Before the Frost
- Автор: Манкелль Хеннинг
- Серия: Linda Wallander #1
- Год: 2004
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Harvill Press
- ISBN: 978-1-84343-113-8
- Переводчик: Ebba Segerberg
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Before the Frost». Краткое содержание книги:
He trained the lens on Langaas’s face. Langaas was leaning against the sign posted on one side of the parking lot. It would not have been possible without him, Erik thought. If I hadn’t stumbled across him in that dirty Cleveland street and managed to transform him into an absolutely, ruthlessly devoted disciple, I would not yet be ready to give my army marching orders.
Langaas turned his head in the direction they had agreed upon. Then he stroked his nose twice with his left index finger. All was ready. Westin packed up his telescope and started walking down to the parking lot. There was a dip beside the road that meant he could walk right up to them without being seen. That way he would seem to appear out of nowhere. When he walked among them everyone stopped what they were doing, but no one talked, as he had instructed.
Langaas had arrived in a truck, into which they now loaded the bicycles and motorcycles, then let the people climb in after them. The cars would have to be left behind. Westin drove and Langaas sat up front with him. They turned off to the right and found their way to Mossby Beach, where they parked. Everyone walked down to the beach. Torgeir carried two large baskets with food. They sat closely pressed together among the sand dunes, like a bunch of tourists who found the weather a little too cold.
Before they started to eat, Westin said the necessary words:
“God demands our presence. He decrees the battle.”
They unpacked the baskets and ate. When the food was gone, Westin ordered them to rest. Langaas and Westin walked down to the water’s edge. They went through the plan one last time. A large cloudbank moved in, darkening the sky.
“We’re getting just what we wanted,” Langaas said. “It would be a good night for catching eels.”
“We are getting what we need, for we are the righteous and the just,” Westin said.
They waited until it was evening, then climbed back into the truck. It was half past seven when Westin swung back onto the road and headed east. He turned north just past Svarte, passing the highway from Malmö to Ystad, and then continued on a road that went west, past Rannesholm Manor. Two kilometers past Hurup he drove onto a small dirt road, turning off the engine and the headlights. Langaas climbed out of the car. In the rearview mirror Erik could see two of the American men climbing off the truck: Peter Buchanan, a former hairdresser from New Jersey, and Edison Lambert, a jack-of-all-trades from Des Moines.
Westin felt his pulse quicken. Was there anything that could go wrong? He regretted even thinking the question. I’m not crazy, he thought. I place my trust in God and his plan. He started the engine and pulled back out onto the road. One motorcycle overtook him, then another. He continued driving north, throwing a glance at Hurup Church where Langaas and the two Americans were headed. Half a mile north of Hurup he turned left toward Staffanstorp, then turned left again after stopping in front of an abandoned farm for ten minutes. He stepped out of the truck and motioned for those still in the back to follow him.
He checked the time: right on schedule. They walked slowly in order to accommodate the few who were older, or less fit, like the British woman, who had been operated on for cancer six months ago. Westin had debated whether or not to include her, but after consulting with God he received the answer that she had survived her illness precisely so that she could complete her mission. They followed a road that led to the back of Frennestad Church. Westin felt in his pocket for the key that Langaas had made for him. Two weeks ago he had tried it, and it had turned without a single squeak. He stopped them when they reached the churchyard. No one said anything, and all he could hear was breathing. Only calm breaths, he noted. No one is panting, no one seems anxious, not even she who is going to die.
Westin looked down at his watch again. In forty-three minutes Langaas, Buchanan, and Lambert would set fire to the church in Hurup. They started walking again. The gate opened without a sound. Langaas had oiled it yesterday. They walked single-file up to the church. Westin unlocked the doors. It was cool inside; one person shivered. He turned on the flashlight and looked around. Everyone seated themselves in the front pews, as they had been instructed. The last missive Westin had distributed included 123 detailed instructions that were to be memorized down to the letter. He knew they had done so.
Westin lit the candles that Langaas had placed near the altar. In the dim light he could see Harriet Bolson, the woman from Tulsa, seated on the far right. She was completely calm. God’s ways are inscrutable, he thought. But only to those who do not need to understand them. He looked down at his watch. It was important that the two actions, the burning of Hurup Church and that which was to take place in Frennestad Church, be synchronized. He looked over at Harriet Bolson again. She had a thin, worn face even though she was only thirty years old. Perhaps her face shows the traces of her sin, he thought. She can only be cleansed through fire. He turned off the flashlight and walked into the shadows by the pulpit. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the rope that Langaas had bought in a maritime store in Copenhagen. He placed it in front of the altar, then checked his watch again. It was time. He turned and motioned for everyone to stand. He called them up one by one. He handed one end of the rope to the first person.
“We are irrevocably bound together,” he said. “From now on, from this day forward, we will never need a rope again. We are bound by our loyalty to God and our task. We cannot tolerate for the Christian world to sink any deeper into degradation. The world will be cleansed through fire, and we must start with ourselves.”
While he was uttering the last words he had slowly moved so that he stood in front of Harriet Bolson. At the same moment that he tied the rope around her neck she understood what was about to happen. It was as if her mind went blank from the sudden terror. She didn’t scream or struggle. Her eyes closed. All my years of waiting are finally over.
The church in Hurup started burning at a quarter past nine. When the fire trucks were on their way they received reports that Frennestad Church was on fire as well.
Langaas and the two Americans had already been picked up. Langaas took Westin’s place and drove the truck to the new hideout.
Westin remained behind in the darkness. He sat up on a hill close to Frennestad Church. He watched the firemen try to douse the blaze, in vain. He wondered if the police would make it inside before the roof caved in.
He sat there in the darkness and watched the flames. He thought about how he would one day watch the fires burning with his daughter by his side.
37
That night two churches in roughly the same area, a triangle bounded by Staffanstorp, Anderstorp, and Ystad, burned to the ground. The heat was so intense that at dawn only the bare, smoking skeletons of the buildings remained. The bell tower of Hurup Church collapsed, and those who heard it said it sounded like a howl of bottomless despair.
The warden of Frennestad Church was the first to make it into the burning building, in hopes of saving its unique mass staves dating from the Middle Ages. Instead, he made a gruesome discovery that would haunt him for the rest of his life. A woman in her thirties lay in front of the altar. She had been strangled by a thick rope pulled so tightly it had almost removed her head from her body. He rushed screaming from the scene and fainted on the front steps.
The first fire truck arrived a few minutes later. It had been on its way to Hurup when it had received fresh instructions. None of the firefighters fully understood what had happened, whether the first alarm had been a mistake or if two churches were actually on fire at the same time.