Where Ravens Roost

by Karin Nordin

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  Stenar shook his head. ‘I never could understand what people saw in him. In the beginning I guess I was enthralled by him as well. And it was nice having a buddy who had everything. But that changed after Norrmalm. Peter thought that place made him invincible.’

  ‘Did you ever work there?’ Kjeld asked.

  ‘Me?’ Stenar scoffed. ‘Never. I would never. You know what that place does, don’t you? It destroys everything. They cut down the trees. They dig up the earth. They force out the natural fauna. And then they poison the ground with their excavation techniques. Do you know how many indigenous plants are endangered in Sweden because of mining operations like Norrmalm?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Too damn many. And for what purpose? Profit. It’s disgusting.’

  Kjeld thought about the Norrmalm Christmas party photo that had set his father off the other day. How did that fit into all of this?

  ‘What about Mum?’

  Stenar narrowed his eyes. ‘What about her?’

  ‘Did she feel the same way?’

  Stenar fidgeted in his chair. ‘Your mother loves nature. She doesn’t approve of Norrmalm any more than I do. Ask her. She’ll tell you.’

  ‘But she was friends with the Lindqvists as well, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Of course, she was. We were all friends at one time. But friendships change over the years. I don’t think I need to tell you that. I might be out in the middle of nowhere, but I still get the news. Sara told me about your friend, the one who killed all those people.’

  Kjeld winced. His friend. As though Nils had somehow become his responsibility. But he had in a way. That’s what had led to the stand-off at the APM Terminals port, after all. Kjeld’s feelings of guilt for not seeing through Nils’s deception earlier. And his subconscious feeling responsible for resolving the situation. For taking care of the Nils situation. Because Nils had been Kjeld’s friend. And Kjeld should have seen something. He should have noticed something was wrong. That was his job, after all.

  ‘You’re right. I missed that. I didn’t want to see the truth.’

  ‘Some truths shouldn’t be seen. Some truths are best left buried.’

  An uncomfortable silence fell between them, but Kjeld couldn’t tell if he felt uneasy because of the conflicting thoughts of Nils that the conversation had caused in his mind or because of the more pressing tension – that the body in the barn might have belonged to his father’s good friend and the owner of a company that ensured the existence of the entire town.

  For the first time since he’d seen his father, Kjeld looked at him with the eyes of an investigator. It was futile to ask himself if this was a man who could kill someone. If there was one thing Kjeld had learned in his time as a detective with the Gothenburg police, it was that everyone was capable of killing someone. Everyone had at least one murder inside of them. It only required the right circumstances – a well-timed argument, an irreconcilable rage, a sudden inability to rationalise – for that murder to occur. For most people that was never. The circumstances and components necessary to fuel within them the kind of action that led to murder were never met. Those people went about their lives content. Angry, perhaps, but content. And free from guilt. But the potential was always there. Kjeld had seen it in so many unsuspecting faces. Which is why when he looked at his father it wasn’t with the question of whether Stenar was capable of murder. It was with the question of whether he was capable of murdering a friend and then covering it up from the rest of the world.

  Kjeld watched Stenar. Watched how he sipped his coffee and scratched his face. Watched how he fussed to get comfortable in his chair and lost his attention every time the birds cackled in the distance. Kjeld watched and reasoned, trying to see beyond what he actually knew of his father and what he believed to be true.

  In the end he decided he didn’t know. He couldn’t read his father any better now than when he was a boy. If anything, his father had become more of an enigma to him.

  ‘Was that the body of Peter Lindqvist we found in the barn, Dad?’

  Stenar brought the mug to his lips and tried to sip, but it was empty.

  ‘Dad?’ Kjeld softened his tone.

  Stenar didn’t look up. His face went pale. Arm dropped at his side.

  ‘Was that Peter in the barn?’

  Stenar groaned. His chest heaved, mouth sucking in breaths of air like a fish out of water. He tried to set the mug on the side table, but it fell to the floor.

  ‘Dad? Are you okay?’

