Dark Pines

by Will Dean

  ‘Ooh, bright lights, big city.’

  ‘Bed-ridden mamma. Can’t put it off.’

  Her expression softens.

  ‘Be careful, Tuva. Don’t get too exposed, and don’t get tangled up in old myths and legends. Remember, I’m happy you’re here, but I want to see you working somewhere like this,’ she taps The New York Times on her desk. ‘Before you get too old for it, you hear me? Check out Hannes by all means, but keep your mind open.’

  I put my outdoor gear back on and walk out. I head past the haberdashery store and the hunt shop and the hairdresser and the newsagent and it feels like it could snow. I walk up to ICA Maxi and its vast car park and it’s busy with early shoppers. It is windy here because there’s nothing to stop the breeze. I see Tammy’s takeout van and jog over to it. She’s sometimes here early, prepping food and cleaning up after the busy Saturday night shift, but not today. All locked up. I walk to the supermarket and the doors swoosh open and I pick up a basket.

  There’s a calm inside. It’s climate-controlled and predictable and clean. I’ve been doing the weekly shop since I was fourteen, along with paying bills and cleaning and picking up prescriptions and everything else Mum couldn’t manage. People here are buying pick‘n’mix for their Sunday evenings in front of the TV. I smell fresh bread, and then one of those ride-on floor polisher things drives by and my aids scream in my ears and the feedback makes me cringe.

  I get my groceries and a gift for Mum, and then I approach the tills. There are three open. I see the pretty girl’s working on till 1 so I head over to her. I place my items on the conveyer belt and she bleeps them through while I bag them up.

  ‘Eight hundred and thirty kronor, do you have a loyalty card?’

  I shake my head. ‘You see Hannes Carlsson, the mill boss, come in here?’

  She looks at me with a careful smile showing just enough white teeth to make it perfect.

  ‘He’s like the only man in town who doesn’t need the coin, that’s what they say.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I hand over my card to pay.

  ‘I mean he just leaves his trolley next to his car after he’s done. He’s got a good economy that one, so he never bothers to bring the trolley back to get his ten kronor. That’s what they say, anyway.’

  A woman bumps into me after she pays at the next till. She’s with her friend and I recognise them both from the haberdashery store. I’ve seen them buying knitting patterns and wool in there.

  ‘Deaf and dumb,’ one of them says to the other, just loud enough for me to hear. She has a mole on her cheek with a kinked hair growing out of it.

  ‘And a dyke,’ the other one replies. ‘Deaf, dumb and homo. I’d call that a hat-trick.’

  ‘Pin code please,’ says the pretty girl before I can berate the women.

  I turn, agitated, and enter my four-digit code. I want to bite them both. When I’ve finished paying, I scan around for the women but they’ve gone.

  I walk home subdued. Clouds overhead. I head up towards the monolithic liquorice factory and take a left turn to get home. The handles of my plastic shopping bags cut into my hands like cheese wires and I keep adjusting my grip. Is this poker club the victims or the killers or both, and how the hell do I find out? I get home and unpack my bags and as I reach up into the cupboard above the sink to put away a box of macaroni, ‘30% Extra Free’, I remember the troll, the one with the surprise in his pants, the one locked in my basement. I make a cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing. It’s cheap white bread, and as I chew it turns into sweet paste on the roof of my mouth. I grab my handbag and the rose plant I’ve bought for Mum and walk out to my truck.

  44

  I pull out of my parking space and dial Mum. No pick-up. But that’s pretty normal now, it usually takes her a while to get to the phone, or for someone else to hand it to her, so I end the call. I drive up Storgatan, past a line of people filing into the Lutheran church and then I drive past another crowd walking out of the evangelical church. I reach down to call again and there’s a message on my screen from Frida. Do I want anything from the department store in Karlstad? I reply that I’m heading there myself later so I’m fine and then I thank her. I redial Mum.

  ‘Hello, who is this?’

  ‘Mum, it’s me. You know I said I’d come by today, well I’m on my way.’

  I wait for her to answer but there’s nothing.

