by Mark, David
‘A group came here for the key to Gotfridsgaarden a few days ago?’
The bear nodded.
She waited.
‘Don’t get to see many English speakers this far north. Usually the Dutch in the summertime – not English.’ The storekeeper shifted his eyes from Vikland and over to Almquist, his voice hostile. ‘There’s something going on at Gotfridsgaarden.’
‘Only talk.’
He stared at Almquist for a moment, then turned to Vikland. ‘You look like someone wanting something.’
Vikland nodded. ‘Why were the keys to be collected here?’
The storekeeper turned to his side, nodding to a small board with a single row of small brass hooks. Some hooks were empty, most contained keys. ‘Most people use me for collection and return of keys.’ He looked at her.
‘What do you know about Æsahult church?’
He turned to Vikland. ‘It fell apart.’
‘They rebuilt it,’ Almquist pressed.
He shifted his eyes back to Almquist again. ‘Then it burned down.’
‘Now they have a second new church.’
‘What are you interested in that church for?’
Vikland shrugged, looking at his skin, like the bark of a tree, lined and deeply tanned.
‘Why did they rebuild Æsahult?’ Almquist asked, turning to face the storekeeper.
‘People build churches.’
‘Not because people wanted to forget Ròmund?’
The storekeeper stared at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘Old stories.’
‘You know them, these old stories?’
He hesitated. ‘I know he was one of the last of the clan chiefs.’
‘Who was he then?’ Vikland pressed.
‘He defended the borderlands.’ Bok stared at her. ‘Now why come here to ask me about things that don’t concern the police?’
Almquist walked up to the counter, hands in his pockets. ‘Because I told her you knew more than I did. It is part of an enquiry.’ He waited.
‘Concerning Gotfridsgaarden?’ Bok’s hostile eyes glared at him, breathing harshly.
‘Yes.’ Almquist waited.
‘His daughter Æsa built Æsahult.’
Vikland snorted softly. ‘Most people know all that.’
‘Why?’ Almquist asked.
‘Not because he was opposed to the spread of Christianity?’
‘No,’ Bok said. ‘He did not want a church.’
‘Why did they call him the Bad,’ Vikland asked.
‘People did not think kindly of Rómund hin Onde.’
‘Rómund the Bad?’
The storekeeper smiled.
‘What about Hel?’ Almquist added.
The storekeeper spread his arms apart so the palms of each hand was pressed downwards on top of the counter, leaning forwards towards Vikland. ‘In Christian times, we have to be bad and die first before we go to hell. Has this something to do with the killings?’
Almquist paused.
It was local knowledge of course, the murders. It had been all over the papers, Vikland thought.
As if reading her thoughts, the storekeeper added: ‘Legends say they could see things. That the people who became the draugr... they were people who were dead.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it.’ Vikland added, the accusation laid bare.
Bok searched Vikland for a moment, then addressed Almquist with a harsh tone in his voice. ‘Not as harsh as waiting for people to die, then taking their bodies and mutilating them, taking away their eyes. Then burning them.’ He was staring hard at Almquist now.
Vikland noticed how he seemed taken aback, less sure of himself. What was that all about?
Then his demeanor changed, becoming almost intimate. ‘In the old times they believed in a kind of line; one dividing this world and the other one.’ His green eyes moved from Vikland to Almquist, who stood with his legs apart, present and attentive. They sparkled as he removed his hands from the counter. ‘Now, tell me what this is all about.’ He stood up, spreading his arms. ‘Am I under arrest?’ He smiled again.
Almquist glanced at Vikland then turned back to the storekeeper. ‘No, not at all.’ Almquist said dismissively.
‘So what is so important about Æsahult it brings two detectives out to my little store?’
Almquist never answered the question, turning for the door, bringing their enquiry to a close.
Chapter 12
HELL ALMIGHTY
Helter Skelter, hang sorrow,
care’ll kill a cat,
up-tails all
and a pox on the Hangman.
