She looked at the junction box where all the different solar system cables were gathered together, screwing the cap off. Unknowingly, an electrician and Shirley had told her how she could apply torture and much worse. The direct current would only cause a little stinging sensation for the person the current was sent through so long as the sun was weak. But the stronger the sun, the more dangerous it would become. It would kill them eventually.
She nodded, taking a screwdriver with an insulated handle from the pile of tools under the bench, and loosened the two cable lugs that sent the current to the inverter. The direct current effect from the two cable lugs came from all the solar panels, creating an optimal effect. Were the sun to shine brighter, the voltage would be enormous.
She pulled the end of the cable that was wound around the immigrant’s thumb up to the junction box, connecting it to the positive pole, and then similarly the cable from the big man’s ankle to the negative pole.
In the same second that she connected the second cable, every muscle contracted in the two men’s faces, and all four legs shot suddenly forward. The immigrant’s leg kicked her hard in the stomach, causing her to sink to her knees.
She grabbed her abdomen, looking up at the men, who were both sitting with their eyes open staring, while everything inside her was screaming that she had to get out.
She stumbled into her office and sat down for a moment by the desk, groaning until the pain subsided. She was momentarily scared, but then turned her attention to what needed to be done, looked at the clock, and got up again.
“I’m just popping out for ten minutes to get some fresh air, Nisiqtu,” she said to the woman in reception. “There won’t be anything else today, so you can return to your room now. I’ll serve tea for the men myself when I get back.”
They smiled to each other. No danger there.
* * *
The police vehicle was a few hundred meters down the highway, parked to one side but very visible.
She rooted about in the glove compartment, opened the trunk, and checked the interior, but found nothing about the investigation that had led them here.
She started the car and parked it a few hundred meters down a small connecting road that nobody used anymore. It gave her a bit more control over the situation. If more police turned up in the immediate future, she could maintain that they’d driven off but said they’d be back again.
No one should enter the center and pry as long as those two men were still alive. And when they were dead, she’d consider whether or not it could appear to be an accident, or whether she needed to get rid of them. In any case, when the time came she’d go down and take the license plates off the car and make sure it ended up in Poland or some other obscure place. The Poles and Balts who drove around begging to paint the houses red could have it for a song if they agreed to take it far away. They could have the license plates from the old car sitting gathering dust in the back of the Stable of Senses. It wasn’t going to be used again anyway.
She walked back toward the academy, looking up at the sky. The clouds were still heavy but an easterly breeze looked to be blowing them away from the coast.
She thought about how the sun would soon be shining again, massaging her stomach as she walked in the door to the reception. It’d been a long time now since the baby had kicked.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Are you so tired? It’s been a special day, so Mom’s a bit tired, too,” she muttered. “Dad’s chosen your name, so you can be happy about that. And when you’re born, we’ll name you on the same day as Dad and I are joined together under the sun in the timber circle. It’ll be a great day, sweetheart.”
She screwed her eyes shut with the sudden discomfort that shot through her. It was a really nasty feeling, as if something in her body was completely off-balance.
She thought that something really wasn’t as it should be, as the sweat poured off her. She needed to get to the clinic in Kalmar and get it checked, but first she needed to know what she was up against. The men needed to answer her questions, and then she needed to get going.
* * *
They both sat with quivering jaws and tense neck muscles, staring at her, as she entered the room.
The immigrant tried to hiss something at her, but the words became distorted by the contractions in his neck.
She took her screwdriver and screwed one of the cables free from the junction box.
They both collapsed at once, their heads hanging on their chests.
“You should be glad that the sun isn’t out at the moment,” she said, as they slowly lifted their heads.
She looked up toward the skylight and noticed as the men’s eyes followed hers.
“You’re crazy,” said the larger of the two. “You could kill us.”
She smiled. Did he think she was crazy? Dear God, he had no idea how much was at stake. The whole world was waiting for this center to spread the message so that all religions could be united and the world could live in peace. Who did these two insignificant people think they were that they could stand in the way of that vision?
Her smile hardened. “What do you know?” she said, sticking the cable in the cable lug with the effect that both men’s legs kicked out and their backs arched. This time she knew from bitter experience to keep a safe distance.
“I’m well aware that the effect isn’t much at the moment. Maybe it just feels like an internal massage, right? But just wait until later, when the sun comes out again. Then it’ll be worse. Much worse.”
She pulled the cable to her again, causing the men to fall back, albeit not as much as last time. Maybe you could get used to this level of current.
“What do you know?” she asked again.
The big man coughed a couple of times before answering. “We know everything and we aren’t alone in that knowledge. Your Atu killed a girl in a hit-and-run years back, and now the past has caught up with him. So don’t make it any worse for yourself than it already is. Let us go, Pirjo. We . . .”
She pressed the cable against the cable lug again and the whole scenario repeated itself. After a few seconds, she let them off.
