“I’ll get a shovel.”
He turned toward the barn door.
“Can you manage without me?” asked Tilda.
Joakim simply nodded, without stopping.
Tilda left the burning staircase. She had to go back into the darkness.
“Stay where you are,” she said to Freddy. “I’m going to find your brother.”
But she stayed in the doorway of the inner room, waiting for Joakim to come back. It took perhaps half a minute, then he was back with a huge shovel full of snow.
They nodded to each other and Tilda went into the storeroom where the tractor was. Behind her she could hear the fire hissing as Joakim put it out.
She had raised her pistol again.
The shadows and the cold surrounded her once more. She thought she heard movements ahead of her, but could see nothing.
She kept close to the northern wall, where the small windows in the thick stone wall were completely covered in snow.
Then a door appeared, and Tilda went through it.
The room on the other side was large and even colder. Tilda stopped. The feeling that she wasn’t alone in the darkness came back. She lowered her pistol, listened, and took a step forward.
A shot rang out.
She ducked, without knowing if she’d been hit or not. Her ears were ringing from the report; she coughed quietly and breathed in the dry air. She waited.
Nothing else happened.
When Tilda finally looked up into the darkness, she saw another closed door four or five yards away. It was a way out-but there was someone standing in front of it. A man.
It was Freddy’s brother, Tommy. It couldn’t be anyone else. He had rolled the balaclava up to his forehead and his pale face bore a resemblance to Freddy’s.
Tommy had an old rifle over his shoulder.
Tilda steadied the hand holding the pistol, aiming at Tommy.
“Drop the gun.”
But Tommy just stood there like a sleepwalker, almost as if someone were holding on to him. His eyes were lowered and his right hand was resting on the door handle, as if he
were on his way out, but his legs seemed to be incapable of movement.
“Tommy?”
He didn’t reply.
A narcotic-induced psychosis? She walked slowly over to Martin’s murderer, afraid but resolute. Then she silently reached out to his shoulder and carefully unhooked the rifle. She saw that the safety catch was on, and dropped it on the floor behind her.
“Tommy?” she said again. “Can you move?”
When she nudged his arm, he suddenly gave a start and came to life.
He fell backward, the iron handle was pushed down, and the door opened. It
Tilda raced after him over the low stone step, out into the gale. She could see swaying tree trunks a dozen or so yards away.
“Tommy!” she shouted. “Stop!”
Her voice was ripped to shreds by the wind, and the man ahead of her didn’t stop. He had picked up speed through the snow; he shouted something over his shoulder and fled, heading straight for the forest.
Tilda fired a warning shot, up into the storm, then dropped on one knee. She raised her pistol and took aim, keeping her finger on the trigger.
She knew she could hit him in the legs. But she couldn’t bring herself to shoot someone who was running away.
Tommy had reached the low-growing trees on the edge of the forest. The covering of snow was thinner there, and he was able to move faster. After fifteen or twenty steps he was a gray shadow in the forest. Then he was gone.
Shit.
Tilda remained outside for several minutes, but saw no other movements in the darkness apart from the whirling snow. It was still blowing in across the coast, and when she
began to lose the feeling in her fingers she turned her back to the wind. She went back and picked up the Mauser in the doorway.
On her way back to Joakim she decided to go along the outside of the barn, despite the fact that the wind and the cold had almost finished her off by now. But she didn’t want to risk meeting anyone else in there, in those black rooms.
40
Dousing the fire with snow had worked, but when Joakim finally managed to put the flames out, almost the entire staircase up to the loft was charred, and thick curtains of smoke hung from the roof beams.
Joakim coughed in the dry air and sat down at the bottom of the smoking staircase with aching legs. He was still holding the snow shovel he had fetched from the house.
He couldn’t even think anymore, didn’t have the strength to wonder where all these uninvited guests had come from tonight, or to ponder what had happened up there in the room with the church benches. He realized that Gerlof Davidsson was right: a veil of forgetfulness was already beginning to obscure his memories of this night.
Had he really met Katrine up there? Had she confessed that she had drowned his sister?
No. Katrine hadn’t said that.
Joakim looked at the tall man lying over by the wall. He
had no idea who he was or why he was wearing handcuffs, but if police officer Tilda Davidsson had caught him, then certain conclusions could be drawn.
Almost at that same moment, he thought he heard fresh shots from somewhere outside the barn.
Joakim listened, but when he heard nothing more he looked over in the direction of the wall.
“Was it you who started all this?” he asked.
After a few seconds a quiet reply came from the floor.
“Sorry.”
Joakim sighed. “I’ll have to build a new staircase to the loft… sometime.”
He leaned back, then remembered that Livia and Gabriel were still in the house, alone.
How could he have left them?
There was a sudden scraping noise over by the barn door, and when he turned his head he saw Tilda come stumbling in from the storm, covered in snow. She had her pistol in one hand, and an old hunting rifle in the other.
She sank down over by the wooden wall and breathed out.
“He’s gone,” she said.
Freddy looked up from the floor.
“Gone?” said Joakim.
“He ran into the forest,” said Tilda. “He disappeared… but at least he hasn’t got a rifle now.”
Joakim got up. “I have to see to my children,” he said, walking toward the door. “Will you be okay on your own for a while?”
Tilda nodded, but remained on the floor, her head drooping.
“If you go through the veranda… there are people there. Two men.”