  Kjeld was halfway off the couch when Stenar clutched at his chest. His body stiffened, eyes wide and pleading, then he went limp.

  Chapter 25

  Tolv år sedan | Twelve years ago

  Kjeld tugged a warped plank of plywood out from behind the stack of junk and unused tools his father had pushed up against the inside wall of the barn. The wood was flimsy, probably from moisture, but it wasn’t rotten. It would serve its purpose well enough and seal up the hole in the roof of the barn, at least until his father decided to be less frugal with his money and hire a professional to replace the mouldering beams and broken tiles.

  ‘You’re not going to use that, are you?’ Stenar grabbed the board out of Kjeld’s hands and shook it. The plank wobbled, but didn’t crack. ‘This isn’t any good. The snow will press down on this until it snaps. This will never hold. You need real boards. Something thicker.’

  ‘It’s only temporary, Dad. It’ll close up the hole until you can get someone else out here to fix the roof. That’s the problem.’

  ‘You said you would fix the roof.’

  ‘No, I said I would seal up the hole. I’m not a roofer. Besides, if I go up there and lay down new tiles and it starts leaking again next year, then you’re just going to be pissed at me.’

  ‘What’s the point of going up there and nailing in a piece of shaky plywood if it’s just going to fall apart again?’

  ‘The point is to close up the goddamn hole, Dad.’ Kjeld clenched his jaw. He tried not to let his father’s nagging get the better of him, but it seemed the longer he was away from Varsund the more difficult it was to come back. And the greater the rift between him and his father grew.

  ‘I don’t appreciate you talking to me like that. Your mother would have never stood for you talking like that in the house,’ Stenar chastised.

  ‘Well, I guess it’s a good fuckin’ thing we’re not in the house then, isn’t it?’ The words came out quicker than Kjeld could reel them in.

  Stenar glared at him. ‘If that’s how you feel about it then you can forget about the roof. I’ll fix it myself.’

  Kjeld laughed out of frustration. It had been like this every day since he’d come home to spend a long weekend with his dad for his birthday. Sixty years old and still as grumpy and exhausting as he’d been when Kjeld was a boy. Sara thought differently, however. She thought sixty was a reason to celebrate and she had begged Kjeld to visit. It was supposed to be an opportunity for everyone to reconnect and put the past – namely Kjeld’s decision to move away, his choice in careers, and his mother’s death, which still weighed heavily on everyone despite being years ago – behind them. But that’s not how it had gone. His dad had been hounding him from the minute he stepped through the front door. And Kjeld was done with it.

  ‘You’re not fixing the fuckin’ roof on your own. You’re too damn old to be climbing up on a ladder by yourself. You could fall and kill yourself and nobody’d even know.’

  ‘If you would just repair the damn thing like you said you would then I wouldn’t have to get up there and do it on my own.’ It had only been a few years since Kjeld had last been home, but his father’s voice had become more gruff since then.

  ‘Goddammit, Dad, that’s what I’m trying to do!’

  Stenar dropped the plywood plank on the ground and stepped on it. The force, while not hard, was enough to crack the board down the centre.

  Kjeld threw his arms
up in the air. ‘Great. Now I can’t fix the hole even if I wanted to.’

  ‘You disappoint me.’

  ‘I disappoint you? Do you even hear yourself right now? I’m trying to help you. I’m doing what you asked me to do. But instead of thanking me or offering me some constructive assistance, you’re belittling me.’ Kjeld closed up the toolbox he’d set up on his father’s old workbench. ‘I’m done. You want to get up on a ladder and break your neck? Fine. But don’t expect me to show up for your funeral.’

  Stenar flinched and Kjeld could see he’d gone too far. The urge to apologise was instinctual, but he was furious and he refused to allow his father to win this argument. He rarely had his father’s attention. And, good or bad, it was still attention.

  Across the barn the ravens chittered in their rookery, their cawing chorus increasing in volume to match the heated exchange between Kjeld and his father.

