Authors: Johan Theorin
‘Sure,’ said Per. Vendela didn’t say anything else, so he turned and jogged towards the cottage. She joined him, and asked, ‘How are the kids?’
Per glanced sideways at her. How much did she know? Did she know how sick Nilla was? He just didn’t have the strength to start telling her all about it.
‘Up and down,’ he said. ‘Jesper’s fine, but Nilla’s … she’s lost her lucky stone.’
‘Oh dear, is she upset?’ asked Vendela. ‘I thought she looked a bit pale at the party, as if she—’
‘A bit,’ Per interrupted. ‘She’s a bit upset.’
Vendela looked over at the cottage. ‘Did she lose it indoors?’
‘She thinks so.’
Vendela suddenly stopped dead and closed her eyes for a few seconds.
Per looked at her. ‘Are you all right?’
She opened her eyes and nodded. She started to jog again, heading for her own house. Over her shoulder she said briefly, as if it were obvious, ‘I think you’ll find the stone now – it’s probably in her room.’
And it was.
When Per got in he looked in the little room where Nilla had slept over Easter, and there it was on the bed. A little round piece of polished lava, clearly visible on the white duvet.
But he’d looked there, hadn’t he? He’d looked for Nilla’s lucky stone everywhere, surely?
‘The one from the party,’ said Jerry.
He was standing outside the cottage pointing south with a trembling index finger.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Per, putting Jerry’s suitcase in the car.
‘Filmed her,’ said Jerry.
‘Who?’
‘Her!’
He was still pointing. Per looked over at the neighbours’ house, where a couple of figures were moving about on the drive.
‘Do you mean Marie Kurdin? The woman you saw at the party?’
Jerry nodded.
‘She was in your films?’
Jerry nodded again. ‘Slag.’
Per gritted his teeth; he’d heard Jerry use that word before. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘But fresh,’ said Jerry slowly, as if he liked the word. ‘Frressh slag.’
‘Stop it,’ said Per. ‘I’m not interested.’
But he couldn’t help looking over at the house.
Marie Kurdin was standing outside, packing the family car with a dozen suitcases, changing mats and bags of toys. The Easter break was over, and the Kurdin family were evidently on their way home.
How old was she? Thirty, perhaps. A tall, slender mother with a baby. She was heaving the suitcases energetically into the car, shouting something inaudible to her husband indoors. It couldn’t be true, surely? Marie Kurdin couldn’t have been in Jerry’s films? He suddenly saw images in his head, images he hadn’t asked for: Marie Kurdin lying on a bed like all the others, with Markus Lukas bending over her and Jerry standing slightly to one side, smoking …
No
. Per shook his head and looked at his father. ‘You’re imagining things.’
Before they left, Per went over to Vendela Larsson’s house to say thank you for helping him to find Nilla’s lucky stone – and to ask his neighbour how she could have known where it was.
He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He scribbled a quick note:
Thanks a lot for the stone!
Per
Then he folded it up and tucked it into the doorframe.
There were three of them in the car this time; Jesper was with them as they left the island and drove across the Öland Bridge. He was going back to his mother, and back to school after the Easter holidays.
Marika lived in north Kalmar and Per dropped his son off outside the house; he didn’t want to run the risk of Marika meeting Jerry.
‘Can you find your way from here?’ he asked as Jesper got out of the car.
Jesper nodded without cracking a smile at the joke, but leaned over to give Per a quick hug.
‘Good luck with school,’ said Per, ‘and say hello to Mum from me.’
When Jesper had gone inside, he turned to Jerry. ‘Did you see that hug, Jerry? Some daddies get hugs.’
Jerry said nothing, so Per went on, ‘OK, let’s get you home.’ ‘Home,’ said Jerry.
A couple of hours later they drove into the centre of Kristianstad, but by that time Jerry had fallen asleep. He slept leaning back in his seat, his face tipped up towards the roof of the car and his mouth wide open between hollow cheeks. His snoring drowned out the sound of the engine, and Per switched on the radio, which was playing a sentimental old song:
The little girl lay pale and wan
In her narrow hospital bed
,
She looked for hope to the doctor
,
But he grimly shook his head
.
He quickly turned it off again.
Per wasn’t familiar with the area, but eventually he found his way and parked ten metres away from the door to his father’s apartment block. It was closed.
When he switched off the engine, Jerry gave a start and woke up. He blinked and looked confused. ‘Pelle?’
‘You’re home now.’
‘Kristianstad?’ Jerry coughed and looked down the street. He shook his head slowly. ‘No.’
He’d changed his mind again. Per sighed. ‘Yes, Jerry – you’ll be safe here.’
Jerry shook his head again. He raised a trembling finger and pointed.
‘What is it?’ Per was still looking over at Jerry’s door. ‘Wait here,’ he said, getting out of the car. ‘I’ll go and have a look, then I’ll come back for you. Have you got the key?’
Jerry fumbled in his pocket and handed it over. ‘Prince,’ he said.
Jerry wanted cigarettes, but Per’s only response was to close the car door.
He walked slowly towards the building. Jerry’s apartment was fairly central, but it wasn’t in the most upmarket area of Kristianstad. The turn-of-the-century block was in need of renovation. Just below the metal roof, four floors up, small carved stone heads gazed down at him. They looked like deformed owls.
He unlocked the outside door and stepped into the darkness.
