The Quarry (49 page)

Per looked at Fall and clutched the handle of the axe. ‘Put it down.’

‘What?’

‘You can put it down in front of you.’

Fall looked at him. ‘What’s that in your hand?’ he asked.

‘An axe.’

Thomas Fall took two steps towards him, but didn’t put the briefcase down. Or the bunch of keys.

‘Are those Bremer’s keys as well?’ Per asked.

Fall didn’t reply; he had stopped ten or twelve paces away from Per. It was still impossible to see his face clearly. Per pointed at the briefcase. ‘I don’t think that belongs to Bremer. I think it’s yours, but I suspect it amounts to the same thing. You
were
Hans Bremer, weren’t you? You borrowed his name when you worked with my father.’

Fall seemed to be listening; he didn’t move.

‘I think Jessika Björk tracked you down. I think she found Hans Bremer’s apartment so that she could talk to him about her friend Daniel, who became infected with HIV while he was filming under the name Markus Lukas. But when Bremer opened the door, Jessika didn’t recognize him. She saw a different, older Bremer from the one who’d been there when she was filming. And my father didn’t know or work with this Hans Bremer at all.’

Fall said nothing, so Per continued, ‘So the real Bremer admitted to Jessika that someone else had paid him money to use his name and that this man had started working in the porn industry. The real Bremer told her the truth about you. And then Markus Lukas got really sick, and Jessika Björk eventually tracked you down, demanding money to keep quiet. You had to burn down the studio to silence them both for good so that “Bremer” could disappear and become Thomas Fall again.’

Fall remained silent for a few seconds. Then he undid the straps on the briefcase, and answered in a quiet voice, ‘You’re right. I worked for your father for several years and he knew me as Hans Bremer. I emptied his bank accounts after he had the stroke … But I had a right to that money.’ He looked up at Per. ‘He was my father too … We’re brothers, you and I.’

Per blinked and lowered the axe. ‘Brothers?’ He stared at Fall, who was slowly slipping his hand into the briefcase.

‘That’s right – half-brothers, anyway. Jerry was only with my mother for one summer at the end of the fifties, but that was enough … He never recognized me and I didn’t say anything either, but I think he was happier with me than he was with you, Per. He didn’t know I hated him.’

Per listened as he gazed at Thomas Fall, trying to make out his face beneath the cap. Were they alike?

Then came the attack.

It happened fast. Dazzled by the headlights, Per couldn’t really see what Fall was doing, except that he opened up the briefcase and twisted something with his hand.

There was a sudden crackle from the case, and Fall hurled it at Per. It spun around and began to leak yellow flames, spreading fire all around. Per stepped backwards, but not quickly enough. Some kind of liquid was pouring out of the briefcase, sticking to his arm and burning fiercely with a hot, searing brightness.

His left arm was burning, and so was his hand. A clear, white fire, but although he could feel the heat, it didn’t hurt.

Per dropped the axe and staggered backwards; at the same time he heard footsteps running across the gravel, then the sound of a door slamming shut. The car engine started up.

The liquid splashing down on to the gravel split into long, red arms reaching out for him, but he turned away and they couldn’t get hold of him.

Thomas Fall floored the accelerator and Per tried desperately to put out the sticky fire on his skin.

There was no water in the quarry any more, only dry stone, so he hurled himself to the ground, rolling over and over in an attempt to douse the flames. With his right hand he dug down into the gravel, scooping it over his arm, over the yellow flames flickering along his sleeve. But it kept on burning, eating into the fabric and working its way inwards.

Then came the pain.

Don’t pass out
, he thought. But his arm was throbbing and he was aware of the heat and the stench of it, the acrid smell of burnt skin. Thin, dark sheets seemed to be drifting down through the air around him. But he kept on scooping the gravel over his arm, and eventually both the flames and the glowing heat were extinguished.

He suddenly realized that the sound of the car engine was much louder; it was very close to him.

Per looked up, but only had time to see that Fall’s car was heading straight for him; he got up and moved to one side, but everything happened much too quickly. He couldn’t get out of the way.

The front right-hand side of the car caught him and lifted him into the air. His face hit the windscreen; he heard the thud and felt the crunch before he landed on the ground at the side of the car. His left foot and ribcage took the worst of the impact with the ground, but his head also received another blow and he lost consciousness in silent darkness for a few seconds.

Then he was awake again, curled up on the hard rock. Slowly he got to his knees, feeling the cold wind against his body and rivulets of warmth on his face as the blood flowed. A split eyebrow, or possibly a broken nose.

The car shot backwards in the darkness, and he heard a door slam shut.

Footsteps crunched towards him over the gravel. Thomas Fall stopped and lifted something in the air. When Per looked up he could see it was a can of petrol.

The surprise is that it isn’t a surprise at all
.

He couldn’t move. He was on his knees, his ribs were broken and he was surprised at the tepid warmth of the petrol being poured over him. Compared with the cold evening air the liquid could almost be called hot, and it made his skin burn and smart as it ran down over the cuts in his face.

There was a calm, rhythmic glugging sound as the plastic container was emptied. Then the sound stopped and the empty container was thrown to one side.

He was in the middle of a large puddle, his clothes sodden. He was dizzy from the blow to his head, and the petrol fumes were making the world blurred and unclear.

Supporting himself on his hands, he tried to lift his knees from the ground. But it was difficult to focus, and Thomas Fall was no more than a shadow against the dark-red evening sky.

Like a troll
, thought Per. His half-brother looked exactly like a troll.

‘Walpurgis Night,’ said Fall. ‘People will be lighting fires all over the island tonight.’

