Summertime Death (47 page)

They turn off and number 11 Fabriksvägen is a single-storey red-brick warehouse, maybe thirty metres long, with four separate entrances along a worn concrete loading bay.

They stop, jump out of the car, run.

Which door?

They run from door to door, listening, looking for signs, but all the doors are unmarked.

The heat and the sharp light no longer exist, only sweat and the exhaustion that is slowly forcing its way through the adrenalin.

Sounds from inside one of the storerooms.

A scratching sound, dripping.

The sound of sirens approaching.

A closed metal shutter, locked. The sun has pressed its way upwards and the loading bay is bathed in light. Malin kneels beside the lock, tries to twist it open, but her hands are shaking.

‘Hang on,’ Zeke shouts, rushing up to Malin with his pistol drawn. ‘Stand back,’ and Zeke aims the gun at the lock and fires.

A bang, I can hear a bang, Tove thinks, and a dull rumbling sound. Where am I? And her head is throbbing and she can’t move her body, but it’s there.

Am I paralysed?

I can’t move.

Mum, is that you coming? Dad? To rescue me from this nightmare?

Something’s approaching again.

A sliver of light, is that a door opening? Am I being rescued?

Malin and Janne and Zeke have taken hold of the bottom of the shutter and are forcing it up, there’s no second door behind it and the sirens are close now, they shut off and Malin can hear police officers shouting to each other, calling out orders, Ekenberg and Sven Sjöman’s voices? Karim’s?

And the shutter is up.

Janne holds it up and Malin goes into the room with her weapon drawn, sees the empty bunk, the containers, Tove’s red top on the floor, sliced open, a book, her sunglasses and then the rabbit cages along the walls, the pots of paint, a box of white surgical gloves, boxes of chemicals everywhere, empty bleach bottles, scalpels, a dripping tap. The floor is stained with blood, the blood long since dried up, and thin strips of rotting, stinking flesh, the whole room smells of torture decay death.

Fuck, Malin thinks. Fuck.

You were here.

And she sees Janne slump to his knees, holding up the tattered remains of Tove’s top, holding it up to her, saying: ‘I bought her this.’

‘Fuck!’ Malin screams, before she sinks to the floor and starts to cry, with exhaustion, and despair as well, and Janne crawls towards her, wraps his arms around her and they breathe together, preparing themselves for whatever will come.

All around them uniformed officers, Sven and Karim talking to Zeke, who sees Waldemar’s car just arriving. Only Per Sundsten is missing, but perhaps he’s having a nap somewhere, gone home to Motala?

Malin gets up.

Janne behind her.

The other warehouse doors are open, evidently nothing inside that need concern them.

‘We got here too late,’ Sven says. ‘What the fuck do we do now?’

The bang.

It must be a rifle shot from the forest, some poacher out early.

But it could also be from you, my summer angel.

And you’d woken up.

We’ve left the fires behind us and I’ve sedated you again.

Now you can sleep peacefully in the van until we get there, until we reach the final room.

It’s not far now, I promise.

And there’s no need for you to be frightened.

You’re going to die, but only for a little while, and then you’ll be the most beautiful person ever.

Malin, Malin!

We’re shouting in chorus now, Sofia and me.

Think!

Think!

Sitting there, dejected and despairing on the tarmac outside the warehouse in Tornby.

Don’t listen to the others.

There’s still time to rescue her.

There’s still time to stop her becoming one of us.

Just think, and make us less scared, rescue Tove and grant us peace.

Let us rest soon, Malin.

You know where Tove is going, where Vera Folkman is going.

They’re on their way to the final room, they’re very nearly there, the white van is close now.

You need to be awake now.

I’m going to tie you up and you will see what I’m doing, if you can see it happen then you’ll dare to come back, because there’ll be no more fear, will there?

Beloved sister.

I’m parking the car outside the monster now.

He must be asleep.

It smells of summer out here, a summer’s morning, and on this day a summertime dream can start, my little summer angel.

