Sun Storm aka The Savage Altar

It is twenty past four in the morning. Rebecka is sitting at the small kitchen table in the cabin in Jiekajärvi. She looks toward the window and looks straight into her own great big eyes. Anybody could be standing right outside and looking in at her, and she wouldn’t be able to see them. That person would suddenly press his face against the glass and the image of his face would melt into the reflection of her own.

Stop it, she says to herself. There’s nothing out there. Who’d go out in the dark in a storm like this?

The fire is crackling in the stove and the draught in the chimney makes a long, lonely sound that is accompanied by the howling wind outside and the soft hissing of the kerosene gas lamp. She gets up and pushes in two more logs. When there’s a storm like this it’s important to keep the fire going. Otherwise the cabin will be chilled through by tomorrow morning.

The strong wind finds its way through gaps in the walls and between the door frame and the old ocher yellow mirrored door. Once upon a time, before Rebecka was born, it had been the door of the pigsty. Her grandmother had told her that. And before that it had been somewhere else. It is much too beautiful and too solid a door to have been made for the pigsty. Presumably it used to be in a house somewhere that had been pulled down. And somebody had decided to find a home for the door.

On the floor there are several layers of Grandmother’s rag rugs. They insulate the house and keep the cold out. The snow that has been blown up against the walls insulates too. And the north-facing wall has a little extra protection from the stack of wood that has been covered with a tarpaulin to keep the snow off.

Next to the stove is the enamel water bucket with the ladle made of stainless steel, and a big basket of wood. Right beside it are Sara and Lova’s painted cat stones on top of a pile of old magazines. Although of course Lova’s stone represents a dog. It is curled up with its muzzle between its paws, gazing at Rebecka all the time. Just to be on the safe side Lova has written “Virku” on its painted black back. Both the girls are fast asleep in the same bed now, their fingers spattered with paint and a double layer of blankets right up to their ears. Before they went to bed all three of them worked together, rolling up the mattresses to press all the cold air out of them. Sara is sleeping with her mouth open, and Lova is curled up in the curve of her big sister’s arm. Their cheeks are rosy. Rebecka takes off one blanket and puts it up on the shelf.

It’s not my job to protect them, she tells herself. After tomorrow there will be nothing more I can do for them.

Anna-Maria sits up in bed with the bedside lamp lit. Robert is sleeping beside her. She has two pillows behind her back, and is leaning against the headboard. On her knee she has Kristina Strandgård’s album of newspaper cuttings and pictures of Viktor Strandgård. The child moves in her stomach. She can feel a foot pressing against her.

“Hello, pest,” she says, rubbing the hard lump under her skin that is the foot. “You shouldn’t kick your old mum.”

She looks at a picture of Viktor Strandgård sitting on the steps in front of the Crystal Church in the middle of winter. He is wearing an indescribably ugly green crocheted hat. His long hair is lying over his left shoulder. He is holding his book up toward the camera, Heaven and Back. Laughing. Looks open and relaxed.

Did he do something to Sanna’s children? wonders Anna-Maria. He’s just a boy.

She is dreading tomorrow and the interview with Sanna Strandgård’s daughters.

At least you’re going to have a nice daddy, she tells the child in her belly.

All of a sudden she is deeply moved. Thinks of that small life. Capable of survival, perfect, with ten fingers and ten toes and a personality all its own. Why does she always get so tearful and over-the-top? Can’t even watch a Disney film without howling at the really sad part just before everything turns out all right in the end. Is it really fourteen years since Marcus was lying in her stomach? And Jenny and Petter, they’re so big too. Life goes so incredibly quickly. She is filled with a deep sense of gratitude.

I really haven’t got anything to complain about, she thinks, turning to someone out there in the universe. A wonderful family and a good life. I’ve already had more than anyone has a right to ask for.

“Thank you,” she says out loud.

Robert changes position, turns onto his side, wraps himself in his blanket so that he looks like a stuffed cabbage roll.

“You’re welcome,” he answers in his sleep.

Saturday, February 22

Rebecka pours coffee from the thermos flask and puts it down on the kitchen table.

What if Viktor did something to Sanna’s girls, she thinks. Could Sanna have been so furious that she killed him? Maybe she went looking for him to confront him, and…

And what? she interrupts herself. And she lost the plot and whipped out a hunting knife from nowhere and stabbed him to death? And smashed him over the head as well, with something heavy she just happened to have in her pocket?

No, it didn’t make sense.

And who wrote that postcard to Viktor that was in his Bible? “What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God.”

She gets the tins of paint the girls have been using and spreads an old newspaper out on the table. Then she paints a picture of Sanna. It looks more like the woman who lived in the gingerbread house than anything else, with long, curly hair. Underneath Sanna, she writes “Sara” and “Lova.” She draws Viktor beside them. She paints a halo around his head; it has slipped slightly. Then she joins the girls’ names to Viktor with a line. She draws a line between Viktor and Sanna as well.

But that relationship was broken, she thinks, and scribbles out the lines linking Viktor to Sanna and the girls.

She leans back in her chair and allows her gaze to range over the sparse furniture, the hand-carved green beds, the kitchen table with its four odd chairs, the sink with the red plastic bowl and the little stool that just fits into the corner by the door.

Once upon a time, when the cabin was used on hunting trips, Uncle Affe used to stand his rifle on the stool, leaning against the wall. She remembers her grandfather’s frown of displeasure. Her grandfather himself always placed his gun carefully in its case and pushed it under the bed.

Nowadays the axe for chopping wood stands on the stool, and the handsaw hangs above it on a hook.

Sanna, thinks Rebecka, and looks back at her painting.

She draws curly little spirals and stars above Sanna’s head.

Silly-billy Sanna. Who can’t manage anything by herself. All her life a series of idiots have leapt in and sorted things out for her. I’m one of them. She didn’t even have to ask me to come up here. I came scampering up anyway, like a damned puppy.

She makes Sanna’s arms and hands disappear by painting over them in black. There, now she can’t do anything. Then she paints herself and writes “IDIOT” above.

Comprehension rises out of the picture. The brush shakily traces the figures she has painted on the newspaper. Sanna can’t manage anything by herself. There she stands, no arms, no hands. When Sanna needs something, some idiot leaps in and sorts things out for her. Rebecka Martinsson is an example of such an idiot.

If Viktor is doing something to her children…

… and she gets so angry she wants to kill him, what happens then?

Then some idiot is going to kill Viktor for her.

