We’re standing in the harbour when Björn comes running along the road.
He runs as if he were chased by wolves. The long, gangly legs fly over the dusty dirty road. His face is an angry red and his blond hair stands out like a mane.
‘We’re over here!’ Stina calls, waving both her arms above her head so that her bangles rattle against each other.
We begin to run too, around the local history museum till we reach Björn.
He throws himself into Stina’s arms and pants, without getting a word out.
Stina scolds him.
‘I told you not to go with her, but you never listen to what I say. How many times do I have to—’
‘Please,’ Björn manages between the gasps. ‘Otherwise we wouldn’t know where she lives. She said she was going to go shopping, unless I wanted to come with her and say hi to Jonas.’
‘And what happened to your face? You’re all bloody.’
‘Maybe we should let him catch his breath first,’ I suggest and hand Björn a water bottle.
He takes it without a word and drains it in one swig. Then he bends forward and steadies himself with his hands against his shins, spits into the dry gravel.
‘Everything checks out,’ he says and gets up. ‘She has a disabled son. I saw him. I even got a photo of him. And he scratched me. I don’t know why because he seemed unconscious. But she, Rachel, is weird. She tried to stop me when I left.’
‘My God,’ Stina says, raising her hands to her mouth.
‘Whatever,’ Björn says, giving Stina a dismissive look. ‘I ran away from her. But it was like a couple of miles, and I was scared the whole time that she would come after me with the car, so I ran in the woods next to the road. Do you know how hard that is? Try running in the woods some time and you’ll see.’
Stina looks at me, rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
‘Why can you never do what you’re told? How can it be that you, who have such good grades, can’t follow the simplest instruction?’
‘Can I see the photos you took?’ I ask.
‘Sure,’ Björn says, gets his mobile out of his pocket, punches in the code, taps at the screen a few times and then hands me the phone.
I examine the photos.
A young man in a hospital bed. The man’s face is turned away and also in the shade, so you can’t see what he looks like. But he is thin, almost emaciated. His face looks swollen and is full of scabs. One of his hands is resting on the cover and around his wrist . . .
Jesus.
Around his wrist he is wearing a bracelet.
I put my thumb and index finger on the screen and zoom in. See the glass beads, can even make out a few of the letters.
There is no doubt.
The man in the bed is wearing the bracelet Samuel made me.
‘You have to show me where she lives,’ I whisper.
‘No,’ Stina says with authority. ‘We are taking this to the police.’
‘How about we call the police?’ Björn suggests.
‘OK,’ I say, ‘but then you have to drive me to that woman Rachel. She must know where Samuel is.’
Half an hour later I am standing on the gravel road beneath Rachel’s house looking up at the beautiful whitewashed wooden building with green windows.
Stina and Björn have gone to meet the police officer we just spoke to, the one we were transferred to when we called.
There is something strange about the fence, the height; it reaches almost to my chest.
Why would you build such a tall fence around a summer house in a neighbourhood that is so peaceful that the police are probably only ever called to rescue cats out of trees?
Who are you trying to keep out?
Or is it the opposite? Are you trying to keep someone in the house? Like livestock in a pen?
The thought gives me the shivers and Samuel’s face shows up in my mind’s eye.
‘How I have let you down,’ I mumble. ‘How I have let you get hurt. All the times you needed help, all I did was pray and give you fish oil. But that’s over now. Now I am coming to get you.’
My phone buzzes and I look at the screen. Read the message that is from a police officer named Manfred.
What he told me over the phone about Rachel and that poem I handed over to the police was the strangest, most hair-raising story I have ever heard. The fact is, it is so unbelievable that I am actually inclined to believe it is true.
Nobody could make up a story like that.
I can recall the sad stanzas that I read so many times that I know them by heart.
I fell, I died, I did not wake
but in my greatest grief
a lion came to me
So Rachel may have written the poem. And she, or more likely, a male accomplice, could be linked to several violent crimes.
The lion.
I think about this.
Something doesn’t add up.
First of all Rachel’s son isn’t dead, like the poem says. I saw him in the photo Björn took.
Second, Rachel and Jonah are Hebrew names, but surely Leo is Latin? Besides you need to rearrange the letters in Olle and subtract an ‘l’ to make it Leo.
Isn’t that a bit odd?
I try to tell myself that I’m only getting stuck on this because I have been to Bible school. That the police, with all their experts with their fancy training and titles, probably know what they’re doing.
Still, there is something about Manfred’s interpretation of the poem that bothers me.
The lion and the lamb.
The lamb and the lion.
The image of the Pastor’s self-satisfied face shows up in my mind. He is in the assembly hall, in front of the pictures with illustrations from the holy scripture.
I shudder involuntarily, despite the heat, and stomp my foot in the dry grass in frustration when the memory fades without my understanding what it means.
I look down at my phone again.
Read Manfred’s message one more time.
It says we can’t go into, or even approach, the house where Rachel and her son live. It says we need to wait for them in Stuvskär.
I let go of the phone.
It lands with a soft thud on the grass. The tissue I was holding in my other hand flutters away in the soft breeze and is caught seconds later by a dry little pine sapling that has managed to survive in a crevice in a large rock next to the road, against all odds.
Then I turn my back to the road and begin walking towards the high fence.
To heck with the church and all the holiness, I think.
To heck with the pastor and the congregation.
To heck with my father and his lies. And to heck with the storytelling police officer who wanted to stop me from finding my son.
‘Samuel, I’m coming,’ I whisper. ‘I don’t care what they say. You have waited long enough. I’m coming now.’