Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

“We have to follow this gravel road to the end. Then we’ll pass some small houses, I think summer cabins. Then we go into the trees and follow the edge of the woods about four hundred meters.”

Jimmy nodded, and again she sensed his exuberance.

They started walking, the beams of their flashlights pointing down. There were no streetlights here. In order to see where the road went and to avoid stepping into hollows and pits, they had to use their flashlights. They could only hope that the howling storm and dense forest would hide them.

At the end of the road were two small summer cabins. There was a light on in one of them, but they couldn’t see anyone inside or hear anything. To the left Irene discovered a big pile of lumber. She cautiously shone her flashlight around it and for a fraction of a second had a hard time comprehending what she saw. The beam fell on a big black motorcycle, half concealed behind the stack of boards. A Harley-Davidson chopper. On the back was a big Tour-Pak, on which a sign said in English: THIS BIKE BELONGS TO A HELL’S ANGEL–IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT, JUST TRY TO MESS WITH MY BIKE! This hog could be left unlocked even in the most notorious slums. It would be completely safe. Most people have some instinct for self-preservation.

Like lightning Irene turned off her flashlight, and Jimmy did the same a fraction of a second later. They stood motionless and listened to the darkness. There was no sound from the houses. Carefully they crept past and moved as quietly as they could into the woods. For the first time they were thankful for the furious storm roaring in the treetops. It became an ally when they stepped awkwardly on fallen twigs or tripped over treacherous roots and slippery rocks. Finally they could no longer see the light from the cabin and dared to stop and turn on their flashlights.

Jimmy looked pale and grim. The rain had plastered his short hair flat to his head. Irene was grateful that she had put on Katarina’s baseball cap before they left the car. He sounded excited when he whispered, “Holy shit, what does this mean? A Hell’s Angels’ nest! Out here in the woods!”

He was obviously shaken. She was too, but tried not to show it.

“I guess they rent one of the cabins during the winter,” she said, feigning nonchalance.

She turned around and continued stumbling onward. But she had a hard time concentrating on what lay before them. What they had just left behind felt like an unpleasant threat. Even if it could hardly have anything to do with Shorty and Bobo’s cottage, Hell’s Angels could never be ignored. Finally she forced herself to focus her attention on what lay ahead. A faint light winked among the trees. Jimmy took her arm and silently mapped out a route at an angle along the edge of the woods. They were completely agreed. A high cairn of stones rose at the side of the clearing and would give them perfect cover, while also allowing them to get up a bit higher and have a better view.

Their fingers were numb from the cold. When they tried to climb up the cairn, Irene lost her grip and slid down. Her knee was banged up and her palms were torn, but her body was so stiff from the cold that she hardly noticed. When she climbed back, Jimmy was already crouched down, gazing through his night-vision telescope. Irene was grateful he had brought it along. Without it they would have had to crawl all the way up to the house. Now they could stay about fifty meters away. She peered into the distance toward the point of light and saw that it was an outside lamp attached to a little building that looked like a barn. Faint light was coming from some small windows.

Jimmy lay motionless so long that she started to grow impatient. She also wanted to look through the funny gadget. But his tense whisper when he handed the telescope to her filled her with foreboding. “You won’t believe it. Look at the outer edge of the circle of light coming from the outside lamp.”

The bill of her cap was in the way, so she turned it resolutely backward. It prevented the ice-cold rain from running down her neck.

Fumbling, she put the telescope up to her eye, strapped it on, and saw instantly what he meant. A large motorcycle stood parked by the wall of the barn. When she pointed the telescope toward one of the small illuminated windows, she could see a big fat man with long curly hair. He stood talking and gesticulating to someone hidden from view. Even though no one could hear them, she whispered, “I can only see one guy, fat with long hair. But it isn’t Bobo Torsson. Did you see anybody else?”

“No. Just Fatso. And the bike! Did you see it? Hell’s Angels again!”

“It’s not the same one we saw at the summer cabin?”

“No, this one doesn’t have a Tour-Pak on the back.”

He was right. This one had two smaller boxes on each side of the rear wheel. The fat, longhaired man walked around talking to his invisible audience. For a split second Irene thought she saw the head of a much shorter person, but it happened so fast that she wasn’t sure. She whispered to Jimmy without taking the telescope from her eye, “I think there are at least two of them. But what are they up to?”

“No idea.”

A movement on the far right edge of her vision made her point the telescope in that direction. Excitedly she whispered, “Somebody is coming out of the house next door! That must be the house they actually live in. It’s not Bobo Torsson. This one’s a longhaired guy dressed in leather too, but tall and thin.”

“Funny that he doesn’t turn on the outside light. I can’t see anybody.”

“You can’t?”

Irene put down the telescope and looked toward the house. It was dark. Only the lights in the barn were visible. The man was walking in the dark. He was invisible to anyone without night-vision equipment. She put the telescope up to her eyes, only to see the thin man disappear behind the barn. She quickly aimed it at the barn window. The big man stopped short and turned with his back to the window. She understood that the other one was talking now, because suddenly the massive man was quite motionless and seemed to be listening intently. She almost dropped the telescope out of sheer fright when he suddenly turned on his heel and gazed out the window. Reason told her that he couldn’t see them, but the expression on his face said it all. Fear drove its stiff fingers into her body and she couldn’t even hide it from Jimmy. Her voice almost cracked when she whispered with frozen lips, “Jimmy, they know we’re here!”

“That’s impossible. How could they. .?”

The thought struck them both simultaneously. The summer cabins. The motorcycle behind the pile of lumber. They had been seen.

Irene asked, “What time is it?”

He pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and looked at the glowing watch face. “Ten past five. It’s time to get out of here.”

They crawled down from the cairn. Irene started to pull her cell phone from her pocket. She turned it on but slipped it back into her pocket. Her subconscious had heard a sound, but her conscious mind registered it too late. The forest around her exploded like a shooting star in a thousandth of a second, then closed around her in impenetrable darkness.

HER HEAD was swinging from side to side and she couldn’t do anything about it. Powerless, she tried to raise herself to throw up, but realized groggily that it was impossible. Her head was hanging down. A strong smell of leather and sweat stung her nostrils and increased her nausea. Instinctively she kept her body limp, as she desperately tried to fight against the dizziness and reenter consciousness. After a while she realized that a hefty man in leather, a Hell’s Angel, was carrying her slung over his shoulder, like a butcher carries a dead carcass. His long wet hair slapped against the side of her face. Cautiously she tried opening her eyelids. She heard panting and labored breathing to her left. There were at least two other people, and it dawned on her that they were carrying something between them. Jimmy. Was he alive? Good God, make him be alive! Never before in her life had she experienced such a pure and unadulterated fear of death. She didn’t have to pretend that she was incapable of movement. She was totally paralyzed.