Somebody is shaking him gently, and Jacob rolls into a ball to protect himself. He’s back in that damp basement; they’re waking him up to assault him. Reluctantly he opens his eyes and around him is only blackness. The air is so stuffy he has to take a deep breath to get any oxygen at all into his lungs. But then he hears the sound of the engine, gets the unmistakable feeling of movement.
‘Wake up, kid,’ George says, shaking him, more impatiently now. ‘You slept through Germany, sleepyhead.’
Slowly Jacob sits up. A faint streak of blue light from the driver’s cabin penetrates through the gap in the drapes. George whispers something to Klara. Then he turns back to Jacob again.
‘Come and look,’ he says, pulling back the drapes. ‘Home.’
Jacob crawls towards the opening and sees only night and asphalt. But part of the night is compact and bottomless and he realizes that must be the sea, and beyond the sea are the lights of a city. And in front of them stands a high, sleek bridge, lit up like silver in the dark.
‘Malmö,’ George says, pointing to the glittering lights. ‘Feel good to be home?’
Jacob can’t believe it’s true. For a moment he feels something almost like relief. Then he sees Yassim’s face in front of him. His lifeless arm in the car. The blood spreading from his shoulder. The light in his eyes slowly going out.
He bends forward and looks at Klara under the cold lights of the lamps outside. She seems wide awake. Did she sleep at all? Her dark hair is a little messy. There’s something sexy about her, Jacob thinks. That determined nose, those high cheekbones. There’s something about her that makes him curious. She looks like somebody who’s been through a lot and come out on the other side stronger for it.
‘Did you eat some gape-soup?’ she asks in a surprisingly broad, exaggerated Östergötland accent.
‘Excuse me?’ he says self-consciously. ‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘Ah,’ she says, turning to him with a smile. ‘Just something we used to say in the archipelago where I grew up if someone stared at you.’
*
As they drive across the bridge, the semi starts to slow and the driver turns to Klara with a troubled expression. ‘We have a problem,’ he says, pointing to the tollbooth.
Ahead of them a row of trucks is slowly inching forward. A few cars are doing the same thing in another line, but it’s too early for commuters.
‘What’s going on?’ Klara says.
‘Border control,’ he says. ‘They’re looking for something. Maybe refugees.’ He narrows his eyes at her. ‘Or maybe for you?’
‘They weren’t supposed to start checking passports until after Christmas,’ George said.
The driver shrugs. ‘I guess they’re looking for you, then?’
Klara meets his eyes calmly. ‘We got this far,’ she says. ‘Can you help us again?’
He sighs and rolls in slowly behind the last truck in the queue.
‘You remember what I said?’ he asks.
‘That you hate cops?’ Klara replies.
‘That I’m stupid. Jump back with the others.’
Slowly they roll forward and stop at what looks like a temporary blockage, right after the tollbooth. Jacob hears the driver open the door. ‘What’s this?’ he asks.
‘Routine check,’ answers a female voice in English.
‘What are you looking for?’ the driver asks.
‘Like I said, routine check. May I please see your passport and will you climb out of the vehicle.’
‘No,’ the driver says to Jacob’s surprise. ‘If this is a routine check, I refuse to show my passport. Schengen Agreement. Routine checks at borders are prohibited. My shipping agent can sue you.’
‘What in…’ says the woman. ‘Now you do what I say. Get out of the vehicle. And put down the phone.’
‘No,’ says the driver. ‘No, I won’t. You said this is a routine check. That’s illegal. So I’m recording this.’
They can hear him pressing all of his weight into his seat. Then the woman’s radio crackles and she says something they don’t quite catch.
‘I’m climbing in,’ she says. ‘And you don’t move.’
They hear the driver grunt something and then the cop climbing up. Through the little gap they can see her flashlight bobbing around.
‘Move,’ the cop says.
‘Tell me what the reason is for this inspection,’ the driver says. ‘Or I refuse.’
‘Put that down,’ says the officer harshly.
‘My phone?’ he asks. ‘I’m not going to do that. What you’re doing is illegal.’
The police officer sighs and hops down to the ground again. ‘Drive to the side of the road over there. We’re not done here yet.’
Jacob hears the driver pulling the door closed and slowly rolling down along the road. ‘Yes,’ he quietly mutters in English. ‘We sure are.’
Then he accelerates, not towards the edge of the road, but up onto the highway as fast as his truck will go.
Klara has crept out of the sleeper cabin and back towards the seats again and Jacob hears sirens behind them.
‘I’m gonna stop at a parking lot,’ the driver says to Klara. ‘Someplace where you can disappear. Now, as soon as I can.’
The truck careens off the highway. ‘Here,’ he says. ‘There’s a McDonald’s up there. You jump off there.’
The sirens almost disappeared when they got on the highway, but now they’re louder again.
‘Okay,’ Klara nods. ‘We’ll take it from here.’
‘You only have a few seconds,’ he says. ‘They’re right behind us.’
Jacob feels George pushing him forward into the cab of the truck. ‘Get ready,’ he says. ‘Now’s not the time to fall into a coma.’
The truck slows quickly. ‘In ten seconds,’ the driver says calmly. ‘As fast as you can. I’ll stop so they can’t see you as they come off the highway.’
The truck stops and the driver shouts: ‘Now!’
Klara gets the door open and pushes Jacob out and they tumble onto the wet asphalt, with George at their heels. They stumble towards the entrance as fast as they can. From the exit they can see the blue lights flashing, hear the sirens approaching.
Behind him, Jacob hears Klara’s voice before closing the door of the truck: ‘I hope you contact your daughter,’ she says. ‘Ten years is too long, no matter what you’ve done. Believe me, I know.’