by Will Dean
She nods again and I leave.
On the drive to Utgard forest, I notice a few features that I missed before. In the underpass beneath the E16 motorway, someone’s hung a piece of knotted string, threaded through CDs. Some kind of scarecrow, I guess. Orange plastic poles are dotted along each side of the road to mark the edge of the ditch for when the winter snows come. I pass dozens of them. And then I turn right and I’m in Mossen.
I drive past Hoarder’s place and see nothing. When I look into the woods I realise I may as well be looking at Alaska right now, or Siberia a thousand years ago, or Norway in a hundred years’ time. There is no evidence of time. No markers or guides. It’s stark and vast and I cannot see past it. I look up through the windscreen and think of Dad and wonder again if the bullet that scared off my elk was the same one that killed Freddy Malmström. Will Call of Duty kid be okay with his dad gone and his mum so distant? Is he going to be me at that age: isolated, throwing every waking hour into studying and gaming?
The taxi driver’s house is still empty, no Volvo in the drive. I speed up the hill and notice some of the potholes have been filled with gravel, light grey pebbles humped where the holes used to be like fresh graves. I pass the sisters, both hard at work, the fire burning in between them, and pull up at the ghostwriter’s house.
The day is bright, on-and-off sunshine with a gentle breeze, and his house is one of the least foreboding in the village. It’s modern, ‘80s maybe. The veranda wraps the building in its entirety and partially obscures the windows, which all appear to be mirrored. Something about the place suggests it’s well built, more expensive than most homes in the area. In Gavrik Kommun, most houses are built by one of two companies so they tend to look roughly the same. This one stands out.
I ring the doorbell and wait. I can hear classical music of some kind from the other side of the door so it must be loud inside. I wait some more, checking for messages on my phone. No reception. I ring the doorbell again and then knock twice. The music turns off.
I think I hear a man shout ‘hello’ from the other side of the door but it’s unclear to me so I shout, ‘Hello Mr Holmqvist, I’m Tuva Moodyson from the Gavrik Posten. I wondered if I could talk to you for a moment, please? I’m deaf so can’t hear you through this door.’
There’s a long pause. I hear a gunshot in the distance, then another.
I hear bolts being clicked and then the door opens a little. A green eye and half a face, neat, clean-shaven, pale, with a faint scar above his lip.
‘Hello,’ he says.
‘Sorry to bother you Mr Holmqvist. I work for the local paper and I’m reporting on the Freddy Malmström shooting. Can I ask you some general questions about the village, please?’
‘Did you say you are deaf?’
I point to my ears.
The door opens. He’s soft-bodied and he’s wearing pressed chinos and brown leather deck shoes and a tucked-in polo-shirt. His forearms are extraordinarily hairy and he has transparent latex gloves on, the thin sort that doctors wear. He’s holding his hands up loosely, palms towards the ceiling.
‘I’m cooking,’ he says. ‘ Tête de veau. It’s a convoluted business, but absolutely worth it.’
‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘Good food’s always worth the effort.’
‘Quite,’ he says, nodding. ‘Quite. Please, come in. Excuse the mess, I don’t get many visitors.’
I walk inside. The house is impressive and there is no mess. Designer pieces of furniture carefully arranged in a large open-plan room with a stainless steel kitchen at one end. Classical music’s playing low on the stereo.
‘Shoes off just here if you don’t mind.’ He points to an empty rack. ‘Then take a seat just there.’ He points to a tan leather armchair. ‘I’ll get cleaned up, back in a moment.’
I take a seat on the armchair and look at the room. The ceilings are quite high and the floor’s a mixture of black ceramic tiles in some areas, and dark mahogany planks in others. There are no photographs, nothing at all on the walls, no art and no clocks. I watch David remove something from the oven, it looks like a roast leg of lamb or something, but much paler. It’s almost white. He probes it with a spike, perhaps an oven thermometer, then places it back. It doesn’t look appetising, whatever it is. He walks past a gleaming industrial-looking espresso machine and takes two glasses from a wall cabinet and fills them from a bottle of mineral water and then he places them on a small tray and walks over to me.
