The fire was burning nicely and she added a few more pieces of firewood. The heat swirled out around the room, causing the chill to give up without a fight. This house was used to warmth and light, love and harmony. Now the conditions had changed.
Her grandmother moved her head and moaned. Annika’s sense of powerlessness increased to the point of rage.
That fucking ambulance – where was it?
The woods were dense, poorly managed, thick with underbrush, practically impenetrable. The road was muddy and battered by cars. Ratko cursed when the rear left tyre slid around in the muck. He stopped, changed to a lower gear and pressed down slowly on the accelerator again. The large diesel engine growled softly, the tyre came unstuck and the vehicle continued to lurch ahead. He ought to have been there by now.
Another small tree had fallen across the road. Ratko’s uncontrollable temper instantly got the better of him. He pounded the steering wheel, hard; goddamn it, he’d had enough hassles already. With a lunge he put the gearstick in ‘park’ and went out to clear away the birch tree. He tossed the trunk into the ditch and jumped on the tiny tree, then realized that he had reached his destination. The gap in the surrounding landscape where the trailer was parked was a few dozen metres away – the yellow cab showed through the denuded straggly deciduous trees. If the tree hadn’t blocked the road he might not have found his way back here. Fate caressed him like a feather tickling his neck. He brushed it away.
He remained where he was for a while, his breath coming out like puffs of smoke around him.
There was no such thing as luck. You created your own success, that was what he firmly believed in. The fact that they’d found the truck and the losers who’d stolen it wasn’t luck, it was the result of a network that he’d painstakingly built over decades.
No one could escape – he always found them. Those bastards thought they could trick him.
Ratko’s euphoria at finding the truck again had been transformed into impotent rage when they’d opened the trailer. The smokes were gone. Someone had hidden them away; the guys insisted that they had no idea who it was or where they were.
Ratko clenched his teeth until his jaws hurt.
There was only one reason why the guys hadn’t talked: they really didn’t have the faintest idea where the shipment was.
He took his gloves off and lit a cigarette. Smoked it slowly, all the way down to the filter. Stubbed it out on the sole of his shoe and put the butt in his pocket. Nowadays they could process the filters for DNA from traces of saliva. He had to remember to throw away these shoes too. He was in enough trouble already, he didn’t need the Swedish police force on his back too.
Ratko stood there for a while and pulled his gloves back on. He had to admit that he was still a long way from reaching his objective. There’d been many times in his life when he’d had reason to be angry, but this time things were different. He wasn’t sure if he was the hunter or the prey. He could smell danger coming from several different directions. His superiors said they trusted him, that they knew he would put things right again, but he knew their patience was limited. His efforts during the night hadn’t brought him closer to the shipment, but it hadn’t been a total waste of time either. He had displayed initiative and resourcefulness. But still he wasn’t sure. The woman had vanished and he couldn’t understand where she had gone. He still didn’t know what part she played in this.
He got into his car and checked the rear-view mirror. Nothing. Only the packages that slightly obstructed his view. He drove about thirty metres and turned in to the right among the trees. The car heaved and rocked, then he reached the spot. He put the gearstick in park, switched off the ignition and left the key in place. Pulled out the cans and got moving. Carefully and methodically he doused the trailer and the cab with gasoline; it splashed and splattered, his hair and his clothes absorbing the pinkish fluid. When he was done he put the cans back. He’d better hurry up, night was falling fast. Fire would be more visible at night.
Finally, only the ‘packages’ remained. Ratko carried the first one over his shoulder, almost glad of the gasoline fumes. This was one smelly bastard. When he was about to stuff the corpse into the cab, he dropped it and lost his temper again. Steel-reinforced boots kicked flesh and bone, making the body jerk and roll over and over again until he was spent. He had to rest for a moment – the gasoline fumes from his clothes made him woozy. With a determined grip he heaved the package up into the passenger seat and went to get the other one. Suddenly he heard the sounds of an engine at a distance. He froze in mid-movement, the other corpse halfway out of the car. Overcome by fear he hurled the package on the ground and jumped into the bushes. Stretched out in the damp moss, he was soaked through in seconds.
