It had started again. Somewhere within this bleached landscape blurred by the worsening weather was Æsahult church. Somewhere amongst the crowns of conifers, rising, stretching uniform for as far as the eye could see; somewhere amongst an even cloth of green turned gray in a blanket of regret. He searched for the tell-tale tiered roof, rotor blades beating in the pit of his stomach but looked in vain, finding nothing.
The forest thinned, revealing the first houses and homesteads of Lindhult, passing a drab patchwork of lifeless plantations and meagre agricultural pastures towards more forest. Then he saw it, to the side, the spire and clustered form of Æsahult church. It appeared out of the mist and was gone, soon passing across the dull, lifeless waters of the lake called Unden as dark and gray as the sky, approaching the eastern shore and the open strip that was the village of Tived and the East Lake Road. Watching over swathes of muted grassed meadow as the helicopter banked southeast towards denser forest, to where the land seemed like a deep-pile rug, worn in places to a threadbare carpet, exposed to the underlying bedrock. Here and there single boulders rose as large as houses, tall and proud. The rise and fall of hills of stone. Other lakes smaller, darker, black holes in dark minds, relieved by the dark-green of fir trees blending with the lighter green of pine, those smaller, more forlorn trees with trunks and branches almost as bent and twisted as his own thoughts.
There had been four murders.
He raised his hand and rubbed his beard, watching the pilot lean to his side as he looked down, scanning the park, the helicopter's nose lifting as it slowed, descending, whipping the rain-laden air.
The last one had been in '79.
But why now? He looked down to two officers looking up, searching for Elin and felt some sense of relief in having her here, grateful he had avoided the long walk. Where it had taken them minutes, his colleagues had used hours on foot; unable to bring with them more than they could carry, they had walked the breadth of the Tiveden National Park. Not Sweden's largest, by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly it's most rugged and inhospitable.
He looked over to the pilot, pointing downwards. The pilot moved the control, the helicopter whining, banking, turning towards open ground.
It wasn't over.
Almquist placed a hand inside his jacket, finding his A5 notebook. He flipped a page, one name standing out from all the others and looked out of the cabin. It wasn't the place that chilled him, or its history, having witnessed more blood than most would ever know. No, it was the name. With the sixth sense that tells any detective he was walking into a trap, he resolutely prepared himself for the worst.
Eklund.
***
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Fear Of Broken Glass
Mystery / Thrillerhttps://elementamundi.com/theelements/prologue/ Gothia: Sweden. Autumn of 1987 A notorious wilderness with a macabre past. A reconstructed Viking church by a lake. And a painting, a lost masterpiece framed in runic inscriptions without an owner. Fea...