I open the back doors.

You’re groaning, don’t wake up too soon now. You might as well see my face, what difference does it make, soon you will cease to exist, and I don’t think faces matter any more.

Tove squints.

The light is back again. Am I alive? Do I still exist, Mum? I think I’m alive, because my whole body aches. And someone’s pulling me, but it doesn’t hurt, it just gets hot hot hot when my body comes out in the sun.

Buildings all around.

Grey, concrete buildings, yellowing plants, 1950s buildings that I don’t recognise as I look at them upside down.

I have to run.

Get away from here.

But no matter how I try, my body doesn’t obey.

Mum.

Now it’s there again, the face, but it has features now, a woman’s rounded features.

Then she changes her mind.

Lifts me back into the darkness again.

I ring the doorbell.

And ring.

And ring.

Wait, wait, and you open, see me, try to close the door, but I’m stronger now, stronger, and I put my foot in the gap and you yell as I shove you into the flat, press you down on the sofa, tie you up and your cold white spiders’ fingers. I throw a blanket over you and you’re old now, but the meanness, the transparency in your grey eyes can never, ever disappear, Dad.

Wait.

I’ll go and get her.

From the van.

She needs to be watching when you die.

Your eyes are glaring wide-open in terror from your skull, it’s as if your eyelids have lost the ability to blink and the whole of your lair stinks of drink and piss and unwashed old man, but I know all about cleaning, Dad.

Wait here.

She’s heavy as I carry her over my shoulder and I had to put a rag in her mouth to stop her screaming and waking the whole block.

No one can see me now.

Finspång’s morning eyes are dead.

I close the door.

How long have I been sitting here now? Malin thinks. Far too long.

Her body is a single emotion moulded of many: anxiety, anger, exhaustion, despair, resignation, fury and heat. An overheated brain is worthless as an instrument of thought, as a rescuer in this hour of need.

The tarmac warm beneath her buttocks.

Malin hasn’t bothered to move into the shade, the sun is merciless even just before half past four in the morning.

Janne and Zeke are sitting in the shade, leaning against the wall of the warehouse next to each other, and Malin can see that they’re gathering their strength, recharging before the next act.

The final act?

Sven Sjöman crouching beside her.

‘Malin, have you got any ideas?’

His breath smells of coffee.

The voices, listen to the voices.

It’s desire that kills.

And Malin straightens up, certainty like a sudden strong jolt through her body and she flies up, shouting over to Janne and Zeke: ‘Come on, I know where she is!’

Sven steps back, letting Malin past as she races to the car.

‘Come on, for fuck’s sake!’

All around them officers have stopped what they were doing, as if the desperation in her voice has frozen time at that second and given them all a glimpse of eternity.

Sven called after them: ‘Where are you going, Malin?’

But she didn’t answer, didn’t want a whole fucking army to show up and set off something stupid if it wasn’t already too late. She didn’t want Sven to call the cretins in the Finspång station, who knew what sort of mess they could make of things.

No.

Now it’s me against you.

I know where you are now, Vera Folkman, and I know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

It’s a tragic madness, your madness. Two sisters, alone in the world together; they love each other endlessly. Do you think you can recreate your sister? your love for one another? It’s a beautiful madness, your madness. But it’s my task to destroy it, obliterate it.

It’s Janne’s task.

Zeke’s.

But most of all ours, Janne. We have a child, and we owe her a life.

Malin is sitting in the back seat of the car, Janne leaning on her shoulder. They’re forcing themselves to stay awake, saying things about the landscape as they pass through it to make sure that Zeke doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

‘The Roxen looks so inviting in the morning light.’

‘Vreta Kloster really is beautiful.’

‘We’re going to stop that bitch.’

At the start of the drive Malin explained that Vera Folkman must have taken Tove with her back to see her father, Sture Folkman, to conclude a dance of death that had been going on for far too long, which had created a summer that no one in the area would ever forget.