Ben Johnson 1598
Night. Cold. She shivered, straps tight, too tight. They had driven somewhere, not far. Ten minutes she guessed. Maybe more, maybe less. They had stayed briefly. Then another ride, a little longer to another place. Ulrika shivered again, her world reduced to a cold confined space, a blanket on top of her. She lay on the backseat exhausted and scared, consumed by the pull of fear that she wasn’t going to come through, events playing and replaying constantly in her head. She remembered vaguely a slap to her face, unable to breath, trapped inside a nightmare which she was still in the center of.
She tried not to moan with the pain, rubbing her wrists. At one point she had been forced to whimper from the slow torture of bone-wearying discomfort. That was what got her the first slap. Since then she had kept as quiet as possible.
Something had gone wrong. She was supposed to be writing the story of a lifetime: A reporter who had gone missing presumed dead, murdered because of... of what?
What had Johanesson found out?
The man with the bandaged hand and gray eyes looked at her through the open door, in a way she didn’t want to think about. She looked back at him defiantly, looking braver than she felt.
‘You tell,’ he said, staring with red eyes. ‘Where is painting?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything.’ You should have said, where the painting is, you moron.
As if reading her mind, he walked forward and with no warning, leaned into the space of the back of the car and drawing his arm back, hit her with the back of his good hand, hard and uncaring across her mouth. She cried out, then bit her tongue not wanting more, tasting blood and trying to think of something else. ‘Tell who there in house!’ he shouted. He struck her again across the side of her head so it shook her.
She knew nothing, blinking away her tears. But she hurt so much she told them something, told them about what they had talked about, about Ash and Justin and Conrad. Who they were and why they were there. When she was done they threw a blanket on top of her. That was when she was struck with the realization that she was powerless to do anything, removed of the freedom to act of her own will.
She heard shrieking and stiffened in fright. She turned her head as the shrieking repeated itself. Something appeared in the hand of the man with the bandaged arm. He strode to the vehicle, something moving, making a sound, something shrieking in his hand.
A cat.
They all felt it: the fatigue. With fatigue comes an ebb in morale. Justin sat quietly at one of the dining table chairs. Daniel sat opposite him, Conrad withdrawn, pacing the room.
Ash sat at one end of the table, books and notes spilling out over the surface. Ash looked across and noticed Justin had his eyes fixed on a position in the middle of the floor, where a bullet had splintered the wood. ‘Something’s been bothering me,’ he said, voice turning sincere. ‘All this to do with the ceremony of sacrifice.’ He stood up and walked out into the corridor and into the living room, returning a moment later clutching a battered old notebook.
Justin noticed it was covered in an indecipherable scribble that was Ash’s excuse for handwriting.
‘I made a note of it.’ He tapped his finger on his handwriting, tearing a piece of paper out of his notebook. ‘One: Odin hung himself.’ Ash flipped to a page he had marked by folding the corner down. ‘Two: There was some warrio
r called Rómund, who is connected with the birth of the church. Three: This Rómund is linked to old tales concerning what folk did to stop the dead from walking, everyday stuff like driving nails through the feet, taking out the eyes...’
‘And four?’ Conrad asked from the rocking chair.
Ash turned to look at all of them. ‘Four: I think the same thing happened to Thomas. And I don’t think this has anything to do with Ulrika.’ He stopped, looking around at the faces around him. ‘Something more to do with the church,’ he glanced at Daniel.
‘What? Like mutilated?’ Justin asked.
‘The background on the painting was definitely a lake. There was no lake at the Troll’s Church, was there?’
Ash looked at the box of matches on the table, picking it up and sliding it open. He took one out and struck it, lighting it. ‘All the stuff in there, it’s just like them old tales Almquist told us.’ He brought his hand closer, raising the match until it was level with his eyes. ‘That’s just what they are,’ he said in an absent voice, ‘old tales, like all the draugr stuff, all old.’ Ash paused, staring at the small, swaying flame. ‘No substance at all...’
‘The sacrifice and rites took place after Rómund’s time; not during.’ Daniel said from the end of the table.