Can that be what happened? It has to be what happened.

The Bible. The murderer put Viktor’s Bible in Sanna’s kitchen drawer.

Of course. Not to frame Sanna. It was a present for her. The message, the postcard with the sprawling handwriting, was written to Sanna, not to Viktor. “What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God.” Killing Viktor was not wrong in the eyes of God.

"Who?" says Rebecka to herself, drawing an empty heart next to the picture of Sanna. Inside the heart she draws a question mark.

She listens. Tries to make out a sound through the storm. A sound that doesn’t belong here. And then suddenly she hears it, the noise of a snowmobile.

Curt. Curt Bäckström, who sat on his snowmobile under the window, gazing up at Sanna.

She gets up and looks around.

The axe, she thinks in a panic. I’ll get the axe.

But she can’t hear the noise of the engine anymore.

It was just your imagination, calm down, she reassures herself. Sit down. You’re stressed and scared and you imagined you heard something. There’s nothing out there.

She sits down, but can’t take her eyes off the doorknob. She ought to get up and lock it.

Don’t start, she thinks, like some kind of spell. There’s nothing out there.

The next moment the doorknob begins to turn. The door opens. The moaning of the storm bursts in, along with a rush of cold air, and a man dressed in a dark blue snowsuit steps quickly inside. Pushes the door shut behind him. At first she can’t make out who it is. Then he takes off his hood and balaclava.

It isn’t Curt Bäckström. It’s Vesa Larsson.

Anna-Maria Mella is dreaming. She jumps out of a police car and runs with her colleagues along the E10 between Kiruna and Gällivare. They are on their way to a crashed car lying upside down ten meters from the carriageway. It’s such hard work. Her colleagues are already standing next to the crumpled car and yelling at her.

“Get a move on! You’re the one with the saw! We’ve got to get them out!”

She carries on running with the chainsaw in her hand. Somewhere she can hear a woman; her screams are heartrending.

She’s there at last. She starts up the chainsaw. It shrieks through the metal of the car. She catches sight of the child seat hanging upside down in the car, but she can’t see if there’s a child in it. The saw gives a shrill howl, but suddenly it makes a loud piercing ringing sound. Like a telephone.

Robert nudges Anna-Maria in the side and goes back to sleep as soon as she has picked up the receiver. Sven-Erik Stålnacke’s voice comes down the line.

“It’s me,” he says. “Listen, I went back to Curt Bäckström’s yesterday. But he hasn’t been there all night, at least nobody’s answering the door.”

“Mmm,” mumbles Anna-Maria.

The nastiness of her dream lingers on. She squints at the clock radio beside the bed. Twenty-five to five. She shuffles backwards in the bed and leans against the headboard.

“You didn’t go there on your own?”

“Don’t make a fuss, Mella, just listen. When he didn’t seem to be at home, or wasn’t opening the door, or whatever, I went to the Crystal Church to see if there was some sort of all-night hallelujah carry-on, but there wasn’t. Then I rang the pastors-Thomas Söderberg, Vesa Larsson and Gunnar Isaksson, in that order. I thought maybe they kept an eye on their flock and might know if this Curt Bäckström was in the habit of spending his free time during the day anywhere other than in his flat.”

“And?”

“Thomas Söderberg and Vesa Larsson weren’t at home. Their wives insisted they must still be at the church because of this conference, but I swear to you, Anna-Maria, there was nobody in that church. I mean, they could have been sitting there hiding in the dark, quiet as mice, but I find that difficult to believe. Pastor Gunnar Isaksson was at home, answered after ten rings and rambled on-he’d obviously had a nightcap.”

Anna-Maria ponders for a while. She feels befuddled and slightly unwell.

“I wonder if we’ve got enough for a search warrant,” she says. “I’d like to get into Curt Bäckström’s apartment. Ring von Post and ask him.”

Sven-Erik sighs at the other end of the phone.

“He’s completely hung up on Sanna Strandgård,” he says. “And we haven’t got a shred of evidence. But still, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this guy. I’m going to go in.”

"Into his apartment? Just stop right there."

“I’m going to ring Benny the locksmith. He won’t ask any questions if I tell him he can send the bill to the police.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

Anna-Maria lowers her feet to the floor.

“Wait for me,” she says. “Robert can dig the car out.”

“Take it easy now, Rebecka,” says Vesa Larsson. “We only want to talk. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Without taking his eyes off her he fumbles behind with his hand, grabs hold of the door handle and presses it downward.

We, she thinks. Who are “we”?

All at once she realizes that he is not alone. He just came in first to make sure the situation was under control.

Vesa Larsson opens the door and two other men come into the room. The door closes behind them. They are dressed in dark clothes. No skin visible anywhere. Balaclavas. Goggles.

Rebecka tries to get up from the chair, but her legs will not obey her. It is as if her whole body is ceasing to function. Her lungs are incapable of taking in any air. The blood that has flowed through her veins since she was born is stopping. Like the river when a dam has been built. Her stomach is turning into a solid knot.

No, no, fuck, fuck…

One of the two men takes off his hood and reveals his dark shiny curls. It is Curt Bäckström. His snowsuit is black and shiny. On his feet he has sturdy biker’s boots with steel toe-caps. Over his shoulder he is carrying a shotgun, double barreled. His nostrils and pupils are flared, like a warhorse. She looks straight into his glazed eyes. Sees the fever in them.

Be very careful with him, she thinks.

She sneaks a glance at the girls. They are fast asleep.

She sees who the other man is before he removes his hood and goggles. It doesn’t matter what he’s wearing, she would recognize him anywhere. Thomas Söderberg. The way he moves. Dominates the room. It’s almost as if they had rehearsed. Curt Bäckström and Vesa Larsson take up positions on either side of the door to the pigsty.

Vesa Larsson looks past her. Or maybe straight through her. He has the same look as the parents of small children in the supermarket. The muscles beneath the skin of the face have given up. They can’t hide the tiredness anymore. The dead expression. The parents haul their trolleys up and down the aisles like donkeys beaten to the limit of their endurance, deaf to their children’s crying or their agitated chatter.

Thomas Söderberg takes a step forward. At first he doesn’t look at her. With tense, watchful movements he unzips his leathers and takes out his glasses. They are new since she last saw him, but that’s a long time ago. He looks around the room like a commander in a science-fiction film, registers everything, the children, the axe in the corner and Rebecka, by the kitchen table. Then he relaxes. His shoulders drop. His movements become softer, like a lion padding over the savannah.

