Ларс Кеплер - The Rabbit Hunter

The forest opens up to reveal a brighter night sky and, a short distance away, the sea. Parisa crosses a junction and heads down towards a marina.

A large corrugated-metal workshop rises up above more than a hundred beached boats: big yachts with huge keels and long, narrow motorboats that look like sleek arrowheads.

There’s light coming from a low barrack-like building. It illuminates a sign on the wooden wall: ‘Nyboda Boatyard’.

Parisa turns the car around, and reverses towards the wall.

When she gets out the sea breeze cuts right through her knitted sweater. She’s only wearing that and her comfy tracksuit bottoms, and just has trainers on her feet.

Tarps knock against hulls, plastic rustles and the line on the flagpole slaps rhythmically.

She can see movement behind the dirty curtain of the barrack.

A narrow path between the tall metal workshop and the densely packed rows of boats leads down to the water.

Parisa hangs the bag with the pistol in it over her shoulder and goes up the steep flight of steps to the barracks. She knocks, waits a few seconds, then goes inside, into an office with a shabby desk and nautical charts stapled to the walls. A man who looks to be over seventy is sitting at the desk going through some receipts. In a wicker chair in the corner sits a woman of the same age, knitting.

The man is dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, and his hairy lower arms are resting on the desk. He’s wearing a scratched gold watch around his wrist. The woman lowers her knitting to her lap and looks up quizzically at Parisa.

‘I’m here to pick up my sister,’ Parisa says calmly. ‘Her name is Amira.’

The man runs one hand over his bald head and invites her to sit down in the visitor’s chair.

Parisa sits down and hears a gentle clicking sound behind her back as the woman in the wicker chair resumes knitting.

‘We were starting to think no one was going to come and get the last one,’ the man says as he reaches for a folder.

‘She wasn’t supposed to get here until Wednesday,’ Parisa explains coolly.

‘Really? Well, this is going to cost quite a bit,’ the man goes on disinterestedly, then licks a finger and leafs through the shipping dockets in the file.

‘Everything’s already been paid for,’ Parisa says.

‘If you’d picked her up when she arrived,’ the man replies, giving her a quick glance.

‘Doesn’t she want to pay?’ the woman asks anxiously.

‘Oh, she’ll pay,’ the man says, pointing at a pink sheet of paper in the folder. ‘Three days’ room and board, cleaning charge, and administrative costs.’

The woman starts knitting again behind Parisa as the man taps some numbers into a pocket calculator next to a dusty telephone.

Parisa hears a sander in the workshop.

The man licks his wrinkled lips and leans back in his chair.

‘Thirty-two thousand and three hundred kronor,’ he says, turning the calculator towards her.

‘Thirty-two thousand?’

‘We can’t afford charity. Sadly there’s no leeway,’ he explains.

‘Do you accept cards?’ Parisa asks, even though she knows she doesn’t have that much money in her account.

‘No,’ he smiles.

‘I don’t have that much cash.’

‘Then you’ll have to go to Åkersberga and take the money out, but do bear in mind that the debt will keep rising the longer she stays here.’

‘I need to speak to her first,’ Parisa says, standing up.

‘If we start making exceptions, then—’

‘She’s my sister,’ she explains, raising her voice. ‘Don’t you understand? She’s come all this way. She can’t speak a word of Swedish. I have to talk to her.’

‘We understand that you’re upset, but it isn’t our fault that you didn’t come and get her, and—’

‘Tell me where she is!’ Parisa interrupts, waits a few seconds, then walks past the woman and out through the door.

‘Just wait here. I’m sure we can sort this out,’ the man calls after her.

Parisa goes down the steps and hurries along the narrow track between the boats and the large workshop. Further down she sees a crane shaking in the wind, etched against the approaching clouds. The waves are breaking over the rocks and the boat ramp.

Parisa realises that there are lights shining through the plastic covering several of the boats.

The smell of warm oil dredges up memories from Afghanistan, and she finds herself back in the engineering workshop where her father and grandfather worked, by the Safid River on the outskirts of Sheberghan.

‘Amira?’ she calls across the marina. ‘Amira?’

Parisa calls her sister’s name again. She thinks she sees shadows moving behind the illuminated plastic covering a large motorboat down by the water.

She starts to walk towards the boat, but trips over a rusty outboard motor. There are engine parts and other junk everywhere: windows, buoys, damp boxes full of rolls of tape, anchors, and a clutch of neon tubes leaning against a big forklift-truck.

‘Miss!’ the man calls after her. ‘You can’t just...’

‘Amira?’ Parisa shouts as loudly as she can.

The elderly couple have emerged from the office now, and over her shoulder she sees the man help the old woman down the steep steps, slowly and unsteadily.

The sound of the sander in the workshop stops abruptly.

Parisa detects movement from some distance away. Someone is climbing down an aluminium ladder from one of the boats closest to the water.

It’s Amira.

She’s sure it is.

Her little sister is wearing a blue down jacket, with a shawl covering her head and mouth.

‘Amira!’ she cries out, and starts running down the narrow path.

The old man calls out again. Parisa waves at her sister. She stumbles over a sawhorse but manages to get past it.

Her sister is squinting, trying to see her through the growing darkness in the sprawling boatyard.

Suddenly a large man in overalls comes around the corner of the workshop. He’s limping, leaning on a crutch as he walks towards Parisa. He’s clutching a heavy sander in one hand. The cable snakes off behind him, and white dust is swirling from the dislodged filter.

‘Amira!’ Parisa calls again, just as three spotlights on the front of the building are switched on.

The man with the sander is heading right for her, followed by her sister, who has a look of fear in her eyes.

‘Stop shouting,’ the man mutters, walking into the furthest light beam.

‘Anders, go home,’ the older man calls out behind her.

‘I want my wife,’ he mutters, and stops.

He stares at Parisa through smeared protective goggles. Amira is standing behind him, as if paralysed, unable to get past.

‘Hello,’ Parisa says.

‘Hello,’ he replies quietly.

‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she says. ‘But I was trying to make sure my sister could hear me.’

‘Parisa, they’re crazy, you need to get help!’ her sister calls out in Pashto.

When the man hears Amira’s voice he turns towards her, steps further into the harsh light from the building and hits her hard across the cheek with the crutch. The blow knocks her sideways and she falls to the ground. He moves after her, bellowing, and tries to hit her in the face with the heavy sander. He misses and loses his grip. The machine flies off, dislodges the frame of an old window, and thuds to the ground.

‘Stop!’ Parisa shouts, trying to open the bag where her gun is hidden.

Amira is lying on her side, trying to crawl away. The man is kicking out at her, and waving his crutch.

‘My wife!’ he yells.

‘Stop it!’ Parisa cries, pulling the pistol from her bag with shaking hands.