Fear Of Broken Glass: The Elements: Prologue Read online

  ‘Nice of him to let us know.’

  She turned on him. ‘They are probably dead, Oskar.’ She walked to the dining chair with the armrests, pulling it back and sitting down, staring across the cold room listening to the wind outside. Then the empty space above the chest of drawers.

  Hasse was gone.

  Lindgren moved around to sit down next to her, facing the photographs on the wall full of old faces. ‘This was old Gotfrid’s place?’

  She nodded, looking down at the table, thinking of the time she had spent in this room conducting interviews, talking with Hasse, sharing, disagreeing. Of drinking coffee in candlelight, walking the perimeter; cheering up cold miserable officers forced to sleep in their car at night. She thought of the recordings on tape. Of photographs, white boards and pin boards. And still, it had all been a waste of time. And Hasse was dead. All because of what?

  She looked around. All because of... a painting? She frowned.

  ‘What is it?’

  Hasse had been trying to tell her something...

  His notes. He had made her promise to look after his notes. Alone. She thought of their departing, of the way he had held onto her arms, almost pleading with her to take care of his notes, as if he didn’t want to let her go.

  Why had he done that?

  ‘This is old Gotfrid’s place.’ She said.

  ‘Now it belongs to Alvar Bok,’ he replied.

  The had never mention anything about Bok to Oskar, she thought, approaching the window overlooking the carpark and the road offering a view of Hasse’s crumpled car. There, before her, resting on the sill was an old clipping from a newspaper.

  It wasn’t the crash of a wave. It was the calm before the wave, when the sea is sucked back from the shore, pebbles draining as it prepared itself for the next onslaught. Repeatedly; except, it wasn’t the ocean but something angry and seething, rising and falling in a constant unsteady rhythm.

  The wind caught Almquist’s hair, gathering his thinning strands of silver, lifting them up into the air. He stood with his leg raised on a rock. He was joined by Daniel then Justin; and Chivers too, gathering around in a circle around Ash. Ash looked up at the sun in the sky. Except it wasn’t there. The birds had stopped singing.

  Almquist looked up at Ash, put his hand around his shoulders. ‘You were meant to come here son.’

  But Almquist was dead and the sky turned dark and hateful. Ash rose into sub-consciousness, high enough to break the surface and notice it had stopped raining, the wind still gusting. Crouched like a fetus, he shivered uncontrollably. Slowly he looked up, seeing without understanding in the middle of a place he had never been before. He laid his head back, too tired to get up. Exhausted, too tired to move. Lethargy settled itself over him, despite his body trying to waken him. Shivers coursing through him, he poked his head up out of the primitive shelter. He held himself up for a moment before collapsing, sinking back into saturated leaf debris. Somewhere a realization settled itself: He could die of hypothermia. He swept his arms, pulling the ground closer, drawing in small twigs and branches, anything to cover himself and retain some of his precious heat. He thought about getting up, of running. But where? Then the lethargy returned, a respite from the shivers, a respite from the child, until he fell asleep.

  On the second awakening his head hurt. Ash reached up to feel an impossibly large lump on the side of his head. Somewhere, a little voice told him to get up. That as long as he kept shivering he was going to be all right. And yet, in his world it was still a misty afternoon.

  Ash pulled himself into a ball, shivering uncontrollably, feeling weariness, cold and wet. He opened his eyes and turned his head, looking out and seeing a saturated rotten landscape, sheets of angry gray pulled apart by heavy clouds; burdened branches bouncing crazily in the howl of many winds, peaks of trees seething, dancing and howling to the same, obscure game of meaningless insanity.

  Twinkle twinkle little star...

  The clouds parted for a moment, revealing intermittent patches of a night sky, clean and resplendent. A diamond, small and alone, looking down on him crawled into the damp folds of the cold, cold earth.

  How I wonder what you are...

  He looked around for his mother. Except she wasn’t there. He was walking, a path in the clouds. Cold... so cold.

  Up above the world so high.

  He tried to get smaller, a naked boy revealed without innocence in the presence of fury.

  Dark, so dark...

