by Will Dean
We step into the lift and I press for floor two and the doors close.
She kisses me.
The doors open. My heart’s racing so fast I might die right here on the second-floor corridor. I want to tell her about Karin and check what she knows about the note, about my theory, and I want to ask her why she’s so weird around me in public. But I don’t. I’m too exhausted. I open my door with my key card and jam it into the slot thing just inside the room. Noora looks at me, really at me, inside myself. She rubs her cheek softly against mine, her warmth gliding over my cold skin, her hands on my waist, mine at the back of her neck, her breath catching in my mouth, my lips brushing hers.
It’s still dark when I wake up.
She’s spooning me and curving her arm around my stomach. Not around, just resting there. This single bed is full. And it is warm with her, and the sheets are tangled and the blanket’s pulled up as far as our necks. Out the window, I guess it’s five am-ish, the chimneys are visible as grey vertical stripes against a grey sky. They taper as they rise, the white lettering easier to read in this half-light than in the middle of a summer’s day. Grimberg Liquorice. Noora stirs and kisses the side of my face and her hands tighten around me and I turn to her and I kiss her.
I tell her how I found Karin. Sad, broken whispers from my lips to her ear. She knows the facts but I tell her what it felt like to find her. I pull her tighter to me and we fall back to sleep.
We jolt awake at same moment.
A rattle.
Someone’s trying to open the interconnecting door in the corner of the room.
Noora gets out of bed.
She holds out her arm like ‘stay there, Tuva’ and then she picks up a glass vase from the desk and she listens at the wall. I watch from the bed as she tries the door handle. The door swings open and the room beyond is as black as a midnight forest. She peers inside and I feel like I need to back her up so I get out of bed and step over to stand behind her.
‘Police,’ she calls.
Nothing.
The dark room is freezing cold.
Noora steps in and tries the light switch but nothing happens. We don’t have a key card for this room. The slot’s empty. We walk a little way inside and the room’s so long I can’t see the end of it and there’s no light from bulbs or windows. Noora pulls me back to our room and closes the door and pushes a chair under the handle.
‘Probably just housekeeping,’ she says, but she doesn’t look convinced.
I shower, Noora on guard duty. When I finish she’s looking out of the window at the factory. ‘That place,’ she says.
‘I know,’ I say, drying my hair with a towel. There’s an electric hairdryer bolted to the wall but it’s faulty and sparks crackle if I try to switch it on.
‘What do you think about the note? Will Karin be arrested?’
Noora looks at me. At my eyes and then my lips and then my eyes again, left eye, then right eye, her focus moving as if studying a painting in a gallery. I feel a little self-conscious but, to be completely honest, also exhilarated at the attention.
‘Not sure,’ she says. ‘Thord’s looking into it, checking her whereabouts on the day Gunnarsson was killed.’
‘Okay.’
She touches my chin with her fingertip and then walks into the bathroom and leaves the door open.
‘Should we eat first or go straight to Thord?’ I say.
‘Let’s eat,’ she says. ‘Could be a long day.’
I feel completely at ease dressing in front of Noora. When I do this in front of a man, I feel, I don’t know, not so much at ease. When we’re both dressed I ask, ‘Shall I go down and get some food and bring it up here?’
She chews the inside of her mouth and I think about how awkward she is when we’re in public together.
‘I could come down,’ she says. ‘We could eat together.’
‘But everyone would see.’
‘I know,’ she says.
‘You sure? You seem so private. Like you don’t want anyone to guess.’
She swallows and nods.
I kiss her and we melt into each other again and have to pull ourselves apart.
‘I’m here for a few years at least,’ she says. ‘Might as well face this head on.’
We go downstairs, our cheeks flushed, her hair still half wet, mine starting to frizz.
The breakfast room has four occupied tables. Three husband-and-wife tables, and one family table. The owner walks in with an apron tied around her waist and looks at me like I’m the Pope and I just stepped in with my new boyfriend.
‘Morning,’ Noora says to her. ‘Breakfast for two.’
