Exposed (47 page)

Whiskas ignored her and bounded off ahead of her towards the barrier by the road.

‘No,’ Annika said, picking him up and carrying him back to the cottage. ‘I’m going to be riding on the road, and you could get run over. You have to stay here.’

The cat wriggled free and ran off into the forest. Annika sighed.

‘Can you shut him in when he comes back?’ she said to her grandmother. ‘I don’t want him running around on the road.’

She strolled off towards her bike. The sun was shining low in the sky, clear and sharp. She saw the chrome of the bicycle in the distance, twinkling as it stood beside the barrier.

Only when she got closer did she realize something was wrong. She took hold of the handlebar and leaned the bike away from her to get a better look. Both tyres had been cut to shreds, as had the saddle. She stared at it, unable to work out what had happened.

‘That’s just the start, you fucking whore.’

She gasped and looked up. Sven was standing in the ditch a couple of metres away. She knew what was coming.

‘I’ve trashed the whole of your fucking flat,’ he said. ‘And I’ve cut up all your slut clothes.’

He staggered, with a snort. Annika could see he was drunk. Slowly she went round the barrier without taking her eyes off him.

‘You’re angry, Sven,’ she said. ‘You’re drunk. You’re not yourself. Think about what you’re saying.’

He started to cry, flailing with his arms.

‘You’re a SLUT and now you’re going to DIE!’

She dropped her bag and ran. Her vision narrowed, everything went white. She raced as fast as she could, a branch hit her face, cutting her cheek, she fell, stood up again; sound, where was all the sound? Oh God, run, run. Feet thudding against soil; shit, shit, where is he? Oh God, help me!

She ran without seeing anything, in through the trees, over the road, into the ditch, vanishing into the undergrowth. She stumbled over a tree-root and fell headfirst to the ground. Ants crawled onto her face. She shut her eyes and waited to die, but it didn’t happen. Instead came sound, the wind in the trees, her own breathing, silence.

He isn’t following me, she thought. Then: I’ve got to find someone else. I’ve got to get help.

She got to her feet, soundless and hesitant. She brushed off the dirt and ants, listening intently. Where was he?

Not here, not yet. She looked around and realized she wasn’t far from Old Gustav.

Crouching slightly, she set off, running cautiously towards Lillsjötorp. Mushrooms squashed beneath her feet. Tree-trunks flew past, brown and unyielding, scratching her hands. She jumped a stream by the abandoned sawmill.

There it was, the red cottage through the trees, Old Gustav’s house. She straightened up and ran as fast as she could towards it.

‘Gustav!’ she screamed. ‘Gustav, are you home?’

She rushed onto the veranda and tugged at the door. Locked. She looked around, over to the woodshed where the old man spent most of his time. There was someone there, but it wasn’t Gustav.

‘I knew you’d come here, you whore!’

Sven rushed towards her, holding something in his hand.

She leaped over the railing of the veranda, landing in Gustav’s rose-bed, among the thorns and the heady scent of the flowers.

‘Annika, I just want to talk to you! Stop!’

She stumbled back into the forest again, across the stream, round the marsh, but never escaping the sound of panting behind her. Her feet pounded the moss, she flew over rocks and fallen branches, tunnel vision, breathlessness, the world around her reduced to dancing fragments.

I’m running, she thought, I’m not dead. I’m running, I’m alive, it isn’t over yet. I’ve still got a chance. Running
isn’t so bad, running is the solution. I’m good at running.

She tried to think of it as a tough training session, forcing her adrenalin into line, concentrating on breathing. Breathe, breathe! Her vision returned, the cacophony in her head faded, thoughts began to form.

He can run faster than me, she thought. But he’s drunk and I know this forest better than him. He can run better than me on firm ground. I have to stick to the woods.

And she turned north, away from the road. Up there were two lakes, Gorgsjön and Holmsjön, and if she ran round them she’d be able to head east, onto the Sörmland Trail, which would lead her into town behind the ironworks.

Her legs were starting to feel numb. She’d only just eaten half a kilo of mushrooms. She forced her legs to work faster, steeling herself against the pain. She could no longer hear any panting behind her and took a quick glance over her shoulder. Trees and green, sky and rocks.

