Midwinter Sacrifice

But it takes time to get a helicopter in the air in this sort of cold, so they have to rely on themselves, on their legs. The dog-patrols have just left the station.

They scramble over the bank of snow, following the Murvall brothers’ tracks, head in among the trees, running, landing so hard on their feet that they break the crust of the snow, stumble, run again. Their hearts are pounding in their chests, their lungs are working overtime, overdosing on the cold white air, their bodies straining forward, forward, but not even adrenalin lasts for ever and soon they are stumbling more than running, as they listen to the forest, for the brothers, for signs of activity, of life, but neither of them can hear anything.

‘Shit,’ Zeke pants. ‘How far in do you think they are?’

‘A long way,’ Malin says. ‘We’ve got to go on.’

And Malin starts running into the forest, but the crust can’t take her hard, heavy footsteps and she falls, gets up, rushes on.

Her vision narrows to a tunnel.

‘He wasn’t the one who raped your sister,’ she wants to shout through the forest.

‘Don’t believe your mother. He didn’t rape her, he’s done some repulsive things, but not that. Let all this end now, it isn’t too late, whatever you think, whatever she’s beaten into you. He’s still your brother. Do you hear? Do you hear? He’s your own brother. And he didn’t rape your sister, we know that for certain.’

The tunnel closes.

I’ve got to get there, Malin thinks.

Screams, ‘He didn’t rape your sister,’ but she’s so short of breath that she can barely hear her own voice.

Never show your weakness, never show your weakness, never . . .

Elias mutters the words to himself like a mantra, thinking of all the times he’s showed his strength, how he smashed his fist into that teacher Brogren’s face when he called him a filthy brat from Blasvadret.

Sometimes he wonders why everything’s turned out the way it has, why they’re on the outside, and the only answer he can find is that it was like that from the start. There were all the people with jobs, with proper lives, decent houses, and it was never, ever us, and the world let us know that.

Adam behind him.

Elias stops, turns round. Thinks how well he’s carrying the weight, his brother, and how his forehead glows pink in the winter light and the cold, how his skin seems healthier.

‘Keep hold of the box, Adam.’

‘I’ve got it,’ he replies, his voice tight.

Jakob walks silently ahead of him.

His steps are determined, his shoulders are drooping in his jacket, angled to the ground.

‘Fuck,’ Adam swears. ‘This snow’s really dodgy.’

He’s gone through yet again.

‘Let’s speed up,’ he says. ‘Get this over with.’

Elias says nothing.

There’s nothing more to talk about. Just one thing to get done.

They walk past the cabin.

Pass it without stopping, carry on across the clearing into the forest, even darker, even thicker than on the other side, and there the crust of the snow is thicker, more stable, but still it gives way every now and then.

‘He’s hiding over there,’ Elias says. ‘I know he is.’

‘I can smell smoke from the stove,’ Adam says.

Adam’s fingers holding the box are starting to cramp, shaking uncontrollably against the wood. He switches arms, flexes his fingers to get rid of the cramp.

‘A fucking hole in the ground. He’s no better than an animal,’ Jakob whispers.

Then he says out loud, ‘Now it’s Maria’s turn.’

He shouts the words into the forest, but the sound dies out against the tree trunks, the forest absorbing his voice.

Go on, Malin, go on. It isn’t too late yet. The helicopter has left the airfield at Malmslatt, it’s whirling its way towards you across the plain, the dogs in the patrols are scrabbling, barking, their numbed senses searching in vain.

Like you, Malin, I think enough is enough.

But even so.

I want Karl here beside me.

I want to drift beside him.

Take him away from here with me.

How is it possible to feel so tired?

Malin’s body is full of lactic acid and, even though the brothers’ tracks lead further into the forest, the two of