Often he was conscious only of his rasping breath in the oxygen mask and the indistinct shape of Lindberg next to him, and sometimes not even of that.
At times he was surrounded by darkness, maybe because in those moments he was walking with his eyes shut, and if there had been a precipice he would have stepped right into it and fallen without even a scream or a care. Then even the jet streams seemed to quieten. He was heading into a black and soundless oblivion, and yet not long before he had recalled his father standing by the ski tracks, yelling encouragement: There’s more in you, my boy. There’s more in you. For a long time, when fear had him in its claws, he had clung to those words. If you dug deep enough, there was always a little extra. But no longer.
Now there was nothing left, and he looked down at the snow swirling around his boots and thought that this might be the moment he would finally collapse, and that was when he heard the shouts, the wailing carried along by the winds, which at first sounded inhuman, as if the mountain itself were crying out its distress.
Johannes said something now, quite clearly, but Rebecka did not know if it was in his sleep or he was speaking to her.
“Can you hear?”
She heard only what she had been hearing all day, the roar from the highway outside, the hum of the hospital equipment and the steps and voices in the corridor, and she did not answer. She just wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead and straightened his fringe. That made him open his eyes and she felt a sudden surge of hope and longing. Talk to me, she thought. Tell me what happened.
He looked at her with such fear in his eyes that it frightened her.
“Were you dreaming?” she said.
“It was those cries again.”
“Cries?”
“On Everest.”
In the past they had often discussed the events on the mountain. But she had no recollection of any cries, and she considered letting it go. She could tell by the look in his eyes that his thoughts were not entirely lucid.
“I don’t really know what you mean,” she said.
“I thought it was the storm, don’t you remember? The winds which sounded almost human.”
“No, darling, I don’t. I was never with you up there. I was at Base Camp the whole time, you know that.”
“But I must have told you.”
She shook her head and wanted to change the subject, and not only because he seemed delirious. Her heart sank, as if she could tell there was something fateful about those cries.
“Shouldn’t you rest a little?” she said.
“Then I thought they were wild dogs.”
“What?”
“Wild dogs at eight thousand metres. Imagine that.”
“We can talk about Everest later,” she said. “But first, Johannes, you must help me to understand. What made you run off like that?”
“When?”
“Just now, on Sandön. You swam out into the bay.”
She saw from his look that it was coming back to him, and it was obvious at once that this did not make things any better. He seemed more at home with his wild dogs on Everest.
“Who pulled me out? Was it Erik?”
“It wasn’t one of the bodyguards.”
“So who was it?”
She wondered how he would take it.
“It was Mikael Blomkvist.”
“The writer?”
“The same.”
“That’s strange,” he said, and it was indeed incredibly strange, but his reaction did not reflect that. He sounded listless and sad, and he looked down at his hands with an indifference that frightened her. She waited for him to come back with a question. But when it did come, there was no curiosity in his voice.
“How come?”
“He called when I was at my most hysterical. He said he was working on an article.”
“About what?”
“You’re never going to believe me,” she said, although she suspected that he would believe her only too well.
Salander got off at Zinkensdamm station and walked along Ringvägen into Brännkyrkagatan, as the memories welled up once more. Maybe because she was back in the neighbourhood where she had lived as a child, or because her mind was alive again as she prepared a new operation.
She looked up at the sky. It had turned dark. It would probably start raining soon, just like in Moscow. The air felt heavy, as if a storm was brewing, and some way off she saw a young man on the pavement, doubled up as if he were being sick. She could see drunk people everywhere, maybe there was some kind of party going on. Perhaps it was pay day, or a public holiday.
She turned left up the steps and as she approached Blomkvist’s home from Tavastgatan, slowly her focus returned, absolute and complete, and she registered every detail and figure around her. Yet … it was not what she was expecting to find. Had she been mistaken? There was nothing suspicious, only more drunks. But no, wait, over there by the crossroads …
It was nothing more than a back, the broad back of a man wearing a corduroy jacket. He held a book in his hand, and criminals did not usually wear corduroy jackets or read books. He was tall and slightly overweight, and there was something about him that put her on edge, his posture or the way he looked up, and she passed him unnoticed, giving him only the briefest glance. Immediately she saw that she had been right. The jacket and book had been no more than a pathetic disguise, a clumsy attempt to masquerade as a hipster from Söder, and she realised that she not only knew what he was. She even knew who he was.
His name was Conny Andersson, and not that long ago he had been a hang-around, a gofer. Unsurprisingly he was not a major figure in the club. He had been given a shitty assignment: to stand and wait for some man who was probably not going to show up. Yet Salander knew he was no innocent for all that. He was almost two metres tall and a debt-collection enforcer, and she walked on with her head down, as if she had not seen him.
