The Darkest Room

20

After the break-in at Hagelby vicarage and the flight through the forest, it was two weeks before the Serelius brothers came back to Borgholm. But suddenly there they were at Henrik’s door one evening, at the worst possible moment.

Because by that time the quiet but rhythmic knocking in his apartment had started to become intolerable, like a dripping faucet that couldn’t be turned off.

At first Henrik was convinced that it was coming from the old stable lantern, and after three difficult nights with the constant sound of tapping, he put it in the car. The following morning he drove over to the east coast and put the lantern in the boathouse.

But the knocking continued the next night, and now it was coming from inside the wall in the hallway. But not always the same wall-the sound seemed to move slowly behind the wallpaper.

If it wasn’t the lantern, then it must be something else he had brought with him from the forest, or from that fucking death chamber he’d been crawling around in.

Unless of course it was something that had sneaked into his apartment through the brothers’ Ouija board. Those nights when they had sat around the kitchen table staring at the glass as it moved beneath Tommy’s finger, it had definitely felt as if something invisible was in the room.

Whatever it was, it was getting on Henrik’s nerves. Every night he wandered back and forth between the bedroom and the kitchen, terrified of going to bed and turning off the light.

In sheer desperation he had called Camilla, his ex-girlfriend. They hadn’t been in touch for several months, but she sounded pleased to hear from him. They had talked for almost an hour.

Henrik’s nerves were at the breaking point when his doorbell rang three days later, and the sight of Tommy and Freddy at the door didn’t exactly make him feel any better.

Tommy was wearing sunglasses and his hands were twitching. He wasn’t smiling.

“Let us in.”

It wasn’t a friendly reunion. Henrik wanted money from the Serelius brothers, but they had none-they hadn’t sold any of the stolen goods yet. He knew they wanted to do one more trip to the north of the island, but Henrik didn’t want to.

And he didn’t want to discuss any of it with them tonight, because he had a visitor.

“We can’t talk now,” he said.

“Sure we can,” said Tommy.

“No.”

“Who is it?” asked Camilla from the sofa in front of the TV.

The brothers craned their necks curiously to see who the female voice belonged to.

“It’s just… two friends,” said Henrik over his shoulder. “From Kalmar. But they’re not staying.”

Tommy lowered his sunglasses and gave Henrik a long look. It made him step outside and pull the door closed behind him.

“Congratulations,” said Tommy. “Is this a new find, or an old one you’ve dug up?”

“It’s the girl I used to live with,” said Henrik quietly. “Camilla.”

“Fuck me… she took you back?”

“I called her,” said Henrik. “But she was the one who wanted to meet up.”

“Nice,” said Tommy without a smile. “But what shall we do now, then?”

“About what?”

“Our joint project.”

“It’s over,” said Henrik. “Apart from the money.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s over.”

They stared at one another, Henrik and the brothers. Then he sighed.

“We can’t talk out here on the stairs,” he said. “One of you can come in.”

In the end Freddy lumbered back out to the van. Henrik led Tommy into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. He lowered his voice:

“We’re going to sort this out right now, then you can go.”

But Tommy was still more interested in Camilla, and asked loudly and clearly, “So has she moved back in? Is that why you look so fucking tired?”

Henrik shook his head. “That’s something else,” he said. “I’m not sleeping well.”

“I expect that’ll be your conscience,” said Tommy. “But the old guy will be okay, they’ll patch him up.”

“Who the fuck knocked him down?” hissed Henrik. “Don’t you remember?”

“It was you,” said Tommy. “You kicked him.”

“Me? But I was behind you in the hallway!”

“You stood on the old guy’s hand and broke it, Henrik. If they find us, you’re going down.”

“For fuck’s sake, we’re all going down!” Henrik glanced toward the door and lowered his voice again. “I can’t talk any more now.”

“You want money,” said Tommy. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve got money,” said Henrik. “I’ve got a job during the day, for fuck’s sake!”

“But you need more,” said Tommy, nodding toward the other room. “They’re expensive to run.”

Henrik sighed. “It’s not the fucking money that’s the problem, it’s all the stolen stuff in the boathouse. We need to get it sold.”

“We’ll sell it,” said Tommy. “But first we’re going to do one more trip… the last trip to the north. To the manor house.”

“What manor house?”

“The one with all the paintings… the one Aleister told us about.”

“Eel Point,” said Henrik quietly.

“That’s the one. When shall we go?”

“Wait a minute…I was there last summer. I went just about everywhere, but I didn’t see any fucking paintings. And besides…”

“What?”

Henrik didn’t say any more. He remembered the echoing rooms and corridors at Eel Point. He had enjoyed working for Katrine Westin, the woman who lived there with her two small children. But the place itself had felt forbidding even in August, despite the fact that the Westin family had given it a thorough cleaning and started a massive renovation project. What would it be like there now, in December?

“Nothing,” he said. “But I didn’t see any paintings at Eel Point.”

“They’re probably hidden, then,” said Tommy.

There was a faint knocking sound.

Henrik jumped, then realized it was just an ordinary knock at the kitchen door. He went over and opened it.

Camilla was standing outside. She didn’t look pleased.

“Will you be done soon? Otherwise I’m going home, Henrik.”

“We’re done,” he said.

Camilla was small and slender, much shorter than the men. Tommy smiled sweetly down at her and held out his hand.

“Hi there… Tommy,” he said, in a quiet, polite voice Henrik had never heard before.

“Camilla.”

They shook hands so vigorously, the buckles on Tommy’s jacket jingled. Then he nodded at Henrik and moved toward the door.

“Okay, so that’s agreed then,” he said to Henrik. “I’ll call you.”

Henrik locked the front door behind Tommy, then went and joined Camilla on the sofa. They sat in silence and finished watching the film they’d started before the brothers turned up.

“Do you think I should stay, Henrik?” she asked half an hour later, when it was almost eleven o’clock.

“If you want to,” he said. “That would be good.”

After midnight they were lying next to each other in the little bedroom, and for Henrik it was like being taken six months back in time. As if everything was as it should be. It was just fantastic that Camilla had come back, and the only thing that was bothering him now was the persistent Serelius brothers.

And the knocking.

Henrik was listening for it, but all he could hear was the sound of Camilla’s soft breathing. She had fallen asleep with no problem.

Silence. No noises inside the walls.

He didn’t want to think about the knocking now. Or about the visit from the Serelius brothers. Or about the manor house at Eel Point.

Camilla had come back, but Henrik didn’t dare to discuss with her exactly what their relationship was. They weren’t living together, anyway. Early the next morning he got up and went off to work in Marnäs.

She was still in the apartment then, but when he got home it was empty. There was no reply when he rang her.

That night he lay alone in his bed again, and when he had turned out the light the noises started in the hallway. There was a knocking sound inside the walls, quiet but persistent.

Henrik raised his head from the pillow.

“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled out into the room.

The knocking paused briefly, then resumed.

The last year of the fifties-that’s when my own story begins. The story of Mirja at the manor house at Eel Point, and of Torun and her paintings of the blizzard.

I was sixteen years old and fatherless when I arrived at the lighthouse station. But I had Torun. She had taught me something all girls ought to learn: never to be dependent on men.

– MIRJA RAMBE