The Shapeshifters (32 page)

Where?

Somewhere in Dalarna, she thought.

That same evening Lennart had set off. And he was not travelling alone. Seved saw how heavily laden the camper van had been.

 

 

They slept late and then ate breakfast sitting at the same table as the night before, and this time the view was revealed. Beyond the fence the ground dropped steeply away. There was a cluster of snow-topped pines on the slope, keeping watch over the gigantic pylons and the cars like small splashes of sunlight travelling along the road far below. Susso was bent over the newspaper. She had slept badly. Thoughts had raced around in her head and both Gudrun and Torbjörn had snored, keeping pace with each other, or so it seemed. Susso had thrown money at them to try and get them to stop. When Gudrun woke up and found her bed covered in one-krona coins she had sat up and cried: ‘I'm rich!'

She was joking all the time, trying as hard as she could to lighten the mood. Susso knew she was doing it for her sake, that it pained her to see Susso depressed and so afraid that she looked with suspicion at everybody they came in contact with.

On the opposite side of the bay there was a dark ridge of forest, with three wind turbines rising above it like huge white flowers.

‘Look, they're not moving,' said Gudrun, pointing with her coffee cup. ‘That means they've run out of diesel.'

Susso rubbed her eyes and smiled. She couldn't help herself.

Torbjörn was driving. Gudrun sat in the front and Susso in the back with her arms folded and her head resting on her jacket,
which she had rolled up against the door. It was easier for her to sleep now. Torbjörn and Gudrun's chatter and the vibration from the car made her feel drowsy.

After a couple of hours they stopped at a filling station to stretch their legs, as Gudrun put it, but Susso stayed where she was, unfastened her seat belt and lay down on the seat. She was certain her mother would tell her to fasten it as soon as they were out on the road again, but she didn't. She let her sleep. And she slept deeply for a long time. When she woke up they were travelling through a forest with trees standing like black crystals beside the road. All that remained of the snow was an occasional isolated patch.

‘Where are we?' she asked, sitting up.

‘Gävle,' said Gudrun.

They were travelling on a B road and it was beginning to get dark. Torbjörn had to change constantly from full beam to dipped, and the road ahead shot into view and then disappeared, shot back into view and disappeared.

Torbjörn nodded his head in the direction of a dark opening in the forest.

‘This is where Gudrun passed through,' he said.

‘Is it?' Gudrun said, craning her neck to look out of the window. ‘Was she this far north?'

‘Why did they call the hurricane Gudrun?' asked Susso. ‘Did it come on your name day then, Mum?'

‘Don't you know when my name day is?'

‘Seventh of January? Eighth?'

‘The twenty-fourth of November. One month before Christmas!'

‘But who cares?'

‘I care.'

‘When's my name day then?'

‘You haven't got one.'

‘No, and that's because I've got a Lapp name.'

‘It was your dad's idea. You're called Maria as well. You can change to that if you're so keen on having a name day. It's the twenty-eighth of February.'

‘So why
was
the hurricane called Gudrun?' asked Torbjörn.

‘Firstly,' said Gudrun, ‘she wasn't a hurricane, she was a cyclone at best. Or worst. Roland teased me about it, naturally, so I looked into it. The Norwegian Institute of Meteorology decided on the name. Storms are given names so you won't confuse cyclones and hurricanes that happen at the same time. They alternate between male and female. All in alphabetical order from ready-prepared lists.'

‘When's your name day, Torbjörn?' asked Susso.

‘Ninth of March. I know because it comes after Siv, and that's why Mum wanted me to be called Torbjörn. If I'd been a girl, I would have been called Edla.'

‘Edla?' snorted Susso.

He nodded.

‘What would I have been called, Mum, if I'd been a boy?'

‘I don't know. I knew you were a girl.'

‘Yes, but if!'

‘Didn't you hear what I said? I knew you were a girl!'

