Tell was painfully aware of his breathing.
'I'm so sorry.'
She nodded almost imperceptibly. He could feel the empty phrases in his throat and hated himself because nothing he could say would change anything.
'If there's anything I can do…' came out involuntarily. However much he wished that he could actually do something, Tell couldn't bear the banality of the phrase.
'It's strange.'
She turned to look out of the window. Dark clouds hovered over the roofs, as if they were just waiting for the opportunity to burst and spill their entrails over the town.
'For all these years I've… not ignored Gustav's feelings, perhaps, but certainly I haven't bothered about them enough to change my priorities. I have been incredibly selfish. And now his feelings are the only thing I can think about, now I… And yet I still can't behave any differently from the way I've always behaved. Somehow I still have to follow my old patterns.'
She was silent for so long that Tell got the feeling she'd forgotten he was there, until she took a deep breath and went on: 'I feel as if I've let him down. How could it turn out this way, Christian? With love, I mean. That you choose to live your life with someone - someone you love - but their perceptions always seem to be the direct opposite of your own?'
Her cheeks were flushed.
'Maybe it's just what you said,' mumbled Tell, even if he had realised the question was rhetorical. 'Love.' Not that I know much more about it.
She shook her head.
'Now, of course, he thinks it's obvious - well, I suppose it is obvious - that I should give up work on the grounds of ill health and spend my… my remaining time at home. Gustav and Björnberg have ganged up on me, and it hasn't even occurred to them that I would choose to do anything different. And the worst thing is that I can't do it. Do you understand? I ought to be taking the chance to pay him back, to show Gustav that I really do want to get to know him all over again, and that I do value him and everything we've somehow managed to build together over the years, but now more than ever I feel I have to be selfish. I'm finding it harder than ever to imagine giving up my job and just sitting at home waiting for death. I think I have to hang on here until they cart me off.'
They jumped at the sound of a knock on the door. Karin Beckman poked her head around. She was clearly sensitive enough to pick up on the muted atmosphere because she apologised and was about to close the door when Ostergren waved her in.
'It's fine. I've got time.'
'It was actually Tell I wanted a word with.' She took a step into the room. 'We've heard from forensics on the Jeep from Ulricehamn. The wear on the tyre corresponds to the tracks at the scene of the murder, and there are six different fingerprints inside the car which are pretty clear. They've also found traces of blood.'
With a supreme effort of will, Tell forced himself back to rational thought.
'OK. Check the database to see if the fingerprints belong to anyone we know. And contact the rental company for the names of the other people who've hired the car so that we can eliminate them. Bring them in and take their fingerprints.'
Beckman nodded impatiently. Tell guessed that she didn't appreciate being instructed in basic police work in front of Ostergren but it couldn't be helped. Tell needed to hear his own voice regaining some measure of control.
'Try to put a face to every print, or at least those who hopefully reserved in their own name,' he droned on. 'And don't forget that one of the prints probably belongs to Berit Johansson herself - she cleaned the cars, after all. Check her husband too, or whoever the other Johansson is.'
Beckman gave an irritated snort. She disappeared when the mobile phone on Ostergren's belt rang, and she indicated that she had to take the call. Tell nodded and got up to leave. His legs were so heavy he could barely lift them.
It was exactly four steps to the door.
* * *
Chapter 44
1995
The carefully maintained facade stood him in good stead with the pretty girl who had been detailed to help him. According to the social worker, he was entitled to support in the home as long as his mother was in the funny farm, which was where she had been ever since Maya's inexplicable death. Of course, it was inexplicable only to an imbecile. The doctor with the well-practised expression of empathy ought to have got an Oscar for his performance when it turned out that the equipment keeping Maya alive had for some reason been turned off for a period of time - after the nurse on the night shift had done her final rounds, and before the morning shift came on duty.
Deep in those eyes Sebastian could see that Dr Snell knew exactly what had caused the 'temporary and extremely regrettable, inexplicable and totally unacceptable failure of the technical equipment'. He almost felt sorry for the doctor, who had muttered something about how technology can never be one hundred per cent reliable, and how Maya's body had made its own decision to put an end to its artificial existence. As if he really believed that Maya was in any condition to make a choice. It was stupid, particularly in view of the fact that had been Dr Snell's main argument for letting Maya die: she would never be able to think, feel or know anything again. He had said the decision rested with the relatives, but all the time it had been obvious where he stood on the issue.
Sebastian was grateful that Dr Snell had decided to avoid any accusations, but he was also upset on his mother's behalf because the doctors were treating her like someone who was a bit simple. As if she really believed they would allow the technology used to keep someone alive to be knocked out by some bloody power cut.
It was also perfectly clear that Solveig knew it was Sebastian who had nudged Maya across the threshold into the kingdom of the dead. He still hadn't found the courage to meet her eyes.
In the company of other people - for example during the laboured conversations with the family counsellor - she chose to lower her eyelids when she was forced to turn to her son. Sebastian was well aware of the rage burning beneath the smooth surface. He only had to glance at her for the exposed skin on his face to be seared as if by a flame. They had both chosen not to be alone together since Maya had stopped living.
