Before the Frost (48 page)

The patch of light on the grass disappeared and the unseen door closed. The voices became clearer. It took a few minutes for her to realize that there was actually only one speaker, a man. But the pitch of his voice varied so much that she had at first thought it was several speakers. He spoke in short sentences, paused, and then continued. She strained to hear what language he was using. It was English.

At first she didn't understand what he was talking about, it was simply an incoherent jumble of words. He was giving the names of people, of cities: Luleå, Västerås, Karlstad. It was part of a briefing, she realized. Something was set to happen in these places. A time and a date were repeated over and over. Linda made the calculation in her head. Whatever it was, it would happen in twenty-six hours. The voice spoke methodically and slowly and could occasionally become sharp, almost shrill, and then drop down to a mild tone again.

Linda tried to imagine what the man looked like. She was very tempted to stand up on tiptoe and try to peek into the room, but she stayed in her uncomfortable position crouched next to the wall. Suddenly the voice inside started to talk about God. Linda felt her stomach contract.

Linda didn't have to think about what the alternatives were. She
knew she should make her way back and contact the station. Perhaps they were even wondering where she had gone. But she also felt she couldn't leave just yet, not while the voice was talking about God and the thing that was to happen in twenty-six hours. What was the message between the lines of what he was saying? He talked about a special grace that awaited the martyrs. Martyrs? What was he talking about? There were too many questions and not enough room in her head. What was going on, and why was his voice so mild?

How long did she listen until she grasped what he was saying? It might have been half an hour or just a few minutes. The terrifying truth slowly dawned on her and she started to sweat, even though it was cold. Here in a house in Sandhammaren a group of people were preparing a terrible attack—no, thirteen attacks, and a few of those who would set the catastrophe in motion had already left.

She heard a few repeated phrases:
located by the altars and towers
. Also:
the explosives,
and
at the corners of the structures
. Linda was suddenly reminded of her father's irritation when someone tried to inform him of an unusually large dynamite theft. Could there be a connection to what she was hearing through the window? The man inside started to talk about how important it was to attack the foremost symbols of the false prophets, and that that was why he had chosen the thirteen cathedrals as targets.

Linda was sweating, but she was also cold. Her legs were stiff, her knees ached, and she realized she had to get away immediately. What she had heard, what she now knew was true, was so terrifying that she couldn't really get it into her head.
This isn't really happening,
she thought.
These kinds of things happen far away.

She carefully straightened her back. It was quiet inside. He started to talk again just as she was about to leave. She stiffened. The man who was speaking now said
all is ready,
only that:
all is ready
. But he wasn't speaking a true Swedish, it was as if she were hearing a voice inside herself and on the tape that had disappeared from the police call-center archive. She shivered and waited for Torgeir Langaas to say something else, but the room was quiet. Linda carefully felt her way over to the fence and climbed over. She didn't dare turn on her flashlight. She walked into branches and stumbled over rocks.

After a while she realized she was lost. She couldn't find the path and she had ended up in some sand dunes. Wherever she turned she couldn't see any light except from a ship far out to sea. She took off her hat and stuffed it into her pocket, as if her bare head would help her find her way. She tried to figure out where she was from her position in relation to the sea and the direction of the wind. Then she started to walk, pulling out the hat and putting it on again.

Time was of the essence. She couldn't keep wandering around in circles in these sand dunes. She had to make a call. But the phone wasn't in her pocket. She felt through all her pockets.
The hat,
she thought.
It must have fallen out when I took out the hat. It fell onto the sand and I didn't hear it.
She started crawling around in her own tracks with the flashlight on but she didn't find it.
I'm so incompetent,
she thought furiously
. Here I am crawling around without a clue.
But she forced herself to regain her composure. Again she tried to determine the right direction. From time to time she stopped and let the flashlight cut through the dark.

At last she found the path she had walked in on. The house with the brightly lit windows was on her left. She veered as far away as she could, then broke into a run toward the dark blue car. It was a moment accompanied by a rush of relief. She looked down at her watch: a quarter past eleven. The time had flown by.

The arm came out of the darkness from behind, and it gripped her tightly. She couldn't move; the force holding her was too great. She felt his breath against her cheek. The arm turned her around and a flashlight shone into her face. Without him saying a word she knew that the man looking at her was Torgeir Langaas.

50

Dawn came as a slowly creeping shade of gray. The blindfold over Linda's eyes let in some light and she knew the night was coming to an end. But what would the day bring? It was quiet all around her. Oddly enough, her bowels had held up. It was a stupid thought, but when Langaas had grabbed her it had sped through her mind like a little sentry, screaming:
Before you kill me you have to let me go to the bathroom
.
If there isn't one around, then leave me for a minute. I'll crouch in the sand, I always have toilet paper in my pocket, and then I'll kick the sand over my shit like a cat.

But of course she hadn't said anything. Langaas had breathed on her, the flashlight had blinded her eyes. Then he had pushed her aside, put the blindfold over her eyes, and tightened it. She had hit her head when he forced her into the car. Her fear was so great it could only be compared to the terror she felt when she was balancing on the edge of the bridge and arrived at the surprising insight that she didn't want to die. It had been quiet all around her, just the wind and the roar of the sea.

Was Langaas still there by the car? She didn't know, nor did she know how much time passed before the doors to the car were opened. But she deduced from the motion of the car that two people had climbed in, one behind the wheel and the other on the passenger side. The car jerked into action. The person driving was careless and nervous, or simply in a hurry.