He turns to Rebecka.

“Do you remember that Easter when you invited Maja and me here?” he asks. “It feels like another lifetime. For a while I thought I wouldn’t be able to find it. In the dark and the storm.”

Rebecka looks at him. He takes off his hood and his gloves and pushes them into the pockets of his leathers. His hair has got thinner. The odd gray streak among the brown, otherwise he is just the same. As if time had stood still. Maybe he has put on a little weight, but it’s hard to tell.

Vesa Larsson leans against the door frame. He is breathing with his mouth open and his face is turned slightly upward, as if he were feeling carsick. His gaze wanders from Curt to Thomas, and to Rebecka herself. But he doesn’t look at the children.

Why doesn’t he look at the children?

Curt sways to and fro a little. His gaze is firmly fixed, sometimes on Rebecka, sometimes on Thomas.

What’s going to happen now? Is Curt going to take the shotgun from his shoulder and shoot her? One, two, three, and it’s all over. Black. She must gain time. Talk, woman. Think of Sara and Lova.

Rebecka uses her hands to support her; leaning on the edge of the table, she raises herself from the chair.

“Sit down!” barks Thomas, and she slumps back down like a beaten dog.

Sara whimpers slightly but doesn’t wake. She turns over and her breathing once again becomes deep and calm.

“Was it you?” croaks Rebecka. “Why?”

“It was God himself, Rebecka,” says Thomas earnestly.

She recognizes the serious tone of voice and the attitude. This is how he looks and sounds when he wants to impress important matters upon his listeners. His whole being is transformed. It is as if he were a block of stone that has thrust up through the earth from under the ground, with its roots in the earth’s core. Gravity, strength and power through and through. And yet, at the same time, humility before God.

Why is he putting on this performance for her? No, it isn’t for her benefit. It’s for Curt. He’s… he’s handling Curt.

“What about the children?” she asks.

Thomas bows his head. Now there is something fragile in his tone. Something frail. It’s as if his voice can barely manage the words.

“If you hadn’t…” he begins. “… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for forcing me to do this, Rebecka.”

As if he has been given an invisible sign, Curt removes his right glove and takes a coil of rope from his pocket.

She turns to Curt. Forces her voice past the lump blocking her throat.

“But you love Sanna,” she says. “How can you love her and kill her children?”

Curt closes his eyes. He continues to sway gently to and fro as if he doesn’t hear her. Then his lips move silently for a while before he answers.

“They are shadow children,” he says. “They must be put aside.”

If she can just get him talking. Gain some time. She has to think. Follow his thread. Thomas is letting him talk, he daren’t do anything else.

“ ‘Shadow children’? What do you mean?”

She tilts her head to one side and rests her cheek on her hand just as Sanna does, makes a real effort to keep her voice calm.

Curt speaks straight out into the room with his eyes fixed on the kerosene lamp. As if he were alone. Or as if there were some being inside the light itself, listening to him.

“The sun is behind me,” he says. “My shadow falls before me. It walks in front of me. But when I step into it, the shadow must give way. Sanna will have new children. She will bear me two sons.”

I’m going to be sick, thinks Rebecka, and she can taste minced elk meat and bile surging up through her body.

She gets up. Her face is as white as snow. Her legs are trembling under her. Her body is so heavy. It weighs several tons. Her legs are like spindly toothpicks.

In a second Curt is in front of her. His face is twisted with rage. He screams at her so loudly that he has to draw breath after each word.

“You… were… told… to… sit… down!”

He hits her in the stomach with enormous force and she folds forward like a clasp knife. Her legs lose their last vestige of strength. The floor comes rushing up to meet her face. Grandmother’s rag rug against her cheek. Unbearable pain in her stomach. A long way above her, agitated voices. A rushing, ringing noise in her ears.

She has to close her eyes for a little while. Just for a little while. Then she’ll open her eyes. That’s a promise. Sara and Lova. Sara and Lova. Who’s screaming? Is it Lova, screaming like that? Just for a little while…

Benny the locksmith unlocks the door to Curt Bäckström’s apartment and disappears. Sven-Erik Stålnacke and Anna-Maria Mella stand there on the dark staircase. Only the lights from outside shine in through the window facing the yard. Silence. They look at each other and nod. Anna-Maria has undone the safety catch on her pistol, a Sig Sauer.

Sven-Erik goes in. She hears his tentative hello. Anna-Maria stands guard outside the open door.

I must be out of my mind, she thinks.

The bottom of her back is aching. She leans against the wall and takes deep breaths. What if he’s in there in the dark. He might be dead. Or lying in wait somewhere. He could rush her from inside and knock her down the stairs.

Sven-Erik switches on the light in the hallway.

She peers in. It’s a one-room apartment. You can see straight into the combined living room and bedroom from the hall. It’s a peculiar place. Does someone really live here?

There isn’t a stick of furniture in the hall. No desk with bits and pieces and the mail. No mat. Nothing hanging on the coat stand below the hat pegs. The living room is empty too. Almost. There are some lamps standing on the floor, and a huge mirror hangs on the wall. The windows are covered with black sheets. Nothing on the windowsills. No curtains. A single pine bed up against the wall. The coverlet is pale blue machine-quilted nylon.

Sven-Erik comes out of the kitchen. He shakes his head imperceptibly. Their eyes meet. Full of questions and foreboding. He walks over to the bathroom door and opens it. The light switch is on the inside. He stretches out his hand. She hears the click, but the light doesn’t come on. Sven-Erik remains standing in the doorway. She can see him from the side. His hand taking out his key ring. He has a small torch on it. The narrow beam of light in through the door. The eyes narrowing so that they can see better.

Perhaps she makes a movement that he sees out of the corner of his eye, because his hand flies up to stop her. He takes one step into the room. One foot over the threshold. Her back is tense and aching again. She clenches her fist and presses it against her spine.

He comes out of the bathroom. Rapid steps. Mouth open. Pupils like black holes in a face made of ice.

“Ring,” he says hoarsely.

“Ring who?” she asks.

"Everybody! Wake up the whole bloody lot of them!"

Rebecka opens her eyes. How much time has passed? Thomas Söderberg’s face is floating just below the ceiling. He looks like the eclipse of the sun. His face is in the shadows, and the kerosene lamp hanging behind his head forms a corona around his brown curls.

Her stomach is still hurting. Worse than before. And over and above the pain, outside the pain, is something warm and wet. Blood. She realizes with terror that Curt didn’t punch her.

