by Will Dean
Gunshot.
I spin round and face the blackness of pure, unadulterated nature. It is endless. The shot’s echoing imperfectly from a thousand cylindrical tree trunks and the boom’s splitting and spreading through Utgard forest. I have no idea where the shot came from or how far away the gun is. My back felt vulnerable before, but now I feel like one of those paper targets Viggo showed me in his candlelit taxi. Like I have concentric circles painted on my back. But I’m too close to the track to be in any danger. I’m okay here, right? I’m fine.
Well, fuck me. I look through the Perspex caravan window and see Bengt and he’s as bald as an egg. He’s wandering back and forth and I guess he’s hung his wig up for the evening. I can see his head but not his hands. He could be listening to the radio or making a bomb or loading a rifle and I have no way of telling. Instinct tells me he’s probably okay. Then again, instinct told me Viggo was okay.
It’s getting darker. I move out of my position having gleaned nothing useful at all. I walk up the edge of the track, my legs a little weary from the cycling. I go past the passing place, the area where I know my bike’s hidden, and walk on. I kick a plastic gravel bin and then turn right before I get to Viggo’s dark red cottage. There’s some sort of wooden tower through the trees so I walk towards it. There’s nobody up there. It’s only about three metres or so off the ground, facing a swampy open area buzzing with flies and midges. I climb and the wet birch ladder feels soft and clammy in my hands. It’s half-rotten. And then I’m up and it feels great to be off the ground, a layer of clear air between me and the writhing forest floor.
Towards Viggo’s house and the track, there are strings of red tape. I know these indicate directions that hunters can’t shoot at from the stand. Last year I wrote a short piece about local kids moving the tapes around on elk towers and the risks that posed. On the other side, towards the marsh, there’s no tape. I stare at the red cottage, at the lights and the crumbling wall surrounding the garden.
My view isn’t as clear as it was of Hoarder’s house. There are more trees, and the branches are thicker at this height. I’m sheltered by a corrugated-steel roof topped with a layer of moss and pine needles as thick as a mattress. Viggo’s security lights illuminate his garden and the track, bathing the land so that his CCTV cameras can see everything. It’s a beacon of light in a dark, dark place.
I can see him at the kitchen window. Viggo’s either cooking or washing up, maybe making something for Mikey. In the garden I can see a mechanical log-splitter and a set of rusting free weights, and in the middle of the lawn there’s a car battery complete with jump leads. Black and red. It’s just sitting there on the grass, close to a puddle, and the clips at the end of the cables are underwater. Lots of boot prints, lots of mud. He has five trees dotted around his small garden. They’re fruit trees of some kind: gnarly old twisted things with sagging branches held up by timber planks and scaffolding poles. Mikey’s built dens at the bases of most of them, collections of sticks and logs to make himself little hideaway places. I remember the duvet dens I used to build in my teenage bedroom. Somewhere to escape. I’m pleased these stick dens are here, safe little shelters just for him.
There’s something leaning up against the loose garden wall. I adjust the zoom dial on my binoculars. It’s a pile of something on my side of the stones, so not on Viggo’s actual land. It’s a grey pile of something. The light’s getting too low now and the security lights don’t reach this far. My eyes are straining to make out the details. I take a wine gum from the open pack in my jacket pocket and let it melt on my tongue. It’s a white one, a lucky hit, pear flavour, my absolute all-time number one favourite. It’s far better than any real pear I’ve ever eaten. I reckon I’m doing okay considering I’m crouched inside a fucking elk shooting tower in Utgard forest, so I decide to call it a day and go back to get my bike. I climb down the slippery ladder and my boots find the soft moss once more. The ground is never flat here. It’s never flat and it’s never reliable and it’s never uniform. There are holes and roots in unexpected places; animal warrens and brambles where I don’t need them and where I don’t want them. The forest is almost black and Viggo’s lights are the only real comfort save for a few stars above. I walk as quietly as I can to the wall of his garden, and then walk along it to find out what that pile is. I’m crouching to keep my face, the least camouflaged part of me, out of sight from the house.
