Eighteen Below

by Stefan Ahnhem

  A minute later, the whole area was surrounded by a flashing blue sea of police cars. They appeared out of nowhere, out of the darkness, suddenly everywhere at once. Before Henrik and the others had time to react, black-clad officers with bulletproof vests and automatic weapons swarmed them from every direction.

  Theodor looked around for an escape route, but there wasn’t one. Climbing back over the fences was not an option. It would draw too much attention. The same went for running.

  He started to walk away. One slow step at a time, and then a little faster. No one seemed to notice him, and after a while he dared to look back over his shoulder. He saw the others trying to resist as they were yanked from the car and taken into custody, totally clueless that the police had just saved their lives.

  105

  By the time the mini-excavator went silent, the pit in the middle of the thick forest was large enough to fit a full-grown adult. Beside it lay the oblong wooden box Sonja had made, lit by a powerful, tripod-mounted spotlight. Even so, it was impossible to see what was going on from the gravel road a short distance away.

  Didrik Meyer emerged from the thick foliage and walked to the yellow Mustang that was parked in front of the small truck with its extended ramp. He unlocked the trunk and gave Sonja, who was curled up inside, a couple of solid smacks to the ear. “Time to wake up.”

  Sonja gave a start and opened her eyes, then began to scream for help as loud as she could. But she didn’t produce much more than a faint, indistinct mumble from behind the tape.

  “Go ahead and scream. No one can hear you out here anyway. There you go. Up and at ’em.” With no consideration for her bound hands, Didrik yanked her up. Her legs gave out and she fell to the ground. “As you wish,” he said with a sigh, dragging her toward the forest by the legs.

  Sonja tried to kick free, but she only had enough energy to keep her head off the ground to avoid the worst of the rocks. Once they reached the illuminated pit, Didrik dropped her legs and walked over to the wooden box. He used a battery-powered screwdriver to loosen the last few screws and lifted the lid off and to the side. Sonja screamed with all her might from behind the tape as her eyes darted back and forth between the box and the pit.

  “Is your so-called artwork scaring you? Now that it’s finally starting to become something. I mean, how many artists have allowed themselves to be buried in their own pieces? That’s what I call dying for your art.” He lifted her into his arms with a laugh. “It’s just too bad that no one will ever know about it.” Didrik walked over to the chest and deposited Sonja inside. “Wow, it’s just about the perfect size,” he went on, using his boot to force her left shoulder into the box, which was far too small. “You have only yourself to blame if it’s too tight. That fact is, all of this is your fault.”

  Sonja, who was damp with sweat from all her screaming, fell silent.

  “That’s right. If only you’d toed the line, none of this would be happening. You could have gone home as soon as I was done here. You would have gotten your little adventure, and everyone would be happy. But unfortunately —”

  Sonja tried to say something but it was impossible to hear.

  “Okay, just because it’s you,” he said, loosening the tape over her mouth.

  “You’re not going to get away with this. They’ll wonder where I am and come looking, and I can promise you Fabian won’t quit until he’s —”

  “Fabian,” Didrik Meyer interrupted her with a chuckle as he replaced the tape over her mouth. “It’s kind of sweet how you still think he’ll come riding in on horseback to save you. You just asked for a divorce. But who knows? Maybe you’re right. You can always hope. The problem is, he won’t look here because he’ll be busy looking in Los Angeles, where you headed with your new lover Alex White. That’s right, didn’t I tell you? Tomorrow you’ll buy the tickets and the day after that you’ll leave Sweden without even saying goodbye to your children. Rather poor form, if you ask me. I would have at least written a letter and tried to explain, but you didn’t even bother to take the time for that.” He shook his head. “There’s something to think about while you wait for the oxygen to run out. Bye bye now!”

  Sonja started screaming again behind the tape, but this time he didn’t pay her any attention. Instead Didrik placed the lid back on the box and began fastening it with the screwdriver, one screw at a time. When he was done, he put down the tool, grabbed the box from underneath, and overturned it into the pit. Then he walked over to the excavator and was just about to turn the key in the ignition when the phone in his pocket made a sound.

  He took it out and brought up the message.

  Surrounded by cops. No chance. Nova

  106

  Matilda and Esmaralda were sitting on the floor in the basement, their eyes on the flame of the pillar candle, which was flickering every which way as if several people were trying to blow it out at the same time. It had been several hours since their last séance, when everything had gone off the rails. Matilda was still shaken. If Greta was telling the truth, one of her family members was about to die, and she had no idea who it was. She looked away from the flickering flame and found that Esmaralda appeared to be just as upset.

  “Esma…we can’t just sit here all night,” she said at last. “We have to do something.”

  “I know,” Esmaralda said without taking her eyes from the flame. “I just don’t know what.”

  “Can’t we just contact Greta and apologize?”

  “It’s not that simple.” Esmaralda looked up and met her gaze. “Her trust in us is ruined, probably forever.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?” Matilda couldn’t help but be irritated at Esmaralda’s know-it-all ways. “What if you’re wrong, and she’s not mad at all? What if she’s just waiting for us to contact her again?”

