Dark Pines

by Will Dean

  I stick up my hand in a gesture of apology and then he smiles and turns away and I rotate my hand and extend my middle finger.

  I save my stories as separate files and think up some headline ideas. Then I print off the company details of the strip club, and photos of Hannes Carlsson’s hunting club I found on Facebook.

  My stomach rumbles. I grab my coat and my handbag and slip on my outdoor boots and open the door. The bell rings and I feel the air on my face and it’s starting to turn. The air is changing.

  I zip everything up and take the long route to the hotel because the short route is about three minutes and I’m too early. I walk past strangers and acquaintances, nodding and saying ‘Hej’, and avoiding the puddles on the pavement. I pass the stationery store which closed down a while back and turn left and see the queue. Systembolaget is the state-owned alcohol shop. It opens at noon in Gavrik because the town is so goddam small. It’s a part-time liquor store and the usual Toytown dignitaries are lined up outside and I’m about three bad decisions away from joining them. I recognise a few from arrests and business liquidations over the years. Some were caught drunk and disorderly and some were caught drink-driving, back when they had jobs and families. Most of them are suited and booted, which is bizarre because I wear jeans to work and so do most people in the town if they’re not in uniform. But these are not good suits, they’re not cared-for suits, they’re not pressed or dry-cleaned suits. They’re loose and patchy, shiny elbows like mackerel skin, frayed trouser bottoms where they drag on the paving stones. I walk past and turn left and up towards the hotel and the factory. The wind’s not blowing in the right direction or I’d smell it, sugar in the air, a liquorice breeze that I loved when I first moved here and that I still love now.

  The sign, slightly left of centre, says Hotel Gavrik. There are two outdoor candles flanking the entrance and these are lit only on days when the place is open for lunch: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. They tried opening five days a week but they lost money. Three days works, there are enough customers for three.

  I walk inside and it’s warm but it smells faintly of damp. The pine-clad reception has a Halloween pumpkin with an electric candle flickering inside. Premature. I turn right and see Thord sitting down eating a lump of bread, so I join him.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve got thirty minutes then the Chief wants me back.’

  ‘No problem.’

  I look around the pale green room and recognise pretty much everyone. People nod to me and one woman waves and then pulls back her hand like she’s just made a mistake.

  ‘Salad, meatballs, pie,’ he says, holding up the laminated no-choice menu. ‘You want water?’

  I nod, tasting something bitter in my mouth, and he walks off to a trestle table covered with a paper tablecloth. He pours two small tumblers of water from a jug and takes a handful of paper napkins. He’s got a wiry frame and a decent face and I fancied him for my first month in Toytown. I kissed him one time after too many rum and Cokes at Ronnie’s bar and let me tell you, those teeth didn’t get in the way at all. From time to time I still dream about those seconds, that’s all it was, a few snatched seconds in the alley beside the bar, right before everyone came out and Thord and I separated and laughed and then never spoke of it again.

  The owner-receptionist-waitress comes in from the kitchen and gives us each a mean bowl of salad. I can eat this at least, I can stomach this, it’s not meat. The edges of the leaves are brown and there’s too much vinegar in the dressing. But I get it down.

  ‘Talk to me about David Holmqvist,’ I say. ‘He was arrested for the ’90s killings?’

  Thord places his index finger to his lips and leans towards me. He nods and I notice tiny flakes of dandruff at his temples and some in his parting and even a few in his eyebrows.

  ‘And never charged,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t him. We had fax records to and from his publisher in London. He’s a funny old stick, always has been for as long as I’ve known him, but it wasn’t him. Dave isn’t a nature person, he doesn’t know the woods. Experts from Stockholm reckon the murderer back then was a woodsman or at least someone who spends a good deal of time in Utgard forest. That’s the profile. Medusa is a villager, or else someone who visits them woods regular. Dave’s an indoors kinda guy. Chief don’t like him much though. Something about Dave frightening his daughter years ago, some kinda misunderstanding at school.’

  I finish the salad and the bowls are taken away and my lips are still tingling from the acid. Almost as soon as they’re gone, the main course arrives. I’ve had it before. It’s not bad. On any other day I would happily eat it.

