by Will Dean
‘What? Jesus. What did you say?’
‘Didn’t say anything,’ she says. ‘Arrested him.’ She touches the cuffs on her belt. ‘Hate crime. He’ll get a tidy fine for that one.’
We walk out of the ruin and duck to go through the church arch. I should pay my respects to the Grimbergs, to their family grave, but I can’t face it right now. I’m not good with graves.
As we head down past Hotel Gavrik with its off-centre sign, Benny Björnmossen passes between Noora and me, carrying a toddler-size doll in Swedish traditional costume.
‘Ladies,’ he says.
A homemade sign in the hotel window reads: Special offer: 25% off. Best rates in Gavrik.
Only rates in Gavrik.
‘Tourism’s down significantly,’ says Noora. ‘The woman from Systembolaget was telling me. Down by almost half. Lots of cancelled bookings.’
‘Gavrik didn’t need that,’ I say.
‘Agreed,’ she says. ‘Listen, you want to drop by my place later after my shift? You don’t need to talk, don’t need to do anything. You can game if you want to, my housemate has a PlayStation. What do you say?’
Imagine that. Someone being kind enough to say, you don’t need to do anything, not even talk, you can just game if you want. I look into Noora’s eyes and every cell of my body wants to say ‘yes’ but I say, ‘No, thanks. Not tonight, Noora.’
‘Okay,’ she says, stiffening, turning to walk into the cop shop.
‘Only because I’ll fall too deep,’ I say. ‘I don’t deserve it yet. I need to be thinking about Tam and if I do come by your place I’ll start thinking about you even more than I do now. Do you understand?’
She squeezes my upper arm and her hip bone nudges me as she walks away through the cop shop door. I breathe a long deep sigh and get into my Hilux. I drive around. Looking for missed clues but also just driving. It’s almost as therapeutic as gaming. And gaming’s almost as therapeutic as drinking. For the past months I’ve been gaming like a demon. To get my head straight. To give myself the chance to escape for a while.
There are strawberry sellers outside town past the Q8 gas station and they do not look happy. Two girls: one dressed in grey and one dressed in white. Punnets of unsold strawberries that look like they’ve been cooked in the sun. A baseball bat resting against the side of the table. I pull over.
‘Hej, hej,’ I say.
They both look at me and smile. They’re about fifteen.
‘They look good,’ I say, even though the fruit is starting to rot and soften and the red is darkening in spots to a deep maroon. ‘How much?’
The white dress girl points to their homemade sign.
I hand over the kronor.
The grey dress girl takes it and she puts my rotten strawberries, they smell like some kind of cheap alcoholic cocktail, into a plastic bag.
‘Have either of you seen anyone acting strange this week? Anyone carrying a gun or a camera or some kind of voice equipment? Anyone going about in pairs?’
Both look at me like I’m crazy or drunk or both.
Both shake their heads. The girl in the grey dress checks her phone.
I drive away.
The farmers north of Gavrik are still farming. They work well into the night this time of year, making up for the winter standstill when snow blankets their fields sometimes for five months before a thaw. They look like they’re in a rush. Driving round on their tractors tending to their rocky land and their evil infested scarecrows. Doing their best. Working till eleven at night because the sun lets them.
It starts to rain but then stops abruptly.
What Noora said, what she did, taking some time out for me, it’s helped. I feel less panicked than I did before. Tammy was alive two days ago and I think she’s alive now. Specialists are looking for her, not just Thord with his good intentions. Trained specialists from outside Gavrik, and that makes me feel like there’s some hope.
I park outside Lena’s.
I shower and eat and she texts saying she’ll be home late and I should go to bed. I check the blood splatter on the window of the friggebod and it’s worse. Why do this, little bird? There is dark matter with the blood and it’s either its own brain tissue or else the blood has coagulated and cooked on the glass in this Midsommar sun.
