End of Summer Page 16

  A large bramble bush is blocking her path, far too vicious for her to push through. The intruder, on the other hand, evidently didn’t think that, because some of the branches are still swaying. She darts quickly round the bramble and gains several seconds.

  Clouds pass in front of the moon again and she doesn’t see the twig that scratches her on the forehead and then gets tangled in her hair. She stops and frees herself with her left hand. It’s almost pitch black in amongst the bushes, and pushing ahead blindly really isn’t a good idea. She crouches down instead, aims the shotgun in front of her and listens.

  All she can hear is her own breathing and the blood pulsing in her temples. Whoever it is in front of her in the darkness has stopped at the same time as her. That big bramble must have hurt, and had probably left the intruder with some painful cuts and an inclination to be more cautious.

  The clouds part briefly and the bushes in front of her rustle. She catches a glimpse of movement, then everything goes dark again. Instinctively she’s already pressed the butt of the shotgun to her cheek, taken the safety catch off and put her finger on the trigger. She listens, waiting for the next break in the clouds.

  She hears a shuffling sound, as if something were being dragged across the ground. Then there’s more rustling in the undergrowth, scraping against fabric, but it sounds different now. Softer, less sharp.

  The clouds part to let the moonlight through. She moves forwards as fast as she can, leaving the safety catch off and holding the butt against her cheek as she aims in front of her. She moves past another dense thicket, through a small clearing and almost runs straight into the rusty old wire fence at the end of the garden.

  She stops. There’s a deep furrow under the fence, and just a metre or so away the maize stands like a dark wall. In the distance she can still hear the sound of someone running through the field. Their head start is growing with every step, it’s already far too big. She lowers the gun and puts the safety catch back on. The hunt is over.

  The adrenalin rush starts to subside and she realises she’s freezing. Her feet hurt, and the scratches on her shoulders and arms sting. She shivers as she looks around the clearing.

  The place where Billy’s shoe was found can’t be more than a stone’s throw from here, out among the maize. Where the intruder fled.

  She shivers with cold again, unless it’s from unease, as she suddenly realises that someone’s watching her. From ten, fifteen metres away along the fence. She turns and raises the shotgun, releasing the safety catch in the same smooth movement.

  An animal. A doglike creature with pointed ears and its head tilted. It’s sitting perfectly still, looking at her. A fox.

  Chapter 33

  Summer 1983

  M

  ånsson opened the door to the custody unit, prompting the police officer in the little glass booth to stand up.

  ‘He’s being released,’ Månsson said, gesturing towards Rooth’s cell. The officer didn’t seem surprised, so tattletale Britt must have let him know too.

  ‘OK, I’ll sort out the practical details.’

  Månsson waved his hand dismissively. ‘No, I’ll take care of it. You get going.’

  Månsson waited until the door had closed behind the officer before sticking his head inside the glass booth. He leaned over and pulled out the baton that was kept in a tube under the desk. He pulled the strap over his thumb, wrapped it round the back of his hand and spun the baton until it sat snugly in his hand.

  Rooth was half lying on his bunk reading a paperback thriller that must have come from the meagre custody unit bookshelf. When Månsson entered the cell he looked up and closed the book.

  ‘What an honour – the Chief of Police himself.’ Rooth had regained his usual patronising tone. ‘If you want to talk you’ll have to call my lawyer. I’m not saying anything without—’

  Månsson slammed the baton down on the bunk, five centimetres from Rooth’s foot, making him jump and drop the book. The sound echoed off the bare walls like a pistol shot.

  At first Rooth looked shocked, but he soon collected himself. He sat up, his eyes narrowed and his lips tightened.

  Månsson looked him in the eye. He imagined Rooth inside the pump house. Imagined Billy Nilsson on that horrific bed. Raised the baton again, but for some reason he hesitated.

  Rooth shifted position. ‘My dad used to hit me . . . Well, hit isn’t quite the right word. He used to beat me black and blue. My earliest memory of him is actually him looming over me, hitting me with his belt. I didn’t think you were that type, Månsson.’

