She isn’t listening. Staggers on toward the riverbank. Now he thinks this is unpleasant. She’s unpleasant. Horrible staring eyes in that raw meat face. He doesn’t want to be alone with her.
“Sorry,” he says, grabbing hold of her arm. “I can’t… You just can’t go down there.”
Now the world splits open like a rotten fruit. Somebody’s got hold of her arm. It’s Pastor Vesa Larsson. He no longer has a face. A brown dog’s head is sitting on his shoulders. The black doggy eyes are looking accusingly at her. He had children. And dogs, who can’t weep.
“What do you want from me?” she screams.
Pastor Thomas Soderberg is standing there too. He is lifting dead babies out of the well. Bending down and lifting them out, one after the other. Holding them upside down, by the heel or by their little feet. They are naked and white. Their skin is loose, they’ve been in the water for a long time. He throws them onto a great big pile. It grows and grows in front of him.
When she quickly turns away, she’s standing face to face with her mother. She’s so clean and smart.
“Don’t you touch me,” she says to Rebecka. “Do you understand? Do you understand what you’ve done?”
Anna-Maria Mella has got hold of a rug. She’s going to put it over Lars-Gunnar’s son. It’s not so easy to know what the scene of crime technicians will want her to do. She also needs to set up some kind of barricade before the whole village starts turning up. And the press. Why did it have to bloody rain? In the middle of everything, when she’s shouting about barricades and half-running with the rug, she longs for Robert. For this evening, when she’ll be able to sob in his arms. Because everything is so pointless and so unbearable.
Tommy Rantakyro calls out to her and she turns.
“I can’t hold her,” he shouts.
He’s wrestling with Rebecka Martinsson in the grass. Her arms are flailing, hitting out wildly. She breaks free and begins to run down to the river.
Sven-Erik Stalnacke and Fred Olsson set off after her. Anna-Maria hardly has time to react before Sven-Erik has almost caught up with her. Fred Olsson is right behind him. They grab hold of Rebecka. She’s like a snake in Sven- Erik’s arms.
“It’s okay,” says Sven-Erik loudly. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Tommy Rantakyro is holding his hand under his nose. A trickle of blood is seeping through his fingers. Anna- Maria always has paper tissues in her pockets. Gustav always needs something wiped off his face. Ice cream, banana, snot. She passes the tissue to Tommy.
“Get her down on the ground,” shouts Fred Olsson. “We need to cuff her.”
“Like hell we do,” answers Sven-Erik sharply. “Is the ambulance coming soon?”
The last remark is shouted to Anna-Maria. She makes a movement with her head to indicate that she doesn’t know. Sven-Erik and Fred Olsson are now each holding on to one of Rebecka Martinsson’s arms. She’s on her knees between them, lurching from side to side.
At that very moment the ambulance finally arrives. Closely followed by another radio car. Flashing lights and sirens slicing through the hard gray rain. There’s a hell of a noise.
And right through the middle of it all Anna-Maria can hear Rebecka Martinsson screaming.
Rebecka Martinsson is screaming. She’s screaming like someone who’s lost her mind. She can’t stop.
YELLOW LEGS
He’s as black as Satan. Comes racing through a sea of brownish pink fireweed that’s gone to seed. The white, woolly seed heads whirl like snow in the autumn sunshine. He stops dead. A hundred meters away from her.
His chest is broad. So is his head. Long, coarse black bristles around his neck. He isn’t handsome. But he’s big. Just like her.
He remains stock-still as she approaches him. She’s been listening to him ever since yesterday. She’s enticed him, called him. Sung for him. Told him in the darkness that she’s all alone. And he’s come. At last he’s come.
Happiness is prickling in her paws. She trots straight up to him. Her admiration is totally unconditional. She draws her ears together and places herself in the courtship position. Arches her neck. Her long back like a sinuous S. His tail makes long, slow, sweeping movements.
Nose to nose. Nose to genitals. Nose under the tail. And then nose to nose once again. Chest puffed out, neck extended. The whole thing is unbearably ceremonious. Yellow Legs places all she has before him. If you want me, you can have me, she says clearly.
And then he gives her the sign. He places one of his front paws on her shoulder. Then he springs forward skittishly.
And she can’t hold back any longer. The sense of playfulness she’d forgotten she possessed returns with full force. She leaps away from him. Hurtles away, the soil spraying up behind her. Accelerates, does a U-turn, races back and soars over him with a long leap. Turns around. Lowers her head, wrinkles her nose and shows her teeth. And off again.
He races after her and they tumble over and over together when he catches her.
They’re full of it. Playing like mad things. Afterward they lie in a heap, panting.
She stretches her neck lazily and licks his jaws.
The sun is sinking among the pine trees. Their legs are tired and contented.
Everything is now.
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rebecka Martinsson will get back on her feet, I believe in that little girl in her red Wellington boots. And remember: in my story I’m God. The characters might make a fuss about their free will from time to time, but I invented them. The places in the book are also mostly invented. There is a village called Poikkijarvi by the river Torne, but that’s where any resemblance ends, there’s no gravel track, no bar, no priest’s house.
Many people have helped me and I would like to thank some of them here: jur. kand. Karina Lundstrom, who sniffs out interesting characters within the police authorities. Senior doctor Jan Lindberg who helped me with my dead bodies. PhD candidate Catharina Durling and deputy judge Viktoria Edelman, who always checks the statute book for me when I don’t understand something or I’ve run out of energy. Dog handler Peter Holmstrom, who told me about Clinton the superdog.
Any errors in the book are mine. I forget to ask, misunderstand, or make things up against my better judgment.
Thanks also to: publisher Gunnar Nirstedt for his opinions. Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin and John Eyre for the cover. Lisa Berg and Hans-Olov Oberg who read and had opinions. My mother and Eva Jensen, who always manage to press the repeat button and say wonderful! Really! My father, who sorts out maps and can answer just about any question and who saw a wolf when he was seventeen and laying nets beneath the ice.
And finally: Per, for absolutely everything.
