Page 132 of The Living and the Dead

“I know it was you,” Filip said after several minutes of driving in silence.

Filip’s gaze flicked to Killian, or to the spade, before he went back to watching the road.

“My brother, I mean. That that’s why you disappeared.”

Killian didn’t say anything. He wanted to, but he couldn’t.

“Okay.”

That was all he could manage.

“But I’ve never understood why,” Filip went on. “I think that’s what I want to know. That,” he added, “and what happened to you. Clearly things didn’t go well. When you’ve lived a hard life, you can tell when other people have too.”

Killian still didn’t speak up. Filip seemed happy to wait, but they hadn’t gotten very far when he abruptly pulled over. Killian didn’t recognize the spot. Filip turned off the engine and set the hand brake, leaned back.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him,” he said. “I don’t visit his grave too often, that’s not my thing, really. I have a hard time dealing with it.”

“Where are we?”

“We used to live here. Right there. The front door was there. It’scrazy, isn’t it? Like the house never even existed. I come here now and then to think. Used to do that quite a bit when I was in a treatment program years ago. It was…In the end I came here all the time, several days a week. I said so to Isidor Enoksson, actually—we sometimes talked about the old days. ‘What doyouthink you’re doing when you go there?’ he said. Priests.”

Filip chuckled wearily.

“What he eventually told me, as a kind of explanation, was that something went wrong here a long time ago. Something I haven’t been able to make sense of, and the reason I keep coming back is to try to figure out what it was. As if I hadn’t figuredthatout on my own.”

He looked serious now, as if Isidor’s words had still meant something to him.

“I don’t know if it’s true, but it might be. I’ve never run into anyone else here. It’s like people avoid this place. I just want to know why Mikael died. And what happened.” Filip nodded at the spade. “I know this is what killed him. But that’s all I know.”

Killian hesitated. “I don’t know what to tell you, Filip.”

“Just tell it like it was. Like it is. Just tell the truth, for once.”

He grabbed the spade and got out of the car, gesturing at Killian to follow him. Filip climbed down into the ditch, out into the grove of trees.

“Was it you,” Killian asked, “who caused the landslide?”

He didn’t respond. A sharp jab with his foot, and he thrust the spade into the ground.

101

Killian looked tormented as he sat at the kitchen table facing Sander and Felicia.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “At first I didn’t resist, but then he started to strangle me. I couldn’t breathe. I managed to get around him somehow, and grab the spade…I just wanted him to stop, to let go. I panicked. That was all. I didn’t want to leave the spade in his car after, so I tried to wipe it down and then I put it in his garage with all the rest of the tools. I didn’t know what I was thinking. I panicked. I had to put it somewhere, I figured it would be worse if someone found it in the forest, and…I don’t know.”

Sander couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to think anymore. It sounded true. Killian looked honest. But, he realized, there was nothing in Killian’s story to prove that this was what had happened; there was only his own insistence it was so. Just like the story about the car accident out in Esmared. Maybe that was no accident at all, maybe Killian had killed Hampus Olsson in cold blood. Just like he could, in fact, have killed Filip, a calculated move, cold as ice.

Sander could still feel Killian’s hand around his throat. All the guilt that had been piled on Killian might be deserved. And here Sander had defended him over the years, like an idiot.

The knife,Sander thought.What did he do with the knife he had in the basement? Where is it now?

“I don’t understand how he could have known,” Killian went on. “That I’m alive, I mean. He knew it even before he saw me at the chapel, I’m sure of it. He knew. But I don’t get how.”

Sander stared at Killian. Felicia was still by the window, saying nothing.

“That’swhat you’re worried about?”

“What? What’s wrong?” Killian looked at him in genuine confusion.