  ‘Mum, you there? I’ll be with you about three, traffic permitting.’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ she says. ‘There won’t be any traffic.’

  ‘How are you today? Is it a good day or a bad day?’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right.’

  I sweep past ICA Maxi and the car park’s really filling up now. Most people are wearing woolly hats and gloves.

  ‘Well, I’m coming over to cheer you up. Anything you need?’

  I can’t hear her answer, just the crackling on the line.

  ‘Mum, I can’t hear you.’ I overtake a cyclist. ‘I’m bringing gifts and I’m looking forward to seeing you, it’s been pretty busy up here.’

  ‘You mean the writer killing those people?’

  I grab a wine gum and put it on my tongue without looking at it. It’s a red one. Third favourite. Not bad.

  ‘Mum, I’ll see you at three-ish, and I’ve got a surprise for you. Gotta go now, I’m joining the motorway. Bye.’

  I indicate left and pull into the lane taking me southbound towards Karlstad and Gothenburg. I switch the radio on but something catches my eye in the truck’s wing mirror. It’s lights, flashing lights, police cars speeding past me towards the underpass. I swerve right without thinking and push my foot down to catch up with them. Then I check my mirrors and half-swerve back to the E16. Two cars honk their horns. I can’t leave Mum all alone today, I can’t. But I can delay the visit by an hour. Maybe they really do have information I don’t have, a gun dealer who remembers selling a second-hand rifle to Hannes. Or maybe Daisy called them up on her way to London. Or the wood-carving sisters made a deal too far. Or Viggo’s been doing more than just target practice.

  I follow the cop cars. I’ll drive to Mum straight after this, one forty all the way down to make up time and then I’ll stay longer with her. I’ll stay until she falls asleep. I drive under the E16 and check my back seat. I have my ski coat and my backpack and more importantly, I have my camera. The battery’s probably quarter-full. It’ll do.

  They’re driving pretty fast. Police Volvos are supercharged in some way, at least that’s what people say. By the time I see Utgard forest, they’ve turned onto the Mossen track and the woods have swallowed up their lights in one silent gulp. I take a right turn off the asphalt and my truck’s suspension judders as it joins the rough gravel at speed. Maybe Hannes has an accomplice? Or an apprentice – maybe Viggo? Could be the whole village is infested or even the whole fucking town.

  I drive towards Hoarder’s house and see the flashing lights have stopped right outside his caravan. I slow down and find three cars parked in his garden and one on the far side of the vegetable patch with its tyres flattening a neat row of cauliflowers. Two more cars are over in the ditch. I stop my truck thirty metres or so before the house itself and grab my camera off the back seat.

  The lens is long enough so I don’t need my binoculars. Four or five police officers, maybe two guys and three women, are standing outside the house itself. Wait, no, they’re going into the house and taking out stuff from it. It’s a dry day, so I guess Bengt’s stuff won’t get too damaged, whatever it is he stores in there.

  The cops are wearing face masks, like surgeon’s masks, and they’ve all got thick rubber gloves and boots. I can make out stacks and stacks of magazines on the lawn and a big cardboard box full of Christmas decorations. A man walks out. It’s Thord and he’s carrying a kid’s doll’s house, one of the cheap ’70s plastic ones. He sets it down near the newspapers and magazines but the ground’s uneven and it topples into the ditch. I photograph it all.<
br />
  I know there are people in the caravan because I can see it wobble and shift, but I can’t see any faces from here. Two officers drag out a sofa covered with old detergent boxes and large cardboard containers. Then someone walks out with a neon sign, the glass smashed, I can’t make out the words. I can tell by the speed that they’re going in and out that they’re still working on the entrance hall. A cop pulls out a plastic sheet – no, it’s a deflated paddling pool, and it’s filled with photo albums, the front covers blistered and curled with damp.

  I drive forward slowly and see Thord walk out. He’s holding a roll of blue-and-white police cordon-tape. As I slow down, he starts to tape across the front of the garden, using blackcurrant bushes and the henhouse and boulders as taping posts because there are no trees just here and no telegraph poles. The tape looks ridiculous, all saggy and loose.

