Red Wolf

Prologue

He had never been able to stand the sight of blood. There was something about the consistency, thick and viscous. He knew it was irrational, especially for someone like him. Recently this revulsion had taken over his dreams, presenting itself in ways he couldn’t control.

He looked down at his hands and saw they were covered in dark-red human blood. It was dripping onto his trousers, still warm and sticky. The smell hit his nose. He jerked back in panic and tried to shake it off-

‘Hey, we’re here.’

The voice interrupted his sleep. The blood suddenly vanished, but the intense feeling of nausea remained. Sharp, cold air rushed in through the door of the bus. The driver hunched his shoulders in a vain attempt to escape it.

‘Unless you want to come down to the garage?’

All the other passengers had got off the airport bus. He stood up with an effort, bent over with pain. He picked up his duffel bag from the seat, muttering, ‘Merci beaucoup.’

The jolt as his feet hit the ground made him groan. He leaned against the frosted side-panelling of the bus for a moment, rubbing his forehead.

A woman in a crocheted hat was making her way to the local bus-stop a bit further on. She stopped next to his duffel bag; there was genuine concern in her eyes as she leaned towards him.

‘Are you all right? Do you need help?’

He reacted strongly and immediately, waving his hand in her face. ‘Laissez-moi tranquille!’ He spoke far too loudly, panting from the effort.

The woman didn’t move, just blinked a few times, open-mouthed.

‘Êtes-vous sourde? Je vous ai dit: laissez-moi tranquille.’

Her face crumbled at his aggression and she backed away. He watched her go, heavy and thickset, plodding towards the number three with her bulging carrier bags.

I wonder if this is how I sound when I speak Swedish, he thought. Then he realized that his thoughts were actually formulating themselves in his mother tongue.

Indépendence, he thought, forcing his brain back into French. Je suis mon propre maître.

The woman glared at him one last time before getting on the bus.

He stood there in the diesel fumes as the buses slid away and the street emptied of people; listening to the silence of the cold, absorbing the shadowless light.

Nowhere on earth was outer space as close as it was at the Polar Circle. When he was growing up he took the isolation for granted, not realizing the implications of living on the roof of the world. But he could see the buildings, the frozen conifers now, as clearly as if they were engraved on the streets: isolation and exposure, endless distance. So familiar, and yet so alien.

This is a harsh place, he thought, in Swedish once more. A town that’s frozen solid. Just like me.

He carefully lifted the strap of the bag over his shoulder and chest and started to walk towards the City Hotel. The exterior, from the turn of the last century, was just as he remembered, but he had no way of knowing whether the interior had changed. During his time in Luleå he had never had any reason to enter such an opulent building.

The receptionist welcomed the old Frenchman with a distracted politeness. She checked him into a room on the second floor, told him when breakfast was served, gave him the key, and promptly forgot all about him.

You’re least visible in a sea of people, he thought, thanking her in broken English and heading off to the lifts.

The room had an air of trying too hard. The cool tiling and replicas of fashionable furniture suggested luxury and tradition, but behind the façade he could see dirty windows and grubby fibreglass walls.

He sat on the bed for a moment, looking out at the twilight. Or was it still dawn?

The sea view that the website boasted about consisted of grey water, some wooden buildings next to a harbour, a neon sign and a large black felt-roof.

He was on the verge of falling asleep and shook himself to clear his head, noticing the smell that emanated from him. He stood up and opened his bag, then went over to the desk where he lined up his medicines, starting with the painkillers. Then he lay down on the bed as the nausea gradually eased.

So, he was finally here.

La mort est ici.

Death is here.