If they wouldn’t spit it out now, it would be the last time she’d try.
“Are there more of you?” she asked.
The big one tried to nod. “Of course. Atu’s been under suspicion for a long time. A policeman is dead as a result of this investigation. Atu’s left a trail of death and misery. Why are you protecting him? He isn’t worth it, Pirjo. There’s no reason to . . .”
He gasped for air when she once again pressed the cable against the cable lug. This time she screwed it tight and turned her back on the men.
Now she knew that what would be, would be. The men couldn’t say anything to her to ease her worry. The immigrant hadn’t even said a word. He’d just stared at her with cold eyes, as if he might kill her with a look. No, she’d done the right thing.
She looked up at the floating clouds, and then the twinge came again, only this time like a knife being stabbed in her stomach. It almost felt as if the baby inside her turned right round with one jerk. As if it was the fetus rather than the men who’d been subjected to the current.
Pirjo staggered through the corridor, slammed the door behind her, and fell down in the office chair. She took a few deep breaths, deep down into her lungs, in an attempt to get her pulse under control, without success. Her arms began to shake and her skin became cold. Something was very wrong. Was it a psychological reaction to what she was about to do? She didn’t feel anything about it, but could that still be the reason? Was her conscience awakening? Was it a type of trial or punishment? She couldn’t believe it. She implored Horus as the pain in her abdomen increased, praying to him to deliver her from this tribulation.
“I’m doing it with the best of intentions!” she screamed.
And then it stopped as
suddenly as it had begun.
It was with a sigh of relief that she went to stand up, but then she realized to her horror that her legs wouldn’t obey.
Then she noticed the blood.
Blood on the seat of the chair and blood on the white robe.
Blood that ran warm down her leg, dripping on the floor under the table.
—
Carl could only think of three short words, the rest of him being no more than a body: not long now. In the beginning, it felt as if his whole body was bubbling, like when you have a dead arm, but then all his muscles contracted and seized up. Even the tiny muscles in his eyelids and nostrils contracted and stiffened. It almost felt as if his body was slowly burning up. Suddenly his heart was beating extra systoles, and his brain sporadically short-circuiting in flashes of light, while his lungs were increasingly ceasing to react to the lack of oxygen. And the more light that the cloud cover let through, the stronger the effect of the current, and the more the words “not long now” made sense.
Carl didn’t feel Assad next to him at all. He only remembered in glimpses that they sat securely tied to one another. Only in glimpses did he remember where he was.
Then the current suddenly became weaker. He gasped, breathing heavily. There was still an electric trembling in his body, but nothing compared to before. He looked around in confusion. It was bright in the room. Maybe even brighter than before. What was going on?
He heard a moan coming from beside him.
He sat for a moment, trying to get his neck muscles to obey. They were still as hard as stone. With difficulty, he managed to turn his head toward Assad, seeing his grave face contorted with pain.
Carl coughed when he tried to talk, but he did get the words out.
“What’s happening, Assad?”
A moment passed before he answered in short breaths.
“There’s a ground connection . . . in . . . the wall.”
Carl turned his head a fraction more. At first he didn’t understand what Assad meant. The wall was metal of some sort, he could see that, but what did that matter?
Then he noticed a faint smell of burning flesh and tried to work out where it was coming from.
Now he saw one of Assad’s arms twitching. He’d raised his bound arms in toward the wall as much as he could, pressing his thumb, which the cable was wound around, against the metal wall.
A very weak trace of smoke rose from it. That was what he’d been able to smell.
“The current . . . doesn’t get . . . any farther,” he mumbled.
Carl looked at the finger and the nail that was slowly turning brown, and the tip even darker. It was shocking to look at. Carl knew enough about current to know that Assad was sacrificing his finger for them. Just now, current was accumulating from a crazy number of solar cells down to the cable wound around Assad’s thumb, and from there onto the metal wall.
Wasn’t it his physics teacher who’d said that current always finds the shortest route to discharge?
“Can’t you manage to twist your hand and press the cable directly onto the wall, Assad?” he asked tentatively.
He shook his head tensely.
“Arhhh,” he mumbled, when a cloud suddenly drifted past over them. For one second the pain caused him to release his pressure against the metal wall, causing Carl to hit his neck against the wall and his arms to spasm.
Just until the next cloud came.
He noticed Assad twitching, and then the current disappeared again from Carl’s body.
Assad gasped beside him. It was unbearable to watch. It couldn’t continue like this for long.
Carl took a deep breath. “When the sun breaks right through, Assad, let go. The pain will be over . . . in a moment,” he heard himself say. It was awful to think about, but what if he was wrong? If it wasn’t over in a moment?
“But before you let go, I need to know, why . . .” He reconsidered for a moment. Did he really want to know?
“Know . . . what?” groaned Assad.
“Said! Why do they call you that? Is that your real name?”
For a moment, it went completely quiet next to him. He shouldn’t have asked.
