Siren Song: A Different Scandinavian Crime Novel (28 page)

Lena pulls her gun, points it at the ground, and looks over the car. At the shooting range, the weapon is usually a dead weight, but now it is a near-weightless trinket of metal and plastic.

She imagines the chain of reactions that will originate in her mind and end with bullets digging into another body. The trigger is a nerve, alert and ready, even keen. A shiver is enough. A sigh. An idea.

“Damn it,” Lena says and presses her fist to her temple. She must focus.
This is the home stretch. She will keep together a little longer.

Agnes looks up from the radio inside the car. “Sorry?”

“Nothing.” Lena covers her eyes from the snow. “There’s no one moving in John’s car. I think he’s knocked out.”

“He’s still in the car,” Agnes says. “I see his shadow.”

“Really.” Lena squints and tilts her head. “I can’t see a thing.”

“He’s there,” Agnes says calmly. “Trust me.”

“I do,” Lena answers and pulls out a small megaphone from inside the car.

“John,” she calls, hoping her amplified voice will cut through the noise. “It’s over. You’re surrounded. Come out with your hands on your head.”

Lena has shouted the same words before, but the line has never felt so weak. The command is meant to be imposing, instilling a sense of inevitable defeat, and the police’s advantage in numbers is supposed to overwhelm the fugitive.

In John’s case, it is like pointing a gun at a wolf: The threat is real, but there will not be any recognition or fear. Not this time.

Agnes finishes briefing the coordinator, crawls over Lena’s seat, and climbs out. She looks at John’s car. “He’s not going to come.”

Lena cannot tell if Agnes means it as a question or a statement. “He’ll leave that car one way or the other,” Lena says. “But we have to talk him through this, or he’ll do something stupid.”

The sirens are closer. Out on the airfield, deep in the blizzard, are the orange and blue flashes of the airport security homing in on Tom. The helicopter circles overhead. Farther away, the task force’s helicopter is nearing; she can hear the rumble of its giant engine.

“You still want to help John,” Agnes says softly. “After all he has done.”

“I want to make sure no one gets hurt.”

“John has already hurt many others.”

“He’s desperate,” Lena says, trying to see the shadow Agnes claims is in the car.

“He could be a murderer,” Agnes insists.

Lena looks at Agnes from the corner of her eyes. “So?”

“Yet you want to save him.”

“What the hell, Agnes?” Lena turns and stares at her colleague. “Don’t give me this devil’s advocate bullshit. John is going to prison, but he’s going there alive. Understood?” The past twenty-four hours have hardened Agnes so much Lena hardly recognizes her. John’s broken mind seems to rub off on those close to him.

Agnes is silent. Her eyes are still on John’s car. “He’s leaving,” she says.

“What?” Lena snaps her head back. She can barely make out the form of John’s car, but there is no mistaking the shadow that emerges from a side door. She raises the megaphone.

“John, hold it,” she calls. “Do not move.”

The coordinator calls over the radio inside the car. “Franke, the suspect inside the airport is on the move.”

Lena lunges into the car and snatches up the radio. “Repeat?”

“The other suspect is running. My team is in pursuit. Have you apprehended the other man?”

“No, he’s–”

The shadow that left John’s car slips through the fence and darts towards Tom’s car. One moment John had been next to invisible, the next he is fading away in the storm again.

“John’s inside the fence,” Lena screams into the radio and runs towards John’s car. “I repeat, John is on the airfield. He’s armed. I’m following him.”

“My team will–”

“Your team will stay the fuck back,” Lena barks. “He will engage you. I have to talk to him.” She reaches John’s car and scrambles over the hood to get to the hole. Agnes is close behind her. The other police cars come into view, engines roaring, lights blazing, sirens calling. John is a disappearing speck of grey. Tom is nowhere in sight.

“I have different orders,” the coordinator shouts back. “My team or the task force will seize him. You are to keep out of their way.”

“Says who?”

“Your commander.”

Lena edges through the hole in the fence and stumbles onto the airfield. “I can’t hear you,” she says. “Too much interference. Out.” She throws the radio away, shifts her gun to her right hand, and runs after John.

On her far right, the task force spill out of their helicopter and set off at a sprint, towards John. The airport security team have left their cars and follow the task force on foot. She has a head start, but only with seconds.

Her legs are on fire as she dashes across the tarmac. She is not a natural runner; the police force’s yearly tests always leave her nauseated, but she refuses to lose sight of John. Soon, she can see him a few steps behind the skidding and flailing shape of Tom.