We sit down. Noora eats eggs and bacon with coffee and I eat toast and cereal and a lukewarm hot chocolate. We say nothing but we grin like idiots and our feet stroke each other under the table like it’s a whole other realm down there.
I check-out with Noora at my side. The owner’s so damn squirmy we almost descend into a giggle fit but we hold it together. I leave my bags in the storeroom because it’s too cold for them in the truck. I pay and we step outside. I want to kiss her but I just hold my nose against the softness of her cheek.
She tells me to head to my office and she’ll update me when she can.
‘I’ll be back at the factory this evening,’ I say. ‘To say goodbye to the family. My taxi’s booked at nine.’
‘I’ll wave you off,’ she says, and then my old Hilux drives by, I’d recognise it anywhere, but it’s not Potato Head in the driving seat, it’s some old guy with a moustache and a high collar and a wide-rim hat. I turn to Noora.
We don’t kiss on the street, we just blink at each other and slip apart, her to the cop shop, me, heart pounding, to my office.
It’s about minus twenty and I am not cold. I’m not craving a drink and my ears aren’t sore and I’m not anxious about the state of my bank account. I’m not even thinking too much about Mum. I’m okay. And I can still feel her on my fingertips.
Lena’s in so I tell her about Karin and the note. I clear my desk and then at eleven she asks me into her office. This is our goodbye. This is it. My guts are torn in different directions, curious about Karin, thrilled to leave, cuckoo-gaga for Noora. Nils is still ice fishing and Lars has the day off so it’s quiet in here. I step into her office and Lena looks tired and worried.
‘I’ve got some news from your new job,’ she says, her face sullen, stern. ‘I’m really sorry. Wait here for a sec.’ What? No. She leaves her office and closes her door and I’m left facing her side of the desk, her oversize monitor twisted half toward me. What’s happening?
The door bursts open and it’s Lena and then it’s Lars in a reindeer jumper and then Nils wearing some kind of cowboy shirt tucked into his no-shape ICA jeans.
‘Surprise!’ yells Nils. He’s carrying a bottle of Cava and Lars has a framed picture in his hands.
‘You guys?’ I say, astonished. ‘You’re both off today?’
‘Sending you away in style,’ says Lars, his bald patch freshly moisturised, it gets so dry in the winter months. Today it’s glistening.
‘We’re gonna miss you, Tuva,’ says Lena. I think there’s a tear in one of her eyes, or the start of a tear, but she seems to will it back down into the duct. ‘These are for you.’
‘Too cold to fish,’ says Nils, passing me the Cava. ‘Don’t drink it all at once.’
Lars passes me a framed page of the Guardian from last October. It’s my Medusa story.
‘My God,’ I say, staring at them. ‘Thank you all so much.’
‘She paid for it,’ says Nils, pointing at Lena.
‘I’ll miss this place,’ I say, and I mean it. ‘I’ll miss you.’
Lars hugs me from a great distance. Nils hugs me like he’d hug a football player: hard taps on my shoulder. Lena holds me. She holds me and I hold her and she kisses the top of my head. ‘You’re welcome back here any time you like,’ she says. ‘Always welcome back.’
‘What
’s the new employer news?’ I ask.
‘Spoke to Anders yesterday. He says you can write the occasional piece for me if you want, no problem at all. That north v south thing could be interesting to the locals. And if you want to write a one-off on the Ferryman case, once it’s solved, we can accommodate that. Think about it once you’re settled.’
I pack my book research into the Tacoma and see Thord knocking on Janitor Andersson’s basement door, one hand resting on his holstered gun. He knocks on the window and peers in. What’s that all about? I head in his direction but Thord turns to face me and he shakes his head.
I go past Benny Björnmossen’s store at low speed and see Red coming out with a rifle case and two heavy bags. I drive on to the gas station by ICA and about three people stare as I slide in through the passenger side door and drive off. I can see Storgatan and the chimneys in my mirrors. One last trip there tonight to find out Cici’s big secret and to say my goodbyes to Cici.
The junction with the E16 has some traffic, long-distance coaches and hunters heading off to the stalking grounds to kill elk or wild boar. I drive under the motorway. A Grimberg delivery van passes me at speed and I don’t get a good look at the driver but he’s wearing a bright orange shirt.
