The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

  Man Without Dog, it said.

  A novel by Robert Hermansson.

  Of course, she thought, and something rather akin to joy gave a jump inside her. Yes, he said he was working on it. That Christmas, he mentioned it.

  This, she muttered as she carefully aligned the edges of the sheets in the pile, this, lying here, is your soul, Robert. You laid it out here for me to come and get. Thank you, now I know why I came here.

  She put the manuscript in the shoulder bag she had brought with her, and then paused for a moment to consider whether she needed to look round any further. Whether it would take more than this one simple thing. Man Without Dog, her brother’s spiritual will and testament; for her to look after and hold in trust for posterity? It was strange, very strange, or so she felt.

  And as she stood there in her dead brother’s seedy living room with his posthumous novel in her bag, the mobile phone rang in her coat pocket out in the hall. She hesitated for a moment and then decided to answer it.

  It was Kristoffer.

  Her nephew, Kristoffer Grundt.

  ‘Hi there, Kristoffer,’ she said in surprise. ‘How nice of you to ring. What’s on your mind?’

  ‘Hi,’ said Kristoffer. ‘Well, there’s something I wanted to ask you about.’

  ‘Oh yes? What’s that?’

  ‘It’s about that night.’

  ‘Which night?’

  ‘The night Henrik disappeared.’

  Something happened inside her head. A tone began to ring, sharp and persistent. It was like the sound of a distant sawblade, and she wondered why. It must have been twenty years since she last heard a sawblade.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s someone who claims your husband came back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The receptionist at the hotel in Kymlinge. He says your husband came back in the middle of the night. I just thought I ought to check with you.’

  Presumably she lost consciousness for a second or two, but she didn’t fall. She just felt her field of vision shrink as she herself was swiftly sucked into a long, dark, contracting tunnel. To emerge into the light on the other side. The sawblade died away.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here . . .’

  Am I, she wondered in bewilderment. Am I really still here?

  ‘So, er, it was just that, really,’ Kristoffer went on, with a nervous cough down the line. ‘I thought I ought to just ask.’

  The blood came rushing back into her temples, she could hear it. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘You’re ringing from Sundsvall, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Kristoffer. ‘I’m in Uppsala. I’m doing work experience this week, so I’m staying with Berit, Dad’s cousin—’

  ‘Uppsala?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Kristoffer, do you – do you think we could meet, you and I? Sometime this week. You could take the train to Stockholm one evening, or I could—’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Kristoffer.

  ‘Good. Then we can go out and eat somewhere and talk a bit. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Kristoffer. ‘When?’

  She thought about it. ‘Tuesday?’

  ‘Tuesday,’ said Kristoffer. ‘Shall I call you when I know what time . . . I mean when I finish work and so on?’

  ‘Yes, do. Then I’ll meet you at Central station.’

  ‘Thanks. Bye then,’ said Kristoffer.

  ‘Bye.’

  She sank down onto her dead brother’s hall rug feeling as though she weighed a ton. For a whole minute, her consciousness was as blank as a turned-off screen. Why is this happening just now, she asked herself when thought returned. Seven days before Thailand?

  Judgement Sunday?

  As if the vengeful arch-manipulator and clown god had suddenly woken up and decided to pull a couple more strings.

  There was an old rule. Gunnar Barbarotti didn’t know where he had first come across it, not that it mattered.

  If you can’t stop thinking about it, then do something about it.

  That was true, of course. And if he did not have to go to too much trouble, he usually put this principle into practice. For his own peace of mind, if nothing else.

  Some would cost too much, of course. There were plenty of things Gunnar Barbarotti tended to brood about, but actually getting to grips with them would have required dizzying amounts of effort.

  The nature of love, for example.

  Or the murder of Olof Palme.

  Or the concept of democracy. Was it really reasonable that people who swallowed absolutely any stupid advertising slogan should decide the fate of a country? People who elected presidents on the basis of eye colour and members of parliament because they could tell a smutty joke?

  All of them good questions, probably, but hardly worth the trouble of brooding over. It was like that old serenity prayer, really. Gunnar Barbarotti had never been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but he had two friends who had been.

  Who still were, as far as he knew, but neither of them lived in Kymlinge any more and he wasn’t in touch with them these days.

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

  Courage to change the things I can,

  And wisdom to know the difference.

  A real ten-pointer in fact, when he came to think about it, and having not bothered Our Lord with any existential prayers for almost three works, he fired one off now.

  O Lord, make me as wise as a recovering alcoholic, he prayed. Grant me the wisdom to determine whether it’s worth my while to delve any further into this blessed Jakob Willnius or not.

  He realized that there was a certain lack of clarity in both these simple formulations, but it was Sunday evening and he was tired. Really whacked; it was presumably as a result of having run seven kilometres that afternoon, after neglecting his training recently. To make sure the terms and conditions were completely clear, he added:

  The way I see it, dear God, is that if I do decide to follow up his ex-wife’s base insinuations, then You get three points if it leads anywhere, but You lose two if it’s a blind alley. OK?

