Henrik considered for a couple of seconds. Then he shook his head and turned to Björn, who was still holding on to Elin. Björn said, 'Mmm…because…we are human and we need love just like anyone?'
'No,' said Henrik. 'Try again.'
Björn frowned. Then he brightened up. 'We're clinging because we know it's over, but we don't know where else to go.'
Henrik nodded. 'Close enough,' he said. 'And so true.'
The cuts in Anders' thighs were not as deep as he had first thought. They had stopped bleeding, but his trousers were soaked and the cold was starting to get to his legs. 'Can we stop this game now?' he said. 'Let Elin go.'
Henrik looked surprised.
'That's not possible. We're going to drown her.'
Elin started screaming again as Henrik and Björn used their combined strength to drag her towards the water, her bare feet scoring a track in the gravel. Anders stumbled over to the fence and tugged at the loose post until it came out.
When he turned around Elin had been dragged twenty metres down towards the sea, forty metres to go. He let the adrenaline take over, desensitising him to his physical problems. He ran to catch up with them. When he was a couple of metres away, he yelled, 'Let her go!'
Henrik turned, and Anders hit out at his head with the metre-long post. Henrik's arm came up in defence, and the post struck his elbow. The sensation of two hard objects meeting should have carried on into Anders' hands, but that wasn't what happened. When the wooden post hit Henrik's body it felt more like hitting a big sponge full of water. Henrik's arm curved around the post and a shower of water hit Anders in the face.
Henrik tore the post out of his hands and hurled it to the ground. 'I don't think it's time for you to die. Yet. So pack it in.'
Anders stood there with his arms dangling by his sides as they continued to drag Elin towards the water. Then he turned and ran up towards their moped as he fumbled in his pocket. Let me have, let me have…
Yes. In his pocket he found both cigarettes and matches. He ran over to the moped, unscrewed the petrol cap and yelled to the group, who were now very close to the shore, 'Listen! Let her go, or else…' He lit a match and held it over the hole.
They stopped. Anders shook the box of matches and discovered it was half-full. He had no plan, couldn't work out what to do next. He had been forced to find a way to stop them, and so far it had succeeded. But what next? He could stand here striking matches until the box was empty, but then what?
In any case, they must be able to see through him. He had no desire to be blown up along with their moped for Elin's sake. He looked at the match, which had almost burned down.
Besides which…
Besides which it wouldn't work, he now remembered. He couldn't think who it was or in what context, but somebody had once dropped a lighted match into a petrol tank to impress the others. It had simply gone out. Petrol needs air in order to burn. It might even have been Henrik, that summer when they were kings with their new moped.
Maybe it had been, because they were unimpressed by his threat and were still dragging Elin, who was now screaming at the top of her voice, down towards the shore.
Air…
Anders grabbed the edge of the platform and tipped the moped over. It rolled and came to rest on the handlebars as the petrol gurgled out of the tank. He looked up and saw that they were now down by the shoreline with Elin. There was no more time for threats. He moved back a couple of metres, just as far as the petrol had trickled down through the gravel, struck a fresh match and threw it, jumping backwards at the same time.
The flames shot up from the ground like a blue and yellow wall, and Anders screamed, 'Listen!' as loud as he could. Through the fire, which was now licking at the wooden planks of the platform, he saw
Henrik and Björn let go of Elin and come racing up towards him.
He had done what he could and given Elin a chance to escape, now it was up to her. He ran to the bike and the denim was ripped agonisingly from his legs as he threw himself on to the saddle and pedalled towards the forest as hard and as fast as he possibly could. He didn't even turn around to see if they were following him.
The enemy of the water
Anders' legs pedalled as if they had been disconnected from his body and were being controlled by another will. The darkness around him was dense, but he didn't give a thought to the fact that he could end up in the ditch at any moment, and perhaps that was why it didn't happen. Instinct kept him on the right track, and he managed to drive himself on right through the forest without falling off.
For the last part of the journey he was guided by the faint lights from the village, and at that point he wobbled for the first time and almost went over. He managed to brake and get one foot on the ground before the bike tipped sideways. He looked back at the forest path. They didn't seem to be following him.
He set off again and pedalled through the village, feeling slightly protected by the pale street lamps. Only when he had passed the hostel did he allow his thoughts to come belching out. A cloud of horrible, incomprehensible pictures filled his head, and suddenly he felt as if he had a temperature of forty degrees. His body lost all stability and he just wanted to let himself fall. Down on to the track, down into the darkness. To rest.
However, he managed to whip himself on to the point where the track split in two, and headed off to the left. The slight slope down towards Anna-Greta's house meant that he could simply roll along, his legs dangling. As he wobbled on to the drive leading to the house, he saw that there was still a light in the kitchen window.
He dropped the bike on the grass and dragged himself to the door, his legs heavy. He was sweating and shivering, managed to miss the handle once before he grabbed it and pulled open the door.
Simon and Anna-Greta were sitting at the kitchen table, bent over a whole lot of photographs spread all over the surface. When Simon saw Anders his face lit up for a moment, then his expression changed to one of horror.
Anders, whatever have you done?'
Anders leaned against the stove and waved in the direction of Kattudden, but no sound emerged from his lips. Simon and Anna-Greta reached him and he let his body fall into their arms, let himself sink down on to the rag rug. When he was lying on his back and had taken a couple of breaths he said; 'Just need to…have a little rest.'
He stayed where he was while the kitchen lamp was lit, while Simon and Anna-Greta fetched water and placed a pillow under his head. By this stage the shivering had stopped and he might possibly have been able to get up, but he stayed where he was and let them take care of him, just because it was so utterly blissful to leave everything to someone else for a while.
They took off his trousers and washed the cuts on his legs, dressed them with compresses and gauze bandages. Simon gave him two painkillers and some more water. After a couple of minutes of drifting blissfully in the care of others, Anders hauled himself up on to a kitchen chair. He tried to gather his thoughts and looked at the photographs, spread out across the table.
They were old photographs, very old. They showed houses and farms, people working, close-ups. Many of them were yellow with age, and the people in them wore that expression of grim concentration that is so common in old pictures, as if the very act of being photographed demanded a special effort.
Directly in front of him lay a close-up that made him give a start. It was taken outdoors, and printed on something that looked like matt card. Across the picture ran a couple of flames of patchy yellow, as if someone had splashed urine over it. The picture showed a woman of about sixty, staring angrily into the camera.
'Yes,' said Simon. 'I thought I recognised her.'
On the table in front of him Anders found another picture of the same woman, this time taken from further away. She was standing in front of a scrubby little house on a headland.