by Samuel Bjork
The big day.
He still did not know what would happen, but he knew the evil spirits would disappear somehow, and he hoped his mum would be happier. He thought that she would be, because she had been looking forward to this for a long time.
The little boy pulled his woolly hat further down over his ears and tried to keep warm under the flimsy duvet.
‘The basement is too big,’ his mum would often say, whenever he asked why the house was always so cold.
‘Your dad wasn’t quite right in the head, but he knew about building houses. He knew what was coming, that we would need a place to hide when it blows up, when the world goes under, but he made it too big, there should have been more house and less basement, because it gets cold underground, and then the cold seeps up through the floorboards, do you understand?’
He did not understand much of what his mum said when she talked about his dad, because he had never met him, but he would nod anyway, because she did not like him asking too many questions. He knew that his dad was a real person because he had built the house. He had never actually seen him with his own eyes, but his mum could not build anything, so it had to be true. Sometimes he would imagine that his dad was like Pippi Longstocking’s pirate dad. That he was a very good dad, but that he had to be away a lot of the time, that he might turn up one day, a cheerful man with a big, bushy beard. He had never said anything to his mum – he had barely said it out loud to himself – but he had often wondered if the big day might be about that. That his dad might be the surprise. That his dad would burst through the door with golden treasures, lift up his mum and whirl her around, and he would bring them presents from every corner of the world, and one of them would be a wood-burning stove just for him, so he would never be cold again in his little room that never seemed to heat up, especially not in December.
He had given a lot of thought to what the big day would bring. He had made a list. He had not shown it to his mum; he kept it under his pillow. Now there were seven things on it: seven things he hoped might happen on the big day.
He wondered whether to take it out now and look at it again, but his mum had told him to go to bed, lie still and not come out, although the clock in the living room had shown only 8.05.
THE BIG DAY.
He had written it in capital letters across the top of the paper. He had taught himself to write, and he was proud of that. Also counting. Telling the time. The alphabet. All by himself, and that was good because, like Pippi, he did not go to school. To begin with he had not understood the writing he saw everywhere. On the back of the cornflakes box, on the tube of toothpaste, on the side of milk cartons, inside the three books he had in his room; at first they were just weird squiggles, small drawings, but one day when his mum was out of the house, it had come to him. He did not know how it had happened, but it had to do with the words which came out of his mum’s mouth and the words he used to reply, which at first he had thought just existed in the air, but then he had made the connection that they were the same words written on the things he was looking at.
Good night.
Milk.
January.
Soap.
You can win.
You can win a trip to Disneyland.
And he had used a pen to write down the words on a piece of paper, and the discovery had been almost as exciting as lying under the duvet, waiting for the big day. How the words in his mouth and the letters he saw everywhere could be written down on paper with just a small pen.
The little boy got up now, left his bed in order to move about a bit, get his circulation going, because, even fully dressed he was freezing cold under the flimsy duvet and, when he breathed, cloudy puffs came out of his mouth.
His dad had built the house, but the boy could not help thinking that, though his dad was good at construction and they did indeed need somewhere to hide when the world fell apart, his mum still had a point. The basement was too big. It made no difference that he wore his clothes to bed, his room was still freezing cold, and for a moment he wondered if it might be all right to go back to the living room, where the stove was, but he decided against it. If he had learned anything, then it was that it was terribly important not to make his mum angry.
The little boy went over to his wardrobe and found another jumper. A Norwegian knitted sweater. It was the finest one he owned, and he wore it only on birthdays or when he was allowed to leave the house, but he put it on nevertheless, on top of all his other clothes, and crept back under the duvet. He glanced up at the calendar again: 1999, a bad year; he could not wait until he could turn the page.
January 2000.
A new millennium.
He was not naughty, certainly not. He always did as he was told, and his mum had only said that he had to go to bed, not that he could not look at his list.
The little boy pulled off his mittens, found his torch, took out the list he had hidden under his pillow, and smiled.
THE BIG DAY
My wish list:
1. Mum will be happy.
2. Dad comes back and makes the basement smaller.
3. I am allowed to leave the house.
4. I stop pulling Mum’s hair when I brush it.
5. I am allowed to go to school.
6. I can tell Mum that I know the alphabet, the numbers, and that I can read and write without her getting angry.
7. I get a friend.
The wind came suddenly, knocking on the walls, refusing to go away. It continued through the thin windows; it breathed icy air across his face, on to the small patch of skin that was exposed between his woolly hat and the edge of his duvet.
Yet again he considered getting up and going to the living room, but he did not, because his mum had told him not to.
His mum.
The little boy had no other people around him – he never had had – he had only ever had his mum.
When she left the house, he would be home alone. Sometimes it would be days before she returned, but it did not matter. She was everything to him.
He would brush her pretty, blonde hair in front of the stove. Help her sponge and soap those parts of her body she could not easily wash herself. The little boy smiled now.
