Until she finally hung up the call and disappeared.
When Christina had listened to the message for the third time she let the hand holding the phone fall into her lap.
‘Let’s get away from here now,’ she said, a thin voice through the snow.
She wandered slowly around the car, stopping by the passenger door and glancing up the narrow alley, towards the fence, the hole she had just emerged from.
‘Forgive us,’ she said with no voice, straight into the wind and through the passage up towards Sara’s home. ‘Forgive us.’
If she hadn’t done so, she would never have seen the black silhouette that hunched down by the broken plank and disappeared into the darkness.
Palmgren rushed up the alley towards the fence, a trot that was quicker than anything he’d managed in years, and now he was standing inside the fence, perfectly still while all his senses searched for the slightest movement.
On the far side of the big tarmacked yard was the building where Sara had had her bolthole. To its left were more sheds and locked buildings, and in the other direction the yard opened out towards the park itself, with its attractions hidden under dusty tarpaulins in the darkness.
He hadn’t seen anything, but Christina was certain: someone had just disappeared through the same hole that they’d used, and Palmgren had flung himself after them before he’d had the chance to realise that not only did he not know what he was looking for, he had also turned sixty and was, to be frank, in no state to go around chasing people like he used to.
He peered down at the ground, trying to make out footprints in the thin snow but without success. The cold winds blew straight off the lake and between the buildings like invisible snakes, dancing amid the snow, constantly rearranging it into new patterns. Their own footprints were long gone, and there was no sign of any new ones either. For a moment he considered shouting, but didn’t. What was he going to shout?
If Christina had indeed seen something, there were two possibilities. The first was it was another homeless person, someone with a bolthole just like Sara’s–someone now terrified of being discovered. But it was the other possibility that had made him rush back into the park without giving himself the time to think about it. What if this person knew Sara? What if they knew each other, what if this person could tell them something, anything, that could lead them to the CD…?
When Palmgren was absolutely certain that no one was in the vicinity he started moving again. He followed the fence, with his back to all the stacked trolleys and barrows, his eyes focused on the buildings and the pathways and the alley on the far side. Slowly, concentrating hard, his eyes straining.
Eventually he stopped. The first shortness of breath had been replaced by one driven by tension and adrenalin, the complete concentration as he strained to hear sound, see movement, anything.
He’d been still for a couple of seconds when he realised that he was not alone. The sound popped up right behind him, the restless sound of movement, and when he spun around he found himself staring straight into two haggard eyes.
He only caught a glimpse of the face. It was youthful and aged at the same time, a worn-out youngster looking for shelter between two barrows parked for the winter and who now found the escape route blocked by Palmgren, and the moment that they stood there protracted itself.
‘Who are you?’ shouted Palmgren, hearing the fear vibrating through his bass voice. The next thing he knew, he was ducking to dodge a curtain of falling timber. With one movement the young man had tipped over a stack of signs, and he had to back away to avoid being hit. Painted plywood sheets fell to the ground in between them, revealing their dull reverses covered with cables and light-bulb sockets.
‘You there,’ he bellowed through the din, as though that was ever going to help, then ran stumbling over the piles of wood so as not to fall too far behind.
He saw the silhouette ahead of him race towards the park, then stop for a second, hesitating mid-step–left? right?–only to disappear round the side of a wooden building and away out of sight.
Palmgren was there only a second later, but by then the kid was gone.
Out here, the amusement park opened out in all its emptiness. Bushes thrust their bare branches into the air, tombola stalls and games normally lit up by lamps and colourful prizes were boarded up in darkness. Everywhere you looked were objects you would never see in summer: crates and portakabins, tarpaulins stretched over rails and rides and furniture all squeezed together. The darkness was full of hiding places, hundreds of spots that the man he was chasing might jump out from at any minute.
So he waited. Carried on, with slow steps, his eyes sweeping left and right as he moved forwards.
‘I just want to talk,’ he said in a booming voice. ‘I’m not out to get you.’
At the other end of the open square, the park narrowed to a passage between stalls, and he moved slowly forward, a slight rotation of the upper body as he walked to keep an eye in all directions, like a dance in slow motion, glancing down between the various stalls, narrow passages where someone could hide and wait to attack.
Eventually he stopped. He was heading for a dead end, and he didn’t like that. He took a deep breath instead, composed himself as best he could, kept his rotating movements going so as not to have his back to any one direction.
‘My name is Lars-Erik Palmgren,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who you are, and I’m not here to mess you about. All I want to do is ask a few questions about Sara Sandberg. Do you know who that is?’
For several seconds, silence.
Then came the reply.
He felt the pain first.
It struck him from above, a boot that pushed against his shoulder, making him lose his balance, then an elbow barged him in the back and sent him to the ground.
His last thought before he blacked out was that he’d been right all along. He really was too old for all this.
60
The warning flares strung out across the tarmac like a necklace, sharp red points of light from one ditch to the other, and immediately beyond them at least three large police cars blocked the roadway. There might be even more that William couldn’t make out, hidden by the blinding blue lights flashing in the darkness.
