The Quarry

13

The sun had come out by the time Per left Öland to go and sort out his father. He had called Jerry’s home number and mobile several times on Sunday morning, but with no luck. The silence increased his anxiety.

As he and Jesper were eating an early lunch, Per explained quietly, ‘I think your grandfather could do with some help... He sounded confused when he rang me, so I need to go down and check he’s all right.’

‘When will you be back?’ asked Jesper.

‘Tonight. It might be late, but I’ll be back.’

The last thing he did was to redirect the telephone from the cottage through to his mobile so that Jesper wouldn’t have to answer if Jerry rang again.

His son was playing games in front of the TV when Per left, but he waved in the general direction of the hallway. Per waved back.

Jesper would be fine, there were meatballs in the fridge and there were no cars around the quarry to run over him. Per was not an irresponsible father, and he was definitely not worried as he left Stenvik and headed south.

The sun was shining, spring had arrived. He could put his foot down; there weren’t many cars out and about today.

He passed Borgholm at about one o’clock and drove across the Öland bridge to the mainland half an hour later. As he was driving past Kalmar he saw a red cross on a road sign, and tried not to think about Nilla in her hospital bed. He would call in to see her on the way home.

After Nybro the forest closed in around the main road, with the odd break for a meadow or lake. The fir trees made Per think about Regina again, and the drive out into the forest with her one beautiful spring day.

The prospect of seeing his father gave him no pleasure whatsoever. Two hours to get to Ryd, then perhaps another two hours to drive him home to Kristianstad. Four or five hours in Jerry’s company, that was all — but it still felt like a long time.

After a couple of hours’ driving through the forest he reached Ryd, by which time the sun had disappeared behind thick cloud cover. The spring suddenly felt like autumn.

Ryd wasn’t a big place, and the pavements were empty. Per pulled up by the bus station and looked for Jerry in vain. Either he was already sitting on a bus heading south, or he was wandering around somewhere by himself.

He took out his mobile and called his father’s number again. The phone rang three times, then someone pressed the answer button. But nobody spoke. All Per could hear was a rushing sound, followed by two thuds.

Then there was silence.

Per looked at his phone. Then he went into the newsagent’s and asked about Jerry.

‘An old man?’ said the girl behind the counter.

Per nodded. ‘Seventy-three. He’s broad-shouldered, but he looks kind of worn out and small.’

‘There was some old bloke waiting outside about an hour ago... he was standing there for quite a while.’

‘Did you happen to notice where he went?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Did he get on a bus?’

‘Not that I saw.’

‘Did anyone pick him up?’

‘Maybe... He disappeared.’

Per gave up. He went back to the car and decided to drive out to Jerry’s house — to the studio. It was a few kilometres west of Ryd, near a village called Strihult. Jerry had bought and equipped the place when the money started pouring in in the mid-seventies. Through all the years while he was still driving, Jerry had commuted from Kristianstad on a weekly basis to make films, first with various freelance operatives, then with Hans Bremer.

Per had been there only once; he had given Jerry a lift three or four years ago. At that time his father had still been in good health and was going to Ryd to edit a film — one of the last he and Bremer made together. Per had been on his way home to Kalmar and had just dropped Jerry off outside the house, refusing to go inside.

Strihult was nothing more than a collection of houses with a petrol station and a grocery shop. Per drove straight through without seeing a single person.

Beyond the village the road grew even narrower, the forest thicker — and after about a kilometre he saw a sign pointing to the right, a white arrow with the words MORNER ART LTD on it. That was the name of one of Jerry’s businesses.

He was close to his destination now, and gripped the steering wheel a little harder. Although Jerry rang him at least once a week, they hadn’t seen each other since December, when Per had called round and spent a few hours at his father’s apartment. Jerry had celebrated Christmas all alone.

After five hundred metres of forest without a single house, Per suddenly came upon a dense cypress hedge. He had arrived.

A red sign by the entrance warned visitors to BEWARE OF THE DOG! despite the fact that Jerry had never owned a dog.

Per turned in, followed the driveway around a garage next to the large wooden house, and pulled up on a huge, deserted gravelled area. He switched off the engine, opened the door and looked at the house. It was big and wide, L-shaped and two storeys high. Jerry, Bremer and their actors had stayed here when they were working, so he assumed it consisted of a smaller residential section and a larger work area.

He didn’t feel welcome, but he was going to knock on the door anyway. Even if his father wasn’t here, perhaps Hans Bremer was.

Per had never met Bremer, but now they needed to talk — about the future. Jerry wasn’t well enough to run a business; it was time to wind up Morner Art and sell this place. Bremer would just have to look for a new job, but he’d probably worked that out already.