Slowly, the sound retreated and disappeared. Ratko got up on his hands and knees, panting, nose running, and brushed some twigs from his hair. Damn lucky that no one saw him.
Shamefaced, he got up, saw the crumpled corpse lying there – and his anger returned. He pulled at the package and kicked and beat it, then resolutely hauled it over to the driver’s seat of the cab and shoved it on to the floor. His efforts were quick and determined as he went for the last two cans and brought them over, one in each hand. The gasoline splashed over the bodies, drenching the corpses. The last drops went to the fuse, a line of droplets on the ground leading into the woods. Ratko exhaled, suddenly realizing how exhausted he was. Rested for a few minutes, took off his clothes, including his underwear, pulled out a sports bag with fresh gear. Shivering in the brutal cold air he quickly got dressed, then slapped his arms against his sides to get warmer.
Better, much better. Now only the fireworks remained.
He briefly regarded the scene in front of him – the truck, the bodies and the woods – and felt fairly satisfied.
Then he flicked his lighter, put it to the ground, turned around and ran.
The emergency room looked like a garage. The ambulance parked and a swarm of medical personnel in flapping coats with breast pockets full of ballpoint pens descended upon them. They spoke to each other calmly and worked efficiently. All the women had freshly washed hair and all the men were clean-shaven. Annika’s grandmother was wheeled away by a standard-issue polyester herd.
Annika got out of the car and saw the troop sail over to the clinic. A lady behind a glass window directed her to the waiting room. It was brimming over with droopy kids, restless parents, hollow-eyed senior citizens and a noisy family of immigrants. Annika rummaged through her bag and found a prepaid telephone card. She went over to the phone booth, apologizing when she had to squeeze past the noisy family, picked up the receiver with her left hand, rested her forehead against the phone and took a deep breath. She had to do this.
Her mother picked up after four rings, slightly irritated.
‘It’s Gran,’ Annika told her. ‘She’s in real bad shape. I found her at the cottage, she was almost dead.’
‘What?’ her mother replied, then told someone else in the room: ‘No, not those, use the red glasses instead . . .’
‘Gran is really ill!’ Annika yelled. ‘Aren’t you listening to me?!’
Once again focusing on the call, her mother echoed: ‘Ill?’ in a voice that was surprised, not frightened or shocked. Merely quizzical.
‘She was alive in the ambulance, but then they took off and I don’t know what’s going on now . . .’
Soundlessly, Annika began to cry.
‘Mom, could you please come over?’
Her mother was quiet, the line buzzing softly.
‘We were going to have a dinner party. Where are you?’
‘The Kullberg Hospital.’
Finally someone ushered the noisy family into another room. The thud of the receiver being hung up reverberated in the new-found silence.
An intern approached Annika, coat fluttering.
‘Are you related to Sofia Katarina? Please follow me.’
The man’s snowy back disappeared behind the glass door. Annika swallowed and followed suit.
Oh, Lord, she’s dead, now he’s going to tell me she’s dead. He’ll say you found her too late. Why don’t you take better care of your elderly relatives?
The examination room was tiny, dismal and windowless. The doctor introduced himself, a quick mumble and a brief handshake. Then he clicked a ballpoint pen and bent over his papers. Annika swallowed.
‘Is she dead?’
The doctor put down the pen and rubbed his eyes.
‘We’re going to perform a neurological examination to find out what went wrong. Right now we’re running some tests, like sucrose levels, blood screens and blood pressure.’
‘And?’ Annika asked.
‘The situation appears to be stable,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘She isn’t getting worse, she’s a bit more alert. We’ve ruled out diabetic complications at this point, but her reflexes are weak and one side is limp. Perhaps you noticed that her mouth drooped on one side.’
The last words were expressed as a statement, not a question.
‘What about the blood?’ Annika wondered. ‘Why was there blood in her mouth?’
The doctor got up.
‘She bit herself when she fell. What’s that on your hand?’
‘A dishrag. I got caught in something. Will she be all right?’
Annika got up too. The doctor hooked his pen on the edge of his breast pocket.