The big day.
And without knowing it, he had closed his eyes so tightly that he disappeared from the cold room and into his dreams, and when he woke up again, he knew it, even though the clock on his wall still showed quarter past five.
It was no longer 1999.
It was the year 2000.
The big day.
It had to be. Only she had forgotten to wake him up. He flung aside his duvet and ran from the cold bedroom. Grinning from ear to ear, he marched through the living room towards her bedroom. Silly Mummy. He opened the door to her bedroom and stopped in his tracks.
A rope was hanging from a roof rafter.
From the rope, which was tight around her neck, hung a naked body with long blonde hair, immobile limbs and a blue face. Her eyes were wide open, and her mouth did not look as if it could speak.
The little boy pulled a chair out on to the floor, sat down, looked expectantly at the naked body hanging from the roof and smiled to himself.
And waited patiently for her to wake up.
Chapter 56
His pounding headache was starting to ease off at last. Munch strangled a small yawn as he placed a mug of tea for Mia on the table.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ she said, scowling at the mug.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you have anything stronger?’
‘It’s the middle of the night, Mia. Can’t we do this tomorrow?’
‘No, it’s important.’ Mia was slurring her words, and Munch realized that she was quite drunk already, yet eager and alert in her own way.
His colleague had not bothered taking off her shoes or her jacket; she had just plonked down on his sofa, looking at him with this glow in her eyes he had seen many times before. She had made a breakt
hrough. It had always been a mystery to him how Mia did it, but he had learned to trust this expression.
‘I don’t drink, Mia, you know that.’ Munch yawned.
‘I know, but come on?’ Mia smiled, nodding in the direction of a shelf below all the CDs.
Joke presents from his team. Every birthday. Let’s give the teetotaller something expensive he will never be able to drink. There were eight unopened bottles of whisky whose labels meant nothing to him, nor did he care to find out.
‘Help yourself,’ Munch said, shaking his head as Mia got up from the sofa, fetched one of the bottles and opened it.
‘Do you have a glass?’
Munch went into the kitchen, grabbed a glass from a cupboard and caught sight of a smiling face on a picture on the fridge door, then he remembered.
Miriam had called him.
And he had forgotten to call her back, in the midst of everything. Shit. He had made up his mind to be more available to his family. He carried the glass into the living room, where he realized that Mia had been talking the whole time.
What’s wrong with my head?
‘He came to me,’ Mia said, filling her glass.
‘Who?’
‘Skunk. He tracked me down at Lorry.’
‘Skunk?’ Munch was surprised.
‘Totally out of the blue.’ Mia smiled, taking a sip of her drink.
Munch nodded again.
‘Impossible to find.’ Mia smiled. ‘Impossible to contact.’
Munch let her carry on talking.
‘A live feed. That was what he said.’
‘What?’
‘The film we got. Of Camilla in the wheel. It wasn’t just a recording; he said it was a live feed.’
‘A feed?’
Munch began to wake up.
‘Yes.’ Mia nodded impatiently. ‘He said they had been filming her. Broadcasting her. For months.’
‘Oh my God,’ Munch said, with a feeling of revulsion.
‘Yes, sick or what?’
‘That’s dreadful …’
‘But that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you,’ Mia said, refilling her glass.
So she had been to Lorry, she had not gone home, and she had clearly had a fair amount to drink. She raised the glass to her lips again and pretty much drained it before she went on.
‘Mia, I—’
‘No, no, listen to me,’ she said passionately. ‘How would you know? That it’s not a recording. That it’s a live feed. Unless you …’ She grinned and looked at him again, almost coherent despite being so drunk.
‘Were a part of it?’
‘Exactly,’ Mia said.
‘Damn.’
‘Yep.’
‘He just turned up?’
‘Yes. Out of nowhere.’
‘And you think his conscience is troubling him? That he’s our guy?’
‘Yes.’ Mia nodded vehemently.
Suddenly Munch felt wide awake.
‘So what do we do?’ Mia asked.
‘We find him. Interview him. See if we have grounds for charging him.’
‘No, not him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do we do about Gabriel?’ Mia said.
‘Come again?’
‘The two of them are close.’
‘So you think Gabriel knows more than he’s telling us?’
Mia shrugged. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that Gabriel hasn’t told us who Skunk is and where we can find him?’
‘Mia …’
‘No, listen to me, please. A video suddenly pops up. Out of nowhere. And Gabriel – well, how long have we known him, really? Six months?’
‘Mia, you’re not suggesting that—’
‘No, I’m serious, Holger, I’m on to something.’ Mia cut him off. She drained her glass, and refilled it – again.
‘Yes, but—’
‘No, listen to me, Holger. Skunk knows something. I think he knows a great deal. And if Skunk knows something, I think maybe Gabriel knows it, too. We have to ask him, but it has to be done sensitively, that’s why I had to talk to you right away. Do you get it now?’
