Where were the roads?
There was a rustle behind her, and she swung around, feeling the panic rising.
Oh, God, where is the road? There is a road here, but where?
She breathed and forced herself to think. What did the road look like?
It's a logging road, they drove timber on it, it's becoming overgrown, the brush is as tall as a man.
Run for the brush, she thought.
At the same moment her cat jumped out and rubbed against her legs so that she stumbled over him.
"Whiskas, you silly thing. Get out of here."
She kicked him lightly, tried to push him away.
"Run to Lyckebo. Run home to Grandma."
The cat meowed and jumped into the bushes.
She sprinted eastward and suddenly the terrain became more scrubby. She was right, over there was the road. She waited for a few seconds in the bushes by the road before she emerged, holding her breath; all clear. She walked past Gorgnas, nobody at home; Mastorp, nobody at home; then headed straight east, toward the footpath, straight ahead.
He was standing in the last bend before she hit the Sormland Footpath. She saw him three seconds before he spotted her. She dashed north, up toward the cooling pond. She'd seen something gleaming in his hand and she knew what it was. She lost her wits. She ran, screamed, stumbled, scrambled, reached the water, and rushed out into it, gasping from the cold. She swam until she hit the beach snorting and spitting. She staggered toward the sheds, fences, ran to the left, climbed a tall ash tree, in among the buildings, into the works compound.
"You can't get away from me, you fucking whore!"
She looked around but she didn't see him. She dashed past a white building, pulled a faded light-blue door open, and rushed into the dark. Blinded, she stumbled over a slag heap and got ash in her mouth, moved farther in, farther away, crying. She began to see in the gloom: the shadows took shape- a blast furnace, empty ladles. Rows of grimy windows under the roof, soot and rust. The door she had come through was like a rectangle of light far away, with the silhouette of a man slowly approaching her. She saw the knife flashing in his hand. She recognized it, his hunting knife.
She turned around and ran, the metal flooring booming under her feet, past the shaft furnace. Stairs, up; darkness, new stairs; she stumbled and cut her knee; the light returned, a platform, windows, winches; she hit her head on a valve or something.
"End of the line."
He was breathing hard, his eyes gleaming with hatred and alcohol.
"Sven," she sobbed, backing up as far as she could. "Sven, don't... You don't want to..."
"You whore."
At the same instant she heard a faint meowing from the stairs. Annika peered into the shadows, searching among soot and slag. The cat; oh, the little cat, he'd followed her all the way.
"Whiskas!" she called out.
Sven took a step forward and she backed up. The cat came nearer, meowing and purring, making little turns and capering about, rubbing its nose against the rusty machine parts, playing with a piece of coal.
"Forget about the fucking cat," Sven said hoarsely. She knew that voice, he was on the verge of tears. "You can't leave me like this."
He cried out. Annika couldn't respond, her throat was constricted, couldn't produce a sound. She saw the contours of the knife glint in a beam of sunlight, waving aimlessly while the crying intensified.
"Annika, for Christ's sake, I love you!" he screamed.
She sensed rather than saw the cat go up to him, stand on its back legs to rub against his knee, followed the shiny steel of the knife as it sliced through the air and landed in the cat's belly.
"No!"
A nightmarish, unconscious cry. The cat's body soared through the air in a wide arc over the coke chute, leaving a bright red trail of blood, the intestines falling out of his body, coiling like a rope under his belly.
"You bastard!"
She felt the surge of power like fire and iron- like the mass her ancestors had melted and molded in this damned building- blazing, raging, and uncontrollable. Her field of vision turned red, everything came to her in slow motion. She bent down and reached for a pipe, black and rusty. She grabbed it with both hands, strong as iron. She wielded it with a power that she didn't really have. She walked down to where he stood, her eyes fixed on his.
The pipe hit him flat on the temple. She saw in her slow-motion vision how it smashed his skull bone, cracked it like an eggshell; his eyes rolled up and showed the whites; something squirted out from where she had hit him. His arms flailed out to the sides and the knife flew through space. His body was thrown to the left, tumbling; his feet scraped the ground, dancing, falling down.
The next blow hit his midriff, she could hear the ribs crack. His whole body moved with the power. He stood. Blindly he flailed around, swept along by fire and iron. He staggered to the rail and slowly tipped over the edge, down into the furnace throat.
"You bastard," Annika panted.
Using the pipe, she heaved him into the furnace. The last she saw of him was his feet following the rest of the body over the lip.
She dropped the pipe on the concrete floor, the metal ringing out in the sudden silence.
"Whiskas," she whispered.