A wide flight of concrete steps led up to the door, which was flanked by shiny windows with the curtains drawn.

Per got out of the car and looked at his watch. Twenty past four. It was at least a couple of hours until sunset, but the sky was overcast and the fir trees towering up beyond the garden shut out the daylight.

His shoes crunched on the gravel as he went towards the steps.

The front door was imposing, made of oak or mahogany — and it was only when Per started up the steps that he noticed it was ajar. It was open an inch or so, and the hallway inside was pitch black.

He pushed open the heavy door and peered inside.

‘Hello?’

There wasn’t a sound. He reached in and found a switch, but when he flicked it down the light didn’t come on.

He glanced back quickly to check that the area in front of the house was still deserted, then he stepped inside.

Two ghostly figures were waiting for him on the left in the hallway. Per stiffened — until he realized they were nothing more than two dark raincoats hanging beneath a hat stand.

On the floor below the shelf stood a row of slippers and Wellington boots, along with an umbrella. There was an ebony sculpture in a dark corner, a tiger almost three feet tall who seemed ready to pounce.

Per took a couple of steps into the hallway. There were four doors leading off to the sides, but they were all closed.

For some reason he had been expecting a stale or sour smell in the air, but he was aware of only a faint aroma of old tobacco smoke and alcohol. Had someone had a party here?

There was something lying on the rug — a black mobile phone. Per picked it up and saw that it was switched off.

Was it Jerry’s? It certainly looked like his father’s, with big buttons that were easy to press with a shaky finger. He put the phone in his pocket and called out, ‘Hello? Jerry?’

No reply. And yet he still had the feeling that there was someone in the house, someone who was moving cautiously across the floor to avoid being heard.

He went over to a door on the left and tentatively pushed down the handle. Behind it was a large kitchen, a long room with several windows letting in grey light which fell on a sturdy dining table, several sinks and two large ovens. It reminded him of a restaurant kitchen, and there were a number of empty wine bottles and a pile of unwashed plates on the worktops.

Per turned around; he thought he had heard something. A shout from inside the house?

He stopped just inside the kitchen door and jumped when a bell suddenly started ringing. A telephone. It was coming from the wall on the far side of the kitchen, and from somewhere else in the house.

Per wanted to shout Can someone get that?, but he remained silent.

The telephone rang out three times, four, five.

No one answered, but when he finally moved towards it with his hand outstretched, it fell silent.

He moved slowly backwards, out of the kitchen. He stepped back into the hallway and turned around. The smell of alcohol was still there, perhaps it was even stronger now, and the black tiger was still lurking in the shadows, waiting for him. He walked past it and tried a door on the other side of the hallway.

The room behind the door was pitch black. When Per stepped inside he saw that the windows were taped shut, but he had the impression of a large, long room with plastic flooring, movable walls and spotlights on the ceiling. This must be Jerry and Bremer’s studio.

He spotted a light switch by the door and pressed it, but nothing happened. The power must have gone off in the whole house. Or somebody had turned it off. There was no point in groping blindly across the room. He was just about to turn around when he heard a faint sound in the darkness.

A sigh, or a groan? Yes, there was somebody groaning in the room in front of him. And it sounded like a man.

Per moved forward into the darkness. He bumped into something large and hard on the floor, a big leather sofa, and slowly felt his way around it.

The smell of alcohol was stronger in here — or was it something else?

Then he saw something moving on the other side of the sofa, a few metres away, and took another step forward. It was a shadow with arms, its head raised.

‘Pelle?’ said a voice in the darkness.

It was low and hoarse, and Per recognized it.

‘Jerry,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

The figure stirred. It was lying on the floor, but it turned its head in his direction. Slowly, as if it had difficulty moving. Per bent down towards it, towards a pale head with greasy strands of grey hair and a body covered with a crumpled overcoat.

‘You weren’t easy to find, Jerry. How are you doing?’

Per saw his father’s yellow-white eyes flash in the darkness. They were blinking at him, but Jerry didn’t seem surprised to see his son.

‘Bremer?’ he said, coughing.

Per shook his head. He spoke quietly, as if someone were creeping up on them.

‘I don’t know where Bremer is... Is he here in the house?’

He sensed that his father was nodding.

‘Can you get up?’

He reached out to him, but felt something cold and heavy across Jerry’s chest. Some kind of lighting stand or metal rig had fallen on top of him. Per lifted it out of the way — and at the same moment he heard a loud thud from the ceiling, and looked up.

There was somebody upstairs, he realized.

‘Up you get,’ he said quietly to Jerry, moving the stand out of the way. ‘There you go...’

He got his father up on to his knees, then his feet. Jerry groaned and seemed to be reaching out for something lying on the floor.

