“That’s the last one,” the woman said, returning to the bench. “If you’re looking for Harrow the Wind, or Tessa Sowen, I’m afraid we sold out. But we’ll be streaming Tessa’s album Sunday night, once we’re back home and settled. Are you on our mailing list?”
I shook my head. “Well, go online and sign up,” she said, and glanced over at the bearded man as if for approval.
I continued to pore over the CDs. Based on the album and song titles and cover art, I’d guess that Svarlight’s list ran to alt-folk or post-rock. I didn’t see anything that looked like Nazi symbolism. No swastikas or Iron Crosses, no stylized eagles; just a few band names spelled out in variations of the elaborate medieval black-letter typeface favored by metal bands.
But that stack of brochures was definitely neo-Nazi propaganda, and Svarlight was here to hawk their wares to white supremacists. Why?
I put aside Bloodwinter and picked up Stone Ships, the album by Jötunn’s Egg. The cover art showed an animal skull on the grassy verge of a rocky beach. Some of the vertebrae were still attached, protruding onto a swathe of grass studded with tiny yellow flowers. Horns curled from either side of the skull. A yellowish tube trailed from one eye socket, blossoming into a fist-sized growth that resembled the blossom of an underwater plant. Tendrils and a ragged flap of skin or muscle clung to the other eye socket, where another, tongue-shaped growth bulged. Delicate periwinkle-blue shadows dappled the vertebrae and coiled horns, as though petals had fallen there.
I turned to the back cover, a black-and-white photo of rocks arranged in the shape of a boat, the stone ship of the title. It sat in a clearing, surrounded by evergreens and white birches, rings of autumn ferns. The stone ship looked desolate but not out of place, adrift on grassy hummocks like stationary waves.
The track list was in English. “Within the Petrified Darkness We All Disappear” and “I Scream, You Laugh, I Bleed” were the highlights. All songs were credited to Kirsten Manus, the cover art and production to Big Delusory Whim and Svarlight Studios.
I stared at the name. At last I placed it: the book of photos I’d seen in Tindra Bergstrand’s hallway. I turned to Freya and held up the CD.
“The person who shot this cover. Do you know who he is?”
“Of course.” She reached past me into the tote. “Here’s his book. We published it a few years ago. It didn’t sell many copies.”
She handed me a hardbound book, its cover featuring a man’s elaborately tattooed torso, his face obscured by the horned skull he held in front of it. I turned to the title page:
Skalltrolleri: Fotografier producerad av Big Delusory Whim
“Skalltrolleri,” I said. “What’s that mean?”
“‘Skull magic.’ It’s not a real word—he made it up.”
“The photographer?”
“Yes. He took those pictures, he made up the word.”
“What’s his real name?”
Freya picked at her wool sweater. “He likes to be anonymous.”
Mindful of the cheap binding, I opened the book. I flipped past the title page and a brief introduction in Swedish, to the first photograph.
A black ram stood alert in a field of wildflowers, its horns like a pair of nautilus shells, each golden eye bisected by a horizontal pupil. In the foreground a sheep’s skull lay alongside a mound of earth, its coiled horns black with dirt. A green tendril emerged from one eye socket, like a baby grass snake. The color reproduction was off—the greens bled into the sky’s summer blue, giving it the sickly hue of a faded 1970s Kodachrome.
I wondered if that was intentional. The scene itself was hackneyed, placid ram paired with sinister skull. What saved the photo was the way one of the ram’s eyes caught a sliver of light, so that its flattened pupil wore a corona of gold. It made the creature look otherworldly, slightly ethereal. Whoever had taken the shot had a good eye and a knack for capturing sideways details that most people wouldn’t even notice.
I examined the other photos. Skulls in varying stages of decomposition; young men, some barely teenagers, sporting Nazi and racist insignia as tattoos and scarifications; T-shirts with S-shaped lightning bolts, Iron Crosses, sun wheels. One photo showed two white teenagers, no older than sixteen, pointing guns at a third, darker-skinned figure bound to a chair, his face covered by a flowered pillowcase.
