Chain of Events

by Fredrik T. Olsson

  He shook his head.

  ‘We told ourselves it was something she needed to do. That she was developing as a person. Finding herself, creating her own future. We all have a right to do that, don’t we?’

  He paused.

  ‘All the signs were there. And we didn’t see them.’

  ‘Signs of what?’

  ‘Of what was coming.’

  He told her in short sentences, single words, as if he was writing a telegram and every unnecessary letter would cost him.

  The thefts. The things that disappeared: money, mementoes. Minor things to start with and then bigger, more expensive things that couldn’t be explained away, and they knew she’d been there, but how could they forbid her to when all they wanted was for her to come home?

  She’d come when they were out. She’d sleep in the guest room, or in her old bed, she’d eat at their table, and every time it made them feel a ray of hope, as if deep down inside she wanted to be there, with them, as if all the other stuff was just a phase she was going through and that would pass.

  But it didn’t.

  The things that went missing grew larger and larger and there was no pretending any longer.

  Then one day she’d left it behind.

  The equipment.

  They’d been abroad over the weekend, and she’d returned to their apartment, just as they’d hoped she would. She’d slept in her old bed and eaten sandwiches with fillings they’d bought just for her. And even if she wasn’t there when they got home, they thought that next time, maybe next time she might stay for good. The same thing they always wished for.

  And then they’d found it.

  It was clean and neatly arranged and lying next to her bed. A case; a small black case that could have been a purse or a toilet bag, but instead it held needles and syringes. And when they understood, they stood motionless and didn’t know what to do.

  Their daughter.

  Why?

  The details that meant the most to him were least important to Janine, so he skipped over how they’d waited in the darkness. Waited for her to come home, double-locked the door and turned off the lights and moved the car to make her believe they were out.

  And like the expression in her eyes when she found them sitting there. The look of disdain and sadness and a will to be forgiven all at once. And like everything she’d threatened them with, all the things he’d said to her, all the doors that had been slammed shut and how he hadn’t realised that when she rushed down the stairs that night, when her steps faded out downstairs and the street door closed behind her, how he hadn’t realised that that was the moment when everything changed for the last time and would never return to the way it had been.

  They’d put up a security door to their apartment. A security door to protect them from their own daughter, and that was a terrible thing to do and it hurt and yet they believed it was right.

  But they wouldn’t ever need it.

  She wouldn’t ever come back.

  They found her locked in the toilet on a train, his daughter on the floor of a toilet, and of course it was a first-class coach and she couldn’t have said it any clearer. The lies behind the surface, she said, right across time and space and life, this is what they look like. The darkness and the loneliness and the ugly, right in the middle of the polished veneer and the free coffee and newspapers. That’s what she told him, but without any words. This is what my life became.

  She was lying on the floor in a foetal position. Her hands under her head, her hair flopped over her shoulders, both knees squeezed up tightly against her stomach just as she always used to sleep. And in his dreams that was all she did, she slept right there on that filthy floor among the footprints and the damp, rested and waited for him to wake her up, waited for him to hug her, hard and long and not letting go, just the way they used to hug when he woke her up before he set off for work, when she would lie newly awake in flower-patterned pyjamas and beam at him from under her sheets.

  But in reality she wasn’t asleep. She couldn’t be woken, couldn’t be saved, she was lying in a foetal position because that’s how she’d ended her life, there were drugs in her blood and her body had given up and that didn’t stop him from hugging her, desperately and hard and now he was the one who wouldn’t let go, and the police had stood behind him watching and she hadn’t hugged him back and there and then his life had ended.

  He didn’t tell her everything, far from everything, but he told her that, and he did it objectively and matter-of-factly, as if he wanted to stay detached from it, and then he was done and nothing more was said for several minutes.

  ‘I didn’t see the signs,’ he repeated after a while.

  ‘And you think you should have?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Because that’s your job?’

  ‘No. Because she was my daughter.’

  Simple as that.

  ‘And I failed to see it, failed to read her, I didn’t see the signs and that was my job. Because if I don’t then who does? If the future is there and I have everything in front of me, everything I need to stop it, and I can’t see? Then who will?’

  Janine gazed at him. Knew what he meant, and at the same time not.

  It was as if he’d merged the tasks into one, as if he punished himself for Sara and for the codes at once, as if somehow one could have stopped the other, as if Sara’s death and Christina’s death wouldn’t have happened if only he’d found the cipher key. The one that nobody had found in fifty years. And that was the only thing that had to do with what was happening now.

  She told him as much, and he didn’t reply.

  ‘She wasn’t your task to solve. You mustn’t think that.’

  The faintest of shrugs.

  ‘You can’t know what will happen. Not then. Not now. One thing leads to another and everything’s connected. And nothing begins and ends with you alone.’

