sister has a spare key and is creeping around like in some Scooby-Doo cartoon in order to scare him.
He sets off towards the kitchen again, then thinks he sees something out of the corner of his eye. He quickly turns his head and imagines he sees a face in the antique mirror, before realising that it’s just a blemish in the glass.
‘Lizzy?’ he calls out weakly.
One of the kitchen drawers clatters, and then he hears footsteps on the floor. He stops, his heart pounding, turns the chair and imagines the blood running down the pole between Eva’s legs.
He presses on silently, rolling towards the big double doors, the wheels making a faint sticky sound on the hardwood floor.
Now Eva is walking bowlegged through the kitchen. The pole is scraping across the slate floor, leaving a trail of blood before catching on the threshold to the dining room.
The stupid nursery rhyme starts up again.
The radio in the kitchen must be switched on.
The footrest of the wheelchair hits the back door with a gentle clunk.
He looks towards the closed door to the dining room.
His hands are shaking, and the stiffness in his neck makes it hard for him to lean forward and press the button controlling the shades.
With a whirr, the grey nylon fabric glides up like a theatre curtain, and the garden gradually brightens.
The garden furniture is set out. There are pine needles gathering in the folds of the cushions. The lights around the pool aren’t switched on, but mist is rising gently from the water.
As soon as the shade has risen enough, he’ll be able to open the door and go outside.
He’s decided to wait outside for Ali, ask him to look through the house. He’ll admit that he’s scared of the dark, that he leaves the lights on all night, and maybe pay him extra to stay longer.
He turns the key in the lock with shaking hands. The lock clicks and he tugs the handle and nudges the door open.
He reverses, looks over towards the dining room and sees the door slowly open.
He rolls into the patio door as hard as he can. It swings open and he catches a glimpse of a figure approaching him from behind.
Nils hears heavy footsteps as he rolls out onto the deck and feels the cool air on his face.
‘Ali, is that you?’ he calls in a frightened voice as he rolls forward. ‘Ali!’
The garden is quiet. The tool-shed is locked. The morning mist is drifting above the ground.
He tries to turn the wheelchair, but one of the tyres is caught in the crack between two slabs. Nils can hardly breathe. He tries to stop himself from shaking by pressing his hands into his armpits.
Someone is approaching him from the house and he looks back over his shoulder.
A masked man, carrying a black bag in his hand. He’s walking straight towards him, disguised as an executioner.
Nils tugs at the wheels to pull himself free.
He’s about to shout for Ali again when cold liquid drenches his head, running through his hair, down his neck, over his face and chest.
It takes just a couple of seconds for him to realise that it’s petrol.
What he thought was a black bag is actually the lawnmower’s petrol tank.
‘Please, wait, I’ve got lots of money … I promise, I can transfer all of it,’ he gasps, coughing from the fumes.
The masked man walks around and tips the last of the petrol over Nils’s chest, then drops the empty container on the ground in front of the wheelchair.
‘God, please … I’ll do anything …’
The man takes out a box of matches and says some incomprehensible words. Nils is hysterical, and he can’t make sense of what the man is saying.
‘Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it …’
He tries to loosen the strap over his thighs, but it’s tangled and is now too tight to take off. His hands jerk as he tugs at it. The man calmly lights a match and tosses it onto his lap.
There’s a rush of air, and a sucking sound, like a parachute opening.
His pyjamas and hair burst into flames.
And through the blue glare he sees the masked man back away from the heat.
The childish nursery rhyme rolls through his head as the storm rages around him. He can’t get any air into his lungs. It’s as if he’s drowning, and then he feels absolute, all-encompassing pain.
He could never have imagined anything so excruciating.
He leans forwards in the foetal position and hears a metallic crackling sound, as if from a great distance, as the wheelchair starts to buckle in the heat.
Nils has time to think that it sounds like the jukebox is searching for a new disc before he loses consciousness.
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