Running on her right, Agnes veers away and dashes diagonally, picking up speed. Perhaps she plans to cut John and Tom off in case they change direction. Lena is too focused on breathing and staying on her feet to be concerned.

Behind Lena are the National Task Force, the other officers and the airport security team, all following her like a comet’s tail. Getting in the way of the task force can cost Lena her job, but their tactics will fail against John. Making someone give up takes fear, or at least some scrap of self-preservation.

John has neither. They cannot intimidate him or coax him into surrendering. When they surround John, he will do something unexpected, and mayhem will follow. Under his haggard appearance hides a callous machine. If he gets hold of one of the task force’s machine guns, no one in the airport is safe.

Some thirty metres ahead, John stops, fades and emerges again but smaller, his shape wrong. At first, Lena cannot make sense of what happened, but then she understands: John has caught up with Tom and brought him to the ground.

She closes on the men as they wrestle and strike each other with frenetic but feeble punches. The task force fans out and forms a semicircle around the two men. The airport security team takes up positions behind them. Everyone is wary of John’s supposed gun.

The police helicopter thunders overhead. John and Tom are a flurry of arms and legs. Shrill orders and counter-orders echo around the airfield. The task force edges closer, tightening their noose, and bark commands over raised sub-machine guns.

Tom screams in pain, and the task force stops, hovering between rushing in and looking for a clear shot. John is only a few seconds away.

Lena runs towards the two men and finds John sitting on Tom’s chest. His hands are around Tom’s throat. Tom claws at John’s clothes, but his face is reddened and bulbous. He is burning through the last oxygen in his lungs. The fight is leaving him.

Both men’s faces are smeared with blood. Neither of them looks at Lena. There are no guns or knives in sight. Only fists, panic and fury.

Without breaking pace, Lena goes from running to a sliding tackle and slams her right shoulder into John, shoving him off Tom. John lands on his back but springs back up, crouching like an animal. He looks at Lena, who lies sideways over Tom’s twisting body. His eyes are lifeless and flat, and more chilling than anything Lena has ever seen.

She tries to stand back up, slips on the icy tarmac, and falls back onto Tom. When John tenses, Lena aims her pistol at his face.

“Don’t,” she says.

For the first time, Lena is so close to John she can reach out and touch him, but a deep instinct makes her want to recoil. While his expression is confused, his features are contorted and feral, lips peeled back and eyes wider than seems possible. Lena is an obstacle between a hunter and his kill. A barrier that must be breached.

Still, she is mesmerized, knowing she balances at a crossroads. One bad decision, a moment’s hesitation, and John will die one way or another. Others are at risk: Agnes, Tom, the task force. The weight of lives hanging in the balance presses down on her as she gazes at John over her gun.

Tom touches his throat, makes a croaked sound, and tries to move away from underneath Lena. Keeping her eyes on John, Lena motions for Tom to keep still. She knows John is looking for an opening to rush past her or to snatch her weapon.

Tom lashes out and closes his hand around the barrel of Lena’s gun.

“What the–” Lena tries to pull her weapon away from Tom’s hand, but he holds on.

“Give me,” Tom mutters. “I’ll kill him. I swear. Give it to me.”

“Let go, you idiot.” Lena stares at Tom in disbelief. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“
Give it to me
,” Tom screams.

John tenses again. Tom holds on. The task force’s commands are a deafening cacophony. Lena curses, rises to her knees, and throws herself down onto Tom’s face, putting all her weight behind her elbow as she rams it across his jaw. Tom’s head lolls sideways, and he lets go of Lena’s gun.

John moves.

Lena twists and aims, but John slaps the gun from her frozen hands and sends the weapon disappearing into the snow. She kicks John’s legs out from underneath him, but John pushes himself up and tackles Lena, driving her down into the snow. His face is stiff, his eyes blank and emotionless.

It is, she knows, the expression of a determined executioner.

*

John

John’s mind is blank as he falls. He hopes the fall will free him from the corrupted world he travelled, but he might be wrong. Perhaps he will find another lake or a new abyss. Maybe he faces an instant of blinding pain as his body breaks. If he dies, at least he will never see the creature who hunts him again. He counts his blessings.

The wind tears at his naked body as he rips through the sky. Incoherent words and fragments of sentences echo around him, fading in and out of his head like splinters of someone else’s dreams. There is no unison to the impressions other than a frenzied need, but under the shattered images is a sliver of barely restrained fury embedded in his mind like a nail.

He twists in the air to look down. The runways are still there, coming closer as he watches. Crossing one of them is a disorganized parade of uniformed people, running behind two single men right below him.