She tried to sense where they were driving. They came out on the main road and turned left, toward Ystad. She also thought she felt them drive through Ystad, but at some point on the road to Malmö she lost control of her inner map. The car turned around,
changed direction several times, asphalt gave way to gravel which in turn gave way to asphalt. The car stopped, but no doors opened. It was still quiet. She didn't know how long she sat there, but it was toward the end of this phase of waiting that the gray light of morning started to trickle in through her blindfold.

Suddenly the peace was broken by the sound of the car doors being thrown open, and someone pulled her out of the car. She was led along a paved road and then onto a sandy path. She was ushered up four stone steps, noting that the edges were uneven. She imagined that the steps were old. Then she was surrounded by cool air, an echoing coolness. She immediately realized she was in a church. The fear that had grown numb during the night returned with full force. She saw in her mind's eye what she had only heard about: Harriet Bolson strangled in front of the altar.

Steps echoed on the stone floor, a door was opened, and she tripped over a doorjamb. Her blindfold was removed. She blinked in the gray light and saw Langaas's back as he walked out and locked the door behind him. A lamp in the room was lit. She was in a vestry with oil portraits of stern ministers from the past. Shutters were closed over the windows. Linda looked around for a door to a toilet, but there was none. Her bowels were still calm, but her bladder was about to burst. There were some tall goblets on a table. She thought God would forgive her and used one of them as a chamber pot. She looked down at her watch: a quarter to seven, Saturday, the eighth of September. She heard a plane coming in to land passing right over the church.

Linda cursed the cell phone she had managed to lose during the night. There was no phone in the vestry. She searched the cupboards and drawers. Then she started to work on the windows. They opened, but the shutters were tightly sealed and locked. She looked through the vestry one more time but didn't find any tools.

The door opened and a man walked in. Linda recognized him at once, even though he was thinner than in the pictures Anna had showed her, the pictures she had kept hidden in her bureau. He was dressed in a suit with a dark blue shirt buttoned all the way up. His hair was combed back and long at the neck. His eyes were light blue, just like Anna's, and it was even more clear than from the
photographs how much they looked like each other. He stopped in the shadows by the door and smiled at her.

“Don't be afraid,” he said kindly and approached her with his arms outstretched, as if he wanted to demonstrate that he was unarmed and did not intend to attack.

A thought flashed through Linda's head when she saw his open, outstretched arms.
Anna must have had a weapon in her coat pocket. That's why she came down to the station. To kill me. But she couldn't.
The thought made Linda weak in the knees. She staggered to one side and Erik Westin helped her sit down.

“Don't be afraid,” he repeated. “I'm sorry I was forced to let you wait blindfolded in the car. I am also sorry that I am forced to detain you for a few more hours. Then you will be free to go.”

“Where am I?”

“That I cannot tell you. The only thing that is important is that you should not be afraid. I also need you to answer one question.”

His tone was still concerned, the smile seemed genuine. Linda was confused.

“You have to tell me what you know,” Westin said.

“About what?”

He fixed her with his gaze, still smiling.

“That wasn't very convincing,” he said softly. “I could ask my question more directly, but that won't be necessary, since you understand full well what I mean. You followed Anna last night and you found your way to a house by the sea.”

The majority of what I tell him has to be true,
she thought quickly,
otherwise he'll see through me. There is no alternative,
she thought, giving herself more time by blowing her nose.

“I never made it to a house,” she said. “I found a parked car under the trees. But I was looking for Anna.”

Westin seemed lost in thought, but Linda knew he was weighing her answer. She recognized his voice now. He was the one who had been preaching to an invisible audience in the house by the beach. Although his voice and presence made an impression of a gentle calm, she could not forget what he had said during the night.

He looked at her again.

“You did not find your way to a house?”

“No.”

“Why were you looking for Anna?”

No more lies,
Linda thought.

“I was worried about Zeba.”

“Who is that?”

Now he was the one who was lying and she the one trying to conceal the fact that she saw through it.

“Zeba is a friend we have in common. I think she's been abducted.”

“Why would Anna know where she is?”

“She has seemed awfully tense lately.”

He nodded.

“You may be telling the truth,” he said. “Time will tell.”

He stood up without taking his eyes off her.

“Do you believe in God.”

No,
Linda thought.
But I know the answer you're looking for.

“I believe in God.”

“We shall soon see the measure of your faith,” he said. “It is as it is written in the Bible:
Soon our enemies will be destroyed and their excesses consumed by fire.
”

He walked over to the door and opened it.

“You won't have to wait by yourself.”

Zeba came in, followed by Anna. The door closed behind Westin and a key turned in the lock. Linda stared at Zeba, then Anna.

“What are you doing?” Linda asked.

“Only what needs to be done.”

Anna's voice was steady, but forced and hostile.

“She's crazy,” said Zeba, who had collapsed onto a chair. “Out of her mind.”

“No, a person who kills an innocent child is crazy. It is a crime that must be punished.”

Zeba rushed up from her chair and grabbed Linda's arm.

“She's crazy,” she shouted. “She's saying I should be punished because of the abortion.”

“Let me talk to her,” Linda said.

“You can't reason with crazy people.”

“I don't believe she's crazy,” Linda said as calmly as she could.

She walked over to Anna and looked her straight in the eye, feverishly trying to order her thoughts. Why had Westin left Anna in the same room as her and Zeba?

“Don't tell me you're part of this,” Linda said.

“My father has returned. He has restored the hope I had lost.”

“What kind of hope?”

“That there is a meaning to life, that God has a meaning for each of us.”

That's not true,
Linda thought. She saw the same thing in Anna's eyes that she had seen in Zeba's: fear. Anna had turned her body so that she could see the door.
She's afraid it will open,
Linda thought.
She's terrified of her father.