Did Christer Kurdin own a red Ford?
Had he lured Jerry to a deserted road in Kalmar?
Per put his glass down carefully on the table and got to his feet, very slowly. He wanted to ask more questions, but his head was spinning.
‘Must you go?’ said Christer Kurdin.
Per nodded; he thought he could hear girls’ voices echoing in the back of his mind. ‘Yes... I have to go home.’
They looked at him and he felt ridiculous, but the girls were screaming inside his head now and Jerry was in there too, whispering and telling him to leave.
He took a step away from the sofa in the direction of the hallway, then one more. It was fine, he could move. It felt like being back in Jerry’s film studio, in the middle of all the smoke and heat and the smell of burnt human flesh.
Arsonists almost always operate on their own patch, Gerlof had said. So it must have been Jerry who burnt down his own studio. Or Hans Bremer. Or maybe Per himself, the lost son.
The last thing he did was to turn around in the hallway and raise his voice: ‘I don’t think Jerry... I don’t think he knew anything. He didn’t know Markus Lukas was infected. And I’m sorry, I didn’t know, but they’re all dead now...’
He was babbling, and closed his mouth. Christer and Marie Kurdin were standing side by side, still watching him, but he couldn’t look them in the eye. He could only manage one more word: ‘Sorry.’
He fumbled with the front door handle and eventually managed to get out.
63
The elves didn’t come back to their stone.
It had been a cold night for Vendela out on the alvar, but she had curled up inside layers of winter clothes, and had got through it somehow. She had even slept for a few hours, stretched out on the soft grass with the elf stone sheltering her from the wind. Hunger had gnawed at her stomach, but she had coped with that too.
The situation with regard to Max was much worse.
The elves had taken the wedding ring from the stone, and now it was too late for Vendela to retract her wish.
Max was already dead, she was sure of it. She could see it all in her mind’s eye across the alvar: the heart attack striking his chest like a hammer blow. Perhaps it had happened the previous evening, when he was back home sitting at his thinking desk among all the funeral flowers.
Bang, and his heart just stopped. His body slumped forward across the desk and lay there, his head twisted to one side. There was nothing to be done about it now, but Vendela still didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to find her husband in his thinking room.
The elves had gone. But still she waited by the stone, hour after hour.
At some point in the middle of the day, she wasn’t sure exactly when, she heard a rustling noise in the bushes a few metres away and a hare hopped past the stone. It turned to look at Vendela for a few seconds before it disappeared.
A couple of hours later she saw two people some distance away to the west, a man and a woman. They were walking side by side across the grass wearing red windproof jackets and sturdy boots. Neither of them looked in her direction.
Perhaps she was invisible. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty now, she needed nothing.
No, that was wrong, there was one thing she needed.
She reached into her pocket and felt the bottle of tablets.
They were the Danish tablets, the strong ones that made her feel calm and weightless. She had only taken three or four since she came to the island, so the bottle was almost full.
She picked up one of the small tablets and closed her eyes as she put it in her mouth. There was no water, but it was easy to swallow.
After quarter of an hour she hadn’t noticed any effects, so she took another tablet. And then two more at the same time.
When she had taken fourteen tablets she thought she’d better stop — after all, she didn’t want to kill herself. She just wanted to relax and see the elves. And it looked as if they were on their way, because a white mist was creeping around the bushes.
She put the lid back on the bottle and slipped it into her pocket.
It was ten to four. She had been sitting here by the stone almost all day; soon it would be evening.
Vendela leaned back, feeling her pulse beating more and more slowly.
She suddenly remembered that it was Walpurgis Night. The evil spirits had left the alvar, at least for the time being. But the elves were still here.
The white mist quickly settled around her. It blocked out the sunlight, but suddenly she saw a small figure emerge from the juniper bushes.
It was a young boy. He walked across the grass between the drifting veils of mist, and Vendela knew where he had come from.
The boy stopped in front of a juniper bush and looked at her. Vendela smiled and held out her hands, because now she recognized him.
‘Come here, Jan-Erik.’
The boy hesitated for a moment, then he came over to her. He stood by the stone and placed his cool hands on her shoulders. Vendela closed her eyes and relaxed.
When she looked up again a bright, warm gateway had opened up in the grass in front of her. There was no sign of any birds, but she could hear their song echoing beneath the sky.
She stood up and walked through the gateway, hand in hand with Jan-Erik.
She didn’t look back. When the last of the mist had disappeared the yellow sunshine returned, and all the grey, earthly things were gone.
64
‘Mörner!’ a voice shouted from over by the quarry.
Per turned and saw that it was Max Larsson. He must have just come out of his house, because the front door was wide open. He was striding down the garden path, waving at Per.
Per stopped, despite the fact that he really wanted to get home. He could still feel the effects of the beer he had drunk with Christer Kurdin, and hoped he wouldn’t start swaying on his feet.
‘Where’s my wife?’ asked Max Larsson. He had stopped just a metre or so away.
‘Your wife?’
‘Vendela. Have you seen her?’
Per shook his head. ‘Not today.’
He didn’t care about Max Larsson, he had more important things to think about. But Max kept staring at him, as if he were weighing Per’s answer on some internal set of scales. ‘You’ve been spending time together,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Per. ‘I saw her yesterday.’
He had no intention of telling Max what they had talked about, or what they had done. It was up to Vendela to tell him if she wanted to.
Max was still staring at him, but his expression was more uncertain now. ‘She must have gone somewhere,’ he said, looking around. ‘I tried calling her from town, but she didn’t answer. Her mobile’s on the kitchen table.’
‘Maybe she’s gone shopping,’ said Per.
‘She can’t have,’ said Larsson. ‘She hasn’t got a car.’
Per took a step towards home. ‘Perhaps she’s just gone for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep an eye open for her.’
‘Good,’ said Larsson. ‘I’ll drive down the coast... see if I can find her.’ And then he added, with a certain amount of hesitation, ‘Thanks for your help.’
Per nodded and left him. He felt quite sober now. The effects of the beer had subsided, and the idea that Kurdin might have put some kind of drug in it suddenly seemed utterly ridiculous. He was paranoid — and it was Jerry’s fault. Jerry had thought people were out to get him for years, and he had evidently managed to pass this on to his son.
He walked quickly back to his empty cottage and unlocked the door. When he got inside he switched on most of the lights to chase away the shadows.
It was quarter past four. Eighteen hours to go until Nilla’s operation.