  “Can’t you feel it?” Esmaralda threw out her arms. “Can’t you feel the tension in the air?”

  Matilda shook her head. All she could feel was the free fall she was in. “But what do we have to lose?” she said at last.

  “Everything.”

  “Like what? What’s the worst that could happen? So she’s a little upset. I’m sure she’ll get over it.”

  “You don’t get it.” Esmaralda shook her head. “I never should have agreed to introduce you to this world.”

  “Why not? I’m not the one who did something wrong. Have you already forgotten that you’re the one who suddenly moved the planchette and cut her off?”

  “I haven’t forgotten a thing, but apparently you have. I did it because of you. I was trying to warn you and make you stop, but you wouldn’t listen. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Let me keep going, obviously.”

  “Keep going? How? You were asking a ton of questions you didn’t really want to know the answers to.”

  “What do you mean, I didn’t want to know? Maybe you don’t give a shit. But I do. If it’s true that someone in my family is going to die, I definitely need to find out who it is.”

  “Why?” Esmaralda looked Matilda in the eye.

  “What do you mean, why? It’s obvious.”

  “Is it? Seems to me like it’s the other way around, if you think about it. What would you do with that information? Tell your mom or dad? What if it’s your brother? Or what if it’s you? What would you say? You don’t think you can change the outcome, do you? Whatever is going to happen will happen.”

  Matilda didn’t know what to say.

  “Matilda…” Esmaralda went on. “The problem is, you already know too much. You opened a door you never should have opened.”

  “Okay, I get it.” Matilda nodded. Maybe Esmaralda was right. But what was she supposed to do now? It was already too late. The door was wide open and all she could do was step in.

  “Are you sure?”

  Matilda nodded again, trying to appear convincing
. If lying was the only way to get her to open the board again, then so be it. “But I still think we should try to be friends with Greta again,” she said.

  “I sense that she doesn’t want to.”

  “If she doesn’t want to, then fine. At least we’ll have tried.”

  Esmaralda thought for a while before giving in with a sigh. “Okay, but no questions about death or anything like that. All we’re going to do is apologize.”

  Matilda nodded.

  “You have to promise.”

  “I promise.”

  Esmaralda held Matilda’s gaze for several seconds before she took out the board and placed it between them. Then she took out the planchette and set it on the board. They each placed an index finger on the pointer and waited.

  Nothing happened. In contrast to their other séances, which always started with the pointer travelling across the board in a sort of greeting, it now stood perfectly still.

  “Just as I suspected,” Esmaralda. “She doesn’t want to talk.”

  “Are there any friendly spirits in the room?” Matilda asked with no pretence, meeting Esmaralda’s curious eyes. “I asked, are there any friendly spirits in the room?” she repeated, keeping her finger on the planchette.

  “Matilda, there’s no point. She doesn’t want to talk.”

  “Greta, can you hear me? Are you here?”

  “You can’t just say her name.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then she might come even if she’s not friendly.”

  Matilda sighed. “Fine, I don’t care. Greta!” she called. Esmaralda could protest as much as she wanted to. “I know you can hear us! We want to talk to you!”

  To her surprise, there were no objections from Esmaralda. Instead, she yanked her finger from the pointer as if it were suddenly red-hot.

  “Esma, what is it? Did something happen?”

  Esmaralda didn’t respond; she just sat there, her mouth open, staring right past Matilda as all the colour drained from her face.

  “Answer me! What happened?”

  Esmaralda tried to say something. But no words came out, only incomprehensible sounds. Then her whole body started shaking.

  At first Matilda didn’t understand what was going on. Was her friend possessed? Was Greta angry about something she’d said? Or was it someone else? What if this was all her fault? Had she accidentally called on someone who wasn’t…who wasn’t…She suddenly realized that Esmaralda’s terrified eyes were fixed on a point behind her, and although she almost didn’t dare, she finally turned around to see what it was.

  The tears came without warning, and with them a pool of urine on the floor beneath her. The shadow on the red fabric was getting larger, its edges indistinct, but there could be no doubt that someone was there.

  “Go away!” she screamed. “Get out of here, I said! Go back to the other side!”

  The shadow had stopped moving, but it didn’t go away. Instead the curtain was ripped aside so hard that the clothespins fell to the floor. On the other side stood a man. She recognized him but couldn’t recall from where.

  “Are you Greta?” she asked, wishing with all her heart that she had listened to Esmaralda.

  The man’s face cracked into a smile. “I go by many names. But unfortunately Greta isn’t one of them.”

  Now she knew who he was. That smile. She had seen it once before, and she’d disliked it just as much that time.

  “It’s you,” she said. “You’re the one who took my mom.”

  Didrik Meyer chuckled. “Spot on. And now it’s your turn. Up and at ’em, both of you,” he said, waving the pistol in his hand.

  107

  Astrid’s body was no longer shaking. She didn’t feel cold, either. In fact, she was starting to feel warm and had already unbuttoned several of the buttons on her blouse. She was probably going through menopause. Those hot flashes could come out of nowhere, making her drip with sweat within a split second.

