The Blood Spilt (28 page)

They were on the porch now, knocking on the door. Magnus’ car was in the yard, so he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t home.

Torbjörn Ylitalo and Lars-Gunnar Vinsa came in without waiting for Magnus to open the door. They were standing in the kitchen.

Torbjörn Ylitalo switched the light on.

Lars-Gunnar looked around. Suddenly Magnus realized what his kitchen looked like.

“It’s a bit… I’ve had a lot…” he said.

The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes and old milk cartons. Two bags crammed full of empty stinking cans by the door. Clothes he’d just dropped on the floor on his way into the shower, he should have chucked them in the laundry room. The table covered in junk mail, letters, old newspapers and a bowl of yogurt, the yogurt dried up and cracked. On the worktop next to the microwave lay a boat engine in bits; he was going to fix it sometime.

Magnus asked, but neither of them wanted coffee. Nor a beer. Magnus himself opened a Pilsner, his fifth of the evening.

Torbjörn got straight down to business.

“What have you been saying to the police?” he asked.

“What the fuck do you mean?”

Torbjörn Ylitalo’s eyes narrowed. Lars-Gunnar’s stance became somehow heavier.

“Let’s not be stupid, Magnus,” said Torbjörn. “You told them I wanted to shoot the priest.”

“Crap! That cow of a detective’s full of crap, she…”

He didn’t get any further. Lars-Gunnar had taken a step forward and hit him with a blow that was like having your ears boxed by a grizzly.

“Don’t you stand there lying to us!”

Magnus blinked and raised his hand to his burning cheek.

“What the fuck,” he whimpered.

“I’ve stuck up for you,” said Lars-Gunnar. “You’re a bloody loser, I’ve always thought so. But for your father’s sake we’ve let you into the team. And we’ve let you stay, despite your bloody antics.”

A hint of defiance flared in Magnus.

“Oh, so you’re a better person than me, are you? You’re superior in some way, are you?”

Now it was Torbjörn’s turn to give him a thump in the chest. Magnus staggered backwards, cannoning into the worktop with the back of his thighs.

“Right, now you just listen!”

“I’ve put up with you,” Lars-Gunnar went on. “Going out shooting at road signs with your new gun, you and your pals. That bloody fight in the hunting lodge a couple of years ago. You can’t hold your drink. But you carry on boozing and do such stupid bloody things.”

“What the fuck, the fight, that wasn’t me, that was Jimmy’s cousin, he…”

A new thump in the chest from Torbjörn. Magnus dropped the can of beer. It lay there, the beer trickling out onto the floor.

Lars-Gunnar wiped the sweat from his brow. It was running past his eyebrows and down his cheeks.

“And those bloody kittens…”

“Yes, for fuck’s sake,” Torbjörn chipped in.

Magnus managed a foolish, drunken giggle.

“What the fuck, a few cats…”

Lars-Gunnar punched him in the face. Clenched fist. Right on the nose. It felt as if his face had split open. Warm blood poured down over his mouth.

“Come on then!” roared Lars-Gunnar. “Here, come on, here!”

He pointed at his own chin.

“Come on! Here! Now you’ve got the chance to fight a real man. You cowardly little bastard, tormenting women. You’re a fucking disgrace. Come on!”

He beckoned Magnus toward him with both hands. Stuck his chin out to entice him.

Magnus was holding his right hand under his bleeding nose, the blood was running up his shirtsleeve. He waved Lars-Gunnar away with his left hand.

Suddenly Lars-Gunnar leaned heavily on the kitchen table.

“I’m going outside,” he said to Torbjörn Ylitalo. “Before I do something I might regret.”

Before he went out through the door, he turned around.

“You can report me if you want,” he said. “I don’t care. That’s just what I’d expect from you.”

“But you’re not going to do that,” said Torbjörn Ylitalo when Lars-Gunnar had gone. “And you’re going to keep your mouth shut about anything to do with me and the hunting team. Have you got that?”

Magnus nodded.

“If I hear you’ve been opening your big mouth again, I personally will make sure you regret it. Understand?”

Magnus nodded again. He was tilting his face upward in an effort to stop the blood pouring out of his nose. It ran back into his throat instead, tasted like iron.

