The Black Path

by Asa Larsson

  Anna-Maria is out of breath. The Hummer has driven down through the garden and stopped on the edge of an orchard. In the beam of its headlights she can see a person carrying someone else over their shoulders, moving in the direction of the woods. She sees them for a second, then they disappear out of the light. The Hummer turns skillfully and seems to be looking for them; the headlights are on high beam. Two people dressed in black appear beside the car, then stop briefly and look toward the orchard.

  Anna-Maria crouches down, trying not to pant. She’s no more than twenty meters from them.

  They can’t hear me over the noise of the engine, she thinks.

  It happens in a split second: the person in the orchard is caught by the light again, and one of the men by the car lets fly a hail of bullets. The other raises a rifle to his shoulder, but doesn’t have time to fire; the person in the orchard disappears into the darkness again. The Hummer reverses, turns, it takes a second.

  The man with the machine gun takes off across the terrace like a panther, following the poor bastards down there who are trying to get away. The marksman stays beside the car. Ready to fire from a standing position.

  Anna-Maria tries to see something down there, but there are only tree trunks, spreading their winter-black branches in the ghostly glow of the headlights.

  She doesn’t really think. Doesn’t really have time to make a decision.

  But inside her is the absolute certainty that the people down there who are running away will be shot very soon if she doesn’t do something. And in that car, turning and twisting with its murderous searchlights like a machine with a life of its own, in that car is a little dead child.

  There’s a despairing rage in her footsteps as she runs toward the car with her gun in her hand. Her feet are digging into the ground, it’s like a dream where you run and run and never reach your goal.

  But she does reach her goal; in fact it only takes a couple of seconds.

  They haven’t noticed her, all their attention is focused in a different direction. She shoots the marksman in the back. He falls forward. Two more rapid steps and she shoots the driver in the head through the side window.

  The engine dies, but the lights stay on. She doesn’t give a thought to the fact that there might be more of them, there is no fear, she runs along the avenue of light down the terrace steps. Toward the orchard. Down between the trees. Following the man with the machine gun who’s following the person who’s carrying someone over their shoulders.

  She has seven bullets left. That’s all.

  Sven-Erik is crouching in the darkness when the Hummer comes reversing up toward the house. He watches it drive down toward the terrace and stop above the orchard, reverse and drive forward, reverse and drive forward. He doesn’t see the person struggling through the apple trees with someone else on their back, but he does see the man with the machine gun shoot at something, then run down the terrace steps. He sees the marksman standing there ready to shoot beside the Hummer, watching for his target. He looks at his watch and wonders how long it will take before his colleagues arrive.

  He hardly has time to grasp what he’s seeing when he hears the shot and sees the marksman fall forward, then someone shoots the driver. He doesn’t realize it’s Anna-Maria until he sees her running toward the apple trees in the headlights.

  Sven-Erik straightens up. He daren’t shout to her.

  Good God, she’s completely exposed in the light. Totally insane. He’s absolutely furious.

  And in the middle of that feeling, the marksman gets up. Fear courses through Sven-Erik’s body like an electric shock. But she shot him. Then he realizes the man is wearing a bulletproof vest.

  And Anna-Maria’s running down there like a living target, right in the center of the light.

  Sven-Erik takes off. For his age and weight he moves very quietly and quickly. And as the marksman raises his gun and aims at Anna-Maria, Sven-Erik stops and raises his gun. He couldn’t get any closer.

  It’ll be okay, he tells himself.

  He holds the gun with both hands, takes a deep breath, feeling his whole body shaking with fear, exertion and tension. And he holds his breath as he pulls the trigger.

  One of the machine gun bullets hits Ester. She feels it penetrate her upper arm. It’s a blow, and it feels as if it’s on fire. It misses the bone. It misses the main blood vessels. It goes into the tissue.

  Only a few minor blood vessels are damaged, and they contract with the shock. It will take a while before she begins to bleed. The bullet goes through the arm and stops just beneath the skin on the other side. Like a callus. There will be no exit wound.

  She will bleed to death from this injury. Small wounds and poor friends are not to be despised. But it will be a while yet. She will carry Mauri a little farther.

  My name is Ester Kallis. This is not my fate. This is my choice. I am carrying Mauri on my back, and soon we will be in the woods. Four hundred meters to go.

  He is silent, but I am not worried. I know that he will live. I am carrying him, and it’s the little boy I saw the first time we met that I am carrying. The two-year-old boy clinging to the back of a grown man who was lying on top of our mother. His skinny little white back in the darkness. That’s the child I’m carrying.

  The stabbing pain in my arm is red, the colors are Venetian red and madder-lake in this darkness we are moving through. But I’m not going to think about my arm. I’m drawing pictures in my head as my legs carry us along the path they know from before.

  I’m drawing Rensjön.

  I’m doing a simple pencil drawing of my mother sitting outside the house preparing a reindeer skin, scraping off the hairs once the skin has been soaked until the follicles rot.

  Mother in the kitchen with her hands in the washing-up water and her thoughts far away.

