The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (22 page)

Without fully realising, she had come close to the huge, open gravel yard. Thinner forest, more air and light. The armoury. But something was moving out there. She caught a glimpse of people dressed in green between the trees and tall bushes, heard voices on the wind.

They’d discovered it.

The fear that had kept Leo up at night, sweating, awake while he thought she was asleep. It had happened.

Anneli took a few quick steps back in the direction she’d just come from. She had to tell him, he had to know. Then she stopped just as suddenly – she didn’t know anything. She knew someone was there, that there were several people with dogs, but that was all she knew. She still had a mission; she was involved.

She turned around and slowly started walking towards it again.

Sharp-toothed dogs were barking and drooling. She remembered the bite on her left cheek from a boxer who’d jumped up on her as a five-year-old girl, whose owner said he was just playing around. She crossed to the other side of the street nowadays when she saw a large dog approaching. They knew how scared she was of them.

And she saw them now.

Through the forest, trees sparser with every step … two dogs, maybe three. And five … six … seven people wearing green. If she kept going, stepped onto the gravel, the dogs would be able to smell her fear. But she had no choice. If they’d discovered the hole, the tunnel, the empty armoury, Leo had to know.

She walked amidst the branches of a bushy tree at the edge of the gravel, and from there she could clearly see the concrete bunker.

She was convinced the door was closed.

It was still closed!

She was just about to leave, as carefully as she had approached, when she found herself slipping. Slowly. Along the muddy edge into the ditch which separated moss from gravel, the forest from the military building. A high-pitched sound cut through the air as the soles of her rubber boots scraped against fragments of stone.

The dogs were eager. They pulled on their leashes.

They’d heard her.

Anneli was almost out of the ditch, almost to the top, when she slid down again.

‘Do you need help?’

There weren’t seven men – there were eight, all in green uniforms. The dogs were German Shepherds, she’d guessed right, and they followed her every movement.

‘Have you … got them on a tight leash?’

‘This is a military area.’

‘I’m a little afraid of dogs, I …’

The tall soldier with a twisted, grizzled moustache, who seemed to be in charge, turned towards the dog at the front, whose small sharp eyes were on her.

‘
Here
, Calibre.
Sit
.’

He had his gun on a brown leather strap slung over his shoulder, and he looked friendly.

‘I thought you could … say hello to him.’

Anneli – you have to get to the bunker.

‘Hold out your hand to his nose. Just let him sniff you.’

I have to know if the hole’s started to sink
.

‘You see, he’s nice if you’re nice.’

He smiled now, for the first time. Anneli glanced at his helmet. MP. Military police. Then she looked at the dog next to his black boots, and wondered if it could distinguish between different kinds of fear; the unconscious instinctive fear and her conscious anticipatory fear.

‘I … is it OK if I cut through? To the other side of the gravel yard?’

‘Not really. Like I said, this is a military area.’

‘Ahh. OK.’

‘We’re military police. We’re on a training exercise here. I’ll have to ask you to leave.’

‘I didn’t know …’

‘There’s a “Don’t Enter” sign over there.’

‘I … didn’t see it. I walked through the woods, parked the car at …’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘I …’

He saw the hesitation. All eight saw it.

She’d put the basket down. Now she lifted it up before him.

‘Mushrooms.’

‘You don’t have many.’

‘No, I …’

‘But that one … that’s a black trumpet. That’s rare. Where did you find it?’

She laughed, nervously, artificially, hoping it sounded at least a little more relaxed.

‘You should never reveal your source. Right? But there aren’t that many, you know, because of all this rain.’

‘You can’t stay here.’

She smiled and cocked her head slightly to one side.

‘Can I just cross over? Sir? I could get out of here faster?’

He looked at her. She continued smiling, precisely as much as she thought might work.

‘Of course. Cut across.’

They observed her, kept her under guard, even when she stopped at the bunker and turned around.

‘What’s this? This little building? Is that the kennels?’

She moved closer, as if she wanted to see it.

