Sanna, thinks Rebecka, and looks back at her painting.
She draws curly little spirals and stars above Sanna’s head.
Silly-billy Sanna. Who can’t manage anything by herself. All her life a series of idiots have leapt in and sorted things out for her. I’m one of them. She didn’t even have to ask me to come up here. I came scampering up anyway, like a damned puppy.
She makes Sanna’s arms and hands disappear by painting over them in black. There, now she can’t do anything. Then she paints herself and writes “IDIOT” above.
Comprehension rises out of the picture. The brush shakily traces the figures she has painted on the newspaper. Sanna can’t manage anything by herself. There she stands, no arms, no hands. When Sanna needs something, some idiot leaps in and sorts things out for her. Rebecka Martinsson is an example of such an idiot.
If Viktor is doing something to her children…
… and she gets so angry she wants to kill him, what happens then?
Then some idiot is going to kill Viktor for her.
Can that be what happened? It has to be what happened.
The Bible. The murderer put Viktor’s Bible in Sanna’s kitchen drawer.
Of course. Not to frame Sanna. It was a present for her. The message, the postcard with the sprawling handwriting, was written to Sanna, not to Viktor. “What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God.” Killing Viktor was not wrong in the eyes of God.
'Who?' says Rebecka to herself, drawing an empty heart next to the picture of Sanna. Inside the heart she draws a question mark.
She listens. Tries to make out a sound through the storm. A sound that doesn’t belong here. And then suddenly she hears it, the noise of a snowmobile.
Curt. Curt Backstrom, who sat on his snowmobile under the window, gazing up at Sanna.
She gets up and looks around.
The axe, she thinks in a panic. I’ll get the axe.
But she can’t hear the noise of the engine anymore.
It was just your imagination, calm down, she reassures herself. Sit down. You’re stressed and scared and you imagined you heard something. There’s nothing out there.
She sits down, but can’t take her eyes off the doorknob. She ought to get up and lock it.
Don’t start, she thinks, like some kind of spell. There’s nothing out there.
The next moment the doorknob begins to turn. The door opens. The moaning of the storm bursts in, along with a rush of cold air, and a man dressed in a dark blue snowsuit steps quickly inside. Pushes the door shut behind him. At first she can’t make out who it is. Then he takes off his hood and balaclava.
It isn’t Curt Backstrom. It’s Vesa Larsson.
Anna-Maria Mella is dreaming. She jumps out of a police car and runs with her colleagues along the E10 between Kiruna and Gallivare. They are on their way to a crashed car lying upside down ten meters from the carriageway. It’s such hard work. Her colleagues are already standing next to the crumpled car and yelling at her.
“Get a move on! You’re the one with the saw! We’ve got to get them out!”
She carries on running with the chainsaw in her hand. Somewhere she can hear a woman; her screams are heartrending.
She’s there at last. She starts up the chainsaw. It shrieks through the metal of the car. She catches sight of the child seat hanging upside down in the car, but she can’t see if there’s a child in it. The saw gives a shrill howl, but suddenly it makes a loud piercing ringing sound. Like a telephone.
Robert nudges Anna-Maria in the side and goes back to sleep as soon as she has picked up the receiver. Sven-Erik Stalnacke’s voice comes down the line.
“It’s me,” he says. “Listen, I went back to Curt Backstrom’s yesterday. But he hasn’t been there all night, at least nobody’s answering the door.”
“Mmm,” mumbles Anna-Maria.
The nastiness of her dream lingers on. She squints at the clock radio beside the bed. Twenty-five to five. She shuffles backwards in the bed and leans against the headboard.
“You didn’t go there on your own?”
“Don’t make a fuss, Mella, just listen. When he didn’t seem to be at home, or wasn’t opening the door, or whatever, I went to the Crystal Church to see if there was some sort of all-night hallelujah carry-on, but there wasn’t. Then I rang the pastors-Thomas Soderberg, Vesa Larsson and Gunnar Isaksson, in that order. I thought maybe they kept an eye on their flock and might know if this Curt Backstrom was in the habit of spending his free time during the day anywhere other than in his flat.”
“And?”
“Thomas Soderberg and Vesa Larsson weren’t at home. Their wives insisted they must still be at the church because of this conference, but I swear to you, Anna-Maria, there was nobody in that church. I mean, they could have been sitting there hiding in the dark, quiet as mice, but I find that difficult to believe. Pastor Gunnar Isaksson was at home, answered after ten rings and rambled on-he’d obviously had a nightcap.”
Anna-Maria ponders for a while. She feels befuddled and slightly unwell.
“I wonder if we’ve got enough for a search warrant,” she says. “I’d like to get into Curt Backstrom’s apartment. Ring von Post and ask him.”
Sven-Erik sighs at the other end of the phone.
“He’s completely hung up on Sanna Strandgard,” he says. “And we haven’t got a shred of evidence. But still, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this guy. I’m going to go in.”
'Into his apartment? Just stop right there.'
“I’m going to ring Benny the locksmith. He won’t ask any questions if I tell him he can send the bill to the police.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
Anna-Maria lowers her feet to the floor.
“Wait for me,” she says. “Robert can dig the car out.”
Without taking his eyes off her he fumbles behind with his hand, grabs hold of the door handle and presses it downward.
We, she thinks. Who are “we”?
All at once she realizes that he is not alone. He just came in first to make sure the situation was under control.
Vesa Larsson opens the door and two other men come into the room. The door closes behind them. They are dressed in dark clothes. No skin visible anywhere. Balaclavas. Goggles.
Rebecka tries to get up from the chair, but her legs will not obey her. It is as if her whole body is ceasing to function. Her lungs are incapable of taking in any air. The blood that has flowed through her veins since she was born is stopping. Like the river when a dam has been built. Her stomach is turning into a solid knot.
No, no, fuck, fuck…
One of the two men takes off his hood and reveals his dark shiny curls. It is Curt Backstrom. His snowsuit is black and shiny. On his feet he has sturdy biker’s boots with steel toe-caps. Over his shoulder he is carrying a shotgun, double barreled. His nostrils and pupils are flared, like a warhorse. She looks straight into his glazed eyes. Sees the fever in them.
Be very careful with him, she thinks.
She sneaks a glance at the girls. They are fast asleep.
She sees who the other man is before he removes his hood and goggles. It doesn’t matter what he’s wearing, she would recognize him anywhere. Thomas Soderberg. The way he moves. Dominates the room. It’s almost as if they had rehearsed. Curt Backstrom and Vesa Larsson take up positions on either side of the door to the pigsty.
