Stallo (28 page)

Wikström was even more difficult.

When they pushed him towards the sledge he tried to resist. A whimpering sound came from his lips.

‘Pack it in!’ grunted Patrik, tugging at the detective’s jacket.

Torsten rummaged in the back of the snowmobile and brought out a length of light-blue bailer twine. He tied it round the officer’s arms and legs. When he had secured it he took a step away and placed his foot on Wikström’s back. He fell forwards, his chest thudded against the ground and his glasses flew off.

Patrik and Seved lifted him onto the sledge as if he were a parcel.

‘Now take that fox and get out of here,’ Torsten said.

He picked up the glasses lying in the snow and rammed them in an inside pocket of the prone detective’s jacket.

‘And lock that barrier after you!’

Edit Mickelsson was sitting in the kitchen in front of her laptop with a sombre expression on her face. Her fringe was pinned back with a small clip. She looked up when Susso and Torbjörn walked in through the door, and when she saw Susso was not alone she shut the laptop and stood up.

‘This is Torbjörn,’ Susso said.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ the old woman asked.

‘No thanks,’ Susso answered, as she sat down at the kitchen table without taking off her jacket or her hat. ‘We’ve just had some.’

Torbjörn sat down on the small chest of drawers in the hall, resting his elbows on his knees.

‘Can I get you anything else?’

Susso smiled and said, ‘No thanks,’ and Edit sat down again.

‘How are you?’ asked Susso.

‘Well, you know how it is. You sit here, waiting.’

‘No news?’

She shook her head and then turned to face the window.

‘They’ve started talking to people in the village again,’ she said. ‘Asking things they’ve already asked. So I suppose they’ve run out of ideas.’

‘Do you know of a farm near Årrenjarka, where Laestadians live?’ Susso asked, getting out the map. But there was no need to unfold it because Edit nodded.

‘Oh yes,’ she said.

‘We’ve just heard that he might come from there,’ Susso said.

‘The person who was here?’

‘Yes, and I thought you might have heard something about it too …’

‘As far back as I can remember there has been talk about those poor people,’ she said. ‘Edvin said they were intimidating Lars and Gun, who run the Fells Holiday Village over there. They had plans to expand, a restaurant or whatever, but it came to nothing because the digger broke. And when they got it repaired it broke again. And again. Then there was the year the campsite was invaded by lemmings. They even wrote about it in the
Kuriren
. There were so many lemmings the visitors couldn’t put their feet down on the ground. It was literally heaving with them. And they were vicious, those creatures. So soon the cabins were standing empty. Until they were filled with researchers and ecologists from every corner of the globe, that is. So the Mannbergs didn’t lose out. But they still insisted it was the Laestadians who caused the invasion – treating the ground with some kind of manure that attracted the lemmings, whatever that might have been. The things you hear.’

She shook her head.

‘So I can’t say I’m surprised if people are saying they’re the ones who have taken Mattias,’ she continued. ‘They get the blame for all the trouble that goes on around here – unless it’s the Poles or the Estonians, of course.’

‘No one is saying they’re the ones who have taken him. Only that the dwarf lives there.’

‘The Vaikijaur man,’ Edit said slowly.

It was clear she hated the name so much she could hardly bring
herself to say it. Susso was aware that all the negative attention had resulted in ugly, indelible graffiti being painted on the village sign, and she guessed there were neighbours who blamed Edit for the damage. Quite possibly she blamed herself as well, far more harshly than anyone else. It was the same for Susso: she could not see how she could have acted any differently. If she had not set up the camera, the police would have nothing at all to go on, but that did not make her feel better. Susso had no idea what to say, so she sat looking at her hand, which was still resting on the folded map.

‘Shall we get going?’ Torbjörn said after a moment of silence.

Susso nodded.

‘We’re on our way to Årrenjarka,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘To do a bit of snooping.’

Getting the foxshifter into the car was easy. Like an obedient dog it leapt onto the back seat when he opened the door, followed by its bushy tail. It sat in exactly the same place as when it had been in its other form.

Seved reversed to get past the police car, and just as he was putting the car into first gear and was about to drive off there was a thump on the roof. It was Elna. Seved reached across the seat, grasped the handle and opened the door, a puzzled look on his face.

‘The clothes,’ she said, scraping a tangled lock of hair from her face. ‘He’s got to have his clothes.’

She indicated the patrol car with a nod of her head, and the bundle lying on its bonnet.

Seved waited while she ran to fetch them, and after she had handed him the clothes he placed them on the seat beside him. There were wood shavings on the anorak and stains on the nylon fabric of the boots, probably piss. It smelled like that anyway. He nodded his head at Elna, who returned the nod, and then he drove slowly off down the slope. Creaking gently, the car trundled along the narrow forest road. Seved could see the fox’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. Yellow and ringed with black they were watching him intently. There was no doubt Jirvin was concealed in there, in those narrow pupils. It was exactly the same look.

Seved knew he was very old. He had been living in this country when people were eating marsh turtles, so Torsten had said. That was an exaggeration, of course, but how old could he be? Five hundred years? A thousand?

When Seved had passed through the barrier and locked it behind him, he saw in the mirror that the fox was lying down. He felt a sense of relief and glanced over his shoulder to see what it was doing. Its head was resting on its front paws on the seat. Its eyes were glittering slits. Perhaps that was what it was going to do. Sleep.