He stabbed her with a knife.

“This isn’t exactly what we planned,” says Thomas Söderberg firmly. “We must reconsider.”

She turns her head. Sara and Lova are lying head to tail on the bed. Their hands are tied to the bedposts. Bits of white cloth are sticking out of their mouths. On the floor by the bed lies a torn-up sheet. That’s what they’ve got in their mouths. She can see their chests moving up and down rapidly as they fight to take in enough air through their noses.

Lova has a cold. But she’s breathing.

Keep calm, she’s breathing. Fuck, fuck.

“The idea was,” says Thomas Söderberg thoughtfully, “the idea was to set fire to the cabin. And we were going to give you the keys to your snowmobile so you could get away, just in your nightdress or a T-shirt. You’d take the chance, of course; who wouldn’t? With the storm and the windchill factor when you’re traveling by snowmobile, I reckon you’d have got about a hundred meters at the most. Then you’d have fallen off and frozen to death in a matter of minutes. It would have shown up as a simple accident on the police report. The cabin catches fire. You panic, leave the kids and rush out just as you are. You try to escape and freeze to death just a little distance away. No major investigation, no questions. Now it’s going to be more difficult.”

“Are you intending to let the children burn to death?”

Thomas bites his lip thoughtfully as if he hasn’t heard her.

“I think we’ll have to take you with us,” he says. “Even if your body burns, the mark of the stab wound might still be there. I can’t risk that.”

He breaks off and turns his head as Vesa Larsson comes in with a red plastic gasoline can in his hand.

"No gasoline," says Thomas angrily. "No accelerants and no chemicals. Anything like that will show up in a technical examination. We’ll set fire to the curtains and the bedclothes with matches."

He nods at Rebecka.

“We’ll take her with us,” he continues. “You two go and spread a tarpaulin over the trailer.”

Vesa Larsson and Curt disappear through the door. The storm roars, then falls silent as the door closes. Now she is alone with him. Her heart is pounding. She must hurry. She knows that. Otherwise her body will fail her.

Did Curt put the gun down by the door? Difficult to spread out a heavy tarpaulin in a storm with a gun slung on your back. Come closer.

“I can’t understand how you could do this,” says Rebecka. “Doesn’t it say ‘Thou shalt not kill’?”

Thomas sighs. He is squatting by her side.

“And yet, the Bible is full of examples of when God has taken life,” he says. “Don’t you understand, Rebecka? He is allowed to break his own laws. And I couldn’t do it. I told him that. Then he sent me Curt. It was more than a sign. I had to obey him.”

He stops to wipe away the snot running from his nose. His face is beginning to redden in the heat from the stove. It must be warm in that suit.

“I don’t have the right to allow you to destroy God’s work. The media would have blown these financial difficulties up into a full-scale scandal, and then it would all have been over. What has happened in Kiruna is something great. And yet, God has made me understand that this is only the beginning.”

“Did Viktor threaten you?”

“In the end he was a threat to everyone. Not least to himself. But I know that he is with God.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Thomas shakes his head impatiently.

“There is neither the time nor any reason to do so, Rebecka.”

“And what about the girls?”

“They can tell people things about their uncle that… We still need Viktor. His name must not be dragged through the dirt. Do you know how many people we help to come off drugs every year? Do you know how many children are reunited with their lost mummies and daddies? Do you know how many find faith? Job opportunities? A decent life? Marriages saved? In the night God has talked to me about all this again and again.”

He breaks off and stretches out his hand to her. Lets his fingers trail over her mouth and down to her throat.

“I loved you just as much as I love my own daughter. And you…”

“I know,” she squeaks. “Forgive me.”

Come closer.

“But what about now?" she sobs. "Do you love me now?”

His face becomes as hard as stone.

“You killed my child.”

The man who has only daughters. Who wanted a son.

“I know. I think about him every day. But it wasn’t…”

She turns her head to the side and coughs and presses her hand against her stomach. Then she looks up at him again.

There it was. She could see it. Thirty centimeters from her head. The stone Lova had painted Virku on. When he’s close enough. Grab it and hit him. Don’t think. Don’t hesitate. Grab it and hit him.

“There was someone else as well. It wasn’t…”

Her voice tails away in an exhausted whisper. He leans toward her. Like a fox listening for voles under the snow.

Her lips form words he cannot hear.

Finally he bends over her. Don’t hesitate, count to three.

“Pray for me…” she whispers in his ear.

One…

“… you weren’t the only one I…”

Two…

“… it wasn’t your child.”

Three!

He stiffens for a second and it’s enough. Her arm shoots out like a striking cobra, grabs the stone. She shuts her eyes and hits him with every ounce of strength she has. On the temple. In her mind’s eye she sees the stone shooting like a missile straight through his skull and out through the wall. But when she opens her eyes the stone is still in her hand. Thomas is lying on his side next to her. Perhaps his hands are making an attempt to shield his head. She doesn’t really know. She is already up on her knees and she hits him again. And again. On the head every time.

That’s enough. Now she’s in a hurry.

She drops the stone and tries to get to her feet, but her legs won’t bear her weight. She crawls across the floor to the corner by the door. Curt’s shotgun is next to the axe. She drags herself along on her knees, using her right hand. She keeps her left hand pressed against her stomach.

If she can only manage it in time. If they come in now it’s all over.

She grabs hold of the weapon. Gets to her knees. Fumbles. Her hands are shaky and clumsy. Slips the bolt. Breaks the gun. It’s loaded. Snaps it shut and releases the safety catch. Scrabbles backwards toward the middle of the floor. The rag rugs are spattered with blood. Drops of her own blood as big as a one-krona coin. Blurred prints from her right hand, the hand that held the stone.

If they go around the house they’ll be able to see her through the window. They won’t do that. Why would they go tramping off round there? She feels ill. Mustn’t throw up. How is she going to manage to hold on to the gun?

She shuffles farther back in a half-sitting position, one hand pressed against her stomach. Moves the other hand toward the table and pushes with her legs. Gets hold of the gun and drags it along with her. Sits with the table leg supporting her back. Legs slightly drawn up. Lays the gun along her thighs so that it is pointing upward at the door. And waits.

“Keep calm,” she says to Lova and Sara without taking her eyes off the door. “Shut your eyes and keep calm.”

