Sidetracked

CHAPTER 19

The fluorescent hands of the clock twisted like snakes and showed 7.10 p.m. on Tuesday 28 June. A few hours later Sweden would play Brazil. This was part of his plan. Everybody would be focused on their TV sets. No-one would think about what was happening outside in the summer night.

The basement floor was cool under his bare feet. He had been sitting in front of his mirrors since early morning. He had completed his great transformation several hours earlier, changing the pattern on his right cheek. He had painted the circular decoration with blue-black paint. Until now he had used blood-red paint. His face was even more frightening.

He put down the last brush and thought about the task awaiting him. It would be the greatest sacrifice for his sister yet, even though he had been forced to alter his plans. For a brief moment the evil forces surrounding him had got the upper hand. He had spent an entire night in the shadows below his sister’s window planning his strategy. He’d sat between the two scalps and waited for the power from the earth to enter him. With his torch he had read from the holy book she had given him, and he realised that nothing prevented him from changing the order that he had prepared.

The last victim was to have been their evil father. But since the man who was supposed to meet his fate this evening had left the country suddenly, the sequence would have to be changed.

He had listened to Geronimo’s heart beating in his chest. The beats were like signals from the past. His heart drummed a message: the most important thing was not to waver from his sacred task. The earth under his feet was already crying out for the third retribution.

He would wait until the third man returned from abroad. Their father would have to take his place.

As he’d sat in front of the mirrors, undergoing the great transformation, he’d looked forward to meeting his father with special anticipation. This mission required careful preparation. He’d begun by readying his tools. It had taken him more than two hours to attach a blade to the toy axe he had been given by his father as a birthday present. He was seven at the time. Even then he knew that one day he would use it against the man who had given it to him. Now the moment had finally arrived. He had reinforced the badly decorated plastic shaft with special tape used by ice hockey players.

You don’t know what it’s called. It’s not for chopping wood. It’s a tomahawk.

He felt violent contempt when he remembered how his father had given the toy to him so long ago. It was a plastic replica manufactured in an Asian country. Now, with a proper blade, he had transformed it into a real axe.

He waited until 8.30, going over the plan once more. He checked his hands, noting that they weren’t shaking. Everything was under control. The arrangements he had made over the past two days would ensure that things would go well.

He packed up his weapons, a glass bottle wrapped in a handkerchief, and a rope in his backpack. Then he pulled on his helmet, turned out the light, and left the room. When he came out onto the street he looked up at the sky. It was cloudy. It could rain. He started up the moped he had stolen the day before and rode to the centre of Malmo. At the train station he entered a phone booth. He had selected one in advance that was out of the way. On one side of the window he had pasted up a fake poster for a concert at a youth club. There was no-one around. He pulled off his helmet and stood with his face pressed against the poster. Then he stuck in his phone card and dialled the number. With his left hand he held a rag over his mouth. It was just before 9 p.m. He waited as the phone rang. He was totally calm. His father answered. Hoover could hear his irritation. That meant he had started drinking and didn’t want to be disturbed.

He spoke into the rag, holding the receiver away from his mouth.

“This is Peter,” he said. “I’ve got something that should interest you.”

“What is it?” His father was still annoyed. But he believed it was Peter calling.

“Stamps. Worth almost half a million.”

His father hesitated.

“Are you sure?”

“At least half a million. Maybe more.”

“Speak up a little, will you?”

“We must have a bad connection.”

“Where are they coming from?”

“A house in Limhamn.”

His father sounded less irritable. His interest was caught. Hoover had chosen stamps because his father had once taken his own collection — which Hoover had worked on for a long time — and sold it.

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow? The match against Brazil is starting soon.”

“I’m leaving for Denmark tomorrow. Either you take them tonight, or someone else will.”

Hoover knew his father would never let such a large sum of money fetch up in someone else’s pocket. He waited, still completely calm.

“All right, I’ll come,” his father said. “Where are you?”

“At the boat club in Limhamn. The car park.”

“Why aren’t you in Malmo?”

“I told you it was a house in Limhamn, didn’t I?”

“I’ll be there,” said his father.

Hoover hung up and put on his helmet.

He left the telephone card sitting in the phone. He had plenty of time to ride out to Limhamn. His father always got undressed before he started drinking. And he never did anything in a hurry. His laziness was as vast as his greed. He started up the moped and rode through the city until he came out on the road that led to Limhamn. There were only a few cars in the car park outside the boat club. He ditched the moped behind some bushes and threw away the keys. He pulled off his helmet and took out the axe. He put the helmet into his backpack carefully so he wouldn’t damage the glass bottle.

Then he waited. His father usually parked his van in one corner of the car park when he was delivering stolen property. Hoover guessed that he would do so now. His father was a creature of habit. And he was already drunk, his judgement muddled and reactions dulled.

After 20 minutes Hoover heard the van. The headlights swept across the trees before his father turned into the car park. Just as Hoover had expected, he stopped in the corner. Hoover ran barefoot across the car park until he reached the van. When he heard his father open the driver’s door, he moved quickly around to the other side. His father looked out towards the car park with his back to him. Hoover raised the axe and struck him on the back of the head with the blunt end. This was the most critical moment. He didn’t want to hit him so hard that he’d die, but hard enough that his father, who was big and very strong, would be knocked out.

