Johan Theorin - The Quarry

‘Max, that’s not true!’

He moved two steps closer. Vendela could see that his temples were shiny with sweat, as if the heat before a thunderstorm was building up inside his head. The lightning would strike at any moment.

‘What’s not true?’ he said, wiping his fingers around his mouth. ‘I mean, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’

‘We haven’t done anything.’

‘But you’ve been out for a run with him.’

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘And the grass on the prairie is dry now, I assume? Dry and soft? You can lie down on it, behind some stone wall?’

‘Stop it, Max,’ she said. ‘That’s enough.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. You sit there brooding about what I might be doing when I go out running, but that’s because you’re really thinking about something else altogether.’

‘Like what?’

‘You know exactly what I mean... You’re thinking about Martin.’

‘No!’

Max moved quickly towards her and Vendela backed away.

If I say the wrong thing now, he’ll hit me , she thought.

‘I’m going out, Max,’ she said quietly, ‘until you calm down.’

Her husband’s shoulders dropped a fraction. ‘You do that,’ he said. ‘You just go.’

Vendela ran. With long strides she ran away from the fairytale palace she had dreamed of once upon a time. Away from Max. She thought of turning off towards the Mörners’ cottage and knocking on the door so that she could speak to a sensible person, but it looked as if it were all locked up. She hadn’t seen Per or his father all week, and the Kurdin family was also away.

She took a wide swing to the west and headed for the alvar. But this far south it was difficult to find her way; her route was frequently obstructed by stone walls she didn’t recognize, or by thorny thickets and barbed wire, and it was a while before the landscape opened out ahead of her.

As the sun went down she could see that the alvar had begun to bloom. The yellowish-brown ground had absorbed the water and was now shaded dark blue with spiked speedwell, wild thyme and pasque flower, dotted with bright-yellow dandelions. Beautiful.

But there was a stillness among all the beauty that felt ominous. When Vendela stopped to catch her breath among all the flowers, she closed her eyes and wished all those around her a happy and peaceful St Mark’s Eve. But she couldn’t feel any warmth or benevolence flowing back in return. She couldn’t see any pictures; there was only darkness.

The elves were not happy.

Gerlof was sitting on the lawn in the sunshine when Carina Wahlberg came to visit him on Friday afternoon. John Hagman had been over in the morning and given him a substantial pile of magazines — old copies of Babylon and Gomorrah , stained and torn, and he was just flicking through them.

Gerlof was holding the magazines with his fingertips; most of them didn’t smell too good.

The doctor greeted him cheerily from the gate, and he waved to her. ‘Afternoon, Doctor,’ he said.

She smiled at him and came closer — but stopped dead when she saw the magazines. ‘I came to check your hearing,’ she said, looking down at the pile of magazines. ‘I can see there’s nothing wrong with your eyesight. Would you like me to come back another time?’

Gerlof shook his head. ‘Come and sit down.’

‘You look busy.’

He looked up from the magazine, not smiling. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said.

‘I don’t think anything.’

‘Well, it’s not like that , anyway. I’m eighty-three, and my last girlfriend, Maja up at the home, was about the same age, but she got too ill to spend time with me any more... I haven’t looked at young girls in twenty-five years.’ Gerlof gave this some thought, then added, ‘Well, twenty at any rate.’

‘So why are you looking at those magazines?’ asked Dr Wahlberg.

‘Because I have to.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m conducting an investigation.’

‘Of course you are.’

Dr Wahlberg came over and sat down. Gerlof flicked through the magazines, one after another, and kept talking. ‘I’m trying to come up with something in particular to do with these girls, but I don’t really know what I’m looking for. The whole thing just seems terribly sordid.’

Dr Wahlberg looked at the pictures, her expression anything but cheerful. ‘Well, I can see one thing that’s not good,’ she said eventually, ‘from my perspective.’

‘What’s that?’

‘They’re not using any protection.’

‘Protection?’

‘Contraceptives. The men should be wearing condoms. But I suppose they never do in magazines like this.’

Gerlof looked at her. ‘So you’ve seen them before?’

‘I used to work as a school doctor. Young lads buy them and get completely the wrong idea; they think these fantasies are reality.’

Gerlof looked down at the pictures, nodding thoughtfully. ‘It’s true, they’re not using any protection... But you’re wrong.’

‘About what?’

‘These aren’t just fantasies,’ said Gerlof. ‘They’re very real to those who are being photographed.’

Dr Wahlberg stood up. ‘I’ll go inside and sort out your tablets, Gerlof.’ She turned away, then added, ‘Let me give you a piece of good advice: throw those magazines away as soon as you can. I don’t think you’d want your daughters to find them.’

‘When I’m dead, you mean?’

The doctor wasn’t smiling. ‘When someone has died in their own house or in a care home,’ she said, ‘magazines like this often turn up, hidden under the mattress or in a drawer. It happens more often than you might think. And it’s always upsetting when the person’s child or grandchild finds them.’

Gerlof nodded. ‘These aren’t actually mine,’ he said, ‘but I’ll certainly pass that on to the owner.’

When Dr Wahlberg had gone, Gerlof carried on leafing through Babylon and Gomorrah . There was no variation, just page after page of photos of blonde girls in different sexual positions — he was surprised how tedious it all seemed after a while. Sad and depressing. But he kept on looking.

He suddenly stopped at one of the pictures. It was a colour photo that looked like most of the others: a picture of one of the muscular men, naked among the desks in a little classroom. The man was with a young woman. According to the brief caption she was called Belinda, and was described as ‘a naughty Swedish schoolgirl who has a lesson to learn’.

Gerlof was fairly sure her name wasn’t Belinda. But he looked at the picture for a long time, eventually picking up his glasses and holding them close to the page, like a magnifying glass.

After a minute or so he put them down, got up slowly, and went inside to make a phone call, taking the magazine with him.

He rang Per Mörner on Ernst’s old number, but there was no reply so he tried Per’s mobile.

‘Mörner.’ He still sounded exhausted.

Gerlof cleared his throat. ‘It’s Gerlof — Gerlof Davidsson in Stenvik. Can you talk?’

‘For a little while... I’m just on the way to visit my daughter in hospital. Has something happened?’

‘Maybe,’ said Gerlof. ‘I’ve been looking at some of your father’s magazines.’

‘Oh? How did you get hold of them?’

‘I have contacts,’ said Gerlof, not wanting to mention John Hagman or his son by name.

‘So what did you think?’

Gerlof picked up the copy of Babylon and looked at the front cover. ‘Lots of blonde wigs and sad eyes,’ he said. ‘And it’s all very seedy. Very seedy pictures.’

‘I know,’ said Per, sounding even more weary. ‘But that’s the way it is, and we men buy it.’