  I wind down my window and stop and take more photos. Thord is walking towards me but I ignore him. I can see through the caravan window from here. I can see Bengt crying. He has his head in his hands and he’s crying. I drop the camera to my lap.

  ‘You’ve got enough,’ says Thord. ‘Now, back your truck up please, you’re obstructing the road.’

  ‘It’s not a public road, Thord, and I’m not quite done.’

  ‘Move along.’

  Two policewomen walk out from the house with what looks like a shrine, one of those roadside shrines to the Virgin Mary you see in Italy or Spain. This one’s made of painted pine complete with little shelves for candles.

  They’re throwing it all down now, no more careful placing. They’re dragging it out and chucking it on the vegetable patch, boxes squashing cabbages, and broken pieces of furniture leaning up against delicate pea sticks. And Bengt’s still crying. I get out of the truck.

  ‘Thord,’ I call him over with my hand. ‘I’ll leave in two minutes, just give me a quote or something for the paper. Give me something I can use.’

  He looks at me and shakes his head.

  ‘Just something. Please.’

  He glances back to the house and to one of his fellow officers, wiping something off his boots. The something came from indoors, not outdoors.

  ‘Anonymous caller says there’s a body inside. Says it’s upstairs in the master bed. Some sex game thing gone wrong years ago, I don’t know. If there’s one house in the world I do not want to be inside on a Sunday afternoon, then it’s this one. But I gotta. So let me do my job and you go back to your neat little office and do yours.’

  I climb back in the truck and look up at the upstairs windows through my camera. Ivy. I can’t see much more, the window panes haven’t been washed for years, they’re covered in birch pollen. I look at the caravan and see Bengt dabbing his eyes with a white handkerchief. He’s pleading about something with his hands held out in front of his face.

  I wind down my window.

  ‘Thord. I’m going to Hannes Carlsson’s place. I know you don’t want to hear what I’m saying, but you know something’s not right. Spare me one officer for thirty minutes.’ I point at Bengt’s caravan. ‘He’s not going anywhere. Thirty minutes.’

  He walks over towards the truck and ducks under the loose tape.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said, Tuva? Could be there’s a man’s body in this house. Could be there’s Bengt’s old army rifle hidden in there somewhere. It’d be from ’bout the right era. Now, drop your theories and your ideas and leave Carlsson in peace.’

  I close my window and drive on deeper into Mossen village. It is empty. Taxi’s not there. I guess he’s at church. I call Mum again and she picks up on the third attempt.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, Mum. I’m on my way but I’ll be an hour later than I said, I’m sorry, it can’t be helped.’

  I can feel her smile down the line like she’s pleased she can be disappointed in me.

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘I’m coming, Mum. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll see you at four.’

  I hear a hiss on the line.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ I say.

  ‘I said . . .’ But the line goes dead. I’m driving up the hill now and reception always cuts out completely just here. There’s fog, little patches of it dotted along the road. I’ll call her when I’m back on the E16.

  The sisters must also be at church, and Ghostwriter’s not home either. No car and no dog. I drive up the track, smooth grey lines under my tyres and a rough grassy strip in between. I pass in and out of fog like I’m flying through clouds. At the entrance to Hannes and Frida’s drive, I see the house and it’s all lit up.

  It’s okay. There are no cars in the drive. I speed up to the front door and my nerves are hot and my palms are clammy. Nobody at the windows and nobody comes out of the house. The blue burglar alarm light is on. Nobody’s home.

  I drive back out and park in Ghostwriter’s parking area. I take my camera and backpack and coat.

  ‘What a pleasant surprise,’ says David Holmqvist from beneath his veranda. He’s framed by his open front door. Opera music plays behind him.

  Shit. How come his car isn’t here?

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Do you mind if I park in your guest space for a few hours?’

  The hairs on his arms are standing up from the cold. His polo-shirt is pale yellow and he has no shoes on.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he says, moving his arm in a sweeping movement to indicate I should come inside.