‘Water?’
I take a glass and feel uncomfortable.
‘You’d like to know something about this village? What exactly?’
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Years.’
‘Do you know your neighbours well?’
‘Oh, reasonably.’
‘Does everyone in the village own a rifle?’
He smiles a painful-looking smile, his lips curving up at one side, and uncrosses his legs.
‘What a very insightful question. Tell me, is this little chat you’ve instigated on the record or off the record?’
‘That’s up to you, Mr Holmqvist.’
He crosses his legs again the other way and I glimpse a thin strip of pale, hairy skin between the top of his sock and the bottom of his chino roll-ups. He has a dark mole on the apex of his Adam’s apple and it moves up and down when he swallows his water.
‘Either is fine. To my knowledge, everyone residing in this village owns a rifle with the exception of yours truly.’
‘You don’t feel the need for a gun? For protection against elk or bears or whatever’s out there?’
‘I’m rather an indoors person,’ he says. ‘I write with every moment I have, and when I’m not writing I’m cooking or I’m researching or I’m thinking or I’m reading. I read three books per week. Three, sometimes four. To me, the idea of straying through forestland looking for a wild creature to shoot is preposterous so I leave that sort of thing to the unthinking people. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very grateful to them. I enjoy preparing and cooking and eating wild game very much indeed. I take great pleasure from it. But I’m not the sort to bring it to market. I’m the sort to bring it to table, and for that I require no firearm.’
I glance down at my notebook. ‘So, Bengt Gustavsson owns a gun?’
‘Our vegetarian hoarder? Oh God, yes, he’s an army veteran and for all I know he’s the best shot in the Kommun. Ex-sniper I believe, although he ended his career as an army medic. He is, however, strictly non-meat, so I believe his gun has been locked away in his personal museum for some years now.’
‘I know Mr Carlsson is a hunter but what about the wood-carving sisters, your nearest neighbours?’
‘Tell me, have you met them?’ he says, the pained smile back on his face.
I nod.
‘Honestly, I could not have concocted such a pair of siblings even if I’d tried. I mean, please.’ He sighs and sips his water. ‘The ugly sisters are paranoid that someone will steal their, you know . . . They believe their models, their models of those dreadful little men, are valuable and therefore they need protection. I’ve seen their rifles leaning against their workbenches as I’ve driven past, but I have no idea if either one of them can shoot for toffee.’
I finish my water.
‘And the taxi driver? Mr Svensson?’
‘Svensson has a gun, but it may not be a rifle, I’m not absolutely sure. I’ve used his services many times when I can’t bear to drive – when I need to think and focus on a project. He shoots at a range, I believe, part of some sort of club or society.’
‘Do you have any information about who shot Freddy Malmström?’
‘I do not.’
‘Do you have any theories, then? Who do you think is capable of such a thing?’
‘Oh, they are all capable. Any of them and all of them. Such is the human condition. Do you know, I’ve never written a deaf character.’
‘Oh? What kind of books do you write?’
�
��Well, it’s difficult to generalise such a thing. I offer a rather bespoke service. Writers who can’t actually write but who have names send me their ideas and sometimes I write for them for a fee. Then they publish the work in their name. They get the plaudits but I retain my blissful anonymity. What is it like to be deaf, and by that of course, I mean what is it really like?’
‘It’s . . .’ I pause, caught off guard. ‘It’s all I’ve ever––’
‘All you’ve ever known, yes, of course, I knew you’d say that, but you see that’s not good enough, you’re not really thinking about my question. Take your time. What, in your experience, does being deaf feel like?’
So I pause and close my eyes for a moment. For some reason I want to give a proper answer, an answer that might impress him. But while I’m thinking about what being me feels like I’m also thinking why the fuck am I appeasing this guy? I open my eyes.
‘I feel a little detached all the time, a little further away from life than I imagine a hearing person does.’
‘Exactly!’ he says, slapping his knee. ‘That is it exactly. Now, please, more, carry on.’
I smile even though I don’t want to.
‘I’m relieved for the silence when I need it.’ He looks impatient, like he could have said this himself. ‘Because it’s not a silence that you will ever know.’
