I Am Behind You (39 page)

Over the years Majvor has developed a range of strategies for dealing with Donald's mood swings, but she has no experience of the state he is in now. The final resort usually involves telling him off in a sharp tone of voice, but she doesn't think that would help at the moment, so she troops over to the battered Volvo with the rest of them. The only person who doesn't move is Carina.

‘I'm not leaving my son,' she says.

‘Oh yes you are,' Donald says. ‘Otherwise I'll shoot you.'

Carina's lips tremble as she lowers her arms. ‘Go on then. Because I'm not leaving him.'

Majvor can't predict what might happen, but Donald's stressed expression and bloodshot eyes suggest that things could go really badly as he places his finger on the trigger.

‘Donald!' she shouts, and manages to divert his attention. She smiles as sweetly as she can, and says: ‘I'm useless anyway. Wouldn't it be better for me to stay here and look after you?'

The muscles around Donald's eyes twitch as he lowers the gun. Perhaps he is not ready to shoot an unarmed woman in spite of his insanity; perhaps he needs Majvor's care and attention. Whatever the reason, he lets out a snort and says: ‘Okay, yes. But the rest of you need to get going right now!'

Majvor catches Carina's eye and nods reassuringly, a nod that means she will take care of Emil while they are away. Carina hesitates for a couple of seconds then returns the nod before joining the rest of the group.

Donald sits down in the folding chair and lays the shotgun across his knees, mumbling to himself as he follows the preparations for departure through narrowed eyes. Then he notices Majvor, standing alone a couple of metres away.

‘Don't just stand there looking stupid,' he says, waving towards the refrigerator. ‘Fetch me a beer.'

The Volvo has just started up when everyone becomes aware of the sound of another engine approaching the camp. All activity stops, and before anyone has the chance to react, Donald's Cherokee appears, with Peter at the wheel.

It stops next to the Toyota and Peter leaps out. With no grasp of what is going on, he runs over to the other car, shouting: ‘We have to get out of here! Right away!'

The plan is to slam the Toyota into reverse then hook up his own caravan. Donald gets to his feet, the gun in his hands, and Majvor knows him so well that she can tell from his back view that he is smiling. Beaming, in fact.

*

‘Don't moving a fucking muscle, Peter. I've got you in my sights. Hands up!'

One of Peter's talents as a player was the ability to make a decision in a fraction of a second. He didn't waste time fiddling around with the ball while he made up his mind. Better to do something unexpected, take a major risk, than to allow the other team to close ranks.

He can tell from Donald's tone that this is serious; he also realises that Donald has the gun. His eyes are still fixed on the tow bar, but he is able to work out roughly where Donald is from his voice. He decides to raise his hands slightly first of all, so that Donald will think he is cooperating, then he will throw himself under the caravan and roll out on the other side. After that he will have to improvise. If he can just explain about the clouds, the situation might change.

Peter lifts his head and begins to raise his hands. Then he stiffens,
frozen in mid-movement. There are four people standing in the middle of the camp, staring at him. No, not four people; four versions of the same person. The final version, which is the most unpleasant, is something he has never seen in reality. His jaw drops and he whispers: ‘Dad?'

When his father came out of prison, it turned out that the woman he had abused had a big family, who didn't think that prison was the best punishment for knocking women about. They thought someone who did that kind of thing should be bound naked to a tree in the forest before a number of significant wounds were inflicted with a pair of secateurs. In conclusion the perpetrator should be castrated using the same implement, then left to bleed to death. That was their view, which was soon translated into action.

By the time Peter's father was found, predators had started eating away at the soft tissue, and the organ that had been responsible for Peter's conception was never found. There was little doubt about who had carried out the attack, but there was no forensic evidence, and the entire family provided one another with watertight alibis. The court concluded that a person or persons unknown had tortured Peter's father to death.

Peter has already established that God does not exist in this place. He has also briefly considered the natural progression from this thought: that this is the
only
place where God does not exist—hell, in other words. However, he dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Why would four families from the same campsite be condemned simultaneously to eternal torment in hell? It just didn't make sense.

