What am I doing here? she wondered. Am I just going to slip into this demi-monde until it feels like I belong here? Will I end up thinking I can earn even more by posing in the private rooms, and will I actually go through with it? And what I’m doing with the chips – changing the price to suit different customers – is illegal. I could even end up in prison if I get caught.
She applied some more make-up, to cover the paleness of her fading suntan.
Patricia came into the changing room and gave her an encouraging smile.
‘I hear it’s going well.’
Annika nodded. ‘Yeah, not bad.’
Patricia looked proud.
‘I knew you were smart.’
Annika shut her eyes, thinking: I mustn’t listen. I mustn’t allow myself to feel flattered. I can’t find validation here. This sex club is not going to become my social context, the place where I finally fit in. I deserve better than this. Patricia deserves better.
She put on some more lipstick and went out.
65
In the early hours of the morning Sanna disappeared into one of the private rooms with an older man.
‘He’s a regular,’ the hostess whispered before she went. ‘There are hardly any customers left, just make sure they pay before they leave. Their bills are on the counter.’
Annika stood in front of the roulette table, confused as to what to do. If she was trying to encourage them to play roulette, how was she going to take payment from anyone else as they left?
She decided to abandon the roulette table, and a moment later the television celebrity came out into the hallway.
‘Where’s Sanna?’ he said, and this time Annika recognized the voice he used in his programmes.
‘She’s busy at the moment,’ Annika smiled. ‘Can I help you?’
The man handed her a credit card, and Annika moistened her lips in anticipation. She went over to the counter and looked through the various bills. Sure enough, his was there: 9,600 kronor.
She put the card in the machine and prepared the receipt. She knew Sanna would be getting a percentage of the fee, because the bill had her code on it. The man signed the payment slip.
‘Oh, darling, are you leaving already?’ a girl piped up from the door.
She was stark naked, her pubes were completely shaved and her hair was tied in Pippi Longstocking pigtails. She had also painted on some freckles to complete the illusion.
‘Oh, my little baby,’ the man said, and gave her a hug.
‘Just one moment,’ Annika said, and slipped into the office. The room was empty. She put the signed payment slip on the photocopier, closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.
Please don’t make a huge racket, please don’t take an age to warm up, please let there be enough paper …
The strip of light under the glass swept silently and quickly over the receipt, and a sheet of paper slid through the machine and out of the side. She breathed out, but what the hell was she going to do with it now?
She quickly rolled the copy into a hard little tube, folded it in half and slid it into the front of her thong, scratching herself in the process.
‘Here you are,’ Annika said, walking back to the counter.
The man was sucking on one of Pippi’s nipples. When the girl caught sight of Annika she pushed him off her.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’ she said anxiously.
Annika suddenly realized that the other girls saw her as a figure of authority, possibly because Josefin had been. She decided to make the most of it.
‘Just don’t let it happen again,’ she said sternly, and gave the man his receipt.
He left, and the girl hurried into the changing room. Annika waited a few seconds, listening to the noises from inside the club.
The low muzak from the stage was filtering out through the doorway, and she shivered. It wasn’t very warm in here.
She slid into the changing room, pulled out the photocopy and slipped it into the toe of her shoe. She quickly went out and stood leaning on the roulette table. She stayed there until Sanna’s hour in the private room was over.
‘Did it go okay?’ the hostess asked.
‘No problem,’ Annika said, pointing at the receipt.
Sanna looked at the total with a satisfied smile, and gave Annika a mischievous look.
‘Do you pay your TV licence?’ she asked.
The question was rhetorical, and she fanned herself with the receipt, laughed, and went into the office.
Annika smiled towards the closed door.
Patricia was making tea.
Annika was sitting on the sofa in the living room, staring into the turquoise-grey gloom of the room. She was so tired; her body was aching all over. Her feet had huge blisters from those terrible sandals.
‘How do you stick it?’ she said quietly.
‘What?’ Patricia said from the kitchen.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Annika said inaudibly.
She had an underlying feeling of disgust in her gut, and when she closed her eyes all she could see was the image of the skinny, naked Pippi Longstocking.
‘Here you are,’ Patricia said as she put the tray down next to the phone on the little table.
Annika sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage another night,’ she said. ‘How do you do it?’
Patricia smiled and poured the tea. She handed Annika a cup and settled back on the sofa.
‘Everyone always exploits you,’ she said. ‘This is no worse than anything else.’
Annika took a sip of the tea and burned her mouth.
‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘This is worse than most other options. The girls at the club, you included, have crossed all manner of invisible boundaries in order to end up where you are.’
Patricia stirred the slice of lemon round in her cup.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Do you feel sorry for me?’
Annika reflected.
‘No,’ she said, ‘not really. You know exactly what you’re doing. You crossed those boundaries of your own free will. Doing that takes a certain sort of strength; it suggests a degree of flexibility. You’re no shrinking violet, and that’s a big advantage.’
Patricia looked hard at Annika.
