Åsa Larsson - Until Thy Wrath Be Past

And then Hjalmar also starts crying. He cries for Wilma. For Martinsson. He cries for his brother and for Hjörleifur. For himself. For all the fat stuck in the snow as if in a vice.

And then he starts singing.

It starts of its own accord. At first his voice is hoarse and unpractised, but then it becomes more forceful, stronger.

“I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless lamb of God,” he sings. “He bears them all and frees us from the accursed load.”

It is several years since he heard that hymn. But the words come without any hesitation.

“I bring my guilt to Jesus, to wash my crimson stains white in his blood most precious, till not a spot remains.”

The early spring sunshine scorches the glittering white snow on top of the ice. There are no human beings for many kilometres around apart from Martinsson, in the hole in the ice, and Hjalmar, in the snow. The shadows lie blue in the scooter tracks and in the footprints where dogs and people have sunk down into the snow today.

Martinsson is lying in the water. Most of her body is under the ice. Over the edge round the hole she can see the tops of trees at the perimeter of the forest on the other side of the river. She did not manage to get that far. The firs have black trunks and are laden with cones near their tops.

The birches are spindly. In the south these slender-limbed trees will be blossoming now. Flowering magnolias and cherry trees will be gracing the parks like young girls in their best frocks. Here the birches are thin, but not in the least like young girls. Knobbly, straggly and bent like old crones, they stand at the edge of the forest looking out for spring.

It wasn’t really that far, Martinsson thinks apathetically as she gazes at the trees. I ought to have kept on running. I shouldn’t have stopped. That was stupid.

Hjalmar is singing his head off on the other bank. His voice is not all that unpleasant. “O guide me, call me, draw me, uphold me to the end; and then in heaven receive me, my saviour and my friend.” As he comes to the climax of the hymn, the ravens seem to want to join in. They caw and croak up in the trees.

Then Martinsson panics as the water comes up over her mouth, her nose.

And the next moment she has been sucked under the ice. Its underside is sharp and uneven. She glides helplessly along with the current through the black water. She rolls over, the back of her head hits against the ice, or maybe it is a stone. She does not know. Everything is black. Bump, bump.

Mella, Stålnacke, Olsson and Rantakyrö clamber out of Mella’s Ford Escort next to where Hjalmar’s and Martinsson’s cars are parked.

“I have a nasty feeling about this,” Stålnacke says, looking towards the forest where a wisp of smoke is coming from one of the chimneys.

“Me too,” Mella says.

She has her gun. So do her colleagues.

Then they hear someone screaming. The silence all around them makes the sound even more dreadful. It is a scream that does not seem to want to end. It is inhuman.

The police officers look at one another. Nobody can bring themselves to say anything.

Then they hear a man’s voice shouting, “Shut up! Stop screeching!”

They don’t hear anything else as they race for all they are worth along the old snow-scooter track. Rantakyrö, who is the youngest, is in the lead.

Martinsson glides along beneath the ice. There is no air. She struggles and scratches in vain.

The cold threatens to split open her skin. Her lungs are bursting.

Then she bumps against something with her knees and her back at the same time. She is stuck. She is stuck, crouching on all fours. The current has pushed her into the riverbank. She is on her hands and knees on ice-cold stones, with the sheet of ice above her back.

The ice is flexible. It has become thin and brittle in the shallows. She pushes through it and is able to stand up. Her lungs suck in fresh air. Then she starts bellowing. Screams and screams.

Hjalmar stops singing abruptly, and stares in shock at Martinsson, whose head and torso have shot up through the ice like an arrow.

She screams and screams until her voice cracks.

“That’s enough!” he shouts in the end. “Shut up! Stop screeching! Come and get the dog.”

Tintin is lying motionless by his side.

Then Martinsson starts to cry. She wades through the brittle ice and onto dry land, sobbing loudly. Hjalmar starts laughing. He laughs until his stomach aches. He has not laughed for many years – maybe just occasionally when there was something funny on the television. He can hardly breathe.

Martinsson walks up to the cottage to fetch a spade. She vomits twice on the way there.

When Mella and her colleagues reach the cottage, they see Martinsson and Hjalmar down by the riverbank. Hjalmar has sunk into the snow; they can only see the top half of his body. Martinsson is digging away the snow from around him. Her clothes are soaked through, as is her hair. Her coat has been flung on the ground. Blood is pouring from a wound in her head. Her hands are also bleeding, but Martinsson does not seem to notice. She is digging away frenetically. Hjalmar has started singing again. “He heals all my diseases, he doth my soul redeem. Hallelujah.” Snow is flying in all directions.

The police officers approach cautiously. Rantakyrö and Olsson put away their pistols.

“What’s happened?” Mella says.

Neither Hjalmar nor Martinsson answers.

Hjalmar is clinging to Tintin and singing away. Tintin is also soaked through. She is lying in the snow. Lifts her head, manages a wag of her tail.

“Rebecka,” Mella says. “Rebecka.”

When she does not get an answer, she walks over to Martinsson and takes hold of the spade.

“You must go inside, into the cottage…” she begins, but does not have the opportunity to say anything more.

Martinsson snatches the spade back and hits Mella over the head. Then she drops it and falls backwards into the snow.

Rebecka Martinsson is sitting on a kitchen chair in Hjalmar Krekula’s cottage. Someone has taken all her clothes off her, and she is wrapped in a blanket. The fire is burning vigorously in the stove. She has a police jacket round her shoulders. The whole of her body is vibrating with cold. In fact she is jumping up and down on the chair. Her teeth are chattering, rattling. Her hands and feet ache, as do her thighs and her bottom. A flour mill is grinding away inside her head.

She has a mug of warm water in front of her.

Sven-Erik Ståhlnacke is also sitting at the kitchen table. He occasionally presses a towel against her battered, blood-stained hands, and against her head and face.

“Have a drink,” he says.

She wants to drink, but doesn’t dare to. She feels that she will simply sick it back up immediately.

“Tintin?” she says.

“Krister has been to collect her.”

“Is she O.K.?”

“She’ll be alright. Come on now, have a drink.”

Mella comes in. She has her mobile in one hand. The other is pressing a snowball against her forehead.

“How is she?” she says.

“Everything’s fine,” Stålnacke says. “All quiet on the Western front.”

“I’ve got Måns on the phone,” Mella says to Martinsson. “Do you feel like talking to him? Are you up to it?”

Martinsson nods and reaches for the mobile, then drops it on the floor.

Mella has to hold it for her.

“Yes,” she croaks.

“Is there no limit to what you’ll do to draw attention to yourself?” Wenngren says.

“No,” she says with a laugh that comes over as a cough. “I’ll do anything at all.”

Then he turns serious.

“They tell me you were stuck in a hole in the ice. That you drifted under the ice and then managed to break through it and climb out.”