  Månsson squeezed the baton, trying to make himself continue.

  ‘He kept doing it until I learned to hit back,’ Rooth said. ‘So when I turned seventeen I gave the old bastard one hell of a going over, then went off to sea. I got into a fair few fights there too. Once you learn that’s how things work, it’s easy to carry on. But Sailor took me under his wing and made sure things didn’t get too fucked up.’

  He fell silent and gestured towards the baton.

  ‘What I mean is that I’m used to being beaten up. Badly beaten up. Just so you know, Månsson. If you’re planning to hit me, you’re going to have to make a really thorough job of it.’

  Månsson swallowed. He tried to hold on to the image of Billy Nilsson, to cling on to his rage and frustration. The hatred he felt for Tommy Rooth. But doubt had got hold of him. Was he really this sort of person? He stood there with the baton raised, glaring at Rooth. Then he slowly lowered his arm and took a step back. All of a sudden he felt sick.

  ‘The prosecutor has decided to let you go, for the time being, anyway,’ he muttered. ‘But you’re still a suspect. You’re not to leave the district, is that understood?’

  Rooth stood up and nodded slowly. ‘You could have sent someone else to tell me,’ he said. ‘To avoid the humiliation. Why didn’t you?’

  Månsson took a deep breath. ‘The Nilsson family are in pieces,’ he said quietly. ‘All they want is to know where their little boy is. Have him back home again.’

  In his mind’s eye Månsson conjured up images of Johan and Jakob when they were Billy’s age. He lowered his voice still further, and didn’t have to make much effort to sound sincere.

  ‘You’re a father, Tommy. You should be able to understand what Ebbe and Magdalena are going through. Imagine it was your boy who was missing. Ebbe’s like a ghost, and Magdalena’s shut herself away in her room. She hasn’t got out of bed since Billy . . .’

  Something changed in Rooth’s angular features. A shift in expression. Rooth seemed to notice it himself, because he looked away and ran his tongue over his lips. Månsson found himself thinking of Vera Nilsson and the uneasy look in her eyes.

  ‘Give them some peace, Tommy,’ he went on. ‘You’re the only person who can do that for them.’

  Rooth licked his lips again. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, then paused.

  Månsson thought of the Nilsson children, standing in the window. The way Vera and Mattias had gazed down at him, waiting for him to find their little brother. Put an end to their nightmare. He held his breath.

  The expression on Rooth’s face changed again, and now looked almost pained. Then it slowly went back to normal. He shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got nothing else to say.’

  He didn’t sound triumphant, just exhausted. Even so, it irritated Månsson. His anger suddenly flared up again, even stronger than before, and he could feel his pulse throbbing behind his eyes.

  He thought about Vera Nilsson. About her older brother, her mum and dad. About Harald Aronsson, about Malin and the boys. About everyone in the village who was relying on him to find the truth. To bring Billy home. The throbbing became a roar.

  I’m doing my best, Månsson thought. I’m trying to be a good husband, a good father. A good police officer. But sometimes . . . He raised the baton, squeezing the handle so tightly that his fingers turned white. Sometimes that just isn’t
enough.

  Chapter 34

  V

  eronica usually sleeps soundly and wakes up late, and it takes a long time for her body and brain to start working. Not today.

  Outside the fog is hanging heavy above the grass, making the field of maize and the red eyes of the wind giants invisible. The house is completely silent. No sound from either the study or the kitchen. She’s been dreaming again, she knows that much. Looking for Billy, calling his name over and over, but the only response is the rustle of the wind through the maize. Unless the sound is actually someone running.

  She creeps out into the bathroom. The old pipes boom dully when she turns the tap on. They clank and splutter for a while before finally releasing a weary dribble of hot water. She sits down in the old bathtub. The enamel in the bottom is yellow and rough, its smooth surface worn off by millions of leaking drops of water going back to her grandparents’ day. The little hourglass still hangs from the wall, with the text: As the sand runs down beneath, take good care to brush your teeth.