Thank the Lord for my new security bolts. Or thank Lena, more like. I take a snack back over to the friggebod. My hair is wet so I dry it with a towel and I drink a glass of milk accompanied by four digestive biscuits. The blinds need more tape so I fix that and then I secure both bolts and climb into bed. It creaks and the sheets don’t smell as fresh as they did a few days ago. They smell of sweat and fear. Of listless sleep.
I take out my hearing aids and place them on the bedside table and then, thinking of Noora, I fall asleep.
I wake to a bang. Not audible but physical.
My bed shakes.
I sit bolt upright and turn on the light.
Nothing.
The bulb’s out.
I light a match and put it to the candle in the lantern, and then I place one hearing aid in.
My heart’s beating hard.
What was that bang? The dying bird? Or did I dream it?
The room is murky. Shadows dancing from the candle glare.
I check my phone.
Nothing.
It hasn’t vibrated.
Could the bloodied bird be back?
I step out of bed and look around the room and check the compost toilet room and then I get back into bed. I lie down, my face filling the pillow dent I made earlier. My breathing slows. I pull out my hearing aid. I reach out to the candle, to blow it out, and I look down, under my bed, and two cold eyes stare back up at me.
39
Freddy Bom looks up at me, his face so close to mine I can smell him.
I scream but no noise comes out.
He starts to climb out from under my bed, his crab-like fingers on the edge of the mattress.
I stretch for my stun gun on the bedside table.
He pushes it to the floor and then he puts a long thin finger to his lips.
‘Get out!’ I say, my voice trembling, cracking, but he shakes his head as if to say, no, stop shouting, this is normal, I am under your bed.
I throw my arms out and sprint over to the door and try to pull the bolts but they are stuck tight.
‘Stay back,’ I say, pointing at his face.
I can’t hear him. He is talking, his round shiny face lit by the candle in the lantern, but I cannot read his lips. I heave at the bolts but neither one moves.
‘Stay away,’ I scream, my throat hurting from the screech.
But he comes at me.
‘Help!’ I shout. ‘Help me, Lena!’
Oh, God. Is she still out? Am I locked in this blood-splattered shed, this box, bolted securely inside with this man?
Freddy surges towards me, his blond curls plastered to his face with sweat, his cheeks glazed and poreless, his eyes bright blue in the murk.
‘Stand back,’ I say, swinging my fist as if I had a knife. ‘Stay away.’
But he does not stay away.
He walks to me with his arms outstretched, his fingers spread like claws.
I scream again, and he lunges at me and pushes one hand over my mouth and I bite down hard on the soft flesh of his palm.
He recoils, his face folded in on itself, his hand red.
I pull the top bolt and work it loose and then he’s back at me. Is this what you did to Tammy, you pig? Is this where the blood on the ground outside her van came from?
I kick at him and he lunges again and I can see his plump lips, my eyes acclimatising, the early morning sun brightening outside.
Metallic taste in my mouth.
‘No,’ he says, his long fingers still outstretched. ‘I didn’t want to scare you.’
‘What?’ I say, and then I feel the door rattling at my back, someone trying to pull it open.
‘It’s the police,’
I say.
‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not.’
‘Get over there,’ I say, pointing to the far wall, my T-shirt stuck to my back.
Someone’s shouting on the other side of the door but I cannot hear them. I look at Freddy, then at the bottom bolt, then him, then the bolt again.
‘No,’ he says again. ‘I didn’t want to…’
I unlock the bolt and the door swings open and Lena runs in with a torch in her hands and she flies at Freddy about to kill him.
He cowers.
‘Lena,’ I say.
She is standing by Freddy in her pyjamas, her arm raised, the long black torch sitting in mid-air and holding just enough potential energy to crack Fredrik Bom’s cranium right down the middle.
Lena’s arm is poised.
‘Wait,’ I say.
Lena looks at me, panting, frowning.
‘My aids,’ I say, pointing to the table, my finger shaking, one leg inside the friggebod, one leg outside in the safety of the garden.
Lena takes my aids and she picks up the stun gun and she holds it towards Freddy as if to say, you do anything and I will electrocute you.
She hands me my aids. I place the right one in and switch it on.