After swinging onto the main road he turned round again, and this time he saw that the pelt had already started to disappear from around the eyes. And there was a patch on the forehead where grey leathery skin was shining through, and the nose had paled and begun to change shape.

He did not want to see this.

He picked up the old man’s anorak. Without letting go of the wheel or taking his eyes off the road, he tried to cover the fox but failed, so he began to pull over to the side of the road.

Three hours to get to Jillesnåle. Would that be enough time to shift shape? It was doubtful. Larger varieties usually took a long while. Karats had taken over a week last time, ominous and growling. They had not been allowed to go into Hybblet then.

It was extraordinary that he was shifting shape in a strange car in close proximity to a human he had never met before. Had Torsten told him where he was going and how long it would take to get there, or did he just know?

In the distance, at the furthest point of the white road, he saw a car driving towards him. It was shrouded in a halo of snow flung up by its wheels. When he realised it was not a police car he put
on the handbrake. Then he turned round and spread the jacket over the bony old animal, which had begun shuddering, and he could feel the peculiar heat of the shapeshifting process radiating towards the palms of his hands. It was like warming yourself at a stove.

As the car passed, Seved looked the other way, towards the ploughed wall of snow. The risk of being recognised was practically non-existent, but in these parts he felt like a criminal, and he had an idea it showed.

‘You going up to Riksgränsen for Christmas?’ Susso stared at the road, and waited for an answer.

‘Yes, I thought I might,’ he said.

She turned and looked at his profile.

‘Seriously?’

Torbjörn snorted and moved the pouch of snus under his lip. Which meant: ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, I thought I’d go up anyway,’ she said.

Torbjörn nodded, and after a moment he said:

‘Say hello to my mum from me.’

They sat in silence for a few kilometres, watching the peaks grow larger. The slopes were jagged with fir trees. Torbjörn leaned forwards and squinted.

‘It’s near here somewhere,’ he said.

A short distance further on there was a break in the wall of ploughed snow on the right-hand side. Susso depressed the clutch and switched her foot to the brake pedal.

‘Are you sure?’

‘There’s nowhere else it can be.’

The Volvo lurched as it made its way through the snow lying in thick ridges on the small road. In front they could see tyre tracks, the edges marked out in sharp shadows, and although she was not sure if they had been made by a vehicle with greater ground
clearance than her own, she took it as a sign that there was no risk in going on. After about fifty metres the road was blocked by a barrier. There was a circular steel notice hanging from it, and even though the text was hidden by snow, the message was unmistakable: they would not be welcome here.

Susso stopped the car.

‘Well,’ she said, taking a quick look in the rear-view mirror. ‘What do we do now then?’

‘We’ll just have to walk, I guess,’ Torbjörn said, folding up the map.

Susso sighed and thumped the steering wheel.

‘But we can’t leave the car here,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to reverse first.’

She rested her right arm on the back of the seat and looked over her shoulder, then quickly unclipped her seat belt.

‘You’re going to have to do that anyway,’ Torbjörn said, nodding towards the road ahead.

A police car was coming towards them. Blue letters on the bonnet and on the roof the shining blue plastic of the lights. The car was moving slowly, and when it was about twenty metres from the barrier it came to a halt and stood there with its lights on in the half-darkness: cold, blinding xenon headlamps. Inside were two men, looking as if they had no plans to get out.

‘What are they waiting for?’ Susso said. ‘Do they want us to open it for them, or what?’

‘Or maybe they want us to reverse out of the way,’ replied Torbjörn.

‘What shall I do then?’

‘Reverse.’

Susso gripped the gear lever, put the car into reverse, turned
her head and began to drive backwards. It was dark in the ravine that opened up between the fir trees, so they made slow progress.

‘Are you going to talk to them?’ Torbjörn asked.

‘Not sure,’ Susso answered quickly. ‘Do you think I should?’

When she reached the main road she asked Torbjörn to check if any cars were coming, and he strained his neck to see. When he gave the all-clear she reversed out, turned the car round and parked parallel to the wall of snow at the roadside. They waited with the engine idling. Neither of them said anything.

A harsh light flashed over the trees, and immediately afterwards the police car appeared. Susso opened the door, stepped out and stood facing the oncoming Volvo. She hardly needed to wave: naturally they would understand that she wanted something.

But they did not.

To her utter amazement they drove straight past.

The driver was wearing a police cap and was sitting stiffly behind the wheel. He did not even glance to the side. Susso ran after them for a few paces, waving her arms, and she noticed that the man in the passenger seat was one of the police officers she had spoken to in Jokkmokk. The one with the leather jacket. Wikström!

He looked directly at her but seemed not to recognise her.

The police car drove off in the direction of Jokkmokk, its engine whining as it shot off at top speed, leaving behind it a whirlwind of snow and exhaust. Susso waved both her arms above her head, but it was no use.

She flung open the car door.

‘Shit! Why didn’t they stop?’ She was practically shouting.

Torbjörn did not answer. He merely shook his head, and when she had climbed in and started the engine he mumbled:

‘Perhaps they were in a hurry.’

‘But I’ve spoken to one of them,’ Susso said, getting out her mobile while turning the car around. ‘In Jokkmokk. He was there when they questioned me. And I
know
he saw me.’

‘Maybe he didn’t recognise you.’

‘What do you mean, not recognise me? What the hell does that matter? They should have stopped anyway, if someone’s waving them down. What kind of fucking police are they? What if something had happened?’