on his face. I remember looking at him and thinking I’d read that’s what you’re meant to do if you’re attacked by a rabid dog. Don’t run, don’t scream, just stay calm and stand still. We stood there. Curt didn’t say anything either, just looked at us with the knife in his hand. Then he turned on his heel and went back to Viktor. He…”
Vesa makes a keening noise through his teeth.
“…stabbed him again, over and over. Dug into his eyes with the knife. Then he stuck his fingers into the sockets and smeared the blood over his own eyes. ‘All that he has seen, I have now seen,’ he cried out. He licked the knife like… an animal! I think he cut his tongue, because there was blood trickling down the side of his mouth. And then he cut off the hands. Hacking and twisting. He pushed one in his jacket pocket, but there wasn’t room for the other one, and he dropped it on the floor, and… I don’t really remember after that. Thomas drove me along Norgevägen in his car. I stood out in the cold in the middle of the night throwing up. And all the time Thomas was going on and on. About our families. About the church. Saying the best thing we could do now was to keep quiet. Afterward, I wondered whether he knew Curt was there. Or whether he’d actually seen him standing there.”
“And Gunnar Isaksson?”
“He didn’t know anything. He’s a waste of space.”
“You cowardly bastard,” said Rebecka, exhausted.
“I’ve got children,” he whines. “Everything will be different now. You’ll see.”
“Don’t even bother,” she says. “When Sanna came to you. That’s when you should have gone to the police and Social Services. But no—you didn’t want the scandal. You didn’t want to lose your nice house and your well-paying job.”
Soon she won’t be able to keep her right leg drawn up any longer. If she puts the gun down on the floor he’ll have time to get up and kick her in the head before she’s even had time to raise it into the firing position. She can’t see properly. Black spots are clouding her vision. As if somebody had fired paintballs at a shop window.
She’s going to faint. There’s no time.
She points the gun at him.
"Don’t do it, Rebecka," he says. "You won’t be able to live with yourself. I never wanted this, Rebecka. It’s over now"
She wishes he would do something. Make a move to get up. Reach for the axe.
Maybe she can trust him. Maybe he’ll put her and the children in the sledge and take them back. Give himself up to the police.
Or maybe not. And then—roaring fire. The terrified eyes of the girls as they tug at the ropes binding their hands and feet to the bed. The flames melting the flesh on their bones. If Vesa sets the place on fire, there’s nobody to tell. Thomas and Curt will get the blame, and he’ll walk free.
He came here to kill us, she says to herself. Just remember that.
He is weeping now, Vesa Larsson. Just a moment ago Rebecka was sixteen, sitting in the cellar of the Pentecostal church in the middle of all his painting gear, talking about God, life, love and art.
“Think of my children, Rebecka.”
It’s him or the girls.
She closes her eyes as her finger squeezes the trigger. The report is deafening. When she opens her eyes he is still sitting there in the same position. But he no longer has a face. A second passes, then the body falls to one side.
Don’t look at it. Don’t think. Sara and Lova.
She drops the gun and hauls herself up onto all fours. Her whole body shakes from the exertion as she crawls toward the bed, inch by inch. A ringing, howling noise fills her ears.
Sara’s hand. One hand is enough. If she can free one hand…
She crawls over Curt’s lifeless body. Fumbles with his belt. Gropes under his body with her hand. There’s the knife. She undoes the sheath, draws it out. It looks as if she has dipped her hand in blood. She’s reached the bed.
Steady hand, now. Don’t cut Sara.
She cuts through the hemp rope and pulls it off Sara’s wrist. Places the knife in Sara’s free hand and sees her fingers close around the handle.
Now rest.
She slumps down on the floor.
After a little while Lova and Sara’s faces appear above her. She grabs Sara’s sleeve.
“Remember,” she croaks. “Stay inside the cabin. Keep the