Both of them jumped when her mobile began to ring. Jack picked it up from the floor and looked at it. It was a very familiar number.
“It’s the police,” said Faye. “They call me every day or so to check everything is all right.”
Without any expression, Jack handed over the mobile.
“Answer it. Say everything is fine. If you try in any way to give me away, I’ll stick this knife in your stomach,” he said, poising the blade just below her breasts.
Faye pressed accept to answer the call and hit the speakerphone button. Jack crouched in front of her, knife at the ready.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hi, it’s Oscar Veslander of the Stockholm Police,” a voice said.
Faye held her breath.
“This is just our daily call to check that everything is okay.”
Faye met Jack’s gaze. She was unable to recognize the man she had shared her life with. Who was he?
“Yes,” she said, Jack nodding. His hands moved down toward her groin. “Everything’s fine.”
Jack cut her top to shreds with one movement. Faye was shaking.
“Where are you?”
Faye gritted her teeth and pulled herself back to avoid the blade.
“Hello?”
She looked down at Jack, whose face didn’t display even a flicker of emotion.
“I’m at home, just working,” she said in a monotone.
“I’m afraid there’s no news about your ex-husband, but I promise we’re doing everything we can to find him.”
“Good. Great. I know you’re doing your best.”
Her voice wavered.
If Faye hadn’t been certain before, she was now: Jack was out of his mind. Completely unpredictable. He might very well decide to kill her. She had to get out of here.
“Have a nice day. And call us if you have any questions.”
“Thanks. You too.”
Faye ended the call and looked down at Jack.
He got up slowly, without lowering his gaze from her. Suddenly, without warning, he struck her again. She collapsed on the sofa. He wrenched her phone from her. She looked up at him.
“Jack, you have to disappear now. Escape. Otherwise the police will arrest you. I won’t say anything. Not that you were here, not about what you did.”
He didn’t reply.
All that was audible was his heavy breathing. Jack sat down in front of her, pulled a lock of her hair to his nose, and drew in the scent.
“I’ve missed your scent. Despite everything you’ve done to me, I’ve still missed it. You’re the love of my life. No one else meant anything—get it? Do you understand that I did what I did because I could? Because the women were throwing themselves at me? I was weak. But it was only you who meant anything.”
Faye shuddered. It sounded as if Jack was saying farewell.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“I don’t know. I did make a promise to your father that he could be the one to kill you. But maybe I will instead.”
Her pulse was beating so fast she was dizzy. Her eyes darkened.
“No, Jack. You’re not a murderer. You don’t have it in you. It’s me. Faye.”
She placed her hands on his cheeks and forced him to look at her.
“You’ve got another daughter, Jack. What’ll happen to her if you’re convicted for another murder? The police’ll catch you sooner or later. And Julienne…you’re right. She’s alive. She’s safe. If we forget about this, if you can forgive me, she’d be thrilled. She still talks about you. You’re her hero, Jack. In spite of everything, you’re her hero.”
Faye swallowed and looked searchingly at Jack to see whether her words had had any impact. In years gone by she had been able to read his innermost thoughts the second he came into the room. But now his face gave nothing away. He had been transformed into a stranger.
“And I miss you.” She let the tears flow. “Despite everything you did, I love you and always have. But you hurt me. You humiliated me. You crushed me. All I wanted was to live with you and Julienne, but you tricked me, Jack. First you deprived me of work, the right to the thing I’d helped create. Then my own family. You replaced me.”
Jack’s teeth were grinding. His facial expression was beginning to soften. She rejoiced internally. Perhaps he might just leave?
“Julienne,” said Jack. “Have you got a photo of her? I think about her every day. Every second.”
Faye remembered the pictures she had found on Jack’s computer. The awful, dreadful photos. Julienne’s vacant stare. She didn’t want to show him her one photo of her daughter. But what choice did she have? Her priority right now was to survive long enough to prevent him from getting anywhere near Julienne. Somehow she needed to persuade him to lower his guard…
She nodded slowly.
“We can call her. Just think how happy she’ll be to see you.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He shook his head and put her mobile on the table.
“No. No phones. No technology.”
She took a deep breath.
“I’ve got a picture of her. Want to see it?”
“Where?”
“Move and I’ll get it.”
Jack got up slowly.
Once Faye was on her feet, he brandished the knife at her.
“If you try to trick me, I’ll kill you right away. Don’t you forget it.”
“I know.”
She went to the bathroom with him on her heels. Inside, she worked the bathtub away from the wall, stuck her arm down behind it, and retrieved the plastic wallet with the photograph of her mother and Julienne. She straightened up again and passed the wallet to Jack. He took it and examined the photo without saying a word. But the glint in his eye scared her. He was looking at the picture of Julienne as if she were his prey, as if he could do whatever he liked with her. He slipped it into his jacket pocket.
At that moment, Faye realized she had made a mistake. Jack had somehow tricked her. And now he was going to kill her. He raised the hand with the knife in it. Faye screamed and everything went black.
