Karin Alvtegen - Missing

She thought he had finished.

'What's this about my watch?'

He turned towards her, silent at first. His eyes were open but had narrowed to slits. Leaning over the table, as if to give his words more weight, he spoke slowly.

'Never ever interrupt me when I'm talking with the Lord God.'

Suddenly everything fell into place.

'Accursed are those who rob the innocents of their rights.'

The truth pierced her like an arrow. Fear struck her speechless, her mouth filling with the taste of blood.

Fool that she was! What made all the difference was the person he had appeared to be. She already knew the importance of that for herself. How could she have forgotten? She had allowed prejudice to lead her by the nose – straight into a trap.

His face had changed somehow. Now he knew that she knew.

'You can guess where I saw that watch the first time, can't you? In the Grand Hotel's French Restaurant. You were keeping Jorgen Grundberg company while he ate his last meal.'

Alert and quivering like tensed bow-strings, they sat watching each other across the kitchen table. Both were expecting something to happen that would release the tension. She lost any sense of time passing.

Trying to link isolated perceptions of the truth into a continuous chain, she began with him. She had been right as well as catastrophically wrong. Rune Hedlund's secret both was and was not what everyone had suspected. He had taken a lover, but the lover was a man.

Now that man's strong hands were placed on the kitchen table in front of her. Hands which had carried out all the repulsive mutilations that she had been accused of. Stained with ordinary hobby paints and then covered with plastic gloves, they had been searching the hidden cavities of his victims in order to recover what had been taken from his beloved's body.

She whispered an appeal to him.

'Tell me why.'

This made him relax and took them into a new phase of their relationship, in which neither needed to pretend to the other. There was no point in dropping hints or making covert threats. The only thing left between them was the final confrontation. Before that, she wanted to know and he wanted to tell.

Afterwards was another matter.

He seemed calm now, clasping his hands in his lap and poised, it seemed, ready to give a speech. 'Have you ever been to Malta?'

This question was so unexpected all the air went out of her, making a snorting noise. He might have thought she was laughing, because he started smiling again.

'I went to Malta. It was about six months after Rune's accident.'

The smile had faded from his face now, his hands were back on the table and he was looking down at them.

'No one ever grasped how… profoundly I mourned him.'

He inhaled deeply, as if needing more air before he could carry on speaking.

'Our love is buried in Rune's grave. They all pitied her, of course. People were trotting round to commiserate every hour God gave. Feeding her stuff they'd brought. Listening to her endlessly babbling on about how unfair life was. All her fucking bullshit. There were times when I was on the brink of going there and shouting the truth out loud, straight into her fat, ugly face. I could've told her a thing or two! He had been with me that night, just before he collided with the elk. Straight from my bed, where my hands had held him and caressed him.'

Reaching out with his hands, stretching his long fingers, he wanted to make her feel what he felt. His terrible mental turmoil was almost palpable. He was on the verge of tears, his extended hands were shaking, his lungs struggling to get enough air and his lower lip trembling. His grief seemed mixed with barely restrained anger.

She reflected that this might well be the first time he had been free to put his feelings into words, the first time in the thirteen long months since Rune's death. The words had built up a pulsating pressure inside him, which was finally – maybe just this once – released.

'She went back to work soon enough. That meant she could be the queen of the coffee-room, droning on about how Rune's passing had not been in vain because she had been so generous with parts of his body, allowing four lives to be saved… blah, blah, blah.'

His head was shaking from side to side, his face twisted with disgust.

'Bullshit! It's enough to make you want to puke. Is that love? Is it? Letting them cut up the body you've loved? And then having his remains scattered to the four winds?'

He got up from the table, a movement so sudden that she instinctively tried to back away. The wooden chair behind him tipped backwards and crashed on the floor. He righted it, walked across the kitchen to the sink, picked up the coffee-pot and came back.

'Would you like some more coffee?'

She shook her head, still in a state of confusion. He poured himself a cup and with the same deliberation, took the pot back to the sink. She had calmed down enough to take the chance of looking around. Behind her was a closed door.

'After six months of this I thought I had better get away for a bit. Seeing her pious face every coffee break was becoming unbearable.'

The distance between where she was sitting and that door was about six feet.

'When I turned up there was only one reasonable holiday left at the Travel Centre. I didn't understand it then, but this was the first time the Lord showed what he wanted me to do.'

By now he seemed more relaxed, pausing to drink mouthfuls of coffee and look out through the window. They must be looking quite idyllic – two old friends chatting together over a cuppa.

'The Malta trip was arranged by Leisure Tours, one of these group-travel firms. I didn't feel like being alone just then. Anyway, there's a cathedral city on Malta called Mosta and the Lord was guiding me to that sacred place.'

He had made fists of his hands now.

'You know, that excursion to Mosta changed my life. It was as if someone had pulled filters away from my eyes, allowing me to see the truth clearly for the first time.'

His face was glowing with gratitude.

'On the ninth of April in the year 1942, the cathedral was full of people, ordinary folk who had gone to Mass the way they always did. It was wartime. Suddenly a bomb fell through the dome of the cathedral, shattering the splendid glass roof and burying itself in the floor of the aisle in front of the altar. Do you know, that bomb never exploded? God stopped the detonator functioning and the whole congregation could complete Mass and leave in safety. A true miracle!'

If he were expecting exclamations of wonder, he'd have to wait in vain.

'It was an English plane. Dropping the bomb was a mistake.'

His eyes were drilling into her.

'Don't you see what God was telling them?'

She shook her head.

'Their time hadn't come. God had not chosen to call any one among the people in the church. They weren't meant to die just then. That's why He intervened to put the mistake right.'

He paused, looking at the window for a while.

'Rune was different, the Lord had called him. I still don't know why. I'm waiting and praying for the Lord to tell me His reason. Maybe He will speak to me once my mission is complete.'

His confession was nearing its end and Sibylla felt fear returning to invade every part of her mind.

'She wouldn't let Rune die. She thwarted the will of God. She thought she could interfere with His power on Earth, trading parts of Rune's body and keeping them alive. It was trapping him halfway to Heaven. How could I allow that to happen?'

His face was looking like a tragic mask. He clasped his hands.

‘I will execute great vengeance upon them with wrathful chastisements. Then they will know that I am with the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon them.'