Chapter 101
Killian looked tormented as he sat at the kitchen table facing Sander and Felicia.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “At first I didn’t resist, but then he started to strangle me.
I couldn’t breathe. I managed to get around him somehow, and grab the spade…
I just wanted him to stop, to let go. I panicked.
That was all. I didn’t want to leave the spade in his car after, so I tried to wipe it down and then I put it in his garage with all the rest of the tools.
I didn’t know what I was thinking. I panicked.
I had to put it somewhere, I figured it would be worse if someone found it in the forest, and… I don’t know.”
Sander couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to think anymore.
It sounded true. Killian looked honest. But, he realized, there was nothing in Killian’s story to prove that this was what had happened; there was only his own insistence it was so.
Just like the story about the car accident out in Esmared.
Maybe that was no accident at all, maybe Killian had killed Hampus Olsson in cold blood.
Just like he could, in fact, have killed Filip, a calculated move, cold as ice.
Sander could still feel Killian’s hand around his throat. All the guilt that had been piled on Killian might be deserved. And here Sander had defended him over the years, like an idiot.
The knife, Sander thought. What did he do with the knife he had in the basement? Where is it now?
“I don’t understand how he could have known,” Killian went on. “That I’m alive, I mean. He knew it even before he saw me at the chapel, I’m sure of it. He knew. But I don’t get how.”
Sander stared at Killian. Felicia was still by the window, saying nothing.
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
“What? What’s wrong?” Killian looked at him in genuine confusion.
“He’s dead,” Sander said. His voice trembled. “Filip is dead.”
“I know.”
“And you killed him. Do you understand what that means? Don’t you even get the difference? Between life and death?”
A spark inside Sander, something old and grim for which he had no words. Maybe that was just as well. Life and death seemed to be nothing but words to Killian. It was like they had no counterpart in the real world, in his life, in his heart.
Sander’s phone rang from his pocket. Everyone reacted as though an alarm had sounded.
“Don’t answer it.”
Killian made it sound like a threat.
Sander stood with his phone in hand, gazing into those empty, pale eyes.
Memories flashed through him. The voice was familiar, older but still Killian’s, that burly figure, that face.
Sander recognized everything that had been burned into his cells during a long-ago childhood, yet nothing was familiar at all.
“Is it the police?”
The question came from Felicia.
“It’s Olivia. The kids. They’re wondering where I am. I have to answer.”
“Don’t answer it,” Killian repeated.
“Killian,” Felicia said softly. “It’s best if he takes it.”
Something snapped in Killian’s eyes. He thrust his hand into his pocket, and out it came again.
“I’m not going to do anything. Just don’t say anything about me. All I want is to get out of here.”
In Killian’s hand was the knife, simple and ordinary, like a mechanic gesturing with his screwdriver.
What had Sander expected, that more than twenty years could have passed unnoticed, without leaving impressions or scars?
He knew better. The dead don’t return for no reason, and when they do come back, they’re no longer as they were in life.
The only problem was, Killian wasn’t dead. Sander studied his friend’s body, struck by how physical it was, flesh and blood and bone, organs working doggedly inside. He was alive, but Sander no longer knew him, and maybe he never had. A ratatat sounded, out of rhythm with the stubborn ringtone.
Raindrops the size of coins struck the window. Three or four, then more, and soon there were too many to count.
The sky was falling.