His first thought was to slam the car into reverse, turn straight around and drive off. His second thought was that he was a complete idiot. Partly because he was sitting in a car that could fall apart at any moment, particularly if he attempted to force it into manoeuvres for which it had never been intended, and partly because he could see the size of the police presence over at the roadblock. Even if the car had been up to a getaway attempt he would have absolutely no chance.
Here they sat, in a stationary Polski Fiat, in the middle of the road where the bend had deposited them just a hundred metres or so short of the roadblock. No one seemed to have noticed them yet. That was hardly going to last.
There were at least five policemen up there, all busy inspecting a silver grey SUV, their backs arched while they talked through the windows or shone their torches into the back seats and the floor and boot. Behind that, a short queue had built up. Lorries and early morning commuters queuing patiently, engines idling, half a dozen vehicles at most. Further back, those hundred metres or so of empty tarmac, and William and Rebecca’s Fiat, sitting doing nothing.
‘What do we do?’ said Rebecca.
William looked over his shoulder. The empty bend behind them. Damn it.
‘You can’t turn around,’ she said. ‘They’re going to wonder why.’
‘I know. But we have no choice.’ He clenched his jaw, put the car in reverse, and then, in that instant, realised he’d hesitated too long.
The light shining in his eyes was coming from the rear-view mirror. He heard the squeal as the HGV suddenly spotted the tiny light blue car that had stopped in the middle of the road; it slammed on its brakes and sounded the horn at the same time, a klaxon that could have woken the dead and scared them to death at the same time, locke
d wheels sliding towards them before finally coming to a halt.
Hissing brakes. Shock absorbers and mechanical connectors complaining and then settling down. And then, for safety’s sake, even more beeps on the bloody foghorn, as though the first one hadn’t been more than enough to attract the police’s attention.
‘Drive up to the roadblock,’ Rebecca said through gritted teeth. ‘We’re not getting away, you’ve got no choice!’
William hesitated, weighing up his options one last time. Behind them the HGV had jackknifed, and its trailer was now at an angle across the whole of the narrow country lane. Escaping that way was impossible. Ahead of them, they could see the police standing staring at them, frozen in mid-movement like a flock of predators that had sensed potential prey.
‘Drive on! Now! Before they wonder what the hell we’re playing at!’
William hesitated for another two seconds. A rock or a hard place. Then he nodded reluctantly, put it into gear–and realised that the engine was no longer running.
Shit. He’d just managed to put it in reverse when the lorry came towards them, and he’d probably let go of the clutch and instinctively slammed on the brakes. Regardless, the engine was dead, and he knew only too well what that meant. Hanging from the steering column were the two wires he’d attempted to start the car with back in the garage. They’d been no use then and they weren’t about to work now.
‘William! Out!’
Rebecca’s voice tore him away from his thoughts. She had turned around in her seat and was facing towards the cab of the lorry behind them. All they could see through its windscreen was a large, broad back, and arms that seemed to be looking for something in the space behind the driver’s seat.
‘I can see two scenarios,’ she said, each word trembling with stress. ‘One. You stay in the car. What happens then?’
William looked over at the police. Saw them chatting to each other, pointing in their direction, as though they’d just noticed there was something going on over there.
‘I’m a tourist,’ said William, far from convinced. ‘I’m here to see you, this is your car, and I wanted to drive for a bit. That’s all.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Rebecca, not meaning it. ‘And the small matter of it being hotwired? And that you presumably don’t have a licence to show them?’ William didn’t answer. ‘You’re a wanted man, you know that as well as I do. You’re probably the reason we’re standing here in the first place. There isn’t a chance on earth that you’re going to get through this.’
William closed his eyes. She was right, of course she was.
‘And the other scenario?’
‘They approach the car and see a woman behind the wheel. She shows her driving licence and when they point out that she doesn’t look like the photo she’ll explain that she’s in the middle of a course of chemotherapy. They apologise for asking, and ask me to drive on.’
‘What happens if they check your licence against the register? How do we know that—’ He cut himself short mid-sentence, unable to utter out loud what he was thinking.
‘How do we know that I’m not wanted too?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’ve been seen together. We’ve been seen together by… it.’
‘William? I’m going to use your theory now.’ Her eyes switched back and forth as she talked, between the truck driver behind and the police further on. There was no doubt that the Fiat now had their attention. Papers were folded and handed back into the SUV, new police officers came from the surrounding cars, all talking and pointing in their direction. ‘There is a Consciousness. What the Consciousness knows is that you and Michal had some contact. That’s why it’s after you. Correct?’
William nodded once.
‘I, on the other hand, cannot be linked to Michal Piotrowski. Michal spent twelve years struggling to avoid us being seen together, not in town, not in archives, not anywhere. And I was so, so hurt, sometimes I wondered whether he even…’ She tailed off. Another glance straight ahead. ‘Fuck what I wondered. Right now it might be our only hope.’
