Page 22 of The Living and the Dead

“Stolen? Out here?”

“I heard they filed a police report, Madeleine called it in this morning.”

“Then what were they doing at Sander’s place?”

“I don’t know, but it’s roped off, too, over by Kjell’s field. I was going to go see if something else happened. If someone is hurt.” She eyed his nose. “Do you want to come?”

“I need to work on the cabin. Just gotta hit the john first.”

In the bathroom he applied a bandage to his nose. It was too small and hardly covered the wound, but it was better than nothing. Then he headed out in a hurry, almost as though he were running away, even though he wasn’t.

Outside, he could hear the cozy, dull hum of the generator. He watched through the window as his mother got in the car and drove off. Only a few minutes had passed when he heard a car coming back, and he suspected she had returned to get something. She often forgot her wallet at home.

But it wasn’t her.

16

Dark algae covered the foundation. The battered wooden siding looked sick and emaciated, as if something were consuming it from the inside. Siri rang the doorbell. It rang crossly in the front hall. Nothing inside, no movement at all. She looked around.

It turned out the people she’d spoken to hadn’t been misleading her. Killian Persson really did live in a cabin. Or rather, something that was meant to be a cabin someday, when it was finished. It had been built at the edge of the small yard and still hadn’t been painted; its bare wood made it look stiff and clumsy. Two small windows watched her like dark eyes. A generator hummed rhythmically nearby, and the door was closed. Just as she was about to knock, she heard something moving very close by, as if someone had been waiting for her.

Suddenly he was right there, Killian Persson, tall and blond and with messy hair. He looked like he’d just woken up, and his eyes were red and blank. His nose was swollen, inflamed, and he had put on a small bandage that had no hope of concealing the nasty wound there. She introduced herself and waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Killian snuffled. “It’s just, I hurt myself yesterday and every time I bend down it throbs like hell.”

“How did you get hurt?”

“I fell down on the way home, is all. I’m fine.”

“On the way home from what?”

“A party.”

It was warmer inside the cabin. Must be because of him, his large body moving around in there, working. It appeared he had been trying to get the power to work. In one corner were two chairs and a table, old patio furniture that had been hauled in. Tools were scattered on the table, switches and cables, rolled up wires and cords.

“Something happened,” he said after a moment. “Didn’t it.”

“What makes you say that?”

He shrugged. “Feels like it.”

Siri pulled out a chair and sat down. It was even more uncomfortable than it looked. “How do you mean?”

He’d been examining the light switch on the wall. It was a little crooked. Now he leaned against the wall instead and crossed his arms.

“My mom mentioned something about it before she left. And then you showed up.”

“Right,” Siri said, observing the swelling of his nose under the bandage. “Maybe you should get that checked out at the hospital. It looks awfully swollen. Where did you fall?”

“I tripped on a branch or a root or something, I couldn’t see in the dark. We had been drinking some at the party, so I didn’t have time to catch myself.”

“What kind of party was it?”

What followed was the same description Siri had heard less than an hour before. That time it had come from Sander Eriksson’s lips, and was longer and more coherent, fuller in detail, but fundamentally the story was identical. He mentioned Jakob Lindell, the fight with Mikael, and that it had ended when Pierre Bäck stepped in to intervene.

“But what do you think they were fighting about?”

“Money, would be my guess. Anyway, that’s what they were hassling each other about in the living room, where we were. But I don’t know, could have been something else.”