Fire (59 page)

Linnéa joins her, listening into the darkness until she hears it. A muffled sob, from the room opposite.

She walks across, opens the door. The room is pitch dark. She can almost hear someone holding his or her breath. Linnéa fumbles along the wall until she finds the switch.

Lucky is sitting on an old mattress, curled up as if trying to make himself as small as possible.

… don’t kill me don’t kill me don’t kill me don’t kill me …

Linnéa has to shut his thoughts out. Lucky is close to losing his mind and it feels as though he could drag her into his mad chaos.

‘Lucky?’ she says.

He doesn’t respond.

‘Lukas? It’s Linnéa,’ she says and gingerly moves closer to him.

He whimpers and lifts his arms to clasp his head, as if protecting himself against a blow.

‘Relax, mate,’ she says. ‘Don’t be afraid, Lucky. No worries. It’s only me.’

She reaches her hand out to touch him, but changes her mind. He is far too frightened. She has no idea how he might react.

Linnéa looks at Anna-Karin, who is standing nearby, her hands pressed against her mouth.

‘Can you make him talk?’

Anna-Karin lowers her hands. Nods.

Anna-Karin crouches down in front of Lucky and tries to pull herself together. Jonte’s dead body has upset her, but it is almost worse to see someone as shredded inside as Lucky.

He is so much more scared than I am, she tells herself.

‘Lucky, it’s me. Anna-Karin. Do you remember me?’

Lucky cowers even more.

Except for the training exercise with the other Chosen Ones, Anna-Karin hasn’t used her magic for a long time and feels unsettled about letting her power free. It is so easy to abuse. And so far, it has never led to anything good.

But I’m not the same person any more, she thinks.

She takes a deep breath. Frees her magic, just a few drops that flow easily out into her body, permeate all of her.

‘Lucky, look at me.’

She doesn’t command. Only coaxes him, as gently as she can.

Slowly, Lucky lifts his head and meets her gaze.

‘There’s no one here who can hurt you, Lucky. You mustn’t be frightened any more.’

He nods gratefully, straightens up a little. Now she can see the printed logo on his T-shirt. ‘PRIDE OF ENGELSFORS’.

‘Please, can you tell us what’s happened?’

Lucky opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

‘I was. In … in the cellar,’ he says. ‘I was in the cellar. And I heard some people walking on the stairs.’

‘Do you know who they were?’

‘No. I went upstairs … I heard Jonte scream somewhere up there. His voice sounded angry at first. Like he was having a row with someone. He isn’t angry often, but when he loses it he gets so bloody furious …And then I heard other voices. I began to, like, fret in case it was the cops. But then he started to beg for forgiveness. Like, really
beg
. He kept saying forgive me, over and over again. And then I heard …’

Lucky stops. His consciousness is slipping out of Anna-Karin’s grip, he wants to sink back into forgetfulness, hide in a place where he doesn’t have to think about what has
happened. Cautiously, she frees up a little more of her power.

‘You’re all right now,’ she says. ‘It’s all over now. Tell me what you heard.’

‘A kind of sizzling sound. Like when you put a piece of meat in a hot frying pan,’ Lucky whispers. ‘And the ceiling lights flashed. Jonte screamed again. But now he was screaming because he was in pain. He screamed louder and louder, stop-stop-stop … and I … first I ran to help him but then I didn’t dare to. I … hid. Jonte died. And I didn’t do a thing. Nothing.’

‘There was nothing you could do,’ Anna-Karin says and pats his shoulder. ‘These voices, can you tell me anything more about them? How many people were speaking? Did you recognise any of them?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lucky says. ‘No.’

‘Tell him to dial 999,’ Linnéa says.

‘No!’ Lucky says.

‘Do you have your mobile with you?’ Anna-Karin asks mildly and he nods. ‘As soon as we’re gone, you’ll phone the police. Promise?’

‘But the plants … Jonte would never … I mean, I can’t call the pigs in …’

‘You will phone the police.’ Anna-Karin increases her power output a little more as she speaks. ‘And another thing – you’ll forget that we were ever here. Do you understand?’

‘Sure. I will,’ Lucky says and pulls his mobile from his pocket.

‘I can’t stay here,’ Linnéa says suddenly and runs out of the room.

Anna-Karin checks Lucky one last time to make sure he is holding his mobile to his ear. Then she runs after Linnéa.

