The film ended just after eleven and I went to Mon Chéri to warm myself up with a cup of coffee, but when I sat down at a little table I couldn’t stop jiggling my leg up and down. I had a feeling that there was something I ought to do, but I had no idea what it was. I tried to think about the apartment on Svarvargatan, about the future, but nothing helped, and by twenty past eleven the unease had driven me back out into the street.
It was like the poem ‘C Major’ by Tomas Tranströmer, except the other way round. The city is downhill, everyone smiles behind turned-up collars, everything on the way towards the note C. As I said, the other way round, except for the downhill part. I walked along Kungsgatan feeling as if everyone was glaring accusingly at me while the sound of the engine from ‘Stripped’ throbbed behind it all, an implacable machine set in motion. I was somehow linked to the creature from the other place, and its impotence and self-loathing in this world found an echo in my brain, which had been part of its creation.
My body was still wracked by shivering as I turned into Sveavägen. I glanced over at Monte Carlo, considered going in and drinking myself into oblivion, but the memory of the man who had pointed at me after he’d thrown Thomas out made me think again. With my hands deep in my pockets I carried on towards Tunnelgatan, hoping the creature would be gone.
I had a moment of relief when I saw that it wasn’t standing outside the shop window, but when I looked north along Sveavägen it was coming towards me in the form of Olof Palme. The confusing thing was that it was now accompanied by someone else; it took me a couple of seconds to recognise Lisbet Palme.
The sound of the engine roared through my brain when I realised that the person less than a dozen metres away from me was the real Olof Palme together with his wife, while the Palme who had just stepped out of the shadows from a doorway behind them was the other one, the creature.
There was so much noise inside my head, singing and whining, that I barely heard the crack of Lars’s revolver before Olof Palme collapsed in the street and Lisbet screamed and turned to me, desperate for help. I saw the creature, whose face was once more flickering and shifting, bend down and place the palm of its hand on the blood pouring from the prime minister’s body, and I silently screamed, ‘Run!’
The creature, which by now was blurred, straightened up and ran down Tunnelgatan. Cars screeched to a halt on Sveavägen and people were drawn towards the body slumped on the ground while I backed away in the direction of Kungsgatan. The engine throbbed and throbbed and I wanted to run too, flee, disappear, but I forced myself to walk down to the subway mall below Hötorget and take a stroll around the shops, sweat pouring down my back.
People came and went through the barriers as if it were just an ordinary Friday evening, while Olof Palme lay shot above their heads. When I emerged on Kungsgatan once more a police armed response vehicle hurtled past, but people were chatting and joking with their view of the world still intact.
The question that haunts me to this very day was already in my mind as I went up the steps to Malmskillnadsgatan: Why had the creature fired the gun? It would be liberating if I could answer the question so many people have asked, the why that might perhaps go some way to soothing and healing our society, but I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. All I have is speculation.
An important moment in the creature’s origin was Lars’s suicide with what has been known ever since that evening as the Palme weapon. It hated itself and didn’t want to be in this world. Perhaps the sight of the person it perceived as itself evoked the urge to kill and to get rid of this self. Or maybe it was just after blood. I don’t know.
All I wanted to do was get back to my house, lock the door and curl up in the darkness. My hopes of being able to put everything behind me had been shattered, and I knew that I would never really be free again.
The sound of sirens filled the air, and when I reached Luntmakargatan I saw a police officer running past on Tunnelgatan, heading for the steps. Only then was I able to assimilate the unthinkable and formulate the words: The prime minister of Sweden has been shot. Whether he survived or not, the place would soon be crawling with police, and I hurried towards the main door.
My heart stopped and I let out a scream when I saw the creature standing in the doorway, still holding the revolver. I wanted to run, but I didn’t dare. Where would I go? I had been close by when the shot was fired, and people had seen me. If a police officer got hold of me there would be no end to the interrogation, and what would I say?
The sirens grew louder and there was no time for ifs and buts. I glanced at the gun and gritted my teeth as I turned away from the creature to key in the entry code, ready for the bang, for a burning pain in my back. But there was no bang, no pain. I grabbed the creature’s arm and dragged it through the door.
We passed through the stairwell, filled with the stench of dead bodies, and came out into the courtyard. The arm I was clutching was firm to the touch, its soft contents giving under the pressure of my fingers, like a plastic sausage stuffed with baked beans. My head was whirling as I dragged Olof Palme’s killer across the courtyard.
You don’t know he’s dead.
