Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman Page A

They had rolls of plastic strips and kept moving the camera tripod and light metal cases around. There were feathers everywhere. Unruly white down. Behind her clenched teeth lay the taste of vomit, acrid and pungent.

They drove her down to the village. She said she wanted to wait for Dan and they took her to the camping site. She was given a cabin to creep into with Mia, a cabin lined with red wood and with a small veranda. It looked like a playhouse. There was only one window; it was dark inside and smelt of tobacco smoke and old blankets.
    It was late morning. She was not really sure what the time was and couldn’t find the energy to look. They both fell asleep curled up together on the lower bunk. When she woke there were faces at the window.
    The site was crowded with people. Cars drove up to the office and the people who got out were handsomely dressed, but Annie could see no faces, only eyes. She and Mia finally had to leave their hiding place because Mia was hungry. Annie felt sick. They went into Roland Fjellström’s office and he gave them sausage and a bag of instant macaroni. He had black hair and brilliant blue eyes. She saw nothing but his low hairline and thought he looked as if he had come from the planet of the apes. She couldn’t make him out at all, and perhaps it was the same with all the other masks of faces – she could make nothing of them, seeing nothing but their glances crawling over her own rigid face.
    Word had leaked out that she had seen someone on the path up there and they knew she had told the police it was a foreigner. They thought he was the murderer and she believed that herself. Yet she hesitated to say what he looked like because that was so poisoned. He looked like a Vietnamese. She hesitated so long, it never got said. She couldn’t stand the camping site any longer, and when Mia had finished her sausage and macaroni, she took her small hand and they walked up the road. Cars slowed down and people stared at them through the windows. She had thought Dan would find them more easily if they walked on the road. He must be coming.
    In the end, she realised they couldn’t go on wandering up and down in the village. They had read the posters on the notice board by the store several times. Bingo at Vika Parish Hall. Midsummer party in Kvæbakken. Cream porridge, a Norwegian delicacy. Buy your boots at Fiskbua, Three Towers brand – bargain prices! Midsummer service at Björnstubacken. White flour – special offer.
    she didn’t want to go back to the site. she had seen two houses on a hillside and mia had asked why it said cottage on a notice when you could see perfectly well it was a cottage.
    It never occurred to her that the only vacant cottage in the village might perhaps not be the best one. She just went up the slope with Mia and asked an elderly woman in the house at the top whether they could rent the cottage by the road. It cost thirty kronor a night.
    She couldn’t remember what Aagot Fagerli looked like when they came out of her house, only that she had given her thirty kronor. They fetched the rucksack from the camping site and set off for the cottage, but the police caught up with them. She was not to leave the site without telling them. She showed them the cottage and she was driven in a police car to Ola’s garage by Fiskebuan so that she could fetch her luggage.
    Once they were left alone, she locked the door on the inside. It had a simple skeleton key with an e-shaped bit, so the lock wouldn’t give them much protection. The entrance hall was lined with pale-green boarding and bright-blue wallpaper; behind a door steep stairs led up to the attic. She went up to look and found it contained preserving jars, old clothes and rolled-up rugs. Otherwise it was empty.
    The cottage was flooded with daylight and you could see right through it from the windows. Quite a big kitchen with pine walls and bright-blue wallpaper. Windows in three walls. The bedroom had no door, only