He licks his lips, a strange movement that starts at the scar in the centre of his upper lip and swipes to the left. Then his tongue returns to the scar and swipes to the right.
‘It’s as silent as death is final. It’s thick and deep and I can lay in it. It’s all around me if I need it to be. I have the option to switch that on and off, and you don’t.’
‘Good!’ he says, staring at me. The mole on his Adam’s apple rises and falls. ‘Really, I mean it. Well done. Excellent.’
My skin’s itching. I have a compulsion to run away yet for some reason I want to answer his questions and impress him. If this guy shot Freddy Malmström, why would he do it so close to his own house?
‘Now, this has been more fruitful than I’d expected,’ says Holmqvist. ‘But I need to get back to my veal if I’m to eat tonight. And eat I must. Please, feel free to pop by if you need to know anything else. But, if I am writing, the door will stay locked. If I am writing, then I’m in a world just as silent as yours can be. If I’m up there,’ he points to the ceiling with his hairy hand, ‘then my front door will not open for you.’
12
I leave the ghostwriter’s house and get back into my truck and lock the doors. I look up at the sliver of sky visible between the trees, and the thick blanket of cloud that’s formed while I was indoors. I’m staring through a veil of mosquito corpses on the windscreen. Then my focus extends past it, to the perimeter wall of David Holmqvist’s land. It’s a collection of moss-encrusted stones stacked on top of each other up to about hip height. It’s not a proper wall because it couldn’t keep out an elk and it’s not a proper wall because it’s alive with ferns and reindeer lichen and alder saplings.
I turn my head to the left and Frida Carlsson’s standing right there, her face coated with sweat, her skin red and flushed. I can’t wind down my window because the engine’s not on so I have to open my door.
‘Frida, you okay?’
She smiles at me. ‘I’m just out for a power walk before the next rainstorms come in. Recognised your truck so thought I’d say hi.’
I open my door wider, seeing her black Lycra leggings and T-shirt. She’s in great shape.
‘I was thinking,’ she says, wiping her face on her running shirt. ‘About the dreadful business. About your newspaper. Maybe we should talk some more, what with Hannes being the hunt master and all. I know a lot of the guys who use Utgard.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That sounds great . . . Now?’
She looks at her watch, it’s one of those big digital pedometer things.
‘You want to walk back with me? I’ve done thirteen kilometres, just got two left. If it rains, I’ll drive you back here to your truck after we’re done. Deal?’
Before I say anything I’m climbing down from my driver’s seat and pulling my waterproof jacket back on. I lock the Toyota and I’m walking away from it, side by side with Frida, not power walking, just strolling down the track and past Ghostwriter’s wall.
‘You talked to David?’ she asks, not looking at his house.
‘Just now,’ I say. ‘Are you friends?’
Frida smiles and then chuckles. She’s still using her Nordic walking sticks like she’s cross-country skiing with invisible skis on invisible snow.
We’re clear of David Holmqvist’s drystone wall before she starts to talk again.
‘David’s unusual,’ she says. ‘He thinks he’s a gifted author, but none of us have ever read any of his books because he doesn’t write in his own name. So, maybe we have read him and maybe we haven’t, but we have no way of knowing. One time I mentioned the books I enjoy, the classic romance literature of the fifties and sixties, and he raised his eyebrows and made a kind of ‘o’ shape with his mouth like they were dumb things to read. He’s a book snob, you know the kind, and we’re all in the dark because we don’t have a clue what he writes himself. He’s just not our sort, you know? And Hannes and him are practically opposites, so . . .’
I stop walking because I’ve realised that I’m in a forest, a fucking murder forest, with no truck and no gun and no fucking clue what to do.
‘I’m going back,’ I say, my arms outstretched as if to help me keep my balance. ‘Back to my truck. Let’s just drive to your place instead.’
‘Nonsense,’ says Frida. ‘Look, I know Utgard seems scary right now, but we’re perfectly safe here. Whoever is shooting people is shooting male hunters. Look, let me.’
