He has a bad feeling in his stomach as he slowly walks back to the car.
‘Here I am,’ a voice says behind him.
Jan stops dead and turns around.
‘Did you think I’d done a runner?’
Jan shakes his head. He and Rössel understand one another. They are going to the grave now, and neither of them is about to pull out. Whatever happens afterwards.
‘Where were you?’
Rössel is holding a couple of spades with sharp edges under one arm, and something shiny in his other hand. A bottle. ‘I was doing a bit of shopping,’ he says. ‘I bought the spades, then I went over to the trucks. They’ve come from all over Europe... and sometimes the drivers are carrying booze. So I bought a bottle.’
He holds it up, and Jan sees that it is vodka.
‘And what did you use for money?’
‘I used yours.’ Rössel is offering Jan a small object — his own wallet. ‘You left this in the car.’
Jan takes the wallet. ‘I don’t need alcohol.’
Rössel opens the bottle and takes a swig. He isn’t smiling. ‘Yes, you do. Tonight we need both spades and spirits.’
They drive on through the night. Rössel is more subdued now, but he is still giving directions from the back seat. He points: ‘Left here.’
A roundabout, then a narrower road. Gothenburg is a big place and this is a part of the city Jan is not familiar with, but he can see a chain of jagged hills in the distance and thinks they are somewhere north-east of the centre, around Utby.
‘Turn right here,’ Rössel says, taking a swig of vodka. ‘Then right again.’
Jan obeys. He finds himself driving along a long, straight road where both the lights and the houses become more and more sparse. A white road sign flashes past: TRASTVÄGEN.
The sign is the last indication of their proximity to the city; after that there are no more buildings, only the road. It turns into a forest track leading upwards, climbing steep slopes covered with dark bushes and trees.
‘Here,’ Rössel says quietly. ‘We can’t drive any further... park here.’
Jan stops the car. He switches off the engine and turns on the interior light.
In the rear-view mirror he sees Rössel drinking deeply from the bottle, closing his eyes as he swallows.
‘Medicine,’ he says, passing the bottle to Jan.
Jan takes a small sip, no more. He looks down at the side pocket on the car door and sees pens and a few sheets of paper. He has an idea, and reaches for a pen and a sheet of paper. He shows them to Rössel. ‘Draw a map,’ he says.
‘A map?’
Jan nods. ‘We can leave it here... just in case we get lost in the forest.’ He remembers how he memorized the area around the Nordbro lake nine years ago, and says, ‘You do remember the way to the grave, don’t you?’
This is the first time he has asked Rössel to do something. He waits in silence.
But Rössel shakes his head. ‘I can’t... I can’t draw.’
‘I can,’ Jan says. He draws two parallel lines on the paper and writes Trastvägen. ‘This is where we are now... So where are we going?’
Rössel hesitates. ‘Draw a path,’ he says eventually. ‘Up to the left.’
Jan begins to draw. The line winds its way onwards, and Rössel explains about the differences in level, streams and large rocky areas. Jan was right — the entire landscape is preserved inside Rössel’s head. He has thought about this place a great deal.
‘There, put a cross there on that ledge.’ Rössel seems more eager now as he points at the map. ‘And write that... I just happened to meet the boy on a park bench, and I took him into the forest and buried the body up in the hills.’
The confession, Jan thinks. A written confession for Lilian and her family, at long last.
Jan finishes writing and shows the map to Rössel, who looks at the piece of paper and nods.
‘Good,’ Jan says quietly, and places the map on the passenger seat.
‘Let’s go,’ Rössel says. He climbs out of the car and Jan does the same. Their night’s work is waiting.
The spades are waiting too. Jan opens the boot and takes out an old blanket. He also has the Angel with him; it will be their only source of light in the darkness.
Rössel straightens up; he seems resolute now. He leads them over a ditch, away from the track and up through the undergrowth, between rocky outcrops and towering firs.
The last of the light is left behind. The wilderness begins.
After perhaps three hundred metres of moving between the trees they reach a chaotic mass of angular shadows. Jan holds up the Angel and sees shining blocks of granite, polished by glaciation thousands of years ago and piled up at the bottom of a sheer rock face. Somewhere in the darkness he can hear the sound of rushing water.
‘Are we climbing up there?’
‘No, it’s impossible.’ Rössel shakes his head. ‘We have to go round... It’s not as steep.’
They find a small path that snakes around the blocks and heads upwards at an angle. Rössel leads the way; he appears to be moving through his memory map, and shows no hesitation as he leans forward to climb the steep slope.
Jan follows a few metres behind him. The image of Carl’s dead body is in his mind, and he prefers to have Rössel in front of him while the razor is still around.
After twenty metres Rössel stops to catch his breath. ‘I carried the boy all the way up here,’ he says. ‘That was hard work.’
‘Was John Daniel still alive then?’ Jan asks. ‘Did you kill him here?’
‘I didn’t kill him.’ Rössel turns to face him; he sounds tired now. ‘He died in my car, because of all the booze he’d knocked back during the evening. He threw up and choked on his own vomit in the boot. It wasn’t my fault.’
Jan looks at him. ‘He would have lived if you’d left him alone. Like the others.’
Rössel shrugs his shoulders. ‘He could have stayed sober.’
He doesn’t say any more, but as they continue their ascent Rössel’s head is constantly moving to and fro in the darkness, as if he is searching for enemies.
There is a ledge a few metres higher up and Rössel disappears behind it. Jan makes a final effort and follows him. The ground levels out here. They have reached a broad plateau high above the forest, part of a longer chain of hills.
Rössel is standing there waiting for him, with a spade in his hand. He looks over at a solitary pine tree growing on the plateau. ‘This is where I came that night,’ he says. ‘I’d done some walking around here... I knew the area. The last time was after a terrible winter storm, and I noticed that a small pine tree had been blown over up on the top of the hill. It had been torn out by the roots, leaving a gaping hole underneath.’
Jan holds up the Angel and sees that the hilltop is some fifteen or twenty metres wide. On the far side it falls away sharply, down to the spot where the granite blocks are piled up at the bottom.
There is plenty of undergrowth and low bushes up here, and the pine tree. Its roots have somehow managed to re-establish themselves. The pine is growing tall and straight, although the needles at the top don’t look very healthy. But there is no hole where the roots were originally torn out.
‘Where is he?’ Jan asks.
‘Here.’ Rössel walks over to the tree, his voice flat and mechanical now. ‘I carried the body up here and dumped it in the hole underneath the roots. Then I managed to push the tree back upright, and the body was nowhere to be seen.’
Jan shines the beam of the Angel at the top of the tree. ‘It’s dying.’
‘It is now.’
Jan doesn’t say any more; he merely watches as Rössel takes a step away from the pine and opens out the blanket.