 

 

Seved stood with the red bucket in his hand, looking into the barn. The gaps in the walls were compact streams of radiant light. There were large windows near the ceiling at both ends, but it was black and uncertain below the loft. The space was a mass of shadows that overlapped and became successively darker. From under a tarpaulin poked the shafts of an old sleigh. There were kick sledges in there as well, in a tangle of rust-brown runners and turned wooden handles: he counted five all together. The wood on most of them was old and grey but one was bright-yellow and even had reflectors. He knew it was Ejvor's.

Next to the kick sledges was a moped. Was that his old moped? It was so old it was impossible to see the make. Oh yes,
SACHS
it said at the base of the engine cover. He saw it as he crouched down to examine it. The tyres were as thin as bicycle tyres. With his fingertips he brushed away the dust and wood shavings from the glass cover of the speedometer. The dial went up to seventy but it was doubtful the moped could reach even half that speed. Unless it was souped-up. Of course. Had Börje done that? He actually had no idea. Börje had tried to get him interested in engines, kneeling on the ground and pointing to cylinders and carburettors with black oily fingers, explaining how they worked, but he had not taken it in. He had nodded but not really listened.

There was left-over macaroni in the bucket, stuck together
in a yellowish block at the bottom, clearly frozen solid. It was glittering.

The foxshifter was eating less these days. He was unsure whether to tell Börje about it. He did not want to worry him unnecessarily. A kind of darkness had settled over his face and he was often snappy, even with the boy. Probably it was easier for him that way. Under the anger he could hide all his other feelings.

There was a click far back in the gloom of the barn and he knew at once he was being watched. He felt the little man's eyes on him, even though he could not see them. But was he up in the loft or down below?

He had taken a step to one side to be able to see better when he heard someone call out. At first he thought it came from outside and he turned to the barn door. Was it Signe?

He heard it again and realised the cry was inside his head.

It was a woman calling and she was far, far away. Only a shard of her desperate cry reached him. It was as if her voice was drowning in the sighing of a thousand treetops.

Seved walked swiftly out of the barn without even closing the door behind him.

It was him. He had got to him. Reached out and got to him.

In the yard he met Börje, walking fast. When he caught sight of Seved he turned round immediately and called over his shoulder:

‘There's a phone call for you.'

‘For me?'

Seved walked into the hall and put down the bucket. The receiver was dangling near the floor, and he lifted it up and said hello.

Lennart's voice came through over the sound of traffic. He was practically shouting.

‘You've got to get up to Kiruna.'

Seved wanted to protest but all he could say was:

‘Right.'

‘I've got to find out where she's going, that Myrén woman. What she's doing. Jola has tried but he's getting nowhere. So you've got to go up and talk to her sister.'

‘But how am I going to . . .'

‘Those lemmings I gave you in Arvidsjaur . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘Take them with you. Then she'll speak, you'll see.'

‘But they're down in the hide, I think.'

‘You can go down there now. There's no danger.'

Go down in the hide? He had never even put his hand on the cellar door before.

‘But make sure you go carefully!'

‘But how can I . . . what if they've hidden themselves and don't want to come . . . ?'

‘You'll have to tell her you work for a newspaper or something. Tell her you've got to get hold of her sister as soon as possible. And if she won't say anything, use the lemmings. It'll come out then all right. But it's important she doesn't get suspicious because then she'll warn her sister and we'll never get hold of her. So watch your step! And it's got to happen now. You've got to leave today, Seved.'

Börje was lying on the sofa in the sitting room, watching the boy with tired eyes. He was sitting on the floor holding a small car made of green metal. There were more cars scattered around his outstretched legs. Seved recognised them all. They had once been his. He had heard the boy run the cars over the wooden floor but
had not thought Börje would be anywhere around. That surprised him. He was even holding a car, a red pickup.

‘What are you doing?'

Börje lifted up the car.

‘We're playing with the cars. It's one of those demolition derbies.'

‘You having fun?' Seved asked the boy, who did not answer.

He stood silently for a while, thinking about what Lennart had said.

‘Is it empty down in the hide?' he asked. ‘Did he take both of them?'