  Thord tucks in. I notice a white flake fall from his hair and land in the brown sauce next to his mash.

  ‘Do you have a suspect?’

  He looks up and I can see the shape of a meatball inside his right cheek and it’s almost too much.

  ‘Not yet but we’re working on it.’ He chews and swallows. ‘A sighting of a man riding away from the area on a motorbike, carrying what might be a rifle case, foreign plates, but that could have been anything. No make or model or registration number.’

  ‘Any other leads? Anything off the record?’

  He swallows.

  ‘You’ll get the post-mortem details later on just like everyone else.’

  I lean in. ‘Come on,’ I whisper. ‘If I dig up something I’ll return the favour, I promise.’

  He takes a sip of water, looking into my eyes the whole time. He leans closer.

  ‘Shot from a range of between fifty and one hundred metres.’ He sniffs and looks around the room. ‘Mid-torso, heart and lung, died straight away.’

  The owner-waitress-receptionist asks us if everything is okay and we both nod.

  Thord watches her walk away.

  ‘The eyes,’ he lowers his voice to where I can only lip-read him, ‘were cut out very cleanly, some kind of short, curved blade.’ He eats another meatball. ‘The ballistics boys are still working on the weapon profile. But anyone with half a brain knows it was a rifle that killed old Freddy Malmström. They’ll be able to tell us more soon enough. And one of the Mossen villagers has a CCTV system and he’s released the tapes to us, well I say tapes, they’re actually DVDs, but we’re checking to see what cars came through on the day of the shooting.’

  ‘Which villager has cameras pointing out to the track?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Can’t say and it don’t matter who, it just matters that we have them. We’re checking the alibis of anyone on our watch list, and anyone that lives local or knows the woods real well. So far, all the villagers have alibis except one.’

  ‘Your ghostwriter pal doesn’t have an alibi, does he?’ I ask, searching his eyes for a clue.

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, it’s probably because he spends all day writing books, at home, alone. I tell you, I know Dave pretty well and he is not our man.’

  ‘Last night I visited Frida and Hannes Carlsson in Mossen village,’ I say. ‘Someone climbed into the back of my truck while I was eating dinner with them, and stayed hidden in there till I got to the main road. I don’t know, didn’t get a good look, but it could have been David Holmqvist.’

  ‘What?’ His mouth is open and I can see potato on his tongue. ‘Why didn’t you come to me with this?’

  ‘I’m coming now,’ I say, searching his eyes. ‘God knows what he was doing and what he had planned. He hopped out into the trees otherwise I would have brought him straight to you. And another thing . . .’

  Thord looks at me.

  ‘He cooks calf heads,’ I say. ‘Did you know that? He cooks their heads, whole.’

  Thord places his knife and fork together on the plate, remnants of instant mash and reheated meatballs tucked under the cutlery.

  ‘He have a weapon with him in the truck? You think it was him, but did you actually see him?’

  I shake my head and scoop some mash onto a piece of stale bread. I haven’t touched the meatballs
or the sauce and Thord doesn’t seem to have noticed.

  ‘Listen. Still don’t sound like Dave, but I’ll talk to him,’ he says. ‘The weird food thing ain’t nothing, it’s just the way he is. I’ll make sure he don’t bother you again.’

  The plates are removed and replaced with thin slices of dry apple pie with squirty cream on the side.

  ‘Don’t like that village much,’ Thord says, licking cream from his fork and looking up at me. ‘Woods are too big and the trees are too tall and too thick. It’s time to harvest, I’d say. Time to do some thinning.’

  15

  After lunch I drive to Tammy’s takeout van. I hand back the starter pistol because guns scare the shit out of me, even pretend ones, and she lends me the can of Canadian bear-spray she bought on the internet. Looks like a small fire extinguisher. She reckons it’s better than the starting pistol because it’s a deterrent and a weapon.

  Police have released a statement following the post-mortem. It’s brief and it says less than what Thord told me at lunch. The cause of death was a gunshot wound, and the eyes were removed. They don’t mention the 1990s Medusa murders.

