The Rabbit Hunter

47

Joona is running along Roslagsvägen through the darkness. Almost twenty minutes have passed since he left the car by the side of the road. He hasn’t seen anyone else in all that time. The only things he has heard have been sudden gusts of wind in the treetops and his own breathing.

He’s running down a long slope, so he lengthens his stride and speeds up even more. He can just make out the glow of a building in the distance, through the trees.

His pistol bounces against his ribs.

He runs across a small viaduct with dusty railings, but stops when he hears a sharp bang behind him.

A pistol shot.

He turns and listens.

The sound is carried off across the water and bounces back between the islands.

Joona starts running back as fast as he can, towards an unpaved side-road he passed a short while ago. A car is heading towards him at high speed. Dazzled by the headlights, he climbs into the ditch and pushes his way through the tall grass. The ground shakes as the car passes, then everything is dark again. Joona clambers up onto the road and runs a bit further, until he finds the dirt road leading towards the building and turns into it.

The road leads him past a rusty car, and into a tunnel of black trees.

When he emerges from the patch of woodland he sees Parisa’s car. It’s parked outside the office of a small boatyard. As he moves towards the rows of boats he reports back to Janus, giving his coordinates using GPS and asking for backup from the Rapid Response Unit.

‘But hold back,’ he repeats. ‘Hold back until I’ve evaluated the situation. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

He hears agitated voices and creeps closer, switching his phone to silent as he takes cover under a large motorboat.

Crouching down, he moves nearer through the narrow space between the boats.

He sees an old woman sitting on a stack of starter-motors before he catches sight of the others.

An elderly man is standing on the gravel path with a Stanley knife hidden in his hand, and another man is sitting on the ground holding a girl in his arms.

Joona quickly moves closer. Dry grass rustles beneath his feet.

The tarpaulin covering one boat lifts like a sail, giving him a glimpse of what’s going on. A bearded man hits Parisa in the back of the neck with the butt of a shotgun, then aims the barrel at her.

Water trickles to the ground as the tarp falls back down.

The bearded man is standing still with the barrel of the shotgun pointed between Parisa’s legs. It’s a double-barrelled shotgun that can fire two rounds without needing to be reloaded.

Joona creeps under a sail boat. The sound in his left ear gets distorted as he passes close to the rusting keel.

The bearded man yells something, and aims the barrel at Parisa’s face.

Joona steps quickly from his hiding place, straightens up, approaches the bearded man from the side and twists the barrel of the shotgun upward, away from Parisa’s head.

He follows through, yanking the butt of the shotgun down with his other hand, out of the man’s grasp, then spins it around and puts his finger on the trigger.

Joona jabs the barrel into the man’s face. He staggers backwards, clutching his hands to his mouth. Maintaining his line of sight, Joona takes a step forward, turns sideways and strikes him hard across the cheek with the butt of the gun. A cascade of blood squirts from his mouth.

Joona quickly turns the weapon on the old man.

The bearded man hits the ground, crashes over a box of aerosol cans and comes to rest face-down.

The old man stands still and drops the knife on the ground.

‘Kick the knife away and get down on your knees,’ Joona says.

The old man does as he’s told, leaning against the side of the building as he kneels down.

It’s almost silent, the wind and the rustle of plastic are the only sounds. Parisa looks up and sees that the blond man has followed her. Pointing the gun at Anders’s chest, he pulls Amira from his grasp.

‘Don’t play with guns, boys,’ he says in his Finnish accent.

Anders just looks at him in astonishment, licking snot from his top lip.

When Parisa rolls onto her side it feels like her head is going to explode. She gasps for breath, but forces her eyes open and sees Amira stumble towards her and sink to her knees.

‘Amira,’ she whispers.

‘We have to get away from here. You need to get up!’

Parisa can’t move. She leans her cheek on the rough ground and sees three more migrants approaching along the path. First a small boy with serious eyes, followed by an older woman in traditional costume.

Behind them is a man in a shiny black tracksuit.

Parisa knows she’s seen him before, but it takes her a few moments before she realises he’s a famous football player. Salim used to point him out in matches because he came from the same town as them.