They turn into the Tornby industrial estate. Drive past the bloated retail boxes: Ikea, the Ikano Group, ASKO, Willy’s budget hypermarket, the Plantagen garden centre, and on into the estate, past the Vansito wholesale warehouse.
They turn off and number 11 Fabriksvagen is a single-storey red-brick warehouse, maybe thirty metres long, with four separate entrances along a worn concrete loading bay.
They stop, jump out of the car, run.
Which door?
They run from door to door, listening, looking for signs, but all the doors are unmarked.
The heat and the sharp light no longer exist, only sweat and the exhaustion that is slowly forcing its way through the adrenalin.
Sounds from inside one of the storerooms.
A scratching sound, dripping.
The sound of sirens approaching.
A closed metal shutter, locked. The sun has pressed its way upwards and the loading bay is bathed in light. Malin kneels beside the lock, tries to twist it open, but her hands are shaking.
‘Hang on,’ Zeke shouts, rushing up to Malin with his pistol drawn. ‘Stand back,’ and Zeke aims the gun at the lock and fires.
A bang, I can hear a bang, Tove thinks, and a dull rumbling sound. Where am I? And her head is throbbing and she can’t move her body, but it’s there.
Am I paralysed?
I can’t move.
Mum, is that you coming? Dad? To rescue me from this nightmare?
Something’s approaching again.
A sliver of light, is that a door opening? Am I being rescued?
Malin and Janne and Zeke have taken hold of the bottom of the shutter and are forcing it up, there’s no second door behind it and the sirens are close now, they shut off and Malin can hear police officers shouting to each other, calling out orders, Ekenberg and Sven Sjoman’s voices? Karim’s?
And the shutter is up.
Janne holds it up and Malin goes into the room with her weapon drawn, sees the empty bunk, the containers, Tove’s red top on the floor, sliced open, a book, her sunglasses and then the rabbit cages along the walls, the pots of paint, a box of white surgical gloves, boxes of chemicals everywhere, empty bleach bottles, scalpels, a dripping tap. The floor is stained with blood, the blood long since dried up, and thin strips of rotting, stinking flesh, the whole room smells of torture decay death.
Fuck, Malin thinks. Fuck.
You were here.
And she sees Janne slump to his knees, holding up the tattered remains of Tove’s top, holding it up to her, saying: ‘I bought her this.’
‘Fuck!’ Malin screams, before she sinks to the floor and starts to cry, with exhaustion, and despair as well, and Janne crawls towards her, wraps his arms around her and they breathe together, preparing themselves for whatever will come.
All around them uniformed officers, Sven and Karim talking to Zeke, who sees Waldemar’s car just arriving. Only Per Sundsten is missing, but perhaps he’s having a nap somewhere, gone home to Motala?
Malin gets up.
Janne behind her.
The other warehouse doors are open, evidently nothing inside that need concern them.
‘We got here too late,’ Sven says. ‘What the fuck do we do now?’
The bang.
It must be a rifle shot from the forest, some poacher out early.
But it could also be from you, my summer angel.
And you’d woken up.
We’ve left the fires behind us and I’ve sedated you again.
Now you can sleep peacefully in the van until we get there, until we reach the final room.
It’s not far now, I promise.
And there’s no need for you to be frightened.
You’re going to die, but only for a little while, and then you’ll be the most beautiful person ever.
67
You need to be awake now.
I’m going to tie you up and you will see what I’m doing, if you can see it happen then you’ll dare to come back, because there’ll be no more fear, will there?
Beloved sister.
I’m parking the car outside the monster now.
He must be asleep.
It smells of summer out here, a summer’s morning, and on this day a summertime dream can start, my little summer angel.
I open the back doors.
You’re groaning, don’t wake up too soon now. You might as well see my face, what difference does it make, soon you will cease to exist, and I don’t think faces matter any more.
Tove squints.
The light is back again. Am I alive? Do I still exist, Mum? I think I’m alive, because my whole body aches. And someone’s pulling me, but it doesn’t hurt, it just gets hot hot hot when my body comes out in the sun.
Buildings all around.
Grey, concrete buildings, yellowing plants, 1950s buildings that I don’t recognise as I look at them upside down.
I have to run.
Get away from here.
But no matter how I try, my body doesn’t obey.
Mum.
Now it’s there again, the face, but it has features now, a woman’s rounded features.