Utgard forest looks like a vast glacier creeping toward the rest of the world. It’s high and white and it’s too big for its own good. I pass the digger yard and remember Viggo and waking up in his locked taxi with that tea-light candle. A shiver runs down my spine. I indicate and pull off the ploughed salted asphalt onto the gravel track. The snow’s deep but I can manage. It’s so cold these days, never gets above minus fifteen even at midday, so there’s a decent crust. Snow at zero degrees is the worst, no traction, especially in the Shitmobile. There’s a warning light on the dash but I have no idea what it means. I pass hoarder’s caravan. When I get to Viggo Svensson’s torp cottage I have to slow to a crawl because the snow’s too deep. Five kph. I look at the house and he’s there. He’s standing at a window. He’s lit from one side only and he’s wearing a woolly hat and no shirt and he’s smiling at me. Hand on hips. Snarling. I can see scars on his arms. Small, round scars. Burn marks? There’s a large crystal paperweight gleaming on his windowsill and if I was driving my Hilux right now I’d go twice as fast as this to get the hell past this guy. He holds up a hand, something tight in his fist, and then the Volvo in his driveway unlocks because I see the headlights flash twice. What? He can’t follow me into the forest, not into it, he cannot do that. I accelerate and speed up the hill. The spruce trees at the top are laden with nights and nights of snowfall and their branches droop under the weight so they meet over the centre of the road in places forming an ice tunnel. I accelerate, my eyes flicking to my mirrors. Is he coming? I’m driving too fast for these conditions, too fast in this rental truck. I skid and my hands grip the wheel so tight my fingers hurt. The wood-carving sisters are busy packing demonic little pine trolls into their dark van and Alice, the quiet one, smiles at me as I go by.
I pull up to Holmqvist’s house with its wraparound veranda and mirrored windows. There’s still a dog kennel in the garden and his car’s parked very close to his front door and it’s charging with one of those long battery trickle-cables. I’m sweating but there’s no sign of Viggo’s Volvo.
I lean over and clamber out the passenger door. I straighten my jacket and take the two lever-arch files and wonder what Cici’s important secret is. I walk round the truck and my boots crunch.
‘Tuva,’ David says, opening his front door. ‘Shall we?’
48
Opera’s playing on his tiny Bluetooth speaker. Something German. We go inside and he takes my coat and hangs it up as I pull off my boots and place them on his rack, just the way he likes it.
‘Big day,’ he says.
I put my lever-arch files down on one of his designer leather chairs and wipe the cold sweat from my brow. David’s wearing leather slippers, monogrammed, and chinos and a mauve polo shirt. His arm hair’s standing to attention.
‘All set,’ I say.
‘Do they,’ he points to my hearing aids. ‘Do they work normally at these absurd low temperatures. Can they withstand a hundred-year Gavrik chill?’
‘They’re fine,’ I say, glancing at the window to see if Viggo’s outside. ‘It’s the wet they hate.’
‘Ah,’ says David, mentally recording that fact for his archive. ‘Shall we see to business upstairs in my office? And then I’ve prepared a celebratory luncheon, just three courses.’
‘Sounds good. But I can’t be too late, I have some goodbye calls to make in town and I want to visit the Grimbergs before I catch my train.’
‘Naturally,’ he says. ‘In fact, do you mind if I visit the factory with you later this afternoon? I have the first half of the book ready for Anna-Britta to look over. It might be more,’ he pauses to find the word. ‘More palatable for them if I arrive with you.’
I don’t really want him there with me but I can hardly say no.
‘Fine.’
We walk upstairs, me behind him, and I can’t stop looking at that strip of calf that exposes itself each time he climbs a step. He’s like some wild thing under all the starched clothes.
My phone beeps. Reception is almost non-existent in this forest but three messages come through all from different people. Must have been queuing up until I got a signal. One’s from Lena asking me to call her when I have a sec. One’s from Toyota asking me to return the Tacoma to his garage and not leave it in ICA’s car park like we’d agreed. He says the snowploughs need to clear ICA’s lot tonight. And one from Thord. He says Karin’s discharged herself from hospital. He asks me if I know where she is. I reply that I have no idea but the message fails to send.