Curt is the first to come in through the door. Just behind him she can see Vesa. Curt catches sight of her with the gun. Registers the two black holes pointing at him. For a fraction of a second his face alters. From irritation with the cold, the wind and the stiff tarpaulin into-not fear, but something else. First of all, the realization that he can’t get to her in time. Then his gaze becomes dull. Empty and expressionless.

She doesn’t lift the gun high enough and the recoil cracks her lower rib when she blasts a hole in Curt’s stomach. He falls back against the door. The snow comes whirling in through the opening.

Vesa stands frozen to the spot. His whole body is a single scream.

“In!” she snaps, and points the gun at him. “And bring him with you. Sit down!”

He does as she says and squats on his haunches by the door.

“On your backside!” she orders.

He slumps down. His suit is bulky. He can’t easily get to his feet from that position. Without her telling him to, he links his hands behind his head. Curt is lying between them. In the silence that follows when the door has closed against the storm, they can hear Curt’s labored breathing: short, panting whistles.

She leans her head back. Tired. Very tired.

“Now,” she says to Vesa Larsson, “you are going to tell me everything. And as long as you keep talking and keep telling the truth, you can stay alive.”

“Sanna Strandgård came to me,” says Vesa hoarsely. “She was… in floods of tears. I know that’s a ridiculous expression, but you should have seen her.”

Oh, I can see her, all right, thinks Rebecka. Hair all fluffed out like a dandelion clock. Nobody suits snot and tears better than Sanna.

“She said Viktor had interfered with her girls.”

Rebecka steals a glance at the girls; they are still tied to the bed with rags in their mouths. She’s afraid she’ll faint if she crawls over to them. And if she tells Vesa to untie them, he can kick the gun out of her hand in a second. She must wait a little while.

They’re breathing. They’re alive. She’ll soon work out what to do.

“What do you mean, ‘interfered with’?”

“I don’t know, it was something Sara had said that made her realize. I didn’t really get a clear idea of what had happened. But I promised to speak to Viktor. I…”

He breaks off in confusion.

She does confuse people, thinks Rebecka. Lures them into the forest and steals their compass.

“Yes?”

“I was such a fool,” he whines. “I asked her not to go to the police or the authorities. She’d spoken to Patrik Mattsson. I rang him and said Sanna had made a mistake. Threatened to throw him out of the church if he spread the rumor around.”

“Get on with it,” said Rebecka impatiently. “Did you speak to Viktor?”

The gun resting on her legs is getting heavier and heavier.

“He wouldn’t listen to me. It wasn’t even a conversation. He leaned across my desk and threatened me-said my days as a pastor in this church were numbered. Said he had no intention of putting up with the fact that the pastors were lining their own pockets through the business.”

"The trading company?"

“Yes. When we started Victory Print, I thought it was all aboveboard. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t think too hard about it. A member of the church who owned his own company gave us the idea. He said it was all perfectly legal. We put the costs down to the company, and reclaimed the VAT from the state. Of course, the church gave us money to make the investments on the quiet, but in our eyes everything in the company belonged to our church anyway. As I saw it, we weren’t deceiving anybody. It wasn’t until I broke the vow of confidentiality and told Thomas about Sanna’s suspicions, and that Viktor had threatened me, that I realized we were in trouble. Thomas got scared. Do you understand? Within the space of three hours, the whole world began to shake. Viktor was aggressive and a danger to children. Viktor, who had always loved children. Used to help out in Sunday school and so on… It made me feel sick. And Thomas was afraid. Thomas, who’d always been as solid as a rock. And I was a criminal. Can I take my hands down from my neck? My head and shoulders are aching.”

She nods.

“We decided to speak to him together,” he goes on. “Thomas said Viktor needed help, and he would get that help within the church. So that evening…”

He stops speaking and they both look at Curt, lying on the floor between them. The rug has turned red beneath him. His breathing changes from a whistling rattle to a quiet wheezing. And then he stops breathing. Silence.

Vesa Larsson stares at him, his pupils dilated with fear. Then he looks at Rebecka and at the shotgun on her knee.

Rebecka blinks. She is beginning to feel listless and uninterested. It is as if Vesa’s story no longer has anything to do with her. But now he needs no encouragement to keep talking. Suddenly he is babbling at top speed.

“Viktor wouldn’t listen to us. He said he had fasted and prayed, and that it was time for the church to be cleansed. All of a sudden we were the ones standing there being accused. He said we were hawkers who should be driven from the temple. That this was God’s work, yet we were prepared to hand it over to Mammon. And then… oh, God… then all at once Curt was there. I don’t know if he’d been standing there listening all the time, or if he’d just come into the church.”

Vesa screws up his eyes and his mouth contorts into a grimace.

“Viktor pointed at Thomas and screamed, I don’t remember what. Curt had an unopened wine bottle in his hand. We had celebrated communion during the service. He hit Viktor on the back of the head. Viktor fell to his knees. Curt was wearing a big padded jacket. He slipped the bottle into his inside pocket. Then he took the knife out of his belt and stabbed him. Two or three blows. Viktor fell backwards and stayed still, lying on his back.”

“And you stood there watching,” whispers Rebecka.

“I tried to intervene, but Thomas stopped me.”

He pushes his fists against his eyes.

“No, that isn’t true,” he goes on. “I think I took a step forward. But Thomas just made a small movement with his hand. And I stopped. Just like a well-trained dog. Then Curt turned and came over to us. Suddenly I was terrified that he was going to kill me too. Thomas stood completely still with no expression on his face. I remember looking at him and thinking I’d read that’s what you’re meant to do if you’re attacked by a rabid dog. Don’t run, don’t scream, just stay calm and stand still. We stood there. Curt didn’t say anything either, just looked at us with the knife in his hand. Then he turned on his heel and went back to Viktor. He…”

Vesa makes a keening noise through his teeth.

“…stabbed him again, over and over. Dug into his eyes with the knife. Then he stuck his fingers into the sockets and smeared the blood over his own eyes. ‘All that he has seen, I have now seen,’ he cried out. He licked the knife like… an animal! I think he cut his tongue, because there was blood trickling down the side of his mouth. And then he cut off the hands. Hacking and twisting. He pushed one in his jacket pocket, but there wasn’t room for the other one, and he dropped it on the floor, and… I don’t really remember after that. Thomas drove me along Norgevägen in his car. I stood out in the cold in the middle of the night throwing up. And all the time Thomas was going on and on. About our families. About the church. Saying the best thing we could do now was to keep quiet. Afterward, I wondered whether he knew Curt was there. Or whether he’d actually seen him standing there.”