His father fell without a sound to the pavement. Hoover waited a moment with the axe raised, but he lay still. He reached for the car keys and unlocked the side doors of the van, dragging him over to it. It took Hoover several minutes to get the whole body inside. He got his backpack, climbed into the van, and shut the doors. He turned on the overhead light. His father was still unconscious. With the rope he tied his hands behind his back, and then his legs to a post supporting one of the seats. Next he taped his mouth shut and turned off the light. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. His father had taught him to drive a few years earlier. He pulled out of the car park and headed towards the ring road that skirted Malmo. Since his face was painted he didn’t want to drive where the streetlights could shine through the van’s windows. He drove out onto the E65 and continued east. It was just before 10 p.m. The game was about to begin.

He had found the place by accident. He had been on his way back to Malmo after observing the police at work on the beach outside Ystad, the beach where he had carried out the first sacred task given to him by his sister. He was driving along the coast when he discovered the dock, which was almost impossible to see from the road. He realised at once that he had found the right place.

An hour later he reached the place and turned off the road with his headlights off. His father was still unconscious but was moaning softly. He hurried to loosen the rope tied to the seat and pulled him out of the van. The man groaned as Hoover dragged his body down to the dock. He turned him over on his back and tied his arms and legs to its iron rings. His father looked like an animal skin stretched out to dry. He was dressed in a wrinkled suit, his shirt unbuttoned down to his belly. Hoover pulled off his shoes and socks. Then he got the backpack from the van. There was a light breeze. A few cars drove past up on the road, but their headlights missed the dock.

When he returned, his father was conscious. His eyes were wide. He jerked his head back and forth, thrashing his arms and legs. Hoover couldn’t resist stopping in the shadows to watch him. He no longer saw a human being before him. His father had undergone the transformation he had planned for him. He was an animal.

Hoover came out of the shadows and went out on the dock. His father stared at him. Hoover realised he didn’t recognise him. He thought about the fear he had felt when his father stared at him. Now the tables were turned. Terror had changed its shape. He leaned down close to his father’s face, so that he could see through the paint and realise it was his own son. This would be the last thing he would see. This would be the image he would carry with him when he died.

Hoover had unscrewed the cap on the glass bottle and was holding it behind his back. Quickly he poured a few drops of hydrochloric acid into his father’s left eye. Somewhere underneath the tape the man started screaming. He struggled with all his might. Hoover pulled open his other eyelid and poured acid into that eye. Then he stood up and threw the bottle into the sea. Before him was a beast thrashing back and forth in its death throes. Hoover looked down at his own hands again. His fingers were quivering a little. That was all. The beast lying on the dock in front of him was twitching spasmodically. Hoover took his knife out of his backpack and cut off the skin from the top of the animal’s head. He raised the scalp to the night sky. Then he took his axe and smashed it straight through the beast’s forehead with such force that the blade stuck in the wood underneath.

It was over. Soon his sister would be brought back to life.

Just before 1 a.m. he drove into Ystad. The town was deserted. For a long time he had wondered whether he was doing the right thing. But Geronimo’s beating heart had convinced him. He had seen the police fumbling on the beach, he had watched them move as if in a fog outside the farm he had visited. Geronimo had exhorted him to defy them.

He turned in at the railway station. He had already picked the spot. Work was under way to replace some old sewerage pipes. There was a tarpaulin covering the excavation. He turned off the headlights and rolled down the window. From a distance he could hear some men yelling drunkenly. He got out of the van and drew back part of the tarpaulin. Then he listened again. Silence. Quickly he opened the doors of the van, dragged his father’s body out, and shoved him into the hole. He replaced the tarpaulin, started the engine and drove off. It was just before 2 a.m. when he parked the van in the outdoor car park at Sturup Airport. He checked carefully to see if he had forgotten anything. There was a lot of blood in the van. He had blood on his feet. He thought about all the confusion he was going to cause, how the police would fumble even more.

Suddenly he stopped and stood motionless.

The man who had left the country might not return. He’d need a replacement. He thought about the policemen he had seen on the beach by the overturned boat. He thought about the ones he had seen outside the farmhouse where the Midsummer party was held. One of them. One of them would be sacrificed so that his sister could come back to life. He would choose one. He would find out their names and then toss stones onto a grid, just as Geronimo had done, and he would kill the one that chance selected for him.

He pulled the helmet down over his head. Then he went over to his moped, which he had ridden there the day before and left parked under a lamppost, taking a bus back to Malmo. He started up the engine and rode off. It was already light when he buried his father’s scalp underneath his sister’s window.

Carefully he unlocked the door to the flat in Rosengard. He stood still and listened. Then he peeked into the room where his brother lay sleeping. Everything was quiet. His mother’s bed was empty. She was lying on the sofa in the living-room, sleeping with her mouth open. Next to her on the table stood a half-empty wine bottle. He covered her gently with a blanket. Then he locked himself in the bathroom and wiped the paint from his face.

It was almost 6 a.m. before he undressed and went to bed. He could hear a man coughing outside on the street. His mind was completely blank. He fell asleep at once.

Skane

29 June — 4 July 1994