Outside, she finds Linnéa bending over in a shrubbery. She is vomiting.

‘Are you going to be okay?’ Anna-Karin asks.

Linnéa spits, straightens up. Wipes her mouth on her sleeve.

‘We must warn Vanessa,’ she says.

Jonte is dead. Jonte is dead. Jonte is dead.

Vanessa says these words over and over again inside her head but they still don’t make any more sense. Her brain seems not to take the meaning in.

Maybe Helena and Krister are already on their way to Wille, right this moment – perhaps they’ve already arrived.

The road to Riddarhyttan is winding through the deep blackness of fir forest. The headlights illuminate the worn tarmac immediately ahead of the bonnet. The white verge markers shine against the blackness.

Jonte is dead. Jonte is dead. Jonte is dead.

Vanessa turns to Ida, who drives straight-backed, her hands steady on the steering wheel. She looks like a model driving-school pupil.

‘Can’t you go a bit faster?’ Vanessa says.

‘No problem,’ Ida says. ‘And we’d be such a help to your ex if we killed ourselves on the road.’

Vanessa picks up her mobile and tries to call Wille but, as before, just gets through to his voicemail.

‘Why didn’t we work this out before, like on Saturday night?’ she says. ‘We could have warned them straight away, before it was too late.’

‘It won’t be long now,’ Ida says. ‘See that?’

Vanessa checks where Ida is looking. A roadside sign emerges out of the darkness.

White letters stand out against a blue background: ‘RIDDARHYTTAN’.

‘Ida, please,’ Vanessa says.

Ida doesn’t say anything, but the car accelerates.

They find the turning to Elin’s place and the car swings on to a narrow gravel track. A low branch of a tree sweeps across the windscreen. Something sharp grinds against the undercarriage of the car.

‘Jesus,’ Ida hisses. ‘Who the hell would want to live here!’

They drive on, and Vanessa tries to read the numbers on the fronts of the houses. They are tucked away, half hidden by trees. The forest seems about to swallow them all up.

Finally, on a white wall she sees the figures 1 and 6 reflect the light.

‘Stop here!’ she shouts and Ida brakes so abruptly that Vanessa is thrown forward.

‘Fuck, you scared me!’ Ida says.

Vanessa tugs the door open and runs along the flagged path to the house. Next to the front door, an outside light is on. She presses the doorbell hard.
Für Elise
is playing inside the house at top volume. Vanessa keeps her thumb on the button.

Ida has come to stand behind her.

‘How are you going to explain all this if his girlfriend opens the door?’

Vanessa doesn’t reply. She hasn’t a clue how to explain to anyone, even to Wille.

She and Linnéa agreed that she should try to avoid talking about what has happened to Jonte. It is impossible to predict how Wille might react. The important thing is to get him away from here as soon as possible.

Steps are coming closer and she takes her finger off the button. The last tinkling notes echo inside the house. The
locks clicks, the door handle is pushed down.

Let it be him, she thinks. Let it be him.

It is. Wille sees her and looks shocked.

‘Nessa? What the fuck are you doing here?’

He stares at her, then at Ida.

‘Wait here,’ Vanessa says to Ida and pushes past Wille into the hall.

And she can’t resist it. She throws herself at him. He puts his arms around her and holds her tight. His body is warm. Alive. She might have been too late. She might never have been close to him again. The thought terrifies her.

‘Listen, you can’t just turn up like this, out of the blue,’ he whispers gently. ‘Elin’s with her mum but she might just as easily have been at home.’

Vanessa steps back, out of his arms.

‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ she says. ‘It will sound like I’m crazy. But you’ve got to believe me.’

He looks at her, worried now.

‘What is it?’

‘You’ve got to come with me now. I’ll explain on the way.’

‘Why? What is all this?’

‘Please. Come with me now.’

‘What are you on about?’

‘Some people who are out to get you. People who want to take revenge for Elias Malmgren’s death. You’ve got to leave with us, now.’

‘Come off it. I had nothing to do with Elias dying,’ Wille says, suddenly sounding defensive.

‘You sold stuff to him!’

‘Since when did you start caring about who I sold to?’

‘This isn’t about me,’ she says, barely holding back from shaking him out of sheer frustration. ‘The people who’re after you think it’s your fault Elias committed suicide.’

‘Is this some kind of sick joke? What’s the fucking idea?’

