The Savage Altar (26 page)

Saturday, February 22

R
ebecka pours coffee from the thermos flask and puts it down on the kitchen table.

What if Viktor did something to Sanna’s girls, she thinks. Could Sanna have been so furious that she killed him? Maybe she went looking for him to confront him, and…

And what? she interrupts herself. And she lost the plot and whipped out a hunting knife from nowhere and stabbed him to death? And smashed him over the head as well, with something heavy she just happened to have in her pocket?

No, it didn’t make sense.

And who wrote that postcard to Viktor that was in his Bible? “What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God.”

She gets the tins of paint the girls have been using and spreads an old newspaper out on the table. Then she paints a picture of Sanna. It looks more like the woman who lived in the gingerbread house than anything else, with long, curly hair. Underneath Sanna, she writes “Sara” and “Lova.” She draws Viktor beside them. She paints a halo around his head; it has slipped slightly. Then she joins the girls’ names to Viktor with a line. She draws a line between Viktor and Sanna as well.

But that relationship was broken, she thinks, and scribbles out the lines linking Viktor to Sanna and the girls.

She leans back in her chair and allows her gaze to range over the sparse furniture, the hand-carved green beds, the kitchen table with its four odd chairs, the sink with the red plastic bowl and the little stool that just fits into the corner by the door.

Once upon a time, when the cabin was used on hunting trips, Uncle Affe used to stand his rifle on the stool, leaning against the wall. She remembers her grandfather’s frown of displeasure. Her grandfather himself always placed his gun carefully in its case and pushed it under the bed.

Nowadays the axe for chopping wood stands on the stool, and the handsaw hangs above it on a hook.

Sanna, thinks Rebecka, and looks back at her painting.

She draws curly little spirals and stars above Sanna’s head.

Silly-billy Sanna. Who can’t manage anything by herself. All her life a series of idiots have leapt in and sorted things out for her. I’m one of them. She didn’t even have to ask me to come up here. I came scampering up anyway, like a damned puppy.

She makes Sanna’s arms and hands disappear by painting over them in black. There, now she can’t do anything. Then she paints herself and writes “IDIOT” above.

Comprehension rises out of the picture. The brush shakily traces the figures she has painted on the newspaper. Sanna can’t manage anything by herself. There she stands, no arms, no hands. When Sanna needs something, some idiot leaps in and sorts things out for her. Rebecka Martinsson is an example of such an idiot.

If Viktor is doing something to her children…

... and she gets so angry she wants to kill him, what happens then?

Then some idiot is going to kill Viktor for her.

Can that be what happened? It has to be what happened.

The Bible. The murderer put Viktor’s Bible in Sanna’s kitchen drawer.

Of course. Not to frame Sanna. It was a present for her. The message, the postcard with the sprawling handwriting, was written to Sanna, not to Viktor. “What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God.” Killing Viktor was not wrong in the eyes of God.

"Who?" says Rebecka to herself, drawing an empty heart next to the picture of Sanna. Inside the heart she draws a question mark.

She listens. Tries to make out a sound through the storm. A sound that doesn’t belong here. And then suddenly she hears it, the noise of a snowmobile.

Curt. Curt Bäckström, who sat on his snowmobile under the window, gazing up at Sanna.

She gets up and looks around.

The axe, she thinks in a panic. I’ll get the axe.

But she can’t hear the noise of the engine anymore.

It was just your imagination, calm down, she reassures herself. Sit down. You’re stressed and scared and you imagined you heard something. There’s nothing out there.

She sits down, but can’t take her eyes off the doorknob. She ought to get up and lock it.

Don’t start, she thinks, like some kind of spell. There’s nothing out there.

The next moment the doorknob begins to turn. The door opens. The moaning of the storm bursts in, along with a rush of cold air, and a man dressed in a dark blue snowsuit steps quickly inside. Pushes the door shut behind him. At first she can’t make out who it is. Then he takes off his hood and balaclava.

It isn’t Curt Bäckström. It’s Vesa Larsson.

A
nna-Maria Mella is dreaming. She jumps out of a police car and runs with her colleagues along the E10 between Kiruna and Gällivare. They are on their way to a crashed car lying upside down ten meters from the carriageway. It’s such hard work. Her colleagues are already standing next to the crumpled car and yelling at her.

“Get a move on! You’re the one with the saw! We’ve got to get them out!”

