LITMIR.BIZ

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ditch along the side of the road and puncturing a hole in the huge tank. Gasoline gushed out onto the ground. The girl had raced home and told her uncle about the gasoline just disappearing into the earth. Her uncle had run to the spot with two empty plastic containers. By the time the girl caught up with him, a dozen or so people were already by the tanker, filling buckets with gasoline from the ditch. The smell was appalling, the sun was shining, and the air was hot. The girl’s uncle waved to her. She took the first container and started hauling it homewards. It was very heavy. She stopped to lift it onto her head, and saw a woman in a blue head scarf standing up to her knees in gasoline by the tanker, filling small glass bottles. Further down the road in the direction of the town, the girl caught sight of a man wearing a yellow camouflage shirt. He was walking along with a cigarette in his mouth, and when he inhaled, the tip of the cigarette glowed red.

      Erik vividly remembers how the girl had looked when she was speaking. The tears poured down her cheeks as she told him in a thick, dull voice that she had caught the fire from the cigarette with her eyes and carried it to the woman in the blue head scarf. Because when she turned back and looked at the woman, she caught fire. First the blue head scarf, then her entire body was enveloped in huge flames. The fire was in my eyes, she said. Suddenly it was like a fire storm around the tanker. The girl began to run, hearing nothing but screams behind her.

      Later, Erik and the nun talked to the girl at length about what she had revealed under hypnosis. They explained over and over again that it was the vapour from the gasoline, the fumes with the powerful smell, that had begun to burn. The man’s cigarette had set fire to the tanker through the air; it had had nothing to do with her.

      A month or so after this event, Erik returned to Stockholm and applied for research funding from the Swedish Medical Research Council in order to immerse himself seriously in the treatment of trauma with hypnosis at the Karolinska Institute. And not long after his return to Sweden he met Simone at a big party at the university. He had noticed her curly, strawberry-blonde hair first of all. Then he had seen her face, the curve of her pale forehead, her fair skin scattered with light brown freckles. She was excited, rosy-cheeked and sparkling, and looked like a bookmark angel, small and slender. He can still remember what she was wearing that evening: a green silk fitted blouse that set off her bright green eyes.

      Erik blinks hard, leans closer to the windscreen, and tries to see between the trees, but he can only sense movement inside the brown cabin. Most likely, Evelyn is not there. The curtains shift; the front door swings open; Joona Linna steps out on the porch, and three policemen come round the house and join him. They point to the road and the other cottages. One unfolds a map, and they gather around him to consult it. Then Joona seems to want to show them something inside the house. They all go in, the last one closing the door quietly.

      Suddenly Erik spots someone standing in the trees where the ground slopes down towards the bog. It’s a slender woman with a double-barrelled shotgun, which she drags along the ground, letting it bounce gently against the blueberry bushes and moss.

      The police have not spotted her, and she has had no opportunity to see them. Erik keys in the number of Joona’s mobile phone, which begins to ring in the car. It’s lying next to him on the driver’s seat.

      Without any urgency, the woman wanders between the trees, shotgun in hand. Erik realises a dangerous situation could arise if the woman and the police take each other by surprise. Despite his promise to Joona, he has no choice. He gets out of the car. “Hi, there,” he calls.

      The woman stops and turns to look at him.

      “Chilly today,” he says quietly.

      “What?”

      “It’s cold in the shade,” he says, a little louder this time.

      “Yes,” she replies.

      “Are you new here?” he asks, walking towards her.

      “No, I borrow the house from my aunt.”

      “Is Sonja your aunt?”

      “Yes,” she says, with a smile.

      Erik goes up to her. “What are you hunting?”

      “Hare,” she replies.

      “Can I have a look at your gun?”

      Obligingly, she breaks it and hands it over. The tip of her nose is red. Dry pine needles are caught in her sandy-coloured hair.

      “Evelyn,” he says calmly, “there are some police officers here who would like to talk to you.”

      She looks anxious and takes a step backwards.

      “If you have time,” he says, with a smile.

      She gives a faint nod and Erik shouts in the direction of the house. Joona emerges with an irritated look on his face, ready to order Erik back to the car. When he sees the woman he stiffens.

      “This is Evelyn,” says Erik, handing him the shotgun.

      “Hello.”

      The colour suddenly drains from her face, and she looks as if she’s going to faint.

      “I need to talk to you,” Joona explains, in a serious voice.

      “No,” she whispers.

      “Come inside.”

      “I don’t want to.”

      “You don’t want to go inside?”

      Evelyn turns to Erik. “Do I have to?” she asks, trembling.

      “No,” he replies. “You decide.”

      “Please come in,” says Joona.

      She shakes her head but begins to head for the house anyway.

      “I’ll wait outside,” says Erik.

      He walks a little way up the drive. The gravel is covered in pine needles and brown cones. He hears Evelyn scream through the walls of the house. Just one scream. It sounds lonely and despairing, an expression of incomprehensible loss. He recognises that scream well from his time in Uganda.

      Evelyn is sitting on the sofa with both hands clamped between her thighs, her face ashen. On the floor by her feet is a photograph in a frame that looks like a toadstool. It’s a mother and father—her mother and father—sitting in something that looks like a hammock, with her little sister between them. Her parents squint into the bright sunlight, while the little girl’s glasses shine as if they were white.

      “I’m sorry for your loss,” says Joona.

      Her chin quivers.

      “Do you think you might be able to help us understand what’s happened?” he asks. The wooden chair creaks under his weight. He waits for a while, then continues. “Where were you on Monday, 7^th December?”

      She shakes her head.

      “Yesterday,” he clarifies.

      “I was here,” she says faintly.

      “In the cottage?”

      She meets his gaze. “Yes.”

      “You didn’t go out all day?”

      “No.”

      “You just sat here?”

      She makes a gesture toward the bed and the textbooks on political science.

      “You were studying?”

      “Yes.”

      “So you didn’t leave the house yesterday?”

      “No.”

      “Is there anyone who can confirm that?”

      “What?”

      “Was anyone here with you?” asks Joona.

      “No.”

      “Have you any idea who could have done this to your family?”

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