The Rabbit Hunter

45

Even though there’s still some light left in the sky, the surrounding forest is completely dark. Parisa brakes as she heads down a long hill. She slowly steers right, then starts to drive down a gravel track beside an overgrown patch of land with a wrecked car at the far end.

She thinks about the tall man who came to her home with a message from da gawand halak. He said Salim had just been transferred to his unit at Kumla, but that he didn’t really know him. Presumably Salim had felt obliged to send a message with the first person granted leave.

Salim gave him a code which meant that he was someone whose loyalty couldn’t be guaranteed, but that she should still listen to what he had to say.

She had seen that the blond messenger was armed, but didn’t actually start to panic until she saw the sniper from the kitchen.

On the upper floor of the house across the street.

A window ajar, a black ring and a glowing circle: barrel and sights.

It was impossible to tell if he knew the sniper, if they were working together.

Maybe the messenger was the sniper’s target?

Thoughts are buzzing through her head. She can’t figure out how everything fits together, but right now her sister is the only thing that matters.

Once she’d forced the man out of the car she called the number he’d given her, and the call was forwarded automatically. There was a second ringtone, then after a long wait a man answered in a Slavic language. She asked if he spoke English, and he said of course he did.

The gravel crunches beneath the tyres, and the trees around the car quiver in the darkness. The headlights illuminate a small stream through the trees on the left.

Parisa had asked the man where her little sister Amira was. She explained that Amira was among the group from Sheberghan that was expected to arrive in Sweden on Wednesday.

The man spoke to someone else nearby, then replied that the journey had been quicker than normal, and that they had arrived at the rendezvous five days early. Her little sister was already in Sweden. Amira had been waiting three days for her, and she hadn’t known.

The forest opens up to reveal a brighter night sky and, a short distance away, the sea. Parisa crosses a junction and heads down towards a marina.

A large corrugated-metal workshop rises up above more than a hundred beached boats: big yachts with huge keels and long, narrow motorboats that look like sleek arrowheads.

There’s light coming from a low barrack-like building. It illuminates a sign on the wooden wall: ‘Nyboda Boatyard’.

Parisa turns the car around, and reverses towards the wall.

When she gets out the sea breeze cuts right through her knitted sweater. She’s only wearing that and her comfy tracksuit bottoms, and just has trainers on her feet.

Tarps knock against hulls, plastic rustles and the line on the flagpole slaps rhythmically.

She can see movement behind the dirty curtain of the barrack.

A narrow path between the tall metal workshop and the densely packed rows of boats leads down to the water.

Parisa hangs the bag with the pistol in it over her shoulder and goes up the steep flight of steps to the barracks. She knocks, waits a few seconds, then goes inside, into an office with a shabby desk and nautical charts stapled to the walls. A man who looks to be over seventy is sitting at the desk going through some receipts. In a wicker chair in the corner sits a woman of the same age, knitting.

The man is dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, and his hairy lower arms are resting on the desk. He’s wearing a scratched gold watch around his wrist. The woman lowers her knitting to her lap and looks up quizzically at Parisa.

‘I’m here to pick up my sister,’ Parisa says calmly. ‘Her name is Amira.’

The man runs one hand over his bald head and invites her to sit down in the visitor’s chair.

Parisa sits down and hears a gentle clicking sound behind her back as the woman in the wicker chair resumes knitting.

‘We were starting to think no one was going to come and get the last one,’ the man says as he reaches for a folder.

‘She wasn’t supposed to get here until Wednesday,’ Parisa explains coolly.

‘Really? Well, this is going to cost quite a bit,’ the man goes on disinterestedly, then licks a finger and leafs through the shipping dockets in the file.

‘Everything’s already been paid for,’ Parisa says.

‘If you’d picked her up when she arrived,’ the man replies, giving her a quick glance.

‘Doesn’t she want to pay?’ the woman asks anxiously.

‘Oh, she’ll pay,’ the man says, pointing at a pink sheet of paper in the folder. ‘Three days’ room and board, cleaning charge, and administrative costs.’

The woman starts knitting again behind Parisa as the man taps some numbers into a pocket calculator next to a dusty telephone.

Parisa hears a sander in the workshop.

The man licks his wrinkled lips and leans back in his chair.

‘Thirty-two thousand and three hundred kronor,’ he says, turning the calculator towards her.

‘Thirty-two thousand?’

‘We can’t afford charity. Sadly there’s no leeway,’ he explains.

‘Do you accept cards?’ Parisa asks, even though she knows she doesn’t have that much money in her account.

‘No,’ he smiles.

‘I don’t have that much cash.’

‘Then you’ll have to go to Åkersberga and take the money out, but do bear in mind that the debt will keep rising the longer she stays here.’

‘I need to speak to her first,’ Parisa says, standing up.

‘If we start making exceptions, then—’

‘She’s my sister,’ she explains, raising her voice. ‘Don’t you understand? She’s come all this way. She can’t speak a word of Swedish. I have to talk to her.’

‘We understand that you’re upset, but it isn’t our fault that you didn’t come and get her, and—’

‘Tell me where she is!’ Parisa interrupts, waits a few seconds, then walks past the woman and out through the door.

‘Just wait here. I’m sure we can sort this out,’ the man calls after her.

Parisa goes down the steps and hurries along the narrow track between the boats and the large workshop. Further down she sees a crane shaking in the wind, etched against the approaching clouds. The waves are breaking over the rocks and the boat ramp.

Parisa realises that there are lights shining through the plastic covering several of the boats.

The smell of warm oil dredges up memories from Afghanistan, and she finds herself back in the engineering workshop where her father and grandfather worked, by the Safid River on the outskirts of Sheberghan.

‘Amira?’ she calls across the marina. ‘Amira?’