I tread on it before I know what it is. Squinting, I look down. It crunched when my boot pressed down into it. The pile resting against the wall is almost as tall as I am. It’s a pile of mice and rats. The bottom half is all bones and worms but the top part is a furry blanket of fresh cadavers. I miss a breath, not wanting to inhale any of this. I sidestep and dash out to the track, only a few metres in front, and then hop the ditch, chest pounding. The passing place was here but now it’s gone. I look back, then in front. I absolutely do not want to be here. I stagger towards Hoarder’s house and pass a bend that I’ve never even seen before, and then I find the passing place and my bike. I drag it out to the track but weeds keep tugging it back to the darkness; fronds and thorns tangling in the front spokes and curling round the pedals and holding on to the brake cables. I yank it free and jump on my saddle and ride back towards asphalt.
33
I’m driving to work. The sun isn’t quite up and my hair’s wet and I have a limp piece of toast in my right hand. My phone rings as I’m pulling into my parking space.
‘Tuva Moodyson.’
‘Hello Tuva, this is Doctor Schenker from Karlstad hospital. I’m calling about your mother.’
My heart flips over in my chest and my tongue pulls tight as if something’s yanking it down from inside me.
‘Is now a good time to talk?’ she asks.
‘Is she okay?’
‘It’s nothing terribly urgent, but I wonder if we could talk in person. Are you planning to visit your mother in the coming days?’
‘This weekend.’
‘Ah, well, I’m not in this weekend. Will you be calling in before that?’
The doctor has the tone of an aunt who doesn’t want to appear blunt but does want to tell me what to do.
‘I’m coming down this weekend to see Mum and spend some time with her. I’m working until then.’
‘Very well,’ she says. ‘Then the telephone will have to do. Mrs Moodyson’s treatment is now in its final stage and she’s weakening rather quickly, I’m sorry to say.’
My heart stops beating.
‘Her doses have been increased somewhat. We’re managing the pain. I think it’s a very good idea if you visit her this weekend.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I’ll absolutely be there. Is there something specific you need to tell me?’
‘I just wanted to keep you informed, Tuva. I know it’s a lot for you to deal with.’
My voice starts to crack. ‘Is there any other treatment you could try?’
‘We’re doing all that we can for her.’
Tears are coming but I stop them in their tracks. ‘Thanks, Doctor. Thanks for calling.’
I end the call and stare through my chipped windscreen at the brick rear wall of the office, and at its black door and three concrete steps. I rub my eyes and drag my fingertips down my cheeks until they’re resting by my lips. I look up at the sky. It’s my way of looking at Dad, even though I don’t believe in heaven or God. I look up into the sky, or even at a white ceiling at a push, and get a jolt of reassurance, like I’m not alone with all of this.
Once this is all over, once the Utgard killer is caught, maybe I could take some time off work, go part-time for a while. She’ll need me. Just to be there. I’m not sure weekend visits will be enough to cover all the things we need to get through. We have to talk about what’s happened, for her sake as much as for mine. I turn off my heated seat and switch off the ignition and wipe my eyes. Everything goes quiet.
I go into the office and there’s a fresh
stack of Postens on the front counter. It’s even taller than last week. Murder’s good for business.
At my desk I scan the Kommun memos for new stories but my mind’s on autopilot. My heart and my stomach are draining down all my energy so my brain’s left with just a trickle. I’m at that point where everything is almost too much but not quite. I’m not at the quitting stage or the running away to Bali stage; I’m at the tired and empty plateau I reach before pulling myself back from the brink and getting on with it. I sit and twiddle my mouse cable in my fingers and wonder if my hair could turn white in a week like Mum’s did. Maybe if I was in love, and that love was ripped away from me. Maybe the colour in my hair would go and my warmth would go with it. Maybe I’d go beyond the plateau and sink to the bottom like Mum. Sink down and down and sit at the very bottom and care only for myself and not really live ever again. Maybe I’d just exist and never come back up and just wait down there to die. Maybe I would. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t.