She carries on running with the chainsaw in her hand. Somewhere she can hear a woman; her screams are heartrending.

She’s there at last. She starts up the chainsaw. It shrieks through the metal of the car. She catches sight of the child seat hanging upside down in the car, but she can’t see if there’s a child in it. The saw gives a shrill howl, but suddenly it makes a loud piercing ringing sound. Like a telephone.

Robert nudges Anna-Maria in the side and goes back to sleep as soon as she has picked up the receiver. Sven-Erik Stålnacke’s voice comes down the line.

“It’s me,” he says. “Listen, I went back to Curt Bäckström’s yesterday. But he hasn’t been there all night, at least nobody’s answering the door.”

“Mmm,” mumbles Anna-Maria.

The nastiness of her dream lingers on. She squints at the clock radio beside the bed. Twenty-five to five. She shuffles backwards in the bed and leans against the headboard.

“You didn’t go there on your own?”

“Don’t make a fuss, Mella, just listen. When he didn’t seem to be at home, or wasn’t opening the door, or whatever, I went to the Crystal Church to see if there was some sort of all-night hallelujah carry-on, but there wasn’t. Then I rang the pastors—Thomas Söderberg, Vesa Larsson and Gunnar Isaksson, in that order. I thought maybe they kept an eye on their flock and might know if this Curt Bäckström was in the habit of spending his free time during the day anywhere other than in his flat.”

“And?”

“Thomas Söderberg and Vesa Larsson weren’t at home. Their wives insisted they must still be at the church because of this conference, but I swear to you, Anna-Maria, there was nobody in that church. I mean, they could have been sitting there hiding in the dark, quiet as mice, but I find that difficult to believe. Pastor Gunnar Isaksson was at home, answered after ten rings and rambled on—he’d obviously had a nightcap.”

Anna-Maria ponders for a while. She feels befuddled and slightly unwell.

“I wonder if we’ve got enough for a search warrant,” she says. “I’d like to get into Curt Bäckström’s apartment. Ring von Post and ask him.”

Sven-Erik sighs at the other end of the phone.

“He’s completely hung up on Sanna Strandgård,” he says. “And we haven’t got a shred of evidence. But still, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this guy. I’m going to go in.”

"Into his apartment? Just stop right there."

“I’m going to ring Benny the locksmith. He won’t ask any questions if I tell him he can send the bill to the police.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

Anna-Maria lowers her feet to the floor.

“Wait for me,” she says. “Robert can dig the car out.”

“T
ake it easy now, Rebecka,” says Vesa Larsson. “We only want to talk. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Without taking his eyes off her he fumbles behind with his hand, grabs hold of the door handle and presses it downward.

We, she thinks. Who are “we”?

All at once she realizes that he is not alone. He just came in first to make sure the situation was under control.

Vesa Larsson opens the door and two other men come into the room. The door closes behind them. They are dressed in dark clothes. No skin visible anywhere. Balaclavas. Goggles.

Rebecka tries to get up from the chair, but her legs will not obey her. It is as if her whole body is ceasing to function. Her lungs are incapable of taking in any air. The blood that has flowed through her veins since she was born is stopping. Like the river when a dam has been built. Her stomach is turning into a solid knot.

No, no, fuck, fuck…

One of the two men takes off his hood and reveals his dark shiny curls. It is Curt Bäckström. His snowsuit is black and shiny. On his feet he has sturdy biker’s boots with steel toe-caps. Over his shoulder he is carrying a shotgun, double barreled. His nostrils and pupils are flared, like a warhorse. She looks straight into his glazed eyes. Sees the fever in them.

Be very careful with him, she thinks.

She sneaks a glance at the girls. They are fast asleep.

She sees who the other man is before he removes his hood and goggles. It doesn’t matter what he’s wearing, she would recognize him anywhere. Thomas Söderberg. The way he moves. Dominates the room. It’s almost as if they had rehearsed. Curt Bäckström and Vesa Larsson take up positions on either side of the door to the pigsty.

Vesa Larsson looks past her. Or maybe straight through her. He has the same look as the parents of small children in the supermarket. The muscles beneath the skin of the face have given up. They can’t hide the tiredness anymore. The dead expression. The parents haul their trolleys up and down the aisles like donkeys beaten to the limit of their endurance, deaf to their children’s crying or their agitated chatter.