‘What about you, then?’ she said. ‘What boundaries have you crossed?’
Annika smiled wryly, and didn’t answer.
Patricia put her cup down on the floor, sighed almost imperceptibly, and looked down at her hands.
‘That morning,’ she said, ‘that last morning. Josefin and Joachim were fighting like cat and dog. They were really screaming at each other, in the office to start with, then up on the stairs. Josefin rushed out and he went after her.’
Annika sat in silence, aware that Patricia was sharing an important confidence. Patricia sat quietly for a moment before going on.
‘Josie wanted to finish at the club; she wanted to take some time off before she started her course. She’d got into university, to do journalism in the school of media and communication. Joachim didn’t want her to go. He kept trying to trap her, to tie her to the club and get her to give up her education. Josie told him she was going to leave anyway, that she’d earned enough money to pay for her breast enlargements ten times over. She told him they were finished, that their relationship was over. It was a really bad fight.’
Patricia fell silent again, and the sounds of the city waking up began to seep through the windows. The night-bus that stopped outside the passageway onto Hantverkargatan, the endless sirens, the autumn wind whispering of cold and rain.
‘They used to have sex in the cemetery,’ she whispered. ‘Joachim got a kick out of it, but Josie thought it was really creepy. They used to climb over at the back; the railings aren’t so high there. I always thought it was awful. Imagine, among all those graves …’
Annika said nothing, and they sat in silence for several minutes. It started to rain, first a few drops, then more seriously.
‘I know w
hat you’re thinking,’ Patricia said.
‘What?’ Annika said quietly.
‘You’re wondering why she stayed with him. Why she didn’t just leave.’
Annika gave a deep sigh. ‘I think I know why,’ she said. ‘To begin with she was in love and he was nice, then he started making little demands, simple little things that Josefin thought were sweet. He had opinions about who she should see, what she should do, how she should talk. Everything was fine to start with, until the bubble round them burst and Josefin wanted to engage with the outside world again – study, go to the cinema, talk to her friends on the phone. Then Joachim got angry, demanded that she stop all that and do what he wanted, and when she refused he hit her. Afterwards he was sorry, crying and telling her that he loved her.’
Patricia nodded in surprise. ‘How do you know all that?’
Annika smiled sadly. ‘There are plenty of books about domestic abuse,’ she said. ‘The evening papers often run series of articles about that sort of violence. It usually follows a pattern, and I don’t suppose Josefin was much different. She always thought it would get better, if only she could change and become the person he wanted her to be. Some days it probably went pretty well, and she must have thought they were working things out. But his need to control her just got bigger, and I imagine his jealousy got worse and worse. He criticized her more often, even in front of other people, and she felt her self-confidence draining away.’
Patricia nodded. ‘It was like watching her slowly being brainwashed,’ she said. ‘He made Josie unsure of herself, made her think she wouldn’t be able to handle her course. She was a useless, fat whore, and no one apart from him would ever love her. Josie cried more and more, until in the end she seemed to be in tears almost the whole time. She didn’t dare leave him, he’d promised he would kill her if she ever tried.’
‘Did he rape her?’ Annika asked. ‘Sexual violence is very common. Some men get excited if the woman is terrified … What is it?’
Patricia had covered her ears with her hands, screwing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw. She burst into a fit of tears.
‘Patricia, whatever’s the matter?’
Annika took the young woman in her arms and gently rocked her. Her tears fell as hard as the rain outside, an uncontrollable torrent, forced out by unbearable pressure.
‘That was worst of all,’ Patricia whispered when she had finally cried herself dry. ‘When he used to rape her. Her screaming was so awful.’
Nineteen years, six months and thirteen days
I see him coming through the fog of memory, the pattern repeats, the chorus kicks in. He works himself into the usual fury, starting by stamping about, ranting and swearing, then he hits me and starts yelling. I get all the usual signs, my field of vision shrinks, my shoulders slump, my elbows are stuck to my side, hands to my head. I lose focus, sound takes over, paralysis is near. A corner to sink into, a soundless plea for mercy.
His voice echoes in my head, and I can’t hear my own. Terror is chanting within me, that nameless fear, that inarticulate horror. Maybe I try to scream, I don’t know, his roars come and go, and I am transfigured, warmth spreads around me, redness arrives. No, I don’t recognize any pain. The pressure is red and hot. The chanting stops with the worst of the blows, jumping like an old vinyl record, then resumes half a key higher. Terror, terror, fear and love. Don’t hurt me! Oh please, just love me!
Because he says
he will never
let me go.
Friday 7 September
66
Annika still felt sick with tiredness when the alarm clock started ringing. She turned it off with a groan. Her legs ached, heavy as lead. The rain was still beating against the tin window ledge, an abstract rhythm that rose and fell in strength.
She settled into the sofa in the living room and made two phone-calls. She was in luck. Both the men she was calling were in. She arranged to meet the first in an hour’s time, and the second one the next day. Then she crept into bed again and fought against sleep for half an hour. When she finally got up she felt even more tired. She smelled of sweat, sharp and pungent, but she didn’t have the energy to shower. She rolled some deodorant under her arms and put on a thick sweater.