‘Here,’ Homqvist says, pointing to a particular spot on the table. ‘Lay out your work here and talk me through it if you would.’
I open my files.
Is Karin on the run? Is she on her way back to Gavrik?
‘I’m in your debt,’ says David flicking through my subject dividers. ‘But not for too much longer. I intend to transfer the first half of your fee to your account immediately after we’ve gone through these.’
God knows I need it.
I talk him through what I have. Subjects with headings like ‘Cecilia Grimberg’ and ‘The Vänern Lake House’ and ‘The Mobile-phone Masts’ and ‘Fire One’ and ‘Fire Two’.
‘It’s a record of what makes the family tick,’ I say. ‘What drives each generation and also the pressures they face, both from competition and from the community, but also from the site. Theirs is a story of endurance and sacrifice, but also guilt. They protect themselves in ways they’ve developed over generations, ways we’d laugh at, but they take very seriously. And I’ve interwoven the other stories through theirs, the story of Red, the stamper. The story of Janitor Andersson and his brother, the delivery driver injured when his truck left the road last week. But my main focus is Cecilia and how she’s survived and how her husband, Ludvig, didn’t. How they never found his body. How he never got a burial. And then Anna-Britta and how she’s coping with the mammoth responsibility of managing the factory now she’s alone. And, of course, how Gustav didn’t manage. The place is dripping with loss, most acutely the loss of lilla Ludo who’s buried just metres from where they all sleep each night.’
He nods and smiles, drinking all this down.
‘Excellent material,’ he says. ‘This will inform the final part of the book, it’ll really make for a fitting climax.’
‘Good,’ I say.
‘And that will benefit the Grimbergs. You’re helping them. They’ll be subsidised by the royalties of this book for decades to come.’
‘You really think it’ll sell that well?’
He licks his lip from the scar at the centre to the left and then from the scar to the right.
‘I hope so, for their sakes,’ he says. ‘Anna-Britta has talked more about marketing strategies and advertising and how to ma
ke the book stand out from competing titles than she has about Grimberg history. Gustav was always interested in industrial heritage, but Anna-Britta mainly talked about the need for a strong “hook”. Hopefully the royalties will keep that ghastly lawyer from owning the place anytime soon. Honestly, the man acts like he’s entitled to the company. Anyway, let me compensate you.’
He leads me through to his second guest room, his study. He sits at his workstation typing on his weird ergonomic split-keyboard. I think I hear a car outside but it’s just his fancy computer booting up. The website for Handelsbanken appears on screen.
‘Would you mind?’ he says, holding up his digital security device.
‘Oh, sorry.’ I turn away to the books he’s already written, books with other people’s names printed on their spines.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Ten thousand now and ten on the day of publication.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Which should be next year sometime. I do hope you’ll enjoy reading it.’
‘I’m sure I will,’ I say, and I mean it, especially the parts I contributed to.
‘Go somewhere quiet and really enjoy it. Take your time.’
I nod. ‘Not a cabin in the woods though,’ I say. ‘An apartment in the Med, perhaps, something warm with a terrace and a big sky.’
‘All done,’ he says, printing off the confirmation and handing it to me. ‘Thanks again.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘It’s been a fascinating project. I hope the Ferryman’s caught quickly now and the town can have a few quieter months.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ he says. ‘And it’ll be summer soon enough. Can I get you a drink?’
Hell, yeah. Ten rum-and-Cokes. Line them up.
‘That would be nice. Just a small one.’
We go downstairs and he’s got a saucepan on his induction hob, one of those long hobs from a fancy brand, something that probably cost more than my monthly salary. He takes a bottle from his wine fridge and pours into two flutes. He changes the music on his little portable-speaker thing, the sound quality is amazing, and passes me a glass. Some kind of instrumental jazz. He’s getting all pompous holding his glass by the base and straightening his back and clearing his throat so I sense a speech coming.