It was quite clear that the parties I was forced to attend weren’t regular social gatherings. They were a type of club or secret society, with initiation rituals and specific rules, which were soon laid out to me. Everyone had to be sworn in to obtain a password, which according to X was to ‘ensure everyone’s loyalty and silence’. These people were wealthy and influential: male high-flyers in expensive suits and powerful women in glamorous dresses and sparkly jewellery. The events were an escape for them, a parallel universe filled with lust.
I never witnessed the money being exchanged for my services. The first time X had given me my share straight after, but now he explained that he would provide me with a bigger payment at the end of the month.
‘Just focus on your job,’ he told me.
My job was to blend in and accept whatever advances were made, to be obliging and playful. I quickly realised what I had become but it soon became clear that, to the other people there, I was part of the party: they didn’t realise they were ‘buying’ me. They thought I was another guest in search of sexual pleasure and X constantly made it clear that this illusion was of utmost importance.
‘This must all seem legal,’ he said. ‘Otherwise people will stop attending and you will be in a motel room entertaining grimy men.’
He never did grow tired of making that threat, and sadly it continued to be highly effective. Turning to the police wasn’t an option. They would only charge me with prostitution.
Until I could figure out what to do, I needed to survive and to do that I adopted another persona. As I stepped into the elaborate clothes that X had bought for me, I would become as glamorous as the other women and, although I was younger than most, I learnt to converse with just about everyone. My body was an extension of that person and, with enough glasses of champagne in me, I would moan and groan and pleasure others on demand, ignoring the aching inside me.
When I was growing up, my mother had never talked about the birds and the bees. I had learnt from friends, books, magazines and biology lessons. A publication with explicit images would make the rounds, my friends giggling or feigning disgust before passing it on. At the time, it was exciting and forbidden, but what I learned was this: sex was a grown-up game.
Still, here I was, not yet eighteen and not quite an adult. Despite my fumbling interactions with my boyfriend, this couldn’t be more different. This was a performance that was watched by others and at which there was no option to fail. I had no choice but to grow up fast.
‘Who pays for… you know?’ I asked one day when X was in a good mood, my curiosity getting the better of me.
‘They all do,’ he said.
‘No, I mean… for me?’
‘It’s really none of your business, honey,’ he said, but he didn’t get aggressive, which was a relief. ‘But to make you understand how important your acting skills are…’ He looked at me then and added, ‘They’re terrific, by the way.’ I couldn’t help but raise my neck when he said that, feeling proud. At least I was doing something right. ‘People pay a fee,’ he continued. ‘And you’re part of the deal, they just don’t know it. They think you’re like them and that’s the way it must stay, or…’
I nodded. Yes, I knew.
Although there were regular women at the parties, there were also other girls like me. They all sported the ‘X’ on their ankles but people were made to believe it was a secret society symbol. I was the odd one out though. I was the one who lived with X and although there seemed to be a type of camaraderie between the other girls, it didn’t extend to me. It stung but I did live with X and as much as he terrified me, it also made me feel special. He had chosen me above the rest of them.
On the way home from a party, however, I would look outside the window and wonder where my mother was. Did she care about me at all? I had no idea where in Nevada she was because she’d never told me. Did she ever think about me?
*
Change was on the horizon however. Before long, X announced, ‘All good things must come to an end.’
It made my stomach burn with fear. What did he mean?
‘This has been great,’ he said. ‘But I need you to move in with the other girls for a while.’
The thought of moving made me uneasy since I had learnt that X was highly unpredictable.
‘For how long?’ I asked.
‘Not sure, but I’ll still see you,’ he said.
‘I don’t understand. Why do I have to go?’ I asked.
Even though it was far from perfect, I was getting used to living with X.
‘We have to have some space,’ he said, avoiding looking at me. ‘You need to focus on your job and I need to focus on mine.’
‘Which is?’ I asked, realising too late what a mistake I’d made.
He grabbed hold of me; pulling my face so close to his it almost became a blur.
‘If only I could teach you a proper lesson,’ he said, the rage pouring out of him. ‘But I have to deliver you to a party later.’
That meant no bruises.
‘You’re moving because I say so,’ he said. ‘Or would you rather move back in with your mother? Oh, that’s right… she left.’
*
The girls lived in a run-down house with around-the-clock security, which was headed up by Stanley. This made me feel somewhat better since I had met him and spoken to him many times before. Although in front of the others he treated me as if he didn’t know me, as if the earlier nights we had spent drinking and partying together had meant nothing. I assumed this was to protect me.
It took a while for me to be accepted but as soon as it transpired that X had moved a younger version into his apartment, the girls grew more tolerant. It turned out they had all started down the same road as me.
Although I tried to get along with the others, I avoided the girls who snorted lines offered to them by Security. I did drink but drugs scared me, and it was important to stay sane. My alternate persona was my escape, but I could only allow myself the occasional respite from reality or I would lose myself completely.
