Past trees, up hills, across clearings, and into the woods he ran. All he could hear was his own panting gasps and the crunching sounds as his boots trampled the frostbitten moss and brambles.
Behind him, the alarm had stopped. Nature held its breath. It was as if he were running through a vacuum. He didn’t stop until his chest was burning and he couldn’t go on. All he could see were trees, bushes, and the sparkling white ground. Wreaths of steam rose from his body, which was drenched in sweat.
His breathing slowed as his gaze swept the terrain, and at once he realized he was lost. His mind returned to the dog. Why a dog? Had they noticed he was using the gate? But if they had, surely they would have changed the lock. What were they so afraid of?
He took a deep breath and guided his thoughts towards the problem at hand: finding his way home. He knew he had to find a rise high enough to give him a view of the island. Otherwise he would only go around in circles. Luckily the trees were bare, and if he could get a few metres higher he would have an unobstructed view. He wandered around for a bit until he found a slope made of moss-covered boulders. The melting frost had made the rock surface wet and he couldn’t get a toehold; he kept sliding down and landing on his ass with a thump. He swore inwardly, cursing his own stupidity. Why did he even care about this stupid cult? Then he managed to get his hands into a crack between the rocks and heaved himself onto the pile.
Certain landmarks became visible through the windswept trees. The church in the village, the manor, and the sea, grey and still in the far distance. He slid back down the boulders and set course for the village, mumbling to himself in irritation. He used his forehead as a compass to guide him along his path. He was no longer running, but his strides were long and quick.
Once he calmed down, he realized how lovely it was. The air was delicate and damp, and the sun had found a crack in the clouds, to glitter in the frost that still coated the pine needles. Now and then the sun vanished behind a cloud and a fresh gust of wind passed over the land.
It struck him that he had never run like that before. So frantically. He noticed how good he felt now that it was all over, and he began to whistle as he trampled along. After some time, the trees thinned out and the road to the village popped up like a winding snake. Part of him was still exhilarated, but another, more characteristic part of him kept muttering inwardly that he was an idiot.
By the time he got back to the pension, it was lunchtime. He decided to skip the meal and visit the greenhouses instead. He hoped no one had missed him. He pulled a carrot out of the earth and munched on it as he set about his tasks for the day. It didn’t take long to settle into his usual routine.
That evening, he wrote an email to Sofia and told her about the day’s events. He spiced it up with a few details and when he reread what he’d written, he chuckled to himself. He ended with the question, A dog?
Sofia responded almost immediately and said it was the funniest email she’d ever read. The dog must be an outlet for Oswald’s paranoia, she suggested, now that Elvira was back at ViaTerra. Then she sent him the link to her new blog. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he read it, although he wasn’t surprised. What else could one expect from Sofia? Anyway, he thought it was well-written. He decided to answer later. After the day’s drama, he was exhausted. The last thing he thought about before he dropped off was the dog. He wondered if it really was a Rottweiler.
Simon had a morning routine. He considered it holy and wouldn’t dream of changing it. He went for breakfast an hour before he was expected to be on the job. This way he got to eat the pension’s breakfast at its best, when it was fresh and steaming hot. As he ate, he read the local paper and Göteborgs-Posten. The newspapers were his lifeline to the outside world, his way of taking part in what happened beyond the little island. They were his only source of information, aside from sporadic conversations with guests and his contact with Sofia.
By the time he was done eating and had drunk at least three cups of coffee, and had finished the papers, he felt satisfied – both physically and mentally – and had absolutely no interest in anything but his plants.
The news turned up a week after the episode at the manor. He had reached the family section of the local paper, the obituaries and wedding and baby announcements. He typically skipped them, but sometimes he skimmed through to see if anyone he knew had died. Today, though, his eye caught an item under the BIRTHS heading.