It was his old leather briefcase. Per let him take it. ‘Come on,’ he said.

His father’s body was substantial and heavy, bearing witness to long, lazy dinners and plenty of wine. Jerry moved slowly across the floor, leaning on his son.

‘Pelle,’ Jerry said again.

Per could smell a mixture of sweat, nicotine and unwashed clothes emanating from his father. It was a strange feeling, being so close to him. It had never happened when he was a little boy. No reassuring pats from Jerry, no hugs.

When he had managed to get him halfway to the door, he heard a brief clicking sound in the darkness. Then something hissed.

Per turned his head. Over his shoulder he saw a glow on the floor further inside the room, and a small flame flared up.

It was thin and weak, but quickly grew bigger; the fire reached up from the floor, illuminating a peculiar device standing by the wall. It looked like a car battery with wires, standing next to a plastic box.

The smell in the air wasn’t alcohol, Per realized. It was petrol.

The box was a big green can, and somebody had drilled little holes in the side. The petrol had already run out and formed a pool on the floor.

Per stared at the fire, watching it grow and creep closer to the can, and he saw the danger.

‘We have to get out of here.’

He pulled Jerry across the room.

Once they were out, Per quickly closed the door behind them, and almost immediately heard a dull, sucking roar from inside the room as the petrol ignited, rattling the door.

Jerry raised his head, and Per noticed that his father had a red lump on his forehead.

‘Pelle?’

‘Let’s go, Jerry.’

He staggered through the hallway with his arm around his father. They could hear a muted crackling noise through the door behind them as the fire spread through the room.

Per blinked as he stepped out into the daylight, supporting Jerry as they made their way down the steps and over to the Saab.

When they reached the car he let go of Jerry, took out his mobile and quickly made a call. A female voice answered after two rings.

‘Emergency services.’

Per cleared his throat. ‘I want to report a fire.’

‘What’s the location?’

Per looked around. ‘It’s in a house outside Ryd, it’s arson... the ground floor is burning.’

‘Can you give me the address?’

The woman on the other end of the phone sounded very calm; Per tried to calm down in turn, tried to think. ‘I don’t know the name of the road. It’s near Strihult to the west of Ryd and there’s a sign that says Morner Art...’

‘Is everyone out of the house?’

‘What?’

‘Has everyone left the house?’

‘I don’t know... I just got here.’

‘And your name?’

Per hesitated. What should he say? Should he make up a name?

He had nothing to hide. Jerry might have, but he hadn’t. ‘My name is Per Mörner,’ he said, and gave his address and home number on Öland. Then he switched off his mobile.

Jerry was leaning against the car. In the grey daylight Per could see that his father had on the same crumpled brown coat he had been wearing day in and day out for the past few years; the seams were coming apart, and several buttons were missing.

Jerry sighed and gritted his teeth. ‘Hurts,’ he said.

Per turned to face him. ‘Are you in pain?’

Jerry nodded. Then he turned back his coat and Per suddenly saw that the shirt below Jerry’s ribcage was wet and torn.

‘What have you done? Have you...?’ Per fell silent as he lifted up his father’s shirt.

A couple of inches above the navel a long, bloody wound ran across Jerry’s pot belly. The blood had begun to coagulate; it looked almost black in the gloom.

Per lowered the shirt. ‘Who did this, Jerry?’

Jerry looked at his bloodstained belly as if he’d only just noticed it. ‘Bremer,’ he said.

‘Bremer?’ said Per. ‘Were you fighting with Hans Bremer? Why?’

Quick-fire questions made his father’s brain shut down. He merely stared and blinked at his son, but said nothing.

Per looked over at the big house on the other side of the parking area. The front door was still open, and he thought he could see a thin cloud of smoke drifting out.

‘So where’s Bremer now? Is he still in there?’

Jerry remained silent as he laboriously clambered into the Saab’s passenger seat.

‘Wait here,’ said Per, closing the car door.

He ran back to the house. Up the steps, into the hallway. It wasn’t without risks; he could hear the fire roaring and crackling behind the closed door of the studio. The air inside the house also felt warmer, like an oven heating up. He didn’t have much time.

And he needed a weapon, given that there might be somebody with a knife in the house. He grabbed the furled umbrella from the hall. Holding it in front of him with the point raised, he opened one of the middle doors and saw a steep staircase leading downwards.

The cellar. It was pitch black, he didn’t want to go down there.

Behind the fourth and final unopened door there was another staircase, this time leading upwards.

Per set off up the stairs, which were covered in white fitted carpet that completely deadened the sound of his footsteps. At the top of the stairs was a corridor which ran along the upper floor, with closed doors along both sides; Per felt as if he had landed in a hotel.