  She slowly washes off the remains of last night’s chase. The water makes the grazes on her arms and feet sting. Even though she takes her time in the shower, there’s something that won’t allow itself to be washed away. A feeling prompted by the chase that’s only grown stronger overnight, strengthened by her dreams. There’s nothing to suggest that last night’s events have any connection to the break-in in her flat. Yet she can’t shake the feeling that they’re somehow connected. That something’s going on that she doesn’t quite understand, a peculiar game of hide-and-seek where she doesn’t know who or what she’s looking for. Or even where to start looking.

  Her fingers trace the scar on her lower arm. The skin there is paler, slightly harder than the surrounding flesh. It’s interesting how the body heals an injury, making the wounded area tougher than it was before. The body learns from its mistakes, unlike the mind.

  She dries herself and pulls on her underwear, jeans and a clean, long-sleeved T-shirt. She ties her hair up in a ponytail, then goes downstairs. It’s just gone seven o’clock.

  Her car starts at the second attempt. The fog is still lingering over the stubble in the fields in front of the house, swirling over the gravel road and around the headlights.

  Just before she reaches the main road she spots a sign by the side of the road that she didn’t notice the previous day. A company logo showing the propeller of a wind turbine. She recognises it from the papers on her dad’s desk.

  On her way into the village she looks more closely at the turbines she passes, and sees the same logo on them. The blades are turning incredibly slowly, as if the giants were only just waking up.

  She parks the car on the patch of gravel in front of the church. The heavy, whitewashed wall resembles the one enclosing the rose garden, only one third its height.

  There’s almost no wind. Only the very tops of the trees that protect the dead from the wind that usually sweeps the plain are moving, just a little. The fog sits like a lid above the path through the churchyard, and seems to make the smell of boxwood stronger, a smell that always makes her think of funerals. She walks round the white church building. In a few hours’ time there’ll be a service. She thinks about the grinning goat’s head up on the roof and wonders if it’s still there. But why wouldn’t it be?

  Her paternal grandparents’ grave is an unobtrusive grey stone in the middle of a row. Nothing remarkable, and typical of the Nilsson family. Her maternal grandparents’ grave, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It sits in its own corner of the churchyard, fifteen, maybe twenty square metres, with perfectly straight edging stones. At the top end stands a large black metal memorial. The words ARONSSON FAMILY GRAVE gleam so bright and gold that Uncle Harald must have had them re-gilded recently. Below, in the neatly raked shingle, stand three dark headstones: Grandfather’s parents’, his unmarried sister’s, and his own and Grandmother’s. LANDOWNER ASSAR ARONSSON. ALVA, HIS WIFE.

  Mum’s headstone stands slightly separate, just outside the family plot, right next to the wall of the churchyard. It’s made of some pinkish, faintly sparkling stone whose name Veronica has forgotten.

  Magdalena Nilsson, née Aronsson

  21 August 1948 – 18 December 1983

  On either side of the stone is a perfectly pruned rose bush. One red, one pink, just like in the rose garden. Dad must come here several times a week.

  Below Mum’s name his own has already been engraved.

  Ebbe Nilsson

  3 April 1945 –

  Only the date of death is missing. But it’s the gap beneath her parents’ names that draws the attention. The space where Billy’s name should be. Around ten years ago someone suggested that they should apply to have Billy declared dead, but her dad reacted furiously, which didn’t happen often. Under no circumstances was Mum going to lie next to an empty coffin. Since then no one has dared raise the subject again, not even Uncle Harald.

  Grief demands total devotion before the heartbreaking pain mutates into something more manageable. The human psyche always tries to find points of light even in the deepest darkness, searching for a glimmer of hope to cling on to. It was probably that hope that broke Mum. As long as Billy’s body wasn’t found, the hope and the questions wouldn’t go away. Where’s Billy now? What’s he doing? Who tucks my little boy in at night, who comforts him when he cries?