One hundred and fifty kilometres an hour as they pass the golf course in Vreta Kloster, after driving through a deserted early-morning Ljungsbro.

They pass the fires, the lines of cars, and they meet fire engines on their way back from there, their cabs full of exhausted men with soot-smeared faces, resignation in their eyes as if the fire and the heat were too strong for them, as if they had no choice but to capitulate to the flames and let the fire transform all the forests of Östergötland into a no-man’s-land.

‘Do you wish you were still there?’ Malin asks Janne, but he doesn’t answer.

Dark, burgundy-coloured wallpaper. A creaking wooden floor.

Him rendered immobile. You soon here on the floor.

I have everything in place now, sister.

So that you can be resurrected.

So that our innocence can be reborn in a radiant whiteness.

I am in the final room.

In the final room

I, Sture Folkman, was seventeen years old the first time I gave in to my lust.

Down by the factory in Ängelholm there was a kiosk where she, she was eleven or twelve, used to buy cigarettes for her mother.

Her white dress.

It covered no more than her thighs and it was a hot day, almost as hot as some days have been this summer.

She was walking along the path behind the factory and there were azaleas, the most beautiful I had ever seen, in bloom there.

I caught up with her.

Brought her down.

And she was hairless and I knew this was the first step of many for me, it couldn’t be stopped, I could see in her frightened eyes that deep down she loved it, loved me, just like all my girls came to, even if some of them got ideas in their heads later on. I kept rabbits in cages to make them happy. Girls love rabbits.

That white dress ended up spotted with blood.

I whispered in her ear as I held her by the throat.

Keep quiet about this, girl, or the devil will get you.

Shame comes before love.

Over the years other people’s shame has been my best ally. It was easiest and nicest when I had the girls in the house, God knows how excited I got, hearing my creaking footsteps at night when I was on the way to their room.

They were always full of anticipation.

Lying awake, waiting for me, for my lovely, long, dextrous fingers, for my wonderful presence.

I was always careful.

Pulling the covers from their bodies.

Caressing their young white glassy skin.

My own flesh and blood or someone else’s, it never mattered. I gave my love to all the girls who came my way.

You’re awake now, little girl, my beautiful summer angel.

We’re here now, in the final room, and she shall see me do this first.

I’ve hammered four big nails into the floor and tied you to them. And you can see in my direction now.

I’m sitting beside my dad on his sofa.

I’ve got my mask on, so my face lacks definition, I’m wearing my white spiders’ legs, holding the necklace of rabbit claws to his cheeks and I’m scratching and he’s screaming, the old man, but there isn’t really much life in him.

You’re looking away.

LOOK FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

And you look.

She’s naked and the mask is on again.

Her head is aching, but Tove can see the scene clearly, understands that she’s in a grotty flat, God knows where, and that a woman, naked, is sitting next to her dad and hurting him.

Why?

And she screams at me to look, but I don’t want to see this and she scratches his face again and he screams.

She gets up.

Her thin white surgical gloves are glowing in the weak light.

I can’t get up.

There’s a smell of bleach, the sort Mum uses to get rid of stains.

Mum, Dad. You have to hurry.

I can hear her in another room, drawers being opened, she’s looking for something, and the man tries to scream, but she’s put a rag in his mouth, just like mine.

Neither of us can move.

Neither of us can escape.

The knife.

The old kitchen knife that Elisabeth and I fantasised about stabbing him with, he’s still got it, the rough knife with the Bakelite handle.

I pull it from the block on the worktop.

Hold it. Think what a shame it was about Sofia Fredén. I saw her when she was working in the café at Tinnis last summer, and she used to move the same way you used to, Elisabeth, and with her I thought that if I do everything quickly and in one place then maybe I can achieve what I want through speed and shock tactics, like an explosion or a powerful chemical reaction. I scratched and cut her with the claws, the first one I did that to, but it didn’t mean anything. Rabbits are only animals, their love is meaningless.