drawn.
Per got out of the car and looked at his watch. Twenty past four. It was at least a couple of hours until sunset, but the sky was overcast and the fir trees towering up beyond the garden shut out the daylight.
His shoes crunched on the gravel as he went towards the steps.
The front door was imposing, made of oak or mahogany – and it was only when Per started up the steps that he noticed it was ajar. It was open an inch or so, and the hallway inside was pitch black.
He pushed open the heavy door and peered inside.
‘Hello?’
There wasn’t a sound. He reached in and found a switch, but when he flicked it down the light didn’t come on.
He glanced back quickly to check that the area in front of the house was still deserted, then he stepped inside.
Two ghostly figures were waiting for him on the left in the hallway. Per stiffened – until he realized they were nothing more than two dark raincoats hanging beneath a hat stand.
On the floor below the shelf stood a row of slippers and Wellington boots, along with an umbrella. There was an ebony sculpture in a dark corner, a tiger almost three feet tall who seemed ready to pounce.
Per took a couple of steps into the hallway. There were four doors leading off to the sides, but they were all closed.
For some reason he had been expecting a stale or sour smell in the air, but he was aware of only a faint aroma of old tobacco smoke and alcohol. Had someone had a party here?
There was something lying on the rug – a black mobile phone. Per picked it up and saw that it was switched off.
Was it Jerry’s? It certainly looked like his father’s, with big buttons that were easy to press with a shaky finger. He put the phone in his pocket and called out, ‘Hello? Jerry?’
No reply. And yet he still had the feeling that there was someone in the house, someone who was moving cautiously across the floor to avoid being heard.
He went over to a door on the left and tentatively pushed down the handle. Behind it was a large kitchen, a long room with several windows letting in grey light which fell on a sturdy dining table, several sinks and two large ovens. It reminded him of a restaurant kitchen, and there were a number of empty wine bottles and a pile of unwashed plates on the worktops.
Per turned around; he thought he had heard something. A shout from inside the house?
He stopped just inside the kitchen door and jumped when a bell suddenly started ringing. A telephone. It was coming from the wall on the far side of the kitchen, and from somewhere else in the house.
Per wanted to shout
The telephone rang out three times, four, five.
No one answered, but when he finally moved towards it with his hand outstretched, it fell silent.
He moved slowly backwards, out of the kitchen. He stepped back into the hallway and turned around. The smell of alcohol was still there, perhaps it was even stronger now, and the black tiger was still lurking in the shadows, waiting for him. He walked past it and tried a door on the other side of the hallway.
The room behind the door was pitch black. When Per stepped inside he saw that the windows were taped shut, but he had the impression of a large, long room with plastic flooring, movable walls and spotlights on the ceiling. This must be Jerry and Bremer’s studio.
He spotted a light switch by the door and pressed it, but nothing happened. The power must have gone off in the whole house. Or somebody had turned it off. There was no point in groping blindly across the room. He was just about to turn around when he heard a faint sound in the darkness.
A sigh, or a groan? Yes, there was somebody groaning in the room in front of him. And it sounded like a man.
Per moved forward into the darkness. He bumped into something large and hard on the floor, a big leather sofa, and slowly felt his way around it.
The smell of alcohol was stronger in here – or was it something else?
Then he saw something moving on the other side of the sofa, a few metres away, and took another step forward. It was a shadow with arms, its head raised.
‘Pelle?’ said a voice in the darkness.
It was low and hoarse, and Per recognized it.
‘Jerry,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’
The figure stirred. It was lying on the floor, but it turned its head in his direction. Slowly, as if it had difficulty moving. Per bent down towards it, towards a pale head with greasy strands of grey hair and a body covered with a crumpled overcoat.
‘You weren’t easy to find, Jerry. How are you doing?’
Per saw his father’s yellow-white eyes flash in the darkness. They were blinking at him, but Jerry didn’t seem surprised to see his son.
‘Bremer?’ he said, coughing.
Per shook his head. He spoke quietly, as if someone were creeping up on them.
‘I don’t know where Bremer is … Is he here in the house?’
He sensed that his father was nodding.
‘Can you get up?’
He reached out to him, but felt something cold and heavy across Jerry’s chest. Some kind of lighting stand or metal rig had fallen on top of him. Per lifted it out of the way – and at the same moment he heard a loud thud from the ceiling, and looked up.
There was somebody upstairs, he realized.
‘Up you get,’ he said quietly to Jerry, moving the stand out of the way. ‘There you go …’
He got his father up on to his knees, then his feet. Jerry groaned and seemed to be reaching out for something lying on the floor.
It was his old leather briefcase. Per let him take it. ‘Come on,’ he said.
His father’s body was substantial and heavy, bearing witness to long, lazy dinners and plenty of wine. Jerry moved slowly across the floor, leaning on his son.
‘Pelle,’ Jerry said again.
Per could smell a mixture of sweat, nicotine and unwashed clothes emanating from his father. It was a strange feeling, being so close to him. It had never happened when he was a little boy. No reassuring pats from Jerry, no hugs.
When he had managed to get him halfway to the door, he heard a brief clicking sound in the darkness. Then something hissed.
Per turned his head. Over his shoulder he saw a glow on the floor further inside the room, and a small flame flared up.
It was thin and weak, but quickly grew bigger; the fire reached up from the floor, illuminating a peculiar device standing by the wall. It looked like a car battery with wires, standing next to a plastic box.
The smell in the air wasn’t alcohol, Per realized. It was petrol.
The box was a big green can, and somebody had drilled little holes in the side. The petrol had already run out and formed a pool on the floor.
Per stared at the fire, watching it grow and creep closer to the can, and he saw the danger.
‘We have to get out of here.’
He pulled Jerry across the room.
Once they were out, Per quickly closed the door behind them, and almost immediately heard a dull, sucking roar from inside the room as the petrol ignited, rattling the door.
Jerry raised his head, and Per noticed that his father had a red lump on his forehead.
‘Pelle?’
‘Let’s go, Jerry.’
He staggered through the hallway with his arm around his father. They could hear a muted crackling noise through the door behind them as the fire spread through the room.