“That was a game.” I glanced up to see Freya watching me. “They were all friends.”
As I turned to the next photo, the book’s spine cracked, and the page drooped between my fingers. I looked at Freya. “Can I buy this?”
“Of course. That’s twelve pounds, or fifteen euros.”
I picked up the Stone Ships album and a CD by Bloodwinter, fumbling in my pocket for money. “How much for the book and these two CDs?”
“The CDs are ten pounds apiece. Ten euros, if you’d prefer.”
“Give her both for ten, Freya,” the bearded man called out. “And five for the book. We can’t give that one away.”
I held up a note. “I only have ten.”
Freya gazed at her husband, who gave her a curt nod. “You can have them all for ten,” she said as the bearded man joined us.
“New customer?” he asked. At my nod he smiled approvingly. “Good. That’s what we like, new blood. Here, wait—”
He reached into the tote, pulled out a red T-shirt, and handed it to me. “Here you go.”
“That’s okay, I don’t—”
“Keep it!” He waved me away. “Anything we don’t sell we have to carry back.”
“That’s right,” said Freya. She took my money, tentatively touched the bearded man’s arm. “Erik, we need to be going.”
I froze, staring at the red lightning bolt and oak leaf printed on the T-shirt.
found book
erik svarlight
need help
“Thanks,” I croaked, and stashed the book and CDs in my bag.
The guy with the Defenders of Albion cap walked up to Erik. “What was that title on the show last week? The one about folklore and racial memory. Blood Harvest, something like that…”
“You mean Reaping Blood?”
“Yes, that’s it! Who’s the author?”
“Markus Thierke. Message me and I’ll send you a link.” Erik clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder, turned to shake hands with the other two. “We need to catch the ferry. Thanks for supporting us.”
The three men ambled off. Erik yanked up the plastic poles holding the Svarlight banner, collapsed them, and stowed everything in the tote. He glanced irritably at Freya.
“Aren’t you done yet?”
“Almost.”
She reached into a pocket of her dress for a money pouch, unzipped it, and slipped the cash I’d given her inside. As she did, her sweater’s sleeve rode up.
Tattooed just above her wrist were three linked triangles: a valknut. It bisected a circular band of raw skin, as though she’d been wearing a too-small bracelet.
Before I could get a better look, Freya turned away. As Erik hefted the tote, I saw the same symbol tattooed on the back of his hand. He grabbed Freya’s wrist, asking her a question in Swedish. She removed a mobile, swiped at it, then nodded. “It’s coming.”
She gave me a farewell nod. “You have a good evening.”
“I’ll try.” I looked past them to the street. “Is there a Tube station near here?”
“West Ham station,” said Erik. “It’s the rail line.”
A sedan pulled up to the curb, and the two of them went to meet it. I sank back onto the bench, trying to make sense of the last few minutes.
Erik had to be the guy mentioned in Tindra’s text. His wife or partner, Freya, bore a tattoo of the same symbol I’d glimpsed on Harold’s forehead. And Svarlight published that book of photos of young white nationalists.
Tindra’s message suggested Erik had The Book of Lamps and Banners, and Tindra had gone to meet Erik. So where was Tindra? Where was the book?
This guy Erik d
idn’t appear as though he’d had any sort of confrontation earlier in the day, let alone arranged a kidnapping or murder. If anything, he and Freya seemed to have kept their distance from the demonstration, setting up near the edge of the park. If they did have The Book of Lamps and Banners, where was it? They were traveling light—a tote containing some T-shirts, CDs, and copies of Skalltrolleri. I’d seen no sign of the stolen book.
I drummed my fingers on the bench. Maybe Tindra had never come here at all. She might be anywhere by now, including dead.
But why did she own a copy of Skalltrolleri?
If I’d been straight, this would all be simply crazy. Since I was still blasted on cheap crank, it seemed on the brink of making sense. I recalled the vortex of Ludus Mentis in the split second before it triggered my flashback. It seemed to represent a language I couldn’t understand, unfamiliar symbols, but also swastikas, sun wheels, crosses.