‘When we’re finished here, we’ll take a CAT scan. It will take a while before we can assess the effects of what happened.’
‘A brain scan? What’s wrong? Is she going to die?’
Sweat had made Annika’s palms slick.
‘It’s too early to—’
‘
Is she going to die?
’
Her voice was too shrill and cracked. The doctor backed away.
‘Something happened to the left side of her brain, some kind of vascular trauma. It was either a blood clot, cerebral thrombosis, or there was some bleeding, a cerebral haemorrhage. It’s too early to tell for sure what it might have been.’
‘What’s the difference?’
The man placed his hand on the doorknob.
‘Haemorrhages strike quickly and generally cause unconsciousness. Usually the patient has a history of high blood pressure. I’ll see that your hand is taken care of – you’ll need a tetanus shot too.’
He left the room with a crackle of static electricity as his coat brushed against the plastic door post. Annika sat back down again, paralysed, mouth half-open, not getting any air.
This can’t be happening to me, not now.
She remained where she was until a nurse came in and gave her finger three stitches, gave her a shot in the behind and applied a white gauze fingerstall that tied at the wrist. Then she returned to the waiting room, running one hand along the painted fibreglass wall for support as she walked down the corridor. The sounds of the hospital seemed far away while panic lurked just under the surface of her mind.
Her mother showed up in the waiting room wearing an unbuttoned mink coat in an out-of-fashion cut, tight at the shoulder, and talked to the receptionist in a loud voice. Then she sank down in the chair next to Annika’s without taking her coat off.
‘Have they told you anything?’
Annika sighed emphatically, fought back the tears, held out her arms and embraced her mother.
‘It’s something to do with her brain. Oh, Mom, what if she dies?’ she murmured into her shoulder, getting snot all over the fur.
‘Where is she now?’
‘Having a scan.’
Her mother disengaged herself, patted Annika on the cheek, coughed and wiped her brow with her glove.
‘Take off your coat or you’ll be too hot,’ Annika said.
‘I know what you’re thinking, that it’s all my fault.’
Annika looked at her mother, noticing how the anticipated criticism had carved a dismissive expression on her face. Rage struck her like a bolt of white lightning.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t blame me for your own guilty feelings.’
Her mother fanned herself with one hand.
‘I don’t feel guilty, but you think I ought to.’
Annika was unable to stay seated. She got up and went over to the reception window.
‘When will you let us know about Sofia Katarina’s condition?’
‘Please take a seat and wait,’ the lady replied.
The fur coat had slipped down her mother’s shoulders.
‘Do you know where you can go to smoke?’ she asked, fingering her handbag.
‘Now that you mention it,’ Annika said, ‘I do think it’s strange that I’m the one who finds her when I live 120 kilometres away. You live within three kilometres of her.’
She sat down two chairs further along, her back to a heater.
‘So you’re throwing that in my face too,’ her mother said.
Annika turned away, closed her eyes and let the heat radiate through her sweater. She leaned back, a metal ridge cutting into her neck. Tears burning in her eyes.
‘Not now, Mom,’ she whispered.
‘Annika Bengtzon?’
The female doctor had a ponytail and was holding a folder filled with papers. Annika sat up, quickly blotted her eyes and lowered her gaze to the floor. The doctor sat down facing her and leaned in.
‘The CAT scan confirmed our suspicions,’ she said. ‘There’s been a haemorrhage in the left hemisphere of the brain, right in the middle of the centre for the nervous system. This is consistent with the symptoms displayed on the right side and with the fact that the eye appears to be unaffected.’
‘A stroke?’ her mother said breathlessly.
‘That’s right, a stroke.’
‘Oh, my God,’ her mother said faintly. ‘Will she be able to recuperate?’
‘Some of the symptoms usually recede. However, at this age, and when there’s been such a sudden onset, we will probably have to allow for relatively severe residual symptoms, unfortunately.’
‘Will she be a vegetable?’ Annika asked.
The doctor gave her a friendly look.
‘We don’t know if the haemorrhage has affected her intellect. That might not be the case. Things will depend a great deal on rehabilitation, which is very important in cases like this.’