The Darkest Room

37

Tilda saw it all so clearly when Martin was shot.

It was after the ax had hit her. She almost wished she had lost consciousness then, but her brain remained awake, registering everything. The pain, the fall, and the pistol spinning out of her hand.

When she landed on her back, the snow received her like a soft bed.

She stayed where she was. Her nose was broken, warm blood was pouring down into her mouth, and she was completely exhausted after the trek through the storm.

I’ve done my bit tonight, she thought. Enough.

“Tilda!”

Martin was calling her name, bending over her. Behind him she saw a man step out from the veranda and look down at her. He was holding a big knife in his hand and shouting something, but she couldn’t make out a word.

Everything stopped for a little while. Tilda sank down into

a warm drowsiness before the nausea hit her, and the vomiting. She turned her head to the side and threw up into the snow.

Tilda coughed, raised her head, and tried to pull herself together. She saw Martin go over to the man and shout to him to drop the knife.

It was Henrik Jansson up there on the steps, the man responsible for the break-ins, the man she’d been looking for.

“Henrik?”

Tilda called his name several times, her voice thick, while at the same time trying to recall all the things he was suspected of.

She didn’t hear his reply-she did, however, hear the gunshot.

It came from the barn on the other side of the courtyard and sounded like a dull bang with no echo. The bullet hit the veranda; a pane of glass broke next to Henrik.

He turned his head and looked at the hole in confusion.

Martin continued on up the steps toward him. He was moving calmly and speaking firmly to the perpetrator, like the police instructor he was. Henrik backed away.

Neither of them had heard the shot, Tilda realized.

As she opened her mouth to warn them, there were several more bangs.

She saw Martin jerk up on the steps. His upper body contorted, his legs gave way. He collapsed and landed heavily in the snow just a few yards from Tilda.

“Martin!”

He was lying there with his back to her, and she began to crawl toward him, keeping her head down. She could hear a faint moaning sound through the wind.

“Martin?”

Breathing, bleeding, shock. That was the list she had learned to check in cases of stabbing or gunshot wounds.

Breathing? It was difficult to see in the storm, but Martin hardly seemed to be breathing.

She dragged his upper body into the recovery position, ripped open his jacket and bloodstained sweater, and finally found the small entry hole-high up and just to the left of the spine. The hole looked deep and the blood was still flowing. Had the bullet hit the main artery?

He shouldn’t be left out here, but there was no way Tilda could get him into the house. There was no time.

She unbuttoned her right jacket pocket and took out a pressure bandage pack.

“Martin?” she called again, at the same time pressing the bandage against the bullet hole as firmly as she could.

No reply. His eyes were open, unblinking in the snow-he had gone into shock.

Tilda couldn’t find a pulse.

She pushed his body onto its back again, leaned over him, and began pressing on his chest with both hands. One firm push, wait. Then a firm push again.

It didn’t help. He no longer seemed to be breathing, and when she shook him his body was completely lifeless. The snow was landing in his eyes.

“Martin…”

Tilda gave up. She sank down beside him in the snow, sniveling blood up her nose.

Everything had gone completely wrong. Martin wasn’t even supposed to be here; he shouldn’t have come with her to Eel Point.

Suddenly she heard two more bangs from the direction of the barn. Tilda kept her head down.

The pistol? She had dropped it when she fell in the snow.

The Sig Sauer was made of black steel-she ought to be able to see it in all this whiteness, and she began to feel around with her hands. At the same time she peeped cautiously over the drifts.

A figure was moving through the snow. He had a black hood over his head and a gun in his hands.

The man clambered over a snowdrift, and when he realized

that Tilda had seen him, he shouted something into the wind.

She didn’t answer. Her hand was still burrowing in the snow-and suddenly it felt something hard and heavy down there. At first the object just slid away, but then she managed to get hold of it.

She pulled the gun out of the snow.

She banged the barrel a couple of times to get the snow out of it, undid the safety catch, and aimed in the direction of the barn.

“Police!” she yelled.

The masked man said something in reply, but the wind ripped his words to shreds.

“Ubba… ubba,” it sounded like.

He slowed down and stooped slightly, but kept on coming toward her through the snowdrifts.

“Stand still and drop the gun!” Tilda’s voice became shrill and small, she could hear how weak it sounded, but still she went on: “I’ll fire!”

And she did actually fire, a warning shot straight up into the night. The bang sounded almost as weak as her voice.

The man stopped, but didn’t drop the gun. He dropped to his knees between two snowdrifts, less than ten yards away. He raised the gun and aimed it at her again, and Tilda fired two shots at him in rapid succession.

Then she ducked back behind the drifts, and at almost the same moment the light went out. The lamps in the windows and the lantern in the inner courtyard went out at the same time. Everything went black.

The blizzard had caused a power outage at Eel Point.