‘Should we lock him in here?’ asks Lena. ‘Until the police come?’
‘We can’t lock from the outside. We stay here and wait.’ I look at him. ‘If you move I will taser you.’
He says, ‘Tuva, I am so, so sorry. Lena, please.’ His clear eyes flick between us and he looks like a kid being punished. A kid sitting at the end of his childhood single bed with tears in his frightened eyes awaiting punishment. ‘I was here waiting for Tuva. I walked over from my house and then it rained so I came inside.’
‘Call the police, Lena.’
She hands me my phone. I unlock it and hand it back to her.
‘Please, not the police,’ he says. ‘I can’t. I haven’t done anything wrong. Just let me explain.’
He is shaking with fear now and then I imagine what it’d be like for a man like Freddy in prison. How long he’d last.
‘Tuva came home and I panicked and I hid under the bed, there’s a big space under there, I didn’t plan anything, I swear on the life of my mamma. I was going to wait till you fell asleep and then leave quietly. I promise you. I beg.’
Isn’t his mother already dead?
Lena’s holding my phone to her ear.
‘Wait,’ I say to her.
She frowns at me.
‘Wait,’ I say again.
She stares at me and I stare at Freddy. I take a moment to think. To consider our options. Lena and I can get more information out of this guy tonight, we can find out if he has anything to hide. If he knows about Tammy or Lisa. We have leverage. No procedural rules to hold us back. No fancy lawyers. I’ve been useless up until tonight but now I can help. We don’t need to distract the police. If Tammy and Lisa are at Freddy’s house then Lena and I will manage. We’ll call Thord from there.
‘Freddy,’ I say. ‘Here’s the deal. Non-negotiable. We take you, your wrists tied, back to your house. Move a muscle and we will taser you, be clear on that. Then you show us inside your garage, inside your attic, the upstairs of your house, everywhere. You answer all our questions. No bullshit. If we find nothing we let you go on the understanding that if you ever do something like this again we will inform the police of tonight and that will most likely tip a caution or a fine into a custodial sentence. You’ll be showering alongside muscle-bound sadists and affection-starved men. You just think about that.’ I pause. ‘Deal?’
‘Deal,’ he says, his shoulders slumped in resignation.
‘What?’ whispers Lena. ‘Are you serious?’
I nod and hold the stun gun out towards him.
‘I haven’t got any handcuffs,’ she says.
‘Rope,’ I say. ‘String, even.’
She leaves and runs back with a kitchen knife and hands it to me, then runs away again.
‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ says Freddy. ‘I wanted to tell you about Alexandra is all.’
Lena arrives with a ball of thick twine. ‘All I got.’
We tell Freddy to hold his hands together. Lena threads the twine around and between his wrists and through his long spider-crab fingers, and he says, ‘It’s too tight, my circulation,’ and she says, ‘You’re lucky you still got any.’
We walk him out to the street.
‘If anyone sees us?’ she says.
‘It’s 3 am,’ I say.
‘You can tell me all about Alexandra when we get to your house,’ I say to Freddy.
We walk to the next street and see the tall wall of spruce trees encircling Freddy’s home. The flagpole tip behind is the only clue there’s even a house there. The rest of the suburb is brightening up, sunbeams rising over grill covers and herbaceous borders. Insects starting to buzz. But Freddy’s home is still black. We walk to the pine trees and pass through the gate. Needles scratch my arms. It’s still night in his garden.
‘Sandpit,’ I say, pushing Freddy towards the corner of the garden.
‘Why do you want to look…’
‘Just open it,’ I say.
He undoes the kidney-shaped sandpit cover and pushes off the stone and the wooden pallet.
He lifts the lid.
The smell of cat urine. Dead leaves and dried-out pine needles. Foil sweet-wrappers formed into tight pea-size spheres.
‘Open the garage,’ I say.
‘I need the keys from the house,’ he says with a hint of a smile.
He opens his front door and switches on the light. Cats meow. One of them turns to Lena and lifts its tail and hisses at her.