He can take one of the forest trails and cut me off, she suddenly thought, and stopped instantly.

Her pulse was racing, hard and fast. She listened to the sounds of the forest. Nothing, just the wind.

Where were the forest trails?

Something rustled behind her and she looked back, feeling panic rising again.

Oh God, where’s the trail? There’s a trail here, where is it?

She tried to breathe deeply, forcing herself to think. What did the trail look like?

It was a loggers’ track, they had used it to take the timber out, it had started to regrow, the new growth should be almost two metres high by now.

Head for the new growth, she thought.

At that moment her cat leaped out and rubbed against her legs, and she almost tripped.

‘Whiskas, you silly boy, go home!’

She pushed him away with her foot, trying to get him to go.

‘Back to Lyckebo! Go on, back to Grandma!’

The cat miaowed and dodged into a thicket.

She headed east, and suddenly the forest became low and tangled. Yes, this was the trail. She waited a few seconds at its edge before setting off. Breathing carefully, she made steady progress. She passed Gorgnäs, but there was no one home. Then Mastrop, no one there. She continued east, heading towards the hikers’ trail.

He was standing at the last bend before she reached the Sörmland trail. She saw him just three seconds before she reached him and turned sharply north, towards the ironworks pond. Something flashed in his hand, and, realizing what it was, she was terrified. She ran, screaming and stumbling, until she reached the water. She waded out, gasping at the cold, then swam as fast as she could, clambering up the beach on the far side, coughing and spluttering, heading for the buildings. A fence, then more fence, she ran to the left, scrambled up a tree and over the fence, in among the ironworks buildings.

‘You can’t get away, you fucking slut!’

She looked round, couldn’t see him, rushed past a white building, tore open a sun-bleached blue metal door, into the darkness. Blinded, she stumbled into a heap of clinker, spat out a mouthful of ash, went further in, further away, sobbing. The darkness lifted and the shadows around her took shape; a blast furnace, abandoned smelting moulds. Rows of grimy little windows up by the roof, soot, rust. The door she had come through was a rectangle of light in the distance, and the man’s silhouette gradually grew larger. She saw the knife glinting in his hand and recognized it: his hunting knife.

She turned and ran, the floor plates rattling as she crossed them, past the holding furnace. Stairs, heading up, darkness, more stairs, she stumbled and hit her knee, light returned, a platform, windows, winches. She hit her head on a pipe.

‘There’s nowhere else to go now.’

He was breathing hard, his eyes shining with alcohol and hatred.

‘Sven,’ she sobbed, backing towards the scrap chute. ‘Sven, don’t do this. You don’t really want—’

‘You fucking whore!’ he said.

At that moment there was a faint miaow from the staircase. Annika peered into the shadows, searching the soot and clinker. The cat – her cat – he’d followed her the whole way!

‘Whiskas!’ she cried.

Sven took a step nearer and she backed away. The cat came closer, miaowing and purring, trotting along, rubbing against the rusty machinery, playing with a piece of coke.

‘Fucking cat,’ Sven said hoarsely.

She recognized that voice. It meant he was on the verge of tears.

‘You can’t leave me like this. What am I going to do without you?’

He was racked with sobs. Annika couldn’t reply. Her throat felt tight, incapable of speech. She could see the edge of the knife glinting in a beam of sunlight, aimlessly waving around as Sven began to sob harder.

‘Annika, for fuck’s sake, I love you!’ he cried.

She sensed rather than saw the cat approaching him, stretching up on its back legs to rub its head against his knee. She followed the course of the glinting blade as it swept down towards the cat.

‘NO!’

The scream deep as a canyon, no conscious thought. The cat’s body flew through the air in a wide arc over the coke intake, leaving a bright red trail of splattered blood after it.

‘You bastard!’

She suddenly felt as powerful as fire and iron, like the furnace building she was standing in; glowing with unstoppable fury. Her vision turned red, images reached her mind in slow motion. She bent down and reached for a pipe, rusty and black, far below on the ground, the distance impossible to measure. She grasped it with both hands, strong as iron, and swung it with a force she didn’t know she had.