  This would all work out fine in the end. She had managed to find a position that was almost comfortable, and she wouldn’t have any trouble waiting another couple of hours.

  Somewhere in the distance, like a faraway lighthouse on a foggy night, was a sneaking suspicion that something else was at play. That the cold wasn’t her only problem. She already thought she could tell that the air was considerably worse, and it was probably only a matter of time before she would be poisoned by her own exhalations. Maybe this was a matter of life and death after all.

  But Astrid just couldn’t bring herself to care. Honestly, what was the point of screaming herself hoarse and bloodying her knuckles against the freezer wall when they didn’t even seem to be searching for her?

  The beam of the lighthouse was coming closer and closer, and now she could see it clearly again. With it came fear. What if everyone had just assumed she had gone home? What if they were gone for the weekend, off until Monday, and wouldn’t realize that something wasn’t right until it was too late? Would she last that long? Was she really going to die this way? Locked up in a chest freezer that no one had the energy to search for, her only company a dead woman?

  Astrid had always pictured her life ending in a dramatic shootout at a crossroads just as the skies opened and rain began to pour down. She would be struck by several bullets but would still manage to switch out her magazine several times before she fell to the ground, bleeding, her eyes wide open, and no longer bothered in the least by the pounding raindrops.

  Furthermore, she’d always believed that her life would pass before her eyes in the last moments before death. As if her memory bank were being emptied but took one final opportunity to display its contents. But thus far, nothing had flickered through her mind. No graduations, no birthdays, no weddings. Nothing but a bunch of Gunnar’s annoying peccadillos. Like how he could never learn to put the cap back on the toothpaste or throw away the muesli box when it was empty.

  Maybe this was because she wasn’t ready to die after all. Sure, her life was pathetic on so many levels right now that it should be a relief. But she was going to pull herself together and turn this sinking ship around. She had promised herself as much, and she had already started, dammit. She’d reached rock bottom long ago. The only way she could go from here was up.

  The exhaustion hit her without warning. She could barely manage to hold the bottle at ear level as she shook it. There was a liberal splash left. Maybe even three decilitres, plenty to fall asleep for good if she drank it all. But she wasn’t that stupid. No, she would only take a sip and then rest for a bit. She sure did deserve it. Just a little…

  She grasped the lid to unscrew it. But it was tougher to do this time, as if all her energy had drained away. At last she managed it, and brought the bottle to her mouth; she drank until she lost count of how many sips she had taken.

  “We’ll start down here,” Fabian said on the two-way as he realized that it would take a great deal more time to search the basement than he’d expected.

  According to Cliff, the cell signal had been very poor during his call with what turned out to be Nova Meyer. This was one of the reasons Fabian had decided they should start their search in the basement. Cliff had truly outdone himself in his role as command centre. For once he had expressed himself in a brief and effective manner, without losing focus.

  He was the one who had finally realized that something wasn’t right with Tuvesson. He had become suspicious during the phone call when she laughed at his joke, something she never did. But it was thirty-five minutes later, when she still hadn’t showed up at the police station, that he sounded the alarm even though he couldn’t quite believe that he had been speaking with Nova Meyer on the phone.

  Molander had located the position of the cell phone and found that it wasn’t in Helsingborg at all, but was zooming down the E6 at ninety kilometres per hour, heading straight south, for Malm�
�.

  Cliff had immediately contacted the Landskrona police, who had two patrol cars on the highway, and with the aid of Molander’s positioning they managed to catch up with the silver trailer and force it onto the shoulder near Barsebäck. It stopped and was surrounded.

  Now only Tuvesson was left, and all they could do was hope they weren’t too late, Fabian thought, signalling at the task force to spread out after they came down the stairs.

  Considering how the rest of the house had been renovated, the basement certainly left a great deal to be desired. Despite its size, the low ceiling made the space seem claustrophobic, and Fabian found himself stooping as he walked around, even though there was room for him to stand up straight.

  Construction materials were piled here and there, along with old furniture under covers and other junk. A large shelving unit on one wall indicated that someone had once possessed the ambition to bring order to the chaos. But judging by the layers of dust, that time was quite a few years in the past. Under one tarp was a Porsche that would demand many hours of care before it could run again.

  He couldn’t find any sign of Tuvesson. She hadn’t been in the trailer on the E6, and her car was still outside the house. On the other hand, this was a large estate and she might just as easily be in the stables out back.

  Fabian stopped to listen, uncertain whether he had heard something or just imagined it. Maybe someone from the task force had made a noise. It was impossible to say. Especially considering that those guys were anything but quiet. The seven-member team made so much noise as they searched that one sound couldn’t be separated from the next. But he thought he had heard the compressor of a fridge or freezer.

  “Can you order everyone to be quiet for a few minutes?” he said into the radio, and thirty seconds later silence had descended upon the large basement. Fabian waited, his eyes on one of the full demijohns, which were next to a stack of moving boxes on a table covered in a red cloth that hung all the way to the floor.