“And Gunnar Isaksson?”

“He didn’t know anything. He’s a waste of space.”

“You cowardly bastard,” said Rebecka, exhausted.

“I’ve got children,” he whines. “Everything will be different now. You’ll see.”

“Don’t even bother,” she says. “When Sanna came to you. That’s when you should have gone to the police and Social Services. But no-you didn’t want the scandal. You didn’t want to lose your nice house and your well-paying job.”

Soon she won’t be able to keep her right leg drawn up any longer. If she puts the gun down on the floor he’ll have time to get up and kick her in the head before she’s even had time to raise it into the firing position. She can’t see properly. Black spots are clouding her vision. As if somebody had fired paintballs at a shop window.

She’s going to faint. There’s no time.

She points the gun at him.

"Don’t do it, Rebecka," he says. "You won’t be able to live with yourself. I never wanted this, Rebecka. It’s over now"

She wishes he would do something. Make a move to get up. Reach for the axe.

Maybe she can trust him. Maybe he’ll put her and the children in the sledge and take them back. Give himself up to the police.

Or maybe not. And then-roaring fire. The terrified eyes of the girls as they tug at the ropes binding their hands and feet to the bed. The flames melting the flesh on their bones. If Vesa sets the place on fire, there’s nobody to tell. Thomas and Curt will get the blame, and he’ll walk free.

He came here to kill us, she says to herself. Just remember that.

He is weeping now, Vesa Larsson. Just a moment ago Rebecka was sixteen, sitting in the cellar of the Pentecostal church in the middle of all his painting gear, talking about God, life, love and art.

“Think of my children, Rebecka.”

It’s him or the girls.

She closes her eyes as her finger squeezes the trigger. The report is deafening. When she opens her eyes he is still sitting there in the same position. But he no longer has a face. A second passes, then the body falls to one side.

Don’t look at it. Don’t think. Sara and Lova.

She drops the gun and hauls herself up onto all fours. Her whole body shakes from the exertion as she crawls toward the bed, inch by inch. A ringing, howling noise fills her ears.

Sara’s hand. One hand is enough. If she can free one hand…

She crawls over Curt’s lifeless body. Fumbles with his belt. Gropes under his body with her hand. There’s the knife. She undoes the sheath, draws it out. It looks as if she has dipped her hand in blood. She’s reached the bed.

Steady hand, now. Don’t cut Sara.

She cuts through the hemp rope and pulls it off Sara’s wrist. Places the knife in Sara’s free hand and sees her fingers close around the handle.

Now rest.

She slumps down on the floor.

After a little while Lova and Sara’s faces appear above her. She grabs Sara’s sleeve.

“Remember,” she croaks. “Stay inside the cabin. Keep the door shut and put on your snowsuits and all the blankets. Sivving and Bella are coming in the morning. Wait for them. Are you listening, Sara? I’m just going to have a little rest.”

Nothing hurts anymore. But her hands are ice cold. She loses her grip on Sara’s sleeve. Their faces drift away. She is sinking down into a well; they are standing at the top in the sun, looking down at her. And all the time it’s getting darker and colder.

Sara and Lova crouch down on either side of Rebecka. Lova turns to her older sister.

“What did she say?” she asks.

“I thought it sounded like ‘Will you receive me?’ ” replies Sara.

The winter wind was tearing frantically at the spindly birch trees outside the hospital in Kiruna. Pulling at their gnarled arms, reaching up into the blue black sky. Snapping their spindly, frozen fingers.

Måns Wenngren hurtled straight past the intensive care reception desk. The cold glare of the fluorescent lights bounced off the polished surface of the floor and the pallid cream walls of the corridor, with their indescribably ugly pattern in wine red. His whole being was revolted by the impression. The smell of disinfectant and cleaning fluid mixed with the stale, creeping stench of crumbling bodies. The constant clatter of metal trollies delivering food, samples or Lord knows what.

At least it isn’t Christmas, he thought.

His father had had his final heart attack on Christmas day. It was many years ago now, but Måns could still see the hospital staff’s unfortunate and unsuccessful attempts to create a festive atmosphere on the ward. Cheap, mass-produced ginger biscuits served with afternoon tea on paper serviettes with a Christmas motif. A plastic tree at the far end of the corridor, its needles pointing the wrong way and squashed flat after a long year in its box up on a shelf in the storeroom. Odd baubles dangling from the branches on a piece of thread. And beneath the lower branches, gaudy packages that you knew had nothing in them.

He shook off the memories before they got as far as his parents. Swung around without pausing, his wool coat streaming out behind him like a cloak.

“I’m looking for Rebecka Martinsson,” he roared. “Is anybody working here, or what?”

That morning he had been woken by the telephone. It was the police in Kiruna, wondering if it was true that he was Rebecka Martinsson’s boss. Yes, it was true. They hadn’t managed to find any records of close relatives. Perhaps the firm knew if she had a partner or boyfriend? No, the firm didn’t know that. He had asked what had happened. The police had finally told him Rebecka was undergoing an operation, but they refused to part with any more information.

He had phoned the hospital in Kiruna. They hadn’t even been prepared to confirm that she’d been admitted. “Classified” was the only word he could get out of them.

Then he’d phoned one of the two female partners in the firm.

“Måns, darling,” she’d said, “Rebecka is your assistant.”

In the end he’d taken a taxi to the airport at Arlanda.

Halfway down the corridor a nurse caught up with him. She followed him, a torrent of words spilling out as he opened various doors and looked in. He registered only fragments of her babble. Classified. Unauthorized. Security.

“I’m her partner,” he bluffed as he carried on opening doors and looking in.

He found Rebecka alone in a four-bed room. Next to the bed was a drip with a plastic bag half full of clear fluid. Eyes closed. Face deathly white, even her lips.

He pulled a stool up to the bed, but didn’t sit down. Instead he turned and growled at the little woman who was pursuing him. She disappeared at once, her Birkenstocks clattering frantically down the corridor.

After a moment another woman wearing a white coat and white trousers came in. In two strides he was right in front of her, reading the small name badge pinned to her breast pocket.

“Right, Sister Frida,” he said aggressively, before she’d even managed to open her mouth, “would you be so kind as to explain this to me?”

He pointed at Rebecka’s hands. Both were securely tied to the sides of the bed with gauze bandage.

Sister Frida blinked in surprise before she answered.

“Come out here with me,” she said softly. “Then we can calm down and have a little chat.”