Now he was taking things one day at a time. Amina, with her doe like eyes, came for two hours a day to help him 'structure his everyday life', as she had put it when they sat at the kitchen table to plan their 'joint project'. What she actually did was take care of his laundry, clean up the messes he made, do the shopping and cook for him. It was as if he had gone from being a teenager to being an old man in one enormous stride.
He also noticed that the aim was for her to try to establish some kind of rapport with him. He had been there before - often enough to recognise the tentative questions from an anxious adult with a sense of responsibility. He could live with that; he was whatever he chose to show them. That applied to both Amina and the social worker. As usual he navigated through their statements and questions with playful ease. They could come into his home and do whatever they had to do to make themselves feel better, ask their questions and believe his answers, but the person he was deep inside had nothing to do with them. It never had done. He wasn't like Maya. Or Solveig. They opened themselves up time after time.
Still, Amina was very pleasant to look at. And the mask he wore was impressive, as usual. It was enough to be calm and collected, and to throw in a few episodes of teenage angst from time to time, with tear- filled eyes. That satisfied their inflated egos.
Amina tried to give the impression that she knew how teenagers thought and felt. She must have been a teenager herself not that long ago, but she spoke using her professional experience as her starting point - not that she could have had much of that. It didn't particularly bother Sebastian. He couldn't help innocently asking her how long she had been working, just to see her ears go red when she confessed that she wasn't yet qualified.
In order to ease her discomfort he confided in her that he was dreading the day Solveig came home from hospital. He didn't want to be alone on
that day. Amina immediately promised to keep in touch with Solveig's doctor and agreed to be there to hold his hand when his mother was discharged. He could see her making a note in her internal diary: Established rapport. If there was one thing Sebastian had learned, it was that people, in general, were entirely predictable.
'You're a strong person, Sebastian,' she had said in the embarrassed tone of someone who wasn't used to making such pronouncements about strangers. But they got used to it, social workers. Soon she too would have no problem poking her nose into everything. So it was Amina who told Sebastian that his mother was emerging from the mists. Suddenly Solveig had sat bolt upright in bed - as if she had temporarily broken free from the chains of her medication - and stated that she was no longer in touch with either her sorrow or her joy. For some time her mind had been dulled by strong tranquillisers, but no more.
Of course the main aim of the medication had been to spare her the experience of a grief that was clearly too much to bear. The medical team felt it was still early days, but she maintained she was ready to confront her demons. That was how she put it.
Amina sounded as if she thought this was a good thing.
Sebastian did his best to look relieved, which of course was the normal thing to do. Relieved that his mother was leaving her apparent insanity behind.
'She wants to come home straight away,' said Amina. 'To you, Sebastian. I think it was the thought of you that made her decide to fight, instead of giving up. And of course I'm here during the period of transition. You know that. If you want to talk, I'm here for you.'
The first thing Solveig did when she got home was change the locks, as if she wanted to shut out the creature with the glassy eyes and the grey hair in a messy clump at the back of her head. That same morning she went to the hairdresser for a subtle ash-blonde tint, her hair cut into a pageboy style which was much more appropriate to her age. When she arrived home she was wearing a green corduroy dress he had never seen before, and glasses, which meant that the characteristic peering was gone. She really did look much better.
'Well, look at this,' she said, casting a critical eye over the spotless hallway. 'Thank you, you can go now.'
Amina, feeling slightly confused, was politely but firmly ushered out on to the landing, and the door was shut in her face.
Once her hesitant footsteps had died away down the stairs, the atmosphere in the hallway was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Solveig dusted off her hands.
'Dear me, Sebastian. Right, now I'm going to start on the housework. Then you can go shopping. And I'll make dinner. Then we can settle down in front of the TV.'
'Mum…'
She immediately started frenetically cleaning the kitchen.
'Mum's home again. I'm not going to say a word about how quickly I was replaced, and by a younger model too - much easier on the eye.'
She was still avoiding direct eye contact. She laughed, a brief, introverted laugh, then started emptying the kitchen cupboards and wiping her absence out of every single corner.
'It isn't your fault, Sebastian. You're getting to that age now. You're cast in the same mould as every other man: more banal with every passing day. Disloyal. Faithless. Fixated on superficial things… physical desires.'
'Mum, this business with Maya-' Sebastian began, but stopped dead as she spun around and exposed him to her burning eyes.
'Not one word, Sebastian. We are not going to say one single word about that.'
A couple of weeks later, with Dr Snell's encouragement, they reported the hospital and the doctors for the professional negligence that had allowed life to slip through Maya's fingers.
* * *
Chapter 45
2007
Fifteen years ago he had been thirty, and they had thought he was ancient. Seja hadn't expected him to have an insight into the secret world of the visitors' books and their coded chronicles. And even if the man now sitting opposite her had flicked through the books from time to time, it was likely that he had dismissed the love poems as rubbish, the implied suicide threats as an exaggeration on the part of narcissistic adolescents desperate for attention, and the overblown political discussions as being copied straight out of a basic course in sociology for year 11 students.