  I slip under the motorway and head through the waterlogged fields outside of Utgard forest towards the Mossen village turn-off. I sync my hearing aid with my phone’s Bluetooth. I dial and wait.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Hello Tuva.’

  ‘How are you feeling today, Mum? Good day or bad day?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  She sounds weary. Maybe it’s the medication or maybe she’s tired. Probably it’s both.

  ‘You remember I’m coming down tomorrow to see you. I’m sorry I haven’t been for a while, work’s been hectic. I’ll try to get there by early afternoon, about one o’clock suit you?’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be fine.’

  I can see the turn-off for Mossen and the gap through the solid wall of trees.

  ‘Can’t talk for long, Mum, I’m working on a story.’

  She says something but I can’t hear the words.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, louder and clearer. ‘You’re breaking up. I’ll see you tomorrow at one-ish. I’m looking forward to it.’

  There’s a crackle on the line. ‘What did you say, Tuva?’ She sounds irritated. ‘Try to speak slower. Now, what was the last thing you . . .’ And then it’s all static and hiss.

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ I say loud and final.

  ‘Tuva? What . . .’

  I end the call and my stomach feels wrong, the way it always does when I talk to her on the phone, except twice as wrong because the conversation didn’t finish with niceties, the niceties she and I know so well, the ritualistic nothing phrases of ‘mind how you go’ and ‘okay then’ and ‘hope you have a good night,’ that cushion each ice-cold goodbye. None of that. Just static. And now I’m in this goddam village again, the trees either side of me, my hand flicking off the indicator. It gets dark and I slow down to forty.

  According to the dash display it’s five degrees above zero and my tank’s three-quarters full and the service is overdue. I drive past Hoarder’s place. I see him outside, my headlights mowing him down. I realise that I’m driving at him as he’s coming out of an outdoor toilet, the little hut with the heart on the door, and I imagine how awful this must be for him, how un-private. He lives in a remote forest to get away from people and here I am shining two halogen headlights in his face just seconds after he’s taken care of business. Does he even have a sink in there? How does he wash his hands?

  I drive on and it’s not long before I get to the taxi driver, Viggo Svensson’s house. For some reason I’m expecting Viggo Mortensen, the actor from Lord of The Rings. Well, I’m expecting Viggo Mortensen wearing a taxi driver’s jumper and slacks and a name badge. I know this is ridiculous but that’s the image I have because he’s the only Viggo I know.

  I swing into his drive and push the bear-spray down into my handbag and check my face in the rear-view mirror. It’s not that Viggo so I don’t know why I even bother. I leave the car and see the CCTV camera on the corner of the house pointing at the track. I look the little red building over, and find two or three more cameras and a security light on each wall, the type with a motion sensor.

  ‘You must be Tuva,’ says a man opening the front door.

  He’s no Viggo Mortensen, that’s for sure. He’s grey. That’s what I see. Black hair, grey skin, narrow shoulders, a dull white shirt, a grey tie, black jumper with company logo, grey trousers, no shoes, dark grey socks.

  ‘Yes, thanks for agreeing to talk with me. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘And this is Mikey.’ He stands aside to reveal a miniature version of himself. Father and son both have grey, sullen skin and bags under their eyes. Except the boy, this Mikey, he has something else. An expression of absolute terror.

  ‘Hi, Mikey,’ I say, crouching down to shake his hand. He’s not clinging to his dad’s leg, he’s just standing there, skinny and still, chewing his lower lip in his mouth.

  ‘Mikey’s a bit shy,’ says Viggo. ‘He’ll come out of his shell soon enough.’

  We walk inside and Viggo looks stiff when he moves. The house is small but well-kept with coasters on tables and magazines stacked neatly away on shelves. There’s a high whining noise in my ears and it’s uncomfortable so I try to adjust my hearing aids. I end up switching the volume down a little which helps but it’s still there, an intense squeak right at the top of the audible scale.

  Viggo’s cooking something for Mikey so I try to engage with the boy by helping him to park model trucks and tractors near the kitchen table leg. There are two high chairs pushed against the table, two identical high chairs.

