Fear Of Broken Glass: The Elements: Prologue

by Mark, David

  ‘That she deserved burning?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Ash looked across. ‘Why did she kill her father then?’

  Her father had been an old Viking chieftain, the Pastor had said. Justin’s eyes scanned the text again. ‘He’d been on a raiding expedition. Came back one day with a monk. The monk and Æsa became friends, and he christened her, in secret. She must have hated her father, since she honored the monk instead of him, even dedicating the church to him. Later, her father found out and hung the monk from a tree.’

  ‘The father hung the monk?’

  Ash was looking across at Justin as the figure emerged out of the rain, standing in the middle of the road.

  Ash slammed on the brakes and swerved to the far side of the wet road, narrowly avoiding the solitary hitchhiker. He had his thumb thrust out in the hope of a ride out of misery, turning his head as the car passed by. Ash cursed, shifting into a lower gear, speeding up.

  Justin saw the face of a young woman, their eyes making contact, separated momentarily by a pane of glass studded with rain. ‘Pull over.’

  Ash looked across.

  ‘Pull over!’

  Ash applied the brakes again, pulling over to the side of the road. Justin wound down the window, a thousand raindrops between them. The moment lasted but the time it took for the droplets to kiss the polish of a clean road; the hitchhiker standing as still as a statue close to the middle of the road, legs parted, looking in his direction.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he shouted out.

  She just stood there, hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure who they were, not used to someone speaking English in such a backward place, in the middle of the road on a miserable, wet day in the autumn.

  ‘Do you speak English?’

  The hitchhiker paused, then nodded. Head down against the rain, she ran towards the passenger window. ‘Anywhere but here,’ she said in American English.

  Justin held the look for a moment, then turned to look around.

  ‘My car’s a couple of kilometers away.’ She said as if reading his mind, looking up and down the road, returning her attention back to Justin. ‘Can I have a ride?’

  Justin didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I could really do with a ride.’

  There was something about her that didn’t quite seem right, he thought. Then seeing how attractive she was, he looked across at Ash. Ash nodded, once. Justin raised a hand, motioning to the door behind him. ‘Be our guest.’

  She released the straps holding her pack, letting it down and opening the door, climbed in. ‘Are you English?’ she asked, closing the door.

  Justin nodded.

  ‘Sorry for getting your car wet.’ Water dripped off her backpack and drab waterproof anorak stained with mud. She peeled back her hood, revealing damp blonde hair. It gave her a tussled, sexy look; light white edges on a darker bed, wet and clinging, strands hanging forwards over one side of a fine, almost perfectly formed face.

  If he’d had any breath she would have taken it then and there. Justin smiled instead.

  Ash looked at her from the driver’s mirror as he indicated, pulling out and nodded in greeting. ‘Ash – I could have run you over.’

  She looked at him, eyes meeting. ‘I’m Ulrika.’ She looked out of the back, then smiled before turning towards Justin. Then she looked up into the mirror again, rain dropping off her lashes, brown eyes that seemed fragile and yet reassuringly self-confident.

  Justin smiled back from the front seat. ‘Hi, I’m Justin.’

  Ulrika leaned forward raising her hand, taken by his, giving him her attention. ‘Thank you so much for stopping.’

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ Ash asked.

  Ulrika looked back up into the driver’s mirror. ‘Just an assignment gone wrong; I got caught in the rain.’ She shook her head, looking away.

  ‘What kind of assignment?’ Justin asked.

  ‘I’m a photographer; magazines, mostly.’ She looked back out of the rear window for a moment, then turned back to Justin with a sense of gratitude. ‘I’m working on an article – Swedish lakes. It usually goes well. But today ...’ She looked up at the sky, then back again. ‘I guess I got unlucky... and lost.’

  Justin relaxed, understanding now why she seemed so desperate to get in.

  ‘You research landscapes?’ Ash called out.

  Justin watched her look towards the driver’s mirror again. ‘What kind of pictures?’

