Liza Marklund - Red Wolf

Still not a sound. Blue light from Andersson’s window. Icy chill from the ground that was slowly working its way through the soles of his shoes.

Nothing. Something flashed past the window.

He forced his shoulders down again, realizing that he hadn’t breathed for a minute or so. Started panting in a loud rattle, feeling the tears rise.

Fucking shit , the boy thought, fucking bloody shit .

Without thinking any more, he gave in to his fear and raced blindly towards the door. It was just as dark as usual in the yard, but he knew where Andersson left his rubbish and crossed the hazardous path with ease.

He yanked open the outer door and hit the button to light up the hall with damp gloves. His whole body was shaking as he dug for the key in his jacket pocket.

The door fell open just as he realized he was about to wet himself. Letting out a small whine, he rushed into the bathroom and yanked up the toilet lid.

He shut his eyes and sobbed as the warm urine landed more or less in the toilet. Afterwards he just pulled up his pants and sat down on the toilet, leaving his trousers and long-johns in a puddle around his feet. The sunflowers smiled down at him from the wallpaper.

Why had he got so scared, like a little kid? He snorted at his own behaviour; he’d never been scared of the dark before.

Slowly he stood up, flushed, washed his hands and rinsed his mouth. He couldn’t be bothered to brush his teeth tonight. He kicked off his trousers, gathered up his clothes and went into his room.

There was someone sitting on his bed.

The thought came from nowhere and he didn’t believe it, even though he could see for himself.

There was a shadow sitting on his bed.

His arms fell, his clothes landing in a heap on the floor. He tried to cry out, but probably made no sound because the shadow was moving very slowly, got up, came towards him, filling the room, right up to the ceiling.

A howl emerged, echoing off the walls, the boy turned and tried to run, then all sound was switched off, colour vanished, the picture went fuzzy. He aimed for the light in the hall, saw his own hand fly past his face, felt his weight shift from one foot to the other. Breathless, the doorway came closer, then slid sideways, a clammy glove against his forehead, another on his left arm. The hall light reflected in something shiny.

Chaos, a howling in his head. Warm liquid on his chest.

Then a thought. A final, radiant, clear thought: Mum .

The train rumbled hypnotically through the night, rattling monotonously. The man lay in his first-class compartment staring out of the window, trying to make out the line of treetops against the dark starry sky. The pain was pushing through the morphine, making him gasp.

With an effort he took out another tablet from the case under the pillow and swallowed it without water. He felt its effects before it had even hit his stomach, soothing him to peace at last.

As he relaxed, he found himself at one of the vast meetings of his youth, in a huge campsite outside Pajala. Thousands of people on hard wooden benches, the smell of damp wool and sawdust. The men up on the platform made speeches, first one in Finnish, then the other translating into Swedish, the endlessness of their voices, rolling, rising, falling.

With a jerk the train pulled in to a station. He looked out along the platform. Långsele.

Långsele?

Panic hit him hard. Good grief, he was going in the wrong direction! His arms flew up, his head rising from the synthetic pillow, breathless.

Dans quelle direction est Långsele?

South , he thought. It’s south, just above Ånge .

He sank back onto the pillow, trying to ignore his own smell, checking that the duffel bag was still at the end of the bed. He coughed weakly. He heard a door slam, felt a jolt as the train got ready to leave. He looked at his watch: 05.16.

There was no reason to worry. Everything was going as planned. He was on his way, invisible, untouchable, like a flickering shadow. Free to travel in his own thoughts in an unfree world, free to return or disappear.

And he chose to return to the meeting at the campsite, to conjure up images that had lain dusty and rusty, faded with age, but still clear.

One pair of speakers followed the other, the strictly arranged presentation which always began with a reading from the Bible, half in Finnish, half Swedish, then the interpretations, variations, analysis and occasionally the personal confession: I was in trouble, searching throughout my youth, something was lacking in my life and I found my way to Sin, and I found women and drink and stole a watch from a friend, but then I met a fellow believer during my national service and Jesus Christ brought light into my life, because my brother sowed a seed in my heart.

Lying in his compartment, he smiled, listening to the stories, full of pain and angst, jubilant and grateful.

But they never really took off, he interrupted himself. There was never any shouting, never any raised voices. Never any ecstasy.

He recalled the boredom of youth.

Often he had let the voices fade away and drift out of the tent together with the thoughts, hopes and restlessness. The city of tents and caravans on the meadow outside was more appealing, an ocean of possibilities concealed behind horse-carts and Volvos. His sideways glances at unknown girls on the bench in front, in their headscarves and long skirts, his awareness of their warmth and shiny hair.

The awareness that his thoughts and hard penis were sinful.

He was rocked to sleep with the smell of horse manure in his nostrils.

Annika was walking through Kronoberg Park breathlessly, her steps crunching in the frost. It was cold, high pressure threatening to bring arctic weather. The tarmac was slippery with ice, the trees smothered in blankets of frost. The grass, yesterday damp and green, was now frozen stiff and swept in silver.

This was as light as it was going to get. The daylight was thin and shadowless. She lifted her head and squinted up at the porcelain-like sky – shades of blue fading to grey, white, pink clouds driven by the north wind high above.

She hurried along, the blades of grass crackling as they were crushed beneath her feet. She approached the Jewish cemetery from the back, near the place where Josefin had famously been found. She stopped by the black iron railing, her glove stroking its curves and stars, frost dusting her shoes like icing sugar.

The cemetery had been renovated a couple of years ago. Fallen, eroded lumps of sandstone had been replaced, the wild shrubbery had been cut back, the trees trimmed. And somehow the magic had vanished, the sense of experiencing a period in time that Annika had always felt there, the sounds of the city encroached in a way that they never did before, the spirits that had owned the place had gone.

Only Josefin’s was left.

She sank to her knees and looked through the railing just as she had done that time so many summers before, that hot summer when the number of wasps broke all records and the election campaign just went on and on. Josefin had been lying there, mouth open in a soundless scream, eyes dull and matt, the young girl with all her dead dreams. There was a rustle in a frozen branch, a siren bounced off the buildings on Hantverkargatan.

He got his comeuppance in the end , Annika thought. Not for what he did to you, but at least he didn’t get away with it .

And Karina Björnlund had gathered enough ammunition to get a ministerial post.

She stretched her legs, looked at the time, then left Josefin with a gentle stroke of the railing. She hurried across Fridhemsplan, the wind hitting her face in Rålambshov Park so that she was fiery-cheeked by the time she reached the entrance of the Evening Post office.