It was possible that he and his companions might have appreciated the skilfully executed drawings in ink or pencil; they might even have been able to guess which of the perpetrators would later apply to the various art colleges in the city. They were usually pictures of other customers in the cafe: a young woman with dreadlocks hunched over a glass of tea, a gang of boys all wearing the same uniform - a black suit bought at Myrorna, a long black coat and a hat just like the one Tom Waits always wore.
The owners of the cafe at the Northern Station had presumably had
no idea what a cult they were starting when they bought the first A4 hardcover notebook on an impulse and placed it in one of the deep window recesses. And indeed the man opposite expressed both suspicion and surprise when he heard what they wanted.
'I thought you were looking for a job,' he explained, running a hand through his hair, which appeared to be rigid with wax. 'We've got an advert out - for a waitress. I don't suppose you'd be interested?'
Seja and Hanna shook their heads politely.
'Have you still got the books? Or does anyone else who was working here at that time?'
He leaned back in the leather armchair.
'You all went through a hell of a lot of those books. I think we ended up having to buy a new one every other week for several years. I'm sure you must realise we haven't kept them all; in fact I don't know why we ever kept any of them, but…'
He beamed and looked at Seja as if she had won the lottery.
'You're in luck. I happen to know that Cirka saved a pile of them, for sentimental reasons. It was a part of what we did in those days. They were kind of in tune with the people who came in, all those kids with their artistic ambitions. I mean, I'm no psychologist or anything, but it has to be a good thing for kids to be able to express themselves, doesn't it? And some of them had real talent, you could see that.'
He gazed intently at Seja for a few seconds, then made his decision.
'I knew it. I definitely recognise you. How old were you back then?'
'Sixteen, seventeen.'
Seja squirmed. It was many years since she had stopped feeling comfortable about spilling her innermost thoughts in front of people she hardly knew. She searched her memory in vain for some idea of the contributions she might have left in those books. But she had used an alias, and she doubted if the man opposite her was sufficiently well informed to know what it was.
To her relief he turned to Hanna.
'What was your name? Hanna? Not Hanna Andersson?'
'Aronsson.'
'That's it. I definitely remember you - you were… I think you were at some of the gigs I put on. Velvet? Magasin 12? And you were with my mate Mange for a while, if I remember rightly.'
Hanna looked as if she didn't quite know whether to feel positive or uncomfortable. 'I don't really remember. You know how it was - there was all kinds of stuff going on. The memories are a bit vague.'
He sniggered and rubbed his hand over his stubble.
'Too right. And you kids were pretty wild, as far as I remember.'
'Cirka,' Seja reminded him; she'd had just about enough of this. She folded her arms to show that he could skip the small talk.
'You can go over to her place if you want, she lives quite close. I can give her a ring and tell her you're coming. Or I can ask her to bring the books when she comes over in a couple of hours - if she's still got them, that is.'
While they had been talking to the bar owner the sun had found its way through the clouds. Its rays were reflected in the chrome tables out on the pavement, and shimmered against the window of the cafe opposite. Outside a group of girls sat stoically sipping hot drinks in tall glasses wrapped in paper napkins. They were shivering in spite of the w
oollen blankets around their shoulders.
Seja and Hanna toyed with the idea of having a quick coffee - indoors - but decided instead to have something to eat once they had picked up the notebooks from Cirka.
The map the bar owner quickly scrawled on a napkin led them to an address on Kungshojd, just a stone's throw from the bar, as he had said. They followed narrow alleyways and flights of steps from Kungsgatan to a stone building high above the sea that looked as though it had been built some time around 1900. They admired the view of the city and the harbour before ringing the doorbell.
'I've turned the whole room upside down.'
At first sight Cirka Nemo hadn't changed. As teenagers they had admired her and the fact that she occupied her own space with confidence, despite her small stature. She was still just as small, slender and angular, but her dyed black hair now formed a cloud around her face. The clothes clinging to her thin body could have been the same ones she had worn back then; the style was just as timeless as the decor in her tiny one-room apartment.
'I just found the granny boots I bought in London when I was nineteen. How cool are they?'
She held up a pair of shabby button boots in bright orange. Seja nodded obediently, quietly amazed at how life turned out. Here she stood in Cirka Nemo's apartment, being treated as an equal. And Cirka didn't seem at all surprised at their strange errand; perhaps that was because strange things were just a part of her everyday life?
As a teenager Seja had admired this woman simply for her unambiguous air of authority, although most people had seemed worldly- wise compared with her contemporaries - girls still nervously dabbing Clearasil on those stubborn spots on their forehead. Confidence was sexy - she still thought so - but after blinking the teenage dust from her eyes she couldn't help noticing the hard lines around Cirka Nemo's mouth. Or the unpleasant smell from the overflowing rubbish bin in the tiny kitchen area - just like the one Seja had in her first student apartment when she was twenty.
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