To the Top of the Mountain

35

‘YES, YES, YES!’ shouted Bullet. ‘Got it again!’

It was the second time that day. The first had come and gone. A brief signal which might have been, though probably wasn’t, a false alarm. But this time it was clear. Bullet felt extremely pleased. Even he had stopped believing.

Niklas Lindberg could see it in him. His short but broad body almost quivering with sudden, unanticipated expectation. Like a soufflé, he surprised himself by thinking.

He looked down towards his parents’ home. It was so still down in the valley. The cute little rows of houses where he had come into existence. Undisturbed by foreigners. A clean and healthy childhood where everything was as it should have been. Trollhättan – so typically Swedish. And now? Shady pizzerias on every corner, mafia gambling joints, dishonest southerners’ shirker mentality. A world of rapists, drug pushers, madmen with knives, benefit scroungers; of Arabic-Jewish-Catholic corruption and weakness dressed up as machismo. At least he knew what he was fighting against. It was more difficult to say what he was fighting for.

‘Gone again,’ Bullet said, subdued, turning the dials.

‘Did you get a direction?’ asked Niklas Lindberg.

‘Yeah,’ said Bullet. ‘Eastward. Either on the 44 or the 42.’

‘What’s out there? Rogge?’

Roger Sjöqvist leafed through the atlas.

‘Hard to see. Right between pages. The 44 splits in two. Continues as the 44 up to Lake Vänern, Lidköping. As the 47 it goes to Falköping. But the 47 meets the E20 which goes up to Skara and Skövde. What else did you say? The 42. It doesn’t go anywhere. Vårgårda. Fristad.’

‘We need another signal,’ said Bullet.

Niklas Lindberg thought. ‘Take the 44,’ he said. ‘And put your foot down.’

‘The speed limit, though?’

‘Fuck it. We’re close now.’

‘What are you thinking, Nicke?’ asked Bullet.

‘That we’ll get another signal,’ Niklas Lindberg replied. ‘And then we’ll know.’