“The hunting permit will be renewed at the end of the year,” Torbjörn went on. “If there’s a lot of talk or trouble… well, who knows. Nothing’s certain in this world. You’ve got your place in the team, but only if you behave yourself.”

There was silence for a little while.

“Right then, make sure you put some ice on that,” said Torbjörn eventually.

Then he left as well.

Lars-Gunnar Vinsa was sitting out on the steps, his head in his hands.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Torbjörn.

“Fuck,” said Lars-Gunnar. “But my father used to hit my mother, you know. So it just makes me furious… I should have killed him, my father, I mean. When I’d finished my police training and moved back here, I tried to get her to divorce him. But back then, in the sixties, you had to talk to the priest first. And the bastard persuaded her to stay with the old man.”

Torbjörn Ylitalo gazed out across the overgrown meadow bordering on to Magnus’ property.

“Come on,” he said.

Lars-Gunnar got up with some difficulty.

He was thinking about that priest. His bald, shiny pate. His neck, like a pile of sausages. Fuck. His mother, sitting there with her best coat on. Her bag on her knee. Lars-Gunnar sitting beside her to keep her company. The priest, a little smile on his face. As if it were some bloody joke. “Old lady,” the priest had said to her. His mother had just turned fifty. She would live for more than thirty years. “Will you not be reconciled with your husband instead?” Afterward she’d been very quiet. “That’s it, it’s all sorted,” Lars-Gunnar had said. “You’ve spoken to the priest, now you can get a divorce.” But his mother had shaken her head. “It’s easier now you youngsters have left home,” she’d replied. “How would he manage without me?”

* * *

Magnus Lindmark watched the two men disappear down the road. He opened the freezer and rummaged about. Took out a plastic bag of frozen mince, lay down on the living room sofa with a fresh can of beer, placed the frozen mince on his nose and switched on the TV. There was some documentary about dwarves, poor bastards.

R
ebecka Martinsson is buying a packed meal from Mimmi. She is on her way down to Kurravaara. She might stay there tonight. When Nalle was there, it felt fine. Now she’s going to try it on her own. She’s going to have a sauna and swim in the river. She knows how it will feel. Cold water, sharp stones beneath her feet. The sharp intake of breath when you jump in, quick strokes as you swim out. And that inexplicable feeling of being at one with yourself at different ages. She’s bathed there, swum there as a six-year-old, a ten-year-old, a teenager, right up until she moved away from the town. The same big stones, the same shoreline. The same chilly autumn evening air, pouring like a river of air over the river of water. It’s like a Russian doll with all the little dolls safely inside, so that you can screw the top part and the bottom part back together, knowing that even the tiniest is safe and sound inside.

Then she’ll eat alone in the kitchen and watch television. She can have the radio on while she washes up. Maybe Sivving will come over when he sees the light.

“So you were off on an adventure with Nalle today?”

It’s Micke who’s asking, the bar owner. He’s got kind eyes. They don’t really go with his muscular, tattooed arms, his beard and his earring.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Cool. He and Mildred were often out and about together.”

“Yes,” she says.

I’ve done something for her, she thinks.

Mimmi has arrived with Rebecka’s food.

“Tomorrow evening,” says Micke, “do you fancy working here for a few hours? It’s Saturday, everybody’s back from their holidays, the schools have gone back, it’ll be packed in here. Fifty kronor an hour, eight till one, plus tips.”

Rebecka looks at him in amazement.

“Sure,” she says, trying not to look too pleased. “Why not?”

She drives away. Feels full of mischief.

YELLOW LEGS

November. The gray light of dawn comes slowly. It has snowed during the night, and feather light flakes are still floating down in the silent forest. From somewhere comes the croaking of a raven.

The wolf pack is sleeping in a little hollow, completely covered in snow. Not even their ears are sticking up. All the cubs but one have survived the summer. There are eleven members of the pack now.

Yellow Legs stands up and shakes off the snow. Sniffs the air. The snow has settled like a blanket over all the old scent trails. Swept the air and the ground clean. She sharpens her senses. The keen eye. The alert ear. And there. She hears the sound of an elk rising from its overnight resting place, shaking off the snow. It’s a kilometer away. Hunger makes its presence known like an aching void in her stomach. She wakes the others and gives the signal. There are many of them now, they can hunt such large prey.