Books about feet. Encyclopaedias of podiatry and pictorial history books of foot binding and lotus shoes.
‘Tell me about Alexandra,’ I say.
Freddy cups his face with his long spindly fingers and leaves a smudge of blood on his cheek. In this light he looks like young Viktor. He says, ‘She hated Tammy. Alexandra and I have been friends on and off since we were kids. Mostly off. We went on some dates back in high school just before she got pregnant with Viktor. She blames Tammy for everything, you know. Her business failing, Viktor dropping out of school, his behavioural problems. And she blamed Tammy for stealing Karl-Otto away from her.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘Alexandra dated Karl-Otto?’
‘Not dated,’ he says. ‘But they slept together on and off. Stopped when Karl-Otto met Tammy on Tinder.’
I rub my forehead. ‘Okay, I’ll look into it. Now it’s time to show us the garage and upstairs.’
He unlocks the garage and four cats run out, scared, their hackles up.
‘Put the light on,’ I say.
He clicks a switch and the fluorescent strips on the ceiling flicker and buzz and struggle to come on.
‘Pull off the dust cover,’ says Lena, pointing to the car.
He looks at her, then at me. He pulls the sheet off the car.
It’s not a car. It’s a truck.
It’s a dark red pickup truck.
‘You damn liar,’ says Lena, pointing the knife at Freddy.
‘No,’ he says, holding up his hands. ‘It’s Mamma’s truck, I can’t even drive, never got my licence, I always failed the elk test.’
I think about the skid-pan driving test. About how it never helped dad.
‘So you drove it with a red triangle on the back,’ she says. ‘As an EPA tractor.’
‘No,’ he says.
‘Where’s Tammy?’ asks Lena, her voice strained. ‘Where is Lisa Svensson?’
He shakes his head slowly from side to side.
I check the windows of the truck and it looks like nobody’s driven this thing for years.
‘Show us the house,’ I say.
When we walk out my boots crunch under me. Some kind of fine gravel scattered all over the garage floor.
We go back into the main house.
The pine floors are covere
d with small, cheap rugs and they smell of cats. There’s one Siamese on the bookshelf and another on the window sill. Watching. Purring. Lena checks the downstairs rooms while I point the stun gun at Freddy as he sits on the bottom step of his staircase.
‘Nothing,’ says Lena.
We walk upstairs, Freddy first, then me, then Lena.
Each step creaks.
‘You try anything funny,’ I say. ‘I’ll use this thing.’
He gets to the top step and turns and he has tears in his eyes. He says, ‘don’t tell anyone about up here. Please don’t tell people.’
Lena passes me.
I follow.
‘Goddam,’ she says.
‘Sit on the floor and don’t move,’ I tell him.
The room is packed full of feet.
There are silicon moulds of whole feet stacked three deep all over the floor and there are wooden models on shelves like the kind an artist might sketch from. Shelves all the way up each wall. Hundreds of feet. Thousands. Catalogued and ordered. Some plaster models, some glass. Hi-res photographs of toes. Extreme close ups. Framed. I see a wooden pair of feet complete with toe hair and yellow nails, probably from the wood-carving sisters. There are shoe boxes and old shoes and there are other boxes that look like cardboard briefcases.
A cat moans from downstairs.
Lena unfastens the clips holding a large cardboard briefcase-style box together. It falls into two halves joined with a hinge. Inside each half is a thick layer of memory foam. Each with an imprint of a human foot.
‘What the hell is all this?’ asks Lena.
‘It’s private,’ says Freddy. ‘It’s my own private collection. You have no right to tell other people about this.’
Two white cats run up the stairs. One hisses.
There’s a rack at the far end of the room and it looks like something from the cloakroom at a restaurant. It’s circular and I can imagine dozens of fancy coats hanging from it. But, no. This is a rack of feet. Silicon feet that look as lifelike as my own, all hanging from the kind of pinching hangers you use for your jeans.
A tortoiseshell cat brushes past my leg with its tail erect.
I stand Freddy up and walk him over, my stun gun at his back.
‘What is this?’ I ask.