  Our Lord made no reply, despite being currently eleven points over the boundary line, but presumptuous leaders had suffered from hubris and gone down the pan in world history before, it was nothing new. There was no particularly complicated psychology lurking behind such shortcomings.

  So thought Detective Inspector Barbarotti, as he put out his bedside light and turned his pillow over.

  36

  In the course of Monday and Tuesday, Kristoffer didn’t actually feel real.

  Or rather, everything around him was unreal. Alien. In the mornings, he woke up in a big, light room with a piano, a stuffed elk’s head and strange green plants. After breakfast with Berit and Ingegerd (how the hell could you christen a child Ingegerd?) he took the bus into the centre of Uppsala. Got off at the bus station, lit a cigarette and crossed a street that was busy with traffic. Stubbed out his cigarette, cut through one shopping mall and into another. He found the Co-op store, his place of work. He started by putting on a green jacket and shifting frozen foods about, then chilled foods, and then tinned goods until it was time for lunch; then he went out into the mall and got himself something to eat from the Thai takeaway. He walked round the town for a while, smoked and watched people he didn’t know. At one o’clock he went back to the store, donned the green jacket and shifted some more stock about until five. The bus to Bergsbrunna went at quarter past.

  The thought that he could just as well have been another person entirely kept gnawing at him. Someone else entirely. Nobody would have noticed the difference. Probably not even Berit and Ingegerd; they hadn’t seen him for several years and would doubtless have accepted anybody who turned up and claimed their name was Kristoffer Grundt.

  But on Tuesday afternoon, he didn’t take the bus back to Bergsbrunna. He got onto the commuter train to Stockholm instead – and that felt even more unreal. As
he sat staring out of the grubby window at the dark landscape that went racing by (surprisingly little settlement considering they were heading into Stockholm, he thought; it looked almost like the expanses of Norrland), he wished Henrik would pop into his head. Talk to him and offer him a word or two on his way. That would have been useful, not because Henrik had anything much to do with reality any more, but it would have felt good. There was something about Henrik’s voice – Henrik’s imagined voice – that had a calming effect on him. But he was unable to summon it just now, and closing his eyes and concentrating as hard as he could did not help. Henrik was gone, and had been for the past two weeks. Was he starting to disappear for good? It stung Kristoffer inside to think of it; he gave up and tried to focus on the future instead. The concrete and immediate future.

  Going out for dinner with Auntie Kristina in Stockholm! Why? Why had she suggested they meet in that way? It was by way of not making a lot of sense, as their aged neighbour in Stockrosvägen, Mr Månsson, would have said. Kristoffer had never met Kristina on his own before. If she wanted to talk to him about Henrik and Robert and all that – now that he happened to be close by in Uppsala – then surely it would have been more natural to have invited him round to her place? To Musseronvägen out in Enskede; he had paid a visit there with his dad and Henrik a few years back and could remember what it looked like. His mum had to cry off at the last minute; some operation, he supposed, it usually was. Back then.

  But instead, Kristina was going to meet him at Central station and they would go to some restaurant nearby and sit there and talk.

  What on earth would they talk about? What good would it do Kristina to go out for a meal with a scruffy, timid fifteen-year-old?

  And all because he had told her that thing the night porter had said. Olle Rimborg. Wasn’t that why?

  Yes, that was definitely why. They hadn’t talked on the phone for more than a minute, he and Kristina. As soon as he mentioned Olle Rimborg’s observation, Kristina had suggested meeting up. If he had rung her about anything else (he couldn’t think what), she wouldn’t have suggested any such thing, he felt pretty sure of that for some reason.

  What am I imagining?

  And he was aware that the sense of unreality enveloping him like a dark cloud had less to do with Uppsala, the Co-op, Berit and Ingegerd than it did with the conceivable answer to that specific question.

  He had forgotten that she was pregnant.

  Or perhaps he hadn’t known. At the funeral in August nothing had showed and he couldn’t recall his mum or dad saying anything about it.

  But he’d probably just forgotten. In any case, she had a substantial bump now. He almost didn’t recognize her at first, but it was nothing to do with her stomach. She was wearing a red duffle coat and a red beret and there was something different about her hair.

  ‘Kristoffer.’

  Something about her face, too. She looked – she looked older. Or worn out, somehow.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, holding out his hand. She ignored it and gave him a hug instead.

  ‘Great to see you, Kristoffer.’

  She didn’t sound as if she meant it. If there was one thing she didn’t think, it was that this was great.

  ‘Yes . . . thanks . . . you too.’

  He found it hard to get out. He felt the words stick in his throat and was forced to prise them out, one by one. Pity I never learnt how to vanish into thin air, he thought gloomily. Because if I had, I could do it right now.

  But then he realized, looking at her carefully, that she was even more uncomfortable than he was. It was true. Kristoffer might be finding the situation awkward, but it was nothing compared to what Kristina was experiencing. A series of tiny nervous twitches passed across her face and she kept on blinking. Ill at ease would be putting it mildly.

