by Mark, David
They needed a cover story, Anna and Gustav had been the cover, Baron used as part of the cover. It all related to a man he had never met – the draugr killings too? All because... of the painting. The painting that had belonged to a man who was supposed to have died in 1982.
A man connected with the draugr killings in the 70’s.
He closed his eyes, seeing a way out through the maze.
Eklund knew things. He’d hidden something in the painting someone wanted badly. Justin’s neighbor died because of it. The British wanted to know why. They didn’t know about Eklund’s secret. They sent Baron and Justin, Ash and Daniel here, to find Anna. Anna had to be alive.
Anna was connected with Eklund.
Eklund was still alive...
And the painting was still in play.
The wind increased in strength, blowing dead leaves from dying trees, those trees that weren’t dying clinging tentatively to unstable ground, branches dancing to release, swathes of birch and swaying conifer, all of them moving to the driving wind and rain all around them.
Ash looked over to Chivers, cowering behind the first fold of rock protecting them from the view of the men in the pickup. He seemed to be gathering his wits back, slowly. ‘We keep it together.’
Chivers was shaking. ‘I had to, had to get out...’
‘We keep it together,’ Ash repeated, heat rising from the neck of his sweatshirt like a tropical plague, even in the cold and wet.
Chivers nodded, wiping a tear with the back of his hand. Then he shook his head, looking across the few meters separating them from the pillar of granite that was the outcrop, their only shield, back to the car in the killing zone.
Ash looked around, up at the steep climb behind the rock. ‘We can climb up over there.’
As if to remind them of the nature of their predicament, a bullet erupted, smashing through the metal of the car as if it was plastic, embedding itself in the ground to the side of them. Ash’s eyes blazed with desperation as he turned to the rock, looking up for any way out. A line, he saw a line. It would be a difficult climb, but it offered a way out into the shelter of trees. Without further thought he committed himself and ran up the hill, legs sliding and arms flailing. He heard Chivers follow his lead, climbing a hill turned to mud, slipping, sliding, desperate to escape, the rain falling harder below the moan of rising wind, each step taking him closer to safety.
With each mighty gust the trees above swayed violently to the side, each step and each minute taking them higher – up into the forest and deeper into the tempest, trees bowing under the combined weight of wind and water. For every two steps they climbed they slipped one, exerting themselves to the utmost, breath coming in heaving gasps. Ash redoubled his efforts, clawing at the ground with his hand, fingertips numb and bloody, making contact with rock wherever he could. He looked back and noticed Chivers was falling back, panting like a steam engine, clutching the painting to him. He was slowing him down. Ash looked back. ‘Come on!’
Chivers let out a small moan amongst his efforts, becoming desperate.
‘Move it!’ he spat, losing patience. Finally, he let himself slide back down the face of the hill close to Chivers. ‘Give me the painting!’
Chivers looked up.
‘Give it to me!’
Chivers returned to his exertions, holding on to it as if he was deaf as well as dumb, trying to use one arm to do the job of two.
‘Here, give me it!’ Ash screamed above the wind, holding his hand out.
Chivers looked up, lost, Ash’s hand in front of his face. He looked to his side, he looked back at the hand. Then, finally, he complied, pushing the sodden blanket out.
Ash caught hold of it, without thinking he offered him his hand. Before he could retract it Chivers grabbed it, sliding backwards, kicking out like a swimmer doing the breast stroke, frog-like as his legs contracted then extended, pushing mud to the side. Their hands slid apart as Chivers slid further and further down the hill, arriving back at his starting point, only to start over again. Ash dare not go down and was about to give up and leave him, when Chivers succeeded on the third attempt to get back up the slope. He crawled upwards, returning to where Ash was waiting.