Then he took something out of his jacket pocket, something small that made a faint rattling noise.

It was a box of matches.

Per suddenly thought of something he could do – he could beg for mercy. Brother to brother.

And for Nilla’s sake, too. How many hours to go now?

He opened his mouth. ‘I’ll keep your secret,’ he whispered.

His half-brother didn’t reply. He opened the box and took out a match. Then he closed the box, held the match between his fingers and struck it.

There was a faint crackle and the match was burning just a metre or so in front of Per’s eyes, and in the darkness of the quarry the glow was so bright that everything else disappeared.

He closed his eyes and waited.

How far was it to Per Mörner’s cottage over by the quarry? Seven hundred and fifty metres perhaps, or even eight hundred. Gerlof remembered that his friend Ernst had put up a beautifully polished sign by the road: CRAFT WORK IN STONE 1 KILOMETRE, but it wasn’t quite that far. He consoled himself with that thought once he had managed to get across the road safely.

It wasn’t far at all.

Gerlof knew every centimetre of this narrow, bumpy track; he had walked up and down it countless times on his visits to Ernst, but it was six or seven years since he had last walked over to the cottage. He had been about seventy-five then, more or less healthy and almost young.

With his aching legs and hips he was able to take only small, cautious steps, which made the journey seem endless. The track curved around the quarry, and way ahead in the distance Gerlof could see the gravelled area in front of Ernst’s cottage.

Could he really walk that far? He had managed the first hundred metres, but his body was aching and his legs were trembling. His only consolation was that he had put on his winter coat before setting off; it was buttoned up to the top, and kept his back and shoulders warm.

He didn’t know what time it was, but the sun was low over the sound now. It would soon be gone. The wind had got up and was making his eyes smart. He blinked away the tears and battled on.

After a few minutes he passed the first of the luxury homes. Kurdin, that was the name of the family. He couldn’t see anyone, but there were lights showing in a couple of the tall windows. He considered turning off and ringing their doorbell, but gritted his teeth and kept on going.

He was still managing to keep his balance with the aid of his stick, although his knees had started to stiffen up.

He was too far away from the quarry to be able to look over the edge and check if the car he had seen had pulled in at the bottom. But he strongly suspected that the driver had been on his way there to meet Per Mörner.

What could Gerlof do when he got there? Wave his stick at the car and try to frighten the man away?

He didn’t know. Perhaps he should have called the police instead of setting off to find Per – but then all he had to go on was a bad feeling, and that was hardly likely to get the police to send a car out to northern Öland.

Now he was passing the second new house, where Vendela Larsson had organized a get-together for the neighbours at Easter. There were no lights on anywhere.

He stopped at the end of the Larssons’ drive to catch his breath, longing for his wheelchair. Still three hundred metres to go to Per’s cottage, or maybe four hundred.

One step at a time.

He still couldn’t see anyone around the quarry, but the old Saab was parked outside the cottage. So Per was home, unless he’d gone out for a walk.

A sturdy wooden bench would have been useful at this point, but there wasn’t even a rock to sit on here by the track. He just had to keep battling on. He could hear the wind in his ears, and perhaps something else – the sound of a car engine idling?

When he was two hundred metres from Per Mörner’s cottage, the sun began to slip down into the sound. The fiery glow was silently consumed by the horizon, leaving a burning sky in the west that was gradually beginning to darken.

As soon as the sun had disappeared, the night began to creep in across the coast. The quarry was filled with a grey gloom.

Gerlof wanted to hurry on, but his strength was almost gone.

After a hundred metres he had to stop and lean on his stick once again, and that was when he heard a dull roar.

It came from the quarry. He took a couple more steps, and saw a bright glow down below.

A new sun flared up briefly in the darkness down at the bottom of the quarry, yellowish-white and much brighter than the first, and a rumbling echo rolled up over the rock face. Something had exploded among the piles of stone.

He breathed in the cold air and started to move towards the edge as quickly as he could. A car engine revved. He heard someone shouting down below, and a few seconds later came the acrid smell of burning petrol.

Per blinked, waiting for Thomas Fall to toss the match into the shining pool of petrol. He could simply flick it away with his thumb and forefinger, then take a step back to watch the conflagration.

But Fall was much more cautious than that. He leaned forward slowly, lowering the match towards the pool.

Per saw the flame twirl and grow – and then, at the last moment, a slightly stronger puff of wind from the sea blew it out. A glowing point lingered for a second, then disappeared.

I ought to get up and make a run for it
, thought Per.
Or knock him down. After all, I can do a bit of judo, I ought to knock him down
.

But he couldn’t get up, he was too badly hurt. He had severe burns on his arm, and the rest of his body just felt numb. He was not aware of any pain in his broken ribs; he felt nothing.

Fall didn’t seem annoyed that the flame had gone out; he quickly dropped the match and took out a new one. No, in fact he’d taken out three, Per realized – he put them together and struck them.

He heard the crackling noise again, louder this time. The flame that sprang to life was three times stronger than the last one, and burnt more brightly. Per sat on the ground with his head pounding, still thinking about judo. He had sat in this position in the training centre in Kalmar, his knees resting on a thin, soft mat, and he remembered how he had learned to relax and focus on moving through the space. A fluid movement – throwing himself forwards, rolling to one side, falling backwards.

Backwards. He could try to fall backwards.

Now Fall was bending down towards the edge of the pool of petrol, and at the same moment Per gathered all his strength and threw himself backwards in a somersault. He relaxed as he fell, arched his back, turned his head to one side and tried to make his body into a soft arc, rolling away from the flame and the petrol.