  And she didn’t say anything, either, and after the perfunctory hug they both stood there as if rooted to their own spot, staring at each other. With a metre between them. It felt extremely peculiar, but she was the worst afflicted, there could be no doubt about it.

  ‘How are you?’ he said, entirely automatically.

  She swallowed elaborately. Then she put one hand on his arm.

  ‘Come on, I know a place we can go.’

  She didn’t exactly say it. Her voice wouldn’t hold, and it came out as no more than a whisper.

  The restaurant was called Il Forno, and it only took them a couple of minutes to get there on foot. Neither of them said a word as they walked. It was only about six in the evening and they had no trouble getting an alcove to themselves, tucked away at the back of the large restaurant. Kristoffer registered that it was Italian, with red, green and white flags hanging up here and there and a Juventus banner on display. But not just pizza, and it didn’t seem to be a particularly cheap place.

  ‘Let’s order first. I expect you’re hungry?’

  They ordered – two lasagnes, a Loka mineral water and a Coke – and then Kristina excused herself and went to the toilet.

  She was gone for at least ten minutes and the food arrived in the meantime. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said when she got back. ‘Forgive me, Kristoffer.’

  He mumbled something in reply and sneaked a glance at her. Her face looked red and swollen. What on earth is up with her, he wondered. She must have been blubbing in the toilets. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Looked straight at him with her bright, glassy eyes.

  ‘Kristoffer, I can’t take this any more.’

  ‘Um, oh . . . ?’ he said.

  ‘When you rang . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When you rang, the day before yesterday, it felt to me like being shot.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or as if I was waking up from a bad dream.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand . . .’

  ‘No, you can’t understand. But I’ve been living in Hell for eleven months, Kristoffer. I still am, but last night I realized I can’t go on like this any longer.’

  He didn’t answer. He couldn’t understand what she was talking about, yet at the same time it felt as if . . . well, he didn’t really know what it felt like, but suddenly everything seemed like something else. Something very familiar, like when – like when someone finally tells you the answer to a riddle, and you can see how easy it would have been to work it out for yourself.

  Though not quite that moment, but the moment just before.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said.

  Kristina shook her head and sat in silence for a few seconds. She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at her untouched lasagne instead, and had hunched her shoulders as if she was really cold.

  She stayed like that for a while, completely motionless, then cleared her throat and seemed to find fresh strength. A scrap of it, at any rate.

  ‘What was it you wanted to ask when you called on Sunday?’

  ‘It was . . . but I already told you,’ said Kristoffer.

  ‘Tell me again,’ Kristina asked.

  ‘OK. It started at Robert’s funeral – in August, that is. When we came out of the church, Granny was talking to me about someone called Olle Rimborg . . . and something he’d told her.’

  ‘Granny?’

  ‘Yes. Olle Rimborg works at the hotel in Kymlinge and he’d told Granny that your husband – Jakob, that is – that he’d come back to the hotel in the middle of the night . . . that night Henrik disappeared.’

  He stopped, but Kristina gestured to him to carry on.

  ‘I suppose I didn’t really think about it much, and I really don’t know why Granny brought it up. She wasn’t entirely with it . . . so, no, I didn’t take much notice, but about a week ago I was watching this film on TV—’

  ‘A film?’

  ‘Yes, and Olle Rimborg’s name came up in – what are they called – the end credits? And that made me remember. So I rang that Olle Rimborg; it was – it was just on a whim, really.’

  ‘And?’ said Kristina, and although it w
as only a very little word, her voice broke again.

  ‘And he said I was right. That your husband came back to the hotel at three o’clock and he’d wondered why . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’ whispered Kristina.

  ‘That was all. Plus, I started thinking about it a bit myself.’

  ‘About why Jakob came back to the hotel at three in the morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kristina pushed her plate away and clasped her hands in front of her on the table. Five seconds of silence passed.

  ‘Why?’ she said at last.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Kristoffer.

  ‘Why have you been going round thinking about this, Kristoffer?’

  ‘I – I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh Kristoffer, I think you do know.’

  He felt the blood rushing to his head. His temples started to throb.

  ‘I haven’t had all that much to think about lately,’ he said. ‘I got kind of hung up on it. And I mean, it was . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was the night Henrik went missing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I thought maybe there . . . could be a connection.’

  On those last four words, it was suddenly his voice that couldn’t hold together. Could be a connection, he croaked, and at the instant he did so, he knew it to be true. That was the answer to the riddle. That was the terrible solution which was banging on the door all of a sudden, and it was Kristina holding the handle down on the inside, but now she was opening it . . . no, that was a weird image, it was Kristina herself who was in possession of the truth, he could tell by looking at her now, and she was staring at him with a look brimming over with . . . well, he didn’t really know what, except that it was something appallingly terrible and naked and vulnerable, and now, at this hopeless, irrevocable second, she leant across the table right up close to him, her desperate eyes held there just fifteen or twenty centimetres from his own and then – then she said it, the thing he suddenly realized he already knew. No, not said, she whispered, because she had no voice left in her either.