  ‘Sorry to be rude, I’m on a deadline and I need to get into the woods.’

  ‘Just five minutes, humour me,’ he says. ‘I’m writing a short story with a deaf protagonist. Perhaps a novella, I’m not sure yet. We’ll call this research. Come inside and I’ll make you a ristretto.’

  ‘Ristretto?’

  ‘A quick coffee to fortify you,’ he says. ‘Ethiopian beans. Please, come inside.’

  I step towards him and the wind pushes me inside. He shows me where to hang my coat and place my backpack and my shoes. He uses his iPad to turn down the volume of the opera music.

  We walk towards the kitchen. I’m relieved to find no calf head on the stainless steel worktops. It’s all gleaming and clean and there’s nothing cooking so far as I can tell.

  ‘I’m pleased you came by.’

  ‘Well, I just have a minute, I have to follow up on a lead.’

  He looks at the steel espresso scoops hanging above his industrial machine. He stares at them for a while, before selecting the mid-sized scoop and lifting it off its hook. He’s wearing cashmere socks, I can see the feathery weave, hairy socks and hairy calves. If there weren’t police nearby I would not be standing in this guy’s kitchen right now.

  ‘Where’s your dog?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s been a bad boy,’ David says. ‘Ate half of my car interior so he’s gone to school to learn some manners. He’ll be back later.’

  Holmqvist hand-grinds coffee beans into a steel bowl and then dips his scoop into the dark powder and levels the scoop with his index finger. He breathes in the aroma as he does this and I see his shoulders slump with pleasure. He taps the scoop and fills the machine and pushes down the powder and presses a button and places a pair of tiny white cups under the split spout.

  ‘Here you are,’ he says. ‘Do tell me what you think.’

  I take the cup and sip. It’s strong.

  ‘Very good,’ I say. ‘Can I ask you a question off the record? You’ve lived here all your life, have you heard anything about a secret poker club, some kind of high stakes thing?’

  He smiles and the scar on his lip stretches. ‘You mean “the game”.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘I’d say it’s ninety per cent fiction, but the myth goes something like this: a four-man elite club has existed in these parts for decades, maybe fifty years. It’s a strictly one-out, one-in, invitation-only affair and when I say “high stakes” I don’t just mean kronor. The club’s rumoured to make or break careers. My lawyer, Oscar Krevik, was approached some time ago. He declined
and he had enough dirt on the other members for him to be able to walk away.’

  ‘Who’s in the club?’

  He stares at my ears, behind my ears, taking mental notes for his new story.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea, Oscar wouldn’t tell. It’s legendary around these parts but the present members are rather discreet. I did hear of girls being used as poker chips – and some kind of initiation ceremony – but like I said, it’s ninety per cent fiction.’

  ‘Any guesses who’s in the club?’

  ‘No, but I’d be quite delighted if the town starts probing into that myth and leaves me well alone to write in peace. I should sue for harassment, I’ve already discussed it with Oscar.’

  I drink up and put on my shoes and coat and take my backpack.

  Holmqvist points at me and says, ‘May I borrow one of your hearing aids?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Research.’

  I shake my head, touching my left aid defensively. ‘Thanks for the coffee, David. I have to go. Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he says, staring at my ears, and then as I close the front door, I hear, ‘see you later.’

  I speedwalk away from the house and up the road towards Hannes and Frida’s place. Halfway along I spot someone through the trees. Is he following me? But it’s just a shadow cast by a gnarled old oak. I walk and focus ahead and the fog is less solid on foot. I can see through it pretty well. As I get to the house itself, I check my phone. No reception. I’m by the hut. My left hearing aid beeps its final battery warning. I jangle my key fob in my pocket. All good. Then I reach down to the stone foundation of the grey hut and work my hand into crevices and cracks and find the key. I stand up and check that nobody’s coming and step up to the door of the little grey hut.

  45

  I’m inside the hut and it has two windows. The blinds are down but they’re thin enough to let some daylight in. I don’t have to switch on the lights. First thing I do is walk over to the big chest freezer.