The Quarry

61

Per was sitting in his cottage watching the sun set over the quarry. One and a half days left until Nilla’s operation.

He had gone out earlier in the evening armed with a spade and crowbar and tried to do some work on the steps, but hadn’t had the strength left in him to haul the blocks up to the top of the slope. Jesper hadn’t managed to finish the steps on his own, and Per couldn’t do it either. He managed to get only two more steps in place; when the third block tumbled back down on to the gravel, he gave up and went inside.

He sat down in the living room, feeling utterly exhausted.

Thirty-six hours, that was two thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes, he worked out. What was he going to do with all that time? Should he go for a run? He hadn’t been running since his last outing with Vendela, but he just couldn’t summon up the energy this evening.

He switched on the television, but there was some kind of children’s programme on, and he quickly turned it off.

Silence. The sun was slipping away and the shadows were growing.

Suddenly the phone in the kitchen rang, and Per jumped.

Bad news? He was certain it would be, whoever was calling, but he went and answered it anyway.

A hoarse male voice spoke. ‘Per Mörner?’

‘Yes?’

He didn’t recognize the voice, and the man didn’t introduce himself.

‘Nina said you wanted to talk to me,’ he said. ‘I own the Moulin Noir.’

Per remembered the note he had left at the club in Malmö. ‘I did, yes,’ he said, attempting to gather his thoughts. ‘Thanks for ringing. I just wanted to ask you something about my father... Jerry Morner.’

‘Oh, how is Jerry these days?’

Per had to explain — yet again — that he had lost his father.

‘Shit, I’m sorry to hear that,’ said the man. ‘Didn’t his studio burn down as well?’

‘Yes, the weekend before Easter,’ said Per. He went on quickly, ‘But Jerry mentioned the Moulin Noir several times before he died, which made me a little bit curious about the place.’

The man on the phone sounded tired. ‘A little bit curious... You were here last week, weren’t you — what did you think?’

‘Well... I didn’t actually go downstairs,’ said Per, ‘but the girl on the till said there was a big surprise waiting down there. Is that true?’

The man laughed. ‘The big surprise is that there is no surprise,’ he said. ‘Businessmen come in late at night flashing the plastic, thinking they’re going to be able to screw a load of blondes, but the Moulin Noir isn’t a brothel.’

‘So what is it, then?’

‘It’s a dance club... Although to be fair, the dancers are all girls, and they don’t wear any clothes. The men sit and watch. And lust after them.’

Men are good at that, thought Per.

‘Did my father own the Moulin Noir?’

‘No.’

‘But he was involved in the club?’

‘No, I wouldn’t say that. We did work with Jerry to a certain extent; we used to advertise in his magazines, and Jerry often came here to check out our girls and guys. A few of them did some work for him as well.’

‘Guys? So you had male dancers at the club?’

‘For a while... Bodybuilders covered in baby oil who danced with the girls and had simulated sex with them. But not any more. There are much stricter regulations about what you can do on stage in Sweden these days, so now we just have girls.’

‘But these male dancers — was one of them called Daniel Wellman?’

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘He used to work for us.’

‘The same guy who did some filming for my father?’

‘That’s right. Daniel Wellman. He was only with us for about six months, but he worked for Jerry for several years.’

‘With a new name,’ said Per, reaching for a pen and a piece of paper. ‘Markus Lukas, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s what he called himself,’ said the man.

‘It was Jerry who named them,’ said Per. ‘All the guys were called Markus Lukas.’

‘Everybody gets a new name,’ said the man. ‘It’s a form of protection.’

There was a brief pause.

‘Do you know how I can get hold of Daniel?’ said Per. ‘Can I ring him?’

The man laughed again, a weary laugh. ‘That might be tricky.’

‘In what way?’

‘He’s in the same place as Jerry.’

Per stared at his pen, poised over the piece of paper. ‘Markus Lukas is dead? Are you sure?’

‘I’m afraid so... Daniel was looking really rough the last time I saw him. Then he rang me several times during the last year wanting money, but he could hardly speak. He was depressed and angry. He wanted someone to blame. He talked a lot about Hans Bremer... Bremer had told Daniel to keep quiet.’

Bremer again, thought Per. ‘I think Markus Lukas was after my father as well,’ he said.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me... Towards the end he was begging money from everyone he knew. Then he stopped calling.’

‘So what did he die of?’ asked Per, expecting to hear the word cancer.

‘Nobody knew, people thought he was on heroin... but last year I bumped into one of the girls who had worked with him at the club and with Jerry, and she told me he’d died a couple of months earlier. She’d been to get herself checked out after that, but she was fine.’

‘Checked out?’ said Per. ‘Checked out for what?’

‘She wanted to make sure she was clean.’ The man paused, then went on, ‘I don’t know where Daniel picked up the infection, but he thought it was with Jerry and Bremer. He said he was going to sue them.’

‘Infection?’ said Per.

‘His blood was infected. It happens from time to time in this industry. Daniel died of AIDS.’