Chapter 100
Filip didn’t even seem surprised to see him.
Killian wondered why but couldn’t bring himself to ask.
If one person knew, there must be more. Who?
Would any of them call the police? He couldn’t handle that, not now.
For so long he’d gone to great lengths to keep from being noticed; he had given up so much.
Was he about to learn that he had failed?
He recalled one of the few close calls: a homeless encampment one summer, long ago, where he ended up after spending some time with the farmer in Mj?la. The police had almost gotten him that time. He had dashed off through the trees.
They hadn’t had time to see that it was him, he was sure of it. Or had they?
He never should have come back. He wondered if Filip understood the position of power he was in, if he knew how small Killian felt as he stood before him. How vulnerable he was. All it would take was one phone call, to just about anyone.
Killian looked at the road outside, noticed Filip’s van. If anyone passed by, they would see him, recognize him. They would surely wonder what Filip Soderstrom was doing at Felicia Grenberg’s house. Peril throbbed in his chest like a second pulse.
“I would really rather not stand so out in the open like this,” he told Filip. “Can you come in?”
Filip hesitated, seemingly also uncertain about what was going to happen next.
“Let’s take a drive and talk. You probably haven’t seen what it looks like around here for a long time.”
Killian wasn’t sure he wanted to find out, but he couldn’t refuse. He climbed into the van, which smelled like smoke and old sweat, and settled into the passenger seat. He focused on breathing.
Filip got behind the wheel. He placed the spade between them and drove off slowly.
The area looked so different. Killian could see the young forest, short and sparse compared to the older, lush growth.
He sank deeper into the seat; he would be so easily spotted if they met any oncoming traffic.
He glanced at the spade. Hadn’t seen it for a long time, but he did recognize it.
“I know it was you,” Filip said after several minutes of driving in silence.
Filip’s gaze flicked to Killian, or to the spade, before he went back to watching the road.
“My brother, I mean. That that’s why you disappeared.”
Killian didn’t say anything. He wanted to, but he couldn’t.
“Okay.”
That was all he could manage.
“But I’ve never understood why,” Filip went on. “I think that’s what I want to know. That,” he added, “and what happened to you. Clearly things didn’t go well. When you’ve lived a hard life, you can tell when other people have too.”
Killian still didn’t speak up. Filip seemed happy to wait, but they hadn’t gotten very far when he abruptly pulled over. Killian didn’t recognize the spot. Filip turned off the engine and set the hand brake, leaned back.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him,” he said. “I don’t visit his grave too often, that’s not my thing, really. I have a hard time dealing with it.”
“Where are we?”
“We used to live here. Right there. The front door was there. It’s crazy, isn’t it?
Like the house never even existed. I come here now and then to think.
Used to do that quite a bit when I was in a treatment program years ago.
It was…In the end I came here all the time, several days a week.
I said so to Isidor Enoksson, actually—we sometimes talked about the old days.
‘What do you think you’re doing when you go there? ’ he said. Priests.”
Filip chuckled wearily.
“What he eventually told me, as a kind of explanation, was that something went wrong here a long time ago. Something I haven’t been able to make sense of, and the reason I keep coming back is to try to figure out what it was. As if I hadn’t figured that out on my own.”
He looked serious now, as if Isidor’s words had still meant something to him.
“I don’t know if it’s true, but it might be. I’ve never run into anyone else here. It’s like people avoid this place. I just want to know why Mikael died. And what happened.” Filip nodded at the spade. “I know this is what killed him. But that’s all I know.”
Killian hesitated. “I don’t know what to tell you, Filip.”
“Just tell it like it was. Like it is. Just tell the truth, for once.”
He grabbed the spade and got out of the car, gesturing at Killian to follow him. Filip climbed down into the ditch, out into the grove of trees.
“Was it you,” Killian asked, “who caused the landslide?”
He didn’t respond. A sharp jab with his foot, and he thrust the spade into the ground.