For a moment, John forgets his plunge: He recognizes the balding spot on his own head, the way he moves his arms when he runs. So far, he has faced his still-young high school sweetheart and a psychotic mimicry of Molly. Would he meet himself next?

But there is an aura of incompleteness around his body: The John below is a port waiting for its ship, a gaping hole that must be filled. A moment before John will hit the ground, his body tackles the other man to the ground.

There is a scream, a flash of steel, and a raised hand. The John on the ground looks up and searches the sky.

Falling down, John meets his own eyes and plummets through them.

*

John trembles at the centre of a chasm and swells like a river, exploding into the darkness and flooding every niche. Without breaking pace, he wrests away control from a ghostlike presence, which slips away into a crevice in his mind too small for John to make out. That cannot be helped. At least it is gone.

After a long time, he opens his eyes.

He is on a field of snow. Frozen air washes over him. He is clothed, but his clothes are torn and stained. Countless cuts and bruises scream in chorus. Looking down, he finds himself sitting on top of a man he recognizes. His hands are around the man’s throat. People move around him, half-hidden in the blizzard.

John does not know where he is, how he has arrived here, or who the people around him are, but he knows the man underneath him is responsible for Molly’s death.

And he knows he is home.

*

Lena feels how John stops fighting and goes limp, the change as sudden as when he had attacked her. She rolls away and rises to a crouch. Her gun is gone. Around her, the task force closes in, edging nearer, tense and robot-like. They still think John is armed. The red dots of laser targeting aids dance on John and Lena’s bodies.

“Stop,” Lena shouts, then spits blood and coughs. Screaming feels like drinking acid. “Keep back.”

The task force hesitates, and Lena turns back to John. “John Andersson,” she rasps, “you’re under arrest.”

She takes a deep breath and recites the legal phrases, pausing to suck air in her lungs. As she speaks, she wonders if the words mean anything to someone so far beyond human behaviour.

John says nothing. He lies perfectly still, breathing heavily, sprawled on his back and staring at the sky. The wild look on his face is gone.

“Here I am,” he mumbles. “At last.”

Lena frowns. The sudden change in behaviour can be a deceit; she knows first-hand what he is capable of doing. Still, she cannot rule out shock or trauma.

“John,” Lena says. “I got here in time. You didn’t kill him. Don’t screw this up now.”

John does not answer. Behind Lena, Tom mumbles incoherently.

“Damn it, John,” she says, louder. “No more bloody games.”

He smiles and turns to look at Lena. “I’m John.”

“I should bloody well hope so,” Lena says. “Now move slowly. You’ve got everyone on edge. I’m trying to save you. You’ll get help and whatever support you need.”

Wheezing, John rises to his hands and knees. “I had support,” he whispers. “I had Molly.” His eyes move to Tom. “He took her.”

“It wasn’t this man,” Lena says, holding up her hands. If John lost his temper again, he was finished.

John shakes his head. “He helped.”

Lena grasps for words that will soothe John. “Perhaps,” she says, “but he’s going to prison for a long time. We got enough on him. I promise.”

John looks at Tom. “Prison isn’t enough.”

“He’s not the murderer. You’ve done enough.”

“You’ve no idea what I’ve done.”

“Torture.” Lena stabs her finger at John. “Armed assault. Theft. Break and enter.” She stops when John’s eyes grow wide.

John’s voice is weak. “Torture?”

“You’re telling me you don’t remember.”

“I would never torture anyone.”

The task force moves closer, but Lena holds them back with a warning hand. She wonders why they obey; perhaps they think she and John are in a stand-off.

“I don’t buy it,” Lena says. “You tried to kill Tom a minute ago.”

“I did.” John looks at Tom and nods slowly.

“You don’t want that,” Lena says, emphasizing every word. “I’ve been where you are. I know what’s happening to you. It’d destroy you.”

“You really don’t know what’s – wait.” John points behind Lena.

Lena begins to turn when a shove in her back throws her forward and down onto her stomach, next to John’s feet. Someone kicks her hard in her side, but she cannot see who it is. John scrambles backwards over the snow.

Another kick cracks one of her ribs. The impact rolls her over on her back and lets her see her attacker: Standing next to her, Tom is pulling his foot back to hit her again. His savaged face is distorted into the visage of a demon.

“Cunts,” Tom rasps. “You thought you’d take me, did you? I’ll teach you,” he growls and kicks her again.