“It . . . it belongs in the past, Carl,” he struggled out. “An alias . . . that’s what it is. Don’t think . . . about it . . . now.”
Carl looked down at the floor; the shadows became more defined. “The sun’s breaking through. Let go now, Assad. Are you listening to me!”
The body next to him twitched, but Carl felt no change. He hadn’t let go.
“Come on, Assad. Let go!”
“I’ll . . . be okay,” answered Assad almost inaudibly. “I’ve . . . tried . . . it . . . before.”
50
She leaned in over the desk and reached for the telephone. If the ambulance came quickly, she’d be lying in the gynecological ward in Kalmar in forty-five minutes.
She told herself that if Atu came with her, everything would be all right again.
She was just about to smile at the thought when a cutting sensation suddenly tore through her.
“No, what’s happening?” she mumbled, as yet another convulsion thrust her backward in the chair.
Instinctively, she directed her eyes down. The bleeding between her legs had increased.
She trembled all over for a few seconds, and then it went totally quiet inside her. Far too quiet. The throbbing beat of her pulse. The movements in her uterus. The impulses that could give her an idea about her general condition. All signals stopped at once.
Pirjo began to cry. Just like the time when with a child’s naivete she’d asked her mother to love her as much as her sisters, she knew that the tears were shed in vain, that crying was of no use. Fate followed a path all of its own and you just had to follow along, no matter how terrible and sad it could seem. That was the realization she was left with now. From one moment to the next, everything became suddenly insignificant. The little being inside her had decided that they should part ways now. She’d gone into labor but her water hadn’t broken because the baby was dead inside her. She knew this with certainty.
She stared for a moment at the telephone, completely lost.
Why should she call for help? Why should she save herself when all was lost? She wouldn’t get Atu to impregnate her again. She’d never have the child who should have carried things on, so what was there to live for? Atu’s promise that they’d be united at the timber circle wouldn’t be granted anyway, not as things were.
And then there were the men in the control room. She wouldn’t be able to get rid of them for a long time if she allowed herself to be hospitalized. The electrician would find the bodies when he came back in a few days.
Now Pirjo was shaking all over. Even the severe Finnish winters hadn’t made her feel so cold.
Broken, she let her shoulders fall. Not because of her own fate, but because of Atu’s. When they found the bodies, they’d work out connections that she couldn’t allow. At some point they’d find Shirley, and then both she and Atu would pay for their actions.
So there was only one way out: She had to sacrifice herself for Atu one more time, and this time with her life. She’d write it all down as she bled to death. Take the blame for everything. Everything. And the men in there wouldn’t be around to prove otherwise. Their fate would have to follow hers. They’d made the choice to come so close.
For a long time, she looked tenderly at the little wooden figure the policeman had had with him.
Then she kissed it lovingly and began to write.
—
Carl told himself not to panic now. To remove himself from the pain and use the time he still had left.
He was somehow able to look around the room, despite the painful aftermath of the last wave of shocks, which had led to severe cramps in his arms and legs.
The biggest thr
eat now was that Assad wouldn’t be capable of keeping his finger pressed against the wall. If he couldn’t, their bodies would be immediately thrown back in cramps, and Carl knew full well what that would lead to. Just now, it wasn’t death itself he feared, but that it would be prolonged. That the current that would be sent through Assad’s finger, through their bodies, and out through Carl’s left leg wouldn’t kill them without incredible suffering. Terrifying pictures of executions in the electric chair, victims with blood coming out of their eyes and unbelievably contorted bodies, were all too clear in his mind. He’d already experienced how it felt, as if the brain was being cooked and the heart could fail at any moment.
But how to avoid that fate? Was there any possible way out, given that that evil woman had so thoroughly tied them together? The cables were extremely tight, the hooks on the wall behind them far too strong. The angle they were sitting at made it impossible for them to wriggle their bodies to a better position or one even totally free.
“When . . . when . . . when my finger is totally burned,” mumbled Assad beside him. “The cable . . . the cable . . . will fall down . . . down on me if . . . I . . . can’t push it . . . away and down on the floor.”
Carl tried to say something but the muscles in his neck were still so tense that not a sound came out. In desperation that even his voice had been taken from him, his eyes began to well up.
He knew he had to make sure not to cry. Moisture on his face wouldn’t help in this situation.
He wanted to say to Assad that he’d help him when it happened. That they’d wriggle themselves as much as they could so that the cable fell to the floor. But all he could do was nod.
He wondered why a fuse didn’t blow. Was there even a fuse? He stretched his head back and looked straight up at the bottom of the junction boxes and panels that controlled the whole system. It was up there that the woman had screwed the two cable ends. If only he had a free arm. Just a free hand. Then he’d . . .
He turned his head to his friend when he heard the awful sound. Now it was clear that Assad’s finger had begun to sizzle. His face was whiter than an albino’s.
The Hanging Girl Page 47