Autumn Killing

65

Linkoping, September

Jerry is standing beside his Range Rover in one of the central rows of the almost empty car park outside Ikea in Tornby, listening to the rain drumming on the car roof, and the persistent, relentless sound of the drops reminds him of the phone ringing, calling him here. The car park must have space for a thousand cars, but on one of the first properly rainy nights like this it’s almost empty. The retail lots glow in the darkness: Ica Maxi, Siba, Coop Forum.

In the distance he can see the copper-green spire of the cathedral, the numbers on the clock shining through the veils of mist and low dark clouds of the evening.

‘Wait outside the car. I’ll be there at eleven o’clock.’

Jerry looks at his watch, wipes the rain from his eyes, knows how to handle this.

Then he sees a car turn into the car park, a red Golf that pulls up alongside him, and a man the same age as him gets out.

Is that you, Jonas? Jerry thinks. Jonas Karlsson, you who saved me long ago.

No. Not Jonas, someone else.

Instead of waiting for the man in the green jacket to start talking, Jerry leaps at him, forcing him up against the door of the Range Rover, taking a stranglehold of his neck and snarling: ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Whoever the fuck you are. Do you think I’m going to take this sort of shit from anyone?’

And the man in the green jacket sinks, his body slumping in fear, and he says: ‘I didn’t mean anything. Sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

‘What you wrote about that New Year’s Eve is wrong.’

‘Yes. I was wrong.’

‘How did you hear about it?’

‘A letter.’

‘Who from?’

The hand gripping the man’s neck getting tighter, his voice getting weaker.

‘I don’t know. But the letter was postmarked in Tenerife.’

Jochen.

‘And who are you?’

‘Someone who got in your way. You didn’t even notice.’

The man in the green jacket says his name, and Jerry searches his memory but nothing springs to mind.

‘I don’t give a shit who you are.’

With all his strength he throws the man in the green jacket to the ground. Kicks him, screaming: ‘Who the fuck are you?’

And the man groans his name again, says: ‘Andreas Ekstrom was the only friend I ever had.’

Jochen.

Punta del Este. I should have kept my mouth shut. God knows how you got hold of this tragic loser. But if you want to you can find out anything, can’t you?

More kicking. Hitting soft flesh beneath the green jacket, and it feels good.

‘And now you want money, do you? My money, is that it? Stay away from me. Otherwise this is going to turn out really fucking badly.’

More groaning, the rain like a solid monochrome mass in the air.

Jerry leaves the man behind him, in the rear-view mirror he sees him writhing on the tarmac, trying to get up.

Back home in his big, empty castle he brings up a number on his mobile phone, wants to call the woman who is waiting to hear his voice.

But the phone call is never made, and remains as inaudible whispering inside Jerry’s head. Instead the sound of rotating, hungry lawnmower blades takes over, the drumming of feet on the grass, feet that can never carry their body far enough or close enough.