The Invisible Man from Salem (35 page)

He could be underground. I open my eyes. Or high above it.

The water tower.

At that moment, my phone receives a message, a picture. A severed index finger. Sam's finger.

XXVII

It's somewhere down the motorway, just after Huddinge, that it pops into my head.
SWEDEN MUST DIE
, it said on one of Salem's tunnel walls when I was last there. I wonder if it's been removed yet. Tags and graffiti have always tended to survive for an unusually long time in Salem.

I'm driving too fast; the speedo's red needle hovers around one-forty, one-fifty. I daren't go any faster. The car would probably cope, but I wouldn't. I check my watch. More than twenty minutes left. I'm going to make it, and I try and slow down.

I drive through Rönninge, and before long Salem appears, the place where it all began. A minute or so later, the Triad's three blocks whizz past. They look untouched, unchanged. Time marches on, inevitably and incessantly, but certain places play tricks on us, make us think for a moment that nothing has changed. From the corner of my eye I spot the window that was once Julia's, which was opposite mine. I remember all those times I stood by the window just to catch a glimpse of her, how I ducked down when it was Grim and I didn't want him to suspect anything.

In the distance, the water tower looms dark grey against the pale sky. I try and spot anything unusual about the tower, but I can't see anything odd. For a second, I'm afraid I might have got it wrong, that he's taken her somewhere else entirely. But then, through the trees that encircle the base of the water tower, I catch sight of a dark-blue car, and that's how I know I've come to the right place. It's been parked outside my flat, waiting in the dark.

The car, a low-slung Volvo, is parked on the road and looks perfectly innocent. I park further up and walk over to it, peer in through the tinted windows. The car could be straight from the factory and waiting for an owner, considering the complete absence of any personal effects inside it. My phone rings. It's Birck.

‘Hello?'

‘Where are you now?'

‘Salem, by the water tower. I think he's here.'

‘Don't do anything until we get there.'

‘Okay.'

‘I'm serious, Leo. Wait till we arrive.'

‘I said okay, didn't I?'

I hang up. I fish a Serax out of my inside pocket and swallow it, but the pill goes down wrong, gets stuck, forcing me to bend double and cough violently. The pill hits my tooth on the way out and lands on the tarmac in front of me, shiny with spit. I pick it up and feel its slippery surface between my fingers as I swallow it. Then I head for the water tower, one hand squeezing the knife in my jacket pocket.

The gravel surface around the tower is empty and quiet. I make my way from tree to tree, being careful not to be seen. The only sound is the hum of a fan, or something, on the back of the tower. It takes a while for me to hear it. I'm still used to that sound, which surprises me. I try to remember what the view is like from up there, what you can and can't see. I squint up towards the tower's two ledges, expecting to see Grim up there. He could be watching me right now. But the ledges are empty, and the sight makes my mouth dry: I got it wrong after all. The Volvo is a decoy, or maybe it's nothing to do with Grim. It could just be a coincidence. Grim and Sam are somewhere else. I squeeze the knife even tighter.

That's when I spot it: the rope.

It starts from the upper ledge, running outwards and upwards, first towards and then onto the overhanging roof of the tower, before disappearing out of sight. He must somehow have secured it to something up there. I wonder why. Instead of scouring the ledges, I'm now studying the mushroom-shaped tower's roof, looking for some kind of movement. It takes a little while before the shadowy silhouette — a head, shoulders — swishes past. One minute it's not there, the next minute it is, and then the next minute it's gone again. I start running towards the tower. When I get to it, I stop, lean against the body of the tower, and listen. Nothing.

I look at the spiral stairs that run up to the ledges. I remember how every step, no matter how careful, rattles and bangs through the whole ladder, up into the tower. No matter how I do it, I'm going to be heard.

With quick, light steps, I climb upwards. Halfway up, the exertion makes my thighs burn. I slow down, then stop completely and listen. No sound yet.

I take another few steps, and soon I'm up on the first of the two ledges. To get up onto the upper ledge I have to get out on the ladder and climb up the outside. If I lose my grip I'll fall to the ground. I'm now above the trees, and I remember how, when the clouds hung really low in the autumn, you could sometimes convince yourself that you could touch the sky. I take a step out and stand on the ledge's handrail, holding tightly onto the rungs of the ladder. I put one foot on the bottom rung, then the other, and I'm hanging on an old iron ladder on the outside of a water tower. Only after climbing a couple of rungs do I notice that I'm holding my breath, and breathe out. I haul myself up onto the second ledge, and then I am in exactly the same spot, the exact same pose, as I was that first time I met Grim. I now realise for the first time just how much braver I was when I was sixteen.

I stand up, take a look around, and go over to the rope that's hanging a bit away from the ledge. I lean out over the railing and get hold of it, give it a tug to test it. The rope is thin and black. I wonder if he forced Sam to climb up on her own. If he did it before he hurt her.

To get onto the roof of the tower I need to climb the rope, with nothing underneath me. I look at my hands, red from the cramp-like grip I had on the metal rungs. It might not take the weight. Grim might have cut the rope, so that it's just hanging by a few small threads. I tug the rope again. It doesn't give way. I take a deep breath and haul myself out, over the edge of the ledge.

The rope starts to creak, once, then another time, and again. I struggle to get my footing back on the railing on the ledge, but it's no good; I'm too far out. I can't reach and I close my eyes, prepare myself for the fall, and hope that I don't land face first.

I DON'T FALL
. I don't think so. I open my eyes and notice that I'm being winched up, jolting up a bit at a time. Someone's pulling me up. Soon my face is level with the water tower's roof — the thick, rounded concrete disc. I'm being hauled up gradually, until I can swing one leg round and crawl up onto the roof. It's windier up here, and I can feel the cold wind on my cheek.