  ‘I don’t know how I raised someone so belligerent and disrespectful.’ Stenar turned his back on Kjeld and made his way over to the rookery. He took a handful of feed from a pail that sat beside the door and tossed it through the chicken wire. The ravens immediately flew down from their perches and began pecking at the ground.

  Kjeld followed after him.

  ‘Really?’ Kjeld couldn’t believe his father was that oblivious. ‘You have been badgering me my entire life. You have been on my back since the day I was born. I’ve never lived up to your expectations. I’ve never made you proud. And not for lack of trying. But you’ve only ever been interested in your damn birds.’

  ‘Sara never disappointed me.’

  Then it was Kjeld’s turn to flinch.

  ‘How could Sara disappoint you? She never did anything with her life!’

  Stenar took another handful of seed and tossed it in the rookery. ‘She stayed in Varsund. She’s found herself a nice man.’

  ‘Is that what you want me to do? Stay in Varsund and find myself a nice man?’ Kjeld mocked.

  ‘Don’t be impudent. Your sister is responsible.’

  ‘She’s boring.’ Kjeld crossed his arms over his chest. ‘And she doesn’t like it here any more than I do. She’s just too afraid to stand up to you. She feels guilty that you’re alone. Well, I don’t feel guilty. This place was suffocating me. I couldn’t stay here.’

  ‘You’ve always been so aggressive.’ Stenar wiped his hands on his pants. ‘You’ve never appreciated this place. The grass is always greener somewhere else. But I’ve got news for you, son. You take yourself with you. If you don’t like yourself, it doesn’t matter where you are. Then you might as well be here.’

  ‘I like myself just fine.’

  Stenar opened the door to the rookery and reached inside. A large black raven flew down onto his arm from a higher perch and Stenar took him out, closing up the door behind him. The bird hopped up onto his shoulder and peered at Kjeld with its dark gleaming eyes.

  Kjeld took a step backward.

  The raven craned its neck unnaturally from one side to the other, nearly one hundred and eighty degrees. Then it dug its sharp beak into the space beneath its left wing, cleaning between the feathers.

  ‘Could you put that back, please?’ Kjeld’s voice faltered.

  Stenar reached into his pocket for a piece of dried fruit and held it up. The raven snatched it out from between his fingertips quicker than Kjeld could blink. ‘Why? He’s not doing anything.’

  ‘Seriously, Dad, I really don’t like those things,’ Kjeld said.

  ‘I have to exercise them. They’re intelligent creatures. They can’t be locked up all day. They need to get out and stretch their wings.’

  ‘Can you at least wait until I’m somewhere else before you do that? You know how I feel about them.’

  The raven crawled down Stenar’s arm and he pet it like one might a cat. The raven responded by letting out a high-pitched chirp. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was afraid. I said I don’t like them.’ But Kjeld could feel a cold sweat beginning to form on the back of his neck.

  Stenar stepped closer. ‘If you just held one for a moment, you’d realise they’re harmless.’

  ‘Harmless? Do you remember what they did to me?’

  ‘You’re over-reacting.’

  ‘Over-reacting? Those things could have killed me! And where were you when I needed you? I was out here forever before anyone came for me.’

  ‘It wasn’t that long.’

  The raven craned its head and pecked at Stenar’s shirt sleeve.

  ‘It was long enough.’

  Stenar challenged Kjeld’s stare. ‘If you don’t like it here then leave.’

  ‘What the hell, Dad? How many times are we going to have this same argument? It doesn’t matter if I like it here. I came out here for you. To spend time with you and Sara. To wish you a happy birthday. To help you with the damn roof. And just because I’m uncomfortable around your stupid birds, you want me to leave?’

  Of course, Kjeld knew that wasn’t what the argument was about at all. It didn’t have anything to do with the roof or the birds, and everything to do with some unknown resentment his father harboured for him. Because Kjeld had never been the son his father wanted. And without his mother to brace the bullheadedness of the two of them, there was nothing to keep them from tearing each other apart.

