunmetal and iron.

I’m going to do it now.

And her mouth moves, but no words come out, but what is it I can hear, whose voice, and what’s it saying?

Do it. Do it
.

You weak fucker. Do it!

Pull the trigger and put a stop to this.

Of course I was driving, but what difference does that make? You had no life before that, and afterwards you had a reason to believe in your own misery, and you never moved on from that.

Hopeless.

So do it, do it, do it, do it now, now, now!

Away, away, away.

Anders Dalström wants to wave his arms in the air, wave the disembodied voice and everything it’s saying away, even if it’s saying the words he most wants to hear.

Do it.

‘Sit still. I’ve got the ruler. Hold your fingers out.’

‘Get him, get him.’

Do it.

I shall, I shall, but have I got the nerve?

Go away!

I want to do it myself.

Do it, says the voice, don’t, says another, don’t do it, and whose face is that in front of me?

He’s staring into thin air, as if he’s focusing on something just in front of my face, Malin thinks.

I know what you’re looking for, she thinks, says: ‘He’s here. He wants you to stay.’

And Anders Dalström stands still, stops shaking, just as if the film of his life had come to an end, then he moves his mouth, but Malin can’t make out his words, the noises coming out of the gap around the barrel are aimed at someone else.

His finger on the trigger.

Darkness like a wall behind him.

What’s that in the darkness?

Andreas? Is that you, are you there?

Is that really your face floating in front of hers? In her face? In place of her face?

What are you saying?

‘Anders, it’s me, but so much more,’ the voice says now.

‘I’m the one you need to listen to. No one else.

‘And I don’t want you here.

‘No.

‘You’re not done yet. The snakes will go. I promise.

‘The life you’ll lead might not be easy or enviable, but it will be your life.

‘You can see my face now. It’s me. Isn’t it? So take the barrel of the rifle out of your mouth. Otherwise I’ll disappear again.’

It’s you, Andreas.

And you’re telling me not to do it.

I’m going to listen to you. How could I do anything else?

Don’t do it.

The blades of the lawnmower are finally silent, nothing chasing me any more, and one day, some day, love will come to me again, the love I sought and fled from.

So don’t do it.

For my sake. For Katarina’s. For everyone’s sake.

Malin sees Dalström slowly take the barrel of the rifle out of his mouth, then with a quick jerk he throws the rifle out into the boggy ground of the meadow, then he puts his hands in the air and looks Malin right in the eye.

What can you see? Malin thinks.

Me?

Someone else?

She aims her pistol at the man in front of her.

Feels the rain running under her collar and down her back, hears the sound of steps behind her.

Then she sees two uniformed officers go over to Dalström, force his arms behind his back, with gentle smiles.

An arm on her shoulder.

Zeke’s voice in her ear: ‘You’re crazy, Malin. Crazy.’

Anyone who looks and listens can hear us
.

We’re all here, all us boys who have been captured by time.

We’re drifting around you, together.

We are everywhere and nowhere.

We have the same voice, Jerry, Andreas and Fredrik, we’re a choir beyond your understanding.

The man in the prison cell down there is alone, he’s about to go to court to be sentenced.

At the same time, he can never be alone, because he knows who he is, why he did what he did.

A murderer can be enviable. How odd is that?

But there’s a lot that’s odd.

And there are few people who look and listen.

There are few who have the nerve to believe
.

Malin looks around the room. There’s an institutional atmosphere to the study centre that’s been turned into a treatment home for alcoholics who have crossed some sort of boundary for respectable behaviour.