Ash offered his hand again and Chivers took hold with both hands, pulling himself up, pulling Ash down so he lost the little precious foothold he needed to get past. Feet unable to grip in the mud, Ash groaned under the strain, teeth gritted in exertion and heaved upwards with all he had. The grip broke again, Chivers stumbling backwards, sliding back down in the mud. He dug in his feet, stopping his sliding and tried again, clutching at roots, clutching at anything as he pulling himself back up, hair matted with sweat and rain dripping off his nose. He kicked out again to the sides in an ungainly display of desperation. Another bullet ripped through the air, shredding a small branch off one of the pines. A third time, Ash reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him up, as Chivers collapsed on his knees next to him, chest heaving, saliva falling from his mouth.
Ash hit him on the shoulder in frustration.
‘What was that for?’ Chivers shouted out, looking up in between tortured gasps for air.
‘For being a fat git!’ Ash spat back. He turned back to the rise of the hill in front of them, continuing upwards, walking ever higher towards leveling ground.
They moved on, each lost in their own thoughts, Chivers glowering occasionally at Ash, eyes moving to the bundle under his arm, saying nothing. They continued in single file until Ash heard an odd sound of groaning, breaking wood. Another gust of wind, seething, then another, the crowns of the trees pulled violently one way, then the other. The sound repeated itself. He looked up, expecting to see a branch tear itself loose. Except it came from below, from deep within the earth. The sound grew, a tree moving, the tearing sound of wood, earth and stone, collapsing as it fought against the tempest and lost, the mighty roots of a grand old pine ripped raw from the earth and bedrock. It fell inevitably, ancient roots snapping, sundered, ending in a whoosh and crash of branch against branch, colliding, tearing, ending in a ground-shaking impact absorbed by the rain-sodden earth.
She was caked in mud. Having moved the body to a place where it couldn’t be seen, a very wet Fabian looked for a better vantage point. She crept towards the edge of a boulder in the rain and looked across the V-shaped canyon at the bank on the other side, taking in the outcrops of rock below. Then up to the tree line, up at dark clouds racing past in the wind that buffeted her, gusts ripping at her clothes, sending flurries of rain directly into her face. She looked towards the other side of the cleft. She couldn’t see anyone. She couldn’t see a soul, looking up and down the length of the pass.
The pickup was gone.
That left only the small Fiat leaning over the edge of the road, rear wheels embedded in the embankment. On the ground next to it the crumpled body of a man, a dark patch of ground; bloodstained earth being washed clean in the rain.
A movement: Two shadows scrambling higher and higher up the hillside opposite. She reached into her smock, removing a small pair of binoculars, taking off the caps, placing them to her eyes, sweeping from patch to patch. There, she found them, hidden beneath the swaying tree tops.
Almquist closed his eyes to the Seventh trying not to think about it anymore. Elin could know none of it. He felt happy now he’d left the Eklund files, stored on floppy discs hidden under the floorboards of his house, all to be discovered by bulldozers in some remote time into the future. Hopefully in a time when floppy discs would look like antiques from another age.
Something strange has been going on for a very, very long time...
When he opened his eyes the robin was gone. He saw an old ticket for someplace he couldn’t remember resting on top of his dashboard and picked it up, holding it in his hand.
SÄPO had to be working with the British.
He had ignored the truth for too long and reached forward with outstretched fingertips, reaching back into the glove compartment.
Chivers knew the painting had a history.
Stretching forwards, grunting with the effort, fingers closing he removed the camcorder. He looked at it, then turned it on and looked away for a moment before depressing the record button, looking down into that big black eye. He talked while he still could.
Did SÄPO know that?
The words came freely and Almquist kept on talking then swallowed as he pressed pause, his head thumping. What was he doing? Would a confession absolve him of his sins? Those poor women. For what? They had taken away their eyes. They had burned them, for what?
To be a part of Eklund’s secret.
He’d lead them to Gustav. Anna had to have been part of it.
The painting solved the murders.
