The Nightmare

Björn’s boat is moored in the shadow of the Western Bridge, the movements of the water forming a mesh of light reflected onto the grey steel beams high above.

She sees him at the back of the boat, wearing a cowboy hat. He’s standing still, with his arms wrapped round him, his shoulders hunched.

Penelope puts two fingers in her mouth and wolf-whistles. Björn starts, and his face becomes completely unmasked, as if he were horribly afraid. He looks over towards the road and catches sight of her. He still has a worried look in his eyes as he walks to the gangplank.

‘What is it?’ she asks, walking down the steps to the jetty.

‘Nothing,’ Björn replies, then adjusts his hat and tries to smile.

They hug and she feels that his hands are ice-cold, and his shirt soaking wet on his back.

‘You’re really sweaty,’ she says.

Björn looks away evasively.

‘I’m just keen to get going.’

‘Did you bring my bag?’

He nods and gestures towards the cabin. The boat is rocking gently beneath her feet, and she can smell sun-warmed plastic and polished wood.

‘Hello?’ she says breezily. ‘Where are you right now?’

His straw-coloured hair is sticking out in all directions in small, matted dreads. His bright blue eyes are childlike, smiling.

‘I’m here,’ he replies, and lowers his eyes.

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I just want us to be together,’ he says, and puts his arms round her waist. ‘And have sex out in the open air.’

He nuzzles her hair with his lips.

‘Is that what you’re hoping?’ she whispers.

‘Yes,’ he replies.

She laughs at him for being so upfront.

‘Most people … well, most women, anyway, probably find that a bit overrated,’ she says. ‘Lying on the ground among loads of ants and stones and …’

‘It’s like swimming naked,’ he maintains.

‘You’re just going to have to try to persuade me,’ she says flirtatiously.

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘How?’ she laughs, as her phone starts to ring in her canvas bag.

Björn’s smile seems to stiffen at the sound of the ringtone. The colour drains from his cheeks. She looks at the screen and sees that it’s her younger sister.

‘It’s Viola,’ she says quickly to Björn before she answers.

‘Hola, little sister.’

A car blows its horn and her sister shouts something away from the phone.

‘Bloody lunatic,’ she mutters.

‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s over,’ her sister says. ‘I’ve dumped Sergey.’

‘Again,’ Penelope adds.

‘Yes,’ Viola says quietly.

‘Sorry,’ Penelope says. ‘You must be upset.’

‘It’s not that bad, but … Mum said you were going out on the boat, and I was wondering … I’d love to come along, if that would be okay?’

Neither of them speaks for a moment.

‘Sure, come along,’ Penelope repeats, and hears the lack of enthusiasm in her own voice. ‘Björn and I need a bit of time together, but …’

2

The pursuer

Penelope is standing at the helm with a light blue sarong wrapped round her hips and a white bikini top with a peace sign over the right breast. She is bathed in summer light coming through the windscreen. She carefully steers round Kungshamn lighthouse, then manoeuvres the large motor cruiser into the narrow strait.

Her sister Viola gets up from the pink sun-lounger on the aft-deck. She’s spent the past hour lying there wearing Björn’s cowboy hat and an enormous pair of mirror sunglasses, sleepily smoking a joint.

Viola makes five half-hearted attempts to pick up the box of matches with her toes before giving up. Penelope can’t help smiling. Viola walks into the saloon through the glass door and asks if Penelope would like her to take over.

‘If not, I’ll go and make a margarita,’ she says, and carries on down the steps.

Björn is lying out on the foredeck on a towel, using his paperback of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a pillow.

Penelope notices that the base of the railing by his feet has started to rust. Björn was given the boat by his father when he turned twenty, but he hasn’t been able to afford to maintain it properly. The big motor cruiser is the only gift he ever got from his father, apart from a holiday. When his dad turned fifty he invited Björn and Penelope to one of his finest luxury hotels, the Kamaya Resort on the east coast of Kenya. Penelope only managed to put up with the hotel for two days before travelling to the refugee camp in Kubbum in Darfur in western Sudan, where the French aid organisation Action Contre la Faim was based.