What if it was some kind of dog whistle directed at white supremacists? Could Tindra secretly be a neo-Nazi? Maybe she was in collusion with Erik. Or maybe she’d been kidnapped by him. Either way, he seemed like the only lead I could follow.
My reverie broke as a dog barked. A man in a plaid anorak strolled across the grass, holding aloft a golf club, as a small white terrier danced around him. I heard the sound of a door slamming and children’s voices. Soon it would be dark.
I picked up my bag and got to my feet. The man in the anorak stood silhouetted against a sky molten with sunset. As I watched, he raised his golf club, swung, and hit a ball I couldn’t see, shading his eyes as he traced its trajectory.
“Get it, Lucy!” he yelled as the white dog raced after the ball, and I started toward the West Ham rail line.
Chapter 35
I had to ask for directions twice before I found the station. Once there, I called Quinn. He answered on the third ring. I could hear music in the background, Johnny Hallyday.
“I need to see you,” I said.
“I’m at Derek’s. Get your skinny ass over here.”
“Is that safe?” Derek owned the Banshee, a pub in Camden Town, which had been a nexus for some shit I preferred not to think about right now.
“‘Safe’?” Quinn laughed. He sounded drunk. “Just come. I’ll protect you.”
The Banshee was nearly empty. The usual superannuated folk beardies sat at their table by the window, nursing their pints. Hallyday had given way to “Looking for a Kiss” on the vintage Seeburg that Quinn had supplied with old 45s from his stock of thousands in Reykjavík. He sat at the bar, the black watch cap pushed back from his forehead as he spoke to Derek across the zinc counter. Derek glanced up at my approach. His expression cooled as he gave a nod to Quinn, who turned to beckon me over.
“There she is. Hurricane Cass.”
Quinn pulled me to him, tipping my face to kiss me. He tasted like candy, Coke, and Myer’s dark. Even after decades of being clean, he had a junkie’s penchant for sweet stuff. I dropped my bag and pressed against him, sliding my hand beneath his cap to feel the soft stubble on his scalp, the ridged scar in the shape of a cross.
“Hey, baby,” I murmured. For a moment everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours fell into the black bottomless pool that was my need for Quinn. I traced his bruised cheek with one finger, and he put his arms around me.
Derek stalked to the other end of the bar. I swayed with Quinn while David Johansen shouted in the background, and for a few minutes I imagined we were back in New York and twenty years old and Johnny Thunders was still alive.
“Okay,” Quinn said at last. He pushed me away and turned to pick up a brimming pint glass that I knew held rum and Coke. “So what you got for me?”
I looked around. The place was empty except for us and the Furry Freak Brothers. I turned back and told Quinn what had happened since I’d left him that afternoon.
“Erik.” I repeated the name for the twentieth time. I knew I should slow down, but it was like my mouth had caught a fast train and left my brain at the station. “I asked Lyla who he was, but she wouldn’t answer me. She’s lying. Or not lying, but not telling me what she knows.”
“I don’t blame her. You’re running on no sleep and enough crank to keep you wired for another three days. ‘Paranoia strikes deep,’ baby.” He took another swallow of his drink.
“I’m not paranoid.”
“You’re spun. Look at your eyes—they’re dilated like crazy.”
“That doesn’t matter.” I pulled out the book I’d just bought and dropped it on the bar beside Quinn’s mobile. “Check this out. It’s produced by the same people as those CDs. Svarlight. They’re a music label, but they’ve done at least one book, this one. Be careful, it’ll fall apart—”
Quinn gingerly turned the pages. “Guy likes his skulls.”
“No kidding. So why would Tindra have a copy of this?”
Quinn pushed the book toward me. “Why would anyone?”
“Because it’s by a guy who’s a white supremacist or neo-Nazi or something. It has some connection to them, anyway. Maybe through her father. Tindra hates him—they haven’t had any contact since she was fourteen. Lyla told me he does a podcast for some kind of white supremacist site, Perla News, something like that.”
“Herla Network?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah. Some of the guys I do business with are fans.” Quinn squinted at the book’s cover photo, swallowing a mouthful of rum and Coke. “But this guy—his body looks too young to be her father’s. So maybe the photographer’s her father, and this is some guy he took a picture of?”