  He looked at her face; it was the face of his mother. She looked at him, just looking, without recognition at first. Then she saw him and smiled. But she was only a girl. ‘It’s all right dear, it’s really quite all right.’

  What’s happening Mamma?

  Random drops of water filtering as a second rain through the trees. Another gust of wind. A flurry of raindrops; drip, drip, dripping of water, from above. Ash woke and lifted his head, senses roused, forcing his mind into consciousness. Something poked him in his back again and he reeled, turning around, every fiber in him alive, electrified. There; ethereal, materializing from darkness into lightness was the outline of an indistinct body. It moved, covered with a single piece of canvas-like material. For a moment he expected to hear a flash and an explosion... some called it a poncho, the type worn by soldiers in places where it rained more than comfort found reasonable. In the soldier’s hand was a wet stick, poking him with it. Ash crawled backwards, eyes alight with fear, worming his way though the ground, unable to comprehend. Emerging from one side of the poncho was the barrel of a handgun. It was aimed at his chest.

  Ash looked beyond the barrel into a black man’s face. Then he saw the man was a woman; a very masculine woman. She was younger than himself. He started at a movement: Standing behind her, dressed in unfamiliar outdoor clothes was Ulrika. She walked forwards, tentatively, looking down at the ground, ‘Ash? Is that you?’ He looked up and she understood. ‘Oh, thank god!’ She looked up at the black woman. ‘It’s all right. It’s him.’ Ulrika ran forwards and tried to help him stand. He felt light headed, sick and yet... she was here. He turned and in that first look he saw her. And she saw him, walking forwards placing a caring warm hand to his face.

  ‘Justin, Ulrika, Justin... Almquist, they are dead Ulrika, as well as Thomas. All dead! Dead Ulrika.’

  Ulrika eye’s opened wide, voice rising. ‘Justin? No! Justin is dead?’ Ulrika looked at Fabian.

  He looked at the black woman who retreated a step. Fabian nodded.

  ‘Justin’s dead?’

  ‘Get him out of here.’ Fabian said, walking forward to look in one direction, then looking in the next, eyes scanning the place around them. On her back was an outdoors pack.

  ‘NO!’ The sound came deep down from within him, a primitive sound brought forth from that part of himself that lay within the shadows. The sound of it shocked them both.

  The painting was gone. Chivers too was gone. Chivers had taken the painting.

  His head ached.

  I should have left him.

  He was far from anywhere. He thought of Justin. He turned to Fabian, his eyes filling with fury. ‘You killed Justin!’

  Fabian took a step back, raising the gun. ‘Not me.’

  Ash got up, the mud sticking to his wet, soaking trousers. She stared at him, one side of her face paralyzed, unmoving. ‘You killed Justin!’ He repeated, taking a step forwards, unafraid.

  ‘Ash, no!’ Ulrika yelled, trying to place herself between them. ‘No, it wasn’t her. It was those who took me, listen...’

  Ash ignored her, taking another step forwards, clenching his fists into tight balls, ready for something, anything. He lowered his head, preparing himself. As he was about to step forwards two things happened that saved his life a second time. The first was Fabian bracing herself, parting her legs, bringing her handgun up in a two-handed grasp aimed at his chest. The next was Ulrika, throwing herself onto him, pulling at him, her eyes wild with fear and concern.

&
nbsp; ‘She didn’t kill him. Listen... listen,’ she pulled his face to hers with both hands, making desperate eye contact. ‘She didn’t do it, okay?’ She lowered her voice, softer now, raising a hand to the side of his face. ‘She didn’t do it Ash. Listen. She didn’t do it. She didn’t do it... come back. Ash.’

  Ash looked up and saw the determined look in Fabian’s eyes. Standing ready, defiant, not prepared to retreat. He stood balanced on a fine edge.

  To do or not to do...

  His mind processing the words filtering through. Then slowly, he deflated, feeling the anger and the anguish drain from him. Ulrika was next to him, arms around him. His emotions enveloped him, coming from below. He brushed them away, refusing to let them out.