I couldn’t accept that this was my destiny. Frustratingly, though, it seemed that X had all the power and I had none. Still, I had to do something to edge myself out of this. First, I would try and work out how X’s operation was put together. There should be a loophole somewhere? I badly wished I had an ally, but I couldn’t trust anyone. Instead, I had to settle for light banter with Security and the other girls, hoping for clues to appear between the lines. The guys weren’t just security although they loved to wave their guns around. They were also drivers, they fetched food and drink and disciplined us, and at times they required their own payment whether it was offered or not.
‘How long have you worked for X?’ I asked Stanley when the opportunity arose.
‘Not long,’ he said, taking a drag on his cigarette.
Stanley was different. He didn’t rape the girls. I felt there must be a way to pry him open.
‘How did you guys meet?’ I tried.
‘Out and about.’
The vagueness was irritating and I didn’t know how to get through to him. I had picked up that he didn’t care for the girls who tried to seduce him, but what did he care about?
‘I don’t really work for him though,’ he said, stumping out his cigarette.
‘Oh?’ That piqued my interest. ‘How so?’
‘He’s not the boss,’ he said and left me.
He wasn’t the boss? All along, X had made me feel that he was at the top of the food chain. I tried to talk to one of the girls about it, but she shrugged.
‘He’s our boss, isn’t he?’
She didn’t seem bothered, but it mattered to me. Having escaped his immediate grip, perhaps there was a chance for me to get my dignity back. I just needed to find his weakness.
Chapter 25
Kristin
‘I don’t want to read it,’ Kristin says about the letter. ‘Please throw it away.’
‘But do you know who it
is? Sofia Anderson.’
The name, coming from Niklas’s lips, makes her freeze.
How much does she need to explain? Is it even safe to tell him anything?
She looks at him, his trusting face and loving eyes. He could be her future. That’s why she should keep quiet. Yet she can’t. Telling someone would be a relief.
So she says, ‘Yes, I know who that is.’
Niklas removes the brown envelope from the mantel and hands it to her. Reluctantly, she takes it from his outstretched hand, the familiar handwriting sending off alarm bells. He has written to Sofia? How does he know the PO Box address? She looks at the postmark at the top left-hand corner and is horrified by the stamp: it was posted in Helsingborg? The pressure across her chest tightens, like a belt, one notch at a time.
‘Is it a friend?’ Niklas asks, and she looks up, only just remembering that he’s there, waiting for an explanation. ‘I’m asking because you never talk about people you know. Apart from Ursula, and, well, sometimes Ebba.’
He awkwardly touches her shoulders, almost making her cry.
‘It’s a long story,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you when you get home.’
*
After Niklas has left for work, Kristin sits on the floor in the bedroom, her legs sprawled out, the safe in front of her gaping open. She flicks through the pages of a passport until two blue eyes stare back at her: Sofia Magdalena Anderson’s. Her dark shoulder-length hair frames a sullen face. Kristin’s hair is longer and it’s blonde.
It’s time to discard Sofia’s passport. She should have thrown it in the bin before boarding the plane to Sweden, but she was worried it would end up in the wrong hands. Rubbish doesn’t die in the waste, it journeys on.
Now, after spending enough time with Sofia Magdalena Anderson’s passport, Kristin burns it, the same way she burnt that horrid note. The flames catch the hair, making it grow darker, the face crackling in the heat, until it’s no longer visible.
She should have burnt it before but now she really has no choice. He wrote a letter to Sofia.
Dear Sofia,
I know what you did. I’m worried about you. Talk to me and I will try to understand.
Your father
He’s here… She walks around the living room in circles, closing the wooden blinds to make sure no one can see into the apartment; trying to understand what’s happened. If he knows, other people might know too. Has Stanley followed him here? That would be a disaster.
Fuck fuck fuck.
She collapses onto the floor, her head in her hands. What is she going to do? The obvious reaction would be to move on, but Niklas won’t live anywhere else and, for once, she has something – or someone – to live for.
There has to be a way. Keep sane. But fear swoops through her brain, making it hard to be rational. In a trance, she walks to the hallway cupboard and pulls out the black Zastava from one of her tall boots. Didn’t Brandon say she was a natural? He regularly took her to the firing range to make her ‘overcome her fear’.
She balances the gun in her hand, feeling the weight and the power it gives her. Lifting it up, she aims at the wall, placing a finger on the trigger, imagining a face as a target. It feels good, but she quickly lowers it again, frightened. It’s too dangerous. She decides to hide it in the bedroom where she can keep an eye on it. It’s also more accessible in there. The room is sparsely furnished with only a built-in wardrobe, a chest of drawers and two single beds pushed together with a latch underneath, keeping them adjoined.
She wraps the cold metal in a soft vest and tucks it under her knickers in the second drawer from the top. Although, standing back, she feels as if something is disturbing the peace. Niklas’s notebook. She notices it on top of the chest. It’s not with Niklas? Kristin has seen him copy special offers from City Gross and ICA Kvantum into this notebook many times. Normally, it travels with him everywhere. Her fingers hover over the cheap-looking yellow paper cover, smudged by Niklas’s fingers.