Munch nodded pensively. ‘It would be better for you to do it,’ he said at length.
‘Do what?’
‘Talk to Gabriel. Tomorrow. He likes you. Get him to tell you what he knows.’
It started to sneak up on him again. The taste of metal in his mouth. The feeling of someone banging a nail into his head.
‘OK,’ Mia said, emptying her glass.
‘But not in front of the others, promise?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘We have a team briefing at 10 a.m. Perhaps you could do it afterwards?’
‘OK.’ Mia nodded, getting up.
‘So you think it’s him?’ Munch said when they were back in the hallway. ‘Skunk?’
‘Yes. It feels like it, there’s definitely something there.’
‘All right, but be nice to Gabriel,’ Munch said, opening the door for her.
‘Of course,’ Mia said.
And disappeared down the stairs with a smile on her lips.
Chapter 57
Gabriel could feel that something was amiss, and his suspicion was confirmed when Mia asked him to come to her office right after the meeting.
‘What’s going on?’ Gabriel said baffled, when Mia asked him to close the door behind him.
Mia looked at him with an expression he had not seen before, distrustful and intrigued at the same time, her head slightly tilted, almost as if she were trying to read his mind.
‘What’s going on?’ Gabriel said again. He pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘I need to ask you something,’ Mia said. ‘And you need to be totally honest with me.’
‘Honest with you?’ Gabriel smiled. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Mia found a lozenge in her pocket and placed it on her tongue, still not taking her eyes off him.
‘Skunk,’ Mia said.
‘Yes? What about him?’ Gabriel said with a light shrug.
‘How close are you, really?’
The knot in Gabriel’s stomach tightened. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘What I asked you,’ Mia said, still fixing her eyes on him.
Suddenly their conversation felt like an interrogation, and Gabriel did not like it.
‘We used to be good friends,’ he said.
‘How good?’
‘Very good friends. Where are you going with this?’
‘But not any more?’
‘No, not any more.’ Gabriel sighed. ‘What is this, Mia, are you accusing me of something?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mia said, tilting her head again. ‘Do we have something to accuse you of?’
We?
Gabriel began to get annoyed. They had been talking about him behind his back, Munch and her; possibly some of the others.
‘I honestly don’t know where he is,’ Gabriel said, flinging out his arms. ‘Now that might make me an idiot, but I don’t understand why you would want to accuse me of anything.’
‘So you haven’t seen him for a long time?’
‘Not for years,’ Gabriel said, shaking his head. ‘Not until he suddenly got in touch.’
‘So you’re not friends any more?’
‘No.’
‘What happened?’
Gabriel had had enough. He was already exhausted. He had slept badly; he was unable to get the images out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. The emaciated girl on her knees on the floor. The writing on the wall behind her. The feather-clad shadow. Just thinking about it made him shake.
‘Listen,’ he said, in a voice which came out much angrier than he had intended. ‘I know I’m new here, that I’m not as good as the others, but I do my best, and if I had known where he was, I would have told you. Don’t you think I’ve looked for him? Don’t you realize that? Did you really think I wouldn’t? But I’ve had no response, and do you know why? Because Skun
k doesn’t want to be found. Because …’
He stopped. He had to calm himself down, his blood was starting to boil.
‘Because?’ Mia said.
‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked her.
‘Because he gets up to things which can’t bear the light of day.’
‘Exactly,’ Gabriel said, flinging out his arms again. ‘And now what? You all think I’m a part of it? Is that it? Screw you, Mia, I’m not putting up with this. I’ve worked like a maniac ever since—’
Mia raised her hand and interrupted him before he had time to say anything else.
‘Sorry, Gabriel,’ she said, and her gaze softened. ‘But I had to be sure.’
‘Be sure of what?’ Gabriel snapped at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
Mia got up from her chair and perched on the edge of her desk in front of him.
‘Is that what you’ve been thinking? All of you? Is that what you’ve been talking about? How Gabriel and Skunk are in it together? That the old hackers are running a business on the side? Locking up girls in basements? Seriously, Mia? You make me sick.’
Gabriel was so angry now that he could barely control his temper. He had not seen this coming. How could they think that of him? Had she any idea how proud he was of being a part of this team?
‘Gabriel,’ Mia said.
She moved nearer to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. He wondered if she was closing in for a hug. She looked genuinely sorry.
‘There are times when I’m not as tactful as I ought to be,’ she said, not taking her hand off his shoulder. ‘I – well, I forget to think before I speak. Please forgive me. It’s not that I thought you were involved, but …’
‘But what?’
‘Sometimes if you like someone, then you protect them, don’t you?’
‘And you thought I might be protecting Skunk?’
‘Something like that, yes.’ Mia nodded. She sounded contrite.