Ларс Кеплер - The Rabbit Hunter

‘I know what this is about,’ Lawrence says between strained breaths.

He holds both hands up as if to stop him from coming any closer. The Rabbit Hunter takes a short step forward, grabs one of his hands, stretches his arm out and strikes him with full force just above the elbow with the axe. Lawrence stumbles sideways from the force of the blow, and his scream of pain echoes around the walls of the pool.

Dark blood pumps from the deep wound.

He keeps hold of Lawrence’s hand, twists it slightly, and strikes again.

The blade slices straight through the bone this time.

He lets go and looks at Lawrence, who staggers backwards with his lower arm hanging from a few last sinews before it falls off and splashes into the murky water.

‘Oh God, oh God,’ he whimpers, trying to press the stump of his arm back to his body to stem the bleeding. ‘I don’t know what you want me to do. Please, just tell me. I need help, can’t you see?’

‘Grace is my mother, and you—’

‘They made me do it. I didn’t want to. I was only seventeen,’ he sobs.

He falls silent, breathing hard. His face is white, as if he were already dead. The Rabbit Hunter looks at him intently: the splashes on his glasses, his snot-streaked beard, the blood smeared across his filthy clothes.

‘I understand that you want revenge,’ Lawrence says, gasping for breath. ‘But I’m innocent.’

‘Everyone’s innocent,’ the Rabbit Hunter says in a low voice.

He thinks about Ratjen, sitting on a chair in his kitchen in front of his children. Ratjen died because he provided the keys, because he opened the door to the boarding house and took Grace to the Rabbit Hole. That’s what started it all. If he had said no back then, he could have eaten his macaroni in peace, and then gone to bed with his wife once the children were asleep.

‘Wille made all the decisions,’ Lawrence gasps.

‘Mum identified you. She told me what you did,’ he says calmly.

‘They forced me,’ he sobs. ‘I was a victim, I was also a...’

Lawrence’s voice fades away as the Rabbit Hunter’s ears go deaf. He picks at one ear but still can’t hear anything. He’s lost in the memory of a summer afternoon, the day before his mum’s attempted suicide.

He was hunting with his rifle beyond the main road, past the railway line and down towards the silo. He sat down in the grass, leaned back, and when he woke up it was already evening.

It was as if he’d woken up in a dream.

He lay still in the tall grass, thinking that the silo looked like the Mad Hatter’s big top hat.

At that moment he was as small as a rabbit.

Lawrence is still hoping he can escape, and stumbles off in the direction of the tiled steps again.

A trail of dark blood billows out across the water around him.

The Rabbit Hunter looks at his watch and follows him.

Lawrence passes the plastic curtain, staggers forward, takes one step up and then sits down on one of the bottom steps. He lifts the stump of his arm, whimpering from the pain. Wheezing badly, he tears his shirt apart and winds it around the stump as tightly as he can, pulling at it with his single, trembling hand.

‘God, oh God,’ he keeps whispering to himself.

Blood seeps through the fabric onto the wet steps.

‘You don’t need to worry about bleeding to death,’ the Rabbit Hunter says, brushing the rabbits’ ears from his face. ‘Because before you pass out I’m going to hit you in the neck with the axe, so you’ll die pretty instantaneously.’

Lawrence looks up at him in despair.

‘Did we kill Grace? Why are you killing us, if she’s still alive—’

‘She’s not alive,’ he interrupts. ‘She never got a chance to live.’

Very soon he’s going to go back upstairs and hang James Gyllenborg. He doesn’t know why he wants to hang him, in particular. It was just an idea he had when he was watching him when they were out hunting — that he wanted to see him hang.

A flash of memory: the sound when Grandpa cut his mother down from the beam in the barn.

‘What are you going to do next?’ Lawrence whispers with bloodshot eyes. ‘When you’ve finished getting your revenge? What happens afterwards?’

‘Afterwards?’ the Rabbit Hunter says, resting the axe on his shoulder.

When Rex comes to, his heart starts to race with anxiety. He’s lying on his stomach on the floor with his arms tied behind his back. His face feels tight, and is thudding with pain from the repeated blows.

His empty suitcase lies in the middle of the floor, its contents scattered.

He can hear voices and rolls cautiously onto his side. He tries unobtrusively to free his hands, and realises that he can’t feel his fingers.

Through half-open eyes he sees Sammy sitting against the wall with his arms wrapped around his knees. Rex makes a slight movement, meets his son’s gaze and sees him shake his head almost imperceptibly.

Rex closes his eyes at once and pretends to be unconscious. He listens to his son talk in a subdued voice.

‘I have nothing to do with this... I’m sure you already realised that. I wouldn’t even be here if my dad hadn’t been trying to stop me from seeing my boyfriend.’

‘You’re gay?’ James asks curiously.

‘Don’t tell Dad,’ Sammy jokes.

‘What’s so great about guys, then?’

‘I’ve been out with girls too, but the sex is better with guys.’

‘In my day,’ James says, ‘I could never have said that. So many things have changed, in a good way.’

With ice-cold fingers Rex tries to loosen the tightly knotted strips of cloth.

‘I’m not ashamed of who I am,’ Sammy replies.

‘Do you go out with older men?’ James asks in an odd tone of voice.

‘What turns me on are individuals, situations. I don’t have a big set of rules,’ Sammy says calmly.

Rex lies still and hears James walk across the floor. He opens his eyes cautiously and sees James standing in front of Sammy. He’s holding the rifle loosely in one hand, its barrel pointing down beside his leg. The overpriced bottles of water and wine that the hotel offers its guests are standing on the coffee table.

James turns around and Rex quickly closes his eyes and tries to make his body limp. James comes over and stops in front of him. The smell of metal tells him that the rifle is pointing at his face.

‘Most people I know call themselves pan-sexual,’ Sammy goes on.

‘What’s that?’

‘When you think that personality, not gender, is the most important thing.’

‘That sounds sensible,’ James says, going back over to him. ‘I’m sorry Lawrence cut you. Does it hurt?’

‘A little...’

‘You’re going to have a scar on that pretty face of yours,’ he says with unexpected tenderness in his voice.

‘Damn,’ Sammy sighs.

‘You should probably put something over it to keep the edges closed,’ James goes on.

‘Dad has some plasters in his toiletry bag,’ Sammy suggests.

The room goes silent and Rex keeps his eyes closed. He’s almost certain that James is looking at him.

‘It’s over there, by the armchair,’ Sammy says.

Rex feels James take a step away from him and kick the bag across the floor, towards Sammy.

‘Thanks.’

Rex hears Sammy unzip the bag, followed by a rustling sound as he finds the plasters.

‘You should wash it first,’ James points out.

When he hears James pick the water bottle up off the table and unscrew the lid, Rex twists his arms and pulls as hard as he can until he frees one hand from the bindings. His cold fingers tingle and sting as the blood returns to them.

‘Sit still,’ James murmurs. ‘Lift your face up a little...’