Surely a peek would be harmless? It would help her to think of something other than Stanley and her father. She picks it up, turning it over in her hand as if it’s about to catch fire and disintegrate Mission Impossible style. The first page has a date on it, like a diary. At first, it looks like he’s recording daily bargains.
Bought three kilos of coffee for the price of two.
But as she turns the pages and recognises the date they met, the content changes.
Met a girl in a café today. Only one chair available, opposite her. I asked to sit down. She looked uncomfortable at first but then she said ‘yes’.
Kristin remembers. She wouldn’t normally accept a stranger sitting that close to her if offered a choice, but she found her voice saying ‘yes’ while her head was saying ‘no’. She wasn’t looking for love, but she was feeling lonely and Niklas seemed safe to talk to.
She was nice. Her eyes were kind. She likes to watch films and I like to read. It’s still early days but… it feels good.
Kristin’s heart tightens, overcome with emotion. She never would have imagined these thoughts running through Niklas’s head. She flicks forward.
We live together. I like it. I’m never lonely but if I want to be alone, she lets me be. She understands the need to have space. I think that’s what I love most about her.
She reads it again.
That’s what I love most about her.
He loved her only a week after they moved in together? As her brain digests this, she starts to cry a little. Does he actually know her? If he truly did, would he still love her?
She quickly turns the pages over to a more recent date. Has she managed to push him away since that day? Have the weeks of her spraying every surface with disinfectant, not allowing his second-hand books and magazines into the apartment, made him resentful? She’s a handful. She once heard Brandon confiding that to his sister.
‘Kristin is a handful. She’s like Ma.’
‘Ma is worse, Brandon. She never even leaves the house any more. Kristin isn’t like that. You’re smothering her.’
‘I’m protecting her.’
It turned out she wasn’t the one who needed protection. She’s alive and he is not.
She shakes the thought away; she should live in the present.
Kristin is unique. Sometimes I don’t think she understands that I like her exactly the way she is. She doesn’t need to change or ‘improve’ as she calls it. How do I make her see that?
It’s as if a butterfly picks her up and carries her on its wings; she’s fluttering through the apartment, light and euphoric. She wants to wake up next to Niklas every day, always; stroke his bushy eyebrows every morning for the rest of her life, a life that now maybe has hope.
His last entry was yesterday.
I’m confused. What did I do wrong? Ebba says I’m making Kristin worse, that I’m not good for her. What do I do? Ebba says she wants to meet me tomorrow, to explain. Maybe I will hear her out at least.
Kristin looks up. Tomorrow is today. Her Niklas is meeting Ebba, and Ebba thinks he’s bad for her? But she spoke to Ebba this morning and she didn’t mention anything.
She shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says to the room. She won’t accept defeat. I’m making Kristin worse. Ebba is wrong. Niklas is good for her. Isn’t he? She loves him; she would never hurt him.
Ringing signals disrupt her thoughts. Maybe it’s Niklas, to reassure her that everything is perfectly all right? Just in case, her hand slips into the drawer and pulls out the gun from inside the vest. She holds it in a steady grip as she walks into the hallway to answer. It’s a comfortable feeling, calming, as if her brain is now completely in control. No one can hurt her.
She picks up the phone, says her customary ‘hello’ and listens to the silence interlinked with crackling. It’s not Niklas.
‘Stanley, is that you?’ she says. The gun in her hand reminds her of her newfound strength and makes her brave. She musters up all her courage. ‘Leave me alone!’ she crie
s, but a distorted voice booms into her ear:
‘YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS DEATH.’
She flinches. The outburst is followed by an eerie silence as the line drops. She wants to cry. You are responsible for his death? Which one of them? She hangs up and stares at herself in the hallway mirror. Standing there, she lifts the Zastava and aims it at herself. What if? What if she pulled the trigger? Would she simply shatter the illusion that is her life, or would she kill herself? Or someone else entirely?
Chapter 26
Frank
The day after the email, Frank has gained more information about the man who collected the letter, Niklas Jönsson, and springs into action. He tells Birgitta he’s going shopping.
‘If you could pick up eggs, I’ll bake,’ Birgitta says.
He stops and laughs. ‘You’re going to bake?’
‘Just because I’m in a wheelchair doesn’t mean I can’t.’
‘Of course not, but I’m going shopping for paint. The basement needs a new coat.’
‘Is that really necessary?’
‘Yes.’ He needs everything to be in order. An immaculate house, an immaculate mind. ‘I also need to collect our new car.’
That lifts her spirits.
‘That’s good,’ she says. ‘The local website has a page for disabled people. There are a number of areas that I can access.’
‘Birgitta,’ he says seriously. ‘You’re not going to be in that chair forever.’
Don’t get too used to it.
Frank takes the bus to collect their new car in an industrial area north of Helsingborg called Berga Industriområde. He’s ordered a Mercedes van with tinted windows, although the windows in the back seat are darker than the front. That appears to be the rule and he wants to follow the law.
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