Fear Of Broken Glass

Almquist Arrives

The rain had stopped. Almquist remembered a time when he had turned up alone at Gotfridsgaarden. He had been younger then. The eyes that greeted him from the windows had been hostile. It had been his first murder investigation. It wasn't going to be his last.

When he had crossed the yard, he felt it. Oppression. He was the investigating officer. He was supposed to have been in charge. Instead, they closed ranks around him, intimidating him with their silence and threat of... well, it wasn't something that was ever spoken of. He'd been young, keen. A father and a son standing hidden in the shadows of the door, the father waiting with hands on hips. Behind him, a gang of helpers, all of them the sort of people one didn't mess with. And he'd been on his own. He'd always been on his own.

He glanced across at Elin and something warmed him. For a moment as she indicated left, slowing. Headlights cutting through the dusk like a plough in a field, sweeping past the heavy forms of rock rising, the inky glitter of still waters, lighting the traditional homestead known as Gotfridsgaarden, Gotfrid's Homestead.

He breathed in deeply, his words unexpected. 'We're losing two detectives.'

'What?' Vikland looked up as the boxy orange Saab rolled to a stop under the shadow of a giant silver birch.

Almquist sighed as she pulled the handbrake. He focused on the two cars, one covered in mud, sitting low on wheels that had all but disappeared into the wheel arches; the other something that should be condemned as a danger on the road. Then beyond, towards the homestead, turning back to her. When he he noticed she was still waiting for an explanation his grim expression changed to raising his brow in a gesture of obeisant resignation. 'You, me and Oskar Lindgren. That's it,' he raised three fingers. 'Three.'

She opened her mouth. 'But, that's not enough... what about the others?'

He half-smiled knowingly, shifting his attention back to the squad car behind them, watching it slow. It was a small comfort, not being alone.

They parked a little further down the road as he had instructed and turned his attention back to the homestead again. He felt the pull of anxiety down in the pit of his gut, feeling the burn of something unpleasant.

It was set a short distance back from the edge of the dirt road; it was still the little wooden cottage made of dark wood, the one he remembered, with white windows and an old thatched roof. Except time had left it's indelible mark, visible in the glow of emerald moss, in the sag of the roof line and the flake of old dried paint.

What about the others? He thought he heard her say.

Between them and the cottage a parking yard of gravel, gloomy, brooding and depressing. Set farther away next to a lake was the outline of a smaller cottage, or an outhouse. All of it dark, the only light coming from the windows the glow of candlelight.

The engine stopped.

'There are no others.' He looked around, failing to spot any wooden mast. 'Here we're off the grid,' he looked at Vikland. 'No masts, no electricity.'

'There's a phone,' she said, confused, pointing to a single pole on the far side of the house that was the telephone cable. Vikland refrained from saying anything more.

Almquist undid his seatbelt following her example. They opened their car doors at the same time, stood up in time, glanced briefly upwards towards the dark rocky escarpment behind the house at roughly the same time. Out of the blackness the sound of water, a small stream that wound its way down a sloping mound of stone, rising out of a small lake rising high into a steep cliff.

Two faces appeared at the gloomy windows.

That was it. Three detectives; himself, Elin and Oskar: To investigate a serial murder linked to a chain of dark events that went back over a lifetime, maybe more. He tried to breath calmly. But somehow he couldn't calm his heart, only his mind. He shuddered inwardly and turned to Vikland. 'For today, it's you and me. We interview them, get everything we can while they're in a state of chaos. Understand?'

She nodded. Of course she understood. She always understood.

Almquist walked around to the back of the Saab, opening the trunk. He removed a canvas holdall by two nylon handles, then turned to the police car and raised his hand, indicating for them to stay. The front door opened, revealing two men; one of balding red hair and average height and build, the other taller, slimmer with dark hair wearing a guarded expression. One held a flashlight, the other a candle. The way the taller man held himself suggested somebody who was used to physical exercise. The other could have been ten years younger; middle thirties, looking surprised and curious in a gray cotton sweatshirt with hood, eyes shrouded in momentary confusion, sweeping past faces to the police car and back again in the blink of an eye.

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