Janne and Zeke are sitting in the shade, leaning against the wall of the warehouse next to each other, and Malin can see that they’re gathering their strength, recharging before the next act.
The final act?
Sven Sjöman crouching beside her.
‘Malin, have you got any ideas?’
His breath smells of coffee.
The voices, listen to the voices.
It’s desire that kills.
And Malin straightens up, certainty like a sudden strong jolt through her body and she flies up, shouting over to Janne and Zeke: ‘Come on, I know where she is!’
Sven steps back, letting Malin past as she races to the car.
‘Come on, for fuck’s sake!’
All around them officers have stopped what they were doing, as if the desperation in her voice has frozen time at that second and given them all a glimpse of eternity.
Sven called after them: ‘Where are you going, Malin?’
But she didn’t answer, didn’t want a whole fucking army to show up and set off something stupid if it wasn’t already too late. She didn’t want Sven to call the cretins in the Finspång station, who knew what sort of mess they could make of things.
No.
Now it’s me against you.
I know where you are now, Vera Folkman, and I know why you’re doing what you’re doing.
It’s a tragic madness, your madness. Two sisters, alone in the world together; they love each other endlessly. Do you think you can recreate your sister? your love for one another? It’s a beautiful madness, your madness. But it’s my task to destroy it, obliterate it.
It’s Janne’s task.
Zeke’s.
But most of all ours, Janne. We have a child, and we owe her a life.
Malin is sitting in the back seat of the car, Janne leaning on her shoulder. They’re forcing themselves to stay awake, saying things about the landscape as they pass through it to make sure that Zeke doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel.
‘The Roxen looks so inviting in the morning light.’
‘Vreta Kloster really is beautiful.’
‘We’re going to stop that bitch.’
At the start of the drive Malin explained that Vera Folkman must have taken Tove with her back to see her father, Sture Folkman, to conclude a dance of death that had been going on for far too long, which had created a summer that no one in the area would ever forget.
One hundred and fifty kilometres an hour as they pass the golf course in Vreta Kloster, after driving through a deserted early-morning Ljungsbro.
They pass the fires, the lines of cars, and they meet fire engines on their way back from there, their cabs full of exhausted men with soot-smeared faces, resignation in their eyes as if the fire and the heat were too strong for them, as if they had no choice but to capitulate to the flames and let the fire transform all the forests of Östergötland into a no-man’s-land.
‘Do you wish you were still there?’ Malin asks Janne, but he doesn’t answer.
Dark, burgundy-coloured wallpaper. A creaking wooden floor.
Him rendered immobile. You soon here on the floor.
I have everything in place now, sister.
So that you can be resurrected.
So that our innocence can be reborn in a radiant whiteness.
I am in the final room.
68
In the final room
I, Sture Folkman, was seventeen years old the first time I gave in to my lust.
Down by the factory in Ängelholm there was a kiosk where she, she was eleven or twelve, used to buy cigarettes for her mother.
Her white dress.
It covered no more than her thighs and it was a hot day, almost as hot as some days have been this summer.
She was walking along the path behind the factory and there were azaleas, the most beautiful I had ever seen, in bloom there.
I caught up with her.
Brought her down.
And she was hairless and I knew this was the first step of many for me, it couldn’t be stopped, I could see in her frightened eyes that deep down she loved it, loved me, just like all my girls came to, even if some of them got ideas in their heads later on. I kept rabbits in cages to make them happy. Girls love rabbits.
That white dress ended up spotted with blood.
I whispered in her ear as I held her by the throat.
Keep quiet about this, girl, or the devil will get you.
Shame comes before love.
Over the years other people’s shame has been my best ally. It was easiest and nicest when I had the girls in the house, God knows how excited I got, hearing my creaking footsteps at night when I was on the way to their room.
They were always full of anticipation.
Lying awake, waiting for me, for my lovely, long, dextrous fingers, for my wonderful presence.
I was always careful.
Pulling the covers from their bodies.
Caressing their young white glassy skin.
My own flesh and blood or someone else’s, it never mattered. I gave my love to all the girls who came my way.
You’re awake now, little girl, my beautiful summer angel.
We’re here now, in the final room, and she shall see me do this first.
I’ve hammered four big nails into the floor and tied you to them. And you can see in my direction now.
I’m sitting beside my dad on his sofa.
I’ve got my mask on, so my face lacks definition, I’m wearing my white spiders’ legs, holding the necklace of rabbit claws to his cheeks and I’m scratching and he’s screaming, the old man, but there isn’t really much life in him.
You’re looking away.
LOOK FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
And you look.
She’s naked and the mask is on again.
Her head is aching, but Tove can see the scene clearly, understands that she’s in a grotty flat, God knows where, and that a woman, naked, is sitting next to her dad and hurting him.
Why?
And she screams at me to look, but I don’t want to see this and she scratches his face again and he screams.
She gets up.
Her thin white surgical gloves are glowing in the weak light.
I can’t get up.
There’s a smell of bleach, the sort Mum uses to get rid of stains.
Mum, Dad. You have to hurry.
I can hear her in another room, drawers being opened, she’s looking for something, and the man tries to scream, but she’s put a rag in his mouth, just like mine.
Neither of us can move.
Neither of us can escape.
The knife.
The old kitchen knife that Elisabeth and I fantasised about stabbing him with, he’s still got it, the rough knife with the Bakelite handle.
I pull it from the block on the worktop.
Hold it. Think what a shame it was about Sofia Fredén. I saw her when she was working in the café at Tinnis last summer, and she used to move the same way you used to, Elisabeth, and with her I thought that if I do everything quickly and in one place then maybe I can achieve what I want through speed and shock tactics, like an explosion or a powerful chemical reaction. I scratched and cut her with the claws, the first one I did that to, but it didn’t mean anything. Rabbits are only animals, their love is meaningless.
I scrubbed her in the park. Worked fast.
But she just went limp in my arms when I pressed my hands around her neck.
She died without you coming back.
But, dear sister, you should know that I have never doubted. I know what I have to do now.
Just watch while you’re waiting.
Then come to me with love. You should know that I miss you.
She has a knife in her hand.
Tove sees the blade glint and she screams NOW LOOK as she sits down next to the man on the sofa that Tove thinks must be her father.