Twins
Thor Oswald and Invictus Oswald
von Bärensten
Elvira Asplund & Franz Oswald von Bärensten
Simon read through the item carefully – something was missing. There was no picture of the children, as was otherwise typical. There was none of the usual ‘Welcome to the world!’ or ‘Welcome, our beloved Invictus and Thor!’ Instead there was just a green and white flag and the ViaTerra logo: three Ws surrounded by what looked like a mouth, the shorthand for Oswald’s motto: ‘We walk the way of the earth.’ Those who worked at ViaTerra knew there was hidden meaning behind the three letters: win, win, win. Because Oswald was certain he would one day conquer the world.
Simon thought about Elvira, and then Oswald. Of the babies, who had come into the world unaware of what awaited them. Then he put the paper on the table and shuddered.
When he called Sofia that night, she didn’t think it was all that strange to find the flag and Oswald’s logo on the birth announcement.
‘That’s just who he is. Everything has to be all mysterious and weird. You know why the logo looks like a mouth, right?’
‘Nope, not really.’
Sofia chuckled.
‘He told me once. The kiss of death, would you believe it? That’s how sick he is.’
Simon felt a tiny moment of clarity. He had never understood the odd symbol on Oswald’s letterhead, which he had used even to send simple directives to the staff.
‘Well, now you know,’ Sofia went on. ‘But those names! Who names a baby Invictus? All I can do is laugh, it’s so sick. Just setting them up to be bullied at school. Poor kids.’
‘Yeah, although I’m sure they’ll go to some stuck-up private school, where all the kids have names that go back to Swedish nobility. Benedictus von Krusenstjerna and stuff like that.’
Sofia laughed again, but he sensed a hint of gravity in her voice. Just a tiny bit, but it was there.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Not exactly… or, well, maybe, but it’s just a gut feeling. Nothing concrete. I’ll let you know if anything happens.’
He let it go, but an uneasy feeling lingered after they hung up.
16
She didn’t feel nervous until they had entered the apartment. That voice of reason droned on and on in the back of her mind: What the hell are you doing? What is wrong with you? What is going on? But she had learned to turn it off. A deep breath through her nose – she made her mind focus on that. As she blew the air out through her mouth, she found herself back in the moment. That voice was really just a little coward that had been holding her back all these years.
‘Well, that was pretty damn easy,’ said Damian Dwight, her partner in crime. Damian hadn’t been Anna-Maria’s first choice – she didn’t know whether he could keep his mouth shut. But he was the only person she knew who could do this sort of job without breaking the bank. He was an Englishman but had lived in Sweden his entire adult life. They had met at university and had had a brief relationship that went nowhere fast, after she got tired of his lies and unhealthy habits. He was one of those suit-clad guys with a polished façade who seemed very impressive until you scratched the surface. He had quit school, and these days he kept busy doing sketchy odd jobs. He could essentially be hired for anything, if the price was right. Even though they didn’t have much in common anymore, she kept in touch. He was good to have around when you needed something stronger than alcohol at a party.
And now he had broken into the apartment in under a minute – it was so astonishing, so phenome
nal that she got gooseflesh.
Damian looked around.
‘They’ve secured the front door, but they completely ignored the balcony door. Idiots.’
Anna-Maria’s gaze swept the studio. Neat, not a thing out of place. The air was nearly vibrating with sterile emptiness. As if someone were using this place for a hideout, but didn’t live there permanently. Just as she liked it herself. She felt a burning irritation at Sofia Bauman’s meticulousness. Then again, the apartment was so full of cheap IKEA crap that it smelled like plastic. This chick had no style.
‘How illegal is this, really?’ she asked Damian.
‘You’re the lawyer.’
‘I have, like, no experience with this sort of thing.’
‘Illegal enough to ruin your career forever. And unorthodox, pretty fucking unorthodox.’
‘It’s not like this is anything new,’ Anna-Maria grinned. ‘Franz had cameras all over ViaTerra. This is only the beginning. It seems like Franz has a number of things up his sleeve. But what the hell. None of them are as bold as this.’