  Maybe so. But William didn’t answer. He’d said all he wanted to and his eyes had returned to the fire.

  And the silence came back, and stayed.

  ‘What about your plans?’ she asked him.

  He turned to look at her.

  ‘If you weren’t here? If the virus had never gotten out? What would you have done with your life?’

  He waited. Chewed the inside of his lip, as if the gums were words and he wanted them to taste just right.

  ‘I never thought of the future as something I was a part of.’

  He closed his eyes. Lowered his voice.

  ‘And I regret thinking that.’

  They didn’t speak for hours. Janine stayed in her chair, watching William stare into the fire as it turned into embers, staring and breathing and stroking the leather of the black book without knowing he was.

  The black book that had meant so much. That had been in his pocket when they got out of the Audi, the only thing the guards had left with them when they took their key cards and all the pages of codes and signs. She saw him sitting there, holding it like a parent holding his child, and when she couldn’t bear watching it any more she got up and moved over to the couch.

  She leaned against him, William with his arm behind her back and her resting her hands in his lap.

  They fell asleep right where they sat, huddled together on a couch that smelled of someone else’s home. And with no other comfort to find, it was the best option there was.

  52

  They woke up to the sound of a car engine.

  They had just about got used to the silence, to the thin layer of gentle wind and the occasional chatter of birds as they searched for something to eat, unaware of the horrors taking place around them.

  And then, in the midst of that stillness, there was a hum. The muffled hum of an engine shifting gears. Revving to make it up a slope. It woke them both at the same time, and they sat motionless, close together the way they’d fallen asleep, looking at each other and hearing the sound grow.

  There was someone coming. In a village that had
been empty the day before, abandoned and evacuated, now someone was coming and perhaps they were looking for them.

  They had no guns.

  Nothing that could help them defend themselves.

  And they moved in silence, took cover next to the windows, prepared for the worst.

  There would only be a handful of houses to search. And the embers were warm in the fireplace; perhaps the smoke would even now be visible from outside.

  They’d escaped more times than they would have believed possible. But this time they wouldn’t stand a chance.

  And they saw the car’s headlights, saw them come closer, the beam of light growing along the village street.

  Janine was the one who saw it first.

  The sound of her scream surprised even her.

  They’d had direction but no destination.

  And their thought had been that as long as we get there, as long as we do, we’ll know where to look. But they never really got there, they got as far as they could, but if you don’t know where there is, then you can’t make it all the way.

  Liechtenstein.

  That was all they knew.

  And now that they were there, what next?

  William Sandberg had tried to call Christina twice from his own phone, the first time she had rejected it and the second he’d gone directly to her voicemail. After that, his phone had been on for almost an hour, before somebody turned it off, which was how it had stayed since.

  During that hour, three mobile masts had made contact with his phone.

  All three masts were in Liechtenstein.

  Miles away from each other.

  And now that they were here, Albert and Leo realised that while it was indeed a contained area, it was still impossible to search. They were looking for part of a needle in a land full of haystacks, and neither of them wanted to say it out loud but they had both stopped hoping.

  That’s when Leo had seen the sign.

  And it was a long shot, but at least it was something.

  The name was the same. So why not.

  And they had left the main road in the early dawn, kept driving upwards through winding hill roads, scarred by years of erosion, and at the end of the road was a cluster of houses with wooden panels and steep roofs.

  The name on the sign.

  It had been part of the designation for one of William’s masts.

  It was the German word for a hill.

  The first thing they heard was the scream.

  It terrified them, but not as much as the woman who ran straight into the light of their car, waving her hands wildly above her head.

  Their immediate thought was that she’d called for help. That she was infected and wanted to be saved. And Albert stepped on the brakes, looked around as he threw the car into reverse. If she was sick there was nothing they could do, nothing other than to avoid contact, and he scanned for a space to turn the car around, scanned for other people, terrified that they would be surrounded before they could turn the car and drive away.

  That’s when he heard her call his name.

  And he turned to look straight ahead.

  And then he saw.

  Albert van Dijk didn’t even stop the engine.

  He opened the door.

  Climbed out.

  As impossible as it seemed, finally, they were there.

  53

  There were only two things to do, and still they couldn’t decide which order to do them in.

  The envelope had to be passed on.

  And seven months of lost love had to be made up for.

  And they held each other, Janine and Albert. She was alive and he had found her, her letter had found him and he had understood – those were the only thoughts they wanted to think and nobody expected more from them.

  They stood in the morning light in front of the car.

  The street was empty and they were the only ones there and when they cried they didn’t know why, perhaps they cried retroactively, cried over all the anxiety and loss they’d been pushing aside for more than six months.