She then turned and scanned the other side of the street. There were two young drunks of about twenty wandering a little way off, and ahead of them a lady in her sixties, ambling along much too slowly, and that was not good. But Salander did not have time to wait. The minute Conny Andersson spotted her, she would be in trouble, so she carried calmly on, straight ahead.
Then she took a sharp turn to the right and went straight at him, and he looked up and fumbled for his gun. But that was as far as he got. She kneed him in the groin and, as his body folded, she headbutted him twice. He lost his balance, and at that moment she heard the lady call out:
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Salander had to ignore her. There was no time to reassure old ladies and she was reasonably sure that she would not dare to come closer. Besides, the woman could call the police all she wanted. They would never make it in time, not now that Salander hurled herself at Andersson so that he crashed onto the road. Quick as a flash she sat on top of him, took off her sunglasses and pulled her pistol out of the bag, pressing the muzzle against his Adam’s apple. He looked up at her in terror.
“I’m going to kill you,” she said.
He no longer seemed so hard after all and he mumbled something as she continued in her coldest voice:
“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you and all the others in your shitty little club if you so much as lay a finger on Mikael Blomkvist. It’s me you want, so come for me, no-one else. Do you hear?”
“I hear you,” he said.
“Or actually … tell Sandström I don’t care whether you touch Blomkvist or not. I’m going to get you all anyway. Until there’s nothing left of you except your terrified girlfriends and wives.”
There was no answer from Andersson, so she pressed the muzzle of her pistol harder against his throat.
“So what’s it to be?”
“I’ll tell him,” Andersson stammered.
“Excellent. And by the way … there’s a woman staring at us, so I’m not going to throw away your pistol or do some other shit. I’m just going to kick you in
the head, and if you so much as reach for your gun I’m going to shoot you. Because it’s like this you see …”
She frisked him quickly with her left hand and pulled his mobile out of his jeans, a new iPhone with face recognition.
“… I’m going to get my message out anyway. Even if you happen to die.”
She pushed her pistol up under his chin.
“So, Conny, let’s have a nice big smile from you now.”
She held the mobile over him and unlocked it, and in no time at all headbutted him again and took a photograph. Then she put her sunglasses back on and disappeared down towards Slussen and Gamla Stan, scrolling through Andersson’s contacts list. There were a few names there which surprised her, a well-known actor, two politicians and an officer in the drugs squad who was presumably bent. But she didn’t care about them.
She pulled out the names of the other members of Svavelsjö M.C. and sent off her picture of their buddy Andersson looking terrified and bewildered. Having copied the contents of his mobile she wrote:
Then she threw his mobile into Riddarfjärden.
CHAPTER 24
27.viii
Forsell wanted only to withdraw into his shell, into the shelter of his dreams and memories. But hearing Nima Rita’s name mentioned in such stark relief, and the restrained anger in his wife’s voice, he was brought abruptly back to reality.
“How can he just show up in Sweden, out of the blue? I thought he was dead.”
“Who’s been here to see me?” he said.
He could see that she was irritated by his attempt to change the subject.
“I’ve already told you,” she said.
“I’ve forgotten.”
“The boys, of course, and your mother. She’s looking after them for the moment.”
“How have they taken it all?”
“What can I say, Johannes? What do you expect me to say?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” she said, and then she tried to compose herself, tried to become good old robust Becka again. But she was only half successful. Forsell glanced at the soldiers out in the corridor, with escape, evasion, threats, choices and risks fluttering like restless birds through his mind.
“I can’t talk about Nima now,” he said.
“Whatever you say.”
She had to force herself to give him a loving smile, and again she smoothed his hair. He shrugged off her caress.
“So what will you talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
“At least you’ve managed to do one thing,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Look around you. At all these flowers. We’ve only been able to accept some of them. All that hate has turned to love.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
She held out her mobile.
“Go online and you’ll see.”
He waved vaguely, dismissively.
“I bet they’ve been busy writing obituaries.”
“No, it’s good stuff – really.”
“Has anyone come from Must?” he said.
“Svante came, and Klas and Sten Siegler, and a few others, so the answer I guess is yes a thousand times over. Why do you ask?”
Why did he ask?
He knew the answer perfectly well, of course they had been to see him, and he saw the suspicion in Becka’s eyes. He remembered the feeling of that hand grabbing his hair deep in the water. And all of a sudden it hit him with unexpected force: he wanted to speak out, but he knew that would not be possible.
Their conversation was bound to be monitored and he thought it through, weighing the arguments for and against once more. He remembered his own desperate will to live as he was sinking through the currents.
“Do you have a pen and paper?” he said.
“What? Yes, I’m sure I have somewhere.”
