The tree branches form a winding pattern above me – as if hundreds of wood and leaf fingers were braided together to protect me from above.
It almost felt like lying in a tree fort. A magical tree house, not so different from the one Liam and I built in the park outside Långbro Hospital when we were little.
I sit up.
My back aches, and my body is stiff from the cold. The back of my hoodie and jeans are wet from the dew on the grass.
The sun is high and there’s no wind. In front of me are rocky cliffs and beyond that the sea – blue and shining like a mirror. In the distance I can just make out a sailing boat that appears completely motionless, and some gulls sit on a rock out in the water.
Larus canus.
That means common gull. Long ago you weren’t allowed to kill them because people believed that drowned fishermen were reborn as gulls.
There are other birds here as well. Yesterday I saw five female eiders swimming with at least ten ducklings in tow. And goosander, herring gull and mute swan. Anyway, I think it was a mute swan, because its wings whistled when it flew by and the whooper swans fly silently.
It was Grandpa who taught me all that. That, and a lot of other stuff about nature. And then I basically became obsessed with birds. I learned everything there was to know about them and dreamed of having my own bird, but my mother said they were dirty and smelled bad.
And now, when I actually have a bird, the only thing I want is to let it go again.
Birds shouldn’t be in cages.
I shiver.
It’s cold, and my stomach is screaming for something to eat and drink. Something other than the piece of chocolate I chewed on before I fell asleep last night.
After Alexandra refused to let me in I went to Liam, but his mother was home. And she was really fucking pissed off when she opened the door. Even their little dogs seemed angry. She said that Liam wasn’t there, and I should come back during the daytime, like a normal person.
I slept in Liam’s basement storage. I didn’t ask his mother’s permission, why would I? I already had the key, and I wasn’t hurting anyone.
When I woke up I texted Liam, explained the situation and asked if I could crash with him for a few days.
He wrote back and said it wouldn’t work. The police had just visited him, and his mother was furious with him. She was threatening to turn off the Wi-Fi and throw him out. The cops must have come by while I was asleep.
I pointed out that it wouldn’t matter if she shut off the Wi-Fi if she threw him out, but then he answered that I had nobody to blame but myself since I had chosen to work for that psychopath Igor even though I’d promised not to.
In other words, it was a very messed-up situation; I was in Liam’s storage unit texting him while he was just a few floors up and had no idea where I was.
But I figured out something else from what Liam wrote.
The cops must have identified me at the industrial area: why else would they have come around asking about me? And that means the police know I work for Igor.
A cold shiver went down my spine when I realised that. That meant the cops probably had a file on me, with my picture and everything.
Just like on CSI.
After that I left town. Picked up Igor’s bike, which I’d parked in the garage beneath Liam’s house and drove as far as I could get, in a total panic, until the road ended and the sea began.
I’m trying to analyse my situation, look at it clearly, like it’s a maths problem, and not my life gone to hell.
The police are searching for me.
Igor probably wants to kill me.
My mother has thrown me out.
Alexandra is generally acting like she’s on the rag and thinks I’m an arsehole just for flirting a little with Jeanette. And Liam doesn’t dare touch me with a ten-foot pole just because the cops came around asking a few questions.
Besides, I have no money.
I pick a cigarette butt up off the ground, brush away a few damp blades of grass and bring it to my mouth. Then I take out my lighter, flick the small metal wheel and take two deep drags before stamping the fag out again in the dewy grass.
I’m so fucked.
The only thing I can do now is try to lie low, but I have nowhere to go and I can’t sleep outdoors forever and live on sun and ocean air, like a fucking dandelion.
I fiddle with the bracelet of glass beads. Turn the beads so that the letters are facing out.
MUMMY.
An image of my mother appears before me. Her greying brown hair and her anxious brown eyes. The gold cross that she always wears. The never-ending nagging about taking charge of my life, how everything will be fine if I just let Jesus into my heart.
I’m sorry but where was Jesus yesterday?
I’m just wondering.
I guess I should call her, but I don’t dare. That would surely be the first thing the cops checked – if I’ve been in contact with her? Isn’t that what all retarded idiots do: run straight home to their mothers to cry after a robbery or assault or failed drug deal?