  They cried with relief and they cried with happiness, and it was beautiful and genuine and it had to take its time.

  And it was impossible to watch.

  That’s how badly it hurt.

  Hurt not to be a part of it.

  Hurt because there could have been another person in that car, should have been, but now there wasn’t and that hurt.

  And it hurt Leo, too. Hurt to see the man up on the front porch, the same man who’d appeared on that phone in front of him just days before, but older than in the picture, more worn and more tired and sadder. Hurt to stand there and watch a reunion that should have been his.

  And Leo knew it was his job to interrupt them.

  ‘Albert?’ he said.

  Albert pulled Janine tighter, inhaling her scent as if that would give him the strength to talk about something else. Then slowly he released her from the embrace, glancing over her shoulder at Leo to let him know he understood.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Leo.

  But there was nothing to apologise for.

  Albert cleared his throat.

  ‘We’ve got an envelope.’

  He said it softly, like a declaration of love to the woman in his arms, but he was speaking to both William and her. And she heard him but didn’t understand.

  ‘You’ve got a what?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t know what it is,’ said Albert. ‘But they were prepared to kill us to get it.’

  When that was said the stillness was over.

  Love would have to wait, there were other things to be said first, and William walked down the wooden steps, out to the couple on the street, and everything that had to be told came out in streams of explanations from everyone at once.

  How Leo had travelled to Amsterdam with Christina. How he was there when she disappeared. Janine and William who saw the same things but on monitors in a castle. Who’d been taken there by an organisation and who were supposed to interpret texts and stop a disease and now everything was too late.

  And Albert and Leo both said the same thing.

  ‘Maybe not.’

  Albert went on to tell them about the heartbroken man in Berlin, about the people who’d watched him in case he had the solution, the answer, and when that word was said everyone’s pulses raced and William interrupted them with questions they were about to answer anyway but that he wanted to know now:

  What solution? Why did they believe that? And why did anyone believe the solution would be in Berlin?

  Leo’s answer meant more than anything.

  ‘All we know is it came from a Helena Watkins.’

  William’s heart was beating so fast he couldn’t help but worry that he’d die from a heart attack before he got the envelope open.

  He rushed up into the windowless drawing room, cleared the dining table of candles and cloths and ornaments, and set down the yellow envelope in front of him.

  Janine by his side. Leo and Albert a step behind.

  The solution. It could only mean one thing.

  It meant Helena Watkins had succeeded where William hadn’t, and for some reason she’d sent her results out into the world, perhaps because she didn’t trust the Organisation.

  She had sent it out, so that the world would get to know.

  But her messenger had died, and her husband had been too afraid, and now the material had gone full circle and ended up in William’s hands, hands that shook as he folded open the edge of the envelope, and of course it would have been better if the solution had made it to the media or even been put online, but at least it was with them and that was probably the next best thing.

  He spilled the sheets of paper on to the table.

  Spread them across the worn surface where dinners used to be eaten and wine used to be drunk. Now it became a large desk, and he leaned over it all and let his eyes dance from page to page.

  This was the solution.

  He thumbed thro
ugh it, felt the excitement grow in his chest, ached to find out what it was he’d been missing, thumbed through pages and looked and ached again.

  Page after page of codes.

  Their codes. The same codes he’d worked on.

  The verses, Janine’s verses, all the same.

  There were pages with calculations, set-ups and variables, and his eyes darted from side to side like a skier on a slalom, zigzagging past every number, every mathematical sign, everything there was until he reached the final page.

  Breathless.

  The feeling he’d missed something.

  The feeling that there was something he should have seen, something that was hidden in all he’d read but that he’d been too excited to notice. And he thumbed through it all again, searching for that crucial detail he’d missed at first glance.

  Once more.

  Then again, to be absolutely certain.

  And once more, again, page by page, desperation in his hands as he shifted the papers around, turned to the next one, held them up to read. His breath erratic as he studied the papers, examined the numbers, tried to find one value, perhaps a single figure, a scribble in the margin he didn’t recognise, or perhaps the other way around, a detail that should be there but that was missing.

  Read and read and read.

  Fuck.

  Read it again.

  And slowly, it dawned on him.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ It was Janine’s voice.

  ‘Something,’ he said. Frustrated and with a tone that meant only one thing.

  He kept looking and looking, but no matter how hard he looked he couldn’t find it.

  He turned towards Janine.

  Only then did she see his face.

  His eyes, energetic and focused only minutes ago, so eager they could hardly wait to get the envelope open and study the material.

  Those eyes were now dull with despair. All the hope and drive and desire and spark had gone, and the others looked at him, saw him sigh, saw his hands fall to his sides, and as they did some of the papers fell on to the floor and he didn’t even care.