The office is comforting somehow. At least it’s that. Nils is annoying Lars, teasing him about last night’s football match. Lena’s door’s closed and she’s probably reading The New York Times or The Guardian, something landmark and international, because that’s what she normally does on a Friday morning after a print run.
It’s quiet. Aside from familiar voices and the hum of computers, and two people who walk in to buy papers and deposit coins in the tin box, it’s pretty quiet. My hearing aid beeps its final beep and I remove it from my left ear and open the battery compartment and pop the battery out. It’s the size of a flattened pea. I throw it in the recycling box and take a new one from my key fob and pull off the tiny sticker and place the battery inside and close the lid. I hook it back over my ear and switch it on, and then I hear the manufacturer’s jingle.
I haven’t done much with my morning. I’ve scanned emails and checked the local websites I always look at but what’s the bloody point. Having an unknown murderer loose in Toytown is difficult to ignore. There’s no new information. No news on the strip club barman. I make a note to visit the owner again, and I’ll to try to meet Savanah when she’s back up from Karlstad. The barman seemed nice enough to me, but then maybe serial killers usually do.
My stomach rumbles because one piece of underdone toast isn’t enough. I grab my coat and my boots and head out into the street. It’s windy; leaves tumbling along the pavement and magazine pages flapping and flipping down the drainage gulley. I spot Frida stepping out of the haberdashery.
‘Tuva, fancy seeing you here.’
‘Hi,’ I say looking at her perfect make-up and her immaculate hair and wondering why she bothers. Nobody else in Gavrik does. ‘I’m just popping out to buy a sandwich from the newsagent.’
‘Do you know that guy?’ she asks.
‘What guy?’
‘There’s been a guy watching you through the window. I saw him when I was paying for my ribbon. He left a minute ago, went that way.’
She points towards ICA.
‘Probably an admirer,’ she adds, with a glint in her eye. ‘Can you bunk off and join me for a coffee? We can go to the hotel, they’re open every day at the moment, what with all the new custom from out of town.’
Murder’s good for business.
‘Sure. I’ve got time.’
She smiles with her eyes and we walk towards the steaming brick chimneys of the liquorice factory. The wind’s blowing hard to the east so I can’t smell the place at all but I can smell lily-of-the-valley, it’s coming off Frida in wafts.
‘After you, beauty before age,’ she holds the door open for me.
The reception is silent. This really is a mausoleum of a hotel. There’s a living room, home-sized, and a thermos of coffee, with UHT pots of milk, and paper sachets of sugar and sweetener, and plastic spoons. I can see a bin with an ICA carrier bag lining it. There are six hospital-style chairs, all upholstered in 1970s fabric, and a display case of tourist information leaflets. There are probably forty plastic slots in the display case and only six are filled. The owner’s spread them out so it looks better. Tours of the liquorice factory all of thirty metres away. Camping. Fishing. Summer caravans. An official Kommun welcome leaflet. Hunting season information complete with dates and maps.
‘You look pale, Tuva. Are you getting enough sleep with all the work you’re doing?’
‘I’ll catch up on the weekend.’
Her handbag is next to her foot and I can see there’s a novel in there, next to some new cotton bobbins. The book looks second-hand and the cover shows a man and a woman on horseback.
‘I read every one of your articles now that I know you. You write very well. I never really noticed them until I met you in person.’
I realise she’s the first person outside of the Posten to say this to me about my writing. I heard it a lot in London from friends and acquaintances, but never from a local reader and never from Mum.
‘Thanks, that’s kind of you to say. But how are you managing with all the press coverage right in your own backyard.’
‘My own backyard?’ she looks aghast.
‘Mossen, I mean. Utgard forest.’