As he looks over at the middle of the camp, it seems a lot less ridiculous. If there is one person in his life who deserved to end up in hell, it is his father. And here he is. Four versions of the same man.

One is the drunken monster who almost killed Peter's mother, one is the vicious brute who smashed up their caravan, a third comes from Peter's early childhood, before the booze took over. But the figure that makes Peter forget his planned manoeuvres is the fourth, the one he has never seen, only imagined, over and over again.

A naked man with the corners of his mouth slashed to form a broad smile, his body marked with eight or ten gaping wounds, and no sex organs. His dead father, bloodless and clean, but still on his feet.

Without lowering his hands Peter closes his eyes, squeezes them tight shut. When he opens them again the father figures are still there, but Donald has moved closer. Majvor is behind him with a can of beer in her hand, while Stefan, Carina and the dairy farmers are getting out of the Volvo. There is no sign of Molly or Isabelle.

Donald stops ten metres away from Peter, puts the gun to his shoulder and takes aim. ‘Now you're going to die, you bastard.'

Everything Peter had intended to do or say is gone. He realises that Donald really does mean to shoot him, that the time has come. He must remain calm. Breathe evenly, prepare himself.

Peter closes his eyes once more, takes a deep breath and thinks about the darkness, the smell of shower gel and disinfectant. He thinks
Anette
, he turns all his senses into a phallus and drives into her sweetness. Then Donald fires.

*

It's not that Donald hates Peter. Not really. But because Peter did what he did, Donald has no choice but to shoot him. In the real world he wouldn't act this way—he doesn't want to end up in jail after all—but in this pretend world it is the only thing he can do.

One of Donald's key characteristics is his ability to hold a grudge. He is well aware of this, in fact he often boasts about it: ‘I've got a long memory, let me tell you.'

If someone has wronged Donald, there are virtually no lengths to which he will not go to restore the balance, preferably by doing something even worse to the perpetrator.

For example, take the wholesaler who sold a huge consignment of untreated wood to Donald at a good price, because he was supposed to be winding up his company and moving to the Costa del Sol.
Eighty thousand kronor down the pan; the entire consignment was riddled with woodworm after being kept in an unventilated storeroom for years and years. Worthless timber, firewood.

Donald bided his time, made sure he kept an eye on the person in question. When he still hadn't set foot in Sweden after a couple of years, Donald spent a considerable amount of time making the right contacts, then paid certain people to pay the former wholesaler a few visits.

Three local thugs were temporarily employed to wreck his garden, scratch his car, start a fire in his garden shed, and to break into his house a couple of times. Nothing major, but as the incidents were spread out over a period of several months, they had a significant impact on the man's peace of mind.

Eventually Donald sent him a postcard: ‘Hope you're very happy in your house, and that things are going well. Best wishes, Donald'. After all, there was no point in doing all that if the guy didn't
know
.

As a result the man called Donald, weeping and promising to pay back the money for the wood, if he could just make it all stop. Donald said he had no idea what he was talking about, but he was happy to accept the money because the consignment really had been rubbish.

He hadn't done it because of the money, but he wouldn't be much of a businessman if he turned down eighty thousand kronor. At least it covered the amount he had spent to break the bastard, but the important thing was the victory itself, the fact that he had sat there shaking in his shoes in the heat of the Costa del Sol, and had realised that you couldn't get away with ripping off Donald Gustafsson.

Such measures are not an option when it comes to Peter. He dragged Donald away like a dog, wrecked his caravan and stole his car. The Bloodman turned white when Donald shot him, the mask disintegrated. What will happen to this fantasy creature called Peter? There's only one way to find out.

Donald closes one eye and aligns the crosshairs with the middle of Peter's forehead. He pulls back the trigger and takes a deep breath to steady his hands.

A yellow flame bursts into life in the back of his head, he hears a hissing sound, and the gun goes off.