She straps a fluorescent orange band around my forearm over my jacket sleeve.
‘Now, there’s no risk to us whatsoever. I give you my word.’
And I believe her. With this shiny bit of plastic fixed to my jacket, I feel reassured.
‘Ten minutes, then we’re there.’
The track has a thick Mohican of dying grass running up its centre. The woods are quiet apart from our footsteps and the occasional buzz of a horsefly or bee. I try to look straight ahead, to where there’s a view, a line of sight. To my left and right are solid barriers fifteen times as tall as I am; organic walls of darkness and they are too close to me so I just keep looking forward.
And there’s the house. I see filtered glimpses of the angled mansard roof through copper beech leaves. If I sprint I reckon I could make it to the house in three minutes and that thought’s a real comfort. If an elk bursts out of the treeline or a hornet attacks from an overhead nest, at least I can run to something now.
‘You’ve researched the ’90s murders?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Not as much as I’d like, I’ve been too busy, but I know the general timeline.’
‘You know someone was arrested and then released without charge after the last body was discovered in ‘94.’
‘Yeah. Martin, something? I read on the unsolved crime forums that it was all rumour and gossip, not a shred of physical evidence.’
‘Maybe,’ Frida says, turning her face to look at me as we enter her driveway. ‘I was up in Norrland that autumn taking care of my old dad but Hannes remembers the arrest. Martin something,’ she says, ‘is now called David something.’
I stop walking.
‘Holmqvist?’ I say, my voice a little louder than I’d expected. ‘He was arrested for the old murders?’
‘Local people don’t like to talk about it. Not good for the town’s reputation.’ Frida looks at her house and at the Volvo SUV parked outside. ‘Hannes is home, I’ll introduce you to him.’
We walk inside and Frida shouts Hannes’s name. I hear a blurry, deep response from above but can’t make out the words.
Frida takes a tall glass and fills it up from the kitchen tap with tea-coloured well water and drinks it.
‘I’m going to take a quick shower, I’ll just be a jiffy. You want to wait in here with a cup of coffee? Or do you want to meet Hannes?’
‘It would be good to meet your husband, if you don’t think he’ll mind. Just for a quick chat about the story.’
‘Follow me.’
We walk back to the front door and up a white-painted staircase. Frida must be in her mid-fifties but her body is so much fitter than mine. I’m walking right behind her and she’s lean and taut like a gymnast.
There are black-and-white movie prints on the walls up here, photos of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, golden-age Hollywood stuff.
‘You like the movies?’ I ask.
‘Love them,’ she smiles. ‘Unfortunately, my husband doesn’t share my passion.’
Frida knocks on a door and I hear a grunt, then the clicks and scrapes of a key in a lock. She waits for the lock mechanism to click, then opens the door, slips inside for a moment, then comes out again, beckoning me over with her manicured fingernail.
‘Tuva,’ she says as I walk into the room, ‘I’d like you to meet Hannes Carlsson. Hannes, meet my friend, Tuva Moodyson. Tuva works at the Posten.’
He’s almost handsome. Old and grey, but his eyes are still bright blue. He looks like one of those republican senators you see on TV, all cheekbones and tan and charm. But as he stands behind his desk and extends his hand to me I see that he’s no Mitt Romney. His eyes are ever so slightly too close together. He’s a little too short and a little too broad. Frida and him are the same height.
He offers me a seat in front of his desk and Frida excuses herself.
‘My wife told me about you, thinks you’ve got potential in the newspaper business, maybe even big-city work one day.’
I’m simultaneously happy and irritated.
‘Thanks. Sorry to bother you when you just got home from work. I’m writing about the awful murder of Freddy Malmström. I understand he was a man you hunted with? I’m sorry.’
‘Hunting’s not a sport,’ he says, rolling an expensive-looking fountain pen between his thumb and index finger. ‘We hunt animals for a reason. It’s a cull. There are too many elk one year, and what happens? They graze on the new spruce saplings and devastate the crop. We control numbers. Hunters do an important job in keeping balance in the forest, always has been that way and always will be. And you got too many elk wandering around, you got more car accidents.’