‘I’m okay with it all, doesn’t really affect me. But Hannes isn’t so happy and he’s not sleeping well either. He looks haggard and I think he needs a mini-break. I was thinking of Barcelona, get some winter sun.’
‘I can imagine all this pressure,’ I say, looking straight at her, ‘with a killer out there somewhere, can put a strain on a marriage.’
‘Well, not really. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you can’t really know about these things until you’ve been married yourself. Is there a suitor on the horizon, some dashing young carpenter or businessman?’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Married to the job.’
‘Well, you’ll need a man sooner or later. It’s a big bad world out there Tuva and we need protecting. And that clock’s always ticking.’
She points to my midriff and I almost spit my coffee in her face.
‘I imagine that Hannes . . .’ I say, trying to stay calm. ‘I imagine he’s a good protector?’
Frida pours a second cup of coffee for us both and smiles warmly.
‘The best. He’d take a bullet for me, that one, and I would for him. Ever since we were itty-bitty, he’s kept an eye out for me. Anyone tried anything, he’d see them off. Men don’t mess with Hannes, they know it won’t end well for them.’
‘I did have a boyfriend in London,’ I say. Frida lights up and sits up straight and slaps her palms down on her knees.
‘I knew it. Tell me everything.’
‘Nice guy, we had fun. But he had a problem.’ I look at her closely now, I focus in on her eyes. ‘He liked strippers, dancers, escorts, that kind of thing.’
She looks down at her coffee and then looks back up at me.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Tuva. You deserve better than him, I can tell you. I guess this so-called man is still in London?’
I nod.
‘Well, good riddance to bad rubbish, sweetie. You find yourself a good local man who’ll take care of you.’
‘Hannes has never . . .?’
Her eyebrows shoot up, stretching her face. Frida’s flawless foundation cracks slightly from the tension and I notice the crows feet around her eyes..
‘Hannes? Wholesome as they come, that’s what my dear mother used to say. He’s a big oaf sometimes, sure, gambles too much, but none of that dirty stuff. You think I’d put up with that?’
I can’t work out if she doesn’t know about Hannes’s little pastime, or if she’s in denial and too scared to upset her perfect marriage, or if she just thinks it’s none of my business.
‘You did well to rid yourself of that dirty London boy,’ says Frida. ‘I’ll ask around and see if anyone’s single at the moment. What’s your type? I heard you had a thing for,’ she pulls close to me and looks around conspiratorially, ‘Thord.’
‘Thord’s like
a brother, that’s all. I guess I don’t have a type as such.’
‘Oh, everybody has a type, Tuva.’
‘Well, I guess,’ I scan her eyes again, ‘I guess I like everyone. A very broad spectrum.’
She swallows whatever words were coming out of her mouth and looks me up and down as if searching for an obvious sign she’s missed.
‘You mean?’
I nod.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You mean?’
I hold her gaze. I can feel her brain whirring behind her eyes.
‘I see, well, okay. One of my schoolteachers was like that and she was actually quite . . .’ she tails off. ‘You’re keeping your options open, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
She laughs a little, then places her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, I sounded like my grandmother just then. I’m just, you know, a little out of touch in this place.’ She takes a deep breath and rubs my shoulder gently. ‘I’m pleased you told me, I guess it’s not easy being different, especially here. Now, come on, let’s get out of this dusty old trap.’
We walk out, me holding the door open for Frida this time. She looks at me warily as she passes, and the wind eddies up from the pavement. It’s cool but dry and its changed direction. It’s liquorice wind now, all sweet and aniseed. Frida gives me a hug, a hug with a great deal of air between us, and says goodbye and heads back towards the supermarket. I’m light-headed after my coffee and my stomach feels more empty than ever, but I’m glad I told her.
34
I walk back to the office and stand in the doorway for a moment, watching Frida’s perfect hair as she saunters off down the street and turns back into Mrs Björkén’s haberdashery store. Then I turn and walk towards the police station.