  ‘Does Mikey have a brother or sister?’ I ask and then immediately regret the question in case someone died.

  ‘No,’ says Viggo. ‘But he does have lots of friends. He’s a popular little man at school so if they pop over, we’re all prepared, nice and ship-shape, so to say.’

  I note he says ‘if’ and not ‘when’ and wonder whether anyone’s ever come over for a playdate with this haunted little boy.

  Viggo puts Mikey in the chair. The boy looks big enough to sit on a real chair but he seems comfortable, skinny as he is. Viggo places the macaroni and beef stew in a bowl and gives it to Mikey. The boy eats it like he hasn’t eaten for days.

  ‘You can ask me questions if you like. I expect you wanted to come here because I know everybody in the area, with the profession I have and so on.’

  The squeaking noise in my ears is still there. I smile at Viggo and at his dyed-black hair and silver-grey temples.

  ‘I imagine you’ve driven everyone in Gavrik Kommun at least once.’

  ‘I’m the local transport, so to say. Keep up to date on all the gossip from the schoolkids I ferry around. They know it all, they do.’

  I look around and notice for the first time that the cottage is full of houseplants. There are potted plants of all shapes and sizes on every window sill, every worktop, every inch of available shelf space.

  ‘Hannes Carlsson is my best client. Most of my work is driving kids and the elderly, all paid for by the Kommun, but I drive Hannes quite a lot. Drive him from work or a game.’ He pauses. ‘Or from wherever he’s been.’

  I nod, but I’m looking at the plants. Spider plants, money plants, miniature ferns, they’re everywhere. I recognise the ceramic pots from ICA Maxi. And that background noise is still there. I turn back to Viggo.

  ‘Do you have any ideas who shot Freddy Malmström?’

  ‘Well, that’s a direct approach,’ he says. ‘Just came straight out with that, didn’t you, like you’re Hercule Poirot or something.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no, a direct approach is the best approach.’ He pours three glasses of water.

  ‘I do have a few ideas, yes. I’d rather not talk in specifics right now because . . .’ He gestures towards his son with his head, t
he long black hairs of his fringe moving as if to point to Mikey. ‘I think it could be PETA, or one of these anti-hunting, pro-animal rights people, could be them.’

  I nod.

  ‘Could also be accidental, maybe a hunting incident gone wrong. I thought about this last night. What if a hunter shot Freddy mistaking him for an elk, then realised his mistake and whipped out Freddy’s you-know-whats.’ He points to his eyes, a clue the boy clearly has no trouble interpreting. ‘So he can frame the ’90s killer, the so-called Medusa Murderer – but it’s just a theory.’

  I nod again, less enthusiastically than the first time.

  ‘Anyway, Medusa’s a stupid name.’

  ‘It is,’ I say.

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he says.

  I nod.

  ‘Oh, and have you met our two resident eccentrics yet?’

  I almost spit out my mineral water. Just two?

  ‘Sorry, you mean . . .?’

  ‘The wood-carving sisters,’ he says, eyes wide, hand sweeping back through his hair.––

  ‘Yes, just briefly.’

  ‘You know what they do? I can’t talk about specifics in front of the . . .’ He mouths the letters to spell boy. ‘But you know what those two make up there at the top of the hill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve never picked them up in the taxi so I haven’t chatted with them, thank the Lord, but I know all about them. People talk, you know. Those sisters make special, you know, special ones, custom-made ones, did you know about that?’

  I nod.

  ‘Well, it’s just not Christian, if you ask me.’

  I hadn’t noticed them before, but there are crosses on the walls and a leather-bound bible on the coffee-table in the living room. The high-pitched noise is still there, fingernails over blackboard, steel fork against porcelain, mosquito in a dark bedroom.

  ‘They make little devils, let’s be quite clear about that. I heard rumours they use their own.’ He makes a coughing noise. ‘Body hair, even their own nail clippings.’

  I nod. It’s amazing how a few days can lessen the impact of these facts. I’m not at all shocked hearing this now, and yet I know it’s weird as fuck and he’s right to be worried.