Penelope decreases their cruising speed from eight to five knots as they approach the Skurusund Bridge. The heavy traffic high above on the bridge can’t be heard at all on the water. Just as they’re gliding into the shadow of the bridge she spots a black inflatable boat by one of the concrete foundations. It’s the same sort used by the Special Boat Service: a RIB with a fibreglass hull and extremely powerful motors.

Penelope has almost passed the bridge when she realises that there’s someone sitting in the boat. A man crouching in the gloom with his back to her. She doesn’t know why her pulse quickens at the sight of him. There’s something about the back of his head and his dark clothes. She feels as if she’s being watched, even though he’s facing the other way.

When she emerges into the sunshine again she shivers, and the goosebumps on her arms take a long time to go down.

She increases their speed to fifteen knots once she’s past Duvnäs. The two on-board motors rumble, the water foams behind them and the boat takes off across the smooth sea.

Penelope’s phone rings. She sees her mother’s name on the screen. Perhaps she saw the discussion on television. Penelope wonders for a moment if her mum is calling to tell her she did well, but knows that’s just a fantasy.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Penelope says when she answers.

‘Ow,’ her mother whispers.

‘What’s happened?’

‘My back … I need to get to the chiropractor,’ Claudia says. It sounds like she’s filling a glass from the tap. ‘I just wanted to find out if Viola’s spoken to you?’

‘She’s here on the boat with us,’ Penelope replies as she listens to her mother drink.

‘Oh, good … I thought it would do her good.’

‘I’m sure it will do her good,’ Penelope says quietly.

‘What food have you got?’

‘Tonight we’re having pickled herring, potatoes, eggs …’

‘She doesn’t like herring.’

‘Mum, Viola called me just as …’

‘I know you weren’t expecting her to come with you,’ Claudia interrupts. ‘That’s why I’m calling.’

‘I’ve made some meatballs,’ Penelope says patiently.

‘Enough for everyone?’ her mother asks.

‘Everyone? That depends on …’

She tails off and stares out across the sparkling water.

‘I don’t have to have any,’ Penelope says in a measured tone.

‘If there aren’t enough,’ her mother says. ‘That’s all I meant.’

‘I get it,’ she says quietly.

‘So it’s poor you now, is it?’ her mother asks with barely concealed irritation.

‘It’s just that … Viola is actually an adult, and …’

‘I’m disappointed in you.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You always manage to eat my meatballs at Christmas and Midsummer and …’

‘I can go without,’ Penelope says quickly.

‘Fine,’ her mother says abruptly. ‘That’s that sorted.’

‘I just mean …’

‘Don’t bother coming for Midsummer,’ her mother interrupts crossly.

‘Oh, Mum, why do you always have to …’

There’s a click as her mother hangs up. Penelope stops talking and feels frustration bubbling inside her as she stares at the phone, then tosses it aside.

The boat passes slowly across the green reflection of the verdant slopes. The steps from the galley creak and Viola wobbles into view with a martini glass in her hand.

‘Was that Mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she worried I’m not going to get anything to eat?’ Viola asks with a smile.

‘There’s food,’ Penelope replies.

‘Mum doesn’t think I can take care of myself.’

‘She’s just worried,’ Penelope replies.

‘She never worries about you,’ Viola says.

‘I’m fine.’

Viola sips her cocktail and looks out through the windscreen.

‘I saw the debate on television,’ she says.

‘This morning? With Pontus Salman?’

‘No, this was … last week,’ she says. ‘You were talking to an arrogant man who … he had a fancy name, and …’

‘Palmcrona,’ Penelope says.

‘That was it, Palmcrona …’

‘I got angry, my cheeks turned red and I could feel tears in my eyes, I felt like reciting Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” or just running out and slamming the door behind me.’

Viola watches as Penelope stretches up and opens the roof hatch.

‘I didn’t think you shaved your armpits,’ she says breezily.

‘No, but I’ve been in the media so much that …’

‘Vanity got the better of you,’ Viola jokes.

‘I didn’t want to get written off as a troublemaker just because I had a bit of hair under my arms.’

‘How’s your bikini line going, then?’

‘Well …’

Penelope lifts her sarong and Viola bursts out laughing.

‘Björn likes it,’ Penelope smiles.

‘He can hardly talk, with his dreadlocks.’

‘But you shave everywhere, just like you’re supposed to,’ Penelope says with a note of sharpness in her voice. ‘For your married men and muscle-bound idiots and …’

‘I know I have bad taste in men,’ Viola interrupts.