Gustav had been Anna’s weak link. Cold war operations gone wrong? Soon after, Gustav himself was dead. And he had failed to do anything about it. Couldn’t do anything about it. He hadn’t known why it happened – the detective with the miserable track record.
He knew.
He told what he could, recorded his thoughts onto the tape in that machine and the words kept coming of their own accord, it requiring neither thought or effort on his part to stay or say them, sounds recorded in time more durable than memory.
He looked out of the hole in the windscreen. He saw something, his sight shifting, focussing into the image of a red pickup pulling over to the side of the road.
‘Oh no,’ he whispered.
He nodded and turned the camera off. Someone was moving. Towards him. He felt it constrict his throat, take hold of his stomach and start to penetrate his mind. The feeling didn’t last long, accepting it.
He strained to see, a face, a dark face he didn’t recognize. Fingers trembling, he reached down for his firearm he knew was somewhere at his side. He felt it with is good hand, but couldn’t move. He commanded his eyes to focus and they did. The form took shape and it wasn’t good. He tried again. Fingers finding the pop fastener, lifting the top of the padded nylon holster.
He was close, very close... too close.
He removed his firearm, raising it and holding in front of him. His finger moved to the safety catch, flicking it to the off position. He had to be ten paces away...
Nine paces away.
The draugr killings were a cover for something else.
He cocked his weapon, sliding a round into the chamber.
Eight paces away.
He raised it, pointing it towards the broken windshield. Green hunting clothes, a knife dangling at his side. An expression, cold beyond caring... he didn’t have the strength.
Seven paces away.
In his notes... he had written it in his notes. He’d written Kron knew about Sturla, that he’d been insane. Sturla had been the murderer, caught in the same game he’d become entangled within.
Six paces away.
It was a deadly game. Elin... she had to stay away from the case. He reached for the pen in his pocket, eyes moving to a small pink ticket curled up on the dashboard.
Five paces away.
He placed his gun on his lap as he clicked the pen and wrote the word, picking up his pistol again.
Four paces away.
Why the mutilations? He thought briefly of Sturla, the heathen, returning to the roots of his forefathers, reliving the stories he had been told by his father Gotfrid and his father’s fathers.
Three paces away.
Sturla had taken care of the bodies and removed their eyes, keeping it all hidden as if it was some pagan festival for the damned. But not Thomas Denisen... he broke the damned pattern.
Two paces away.
Beethoven, dear, beloved Beethoven. He turned, head hurting, pointing his weapon, as a veil of lethargy descended to smother him.
One pace away.
Anna had been involved in uncovering what Sturla had done and he’d tried to kill her too, killing Gustav.
He tried to concentrate, breathing deeply. The man dressed in hunting green he could see... clasping one hand with the ticket as tightly as possible he pointed his gun.
Anna was a loose end...
The man ducked, rising with both hands clasped around his own weapon. Almquist fired, his hand heavy. The shot never made it past the door lining, exploding out of the metal door.
Ulrika the reporter... she found out the same.
He was too tired... tired of it all, music slowing.
What did she find out?
He looked around for the camcorder as his attacker responded, firing one, two, three rounds into the car and Almquist, one of them hitting him in the chest... the other in the arm. He barely noticed the pain. He raised his arm, shaking, not even caring to look at what he had already done to him, a stranger he had never seen before, features vague in the blurred vision that descended over him. He still had things to say, telling them with the time he had left. He thought about Ulrika and what she knew, who she had spoken with as the figure stepped back, gun raised. She was the only one left to know...
Get it over with...
It was easy in the end. It always was. He tried to raise his arm but the weight and pain of it was too much, he strained, hand shaking. The door opened. He looked up. There was a look on that face, letting his arm fall to his lap, staring straight ahead.
Why? All he’d ever needed was just a little light to reason with.
The veil became heavier and heavier, the figure; a hand reaching for him, blade flashing out of the corner of his eye.
The little painting held all the answers.
In one swift movement Hasse Almquist took a deep breath and bore down on the pain as he raised his pistol, hand trembling violently and fired again.