He lay behind the stockhouse, his breastbone slit open, a bubbling, sticky mass inside. Still breathing faintly, his eyes looked into hers and he tried to meow. She hesitated before picking him up. She didn't want to hurt him even more. She carefully pushed some intestines back into the belly with her forefinger, sat down, and held him in her arms. She gently rocked him as his lungs slowly came to rest. His eyes let go of her, turned blank and still.
Annika cried, rocking the torn little body in her arms. The sounds coming from her were plaintive, drawn-out, monotonous howls. She sat there until the crying stopped and the sun was setting behind the factory.
The concrete floor was hard and cold. She was shivering. Her legs were numb, and she clumsily struggled to her feet with the cat still in her arms. She walked toward the stairs, the dust dancing in the air. It was a long climb down; she moved toward the light, toward the shining rectangle. Outside, the day was just as clear, a bit chillier, the shadows longer. She wavered for a moment and then walked off toward the factory gates.
The eight men still employed at the works had obviously just been leaving for the day. Two of them were already in their cars. The others stood talking while the foreman locked up.
The man who spotted her gave a shout and pointed in her direction. She was covered in blood from her head down to the waist, carrying the dead cat in her arms.
"What happened?" The foreman was the first to collect himself and run over to her.
"He's over there," Annika said in a flat voice. "In a furnace."
"Are you hurt? Do you need help?"
Annika didn't respond, just walked toward the exit.
"Come here, we'll help you," the foreman said.
The men gathered around her; the two who'd started their cars switched the engines off and walked back. The foreman unlocked the door and escorted her into his office.
"Has there been an accident?"
Annika didn't answer. She sat on a chair, clutching her cat tight.
"Check the forty-five-tonner in the old plant," the foreman said in a hushed voice.
Three of the men walked away.
The foreman sat down next to her, looking at the dazed woman. She was covered in blood but didn't seem to have any injuries herself.
"What's that you're holding?"
"Whiskas. My cat."
She leaned her head and gently rubbed her cheek against his soft fur, blew softly into his ear. He was so ticklish, always used to scratch his ear with his back leg when she did that.
"Do you want me to take care of him?"
She didn't reply, only turned away, clutching the dead cat tighter. The man sighed and walked out of the room.
"Keep an eye on her," he said to one of the men standing in the doorway.
She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there when a man put his hand on her shoulder. How cliched, she thought.
"How are you, miss?"
She didn't reply.
"I'm Captain Johnsson from the Eskilstuna police department. There's a dead man in a furnace over there. Do you know anything about that?"
She didn't react.
The man sat down next to her. He watched her closely for a couple of minutes, then said, "You seem to have been involved in something really serious. Is that your cat?"
She nodded.
"What's her name?"
"His. Whiskas."
So she could talk. "What happened to Whiskas?"
She started to cry again. The police officer waited silently by her side until she stopped.
"He killed him, with his hunting knife," she said finally. "There was nothing I could do. He slashed his whole belly open."
"Who did?"
She didn't reply.
"The men out there think the dead man is Sven Matsson. Is that correct?"
She hesitated, then looked up at him and nodded. "He shouldn't have gone for my cat. He really shouldn't have gone for Whiskas. Do you understand?"
The man nodded. "Absolutely. And who are you?"
"Annika Sofia Bengtzon."
He took out a notepad from his pocket. "When were you born?"
She met his gaze. "I'm twenty-four years, five months, and twenty days old."
"Well! You're very precise."
"I keep a count in my diary," she said, and leaned over her dead cat.
Epilogue.
Oh, hello! It's Karina Bjornlund. Am I disturbing you?"
The prime minister sighed soundlessly into the phone. "No, not at all. What can I do for you?"
"Quite a lot, actually. As you must understand, I've been having quite a difficult time. In the middle of the election campaign and all..."
She fell silent; the prime minister waited for her to continue.
"Yes, well, I only got to work for eight months, so my severance pay wasn't very big."
Yes, he had to agree with that.
"So I was wondering if maybe I could go on working for the government. I've learned a lot and I think I could make quite a big contribution."
The prime minister smiled. "I'm sure, Karina. Working that close to the eye of the storm changes one forever. And I'm positive you'll find new work soon. Nobody can take your merits away from you."
"Or my knowledge."
"True. But you know the ministers like to have a say when it comes to choosing their press secretaries. I couldn't make any promises."
She gave a little laugh. "Of course you can. Everybody knows you're the one who decides. Nobody goes against your decisions."
That was true, he thought to his amusement. Maybe she wasn't so dim after all.
"Karina, I hear what you're saying. Okay? So you want to hang on, but I'm saying no. Are we agreed?"