Börje shook his head and knocked the car against the sofa cushion.

‘Who did he take with him then?'

‘Who do you think?'

The answer calmed Seved a little. He'd rather deal with Skabram than Karats.

‘Lennart wants me to go up to Kiruna, and I'm to take Torsten's lemmingshifters with me. I've got to go down in the hide and fetch them.'

‘Are you taking them up to Jola, or what?'

Seved shook his head.

‘I've got to talk to the sister. Me and the . . . lemmings.'

Börje drew in a few deep breaths and Seved saw that he was furious but keeping it under control.

‘It's not a game, you know,' he said, looking seriously at Seved. ‘Those are nasty creatures, not to be messed with. Did he really say that you've got to talk to her? Isn't Jola going with you?'

‘Not as far as I know.'

Börje stood up.

‘I'll get them for you.'

‘Are you sure?'

He pushed the toy pickup into Seved's palm.

‘You drive carefully.'

 

 

The village where Mats Ingvar lived was about twenty kilometres south of Avesta. They drove along a gravel road through colourless agricultural land. There was no snow apart from patches in the roadside ditches.

Beside the narrow road lay thick branches, brought down and dragged from the forest by the weather. They drove past a farm where a tractor was parked beside a gritty snowdrift, and shortly afterwards caught sight of a leaning building. It looked as if it would topple over onto the road at any moment. A piece of bright yellow cloth was dangling from one of the eaves.

A man was standing in the driveway in front of a Hyundai with a dirty rear window. He was squinting and it was clear from his red cheeks that he had been out of doors for some time. His jacket was half unzipped and it filled out like a balloon with each gust of wind.

He pointed at a pile of sand further along the roadside, motioning for them to park there. On each side of the road were paddocks surrounded by electric fences. One of the paddocks stretched back up to the field and surrounded a huge barn built partly of stone, and behind it stood quite a large farmhouse.

Mats stood on the road waiting for them, with his hands in his pockets.

‘This is Gudrun, my mother,' Susso said, indicating. ‘And this is Torbjörn.'

They shook hands and exchanged a few words. Susso asked about the paddocks: did they have horses there? Yes, but they were not his. He only owned the paddocks.

‘They're kept on my land,' he said. ‘That way I don't have to mow the grass. And it gets fertilised at the same time. So it works out well.'

Gudrun folded her arms and turned her gaze towards the field. There was not much to see apart from frozen clay and one or two strips of snow. Torbjörn had taken out his mobile and began tapping the buttons.

Mats zipped up his jacket. He grimaced in the wind, which had turned much colder.

‘Shall we look at the film straight away, or would you like to see where he lived first?'

‘The film, I think,' Susso replied.

They walked towards the red farmhouse that lay directly beside the edge of the field. Torbjörn was left behind with his phone.

‘Are you coming?' Susso asked.

He nodded but showed no sign of hurrying.

With their feet crunching on the gravel they walked beside a severely pruned lilac hedge up to the front of the house and stepped in through the door. Below the hall mirror was a large, white-painted chest, and Gudrun put her handbag down on it.

Mats lumbered ahead of them.

‘What about some coffee?' he said.

‘Yes, please,' Gudrun said, removing her jacket. ‘I could certainly do with some.'

The house had been extended and the kitchen was in the
old part, where the ceiling was low. Torbjörn had to duck as he stepped over the high threshold. It was a little kitchen, clean and shining, with white tongue and groove panelling, stained with resin over the knots in the wood. A curtain with narrow stripes hung like a skirt in front of a humming dishwasher. On the windowsill stood a pile of bird books, with a pair of binoculars on top. At the rear of the house was a small lawn and two towering birches, and beyond them the fields, stretching into infinity in the twilight.

When the coffee machine started to bubble Mats opened a cupboard and took out a half packet of biscuits, which he placed in the bread basket on the table.

It was silent for a few moments and then Mats cleared his throat. ‘Well, perhaps we should look at the film?'