  ‘Anything... natural.’ She seemed to be weighing him, then shivered, rubbing her hands together as she turned to look back down the road.

  Justin looked down at her clothes. ‘Christ, you’re soaked.’

  It was Ash who asked the question. ‘So how did you end up in the middle of the road, miles from anywhere then?’

  ‘She seemed reluctant.’

  Justin looked across. ‘Reluctant?’

  Ulrika was outside in front of them, looking around the car park. She walked to her car, opening the back and reaching inside.

  The two men sat side by side in the stationary Citroën; two heads eyes front. It was the saddest car Justin had seen in a long time, the color of mustard that had gone off. A Fiat 127 looking like it had just been retrieved from the scrap heap, driven without respect by learners; dented, beaten and covered in a continuous line of flaky rust that extended around every door edge and wheel arch.

  ‘What do you think?’ Ash asked.

  ‘Pile of old junk.’

  ‘The girl I meant. Bet it’s seen a lot of action, if you know what I mean?’ Ash grinned, ‘I think she’s a bit of all right.’

  ‘A bit of all right.’ Justin watched her walk around to the open door, opening it and taking hold of a loose bag then placing it on the seat. ‘Is that all, a bit of all right?’

  Ash watched her, then looked across at his companion speaking slowly. ‘Yeah, a bit of all right.’ He turned back again without waiting for a reply.

  They watched the back of Ulrika’s head as she removed items of clothing. First her jacket, sitting half in, half out of the rain. She reached down and unlaced her hiker’s boots, fast yet effective hands pulling off first one, then the other, before placing each foot inside the car. She stretched upwards, as she must when taking off wet trousers.

  ‘So you think she’s worth a visit then?’ Justin looked across at Ash. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  Ash didn’t say anything. He watched her as she removed another item of clothing. A hand appeared holding a pair of jeans, disappearing again. And all the while the two men watched in silence. She took off her wet clothes, rubbing her hair with a jumper. When she was done she pulled a jumper over her tousled head and leaned out of the car, taking off her wet hiking socks, revealing the fine white skin of slender ankles.

  ‘That is what I mean.’ Ash was looking at her with intensity as she rubbed her feet, briefly, before pulling them back inside the car.

  Ulrika was quick, getting out, transformed, dressed in black leather boots with heels and a short red leather jacket above tight-fitting dark blue denims: A striking contrast to the drab, dark and wet olive green of her hiking gear. She looked around the car park, then back at the two waiting men and gave them a smile and the thumbs up.

  Ash responded with his own thumb without smiling, then looked at Justin. ‘Not much room for a three point turn in there.’

  Justin watched Ulrika get back into the car, stretch denims so tight they revealed each curve of her slender posterior. ‘Not much.’

  ‘I think we should invite her back. Being out here, exposed and all.’ Ash turned to his companion and gave him a knowing look.

  Justin turned to his side, watching her tussled hair. Then he was getting out of the car, walking towards her. He looked across the car park at five other cars. All empty. And a police car, also empty. Ulrika looked up as Justin reached the open driver’s door, leaning forwards to look down at her, smiling.

  ‘Hungry? We live only a few minutes from
here.’

  Ulrika took her hands off the keys and looked up, hesitantly. ‘I really have to get back.’ She looked away, out into the park.

  ‘Something to eat, some coffee before hitting the road?’

  Her hand reached for the keys again. ‘Really, I have to be going.’ She nodded, ‘Thanks so much for the lift.’

  Then Ash was standing next to Justin. ‘Come on, come and meet the rest of the guys.’

  ‘There are more of you? Where from?’

  Justin looked across, hating the way Ash nodded, smiling like that. He hated even more, the way he said it, as if it was an invitation to a party only the hosts knew the nature of. ‘Denmark,’ he said. ‘We all drove up from Copenhagen.’

  Ground dark, clouds parting, the last light of a fading sky receding. Almquist sat next to Elin Vikland, looking out at the illuminated white line rolling towards them as she drove. Ahead, one of the many small lakes reflecting a brooding wet sky, their orange Saab set against a backdrop austere and beautiful. To their left, the high ridge of a bowl-shaped valley rising out of the darkness, bordered on each side by a rocky escarpment crowned in thickets of pine.