I stand up. Brush the dirt and grass off my trousers, go over to a bush, pull down my fly and take a piss.
Even my cock is freezing. It’s small and wrinkled and seems to want to crawl into itself, like an anxious little animal.
Maybe I can find some empty summer house.
Empty, at this time of year? Hard to imagine.
I zip back up and glance at Igor’s bike which is parked further inside the bushes. The chrome and the black lacquer are shining in the sunlight that finds its way through the branches. The flames that wind around the petrol tank glow weakly.
I button my trousers with one hand while scrolling on my phone with the other. Check the map on Snapchat.
Liam is home. Alexandra looks to be with Jeanette. I feel a pang in my stomach when I imagine them sitting there talking shit about me. Alexandra bawling her eyes out and Jeanette comforting her.
There, there. Alexandra. Sweetie. I never would have slept with him. Just so you know. He’s a loser.
I check Jeanette’s Insta.
She’s posted a picture of herself in a bikini standing in front of her hall mirror. She curves her back and pushes her bust forward. Pouts with her lips and runs one hand through her long hair.
Normally I would have been rock hard, but not today.
Three hundred and ninety idiots have liked the picture.
Jeanette has almost 2,000 followers on Instagram and posts at least five photos every day. Usually in a low-cut sweater, or with her puppy in her lap. Or ideally with the fucking dog squeezed between her tits, like a hamburger between two slices of bread.
That’s why she’s so popular.
I read my messages. One of Liam’s friends emailed me a link to Twitch, where a guy has promised to live stream his own suicide. But when I click on the link I find nothing. Just when I’m about to try again, I hear a car coming down the road.
I step aside, into the bushes, so that I won’t be visible, and wait for the car to pass. But it actually parks maybe twenty yards away.
One car door slams shut and then another.
I hear voices in the distance. Voices that sound strangely familiar.
‘Where?’ says one.
‘Buggered if I know,’ the other answers. ‘But it must be around here somewhere.’
Through the dense foliage I see two men approaching. One is short, a little fat, and his jeans hang halfway down his hips. He looks vaguely familiar, like a distant relative you meet every Christmas, but only then.
The other is tall and hunched over. Thin light brown hair falls in wisps around his gaunt face and his T-shirt hangs like a sack over his skinny chest.
My heart stops, and I fall dead to the ground.
In any case, that’s what it feels like, because the other guy is Malte, Igor’s bitch.
‘Check again!’ Malte says, stopping to light a fag.
‘OK,’ says the other guy and takes something out of his jacket pocket.
Why isn’t Malte in jail? And more importantly: how the hell did they find me?
The thoughts tumble around in my head, but a second later I have it.
The phone.
It must be the stupid fucking phone. I got it from Igor, and there’s a lot of shit in it that I didn’t download myself.
Who knows what that psychopath Igor installed on it? It would be just like him to spy on his own.
With trembling fingers I bring up the phone to turn it off, but it slides out of my hands and onto the ground.
I curse silently, squat down groping for it among the dirt and dry leaves. It burns where branches scratch against my cheeks, tearing the skin. The smell of damp soil and budding greenery tickles my nostrils.
Soon I feel the sun-warmed metal beneath my fingertips. Grab the phone and press the button on the side to turn it off.
It feels like an eternity before the display goes black.
I sit completely motionless. Observing Malte and the other guy as they stand in the grass by the side of the road and talk softly.
I hardly dare to breathe, I’m so fucking scared. Because if they find me, they’ll beat the shit out of me.
Or worse.
I think of the guys Liam told me about. The ones who deceived Igor and were tied up with cable ties and drowned like kittens.
‘. . . not . . . maybe later . . . the fucking signal . . . hungry . . .’
The words sail through the balmy morning air like lazy swallows, coming to me in fragments, like shards of something broken, waiting to be meaningfully reunited.
My legs ache, and I stand up carefully. But my sweater gets caught on a branch, and it breaks with a sharp pop.
‘What was that?’ Malte says.
‘It sounded like . . .’
Malte looks around.
