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Chapters (65)
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  65. Acknowledgements

I scramble down past dead currant bushes and a compost bin with its lid missing.

Stacks of firewood all over the land like tiny shrines.

More logs leaning up against the house itself. But no discernible way in. No door or steps.

I retreat a little way and look up at the first-floor windows. There’s a line of clocks on the sill. Mickey Mouse clocks and carriage clocks. All pointing out rather than in. There’s a small, black, lightbulb-size balloon in the other window, its ribbon attached to the latch.

The wind picks up.

I can hear a chainsaw in the distance.

Breeze cooling the back of my neck.

The scent of kid’s shampoo.

‘Hello, Tuva.’

26

My hearing aids distort his words.

Feedback and white noise from the moisture.

I turn round.

Hans Wimmer’s standing there. Looming a whole head taller than me.

‘I just dropped off my daughter for choir practice at the Lutheran church. Did you want to see me?’

He’s carrying logs and kindling. It doesn’t look like he just dropped off his daughter.

‘I got a bit lost out here. I was talking to the hunters, Sven Edlund and his friends, they’re close by.’

‘Barbarians,’ says Hans. ‘Bloodthirsty simpletons. I get no peace from autumn through spring living here. Marauding redneck executioners.’

‘How do I get back to the road, Hans?’

He looks one way then the other, as if trying to figure it out himself.

‘I have your old boss inside the house if you’d like to come inside for a coffee? It’s still fresh in the pot.’

Lena? Or Anders, my old Malmö boss? All the way up here?

‘Anders?’

‘Who?’

‘Anders, from Malmö.’

‘Who?’ he says again. ‘I have Mr Ragnar Johannes Falk inside the house. Come in and warm up, if you like, before you trek back to the main road?’

There’s no smoke coming from the chimney. The house doesn’t even look occupied. Is Falk really here? With the lights switched off? Is he okay?

‘No, no. I should be…’

‘What a lovely surprise, Tuva,’ says Ragnar, walking from behind the house, his limp more evident than before, his white beard glowing in the damp, forest air. ‘What an unexpected surprise.’

‘Go back in, back in,’ says Hans. ‘Nobody’s watching the dammsugare. The house mice will surely eat the lot.’

But Ragnar walks toward us. He’s wearing a yellow pocket handkerchief just like Hans Wimmer. They both turn and head back toward the house and disappear behind it.

I follow.

There’s a set of outdoor concrete stairs up to a first-floor door. They’re hidden unless you approach this dark side of the building. Ragnar’s taking his time to get up the steps.

‘Come in, come in. Make yourself at home, Tuva. Please sit down.’