Joona Linna: Stalker Part 71

123.

From where he's lying, Erik can't hear anything except the sound of the engine, the monotonous thrum of the tyres on the tarmac, and Nelly's inadvertent little sighs as she concentrates on the traffic.

After Sickla strand, she drove for twenty minutes around central Stockholm, with lots of traffic lights, turns and changes of lane. Then she stopped and got out of the car, and was gone for a long time. Erik lay there completely covered by the blanket, occasionally shifting position very carefully, waiting. He fell asleep in the heat of the car, but woke up abruptly to the sound of voices right outside the car.

It sounded like two men quietly discussing something with each other. He tried to hear what they were saying, he thought they sounded like police, but wasn't sure.

He lay motionless with the heavy blanket over his back, trying to breathe carefully. The whole of his right side went numb, but he didn't dare change position until long after the voices had gone.

After another forty minutes or so Nelly came back. He heard her open the back of the car and lift some heavy luggage in with a groan. The car rocked, and then she got into the driver's seat. She started the engine and Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms filled the car.

When they emerged on to the motorway he dared to lift the blanket from his face. Nelly's voice sounded cheerful when she called out to him over the music, saying she must be mad to be doing this, but that she went through a serious punk phase when she was sixteen and still wanted revenge on the cops and all the other fascist b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

They've been driving for over an hour when she slows down, pressing Erik against the back of the driver's seat in front of him.

The large vehicle turns sharply into an uneven track. Small stones clatter against the underside of the cha.s.sis. She slows down even more, and Erik hears branches sc.r.a.ping against the roof and windows. The car rocks over lumps and potholes before coming to a halt. There's a click as the handbrake is applied on, then silence.

The driver's door opens and when the cool air carrying a hint of diesel reaches him, he finally dares to sit up on the back seat. Dazed, he looks out across overgrown ruins and sees a white sky, leafy treetops and large fields that have been left fallow.

They're deep in the countryside. Gra.s.shoppers are chirruping in the tall gra.s.s. Nelly stands and looks at him with shining eyes. Her floral green dress is creased around her thighs, and strands of her blonde hair have escaped from the scarf round her head. One of her cheeks seems to be blushing oddly, as if she's had a knock. Everything is so quiet and there's so little wind that Erik can hear the charms on her bracelet jangle as she adjusts the glittery bag on her shoulder.

He pushes the door open and climbs out carefully on to the gra.s.s. His vest has dried, and his whole body aches.

Nelly has parked in an overgrown courtyard. A yellow two-storey house stands in the middle of the ruins of some sort of factory. A tall brick chimney rises from a sooty oven. The buildings are surrounded by weeds, and through the tall gra.s.s he can make out the remains of a huge grid of railway sleepers.

'Come on, let's go inside,' Nelly says, licking her lips.

'Is this Solbacken?' Erik asks in surprise.

'Nice, isn't it?' she says, and giggles.

Broken gla.s.s shimmers in the courtyard, and there are bricks and soot-blackened sheets of corrugated tin lying in the tall gra.s.s. The foundations of some of the buildings have collapsed in on their cellars, and the shafts look like empty pools with weeds growing at the bottom, and brick arches leading to underground tunnels.

An old washing machine stands in a clump of young elms, along with a few dirty plastic chairs and a couple of tractor tyres.

'Now I want to show you the house, I love it,' she says, tucking her hand under his arm with a contented smile.

The whole of the main house is surrounded by dark green stinging nettles. The gutter has come loose and is resting on the roof of the veranda.

'It's really nice inside,' she says, trying to pull him along.

The ground sways and he feels suddenly sick, and he finds himself staring at a pool of brown water with a sheen of oil on its surface.

'How are you feeling?' Nelly asks with an anxious smile.

'It's hard getting a grip on everything ... that fact that I'm here now,' he replies.

'Let's go inside,' she says, walking backwards towards the house without taking her eyes off him.

'I hypnotised Rocky this morning,' Erik tells her. 'He remembered the person who murdered Rebecka Hansson, he said the name of the church where they met.'

'We'll have to try to tip the police off about that,' she says.

'I don't know ... everything's-'

'Come on, let's go in,' she interrupts, and sets off towards the house.

'I haven't had any time to think, I've just been running,' he says as he follows her across the yard.

'Of course,' she replies in a distant voice.

A crow hops away and flaps up over the roof. The cable of a television aerial hangs down the front of the building into the weeds. Drifts of wet leaves lie beside an old drum of diesel with a grubby Sh.e.l.l logo on the side.

'I need to find a way of handing myself in,' Erik says.

He follows her up a green path that has been trodden through the tall nettles.

'They shot Nestor in front of me, I can't believe it,' he goes on.