  I’m drawing Musta as she splits the reindeer herd as cleanly as a knife, brave as always, dashing between their legs, giving the slow ones a quick nip.

  I’m drawing myself. In the afternoon, when I finally get out of the school bus at home in Rensjön, the wind biting my cheeks as I run into the house. In the summer when I’m sitting on the shore drawing, and I don’t realize until the evening how badly the mosquitoes have bitten me, and I sit there crying and scratching while my mother bathes the bites with lotion.

  I’m getting pictures from Mauri too. It comes from the physical contact. I know that.

  He’s sitting in an office in another country. Because he’s afraid of the men who are after us now, and of the men who sent these men, he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his life.

  His hands are covered in the liver spots that come with age. The sun is bright outside. No air-conditioning, only a fan. Out in the yard a few hens are scratching in the red dust. A skinny cat scurries across the dried-up lawn.

  There’s a young woman. Her skin is soft and black. When he wakes in the night, she sings hymns in a low, dark voice. It calms him. Sometimes she sings children’s songs in her native language. She and Mauri have a daughter.

  The girl.

  I am carrying her as well. She is still so small. Doesn’t know it’s wrong to open and close doors in the house without touching them.

  I can see a police station in Sweden. Files piled up on top of one another. They contain everything that’s known about the murder of Inna Wattrang, and about all the deaths at Regla. But no one will be brought to account. They will never find anyone guilty. I can see a middle-aged woman with glasses on a cord around her neck. She has one year to go until she retires. She’s thinking about this as she loads all these files containing murder investigations onto a cart and wheels it down to the archive room.

  Soon we’ll reach the old jetty.

  I need to stop for a moment, it’s getting dark inside my head.

  I’ll keep going, although I suddenly feel very dizzy.

  I’m bleeding heavily from the back of my arm now. It’s sticky, warm, unpleasant.

  It’s heavy. My
footsteps are sinking. I’m so cold, and I’m afraid of falling. It’s like trudging through deep snow.

  One more step, I think. Just as my mother used to say when I was dead tired out on the mountain, and started whining. “Come on, Ester. One more step.”

  The snow is so deep. One more step, Ester. One more step.

  Ebba Kallis is surprising herself. There’s a window ajar in the kitchen. It got so warm in there when dinner was being prepared. When everything goes dark and she hears the shots, she doesn’t even think for one second. She heaves herself out through the kitchen window. Inside they’re all screaming in panic. And after a while they fall silent.

  But by then she’s already lying on the grass outside the window. She gets to her feet and runs until she reaches the wall that encircles the yard. Then she follows it down to the shore. She gropes her way along the shore to the old jetty. It’s a slow process in her high-heeled shoes. She’s shivering in her thin dress. But she isn’t crying. She thinks about the boys, who are with her parents, and she keeps going.

  She reaches the old jetty. Clambers down into the boat and feels around in the storage box. If she can find a flashlight she can look for the ignition key. Otherwise she’ll have to row. Just as her hand closes around the flashlight, she hears steps on the track leading down to the jetty; they’re very close.

  And she hears a voice say something that sounds like “Ebba” or “Ebba he…” Or something.

  “Ester?” she says tentatively, standing up in the boat and looking over the edge of the jetty. Although she can’t see anything in the darkness.

  When she gets no reply, she thinks what the hell and switches on the flashlight.

  Ester. With Mauri over her shoulders. She doesn’t even seem to react to the light. And then she slumps to the ground.

  Ebba pulls herself up onto the jetty. She shines the light on the two unconscious bodies.

  “Oh my God,” she says. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Ester grabs hold of her silk dress.

  “Run,” she whispers.

  Then Ebba sees the beam of a flashlight among the trees.

  It’s a matter of life and death now.

  She grabs hold of Mauri’s jacket and drags him across the jetty. Thump, thump, thump as the heels of his shoes are hauled across the planks of the jetty.

  She heaves him down into the boat. He lands with a thud; it sounds deafening to Ebba. She hopes he hasn’t landed on his face. The beam of the flashlight is pointing in her direction. She’ll just have to forget about Ester. Ebba unties the boat and jumps down into the water. She wades behind the boat, pushing it out. In the end it’s so far out it begins to drift. Ebba is strong, thanks to all the riding. But she only just manages to haul herself up into the boat.

  She grabs hold of the oars. Slots them into the rowlocks. God, what a noise. The whole time she’s thinking: we’re going to be shot. Then she begins to row. She’s well away from the shore. She’s fit, and she keeps a cool head. She knows exactly where she can take Mauri. She’s smart enough to know this has to be taken care of without hospitals or the police. Until he can tell her himself what he wants to do.

  And the man with the flashlight who’s on his way to the jetty never gets there. He gets the order through his headset that the mission is being aborted. Two members of the group have been shot, and the remaining three are leaving Regla. Before the police arrive they have disappeared.

  It’s snowing now. Ester plods on through the deep snow. Soon she won’t be able to go on any longer. And then she thinks she’s caught a glimpse of someone up ahead. Someone coming to meet her through the snowstorm, someone who stops a little distance away.

  She calls to her mother. “Eatnan,” she calls, but the wind snatches her voice away and it disappears.

