Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,76

the cap on the glass bottle and was holding it behind his back. Quickly he poured a few drops of hydrochloric acid into his father’s left eye. Somewhere underneath the tape the man started screaming. He struggled with all his might. Hoover pulled open his other eyelid and poured acid into that eye. Then he stood up and threw the bottle into the sea. Before him was a beast thrashing back and forth in its death throes. Hoover looked down at his own hands again. His fingers were quivering a little. That was all. The beast lying on the dock in front of him was twitching spasmodically. Hoover took his knife out of his backpack and cut off the skin from the top of the animal’s head. He raised the scalp to the night sky. Then he took his axe and smashed it straight through the beast’s forehead with such force that the blade stuck in the wood underneath.

It was over. Soon his sister would be brought back to life.

Just before 1 a.m. he drove into Ystad. The town was deserted. For a long time he had wondered whether he was doing the right thing. But Geronimo’s beating heart had convinced him. He had seen the police fumbling on the beach, he had watched them move as if in a fog outside the farm he had visited. Geronimo had exhorted him to defy them.

He turned in at the railway station. He had already picked the spot. Work was under way to replace some old sewerage pipes. There was a tarpaulin covering the excavation. He turned off the headlights and rolled down the window. From a distance he could hear some men yelling drunkenly. He got out of the van and drew back part of the tarpaulin. Then he listened again. Silence. Quickly he opened the doors of the van, dragged his father’s body out, and shoved him into the hole. He replaced the tarpaulin, started the engine and drove off. It was just before 2 a.m. when he parked the van in the outdoor car park at Sturup Airport. He checked carefully to see if he had forgotten anything. There was a lot of blood in the van. He had blood on his feet. He thought about all the confusion he was going to cause, how the police would fumble even more.

Suddenly he stopped and stood motionless.

The man who had left the country might not return. He’d need a replacement. He thought about the policemen he had seen on the beach by the overturned boat. He thought about the ones he had seen outside the farmhouse where the Midsummer party was held. One of them. One of them would be sacrificed so that his sister could come back to life. He would choose one. He would find out their names and then toss stones onto a grid, just as Geronimo had done, and he would kill the one that chance selected for him.

He pulled the helmet down over his head. Then he went over to his moped, which he had ridden there the day before and left parked under a lamppost, taking a bus back to Malmö. He started up the engine and rode off. It was already light when he buried his father’s scalp underneath his sister’s window.

Carefully he unlocked the door to the flat in Rosengård. He stood still and listened. Then he peeked into the room where his brother lay sleeping. Everything was quiet. His mother’s bed was empty. She was lying on the sofa in the living-room, sleeping with her mouth open. Next to her on the table stood a half-empty wine bottle. He covered her gently with a blanket. Then he locked himself in the bathroom and wiped the paint from his face.

It was almost 6 a.m. before he undressed and went to bed. He could hear a man coughing outside on the street. His mind was completely blank. He fell asleep at once.

Skåne

29 June – 4 July 1994

CHAPTER 20

The man who lifted the tarpaulin screamed. Then he fled.

One of the ticket agents was standing outside the railway station smoking a cigarette. It was just before 7 a.m. on the morning of 29 June, and it was going to be a hot day. The agent was wrenched from his thoughts, which were focused less on selling tickets than on the trip he was about to take to Greece. He turned when he heard the scream. He saw the man drop the tarpaulin and run off