The elk is a dangerous quarry. It has strong hind legs and sharp hooves. It could easily break her jaw with one kick, like a branch. But Yellow Legs is a skillful hunter. And she is daring.

The pack trots calmly in the direction of the elk. Soon they will pick up the scent. The cubs, now seven months old, are told with irritated silent yelps and nudges to stay behind the rest of the pack. They have already begun to catch small animals, but on this hunt they are allowed to come along only as observers. They know something big is happening, and are quivering with suppressed excitement. The older wolves are saving their strength. It is only their noses, raised in the air from time to time, that reveal the fact that this is not just a normal relocation, but the beginning of a demanding hunt. It is more likely that it will fail than succeed, but there is a determination in the way Yellow Legs moves. She’s hungry. And these days she works hard for the pack, all the time. Daren’t leave to go off on her own as she used to do. She senses that she is on the way to being driven out. One fine day, she may not be allowed to return. Her half-sister, the alpha female, keeps her on a tight rein. Yellow Legs always approaches the alpha pair with her hind legs bent and her back low in order to show them her submissiveness. Her backside drags along the ground. She crawls and licks the corners of their mouths. She is the most skillful hunter in the pack, but that no longer helps. They can manage without her, and somehow they all know that her days are numbered.

Physically, it is Yellow Legs who is superior. She is fast and long-legged. The biggest female in the pack. But she doesn’t have the mind of a leader. Likes to take little trips on her own, away from the pack. Doesn’t like trouble, prefers to turn aside a quarrel or a fight by fawning and starting a game instead. Her half-sister, on the other hand, gets up after a rest and stretches, looking around at the same time with a rock hard question in her eyes: “Well? Anyone thinking of taking me on today?” She is uncompromising and unafraid. You fit in with her or you leave, soon her cubs will learn that lesson. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if there were a fight. With her as one of the leading pair, rival packs have to be wary of encroaching on their territory. Her restlessness gets the whole pack on its feet in the hunt for prey, or moving on to extend their territory.

The elk has got the scent of the pack. It’s a young bull. They hear the crack of breaking branches as they gather speed through the forest. Yellow Legs moves up to a gallop. The fresh snow isn’t deep, there is a considerable risk that the elk will get away from them. Yellow Legs breaks away from the rest and runs in a semicircle to overtake it.

After two kilometers the pack catches up with the elk. Yellow Legs has made it stop, launching small attacks but keeping well away from its antlers and hooves. The others gather around the massive animal. The bull tramps around in a circle, ready to defend itself against the first one who dares to attack. It’s one of the males. He sinks his teeth into the elk’s haunch. The elk pulls itself free. There’s a deep wound, muscles and sinews torn away. But the wolf doesn’t move away quickly enough; the elk kicks him over and he rolls backwards. When he gets up on his feet he’s limping slightly. Two ribs are broken. The other wolves retreat a few paces and the elk breaks away. Bleeding from its haunch, it disappears into the brush.

It has too much strength left. Best to let it run for a while, bleeding, let it tire itself out. The wolves set off in pursuit of their prey. The pack is spaced out this time, trotting along. There’s no hurry. They’ll soon catch him again. The wolf that was kicked limps along after them. For the immediate future he’ll be totally dependent on the others’ success in hunting in order to survive. If the prey is too small, there won’t be anything but bones left for him when he’s permitted to eat. If they have to travel too far to hunt, he won’t be strong enough to go with them. When the snow gets deep, it will be painful to get along.

After five kilometers the pack attacks again. This time it’s Yellow Legs who moves in first. She closes on the elk at a gallop. The distance between the pack and the elk diminishes rapidly. The others are so close behind her that she can feel their heads with her hind legs. There is only the big elk, nothing else. His blood in her nose. She’s caught up. She seizes the elk’s haunch. This is the most dangerous moment, she doesn’t let go, and the next second a wolf is clinging to its other haunch. Another instantly takes over from Yellow Legs when she lets go. She dashes ahead and fastens her jaws around the elk’s throat. The elk falls to its knees in the snow. Yellow Legs tugs at its throat. The huge animal tries to summon its strength to get to its feet. Stretches its head up to the sky. The alpha male sinks its teeth into the elk’s muzzle and drags its head down to the ground. Yellow Legs gets a fresh grip on the throat and rips it open.