FJÄLLBACKA—THEN
Although they never found Roger’s and Tomas’s bodies, they held a ceremony for them.
I was there in the church and heard every single word about what fine upstanding boys they had been. Mourners were in tears in the pews. The priest struggled to keep his voice steady. Personally, I wanted to be sick when I remembered all the things they’d done to me and what I’d had to endure.
Their smiling portraits mocked me from the altar. I put my hand to my breast where the necklace that Mom had given me had once hung with reassuring weight. They had taken the last of my confidence away from me.
The only thing I could think about was how Roger and Tomas had held me down, forced themselves into me, and laughed at my pleas for them to stop. The way that Tomas’s sparkling eyes had been transformed into something cold and hard.
I hated them for what they had done and I was so happy they were gone.
I didn’t even feel sorry for their parents or Roger’s grandmother. They had raised them and made them into what they had become. It was their fault too.
But the whole community celebrated their lives and grieved for them. And it widened the gulf between me and Fjällbacka—it just increased my resolve to leave and get away from the hypocrisy. The silence. The holding of tongues.
Faye opened her eyes. She was lying on the cold bathroom floor. Her head was splitting, pounding. She slowly raised her hand to her brow and could feel that it was sticky. She held up her fingers in front of her and saw that she was still bleeding.
Despite the pain, she was glad she was alive. Jack had struck her head with the handle of the knife and she must have fainted. Although the pain was shooting through her head in
waves, she was alive. That was what mattered most.
“You should have killed me, Jack,” she muttered.
She calmly wondered why he hadn’t, and hoped her father wasn’t waiting somewhere close by. She couldn’t think about that now.
She got up on unsteady legs, supporting herself on the sink, and examined her wounded and swollen face in the mirror.
Jack.
And David.
Both of them were going to get what they deserved. The fact that Jack had the photo that proved Julienne was alive was a disaster. But she would retrieve it. He wasn’t going to rush to the nearest police station brandishing the photo. There was still time. Her temporary downswing—when she had wanted to give up and escape it all—was over. That wasn’t her. Faye never gave up. She gave as good as she got.
She screwed her eyes shut tight, remembering the photos of Julienne she had found on Jack’s computer. Photos of Julienne undressed and vulnerable. Abused by the person she loved most. That was what had triggered it all. It was what had made her do what she did best. Take care of the people she loved. And defend herself. No matter what the cost was.
She had lulled herself into a false sense of security, in the hope that Jack was gone forever. That had been naïve. Innocent. She wouldn’t repeat that mistake. Now she was going to put a stop to Jack. Permanently. For her own sake, but above all for Julienne’s. He was never going to be allowed to get close to her again—he was never going to be allowed to hurt her again.
It was just past midnight and Revenge’s offices were dark and empty. The only light that was on was in Faye’s office, and as Faye looked up she could picture Henrik sitting there working. On Revenge. Her Revenge. She drove past the building quickly. She didn’t want to see it. Instead, she carried on through the darkness toward Lidingö. The asphalt glittered black following a gentle evening shower that had come and gone in the space of ten minutes. She had to go to Alice’s to speak to Ylva.
So much depended on Ylva. And Alice.
If Ylva refused to help Faye, she wouldn’t be able to stop Jack. The best outcome would be that she’d end up in prison, the worst case was that her father would murder her first. He was out there somewhere. Jack too. And she needed both Ylva and Alice to win back the company.
She rang the doorbell and Ylva opened up. Ylva’s eyes widened when she caught sight of Faye’s face. She opened her mouth but then shut it again.
“Alice isn’t home. Are you okay?”
Faye took a couple of steps inside the hallway.
“I’m okay,” she said briefly. “But I need to speak to you.”
“What’s happened?” said Ylva, leading her to the guest room where she was staying.
Faye had wondered how honest she could be. She had decided to tell Ylva everything. No more lies. At least not for Ylva. If she suspected Faye was lying, there was a risk she wouldn’t trust her. Faye couldn’t take that risk.
“Jack.”
Ylva put a hand over her mouth.
“He attacked me at the apartment. Beat me unconscious. I woke up on the bathroom floor.”
Faye sat down in an armchair and reached for the picture of Nora on the nightstand. She examined it, thinking about the picture that Jack had taken from her: the one proving that both Julienne and Faye’s mother were alive. It made her pluck up courage.
“There are things about Jack I haven’t told you, Ylva. Things that I haven’t told anyone. I lived with him for almost my entire adult life, but I never saw those sides to him—didn’t understand them. Not until near the end. That’s why I doubt whether you will have seen them, even though you also know Jack and shared a life with him.”
Ylva’s eyes widened.
“What do you mean?”
“I should start by saying that Julienne is alive. She’s living safe and sound in Italy with my mom.”
Ylva’s jaw dropped.
“So it’s true what she said, that policewoman who came to talk to me? I sent her packing and said she was crazy.”