“But if Tindra hates him, and he’s a neo-Nazi, why would she have a copy of his book?”
Derek returned and silently set a shot glass of Jack Daniel’s in front of me. Like Quinn’s, his face was scarred, a ridge of tissue that ran along his jaw like a hinge, bluish gray against his ebony skin. Years earlier, his right-hand ring finger had been cut off at the joint. I knew who’d done that, but we didn’t have to worry about him any longer.
I downed the whiskey. Derek swapped out a pint glass of water for my empty shot glass. “You want something to eat?”
I shook my head, and Derek walked over to check on the bearded ones. I pushed the mobile toward Quinn, tapping the cover of Skalltrolleri. “Google it.”
Quinn scowled and picked up the mobile, shoving it into his pocket. “Why? What about the book we’re actually looking for? Did you look in Erik’s magic bag for that?”
“It wasn’t there.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I had a good look at the bag, and it wasn’t there. Plus they wouldn’t be lugging it around with a bunch of CDs.”
“You sound awfully sure of that.” I knew he really meant You fucked up. “This girl Tindra—what does she look like?”
I swiveled on my stool, holding out my hand. “Maybe this tall. Kind of big-boned. Strong, she looks like she works out. She has black hair, a buzz cut.”
“Any identifying marks—tattoos, stuff like that?”
“Not that I saw. But she has a long dreadlock. Blue, with glitter stuck in it. Sequins.”
“She a black girl?”
“No. I told you, she’s Swedish.”
“There are black people in Sweden, Cass.”
“I know,” I snapped. “But Victoria Park wouldn’t have been a good place for a black girl this afternoon.”
“What about her bodyguard? And your boyfriend Gryffin? How’d they make out?”
“I don’t know. I ditched them.”
“That’s my girl.” He glanced at the book again, shook his head dismissively. “Well, we got squat. You have any idea what the hell is going on?”
“She could have been kidnapped, but I don’t see how anyone could have gotten into her place without Lyla or Tommy knowing.”
“Maybe she went for a walk and someone nabbed her.”
“Yeah, I thought of that. She had her dog, though.”
“He
r dog’s dead. Who’d kidnap her?”
I tried without success to catch Derek’s eye to get another drink. “Same person who killed Harold?”
“So why kidnap her? The book’s already gone.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the book.”
“Don’t give me that. There’s some connection. Think, Cass.”
Exasperated, I stood and peered over the bar, looking for a bottle within reach. Quinn pushed me back onto my stool. “Stop it. Derek!”
Derek slid me another shot. I took a sip, closed my eyes, and tried to recall everything I could about the Swedish couple. At last I pointed at the pocket holding Quinn’s mobile.
“Okay, look up that Herla site. Her father’s show is called Valî’s Hour, something like that.”
Quinn retrieved his phone. “Here it is,” he said after a moment. “‘Valî’s Hour. Activist news and neo-Volksmusik.’”
“What’s that?”
“European alt-folk. In this case, probably with a Nazi twist.”
He held up the mobile to display a thumbnail photo of a man in his forties. Long black hair swept back from a high forehead; uptilted eyes fixed the camera with a confrontational stare. His resemblance to Tindra was striking.
Longtime commentator Valî keeps you up to date with current events along with little-known history, folklore, and new progressive Volksmusik every Sunday night at 23:00 and streaming online at Herla.org.su.
“Valî,” I said. “Valî Bergstrand?”
“Probably a pseudonym. They’re less common than they used to be. Nazis aren’t afraid anymore.”
I removed the Bloodwinter CD from my bag and slid it toward Quinn. “Do you know the label? Svarlight?”
He glanced at the title and track listings, did the same with the Jötunn’s Egg album, Stone Ships. “I’ve never heard of these bands. But I know the label. I don’t keep their stuff in stock, but sometimes people will special-order it. They do some limited vinyl pressings, but mostly they just rip CDs on demand.”
“Was it founded by a guy named Erik Svarlight?”
The Book of Lamps and Banners Page 16