The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [131]
I don’t want to die, she thought with increasing desperation and remembered the expression of terror on John’s face when she had said good-bye to him at the morgue. She made a new attempt to escape by throwing herself to the side as she also knocked him with her head. Her forehead met its mark. For a moment the grip around her arms loosened. She threw herself over the counter but the man was immediately on top of her again. She was thrown to the floor but managed to get one hand up and scratch him in the face. Her hand touched something wet and she understood it was blood seeping out through the mask. He howled with pain and aimed a blow at her body. It hit her on the shoulder and Berit was spun around by the incredible power of the blow.
Then he was on top of her. It had been a silent struggle, but now Berit screamed. He let go of her with one hand and tried to cover her mouth, and that gave her the opportunity to push her knee into his crotch. He cringed with pain, rose halfway to his feet, fumbled inside his coat, and pulled out the knife.
I’m going to die, she had time to think when she saw the raised knife above her head. At that moment there was a violent explosion and she felt the masked man flinch. Then there was another explosion and she saw the mask torn asunder and a terrible wound was revealed in his head before he was thrown forward on top of her.
The man’s limbs jerked before everything was still. The weight and sharp smell of his body fueled her panic and she fought to get him off her. Blood dripped down onto her face and chest.
When she had managed to free herself she saw a figure standing in the doorway. She saw the weapon in his hand and realized that he had saved her life. She managed to crawl over, then pulled herself up to her knees and wiped the blood from her face with her sleeve. Then she saw it was Lennart. He was pale as a ghost. The hand with the gun was shaking and his body twitched once as if from an electric shock. She drew her breath and tried to say something.
“Lennart,” she whispered.
He shook more violently and started to cry.
“Lennart,” she repeated.
He turned around and left the apartment on wobbly legs. She looked at him leaving, stretched out her hand as if to stop him, but where he had stood only the gun remained. Berit leaned her head against the kitchen cabinet as heaving sobs racked her body. She stared, sickened, at the wound where the bullet had entered the man’s head and retched violently.
Lennart was running. A door opened to the apartment directly below Berit’s as he passed and he fell against it with full force, got back on his feet, and kept going.
He had shot a person, killed a person. Who was it? It was clear that it wasn’t Dick. For a moment he had thought about walking over and peering under the mask but he hadn’t dared. Now all that mattered was getting away. Had he been wrong about Berit? That was no lover coming for a visit, but a robber. Lennart had seen the money on the table and knew it was the poker winnings. Berit had been lying when she said she didn’t know anything about the game.
He stopped by the front door, took some deep breaths, patted his jacket over the pocket to check that the gun was still there, but then remembered he had dropped it onto the floor in the apartment. He realized that it was all over, because even if Berit kept quiet his fingerprints would be found on the gun.
He opened the door. The cold blew over him and in the whirlwind of snow he saw a woman coming toward him. Ann Lindell. She was close but had probably not seen him. He turned on his heel and ran back up the stairs. Several doors were open and