“Keep calm,” she says to Lova and Sara without taking her eyes off the door. “Shut your eyes and keep calm.”
Curt is the first to come in through the door. Just behind him she can see Vesa. Curt catches sight of her with the gun. Registers the two black holes pointing at him. For a fraction of a second his face alters. From irritation with the cold, the wind and the stiff tarpaulin into-not fear, but something else. First of all, the realization that he can’t get to her in time. Then his gaze becomes dull. Empty and expressionless.
She doesn’t lift the gun high enough and the recoil cracks her lower rib when she blasts a hole in Curt’s stomach. He falls back against the door. The snow comes whirling in through the opening.
Vesa stands frozen to the spot. His whole body is a single scream.
“In!” she snaps, and points the gun at him. “And bring him with you. Sit down!”
He does as she says and squats on his haunches by the door.
“On your backside!” she orders.
He slumps down. His suit is bulky. He can’t easily get to his feet from that position. Without her telling him to, he links his hands behind his head. Curt is lying between them. In the silence that follows when the door has closed against the storm, they can hear Curt’s labored breathing: short, panting whistles.
She leans her head back. Tired. Very tired.
“Now,” she says to Vesa Larsson, “you are going to tell me everything. And as long as you keep talking and keep telling the truth, you can stay alive.”
“Sanna Strandgard came to me,” says Vesa hoarsely. “She was… in floods of tears. I know that’s a ridiculous expression, but you should have seen her.”
Oh, I can see her, all right, thinks Rebecka. Hair all fluffed out like a dandelion clock. Nobody suits snot and tears better than Sanna.
“She said Viktor had interfered with her girls.”
Rebecka steals a glance at the girls; they are still tied to the bed with rags in their mouths. She’s afraid she’ll faint if she crawls over to them. And if she tells Vesa to untie them, he can kick the gun out of her hand in a second. She must wait a little while.
They’re breathing. They’re alive. She’ll soon work out what to do.
“What do you mean, ‘interfered with’?”
“I don’t know, it was something Sara had said that made her realize. I didn’t really get a clear idea of what had happened. But I promised to speak to Viktor. I…”
He breaks off in confusion.
She does confuse people, thinks Rebecka. Lures them into the forest and steals their compass.
“Yes?”
“I was such a fool,” he whines. “I asked her not to go to the police or the authorities. She’d spoken to Patrik Mattsson. I rang him and said Sanna had made a mistake. Threatened to throw him out of the church if he spread the rumor around.”
“Get on with it,” said Rebecka impatiently. “Did you speak to Viktor?”
The gun resting on her legs is getting heavier and heavier.
“He wouldn’t listen to me. It wasn’t even a conversation. He leaned across my desk and threatened me-said my days as a pastor in this church were numbered. Said he had no intention of putting up with the fact that the pastors were lining their own pockets through the business.”
'The trading company?'
“Yes. When we started Victory Print, I thought it was all aboveboard. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t think too hard about it. A member of the church who owned his own company gave us the idea. He said it was all perfectly legal. We put the costs down to the company, and reclaimed the VAT from the state. Of course, the church gave us money to make the investments on the quiet, but in our eyes everything in the company belonged to our church anyway. As I saw it, we weren’t deceiving anybody. It wasn’t until I broke the vow of confidentiality and told Thomas about Sanna’s suspicions, and that Viktor had threatened me, that I realized we were in trouble. Thomas got scared. Do you understand? Within the space of three hours, the whole world began to shake. Viktor was aggressive and a danger to children. Viktor, who had always loved children. Used to help out in Sunday school and so on… It made me feel sick. And Thomas was afraid. Thomas, who’d always been as solid as a rock. And I was a criminal. Can I take my hands down from my neck? My head and shoulders are aching.”
She nods.
“We decided to speak to him together,” he goes on. “Thomas said Viktor needed help, and he would get that help within the church. So that evening…”
He stops speaking and they both look at Curt, lying on the floor between them. The rug has turned red beneath him. His breathing changes from a whistling rattle to a quiet wheezing. And then he stops breathing. Silence.
Vesa Larsson stares at him, his pupils dilated with fear. Then he looks at Rebecka and at the shotgun on her knee.
Rebecka blinks. She is beginning to feel listless and uninterested. It is as if Vesa’s story no longer has anything to do with her. But now he needs no encouragement to keep talking. Suddenly he is babbling at top speed.
“Viktor wouldn’t listen to us. He said he had fasted and prayed, and that it was time for the church to be cleansed. All of a sudden we were the ones standing there being accused. He said we were hawkers who should be driven from the temple. That this was God’s work, yet we were prepared to hand it over to Mammon. And then… oh, God… then all at once Curt was there. I don’t know if he’d been standing there listening all the time, or if he’d just come into the church.”
Vesa screws up his eyes and his mouth contorts into a grimace.
“Viktor pointed at Thomas and screamed, I don’t remember what. Curt had an unopened wine bottle in his hand. We had celebrated communion during the service. He hit Viktor on the back of the head. Viktor fell to his knees. Curt was wearing a big padded jacket. He slipped the bottle into his inside pocket. Then he took the knife out of his belt and stabbed him. Two or three blows. Viktor fell backwards and stayed still, lying on his back.”
“And you stood there watching,” whispers Rebecka.
“I tried to intervene, but Thomas stopped me.”
He pushes his fists against his eyes.
“No, that isn’t true,” he goes on. “I think I took a step forward. But Thomas just made a small movement with his hand. And I stopped. Just like a well-trained dog. Then Curt turned and came over to us. Suddenly I was terrified that he was going to kill me too. Thomas stood completely still with no expression on his face. I remember looking at him and thinking I’d read that’s what you’re meant to do if you’re attacked by a rabid dog. Don’t run, don’t scream, just stay calm and stand still. We stood there. Curt didn’t say anything either, just looked at us with the knife in his hand. Then he turned on his heel and went back to Viktor. He…”
Vesa makes a keening noise through his teeth.
“…stabbed him again, over and over. Dug into his eyes with the knife. Then he stuck his fingers into the sockets and smeared the blood over his own eyes. ‘All that he has seen, I have now seen,’ he cried out. He licked the knife like… an animal! I think he cut his tongue, because there was blood trickling down the side of his mouth. And then he cut off the hands. Hacking and twisting. He pushed one in his jacket pocket, but there wasn’t room for the other one, and he dropped it on the floor, and… I don’t really remember after that. Thomas drove me along Norgevagen in his car. I stood out in the cold in the middle of the night throwing up. And all the time Thomas was going on and on. About our families. About the church. Saying the best thing we could do now was to keep quiet. Afterward, I wondered whether he knew Curt was there. Or whether he’d actually seen him standing there.”
“And Gunnar Isaksson?”
“He didn’t know anything. He’s a waste of space.”
“You cowardly bastard,” said Rebecka, exhausted.
“I’ve got children,” he whines. “Everything will be different now. You’ll see.”
“Don’t even bother,” she says. “When Sanna came to you. That’s when you should have gone to the police and Social Services. But no-you didn’t want the scandal. You didn’t want to lose your nice house and your well-paying job.”
Soon she won’t be able to keep her right leg drawn up any longer. If she puts the gun down on the floor he’ll have time to get up and kick her in the head before she’s even had time to raise it into the firing position. She can’t