'I know.'

'They thought he was me, and they shot him through the window, using snipers, it was like an execution ...'

'You can tell me everything when we get inside,' Nelly says with a little frown of impatience between her eyebrows.

Resting against the wall among the nettles is a snow-shovel with a broken handle. The paint of the veranda is hanging off in large strips, and one of the windows is broken. There's a piece of plywood covering the hole instead of gla.s.s.

'Now you're here, anyway,' Nelly says. 'You can feel safe. I mean, I'm happy for you to stay as long as you like.'

'Maybe you could contact a defence lawyer once everything's calmed down?' Erik suggests.

She nods and licks her lips again, then tucks a lock of hair behind her scarf.

'Hurry up,' she says.

'What is it?' he asks.

'Nothing,' she says quickly. 'I just ... you know ... all this talk about everyone hunting you. And sometimes the neighbours call round when they see I'm here.'

Erik glances along the narrow track at the edge of the field. There are no other houses in sight, just overgrown fields and a strip of forest.

'Come on,' she repeats with a tense smile, and takes his arm again. 'You need something to drink, and some warm clothes.'

'Yes,' he agrees and follows her along the path through the nettles.

'And I'll make something nice to eat.'

They go up the steps to the little veranda. There are grimy bags of rubbish leaning against the outside wall, next to a plastic tub filled with bottles and rainwater. Nelly turns the key in the lock, opens the front door and walks into the hall ahead of him. There's a click but nothing more when she tries to turn the light on.

'Need to check the fuse-box,' she giggles.

A set of blue overalls covered in oil-stains is suspended from a hanger beside a silver-coloured padded jacket. In the shoe-rack are a pair of worn wooden clogs and some rough boots with black stains on them. Above a small sofa hangs an embroidered sampler with a biblical quotation: For love is strong as death, Song of Solomon 8:6.

A sweet smell of raw chicken and overripe fruit hangs in the air.

'It's an old house,' she says softly.

'Yes,' he says, thinking that he'd really prefer to get away from here.

Nelly stands and looks at him with a smile, so close that he can see that her face-powder has settled in rings around her eyes.

'Do you want a shower before we eat?' she asks without taking her eyes off him.

'Do I look like I need one?' he jokes.

'You're the best judge of how unclean you are,' she replies seriously, and her bright eyes shine like gla.s.s.

'Nelly, I'm incredibly grateful for everything you've-'

'Anyway, here's the kitchen,' she interrupts.

As she pushes at the heavy door beside the sofa Erik hears a creaking metallic sound.

The noise rises a couple of notes, then stops abruptly.

He follows her hesitantly into the gloomy kitchen. A stench of rotten food hits him. Weak light filters through the closed venetian blinds. It's hard to see anything. Nelly has gone in and is turning the tap on.

Erik stands inside the door and feels a shiver run down his spine. The whole kitchen is full of rusty tools and engine parts, blocks of firewood, crumpled plastic bags, shoes and pans of old food.

'Nelly, what's happened here?'

'What do you mean?' she says lightly as she fills a gla.s.s with water for him.

'The whole kitchen,' he says.

She follows his gaze to the worktop and closed blinds. Three dark paraffin lamps are sticking up from an open kitchen drawer.

'We must have had a break-in,' she says, holding out the gla.s.s.

He walks in and barely reaches her when the kitchen door shuts behind him with a loud slam.

Erik spins round with his heart pounding in his chest. The powerful spring of an oversized self-closing mechanism is singing metallically.

'G.o.d, that gave me a fright,' he sighs.

'Sorry,' Nelly says, unconcerned.

124.

Nelly switches on a torch and puts it down haphazardly on the worktop. The light shines at the layers of cobwebs on the venetian blinds.

Erik stands still and tries to take in what he's seeing. A large fly buzzes around the kitchen and lands on the door to the cellar. From one door-post hangs an iron bar that seems to function as a barrier across the door.

'A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised,' Nelly whispers.

'Nelly, I don't really understand what all this is about.'

There are two knives lying on the floor next to a rolled-up rag-rug, the gearbox of a car and a dirty hymnbook.

'You're home,' she says with a smile.

'Thanks, but I-'

'There's the door,' she points.

'There's the door?' he repeats, uncomprehendingly.

'It's better if you go down on your own,' she says, holding out the gla.s.s of water.

'Down where?' Erik asks.

'Now don't argue,' she giggles.

'You think I ought to hide in the cellar?'

She nods eagerly.

'Isn't that a bit over the top? I don't think-'

'Be quiet!' she yells, and throws the gla.s.s of water at him.

The gla.s.s. .h.i.ts the wall behind him, falls to the floor and shatters. He feels the water splash his legs and feet.