  Fabian wavered in the rain, undecided, looking over to Ulrika. She lowered her gun. ‘You tell him.’

  Ulrika nodded. ‘There are people out there. People who want us all dead. She’s not one of them.’

  ‘That’s what she told you?’ Ash said, looking at Ulrika, then back towards Fabian. ‘How did she find me here?’

  Ulrika wore a look of weary concern. ‘Just thank god she did.’

  ‘How?’

  Her eyes lowered themselves to the ground. All around them their muddy prints littered the ground.

  Something told him god had nothing to do with it. ‘You can read tracks?’ Ash was still watching her, the last of the fire leaving his eyes.

  She turned to walk away.

  ‘What were you doing there in the first place. Who are you?’

  She stopped and turned to her side, ‘Who I am isn’t important, mister. I didn’t kill him.’

  Ash looked at her rifle sling and the holster on her belt. ‘Then why didn’t you do something to stop it?’

  ‘I did something to stop it or you be dead already.’ She averted her eyes for a moment. Then Fabian’s voice turned hard. ‘We have to go, now.’ Her head snapped up, finding Ash’s eyes. ‘I followed your trail; it were clear enough. They do the same. They still out there. Come.’ Fabian beckoned to the woods ahead and Ash and Ulrika blindly followed, Ulrika moving close, closer, taking his hand in hers.

  The wind tearing at her hair, Vikland watched the ambulance drive away, taking Justin Swift’s body to the morgue. Darkness was falling an hour earlier than normal, the wind still raging as she turned her head, following it’s tracks back to the bloodstained sand and mud being washed clean in the rain.

  ‘High-velocity shots 7.62, and 9 millimeter. Rifles and handguns, more than one: The pattern seems to provide evidence of high trajectory, probably from above and handgun shots from the side.’

  She looked down the road to where two more officers were taking a cast of tire tracks.

  ‘A heavy vehicle, four wheel drive.’

  ‘From above?’ Vikland turned, placing her back to Oskar Lindgren and the wreck and bullet holes peppering the Fiat, from the almost familiar blood and debris within, upwards, scanning the rock line above her.

  The scale of events numbed her.

  She looked up at the slopes of rock, at the ridge line high above and pitied anyone still being out there. She turned to the slanting, bullet-ridden Fiat, the slide marks and wheels sunk deep into mud and felt the pull of dread, scanning the ground for any tell-tale spots of blood. Failing to see any, she turned to the boulder and rock debris littering the road. Tired eyes swept upwards, returning again to the rocky outcrops where someone had gone to a lot of planning to make sure this place had been as effective a killing zone as possible. Her thoughts were interrupted by a shout from one of the officers on the hill.

  They walked in the dark and mud for what seemed like hours, uphill, downhill, across open exposed ridges of wet slippery rock open to the elements, open to the wind and the rain, open to the occasional break in clouds tearing past. They walked in single file, Fabian keeping them going. There would be no stopping or turning back, Fabian in the rear with gun close, her pack on her back, following a bearing on a compass. Ulrika and Ash walked in silence, close, each consumed by their own thoughts. Then through bog-mud up to their shins, and so it continued without a break. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it didn’t. Each time the wind tore through the trees it brought a small shower of rain, raining or not.

  The forest dipped downwards, opening into a shallow gorge, below which flowed a raging torrent fed by the waters of the barren hills, boiling as it churned its way downhill past boulders and forest. In the fading gloom of day they crossed a river by a small stone bridge thick with glistening moss. It was made of rough-hewn blocks of granite, carpeted where the spray of the small river wetted the stones. Ash passed without word or little in the way of thought, following in single file behind Ulrika, turning a little left or right from occasional directions called out by Fabian in the rear.

  After what seemed an eternity they smelled wood smoke.

  Fabian walked forwards, past them until she was ahead, motioning for them to slow. She raised a hand and they stopped as she peered ahead with caution.

  In the gloom of near-night Ash looked up to see two wooden cabins in-between a stand of tall spruce. One was built bigger than the other, smoke coming from a metal pipe poking out of the turf-covered roof. Both cabins were built of logs, corners sculpted from rounded posts carved in the shapes of trolls, raised on pillars of dry-laid stone.