Ash looked through the flame towards Justin, remembering the reason they came here at all. Why had they not been told the painting was by this Joachim Agard? ‘Except, the church...’ he switched his focus back to the flame again, ‘says it was sacrifice, from Rómund’s time.’
Why had they not been told about Kron?
He brought the match closer still, so close he could feel its heat, holding it there so it filled his sight. He blinked and removed it, flicking it with a quick action of his wrist until it was extinguished, throwing the smoking, half-twisted blackened match to the floor, as easily forgotten as it had been brought to life.
Because they had been kept in the dark...
‘Except it was all a load of bollocks, wasn’t it?’ Ash drained the last of his tea, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘The place where the church was built, old Hörgrlund, used to be a village, right? If you ask me, it’s the bleedin’ church don’t want people poking around in their affairs.’
Justin pulled a face, ‘Oh come on Ash, don’t start some church-conspiracy bullshit...’
‘No,’ Ash insisted, ‘people died like, after Rómund’s time an’ all. So I reckon Agard knew all that. He knew the Hangman was no monk. In fact, I reckon this bloke Agard, he knew lots of things...’ he stole a look at Daniel who received it, the meaning clear.
‘I’d bet my bottom dollar he painted Odin as Christ.’ Daniel added, looking up. ‘They could have lied about the past, making it up; the church as a deceiver.’
‘Hardly a reason to nab Ulrika though, is it?’ Ash continued. He raised a finger, waving it at them, ‘The people never forget, mind. Even in recent times, the eighteenth century, they kept the old draugr tales alive.’
‘Just a lot of superstition,’ Conrad said,
‘Nah, they kept them alive ‘cos they needed to, didn’t they? People dying, witchcraft and all that.’
Daniel stood up, the chair scraping against the floorboards. ‘I don’t know Ash, this is just so fucked up...’ he started to walk towards the window.
‘Look, it all fits Dan. I’ve been thinking it through,’ Ash ignored Daniel’s smirk. ‘If they killed Thomas for that, they will still want to get their frigging hands on it. Won’t they?’ He looked at Daniel. ‘Eh?’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Daniel said.
‘Yes, what are you saying?’ Conrad asked quietly.
‘He’s trying to say we have to get rid of it.’ Justin stopped rocking. ‘The painting.’
‘Great, except Almquist’s got it.’ Daniel added.
Ash smiled. ‘Well, that really would set the cat amongst the pigeons eh... if the fuckers want it so bad.’ He placed his arms in front of him, touching one thumb against the other and bit his lip. ‘No matter what, we got to get out of here,’ he said then, in a different voice. ‘We’re running out of sand boys. So, either we get rid of it, the painting we ain’t got. Or, we get the fuck out of here, before the shit really hits the fan. Cos I sure as hell ain’t waiting no more.’
‘What about Ulrika?’ Justin said.
‘Police business,’ Ash replied, looking across at Conrad and waited for him to look up.
When he did, his mind was already made up.
Ash couldn’t sleep. The only sound he heard was the rhythmic sleeping of his companions. He lay there, mind restless, denying him the rest he desperately sought. He recalled something, lingering on the edge of memory. He tried to clear his mind. Relax. He lay back, closing his eyes. After a minute he opened them again, the missing revelation teasing him by its absence. But he could feel it.
Ash sat up, swinging his legs out of bed. Grabbing a sweatshirt, he walked quietly downstairs into the kitchen. He walked to the window and peered outside, seeing the frost-dusted outline of the police car in the dark, the silver light of a half-moon lighting it, revealing the profile of two heads bowed in sleep. They must be bloody freezing out there. He glanced over to the books and notes still littering the table and thought of Ulrika.
He was about to stand up when a high-pitched inhuman wail split the night. It penetrated him, entering, freezing him and the moment into a past he could never return to. The wail died into a moan of heart-rending anguish, fading. Then nothing.
