“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 Norgevägen 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 see properly. Black spots are clouding her vision. As if somebody had fired paintballs at a shop window.
She’s going to faint. There’s no time.
She points the gun at him.
"Don’t do it, Rebecka," he says. "You won’t be able to live with yourself. I never wanted this, Rebecka. It’s over now"
She wishes he would do something. Make a move to get up. Reach for the axe.
Maybe she can trust him. Maybe he’ll put her and the children in the sledge and take them back. Give himself up to the police.
Or maybe not. And then-roaring fire. The terrified eyes of the girls as they tug at the ropes binding their hands and feet to the bed. The flames melting the flesh on their bones. If Vesa sets the place on fire, there’s nobody to tell. Thomas and Curt will get the blame, and he’ll walk free.
He came here to kill us, she says to herself. Just remember that.
He is weeping now, Vesa Larsson. Just a moment ago Rebecka was sixteen, sitting in the cellar of the Pentecostal church in the middle of all his painting gear, talking about God, life, love and art.
“Think of my children, Rebecka.”
It’s him or the girls.
She closes her eyes as her finger squeezes the trigger. The report is deafening. When she opens her eyes he is still sitting there in the same position. But he no longer has a face. A second passes, then the body falls to one side.
Don’t look at it. Don’t think. Sara and Lova.
She drops the gun and hauls herself up onto all fours. Her whole body shakes from the exertion as she crawls toward the bed, inch by inch. A ringing, howling noise fills her ears.
Sara’s hand. One hand is enough. If she can free one hand…
She crawls over Curt’s lifeless body. Fumbles with his belt. Gropes under his body with her hand. There’s the knife. She undoes the sheath, draws it out. It looks as if she has dipped her hand in blood. She’s reached the bed.
Steady hand, now. Don’t cut Sara.
She cuts through the hemp rope and pulls it off Sara’s wrist. Places the knife in Sara’s free hand and sees her fingers close around the handle.
Now rest.
She slumps down on the floor.