  Her doctors had said Mum was on her way out of her depression. Veronica suspects that she had just resigned herself to the fact that she would never get any answers, and that the stones, ice and lake were the only things that could get that hopeless hope to leave her in peace.

  She crouches down beside the headstone. Clears her throat and tries to think of something to say.

  ‘Hi, Mum, it’s me.’ The words sound clumsy, as if they belong to someone else, and she’s struck by how stupid this all feels. They never confided in each other when Mum was alive, and trying to do so now, like this, feels like a film cliché.

  She stands up, embarrassed, and brushes some imaginary stones from her trousers. She feels a sudden urge for a cigarette, and curses not blagging a couple off Mattias the previous evening when she had the chance.

  Then she notices something she hadn’t spotted before. A small object on top of the gravestone. A little black stone, perfectly smooth and cold in her hand, as if it had been polished by countless waves. She rolls it in her palm. She’s sure it wasn’t Dad who left it there. So the stone must have been put there recently, or else he would surely have removed it for spoiling the otherwise perfect symmetry.

  The feeling from first thing that morning is back, now even stronger. There’s something going on here. And another realisation is starting to grow just as strong, sucking energy from the little stone in her hand: that she really does need to find out what it is.

  She walks quickly back to the car. For a brief, unpleasant moment, just as she’s going through the gate, she gets the feeling there’s someone standing by the corner of the church, she can almost feel their eyes on the back of her neck. But when she turns round the churchyard is deserted and the only things moving are a couple of magpies flying up into one of the tall trees.

  *

  She’s waiting outside the grocery store on the dot of eight o’clock. Plastic floor, fluorescent lighting. Walls and ceiling that could have done with freshening up a long time ago. The smell of freshly baked bread makes her stomach rumble loudly. But the need for cigarettes drowns out her hunger, and her curiosity is greater still. With a bit of luck she might be able to satisfy all her needs in one go.

  ‘Goodness, is that you, Vera?’

  Aunt Berit comes round the counter to give her a hug. She’s an old schoolfriend of Mum’s. Her best friend, Berit would probably say, but Veronica is pretty sure her mum wouldn’t have agreed with her about that.

  Berit looks much the same as always. A bit more grey hair, a bit heavier, and with a few more cigarette wrinkles around her mouth. Sensible shoes and practical
clothes, a big red cardigan with the shop’s logo on the chest. She’s fifty-five, the same age Mum would have been, but she actually looks a couple of years younger, which makes her pretty much unique in the village. Aunt Berit is the type who talks until she runs out of breath, which means she has to take an audible breath at the end of every sentence.

  ‘It must be at least four or five years since I last saw you! Or is it even longer than that?’

  Berit is married to Uncle Sören, a large man with a chinstrap beard, a receding chin and gentle eyes – he looks a bit like an actor who always plays kindly fathers on television. Sören sometimes used to give her and Mattias an ice cream when they went shopping, probably to give him an excuse to talk to Mum. His family has run the village shop for three generations, which means that he, Berit and their two children are always referred to by the surname Grocer, even though their real name is Möller. That’s the way it works out here. You’re not only yourself, you’re also your parents and grandparents. Sören and Berit Grocer. Erik Carpenter. Sven Postie. Inger Seamstress. She will always be known as Vera, Ebbe and Magdalena’s girl, regardless of what it might say on her driving licence or in the census.

  In the space of just a few minutes Aunt Berit manages to tell her most of the important news. She herself is fine (apart from a few niggles). Breath. Her children, whose names Veronica can’t remember, except that they start with ‘L’ are also fine. The boy, Ludde (that was it) lives in Trelleborg, his sister Lena still lives in the village. They’re both married, of course, and have a number of children.

  They also manage to deal with the unavoidable fact that Veronica hasn’t had any children (such a shame), or even a husband (you just haven’t met the right person). Instead of changing the subject and asking questions herself, Veronica smiles sadly and murmurs in agreement, just as she is expected to do. Because that’s how Vera Nilsson, Ebbe and Magdalena’s girl, behaves.