Conrad, Daniel and Justin came bounding down the stairs, standing uncertainly, trying to read each other’s faces. Conrad made a move towards the door, opening it, Justin hot on his heels, as Ash stumbled awkwardly pulling on his boots.
Outside, the police car was empty, doors open, as if someone had just left in a hurry.
‘The coppers were just here –’
‘Shh.’
They stopped, listening.
Silence.
Another high-pitched excruciating shriek came at them from out of the darkness.
‘We can’t go out there,’ Conrad said.
‘What if we stay inside, like last time?’ Justin replied, moving to one side out of sight of anyone looking in from the dark side of the window. Then they were pulling on boots and jackets, stepping out into a still, frozen night where breath turned to vapor. They walked the short distance from the open entrance past the Fiat, the Citröen and the empty Volvo police car with the open doors, until they came to the road. Conrad sprinted to his car, bowed down and removed something from behind one of the wheel arches, a handgun appearing in his hand.
‘It came from down there.’ Conrad said, waving the gun, oblivious to the looks of surprise as he looked right, down the dirt road: a mute strip of dark gray bordered by blackness.
Nothing. Daniel, Justin then Ash came to stand next to him, all of them staring into the vague misty outline of the road before them. Where it kissed the ground the boundary was too obscure to be seen with any clarity. What was visible was suddenly lost to light, two lights from the headlamps of a vehicle piercing the dark to light them up.
Ash turned to Conrad, the unspoken written in his face. He was about to say something Justin thought, when a flame erupted with a whoomp. A single tongue of fire lit up the vague outline of a pickup. It grew, hissing and rising high on the side of the road. The turn of an engine, the low throb of a V8. Twin lights swaying, bouncing slowly, as the vehicle reversed, backing into the bush. The engine grumbled, rising in pitch as a swathe of light swept across the trees.
Conrad braced himself and moved his weapon, sliding back the safety with his thumb as the engine was gunned into life, fired up into a growl, wheels spinning in the dirt as the vehicle accelerated down the road. And then it was gone, leaving only a fire at the side of the road.
Conrad was running fast for a man in his forties, dust settling. He was followed by Ash, then Justin, Daniel last, all running past pines standing tall, dark and impene
trable like a wall. They ran down the road until they were close enough so they could see clearly the source of the flame, stopping up and panting heavily.
They all stood transfixed, staring at something at chest height. Like a large brand, except this was no brand.
‘Hell almighty,’ Justin said.
‘What the hell is that?’ Ash finished, looking around with an angry glare in his eyes. He ran away down the road, looking around, as if expecting to find someone. Then, seeming to realize the stupidity of his actions, he walked back again, eyes fixed on the flames.
There in the midst of them, spitting and hissing, was the unmistakable form of an animal. It had been skewered onto a pole and was burning, the smell of gasoline lingering in the air.
Conrad held his free hand out, warning them to keep their distance. ‘Not too close... I need a stick.’
It was a cat; a burning, dead cat. It wasn’t the fact that the inanimate cat was dead, skewered or on fire that shocked them. Nor was it the angle of the pointed stick sticking out of its chest. It was the sight of its head, matted with dark blood, glistening in the light of the flickering flames.
Ash walked up to it, leaning forwards, looking at the ends of sharpened twigs that had been driven into each eye. ‘Just an SFC,’ he said.
Justin walked up to join him, eyes wide. ‘SFC?’
Ash turned around with hands on thighs, his head still lowered as he got his breath back, and nodded at the cat and grinned. ‘Stupid fucking cat.’
Daniel shook his head in disbelief, looking across at Ash, then turning to look around the road. ‘Christ man, this is weird...’
‘Something isn’t right...’ Conrad was saying, walking away, the gun hanging limply at his side.
Ash shook his head, standing up and started following Conrad back to the homestead. ‘Right, yeah. It’s a stupid fucking fried cat.’ He looked ahead, seeing Conrad was running now at a jog back to the house. He was about to call out when he noticed Conrad was sprinting now, gun raised high and he followed, wondering what was wrong.