  Hasse Almquist had left the others to finish off at the site, Lindgren overseeing the removal of the body to the morgue by helicopter, the Forensics Officer to gather what could be gathered before dark.

  ‘He could have just gone for a walk, gotten lost.’

  Almquist shook his head, face falling into the solemn expression he wore when troubled. ‘Perhaps. And then someone comes along to take his eyes for souvenirs?’ He thought about that.

  ‘We’ll catch whoever did it.’

  He looked across.

  She looked back. ‘You’re not on your own this time.’ Her eyes moved back to the road. ‘Something like this can’t remain hidden for long.’

  ‘You want to plan the investigation?’

  She nodded, ‘If you want. Someone somewhere must have seen something... we could start compiling a list of all the people in the vicinity. Descriptions of people they had seen, compare descriptions, make a list of matches.’ She half-smiled. ‘That could narrow it down, since it’s hardly door-to-door out here, but it’s hardly dead.’

  Almquist kept his eyes on the road. Eventually he said, ‘We’re going to need some help.’

  ‘Then we get it.’

  Always so sure of herself. Elin had that trait he envied the most; she devised a plan of action and followed it doggedly until the breakthrough. In the time he had worked with her he admired her for that, and for the results; she always came through. Perhaps his karma was about to change after all...

  ‘What do you know about the place where we found him?’

  ‘Troll’s Church?’ Trollkyrka.

  ‘I heard it’s seen a dead body or two over the years?’

  He looked across. ‘Recently?’

  ‘No, you know, way back... quite a few Oskar was saying.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you hear.’ Almquist smirked with weary eyes. ‘Troll country they say, best there is,’ he smirked. ‘All school kids were taught about Troll’s Church. When I was young the place used to be off-limits, a forbidden place if you like.’

  ‘Why forbidden?’

  ‘Back in the old days... there was a group, some kind of pagan religious sect. People spoke of them conducting rites of sacrifice.’ He looked across. ‘Human sacrifice.’

  Elin smiled. ‘You’re joking, right?’

  Elin had a nice smile. ‘Nope.’

  ‘They didn’t practice devil worship or anything?’

  ‘Nope,’ Almquist repeated, looking serious. ‘Not devil worship. No, that came much later. The things they did...’ He shook his head and turned to Vikland with a forbidding expression.

  Vikland stopped smiling and looked across.

  Almquist held her look, keeping it. Then he winked.

  ‘You bully,’ Vikland said, smiling back with relief, turning back to the passing landscape.

  ‘It was said the mountains of Troll’s Church belonged to heathen trolls. If a Christian ventured there, he would come to grief.’

  ‘Uh huh. I guess the Dane was Christian then.’

  ‘I guess. Are you a Christian?’

  Elin Vikland kept her eyes on the road. ‘Not enough to walk all the way back there. Why did they make it your case?’

  Almquist looked across towards her. ‘Why do you think?’ What could he tell her? That he was the obvious candidate begging for more? That he had the kind of track record that usually put an end to the careers of people like him; those that didn’t live in such god-forsaken places, places no one ever came to any more. That the nature of the crime meant it was going to his mess again. No, he couldn’t tell her that, so he just turned back to the road, looking grim. ‘I’m glad you’re with me on this one Elin.’

  Vikland looked back at her mentor. ‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I hope you won’t get tainted with the same brush. You know the talk...’

  She nodded, looking back to the road. ‘Just talk. You know, in case you were thinking...’

  Almquist massaged one lip over the other. ‘Yeah, I was thinking.’

  More white lines.

  ‘Anyone can have bad luck.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Almquist nodded. ‘Still.’

  Vikland looked across. ‘Still... what, still?’

  Almquist shrugged.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  He looked across. ‘You ever get that feeling you’re never going to get old?’