‘You don’t have bad taste in anything else.’

‘I’ve never really done anything properly, though.’

‘You just have to improve your grades a bit, then …’

Viola shrugs her shoulders:

‘I did actually sit the high-school paper.’

They’re ploughing gently through the transparent water, followed high above by some gulls.

‘How did it go?’ Penelope eventually asks.

‘I thought it was easy,’ Viola says, licking salt from the rim of the glass.

‘So it went well, then?’ Penelope smiles.

Viola nods and puts her glass down.

‘How well?’ Penelope asks, nudging her in the side.

‘Top marks,’ Viola says, looking down.

Penelope lets out a shriek of joy and hugs her sister hard.

‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ Penelope says excitedly. ‘You can study anything you like, you can have your pick of the universities, you can chose whatever course you like, business studies, medicine, journalism.’

Her sister blushes and laughs, and Penelope hugs her again, knocking her hat off. She strokes Viola’s head, then arranges her hair just as she always did when they were little, takes the clasp with the dove from her own hair and uses it to fasten her sister’s, then looks at her and smiles happily.

3

A boat is left adrift in Jungfrufjärden

The fore cuts the smooth surface of the water like a knife, with a sticky, liquid sound. They’re going very fast. Large waves hit the shore in their wake. They turn steeply and bounce across breaking waves, spraying water around them. Penelope heads out into the open water with the engines roaring. The fore lifts up and plumes of foaming white water spread out behind them.

‘You’re crazy, Madicken!’ Viola shouts, pulling the clasp from her hair, just like she always did as a child when her hair was finally neat.

Björn wakes up when they stop at Gåsö. They buy ice-creams and have coffee. Then Viola wants to play mini-golf, and it’s already late in the afternoon by the time they get going again.

The sea opens up on their port side, like a dizzyingly large stone floor.

The plan is to reach Kastskär, a long, narrow-waisted island that’s uninhabited. There’s a lush bay on the south side where they’re going to drop anchor, swim, have a barbecue and spend the night.

‘I think I’ll go down and have a rest,’ Viola says with a yawn.

‘Go ahead,’ Penelope smiles.

Viola goes down the steps and Penelope looks ahead of them. She lowers their speed and keeps an eye on the electronic depth sounder that will warn them of reefs as they approach Kastskär. The water very quickly gets shallow, from forty metres to just five.

Björn comes into the cabin and kisses Penelope on the back of her neck.

‘Shall I go and start the food?’ he asks.

‘Viola probably ought to sleep for an hour.’

‘You sound like your mother,’ he says gently. ‘Has she phoned yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘To see if we let Viola come with us?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you have an argument?’

She shakes her head.

‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Are you upset?’

‘No, it’s just that Mum …’

‘What?’

Penelope smiles as she wipes the tears from her cheeks.

‘She doesn’t want me there for Midsummer,’ she says.

Björn hugs her.

‘Just ignore her.’

‘I do,’ she replies.

Very slowly, Penelope manoeuvres the boat as far into the bay as she can. The engines rumble softly. They’re so close to the shore now that she can smell the plants.

They drop anchor, and the boat swings closer to the rocks. Björn jumps ashore onto the steep slope and ties the rope around a tree.

The ground is covered in moss. He stops and looks at Penelope. Some birds move in the treetops when the windlass rattles.

Penelope pulls on a pair of jogging bottoms and her white trainers, jumps ashore and takes his hand. He wraps his arms round her.

‘Shall we go and take a look at the island?’

‘Wasn’t there something you were going to try to persuade me about?’ she teases.

‘The advantages of the Swedish “right to roam”,’ he says.

She nods and smiles, and he brushes her hair back and runs a finger across her prominent cheekbone and thick, black eyebrow.

‘How can you be so beautiful?’

He kisses her softly on the lips, then starts to walk towards the low-growing woods.

In the middle of the island is a small glade with dense clumps of tall meadow grass. Butterflies and small bumblebees are drifting about above the flowers. It’s hot in the sun, and the water sparkles between the trees to the north. They stand still, hesitate, smiling as they look at each other, then turn serious.

‘What if someone comes?’ she says.

‘We’re the only people on the island.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘How many islands are there in the Stockholm archipelago? Thirty thousand? More, probably,’ he says.