‘Uh,’ says the fat guy. ‘Let’s go. Gotta eat.’
Malte doesn’t answer. He simply stretches and starts walking towards me with determined steps.
I stand completely still and do my best to control my breathing, but I’m still panting like I just ran a 100-metre sprint.
Malte is on the other side of the bushes now, a few yards from me at most.
He has his face turned towards my hiding place and for a second I’m sure he’s seen me. But then he puts his hands to his crotch and opens his fly. Seconds later an arc of urine hits the ground.
My heart starts to beat more easily again, finds its rhythm. My panting wanes, and my shoulders relax.
Malte pulls up his zip and turns his back on me. The smell of his piss makes my stomach turn.
But my heart is easy.
The heart knows.
I made it this time.
*
I sit in the bushes for probably an hour after Malte and his fat friend have taken off. In the end, I decide that it’s safer to go than to stay.
I take the bike, follow the coast south a few miles with the wind in my face. Swedish summer unfolds around me. The green is so intense that it looks almost unnatural, as if I was in a computer game and not out in the countryside. There is a smell of grass, manure and sea.
I don’t know what I’m on my way to, just what I’m running away from.
Fear propels me on down a dusty country road, past pastures and red cottages with Stockholmers on holiday and farms with real farmers who drive real tractors and have real cows.
The road is getting narrower and I pass a sign. STUVSKÄR 2, it says, and a few minutes later I roll into a sleepy little harbour.
It’s postcard beautiful.
The sea lies glimmering between smooth granite rocks. Red wooden buildings are clustered around a steamboat jetty. One house is a pub and another a small supermarket.
The road itself ends in front of those red houses. There’s a bus stop in the lay-by, and to the left of it is a large car park, almost completely filled with cars. Next to the jetty is a petrol station, which according to the sign also sells boat accessories. A sign points the way to the marina, which is apparently some distance away.
Opposite the red houses there’s an old yellow stone house. An ancient sign hangs above the door.
HARBOUR MASTER’S OFFICE, it reads.
Below the text, someone has hung a handwritten poster: Local Museum & Library.
*
A moment later I’m sitting in the so-called library. It’s no bigger than my mother’s apartment and apparently run by a local non-profit. At least that’s what it said at the entrance.
The lady sitting at the counter gave me a strange look when I came in, as if I were obviously homeless, but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded to me and pushed the glasses up a little further on her nose.
The sandwich I stole from the supermarket burbles around in my stomach, and I’m finally warm. Warm, fed, and sitting comfortably in an armchair in front of an old computer with a thick screen. The kind you couldn’t even give away on FreeBay.
Along the walls the bookshelves are full of books about the archipelago and old nautical charts.
There’s nothing to steal here – I checked as soon as I came in, of course.
I google Igor, but don’t find anything, which is hardly strange since a) I don’t know his last name and b) there’s no reason for the police to release the names of people they’ve arrested. But I do find a small paragraph on the Söderort newspaper’s website. It says that the police ‘discharged their weapons at a group of suspects in connection with an arrest made on Monday evening in an industrial area outside Fruängen’.
It doesn’t say much more than that, besides that fact that an internal investigation has begun, which is apparently ‘routine’.
I search for ‘Stuvskär’ and ‘rooms for rent’.
The computer thinks for a long time before showing me a blank screen.
I try ‘Stuvskär’ and ‘help wanted’, mostly out of curiosity, because I’m not really interested in working at all. Not in Stuvskär or anywhere else.
The computer buzzes, as if my request borders on the impossible. As if I asked how big the universe is or what the point of this shitty life really is.
But then I actually get a hit.
I click on the link and read the ad. Once and then another time, while I try to come up with a plan.
A family near Stuvskär is looking for a home help for their severely disabled teenage son. It is not a traditional home help job, because the parents do most of the main care themselves – more of a social role. The family is looking for someone who can keep their son company. Someone who can read aloud, play music and help around the house.
I close my eyes and think.
Of course, I have no desire to be a nanny to some retard in Stuvskär, but the thought of a warm bed and running water is so tempting. Maybe I could hide for a while, have a roof over my head, make some money until I can sort out all the shit I fell into?