*

Come on, Majvor. Come on.

Stefan's thigh muscles are tensed, his body leaning forward as he gets ready to run. He hasn't had time to reflect on whether he actually has the nerve, but perhaps his new role as leader has given him the extra courage he needs.

He was the one that Majvor looked at. As Donald walked towards Peter, Majvor followed him with an unopened can of beer in her hand. When it became clear that Donald really did intend to shoot Peter, Majvor raised the can, pointed to Donald's head, then looked over at Stefan. Stefan, nobody else. He swallowed hard and nodded. And got ready to sprint.

‘I've got you in my sights.'

Donald places the butt of the gun to his shoulder and rests his cheek against it. His finger is on the trigger.

Come on, Majvor. Don't miss.

Majvor was probably intending to hit Donald over the head with the can, but suddenly it is urgent, and she has to act fast. She is only two metres away from Donald when she raises her arm above shoulder level and hurls the can with unexpected force. It flies through the air like a red and white stripe and strikes the back of Donald's head.

Stefan has been concentrating so hard on adopting the correct position and on his run that it seems only logical that he hears a starting gun go off as he charges at Donald with the aim of snatching the shotgun.

The can has caught Donald at an angle; it bounces upwards and forwards over the top of his head, then down in front of his face. At the same time the can flips open and there is a hissing sound as a stream of Budweiser spurts over Donald's face and chest in a white, foaming cascade.

The can hits the ground and continues to spurt, all over Donald's feet. If he turns around to see who threw it, he will see Stefan, but fortunately he looks down at the projectile itself first of all, and as he leans forward to get a better look at the hissing, bubbling object at his feet, Stefan reaches his goal.

Once again he surprises himself. His aim was to get hold of the gun, and he had pictured himself whirling past and grabbing it. Instead he stops dead right next to Donald. Without any particular sense of urgency, as if he were relieving a teenager who had been shoplifting of his ill-gotten gains, he takes the gun out of Donald's hands and says: ‘Okay!'

Donald's reaction is not dissimilar to that of the beer can. As if a valve has been opened, releasing some internal pressure, Donald's shoulders drop, and with beer dripping from his face he looks at the gun, at Majvor, at Stefan, and says feebly: ‘What the…fuck?'

There is nothing to suggest that Peter has been hit; he is standing open-mouthed, gaping at the four white figures.

‘Peter!' Stefan shouts, backing away from Donald with the gun raised. ‘Peter!'

Stefan doesn't know what Peter sees when he looks at the figures, but judging by his expression it is something terrifying. Stefan points the barrel of the gun at Donald, but realises that it is only the afterglow of the heat of battle that is making him do this. Without the shotgun, Donald is just an angry old man. Stefan lowers the weapon and goes over to Peter, obscuring his view of the figures.

‘Peter?'

Peter isn't
completely
out of it. ‘My father,' he says. ‘He's dead. So how can he…how…'

Stefan slips the strap of the gun over his arm so that he can place both hands on Peter's shoulders. When Peter tries to move his head to the side so that he can look at the figures, Stefan places his hands on Peter's cheeks, holding his head still, and locks eyes with him.

‘Peter, listen to me. That's not your father. They're just pretending to be whatever might scare or upset us, so that…blood will be spilt.
Do you understand me? They are
not
your father, nor anything else. They're just…nothing.'

Peter abandons the attempt to turn his head, and Stefan removes his hands. Then Peter gives a start as if he has just remembered something.

‘Clouds,' he says. ‘There are clouds coming.'

‘I know, I've seen them.'

‘Something falls from the clouds, something corrosive. It eats through metal, through everything. We have to get away from here. Right now.' Peter points in the opposite direction from which he came, then turns his attention back to the tow bar.

‘It's no good going that way,' Stefan says. ‘There are clouds coming from that direction too.'

Peter presses his hands to his temples. ‘Bloody hell, Stefan, it eats through
everything
. And there are…'