He had already arrived, and was sitting at a table by the window, staring out at the rain. In front of him were a cup of coffee and a glass of water.
‘So do you recognize me?’ Annika said, holding out her hand.
The man stood up and gave her a crooked smile.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘After all, we’ve bumped into each other before, quite literally.’
Annika blushed. They shook hands and sat down.
‘So exactly what is it you want?’ Q asked.
‘Studio Six uses double-entry bookkeeping, and Joachim has a second set of books to fool the tax office. The real books, the ones with the actual takings in them, are only brought to the club very occasionally.’
Annika drank the detective’s water in a single go. Q raised his eyebrows.
‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t really thirsty.’
‘The books are there now, until Saturday.’
‘And how do you know that?’ the detective asked quietly.
‘I’ve taken a job as the croupier there. I’m not a journalist any more. I’ve resigned my job and left the union. The girls at the club are paid cash in hand. No tax, no national insurance.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Patricia. She has no responsibility for, or influence over, the finances, but she enters the figures from the bar. And I saw it for myself this morning.’
The detective got up and went over to the counter. He got another cup of coffee and two glasses of water and brought them back to the table.
‘You look like you could do with some caffeine,’ he said.
Annika took a sip. The coffee was lukewarm.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Q wondered.
She didn’t reply.
‘Do you see what you’re doing?’ he said.
She drank some water.
‘What?’
‘You’re cooperating with the police,’ he said. ‘I thought doing something like that was beneath your dignity.’
‘I don’t have to worry about protecting my sources any more,’ Annika said curtly. ‘I’m no longer a representative of the mass media, so I can say what I like to the police.’
He looked at her in amusement. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘But leopards don’t change their spots so easily. If I know you at all, somewhere inside your head you’re thinking how to turn this conversation into an article.’
She jerked. ‘Bullshit. You don’t know me at all.’
‘Yes I do. I know the journalist in you.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Bullshit,’ he countered. ‘She’s just wounded and tired. She’s taking a rest, and will be back in the fight soon enough.’
‘Never,’ she said.
‘So you’re going to be a croupier at shitty dives for the rest of your life? What a shame.’
‘I thought you said I was a real nuisance?’
He grinned. ‘Well, you are, you’re worse that a spot on the arse. And that’s good, we need that. We need to feel we’re alive.’
She was looking at him suspiciously.
‘You’re winding me up,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘Well, maybe just a little,’ he said.
‘You can get him on the bookkeeping,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s in there, but there ought to be enough to shut down the club. I’m committing a crime as well, by the way, using the roulette table for illegal gambling. Joachim seems to think that’s okay.’
‘You’ll get caught,’ Q said, ‘sooner or later.’
‘I was thinking of going again tonight, then no more after that. I earned eight thousand kronor last night. One more night will see me through until I can get unemployment benefit.’
‘That’s what everyone says,�
� Q told her.
Annika fell silent. She could feel her shame burning on her face. She realized he was right as she stared down at her hands.
‘Well, I’ve said enough,’ she said. ‘Now I just want to listen.’
The detective got up and came back with a cheese sandwich.
‘This is absolutely off the record,’ he said. ‘If you ever write about it I’ll see you roasted slowly over hot coals.’
‘ “Unlawful threat”,’ Annika said.
He smiled quickly, then was serious again.
‘You were right,’ he said. ‘We do regard the murder of Josefin Liljeberg as finished, at least as a police matter.’
‘So why haven’t you arrested him?’ Annika said, a little too loudly.
Q leaned over the marble tabletop.
‘Don’t you think we would if we could?’ he said quietly. ‘Joachim’s got a watertight alibi. Six men swear he was at a smart bar, the Sture Company, until five o’clock, then he went home with the other lads in a hired limousine for a private party. They all give the same story.’
‘Maybe, but they’re lying!’ Annika said.
The detective took a bite of his sandwich.
‘Of course they are,’ he said, swallowing. ‘The problem is proving that they’re lying. One of the waiters at the Sture Company confirms that Joachim was there, but he can’t say exactly when. And he can’t tell us what time he left either. The limousine driver confirms that he drove a group of drunk young men from Stureplan to Birkastan, and Joachim has the receipt. The driver can neither confirm nor deny that Joachim was in the car because he couldn’t see who was right at the back. Either way, Joachim certainly wasn’t at the front, and he didn’t pay. The girl who owns the flat on Rörstrandsgatan says Joachim fell asleep on her sofa sometime after six o’clock. She’s probably telling the truth.’
‘Joachim was at the club just before five,’ Annika said eagerly. ‘He was having a fight with Josefin, Patricia heard them.’
Q sighed. ‘Yes, we know. It’s Patricia’s word against the seven blokes. And if this case were ever to get to court and we somehow managed to break their story, we’d have to charge all of them with perjury. And that would be pretty impossible.’
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