‘Saving your life, you bloody idiot!’ she screams. ‘You’ve got to leave! Now! Go to your uncle in Stockholm, do that fucking trip to Thailand. Wherever, but go.’

‘I see, that’s the plan, is it? To make me leave Elin?’

He doesn’t get it. She has to make him.

‘Jonte is dead!’

Wille stares at her.

‘Linnéa was just at his place. She went there to warn him. But it was too late.’

‘You’re going too far,’ Wille says in a low voice.

‘Call Lucky,’ Vanessa says. ‘So you don’t believe me. But call Lucky.’

‘Go away.’

She takes out her mobile and dials Lucky. When it starts to ring, she hands the phone to Wille.

‘I’m not going anywhere until you’ve talked to him.’

Reluctantly, Wille puts the mobile to his ear.

Please answer, Vanessa thinks. Please, please …

Lucky does answer. Vanessa can hear his hysterical voice from where she’s standing. And she sees how Wille’s anger changes into fear.

Suddenly, Ida leaps into the hall. Wille lowers the mobile.

‘They’re here,’ Ida whispers at the same moment as all the lights flicker and go dark.

Then, clicking sounds as equipment switches off everywhere in the pitch dark house.

Vanessa senses the magic. The source is somewhere in the garden. But it is coming closer.

Actually, she’s fed up with running. She would prefer to face Helena and Krister. But not with Wille there.

‘Start the car,’ Vanessa whispers and Ida slips out through the doorway.

A scraping noise from inside the dark house. A slightly metallic, hissing sound, as if a door is being pushed open.

Vanessa grips Wille’s hand. Before this, she has never managed to make anyone except herself invisible, but now her magic flows easily through them both. And both become invisible and inaudible. She hopes Wille won’t notice.

‘Come on,’ she says, holding fiercely on to his hand as they wander uncertainly in the darkness.

She mustn’t let go of his hand. Mustn’t allow him to become visible.

Blindly, Vanessa and Wille run through the dark garden towards the car, almost stumbling over each other.

They throw themselves into the back seat and Vanessa releases their invisibility shield.

‘Drive!’ she shouts.

Ida starts the car and they race down the gravel track. Through the rear window, Vanessa has a last glimpse of the house.

The lights flash as the electricity comes back on. And, in the light of the outside lamp, she sees two figures standing on the lawn.

Helena and Krister.

The woodpeckers are back pecking at Minoo’s brain as she walks down the road to Gustaf’s house. A cold wind blows over the canal and the meadow, ruffling her hair.

She has just read Vanessa’s text. Four dead now. It might have been five.

Could we have saved the other victims? Minoo wonders. Shouldn’t we have realised earlier who the killers are?

And a week from now, Adriana will be executed. Yet another death they’ve got to prevent, but also another puzzle they haven’t solved. Minoo had tried to contact the guardians again at the fairground, but it didn’t work.

The world weighs on her. The sensation is so heavy she can hardly breathe.

She stops just outside Gustaf’s house. She hasn’t been here for a long time and she suddenly realises how much she longs to be with him.

How she wishes that it really had been
her
he made peace with. Now, it feels as if she has missed an important episode of the TV series about her own life.

She rings the bell and Gustaf opens the door almost immediately.

‘Hello, Minoo.’

‘Hi.’

She steps inside, hangs up her jacket, takes her shoes off.

Gustaf hugs her and holds her for longer than he used to. Or does he?

‘Is that Minoo?’ Lage Åhlander calls from the living room.

‘Please, go and say hello to my dad,’ Gustaf mumbles. ‘He was dead thrilled when he heard you were coming.’

Minoo smiles, goes to the living room and talks briefly with Lage before going upstairs to join Gustaf in his room.

‘I’m glad you phoned,’ he says and sits down on the bed. ‘I’ve been worried.’

‘Why?’ she asks as she closes the door.

‘At the PE Centre, the talk is all about you and your mates. Most of it about Linnéa and Ida, of course. But you, too. Everyone hates your father because of the stuff he writes in the paper. That means that they hate you as well. And Vanessa and Anna-Karin, because they’re hanging out with the rest of you.’

Minoo dumps her rucksack on the floor by the bed and sits down next to Gustaf. The photograph of him and Rebecka is still up on the wall at the head of the bed. Rebecka, who tried to make the Chosen Ones understand that they must work together, get to know each other. Form a circle.