No, but there was something about the way he’d gone down after being hit, limp and without any attempt to break his fall, that made me fear the worst.
With trembling hands I found my keys. I unlocked the door and pushed the creature inside the laundry block. I didn’t want to touch its jelly-like body any more than necessary, so after opening the door of the shower room I picked up the scraper I’d used to finish off the gull and shoved the creature into the darkness. Before it had time to turn around and look at me, I slammed the door and fastened the padlock.
I caught sight of the Palmebusters T-shirt, still hanging on the wall. A wave of guilt came crashing towards me and sent me back out into the courtyard. At that moment I felt as if I personally had killed Palme, and in a way of course I had. I scuttled across to my hovel and switched on the TV.
Nothing. Not a word about the incident on the radio either. I lay down on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, incapable of doing or thinking anything as P3 played music. Time passed. It was ten past one when I heard a series of pips, followed by a man’s voice. Sounding as if he were reading with some difficulty from a piece of paper, he said: ‘Sweden’s prime minister, Olof Palme, is dead. He was shot this evening in central Stockholm…’
The violent shivering returned, and my whole body was shaking as I grabbed the beige duffel coat, stuffed it into a plastic bag and carried it outside. The atmosphere in the air was different, the night sky was different, as if we were all now below the surface and had to move through water. I tossed the bag down the rubbish chute, went over to the laundry block and into the shower room. If the creature wanted to shoot me, then it could.
It was gone, along with the gun, and thin smoke hovered in the room. Just like the child in the tree house the creature had folded in on itself, a door going out through a door. I took a deep breath and allowed the smoke to seep down into my lungs.
I can hardly even say that I was transported. The smoke was so sparse and widely dispersed that it wasn’t enough to give me any more than a glimpse of the field from a bird’s-eye perspective. I saw the grass below me, the blue sky above. The white creature was walking across the grass. There was no sign of the revolver; maybe it had been left in the darkness. The last thing I saw before the image faded was Gunnar’s burned body running along a track at right angles to the white creature’s route.
Then I was back in the shower room, where all that remained of what had gone on was the blood on the enamel of the bathtub, on the walls and the floor. I went and fetched a mop, a bucket and a scrubbing-brush and set to work. When the dawn crept across the rooftops, there was not a trace left behind.
I followed the news reports obsessively after the murder. One of the guns that Hans Holmér, the chief of the special investigation unit, dangled from his index finger during a press briefing was identic
al to the gun that had been used. Fighter planes flew over Stockholm, searching the rooftops. I could have saved them the trouble, but I knew it was pointless to try.
Identikit pictures and conflicting witness statements about the perpetrator’s appearance came thick and fast. Everyone had their idea of what a killer looks like, and it was this image they had seen when they looked at the white creature. Much later several witnesses, including Lisbet Palme, would agree that it was a man by the name of Christer Pettersson they had seen, which didn’t surprise me at all. If I were forced to imagine a murderer, he would have looked a lot like Pettersson.
Twelve of the witnesses to the shooting were eventually identified and questioned; only the thirteenth was missing. A number of the others had noticed him at the scene. The man in beige. The police hadn’t even searched the waste bins in the area, let alone the big garbage containers. When they came knocking on my door after quite some time I was just in the process of moving, and they didn’t notice my racing heart when I assured them that I had neither seen nor heard anything.
I never spoke to any of my neighbours again. When Åke and I met in the courtyard one day, we didn’t even exchange a nod. I could see in his eyes that he knew, that he too had found out what had happened through his connection to the creature, and that he didn’t want to say a single word on the subject.
The Dead Couple were discovered a day or so after the murder, but the police must have covered up the circumstances surrounding their deaths to avoid giving rise to pointless speculation, realising they had been dead for far too long to have any link with the murder.
They searched for possible motives, looking at groups in Sweden and around the world who could be behind the shooting, but throughout it all that one question grew stronger and stronger: Why? Why?
As I said, I have no simple answer to give. For almost thirty years I have brooded on that same question, gone over and over my motives and those of my neighbours for embarking on the journey and embracing the chaotic possibility that in the end was the cause of the tragedy. The conclusion I have reached is paradoxical, as the answers to impossible questions often are: it was our longing for a sense of community that brought forth Olof Palme, and that was also what killed him.
Rådmansö, April 2015
Also by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Let the Right One In
Handling the Undead
Harbour
Little Star
Let the Old Dreams Die
I Am Behind You
JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST lives in Sweden and has worked as a magician and stand-up comedian. His first novel, the international bestseller Let the Right One In, was published in more than thirty countries and adapted into two feature films: one by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, and an English-language version directed by Matt Reeves. I Always Find You is the second book in the trilogy that began with I Am Behind You, published by Text in 2016.