‘It's not going to be that easy,' a voice above me says, and I feel his hand grabbing my hair, so hard that I'm sure his grip is going to pull clumps of hair from my scalp.

I have time to see someone lying a little way away, in a red pool. Right in front of my face are two legs, and a hand in my hair is pulling me upwards.
He's trying to help me stand up
, I think to myself. Far too quickly for me to react, he smashes my face back down into the concrete. Something cracks — my nose, maybe — and my eyes water. Everything starts spinning, and the darkness, when it arrives, is threatening and unnaturally black.

XXVIII

There's buzzing in my ear, like feedback. I'm blind, I think. My eyes are open, but I can't see a thing. I blink, but all that happens is a slashing sensation and vibration in my temples, as though someone were drilling into them. Maybe the pain makes me scream; I don't know, but I think so, because as it wanes slightly there's a scraping in my throat.

I'm not blind. Everything is a tunnel, and somewhere, far away, is an opening that is growing, pushing the black walls of the tunnel to the periphery. I don't know how much time has passed, but it can't be that long. It's light around me, light and blurry, but gradually it gets sharper. My eyes are stinging because I don't want to blink. In the end I have to, and it flashes in my head again, but not as violently.

Grim is standing a little way away and sucking hard on a cigarette, taking two steps, turning around, taking two steps back the other way, turning around, another few steps. Just behind him, Sam. She's no longer lying down; maybe she wasn't before either. Everything happened so fast, I'm just not sure. She's sitting holding her hand, a red lump. She's pale.

I manage to sit myself up, which makes him come over and stare down at me. He's holding a black pistol. His eyes dart back and forth.

‘Where are your colleagues?' he asks.

I try to say something, but I don't think I succeed, because he grabs my shoulder and pushes the pistol to my temple, asks again, screaming this time, where they are. Spit flecks my forehead, and I think I'm shaking.

‘They don't know where I am.'

He lets go, backs away. I move my head from side to side, try to establish if anything's broken. Something must be, but there's no pain in my neck. I follow the thin black snake of a rope that leads from me to a little hook, projecting from the roof like a bent finger. The rope is attached by an intricate knot. A bit away from the hook, I notice, there's only a thin slip of rope left. The rest has worn away. He must have been up here before, many times.

‘So you did as you were told, at least.'

I shrug my shoulders; my fingers fumble across my coat, looking for the pocket.

‘I'm here now. You got what you wanted.'

My hand finds the pocket, grasps for the knife. It's not there. Grim's stare follows me, but reveals nothing. He might have taken it off me. It might have fallen out; it might be lying on the ground down there. I can feel my phone in the other pocket.

Sam looks up from her hand to me. Her hair is a mess, up in a plait like she sometimes has it when she's working. The plait looks worn out. Grim has been pulling it; maybe he dragged her along by it. A little bit to the right is what must be Sam's finger, a little stump lying in a pool of dark, dark red. She avoids looking at it. I lift my hand to my face; I'm not sure if I'm bleeding. I am, from the forehead. My nose and throat feel swollen and raw. I wipe the blood onto my jeans.

‘Put the finger in your pocket,' I tell Sam.

‘Shut up,' Grim says.

He swings an open palm towards my cheek. The slap feels muffled, the pain remote. It's still flashing inside my forehead. I think I'm bleeding internally, too, somewhere. My head is swollen, throbbing.

‘Let her go.'

‘No.'

Grim is just as straw-coloured as he was this morning, but he's no longer dressed in black. Instead, he's wearing light-blue jeans and a dark-green hoodie. It's him, my friend, and yet it isn't. He's hollow, emptier. He sits down on his haunches by the hook and adjusts the rope, quickly undoing the knot and then tying it back on.

He takes a little tube out of his pocket. His hands are shaking violently, making the pills rattle around inside it. He flips off the lid, takes a tablet, puts the lid back on, and stuffs the tube back in his pocket. Only now do I notice how he's sweating, how hot he looks.

‘I tried,' he says, smiling apologetically. ‘I really did try, Leo. But it …' He laughs, to himself, as though it were an absurd thought. His eyes have that insane glint that you only see in people going through a psychotic episode. ‘It didn't work.'

‘I understand.'

‘Do you?'

‘Yes. I got the diary,' I say.

A dark veil falls over his face, and I'm surprised at just how crazed he looks.

‘It's as though something inside me is driving me to this,' he says. ‘I can't explain it.'

‘You can let go of it,' I attempt. ‘You can drop all of this. I saw the car, the Volvo down there. You can just drive away. No one needs to know anything.'

‘Stop. You know what happened. Do you think I wanted this? Do you see that I feel completely … How completely fucked everything turned out? And it all started with you, getting to know you.'

I need to stall for time. Maybe Birck can get here. Behind Grim, Sam is looking at her finger. Then, with her eyes on his back, she starts carefully moving towards it. But Grim turns, beats her to it. From here, where I'm sitting, it looks weird, as though his hand has an extra finger for a moment, before he throws it over the edge. Sam gasps.

‘Take it easy,' I manage to force out, and look at Sam. ‘Everything is okay.'

Sam nods slowly.

‘Everything is okay,' repeats Grim, and he turns towards me. The pistol is dangling loose in his hand. ‘Everything is okay.'

He laughs, an empty laugh, and looks past me, out over Salem. I glance at Sam, who looks like she's about to pass out. Her eyelids are heavy, and she rocks back and forth every now and then, as though she were falling asleep.

‘Can you understand,' he starts slowly, with an urgent look about him, ‘can you at least
understand
me? Can you understand what you did to me? To us?'

‘Yes. I've told you that I understand.'

‘In that case, can you understand why I have to do this?'

‘No.'

He waves the weapon towards me and pulls the trigger.