‘No.’

‘No? It could be …’

‘It’s a storage facility.’

A few metres from the door. Right here. She thought so anyway. She was standing on a spot that not too long ago had been a hole. She could almost touch the grey walls, the ones that were empty inside; ‘a shell’, that’s what Leo had called it, a hollow concrete shell.

‘A storage facility?’

She pressed her right foot harder onto the gravel.

‘In the event of a war. If we need to equip a unit.’

It wasn’t porous, or soft. The hole they’d dug and refilled could be neither seen nor felt.

Anneli started to walk again. They were watching her. Sharp, prickly eyes on her back.

She’d done it. Despite the dogs’ salivating jaws, despite the ache in her chest and the sweat running down her back beneath her raincoat.

‘Excuse me.’

She’d been so close. Now his voice chased her, louder than before.

‘Excuse me!’

She hesitated. Stopped. Closed her eyes.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re picking mushrooms, you say?’

‘Yep … searching for them, at least.’

Head tilted towards a serious-looking face.

He knows.

‘And … you’re sure that one’s not poisonous?’

They know.

‘Poisonous?’

They’ve known all along.

‘The yellow-brown, skinny one in the middle there. You should look that one up.’

‘I … or, you mean …’

‘The Yellowfoot. It could be a Deadly Webcap. A lot of people get them confused.’

He smiled.

‘You have to be careful.’

He smiled, and it was for real. He hadn’t asked her to come back. He hadn’t asked any questions about the hole or the looted armoury.

She nodded after a moment and waved. She wanted to turn around the whole time she was crossing the gravel yard to see them getting further away, but she didn’t.

She ran through the woods, jumping over roots and rocks, drove her rented car faster than she’d imagined towards Tumba.

ANNELI LAUGHED ALOUD
to herself. It felt so good. She’d been consumed by the fear of not knowing what was going to happen to the man she loved, the kind of fear that can only be neutralised by being there. Now she was involved. She’d had a mission no one else could have carried out, and she’d done it better than any of them could have imagined.

A truck stood in front of the entrance to their new home, open at the back and completely empty. All the moving boxes had been carried inside. She’d hoped that Felix and Vincent and Jasper would still be there as usual so they’d hear her telling Leo the story.

She was pressing down on the handle of the unlocked front door when she saw him come out of the huge garage, and she almost ran to him.

‘Leo, I’m back!’

They should have been listening. Felix, Vincent, Jasper. To her.

‘And from now on I’m your robber queen!’

She held him, kissed him on the cheek and on the lips.

‘There were people there,’ she whispered.

‘People?’

‘Military police. Eight of them. With dogs. But it was only an exercise. And I did exactly as you said.’

His face changed.

‘You did … what?’

‘I checked the gravel in front of the door. Felt it with my foot. They didn’t suspect a thing!’

Leo’s manner changed inwardly in that way it did when he retreated into himself, thinking thoughts she couldn’t make out.

‘So you stood there – a metre from the caisson – and scraped your foot while eight military police with trained dogs watched you?’

‘Yes, and they …’

Leo looked towards the house next door, towards the road, where a car was stationary in one of the lanes with traffic backed up behind it.

‘Let’s go inside.’

He grabbed her, not hard, but harder than usual, hard enough for her to have to follow him, shutting the front door behind them. There wasn’t much light in the hallway. Just a long cord with a naked bulb hanging down, which swayed back and forth after Leo bumped against it.

‘Military police. Who are trained to notice things you don’t notice. And you stand in front of them and … scrape your foot like a cat hiding her piss!’

A bright and uncomfortable light.

‘Leo, I only did what—’

‘Did they get your name? Did you tell them your name?’

‘No, I—’

‘Did they see the car?’

‘I—’

‘If they saw it they can trace it!’

He was usually so careful not to get angry, never losing his temper, always in control. She’d only seen this before when he interacted with other men – when someone challenged him. She’d even liked it, it made her feel safe. But she’d never seen it directed at her, or against his brothers, or anyone that was close.