Damian raised an eyebrow. ‘Does he know about this?’
‘Of course not. Not yet, anyway.’
‘What did this poor girl do to deserve all this?’
‘You don’t want to know. You’ll keep this quiet, right?’
‘I already promised I would. How long do we have?’
‘She’s at work – she’ll be home late afternoon.’
‘This won’t take more than an hour.’
Anna-Maria sat down on the sofa and watched Damian in silence as he installed a camera near the ceiling. A tiny eye that fit behind a vent high up on the wall.
‘It will let you see the whole apartment,’ he said. ‘You’ll have a bird’s eye view of her. You can keep her under constant watch.’
‘Except in the bathroom,’ Anna-Maria grinned. ‘Should we put one in the shower too?’
‘What the hell? I didn’t know you were into that.’
‘I’m not, but I know someone who likes girls in the shower.’ She let out a hoarse little laugh that caught in her throat as an unpleasant thought came to her. ‘What happens if she finds the camera? Can it be traced? I don’t want anyone to be able to trace it to my apartment, as I’m sure you understand.’
‘Of course it can be traced.’
She flew off the sofa as if someone had stabbed her in the ass with a fork.
‘Chill out,’ he said. ‘There’s an alarm – you’ll know if someone touches the camera. If that happens, you just have to break the connection and no one can trace it.’
When they were done, Anna-Maria cleaned up fastidiously, until the real-life image of the apartment was an exact match to the one in her head, of the way it had looked when they first walked through the door.
‘Now we’ll go to your place,’ Damian said. ‘I’ll install the equipment and hook it up and show you how to use it.’
‘Are you sure it’ll work? From so far away?’
‘Totally sure. Come on, let’s get out of here before this chick gets home.’
She let Damian drive. Meanwhile she sank down in the passenger seat and smiled inwardly. It had been so ridiculously easy. Rain was starting to fall, whipping violently at the windshield and making it hard to see, so they travelled along the highway at a snail’s pace. But that only made everything feel cosy; she was purring like a cat and letting her gaze melt into the fat raindrops on the wet glass.
Franz had been so grumpy ever since the kids were born. It hadn’t helped that Anna-Maria had brought Elvira and the babies to the manor, and that they were living so well. Now he’d got it into his head that the kids wouldn’t be raised properly, and he wanted out of prison. For ‘good behaviour’. As if she could wave a magic wand and set him free. When she tried to explain that it didn’t work that way, he threatened her, saying that maybe he didn’t have any use for her after all. So cruel. But everything would be different soon, because now she had something Franz wouldn’t be able to resist: a glimpse into Sofia Bauman’s daily life.
Anna-Maria wondered how she would smuggle in the recordings. Franz would enjoy watching the videos in his cell. She was amazed to find she didn’t feel jealous, but wasn’t that the point? If Franz could see how that IKEA slut lived her life, he would be disgusted and get tired of her. Nothing that went on in that claustrophobic little place could possibly be stimulating for a man like Franz Oswald. And then he would definitely realize how much Anna-Maria had to offer. It was clearly a win-win situation for her.
She turned to Damian.
‘Hey, could you show me how to edit the recordings together and make a DVD of them?’
‘Sure, that shouldn’t be hard. I can do that. For a small sum, that is.’
Anna-Maria’s phone vibrated in her pocket. A call from Skogome – so timely. It was Helga McLean.
‘When do you plan to visit next?’
‘Tomorrow, during visiting hours. Why?’
‘Just wanted to check. We’ll talk then.’
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, not exactly. Except your client has convinced all the inmates in his unit to get saved. They’re studying the ViaTerra theses at night. We’d really like to put an end to this mess, if you get my drift. Maybe you can help us out. Change his mind.’
