She smiled, a smile that was almost a grimace.
“My criminal cousin. The big one who protected me when I was a kid. And even now.”
Jacob ran his fingers through his hair and paced quickly around the coffee machine.
“How long would it take to drive up there?” he asked. “If we leave now.”
She looked at her watch again.
“If we go for it, and the road isn’t full of trailers and lumber trucks, we’ll be there by six.”
He slapped the wall with his hand, nearly putting a hole in it.
“That’s not good enough,” he said.
“If Robert keeps an eye on things, they won’t get through,” she said. “A blue Mercedes, registration TKG two-nine-seven, wasn’t it?”
He looked at her, fire in his eyes.
“Have you got access to a car?”
“No,” she said, “but I’ve got a bicycle.”
She waved her American Express card.
“We’ll rent one, you idiot.”
Chapter 127
IT WAS PAST ONE o’clock in the morning when Dessie sailed past the town of Utansjц. She had driven almost five hundred kilometers and needed to get petrol, drink coffee, and go to the bathroom. Not in that order actually. She glanced at Jacob in the reclined seat next to her as he slept the comatose sleep of the jet-lagged. The diesel would last until they got to the twenty-four-hour truck stop in Docksta, but she had a much better idea. It would mean a slight detour, but it might be worth the trouble. She reached the turning to Lunde, hesitated just for a second, and then headed left along Route 90.
The car’s rhythm changed and the very poor road surface made Jacob stir.
“What the hell…?” he said, confused, as he sat up straight. “Are we there?”
He looked around, astonished, at the early dawn light. Mist was lying in thin veils on the water, black fir trees reached up to the heavens, several deer fled across the fields.
“We’re exactly halfway to Haparanda,” Dessie said. “Those are reindeer, by the way.”
He looked at his watch.
“This whole midnight sun thing is pretty fucked up,” he said, shaking his watch. “And the reindeer, too. Where’s Santa?”
Dessie slowed the car and pointed ahead.
“See that?” she said. “Wдsterlunds Bakery. I lost my virginity in the parking lot around the back.”
This nugget of information woke him up properly.
“So these are your old stomping grounds? Interesting. You’re really a hick.”
“Until I was seventeen. I spent a year at dal high school in Kramfors, then went to New Zealand as an exchange student. I ended up staying there nine years.”
Jacob looked at her.
“Your weird English accent,” he said. “I’ve been trying to place it. Why New Zealand?”
She glanced over at him.
“It was as far away as I could get… from being a hick. See that? There’s the memorial to the workers who were shot by the military in nineteen thirtyone. Remember our talk,
She pointed to a sculpture of a horse and a running man that was just visible down by the water.
They drove up onto Sandц Bridge, and Jacob peered down at the river below.
“When it was built, this was the longest single-span concrete bridge in the world. I had to cross it every day to get to school.”
“Lucky you,” Jacob said.
“It scared me every single time, every day, twice a day. The bridge collapsed once, killing eighteen people. The most forgotten tragedy of the last century, because it happened on the afternoon of August thirty-first, nineteen thirty-nine.”
“The day before the Second World War broke out,” Jacob said. “I have a good memory for history, too. Where are we actually going?”
“Past Klockestrand,” she said. “It’s not far now.”
She slowed down and turned off to the right, onto a narrow dirt road.
“I thought we might need some expert help,” she said, driving up to a huge wooden building in a state of more or less complete ruin.
“What the hell is this place? The House on Haunted Hill?”
“Welcome to my childhood home,” Dessie said, switching the engine off.
Chapter 128
THERE WAS A FAINT light coming from a window on the ground floor, the sort of blue light that an old television set gives off. Dessie wondered how many of her family were there. The house was a base for her uncles, the few who were still alive, and for a number of her cousins.
“Will anyone be awake at this time of day?” Jacob asked.
“Granddad,” Dessie said. “He usually sleeps during the day. At night he watches old black-and-white films that he downloads illegally from the Net. Are you coming in with me?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jacob said, climbing out of the car. The held each other’s hand as they walked up to the huge building. The structure was an old-style farmhouse, with four chimneys, two floors, and a loft tall enough to stand up in. The red iron-oxide paint had peeled off decades ago and the wooden walls shone a grayish white in the early light. Dessie opened the outside door without knocking and kicked off her shoes.
Apart from the sound from the television, the house was quiet. If anyone was here besides Granddad, they were sound asleep.
Her grandfather was sitting in his usual armchair, watching a film with Ingrid Bergman in it.
“Granddad?”
The old man turned around and took a quick look at her. Then he went right back to the television screen.
Dessie shut the outside door.
“This is Jacob, Granddad,” she said, walking toward him, still holding Jacob by the hand.
Her grandfather hadn’t aged much, she thought. Maybe it was because his hair had been white for as long as she could remember, and his face had always had the same miserable scowl. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see her in his living room for the first time since her mother’s funeral. Instead, he just glowered suspiciously at Jacob.
“Jacob mostly does rough work,” Dessie said, taking the remote and turning off the television.
Then she sat down on the table directly in front of the old man.
“Granddad, I want to ask you something. If I’m on the run from the police and haven’t got any money and want to hide out in Finland, what should I do?”
Chapter 129
THE OLD MAN’S EYES twinkled. He cast a quick, approving look at Jacob, straightened up in his armchair,
