Юхан Теорин - Echoes From the Dead

She nodded and picked up her crutches. “I’ll see if there’s a bus,” she said. “Otherwise I’ll get a cab.”

“Will you call me?” said Lennart. “I’ll be home as soon as I’m done here.”

Julia smiled and nodded, as if everything were fine this evening. “Of course I’ll call. See you soon.”

She wanted to give Lennart a hug, but not in front of Gunnar Ljunger.

She went down the steps, back out onto the cold, deserted street, and looked over at the bus depot on the far side of the square. There was a bus standing there — but was it heading south?

A cab to Kalmar would cost several hundred kronor, but if worst came to worst, that’s what she would have to do. Even if she had to empty her account, and even if she just ended up sitting around in the emergency room all night, she had to get to the hospital. She wanted to be there when Gerlof came around. Lennart would understand that she had to be with her father right now; besides, he had plenty to do himself this evening.

She set off across the street toward the square.

She suddenly thought about that smile — Gunnar Ljunger’s curious little smile.

He’d smashed up his car and more or less been called a murderer by Gerlof, but as he stood there next to Lennart’s desk in the police station he still had that little smile at the corners of his mouth, as if an escape route was waiting for him in there.

As if he thought...

Julia stopped dead on the sidewalk on the other side of the street, heart thudding. She was halfway to the bus depot, but without even thinking about it she turned back. She began to hop along on her crutches, back to the police station.

It was only a hundred yards or so, but Julia still didn’t get there in time.

She was still out on the sidewalk when she heard the shot. It was just a short, sharp crack with no echo, but it came from inside the station.

She heard a dull thud through the window.

Another shot was fired seconds later.

Julia took three more steps on her crutches, but it was too slow. She threw them down and ran.

She took the steps up to the door of the station in two strides, sending pain stabbing through her foot.

She could smell the gunpowder as she pushed through the door, and only then did she stop.

Everything was quiet. There wasn’t a sound in the police station.

Julia peeped in tentatively, and first of all she could only see Lennart’s legs sticking out beside his desk. Her heart faltered — then she realized he was moving.

He was on his knees by the desk, one hand on the floor and the other firmly pressed against his bleeding forehead.

Lennart’s holster was undone, and he slowly rolled around and looked up at Julia with a hazy, confused expression.

“Where is he?” he asked. “Ljunger?”

Julia saw what had happened.

It wasn’t Lennart who’d been shot — it was Gunnar Ljunger.

Julia could see him now, and she realized the hotel owner had indeed found an escape route.

Ljunger wasn’t smiling any longer. His body was lying on the floor on the other side of the desk, and his shiny leather shoes were twitching. A rivulet of blood had begun to trickle from his head, and the yellow padded jacket was spattered with pink stains. The blood was shining as it caught the light.

Ljunger was staring up at the ceiling, his mouth half open. He looked astonished, as if he didn’t really understand that it was all over.

In his right hand he still gripped Lennart’s service revolver.

“How are you feeling?” asked Gerlof quietly from his hospital bed.

Lennart shrugged his shoulders wearily. “Not so bad. I should have been more alert.” He sighed heavily. “I should have realized what he intended to do.”

“Don’t think about it anymore, Lennart,” said Julia from the other side of Gerlof’s bed.

“He fooled me. He’d sat down, and I thought he’d given up... but then he hurled himself forward and threw me against the desk and ripped open the holster. I wasn’t prepared.” He sighed and touched the thick bandage on his forehead. “I’m too old, my reactions are too slow. I should have—”

“Don’t think about it, Lennart,” said Julia again, this time more firmly. “It was Ljunger who hurt you, not vice versa.”

Lennart nodded, but seemed unconvinced.

Gunnar Ljunger’s first shot had only hit the wall of the police station, but Lennart had banged his head on the edge of the desk during the desperate struggle for his service revolver. He had several stitches in his forehead now, binding up the gash underneath the bandage.

Lennart and Julia were now sitting on either side of Gerlof’s bed in the hospital at Borgholm. It was late afternoon, and a deep-yellow autumn sun was splashing its final light over the town outside the window.

Gerlof hoped the visit wouldn’t last too long; all he really wanted to do was to be alone. To sleep. He had no strength to talk or to get out of bed.

He still didn’t remember much about the last few days. Presumably he wouldn’t have survived without the rapid response of the emergency medical crew. He had been in critical condition for two days. Then he had finally improved and become more stable, and on the fourth day he had been taken by ambulance to the hospital in Borgholm.

There was more privacy there than in Kalmar, and Gerlof had his own room on the second floor with a view of Slottskogen and the houses of Borgholm. Julia and Lennart had come to visit him; it was the fifth day since Ljunger’s attempt to kill him on the shore outside Marnäs.

“This is the fifth time in five days I’ve been to see you, Dad,” Julia told him. “But it’s the first time you’ve been awake.”

Gerlof merely nodded tiredly.

His left arm was in a splint and bandaged after his fall onto the sand. One foot was in a cast. A tube leading from a bag of some kind of nutrient solution was attached to a needle in his arm; another tube was attached to a catheter; and he was lying under a double layer of blankets — but he still felt better than the previous day. His temperature had slowly but surely gone down.

Gerlof tried to sit up so that he could see Julia and Lennart, and his daughter quickly got up and slipped an extra pillow behind his back.

“Thank you.”

His voice was very weak, but he could talk.

“How are you feeling today, Dad?” she asked.

Gerlof slowly raised his right thumb toward the ceiling. He coughed and inhaled laboriously.

“At first they thought I had... pneumonia.” He took a ragged breath, then said, “But this morning... they said I’ve only got bronchitis. And they’re pretty sure I’ll... be able to keep both feet.” He coughed, then added, “I’d like to do that.”

“You’re tough, Gerlof,” said Lennart.

Gerlof nodded at the big policeman. “Gunnar Ljunger... said the same thing.”

Lennart’s pager suddenly bleeped from his belt. “Not again...”

The policeman sighed wearily. He glanced down at the display.

“Looks as if my boss wants to talk to me again, the questions are never-ending... I’d better go and call him. Back soon.”

Lennart smiled at Julia, who smiled back and nodded toward the bed.

“Don’t run away, Gerlof,” he added.

Gerlof nodded slowly back at him, and Lennart closed the door.

There was silence in the sickroom, but for once it wasn’t an uncomfortable or menacing silence. There was nothing that really needed to be said. Julia placed her hand on Gerlof’s coverlet and leaned forward.

“Everybody sends their love,” she said. “Lena called from Gothenburg last night; she’s coming soon. And Astrid sends her love, too. John and Gösta came to see you yesterday, but they said you were asleep. So everybody you know is thinking about you.”