Thomas Söderberg takes a step forward. At first he doesn’t look at her. With tense, watchful movements he unzips his leathers and takes out his glasses. They are new since she last saw him, but that’s a long time ago. He looks around the room like a commander in a science-fiction film, registers everything, the children, the axe in the corner and Rebecka, by the kitchen table. Then he relaxes. His shoulders drop. His movements become softer, like a lion padding over the savannah.

He turns to Rebecka.

“Do you remember that Easter when you invited Maja and me here?” he asks. “It feels like another lifetime. For a while I thought I wouldn’t be able to find it. In the dark and the storm.”

Rebecka looks at him. He takes off his hood and his gloves and pushes them into the pockets of his leathers. His hair has got thinner. The odd gray streak among the brown, otherwise he is just the same. As if time had stood still. Maybe he has put on a little weight, but it’s hard to tell.

Vesa Larsson leans against the door frame. He is breathing with his mouth open and his face is turned slightly upward, as if he were feeling carsick. His gaze wanders from Curt to Thomas, and to Rebecka herself. But he doesn’t look at the children.

Why doesn’t he look at the children?

Curt sways to and fro a little. His gaze is firmly fixed, sometimes on Rebecka, sometimes on Thomas.

What’s going to happen now? Is Curt going to take the shotgun from his shoulder and shoot her? One, two, three, and it’s all over. Black. She must gain time. Talk, woman. Think of Sara and Lova.

Rebecka uses her hands to support her; leaning on the edge of the table, she raises herself from the chair.

“Sit down!” barks Thomas, and she slumps back down like a beaten dog.

Sara whimpers slightly but doesn’t wake. She turns over and her breathing once again becomes deep and calm.

“Was it you?” croaks Rebecka. “Why?”

“It was God himself, Rebecka,” says Thomas earnestly.

She recognizes the serious tone of voice and the attitude. This is how he looks and sounds when he wants to impress important matters upon his listeners. His whole being is transformed. It is as if he were a block of stone that has thrust up through the earth from under the ground, with its roots in the earth’s core. Gravity, strength and power through and through. And yet, at the same time, humility before God.

Why is he putting on this performance for her? No, it isn’t for her benefit. It’s for Curt. He’s… he’s handling Curt.

“What about the children?” she asks.

Thomas bows his head. Now there is something fragile in his tone. Something frail. It’s as if his voice can barely manage the words.

“If you hadn’t…” he begins. “… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for forcing me to do this, Rebecka.”

As if he has been given an invisible sign, Curt removes his right glove and takes a coil of rope from his pocket.

She turns to Curt. Forces her voice past the lump blocking her throat.

“But you love Sanna,” she says. “How can you love her and kill her children?”

Curt closes his eyes. He continues to sway gently to and fro as if he doesn’t hear her. Then his lips move silently for a while before he answers.

“They are shadow children,” he says. “They must be put aside.”

If she can just get him talking. Gain some time. She has to think. Follow his thread. Thomas is letting him talk, he daren’t do anything else.

“ ‘Shadow children’? What do you mean?”

She tilts her head to one side and rests her cheek on her hand just as Sanna does, makes a real effort to keep her voice calm.

Curt speaks straight out into the room with his eyes fixed on the kerosene lamp. As if he were alone. Or as if there were some being inside the light itself, listening to him.

“The sun is behind me,” he says. “My shadow falls before me. It walks in front of me. But when I step into it, the shadow must give way. Sanna will have new children. She will bear me two sons.”

I’m going to be sick, thinks Rebecka, and she can taste minced elk meat and bile surging up through her body.

She gets up. Her face is as white as snow. Her legs are trembling under her. Her body is so heavy. It weighs several tons. Her legs are like spindly toothpicks.

In a second Curt is in front of her. His face is twisted with rage. He screams at her so loudly that he has to draw breath after each word.

“You… were… told… to… sit… down!”

He hits her in the stomach with enormous force and she folds forward like a clasp knife. Her legs lose their last vestige of strength. The floor comes rushing up to meet her face. Grandmother’s rag rug against her cheek. Unbearable pain in her stomach. A long way above her, agitated voices. A rushing, ringing noise in her ears.

She has to close her eyes for a little while. Just for a little while. Then she’ll open her eyes. That’s a promise. Sara and Lova. Sara and Lova. Who’s screaming? Is it Lova, screaming like that? Just for a little while…