Måns waved his hand in front of him as if she’d been a fly.

“Fetch the doctor who’s responsible for her,” he said angrily.

Sister Frida was attractive. She was a natural blonde. She had high cheekbones, and her mouth was subtly painted with pink lip gloss. She was used to people obeying her soft voice. She was known for it. She’d never been a fly before. She wondered whether to call security. Or maybe the police, in view of these particular circumstances. But then she looked at Måns Wenngren. Her gaze swept over him, from the improbably well-ironed shirt collar, over the gray-and-black-striped tie, to the discreet black suit and the beautifully polished shoes.

“All right, come with me and you can speak to the doctor,” she said brusquely, turned on her heel and stalked out with Måns trailing in her wake.

The doctor was a short man with thick, gray-blond hair. His face was sunburned and his nose had begun to peel slightly. Presumably he’d recently had a little holiday abroad. His white coat was left casually unbuttoned over jeans and a turquoise T-shirt. The pocket of his coat was stuffed with several pens, a notebook and a pair of glasses.

Middle-aged angst with traces of hippie syndrome, thought Måns, standing just a little too close when they shook hands so that the doctor was forced to look upward like a stargazer.

They went into the consulting room together.

“It’s for her own good,” the doctor explained to Måns. “When she woke up she pulled the cannula out of her arm. We’ve given her a mild sedative, but-”

“Is she being held for questioning?” asked Måns. “Or has she been arrested?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Has any decision been taken about compulsory care? Is there a care order?”

“No.”

“Shit, it’s like the Wild West up here,” said Mans contemptuously. “You’ve got her lying here, tied up, with no order from the police, the prosecutor or the chief medical officer. That’s illegal curtailment of liberty. Prosecution, fines and a slap on the wrist from the authorities for you. But I’m not here to cause trouble. Tell me what’s happened, the police must have told you, untie her and get me a cup of coffee. In return I’ll sit quietly in her room and make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid when she wakes up. And I won’t make trouble for the hospital either.”

“But the information the police passed on to me is classified,” said the doctor halfheartedly.

“Give some, get some,” Måns replied laconically.

A little while later Måns was leaning back on the uncomfortable chair next to Rebecka’s bed. His left hand was gently clasping her fingers, and in the other hand he had a cup of scalding coffee in a plastic cup in a brown holder.

“Bloody girl,” he muttered. “Wake up so I can tell you off.”

Darkness. Then darkness and pain. Rebecka opens her eyes carefully. On the wall above the door is a large clock. The minute hand quivers each time it jumps to the next mark. She screws up her eyes, but can’t make out what it says, or if it’s day or night. The light stabs at her eyes like knives. Burns a hole of pain into her head. It explodes in a thousand pieces. Every breath is pain and agony. Her tongue is stuck fast to the top of her mouth. She closes her eyes again and sees Vesa Larsson’s terrified face before her. “Don’t do it, Rebecka. You won’t be able to live with yourself.”

Back into the darkness. Down. Deeper. Downward. Away. The pain recedes. And she is dreaming. It’s summer. The sun is blazing down from a blue sky. The bumblebees weave about drunkenly between the midsummer flowers and the yarrow. Her grandmother is kneeling on the jetty down by the river, scrubbing rag rugs. She has made the soap herself from lye and fat. The scrubbing brush moves back and forth over the stripes on the rug. The faint breeze from the river keeps the mosquitoes away. On the edge of the jetty sits a child with her feet in the water. She has caught a water boatman in a jam jar with a hole in the lid. She is fascinated, watching the large beetle swimming around inside the jar. Rebecka begins to walk down to the water. She is strangely aware that she is dreaming, and mumbles quietly to herself: “Let me see her face. Let me see what she looks like.” Then Johanna turns and catches sight of her. She holds the jam jar triumphantly up to show Rebecka as her lips form the word “Mummy.”

It was almost a Christmas card. But not really. Three wise men looking down at the sleeping child. But the child was Rebecka Martinsson and the men Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl von Post, the lawyer Måns Wenngren and Inspector Sven-Erik Stålnacke.

“She’s killed three people,” said von Post. “I can’t just let her go.”

“It’s a textbook example of self-defense,” said Måns Wenngren. “Surely you can see that? Besides which, she’s the hero of the hour. Believe me, the newspapers are already busy cooking up a real Modesty Blaise story. Saved two children, killed all the bad guys… You need to ask yourself what role you want to play. The heap of shit who goes after her and tries to put her behind bars? Or the nice guy who gets to join in and share the glory?”

The assistant chief prosecutor’s gaze flickered away. Flew to Sven-Erik, where there was no support to be had, not even the smallest stick to lean on. Wandered back to the yellow hospital blanket, neatly tucked in under Rebecka’s mattress.

“We had thought we’d try to keep the media out of it,” he said tentatively. “I mean, the dead pastors had families. A certain amount of consideration…”

Beneath his moustache Sven-Erik Stålnacke sucked air in through his teeth.

“It’s going to be difficult to keep the press and TV out of it,” said Måns casually. “The truth has a way of leaking out somehow.”

Von Post fastened his coat.

“All right, but she’s got to be interrogated. She’s going nowhere until then.”

“Of course. As soon as the doctors say she’s up to it. Anything else?”

“Call me when she’s ready to be interviewed,” said von Post to Sven-Erik, and disappeared through the door.

Sven-Erik Stålnacke took off his padded jacket.

“I’ll go and sit in the corridor,” he said. “Let me know when she wakes up. There’s something I want to say to her. I was thinking of getting a coffee and a snack from the machine. Can I get you anything?”

Rebecka woke up. In less than a minute a doctor was leaning over her. Big nose and big hands. Broad back. Looked like a black-smith in disguise in his white coat. He asked how she was feeling. She didn’t reply. Behind him stood a nurse with a caring and not too broad smile on her face. Måns by the window. Looking out, although he couldn’t possibly see anything other than a reflection of himself and the room behind him. Fiddled with the blind. Closed, opened. Closed, opened.

“You’ve gone through quite an ordeal,” said the doctor. “Both physically and mentally. Sister Marie here is going to give you something to calm you down, and a little more pain relief if you need it.”

The last remark was a question, but she didn’t answer. The doctor got up, nodding to the nurse.

The injection worked after a while. She could breathe normally without it hurting.

Måns sat down by the bed and looked at her in silence.

“Thirsty,” she whispered.