She dug around in her handbag and took out a ballpoint pen and a small yellow block of Post-it notes and gave them to him.
We have to get out of here, he wrote.
*
Rebecka read what he had written and cast a fearful look at the guards through the glass in the door. Luckily they seemed bored and absorbed by their mobiles, and she answered in a nervous scribble:
Now?
He replied:
Now. Disconnect me from the machines and leave your mobile and handbag, we’ll pretend we’re going down to the hospital shop.
Pretend?
We’re leaving.
Are you crazy?
I want to tell you everything – and I can’t here.
Tell me what?
Everything.
They had been writing quickly, taking turns with the same pen. Now Johannes hesitated and looked at her with the same sad and bewildered look as before, but it also showed a streak of what she had been missing for so long, his fighting spirit, and that made her feel more than just fear.
She had no intention of running away with him, still less of leaving the hospital with all the guards and soldiers, and the paranoia surrounding him. But it would be wonderful if he really did want to talk, and it would do him good to get some exercise. His pulse was higher than normal but stable, and he was strong. They would surely be able to sneak off and find a corner, somewhere they could talk and not be overheard.
At the same time she knew they would gain nothing if she simply unplugged him from his drip and the hospital equipment and they fled, so instead she wrote:
I’ll call the staff and explain.
She rang the bell and he wrote:
We’ll find a place where no-one will disturb us.
Stop it, she thought. Just stop it.
What are you running from? she wrote.
The people at Must.
Is it Svante?
He nodded, or at least she thought he nodded. She wanted to shout: I knew it, and when she wrote again her hand was shaking. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry.
Has he done something?
He neither answered nor nodded. He just looked out of the window towards the motorway, and she took that as a yes. She wrote:
You have to report him.
He gave her a pitying look which said, You don’t understand.
Or go to the media. Mikael Blomkvist just called. He’s on your side.
“My side,” he muttered, and pulled a face. He reached for the pen and scribbled a couple of illegible lines on the pad. She stared at the words.
Can’t read, she wrote, even though she probably could, so he clarified:
Not sure that’s a good side to be on.
That triggered a new urge for self-preservation, as if Johannes were distancing himself from her with those words. As if they were no longer an obvious couple, a we, but two people who no longer necessarily belonged together. She wondered if she should not be running from him instead.
She glanced at the guards outside the room and tried to come up with a plan. But just then she heard steps in the corridor and the doctor, the one with the red beard, came in and asked what they wanted. She said – it was all she could think of – that Johannes was feeling a little better now, and was strong enough to take a walk.
“We’re going down to the shop to buy a newspaper and a book,” she said in a voice which did not sound like her own, but which carried a surprising note of authority.
*
It was half past seven in the evening and Bublanski should have gone home long ago. But he was still in his office, staring into a young face brimming with a kind of angry idealism. He could see some people might find it irritating, but he actually liked the attitude, and maybe he had been the same at that age; had perhaps felt that the older generation was not taking life as seriously as it deserved to be taken. He gave the young woman a warm smile.
She smiled stiffly in return, and he suspected that humour was not her strongest suit, but that her fervour would certainly stand the world
in good stead. She was twenty-five years old and her name was Else Sandberg. Her hair was cut in a bob and she wore round spectacles, and worked as a medical intern at St Göran’s hospital.
“Thanks for taking the time.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said.
It was Modig who had found the woman, after getting a tip-off that the Sherpa had put up a wall newspaper at Södra station bus stop. She had then assigned colleagues to talk to pretty much everyone who regularly caught their bus from there.
“I understand you don’t remember much, but every single thing you do recall would be valuable to us,” he said.
“It was hard to read. There was very little space between the lines and basically it looked like paranoid delusion.”
“The signs are that it was just that,” he said. “But I’d be grateful if you could try to remember.”
“It was very guilt-ridden.”
Dear, sweet child, please don’t try to interpret it for me, he thought.
“What did it say?”
“That he went up a mountain. ‘One more time,’ he wrote. But that he couldn’t see. There was a snowstorm and he was in pain and freezing. He thought he was lost. But he heard cries that guided him.”
“What sort of cries?”
“Cries of the dead, I think.”
“What was that supposed to mean?”
“It was hard to understand, but he wrote that there were spirits accompanying him all the time, two spirits I think, one good and one evil, a little …”
She giggled, and Bublanski was delighted that Else Sandberg had suddenly revealed a human side.
“Like Captain Haddock in the Tintin books, you know? He has a devil and an angel hovering above his shoulders when he’s longing for a drink.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s a great metaphor.”
“It didn’t seem like a metaphor to me. I got the impression that for him it was real.”
“I only meant to say that it sounded familiar. Good and evil voices whispering to me when I’m tempted by something.”
The Girl Who Lived Twice Page 21