Penelope takes off her bikini top, kicks her shoes off and pulls down the rest of her bikini with her jogging bottoms, and is suddenly standing completely naked on the grass. Her initial feeling of embarrassment is replaced almost at once with sheer delight. She can’t help finding the sea air on her skin and the heat radiating up from the ground intensely exciting.

Björn looks at her, mutters something about not being sexist, but that he just wants to look at her for a bit longer. She’s tall, her arms simultaneously muscular and soft. Her narrow waist and powerful thighs make her look like a playful goddess.

Björn can feel his hands shaking as he pulls off his T-shirt and flowery, knee-length shorts. He’s younger than her, his body is boyish, almost hairless, and his shoulders have already caught the sun.

‘Now I want to look at you,’ she says.

He blushes and walks over to her with a big smile.

‘Can’t I?’

He shakes his head and hides his face against her neck and hair.

They start to kiss, very gently, just stand close together kissing each other. Penelope feels his warm tongue in her mouth and a feeling of dizzy happiness courses through her. She forces herself to stop smiling so she can carry on kissing. They start to breathe faster. She feels Björn’s erection growing as his heartbeat quickens. They lie down in the grass, finding a flat spot between the tussocks. His mouth traces its way down to her breasts and brown nipples, then he kisses her stomach and parts her thighs. When he looks at her it seems to him that their bodies are glowing with inner light in the evening sun. Suddenly everything is intensely intimate and sensitive. She’s already wet and swollen when he starts to lick her, very softly and slowly, and she has to push his head away after a while. She presses her thighs together, smiles and blushes. She whispers to him to come closer, pulls him to her, guides him with her hand and lets him slide into her. He breathes heavily in her ear and she looks straight up at the pink sky.

Afterwards she stands naked in the warm grass, stretches, walks a few steps and stares off towards the trees.

‘What is it?’ Björn asks languidly.

She looks at him. He’s sitting on the ground naked, smiling up at her.

‘You’ve burned your shoulders.’

‘Every summer.’

He gently touches the red skin on his shoulders.

‘Let’s go back – I’m hungry,’ she says.

‘I just need to go for a swim.’

She pulls her bikini bottoms and jogging pants back on, pulls her shoes on and stands there with her bikini top in her hand. She lets her eyes roam across his hairless chest, muscular arms, the tattoo on his shoulders, his careless sunburn and bright, playful eyes.

‘Next time you get to lie underneath,’ she smiles.

‘Next time,’ he repeats cheerfully. ‘You’re already a convert, I knew it.’

She laughs and waves at him dismissively. He lies back and stares up at the sky. She hears him whistling to himself as she walks through the trees towards the steep little beach where the boat is moored.

She stops to put her bikini top on before she goes down to the boat.

When Penelope goes on board she wonders if Viola is still asleep in the aft-bunk. She decides to put a pan of new potatoes on to boil with some dill tops, then go and wash and get changed. Rather strangely the aft-deck is wet, as if it has been raining. Viola must have swabbed it down for some reason. The boat feels different. Penelope can’t put her finger on what it is, but suddenly her skin comes out in goosebumps. It’s almost completely silent, the birds have stopped singing. There’s just a gentle lapping sound as the water hits the hull, and the faint creak of the rope around the tree. Penelope suddenly becomes very conscious of her own movements. She goes down the steps to the stern, and sees that the door to the guest cabin is open. The light is on, but Viola isn’t there. Penelope notices that her hand is shaking when she knocks on the door of the little toilet. She opens it and looks inside, then goes back up on deck. Further along the bay she sees Björn on his way down to the water. She waves to him, but he doesn’t see her.

Penelope opens the glass door to the saloon and walks past the blue sofas, teak table and helm.

‘Viola?’ she calls quietly.

She goes down to the galley and takes out a saucepan, but puts it down on the stove when her heart starts to beat even faster. She looks in the bathroom, then carries on to the cabin at the front where she and Björn always sleep. She opens the door and looks round in the gloom, and at first thinks she’s looking at herself in the mirror.

Viola is sitting perfectly still at the top of the bed, her hand resting on the pink cushion from the Salvation Army.

‘What are you doing in here?’