“You’re not allowed to drink properly yet. You’re getting what you need through the drip, but just wait a while.”

He got up. She brushed his hand.

“Don’t be angry,” she croaked.

“Don’t start,” he said as he walked toward the door. “I’m bloody furious.”

After a while he came back with two white plastic cups. In one of them was water so that she could rinse her mouth. In the other two ice cubes.

“You’re allowed to suck these,” he said, rattling the ice cubes. “There’s a policeman here who wants to talk to you. Are you up to it?”

She nodded.

Måns waved Sven-Erik in, and he sat down by her bed.

“The girls?” she asked.

“They’re fine,” said Sven-Erik. “We got to the cabin quite soon after… after it was all over.”

“How?”

“We went into Curt Bäckström’s apartment and realized we had to find you. We can talk about all that later, but we found a number of rather unpleasant things. In his refrigerator and freezer, among other places. So we went to the house in Kurravaara, the address you’d given the police. But there was nobody there. We actually broke in. Then we went to the nearest neighbor.”

“Sivving.”

“He was able to lead us to the cabin. The eldest girl told us what happened.”

"But the girls are all right?"

“Definitely. Sara’s cheek was frostbitten. She’d been outside trying to start the snowmobile.”

Rebecka whimpered. “But I told her.”

“It’s nothing serious. They’re here in the hospital with their mother.”

Rebecka closed her eyes.

“I want to see the girls.”

Sven-Erik rubbed his chin and looked at Måns. Måns shrugged his shoulders.

“She did save their lives after all.”

“Okay,” said Sven-Erik. “We’ll have a word with the nice doctor and we won’t bother having a word with the nice prosecutor, and we’ll see.”

Sven-Erik Stålnacke pushed Rebecka’s bed in front of him along the corridor. Måns was one step behind with the rickety drip.

“That reporter who dropped the assault complaint has been sticking to me like a tick,” said Måns to Rebecka.

The corridor outside Sanna and the girls’ room was almost eerily empty. It was half past ten at night. From the dayroom farther along they could see the bluish glow of a television, but no sound. Sven-Erik knocked on the door and backed away a few meters, along with Måns.

It was Olof Strandgård who opened the door. His face contorted in an expression of distaste when he saw Rebecka. They glimpsed Kristina and Sanna behind him. There was no sign of the children. Perhaps they were sleeping.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” said Sanna, stepping out of the room. “You stay here with Mummy and the girls.”

She closed the door behind her and went to stand beside Rebecka. Through the door they heard Olof Strandgård’s voice:

“I mean, she was the one who endangered the girls’ lives,” he said. “Is she supposed to be some sort of hero now?”

Then they heard Kristina Strandgård, couldn’t make out any words, just a soothing mumble.

“What?” Olof Strandgård again. “So if I chuck somebody through a hole in the ice and then pull him out, I’ve saved his life, have I?”

Sanna pulled a face at Rebecka. Don’t bother about him, we’re all a bit shaken up and tired, it said.

“Sara,” said Rebecka. “And Lova.”

“They’re asleep, I don’t want to wake them up. I’ll tell them you were here.”

She’s not going to let me see them, thought Rebecka, biting her lip.

Sanna reached out her hand and stroked Rebecka’s cheek.

“I’m not angry with you,” she said gently. “I know you did what you thought was best for them.”

Rebecka’s hand clenched into a fist under the blanket. Then it shot out and fastened itself around Sanna’s wrist like a pine marten grabbing a ptarmigan by the back of the neck.

“You…” hissed Rebecka.

Sanna tried to pull her hand away, but Rebecka hung on to her.

“What is it?” asked Sanna. “What have I done?”

Måns and Sven-Erik Stålnacke carried on talking to each other a little distance away down the corridor, but it was obvious they had completely lost the thread of their own conversation. All their attention was fixed on Rebecka and Sanna.

Sanna crumpled.

“What have I done?” she whimpered again.

“I don’t know,” said Rebecka, holding on to Sanna’s hand as tightly as she could. “You tell me what you’ve done. Curt loved you, didn’t he? In his own twisted way. Maybe you told him about your suspicions of Viktor? Maybe you did the whole helpless-little-girl bit, told him you didn’t know what you were going to do? Maybe you cried a little and said you wished Viktor would just disappear out of your life?”

Sanna jerked back as if someone had slapped her. For a second something dark and alien passed across her eyes. Rage. She looked as if she wished her nails would grow into claws of iron so that she could dig them into Rebecka and rip out her insides. Then the moment was gone and her lower lip began to tremble. Big tears welled up in her eyes.

“I really didn’t know…” she stammered. “How could I know what Curt would do… how can you think…?”

“I’m not even sure it was Viktor,” said Rebecka. “It might just have been Olof. All the time. But you can’t get the better of him. And now you’re taking the girls back to him. I’m going to put in a complaint. Ask Social Services to carry out an investigation.”

They had met on the spring ice. On an ice floe, the remains of something that no longer existed. And now the ice was cracking, splitting in two. They were floating away in different directions. Irrevocably.

Rebecka turned her head away and released her hold on Sanna, almost threw the white hand away from her.

“Tired,” she said.

In a flash Måns and Sven-Erik were by the bed. Each of them bade a silent farewell to Sanna. Mans jerked his head. Sven-Erik gave a brief nod, and smiled. They swapped places. Måns grabbed hold of the bed and Sven-Erik took the drip. Without a word they pushed Rebecka off down the corridor.

Sanna Strandgård stood there watching them as they disappeared around the corner. She leaned against the closed door.

In the summer, thought Sanna, I’ll take the girls on a cycling holiday. I’ll borrow a trailer for Lova. Sara will be all right on her own bike. We can cycle down through Tornedalen, they’d like that.

Sven-Erik said good-bye and disappeared in the opposite direction. Måns pressed the elevator button, and the door slid open with a ping. He swore as he banged the bed against one of the walls. He stretched out for the drip, keeping one leg in front of the electronic eye at the same time so the door wouldn’t close. The unaccustomed gymnastics made him breathless. He was dying for a Scotch. He looked at Rebecka. Her eyes were closed. Maybe she’d fallen asleep.

“Do you think you can put up with this?” he asked with a crooked smile. “Being pushed around by an old man?”

From a loudspeaker in the ceiling a metallic voice announced “Third floor,” and the elevator door slid open.

Rebecka didn’t open her eyes.

You carry on pushing, she thought. I can’t afford to be choosy. I’ll take what I can get.