  ‘I want you to leave because I don’t need you. If you can’t respect this place and these creatures, then you can get out.’

  The raven flapped its wings before shooting Kjeld a threatening stare. It might have been Kjeld’s imagination, but he thought the bird was protecting his father. Taking his side.

  ‘Now you’re just being ridiculous. Let’s go back to the house. We’ll drive down to the hardware store and buy a better piece of wood.’

  Kjeld reached out to try and give his father a pat on the arm – a meagre attempt at an apology – but the raven dashed forward and pecked its beak into the back of his hand. Kjeld ripped his hand away, tearing skin. Blood dripped down to his wrist.

  ‘That fuckin’ thing just bit me!’

  ‘He didn’t mean to,’ Stenar said, petting the bird.

  ‘Didn’t mean to? That thing is a nightmare! They all are!’

  Stenar turned away, back towards the rookery.

  Kjeld pressed his palm down on the wound to stifle the bleeding. ‘You know you’re right. I can’t respect this place or you. Not with those things around. Not knowing what you let them do to me as a boy. You want to change that? Then get rid of those monsters and let’s start over.’

  Stenar didn’t respond right away. He kept his back turned to him, hiding his face from Kjeld’s view. But Kjeld knew from the moment he said the words how his father would answer. He just hoped that for once he might be wrong.

  ‘Get out and don’t you dare think about coming back.’

  Kjeld froze, certain that he’d misheard his father. But when Stenar turned to face him there was no mistaking the cold look in his eyes.

  ‘Get out!’

  Chapter 26

  Nutid | Present Day

  The doctors had taken his father in for surgery and Kjeld hadn’t heard anything since. Every time he tried to ask a passing nurse or medical assistant what was going on, they just told him to take a seat. They’d let him know when they knew more. But he’d been sitting there for almost two hours, watching as patients limped past him down the hall, and still hadn’t heard a word from anyone.

  And the ugly mid-century decor of the waiting-room interior was beginning to enrage him.

  The Varsund Kommun hospital was built in the late 1960s to accommodate the sudden influx of labourers for the logging and mining industries and hadn’t been updated since. The waiting room was row after row of plastic chairs, held together by a metal rail like something out of a train station. They were also small, as though they were made for children, and the blunt curve of the seat pressed into his lower back, forcing him to lean forward in a hunch. Another
nurse walked by with no word. He supposed that was a good sign. If it had been bad, then someone would have told him something. Someone would have come out, grave-faced and solemn-spoken, and delivered the inevitable bad news. But no one did. Receptionists continued to answer the phones behind their concrete barricade, painted in alternating orange and brown triangles, which Kjeld assumed was all the rage fifty years ago, orderlies pushed empty beds, nurses shuffled along to their duty stations in no particular hurry, and no one told Kjeld what was going on.

  He looked down at his phone. No new messages. Not even from Sara, who was the first person he called while he followed the ambulance through the winding forest turns before reaching the main road. He thought about calling her husband, Tom, but realised he didn’t know his number. Was there someone else he should call? Esme came to mind, but Kjeld didn’t know if he could handle the brutal wave of questions she would no doubt throw his way. Bengt? Stenar was Tove’s grandfather, after all, even if she’d never met him. Kjeld supposed she had the right to know. But talking to Tove meant first talking to Bengt and Kjeld didn’t think he could handle the patronising tone he knew he’d hear in the man’s voice. Not after their last conversation. Kjeld couldn’t listen to any more condescension disguised behind false friendliness.

  He skimmed through his list of contacts and stopped on Hanna’s. Hanna would pick up. She might even listen with a degree of compassion. Kjeld had the impression that she actually liked him. Liked his father, too. Yes, he could call her. Would that be considered taking advantage of her feelings? Was it selfish knowing that she’d pick up because she was interested in him even though he knew full well that what they had wasn’t meant to last beyond the time it took Kjeld to resolve the situation with his dad? Probably. But Kjeld suspected she knew he wasn’t serious about relationships. He never was. That was his problem.