  She sinks to the ground. The snow drifts over her, in a moment she’s covered in a thin white layer. And as she lies there she feels something panting against her face.

  A reindeer. A tame reindeer butting at her, blowing in her face.

  Up ahead are her mother and another woman. Ester cannot see them through the snow whirling in the air, but she knows they’re waiting for her. And she knows the other woman is eatnan’s grandmother. Her áhkku.

  She gets to her feet. Heaves herself up onto the reindeer’s back. Lies across it like a bundle. She can hear a familiar bark now. It’s Musta, scampering around the two women. Musta’s excited, demanding bark, she wants to be on her way. Ester is afraid they’ll go without her. Disappear.

  Run, she says to the reindeer. Run. She grabs its thick coat with both hands.

  And it begins to move forward.

  Soon they’ll catch up.

  Anna-Maria Mella suddenly discovers that she’s fumbling around in a dark, silent woods. She stopped running long ago. She realizes she hasn’t a clue how long she’s been wandering around, and she also realizes she isn’t going to find anybody here. She has the distinct feeling that it’s all over.

  Sven-Erik, she thinks. I must get back.

  But she can’t find her way back. She doesn’t really know where she is. She sinks down against a tree trunk.

  I’ll have to wait, she thinks. It’ll be light soon.

  The picture of the dead child comes into her head. She tries to push it away.

  She’s longing so desperately for Gustav. She wants to hold him, his warm body.

  He’s alive, she says to herself. They’re all at home. If she’d had her jacket she could have called Robert; her cell phone is in her inside pocket, but her jacket is still in the ditch.

  She wraps her arms around her body, digging her fingers into her upper arms to stop herself from crying. And as she sits there digging and digging into her upper arms, she falls asleep in a second. She’s completely exhausted.

  When she wakes up after a while, she notices that it’s grown a little lighter. She gets up stiffly and begins to make her way up to the house.

  There are three police cars in the yard, as well as a van belonging to the national special operations squad. They’ve secured the area and are out there searching.

  Anna-Maria comes walking up to the house with twigs in her hair and mud all over her face. All she feels when her colleagues point their guns at her is how tired she is. Hands up, they take her gun off her.

  “Sven-Erik?” she asks. “Sven-Erik Stålnacke?”

  One police officer is holding her arm loosely, a grip that can tighten if she starts playing up.

  He looks troubled. He seems to be around the same age as Sven-Erik. But he’s taller.

  “He’s okay, but you can’t talk to him at the moment,” he says. “Sorry.”

  She understands. She really does. She’s shot two people, and God knows what else has happened. Obviously she has to be investigated. But she has to see Sven-Erik. Perhaps mainly for her own sake. She needs to see somebody she cares about. Somebody who cares about her. She only wants him to look at her and give her a little nod, a sign that everything’s going to be all right.

  “Come on,” she pleads. “This was no picnic. I just want to know that he’s okay.”

  The police officer sighs and gives in. How can he say no?

  “Come with me, then,” he says. “But remember. No exchange of information about what happened here tonight.”

  Sven-Erik is leaning against one of the police cars. When he catches sight of Anna-Maria, he turns his head away.

  “Sven-Erik,” she says.

  Then he turns to face her.

  She’s never seen him so furious.

  “You and your fucking tricks,” he yells. “Fuck you, Mella! We should have waited for backup. I…”

  He clenches his fists and shakes them in rage and frustration.

  “I’m handing in my notice!” he shouts.

  And at that moment Anna-Maria sees their colleagues over by the Hummer shining a light on the man with the rifle, the marksman. He’s lying on the ground, and he’s been shot in the head.

&nbs
p; But I shot him in the back, thinks Anna-Maria.

  “Right,” she said absently to Sven-Erik.

  Then Sven-Erik sits down on the hood of the police car and starts to cry. He thinks about the cat, Boxer.

  He thinks about Airi Bylund.

  He thinks that if Airi hadn’t cut down her husband and got the doctor to lie about the cause of death, there would have been an autopsy on Örjan Bylund and they would have started a murder investigation and then perhaps none of this would have happened. And then he wouldn’t have had to kill anyone.

  And he wonders if he can get over this so that he can love Airi. He doesn’t know.

  And he sobs his heart out.

  Rebecka Martinsson gets out of the car in front of the Riksgränsen Hotel. Her stomach is doing somersaults.

  It doesn’t matter, she says to herself. I have to do this. I have nothing to lose but my pride. And when she imagines what her pride looks like, she sees a worthless, worn-out thing, definitely the worse for wear.

  In you go, she says to herself.

  The bar is in full swing, as soon as she walks through the door she hears a tribute band playing an old Police track.

  She stays in reception and calls Maria Taube. If she’s lucky, Maria will have some guy on the go and will be keeping an eye on her phone 24/7.

  She’s in luck. Maria Taube answers.

  “It’s me,” says Rebecka.

  She’s slightly out of breath because of her nerves, but she can’t let that bother her either.

  “Can you find Måns and ask him to come out to reception?”

  “What?” says Maria. “Are you here?”