“Yes, Yvonne Ingvarsson is right. I framed Jack for a murder that never happened. It was never about me, or my ego because he left me, or because Jack denied me money that I was entitled to. You know the two of us—you know that I was there and helped to build what would become Compare.”
Faye stroked her chin. She found it hard to say the words aloud.
“It was all about some photos I found of Julienne. Jack had taken highly detailed, nude pictures of her. She was completely at his mercy. He’s a sick man, Ylva. I realized I had to protect Julienne from him.”
Faye stared down at the floor. She struggled to summon the words.
Ylva stared at her, her face white.
“Thank God Julienne is alive,” she whispered. “But what she went through at the hands of Jack is dreadful. What he put her through.”
Faye blinked away the tears. Her voice was stronger now.
“You have a daughter with Jack too. And for as long as Jack is alive, Nora will be in serious danger. Other children will be, too. He’s a pedophile. I need your help. As a friend, as a woman. Because there are some things that the justice system doesn’t look kindly upon, even if the politicians always claim it does.”
“What do you need help with?”
Faye contemplated Ylva. She had put her life in her hands. If Ylva betrayed her confidence, then Faye would end up in prison. She would be one of the most hated women in Sweden. Which was strange, given that all she had done was act the way any responsible mother would have. Society hadn’t been capable of protecting her—it never had been. Not when she had been raped and assaulted at home as a young girl. Not when she had been conned out of the money from the company she had created. Not when she was chucked out like an old rag because her husband had met someone new.
She trusted Ylva precisely because she was a woman, because she could understand that vulnerability and powerlessness. Although they might never have faced it, every single woman could feel that emotion. And she trusted Ylva because she too knew Jack. She had seen the monster behind the mask. And she too had loved him once.
“Jack has to be eliminated if our kids are going to be safe. And Henrik is going to pay royally for trying to take away something that belongs to me.”
Ylva looked at her hands, which were clasped on her lap. She didn’t reply. They were interrupted by a cry from the next room.
Ylva stood up hastily.
“Go. See to her,” said Faye.
Ylva nodded and went into the room next door. A few minutes later she returned with Nora in her arms, her sleepy face red and bloated, her hair tousled. When she caught sight of Faye she burst into a smile that showed her tiny milk teeth. Ylva kissed her head. She looked at Faye with tears in her eyes. Then she nodded.
“I’m in. And I’m guessing it’s time for plan B?”
“It’s definitely time for plan B. And I’ve also got an idea for Alice.”
“What?” said Ylva curiously, cradling Nora in her arms.
Nora shut her eyes and fell asleep. Faye said nothing—she merely got out her phone with a smile. When Alice picked up, Faye could hear the sound of traffic and laughter. She must be having a drink out somewhere.
“Hasn’t Sten Stolpe always liked you?” said Faye.
“Liked?” Alice chortled. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Would you be up for contacting him?”
“Sure, no problem. What did you have in mind?”
Faye explained while Ylva cradled her sleeping daughter, her lips forming a grim smile as she listened.
FJÄLLBACKA—THEN
As the weather changed and the nights closed in and grew cooler, it was time for me to return to school.
I was starting seventh grade, and tradition dictated that a big party was held, where all the local youths gathered in the woo
ds the weekend before the schools went back. High schoolers were drinking, listening to music, sneaking off to fool around, fighting, and hurling into bushes.
I went and sat alone at a slight distance, mostly because I had nothing else to do. Sebastian was there. He’d achieved some sort of celebrity status, thanks to having been on TV, in the papers, and on the radio all summer talking about how great his friends had been.
I usually never went to parties. I didn’t want to be there. But I had to make sure that no one asked, no one wondered, no one knew. I felt no regret at what I had done, just anxiety that I would be found out. I wanted to hear what people were saying—I wanted to hear what gossip was going around Fjällbacka. I needed to be among my peers to make sure I was safe. And I wanted to keep an eye on Sebastian.
When he caught sight of me his eyes flashed. He came staggering toward me. Clearly drunk. He stumbled across the rocks, almost fell, but managed to keep upright.
“What the fuck are you doing here, you whore?” he hissed, sitting down next to me.
He stank of booze and vomit.
I didn’t reply. The balance of power between us had changed. Now it was only when he was drunk that he dared treat me like this. Otherwise he seemed almost scared of me. Just the way I wanted.
“Go away, Sebastian. I don’t want any trouble.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Yes, I think I can, actually. And you know why.”
I moved away and was getting ready to stand up and leave when he grabbed hold of my arm.
“I’m going to tell them—all of them—what happened that fucking night. How you killed them.”
I regarded him calmly. He hadn’t touched me since the rapes on the island. But he drank too much. And when he drank he talked. Got angry. Lost control. I detested him and his weakness. There was way too much of Dad in him. Sebastian was a lost cause, and now that the attention around him had begun to die down, he was going to find a new way to be seen.
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