The pipe hit him on the temple. As her sight gradually returned, she watched as it came into contact with his skull, shattering it like an eggshell, his eyes rolling back to show the whites, something squirting from the hole, his arms flying out, the knife sailing through the air like a falling star, his body lurching to the left, tumbling, his legs off the ground, dancing, flailing.

The next blow hit him in the chest, she heard his ribs crack. His whole body left the ground, strafed by iron and fire and rolling slowly over the edge, into the shaft leading into the furnace.

‘You fucking bastard!’ Annika said.

She tipped him into the blast furnace with one final shove. The last thing she saw was his feet tumbling over the edge.

She dropped the pipe on the floor, and it rattled noisily in the sudden silence.

‘Whiskas …’ she said softly.

He was lying behind the intake belt. His back legs were twitching, his eyes looked into hers. He tried to miaow. She hesitated before picking him up, not wanting to cause him more pain. She sat down and took
him in her arms. She rocked him gently as his breathing slowed and came to a rest. His eyes left hers, now glazed and vacant.

Annika wept, rocking the broken little body in her arms. The sounds she made were long howls of anguish and pain. She sat there until her tears were exhausted, as the sun began to go down behind the factory.

The cement floor was hard and cold. She was shaking with cold. Her clothes had almost dried, her legs were numb, and she staggered to her feet, clutching the cat in her arms.

She went cautiously over to the stairs, the dust dancing in the air. It was a long way down and she fumbled towards the light, the shining rectangle. Outside the day was as clear as it had been earlier, just colder, the shadows longer. She stood there for a while, then headed towards the factory gate.

The eight people who still worked at the ironworks were about to go home. Two of them were already in their cars. The others were chatting about something as the foreman locked the gate.

The man who caught sight of her shouted and pointed at her. She was covered in blood from her head to her waist, and she was cradling the cat’s body in her arms.

‘What the hell’s happened?’

The foreman was the first to reach her. ‘He’s in there,’ Annika said flatly. ‘In one of the blast furnaces.’

‘Where are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?’

Annika didn’t reply, just walked towards the gate.

‘Come on, we’ll help you.’

The men gathered round her, the two who had already started their cars switched them off again and got out.
The foreman unlocked the gate and led Annika into his office.

‘Has there been an accident? Here, in the factory?’

Annika didn’t answer. She was sitting holding the cat tightly in her arms.

‘Go and check the forty-five-tonner in the old plant,’ the foreman said quietly. Three of the men went off.

The foreman sat down beside her, taking a good look at the shocked woman. She was covered in blood, but didn’t seem to be injured.

‘What’s that you’re holding?’ he said.

‘Whiskas,’ Annika said. ‘He’s my cat.’

She leaned over and stroked his soft fur with her cheek, blowing gently into one ear. He was so ticklish, always used to scratch his ear with his back leg when she did that.

‘Do you want me to take it?’

She didn’t answer, just turned away from the foreman and hugged the cat’s body harder. The man sighed and went out.

‘Keep an eye on her,’ he said to one of the men in the doorway.

She had no idea how long she had been sitting there when another man put his hand on her shoulder. God, what a stereotype, she thought.

‘How are you, miss?’

She didn’t reply.

‘I’m the chief inspector of police in Eskilstuna,’ he said. ‘There’s a dead man in one of the blast furnaces. Do you know anything about that?’

She didn’t react. The policeman sat down next to her. He looked at her carefully for several minutes.

‘It looks like you’ve been through something very nasty indeed,’ he said eventually. ‘Is that your cat?’

She nodded.

‘What’s her name?’

‘His. Whiskas.’

So at least she could talk.

‘And what happened to Whiskas?’

She started to cry again. The policeman waited quietly at her side until she stopped.

‘He killed him, with his hunting knife,’ she said in the end. ‘I couldn’t do anything to stop him.’

‘Who did?’

She didn’t answer.

‘The men here think that the dead body over there is Sven Matsson, the ice-hockey player. Is that correct?’

She hesitated, then looked up at him and nodded.

‘He shouldn’t have attacked my cat,’ she said. ‘He really shouldn’t have done anything to Whiskas. Do you understand?’

The policeman nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And who are you?’