Stalker

104

Erik is pulled from sleep by a breeze on his face. Someone is whispering quickly, but stops the moment he opens his eyes. The darkness is almost impenetrable, and it takes him a few seconds before he realises where he is.

The old horsehair mattress creaks when he rolls over.

Even if he was fast asleep, some part of him was alert, a force that yanked him from sleep.

Perhaps he just heard water running through the building’s pipes, or the wind pressing against the window.

No one has been whispering in his room, everything is still and dark.

Erik wonders if this was where Nestor was sleeping when he slipped into psychosis, when the rattling of the pipes turned into voices, into the old woman brushing dandruff from her long grey hair who told him you shouldn’t look your nearest and dearest in the eye when you kill them.

Erik knows it was all about the dog Nestor was forced to put down when he was a child, but he still used to shiver every time Nestor imitated the woman’s creaking voice.

He thinks of the way Nestor used to sit with his hands clasped in his lap and his head lowered, a little smile would play on his lips and he would flush slightly as he dispensed advice on how to murder a child.

The old cupboard creaks and the shadows by the door are hard to interpret. He closes his stinging eyes and goes back to sleep, but wakes up again immediately when the door to the guestroom closes.

Erik thinks that he’s going to have to tell Nestor to leave him alone when he’s sleeping, that he doesn’t have to keep checking on him, but he can’t be bothered to get up now.

A car passes on the street outside, and its chill light finds its way past the roller-blind, slides across the patterned wallpaper and disappears.

Erik stares at the wall.

It looks like a trace of the light has been left on the wall once the car has gone. He thinks that there must be a weak lamp by the shelf that he hasn’t seen before.

Erik blinks, stares at the motionless blue light, and realises that there’s a peephole between the rooms.

The light is coming from the other bedroom, Erik thinks when everything suddenly goes dark.

Nestor is looking on to his room right now.

Erik lies absolutely still.

It’s so quiet that he can hear himself swallow.

The blue light becomes visible again and he can hear intense whispering through the wall.

Erik quickly gets dressed in the darkness and moves closer to the light.

The point of light is between the two lower shelves of the bookcase. The little hole would be invisible if the porcelain animals were arranged differently.

It’s positioned in the very darkest part of the pattern on the wallpaper, so small that he realises he’s going to have to press his face to the wall and put his eye right next to the hole to be able to see anything.

He moves a porcelain puppy in a basket, leans his hands on the wall and carefully puts his head between the shelves, feeling the wood against his hair and the wallpaper touching the tip of his nose.

When he is right next to the hole he can see straight into the next room.

There’s a mobile phone on the bedside table, the screen is lit up, illuminating the alarm clock and the oval pattern of the wallpaper. Erik manages to catch a glimpse of the neatly made bed and a framed photograph of a young child in a christening gown before the light from the phone goes out.

He hears rapid footsteps somewhere in the flat and tries to pull his head back, but his hair catches on a splinter in the wood. The porcelain figures tinkle ominously.

Erik puts his hand up and tries to free his hair as the door opens behind him.

He pulls his head out and hears the figurines on the shelf rattle. Nestor comes towards him and he backs away.

‘I’ve called the p-police, I c-came back to tell you,’ Nestor whispers. ‘It’s your t-turn to get h-help now, I’ve spoken to them several times, they’re here now.’

‘Nestor, you don’t understand,’ Erik says forlornly.

‘No, no, you d-don’t understand,’ Nestor interrupts in a friendly voice, and switches on the lamp in the window. ‘I said it’s your t-turn to get medicine and-’

There’s a sudden noise, like a stone hitting the window, the dark roller-blind quivers in the light from the lamp, and a cascade of glass falls down behind the blind and tinkles over the radiator.

Nestor lurches. He’s been shot, right through his body with a high-velocity weapon. Blood sprays out of the exit hole in his shoulder.

He looks at the blood in surprise.

‘They p-promised…’

He stumbles, falls on to his hip and looks up with a confused expression.

‘G-get out through the extra door,’ he hisses. ‘Go down into the laundry room, straight through, and you’ll be in the next building…’

He puts his knuckles on the floor as if to push himself up.

‘Lie down,’ Erik whispers. ‘Just lie flat.’

‘Run across the schoolyard, then follow the church wall t-to the forest and the pet cemetery.’

‘Lie still,’ Erik repeats, then runs at a crouch towards the door.

When he reaches the living room he hears Nestor’s front door being forced open. There’s a crash and splinters and pieces of metal from the lock clatter across the floor.

‘Hide in the little r-red house,’ Nestor gasps behind him.

Erik turns round and sees that Nestor has stood up to point. The glass in front of Björn Borg’s smiling face explodes and the echo of a shot resounds between the buildings. Nestor is holding one hand against the side of his neck as a torrent of blood pulses out between his fingers.

Three of the flat’s windows shatter, and distraction grenades explode, flashing with such ferocity that time seems to stand still.

Erik staggers backwards.

The silence is like a sandy beach. Slow waves roll in, then pull back with a crackle.

He feels his way through the living room, unable to see anything but the freeze-frame image of the bedroom with Nestor’s silhouette against the window, and the drops of blood hanging in the air in front of the cupboard door with death hiding under a bridge.

Erik’s hearing has been knocked out, but he feels further blasts as waves of pressure against his chest. He walks straight into the battered sofa, and feels his way along its back.

Then the shock lifts, his eyes are working again, and he makes his way round the table and magazine rack, but he’s still as giddy as if he were very drunk.

Lights from guns sweep round the hall and kitchen.

His ears start to ring, but he still can’t hear anything around him.

He locates the extra door behind the curtain, unlocks it and creeps out into the back stairwell. He almost trips over the first step but grabs hold of the handrail.

He makes his way downstairs on unsteady feet, then walks until he reaches a metal door, and finds himself in the laundry room. He feels his way along the wall until his fingers make contact with the light switch, turns the lights on and hurries past washing machines, trolleys and bins full of empty bottles as he tries to remember what Nestor said.

His head feels strangely detached, as if none of this really concerns him.

His temporary blindness lingers as silvery spots. Any light source stronger than five million candelas activates all the photocells in the eye, meaning that everything you see after being dazzled seems to happen slightly out of synch.

At the end of the long corridor is a door, and he runs up a narrow flight of steps and finds himself in a different stairwell.

Erik walks out into the cool night air. There are no emergency vehicles on this side of the block. Presumably the rapid response unit are some distance away.

Erik hurries through the little park. In the cold he can feel that one of his ears is wet. He touches his cheek and realises that he’s bleeding. Without looking round he walks straight across Karlskronavägen and past a car park and some dirty recycling bins. Broken glass crunches beneath his feet.

The tarmacked schoolyard is empty. A beer can rolls in the wind, the basketball hoops on their posts have no nets.

High above a helicopter is approaching. The clatter of the rotors is audible across the rooftops, and Erik realises that his hearing is starting to come back.

He walks on, more slowly, gasping for breath, then creeps round the building and in amongst the trees. It’s almost pitch-black here. Erik holds his hands out in front of his face to protect himself from branches, until he sees the low church wall.

Fear is beginning to catch up with him as he follows the wall through tall nettles.

Deep within the forest there’s a sudden concentration of tiny graves, decorated by children. He sees headstones with dogs’ collars hanging off them, graves with squeezy toys, drawings, photographs and flowers, homemade crosses or painted stones, burned-out candles and sooty lanterns.