Penelope hears herself ask her sister what she’s doing in the bedroom, even though she’s already realised that something isn’t right. Viola’s face is oddly pale and wet, her hair hanging in damp clumps.

Penelope goes over and takes her sister’s face in her hands, lets out a moan, then a scream, right close to her face.

‘Viola? What is it? Viola?’

But she’s already realised what’s happened, what’s wrong – her sister isn’t breathing, there’s no warmth in her skin, there’s nothing left in her, the flame of life has been extinguished. The cramped room gets darker, closes in around Penelope. She hears herself whimpering in an unfamiliar voice and stumbles backwards, pulling clothes onto the floor, then hits her shoulder hard on the doorpost when she turns and runs up the steps.

When she emerges onto the aft-deck she gasps for breath as if she were close to suffocating. She coughs and looks round with a feeling of ice-cold terror in her body. A hundred metres away on the shore she can see a stranger dressed in black. Somehow Penelope realises how it all fits together. She knows it’s the same man who was sitting in the military inflatable in the shadow under the bridge when they went past. She realises that the man in black killed Viola, and that he isn’t finished yet.

The man is standing on the shore waving to Björn, who is swimming twenty metres out. He’s shouting, holding his arm up. Björn hears him and stops, treading water, then turns to look back towards land.

Time almost stands still. Penelope rushes to the helm and digs about in the toolbox, finds a knife and runs back to the aft-deck.

She sees Björn’s slow strokes, the rings spreading out across the water around him. He’s looking curiously at the man. The man beckons him towards him. Björn smiles uncertainly and starts to swim back to shore.

‘Björn!’ Penelope screams as loudly as she can. ‘Swim away from shore!’

The man on the shore turns towards her, then starts running towards the boat. Penelope cuts through the rope, slips over on the wet wooden deck, gets to her feet, hurries to the helm and starts the engine. Without looking she raises the anchor and puts the boat in reverse.

Björn must have heard her, because he’s turned away from shore and has started to swim towards the boat instead. Penelope steers towards him as she sees the man in black change direction and start running up the slope towards the other side of the island. Without really thinking about it, she realises that the man has left his black inflatable in the bay to the north.

She knows there’s no way they can outrun that.

She slowly turns the big boat and steers towards Björn. She yells at him as she gets closer, then slows down and holds a boathook out to him. The water’s cold. He looks scared and exhausted. His head keeps disappearing below the surface. She manages to hit him with the point of the boathook, cutting his forehead and making it bleed.

‘You have to hold on!’ she shouts.

The black inflatable is already coming into view at the end of the island. She can hear its engine clearly. Björn is grimacing with pain. After several attempts he finally manages to wrap his arm around the boathook. She pulls him towards the swimming platform as fast as she can. He grabs hold of the edge and she lets go of the boathook and watches it drift off across the water.

‘Viola’s dead,’ she screams, hearing the mixture of despair and panic in her voice.

As soon as Björn has climbed up onto the steps she runs back to the wheel and accelerates as hard as she can.

Björn clambers over the railing and she hears him yell at her to steer straight towards Ornäs.

The roar of the inflatable’s motors is rapidly approaching from behind.

She swings the boat round in a tight curve, and the hull rumbles beneath them.

‘He killed Viola,’ Penelope whimpers.

‘Mind the rocks,’ Björn warns, his teeth chattering.

The inflatable has rounded Stora Kastskär and is speeding across the flat, open water.

Blood is running down Björn’s face from the cut on his forehead.

They’re rapidly approaching the large island. Björn turns to see the inflatable some three hundred metres behind them.

‘Aim for the jetty!’

She turns and puts the engines in reverse, then switches them off when the fore hits the jetty with a creak. The whole side of the boat scrapes past some protruding wooden steps. The swell hisses as it hits the rocks and rolls back towards them. The boat rocks sideways and the wooden steps shatter as water washes over the railings. They leap off the boat and hurry across the jetty. Behind them they hear the hull scrape against the jetty on the waves. They race towards land as the black inflatable roars towards them. Penelope slips and puts her hand out, then clambers up the steep rocks towards the trees, gasping for breath. The inflatable’s engines go quiet below them, and Penelope realises that they have barely any advantage at all. She and Björn rush through the trees, deeper into the forest, while her mind starts to panic as she looks around for somewhere they can hide.