MARLAINE DELARGY is based in the UK. She has translated novels by Swedish writers including Henning Mankell, Kristina Ohlsson, Viveca Sten and Johan Theorin—with whom she won the CWA International Dagger for The Darkest Room in 2010.
PRAISE FOR JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST
I AM BEHIND YOU
‘[Lindqvist’s] talent for psychological horror takes a
new twist in his latest novel…A slow-burner with a few
intense thrills up its sleeve.’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘A surreal tale…simply extraordinary.’ Courier-Mail
‘As imaginative and brilliant as any of [Stephen] King’s
famous stories…Eerie and compelling.’ Canberra Weekly
‘A genuine skin-crawler of a book.’ Otago Daily Times
LET THE OLD DREAMS DIE
‘There are two kinds of horror writers: those who have
imagination and style in abundance, and the other kind.
Lindqvist is firmly in the former; all you can do is look
on and admire.’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘Although Lindqvist reminds us of the way fear and hatred
of the unfamiliar makes monsters of all of us, it is not fear
and hatred he is interested in, but love and the way it binds
us to one another.’ Australian
LITTLE STAR
‘Proves once again that he’s Scandinavia’s answer to Stephen
King. Actually he’s better right now.’ Daily Mirror
‘Up there with the best literary horror.’ Independent UK
HARBOUR
‘Lindqvist balances horror with credibly drawn feeling—the
characters here are also a vulnerable bunch—and of course
the setting helps enormously: they make a vivid picture,
blood and snow.’ Age
‘MUST READ.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘A magician of genre fiction…Lindqvist again trips along that
thin high wire between supernatural devices and psychological
vérités…Between monsters outside and demons within,
Lindqvist covers the haunted waterfront.’ Independent
HANDLING THE UNDEAD
‘Horror fans will rejoice…A macabre and strangely affecting
tale, at once compassionate, witty and deliciously gruesome.’ Age
‘I would have said his strengths were more cinematic than
literary—until I read this. Haunting.’ Weekend Herald NZ
‘Unsettling and shocking.’ Who Weekly
‘You’ll be leaving the bedside light on after reading this.’ West Australian
‘So clever that perhaps it could be the one horror novel not to
be missed this year…Lindqvist isn’t afraid to touch nerves and
violate taboos.’ Courier-Mail
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
‘A genuinely gripping read. If you read only one gore-filled,
vampire love story complete with rich, dark humour and strong
cinematic possibilities this year, make sure it’s
Let the Right One In.’ Age
‘Brilliant and unexpected…not simply shock and gore, but
an offbeat exploration of fear and the meaning of violence.’
Weekend Australian
‘Like all good vampire books, you want to gulp it
down in one go.’ Bulletin
‘Reminiscent of Stephen King at his best.’
Independent on Sunday
‘A terrifying supernatural story yet also a moving account
of friendship and salvation.’ Guardian
‘An unsettling and durable horror tale from the mind of a
dangerously imaginative man.’ Herald Sun
‘A surprising and sometimes delightful reading experience…
Lindqvist manages to maintain a light touch in an
otherwise bleak landscape.’ Sunday Times
‘Don’t miss it.’ The Times
‘An energetic, noisy, highly imaginative novel that blends
the most extreme kind of vampirish schlock-horror with a
complicated love story, a profoundly gory sequence of
murders and some rather good domestic realism
about life in 1980s Stockholm.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘A compelling horror story, but it’s also a finely calibrated tale
about the pain of growing up.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Lindqvist has reinvented the vampire novel and made it all the
more chilling…Immensely readable and highly disturbing.’
Daily Express
textpublishing.com.au
The Text Publishing Company
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22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
Copyright © John Ajvide Lindqvist, 2015
Translation copyright © Marlaine Delargy, 2018
The moral right of John Ajvide Lindqvist to be identified as the author and Marlaine Delargy a
s the translator of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
First published in Sweden under the title Rörelsen: Den andra platsen by Ordfronts Förlag, Stockholm, 2015
First published in English by The Text Publishing Company, 2018, by agreement with Ordfronts Förlag, Stockholm, and Copenhagen Literary Agency ApS, Copenhagen
Book design by Text
Cover images by Arcangel, iStock and Shutterstock
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781925603644 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925626698 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
John Ajvide Lindqvist, I Always Find You
(Series: # )
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