‘No, they didn’t suspect anything.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I promise, Leo.’

‘If they find out that the bunker is completely empty and track you
down, they’ll interrogate you. You know that, right? And in an interrogation, some fat bastard cop will be sitting across from you, turning everything you say against you, he’ll make demands until he gets what he wants. Can you handle that? Can you …
my robber queen
?’

‘What’s wrong with you? Stop it!’

‘Because if you can’t handle me right now – you’ll never be able to handle an interrogation.’

‘I would never turn you in,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Leo, look at me … you know that, right? I would
never
betray you.’

‘Well, you won’t end up being interrogated if you play your role right.’

Leo moved two boxes and a coffee machine and made a narrow path to the kitchen and the fridge-freezer. He opened the top freezer drawer and took out the ice tray.

‘You’re living two lives now, Anneli. One outward, one inward. Six weeks ago I owned a construction company. Felix and Vincent and Jasper were my employees. And you, the woman I love, were my fiancée, my girlfriend.’

Out of a box on top of the stove came an ice bucket and from the box beneath it, a towel.

‘Then we stole some weapons.’

He smashed the container of ice cubes and emptied them into the ice bucket.

‘Then a security van.’

He opened the refrigerator door and took out the only thing inside, a bottle on the upper shelf.

‘We’re being hunted. Anneli, do you understand that? The police are looking for us.’

He wrapped a white terry-cloth towel around the beautiful bottle and lowered it into the ice bucket.

‘You can
never
, ever leave a trace. Never risk being seen. They know nothing and have nothing. The only tracks are and should be the ones I
choose
to leave. We’re five criminals working together with no criminal record – it’s something they’ve never seen before. Hardened criminals who commit serious crimes, but can’t be found anywhere in the police records. We’re their worst nightmare – we don’t exist!’

He grabbed her again, but not like before, softer, and he pulled her closer.

‘Two lives, Anneli. One that our neighbours see and the real one – bank robbers that the newspapers write about.’

In one of the otherwise empty kitchen cupboards stood two glasses, champagne glasses, brand new, never used. Leo put them next to each other on the sink and pulled out the cork. It sounded like it did in the movies and foamed over a little as he filled the fragile glasses.

‘Cheers, Anneli, to our new home.’

He’s sent his brothers home because he knows I don’t want them here.

He’s put an expensive bottle of Dom Pérignon in the fridge, because he thinks I think it’s romantic.

‘Cheers,’ he said.

She raised her glass, looked at him, drank. She’d realised what she’d really been carrying around – the fear of not belonging. Belonging was what she’d brought away with her from the forest, and what he’d just taken away from her. And it wouldn’t come back now, no matter how much she smiled.

SANNA HAD LIKED
to walk naked across the polished wood floors. She was the one who’d taught him to sleep naked, brush his teeth naked, taught him that his bony, pale body had permission to be exposed. Broncks had been at the kitchen table and she’d been sitting opposite him on that first morning when shyness turned to silence. They’d talked about nothing to avoid looking at each other, and her feet suddenly touched his. That was all it had taken for the previous night’s closeness and trust to return. Even though he’d thought for a very long time that there was no one he could be naked in front of.

You know I don’t want to talk about it. That I’ve … moved on. John? You know that.

He got dressed and exited his one-bedroom apartment into the courtyard, on the western side of Södermalm in Stockholm. It was November, but the morning was so warm that it seemed as if autumn and winter had slept in, and late summer had crept back to play for a while. He crossed the courtyard towards the turn-of-the-century house on Högalid Street and the huge church with its double towers keeping watch over the door. A church bell let out a muffled stroke four times every hour; he’d found the sound irritating
for the first few years he’d lived here, but now he couldn’t even be sure it still rang. Past a window that was always open, Stockholm Radio and local traffic reports blaring, and then into a café with two small tables, the aroma of bread and a baker who served Italian loaves while singing Italian arias, and who knew what kind John liked: coarse and with no tomato.