  Vikland smirked, shaking her half-pretty head. ‘No, I don’t.’

  Almquist didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t feel like he was going to get old.

  She saw the look, reaching over to touch his forearm. ‘Hey, relax baby.’

  Relax. Four serial killings. Stretching over a period of more than a decade, none of them solved. That made him the butt-end of jokes in the Department even now; he thanked the small successes along the way that meant he still had a job at all.

  The rain had stopped. Almquist remembered a time when he had turned up alone at Gotfridsgaarden. He had been younger then. The eyes that greeted him from the windows had been hostile. It had been his first murder investigation. It wasn’t going to be his last.

  When he had crossed the yard, he felt it. Oppression. He was the investigating officer. He was supposed to have been in charge. Instead, they closed ranks around him, intimidating him with their silence and threat of... well, it wasn’t something that was ever spoken of. He’d been young, keen. A father and a son standing hidden in the shadows of the door, the father waiting with hands on hips. Behind him, a gang of helpers, all of them the sort of people one didn’t mess with. And he’d been on his own. He’d always been on his own.

  He glanced across at Elin and something warmed him. For a moment as she indicated left, slowing. Headlights cutting through the dusk like a plough in a field, sweeping past the heavy forms of rock rising, the inky glitter of still waters, lighting the traditional homestead known as Gotfridsgaarden, Gotfrid’s Homestead.

  He breathed in deeply, his words unexpected. ‘We’re losing two detectives.’

  ‘What?’ Vikland looked up as the boxy orange Saab rolled to a stop under the shadow of a giant silver birch.

  Almquist sighed as she pulled the handbrake. He focused on the two cars, one covered in mud, sitting low on wheels that had all but disappeared into the wheel arches; the other something that should be condemned as a danger on the road. Then beyond, towards the homestead, turning back to her. When he he noticed she was still waiting for an explanation his grim expression changed to raising his brow in a gesture of obeisant resignation. ‘You, me and Oskar Lindgren. That’s it,’ he raised three fingers. ‘Three.’

  She opened her mouth. ‘But, that’s not enough... what about the others?’

  He half-smiled knowingly, shifting his attention back to the squad car behind them, watching it slow. It was a small co
mfort, not being alone.

  They parked a little further down the road as he had instructed and turned his attention back to the homestead again. He felt the pull of anxiety down in the pit of his gut, feeling the burn of something unpleasant.

  It was set a short distance back from the edge of the dirt road; it was still the little wooden cottage made of dark wood, the one he remembered, with white windows and an old thatched roof. Except time had left it’s indelible mark, visible in the glow of emerald moss, in the sag of the roof line and the flake of old dried paint.

  What about the others? He thought he heard her say.

  Between them and the cottage a parking yard of gravel, gloomy, brooding and depressing. Set farther away next to a lake was the outline of a smaller cottage, or an outhouse. All of it dark, the only light coming from the windows the glow of candlelight.

  The engine stopped.

  ‘There are no others.’ He looked around, failing to spot any wooden mast. ‘Here we’re off the grid,’ he looked at Vikland. ‘No masts, no electricity.’

  ‘There’s a phone,’ she said, confused, pointing to a single pole on the far side of the house that was the telephone cable. Vikland refrained from saying anything more.

  Almquist undid his seatbelt following her example. They opened their car doors at the same time, stood up in time, glanced briefly upwards towards the dark rocky escarpment behind the house at roughly the same time. Out of the blackness the sound of water, a small stream that wound its way down a sloping mound of stone, rising out of a small lake rising high into a steep cliff.

  Two faces appeared at the gloomy windows.

  That was it. Three detectives; himself, Elin and Oskar: To investigate a serial murder linked to a chain of dark events that went back over a lifetime, maybe more. He tried to breath calmly. But somehow he couldn’t calm his heart, only his mind. He shuddered inwardly and turned to Vikland. ‘For today, it’s you and me. We interview them, get everything we can while they’re in a state of chaos. Understand?’

  She nodded. Of course she understood. She always understood.