‘You were seen with me in the glass tower. The cameras captured you with me.’
‘But they didn’t capture my name. My licence belongs to a blonde woman named Rebecca Kowalczyk. However intelligent your Consciousness might be, how on earth would it be able to make the connection with a nameless, bald-headed woman caught on camera on the other side of Warsaw?’
William hesitated yet again. Behind them, the truck driver had fished out a down jacket, and now he was pulling it on, showing a great big black back while he wriggled in the tiny cab–and ahead of them the white dots started bobbing rhythmically along the line of cars. Torches on the move, heading their way.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘Now, before it’s too late.’
‘So what happens if those pictures have been sent out? The ones from the cameras in the glass tower? What happens if they know what you look like?’
She undid her seatbelt, before leaning over towards his.
‘I didn’t say it was foolproof,’ she said. ‘But it’s our only chance.’
61
Sara didn’t know his name, only that people called him Acetone, and with good reason. He’d been standing right behind her as she called her parents, she didn’t know how long for, and now he was smiling, exposing teeth that would have worked as a cautionary tale in any dentist’s waiting room. A smile that was triumphant and sarcastic all at once.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ she said, for want of anything better.
It was a lie, and they both knew it.
‘That’s why you’re so happy now then,’ he said. His breath hit her as it always did, a pit of infection and rotting teeth, mixed with the sharp smell that had given him his name. Why him? Of all the people around, why him?
She didn’t want to give up. At least not deep down. But sometimes deep down is so very inaccessible.
‘You don’t look too well,’ he continued.
‘I’ve had a bad day.’
‘I can see that. It’s a shame we can’t trust each other any more. Otherwise I would’ve been able to help you.’
She noticed that she’d already opened negotiations with herself. Quite honestly, she seemed to be saying, didn’t she deserve a bit of a rest? Hand on heart, how many people could say they’d had as tough a day as she’d had?
Sometimes deep down can fuck off.
‘How about a swap?’ she heard herself ask.
‘Do I look like a pawnshop?’ he said.
‘You know what I think you look like.’
It was automatic, snide paths so well-trodden that neither of them needed to give their answers any thought. A ritual that would always lead to the same thing: first he would say no, and in the end they’d agree and then she would end up losing on both counts.
‘What will you give me for a brand-new computer?’
Half an hour later Sara Sandberg boarded the train that had just arrived at Stockholm Central Station. She had half an hour until it would leave again, and that half-hour would be enough.
She just needed to feel human again. One last time and then never again. She’d stop for good, tackle her problems, go home and become who she really was.
She’d traded the computer. Stuck inside was the CD that was at the root of it all, but Acetone was going to make sure she got it back because why wouldn’t he? He was a dealer, sure, but not a bad person, and she’d made him swear on his life. With the CD in her hand she would finally track them down, Mum and Dad, the only parents she’d ever had, and they’d understand and forgive and then it would all be over.
Everything was going to be fine, she knew that now. She just needed to feel human again. One last time.
When Lars-Erik Palmgren opened his eyes, his first thought was that he was floating. Straight ahead was a pitch-black sky, and then in the middle a series of thin white dots materialised from out of nowhere, falling slowly towards him like sedate shooting stars. It was the dry chi
ll of ice crystals on his face that told him where he was. The hard stuff underneath him was tarmac, the stars were tiny snowflakes, and the thing causing him so much pain everywhere was his own body.
On each side of the sky, the stalls towered over him, topped with flat roofs, and of course the kid must’ve been waiting on one of them. Palmgren had been attacked from above, and he couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a moment, but it was a moment too long.
He tried to get up, but couldn’t. He felt the pain of the ground against his legs, his arms, everywhere he’d hit without being able to break the fall; the knee pushing down on his chest, preventing him from getting up. The kid was sitting on Palmgren’s left-hand side, his skin unshaven and pocked, wearing a worn black jacket with a colourless hood sticking out from underneath it and covering his shoulders like a miniature cape. Above all though, he had breath that cut through the winter cold, and despite their faces being at least a metre apart, Palmgren had to concentrate on not turning away when the face above him opened its mouth.
‘I heard what happened,’ said the breath. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Palmgren said in little more than a hiss.
‘There was nothing wrong with the stuff I sold her. She took too much, too quickly, fucked if I know.’
The answer ran like a chill through Palmgren’s body. ‘Who?’ he asked, although he knew full well.
The kid hesitated, and Palmgren peered into the dark, trying to avoid the falling snow and only half succeeding. He needed to turn the situation around, but how? There was no doubt that this assailant was much quicker than he was, and besides, he already had the upper hand. Ten years earlier, Palmgren would’ve been able to grab the attacker’s leg, tugging and twisting at once surprised him before he had the chance to react, but today? He was only going to get one chance, and if he didn’t succeed the kid already had his foot in a great position to deliver a kick in the face. At best, he’d be knocked out. At worst he’d be left lying there with a broken neck.
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