Stalker

115

Erik swims, keeping his head low and trying not to disturb the surface of the lake too much. He’s already more than one hundred metres out. The water merely laps quietly as he takes his broad strokes, but thunders in his ears when he’s underwater.

He raises his head enough to be able to look ahead. Drops of water sparkle on his eyelashes as he sees the two jetties before they disappear behind the swell. The current is pulling him a long way off to one side.

High above the nature reserve the helicopter is clattering, but he can no longer hear any dogs.

Erik swims, thinking about how he lied nine years ago, and stole Rocky’s whole life from him – and didn’t spare him a thought until now.

He slows down, and treads water as he sees that he’s just fifty metres from the two protruding jetties. A few children in bathing costumes are running about on the damp wood. There are people sitting with picnic baskets, blankets and folding chairs in the late summer warmth.

A motorboat appears to be approaching from the channel.

Erik swims towards the shore, beyond the beach. At the far end gnarled weeping willows hang over the water. The tips of their bright green branches trail in the undulating water.

The motorboat skims silently towards him, its prow striking the waves as the boat slows down.

Erik takes aim for the trees, fills his lungs with air, then dives below the surface.

He swims underwater with powerful strokes, feeling the coolness of the water against his face and eyes, its taste in his mouth, and the muffled sound as his ears fill.

The dappled daylight shimmers on the bubbles rising from his arms.

Beneath the water the motorboat makes a metallic buzzing sound.

Erik’s shoulders are straining from the effort. It’s further to the shore than he thought. The water below him is completely black, but the surface looks like molten tin.

His lungs feel tight. He has to breathe soon. The buzzing sound of the motorboat gets louder.

He keeps swimming, but is getting closer to the surface, has no energy left, needs oxygen.

Shimmering bubbles drift around him.

He kicks out with his legs and feels his diaphragm tighten, cramping in an effort to force his lungs to breathe in some air.

The water gets lighter, full of swirling sand. He can make out the bottom beneath him, rough blocks of stone and coarse sand. He takes one last stroke with his arms, then pulls himself forward across the stones with his hands.

Erik breaks the surface, gasps for breath, coughs, puts his hand over his mouth, coughs again and spits out a mouthful of slime. He’s rocking with the swell from the boat. His vision goes dark and he gasps and wipes the water from his face with trembling hands.

He makes his way up on to the rocks on unsteady legs, then collapses. His whole body shakes as he sits behind the curtain of branches. The police boat is moving along the lake, but its engine is no longer audible.

Even if Nelly manages to leave her house and hire a car, it will be a while before she gets here. It makes sense to wait beneath the trees and dry off a bit before he makes his way to the meeting point.

The sound of shouting, laughing children fades away as if in fog. In the distance the sirens are howling, and the helicopter goes on circling above the nature reserve on the other side of the lake.

After half an hour or so Erik leaves his hiding place, climbs up the rocks, crosses the footpath and steps behind a large hazel bush. The ground in the shade beneath the branches is littered with toilet paper. He moves on towards the rust-red exterior of Sickla recreation centre.

Suddenly the sound of a siren echoes loudly between the walls, and he stops abruptly, his heart pounding. People are sitting at an outdoor café a short distance away, eating and drinking, quite unconcerned. The vehicle disappears and Erik carries on walking. He’s just thinking that he needs to wait on the other side of the building, hidden by the bushes, when he catches sight of Nelly. She’s wearing a green floral-print dress, and her blonde hair is tied up with a scarf of the same colour.

On the other side of the street is a black jeep. Nelly shades her face with one hand as she looks down towards the water.

Erik walks across the grass and steps across some low bushes, and is just emerging on to the pavement when Nelly catches sight of him. Her lips part as though she were suddenly frightened. Erik looks round for traffic, then walks straight across the road in his wet underpants. Nelly looks him quickly up and down, then lifts her chin as if they were about to have a perfectly ordinary discussion about patients.

‘Original, but quite sexy,’ she smiles, quickly opening the back door. ‘Get under the blanket.’

He huddles down on the floor behind the seat and pulls the red rug over himself. The sun-heated car smells of plastic and leather.

Erik hears Nelly get in the driver’s seat and close the door. She starts the engine and pulls away to the left, bumping off the kerb and then speeding up, and he slides back towards the seat.

‘We know Rocky was wrongly convicted of the murder of Rebecka Hansson, but-’

‘Not now, Nelly,’ he interrupts.

‘But do we know he’s innocent of these new murders? I mean… What if he’s started copying the murder he was convicted of… just to put the blame on you?’

‘It’s not him, I hypnotised him, he saw the preacher and…’

‘But couldn’t he just have divided himself into different characters? So that he’s the unclean preacher when commits the murders?’

Nelly falls silent and inserts a disc into the CD player. The car fills with Johnny Cash’s heavy voice: Wanted man in California, wanted man in Buffalo, wanted man in Kansas City, wanted man in Ohio… wanted man in Mississippi, wanted man in ol’ Cheyenne. Wherever you might look tonight, you might see this wanted man.

Erik lies there with the blanket on top of him, smelling the sand on the mats on the floor, and can’t help smiling at the fact that Nelly is trying to be funny at a time like this.