yellow blankets, her head reclining on a pillow.
Who is it?
The cheek facing Malin is covered with a bandage.
But who is it?
Malin approaches cautiously and the figure on the bed groans, turns her head towards her, and isn’t that something like a smile between the gaps in the bandages?
Hands wrapped in gauze.
The eyes.
I recognise them.
But who is it?
The smile is gone and the nose and eyes and hair become a memory.
Rebecka Stenlundh.
Bengt Andersson’s sister.
She raises her bandaged hand towards Malin, beckoning her to the bed.
Then a huge effort, all the words to get out at once, a whole sentence to finish, as if it were her last.
‘You have to take care of my boy if I don’t make it. See that he ends up somewhere good.’
‘You’re going to make it.’
‘I’m trying, believe me.’
‘What happened? Can you bear to tell me what happened?’
‘The car.’
‘The car?’
‘That’s where I was taken.’
Rebecka Stenlundh turns her head, laying her bandaged cheek on the pillow.
‘Then a hole. In the forest, and a post.’
‘A hole, where?’
‘In the dark.’
‘Where in the dark?’
Rebecka shuts her eyes in a negative, in a: ‘I have no idea.’
‘And then?’
‘Sledge, and car again.’
‘Who?’
Rebecka Stenlundh shakes her head slowly.
‘You didn’t see?’
She shakes her head again. ‘I was going to be hanged, like Bengt.’
‘Was there more than one?’
Rebecka shakes her head once more. ‘Don’t know, couldn’t see properly.’
‘And the man who brought you in?’
‘He helped me.’
‘So you didn’t see . . .’
‘I struck the blackness, I struck the blackness, I . . .’
Rebecka drifts off, shuts her eyes, mumbles, ‘Mum, Mum. Can we go and play under the apple trees?’
Malin puts her ear close to Rebecka’s mouth. ‘What did you say?’
‘Stay, Mum, stay, you’re not ill . . .’
‘Can you hear me?’
‘My boy, take . . .’
Rebecka falls silent, but she’s breathing, her chest is moving; she’s sleeping, or is unconscious, and Malin wonders if she’s dreaming, hopes that Rebecka can escape dreaming for many nights to come, but knows that she’s going to dream.
The machine beside her bleeps.
Glowing eyes.
Malin stands up.