He thought back to the day a week ago when he had walked into Jerry’s house. He thought about the smoke and flames shooting up from the ground floor. About Bremer in the burning bed, and a girl screaming for help.
At least there was no smell of smoke in here. The stairwell was filled with nothing but echoes. The stone staircase wound its way upwards in a spiral around a cylindrical lift shaft, but the circular lift looked at least eighty years old and was far too small; it would close around him like a steel cage if he stepped inside.
Per preferred to walk up the three floors to Jerry’s apartment. He passed two floors with closed doors, and carried on to the third. He stopped before he got to the top of the stairs.
Jerry’s door was ajar.
At first Per thought he’d made a mistake, but when he counted the floors again, he knew he was in the right place.
He could just see the hallway inside, but it was dark and silent. There was no movement inside.
He stayed where he was, on the landing a few steps below the open door. He listened again. There wasn’t a sound, apart from the odd car passing by.
Per thought about the front door of Jerry’s house, which had been half-open.
Why was this door open as well? It shouldn’t be.
You’ll be safe here
, he’d said to Jerry, but now he had his doubts.
Are you scared?
Yes, he was scared. A little bit.
Per took a deep breath, thought about his judo training and tried to find the balance within his body, from his feet upwards. Slowly he set off up the stairs again. Now he had the feeling somebody was standing in Jerry’s hallway, waiting for him. Someone who was holding their breath, listening to him coming closer, however slowly he was moving, however quietly his heart was beating.
Cautiously he approached the open door.
He took the last three steps in a single decisive movement, grabbed the handle and pulled the door wide open.
The stink of cigarette smoke rushed towards him, but it was probably just an old smell left behind by Jerry.
It was dark in the hallway; Per reached in and switched on the light. Then he peered inside.
At first everything looked normal. Normal? He hadn’t been in Jerry’s apartment for over three years, and then he’d only stayed for half an hour. But there were still lots of clothes hanging in the hall – suede jackets, yellow jackets, and down on the floor black patent shoes which Jerry presumably hadn’t worn in years.
Per took two steps inside and listened. Silence.
There was a fine Persian rug in the big living room, and at the edge of the rug a large suitcase lay open.
It was empty, but there were several more bags behind it. Moroccan carpet bags, plastic bags and shabby briefcases lay scattered across the floor – and it looked as if they had been opened by someone who had searched through them, because there were piles of clothes and papers all over the floor as well.
Per was frightened now, but he took two steps forward and looked inside the living room.
There was no sign of anyone, not a sound to be heard.
He walked in.
He was expecting the room to be in more of a mess than it was. There were drifts of fluff in the corners and dried-up orange peel on the glass table, but Jerry’s oil paintings were still hanging on the walls. Per had given him a few books over the years, and they were untouched and neatly arranged on the bookshelf. His father had never taken the time to read.
To the left of the doorway stood a lacquered veneer chest of drawers, a reproduction of a piece by Georg Haupt, and that was anything but untouched. Per remembered it from his childhood; it had three drawers which were always locked – but they were open now.
Broken open. Someone had taken a screwdriver or chisel and hacked their way through the wood surrounding the black keyholes, then ripped out the locks. The papers and documents Jerry had kept in the drawers had been pulled out and strewn across the floor.
The bedroom was beyond the living room. The blinds were drawn; it was as dark and silent as the rest of the apartment. A painting of a naked woman with enormous rounded breasts hung above Jerry’s water bed.
Per took three steps towards the doorway and listened again. He could see that the bed was unmade, with the duvet and pillows in a heap. But there was nobody in it.
The apartment was empty.
He turned and went slowly back downstairs.
Out on the street cars and buses were passing by, and an elderly man and woman were walking along arm in arm just a short distance away. Life was carrying on as normal, and Per tried to calm down. He went over to the car and opened the passenger door. His father looked at him. ‘Prince, Pelle?’
Per shook his head. He stood by the car, staring over at the door of Jerry’s apartment block. It remained closed.
‘Jerry, when you left for Ryd last weekend, did you close the front door of your apartment?’
Jerry coughed and nodded.
‘You closed it and locked it – are you quite sure?’
Jerry nodded firmly, but Per knew he had forgotten things before. Since the stroke it was almost routine that everything he had said and done the previous day was completely forgotten.
‘The door was open when I went in, and a chest of drawers has been damaged … I think you’ve had a break-in. Unless you did it yourself?’
Jerry sat in silence, his head bowed.
Per had to make a decision. ‘OK … let’s go back up and see if anything’s been stolen. Then we’d better contact the police.’
He leaned down and helped his father out of the car. ‘Jerry,’ he said, ‘did anyone else have a key to your apartment?’
Jerry got to his feet unsteadily and appeared to consider the question before replying with a single word. ‘Bremer.’
Per reported the break-in to the police in Kristianstad, even though Jerry was unable to determine whether anything had actually been stolen from the chest of drawers or not.
‘Jerry, what’s missing?’ he’d asked several times. ‘What have they taken?’
But Jerry had simply stood there looking at the piles of documents, as if he no longer remembered what they were. When Per leafed through the papers that had been left behind they seemed to consist mostly of old rent bills and bank statements.
So where was everything else? Surely there ought to be contracts for all the models Jerry and Bremer had filmed over the years? Signed agreements where the young women certified that they weren’t
too
young, and that they were doing this of their own free will?
He couldn’t find anything like that, and looked at his father. ‘Do you remember what you kept here, Jerry? Was it anything important?’