  Fabian walked forward. Climbing a raised veranda she knocked three times on wood with her handgun, then stepped backwards to peer up at the upper projecting gallery made of arches of dark seasoned wood.

  A light came on.

  The form of a big man emerged out of the shadows. He stepped into the light shining from two small upper floor glass windows: a dark-bearded face set like cold lava. He wasn’t smiling, neither did he display any outward sign of welcome, then beckoned for them to approach the stairs.

  Ash climbed the stairs suspended from the upper story on stout posts up into the light, stopping at the top to turn left.

  Alvar Bok he remembered his name was, the man they had met when they had arrived to collect the keys to the homestead. He was dressed in a woolen jacket, stained and worn from years of use and green hunting trousers, torn and frayed, thermally padded for the outdoors. Around his huge neck a tartan scarf wrapped twice. But it wasn’t the hostility in his eyes or his attire that shocked Ash. It was the view of his own visage as he cast his eyes downwards in the light, looking down at the filth and gore staining his clothes, to the blood still soiling his skin despite all that the mud, wind and rain could do to cleanse him.

  Passing two primitive wooden chairs Ash entered a low arched doorway. It was carved into the contours of a contorted animal of the netherworld, mouth open in agony or ecstasy, entering a porch of sorts, a sheltered space for taking off boots. He leaned forwards and untied his boots, first one, then the other, heaving them off with a groan of relief, the sodden leather landing on the timbers with a wet thud. Next to him he noticed a bolt-action hunting rifle leaning against the planks of the outer wall. His attention turned to Ulrika as she entered, seeing her more clearly in the dim light of the cabin. She had aged ten years in the two days since he had seen her last, wet tangled hair plastered to her scalp, eyes bloodshot.

  ‘You will be safe here.’ Bok said from somewhere behind them.

  Ash didn’t believe him, passing through the second arched doorway, entering a strange warm, aromatic internal world, candles flickering. It smelled of smoke, pitch, tobacco and coffee, the aromas combining, touching every log and every crevice. Shadows danced across planks deep amber in color. A couple of simple beds raised high off the floor enclosed in more hand-carved wood and a large iron stove. Not like a heating stove, but an old range made of dull dark cast iron, older even he imagined, than the cold one back at the homestead. That made him think of Daniel.

  They should have made it back to Denmark by now.

  Bok closed the door behind him, raising a wooden latch and letting it drop into curved metal holders with a click. Ash walked
forward to stand in the center of the room, looking upward into the dark recesses of the highest point of a rough plank ceiling, water puddling below him. He felt the warmth filter through the wet layers of cloth as he gazed at dozens of animal skulls, antlers hanging from sculptured rafters, shadows dancing in the flicker of candle. Around, small three-legged stools, a couple of simple wooden chairs with carved armrests.

  ‘Outside we have a lokum. A toilet. When you need to go, go there. There is no electricity here or running water. A well has been sunk with a pump out back and the water is more than good.’

  ‘We’re used to that,’ Ash replied in a dead voice.

  With the largest hand Ash had ever seen, Bok offered Ulrika a blanket. She accepted it, placing it around her shoulders as he directed her to the heat of the stove. He turned and looked at Ash in the light for the first time, his stark eyes the lightest of blue. He took in Ash’s soiled clothes almost matter-of-factly without showing the slightest sign of revulsion and merely nodded, as if this was a state of affairs of which there was nothing that could be done.

  Opposite the stove, on the other side of the room was a small window, below which a low bench with short rounded legs covered in a sheepskin ran the width of the room. To the left of the bench was a small table made of two stout pieces of oak.

  ‘What happened?’ Bok asked, face closed.

  Fabian stepped forwards. ‘They be waitin’.’

  He turned slowly around to look at Fabian, standing erect, unblinking, the candlelight catching the curved edge of the scar above his ear.

  ‘They had the girl too.’ Fabian said.

  ‘Justin was shot, slaughtered.’

  Bok turned to look at Ash. ‘Who is Justin?’