He set off, holding the umbrella like a sword.

‘Bremer?’ he shouted. ‘It’s Per Mörner!’

The stench of petrol or some kind of accelerant was just as powerful up here, and suddenly he heard a low crackling sound. He couldn’t see any flames, but he realized there was a fire somewhere up here too. There was a grey mist of smoke forming around him in the corridor, rapidly growing thicker and drying out his windpipe.

But where was the fire?

Per quickly walked over to the nearest door and opened it, only to discover a cupboard full of cleaning materials. He opened the next one: a small bedroom with bare walls and a made-up bed.

The third door on the left was locked, but curls of smoke were rising from a narrow gap at floor level.

‘Bremer? Hello? Hans Bremer?’

No reply. Or was that a noise? A whimpering sound?

Per had never kicked a door open, he’d only seen people do it in films. Was it easy? He took a couple of steps back; unfortunately he couldn’t give himself any more of a run at the door, as his back was against the opposite wall. Then he lunged forward and kicked hard.

The door shuddered, but it was made of pine, and didn’t open.

He looked around. There was a key in one of the doors on the other side of the corridor, and he took it out. He tried it in the locked door; it fitted, and he was able to turn it.

The door opened smoothly to reveal billowing white smoke. The air in the corridor sucked it out of the room, straight at Per.

He blinked and felt tears spring to his eyes. The smoke was dense, like autumn fog, but he walked into it anyway and suddenly recognized a particular smell beyond the smoke. The smell of burnt flesh.

The room was small and dark. Per blinked and groped around with his hands, but was unable to find the light switch; he had to crouch down at floor level where the air was fresher.

He took a couple of steps into the room. To the right he could see flames running up the wallpaper. There was an unmade bed with a pile of blankets on it, burning fiercely. He took another step forward, but the heat brought him to a standstill.

He blinked at the smoke and tried to see. Was there a burning body beneath the blankets? Per imagined he could see outstretched arms, legs in trousers, a charred head...

His eyes were streaming, his lungs seared with pain. And that was when he heard the cry behind him.

There were no words, just a long drawn-out scream. It sounded like a woman’s voice, and it was terrified.

Per dropped the umbrella and turned around, half-blind. He went back into the corridor. The cry had come from somewhere on this floor, but it was muted, as if it came through a wall.

All the doors were still closed, but at the far end of the corridor he saw something new: a patch of bright flames that had taken hold of the carpet. He realized that the whole of the upper floor was burning. He was surrounded by fire.

‘Hello!’ he yelled.

He heard a cry from the woman in response, even more muted.

He stood still, indecisive, then moved towards the closest doors. They were locked, and he banged on them.

Door after door, but no response.

‘Hello? Where are you?’

He wanted to kick down the doors, find the woman. But the smoke was quickly growing thicker around him; darkness was falling in the corridor. The fire was coming from two directions, burning and crackling, and the air was like a sauna. Per realized the whole of the ground floor was also ablaze by this time; he couldn’t get back down the stairs.

The walls seemed to be pressing in on him, he couldn’t get any air.

There was no time.

He had to turn back, groping his way through the smoke until he found himself back in the room with the burning bed. As he turned around he felt a cooling breeze against his face, and saw that one of the windows was half-open, letting in the light. The curtains were open and a wooden chair stood below the window.

He could get to the window if he stayed on the left, where the air was a little cooler. But the flames from the bed were creeping across the floor and the smoke was growing thicker.

He could no longer breathe, he had to get out, fast.

He took three steps towards the window, climbed up on the chair and looked out. He could see fields and dense forest. And two or three metres below this was the garage, with a tarred felt roof.

The cool of the evening struck his chest and face while the heat of the fire pressed against his back, pushing him out of the room. It was like standing with his back towards the oven in a crematorium. He couldn’t stay where he was, and eventually he stepped out into the air and jumped.

He landed on the garage roof with a crash; the wood shuddered beneath his feet, but it held.

From the garage he jumped down on to the gravel. Three metres — a short, dizzying fall, with the grey gravel coming closer and closer — and then his shoes hit the ground. His knees gave way.

He coughed, got to his feet and inhaled the cold, fresh air. He was at the back of the house and could see a low fence in front of him, with a deserted field of yellow grass beyond it, then the dense forest of firs.

On a track leading between the trees, perhaps two hundred metres away, someone was standing staring at the house. Per thought it looked like a man dressed in dark clothes, but he had no time to see anything else before the figure turned and disappeared into the forest.

The fire had begun to crackle and roar above him, but he thought he heard the sound of a car engine. A car starting up, its engine revving as it quickly disappeared among the trees.