Lennart was running. A door opened to the apartment directly below Berit’s as he passed and he fell against it with full force, got back on his feet, and kept going.
He had shot a person, killed a person. Who was it? It was clear that it wasn’t Dick. For a moment he had thought about walking over and peering under the mask but he hadn’t dared. Now all that mattered was getting away. Had he been wrong about Berit? That was no lover coming for a visit, but a robber. Lennart had seen the money on the table and knew it was the poker winnings. Berit had been lying when she said she didn’t know anything about the game.
He stopped by the front door, took some deep breaths, patted his jacket over the pocket to check that the gun was still there, but then remembered he had dropped it onto the floor in the apartment. He realized that it was all over, because even if Berit kept quiet his fingerprints would be found on the gun.
He opened the door. The cold blew over him and in the whirlwind of snow he saw a woman coming toward him. Ann Lindell. She was close but had probably not seen him. He turned on his heel and ran back up the stairs. Several doors were open and anxious neighbors peeked out. He paid no attention and kept going.
He was caught in a trap. Lindell was not likely to be alone. The whole area was probably crawling with police. On his way up the stairs he realized that he wouldn’t be able to get to the attic without a key. For a while he paused in front of Berit’s open door, not sure of what to do next, then ran back into the apartment.
He looked into the kitchen. Berit was still sitting next to the dead man. Her gaze was empty. She saw him, but not really. Lennart had a sudden impulse to go into the kitchen and sit down next to her on the floor. He wanted to say something to her, something that would explain everything. She had been good for John and because of that he liked her a lot. The words were there but Lennart hesitated.
He realized with an increasingly paralyzing clarity that his own life was over, that his words had no more power. He ran into the living room, glanced at the fish tank, and in his mind he saw John there, smiling, just like he had on the evening of the inauguration. Lennart stretched out his hand to touch his brother but there was no one there.
He could barely open the balcony door because of the amount of snow that had fallen. Nonetheless he managed to squeeze out onto the balcony, and suddenly he remembered the day with Micke, shoveling snow and the feeling of doing a good day’s work. He looked out over the railing and felt dizzy. There was no one down in the yard, but he heard sirens in the distance.
With a strength he hadn’t believed himself capable of he jumped up, dug his toes into the brick wall, managed to get one leg onto the laundry line, and heaved his body over the gutter. His legs kicked into thin air and he was panting hard.
“I can do it, I can do it,” he said quietly. He was faintly aware of the sirens drawing closer. He rested his head against the roof and felt his strength ebbing away. He started to slip down. He turned his head and saw the police lights reflecting against the building opposite.
He turned his head back and looked at the ridge, catching sight of the oversnowed safety railing about a half meter from the edge of the roof.
“I’m the oldest son of a roofing man,” he mumbled. “I’m the roofer’s boy.” He kicked with his legs, conscious of the fact that this was his last chance, threw out his right hand, and managed to reach the railing. He stretched out his left hand and connected even with that. Slowly, slowly he pulled himself up. He mumbled, chewed snow, felt the taste of blood in his mouth, but he conquered the roof, reached the safety of the railing, and could breathe a sigh of relief.
“The roofer’s boy!” he shouted triumphantly. One of his legs was cramping up, he was shaking with cold, but he had managed to get up here on his own. He thought about his father, how he would have been proud. He looked up at the sky, which was covered in clouds.
“Albin,” he said and smiled. “Dad.”
He looked down and his fear of heights came back over him like a wave. The ground started to spin around and he lay flat against the roof on his stomach. His knees, propped up against the railing, were aching. A powerful puff of wind sent clouds of snow whirling over the roof. But it was as if the wind also brought calm with it. Lennart turned his head again and looked out at the city lights. The snow was no longer falling as thickly and he could pick out both the castle and the cathedral spires.
“That’s where you died, old man,” he said.
When he turned his head toward the south he could see out to his childhood neighborhood in Almtuna. House after house, roof after roof. People preparing for Christmas.
His fear of heights was slowly sinking away, replaced by a sense of being above all this, all the confusion and noise. He found himself here, and there were worse places to be. It felt silly to be lying on his stomach, as if he were afraid, submissive, as if someone could come over and put his foot on his neck at any time. He turned, straightened his back, and sat up. He laughed.
“I’m up on a roof!” he shouted to the wind.
He stood up with a wide stance secured by the railing, trying to parry the gusts of wind and shouting out his hate at the city that had witnessed his birth, but suddenly he calmed down. Stop shouting, he thought.
He should have said those things to Berit. She was the one who could transmit something, tell Justus that John and Lennart were the roofer’s kids, that they had laughed together and that there had been moments of happiness. She would be able to talk about the hard things, tell Justus about their little sister, maybe show photographs.
He had killed an unknown man and now there would always be a price on his head, he would always be on the run. He had managed to botch even the simplest thing, his revenge. But he had killed the guy who had threatened Berit. The cold made him shake harder. Shouldn’t he go back down to Berit and talk about something important for once?
The wind threw itself over the ridge, squirming past the chimney, howling down seams and tiles.
“Little brother,” he said, took a wobbling step, and fell forward. He hit the tile roof violently, felt something break in his face, and then somersaulted off the edge.
Ola Haver, who was on the street, saw him fall. He heard the scream and instinctively held out his hands to stop the man’s free fall. But in the next moment the body hit the frozen ground.
The lights from the police cars whirled around, and on the other side of the street, peeking out from between their amaryllises and poinsettias, people were watching.
The ground was white and Lennart’s blood was red. For a few moments everything on the street grew still. Berglund took a step closer to the body, which had come to rest in an unnatural position, and removed his hat.
Kjell Eriksson
Karl Stig Kjell Eriksson is a Swedish crime-writer, author of the novels The Princess of Burundi and The Cruel Stars of the Night, the former of which was awarded the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2002. They have both recently been translated into English by Ebba Segerberg.