That was why they needed it.
Dismayed, he saw he had missed.
To erase the past.
He opened his mouth and pulled the trigger a last time.
The music stopped.
Chapter 17
REPRISE
The Lord of Magic
Odin also understood the art
Home to the greatest power,
and which he himself practised;
namely, that which is called magic.
Ynglinga saga
Cold, sweating, covered in mud, Ash ran deeper into the forest. He stopped every few minutes to listen and wait, looking over his shoulder with the Hangman in the blanket under his arm. Chivers had fallen further and further behind, breaking into a little sprint every now and then to keep up. Within just five minutes Ash had all but lost sight of him. He looked around, long hair soaked and plastered to his head, hanging in rags around his shoulders as he crouched down, close to the ground, chest rising and falling, thinking hard. He felt tempted to keep moving, change direction.
He had the painting. Lose Chivers. Chivers was weak, a liability. But something held him back.
Chivers came into view, a pitiful figure; slow, overweight. Pathetic. Ash waited in increasing disgust as Chivers neared him, panting heavily, sweat running down his face, mingling with mud and rain, his face a mask of exertion. Ash regarded him with a contemptuous look and walked over to a place where he could relieve himself. He had just started when he sensed a threatening movement, something hard and heavy colliding with the side of his head.
Gazing through the pattern of raindrops, Vikland walked forwards to the passenger side of the car, matted hair buffeted by the storm. There had been a fight, a bullet holes puncturing the thin metal of the door, from the inside out.
Hasse hadn’t been killed but he probably hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter either way. Oskar had warned her and still she felt unprepared, unable to tear her eyes away from the hole in the windshield, trying not to look into the back of the car. Eyes wet, she turned to look at the Forensics Officer. She had dealt with hundreds of examinations. But today she had difficulty coping, tears filling her eyes, a pair of pristine rubber gloves hanging in her hand. She dropped her head and relaxed her fingers. The wind caught the gloves, lifting them.
They fluttered to the ground three paces away; immaculate white rubber soiled by the dark wet mud. She walked three paces forwards and bent down, squatting, looking into the car, eyes fixed upon Hasse’s slumped head, coagulating blood plastered to one side of his head. She closed her eyes, making a conscious effort to close out all the small conversations, all the shared moments during countless investigations.
And now it was too late.
She looked past the horror of his death downwards, seeing something on the floor at his feet: a small, pink strip of paper with a slightly worn, serrated edge that looked crumpled. Curious, she looked around for the white rubber gloves. Straightening her back she walked towards them, bending down to pick them up. She returned to the paper strip and noticed a word that made no sense to her. Scheiser. Other than the fact Hasse sometimes swore in German it made no sense. Frowning, she put it in her pocket as Oskar headed for the homestead. Breathing deeply she turned into the wind, walking with difficulty down the short stretch of road.
She nodded to the officer who tried to smile at her.
‘Are you okay Elin?’ Oskar said, stopping when he noticed the look on her face.
She paused, breathing deeper to resist the urge to vomit. She felt her head fill with confusion, then swallowed and nodded. ‘I just need a moment,’ she whispered. She had to get her head back onto the job. She took another deep breath and looked at the duty officer as he joined his companion. ‘What happened to the men?’
He placed a hand in his pocket, removing a small gray canister. ‘Found this in the grass.’
She took it. It was a gas canister. She looked up.
‘Looks military.’ Oskar said as they reached the entrance, door open. ‘They seem okay now, we’ll need an analysis.’
They walked the length of the corridor, eyes moving to the exit holes through the timber walling, edges jagged and torn, and entered an empty kitchen. She looked around seeing a piece of paper on the table and walked forwards and looked at it as Lindgren entered behind her. He walked up to her as she tilted the note in his direction. ‘It’s from Jayaraman; he says they left after seeing Almquist’s car hit.’