Under the Storm by Christoffer Carlsson

Author:Christoffer Carlsson [Carlsson, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2024-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

43

Vidar is standing in the early-morning dark of the garage. He’s wearing work gloves and holding a gas can, testing its weight, the feel of its heft. He squeezes his fists. The gloves creak. He walks out into the pightle and starts to pour it out, quickly, harried. The liquid glugs out and splashes the ground. It splashes Vidar’s shoes, his face, the patio furniture, the empty flowerpots.

“What are you doing?”

Vidar turns around, squinting. His eyes adjust slowly. Patricia is at the back door, bleary and barefoot in the doorway, her arms crossed and her body wrapped in a blanket.

“I, uh…”

She takes a step out. “Is that gas?”

“God, no, it’s just water and dish soap.” Vidar puts down the can. “I was checking something out.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Vidar.” Patricia’s voice is tight with worry. “What’s wrong?”

He comes inside again and closes the back door behind him, takes off his shoes and gloves.

“You’ve been acting weird all fall.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looks at the wall clock in the kitchen. Almost six-thirty. Half an hour, at the most, before Amadia will wake up.

Lovisa had been Patricia’s coworker. They didn’t know each other very well, and they hadn’t worked together for very long, but—Patricia has told Vidar—when the verdict was handed down, she was relieved. They missed Lovisa at work. She’d always been cheerful, always positive, always had something kind to say about others. She left behind a void. He really robbed this town of a good thing, she had said back then. I’m glad he’s behind bars.

Vidar sets his gloves on the kitchen table and starts to fix a pot of coffee. “What is it?” Patricia asks again.

“Do you remember,” he begins, “whether Lovisa ever mentioned two brothers, Božo and Darko Miljanovic?”

Patricia raises her eyebrows. “You mean Lovisa Markström?”

“Yeah.”

She leans against the kitchen counter and starts to fold up her blanket. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t recognize the names?”

“No.”

“Wait here.”

Vidar starts the coffee maker and goes to the hall, where he opens his bag and returns with photographs of the brothers.

“Did you ever see these guys at Brooktorpsgården?”

Patricia hesitantly takes the pictures from his hand. “It’s possible. I don’t know. We had hundreds of guests every day.”

“But it’s possible…”

“I don’t know, Vidar. Sure, maybe.”

Between the photographs is a folded piece of paper. Patricia opens it and looks puzzled. “What’s this?”

Written in purple crayon are the words Genarp, Södra Sandby, Ängelholm, Veinge and so on, the Miljanovic brothers’ entire route through Sweden, including an addition with a question mark: Tolarp?

“It’s just a list.”

“When did you write it?”

“I don’t know, sometime last week.”

“When you were drawing with Amadia.”

It’s not a question. She sounds surprisingly cold.

“Yes, maybe? I don’t remember.”

“So you did this while you sat down to color with your daughter for a little bit.”

“I…”

She picks up Vidar’s gloves.

“What were you doing in the yard?”

“I didn’t want anyone to see. That’s why I had to do it while it was still dark out.”

“See what?”

Vidar takes the gloves from her, feels them. They’re covered in splashes, stains the size of five-krona coins.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.