Lena turns on her side, bringing her fists up to protect herself. Her body screams with pain. Tom’s shoe connects with her right arm, and she cries out as red lightning crackles in her mind. The task force shift their laser sights onto Tom, but Tom either ignores them or does not notice. Some of the dots dance on Lena. She knows that the task force wants to rush in, but the snowfall blocks their view; she can hear calls for them not to shoot.

She can barely move her arms as Tom pulls his foot back for another kick. If he hits her head or her side again, she might faint. If she passes out, Tom will turn on John sitting hapless and open-mouthed a few steps away. Someone will be shot. Hopefully Tom, but maybe John. That cannot happen.

When Tom kicks again, Lena sacrifices her guard and reaches for Tom’s legs. The kick slams into Lena’s thigh, but she shuts out the pain, grabs one leg of Tom’s trousers, and pulls down. Tom sways and tries to regain his balance. She pulls again, and Tom crashes down on top of her, cursing and screaming.

For a moment, her vision blackens when the last air is forced from her lungs. She had hoped to bring him down on the ground next to her; instead Tom holds her down, spins on his side, and straddles her, oblivious to the clusters of glowing red points on his body. Looking down at her, Tom balls his fist and lands a glancing blow on her temple.

Lena screams and bucks to get Tom off her, but he weighs too much. When he leans back, she almost catches his head with a wild kick, but he ducks and drives his fist hard into her chest.

The punch sends splinters of raw hurt throughout her body. For a moment, she drifts off, sinking into a dark quietness. Then, just as quickly, rage pulls her back, and she resurfaces to see him leering down at her.

Meat,
she thinks, or hears herself think.
Grinning, useless flesh.

The words creep into view, slipping into her consciousness like stage whispers by an unseen entity.

Source of pain.

Filthy animal.

Unworthy to breathe.

Unfit to be.

I will shut you down.

The swarm of red shimmering dots crosses Tom’s face, and he pauses with his fist in the air. He looks up at the officers and troops around him as if seeing them for the first time. His furious expression changes into resigned surprise, and he sags.

“Fuck it,” he wheezes. “You win.” He raises his voice. “Don’t shoot.”

The task force shouts at him to put his hands on his head and stand up. Tom obliges and shifts his legs to rise up.

“I got it,” Tom calls. “All right? I’m doing it.”

When Tom moves, Lena’s right hand touches cold metal buried in the snow. Her gun
.
She closes her hand around the grip, whisks up the weapon, and trains it on Tom’s face.

Tom stares down at Lena in incomprehension. “I said I give up,” he shouts. “Put your fucking gun down, will you?”

Lena’s vision narrows down to Tom’s face. One small movement is all it takes to send a message straight into his lies. When Tom does not move, Lena smiles and tightens her finger around the trigger.

A shot rings, sharp and loud, and Tom’s throat explodes in a red cloud.

For an endless second, Tom remains sitting up, then slumps forward over Lena. He convulses once and grows still, his forehead resting on Lena’s shoulder.

After another long moment, the task force closes in.

Lena pushes Tom’s body off her and rolls away, leaving Tom sprawled on his chest, arms wide. His ruined chin is raised, as if waiting for a wind to lift him. Agitated voices call for ambulances and hands prod at her, but she is too numb to respond. The world, so capricious a moment ago, has solidified into cold air and distant voices.

She looks towards the shapes in the blizzard and sees Agnes, her gun raised. Her face is pale but serene.

Agnes?

Lena tries to curse, but blood trickles into her mouth and turns the profanity into a gurgle. She had wanted to shoot Tom. As she aimed, she pictured the wound erupting in his face. She transformed a human being into a stain that needed to be erased, just as she had done on that wretched raid so many years ago.

She had thought herself in control and chased John until the rope’s end to stop him from becoming a monster, only to once again lose control to the demon she already had become. The door had been open, and she had nearly fallen through.

But she had also glimpsed the beast that hid inside. It had come close to possessing her, however now she understood its form, how it moved behind her frenzy. She sensed the subtle shift in her temper that had unlocked the gates of her mind and let the monster in.

The temptation to hurt lingers, and with it a voice.
Rid the world of them all,
it murmurs.
Carve them out, pick them off, shed them like used skin. Let them suffer, teach them pain. Bare your heart, and show them no mercy.

Then, reluctantly, the voice fades.

The wind around her is liquid ice. Her veins are tapped of blood and filled with soreness. All sounds blur to a dull hum. Around her, shapes move in, lift her up, and carry her away. Looking up at the blizzard, she wonders about the voice she heard, and if she ever would hear it again. If she does, she has her answer ready.

Never,
she would say.
I have seen you. I know your voice. Next time, I will see you coming.

And I will slam the door in your face.

*