Anna-Maria muffled a guffaw. She pictured Franz, surrounded by the inmates he’d turned into his underlings. The thought was so hilarious that she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. There was a lengthy silence before she heard McLean’s voice once more.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I was just thinking. Listen, you know what might distract him at night, and maybe put a stop to his preaching? I’m sure you know he likes watching old movies?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well, he does. But they have to be particular movies, made by directors he likes. May I bring some DVDs when I visit? He has a TV with a DVD player, doesn’t he?’
‘He doesn’t, but we can discuss it while you’re here. Maybe we can make an exception,’ said McLean. ‘And another thing, before I forget. It’s almost time for his first supervised furlough. Just so you know. And it will definitely be supervised, no matter his opinion on the matter. I have to go now. See you tomorrow.’
Anna-Maria’s sense of satisfaction had turned into a feeling that approached ecstasy. Everything was going to be just fine. Really, really fine. She flipped down the mirror to fix her makeup and got caught up in her own gaze for a moment. She saw something there, something new. Am I an evil person? she wondered. But who can really define evil? Well, now it’s my turn to have some fun.
17
Sofia’s boss, Edith Bergman, had a stiff smile on her face when Sofia arrived at work that morning. It seemed out of place to Sofia right away, because she was sure her performance at work was excellent so far.
A week ago, Edith had asked if she wanted to be in charge of certain inquiries and helping the patrons find books. A new substitute would help shelve books. So now Sofia got to meet interesting, eager readers every day. Edith had also specifically mentioned how pleased she was with Sofia’s work, so seeing her smile so strangely caught Sofia unawares. Suddenly there was an uncomfortable tension between her and her boss, and those vibes weren’t coming from Sofia’s end. Just as she was about to go to lunch, Edith popped up.
‘Can you come by my office after lunch, Sofia?’
‘Sure, what’s going on?’
‘I’d prefer to discuss it in private.’
She ate at her usual lunch spot, but the food seemed to expand in her mouth. Was she going to be fired? Was the university cutting staff? Or was it something else? Edith had approached Sofia hesitantly, fumblingly, as if there was something left unsaid between the two of them. She couldn’t imagine what it might be. She’d been honest during her interview, had made it clear she used to be part of ViaTerra. Had someone sent more emails to Edith? It seemed unlikely, because Sofia was almost p
ositive her new email account was unhackable.
When Sofia stepped into Edith’s office, her boss was already behind her desk, looking at a folder. She closed it when she caught sight of Sofia.
‘Please, Sofia, have a seat.’
She waited an unbearable length of time before opening her mouth again. An ice-cold hand squeezed Sofia’s heart. What had happened? What could be so serious?
‘First off I’d like to say that we are happy with your work here – you’ve really exceeded our expectations.’
‘Thanks, I’m glad to hear it.’
‘But the fact is, the university library is held in high regard, a respectable place, and, well, we have certain ethical demands of our staff.’
‘What is this all about?’
Edith slowly slid the folder across the desk to Sofia and allowed her to open it herself. The suspense was a rising wave of static between them. The first thing Sofia saw when she opened the folder was a picture of her face pasted onto a nude body. As disgust rose inside her, she began to read the text and realized it was a printout of Ellis’s old blog, the one he’d put up years ago as revenge. Her panic receded. This was old; she could explain.
‘Oh my God! I didn’t know this was still around. It’s ancient. My ex put it up. I had nothing to do with it. It was taken down ages ago, or at least I thought it was.’
‘Yes, I noticed that, actually,’ said Edith, taking the folder back. She paged through its contents and set another document before Sofia. This time, as she began to read, it was as if a violent undertow sucked the floor out from under her feet. She felt the colour drain from her face. This was something else that had been printed off the internet. Sofia’s Cosy Corner, it said. The image was one of Ellis’s old ones, but the words were new, and this blog had been uploaded only a few days previously.
Call me if you feel lonely.
Satisfaction guaranteed, and a little more besides. I’m up for anything, and I mean anything.
Shadow of Fog Island Page 9